Hildegard of Bingen

Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), declared a saint and Doctor of the Church in 2012, achieved a level of literary and artistic production that surpasses the works of other medieval women and indeed of most medieval men. Mystic, exegete, theologian, foundress, artist, composer, healer, Hildegard created a vast exegetical and theological corpus grounded on her visionary understanding of Scripture—prophets, evangelists, and apostles. Her three visionary treatises (Scivias, Liber Vite Meritorum, and Liber diuinorum operum) are brilliantly interwoven with her  numerous other works: the Ordo uirtutum, the first extant morality play; the lives of saints Disibod and Rupert; the Expositiones euangeliorum, fifty-eight homilies on the gospels; the Cause et cure, a medical work on the humors; the Physica, a description of the characteristics of plants, elements, trees, stones, fish, birds, animals, reptiles, and metals and in some instances their medicinal properties; the liturgical songs of the Symphonia; commentaries on the Rule of Benedict and the Athanasian Creed; the Solutiones triginta octo quaestionum; an original language – the Lingua ignota; and more than 300 letters addressed to a range of audiences from popes to lay people. Hildegard still inspires us to profound theological thought rooted in love and oneness with God’s creation and in the perception of viriditas, the greening power of the Holy Spirit, in our humanity, the created world, and human history.