The Reasons Behind Prohibitions

Hildegard’s second vision, about Creation and the Fall, starts off fairly reasonably, or at least logically. She explains the Fall, and why it was justified. Where it goes a little off the rails, however, is in the 10th and 11th section. The 10th section explains that the Devil knew that the Tree was forbidden only because Eve told him that it was, and thus that “woman very quickly overthrows man, if he does not hate her and easily accepts her words.” (Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias, Book 1, Vision 2, pg. 77) I don’t like this on a personal level, but putting aside my modern viewpoint it’s a conclusion that is logical enough. Section 11, however, seems to depart entirely, talking about “What things are to be observed and avoided in marriage.” (Ibid., pg. 77)

After this, the next fifteen sections are all about various aspects of sexuality and married life. These range from “A man should be adult to marry and take only a wife of marriageable age,” (pg. 82) to just saying that “Those who have intercourse with the pregnant are murderers.” (pg. 84) Some of this seems to follow reasonably enough from an initial discussion of the roles of men and women that began with Adam and Eve, I guess, but a lot more of it seems to come from absolutely nowhere. There is nothing in the story of Creation, for instance, that would seem to presage a digression about how marrying someone who is too closely related to you is actually like cooking milk too many times (pg. 81). (I have re-read this multiple times and I still have absolutely no idea what point she’s making.)

Putting aside all questions of provenance for the moment, and accepting that Hildegard was in fact receiving and dictating visions directly from God, we are left with the question of why this stuff is here. It doesn’t follow logically, at least using the logic that I’m familiar with. There must, however, be a reason for it-- which, I suppose, makes me curious as to what was happening that God, or Hildegard, or whomever one wants to credit, felt the need to proclaim against these things.

For instance, one of the oddest of these sections is 22, in which having intercourse with a pregnant woman is like being a murderer. In this section, it is claimed that “The woman is subject to the man in that he sows his seed in her, as he works the earth to make it bear fruit. Does a man work the earth that it may bring forth thorns and thistles?” (pg. 84) Ignoring my modern feminist objections to this premise (sorry, professor, but they’re there), I have to say that this just seems like a weird thing to decide to care about. Was there really such a profusion of men having non-procreative sex with their already-pregnant wives that it was necessary to specifically prohibit it? Is this really important enough that God should decide to pause in the vision he is giving Hildegard to address this epidemic?

It may seem rather absurd to decide that every detail of these sections has to have some corresponding current event or reason to exist, but to my mind it’s rather similar to the exacting verbiage and phrasing in the creeds that we talked about at the beginning of the quarter. In those creeds, every word counts, because they are created specifically to address concerns that people have had or heresies that have sprung up. Christ is specifically defined as begotten of the Father, for instance, to forestall any contrary claims as to his origins. The questions or concerns that people may have had are reflected in the words of the Creeds, and so it doesn’t really seem out of place to assume that prohibitions regarding ordinary life would be laid down because people are doing the things that are prohibited.

It is easier, to be sure, to map some other sections onto presumed real-life events. Men had several wives before the Incarnation (pg. 79), for instance, but they cannot now, and so men should stop having sex with women who are not their lawfully wedded wives. I’m not entirely sure how much of a problem of incest there was in 12th century Germany, but I suppose it doesn’t seem too odd that someone should feel the need to say “hey, I know that people in the Old Testament married their half-sisters but you should...not?” (pg. 82) On the one hand, it does seem like too far a reach to say, well, each of these sections corresponds to a real-life concern of the time-- but it also seems like a reach to say that these are just inserted without any pressing reason.

I guess in conclusion I should probably say that the provenance of these visions really does determine how they can be interpreted. If Hildegard came up with this on her own, and they didn’t spring from God, then I think it’s much more reasonable to look at some of the claims it makes about sex with a skeptical eye. It’s said, after all, that “this human operation is unknown [to Hildegard]” (pg. 82). If she bases her interpretation of human sexuality solely on scandalous stories that she might hear, then it’s reasonable to assume that she’d have a view of what’s happening that does not reflect reality, and would thus be compelled to speak prohibitions about such things, even if they weren’t really happening. If these visions are from God, however, then we can assume that people really were doing some freaky things, and that God himself thought that it was worth saying that people should, you know, stop that.

I’m aware, after writing all this, that I have neatly stepped around a lot of the questions that were brought up in class as to the theological implications that Hildegard often brings up. I do think it’s important, though, to look at the things that are maybe not quite so easy to fit into the grander cosmological narrative of her visions. Prohibitions on having sex with your pregnant life may not be as easy to illustrate or as gripping to readers as a narration of Lucifer’s Fall, but I think that a consideration of just why such things are there can be illuminating as to the purpose of her visions as a whole.

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