Virtutes ad Animam illam
The Soul's Lament and the Call to Victory
The Virtues console the sorrowing soul by recalling Christ's redemptive work in a virginal nature and summon it to overcome the devil within.
O soul, established by the will of God, and O happy instrument, why are you so tearful against this, which God crushed in a virginal nature?✦1 You must overcome the devil in us.
Read the original Latin
O Anima, voluntate dei constituta, et o felix instrumentum, quare tam flebilis es contra hoc quod deus contrivit in virginea natura? Tu debes in nobis superare diabolum.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Gen.3.15 — I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.
Notes
- 1 ↩The phrase 'contra hoc quod deus contrivit in virginea natura' is syntactically dense. 'Contra' likely carries an adversative sense ('despite' or 'in the face of'), and 'hoc' refers to the defeat of the devil or sin. 'Contrivit' (crushed/bruised) echoes the protoevangelium of Genesis 3:15, applied here to Christ's victory over sin through the Virgin.
Ordo Virtutum (Order of the Virtues) companion
Let a different Virtue meet you each morning
Chosen Portion walks you through the whole Ordo Virtutum — and Hildegard's Scivias — as free daily devotionals.
The Ordo was performed scene by scene by Hildegard's nuns, and Chosen Portion restores that rhythm — one scene of the Virtues' drama as each day's devotional.
- The complete 84-scene drama, one short scene per day, in modern readable English
- Each portion pairs the scene with its Scripture echoes — 26 references resolved across the play
- Finish Hildegard, then continue with 70+ other works from Europe's royal devotional archive