A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

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physical and spiritual, underscores the importance of these concepts in
Hildegard’s theology.
In the Physica and the Cause et cure, an imbalance or excess of one or
more humors is the usual cause of illness.50 In some cases the origins of
the imbalance or excess itself are explored, with lack of moderation in
eating or poor diet as the primary culprits. However, in these two works,
as well as others, the misalignment may be the result of a spiritual shortcoming,
e.g. separation from God by choosing to sin, lack of obedience
to divine will, and disdain of repentance.51 Hildegard frequently employs
the language of medicine to draw attention to the relationship between
the physical and the spiritual. In Scivias 2.6 she describes the “leprous of
spirit” who embrace the vices of anger and envy and reject virtues such
as gentleness and love; in the process, they make their spirits unclean as
if they were covered with the most terrible sores.52 She revisits this image
in the Liber vite meritorum, noting that as the leprous are segregated from
the healthy, so too are the unhappy cut offf from God’s virtues and his
light.53 In Scivias 3.8, wounds made putrid by vice affflict the sinful, and
as the sinners become more deeply mired in wickedness, the sores turn
hard and burdensome. The grace of God, which frees mankind from the
devil, does not shrink from touching these wounds, and those who repent
are made whole.54
The Scivias introduces the analogy of God the Father—and the Son—
as Great Physician, with the faithful being admonished to seek his assistance
to overcome their maladies, i.e. their sinfulness. In so doing, the
physician will test them with bitter medicine, but if they truly repent,
he will anoint their wounds with wine and oil and heal them.55 Here the
50 Berger, On Natural Philosophy and Medicine, p. 15, describes diffferent types of humoral
imbalances in her introduction to her translation of selections from the Cause et cure.
51 Hildegard explores the relationship between the humors and the elements as well as
specifijic organs in the body in Diu. operum 1.3.1–19, pp. 114–36.
52 Scivias 2.6, p. 275, ll. 1673–79: “Alii autem in corpora acutissimis spinis circumdantur
et in anima leprosi apparent: quia in corde suo ira, odio et inuidia circumdati lenitatem,
dulcedinem et caritatem his spinis iniquitatis a se expellunt, unde ita mala appetentes et
bona deserentes atque in irrisione ceteros homines contumelia afffijicientes animam suam
uelut pessimis ulceribus immundam reddunt.”
53 Vite mer., 2.48, p. 99, ll. 961–63: “quoniam ut lepra a sanis et mundis separate est
ne ab illa tangantur, ita infelicitas ab omnibus uirtutibus Dei segregate est, nec in ulla
claritate lucet.”
54 Scivias 3.8, pp. 486–87, ll. 295–361: “Taedio enim mihi non est tangere ulcerate uulnera,
. . . nec eos scio.”
55 Ibid. 1.4, pp. 90–91, ll. 966–90: “Fidelis autem homo dolorem suum consideret et
medicum quaerat, . . . quoniam mortem dilexit nec regnum Deit quaesiuit.”