“Once while the blessed Francis was at the Portiuncula, a certain good beggar came along the way, returning from alms-begging in Assisi, and he went along praising God with a high voice and great jocundity. As he approached, Francis heard him, and ran out and met him in the way, and joyfully kissed his shoulder where he bore the wallet containing the gifts. Then he lifted the wallet, and set it on his own shoulder, and so carried it within, and said to the brothers: ‘Thus I wish to have my brothers go and return with alms, joyful and glad and praising God.’”[533]
“Aside from prayer and the divine service, the blessed Francis was most zealous in preserving continually an inward and outward spiritual gladness. And this he especially cherished in the brothers, and would reprove them for sadness and depression. For he said that if the servant of God would study to preserve, inwardly and outwardly, the spiritual joy which rises from purity of heart, and is acquired through the devotion of prayer, the devils could not harm him, for they say: So long as the servant of God is joyful in tribulation and prosperity, we cannot enter into him or harm him.... To our enemy and his members it pertains to be sad, but to us always to rejoice and be glad in the Lord.”[534]
Thus the glad temper of his young unconverted days passed into his saintly life, of which Christ was the primal source of rapture.
“Drunken with the love and pity of Christ, the blessed Francis would sometimes do such acts, when the sweetest melody of spirit within him boiling outward gave sound in French, and the strain of the divine whisper which his ear had taken secretly, broke forth in a glad French song. He would pick up a stick and, holding it over his left arm, would with another stick in his right hand make as if drawing a bow across a violin (viellam), and with fitting gestures would sing in French of the Lord Jesus Christ. At last this dancing would end in tears, and the jubilee turn to pity for the Passion of Christ. And in that he would continue, drawing sighs and groans, as, oblivious to what he held in his hands, he was suspended from heaven.”[535]
Francis had been a lover from his youth; naturally and always he had loved his kind. But from the time when Christ held his heart and mind, his love of fellow-man was moulded by his thought and love of Christ. Henceforth the loving acts of Francis moving among his fellows become a loving following of Christ. He sees in every man the character and person of his Lord, soliciting his love, commanding what he should do. He never refused, or permitted his followers to refuse, what was asked in Christ’s name; but it displeased him when he heard the brothers ask lightly for the love of God, and he would reprove them, saying: “So high and precious is God’s love that it never should be invoked save with great reverence and under pressing need.”[536]
Such a man felt strong personal affection. Pure and wise was his love for Santa Clara;[537] and a deep affection for one of his earliest and closest followers touches us in his letter to brother Leo. Not all of the writings ascribed to Francis breathe his spirit; but we hear his voice in this letter as it closes: “And if it is needful for thy soul or for thy consolation, and thou dost wish, my Leo, to come to me, come. Farewell in Christ.”
Francis’s love was unfailing in compassionate word and deed. Although cold and sick, he would give his cloak away at the first demand, till his own appointed minister-general commanded him on his obedience not to do so without permission; and he saw that the brothers did not injure themselves with fasting, though he took slight care of himself. On one occasion he had them all partake of a meal, in order that one delicate brother, who needed food, might not be put to shame eating while the rest fasted. And once, early in the morning, he led an old and feeble brother secretly to a certain vineyard, and there ate grapes before him, that he might not be ashamed to do likewise, for his health.[538]
The effect of his sweet example melted the hearts of angry men, reconciling such as had been wronged to those who had wronged them, and leading ruffians back to ways of gentleness. His conduct on learning of certain dissensions in Assisi illustrates his method of restoring peace and amity.
“After the blessed Francis had composed the Lauds of the creatures, which he called the Canticle of Brother Sun, it happened that great dissension arose between the bishop and the podestà of the City of Assisi, so that the bishop excommunicated the podestà, and the podestà made proclamation that no person should sell anything to the bishop or buy from him or make any contract with him.
“When the blessed Francis (who was now so very sick) heard this, he was greatly moved with pity, since no one interposed between them to make peace. And he said to his companions: ‘It is a great shame for us servants of God that the bishop and the podestà hate each other so, and none interposes to make peace.’
“And so for this occasion he at once made a verse in the Lauds above mentioned and said:
‘Praised be thou, O my Lord, for those who forgive from love of thee,
And endure sickness and tribulation.
Blessed are those who shall endure in peace,
For by thee, Most High, shall they be crowned.’
“Then he called one of his companions and said to him: ‘Go to the podestà, and on my behalf tell him to come to the bishop’s palace with the magnates of the city and others that he may bring with him.’
