Hildegard of Bingen: Scivias (Classics of Western Spirituality) Paperback Author: Hildegard of Bingen | Language: English | ISBN:
0809131307 | Format: PDF, EPUB
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Language Notes
Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Latin
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Books with free ebook downloads available Download Hildegard of Bingen: Scivias (Classics of Western Spirituality) Paperback
- Series: Classics of Western Spirituality
- Paperback: 545 pages
- Publisher: Paulist Press (March 1, 1990)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0809131307
- ISBN-13: 978-0809131303
- Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.5 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Hildegard was one of the most famoust mystics of the medieval period. A rarity amoung women of that time, she conversed with learned theologians and even the pope, was given considerable autonomy to learn and teach, and was a very gifted writer, poet, theologian, mystic, and scientist.
Hildegard's visions, which are included in this collection, form a larger set of works of hers which include poems, songs and music, and various encyclopedias. Hildegard was a very learned woman for her time.
Her visions are very complex and involve many elements and themes. Some deal with classic theological motifs from the medieval period, such as the Church, Christ, heaven and hell, the last judgement and the fall. Others deal with the relationship between man (the microcosm) and the universe, while others deal with the mysteries of the Triune God and God's prescence in nature.
Most striking in Hildegard's visions is the intimate connection between man, God, and the creation. Mathew Fox rightly said Hildegard is a creation mystic; for her, the divine spirit fills and energises the universe, and the Earth itself is seen in terms as our mother and as sacred. Hurting creation is in fact a way we hurt ourselves, an ecological ethic which can certainly say a lot to us in this time, where our greedy carelessness towards the world and its resources threatens to imperil our very survival as a species. Hildegard also quite rightly and perceptively understands the goodness of creation in terms of the goodness of God, whose abundance is given to us freely out of love. Our sin in Hildegard's system very much boils down to our selfish tendency to only see ourselves and our wants, rather than our relationship with the creation and the creator.
Hildegard von Bingen, one of the prominent German mystics in the Middle Ages, stands as an anomaly amidst the whole host of Christian mystics. One reason to account for this is the fact that instead of advocating reform of the church in a confrontational manner, she often deflects it by recourse to God's voice. The voice that speaks in Scivias is more often than not the 1st person voice of God, and the persona of Hildegard the receptor of the visions occupies technically the position of a third person glossator and observer. On top of that, the chief focus of her 'reform' is of 'ordo virtutuum', a reform that works from within as opposed to the outright opposition(or confrontational gestures) offered by English Lollards in their translation of the Latin Vulgate into the vernacular Middle English tongue, or the Beguines' usurpation of the Catholic church's monopoly to Biblical interpretation.
Another reason to account for her special status as a medieval mystic is the absence of any so-called phenomenon of stigmata, trance-like swoonings, fleshly ecstasies like those of Margery Kempe or Teresa D'Avila. Hildegard received these purported visions without the influence of drugs and she transcribed them in a state of clarity unlike any other female mystics of her time.
What I appreciated about this edition was that they placed the pictorial depiction of her visions side by side with her writings and expositions of their meanings. The pity however is that these pictures(illustrated plates in the original medieval manuscripts) are not coloured, and one suffers from disappointment since he is not able to re-construct exactly the details(right down to the colour and shade Hildegard mentions) as in the original.
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