A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

hildegard of bingen: a history of reception 291
der represented as “flaccid.” Hildegard’s letter to Werner of Kirchheim
and portions from the Liber diuinorum operum (3.5.16) form the authentic
foundation of his work. The excerpt from the Liber diuinorum operum
describes the corrupt state of the clergy during the era of the fijiery dog
and announces a powerful change in the order of things. Osiander’s text
appeared in a second edition, printed in 1527 by Georg Rhau in Wittenberg.
A reprint of this second edition was prepared in the same year by
Gabriel Kantz in Zwickau. From the textual references, it appears that
Osiander’s text was probably based on the Pentachronon, which further
indicates that the vernacular reception of Hildegard’s visionary works was
essentially founded on the Pentachronon.
In 1529, Hieronymus Gebwiller (1473–1545), the director of the famous
humanist school in Sélestat, published De Praesenti Clericorum tribulatione,
futurorumque Temporum eventu, Divae Hildegardis Prophetiarum seu
Divinarum revelationum libellus through the print shop of Wilhelm Seltz
in Hagenau. Gebwiller, who remained Catholic during the Reformation,
defended the position of Catholic belief against the Protestants in this
text, while simultaneously criticizing the decadence of the Catholic clergy
and pronouncing severe punishments to be meted out in the hereafter. He
cited Hildegard of Bingen to buttress his position. The tenor of the writings,
compiled based on the Pentachronon, is unambiguous: if priests and
monks perform penance, the Church will not perish, regardless of persecutions
and heresies. Hildegard emerges as a reference fijigure for an open,
yet generally conservative, reformed Catholicism. Together with examples
from the Old Testament, Methodius, Birgitta of Sweden, and other prophetic
fijigures, Hildegard advances as the prevailing authority for his own,
confused time. One could, in a certain light, consider Gebwiller’s text as
representative of the fijirst, printed edition of the Pentachronon.
Matthias Flacius Illyricus is considered to be the most important follower
of Martin Luther in the 16th century. Around 1550 he published
the text Duae veteres prophetiae de pie ecclesiae instauratione, ad nostra
tempora pertinentes at the print shop of Michael Lotter in Magdeburg.
One of the two prophecies included, a reworked excerpt from the Liber
diuinorum operum (3.5.25–26), styles Hildegard as a predecessor of Martin
Luther, in that Hildegard predicted the downfall of the papal Church in
a vision. Flacius Illyricus cites the Alphabetica sylva locorum communium
(“Rapularius”), written by Henry Toke (c.1390–1454), the cathedral priest
in Magdeburg and participant at the Council of Basel, as the source for
his Hildegard texts. Toke, for his part, criticizes the misuse of indulgences,
faults of the Roman curia, and the decline of the monasteries in his text.