[In the following excerpt, from her introduction to a translation of Hildegard's Scivias, Newman discusses "the essentially prophetic character of Hildegard's spirituality": the "blend of renunciation with privilege" which characterized the abbess 's leadership, and the nature of Hildegard's apocalyptic message.]

Although Hildegard is frequently classified as a mystic, she may be more precisely identified as a visionary and prophet. Classical definitions of mysticism stress the union of the soul with God and the whole system of ascetic and contemplative disciplines that aim to facilitate that union. But Hildegard, while she certainly had a powerful sense of the divine presence, did not follow the unitive way. "Prayer" to her meant primarily petition and liturgical praise, while "the love of God" meant reverence, loyalty and obedience to his commands. In the rare texts where she portrays herself as a partner in dialogue with God, she is not the enamored bride longing for divine union, as in St. Bernard's Sermons on the Song of Songs, but the fragile and woefully inadequate mortal—"ashes of ashes, and filth of filth"—trembling before the great commission she has received. Like Moses "stuttering and slow of speech," and like Isaiah "of unclean lips," she offers the prophet's classic response to a calling she has not chosen, yet cannot do other than obey.

The essentially prophetic character of Hildegard's spirituality explains the startling lack of interest in her own subjectivity. In spite of her unusual inner experiences, she recorded only as much as she had to reveal in order to authenticate her works. Thus only at the beginning and end of each book does she describe its genesis in visions; elsewhere the emphasis rests firmly on the content, and still more on the meaning, of the things seen. Moreover, her autobiographical prefaces and endings tend to focus as much on the seer's disabilities (her femaleness, poor health and lack of education) as they do on her revelations. These disclaimers, far from representing a simple "modesty topos," also serve the aim of authentication; they are meant to persuade readers that, because the author is not "wise according to worldly standards," her weakness and foolishness have been empowered by God alone.¹

Hildegard's prophetic self-awareness pervades all her writings except for her scientific works, and accounts for many of their stylistic features as well as their characteristically objective or outer-directed teaching. Because she saw herself as the voice of another, not as a speaker in her own right, she often seems disturbingly unaware of the human element in her writings. Not only does she lapse easily from speaking about God in the third person, as preacher, to speaking for him in the first person, as prophet; she also claims direct verbal inspiration for her entire opus and threatens terrible divine vengeance on anyone who dares to add, delete or alter a word. This instrumental view of her activity also required her to deny any education beyond "simple reading," although she was already well-acquainted with the Church Fathers and standard biblical commentaries when she wrote the Scivias, and by the end of her life was a woman of remarkably wide culture. Her posture as a simple, unlearned person was not intended to deceive; aside from reinforcing her prophetic persona, it constitutes an implicit critique of the learned clerics whose negligence, she believed, had necessitated her mission.

Hildegard never went beyond her limited and stylized self-disclosures to reveal more of her inner life until she was in her seventies, and even then she did so only at the request of hagiographically inclined admirers. For her first biographer, Gottfried, she wrote or dictated a valuable autobiographical memoir; and for the adoring Guibert she supplied this celebrated and oft-quoted account of her "mode of seeing":

In this vision my soul, as God would have it, rises up high into the vault of heaven and into the changing sky and spreads itself out among different peoples, although they are far away from me in distant lands and places. And because I see them this way in my soul, I observe them in accord with the shifting of clouds and other created things. I do not hear them with my outward ears, nor do I perceive them by the thoughts of my own heart or by any combination of my five senses, but in my soul alone, while my outward eyes are open. So I have never fallen prey to ecstasy in the visions, but I see them wide awake, day and night.… The light that I see thus is not spatial, but it is far, far brighter than a cloud that carries the sun. I can measure neither height, nor length, nor breadth in it; and I call it "the reflection of the living Light." And as the sun, the moon, and the stars appear in water, so writings, sermons, virtues, and certain human actions take form for me and gleam within it.

Now whatever I have seen or learned in this vision remains in my memory for a long time, so that, when I have seen and heard it, I remember; and I see, hear, and know all at once, and as if in an instant I learn what I know. But what I do not see, I do not know, for I am not educated.… And the words in this vision are not like words uttered by a human mouth, but like a shimmering flame, or a cloud floating in a clear sky.

