R50: Hildegard von Rupertsberg an Konrad III.
Greeting and Blessing
Hildegard greets Emperor Conrad with a blessing on those who stand faithfully before God and urges him to remain in God and reject impurity.
To Conrad, the emperor. Hildegard. He who gives life to all says: Blessed are those who stand worthily beneath the lampstand of the highest king. And those whom God has placed in his great care! So that he may not cut them off from his embrace. In him, O king, remain, and cast the filth from your mind! For God preserves everyone who seeks him with devotion and purity.
Prophetic Rebuke of Injustice
Hildegard warns the emperor to rule justly and not stray from God, rebuking him for living frivolously and allowing injustice to flourish in the Lord's vineyard.
But hold your kingdom in such a way, and provide justice for each one of your people! so that you won't become a stranger to the heavenly kingdom. Listen. In a certain respect, you're turning yourself away from God! And the times in which you live are light and frivolous, as though you were playing a woman's role! And they even try to turn toward the very opposite of justice — the justice that should stand in the vineyard of the Lord — and abandon it.1 They're bowing down to it.
Worse Times to Come
Hildegard foretells coming times of scourging for the faithful, error shaking the Catholic throne, and smoldering grief in the Lord's vineyard, with only partial renewal and no true contrition.
After these things, worse times will indeed come. In which the true Israelites will be scourged. And in which the Catholic throne will be shaken by error. And so their last days will be like a corpse in the death of blasphemy. This is why that grief smolders in the vineyard of the Lord.✦ And after these times, days stronger than the earlier ones will arise, in which the justice of God will be raised up to some degree. And in which the injustice of the spiritual people, aimed at casting out, will be made known. But to be provoked and exasperated to sharp contrition — that will not yet be dared.
Persecution and Exile of the Faithful
The Church's riches will be scattered, God's spiritual people torn like prey and driven into exile, living thereafter in poverty, humility, and contrition amid harsh and wearisome times.
But other times will come after these, when the riches of the churches will be scattered. So much so that even God's spiritual people will be torn apart like prey by wolves.2 And they'll be driven out from their own places and from their homeland. As a result, many of them will flee into the wilderness. From then on they'll live in poverty, with deep contrition of heart. and so, serving God in humility. For these first times, aimed at God's justice, are harsh and squalid.3 But what follows after will be wearisome.
Cycles of Injustice and Renewed Strength
Hildegard describes successive waves of corrupt times, violent greed, and then a coming display of manly strength, the dawn of justice, princely concord, and resistance to error, ending with God's judgment on the wicked.
But those times that will then come afterward will lift themselves up to justice only a little. But those that will rise up afterward will tear everything apart, like a bear. And they will heap up riches for themselves through evil. But those that will follow after that will show the sign of manly strength. So that all the spice merchants may run to the first dawn of justice with fear, reverence, and wisdom.4 And let the princes hold concord with one accord. Lifting it up like a warrior raises a banner against the wandering times of the greatest errors.5 Those whom God will destroy and exterminate, according to what he himself has known!
Final Call to the King
Hildegard returns to direct address, calling the king to restrain himself from pleasure and correct himself so that he may come purified to better times and not be ashamed.
And as it pleases them. And again, he who knows all things says: To you, O king, he speaks. You, man, hear these things. Restrain yourself from your pleasure, and correct yourself. So that you may come to those times purified. Times in which you'll no longer be ashamed of your deeds.
Read the original Latin
Cunrado imperatori. hildegardis. Qui uitam dat omnibus dicit. Beati sunt qui candelabro summi regis digne subiacent. et quos deus in magna prouidentia procurauit! ita ut eos de sinu suo non abscidat. In illo o tu rex permane et squalorem de mente tua abice! quoniam deus omnem qui eum deuote et pure querit conseruat.
Sed et regnum tuum ita tene. et tuis unamquamque iusticiam prouide! ut a superno regno alienus non fias. Audi. Tu in quadam parte a deo te auertis! et tempora in quibus es uelut in muliebri persona leuia sunt! et etiam in contrariam iniusticiam quę iusticiam in uinea domini destituere temptant. se inclinant.
Post ista uero peiora tempora uenient. in quibus ueri israhelitę flagellabuntur. et in quibus catholicus thronus in errore mouebitur. et ideo nouissima eorum uelut cadauer in morte blasphemię erunt. Vnde et hic dolor in uinea domini fumigat. Et post hęc fortiora prioribus tempora surgent in quibus iusticia dei aliquantum erigetur. et in quibus iniusticia spiritalis populi ad eiciendum notabitur! sed tamen prouocari et exacerbari ad contritionem acriter nondum audebitur.
