1. For a brief introduction to Hildegard's life and works, see Flanagan, Sabina, Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179): A Visionary Life (London, 1989);Google ScholarSchipperges, Heinrich, Hildegard von Bingen: Ein Zeichen f¨r unsere Zeit (Frankfurt am Main, 1981);Google Scholar“Hildegard of Bingen” in Brunn, Emilie Zum and Epiney-Burgard, Georgette, Women Mystics in Medieval Europe (New York, 1989), pp. 3–19, especially pp. 13–15, which touches on the themes of this essay. Perhaps the best introduction to Hildegard's cosmology, theology,Google Scholarand ethics is Schipperges, Heinrich, “Kosmologische Aspekte der Lebensordnung und Lebensführung bei Hildegard von Bingen,” in Kosmos und Mensch aus der Siclit Hildegards von Bingen, ed. Führkötter, Adelgundis (Trier, 1987), pp. 1–25.Google Scholar

2. Benz, Ernst, Die Vision: Erfahrungsformen und Bilderwelt (Stuttgart, 1969), p. 160.Google ScholarA systematic attempt to place Hildegard's understanding of prophecy within the context of twelfth-century theology, biblical exegesis, and the Neoplatonic tradition going back to John Scotus Eriugena, which dispels notions of her “peculiarity,” is found in Meier, Christel, “Eriugena im Nonnenkloster? Uberlegungen zum Verhältnis von Prophetentum und Werkgestalt in der Figmenta Prophetica Hildegards von Bingen,” Frühmittelalterliche Sludien 19 (1985): 466–497.Google ScholarA call for greater attention to Hildegard's philosophical and theological ideas has been made by John, Helen in “Hildegard of Bingen: A New Twelfth-Century Woman Philosopher?” Hypatia 7 (1992): 113–123.Google Scholar

3. Newman, Barbara, “Hildegard of Bingen: Visions and Validation,” Church History 54 (1985): 166.CrossRefGoogle ScholarThis theme is further developed by Schmitt, M., “St. Hildegard of Bingen: A Prophetic Sign for her Times,” Cistercian Studies 24 (1989): 69–88.Google Scholar

4. Barbara Newman, in her fine analysis of feminine imagery in Hildegard, Sister of Wisdom: St. Hildegard's Theology of the Feminine (Berkeley, 1987), p. 250, warns against interpretations of Hildegard that do violence to the unity of her thought.Google Scholar

5. Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias, prologue; 3.13.16,Google Scholared. Führkötter, Adelgundis and Carlevaris, Angela, CCCM 43–43a (Turnholt, 1978),Google ScholarEnglish in Hildegard of Bingen: Scivias, trans. Hart, Columba and Bishop, Jane, Classics of Western Spirituality (New York, 1990), p. 635–636;Google ScholarLiber Divinorum Operum [hereafter LDO], 3.10.38, Patrologm Latina vol. 197, col. 1038C. On these texts, see Newman, Sister, p. 171.Google ScholarOn the defects of the Führkötter-Carlevaris edition of the Scivias and Hildegard's sources, see Dronke, Peter, “Problemata Hildegardiana,” Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch, 16 (1989): 95–131; quotations from the Scivias follow the Hart-Bishop translation, but they have been adjusted when the original Latin suggested doing so. The translation of other passages from Hildegard are my own, unless otherwise noted.Google Scholar

6. This is the position of Børresen, Kari, “Théologiennes au moyen âge,” Revue théologique du Louvain 20 (1989): pp. 68–69,CrossRefGoogle Scholarwhich draws on the analysis of Dronke, Peter, “Hildegard of Bingen,” in Women Writers of the Middle Ages: A Critical Study of the Texts from Perpetua (d. 203) to Marguerite Porete (d. 1310) (Cambridge, U. K., 1984), especially pp. 167–171, and that of Barbara Newman.Google Scholar

7. So Scholz, B. W., “Hildegard von Bingen on the Nature of Woman,” American Benedictine Review 31 (1980): 369, 374; an otherwise very perceptive article.Google Scholar

