A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

232 susanne ruge
Since the devil is the father of disobedience, and all those, who place trust
in the devil’s advice to be disobedient, despise God’s commandments and
therefore, if they persist, become members of the devil. Thus, they will be
destroyed along with the old deceiver and cast back into the abyss.35
Penance can mitigate this judgement because it represents a purifying
chastisement that is imposed by the self.
However, as soon as a person punishes himself for his sins and refrains
from sin, then God’s zeal to punish him becomes more lenient: because the
person has not spared himself and because he threw away that which had
previously delighted him.36
The following individual aspects of penance are described in the Vite mer.:
the insight into one’s own sins and the renunciation of them, sighing and
calling upon God, the new construction of righteous and holy acts, and
fijinally the renown of these deeds, which lead to an entry into the Book of
Life.37 The elements of the prospective sacrament of penance—the recognition
of sins, contrition in the heart, and atonement by means of good
works—can all be recognized in the penitential list according to the Vite
mer. Regarding recognition of sin before a priest, the text states:
This happens everywhere that a sinner is justifijied through penance: if the
sinner, in that he feels remorse, judges himself; if the sinner subjugates himself
to the cross of penance; if he wounds himself through tears, in that he
acknowledges his sin through the priest.38
As in other texts by Hildegard, tears of repentance have a special meaning.39
They serve the act of purifijication, because penance itself is
35 Ibid., 5.39, p. 245, ll. 892–95: “Diabolus namque pater inobedientie est, et omnes qui
consilio inobedientie consentientes precepta Dei contemnunt, sic perseuerantes membra
diaboli sunt. Hec omnia cum eodem antiquo seductore destruentur et ad nihilum
redigentur.”
36 Ibid., 4.40, p. 200, ll. 957–59: “Cum autem homo se ipsum pro peccatis suis punit et
cum peccare desinit, zelus Domini minus eum ferit: quia ille sibimetipsi non pepercit, et
quia hoc abiecit, in quo prius delectabatur.”
37 Ibid., 4.41, pp. 200–01, ll. 961–65: “Quandocumque enim homo peccata sua recognoscendo
deserit, Deum scit; et quando per suspiria anime ad Deum suspirat, Deum uidet; et
quando iusta sancta opera edifijicare inceperit, angelicum ordinem colit; ac quando bonus
rumor bonorum operum inter homines ab ipso uolat, cum cherubin secreta Dei scribit.”
38 Ibid., 3.45, pp. 154–55, ll. 1076–79: “quod ibi est, ubi peccator per penitentiam iustifijicatur,
scilicet cum penitendo se ipsum diiudicat, et cum in cruce penitentie se ponit, et
cum lacrimis se uulnerat, peccata sua per sacerdotem confijitendo.”
39 On the meaning of tears in Hildegard’s texts, see Michael Plattig, “Von Sehnsucht,
Herzenszerknirschung und Reue: Die Tränen bei Hildegard von Bingen,” Edith-Stein-
Jahrbuch 5 (1999): 87–103.