Moreover, I can no more recognize the form of this light than I can gaze directly on the sphere of the sun. Sometimes—but not often—I see within this light another light, which I call "the living Light." And I cannot describe when and how I see it, but while I see it all sorrow and anguish leave me, so that then I feel like a simple girl instead of an old woman.²

This is not the kind of experience that could be taught or learned. Readers might be reminded of Augustine's theory of illumination, which was probably familiar to Hildegard, or of the variant form of Neoplatonic light-mysticism that reached medieval Europe through Pseudo-Dionysius. A still closer parallel can be found in the experiences of Simeon the New Theologian and the Byzantine hesychasts, who sought by means of spiritual exercises to attain purity of heart and thus behold the uncreated light of Mount Tabor. Hildegard could not possibly have known this latter tradition, however; and as we have seen, she made no effort to cultivate or promulgate her special mode of seeing. Nor did she theologize about her visionary experience per se.

Aside from the dynamics of prophetic inspiration, Hildegard's spirituality is best understood through the ecclesiastical roles she played: Benedictine abbess, Gregorian reformer and apocalyptic preacher. As mistress of the Rupertsberg, she was indeed a Benedictine to the core. The Scivias opens with a vision of two thoroughly monastic virtues, Fear of the Lord and Poverty of Spirit; one has eyes on every side, and the other is inundated with the glory of God, indicating that only the humble possess true vision. Throughout Hildegard's works, but especially in the Scivias, the foundational virtues are humility, obedience and discretion, which, like Benedict, she called "the mother of virtues." In governing her community and advising her fellow superiors, she advocated a middle way between laxity and self-indulgence on the one hand and excessive abstinence on the other. She placed a premium on unity, and her teaching is pervaded with classical monastic themes: spiritual warfare, knowledge of good and evil, the conflict between soul and body, the acquisition of virtues, the special merit of chastity. Monks and virgins, in her view, were "new planets" which first appeared in the heavens at Christ's nativity;³ she never doubted that they formed an elite corps among Christians and, if they persevered in their vows, would receive a special reward.

Although she herself was raised by a recluse, Hildegard was not particularly sympathetic to the eremitic life. A number of abbots and abbesses sought her counsel because they longed to lay down the burden of governing and work out their salvation in a hermit's cell; she always replied that this was a temptation to be resisted.⁴ In fact, Hildegard's originality in so many fields should not obscure the fact that she represented a rather old-fashioned type of monasticism. Her reaction to the newer currents is neatly epitomized in her quarrel with the abbess Tengswich of Andernach, sister of the canonical reformer Richard of Springiersbach.⁵ Richard and Tengswich were pioneers in the movement for apostolic poverty, and Tengswich had criticized Hildegard sharply (under the veil of ironic praise) because the abbess of Bingen accepted only noble girls in her convent. What is more, she allowed them to wear jewelry when they received communion. In a spirited reply Hildegard defended the principle of class discrimination: One would not put beasts of different species in the same stall, and even angels had their hierarchy. As for wearing jewels, it was perfectly acceptable for the brides of Christ to dress like noble ladies because, as virgins, they were exempt from the rule of female subordination that required matrons to wear veils and lay aside their elegant attire. This blend of renunciation with privilege continues the long tradition of high-born abbesses, who gave up the titles and secular powers of nobility while retaining its influence, prestige and corporate wealth.

As a reformer Hildegard belongs squarely within the Gregorian camp. In fact, as Jeffrey Russell wrote of Gregory VII himself, her life "is proof that a burning spirit can dwell within a breast committed to order."⁶Ordo is indeed a key word in the Scivias. Hildegard did not call for radical change of social or ecclesiastical structures; it was the abuse of authority, not the nature of it, that she opposed. Her ideal was a Christendom wherein the secular power would be firmly subordinate to the spiritual, princes and prelates would rule with vigilance and justice, and subjects and layfolk would offer prompt obedience. Yet because her message was largely directed to those in power, and particularly to the ecclesiastical hierarchy, she concerned herself far more with the negligence of clerics and the arrogance of rulers than with the sins of subjects. Three issues that particularly concerned her were clerical celibacy, simony and the subservience of prelates to the secular power—a burning question in Barbarossa's Germany where the bishops were virtually ministers of state. All of these issues, of course, continued the eleventh-century struggle of the reformed papacy against what it perceived as lay encroachments on the dignity of the church.

In addition, Hildegard was zealous for orthodoxy and thus deeply troubled by the hierarchy's failure to offer any effective resistance to the Cathars, who were making numerous converts even as she composed the Scivias and had infiltrated the Rhineland by the 1160s. Their alarming success may account for the space she devoted to the sacraments of marriage and the eucharist, which were particularly reviled by these dualistic sectarians. In her most vehement and memorable preaching the abbess highlighted purity of doctrine along with sexual purity, both of which could be symbolized by the powerful image of the virgin Ecclesia. Hildegard not only personified Mother Church in this ancient symbol; in a sense, she impersonated her, making herself a mouthpiece for the pure but continuously imperilled bride of Christ.⁷ In short, she placed her zeal for reform at the service of an essentially clerical vision of the church and a hierarchical vision of society. For her there could be no conflict between the spirit of prophecy and the spirit of order.