“And as that brother went, he said to two other of his companions: ‘Go before the bishop and podestà and the others who may be with them, and sing the Canticle of Brother Sun, and I trust in the Lord that He will straightway humble their hearts, and they will return to their former affection and friendship.’
“When all were assembled in the piazza of the episcopate, the two brothers arose, and one of them said: ‘The blessed Francis in his sickness made a Lauds of the Lord from His creatures in praise of the Lord and for the edification of our neighbour. Wherefore he begs that you would listen to it with great devoutness.’ And then they began to say and sing them.
“At once the podestà rose, and with folded hands listened intently, as if it were the Lord’s gospel; this he did with the greatest devoutness and with many tears, for he had great trust and devotion toward the blessed Francis.
“When the Lauds of the Lord were finished, the podestà said before them all: ‘Truly I say to you that not only my lord-bishop, whom I wish and ought to hold as my lord, but if any one had slain my brother or son I would forgive him.’ And so saying, he threw himself at the bishop’s feet, and said to him: ‘Look, I am ready in all things to make satisfaction to you as shall please you, for the love of our Lord Jesus Christ and His servant the blessed Francis.’
“The bishop accepting him, raised him with his hands and said: ‘Because of my office it became me to be humble, and since I am naturally quick-tempered you ought to pardon me.’ And so with great kindness and love they embraced and kissed each other.
“The brothers were astounded and made glad when they saw fulfilled to the letter the concord predicted by the blessed Francis. And all others present ascribed it as a great miracle to the merits of the blessed Francis, that the Lord suddenly had visited them, and out of such dissension and scandal had brought such concord.”[539]
It would be mistaken to refer to any single pious sentiment, the saint’s blithe love of animals and birds and flowers, and his regard even for senseless things. It is right, however, for Thomas of Celano, as a proper monkish biographer, to say:
“While hastening through this world of pilgrimage and exile that traveller (Francis) rejoiced in those things which are in the world, and not a little. As toward the princes of darkness he used the world as a field for battle, but as toward the Lord he treated it as the brightest mirror of goodness; in the fabric he commended the Artificer, and what he found in created things, he referred to the Maker; he exulted over all the works of the hands of the Lord, and in the pleasing spectacle beheld the life-giving reason and the cause. In beautiful things he perceived that which was most beautiful, as all good things acclaim, He who made us is best. Through vestiges impressed on things he followed his chosen, and made of all a ladder by which to reach the throne. He embraced all things in a feeling of unheard of devotion, speaking to them concerning the Lord and exhorting them in His praise.”[540]
This was true, even if it was not all the truth. Living creatures spoke to Francis of their Maker, while things insensible aroused his reverence through their suggestiveness, their scriptural associations, or their symbolism. But beyond these motives there was in this poet Francis a happy love of nature. If nature always spoke to him of God, its loveliness needed no stimulation of devotion in order to be loved by him. His feeling for it found everywhere sensibility and responsiveness. He was as if possessed by an imaginative animism, wherein every object had a soul. His acts and words may appear fantastic; they never lack loveliness and beauty.[541]
“Wrapped in the love of God, the blessed Francis perfectly discerned the goodness of God not only in his own soul but in every creature. Wherefore he was affected with a singular and yearning (viscerosa) love toward creatures, and especially toward those in which was figured something of God or something pertaining to religion.
“Whence above all birds he loved a little bird called the lark (the lodola capellata of the vulgar tongue) and would say of her: ‘Sister lark has a hood like a Religious and is a humble bird, because she goes willingly along the road to find for herself some grains of corn. Even if she find them in dung she picks them out and eats them. In flying she praises the Lord very sweetly, as the good Religious look down upon earthly things, whose conversation is always in the heavens and whose intent is always upon the praise of God. Her garments are like earth, that is, her feathers, and set an example to the Religious that they should not have delicate and gaudy garments, but such as are vile in price and colour, as earth is viler than other elements.’”[542]
The unquestionably true story of Francis preaching to the birds is known to all, especially to readers of the Fioretti. Thus Thomas of Celano tells it: As the blessed Father Francis was journeying through the Spoleto Valley, he reached a place near Mevanium, where there was a multitude of birds—doves, crows, and other kinds. When he saw them, for the love and sweet affection which he bore toward the lower creatures, he quickly ran to them, leaving his companions. As he came near and saw that they were waiting for him, he saluted them in his accustomed way. Then wondering that they did not take flight, he was very glad, and humbly begged them to listen to the word of God; among other things he said to them: “My brothers who fly, verily you should praise the Lord your Maker and love Him always, who gave you feathers to clothe you and wings to fly with and whatever was necessary to you. God made you noble among creatures, prepared your mansion in the purity of air; and though you neither sow nor reap, nevertheless without any solicitude on your part, He protects and guides you.”
