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HILDEGARD OF BINGEN: SELECTED WRITINGS
Mark Atherton (Commentator and Translator)
Account of Hildegard's Vision to her friend, Gilbert of Gembloux:
“From my early childhood, before my bones, nerves and veins were fully strengthened, I have always seen this vision in my soul, even to the present time when I am more than seventy years old. In this vision my soul, as God would have it, rises up high into the vault of heaven and into the changing sky and spreads itself out among different peoples, although they are far away from me in distant lands and places. And because I see them this way in my soul, I observe them in accord with the shifting of clouds and other created things. I do not hear them with my outward ears, nor do I perceive them by the thoughts of my own heart or by any combination of my five senses, but in my soul alone, while my outward eyes are open. So I have never fallen prey to ecstasy in the visions, but I see them wide awake, day and night. And I am constantly fettered by sickness, and often in the grip of pain so intense that it threatens to kill me, but God has sustained me until now. The light which I see thus is not spatial, but it is far, far brighter than a cloud which carries the sun. I can measure neither height, nor length, nor breadth in it; and I call it “the reflection of the living Light.” And as the sun, the moon, and the stars appear in water, so writings, sermons, virtues, and certain human actions take form for me and gleam."
(https://maypoleofwisdom.com/hildegard-of-bingen/)
And behold, in the forty-third year of my passing course, while I was intent upon a heavenly vision with great fear and tremulous effort, I saw a great splendour, in which a voice came from heaven saying to me:
'O weak mortal, both ash of ash and rottenness of rottenness, say and write what you see and hear. But because you are fearful in speaking and simple in explaining and unlearned in writing these things, say and write them not according to human speech nor the understanding of human creativity nor according to the will of human composition, but according to this rule: that you reveal by interpreting the things you see and hear among heavenly matters from above, in the wonders of God, just as also a hearer receiving his teacher's words makes them known according to the tenor of his speech, as he wishes, shows, and teaches. So then you also, o mortal -- speak the things you see and hear; and write them not according to yourself or any other person, but according to the will of the One Who knows, sees, and disposes all things in the hidden places of his mysteries.'
And again I heard a voice from heaven saying to me: 'Therefore speak these wonderful things and write and say them in the manner they were taught.'
This happened in AD 1141 when I was 42 years and 7 months old: A fiery light, of the greatest flashing brightness, coming out of a cloudless sky, flooded my entire mind and so inflamed my whole heart and my whole breast like a flame -- yet it was not blazing but glowing hot, as the sun makes anything on which its rays fall hot. And I suddenly experienced the understanding of the exposition of books, that is, of the Psalter, the Gospel, and of the other orthodox volumes of both the Old and the New Testaments, but nevertheless I did not thereby enjoy the interpretation of the words of their text, nor the division of syllables, nor a knowledge of cases and tenses.
But indeed I had already experienced (as I was still doing) in myself in a wondrous manner the power and mystery of hidden and wonderful visions from my girlhood, that is, from the time that I was five years old, right up until the present time. But I did not make that known to any person except to a certain few, also in the religious life, who were living the way of life as I was also myself. But in the meantime up to that time at which God desired this to be made manifest by His grace, I sank down beneath a quiet silence. But I have not received the visions that I saw in dreams, neither while I was sleeping nor in a frenzy; nor with bodily eyes nor with the ears of the outer person nor in hidden places. But I received them while waking and attentive, in a clear mind, with the eyes and ears of the inner person, in open places, according to God's will. It is difficult for any one of flesh and blood to find out how this comes about.
