For those unfamiliar with Saint Hildegard of Bingen, here are 12 definitions from various writers to get you well-acquainted with her mystique.
- A Model for All Women
She’s clearly the confirmation of Christian feminism. She’s clearly the call to women to be everything they can be, to be the fullness of themselves, without an ounce of fear. She is the “open sesame” to a woman’s insight and a woman’s Gospel life.
… she is also a model for all women—laywomen, too—because if a cloistered woman religious from the 12th century can take upon herself the learning, the authority, and the wisdom position that she did, then we’re all called to key roles in our Church.
2. A Healer
Hildegard tells us that compassion is at the very heart of all healing. For her, the voice of mercy is never strained. It is always there to comfort us. Hildegard’s understanding of health was holistic: soma and psyche, body and mind, action and thought, were aspects of a whole.
– Consecrated Spirits, compiled by Felicity Leng, p. 78
3. Wild and Strange
…Hildegard might be the most paradigmatic exemplar of what I have referred to as “wildness.” She is by turns uplifting, inspiring, provoking, and off-puttingly strange. Poet, abbess, composer, visionary, prophet, reformer, painter (maybe) and “holistic” physician, she claims to have had visions from the age of five, visions made up of strange, symbolic pictures, similar to the images that haunt the apocalyptic pages of John, Ezekiel, Isaiah, and Daniel.
– An Introduction to Christian Mysticism, Recovering the Wildness of Spiritual Life by Jason M. Baxter, p. 20
4. A Holy and Royal Influencer
…corresponding with four popes (Eugenius III, Anastasius IV, Adrian IV, and Alexander III) and with two emperors (Conrad III and his son and successor Frederick Barbossa). Such correspondence brought her into the mainstream of general European history. Her letters also include correspondence with the English King Henry II and his queen Eleanor who was the divorced wife of Louis VII. She urged Henry to be aware of the flattery of his courtiers and she warned Queen Eleanor to be aware of unrest and inconstancy. In a letter to the Greek emperor and his empress Irene, or Berta as she was called, she wished them the blessings of a child.
– Hildegard of Bingen, The Book of the Rewards of Life, Translated by Bruce Hozeski, p. xvi
5. A Prophet Amongst Men
Never did she suggest that, as a woman and a Christian, she had any “right” to teach or prophesy in the Church. Nor did she claim or demand equality with men. Rather, she insisted that God had chosen a poor, frail, untutored woman like herself to reveal his mysteries only because those to whom he had first entrusted them – the wise, learned, and masculine clergy – had failed to obey. She lived in a “womanish age” in which men had become so lax, weak and sensual–in a word, effeminate–that God had to confound them by making women virile.
– Sister of Wisdom, St. Hildegard’s Theology of the Feminine, by Barbara Newman, p. 3
6. Extraordinary and Exceptional
Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), mistress of St. Rupert’s Monastery and “Sybil of the Rhine,” would have been extraordinary in any age. But for a woman of the twelfth century, hedged by the constraints of a misogynist world, her achievements baffle thought, marking her as a figure so exceptional that posterity has found it hard to take her measure.
–Voice of the Living Light, Hildegard of Bingen and Her World, Edited by Barbara Newman, p. 1
7. Her Firsts and Onlies
• …Hildegard was the only woman of her age to be accepted as an authoritative voice on Christian doctrine;
• the first woman who received express permission from a pope to write theological books;
• the only medieval woman who preached openly, before mixed audiences of clergy and laity, with the full approval of church authorities;
• the author of the first known morality play and the only twelfth-century playwright who is not anonymous;
• the only composer of her era (not to mention the only medieval woman) known both by name and by a large corpus of surviving music;
• the first scientific writer to discuss sexuality and gynecology from a female perspective;
• and the first saint whose official biography includes a first-person memoir.–Voice of the Living Light, Hildegard of Bingen and Her World, Edited by Barbara Newman, p. 1
8. Conservative
Contrary to some modern perceptions of Hildegard, her thought was in many ways more conservative than revolutionary, depending on the time-honored methodology and learning of the monastic milieu in which she spent her life.
–Secrets of God, Writings of Hildegard of Bingen, Selected and Translated by Sabina Flanagan, p. 2
9. A Visionary
This German abbess’s power and influence seeped into every crevice of twelfth-century life. That she also happened to be a woman who only found her voice in mid-life merely adds to the richness of her story…
Her boldness, courage and tenacity made her at once enthralling and haughty, intrepid and irksome. By contrast, the ills and terrors caused by, or perhaps even causing, her spectacular and overwhelming visions often rendered her helpless and torpid.
–Hildegard of Bingen, The Woman of Her Age, by Fiona Maddocks, p. ix
10. Talented/Gifted
Would you expect anything less from an abbess/artist/cosmologist/composer/
counselor/dietitian/dramatist/epistoler/healer/linguist/mystic/naturalist/
philosopher/poet/politicalconsultant/preacher/prophet/visionary who wrote theological, naturalistic, botanical, medicinal, and dietary texts, as well as letters, liturgical songs, poems, and the play, while supervising miniature illuminations?–St. Hildegard of Bingen Doctor of the Church, by Carmen Acevedo Butcher, p. xvi
11. No Priestly Aspirations
Though a woman cannot be a priest, Hildegard suggests that her chosen virginity puts her in a more intimate relationship with God than a male virgin; hers is marriage…his fellowship…Though woman cannot be priest and consecrate the body and blood of my son, God tells Hildegard, she can sing praise of the creator, as the earth can receive rain to water its fruits…she as virgin can receive the (highest) priest and all the ministry of God’s altar as spouse and with him possess all its wealth.
–To the Glory of Her Sex, Women’s Roles in the Composition of Medieval Texts, by Joan M. Ferrante, pp. 159-160
12. With Visions of God
…Hildegard sees the source of life, God himself, the three-in-one Love, as super-bright light (image of the Father) in which there is a sapphire-blue image of a man in brilliant beauty (an allusion to the Word made flesh). The image of the man, however, burns through and through in the soft red of sparkling flame (sign of the Holy Spirit). The bright light and the sparkling flame, which surround the image of man, are a single abundance of light: the triune God (second vision).
Human beings earn participation in this divine life through Holy Mother, the Church…
–The Life of the Holy Hildegard, by The Monks Gottfried and Theoderic, p. 7
Even 12 definitions might be a lot to ponder regarding St. Hildegard. Imagine the power of her mind and visions and what she accomplished in her time! Always giving glory to God for what she had and did. There’s a never-ending wealth of spiritual riches that she left for us. Let’s appreciate the good works God created in, through, and with her.
And know that God can do great things for us and with us too.
How do you define St. Hildegard? Please let me know in the comments below.
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