The final book of Scivias contains a remarkable amount of
imagery. A culmination of the duality that is more hinted at in the previous
books, Hildegard paints pictures of opposites—east and west, dark and light,
good and evil. While book two diverged from more visual abstractions of
theological thought, book three dives deeper into visions of good and
evil. Reminiscent of the book of
Revelation, Hildegard begins her journey in heaven, seeing a figure of God before
receiving visions of evil and the antichrist. I will briefly describe the
images I found to be the most interesting from Hildegard’s depiction of good
and evil.
As in the Book of Revelation, Hildegard’s visions follow
numerological convention—with repeated use of the number seven throughout. Book
three vision eight has specific symbolic importance, as it not only outlines
the nature of god through numerology, but places a strong importance on a
virtue that Hildegard made a point to put an emphasis on in previous books.
To begin with,
the four-sided radiance from which another, deep purple light emerges.
Hildegard says that this represents the secrets of the creator and the purple
light reflects his son. The four sides of the light could correspond to each of
the four elements or perhaps the seasons, both alluding to creation of these
earthly phenomena. As for the color of the light representing Christ, purple is
often associated with royalty and grandeur. While this may seem first and
foremost like a reference to the crucifixion in which Jesus was clothed in
purple in order to mock the king of the Jews, however what I find interesting
is not the gestalt concept of violet, but the meanings of the colors it’s an
amalgamation of in the context of this vision. The blue pendant round the
second figure’s neck representing the word of god (the virtue represented) and
the red chain around the fifth’s representing flesh in combination are a
comment on the nature of the savior. Christ is an embodiment of the word of god
in the form of flesh.
The image of humility is particularly lucid in this vision,
giving a very detailed outline of the virtue as a whole. Virtue is depicted as
being third in the vision—a nod to the holy trinity. Ironically, humility
stands taller than the rest (for emphasis, of course). While the other virtues
are clad in crowns and jewels and beautiful silk garments, humility is clothed
in chains and is barefoot. In
addition to this, humility is clad in see-through cloth. The physical
representation of humility quite literally bares all to the world, an allusion
to judgment in which all will be seen in the eyes of god and the omnipotent
nature of god. Perhaps most perplexing is how humility’s body is covered in
eyes. Representing wisdom, it becomes apparent why this feature of humility would
be more latent in the depiction. The characterization of humility follows
Hildegard’s own humbling of herself in the asides of Scivias.
In contrast to the virtues outlined previously, vision
eleven surrounds the antichrist and his fall. A false prophet, the antichrist feigns the miracles of
Christ, gaining many followers. A
creature of denial, the antichrist is an expert at deception. As in most
descriptions of the antichrist, Hildegard describes the almost parodic
inversion of the characteristics of Christ. Hildegard quite literally places
the antichrist atop a mountain of excrement, a not-so-subtle dig at not only
himself (and perhaps in some stretch of the imagination, those who are swayed
by him). In contrast to the self-deprecation that is exalted in her previous
vision of humility, the antichrist is self-exalted on his pile of waste. In the
end, the antichrist is defeated, and his followers return to Christ. This seems
to place blame on the corruption and deception of the antichrist rather than his
followers. Given the fact it is a vision of the apocalypse, I find it
relatively hopeful. Human nature is not shown as being evil innate of itself,
but easily swayed and fooled.
The most striking aspect of the image of the antichrist is
the placement of the face of the antichrist on the genitals of the woman—her
covered in scales and sores. Given the importance of the virginity of Christ
and Mary that Hildegard outlines previously, in tandem with her previously
stated views of degeneracy, it is not surprising that sexuality is quite
literally demonized. Once again, the woman emerges clean of blemish after the
antichrist is defeated, preaching the possibility of forgiveness and
repentance.
Once again, Hildegard presents two opposites in order to
better describe the nature of god and of faith. Whereas these concepts were a
little more latent in the first two books, book three quite literally contrasts
Christ with the antichrist and heaven with hell. Imagery in this particular
instance is far more surreal, similar to Revelation. In the end, Hildegard’s
description of the antichrist and of the apocalypse in the third book focus
more on human goodness with sprinkles of how it is corrupted in order to further
highlight it in contrast. As mentioned previously, while Hildegard spends a lot
of time describing shortcomings of humans in Scivias, it seems to be a vehicle
for describing want constitutes good.
-JJ
Hildegard is famous for her striking images. I am curious that after our conversation in class, you do not emphasize more the structure in which she places them. The four-sided radiance with its deep purple light has interesting correspondences with the imagery of the temple and the Holy of Holies that we talked about at the beginning of the quarter. It would have been interesting to draw these disparate images together into a coherent understanding—as, we argued, Hildegard intended. If you disagree, you still need to test the argument, not just ignore it! RLFB
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