R32: Hildegard von Rupertsberg an Hermann von Arbon
A Call to Self-Reproof
Hildegard, speaking as the righteous light, calls a person to reprove their own mind and recognize that God's revelation exposes all recklessness.
Hildegard's reply. The most righteous light speaks. O person, reprove your mind, which pierces through the counsel of the ancient prelates! A windy mind of vanities has not touched them. What kind of reckoning is yours! Are you not ashamed to walk in darkness by the taste of your own work? For revelation belongs to the one to whom nothing is hidden! It shows through the living eye that the bow of God's zeal threatens the recklessness of mortals.
Against Vain Speech and Injustice
Hildegard rebukes attachment to iniquity, boastful speech, and stirring others to anger, then urges a turn from darkness into straight paths and inner enlightenment.
Why don't you see where the mammon of iniquity is! What are you excusing yourself with? Many workers come with their own causes. And they seek the narrow way and the hard one! But you move your lips with the grand, puffed-up ways of your heart!1 And you stir them up to indignation. So turn yourself from the darkness into straight paths. And enlighten the understanding of your heart!
Rise Before the Darkness Comes
Hildegard warns against climbing a pillar one did not build and urges the listener to rise quickly and walk straight paths before the sun sets and their days give out.
lest the Father of all say to you, Why do you climb the pillar through foolishness— a pillar you did not build? For the day darkens for the one who does not walk in the straight paths of the right journey—so be on your guard.2 Rise up quickly, then, and walk the straight paths before the sun sets on you and before your days give out.
Read the original Latin
Responsum hildegardis. Iustissima lux dicit. O homo mentem tuam argue quę perforat consilium antiquorum prelatorum! quos non tetigit uentosa mens uanitatum. Qualis est estimatio tua! qui non erubescis ambulare in tenebris per gustum operis tui? Nam reuelatio illi cui nichil occultum est! ostendit per uiuentem oculum quod arcus zeli dei temeritati hominum minatur.
Cur non uides ubi sit mammona iniquitatis! in quo te excuses? Multi operarij ueniunt in causis suis. et querunt artam uiam et angustam! tu uero labia tua moues per magniloquos sufflatus morum cordis tui! et ad indignationem illos reducis. Vnde dirige te a tenebris in uias rectas. et illumina sensum cordis tui!
ne tibi dicat pater omnium. Quare per stulticiam ascendis columpnam! quam non fecisti? Nam dies obscuratur illi qui non operatur in uijs recti itineris quod tu precaue. Surge ergo citius et ambula recta itinera antequam sol tibi occidat et antequam dies tui deficiant.
Notes
- 1 ↩magniloquos sufflatus morum is a rare and uncertain phrase; the rendering 'grand, puffed-up ways' is plausible but the sense is not fully secure.
- 2 ↩The clause 'quod tu precaue' is syntactically difficult: quod could be a relative pronoun referring back to itineris or a conjunction introducing a new thought. Rendered here as a concluding imperative ('so be on your guard') to capture the hortatory force, but the construction remains uncertain.
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