The works of St Hildegarde of Bingen have recently aroused the interest in various groups and scientists. Her works are discussed by ecophilosophers, supporters of alternative medicine, nutritionists, producers of healthy food and medicinal plants. In many works of literature found on the market on St Hildegard, one can discover various renderings of her works and teachings, both in Christian as well as feminist and New Age literature. However, with a more careful reading of her work, it would really be wrong to place this mystic in any other context outside of Germanic medieval culture and Benedictine teaching. Her works are an inspiration to artists and writers. We are not aware whether Dante was really inspired by Hildegard's visions, but we do know that one of the earliest recorded descriptions of St Hildegard’s Purgatory is very similar to the one later used by Dante in his The Divine Comedy. Among the very notable novels about the life of St Hildegarde, 2018 novel The Greenest Branch by writer P.K. Adams (real name Patrycja Podrazik) stands out. In recent times, interest in her works is also on the rise in Croatia, especially cookbooks, spiritual and medical manuals, but apart from these practical instructions for a healthy and harmonious life, the question arises whether modern man can still learn something from St Hildegard? In this piece, I will briefly refer to Hildegard's special contribution to the development of ecotheology as a discipline that is increasingly becoming the subject of theological and broader socioecological discourse.
A
much revised draft of ecotheological thought is brought to us by Pope Francis in his encyclical Laudato sì (24 May 2015). However,
we have been able to find Christian reflections on the inextricable connection between the biological and moral order from the very beginning in theology and medieval
philosophy. It would be wrong to talk about the integral ecology advocated by
Pope Francis and his predecessor Pope Benedict XVI, and not to mention the
Benedictine contribution to the development of Christian environmental awareness. It is known
that the German mystic and Benedictine, St Hildegard of Bingen (1098 – 1179)
dealt with medicine and natural sciences, botany, theology and music in her
various works. We are also aware that she wrote a lot and actively participated in the social
and political events of her time.
The body of her works includes mystical
and spiritual works, literary works, medical manuals, musical works, and about 300
letters to popes, kings and bishops. She founded and led monasteries in
Rupertsberg (1147) and Ebingen (1165), and in October 2012, Pope Benedict XVI
declared her a teacher of the church. Among her most famous works are Scivias (Know the Ways), Liber vitae
meritorum (The Book of the Rewards of
Life), Liber divinorum operum (The Book of Divine Works), Physica (Nature's Healing Power), Causae
et curae (Holistic healing) and Liber simplicis medicinae (Book of
Simple Medicine). In addition to
these works, she wrote songs, hymns
and antiphons, which
she collected in the book Symphonia
harmoniae caelestium revelationum (Symphony of the Harmony of Heavenly Revelations). She composed a total of 77 works, including
43 antiphons, 18 responsoriums, 7 hymns, and the oratorio
Ordo virtutum (Order of the Virtues), which still
delights admirers of sacred music today.
Before we touch on the contribution of St Hildegard to the development of Christian awareness of the environment, it should be mentioned that Christian theology views the environmental problem in connection with social responsibility. It starts from the relationship between the creation and the Creator, the sanctity and inviolability of life, solidarity and ecological responsibility. The book of nature is, as pointed out by St Hildegard, and echoed by Pope Benedict XVI in the encyclical Caritas in Veritate (29 June 2009) “one and indivisible: it takes in not only the environment but also life, sexuality, marriage, the family, social relations” (Caritas in Veritate, no. 51). The path to integral ecology leads Christian thought to the mystery of the incarnation, which connects man with the whole of being and the fullness of life. Just like St Hildegard of Bingen, Pope Francis also emphasizes that man is invited to be a co-creator of the world in which he lives.
In his call for a cultural turn towards the environment, Pope
Francis in his encyclical Laudato sì emphasizes the virtue of moderation which
is reflected in the Benedictine principle “less is more”.
The ecological conversion he calls for includes gratitude and the awareness that we are not separate from other creatures but that we share
the living space with them. The Benedictine ascetic school
can be used as an example of such a cultural turn towards complete ecology. The principle of ora et labora, which helps monks to find a balanced
and harmonious relationship
between action and contemplation, applies equally to the sphere of work and
leisure. It is precisely St
Hildegard’s concept of eco-spirituality,
briefly presented here, that St Hildegard builds
fundamental spiritual principles of moderation and balanced development on.