8. LDO, 1.4.64,Google ScholarPL vol. 197, col. 851C. It is interesting that the common modern argument that the maleness of the priesthood is founded on the maleness of Christ is absent from Hildegard, as it is generally in other medieval writers.Google ScholarOn this, see Martin, John Hilary, “The Injustice of Not Ordaining Women: A Problem for Medieval Theologians,” Theological Studies, 48 (1987): 303–316.CrossRefGoogle ScholarThe classical formulation of the argument from women's subordination is found in Aquinas, Thomas, Summa Theologiae, Supp., Q. 39, a. 1, which is taken from his Comm. in Sent., IV, d. 25, q. 2, a. 1, ad 4. On the subordination of women to men in Hildegard, see Scholz, “Hildegard von Bingen,” pp. 369–374.Google Scholar

9. Scivias, 2.6.76. But Hildegard has a remarkable ability to transform woman's traditional “weakness” into a locus of spiritual power. On this, see Newman, Barbara, “Divine Power Made Perfect in Weakness,” Peace Weavers, Cistercian Studies 72: Medieval Religious Women 2 (Kalamazoo, Mich., 1984), pp. 103–122.Google Scholar

10. Scivias, 2.6.76, p. 290 (Hart-Bishop, p. 278).Google Scholar

11. The contrasts between Hildegard's biblical exegesis and that of the received patristic tradition have been briefly but effectively sketched in Gössmann, Elisabeth, “Das Menschenbild der Hildegard von Bingen und Elisabeth von Schönau vor dem Hintergrund des frühscholastischen Anthropologie,” in Frauenmystik im Miltelalter, ed. Dinzelbacher, Peter and Bauer, Dieter R. (Ostfildern bei Stuttgart, 1985), pp. 26–33.Google ScholarBut I do not find her conclusion, p. 34, “Die Frau-Christus-Parallel erscheint in Hildegards Werken unter verschiedenen Geschichtspunkten,” convincing. The evidence given (LVM 1.82.96, p. 44) parallels woman with the flesh, not with Christ. As we shall see, Hildegard avoids feminine symbols for Christ.Google Scholar

12. The shift to maternal imagery in such cases is Biblical; see the womb of God image in Ps. 109:3 in the Vulgate version.Google Scholar

13. Newman, Sister, pp. 197, 214, is less perceptive than usual on Hildegard's ideas about women's ordination and the issues related to it. For example, she misses the point of the illustration for Scivias, 2.6, where the church is shown above catching the blood of Christ on the Cross and worshiping before the altar. Hildegard speaks of this image as “a betrothal” of the Woman and Christ. Newman identifies the Woman as a priestess because “there is no other priest in evidence” (p. 214). Yes, there is; he is Christ, her Bridegroom, who acts as Priest at every Mass; see Scivias 2.6.7 (Hart-Bishop, p. 241).Google Scholar

14. Difference of sex, for example, is to be expressed by clothing, Scivias, 2.6.77, p. 291 (Hart-Bishop, p. 278), and cross-dressing is forbidden, LDO, 3.9.14;Google ScholarGod's law prescribes that a member of the opposite sex is the only licit sexual partner, Scivias, 2.6.78, p. 292 (Hart-Bishop, p. 279),Google Scholarand Liber Vitae Mentorum per Simplicem Hominem a Vivenle Luce Revelatorum [hereafter LVM], 3.70–71, 79–82, ed. Pitra, Jean-Baptiste, Analecta Sanctae Hildegardis (Monte Cassino, 1882), pp. 88–89, 97–100, 138–139, 141–142.Google ScholarHildegard's ideas on the physiological aspects of sexual differentiation and their role in the relationship between men and women have been discussed in Allen, P., “Hildegard of Bingen's Philosophy of Sex Identity,” Thought, 64 (1989): 231–241.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15. On this contrast of feminine and-masculine in Hildegard, see Newman, Sister, p. 45.Google ScholarThe plow is a favorite image of Hildegard's. She also used it for the Mosaic Law, softening up humanity to receive the dew from heaven, which is Christ; see LDO, 3.7.9, PL vol. 197, col. 970D;Google Scholaribid., 3.11.12, PL vol. 197, col. 994–995. It also symbolizes the mind and its powers, which plows into the text of Scripture to bring forth understanding, e.g. Epistola 113r, PL vol. 197, col. 334A; and for spiritual discipline, which softens the dry ground of the heart, Ep. 115r, PL vol. 197, col. 335C-D.Google ScholarThe identification of Christ with the plowman is ancient; see, e.g., Pseudo-Macarius, (ca. 400), Homily 28: 8,Google ScholarPatrologia Graeca [PG]vol. 34, col. 713D-16Google Scholar

