R209: Heinrich von Utrecht an Hildegard von Rupertsberg
Greeting to the Bride of Christ
The sender addresses Hildegard as the noble bride of Christ, with a series of exclamatory questions about her identity and greatness.
A master from Utrecht. Of Hildegard. Hail, noble bride of Christ, about to receive the nuptial gifts of incorruptible life. Who? Of what kind? How great? In what way? From where I am, that is to say.
Self-Introduction and Blessing
The unworthy master from Utrecht identifies himself, praises the fragrance of Christ breathed from Hildegard, and petitions divine illumination and grace for her.
H. The unworthy master from Utrecht. From the messenger standing before you, you have the opportunity to learn. The good fragrance of Christ, like poured-out perfume, has breathed from you — burning far and wide — and blown into our unworthy ears. As heavenly grace visits you, so may you be illuminated from above by the frequent shining of divine splendor. So that the outcomes of whatever causes and the results of events are never predetermined by God's hidden ordering. May the grace dwelling in you be granted to you, so that you may contemplate him! Especially since you have urgently asked for this to be revealed to you.
Confession of Suffering and Humility
The sender confesses his deep affliction, personal guilt, and utter desolation, commending himself to Hildegard's prayers.
What is this matter about which I, humble and cast down? Harassed by various pains and manifold adversities. To be sure, by my own ineffable guilt, which provokes that very outcome. From my inmost heart I commend myself to your devout prayers! Through him I call you as witness, who has entrusted you back to himself at the price all his own. So that by your righteous labors you may strive to win me over to his merciful goodness, worn out as I am with toil. For I am humbled on every side and bowed down to the very end. Like a ruined vessel.
Isolation and Purification Through Affliction
The sender describes being surrounded by evils and sins, enduring without human comfort, yet refined as though in a furnace of affliction.
Cast out from the very face of his eyes. Because evils have surrounded me, more than can be counted. And my own wrongs have seized me, piled over my head like a weight too heavy to bear. And through it all, I held up under it. No one stepped forward to grieve with me. And when I looked for someone to comfort me, I found no one. So it's not from recklessness, and not from some idle curiosity either. But as though refined in the furnace of affliction.
Longing for Reply and Assurance of Salvation
Burning with desire for Hildegard's letters, the sender seeks healing counsel and ardently thirsts for assurance that he is predestined among the saved.
Burning with desire from your longed-for replies, I wait, a suppliant, panting to be refreshed. Longing. From those very letters of the heavenly steward, I strain to learn the predetermined judgment about the state or outcome of my distresses, watching closely. How I am to receive from you a plan for healing, and health itself, through his inspiration. But before all things and through all things I thirst ardently to be assured by you. If only, at last, in the company of those who are to be saved, God has predestined me to be counted. Farewell. Rejoice.
Final Blessing and Doxology
The sender closes with a brief farewell wish and a blessing that Hildegard's name may be in the book of life.
Live! and may your name be in the book of life.✦
Read the original Latin
Magister de traiecto. hildegardi. Hildigardis salue nobilis christi sponsa susceptura incorruptę uitę sponsalia. Quis. qualis. quantus. quomodo. unde sim scilicet.
h. magister de traiecto indignus. ex presenti latore habes cognoscere. Christi bonus odor quasi ungentum effusum de te longe lateque flagrans nostris indignis auribus spirando inflauit. te superna uisitante gratia frequenti illustratione splendoris diuini celitus ita desuper irradiari. ut non numquam quarumlibet causarum euentus et rerum exitus occulta dispensatione dei prefinitos. per inhabitantem in te eius gratiam tibi concedatur contemplari! maxime cum hoc tibi instanter flagitaueris reuelari.
Qua de re ego humilis et deiectus. uariis doloribus ac multimodis aduersitatibus exagitatus. nimirum ineffabilibus proprijs reatibus id prouocantibus. tuis me pijs precibus ex intimis commendo uisceribus! per illum te testans qui te sibi proprio reconsignauit precio. ut tuis iustis laboribus me eius clementi bonitati studeas complacare in defesso labore. Sum enim humiliatus usquequaque et usque in finem curuatus. tanquam uas perditum.
et a facie oculorum eius proiectum. quia circumdederunt me mala quorum non est numerus. et comprehenderunt me iniquitates meę que supergressę sunt caput meum sicut onus graue. et super hęc omnia sustinui. qui simul contristaretur et non fuit. et qui consolaretur nec inueni. Unde nec iam quidem temeritate nec superflua curiositate. sed tanquam in camino tribulationis excoctus.
estuanti desiderio ex tuis cupitis rescriptis supplex et anhelus expecto refrigerari. desiderans. ex ipsis tam superni dispensatoris de statu uel exitu mearum angustiarum prefinitam sententiam animaduertendo experire. quam a te consilium sanitatis ex ipsius inspiratione suscipere. Sed ante omnia et per omnia ardenter sitio ex te certificari. si tandem in cetu saluandorum me diuinitas preordinauit computari. Uale. gaude.
uiue! et sit nomen tuum in libro uitę.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Phil.4.3;Rev.3.5 — Yes, I ask you also, true companion, help these women, for they labored with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life. Rev.3.5 — The one who conquers will thus be clothed in white garments, and I will not erase his name from the book of life. I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels.
Epistolae: Letters to Frederick Barbarossa and Henry II of England companion
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