Hildegard of Bingen: Commentary On The Johannine Prologue
Hildegard of Bingen: Commentary On The Johannine Prologue
COMMENTARY ON THE
JOHANNINE PROLOGUE
HILDEGARD
OF BINGEN
I
n the dramatic rediscovery of medieval women mystics in the late
twentieth century, perhaps no figure has fired the popular imagina-
tion more widely or implausibly than Hildegard of Bingen (1098-
1179). Born over nine hundred years ago in the Rhineland, St. Hildegard
lived in an age that might seem to us impossibly remote, before the
beginning of the world as we know it. In the twelfth century, we like to
imagine, the world was young. Troubadours sang of love as if they had
invented it; knights went in quest of the Holy Grail as if they might
actually find it; and Bernard of Clairvaux expounded the Song of Songs as
if he were the first to discover God. “0that he would kiss me with the
kisses of his mouth!” In our historical naivetk, we might imagine that the
twelfth century was an Age of Faith when religion was easy. The Refor-
mation and the breakup of Christendom lay far in the future, and no one
had ever dreamed of Feuerbach or Freud, Darwin or Derrida.
Hildegard, however, looked around her and saw a world grown old, a
society on the verge of senility. Civil war, corruption in high places, and
clerical sex scandals were the order of the day, and the holier the office, the
more cynically it was bought and sold. We at least can feel confident that,
whatever the failings of our local bishop, he is not likely to impose an
enormous tax on our city in order to wage war against the pope, then
excommunicate us all for refusal to pay it and wind up assassinated amid
mass riots. Yet that is what happened to Hildegard’s prelate, the archbishop
of Mainz, during her lifetime. Disgusted with the arrogance and self-
indulgence of their leaders, the best and the brightest were leaving the
church in droves to join the Cathars, an impressively chaste sect of heretics
who despised the world so perfectly that their contempt extended even to
vision, the eternal is sovereign over the past as well as the present: Only
the eternal is neither past nor passing. In the words of an ancient hymn to
Christ, “This is he who was from the beginning, who appeared as new,
who was found to be old, who is ever born young in the hearts of the
saint^."^
What could it mean to be created in the image of this God, who is
eternal life and never-setting light? Hildegard’s vision of human grandeur
may seem at first profoundly alien to us, accustomed as we are to thinking
of ourselves as fractured postmodern subjects on a globe spinning out of
control. But if readers will pardon an irreverent comparison, the medieval
visionary’s worldview is rather like a comic scene in Douglas Adams’s
science fiction novel, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. Adams’s
fantasy features an amazing machine called the Total Perspective Vortex,
said to be the most horrible instrument of capital punishment ever in-
vented. This machine gives its victim “just one momentary glimpse of the
entire unimaginable infinity of creation, and somewhere in it a tiny little
marker, a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot, which says ‘You are
here.’ ” Faced with such a vision, the victim’s brain is completely anni-
hilated and he perishes with a howl of terror. One day, a lovable villain
named Zaphod Beeblebrox is sentenced to death in the Vortex. But instead
of dying, he emerges thirsty, ravenous, and awed by the beauties of
creation. Astonished, the executioner asks how he survived the experience,
and Beeblebrox says that he “had seen the whole Universe stretching to
infinity around him-everything. And with it had come the clear and
extraordinary knowledge that he was the most important thing in it.”4
died. That day came when she was only forty-four. Hildegard must have
learned something from Jutta’s example, because she herself always
stressed moderation and balance in ascetic practices. That is one reason
she has become a darling of the holistic health movement.
There is something even more profound in her view of the body that
stems from her theology of the Incarnation. Whether we love or hate our
own bodies, we tend to think of them as ours. For Hildegard, though, the
human form was quite literally the form of God: “the flesh that he
cherished in burning love” because he meant to wear it as his royal
vesture. The body as God’s image is a doctrine she works out in detail,
and, admittedly, much of what she has to say now sounds merely quaint
and archaic. Beyond the curiosities, however, is an uncannily daring idea.
