Hildegard to the
The Letters
Mount St. Rupert
Hildegard to the Congregati of Nuns Before 1153 This letter is a paean to the Holy Virgin, which Hildegard uses to encourage and uplift the daughters of her community.
The Lord says to His daughters: In ancient times the Holy Spirit inspired certain persons from a certain nation that had not yet become deceitful.1 Oh, Oh,
Oh! Afterwards, God placed Wisdom in the dawn. Ach, Ach, Ach! And He created in Himself a means to serve His purpose: a lofty mountain of justice. Woe,
Woe, Woe! Now the justice of that mountain has become like a shadow because of the gluttony of those going astray. But you, O strength of the mountain, you will not crumble completely, but will rise up into the high window where many eagles will look upon you.
O how great that entity, which did not lie hidden in any thing, so that, neither made nor created by anyone, it remains forever in itself alone. O life, you arose in the dawn when the great King mercifully revealed Wisdom, which in ancient days was with the Wise Man—mercifully, because woman entered death through the hole that the ancient traitor opened up. O grief, O sorrow, O woe for those who were formed in the woman!'
O dawn, in the form of the first rib, you washed these things away. O feminine form, sister of Wisdom, how glorious you are, for mighty life arose in you, and death will never choke it off. Wisdom lifted you up so that all creatures were adorned by you and brought into a better part than they had received in the beginning.1* Wherefore:2
Hail, O greenest bough, You who came forth in the mighty wind of the saints' searching.
When the time came that you flourished in your branches, you were greeted with "Ave, ave," for the heat of the sun brought forth from you a fragrance like the aroma of balsam.
In you the lovely flower blossomed and sent forth a fragrance to all the dried-up spices.
/ 60 The Letters of Hildegard of Bingen And they all burst forth in full viridity.
Then the heavens poured dew upon the grass and all the earth rejoiced, because her womb produced grain, and the birds of the air made their nests on that bough.
Then food was produced for mankind, and those who feasted rejoiced with great joy.
O sweet Virgin, joy is ever found in you.
But Eve scorned all these things.
Now, however, give praise to the Most High.3
Alleluia!
O branch4 that intercedes for us, your holy womb conquered death and illumined all creation with the beautiful flower that arose from the sweet chastity of your unsullied modesty.5
What does all this mean?
O how great a miracle it is that the King entered into a submissive feminine form.
God acted thus because humility is supreme over all things.
How great the felicity is in that sex because that malice— which had flowed from woman— was, later, wiped away by woman, and she brought forth the sweetest fragrance of the virtues, and adorned heaven more than woman had ever troubled earth.6
O radiant Virgin Mary, illumined by divine radiance, infused with the Word of God: your womb flowered forth at the entry of the Spirit of God, Who breathed upon you and sucked out of you that which Eve contracted
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when she cut herself off from chastity, infected with contagion at the devil's deception.
You miraculously concealed in yourself unsullied flesh in accordance with God's plan when the Son of God flourished in your womb.
Holy divinity brought Him forth contrary to the law of the flesh which Eve had established.
He was joined to wholeness in the holiness of the womb.7
Listen then, O human being, to this miracle:
Hail, Mary, Author of life by reestablishing salvation, you who overthrew death and crushed the serpent under your heel.
Eve raised herself before the serpent, stiff-necked and full of pride.
But you crushed the serpent when you bore the Son of God, come down from Heaven.
The Spirit of God breathed Him forth.
O sweet, loving mother, hail.
You brought forth into the world your Son sent from Heaven.'
What does this mean?
O refulgent mother of sacred healing, through your holy Son you have poured unguents into the weeping wounds of death that Eve wrought as torments for our souls.
You destroyed death and raised up life.
Pray for us to your Son, O star of the sea, Mary.
/ 62 The Letters of Hildegard of Bingen O source of life, gladsome ornament, sweetness of all delights, which will never fail in you!9
Today has the closed portal opened unto us, the gate which the serpent had choked off through woman.
Therefore, the flower born of the Virgin Mary radiates in the dawn.10
Because a woman brought death into the world, the radiant Virgin laid death low.
