Hildegard to the Brother
The Letters of Hildegard of Bingen He will not, once the spirit of blasphemy, which has for too long assailed my unhappy spirit, has been put to rout.
I also request this of your abundant goodness: Please, saintly lady, send me, puny creature that I am, a written response through the present messenger. And offer to your nuns, who follow the monastic way of life, as many greetings and prayers from me as there are dwellings in the eternal mansions of the Lord [cf.
John 14.2], Farewell.
178r Hildegard to the Brother Before 1173 Hildegard offers penitence as the only remedy for the brother's sins.
Your mind wheels like a bird, arranging and categorizing everything it encounters. Your beginning was consecrated because you have been so imbued with God's grace that you are able to lay hold of virtue and many other noble attributes.
Some people, however, have winds in their disposition, and because of the viridity and humidity of the earth, and the air and the waters, their minds are subject to sensuality.* For God was pleased to say, "Let there be" [cf. Gen 1.3ff], at which word all creation came forth according to its kind, as it is written: "God hath spoken once, these two things have I heard, that power belongeth to God, and mercy to thee, O Lord; for thou wilt render to every man according to his works" [Ps 61.12-13]. For with his command God created all things, and He did this once for all time when He said, "Let there be." In this, two things are to be understood: that His power was great in giving man the law, and that He Who rules all things by mercy paid the ancient debt through His Incarnation, for He forgives the sin of all who see and understand these things through penitence.
But He casts off those who will not see or learn, and He exacts righteous retribution from them according to their works.
God cast the first angel into the lake of misery because he had unrighteously exalted himself, and He cast the first man into the prison of this world because of his foolish vainglory. For God has established nothing in vain. The first angel had great knowledge and wisdom, but out of his great malice he would not render God His due honor, and thus he fell and has remained fallen. Man, however, fell because he tasted food, and for this reason the Son of God offered Himself as a sacrifice for his sin. Thus when a man recalls that he has greatly sinned through his knowledge of good and evil and sighs out to God, he is reborn in God through penitence [cf.John 3.3].
As for you, O son, keep learning day and night so that you may live forever.