The human body, in all its particularity, is not only an image of the cosmos
(“microcosm” is the technical term), but also an image of God’s holiness:
In the circle of the brain, God reveals his lordship, for the brain governs and
rules the whole body. In the hair of the head, God designates his potential,
which is his beauty, just as the hair beautifies the head. In the eyebrows, he
demonstrates his might, for the brows protect a person’s eyes and set off the
beauty of the face. In the eyes, God declares his knowledge, by which he
foresees and foreknows all. And, in the hearing, he discloses all the sounds of
praise of the angelic hosts. In the nostrils, God signifies wisdom, which is the
fragrant observance of order in all skills, so that, by its fragrance, a person
may recognize what wisdom ordains. By the mouth, God designates his
Word . . .
and so forth right down to the feet, which symbolize the faith that moves
mountains-“for just as the feet support the whole body and carry it
wherever it wants to go, faith mightily supports and magnificently carries
the name of God everywhere with miracles.”
“The living Light that made us is the singing Word that took
our flesh; he made us because we were eternally his and he
wished to be revealed as ours. We are his mirrors, his
marvels, his fellow workers, and the work of his hands.”
HILDEGARD’S
COMMENTARY ON THE JOHANNINE PROLOGUE
Word was with God as language exists in rationality, for rationality has
language within it and language exists in rationality: and these two are not
divided. For the Word existed without beginning before the beginning of
creatures, and also within their beginning; and the same Word was with
God, in no way divided from God, both before the beginning and in the
beginning of creatures. For, in his Word, God willed that his Word should
create all things, as he had foreordained before the ages. And why is it
called “Word”? Because, with a resounding voice, it awakened all crea-
tures and called them to itself. For what God composed in the Word is
what the Word commanded in sounding; and what the Word commanded
is what God composed in the Word. And so the Word was God. For the
Word was in God, and in it God composed all his will in secret: and the
Word sounded and brought forth all creatures: and thus the Word and God
are one. When the Word of God resounded, it called to itself all creation,
which had been preordained and prepared in God before time, and by its
voice all things were awakened to life. God also placed a sign of this truth
in man, who inwardly composes a word in his heart before he utters it. Just
as the unspoken word is still present in its utterance, so the inner word
exists within the spoken word. When the Word of God resounded, the
same Word appeared in every creature, and the same sound was life in all
creation.
So too, from the same word, human rationality accomplishes its works,
and from the same sound, it expresses those works in speaking, shouting,
and singing. For by the keenness of his slull with created things, a person
makes music with stringed instruments and drums, because man is ratio-
nal, after the image of God, on account of his living soul. This soul with
its warmth draws to itself the flesh, in which there appears the first figure
created by the finger of God, the figure that he formed in Adam. The soul
completely permeates the flesh, giving it life and replenishing it from its
own fullness to make it grow. For the flesh does not move itself without
the rational soul; rather, it is the soul that moves the flesh and gives it life.
For the flesh is to the rational soul as all creatures are to the Word. That
is why the Word created man in the Father’s will. But just as a person
would not be human without the network of his blood vessels, so too he
could not live without other creatures. Because man is mortal, he does not
bestow life on his own work, for his life has its beginning from God. It is
God who gives life to his work, for he himself is life without beginning.
This Word was in the beginning with God, that is, in the beginning about
which my servant Moses speaks, inspired by me, saying, In the beginning
God created heaven and earth. For the Word that said, Let there be, as it
is written, And God said, let there be light, existed in God in the beginning,
when the creation received its origin from the Creator. The Word was with
God, that is, in the unique equality of the divine; for this Word that is with
God is equal to him in divinity, since the Word that is in God is inseparable
from God and consubstantial with him.
Thus all things were made by him, for all creatures were made by the
Word of God as the Father willed: there is no Creator save God alone. All
Hildegard of Bingen 25
useful things that possess form and vitality were made by him. In our arms
and the fingers that are joined to them, he reveals the strength of the
firmament, with the signs that uphold and govern it, just as the arms, with
the fingers of the hands, manifest the rule and activity of the whole body.
The right hand is like the south wind, the left hand like the north wind,
which together support the firmament so that it does not overstep its
bounds, as it is written: And in all of these a great chasm has been set
between us and you, that is, lest the darkness extinguish the light or the
light expel the darkness.
