R250: Hildegard von Rupertsberg an Mönchskonvent von Zwiefalten
Greeting and Divine Light
Hildegard greets the brothers of Zwiefalten and proclaims the serene brightness and unshakable justice of God the Father.
To the brothers in Zwiefalten. Hildegard. Serene brightness speaks. The strongest light of divinity. Fully knows and understands all things. Who touches that understanding. Or who grasps it, unless the one who sees with a sapphire eye. Because God the Father above all things is so unshakable in his justice that he lets no wrongdoing go unpunished.
The Father's Pleasure and the Incarnate Word
God the Father delights in creation through his Word, which became flesh and calls the saints to touch him through admonition and imitation of Christ.
because she herself doesn't touch him? And God the Father was so well pleased in himself! that he created every creature through his Word. And so his creature was pleasing to him.1 And he embraced that creature. which touches him by loving him. O great delight of this work! God the Father is immovable in his righteousness, but to the wicked he shows mercy through his Son, having been moved to spare.2 For his Word, having been made flesh, looks upon them. And it remembers that through his Word all creatures were made. In this way, then, God's saints touch him through their admonition. In his clear voice, like a shining white cloud! Flying as though it were birdlike air, or water. Hear, then, you who break out into your sins. You are called the mountain of the Lord for this very reason: because you ought to imitate the Son of God through the way you live.
Rebuke of Inner Storms and Wandering
Hildegard rebukes the monks for neglecting love and righteousness, comparing their turbulent minds to storm clouds and their wantonness to beasts.
Why, then, do you neglect the tender mercies of love and righteousness? You are like those who, at Oreb, disciplined their own bodies under the law.✦ And again they wandered astray in another way. Just as those watchmen do who sound the alarm in a loud voice from the guard post.✦ But still they pierce the city with their ambushes. Your mind is like a cloud that carries storms within it. Now anger in negligence. Now the filth of beasts, wallowing in wantonness.
From the Stable to the Sanctuary
The monks are accused of refusing restraint and shamefully returning to the stable of donkeys after being raised to the honor of sanctification.
Where is the peace offering you neglect, saying,3 We don't want to resist ourselves? Because we can't gird up our body in restraint!4 Since we are born from Adam.✦ For you, in the palace of the king, don't want to restrain your appetites as you ought.56 Why then aren't you ashamed? You who were snatched, as it were, from the stable of donkeys and placed in the great honor of the ceremonies of sanctification through the heavenly Lord—78 do you run back again to the stable of donkeys?9
Balaam's Wounds and the Mountain of Sanctification
Hildegard laments that the monks have become like Balaam, raging in the shadow of death, and warns them not to abandon the mountain of sanctification.
Woe! In this you've become like Balaam, who raged among the wounds of burning scars! raging in the region of the shadow of death.✦ So don't abandon the mountain of sanctification in the vanity of pleasure. Woe to the shame that's been cast back into another's place. For they perish.
Hold Fast to Discipline
Hildegard urges the monks to take hold of discipline, avoid wandering from justice, and honor the sacred sacrifices, warning of God's anger.
You who violate holy teaching. But take hold of discipline. And don't wander from the way of justice as though you had no law, and as though the sun would not shine over the censer of blessing. Lest the Lord become angry and you perish from the righteous way. Since you lie in transgression. O sacrifices to be feared and honored, which have no trace of the unbelief of idols. Nor the burden of those who strike at wounds. O woe, grief of misery.
Flee to the Olive Tree of Sanctification
Unless the monks flee to the olive tree of sanctification, God will destroy their murmuring, for they are blind to their fallen state and must repent quickly.
Because God will destroy the murmuring of the Ninevites in you, unless you run more quickly to the olive tree of sanctification, which brings forth the good fragrance of sweetness. and the flower of right instruction. Why are you bent over in these lies! As though you were not blind? But you are blind, since you do not foresee that cause into which you were born by chance unto Adam! And when you have it in the embrace of your arm, laughing and cackling as though you did not have it. Flee from this, then, and do not sin! so that your salvation may come quickly.
Walk the Straight Path
Hildegard concludes with a brief command to see and walk on the straight path.
See! And walk on a straight path.
Read the original Latin
Ad fratres in zvvifilda. hildegardis. Serena claritas dicit. Fortissima lux diuinitatis. integre scit et nouit omnia. Quis tangit intellectum istum. aut quis comprehendit eum nisi ille qui uidet in saphirino oculo. quod deus pater super omnia tam immobilis est in iusticia sua quod nullam iniquitatem dimittit indeiectam.
quia ipsa illum non tangit? Et deus pater in semetipso ita delectatus est! quod omnem creaturam per uerbum suum creauit. Vnde et creatura sua ei placuit. Et creaturam illam amplexus est. quę ipsum tangit amando eum. O magna delectatio operis huius. Deus pater immobilis est in rectitudine sua sed iniquo parcit per filium suum ad parcendum admonitus.