At this, those little birds as he was speaking, marvellously exulting, began to stretch out their necks and spread their wings and open their beaks, looking at him. He passed through their midst, sweeping their heads and bodies with his mantle. At length he blessed them, and with the sign of the cross gave them leave to fly away. Then returning gladdened to his companions, he yet blamed himself for his neglect to preach to the birds before, since they so reverently heard the word of God. And from that day he ceased not to exhort all flying and creeping things, and even things insensible, to the praise and love of their Creator.[543]
Thomas also says that above all animals Francis loved the lambs, because so frequently in Scripture the humility of our Lord is likened unto a lamb. One day, as Francis was making his way through the March of Ancona he met a goat-herd pasturing his flock of goats. Among them, humbly and quietly, a little lamb was feeding. Francis stopped as he saw it, and, deeply touched, said to the brother accompanying him: “Dost thou see this sheep walking so gently among the goats? I tell you, thus our Lord Jesus Christ used to walk mild and humble among Pharisees and chief priests. For love of Him, then, I beg thee, my son, to buy this little sheep with me and lead it out from among these goats.”
The brother was also moved with pity. They had nothing with them save their wretched cloaks, but a merchant chancing to come along the way, the money was obtained from him. Giving thanks to God and leading the sheep they had bought, they reached the town of Osimo whither they were going; and entering the house of the bishop, were honourably received by him. Yet my lord bishop wondered at the sheep which Francis was leading with such tender love. But when Francis had set forth the parable of his sermon, the bishop too was touched and gave thanks to God.
The following day they considered what to do with the sheep, and it was given over to the nuns of the cloister of St. Severinus, who received it as a great boon given them from God. Long while they cared for it, and in the course of time wove a cloak from its wool, which they sent to the blessed Francis at the Portiuncula at the time of a Chapter meeting. The saint accepted it with joy, and kissed it, and begged all the brothers to be glad with him.[544]
Celano also tells how Francis loved the grass and vines and stones and woods, and all comely things in the fields, also the streams, and earth and fire and air, and called every creature “brother”;[545] also how he would not put out the flame of a lamp or candle, how he walked reverently upon stones, and was careful to injure no living thing.[546]
There are two documents which are both (the one with much reason and the other with certainty) ascribed to Francis. Utterly different as they are, each still remains a clear expression of his spirit. The one is the Lauds, commonly called the Canticle of the Brother Sun, and the other is the saint’s last Testament. One may think of the Canticle as the closing stanza of a life which was an enacted poem:
Most High, omnipotent, good Lord, thine is the praise, the glory, the honour and every benediction;
To thee alone, Most High, these do belong, and no man is worthy to name thee.
Praised be thou, my Lord, with all thy creatures, especially milord Brother Sun that dawns and lightens us;
And he, beautiful and radiant with great splendour, signifies thee, Most High.
Be praised, my Lord, for Sister Moon and the stars that thou hast made bright and precious and beautiful.
Be praised, my Lord, for Brother Wind, and for the air and cloud and the clear sky and for all weathers through which thou givest sustenance to thy creatures.
Be praised, my Lord, for Sister Water, that is very useful and humble and precious and chaste.
Be praised, my Lord, for Brother Fire, through whom thou dost illumine the night, and comely is he and glad and bold and strong.
Be praised, my Lord, for Sister, Our Mother Earth, that doth cherish and keep us, and produces various fruits with coloured flowers and the grass.
Be praised, my Lord, for those who forgive for love of thee, and endure sickness and tribulation; blessed are they who endure in peace; for by thee, Most High, shall they be crowned.
Be praised, my Lord, for our bodily death, from which no living man can escape; woe unto those who die in mortal sin.
Blessed are they that have found thy most holy will, for the second death shall do them no hurt.
Praise and bless my Lord, and render thanks, and serve Him with great humility.[547]
The self-expression of the more personal parts of the Testament supplement these utterances:
“Thus the Lord gave to me, Brother Francis, to begin to do penance: because while I was in sins, it seemed too bitter to me to see lepers; and the Lord himself led me among them, and I did mercy with them. And departing from them, that which seemed to me bitter, was turned for me into sweetness of soul and body. And a little afterwards I went out of the world.
