A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

hildegard, the schools, and their critics 113
although she herself has no learning of her own and has subjected herself
to the masters,
The teachers and the masters do not wish to sing with the trumpet of the
justice of God. Thus the dawn of good works has been extinguished in them,
the dawn which illuminates the whole cosmos and which is like a mirror
of light.19
Those scholars who remain faithful face neglect and hostility: in her discourse
to the clergy of Cologne, she envisions how the heretics will persecute
the faithful scholars, advising the powerful and the rich to punish
them for their fijidelity.20
In 1168, Hildegard composed a discourse addressed to these masters and
teachers, further considering the question of scholasticism and heresy.21
“Why, o you masters and teachers of the people, why are you blind and
mute in your interior knowledge of letters, which God has proposed to
you?”22 The knowledge of Scripture, granted by God, like the sun which
illuminates the moon, has provided the masters with their learning; they,
like the moon which brightens the shadows of night, should shine on the
unfaithfulness of those who err, who “like the Sadducees and like many
others erring in faith are heretics, who are included among you and whom
19 Epistolarium, II, 223R, p. 490: “Doctores et magistri tuba iustitie Dei canere nolunt.
Ideo oriens bonorum operum in eis exstinctus est, qui totum mundum illuminat et qui
quasi speculum luminis est.”
20 Ibid., I, 15R, p. 41: “Wach! errantes homines qui nunc sunt, nesciunt quid faciunt, sicut
et illi qui nos in prioribus temporibus precesserunt. Nam alii homines qui eo tempore in
fijide catholica errant, istos timebunt et seruili seruitio eis ministrabunt, et quantum poterunt
eos imitabuntur. Cumque isti cursum erroris sui hoc modo compleuerint, doctores
et sapientes, qui tunc in catholica fijide persistunt, undique persequentes expellent . . . Quapropter
principibus et diuitibus consilium dant, ut doctores et sapientes ac clericos fustibus
et lignis coerceant, quatenus iusti fijiant.” On this discourse, see Elisabeth Gössmann,
“Der Brief Hildegards an den Kölner Klerus zum Problem der Katharer,” in Die Kölner Universität
im Mittelalter: Geistige Wurzeln und soziale Wirklichkeit, ed. Albert Zimmermann,
Miscellanea mediaevalia 20 (Berlin, 1989), pp. 312–18; Uwe Brunn, Des contestataires aux
“Cathares”: Discours de réforme et propagande antihérétique dans les pays du Rhin et de la
Meuse avant l’Inquisition (Paris, 2006), pp. 253–56; Speaking New Mysteries, pp. 253–54.
21 This discourse forms the third part of the hybrid composition known as the Explanatio
Symboli Athanasii. As the Explanatio’s editor Christopher Evans explains, this work
was compiled in the manuscripts from three separate works: a letter to Volmar (c.1170),
the commentary proper, and the discourse to the masters (c.1168). See his introduction in
Opera minora, pp. 104–05.
22 Expl. Symb., p. 127: “Vos, o magistri et doctores populi, quare ceci ac muti estis in
interiori scientia litterarum, quam Deus uobis proposuit, quemadmodum solem, lunam et
stellas instituit, ut racionalis homo per eas tempora temporum cognoscat et discernat?”