Nam uerbum suum carnem factum inspicit. et recordatur quod per uerbum suum omnes creaturę factę sunt. Secundum hunc modum etiam sancti dei illum in admonitione tangunt. in sua clara uoce simili candida nube! uolante quasi uolatilis aer aquę. Audite ergo qui erumpitis in criminibus uestris. Mons domini idcirco uocamini. quia filium dei imitari debetis per conuersationem uestram.
Quare ergo materna uiscera caritatis et rectitudinis negligitis. similes existentes illis qui in oreb corpus suum in lege castigabant. et iterum in alia uia errabant. sicut etiam illi speculatores faciunt qui in alta uoce in custodia sonant. sed tamen ciuitatem in insidijs perforant? Mens uestra est quasi nubes quę tempestates portat. modo iracundiam in negligentia. modo sordes pecorum in petulantia habens.
ubi pacificam hostiam negligitis dicentes. Nolumus resistere nobis. quia corpus nostrum non possumus accingere in constrictione! quoniam nati sumus de adam. Nam uos in palacio regis non uultis restringere iecur uestrum ut deberetis. Cur ergo non erubescitis. quod uos quasi a stabulo erepti asinorum et in magnum honorem cerimoniarum sanctificationis per supernum dominum positi. iterum ad stabulum asinorum recurritis?
O ue! in hoc similes facti estis balaam. qui insaniebat in uulneribus feruentium cicatricum! furens in regione umbrę mortis. Nolite ergo relinquere montem sanctificationis. in uanitate uoluptatis. O ue turpitudini quę proiecta est retrorsum in alienum locum. Nam illi pereunt.
qui preuaricantur in sancta institutione. Apprehendite autem disciplinam. et ne erretis in uia iusticię quasi legem non habeatis et quasi sol non radiet super turibulum benedictionis. ne quando irascatur dominus et pereatis de uia iusta. cum in preuaricatione iacetis. O metuenda et ueneranda sacrificia quę incredulitatem idolorum non habent. nec sarcinam percutientium uulnerum. O ue dolori miserię.
quia deus destruet in uobis murmurationem niniuitarum nisi citius curratis ad oliuam sanctificationis quę profert bonum odorem suauitatis. et florem rectę institutionis. Quare estis curui in mendacijs istis! quasi ceci non sitis? Sed ceci estis cum non preuidetis causam illam in qua nati estis per casum adę! et cum eam habetis in brachio amplexionis ridentes et cachinnantes quasi eam non habeatis. Fugite ergo hoc et nolite peccare! ut cito ueniat salus uestra.
Videte! et ambulate in recto itinere.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Judg.7.25 — And they captured the two princes of Midian, Oreb and Zeeb, and they killed Oreb at the rock of Oreb, and Zeeb they killed at the winepress of Zeeb. And they pursued Midian, and the heads of Oreb and Zeeb they brought to Gideon from beyond the Jordan.
- ↩Ezek.33.6 — But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, and the people are not warned, and the sword comes and takes someone's life, that person is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood I will require from the watchman's hand.
- ↩Gen.5.3 — When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and he named him Seth.
- ↩Ps.22.4 — But you are holy, enthroned upon the praises of Israel.
Notes
- 1 ↩Vnde rendered as 'and so' to capture the inferential force; it could also mean 'from which / whence' referring back to the act of creation.
- 2 ↩admonitus ('having been admonished/moved') is rendered as 'having been moved to spare' to capture the sense that the Father is prompted — through the Son — toward mercy. The Latin is compact and theologically dense; the Father's immovability in righteousness coexists with his merciful action through the Son.
- 3 ↩pacificam hostiam — 'peace-making sacrifice' or 'peace offering'; rendered as 'peace offering' to preserve the liturgical resonance.
- 4 ↩accingere in constrictione — 'to gird in constraint/restraint'; the image is of binding or tightening the body through ascetic discipline.
- 5 ↩iecur — literally 'liver,' used in Latin as the seat of appetite, passion, or desire; rendered as 'appetites' to convey the intended sense of disordered desire.
- 6 ↩palacio regis — 'in the palace of the king'; likely metaphorical for the privileged position the monks hold, or possibly the church itself.
- 7 ↩stabulo asinorum — 'stable of donkeys'; a sharp metaphor for lowly, beastly origins, contrasting with the honor of religious life.
- 8 ↩cerimoniarum sanctificationis — 'ceremonies of sanctification'; refers to the liturgical and sacramental life to which the monks have been called.
- 9 ↩recurritis — 'do you run back'; the vivid verb underscores the shame of returning to a former lowly state.
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