16. Causae el Curae, 2, ed. Kaiser, Paul (Leipzig, 1903), p. 104.Google ScholarThe plowing allows the male seed to enter and mix with the female blood, bringing about new life. On the defects of this edition of what is more properly called the Book of Compound Medicine and some corrections, see Winterfeld, Paul, Anzeiger für deutsches Altertum und deutsche Literatur 29 (1904): 292–296.Google ScholarOn this text, see Singer, Charles, “The Scientific Views and Visions of St. Hildegard,” Studies in the History and Methods of Sciences, 2nd ed. (London, 1955), 1: 1–55,Google Scholarand the reply in Liebeschütz, Hans, Das allegorische Weltbild derheiligen Hildegard von Bingen (Léipzig, 1930): pp. 90 n. 1 and 130 n. 1.Google ScholarThe authenticity of book six is debated. On the implications of Hildegard's natural science for her understanding of sexual differences, see Allen, Prudence, “Two Medieval Views on Woman's Identity: Hildegard of Bingen and Thomas Aquinas,” Studies in Religion 16 (1987): 21–27.CrossRefGoogle ScholarSee also Cadden, Joan, “It Takes All Kinds: Sexuality and Gender Differences in Hildegard of Bingen's ‘Book of Compound Medicine,’” Traditio 40 (1984): 149–179.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17. For some especially vivid examples, see Ep. 31r and 89r. On the other hand, the emphasis on male activity is not exclusive in Hildegard's metaphors for the priesthood. In Ep. 52r, PL vol. 197, col. 269–270 (her great prophetic denunciation of bad priests), for example, she sees the priest in his sacramental function as more a wet-nurse (nutritius) than a fertilizer.Google Scholar

18. See Gen. 3:20. LDO, 2.5.31, PL vol. 197, col. 927A. This is a splendid chapter where mother earth (Materna Terra) puts forth fruit in response to the command of God's Word.Google Scholar

19. Hildegard provides an extended meditation on the earth's maternity, which culminates in the maternity to the Incarnate Son, in LVM, 4.20–21.28–29.Google ScholarOn the creation of Adam and Eve in Hildegard and patristic thought, see Scholz, “Hildegard von Bingen,” pp. 367–368.Google Scholar

20. This parallel is developed in LDO, 1.4.78,Google ScholarPL vol. 197, col. 860B-D;Google Scholarand again in LDO, 2.5.45,Google ScholarPL vol. 197, col. 930.Google ScholarShe extends this metaphor to the ages of salvation history as well; the Old Testament is winter, the New is summer, LDO, 3.10.18–19,Google ScholarPL vol. 197, col. 1021–1022.Google Scholar

21. On this medieval commonplace, see Burrow, J. A., The Ages of Man: A Study in Medieval Writing and Thought (Oxford, 1986), especially chapter 1.Google Scholar

22. As is Eve, who is also usually identified with the senses or the flesh. There is, however, one allegorization of the Fall, found in, among others, Augustine, where Eve represents reason; this makes an interesting comparison with Hildegard's treatment of terra here. On this, see Hieatt, A. Kent, “Eve as Reason in a Tradition of Allegorical Interpretation of the Fall,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 43 (1980): 221–222.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23. Biblia Sacra cum Glossis Interlineari et Ordinaria (Lyon, 1545), vol. 1, fol. 23v;Google ScholarCausae etCurae, 2: 47, 59.Google ScholarTheir “earthly” nature is why men are, in contrast to women, strong, hard, and tough. A point missed in the analysis of Hildegard on creation by Gossmann, Elisabeth, “Ipsa enim quasi Domus Sapientiae: The Philosophical Anthropology of Hildegard von Bingen,” Mystics Quarterly 13 (1987): 148–150, who does make some interesting observations on the implications of the modes of creation for social roles: man's creation from earth suits him to agricultural work, woman's from flesh for domestic crafts.Google ScholarSee Allen, , “Two Medieval Views,” pp. 22–23, on this. Hildegard does fall back on the earth-flesh parallel in LDO, 1.4.82, PL vol. 197, col. 862–863. But this image is clearly secondary to her earlier earth-soul parallelism.Google Scholar

