A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

134 justin a. stover
Satan.116 Hildegard continues, discussing how the wolf, glossed here as
“rationality converted to the morals of the brothel,”117 snatches away bona
scientia. Reason led astray falls into perverse works, just as right reason led
to good works. And just as right reason led to the knowledge of the good,
perverse reason takes away that knowledge, leaving man with nothing but
scientia mali, in which he sins. The Church is the sheepfold, while racionalitas
is here conceived as an outside force threatening to snatch away
the faithful and ultimately devour them. This exposition offfers the reverse
of Expositio 23: there, racionalitas was equated with the institutiones
et ordinationes ecclesiasticae, while here wolfijish reason is the deadly
enemy of the Church, the flock of faith.
From these three expositions, a coherent system of reason and faith
emerges. This account is strikingly similar to that offfered by William of
St Thierry in his De erroribus. Hildegard, like William, holds that reason
must be put into the service of faith, and when it moves beyond faith, it
becomes dangerous. Moreover, she speaks of a racionalitas fijidei whose
goal is knowing and seeing God. Again, like William, she teaches that reason
must be put in the service of auctoritas, so as to avoid contradiction
of God.118 Similarly, she sees the connection between perverse reason and
heresy. Finally, she strongly afffijirms that reason must produce a virtuous
disposition and works of charity, as do William, Bernard, and most other
monastic writers.119
Hildegard, Visionary Critic of the Schools
In the Scivias, God justifijies his revelations to Hildegard on the basis that
the masters have neglected the books of the Fathers and thereby have
failed to open up the mysteries of Scripture:
116 See Ambrose, Explanatio psalmi CXVIII, ed. Michael Petschenig (Vienna, 1913) 6.16,
p. 116; ibid., Expositio evangelii secundum Lucam, ed. Marcus Adriaen, CCSL 14 (Turnhout,
1957) 7.49, p. 230; Augustine, Sermo 138, PL 38:764.4; Quodvultdeus, Sermo 6, ed. René
Braun, CCSL 60 (Turnhout, 1976), 5.7.1, p. 405; Vincent of Lérins, Commonitorium (Tübingen,
1925), 25, p. 105; Hrabanus Maurus, Expositio in Mattheaum, ed. Bengt Löfstedt, CCCM
174–174A (Turnhout, 2003), 2, p. 212; and Rupert of Deutz, Commentaria in evangelium
Sancti Iohannis, ed. Rhaban Haacke, CCCM 9 (Turnhout, 1969), 9, p. 524.
117 Expo. Euang., 30, p. 274, ll. 14–16: “Et lupus, id est racionalitas in lupanares mores
uersa, rapit bonam scientiam et dispergit oues, dissipando eas in peruersitate.”
118 William in fact refers to William of Conches and Abelard as contradictores (William
of St Thierry, De erroribus, p. 56).
119 See Ferruolo, The Origins, pp. 47–92; and Jaeger, The Envy of Angels, pp. 270–77.