A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

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the Psalms are generally not narrative texts, Gilbert does occasionally utilize
parallel narratives, in a manner analogous (though not identical) to
that of Hildegard. For example, in his commentary on the third psalm, he
compares it to a drama in which the speaker is reason, instead of David,
who inveighs against animal nature, instead of Absalom. The vices speak
as characters, and the enemies surrounding reason are temptations.76 It
is not impossible that Hildegard herself was exposed at some point to
Gilbert’s commentary; it circulated widely in the second half of the 12th
century, including in the diocese of Trier, and garnered a certain amount
of discussion in religious houses.77 The text’s availability, however, does
not explain Hildegard’s curious and unconventional choice of exegetical
method. Rather, by using this novel technique of scriptural exegesis, the
magistra wants to show the magistri how they should undertake biblical
commentary and to demonstrate to her religious audience the potential
of the new methods. In her letter to Odo of Paris, Hildegard wrote, “Thus,
you, o master, in your mastership (magistratio) in the Scriptures you have
many streams which sometimes you disperse among others, that is among
the great and the lowly.”78 In the Expositiones, Hildegard shows how this
can be done even in a contemporary scholastic setting.
The Context of 12th-Century Anti-Scholasticism
Hildegard’s connection to the schools runs far deeper than just sources
and methods. The range of her intellectual preoccupations—Trinitarian
76 Ibid., 545–560, p. 297: “Item est alio lectio secundum quam in uno homine simul sunt
David et Absalon, Christus et Iudas, id est ratio et animalis natura quae rationem impugnat.
Loquitur autem unusquisque qui a viciis et cupiditatibus impugnatur. Ibi incipe,
dicunt vicia, quia coacervatione vitiorum subrepit desparatio salutis, quasi viciis insultantibus
animae vel etiam diabolo et angelis eius per suggestiones. Tu autem es susceptor in
Christo, gloria mea; nihil tribuo mihi, exaltans caput meum Christum vel mentem, quae
servit legi domini. Ego dormivi et soporatus sum morte peccatorum, exurrexi dono regenerationis.
Non timebo milia populi circundatis me, id est temptationes. Percussisti omnes
adversantes. Recte hoc de diabolo et angelis dicitur in praedestinatione secundum hoc
quod futurum est. Dentes peccatorum contrivisti, maledicos et viciorum auctores. Domini
est salus, cavenda superbia est. Et super populum, id est super unumquemque nostrum sit
benedictio tua.”
77 See Gross-Diaz, The Psalms Commentary, pp. 28–29. There is a late 12th-century copy
from the Cistercian abbey at Himmerod, a daughterhouse of Clairvaux founded by St Bernard
in 1134, in the diocese of Trier, now in Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Ms. lat. Fol. 751; see
Gross-Diaz, The Psalms Commentary, p. 161.
78 Epistolarium, I, 40R, p. 103: “Et sic, o tu magister, in magistratione multos riuulos in
scripturis habes quos inter alio interdum spargis, scilicet inter magnos et paruos.”