St Hildegard of Bingen (1098 – 1179) in her mystical and natural
history writings emphasizes the close connection between the microcosm and the
macrocosm, starting from cosmic theocentrism and the theology of nature. Her
ecotheological teaching consists of connecting
the natural and social environment, material and spiritual
reality, from which man's
duties and responsibilities for all life on earth arise.
She, like some earlier church
writers Origen, St Gregory of
Nazianzus and St Maximus the Confessor, views all reality as one harmonious and ordered
cosmic entity, a reflection of the divine
theophany. The universe
in her illustrations represents a glorified
panorganism composed of trinitarian spheres.
We can find in her writings
the influence of the Orphic Pythagorean tradition and early medieval mystical
literature. For Hildegard, God is the
Supreme Being, the transcendent beginning, the creative
and final cause of all nature. He is the Living Light that illuminates
the darkness and without who there is no life on Earth. Life is imbued with an
immanent logos and a life-giving
force that recognizes it in every being as viriditas or
the convergence of beings towards
integral development. Viriditas
is a compound of the Latin words virga - greenness and vires - strength. Against the concept
of viriditas, Hildegard
opposes the concept of ariditas (Lat.
dry land - arida terra) as the
convergence of beings towards chaos, differentiation and loss of vitality. The
concept of viriditas is also related
to Avicenna's teaching, who believed that life force heals; virtus, non medicus. Ariditas is
a metaphor for devolution processes, and viriditas
is a metaphor for spiritual and material growth and development. In the
dialectical tension between the strength of viriditas
and the conflicting tendencies of ariditas,
the entire human history and the drama of salvation
take place. We will soon notice that
Hildegard's theological and poetic expression
is marked by the symbolism of the garden. Her language is imbued
with suggestive metaphors and
impressive allegories she draws from the fairy-tale nature of the Rhineland.
The very first contact with her works of art, songs, illustrations and music shows us the spiritual nature of this exceptionally gifted and educated woman of the 12ᵗʰ century. She has a unique iconographic and musical signature. Her life and works break numerous prejudices and stereotypes that people often have when it comes to medieval culture and the role of women in the Church. In her writings, we will never find reflections that the Earth is a “flat disc” or the attitude that the body is the prison of the soul. When she talks about the universe that moves and is curved “like an egg in God's womb”, she is much closer to modern science. In her theocentric cosmology, man is launched as a homo viator on the way to the fullness of life. In the work Liber divinorum operum, she shows in an allegorical way the virtues and vices that alienate man from the Creator and other beings on Earth. Human greed and selfishness erode every society and every community. They push the world towards hunger, violence and wars. In this world, man was given a calling to fight against evil, choose virtue and live a virtuous life. Under heaven, no creature is useless or superfluous. Hildegard says: “Do not despise anything that God has created” (Scivias 1, 2.29-30). Man is organically connected with nature and is called not only to “guard and cultivate” God's garden, but to fulfil his existence in the world as a “cosmic gardener”. Just like that, like a cosmic gardener for whom the Earth is not the limit or the last station. That is why the transcendental humanism she advocates is much closer to some contemporary theologians, such as Teilhard de Chardin and Karl Rahner, than to modern pantheistic teachings. Hildegard was a mystic who created her works inspired by the “fire of the burning bush” like the prophet Moses. She began writing down her visions in the work Scivias around 1151, encouraged by the approval of Pope Eugenius IV who heard about them at the synod in Trier (1147-1148).
Medieval people, like St Hildegard and St Francis of Assisi, lived in an “enchanted world”. This is the pre-modern world that Max Weber talks about in his lecture “Science as a Vocation” to the students of the University of Munich in 1919. Unlike the “enchanted world” in which medieval man lives, the modern man lives in a “disenchanted world” (Entzauberung der Welt) and a desacralized world.