24. Scwias, 2.6.76, p. 290 (Hart-Bishop, p. 278)Google Scholar

25. LDO, 1.4.96,Google ScholarPLvol. 197, col. 874–875.Google Scholar

26. Scivias, 3.10.7 (Hart-Bishop, p. 478).Google ScholarWith this one exception, Hildegard is emphatic that the earth is sterile unless it has been plowed. Without plowing it is dry, rocky, and brings forth only useless weeds: Ep. 98r, PL vol. 197, col. 319D-320A.Google Scholar

27. Scivias, 3.10.4, p. 549 (Hart-Bishop, pp. 474–475).Google Scholar

28. LDO, 1.1.17, PL vol. 197, col. 750D.Google Scholar

29. Hildegard is, not surprisingly, fond of the image of tending the field or vineyard as an apt symbol of the priestly office, e.g. in Ep. 85r, PL vol. 197, col. 306D-307A.Google Scholar

30. Scivias, 1.3.1 (Hart-Bishop, p. 94).Google Scholar

31. LVM, 5.31.39, p. 197, a passage of exceptional beauty.Google Scholar

32. As noted by Newman, , Sister, p. 249.Google Scholar

33. This association is sketched for us by Newman, , Sister, pp. 93–107.Google Scholar

34. Causae et Curae, 2.136.Google Scholar

35. LDO, 2.5.16, PL vol. 197, col. 915C.Google ScholarSee Newman, , Sister, p. 113, for commentary and translation of this text, from which I have benefited. The same idea is also more briefly stated in LDO, 1.1.14, PL vol. 197, col. 749C.Google Scholar

36. Hildegard, , LDO, 2.5.16, PL vol. 197, col. 915;Google Scholarcf. Scivias, 1.2.10 (Hart-Bishop, p. 77).Google Scholar

37. Scivias, 1.2.11 (Hart-Bishop, p. 77).Google Scholar

38. Scivias, 1.2.22 (Hart-Bishop, p. 84).Google ScholarThe same parallel is made with Eve in Scivias, 1.2.11 (Hart-Bishop, p. 77),Google Scholarand again in Scivias, 2.l, visio, p. 112 (Hart-Bishop, p. 150)Google Scholarand in Scivias, 2.3.22 (Hart-Bishop, pp. 177–178).Google Scholar

39. Indeed, Eve in a mysterious way contained the whole human race, just as the church contains all Christians; see Scivias, 1.2.10 (Hart-Bishop, p. 77).Google Scholar

40. LVM, 1.82.96.Google Scholar

41. Ibid.

42. Scivias, 1.2.12 (Hart-Bishop, p. 78);Google Scholara misquote noted by Newman, , Sister, p. 99. On the complementarity of men and women in Hildegard's thought, see Scholz, “Hildegard von Bingen,” pp. 374–377.Google Scholar

43. LDO, 1.4.100, PL vol. 197, col. 885B-D.Google ScholarSee Newman, Sister, p. 96, for commentary and translation of this text from which I have benefited. On this famous quotation see Bynum, Caroline, ‘“And Woman His Humanity': Female Imagery in the Religious Writing of the Later Middle Ages,” in Fragmentation and Redemption: Essays on Gender and the Human Body in Medieval Religion (New York, 1991), pp. 151–179.Google ScholarAnd the same idea again, LDO, 2.5.43, PL vol. 197, col. 945D.Google ScholarLikewise, there can be no soul without the body, LDO, 1.4.105, PL vol. 197, col. 899C.Google ScholarOn the importance of the complementarity of the sexes in Hildegard, see Allen, , “Two Medieval Views,” pp. 31–34.Google Scholar

44. On this, see Expostiones Quorundam Evangeliorum, 1.1, ed. Pitra, Jean-Baptiste, Analecta Sanctae Hildegardis (Monte Cassino, 1882), p. 245Google Scholar

