A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

hildegard, the schools, and their critics 133
the master as the “rationality of the faith of the salvation of souls” (racionalitas
fijidei saluationis animarum), thereby making clear that the reason
she has been speaking of throughout this exposition, which goes out
from the knowledge of the sensible world, is the reason of faith.111 Reason
thus has a certain proprietorship of faith, and at the same time has
faith as an end or goal. Her conclusion to this Expositio further clarifijies
what she means by racionalitas fijidei. Many use their reason, operating
through their senses, to seek out God, but few do so without “murmuring
against the established norms and traditions of the Church.”112 A look at
the biblical context makes this comment yet more revealing. In the biblical
text, the one who is being “murmured” against is the master of the
vineyard himself, that is, the racionalitas fijidei saluationis animarum. Thus,
Hildegard suggests some sort of equivalence between that reason and the
institutiones et ordinationes ecclesiasticae. Sacred tradition is the rationality
of the faith of the salvation of souls. Whatever Hildegard means by
racionalitas, she does not view it as autonomous and independent of faith
and sacred auctoritas.
These two expositions just discussed have concentrated on reason
properly used; the third focuses on reason gone astray. Expositio 30, based
on the discourse on the Good Shepherd (Jn. 10:11–16), glosses the shepherd
as the creator, the sheep as the chosen, the hireling as the devil,
the sheepfold as the congregatio in fijide, and the wolf as racionalitas. The
wolf, approaching the sheepfold of the faith, is rationality “when rationality
has become a wolf in wicked men, since it contradicts the Lord in
the knowledge of good and evil.”113 For Hildegard, reason is dangerous
in the wicked, since it uses the knowledge of good and of evil not to seek,
but to contradict God. Contradiction is a key concept for Hildegard: it
is the nothingness that exists apart from God,114 as well as the hallmark
of heretics.115 Thus, she seems to be drawing obliquely on the traditional
identifijication of the wolf in this passage with the heretics and their father
111 Ibid., 23, p. 250, ll. 27–28.
112 Ibid., 23, p. 251, ll. 69–73: “Multi enim sunt uocati, cum racionalitas quinque sensus
hominis ad iustitiam Dei conducit: pauci uero electi, quia rari inueniuntur qui non murmurent
contra institutiones et ordinationes ecclesiasticas, sed tamen et hi et illi denarium,
uidelicet spem remunerationis, quamuis diuerso modo recipient.”
113 Ibid., 30, p. 274, ll. 9–11: “cum racionalitas in malis hominibus lupus facta est, quoniam
in scientia boni et mali Domino contradicit.”
114 Ibid., 9, p. 210, ll. 15–16: “factum est nichil quod est contradictio.”
115 Ibid., 55, p. 325; 58, p. 332.