Hildegard to the Abbot
The Letters of Hildegard of Bingen ness to me, and begged me to send him to you, blessed lady, with a letter of recommendation.
Therefore, O servant of Christ, I commend him to your devout compassion, humbly beseeching you for the love of God almighty to labor with all your might, in concert with those you govern, for his salvation. Furthermore, O beloved of God, I ask you of your maternal goodness to deign to continually pray to Christ for me and those in my care—to Christ, the recompense and recompenserof the labors of His saints. Amen.
Farewell.
Note 1. Strictly speaking, a provisor was a kind of administrator who attended to the secular affairs of the monastery. Designating administrative duties as it did, however, the term tended to be ambiguous, sometimes specifying the office of abbot itself. Thus note that what Van Acker takes as the response to this letter has "abbot" in the heading, while at least one MS supplies the heading "Letter of St. Hildegard to that same provisor."
183r Hildegard to the Abbot Before 1170 Hildegard exhorts the correspondent to watch over his sheep, for clouds of unbelief are settling among spiritual people.
"He Who Is" [Ex 3.14; Apoc 1.4] says: Look all around you, O man, and drive off those who lie in wait for your sheep. Take care also to examine their wounds, because multitudinous clouds, filled with vice, are drifting among spiritual people.
And when the devil sees these clouds upon some person, he quickly subjects him to persuasive suggestions insidiously, causing him to run in all directions impelled by his flying shafts.
These clouds are the vexation and disbelief resulting from sin, which bring penalties rather than banquets, because misery is found wherever these are. Victory is rare, and the veins of these people are arid when they examine their sins in their unsettled minds, for they always seek out infelicity, believing that they cannot be saved, denying even the glory of God, not, to be sure, as if God did not exist, but as if a kind of cloud overshadowed their knowledge, suggesting these things to them with deceptive words. But if a person staunchly resists these suggestions, he understands that this is not reality but only his perception, just as a person's auditory sense picks up foul words but knows them to be wicked.
Therefore, if a person refuses to translate vicious thoughts into actions, these penalties often lead to martyrdom.