“And the Lord gave me such faith in churches, that thus simply I should pray and say: ‘We adore thee, Lord Jesus Christ, and in all thy churches which are in the whole world, and we bless thee, because through thy holy cross thou hast redeemed the world.’
“Afterwards the Lord gave and gives me so great faith in priests who live after the model of the holy Roman Church according to their order, that if they should persecute me I will still turn to them. And if I should have as great wisdom as Solomon had, and should have found the lowliest secular priests in the parishes where they dwell, I do not wish to preach contrary to their wish. And them and all others I wish to fear and honour as my lords; and I do not wish to consider sin in them, because I see the Son of God in them and they are my lords.
“And the reason I do this is because corporeally I see nothing in this world of that most high Son of God except His most holy body and most holy blood, which they receive and which they alone administer. And I wish these most holy mysteries to be honoured above all and revered, and to be placed together in precious places. Wherever I shall find His most holy names and His written words in unfit places, I wish to collect them, and I ask that they be collected and placed in a proper place; and all theologians and those who administer the most holy divine words, we ought to honour and venerate, as those who administer to us spirit and life.
“And after the Lord gave me brothers, no one showed me what I ought to do, but the Most High himself revealed to me that I ought to live according to the model of the holy Gospel. And I in a few words and simply had this written, and the lord Pope confirmed it to me. And they who were coming to receive life, all that they were able to have they gave to the poor; and they were content with one patched cloak, with the cord and breeches; and we did not wish to have more. We who were of the clergy said our office as other clergy; the lay members said ‘Our Father.’ And willingly we remained in churches; and we were simple (idiotae) and subject to all. And I laboured with my hands, and I wish to labour; and I wish all other brothers to labour. Who do not know how, let them learn, not from the cupidity of receiving the price of labour, but on account of the example, and to repel slothfulness. And when the price of labour is not given to us, we resort to the table of the Lord by seeking alms from door to door.
“The Lord revealed to me a salutation that we should say: The Lord give thee peace.”
Francis’s precepts for the brothers follow here. The last paragraph of the Will is: “And whoever shall have observed these principles, in heaven may he be filled with the benediction of the most high Father, and on earth may he be filled with the benediction of His beloved Son, with the most holy spirit Paraclete, and with all the virtues of the heavens and with everything holy. And I, Brother Francis, your very little servant, so far as I am able, confirm to you within and without that most holy benediction.”
CHAPTER XIX
MYSTIC VISIONS OF ASCETIC WOMEN
Elizabeth of Schönau; Hildegard of Bingen; Mary of Ognies; Liutgard of Tongern; Mechthild of Magdeburg
We pass to matters of a different complexion from anything presented in the last few chapters. Thus far, besides Bernard and Francis, matchless examples of monastic ideals, there have been instances of contemplation and piety, with much emotion, and a sufficiency of experience having small part in reason; also hallucinations and fantastic conduct, as in the case of Romuald. The last class of phenomena, however, have not been prominent. Now for a while we shall be wrapt in visions, rational, imitative, fashioned with intent and plan; or, again, directly experienced, passionate, hallucinative. They will range from those climaxes of the constructive or intuitive imagination,[548] which are of the whole man, to passionate or morbid delusions representing but a partial and passing phase of the subject’s personality. Moreover, we have been occupied with hermits and monks, that is to say, with men. The present chapter has to do with nuns; who are more prone to visions, and are occasionally subject to those passionate hallucinations which are prompted by the circumstance that the Christian God was incarnate in the likeness of a man.
Besides the conclusions which the mind draws from the data of sense, or reaches through reflection, there are other modes of conviction whose distinguishing mark is their apparent immediacy and spontaneity. They are not elicited from antecedent processes of thought, as inferences or deductions; rather they loom upon the consciousness, and are experienced. Yet they are far from simple, and may contain a multiplicity of submerged reasonings, and bear relation to countless previous inferences. They are usually connected with emotion or neural excitement, and may even take the guise of sense-manifestations. Through such convictions, religious minds are assured of God and the soul’s communion with Him.[549] While not issuing from argument, this assurance may be informed with reason and involve the total sum of conclusions which the reasoner has drawn from life.
In devout mediaeval circles, the consciousness of communion with God, with the Virgin, with angels and saints, and with the devil, often took on the semblance of sense-perception. The senses seemed to be experiencing: stenches of hell, odours of heaven, might be smelled, or a taste infect the mouth; the divine or angelic touch was felt, or the pain of blows; most frequently voices were heard, and forms were seen in a vision. In these apparent testimonies of sight and hearing, the entire spiritual nature of the man or woman might set the vision, dramatize it with his or her desires and aversions, and complete it from the store of knowledge at command.
