Hildegard

Hildegard of Bingen lived in the twelfth century, was from a noble family, and on good terms with all sorts of authoritative figures, within and without the Church. Which is not surprising, as in her mystical works she follows an orthodox line and adopts the humble, deferential attitude to God and men that she claims is appropriate to a woman. This attitude has been criticized, and it was argued that the work of a whole assortment of women mystics of the era, including her, was but a colorful way of supporting established power and dogma. In fact, at this point in our itinerary, we don’t learn much from those works that is new: the undivided God emanates like a flame or a wind and makes the whole world one, whereas Satan is divisive; since God cannot be divided, he is ineffable and incomprehensible. But far more interesting and stimulating developments come from other works of Hildegard. In her vast studies of all things natural—animal, vegetable, and mineral—she constantly comes back to the notion of viriditas (literally, greenness), which goes well beyond the lymph of plants (and beyond being green) to become the energy pulsating in every element of the universe: the one life that flows through everything, makes it resonate with everything else, and makes it contribute to the growth of everything else. And there is her music, which is plenty and is the occasion of her only serious confrontation with authority, late in life, when it was prohibited (as a form of punishment) in her convent, and she fought for it. For music is the purest empirical manifestation of oceanic logic: the continuity of this logic is at odds with a language made of separate words (though, when the language is spoken…) and best expressed in the fluidity of musical performance.