And without him nothing was made, for without the Word of God no
creature was fashioned. Through the Word of God there arose every
creature, whether visible or invisible, that subsists in any degree of
being-with a living spirit or viridity or virtue. Without him nothing was
made except evil, which is from the devil-and therefore it was cast away
from the sight of God and brought to nothing; for there is only one God
and no other. Rational man, to whom God gave the ability to work,
committed sin, which comes to nothing because it was not created by God.
For this “nothing” God established endless darkness, because it rejected
and fled from the light.
But what was made in him was l$e. For all things that were created
appeared in their Creator’s reason because they existed in his foreknowl-
edge. They were not coeternal with him, yet they were foreknown,
foreseen, and foreordained by him. God is the only life that had no
beginning. Therefore all that was made in him was life, because it was
foreknown by him and alive to him. God never began to hold creation in
his memory, since he had never forgotten it: It already existed in his
foreknowledge, even though it did not yet exist temporally in its own
forms. For just as it is impossible for God not to be, so it is impossible that
those works which had been foreknown and foreordained in his wisdom
should not have come forth as creatures. What was made in creation
existed in God as unending life, because it was to be created in such a way
that the finished creature should lack nothing, and nothing should keep it
from attaining full maturity in the course of its growth. In the same way,
the works a person does for himself are ‘‘life’’ to him insofar as they
sustain his life, because he maintains and perfects himself through them,
God, however, is the fullness of life without beginning or end, so even his
work is life in him, work that can by no means be mocked. God has sealed
this principle in the breast, where a person gathers everything in his
thoughts, both good and evil. In the process of desiring, planning, and
setting forth to act, he considers what should please and displease him.
Whatever pleases him he gladly keeps, so that it may preserve his life, and
whatever displeases him he casts away in anger, lest it harm his life.
So, all that God made is life in the Word, for, coming from God, it is
lively in its nature. Therefore, just as the Word of the Father gave people
carnal life when he created them, so also, when he put on his robe, he
showed them spiritual life, so that by following an unfamiliar way of life
and not walking in accord with the flesh, they might spread throughout the
26 Theology Today
The true light illumines every man coming into this world. For this light
suffuses with the breath of life every human being who has flesh and bones
and enters into the present world of change, growth, and decay through the
gate of birth, so that, when the sun with its luminaries has welcomed him,
he may see and recognize creatures. For God awakened the first man that
he formed from clay with the living spark of the soul, so that, by that
spark, he might be changed from clay into flesh and blood. So in Adam’s
posterity, when the foam of semen has been pressed out by nature, it is
completely transformed into flesh and blood by the fiery spark of the soul.
If it were not quickened in this way by the warmth of the soul, it would
not be completely transformed into flesh and blood, even as the matter of
the first man would have remained clay if it had not been changed by the
soul. For just as bread is made from flour by the action of fire and water,
flesh and blood are produced by the fire of the soul.
Man is, so to speak, the light of the other creatures dwelling on earth,
who frequently run up to him and fawn on him with great love. And, in
return, a person often lovingly seeks to fulfill the wishes of a creature he
ardently loves. But a creature that does not love human beings flees from
them and tramples and destroys everything that belongs to them, because,
terrified by the fear of humans, it is angered by their very existence.
Therefore, it frequently attacks people and tries to kill them.
The Word was in the world when he put on the royal garment taken from
the Virgin’s flesh, when the holy divinity lay down in her womb. For he
became man in an alien nature, unlike any other man, because his flesh
was inflamed by holy divinity. Therefore, after the last day, when all
human beings have been transfigured, the souls of the elect by faith will
lift their bodies into heaven, the same bodies that once existed in the
world. This is what God himself will do by his own power, to which no
creature can set any limits, for then man will be clothed with flesh and his
bones filled with marrow. He will never again become weak for want of
food or drink or life, for then he will come forth in the strength of divinity
with no taint of mutability, because in goodness he is a member of
Christ-who in the world endured many sufferings and humiliations, even
though he was the Son of God. The devil, the inventor of all falsehood,
could not know this and hastened to deny Christ, together with all his
members who reject God. Yet he could not prevent humankmd from being
raised up to unending life.