The visions of an eleventh-century monk named Othloh have been observed at some length.[550] Intimate and trying, they were also, so to speak, in and of the whole man: his tastes, his solicitudes, his acquired knowledge and ways of reasoning, joined in these vivid experiences of God’s truth and the devil’s onslaughts. One may be mindful of Othloh in turning to the more impersonal visions of certain German nuns, which likewise issued from the entire nature and intellectual equipment of these women.[551]
On the Rhine, fifteen miles north-east of Bingen, lies the village of Schönau, where in the twelfth century flourished a Benedictine monastery, and near it a cloister for nuns. At the latter a girl of twelve named Elizabeth was received in the year 1141. She lived there as nun, and finally as abbess, till her death in 1165. Like many other lofty souls dwelling in the ideal, she was a stern censor of the evils in the world and in the Church. The bodily infirmities from which she was never free, were aggravated by austerities, and usually became most painful just before the trances that brought her visions. Masses and penances, prayer and meditation, made her manner of approach to these direct disclosures of eternity, wherein the whole contents of her faith and her reflection were unrolled. Frequently she beheld the Saints in the nights following their festivals; her larger visions were moulded by the Apocalypse. These experiences were usually beatific, though sometimes she suffered insult from malignant shapes. What humility bade her conceal, the importunities of admirers compelled her to disclose: and so her visions have been preserved, and may be read in the Vita written by her brother Eckbert, Abbot of Schönau.[552] Here is an example of how the saint and seeress spoke:
“On the Sunday night following the festival of St. James (in the year 1153), drawn from the body, I was borne into an ecstasy (avocata a corpore rapta sum in exstasim). And a great flaming wheel flared in the heaven. Then it disappeared, and I saw a light more splendid than I was accustomed to see; and thousands of saints stood in it, forming an immense circle; in front were some glorious men, having palms and shining crowns and the titles of their martyrdoms inscribed upon their foreheads. From these titles, as well as from their pre-eminent splendour, I knew them to be the Apostles. At their right was a great company having the same shining titles; and behind these were others, who lacked the signs of martyrdom. At the left of the Apostles shone the holy order of virgins, also adorned with the signs of martyrdom, and behind them another splendid band of maidens, some crowned, but without these signs. Still back of these, a company of venerable women in white completed the circle. Below it was another circle of great brilliancy, which I knew to be of the holy angels.”
“In the midst of all was a Glory of Supreme Majesty, and its throne was encircled by a rainbow. At the right of that Majesty I saw one like unto the Son of Man, seated in glory; at the left was a radiant sign of the Cross.... At the right of the Son of Man sat the Queen of Kings and Angels on a starry throne circumfused with immense light. At the left of the Cross four-and-twenty honourable men sat facing it. And not far from them I saw two rams sustaining on their shoulders a great shining wheel. The morning after this, at terse, one of the brothers came to the window of my cell, and I asked that the mass for the Holy Trinity might be celebrated.
“The next Sunday I saw the same vision, and more: for I saw the Lamb of God standing before the throne, very lovable, and with a gold cross, as if implanted in its back. And I saw the four Evangelists in those forms which Holy Scripture ascribes to them. They were at the right of the Blessed Virgin, and their faces were turned toward her.”
And Elizabeth saw the Virgin arise and advance from out the great light into the lower ether, followed by a multitude of women saints, and then return amid great praise.
In another vision she saw the events of the Saviour’s last days on earth: saw Him riding into Jerusalem, and the multitude throwing down branches; saw Him washing the disciples’ feet, then the agony in the garden, the betrayal, the crowning with thorns, the spitting, the Lord upon the Cross, and the Mother of God full of grief; she saw the piercing of His side, the dreadful darkness,—all as in Scripture, and then the Scriptural incidents following the Resurrection. Upon this, her vision took another turn, and words were put in her mouth to chastise the people for their sins.
