‘SELECTED WRITINGS’ – Saint Hildegard of Bingen Translated by Mark Atherton – ‘Scivias I; pages 51-56
[Saint HILDEGARD OF BINGEN ~ XI-XII Century AD; Bermersheim, Holy Roman Empire/Bingen am Rhein, Holy Roman Empire, aged 81; Abbess, Polymath, Writer, Composer, Mystic, Visionary, Philosopher, Medical Writer and Practitioner, Composer of Sacred Monophony, Virgin, Founder, Doctor of the Church]“2. The Action of the Will (from Scivias I, 4)
/Comments: In a series of images based on her concept of ‘greenness’, this digression in the middle of Scivias 1, 4 presents some of Hildegard’s ideas on anthropology. Perhaps written before the letter to Bernard, it has been compared to writings by Hugh of St Victor and Honorius of Autun and reveals how widely read she must have been, especially as she did not base the passage on one particular identifiable source. Drawing on wide knowledge, Hildegard describes her understanding of such ideas as the relation of soul and body, human understanding and the action of the will./
“17. How the soul reveals its capabilities according to the capabilities of the body
The soul reveals her capabilities according to the capabilities of the body, so that in childhood she brings forth simplicity, in youth strength, and in the fullness of age, when all the veins of the human being are full, she brings forth her greatest strength in wisdom. In the same way a tree in its first growth brings forth tender shoots, goes on then to bear fruit and finally ripens that fruit to the fullness of utility. But afterwards in old age when a human being’s bones and veins incline to weakness, then the soul reveals gentler strengths, as though tired of human knowledge. In the same way, at the onset of wintertime, the sap of the tree withdraws from the leaves and branches as the tree begins to incline towards old age.
18. The human being contains three paths
A human being contains three paths: namely, soul, body and senses. On these three paths, human life runs its course. The soul fills the body with life and brings forth the senses; for its part the body attracts the soul to it and opens the senses; in turn the senses touch the body and draw the soul to them. The soul provides the body with life like fire flooding the darkness with light; it has two major powers like two arms: the understanding and the will. Not that the soul has these limbs to move herself about; rather she reveals herself in these two powers like the sun manifesting itself in the splendour of its light. Therefore human being, you are not a bundle of veins; pay attention to the knowledge of the scriptures.
19. Human understanding
Human understanding is connected to the soul like the arms to the body. For just as the arm is joined to the hand and the hand to the fingers, so also there is no doubt that understanding proceeds from the soul and activates the other powers of the soul, by which it knows and recognizes human actions. For over all the other powers of the soul it is understanding which distinguishes what is good from what is bad in human actions.
Understanding is therefore a teacher through whom all things are known, for in this way he shakes out all things just as the wheat is separated from the stalks and husks; he examines what things are useful and what are useless, what things are lovable and what are hateful, what things belong to life and what to death.
Just as food without salt is bland, so also the other powers of the soul are weak and unknowing without it. Understanding is in the soul like the shoulders in the body, acting as the moving force behind the other powers of the soul, giving them strength like the shoulders give strength to the body. It is flexible, like the bend of the arm, discerning both the divine and the human in God. Thus human understanding works with true faith, for like the articulation of the fingers of the hand it can distinguish between many diverse actions. It therefore operates differently from the other forces of the soul. Why is this?
20. The will
The will warms an action, the mind receives it, and thought bodies it forth. The understanding, however, discerns an action by the process of knowing good and evil just as the angels also have an understanding that loves good and hates evil. And just as the body has a heart, so too the soul has understanding, which exercises its power in one part of the soul just as the will does in another.
How does this happen? The will in fact has great power in the soul. How does this come about? The soul stands, so to speak, in the corner of the house, that is, in the firm support of the heart, like a man standing in the corner of a house in order to survey the whole house and supervise its running. He raises his right arm to give a sign and points out things useful to the house as he turns towards the east. The soul does likewise on the roadways of the whole body when she looks towards the rising of the sun. The soul uses the will, as it were like her right arm, as a firm support for the veins and the bones and the movement of the whole body, for the will directs every action, whether for good or ill.
21. The parable of the fire and the bread
The will is like a fire baking every action in an oven. 2 Bread is baked in order to feed people and strengthen them so that they can live. The will is the force behind the whole of the action. It grinds the action in a mill, it adds yeast and kneads it firmly and thus carefully prepares the action, like a loaf of bread which the will bakes to perfection in the heat of its zeal. In so doing it provides human beings with a better food than bread for the activities they do. For while food is taken into the human body and used up, the action of the will endures within the human being until the separation of the soul from the body. And although the action will vary greatly in childhood, in youth, in maturity and in the declining years, nevertheless the will directs it stage by stage and brings it to perfection.
Image: Hildegard of Bingen ~ ‘Liber Divinorum Operum’, I-1, Lucca, MS_1942_fol_1v
‘Liber Divinorum Operum’ = ‘Book of Divine Works’
Music: Hildegard von Bingen. Antiphon – ‘O aeterne Deus’
‘O aeterne Deus’ = ‘O Eternal God’
>>> youtube.com/watch?v=l0esvFWFlyE