A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

the medical, the magical, and the miraculous 271
the acts of God and his saints.106 The great miracle (mirabile or miraculum)
is, for Hildegard, the wine and the blood, the deeds of God in the
Old Testament, of Christ, and of the Holy Spirit—as well as of the entire
Trinity.107
The relationship between magic and miracle is exemplifijied in Scivias 3.11,
which describes the end times. The mother of the Antichrist will teach
him magic, and his power will be such that he will appear to perform
miracles: “he will heal the sick and affflict those who are healthy, cast out
devils, and raise the dead.”108 Whereas the Antichrist merely appears to
work wonders, it is God’s miracles, revealed in the meantime only to the
elect, that will triumph on the Day of Judgement.109
Hildegard herself cures the sick and successfully performs an exorcism.
How do her acts difffer from the diabolical magic she ascribes to the Antichrist?
In the vision of the Antichrist God explains to her that the sick
. . . will seek medicine from doctors, but will not be cured; and so they will
return to him to see whether he can cure them. And when he sees them he
will take away the weakness he brought upon them; and so they will love
him dearly and believe in him. And so many will be deceived, for they will
blind their own inner vision with which they should have regarded Me. For
they will use their minds to probe this novelty their outer eyes see and their
hands touch, and despise the invisible things that abide in Me and must
be understood by true faith. For mortal eyes cannot see Me, but I show My
miracles in the shadows to those I choose.110
106 Beverly Mayne Kienzle examines Hildegard’s interest in the miraculous and her
characterization of Christ’s wondrous works in the Expositiones euangeliorum in “Hildegard
of Bingen’s Exegesis of Jesus’ Miracles and the Twelfth-Century Study of Science,”
in Delivering the Word. Preaching and Exegesis in the Western Christian Tradition, ed. William
John Lyons and Isabella Sandwell (London, 2012), pp. 99–120; my thanks to Professor
Kienzle for making available the proofs of this article prior to its publication.
107 See, for example, Scivias 2.3, p. 157, ll. 790–91; 2.5, p. 182, ll. 356–59; 2.6, p. 257, ll.
1088–99; 2.6, p. 287, ll. 2100–02; 3.3, p. 380, ll. 319–20; 3.3, p. 382, ll. 404–05; and 3.5, p. 422,
ll. 492–94.
108 Ibid. 3.11, pp. 590–91, ll. 530–546, and p. 591, ll. 547–62.
109 Ibid. 3.11, p. 592, ll. 580–81.
110 Scivias (Eng.), p. 503; Scivias 3.11, p. 592, ll. 571–81: “Qui dum medicinam medicorum
quaerunt nec curare poterunt, ad ipsum recurrunt, tentantes si eos curare ualeat. Sed dum
eos uiderit, debilitatem quam eis intulit ipsis aufert, unde ualde eum amantes in ipsum
credunt. Et sic multi decipiuntur, cum ipsi oculos interioris hominis obnubilant, per quos
in me respicere debuerant, uolentes in probatione animi sui uelut in quadam nouitate illa
scire quae exterioribus oculis uident et quae manibus palpant, contemnentes illa inuisibilia
quae in me manent et quae uera fijide comprehendenda sunt: quia mortales oculi me
uidere non possunt, sed miracula mea in obumbratione illis ostendo quibus uoluero.”