Apparently more original was Elizabeth’s vision of the Paths of God (the Viae Dei). In it three paths went straight up a mountain from opposite sides, the first having the hyacinthine hue of the deep heaven; the second green, the third purple. At the top of the mountain was a man, clad with a hyacinthine tunic, his reins bound with a white girdle; his face was splendid as the sun, his eyes shone as stars, and his hair was white; from his mouth issued a two-edged sword; in his right hand he held a key and in his left a sceptre. Elizabeth interprets: the man is Christ; and the mountain represents the loftiness of celestial beatitude; the light at the top is the brightness of eternal life; the three paths are the diverse ways in which the elect ascend. The hyacinthine path is that of the vita contemplativa; the green path is that of the religious vita activa; and the purple path is the way of the blessed martyrs.
There were also other paths up the mountain, one beset with brambles until half way up, where they gave place to flowers. This is the way of married folk, who pass from brambles to flowers when they abandon the pleasures of the flesh; for the flowers are the virtues which adorn a life of continence. Still other ways there were, for prelates, for widows, and for solitaries. And Elizabeth turns her visions into texts, and preaches vigorous sermons, denouncing the vices of the clergy as well as laity. In other visions she had seen prelates and monks and nuns in hell.
The visions of this nun appear to have been the fruit of the constructive imagination working upon data of the mind. Yet she is said to have seen them in trances, a statement explicitly made in the account of those last days when life had almost left her body. Praying devoutly in the middle of the night before she died, she seemed much troubled; then she passed into a trance (exstasim). Returning to herself, she murmured to the sister who held her in her arms: “I know not how it is with me; that light which I have been wont to see in the heavens is dividing.” Again she passed into a trance, and afterwards, when the sisters begged her to disclose what she had seen, she said her end was at hand, for she had seen holy visions which, many years before, God’s angel had told her she should not see again until she came to die. On being asked whether the Lord had comforted her, she answered, “Oh! what excellent comfort have I received!”
A more imposing personality than Elizabeth was Hildegard of Bingen,[553] whose career extends through nearly the whole of the twelfth century; for she was born in 1099 and died in 1179. Her parents were of the lesser nobility, holding lands in the diocese of Mainz. A certain holy woman, one Jutta, daughter of the Count of Spanheim, had secluded herself in a solitary cell at Disenberg—the mount of St. Disibodus—near a monastery of Benedictine monks. Drawn by her reputation, Hildegard’s parents brought their daughter to Jutta, who received her to a life like her own. The ceremony, which took place in the presence of a number of persons, was that of the last rites of the dead, performed with funeral torches. Hildegard was buried to the world. She was eight years old. At the same time a niece of Jutta also became a recluse, and afterwards others joined them.
On the death of Jutta in 1136, Hildegard was compelled to take the office of Prioress. But when the fame of the dead Jutta began to draw many people to her shrine, and cause a concourse of pilgrims, Hildegard decided to seek greater quiet, and possibly more complete independence; for the authority of the new abbot at the monastery may not have been to her liking. She was ever a masterful woman, better fitted to command than to obey. So in 1147 she and her nuns moved to Bingen, and established themselves permanently near the tomb of St. Rupert. From this centre the energies and influence of Hildegard, and rumours of her visions, soon began to radiate. Her advice was widely sought, and often given unasked. She corresponded with the great and influential, admonishing dukes and kings and emperors, monks, abbots, and popes. Her epistolary manner sometimes reminds one of Bernard, who was himself among her correspondents. The following letter to Frederick Barbarossa would match some of his:
“O King, it is very needful that thou be foreseeing in thy affairs. For, in mystic vision, I see thee living, small and insensate, beneath the Living Eyes (of God). Thou hast still some time to reign over earthly matters. Therefore beware lest the Supreme King cast thee down for the blindness of thine eyes, which do not rightly see how thou holdest the rod of right government in thy hand. See also to it that thou art such that the grace of God may not be lacking in thee.”[554]
This is the whole letter. Hildegard’s communications were not wont to stammer. They were frequently announced as from God, and began with the words “Lux vivens dicit.”
