Still reading up on Hildegard of Bingen from the book “St. Hildegard of Bingen” by Carmen Acevedo Butcher (excellent, excellent read) and I found another section I would like to share. This translation of the first section of vision four from SCIVIAS sounds quite gnostic in nature. The painting I included in the post is from this section of the SCIVIAS.
Who am I? A pilgrim wandering in death’s shadow. What path am I on? The wrong one. What comfort can I get? That given to pilgrims. I know what I should have become. My body was designed as a sacred temple, a sanctuary shining with gems brighter than the sun and stars, because they radiate God’s magnificence. The roof and the walls should have all been made of gems. The stairs would have been crystal, and the streets gold. I was made to be friends with the angels because I’m a living breath God placed in mud. I was supposed to experience God. But no! When I saw I could focus on anything I wanted, my inmost self turned its attention to the sinister North. I regret that so much now! For I was captured, robbed, blinded and violated. My garment was torn. I was dragged to a gruesome place and subjected to the worst kind of slavery. My captors hit me and made me eat with pigs. They put me on the rack and tortured me. They threw me outside and stung me with scorpions. Then they shouted at me, laughing, “Where’s your honor now?”
Culmination of Wisdom 