The devastation of nature and dehumanization are signified by the principle of ariditas. The German mystic draws these vivid comparisons viriditas – ariditas from the wisdom of the Old Testament. The Old Testament writer says: “a crushed spirit dries up the bones” (Proverbs 17:22). The barren land (ariditas) is a metaphor for the world that has drifted away from the Creator. Above all things, according to St Hildegard, there is a life-giving and omnipotent force, the principle of vita integra. The immanent logos that initiates the creative movement (creatio continua) manifests itself in air, fire and water. She vividly compares this life-giving force to an unextinguished flame. All beings are like sparks of God's radiance, dependent on his light and grace. Therefore, any distancing of man from his biological nature is wrong. “For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone!” (Romans 14:7) Any alienation of man from the concept of viriditas is an alienation from integral development (vita integra) and truth, because where there is viriditas there is also veritas.
The modern alienation of man from nature has its roots in modern anthropocentrism which is much more radical than the ancient one. It has its roots in modern philosophy and Cartesian dualism. Modern man began to observe nature as a heavenly machine reduced to physical and chemical settings. With the philosophy of rationalism and the Reformation comes the separation of the sacred from the profane, the thinking (res cognitans) and the extending thing (res extensa). The mechanistic paradigm that began to develop in the 16ᵗʰ and 17ᵗʰ centuries led to a change in man's relationship towards nature, but also to the concept of development and well-being. With the development of the industrial revolution, man reduced nature to mere objectivity and a means of exploitation. What happened is what Max Horkheimer accented in the book The Critique of Instrumental Reason, “the entire universe becomes a tool of the ego”. Today, man has become a techno-being in constant risk of ending up as a technological surplus. Therefore, we cannot separate today's socio-ecological crisis from the technocratic paradigm and market fundamentalism which began to develop earlier on the wings of the new century's relationship towards man, nature and the economy.
The technocratic paradigm that arose from a mechanistic view of nature, today takes on the character of secular soteriology and eschatology, and market fundamentalism manifested in violent consumerism and the “culture of rejection” has direct implications in the production and deepening of the ecological crisis. Of course, we can never separate the ecological crisis from the moral one because it is mostly caused by anthropogenic factors. For the modern homo faber, the environment is an object of exploitation and pure profanation. Today, man lives in a constant imbalance and chaotic state. He must urgently change the style of production and consumption, as invited by Pope Francis. He must urgently establish a balance and understand life as God's gift, and the world entrusted to him as God's garden. The idea of progress has transformed into the destruction of the biosphere for the purpose of limitless accumulation and exploitation of natural resources. Endless technical progress and economic growth become their own purpose. When profit becomes its own purpose, life is nothing but pure immanence devoid of the sacred, mystical and magical. Quite differently for St Hildegard, the entire created world is a natural liturgy and symphony of the Holy Spirit. She is a woman who is amazed by the works of nature and gazes at the Creator through them. For her, human existence is not mere existence but coexistence and existence. In the “disillusioned world” spoken of by Max Weber and more recently by the Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor, man lives on social and economic myths. He tends to believe that any acquisition of power leads to progress (Laudato sì, n. 105). The problem is not that technological development of our time follows a progressive path, but the problem is that it does not follow ecological awareness and moral responsibility. The problem is that the distorted idea of progress is based on the logic of “use and leave behind”. When a person separates viriditas from veritas within himself, a crisis occurs. Instead of balanced development that is in harmony with natural cycles, we have irresponsible management and violence against nature. It stems from the social myth of progress as exponential economic growth. That is why today we need an integral ecology that calls for a moderate lifestyle and profound solutions. We need an ecology that includes social responsibility and solidarity. Therefore, we cannot talk about an ecological change without a moral change. A call to ecological conversion is a call to social conversion. The prophet Isaiah says: “The Earth is God's property” (Is 5:8-13). Violation of the environment from an ecotheological perspective is, as Pope Francis points out, a violation of the sanctity of life because every being has been entered into the book of nature (Laudato sì, no. 67). That is why Hans Jonas's imperative is valid in today's and future discussions about the correct attitude towards the environment: “Act so that the effects of your action are compatible with the permanence of genuine human life on Earth”, or: “do not endanger the conditions for the unlimited existence of humanity on Earth”.1
The Benedictine model of ecological and social balance is certainly one of the possible ways to overcome materialistic anthropocentrism and the ubiquitous “culture of rejection”. Global ecological disasters can be prevented by initiating an eco-social market model of growth and development. It can be prevented if we contrast the utilitarian ethos with an altruistic ethos. If we say enough to the economy of violence, the production of wars, hunger and disease in the world. Today’s man is in constant need of spiritual and ecological salvation. Therefore, the interest of various groups in the works of St Hildegarde of Bingen is not surprising. We are aware that St Benedict of Nursia gave physical work a spiritual meaning and encouraged the construction of a whole series of monastic settlements around Europe. Agricultural farms and settlements developed around the Benedictine abbeys, mills, pharmacies, hospices and infirmaries were built. Such estates can still provide an example of environmental and social responsibility. An example of the medieval use of energy from the sun, water, wind and the development of “green technologies”. An example of this is the Clairvaux Abbey in the mid 12ᵗʰ century.