Hildegard was a woman of intellectual power. She was also learned in theology, and versed in the medicine and scanty natural science of an epoch which preceded the reopening of the great volume of Aristotelian knowledge in the thirteenth century. Yet she asserts her illiteracy, and seems always to have employed learned monks to help her express, in awkward Latin, the thoughts and flashing words which, as she says, were given her in visions. Her many gifts of grace, if not her learning, impressed contemporaries, who wrote to her for enlightenment upon points of doctrine and biblical interpretation; they would wait patiently until she should be enabled to answer, since her answers were not in the power of her own reflection, but had to be seen or heard. For instance, a monk named Guibert, who afterwards became the saint’s amanuensis and biographer, propounded thirty-eight questions of biblical interpretation on behalf of the monks of the monastery of Villars. In the course of time Hildegard replies: “In visione animae meae, haec verba vidi et audivi,” and thereupon she gives a text from Canticles with an exposition of it, which neither she nor the monks regarded quite as hers, but as divinely revealed. At the end of the letter she says that she, insignificant and untaught creature, has looked to the “true light,” and through the grace of God has laboured upon their questions and has completed the solutions of fourteen of them.[555]
In some of Hildegard’s voluminous writings, visions were apparently a form of composition; again, more veritable visions, deemed by her and by her friends to have been divinely given, made the nucleus of the work at length produced by the labour of her mind. Guibert recognized both elements, the God-given visions of the seeress and her contributory labour. In letters which had elicited the answers above mentioned, he calls her speculativa anima, and urges her to direct her talents (ingenium) to the solution of the questions. But he also addresses her in words just varied from Gabriel’s and Elizabeth’s to the Virgin:
“Hail—after Mary—full of grace; the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the word of thy mouth.... In the character of thy visions, the logic of thy expositions, the orthodoxy of thy opinions, the Holy Spirit has marvellously illuminated thee, and revealed to babes divers secrets of His wisdom.”[556]
In answer to more personal inquiries from the deeply-interested Guibert, Hildegard (who at the time was venerable in years and in repute for sanctity) explains how she saw her visions, and how her knowledge of Scripture came to her:
“From infancy, even to the present time when I am more than seventy years old, my soul has always beheld this visio,[557] and in it my soul, as God may will, soars to the summit of the firmament and into a different air, and diffuses itself among divers peoples, however remote they may be. Therefore I perceive these matters in my soul, as if I saw them through dissolving views of clouds and other objects. I do not hear them with my outer ears, nor do I perceive them by the cogitations of my heart, or by any collaboration of my five senses; but only in my soul, my eyes open, and not sightless as in a trance; wide awake, whether by day or night, I see these things. And I am perpetually bound by my infirmities and with pains so severe as to threaten death, but hitherto God has raised me up.
“The brightness which I see is not limited in space, and is more brilliant than the luminous air around the sun, nor can I estimate its height or length or breadth. Its name, which has been given me, is Shade of the living light (umbra viventis luminis). Just as sun, moon, or stars appear reflected in the water, I see Scripture, discourses, virtues and human actions shining in it.
“Whatever I see or learn in this vision, I retain in my memory; and as I may have seen or heard it, I recall it to mind, and at once see, hear, know; in an instant I learn whatever I know. On the other hand, what I do not see, that I do not know, because I am unlearned; but I have had some simple instruction in letters. I write whatever I see and hear in the vision, nor do I set down any other words, but tell my message in the rude Latin words which I read in the vision. For I am not instructed in the vision to write as the learned write; and the words in the vision are not as words sounding from a human mouth, but as flashing flame and as a cloud moving in clear air.
“Nor have I been able to perceive the form of this brightness, just as I cannot perfectly see the disk of the Sun. In that brightness I sometimes see another light, for which the name Lux vivens has been given me. When and how I see it I cannot tell; but sometimes when I see it, all sadness and pain is lifted from me, and then I have the ways of a simple girl and not those of an old woman.”[558]
The obscure Latin of this letter gives the impression of one trying to put in words what was unintelligible to the writer. And the same sense of struggle with the inadequacies of speech comes from the prologue of a work written many years before:
“Lo, in the forty-third year of my temporal course, while I, in fear and trembling, was intent upon the celestial vision, I saw a great splendour in which was a voice speaking to me from heaven: Frail creature, dust of the dust, speak and write what thou seest and hearest. But because that thou art timid of speech and unskilled in writing, speak and write these things not according to human utterance nor human understanding of composition; but as thou seest and hearest in the heavens above, in the marvels of God, so declare, as a hearer sets forth the words of his preceptor, preserving the fashion of his speech, under his will, his guidance and his command. Thus thou, O man (homo), tell those things which thou seest and hearest, and write, not according to thyself or other human being, but according to the will of Him who knows and sees and disposes all things in the secrets of His mysteries.
“And again, I heard a voice saying to me from heaven: Tell these marvels and write them, taught in this way, and say: It happened in the year one thousand one hundred and forty-one of the incarnation of Jesus Christ the Son of God, when I was forty-two years old, that a flashing fire of light from the clear sky transfused my brain, my heart, and my whole breast as with flame; yet it did not burn but only warmed me, as the sun warms an object upon which it sheds its rays. And suddenly I had intelligence of the full meaning of the Psalter, the Gospels, and the other books of the Old and New Testaments, although I did not have the exact interpretation of the words of their text, nor the division of syllables nor knowledge of cases and moods.”
