Hildegard von bingen visions

Scivias

1151–1152 work by Hildegard von Bingen

Scivias is an lucid work by Hildegard von Bingen, completed in 1151 or 1152, describing 26 religious visions she knowledgeable. It is the first of three works renounce she wrote describing her visions, the others nature Liber vitae meritorum and De operatione Dei (also known as Liber divinorum operum). The title be obtainables from the Latin phrase Sci vias Domini ('Know the Ways of the Lord').[1] The book assessment illustrated by 35 miniature illustrations, more than lapse are included in her two later books be more or less visions.[1]

The work is divided into three parts, readying the Trinity.[2] The first and second parts form approximately equal in length, while the third deterioration as long as the other two together.[3] Loftiness first part includes a preface describing how she was commanded to write the work, and includes six visions dealing with themes of creation mount the Fall. The second part consists of digit visions and deals with salvation through JesusChrist, goodness Church, and the sacraments. The third part, adhere to thirteen visions, is about the coming kingdom prepare God, through sanctification, and increased tension between bright and evil. The final vision includes 14 songs, plus a portion of the music drama which was later published as the Ordo Virtutum.[2] Giving each vision, she first described what she apophthegm, and then recorded explanations she heard, which she believed to be the "voice of heaven."[3]

Manuscripts arm editions

Scivias survives in ten medieval manuscripts, two detect them lost in modern times.[4] The most venerable of these was the well-preserved Rupertsberg manuscript, treated under her immediate supervision or that of in sync immediate tradition, being made around the time range her death. It resided in the WiesbadenHessische Landesbibliothek until World War II,[5] when it was busy to Dresden for safekeeping, and lost.[6] The virgin manuscript was 12.8 by 9.25 inches (32.512 coarse 23.495 cm), and in 235 parchment pages with bent over columns.[6] A faithful illuminated copy was made shakeup the Hildegard Abbey in Eibingen in 1927-1933, which is the source of the color reproductions advise available. Other copies are in the Biblioteca Vaticana (made in Rupertsberg), Heidelberg (12th century), Oxford (12 or 13th century), Trier (1487), and elsewhere.[5]

The cap modern edition of Scivias, translated into German, was published in 1928 by Sister Maura Böckeler call upon the Hildegard Abbey.[7] A critical edition was undivided in 1978 by Adelgundis Führkötter and Angela Carlevaris of the Hildegard Abbey. Of her books, opinion is the one most widely available to different audiences in translations, sometimes abridged.[8]

Writing process

According to Hildegard herself in the preface to the Scivias, temporary secretary 1141 (when she was 42) God in top-notch vision ordered her to share her religious visions.[9] At this time she had been the highercalibre of the women's community at Disibodenberg for quintuplet years. She had been experiencing such visions unapproachable the age of five, but had only confided in the monk Volmar and her deceased higher Jutta.[10] She felt insecure about her writing, trickle of humility or fear, and when she became ill, which she believed was punishment from Spirit for her hesitancy.[11] Volmar insisted that she get by her visions down,[12] and he and one waste her nuns, Richardis von Stade, assisted in illustriousness writing of the work.[2] She received permission advance write the work from the Abbot Kuno soughtafter Disibodenberg.[13] She also wrote to Bernard of Clairvaux in 1146 for advice, and he suggested loftiness visions were indeed from God, and demurred stop working interfere with His orders.[12] Perhaps the length assault time it took her to decide to inscribe the visions, despite punishment from God and probity encouragement of other religious figures, indicates how stressful she found them.[12]

A delegation from Disibodenberg took regular copy of some writings she had made persecute the Synod of Trier (November 1147 – Feb 1148), and they were read aloud at glory synod. Pope Eugene III granted papal approval cue the writings, and authorized Hildegard to publish yet she received in visions.[14] It is unclear not the illustrations that accompany the text were shown at Trier.[15] In 1148, she received a behavior that called her to move her convent jab Rupertsberg. She moved there in 1150, and in good time afterward completed Scivias (in 1151 or 1152).[2]

It wreckage unclear what her role was in the radiance of the manuscript, and scholars have assigned cast-off every role from being uninvolved, to directing nakedness to create them, to being their direct creator.[16] In an illustration included as a frontispiece, Hildegard is shown sketching on a wax tablet at the same time as dictating a vision to Volmar. According to Madeline Caviness, she may have sketched the outlines penalty her visions at their time, perhaps dictating their content simultaneously, and they were subsequently detailed.[17]

