Biography

Who was the remarkable Hildegard of Bingen? Foundress of two monasteries, visionary and biblical theologian, prophetess, author of works in multiple genres, composer, natural scientist, and healer, she was the most extraordinary woman of the twelfth century. Born in 1098 at Niederhosenbach, she was the tenth child of Mechthild and Hildebert of Bermersheim (near Mainz), who ranked in the lower free nobility. They dedicated her to a religious life when she was around eight years of age, placing her in the care of the holy woman Jutta, daughter of the count of Sponheim. Jutta and Hildegard entered the Benedictine monastery of Disibodenberg on All Saints’ Day, November 1, 1112. A small women’s community developed in dependence on the abbot of Disibodenberg with Jutta as superior. Hildegard remained under Jutta’s tutelage for around thirty years; when Jutta died in 1136, Hildegard became the magistra. Hildegard later founded Rupertsberg, where she and her nuns settled around 1150; then in 1165 she founded Eibingen, across the Rhine from Bingen. From the Rupertsberg, Hildegard journeyed to other audiences, primarily monastic communities whom she admonished about monastic and clerical reform.

Hildegard received commands from God in three decisive visions of 1141, 1163, and 1167. In 1141, Hildegard experienced a forceful vision that instructed her to “speak and write” what she heard and saw. About that 1141 vision, she states: “And suddenly I knew the meaning of the exposition (intellectum expositionis) of the Psalter, the Gospels, and other catholic books from the volumes of the Old as well as the New Testaments.” After that divine command, she began to produce her first work, Sciuias, which was followed by two more visionary treatises. She recalls that she “sweated over” the “true visions” of her first book for ten years. Hildegard toiled over the second book, Liber uitae meritorum (Book of Life’s Merits) for five years, approximately 1158-1163. Inspired by a vision she received at age sixty, the magistra began to write it down at sixty-one. In that work, Hildegard highlights vices, specifying the remedial virtues along with the corresponding punishment and penance.

Two additional visions furthered her understanding of Scripture: a powerful 1163 vision, opened her first understanding of Genesis 1 and John 1. A gentler 1167 vision, in which she received knowledge from the Spirit of God in the form of “soft raindrops,” compelled her to “explore every statement and word of this Gospel regarding the beginning of the work of God.” That vision heightened her comprehension of those texts to such a degree that she could no longer refrain from writing her third visionary treatise, the Liber diuinorum operum (Book of Divine Works). She states that she had barely completed the work after seven years. Final changes to the work were probably finished in 1174 and incorporated into its earliest manuscript.

In addition to the visionary treatises, Hildegard composed the Ordo uirtutum (Play of the Virtues), the first extant morality play; the lives of saints Disibod and Rupert; the Causes and cures, a medical work on the humors; theliturgical songs of the Symphonia; commentaries on the Rule of Benedict and the Athanasian Creed; the Solutions for Thirty-Eight Questions; over 300 letters; a coded language for her nuns; and the Homilies on the Gospels. During the 1170s, Hildegard began organizing the writing of her Vita, as she completed other works.A well-known letter (23) deals with the interdict imposed on Hildegard’s monastery in 1178-1179, because she allowed the burial of a man she thought to be wrongly excommunicated. The interdict was finally lifted six months before her death.

The Homilies on the Gospels and Beverly Kienzle’s work

Beverly translated Hildegard of Bingen’s Homilies on the Gospels for the first time from Latin into English: Homilies on the Gospels (2011). It was she, in collaboration with Carolyn A Muessig and George P. Ferzoco, who edited the Homilies (Expositiones euangeliorum) from their earliest manuscript (2007). After her painstaking research on Hildegard’s use of patristic sources, Beverly authored the first ever comprehensive study of the Homilies, Hildegard of Bingen and Her Gospel Homilies.

Hildegard’s sisters recorded and preserved her informal preaching in this collection of homilies on twenty-seven gospel pericopes. As a teacher and superior to her sisters, Hildegard probably spoke to them in the chapter house, with the scriptural text either before her or recited from memory, according to Benedictine liturgical practice. 

As Beverly Kienzle writes,

“Hildegard was the only medieval woman who systematically interpreted the Gospels; that is, she explained the multiple meanings of biblical texts methodically and theologically. She achieved a rich, creative, and coherent presentation of Christian theology, from the origins of the world and humankind to the afterlife. She affirmed repeatedly that divine visions taught her the deepest meaning of the Scriptures.”

In Kienzle’s view, “Viriditas, or greenness, a unifying capacity of nature, lies at the core of Hildegard’s natural science, medicine, cosmology, and theology. The life-giving power of the Holy Spirit offers hope, refreshment, and faith in God’s creation, even when human perversion destroys it.  For Hildegard, the lives and spirits of all creatures are interdependent—a crucial lesson for a world suffering from a pandemic and the destruction of natural life.”

Her belief in the interconnectedness of all living beings influences the international movements for integrative medicine and for environmental protection. Hildegard’s influence on healing, creation theology, and women’s leadership continues today, as evidenced by the spiritual pilgrimage to her homeland, so beautifully presented in the videos of the 2019 pilgrimage along the “Hildegard Way” directed by Michael M. Conti. Conti’s rich and extensive set of breath-taking films and interviews sustained Hildegard devotees outside Germany during the pandemic years of 2019 and 2020.

Beverly celebrated her 2015 retirement with a series of events focused on Hildegard of Bingen and her works:

Left to Right: Michael M. Conti, Beverly Kienzle, George Ferzoco, Robert Hensley-King at Harvard Divinity School, April 8, 2015.

Michael M. Conti screened his film, “The Unruly Mystic: Saint Hildegard“, before a fascinated crowd at Harvard Divinity School on April 8 2015.

Linn Maxwell Keller performed the drama she wrote herself, “Hildegard of Bingen and the Living Light” for a spellbound audience on April 17, 2015, at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Cambridge, MA; and scholars Carolyn A. Muessig and George Ferzoco, University of Bristol, UK, delivered lectures in two areas pertinent to Hildegard research:  “Religious Women Preachers,” and “The Canonization Process for Hildegard of Bingen.”

RESOURCES

Video: The Solutions to 38 Questions of Hildegard of Bingen

Video: The Unruly Mystic: Saint Hildegard
Patron Saint of Creativity

Shanon Sterringer, Ph.D., D.Min, MA Theology, MA Ministry, BA
Ordained Priest, GSC, RCWP
Pastor, The Community of St. Hildegard
630 Plum St., Fairport Harbor, OH
Associate Professor, 
St. Hildegard Theological Seminary
American Apostolic Old Catholic Church

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