From Scivias to the Liber Divinorum Operum: Hildegard’sApocalyptic Imagination and the Call to Reform

Abstract

From Scivias to the Liber Divinorum Operum:Hildegard's Apocalyptic Imagination and the Call to Reform This paper considers Hildegard's use of apocalyptic imagery so as to elucidate her attitude to the cause of reform, in particular the question of whether she espouses fundamentally traditional attitudes to the social order (as for Haverkamp and Flanagan) or whether she is a radical apocalyptic preacher (as for Kerby-Fulton). I argue that although admirers like Gabeno of Eberbach culled ideas from her later visionary writing that reinforce an image of Hildegard as developing a radical vision of history, Hildegard's original apocalyptic vision (as articulated in Scivias) offers a call to moral rather than institutional reform. After she left Disibodenberg, she became more interested in the destiny of humanity as a whole than with ecclesia as an institutional structure. Her call to reform, however, is first of all presented in terms of the restoration of health to the body and as a general lament of worldliness and greed in the church, rather than as a vision of historical change.

Os caminhos do Caminho: O Scivias de Hildegard von Bingen e sua hermenêutica bíblica visionária

“…Acompanham-no nesta avaliação uma das principais estudiosas do legado teológico da abadessa de Rupertsberg, Barbara J. Newmann (2015), e o medievalista Constant J. Mews (2000).…”