Hildegard to the Abbot Adelbert
The Letters
Hildegard to the Abbot Adelbert Before 1170 Another letter of advice to Adelbert, this one stressing the monastic virtue of stability. In response, apparently, to an inquiry about a religious pilgrimage,
Hildegard advises the abbot to attend to his duties and govern his flock with proper responsibility.
Bear your burden faithfully in the straight paths, and keep your sheep in line to the best of your ability. For this is better for you than pilgrimages to foreign lands, because God has the same power over the works of man in all places.1 And with God's help, keep your mind from wandering about, like the day that shifts capriciously between bright sunshine and violent storm. For sometimes your mind is, as it were, in such a heightened state of holiness that you can scarcely bear it, but, at others, it is troubled by weariness and other such hindrances.a Now, therefore, rise up into the proper warmth of the purest sun, because although you are in many ways restricting your sacrifice to Him, God still wants you [cf. Ps 21.9], because He has established you as His very eye.b Therefore, do not withdraw from Him.
Note 1. This passage calls to mind St. Jerome's famous dictum: "Non Hierosolymis fuisse, sed Hierosolymis bene uixisse laudandum est," that is, "It is praiseworthy not to have been in Jerusalem but to have lived well in Jerusalem," where the second Jerusalem clearly stands for "the holy," or "heavenly" Jerusalem. Jerome's admonition was frequently cited in the twelfth century, especially in seeking to dissuade monastics from engaging in spiritual travel, for pilgrimage, in one sense at least, was in sharp conflict with the monastic emphasis on stabilitas. See Giles Constable, Religious Life and Thought, especially the chapters "Monachisme et pelerinage au Moyen Age" and "Opposition to Pilgrimage in the Middle Ages."