The writer continues with the statement:
“The visions which I saw, I did not perceive in dreams or sleeping, nor in delirium, nor with the corporeal ears and eyes of the outer man; but watchful and intent in mind I received them according to the will of God.”[559]
Hildegard spoke as truthfully as she could about her visions and the source of her knowledge, matters hard for her to put in words, and by no means easy for others to classify in categories of seeming explanation. Guibert may have read the work in question. At all events, his interesting correspondence with her, and her great repute, led him to come to see for himself and investigate her visions; for he realized that deceptions were common, and wished to follow the advice of Scripture to prove all things. So he made the journey to Bingen, and stayed four days with Hildegard. This was in 1178, about a year before her death. “So far as was possible in this short space of time, I observed her attentively; and I could not perceive in her any invention or untruth or hypocrisy, or indeed anything that could offend either us or other men who follow reason.”[560]
Springing from her rapt faith, the visions of this seeress and anima speculativa disclose the range of her knowledge and the power of her mind. The visions all were allegories; but while some appear as sheer spontaneous visions, in others the mind of Hildegard, aware of the intended allegorical significance, constructs the vision, and fashions its details to suit the spiritual meaning. This woman, fit sister to her contemporaries Hugo of St. Victor and Bernard of Clairvaux, was ancestress of him who saw his Commedia both as fact and allegory, and with intended mind laboured upon that inspiration which kept him lean for twenty years.
Let us now follow these visions for ourselves, and begin with the Book of the Rewards of Life revealed by the Living Light through a simple person.[561]
“When I was sixty years old, I saw the strong and wonderful vision wherein I toiled for five years. And I saw a Man of such size that he reached from the summit of the clouds of heaven even to the Abyss. From his shoulders upward he was above the clouds in the serenest ether. From his shoulders down to his hips he was in a white cloud; from his hips to his knees he was in the air of earth; from the knees to the calves he was in the earth; and from his calves to the soles of his feet he was in the waters of the Abyss, so that he stood upon the Abyss. And he turned to the East. The brightness of his countenance dazzled me. At his mouth was a white cloud like a trumpet, which was full of all sounds sounding quickly. When he blew in it, it sent forth three winds, of which one sustained above itself a fiery cloud, and one a storm-cloud, and one a cloud of light. But the wind with the fiery cloud above it hovered before the Man’s face, while the two others descended to his breast and blew there.
“And in the fiery cloud there was a living fiery multitude all one in will and life. Before them was spread a tablet covered with quills (pennae) which flew in the precepts of God. And when the precepts of God lifted up that tablet where God’s knowledge had written certain of its secrets, this multitude with one impulse gazed on it. And as they saw the writing, God’s virtue was so bestowed upon them that as a mighty trumpet they gave forth in one note a music manifold.
“The wind having the storm-cloud over it, spread, with that cloud, from the south to the west. In it was a multitude of the blessed, who possessed the spirit of life; and their voice was as the noise of many waters as they cried: We have our habitations from Him who made this wind, and when shall we receive them? But the multitude that was in the fiery cloud chanted responding: When God shall grasp His trumpet, lightning and thunder and burning fire shall He send upon the earth, and then in that trumpet shall ye have your habitation.
“And the wind which had over it the cloud of light spread with that cloud from the east to the north. But masses of darkness and thick horror coming from the west, extended themselves to the light cloud, yet could not pass beyond it. In that darkness was a countless crowd of lost souls; and these swerved in their course whenever they heard the song of those singing in the storm-cloud, as if they shunned their company.
“Then I saw coming from the north, a cloud barren of delight, untouched by the Sun’s rays. It reached towards the darkness aforesaid, and was full of malignant spirits, who go about devising snares for men. And I heard the old serpent saying, ‘I will prepare my men of might and will make war upon mine enemies.’ And he spat forth among men a spume of things impure, and inflated them with derision. Then he blew up a foul mist which filled the whole earth as with black smoke, out of which was heard a groaning; and in that mist I saw the images of every sin.”[562]
These images now speak in their own defence, and are answered by the virtues, speaking from the storm-cloud, Heavenly Love replying to Love of this World, Discipline answering Petulance, Shame answering Ribaldry (the vice of the jongleours) after the fashion of such mediaeval allegorical debates. The virtues are simply voices; but the monstrous or bestial image of each sin is described: