R206: Hildegard von Rupertsberg an Gottfried von Alpirsbach
The Living Light Diagnoses the Soul
The living Light addresses a person directly, offering freshness to the mind while exposing inner bondage, moral instability, and self-deception, yet acknowledging a partial, intermittent awareness of God.
Hildegard's reply. The living Light speaks. O man! Streams flow from me toward the freshness of your mind. But your mind is bound up and also sharp. Through the shifting of habits, winds scattered in darkness. Your hidden thoughts in your own mind deceive you. And the taste of your work sometimes touches you.
Desires That Build a Tower Toward Heaven
The soul's good desires ascend toward God like a fragrant tower, prompting angelic joy over God's works, while the reader is urged to be a strong soldier in spiritual battle against an enemy that never rests.
But the face of your desires looks toward me through the joy of ascending! because you can't yet grasp it in your work. Your desires are very good. They build a tower in the height of sweetness, of good fragrance. That's why the angels of God rejoice over the works of His finger that are to be made.1 These are works that please God, breaking up the food of sinners' wickedness.2 Now then, O soldier, be strong in battle for as long as you live in your body. because your enemy never grows weary!
Works That Please the Gentle Father
The letter closes by urging the reader to live so that the gentle Father rejoices, His word glorifies the soul, and the burning lover of salvation pours wisdom and divine freshness into the believer.
And the struggle is never lacking. Let your works be such that a most gentle Father may rejoice over you. and that his word may glorify your soul. and that the burning lover of the ointments of salvation may pour into you, and the freshness of the flower of wisdom.
Read the original Latin
Responsum hildegardis. Lux uiuens dicit. O homo! riuuli fluunt de me ad uiriditatem mentis tuę. Sed mens tua est ligata et etiam acuta. per uicissitudinem morum in tenebrositate dispersi uenti. Occultę etiam cogitationes tuę in mente tua decipiunt te. et gustus operis tui interdum tangit te.
Sed uultus desideriorum tuorum uidet ad me per gaudium ascensionis! quod nondum potes in opere tuo capere. Valde bona sunt desideria. quę turrim edificant in altitudine suauitatis boni odoris. Unde gaudent angeli dei propter opera facturę digiti ipsius. quę opera deum gustant rumpendo cibum nequitię peccatorum. Nunc tu o miles esto fortis in prelio quamdiu uiuis in corpore tuo. quia inimicus tuus non fatigatur!
et pugna non deficit. Talia sint opera tua ut mitissimus pater super te gaudeat. et ut uerbum eius animam tuam clarificet. et igneus amator ungentum salutis tibi infundat et uiriditatem floris sapientię.
Notes
- 1 ↩facturę: manuscript form, rendered as 'that are to be made' (feminine genitive plural agreeing with opera); could also be read as 'of the making.'
- 2 ↩rumpendo cibum nequitię peccatorum: vivid Hildegardian imagery — holy works 'break apart' or 'shatter' the nourishment that feeds sin. Rendered to preserve the concrete metaphor.
Epistolae: Letters to Frederick Barbarossa and Henry II of England companion
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