Therefore, supreme blessing is found in the feminine form beyond all creation, for God became man in that sweet, blessed Virgin.11
O how precious is the virginity of this Virgin, who kept her gate closed, and whose womb was so infused with the heat of holy divinity that a flower burgeoned in her.
And the Son of God came forth, like the dawn, from her secret place.
Thus the sweet seed, her Son, opened Paradise through her closed womb.12
Let the earth hear, let the elements tremble. Why? Because all creation joyfully received the One born of the Virgin, so that the heavens glowed like the dawn at the sudden appearance of the virtues and at the radiant strength that flashed in those virtues. For the Sun of truth breathed forth the complete sanctification of souls through that Virgin.
Therefore, O my daughters, hear Me, the living fountain, speaking to you:
Be filled with holy and elect viridity, not with the power of the devil that, sorely wounded, abandoned God. The good eye sees these words, the good ear hears them, but a mind of stone does not perceive them, for it abandons God and embraces the devil, thereby raising a lofty tower in hell. O wholesome and upright desires, how resplendent you are when your sweet fragrance rises to God!
But how hard it is for the human race to cast off the lust for worldly things.
Therefore, let my daughters hear these words: Primordial sin rashly and deceitfully choked off human work through a woman—woman, that turreted mountain in which the proper forms of upright feelings should have appeared, but which was instead cast out into lamentation. For the malevolent thief and
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great deceiver came and wrapped those feelings in the blackness of swift-moving sin and the stench of pollution, so that they could not be pure. Alas, alas, alas, for creation! Woe, woe, woe, for the world! Alas, alas, alas, for that perverse desire that inclined to death when it was cut off from heaven and set in hell, where the devil vomited it forth when he choked off innocence.
But the Son of God left this darkened desire behind, and it could not pass through the light. He came by another way where there was no guileful nature, and so through Him innocence rose again. And so He brought out the sons of Adam,13 born of perverted desire, drawing them to Himself by the wounds caused by the nails of the cross driven into His flesh. Thus He broke the bonds that bound them in the chain of the taste for wicked works, the teat of iniquity, and the delight of sin.
Therefore, O my daughters, remembering My Son, you ought always to crucify yourselves to your own concerns, so that you do not falter because of the deceitful tyrant. And, lest you fall from Me, do not let the poison of bitter wrath grow among you, nor a mind ablaze with pride, nor the vanity that rends asunder the glory of sanctification. Rather, let your joy be complete in Me [cf. John
16.24], and let your reward be the kingdom of heaven, and let holy peace be among you.
O daughters of Jerusalem [cf Cant 1.4], the Great Physician wants you to reach up to the highest desire for good, and no one can separate you from Him.
And so through the holy gift of God "increase and multiply" [Gen 1.22] over the mountains and hills of sanctification. Thus, may the earth cover with blessing whoever wishes to bless you, but whoever wishes to curse you will be cursed by the mighty Judge. For you are My mirror.
But what are you thinking in your hearts [cf. Mark 2.8]? You will find in Me that which I wish to perfect in you. What is this? It is justice. May you be steeped in the gift of God's grace so that you will not be overcome by the enemy. Therefore, do not abandon Me.
Notes 1. That is, the Jews.
2. Van Acker supplies only the first and last lines of the following musical compositions, referring the reader to Newman, Sympbonia, for the full text We have, therefore, employed Newman's edition for our rendering of the songs. The translations are, of course, ours. For a different rendering, see Newman, who supplies both a literal and a poetic translation.
3. Sympbonia 19, p. 126. After noting that the first stanza of this song is "an analogous verbal icon" to the ubiquitous tree-of-Jesse image in the Middle Ages, Newman goes on to observe (pp. 276–77) how skillfully the poet further develops the basic image by biblical quotation and allusion: "Christ's parable of the green tree and the dry tree
(Luke 23:31), the Advent antiphon beseeching dew from the heavens (Isa. 45:8), and the great tree of the Kingdom in which the birds of the air build their nests (Matt 13:32)."
4. That is, virga, the "branch" that intercedes. Note the play on virga/virgo.
5. Sympbonia 18, p. 124.
6. Sympbonia 16, p. 120.