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Chapter 216HildE.1.216

R216: Hildegard von Rupertsberg an Priester S. von Otterburg

The Restless Mind and God's Gift

Hildegard diagnoses a restless, dividing mind, yet affirms that God's grace has consecrated the addressee for virtue, unlike those who rely only on earthly senses.

Hildegard's reply. Your mind circles like a bird. And it arranges and divides up each single cause into which it goes. For your beginning was consecrated. Because the grace of God has endowed you in this way. That you can grasp virtues and many other good things.1 But some are full of hot air. And they have understanding of greenness and moisture from the earth, and from air and waters, through the senses.2

God Has Spoken Once

Hildegard reflects on God's creative word and the psalmist's testimony that God has spoken once, joining creation, divine speech, power, mercy, and judgment.

God — let it be done as it has pleased him, he said.✦ In this, every creature came forth in its own kind, just as it is written.✦ Once God has spoken. These two things I have heard. Because power belongs to God, and to you, O Lord, belongs mercy! Because you will render to each one according to their works. For God created all things by his command.✦ And this he did once, when he said, 'Let it be done.'✦

Power, Mercy, and Forgiveness

Hildegard explains that God gave the law and mercy, and through incarnation renders forgiveness to the repentant but casts out those who refuse.

And in these two things he understood this: namely, that great power was given because God gave the law to man, and from him who rules over all, mercy. because through his own incarnation he renders what is to be rendered, since to each one he forgives sins. He sees and knows those through repentance, but whoever does not wish to see or know them, he casts out.

The Fall of the Proud and of Man

Hildegard traces how God's works are never empty, showing that the proud angel and Adam both fell through pride and disobedience, yet without purposeful emptiness in God's plan.

and sends him into the just retribution of his own works. First, God brought low the angel who had unjustly exalted himself, casting him into the pit of misery.3 And he also sent the first man, on account of the foolishness of vainglory, into the prison of this world.4 For he has established none of his works as empty.5 For the first angel himself had great knowledge and wisdom. But on account of his great malice, he refused to honor his own lord, and he fell! And so he remained. But man fell through the taste of food!6

Sacrifice, Penance, and Learning

Hildegard concludes that the Son of God atoned for sin, that remembrance of sin leads to sighing, penance, and rebirth, and she exhorts her son to learn day and night for eternal life.

Therefore, the Son of God offered himself as a sacrifice for that one's sin. And so when a person remembers that through the knowledge of good and evil he himself has sinned greatly, he sighs toward God.7 Through penitence he is reborn in God, anew. But you, O son—learn by day and by night!8 so that you may live forever.

Read the original Latin

Responsum hildegardis. Mens tua ut ales circuit. et unamquamque causam in quam uadit disponit et diuidit. Inicium enim tuum consecratum fuit. quia gratia dei te ita imbuit. quod uirtutes et alia bo multa bona capere potes. Quidam uero uentosi sunt. et de uiriditate et humiditate tr terrę et de aere et aquis comprehensionem per sensualitatem habent.

Deus autem ut sibi placuit fiat dixit. in quo omnis creatura in genere suo processit quomodo scriptum est. Semel locutus est deus. duo hęc audiui. quia potestas dei est et tibi domine misericordia! quia tu reddes unicuique iuxta opera sua. Nam deus per iussionem suam omnia creauit. et hoc semel fecit quando fiat dixit.

et in hoc duo hęc intellexit. scilicet quia magna potestas fuit. quod deus homini legem dedit. unde et illi qui omnibus dominatur misericordia. quia per incarnationem suam reddit quę reddenda sunt. quoniam unicuique peccata dimittit. qui ea per penitentiam uidet et cognoscit. sed qui ea nec uidere nec cognoscere uult eicit.

et eum in rectam retributionem operum suorum mittit. Primum enim angelum qui se iniuste exaltauit in lacum miserię deus strauit. et etiam primum hominem propter stulticiam uanę glorię in carcerem huius mundi misit. Nam nullum opus suum uaccuum constituit. Ipse enim primus angelus magnam scientiam et sapientiam habuit. sed propter magnam maliciam suam honorem domino suo impendere noluit et corruit! et sic remansit. Sed homo per gustum cibi lapsus est!

quapropter filius dei sacrificium pro peccato illius se prebuit. Vnde et homo cum per scientiam boni et mali se multum peccasse recordatur ad deum suspirando. per penitentiam in deo denuo renascitur. Tu autem o fili die et nocte disce! ut in eternum uiuas.

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩Gen.1.3 — And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.
  2. ↩Gen.1.11-Gen.1.25 — And God said, "Let the earth sprout vegetation—plants yielding seed, fruit trees bearing fruit according to their kinds, whose seed is in them, upon the earth." And it was so. Gen.1.12 — And the earth brought forth vegetation—plants yielding seed according to their kinds, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. Gen.1.13 — And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day. Gen.1.14 — And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years." Gen.1.15 — and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth — and it was so. Gen.1.16 — And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. Gen.1.17 — And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth, Gen.1.18 — and to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. Gen.1.19 — And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day. Gen.1.20 — And God said, "Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens." Gen.1.21 — And God created the great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters swarmed, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. Gen.1.22 — And God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let the birds multiply on the earth." Gen.1.23 — And there was evening, and there was morning — the fifth day. Gen.1.24 — And God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creeping things, and wild animals of the earth, each according to its kind." And it was so. Gen.1.25 — And God made the living creatures of the earth according to their kinds, and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
  3. ↩Ps.32.9;Ps.148.5 — Do not be like a horse or a mule, without understanding, whose temper must be curbed with bit and bridle — or it will not come near you. Ps.148.5 — Let them praise the name of the LORD, for he commanded, and they were created.
  4. ↩Gen.1.3 — And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.

Notes

  1. 1 ↩The source reads 'alia bo multa bona,' where 'bo' is almost certainly a scribal error for 'bona' (or 'boni'). The translation follows the corrected reading 'alia multa bona' — 'many other good things' — which is also consistent with the approved normalized text.
  2. 2 ↩The source reads 'tr terrę' — two abbreviated or truncated forms likely standing for 'terrae' (of the earth). The translation supplies 'from the earth' as the intended sense, consistent with the approved normalized text.
  3. 3 ↩The Latin word order places 'deus' late in the sentence, giving it emphatic force: it is God who cast the angel down.
  4. 4 ↩The truncated forms 'uan' and 'glori' in the source are normalized to 'uanę glorię' (of vain glory). The reading is confident.
  5. 5 ↩The spelling variant 'uaccuum' is normalized to 'uaccum' (empty). The sense is that God ensures none of his works are fruitless or without purpose.
  6. 6 ↩The exclamation mark in the source conveys the gravity and lament of the fall. 'Per gustum cibi' (through the taste of food) refers to Adam eating the forbidden fruit.
  7. 7 ↩cum here read as temporal/causal ('when...since') rather than purely concessive; suspirando rendered as 'sighs toward' to capture both the emotional weight and the direction of the prayer.
  8. 8 ↩autem rendered adversatively as 'But' to mark the shift from theological exposition to direct exhortation; it could also be continuative.

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