And the world was made by him. This means that the world arose from
him, not he from the world. For creation came forth by the Word of
God-meaning all creatures, both invisible and visible, for there are some
that can be neither seen nor touched, while others are seen as well as
touched. Man possesses both kinds in himself, the soul and the body, for
he was made after the image and likeness of God. Therefore, he com-
mands with his word but also works with his hands. In this way, God
ordained man to resemble himself, because he wished his Son to be
incarnate of man.
Hildegard qf Bingen 29
And the world did not know him, for the children of the world, that is,
those who follow the world in their ignorant blindness, neither knew of his
coming nor recognized his working, even as an infant is unaware of
knowledge and work. God demonstrates the ignorant childishness of such
unbelievers in the thighs and knees. Just as an infant that feeds on milk and
soft food cannot walk, because its bones and marrow are not yet strong
enough, and even an adult cannot walk on his thighs and knees without the
calves and feet, so it was with unbelievers. Because their knowledge and
senses were devoid of the fire of the Holy Spirit, through which they
should have recognized God, they could not walk in the way of righteous-
ness.
He came to his own, for he had created the world and put on human
flesh. So all creatures revealed him, just as a coin reveals the ruler who
minted it. For God created the world, which he wished to prepare as a
tabernacle for man; and, since he wanted to clothe himself in man, he
fashioned him to his own image and likeness. Therefore, all things were
his own.
And his own did not receive him. They were his own because he had
created them and made them especially after his image, yet they neglected
him when they failed to acknowledge him as their Maker and did not
understand that they had been created by him alone. For unbelievers did
not receive his humanity, nor did they recognize God in human form,
because of the blindness of their unbelief. Now, foolish and idle youth is
symbolized by the legs. Young people attend to the blossoming life of
creation and esteem themselves wiser than others, because their bones and
marrow have by then reached full strength. This is how the Jews and
pagans behaved. Loving the vanity of the world, they thought they knew
what they did not know and were what they were not, and they paid no
faithful attention to the one who had given them flesh and spirit. Just as
deluded youth takes delight in creatures, the world at that time lived in
vanity. Therefore, it was necessary for God to show himself to them and
gather them to himself, as he did when he commanded the ass and its colt
to be untied and brought to him and took his seat on them according to the
law of truth.
But to as many as received him, he gave power to become children of
God. To all people of both sexes who received him, believing him to be
God and man (for God first is grasped by faith, and afterwards God-made-
man), he potentially gave this power by his own will and potency: namely,
to become children of his Father in the heavenly kingdom. That is, having
become fellow heirs of his own inheritance, they could enjoy a share with
him in his kingdom by the same law that constitutes a child as his father’s
heir. Because they recognized him as their God and Creator, embraced him
in charity, kmed him in faith, and diligently and carefully inquired of him
about all that is his, the dew of the Holy Spirit fell upon them, so that from
these people the whole church could begin to germinate and bear the fruit
of heavenly joys. Therefore, it was given to them, by virtue of true faith,
to become children of God.
30 Theology Today
To those who believe in his name, that is, who firmly believe that they
will be saved by baptism in his name, is given a share in the heavenly
kingdom. The elect do all their works in burning love just as if they could
see God, not in a shadow of faith, worshipping the name of God without
works when they merely reject alien gods, who cannot create themselves
and do not exist from themselves, but are only companions of men. The
name in which true faith believes has three properties: It is without
beginning; it gave rise to all creatures; and it is the life by which every
living creature breathes. Therefore, it is worshipped by its whole creation.
Now, in accord with the three powers that belong to this name, every
creature with a name subsists by three powers. But a withered, rotten
creature has no name, for it is not alive. Three powers, then, belong to the
name of a living creature: One of them is seen, one is known, but the third
is unseen. For the body of a living thing is seen and the procreative power
is known, but the power that makes it live is neither known nor seen.
In this regard, God manifested great wonders through the feet, for just
as the feet support the whole body and carry it wherever it wishes, faith
mightily supports and magnificently carries the name of God everywhere
with miracles, both seen and unseen, known and unknown. Both the body
of man and his works are visible, but there is much more in him that is
neither seen nor known. Since there is so much obscurity even in man,
how should the one who created him be manifest? For no one living in the
world can know him as he is.