45. LDO, 2.5.18, PL vol. 197, col. 918B-C.Google ScholarHildegard's idea that the Virgin, who symbolizes the church, provided Christ's “materia,” which is especially identified with his body, which is the church, is developed beautifully in Schmidt, M., “Maria, ‘Materia Aurea‘ in der Kirche nach Hildegard von Bingen,” Münchener theologische Zeitschrift 32 (1981): 16–32.Google Scholar

46. Scivias, 2.3.12 (Hart-Bishop, p. 173).Google ScholarFor more on the theme of virginal maternity in Hildegard's thought, see Walter, P., “Virgo Filium Dei Portasti: Maria in den Gesängen der hi. Hildegard von Bingen,” Archiv für mittelrheinische Kirchengeschichte 29 (1977): 75–96.Google Scholar

47. The first of these, Scivias, 2.3, visio, (Hart-Bishop, p. 169),Google Scholaremphasizes the maternity of the church by having its personification call out, “I must conceive and give birth!” The individual soul is also Christ's bride, e.g., LDO, 1.4.87, PL vol. 197, col. 866A-C, but this nuptial theme is secondary in Hildegard.Google Scholar

48. LDO, 2.5.32, PL vol. 197, col. 928–929. Hildegard, later in the same passage, describes the gathered seas as symbolic of the church, paralleling it with the “sea of glass” in Rev. 4:6. In LDO, 2.5.40–41, PL vol. 197, col. 941–943, Hildegard will reconcile these images by explaining that the earth properly represents the secular married order bringing forth progeny, while the seas are those of the spiritual order who live in celibacy.Google Scholar

49. LDO, 2.5.33, PL vol. 197, col. 930C-D. In chapters 33 and following, Hildegard, in an extended metaphor, will identify the various “ornaments” of creation with various aspects of the church.Google ScholarThere the agricultural image is lost and the clergy become the celestial lights and stars, as in Expostio Evangeliorum, 24.2.Google ScholarShe then returns to the church-earth image in LDO, 2.5.44, PL vol. 197, col. 947.Google Scholar

50. The most systematic development of this theme is Scivias, 2.3.11–12 (Hart-Bishop, pp. 172–173).Google Scholar

51. Scivias, 2.3.12 (Hart-Bishop, p. 173).Google Scholar

52. An idea developed at length in Hildegard's letter on the Eucharist to “a certain priest,” Ep. 43r, PL vol. 197, col. 213.Google Scholar

53. On this ancient form of prayer, see Jungmann, J. A., , S.J., The Mass of the Roman Rite: Its Origin and Development, trans. Brunner, Francis (New York, 1951), 1:379–384.Google ScholarSee Scivias, 2.6.36 (Hart-Bishop, p. 260), where this description of the consecration is directly paralleled with Christ's Incarnation and the hovering of the Spirit in Gen. 1 is alluded to. 1 thank Barbara Newman for calling this remarkable text, with its focus on the Holy Spirit at the consecration, to my attention.Google Scholar

54. The imagery is Pauline, see Eph. 5:21–33. Hildegard elaborates this image when treating Christ's intercession for the church in LDO, 3.10.22–23, PL vol. 197, col. 1024–1025.Google Scholar

55. Scivias, 2.6.1 (Hart-Bishop, pp. 238–239).Google Scholar

56. Scivias, 3.10.7 (Hart-Bishop, p. 478).Google Scholar

57. For example, LDO, 3.10.9, PL vol. 197, col. 1009B.Google Scholar

58. A theme elaborated at length in Ep. 84r, in Hildegardis Bingensis Epistolarium, CCCM 91, ed. van Acker, L. (Turnholt, 1991), pp. 193–94.Google Scholar

59. Scivias, 2.3.3 (Hart-Bishop, p. 170).Google Scholar

60. High medieval attribution of feminine traits to God is surveyed in Bynum's “Jesus as Mother and Abbot as Mother: Some Themes in Twelfth-Century Cistercian Writing,” in Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages (Berkeley, 1982), pp. 110–169.Google ScholarThe authors presented there, like the later Julian of Norwich, Showings [long text], 58–62, trans. Colledge, Edmund and Walsh, James, Classics of Western Spirituality (New York, 1978), pp. 293–305, focus almost exclusively on the femininity or maternity of Jesus or the Word, and relatively rarely use such language of God.Google ScholarNewman, Sister, p. 234, has noted Hildegard's preference for divine and masculine titles for Christ.Google Scholar