But to resume, when my girlhood was past, after I had come to the aforesaid age of full physical strength, I heard a voice from heaven saying:
'I am the living yet obscure Light, enlightening the person whom I wish and whom I have searched out wonderfully according to My pleasure and placed among many wonders beyond the limit of the people of old, who saw so many hidden things in Me. But I have overthrown that one upon the ground that he may not rise up in any mental self-exaltation. Indeed the world does not have in him any joy or pleasure nor any activity in matters that belong to the world because I have drawn that one away from stubborn boldness, to be one who is fearful and trembling in his labours. For that person sorrows in the marrow and veins of his flesh, having soul and senses constrained and enduring great bodily suffering, so that no conflicting sense of peace may lie concealed in him but rather that that person may judge himself guilty in all his causes. For I have hedged about the clefts of his heart, lest his mind raise itself up in pride or glory but rather that in all these things it would have fear and sorrow rather than joy or exuberance. Therefore in my love this one searched in his soul for where to find the one who runs in the way of salvation. And he finds the other and loves him, recognising that that one too is a faithful person and like himself in any part of that labour that leads to Me. And holding one another fast, they strive together in all these things with the eagerness from above so that My hidden wonders may be revealed. And that same person does not rely upon himself but turns with many sighs toward the one that he found in the approach to humility and the intention of good will. You therefore, o mortal, who receive this, not in the disquiet of deceit but in the purity of simplicity, having been directed toward the revealing of hidden things -- write what you see and hear.'
But I, although I did see and hear this, nevertheless because of doubt and a bad opinion and the diversity of men's words refused to write for a long time -- not out of obstinacy but as an office of humility -- until I lay on a bed of sickness, struck down by God's lash so that finally, compelled by many infirmities -- as a certain noble young woman of good morals and that person whom I had sought secretly and found, as is explained above, can testify -- I set my hand to write. While I was doing this, even while experiencing the deep profundity of the books' exposition, as I said before, and receiving the strength to lift myself out of my illness, I scarcely closed this work, taking 10 years to do so.
In the days of Henry, archbishop of Mainz and Conrad, king of the Romans, and Cuno, abbot of Disibodenberg, under Pope Eugenius, these visions and works took place.
And I have spoken and written them not according to the imagination of my heart nor that of any mortal but just as I have seen, heard, and received them among heavenly things by the hidden mysteries of God.
(http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~young/protest.html)
The "macrocosm" and "microcosm" association is to be taken literally, in that the human being is the pivotal point of creation, with an infinity of space above us, and an infinity of detail below us. In that, our imagination is not limited, nor is our attention to detail limited. This is most characterized by the phenomenon of light, both a wave that impossibly travels through an empty medium (unlike electronic or acoustic waves that travel through air, or ocean waves that travel through water, and an almost immeasurable small particle that can become a wave simultaneously.
Unlike the common notion in the Middle Ages that the cosmos (the universe) was round, surrounding a round earth, Hildegard gives its shape as an egg, a mystery of creation in its shape: the top end is small, and then it widens, and become even smaller until the view of it terminates. Just so time, which begin with the act of creation, widens to expand in space, then tapers down until there is nothing to see. For Hildegard this was not the absolute terror of the Apocalypse, but rather the suffering and sorrow that naturally accompanies the end of all things, as is explained, below. The egg also portrays the physical construction of the human being, with a small head, larger body, and a taper down to the feet.
Its outer layer consisted of an atmosphere of bright fire with a kind of dark membrane beneath it.
In medieval thought, each of the four elements, fire, air, water, and earth, were attracted to its own proper place in the universe (attraction is a form of love, that pervaids all things). We still have this in the hydraulic engineering axiom, "Water seeks its own level." Since fire naturally ascends, it is seeking its own proper place, at the edge of the universe. The "dark membrane" is air, with hailstones and lighning. The green trios of men bowing to the North (the left) and the West (the bottom) were cartographal conventions deplicting the source of wind.
>And in that outer atmosphere there was a ball of red fire so large that all the huge form was lit up by it. Directly above the fireball was a vertical row of three lights which held it with their fire and energy and prevented it from falling.
The ball is the sun, and it is powerful as the enabler of all vision. The three smaller suns above may be the Trinity, holding the sun in its place, so that there will neither be darkness as it disappears, or, more likely, utter annihilation if it falls to earth.
At times the fireball rose upwards and was met by more fire, which caused it to shoot out great long flames.
At times, however, the fireball moved downwards and encountered a region of great cold that caused it quickly to retract its flames.
From the outer atmosphere of fire, a wind blew storms. And from the time the dark membrane beneath, another wind raged with further storms which moved out in all directions on the globe. The dark membrane contained also a dark fire of such horror that I was unable to perceive it properly. The horror buffeted the dark membrane with a massive impact of sounds and storms and sharp stones great and small.[2] Whenever the noise arose it set in motion the layer of bright fire, winds and air, thus causing bolts of lightning to presage the sounds of thunder; for the fiery energy senses the first agitations of the thunder within it.