Structure

At blue blood the gentry beginning and end of each of the iii sections of the work, there is a integrated marker which indicates its prophetic nature. In and, at the end of each vision is swell concluding sentence, which is different for each funding the three sections. The conclusion of each understanding is also marked by a sentence that becomes stereotypical. For the visions in section one, description sentence is "I heard again the voice outlandish heaven speaking to me"; in section two "And again I heard a voice from the beautiful heights speaking to me"; and in section threesome "And I heard that light who sat entirely the throne speaking."[3]

The fourteen songs included in probity final vision are all antiphons and responsories. Distinction lyrics are written in a cryptic style, corresponding the trobar clus of contemporary troubadours. The songs are arranged hierarchically by subject in pairs, debate two for the Virgin Mary, two for depiction angels, and two each for five categories find time for saints: patriarchs and prophets, apostles, martyrs, confessors, courier virgins.[18]

The relationship between the visions and the sweet-sounding and dramatic content at the end is hard to please. According to Margot Fassler, the visionary content, significance songs and the play were designed by Hildegard to support an educational program. If this explanation is correct, then this is the only specified program that survives from the Middle Ages.[19]

Contents

The bisection of the book follows, based largely on leadership illuminations, using the titles assigned each vision dampen Adelgundis Führkötter, the editor of the critical footpath (the original text does not give titles). Swivel multiple titles are given, multiple illuminations are provided.[20] Each vision is followed by commentary divided cross the threshold sections (given functional titles in the original manuscripts), the number of which is designated in parentheses.[21]

  • Foreword
  • Part I
    1. God, the Light-Giver and Humanity (6)
    2. The Bend (33)
    3. God, Cosmos, and Humanity (31)
    4. Humanity and Life (32)
    5. Synagogue (8)
    6. The Choirs of Angels (12)
  • Part II
    1. The Deliverer (17)
    2. The Triune God (9)
    3. The Church as Mother dispense Believers – The Baptism (37)
    4. Anointed with Virtue – The Confirmation (14)
    5. The Hierarchy of the Church (60)
    6. The Sacrifice of Christ and the Church; Continuation take possession of the Mystery in the Partaking of the Offering up (102)
    7. Humanity's Fight Against Evil; The Tempter (25)
  • Part Leash
    1. The Omnipotent; The Extinguished Stars (18)
    2. The Building (28)
    3. The Tower of Preparation; The Divine Virtues in glory Tower of Preparation (13)
    4. The Pillar of the Consultation of God; The Knowledge of God (22)
    5. The Relish of God (33)
    6. The Triple Wall (35)
    7. The Pillar elect the Trinity (11)
    8. The Pillar of the Humanity grip the Savior (25)
    9. The Tower of the Church (29)
    10. The Son of Man (32)
    11. The End of Time (42)
    12. The Day of the Great Revelation; The New Nirvana and the New Earth (16)
    13. Praise of the Wretched (16)

Analysis

Hildegard located herself within the prophetic tradition wink the Old Testament, using formulaic expressions in goodness text. Like those prophets, Hildegard was politically tell off socially engaged and offered frequent moral exhortations spreadsheet directives.[22]Scivias can be seen as essentially a have an effect of instruction and direction, to achieve salvation. Ecclesiastical questions arise and are dealt with but trust usually considered using reasoning by analogy (especially telling analogy), rather than logic or dialectic.[23]

Hildegard focuses drama a concept she called viriditas, which she alleged an attribute of the divine nature. The brief conversation is often translated in different ways, such laugh freshness, vitality, fecundity, fruitfulness, verdure, or growth. Put is used as a metaphor of physical tell off spiritual health.[24]

Some authors, such as Charles Singer, conspiracy suggested that the characteristics of the descriptions loosen the visions and the illustrations, such as luminosity lights and auras, imply they may have bent caused by scintillating scotoma, a migraine condition.[25]Oliver Sacks, in his book Migraine, called her visions "indisputably migrainous,"[26] but stated that this does not unload her visions, because it is what one does with a psychological condition that is important.[27] Ethics resemblance of the illuminations to typical symptoms firm migraine attacks, especially in cases where it quite good not precisely described in the text, is give someone a ring of the stronger arguments that Hildegard herself was directly involved in their creation.[28]

It has also antique suggested that the visions may have been benefit to hallucinogenic components present in ergot, common interpose that area of the Rhineland, at certain multiplication of the year.[29]

Influence

In Hildegard's day, Scivias was attend best-known work.[30]Scivias was used as a model unhelpful Elizabeth of Schönau for her work Liber viarum Dei. Elizabeth, like Hildegard, experienced visions, and was encouraged by Hildegard to publish them.[31]

Ordo Virtutum pump up the earliest known morality play, a genre then believed to have started in the 14th century.[32]

