The Power of Images

I would like to continue our discussion on the relevance and necessity of the images in Scivias. As Professor Fulton Brown wrote in her essay, “Everything that human beings know about God, that is, God as transcendent, personal, and free, depends on revelation…the theologian’s task is to interpret this revelation, that is, God’s showing of the world, as it comes to humanity” (305-306) [1]. But God does not appear to everyone. Ultimately, those to whom God has revealed (revelatees?) must somehow communicate their revelations. Moses’ task was profound, but at least somewhat simple; he transcribed God’s commandments and read them to his followers. Hildegard of Bingen, like John of Patmos before her, had an incredibly intense and intricate vision to communicate. I was surprised in class on Monday that some of us seemed to say we should focus on the text and almost ignore the images. I have read the book of Revelation a few times before this class, and I must say I was completely lost before we discussed it in January. Seeing paintings of the scenes was crucial in my understanding of John’s vision. Although Hildegard’s visions are not Scripture, I still find the images more important than the text. While this may be more of a comment about my personal learning style, I do believe there is an important theological element as well.

Someone pointed out in class that Hildegard was blinded by what she saw and asked how, then, could she see what God was revealing. This points to the nature of revelation—perhaps it is not sight in a physical sense but an internal sight, a knowing and understanding of Scripture. If this is the case, then no image could capture what she saw, but neither could word alone. In reading without seeing, we lose the alarming strangeness of her vision, or worse we become caught up in logical contradictions like ‘how could she not discern a human form if she said it had a human form?’ Ultimately, Christianity strives to communicate something incommunicable and explain something inexplicable.  The full glory of God, the depths of his mercy and love, or the radiant beauty of heaven cannot be contained in words or images. But to attempt to convey her revelation, that Hildegard makes use of both words and images should not be surprising. I keep returning to the image of a human form covered in eyes, Hildegard’s vision of the fear of God. The entire painting was criticized in class for being too literal, with the glory of God dripping onto someone’s head being represented by a golden beam falling from the One enthroned down, and the fear of God is somewhat crudely drawn. But this is Hildegard’s recollection of what God showed her; the words alone cannot capture how strange her vision was. When we simply read her description, our mind can come up with an image that makes sense, and we are not forced to contemplate the entire thing at once. I especially like the vision of a person made of eyes. There is no way to comprehend the fear we would feel if we beheld God, but something so grotesque may help us understand. In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, he writes “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child. But, when I became a man, I put away the things of a child. We see now through a glass in a dark manner; but then face to face” [2]. What Hildegard saw face to face, we must see through a glass. Even though the images in Scivias are strange and hard to understand, I think ignoring them will make Hildegard’s visions even harder to understand. They are a vital piece of the puzzle.

-CHM

[1] Rachel Fulton Brown, “Hildegard of Bingen’s Theology of Revelation,” in From Knowledge to Beatitude: St. Victor, Twelfth-Century Scholars, and Beyond, ed. E. Ann Matter and Lesley Smith (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2013)

[2] 1st Epistle of St Paul to the Corinthians 13: 11-12, Douay-Rheims Bible

[] Image found at https://www.abtei-st-hildegard.de/wp2012/wp-content/gallery/scivias/bildschirmfoto-2011-12-09-um-17-51-54.png