Today, when the world fears nuclear disasters, and fundamental human
rights and freedoms are sacrificed for oil and gas, a return to ecological
balance and a healthy life are imposed as a necessity. People are crying out on
the streets of numerous American and European
cities for urgent
ecological and economic
measures to save the planet,
but in that cry they forget
that it does not exist
without social love and a global ethic of responsibility (Laudato sì, no.
231).
The alienation of modern man from an idyllic or Arcadian
relationship to nature gradually led
him to an imperial relationship to nature and a materialistic – expansive
concept of development. The principle of ariditas, which St Hildegard writes about, manifests itself in the loss of
biodiversity and ecocide. It
manifests itself in radical
selfishness and the controlled production of crisis.
Therefore, it is not surprising that modern man wants to escape from such
a world to a green oasis of joy and slumber. It is not surprising that he
resorts to spiritual consumerism and various
techniques of self-salvation. Many say that it was through Hildegard's teachings on nutrition and
health that they achieved spiritual
and physical balance. Her advice helped many to establish a correct relationship with themselves, the world, and the relationship with God. Everyone today
will confirm that for a healthy life, in addition to a balanced and healthy
diet produced on the principles of ecological production, as equally important
are oxygen, light, water, positive emotions, and physical activity.
St Hildegard’s rich illustrations also direct attention to holistic
approach when considering ecological topics. The picture of nature that she
presents to us is not a picture of wild untamed nature, but of a harmonious and
concordant whole in which all beings are connected and dependent on God's love like plants
are on the sun. In this orderly
world, man is called to be a “cosmic gardener”, and
not a usurper or contaminator.
The virtue of moderation emphasized by St Hildegard in her writings, does not lead man to less, but more freedom. The virtue of moderation teaches us how to reduce consumption to moderate limits and efficient use, for example recycling (Laudato si, 22). The virtue of moderation helps us free ourselves from attachment to superfluous and often completely unnecessary things. Christian asceticism that modern man has forgotten tames our selfish nature and opens us to the needs of others. Oftentimes, even we Christians, who inherit evangelical values and which we profess declaratively, do not live a life worthy of our calling. We often show by our example that we are not up to the challenges of time. We follow trends, instead of creating new ones and pushing boundaries. We do what others do in fear of being rejected if we take bold steps. That is why we admire St Hildegard, because nothing prevented her from carrying out her mission. In those so-called “dark” Middle Ages, she was able to heal, compose, preach publicly, engage in scientific work, participate in the social events of her time and influence cultural changes. Even today, when they are far freer, many women do not know how to balance family and business life. How to find time for themselves, time for their loved ones, time for God? We can learn from Hildegard that there is no faith without moderation. That moderation that modern man has lost and which I can no longer find, neither can so many Marthas nor so many Marys from Jesus' parable (Luke 10:38-42).
1 JONAS Hans, Imperative of Responsibility – In Search of an Ethics for the Technological Age, translated by: Hans Jonas with the collaboration of David Herr, The University of Chicago Press, USA 1984