Who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will
of man, but of God. For the Son of God said: What is born offlesh isflesh,
and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Flesh born of flesh is conceived in
sin; but since God is spirit, all spirits are born of him. Spirit is not changed
into flesh, nor flesh into spirit, yet man is composed of flesh and spirit
together; otherwise he would neither be nor be called human. God fash-
ioned Adam to live forever immutably, but he sinned by disobedience
when he listened to the serpent’s counsel. Therefore, the serpent judged
that he would perish altogether; but this is not what God willed. Instead he
prepared for him the exile of the world, in which he conceived and begot
his children in sin. In this way, Adam with all his progeny, conceived
through the foam of sin, became mortal. All return to corruption until the
last day, when God will renew man so that he might live thenceforth by an
immutable life, just as Adam was created. But this life could by no means
exist among the children conceived and born in sin. Rather, it arose in the
humanity of the Son of God, through whom the heavenly Father remem-
bered to deliver man, who had perished. Those who become children of
God by virtue of good works attain this power to be God’s children, not
from the coagulation of their parents’ blood (in which they themselves are
bloody), nor from the will of the weaker flesh that is fertile to bear, nor
from the will of its stronger part that is robust to beget. Rather, they
receive this gift by the recompense of divine revelation, in the washing of
baptism and the fiery outpouring of the Holy Spirit. This is how they are
born of God and become heirs of his kingdom.
Hildegard of Bingen 31
God had foreseen all his works before they were formed, and the forms
fashioned later in creation did not remain empty, but were brought to life.
For flesh without life would not be flesh, because, when the life has
departed from it, it falls away to nothing. But the breath that God sent into
Adam, fiery and intelligent, was his life. Therefore, by its warmth the red
clay of the earth was changed into blood. Thus, all creation existed before
time in the foreknowledge of God, as all people yet to be born are in his
foreknowledge still.
Now man is intelligible and sensible: intelligible because he under-
stands all things and sensible because he perceives his surroundings. God
fills all of human flesh with life when he sends the breath of life into it.
Therefore, through the knowledge of good and evil, a person chooses
whatever pleases him and rejects what displeases him. But God takes heed
of what each one proposes. If a person makes plans that are not from God,
then God withdraws from him, and at once he is approached by the spirits
who began the first evil, that is, who wished to destroy heaven. This evil
did not affect God, for it would have been unfitting for God to destroy
himself. But if a person sighs for the name of his Father and calls on him
with good desire, angelic helpers come to him lest he be hindered by
enemies. God at first lets him grow gently, as if on milk, through the
delightful desire for good works, and later drenches him with the rain of
his grace, through which he ascends valiantly from virtue to virtue. In this
way, he is continually renewed in such virtues until his death. A person
who is able to achieve some little thing, not very great, always rushes
ahead boldly to do what he can, but one who can accomplish many great
deeds exercises moderation and balance in them. Now the devil wants only
one thing, namely, to seduce souls to their death, and he neither seeks nor
is able to do anything else. He can barely rest until he achieves what he
can.
God, however, is omnipotent in all his works and has power in and
through everything, so he practices moderation and acts with balance and
discretion, in order that man may become stronger and more stable in the
good. For one who rushes ahead recklessly often falls into ruin. Now man
is the signature that declares all the honor of God. For the good knowledge
in him signifies the angelic hosts who laudably serve God, but his evil
knowledge manifests God’s power, because God vanquished the knowl-
edge of evil when he expelled the first man from paradise. So it happens
in every person: God’s goodness is revealed in one who chooses and
accomplishes good through good knowledge, and God’s power is declared
in one who fastens upon evil and fulfills it, because God sometimes judges
and sometimes pardons the sin.
In this way, then, man himself is life, and all that attaches itself to him
comes alive through him. For God created man with all creatures beneath
the sun attached to him, so that he would not be lonely on the earth, as God
himself is not lonely in heaven, but is glorified in all the heavenly
harmonies. Now these creatures that surround man on earth will survive
with him until the number of the elect fixed by God has been fulfilled.
