Hildegard speaks

Annette Esser’s Hildegard Speaks contains 10 short reflective texts for reading on the pilgrimage route, the Hildegard Way (see pp. 40–41). She writes from Hildegard’s perspective but also includes Hildegard’s original words (italics or block quotes). In this excerpt Esser imagines Hildegard speaking out her prophetic calling and how she rebuked clergy, a pope and antipopes, and even an emperor.

 BECAUSE many have already asked how I, as a prophetess, was able to speak so powerfully and even rebuke the emperor and the clergy of Cologne so sharply. . . . I would still prefer to call myself “una paupercula feminea forma,” a poor woman—if, yes, if the writings, words, virtues, and deeds of men were not reflected to me in the living light. It is this spirit in which words flow from my feather, and in which I give answers to my correspondences. In short I write in concern of the church, ecclesia, and the Holy Roman Empire. That is my calling. . . .

REBUKING POPES AND PRELATES 

Thus I wrote my letter to the clerics of Cologne only after I had already returned from my preaching tour:

Oh my sons, you who feed my flocks . . . why do you not blush? . . . I set you like the sun and the other luminaries so that you might bring light to people through the fire of doctrine, shining in good reputation and setting hearts ablaze with zeal. . . . But your tongues are silent, failing to join in with the mighty voice of the resounding trumpet of the Lord. . . . The trumpet of the Lord is the justice of God, which you should meditate upon zealously in holiness. . . .

But you are not doing this on account of the waywardness of your own will. Thus, the luminaries are missing from the firmament of God’s justice in your utterances, as when the stars do not shine, for you are the night exhaling darkness, and you are like people who do not work, not even walk in the light because of your indolence. But just as a snake is hiding in a cave after it has shed his skin, you walk in filth like disgusting beasts. . . . 

Through the teaching of the Scriptures which were composed through the fire of the Holy Spirit, you ought to be the corners of the Church’s strength, holding her up like the corners that sustain the boundaries of the earth. But you are laid low and do not hold up the Church, retreating instead to the cave of your own lust. And because of the tedium brought on by your riches, avarice, and other vain pursuits, you do not properly teach your subordinates, nor indeed do you even allow them to seek instruction from you. . . . You ought to be the day, but you are night. . . . Rather, you are the darkness, in which you lie as if you are already dead.

Also I wrote to Emperor Barbarossa with great concern about the splitting of Christianity. This was after I had visited him in his palace in Ingelheim and also after he had issued a letter of protection to our monastery on the Rupertsberg. Now he had divided the church by appointing a first and then even a second antipope. . . . When he still remained stubborn and already appointed the third antipope, I felt compelled to prophetically name God’s judgment to him: 

He Who Is says: By my own power, I will destroy the obstinacy and rebellion of those who scorn me. Woe, O woe to the evil deed of those wicked ones who spurn me! Hear this, O king, if you wish to live. Otherwise, My sword will pierce you.

Even though at this point he stood and refused to turn back, he still had enough brains to maintain his imperial protection for our monastery.

The correspondence that concerned me most recently has been with the prelates of Mainz . . . they had submitted me and my sisters to an interdict. According to this, we were forbidden to sing together in our church. . . . I wrote to them:

Therefore, those who, without cause, impose silence on a church and prohibit the singing of God’s praises, and those who have on earth unjustly despoiled God of His honor and glory will lose their place among the choirs of the angels.

Thus to forbid an abbess and her community of sisters to sing is a sin—a forced separation from our God. For from the beginning up to the end of times, God, our Creator, has uttered his words not in dry words but has let them sound symphonically in music.