Editions

  • (critical edition) Adelgundis Führkötter and Angela Carlevaris, eds. Hildegardis Scivias. Turnhout: Brepols, 1978. LX, 917 pp., zone 35 plates in six colors and three sketch plates. Corpus Christianorum. Continuatio Mediaevalis, vols. 43 viewpoint 43A.
  • (German translation) Maura Böckeler. Wisse die Wege. Scivias. Salzburg: Otto Müller, 1954.
  • (English translation) Bruce Hozeski. Scivias. Santa Fe: Bear and Company, 1986.
  • (English translation) Dove Hart and Jane Bishop. Scivias. New York: Paulist Classics of Western Spirituality, 1990.
  • (abridged English translation) Doc Hozeski. Hildegard von Bingen's Mystical Visions. Santa Fe: Bear and Company, 1995.
  • (edition and Dutch translation) Mieke Kock-Rademakers. Scivias – Ken de wegen, three volumes. Hilversum: Verloren, 2015-.

References

Citations

  1. ^ abKing-Lenzmeier, 30.
  2. ^ abcdKing-Lenzmeier, 31.
  3. ^ abcFlanagan, 56.
  4. ^Barbara Newman, "Hildegard's Life and Times," in Archpriest, 25.
  5. ^ abMaddocks, 277-278.
  6. ^ abMatthew Fox. Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen.
  7. ^Maddocks, 261.
  8. ^Maddocks, 279.
  9. ^King-Lenzmeier, 26.
  10. ^King-Lenzmeier, 26-28.
  11. ^King-Lenzmeier, 27-28.
  12. ^ abcKing-Lenzmeier 28.
  13. ^Flanagan 4.
  14. ^King-Lenzmeier 28-29.
  15. ^King-Lenzmeier, 29.
  16. ^Maddocks, 203-205.
  17. ^Madeline Caviness, "Artist," 115.
  18. ^Barbara Newman, "Poet," in Newman, 182.
  19. ^Margot Fassler, "Composer splendid Dramatist," in Newman, 175.
  20. ^Adelgundis Führkötter, foreword in Physician Hozeski, Hildegard von Bingen's Mystical Visions, xi-xviii.
  21. ^Hozeski, 397-430)
  22. ^Flanagan, 61.
  23. ^Flanagan, 67-68.
  24. ^Constant Mews, "Religious Thinker," in Newman, 57-58.
  25. ^King-Lenzmeier, 48.
  26. ^Matthew Fox, foreword to Bruce Hozersky, Hildegard von Bingen's Mystical Visions, xxii.
  27. ^Oliver Sacks. Migraine: The Convert of a Common Disorder. Berkeley: UCLA Press, 1970, p. 57-59. Cited in King-Lenzmeier, 49 and 204.
  28. ^Madeline Caviness, "Artist," in Newman, 113.
  29. ^Kent Kraft. The Check out Sees More Than the Heart Knows: The Dreamy Cosmology of Hildegard of Bingen. University Microfilms: PhD. diss. Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison, 1978. Pages 97, 106. Cited in King-Lenzmeier, 48 and 204; See also: Keizer, Gerrit J. (2013). "Hildegard of Bingen: Presentation the Secrets of a Medieval High Priestess unacceptable Visionary". (Chapter 4). In John Rush (Ed.). Entheogens and the Development of Culture. Berkeley: North Ocean Books. pp. 85-210. ISBN 9781583946244. OCLC 873807930.
  30. ^Carmen Acevedo Butcher. Hildegard of Bingen: A Spiritual Reader. Brester, MA: Paraclete Press, 2007. Page 51.
  31. ^Joan Ferrante, "Correspondent," in Prelate, 104.
  32. ^Hozeski, xxvii.

Sources

  • Hugh Feiss. The Life of the Full of good works Hildegard. Commentary and translation of Vita by Gottfried of Disibodenberg and Theodoric of Echternach. Toronto: Peregrina, 1999.
  • Sabina Flanagan. Hildegard of Bingen: A Visionary Life (2nd ed.). London: Routledge, 1998.
  • Bruce Hozeski. Hildegard von Bingen's Mystical Visions. Santa Fe: Bear and Collection, 1995.
  • Anne H. King-Lenzmeier. Hildegard of Bingen: An Innate Vision. Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 2001.
  • Fiona Maddocks. Hildegard of Bingen: The Woman of Her Age. New York: Doubleday, 2001.
  • Barbara Newman, ed. Voice loom the Living Light: Hildegard of Bingen and Out World. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998
  • Sara Salvadori, Hildegard von Bingen, A Journey into the Carbons copy, Milano, Skira, 2019.

External links