"Energy" is central to Hildegard's vision.
Below the dark layer, however, was the purest of ether with no membrane beneath it. Here also I saw a fireball, of great magnitude, filled with white-shining energy; it had two lights placed above it which held it and prevented it from passing beyond the circuit of its course. Situated everywhere throughout the ether were many bright spheres, into which the white fireball discharged its energy at regular intervals. It then rose up again to the red fireball where it recharged its fires and sent them forth again into the bright spheres. The ether also contained a wind, which poured out its storms and extended them all over the cosmos.
The round globe is the moon, and the stars are, well, stars, all having their own energy, feeding all of with life.
Beneath the ether I could see a layer of watery air, which had a white membrane beneath it. It spread out everywhere, giving off water to the whole of the world. At times it accumulated quickly and sent out a sudden fall of rain with a great crash. But when it spread gently it sent forth soft rain with only gentle agitation. But from it there came a wind and storms which spread all over the globe.
This of course is water, which is seen as surround the earth with vapor, as well as oceans.
And in the middle of these elements there was a sandy ball of great size which was so surrounded by these elements that it could not move in any direction. However, when the winds collided with the elements, the force of their impact set the whole world in motion a little.
This is the earth, called "sandy," which isn't bad considering the universality of silicates. A mountain appears to the North, the place of the devil.
And I saw between the north and the east the likeness of a great mountain, which showed great areas of darkness towards the north and a great light towards the east.[3] The darkness could not affect the light nor the light the darkness.
And again I heard a voice speaking to me from heaven.
God, who created all things in his will, made them so that his name would be known and honoured. Through his creation he not only makes known visible and temporal things but also invisible and eternal things.[4] Such matters are shown in this vision which you see.
‘I saw a huge form, rounded and shadowy, and shaped like an egg; it was pointed at the top, wide in the middle and narrower at the bottom.’ The large form which you see represents, on the level of faith, the omnipotent God, incomprehensible in his majesty, inconceivable in his mysteries, the hope of all the faithful. It was pointed at the top because at first human activity was naïve and simple; later in the Old and New Testaments it became more wide-ranging; finally towards the end of the world it is to endure the narrow constriction of many troubles.
‘And in that outer atmosphere there was a ball of red fire so large that all the huge form was lit up by it.’ With the splendour of his brightness he shows that in God the Father is his ineffable firstborn son, the Sun of Justice, shining with burning love in such glory that all of creation was lit up by the brightness of his light.
‘Directly above the fireball was a vertical row of three lights which held it with their fire and energy and prevented it from falling.’ The function of the three lights is to show that when God’s Son descended from heaven to earth leaving the angels above him, he made known the things of the heavens to human beings existing in soul and body. By following his light they glorify him, casting all harmful error from them. They praise him as the true Son of God, who became incarnate of the true Maiden when the angel proclaimed him to them and when the human being – alive in soul and body – received him with faith and joy.
‘And in the middle of these elements there was a sandy ball of great size which was so surrounded by these elements that it could not move in any direction.’ The ball represents humanity endowed with the gift of profound contemplation, made in a wonderful manner from the clay of the earth, and living in the strength of the creatures of God. Human beings are so surrounded by the power of God’s created things that they cannot be separated from them. The elements of the world are thus created for human beings and render them their service.[5] In the midst of the elements is the human being presiding over them by divine ordinance. As David says, inspired by God:
‘Thou hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands.’[6] This means that you, O God, have wonderfully created all things. You have crowned the human being with the splendid golden crown of the understanding and clothed him with the honourable robe of visible beauty. You have made him the ruler over your exalted and perfect works, which you have distributed justly and well throughout your creation. Over all other creatures you have granted the human being high worth and admirable dignity.
You see in the vision that opposing winds come together, and the force of their impact sets the whole globe in motion a little. For when at any given time the creatures of God become involved with the knowledge of their Creator, so that with the sounding of the words one wonder follows another, then human beings, struck by the grandeur of this miracle, tremble in body and soul, pondering, in their wonder at this miracle, their own weakness and frailty.