R40: Hildegard von Rupertsberg an Bf. H. von Prag
The Voice of Life Speaks
Hildegard introduces her message as the voice of life and salvation.
Hildegard's response. The voice of life and of salvation says:
The Grape of Post-Flood Grace
Through the vine metaphor, Hildegard contrasts God's renewal of the earth after the Flood with humanity's pride and fickle nature.
What is this — that a person eats and doesn't want to know what the grape is, the grape that labored from the earth in another way after the destruction of the people?✦1 Since God wiped the earth clean and reshaped it into another form!2 Than the first man would have mocked it?3 This is because humankind is fickle through the shifting of its own character! And through seasons of light and of darkness. For humankind sometimes lifts itself up a little into prosperity!
Man Between Prosperity and Danger
Humanity alternates between fortune and peril but fails to seek justice, truth, or discretion, living instead by appetite and self-will.
Sometimes he falls into danger. In both of these, man does not look upon the embraces of the daughter of the king — namely, justice and truth.4 But he cuts the crown from his head when the shepherd flees, not defending the church of Christ.5 Because he does not hold his own arms in strength. But in his own customs he plays like a wanton boy who has no concern for anything. Man who does this. He desires to eat and live by his own will, just as nature demands food for man. And yet with all his sharp sight he does not see where discretion is, which has sweated from wisdom.6
Obedience Born in the Vineyard
The grape signifies the wisdom and obedience that arose after Adam's fall, prefigured in Noah's vineyard and the renewal of the earth.
which is understood in this grape. For when Adam, at the beginning of the world, scorned obedience, the ages of ages perished, all the way to the outpouring of the waters, when God wiped the earth clean of its dreadful wickedness. and it gave another force. where Noah brought forth the most noble offspring of obedience in the vineyards, because Adam fled through the simplicity of his own manners, like a wanton boy. But in Noah, the earth brought forth the force of the vine. where after him wisdom also arose for salvation.
A Call to Rise and Behold Your Remedy
Hildegard exhorts the reader to stop wandering in shifting habits and to look toward both personal and communal healing.
Now, O you, who wander in your own habits through the broad paths of your shifting fortunes. and you do not eagerly look, gazing upon your remedy and another's.
Rise Up and Do Not Flee the Light
Hildegard urges the reader to rise in right moderation, face the coming judgment without shame, and receive eternal life.
Rise up, reflecting on the solemnity with proper restraint, and do not flee that light, casting it away through the harshness of wickedness! So that you won't be ashamed when the supreme King searches out what your deeds have stored up in your purse. And you will live forever.
Read the original Latin
Responsum hildegardis. Vox uitę et salutis dicit. Quid est hoc quod homo manducat et non uult scire quę sit uua quę de terra alio modo sudauit post peremptionem populi. cum deus terram extersit et excribrauit in alium modum! quam primus homo illam derideret? Hoc est quod homo leuis est per uicissitudinem morum suorum! et per tempora lucis et tenebrarum. Nam homo interdum se aliquantulum in prosperitatem erigit!
interdum in periculo cadit. In his utrisque homo non inspicit amplexus filię regis scilicet iusticię et ueritatis. sed amputat coronam de capite illius cum pastor fugit non defendens ęcclesiam christi. quia arma sua in fortitudine non tenet. sed in moribus suis sicut lasciuus puer qui nullam sollicitudinem habet ludet. Homo qui istud facit. desiderat sic manducare et uiuere per uoluntatem suam sicut natura hominis postulat cibum. et non uidet acutis oculis suis ubi discretio sit quę de sapientia sudauit.
quę in hac uua intelligitur. Cum enim adam in ortu mundi obedientiam derisit tempora temporum perierunt usque ad effusionem aquarum ubi deus terram de horribili iniquitate tersit. et aliam uim dedit. ubi noe nobilissimum germen obedientię in uineis protulit quod adam fugit per simplicitatem morum suorum sicut lasciuus puer. Sed in noe terra uim uuę protulit. ubi etiam post eum sapientia surrexit in saluatione. Nunc o tu homo qui circuis in moribus tuis per plateas uicissitudinum tuorum. et non ardenter intueris aspiciens in medicinam tuam et alterius.
surge respiciens in solemm in recta moderatione et lumen non fuge illud abiciens per austeritatem iniquitatis! quatenus non erubescas quando summus rex requirit opera tua in sacculo tuo! et in eternum uiues.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Gen.9.20 — And Noah, a man of the ground, began by planting a vineyard.
Notes
- 1 ↩The metaphor of the grape (uua) that 'labored' (sudauit) from the earth 'in another way' after the destruction of the people is obscure. It likely refers to the Eucharistic wine or to a post-Fall transformation of creation, but the precise referent is uncertain.
- 2 ↩excribrauit is a rare/variant form, here rendered as 'reshaped' — the sense is that God reworked or reformed the earth after a destruction (likely the Flood).
- 3 ↩The comparative construction (quam primus homo illam derideret) is elliptical — the implied comparison is to the previous statement about God reshaping the earth. 'The first man' (Adam) would have mocked God's reworking of the earth.
- 4 ↩The Latin has abbreviated/variant spellings (filię, iusticię) and the phrase amplexus filię regis is metaphorical; rendered as 'embraces of the daughter of the king' with justice and truth in apposition.
- 5 ↩Subject of amputat is ambiguous — could be 'man' from the previous sentence or a generalized agent. The sense is that the crown is removed when the shepherd (ecclesiastical leader) abandons his duty.
- 6 ↩The phrase quę de sapientia sudauit is compressed and metaphorical; 'which has sweated from wisdom' captures the Latin's vivid personification of discretion as born from wisdom's labor.
Epistolae: Letters to Frederick Barbarossa and Henry II of England companion
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