Hildegard's apocalyptic preaching must be understood in its proper context.⁸ As she was not a radical reformer, neither was she a millenarian; she did not envisage an imminent Second Coming or look forward to a golden age of the Spirit. Rather, her apocalyptic message is closely akin to that of the Old Testament prophets. She shared their perception that divine judgment inevitably follows on human sin, and especially on the sins of rulers. If the princes of the church did not renounce their greed, fornication, oppression and negligence, they would be punished by the loss not only of their wealth and power, but even of the dignity they had signally abused. The perpetrators of this vengeance would be princes and people, not because Hildegard believed that kings were superior to prelates or that laypeople had a right to choose their own priests, but because she saw that the secular power could serve as God's scourge to punish his faithless people, just as the Assyrians of old had been allowed to punish Israel. Apocalyptic imagery coupled with the preaching of reform carries the same message that Jonah brought to the Ninevites: If the preaching is obeyed, it is just possible that the prophesied disasters will be averted.

But there is another dimension to Hildegard's apocalyptic. Like all prophets she was deeply concerned with history, and in both the Scivias and the Liber divinorum operum she surveyed the course of salvation history from beginning to end, from the creation to the final judgment.⁹ In order to understand the present it was necessary to consider the past—the successive dispensations of grace before the birth of Christ—as well as the future, in which his work of salvation would at last be fulfilled. Hildegard's vision of the end, as set forth in Scivias III. 11-12, entails a grim succession of evils that most come to pass before the judgment. As elaborated in the Liber divinorum operum, however, her scenario for the last times represents neither a gradual improvement nor a progressive deterioration in the state of the world. On the contrary, history is now seen as "one thing after another"; ages of justice and injustice, each with its own deformations or reforms, would alternate until the coming of Antichrist. Hildegard did not presume to say when he would arrive, but she did frequently speak of her own era as an "effeminate age," which had succeeded the virginal epoch of paradise and the masculine epoch of the apostles and would in turn cede to still worse times. In one passage she even suggested that this effeminate age, signalled by the advent of feminine prophets, began around the time of her own birth.¹⁰ But as a rule, the succession of periods is not dated even in the flexible and teasing manner that is typical of apocalyptic. Later generations could and did interpret the prophecies as they pleased, inserting themselves into the sequence wherever they chose.¹¹

Notes

1. Barbara Newman, "Hildegard of Bingen: Visions and Validation," Church History 54 (1985), pp. 163-75; Christel Meier, "Prophetentum als literarische Existenz: Hildegard von Bingen," in Deutsche Literatur von Frauen I, ed. Gisela Brinker-Gabler (Munich, 1988) pp. 76-87.
2. Epistle to Guibert of Gembloux, Pitra, 332-33.
3. Letter to the monks of St. Disibod, Pitra, 354.
4. See Epistles 32, 33, 37, 42, 44, 66, 70, 74, 77, 78, 86, 100, 101, 108, and 112 in PL 197; Sabina Flanagan, "Hildegard of Bingen as Prophet: The Evidence of her Contemporaries," Tjurunga 32 (1987): 16-45.
5. Alfred Haverkamp, "Tenxwind von Andernach und Hildegard von Bingen: Zwei 'Weltanschauungen' in der Mitte des 12. Jahrhunderts," in Institutionen, Kultur und Gesellschaft im Mittelalter: Festschrift Für Josef Fleckenstein, ed. Lutz Fenske, Werner Rösener and Thomas Zotz (Sigmaringen, 1984): 515-48.
6. Jeffrey Russell, A History of Medieval Christianity: Prophecy and Order (Arlington Heights, 1968), p. 123.
7. Barbara Newman, Sister of Wisdom: St. Hildegard's Theology of the Feminine (Berkeley, 1987), chap. 6.
8. See Charles Czarski, The Prophecies of St. Hildegard of Bingen, diss., University of Kentucky, 1983; Kathryn Kerby-Fulton, The Voice of Honest Indignation: Reformist Apocalypticism and Piers Plowman (Cambridge, 1989), chap. 1.
9. Elisabeth Gössmann, "Zyklisches und Lineares Geschichtsbewusstsein im Mittelalter: Hildegard von Bingen, Johannes von Salisbury and Andere," in L'Homme et son univers au moyen âge,2 ed. Christian Wénin (Louvain, 1986), pp. 882-92.
10. Vita 2.16, PL 197: 102cd. Cf. PL 197: 167b, 185c, 254cd, 1005ab.
11. Cf. Robert Lerner, "Medieval Prophecy and Religious Dissent," Past & Present 72 (1976): 3-24.