A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

hildegard, the schools, and their critics 131
rationality has two eyes, one looking to heaven and one to hell.99 While
recognizing the ambivalence of rationality in humans, Hildegard assigns
it a central place in her theology, not only as a created human imago
of the Trinity but also as a proper characteristic of the divine Persons.100
All the more distressing, then, is what happens when reason goes astray,
and for Hildegard this was precisely the problem with the proposition put
forward by Master Odo.
In the Expositiones, a work composed, as I have argued, for a monastic
audience in response to scholastic exegesis, Hildegard most fully develops
her critique of scholastic reason. She believes that human reason can
lead men to consider the commandments of God.101 Like William, she
stresses the role that divine illumination plays in our knowledge.102 Reason
by itself is insufffijicient: it is only the starting point of a good undertaking,
after which divine inspiration is needed.103 Expositio 12 puts this in
terms of the story of the Epiphany (Mt. 2:1–12): the Magi are the Jews and
pagans, and they are granted to see God “on account of their rationality,”104
because they “were created and inspired by God, since all wisdom is
from the Lord God.”105 But Hildegard leaves racionalitas in an ambiguous
position, capable of good and evil; for “rationality in the angel [i.e. Satan]
contradicted God.”106
To arrive at the good, reason in humans must apply itself to faith and
the Scriptures. In countering the temptations of Satan (Mt. 4:4), Christ,
sinistra mala scientia est, et mala bone ministrat bonaque per malam acuitur et regitur,
atque in cunctis per illam sapiens efffijicitur.”
99 Diu. operum 1.4.45, p. 179: “Homo namque, fijiducialem spem per animam ad Deum
extendens, cum duobus oculis racionalitatis, scilicet scientia boni et mali, celestem patriam
et penas inferni cognoscit; quia facie sua, que per mentum eleuatur, quamlibet rem uisibilem
conspicit et qualis illa sit per intellectum considerat.”
100 See Alvarez, “Die brennende Vernunft,” pp. 135–95.
101 Expo. Euang., 7, p. 206, ll. 19–20: “ita ut cum ea [racionalitate] discerneret, ubi preceptum
Dei audire debet.”
102 Ibid., 9, pp. 209–15, passim.
103 Ibid., 2, pp. 191–92: “Scio in racionalitate quid faciam, quia inicium inceptionis boni
tam uelox iter in racionalitate habet, ut etiam necessarium sit quod homo in depressione
se contineat, ut Paulo apostolo contigit, ut cum amotus fuero per diuinam inspirationem
a uillicatione, scilicet a mala consuetudine mea, recipiant me boni et iusti homines in
domos suas, id est in consorcium suum, qui etiam prius peccauerunt et postea penitentiam
egerunt.”
104 Ibid., 12, p. 221, l. 44: “propter rationalitatem Deum uidentes.”
105 Ibid., 12, pp. 219–20, ll. 8–9: “Ecce magi id est, pagani et Iudei, qui sciscatores rerum
in scientia boni et mali erant, ab oriente, hoc est, a Deo creati et inspirati, quoniam omnis
sapientia a Domino Deo est.”
106 Ibid., 9, p. 210, ll. 16–17: “Deus angelum racionalem fecit; sed quod racionalitas Deum
in angelo contradixit, ipse non fecit sed fijieri permisit.”