Sed deinde alia tempora instabunt in quibus diuitię ęcclesiarum dispergentur. ita quod etiam spiritalis populus uelut a lupis lacerabitur. et a locis suis et de patria sua expelletur. Unde plurimi eorum ad solitudinem transibunt. pauperem uitam in multa contritione cordis deinceps habentes. et sic deo humiliter seruientes. Prima etenim hęc tempora ad iusticiam dei sunt squalida. sequentia uero tediosa.
Quę autem deinde superuenient ad iusticiam se ad modicum erigent. sed quę postea insurgent quasi ursus cuncta diuident. et diuicias sibi per malum congerent. Sed quę illa sequentur signum uirilis fortitudinis ostendent. ita ut omnes pigmentarij ad primam auroram iusticię cum timore uerecundia et sapientia currant. et principes concordiam unanimiter habeant. eam quasi uir preliator sicut uexillum contra errantia tempora maximorum errorum eleuantes. quos deus destruet et exterminabit secundum quod ipse nouit!
et ut sibi placet. Et iterum ille qui omnia nouit. tibi o rex dicit. Hęc tu homo audiens. teipsum a uoluptate tua compesce et te corrige. quatenus ad tempora illa purificatus uenias. in quibus de factis tuis amplius non erubescas.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Isa.5.1-Isa.5.7;Matt.21.33-Matt.21.43 — Let me sing for my beloved a song of my beloved concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. Isa.5.2 — He dug it up and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines. He built a watchtower in its midst, and also hewed out a wine vat in it. He waited for it to produce grapes, but it produced wild grapes. Isa.5.3 — And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge, I pray, between me and my vineyard. Isa.5.4 — What more was there to do for my vineyard, and I did not do it in it? Why did I expect it to produce grapes, and it produced wild grapes? Isa.5.5 — And now I will make known to you what I am doing to my vineyard: I will remove its hedge, and it will be for burning; I will break down its wall, and it will be for trampling. Isa.5.6 — I will make it a wasteland; it will not be pruned or hoed, and thorns and briers will grow up. And I will command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. Isa.5.7 — For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the man of Judah is his delightful planting. He looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold, a cry of distress. Matt.21.33 — Listen to another parable. There was a man, a landowner, who planted a vineyard, put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it, built a tower, and leased it to tenants, and went away on a journey. Matt.21.34 — When the season of the harvest drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit. Matt.21.35 — And the tenants seized his servants; one they beat, one they killed, and one they stoned. Matt.21.36 — Again he sent other servants, more than the first, and they did to them likewise. Matt.21.37 — But afterward he sent his son to them, saying, 'They will respect my son.' Matt.21.38 — But when the tenants saw the son, they said among themselves, 'This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and take his inheritance.' Matt.21.39 — And they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. Matt.21.40 — Therefore, when the master of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants? Matt.21.41 — They say to him, 'He will bring those wretches to a wretched end, and he will lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruit in its season.' Matt.21.42 — Jesus says to them, 'Have you never read in the Scriptures: "The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was from the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes"?' Matt.21.43 — Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing its fruit.
Notes
- 1 ↩The relative clause 'quę iusticiam' is difficult: the ms. reads 'qu' (abbreviated), expanded as quae, yielding 'which they try to abandon justice in the vineyard of the Lord.' The antecedent is ambiguous — it could refer back to iniusticiam or to the implied situation. The rendering takes the sense as: they abandon the justice that belongs in the Lord's vineyard.
- 2 ↩spiritalis populus rendered as 'God's spiritual people' to clarify the referent; Latin lacks a possessive but the sense is the faithful within the churches.
- 3 ↩The manuscript reads 'h c tempora' where 'h' appears to be an abbreviation or scribal error for haec; normalized text reads 'hęc'. The reading 'etenim haec tempora... squalida' is adopted as most plausible. 'Squalida' carries the sense of rough, squalid, or wretched.
- 4 ↩pigmentarij — medieval Latin, meaning spice-merchants, perfumers, or apothecaries; the metaphorical sense here likely refers to those who deal in fragrant or precious things, perhaps as figures of the devout or the clergy.
- 5 ↩eam — the referent is ambiguous; it likely refers to concordiam (concord) or iusticiam (justice) from the preceding context. Translated as 'it' to preserve the ambiguity.
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