32 Theology Today
After the future resurrection, however, the blessed will not need to grow
or be fed by any creature, for then they will enjoy that glory that will never
end nor alter. In that glory, blessed humanity will be clothed by the Holy
Trinity and behold the One who never had beginning or end. Therefore,
they will never be afflicted by old age or weariness, for they will make
music with the harp and sing praises ever new.
As we have said, then, the flesh is alive through life and would not truly
be flesh without life, so these two are one-the flesh with the life, the life
with the flesh. This is what God intended in Adam when he strengthened
his flesh and blood with the breath he sent into him. For at that moment
he looked upon the flesh in which he himself would be clothed, and he
cherished it in burning love.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. For the Word, which
was eternally with God before time and indeed was God, put on flesh from
the Virgin’s womb through the warmth of the Holy Spirit. It assumed this
flesh in the same way that the blood vessels provide a frame for the flesh
and carry the blood, yet are not themselves blood. God had created man so
that all creation might serve him; therefore, it was fitting even for God to
receive a garment of flesh in man. The Word assumed flesh in such a way
that the Word and the flesh are one, yet neither could be transformed into
the other; rather, they are one in unity of person. Now the body is the
garment of the soul, and the soul has capacities for action through the
flesh. The body would be nothing without the soul, and the soul would be
unable to act without the body. So body and soul are one in man; in fact,
they are man, and in this way man, the work of God, was made after God’s
image and likeness. For when the breath of a person is sent by God, the
breath and the flesh become one person. The Word of God, however, put
on flesh from the unplowed flesh of the Virgin with no fiery heat, so that
the Word might remain Word and the flesh, flesh, yet they are one. For the
Word that existed timelessly in the Father before all time did not change
itself, but only put on flesh.
And he dwelt among us. For the man born without sin dwells among us
as a man, not neglecting our humanity, because we too are human beings
endowed with the breath of life, made after his image and likeness.
Therefore, we also dwell in him, for we are his workmanship; he has
always held us in his foreknowledge and never forgotten us.
And we have seen his glory, for we who were with him have seen him
coming specially in his marvelous nature without sin, manifesting glory as
Hildegard of Bingen 33
of the Only-Begotten of the Father. For the only-begotten Son, marvel-
ously born of the Father before the ages and marvelously coming from the
Father, revealed his glory when the Virgin conceived him by the warmth
of the Holy Spirit. Nor did she need the work of a man, although every
other person is begotten sinfully by a man, that is, by his father. God had
formed man from clay and sent into him the breath of life. Therefore, the
Word of God put on the royal garment in man along with the rational soul,
and drew it entirely to himself and remained in it. For the breath, which in
man is called the soul, permeates the flesh and possesses it as a delightful
garment and a beautiful ornament. Therefore, the soul loves the flesh and
consents to it, even though it cannot be seen in the body. By the nature and
desire of the soul, man seeks the garment of life; and since God created no
creature devoid of power, man is forever working wonders.
And the Word is full of grace and truth. For he was present in the
fullness of grace, creating all things in his divinity and redeeming them in
his humanity; and he stood in the fullness of truth because no falsehood
born of sin or evil touched him or joined itself to him. For he is the Lord
whose victory defeated all evils, which without him are nothing. The Word
himself, the true Son of God, is full of grace, giving and forgiving
according to his mercy. He did not empty himself of divinity, but put on
humanity, and his humanity is full and perfect, for no blemish of sinful
human nature touched him. He is likewise full of truth, for he gives,
forgives, and judges justly-something man does not do because he is
conceived and born with the blemish of sin. Thus, God is round like a
wheel, creating all things, willing the good, and perfecting the good. For
the will of God prepared all things that the Word of God created.
Now, let everyone who fears and loves God open his heart devoutly to
these words, and know that they are uttered for the salvation of bodies and
souls not by any human being, but by Me-I Who Am.
ABSTRACT
This article is a translation of Hildegard’s commentary on the Johannine
prologue, taken from her Book of Divine Works, with an introduction em-
phasizing the themes of the divine image and the holiness of the human body
as an analogue of both the cosmos and the creative power of God. The note
introducing the translation comments on Hildegard’s prophetic, pictorial style
and explains why her highly gendered thought cannot be rendered in con-
temporary gender-neutral language.