Chapter XLIII

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[552] Migne, _Pat. Lat._ 195.

[553] The works of St. Hildegard of Bingen are published in vol. 197 of Migne’s _Pat. Lat._ and in vol. viii. of Pitra’s _Analecta sacra_, under the title _Analecta Sanctae Hildegardis opera Spicilegio Solesmensi parata_ (1882). Certain supplementary passages to the latter volume are published in _Analecta Bollandiana_, i. (Paris, 1882). These publications are completed by F. W. E. Roth’s _Lieder und die unbekannte Sprache der h. Hildegardis_ (Wiesbaden, 1880). The same author has a valuable article on Hildegard in _Zeitschrift für kirchliche Wissenschaft, etc._, 1888, pp. 453-471. See also an article by Battandier, _Revue des questions historiques_, 33 (1883), pp. 395-425. Other literature on Hildegard in Chevalier’s _Répertoire des sources historiques du moyen âge_, under her name.

Her two most interesting works, for our purposes at least, are the _Scivias_ (meaning _Scito vias Domini_), completed in 1151 after ten years of labour, and the _Liber vitae meritorum per simplicem hominem a vivente luce revelatorum_ (Pitra, _o.c._ pp. 1-244), begun in 1159, and finished some five years later. Extracts from these are given in the text. Other works show her extraordinary intellectual range. Of these the _Liber divinorum operum simplicis hominis_ (Migne 197, col. 741-1038) is a vision of the mysteries of creation, followed by a voluminous commentary upon the world and all therein, including natural phenomena, human affairs, the nature of man, and the functions of his mind and body. It closes with a discussion of Antichrist and the Last Times. The work was begun about 1164, when Hildegard finished the _Liber vitae meritorum_, and was completed after seven years of labour. She also wrote a Commentary on the Gospels, and sundry lives of saints, and there is ascribed to her quite a prodigious work upon natural history and the virtues of plants, the whole entitled: _Subtilitatum diversarum naturarum creaturarum libri IX._ (Migne 197, col. 1118-1351); and probably she composed another work on medicine, _i.e._ the unpublished _Liber de causis et curis_ (see Pitra, _o.c._, prooemium, p. xi.). Preger’s contention (_Geschichte der deutschen Mystik_, i. pp. 13-27, 1874) that the works bearing Hildegard’s name are forgeries, never obtained credence, and is not worth discussing since the publication of Pitra’s volume.

[554] _Analecta Sanctae Hildegardis opera Spicilegio Solesmensi parata_, p. 523; cf. _ibid._ p. 561; also _Ep._ 27 of Hildegard in Migne 197, col. 186.

[555] These questions and Hildegard’s solutions are given in Migne 197, col. 1038-1054, and the letter in Pitra, _o.c._ 399-400.

[556] Pitra, _o.c._ 394, 395.

[557] By _visio_ as used here, Hildegard refers to the general undefined light--the _umbra viventis lucis_, in which she saw her special visions.

[558] Pitra, _o.c._ 332.

[559] This is from the prologue to the _Scivias_, Pitra, _o.c._ 503, 504 (Migne 197, 483, 484). Guibert in his _Vita_ speaks of Hildegard as _indocta_ and unable to penetrate the meaning of Scripture _nisi cum vis internae aspirationis illuminans eam juvaret_, Pitra, _o.c._ 413. Compare Hildegard’s prooemium to her _Life of St. Disibodus_ (Pitra, _o.c._ 357) and the preface to her _Liber divinorum operum_ (Migne 197, 741, 742).

[560] Guibertus to Radilfus, a monk of Villars (Pitra, _o.c._ 577) apparently written in 1180.

[561] Pitra, _o.c._ pp. 1-244.

[562] Pitra, _o.c._ pp. 8-10. The translation is condensed, but is kept close to the original.

[563] _Ibid._ p. 13.

[564] Pitra, _o.c._ p. 24.

[565] _Ibid._ p. 51 _sqq._

[566] Pitra, _o.c._ p. 92 _sqq._

[567] _Ibid._ p. 131 _sqq._ Of course, one at once thinks of the punishments in Dante’s _Inferno_, which in no instance are identical with those of Hildegard, and yet offer common elements. Dante is not known to have read the work of Hildegard.

[568] Pitra, _o.c._ pp. 230-240. I am not clear as to Hildegard’s ideas of Purgatory, for which she seems to have no separate region. In the case of sinners who have begun, but not completed, their penances on earth, the punishments described work _purgationem_, and the souls are loosed (_ibid._ p. 42). In Part III. of the work we are considering, the paragraphs describing the punishments are entitled _De superbiae_, _invidiae_, _inobedientiae_, _infidelitatis_, etc., _poenis purgatoriis_ (_ibid._ p. 130). But each paragraph is followed by one entitled _De poenitentia superbiae_, etc., and the _poenitentia_ referred to is worked out with penance in this life. Consequently it is not quite clear that the word _purgatoriis_ attached to _poenis_ signifies temporary punishment to be followed by release.

In a vision of the Last Times (_ibid._ p. 225) Hildegard sees “black burning darkness,” in which was _gehenna_, containing every kind of horrible punishment. She did not then see _gehenna_ itself, because of the darkness surrounding it; but heard the frightful cries. Cf. _Aeneid_, vi. 548 _sqq._

[569] This is the view expounded so grandly by Hugo of St. Victor in his _De sacramentis_, _post_,