61. Scivias, 3.3.8 (Hart-Bishop, pp. 348–349).Google Scholar

62. Scivias, 3.8.7–8 (Hart-Bishop, p. 428)Google Scholarand Scivias, 3.8.25 (Hart-Bishop, p. 447).Google Scholar

63. LVM, 1.10.32. The masculinity of God is also associated with his power to correct and punish, LVM, 3.24.32.Google Scholar

64. For example, LVM, 1.21.33.Google Scholar

65. LDO, 1.4.105, PL vol. 197, col. 890D;Google Scholarand especially LDO, 2.5.46, PL vol. 197, col. 948–949.Google Scholar

66. LDO, 2.5.46, PL vol. 197, col. 951–952.Google ScholarAnd again, contrasting virilis with muliebris, LDO, 3.10.8, PL vol. 197, col. 1006C-D and 3.10.10, PL vol. 197, col. 1012D.Google Scholar

67. Scivias, 2.6.64 (Hart-Bishop, p. 272),Google Scholarand Scivias, 2.6.68 (Hart-Bishop, p. 274), where she says, “The Church is one, but she has many husbands, entering into marriage with the priests of my Son who are daily in his service; yet she remains an intact virgin.”Google Scholar

68. 1 Tim. 3:2; Scivias, 2.6.68 (Hart-Bishop, p. 274).Google Scholar

69. The beloved being both sister and spouse would not seem odd to the medieval reader acquainted with Song of Solomon 4:10 and 8:1.Google Scholar

70. LVM, 4.12.17. This “maternal” aspect of the Father comes forward even more strongly in a letter of Hildegard to Bishop Eberhard of Bamberg, where she writes, Ep. 34r: “God is called Father because from him everything is born…. The paternity from which all things are born and which encompasses all things is brilliance, because they are from his power.” This image is repeated in Causae el Curae, 1:2, where the birth-giving paternity is compared to the unity of a wheel, a central theme in LDO.Google Scholar

71. Scivias, 2.6.35 (Hart-Bishop, p. 259).Google Scholar

72. As Wisdom, Scivias, 3.9.25 (Hart-Bishop, pp. 465–66);Google Scholaras Charity, Ep. 30, PL vol. 179, col. 192–193, and in LDO, 3.8.2, PL vol. 197, col. 979–980.Google Scholar

73. Scivias, 2.6.43 (Hart-Bishop, pp. 262–263).Google Scholar

74. Ep. 47, PL vol. 197, col. 225B.Google ScholarThe same parallel between the Incarnation and the consecration of the Eucharist also appears in Scivias, 2.4.15 (Hart-Bishop, p. 246),Google Scholarand, Scivias 2.6.36, pp. 264–265 (Hart-Bishop, p. 260).Google Scholar

75. Scivias, 2.6.15 (Hart-Bishop, p. 246);Google ScholarNewman, , Sister, 194–195, misses the point of this passage by identifying the priest with the Virgin because both take a position of humility. This just does not fit: the priest and Gabriel speak; it is the church and the Virgin who become fertile.Google ScholarThe Virgin's words, both in this Scivias passage and the letter quoted above, are “Behold the handmaid of the Lord.” Hildegard herself explicitly speaks of priests in Scivias, 3.13.6 (Hart-Bishop, p. 528) as “imitators of that Most High Person,” who, in context, can only be Christ the Second Person of the Trinity, not the Virgin.Google Scholar

76. I have been able to discover only one case where Hildegard associates a feminine image with Christ.Google ScholarThis occurs when she parallels his Baptism with the sacrament of Baptism, Scivias, 2.3.32 (Hart-Bishop, pp. 182–183).Google ScholarIn this complex passage, Hildegard parallels the words heard from the Father with the priest, the godfather with the Dove of the Spirit, and the godmother with Christ's flesh. But here it is Christ's flesh that is feminine (following the traditional parallel of the flesh with the feminine and the spirit with the masculine), not Christ himself.Google Scholar

77. On the Word of God as instrument of creation, see especially LVM, 6.32.52.Google Scholar