Hildegard to the Abbot Ludwig(?)
The Letters
2. The book referred to is the Liber Divinorum Qperum, which was completed in this year. After Volmar's death, Ludwig, along with Hildegard's nephew Wezelinus, served for a short time as Hildegard's advisor.
Hildegard to the Abbot Ludwig(?) About 1173(?) After a disquisition on the varied humors of mankind, Hildegard applies the theory to the abbot's present circumstances: those in his community are of a humor that conflicts with his own.
The secret mysteries of God cannot be comprehended or known by those things which came forth at the beginning.* Yet all His judgments are just, because there is no lack in Him, for just as He was and is, He is. And just as a man is compacted of the elements, and the elements are joined into one, with none being of worth without the other, so too the dispositions of mankind are of varying kinds although they all arise from a single breath.
The dispositions of mankind exist in four modes: hard, airy, stormy, fiery.
The man who is "hard" is bitter in all his affairs. He consults no one else, but is pleased to handle all his affairs by himself alone. The mind of the man who is
"airy" is always vacillating, and, therefore, he fears God and shows restraint in sin, because he is displeased with everything he does. The "stormy" are unwise, and they act foolishly in whatever they do. For they are not edified by words of wisdom, but shudder at them with indignation. And, last, those who are "fiery" give themselves wholly over to the secular, and alienate themselves from the spiritual. They shun peace, and, wherever they see it, they do violence to it with their secular ambition.
But God takes note of the presumption of those who do not look obediently to Him, but, as if they do not need Him as helper and lawgiver, take all their affairs into their own hands. Yet God will sweep them with the broom of tribulation and adversity until, through penitence, they recall that they have not cherished and observed His commandments.
But God gathers all people of whatever disposition to Himself when they at last come to an understanding of those things that are contrary to their salvation, and turn once again to God: those who fear Him at last, like Saul [cf. Acts
22.1 ff] and many others.1 b O person, you who are called "father" after the highest Father, your sickness is the "airy" kind, and so you fear God greatly. Those in the sheepfold that God has committed to you, however, are "hard" and "stormy" and "fiery," and, therefore, they oppress you. There, you have no consoling ointment.