A n E xplanation of the Athanasian Creed

by Hildegard of B ingen T ranslated,with introduction & notes by T homas M. Izbicki1 Introduction Few medieval women deserve to be called mulier fortis as much as does Hildegard of Bingen. S he was an abbess and a preacher of reform, a visionary and a writer of works in a variety of genres, including medicine and liturgical poetry. Many of us who study Hildegard were drawn to her rst by her music, only to discover a unique theological vision balancing orthodox teachings with luminous images and a sensitivity to the greenness (viriditas) of nature. Hildegards accounts of her visions have led to speculation about medical explanations like migraine, but they convey her meaning in striking ways. Moreover, Hildegards descriptions of female archetypes, the Church, Wisdom and the virtues, have won Hildegard a ention in the modern day she had not received in the past.2 Hildegard was born in 1098 into a noble family within the boundaries of the Empire, and she was oered as an oblate at the monastery of Disibodenberg at the age of eight. S he was raised into a nuns role by the anchoress Ju a;3 and, when Ju a died in 1136, Hildegard succeeded her as head of a growing community of nuns. In the year 1141, after an illness, Hildegard obtained permission to write down the visions she had been receiving for many years. These formed the basis for her rst major work, the Scivias Domini. This work was brought to the a ention of the archbishop of Mainz by the abbot of Disibodenberg, and he obtained approval from P ope Eugenius III (1147-1148).4 S uch fame a racted even more nuns, and the abbess abruptly announced a divine command to move to the Rupertsberg near Bingen on the Rhine. This move, as the work translated below reveals, was resisted by the monks of Disibodenberg and by some nuns. Nonetheless, this move occurred (ca. 1150), and Hildegard continued to govern her daughters even while composing some of her many works, including liturgical and medical texts, and oering advice to laity and clergy alike. Much of this eort took place while Hildegard strove, eventually successfully, to disentangle the dowries of her nuns from the aairs of Disibodenberg. In 1158, she obtained a charter from the archbishop of Mainz conrming an agreement to divide these assets. The Explanation of the Athanasian Creed postdates this se lement. The subsequent period was the most fertile of Hildegards life. S he composed her other major theological works, The Book of Lifes Merits and The Book of Divine Works; and she undertook preaching journeys. Although women were not supposed to preach, a practice ascribed to the Waldensians by their orthodox foes, Hildegards preaching was received with remarkably li le resistence. Perhaps her prophetic charism was regarded as a sucient guarantor of her public preaching.5 Hildegard preached against the errors of the Cathars, who saw no positive value in created nature. At the same time, she reproved the clergy for their own failings. Their lapses made it easier for heresy to ourish, and their reform would advance the cause of the faith. In the 1170s, however, as ill-health and political adversity took their toll, Hildegard was limited to composing brief works and carrying on correspondence. Her last years were shadowed by an interdict imposed on the community for burying an excommunicated although repentant knight; but this censure was revoked in March of 1179, allowing the abbess to die in peace on S eptember 17 of that year. Hildegards reputation as a theologian was not long-lived in her age, but she was remembered as a prophet. Certain brief prophecies were more widely circulated than were the three great theological works. The S ybil of the Rhine was so much the gure of a prophetic woman that even the fteenth-century theologian and prelate P ierre dAilly would couple her name with that of Joachim of Flora when mentioning great seers.6

T he Text

The Explanation of the Athanasian Creed is one of the least-known of Hildegards works. Two known manuscript copies survive: in the Riesenkodex, at fol. 395vb399va, and in sterreichische Nationalbibliothek MS 963.7 The text in the la er manuscript, moreover, is divided into separated leaves (fol. 122va 123rb, 149va151ra). O ur knowledge of the text otherwise depends on printed sources. The oldest printed copy of the text identiable is in Blanckwalts 1566 edition of Hildegards le ers, done from a Rupertsberg manuscript, where it is followed by the life of S aint Rupert. This text, conated at the end with the beginning of the life of S aint Rupert, was republished in the Bibliotheca Patrum (Lyons, 1677), by Migne in his Patrologia Latina (vol. 197, 1855) and then by P itra in Analecta Sanctae Hildegardis (1882). 8 It is the more dicult to interpret because it is derived in part from a text, possibly dating to the period around 1170, addressed to her sisters, that is found among her le ers. This text has been published among the le ers of Hildegard in both German and English selections of the abbess works.9
The Explanation has been described as one of Hildegards later works,10 but an exact date is dicult to assign. The hortatory introduction mentions a visit to Disibodenberg, during which the diculties over the dowries of Hildegards nuns were resolved. This reference has been taken as pertaining to the abbacy of Kuno.11 This seems unlikely, since a le er by the abbess from around the year 1155, now published as Le er 75, speaks of her visiting Disibodenberg and being received with hostility.12 A later date, sometime in the abbacy of Helengerus, perhaps around 1170, seems more likely. Although included among Hildegards le ers, the text takes less the form of a le er or an exegesis of a text than of a sermon to the nuns of Rupertsberg, beginning with personal reections and moving into a doctrinal exposition of the so-called Athanasian Creed.13 This is one of the
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three great credal statements known in the twelfth-century West. The so-called Apostles Creed probably grew out of a Western baptismal liturgy,14 but it came to be a ributed to the Apostles themselves. Manuscript copies even a ribute each statement to an apostle by name. The so-called Nicene Creed, used in the Mass, grew out of the anti-Arian pronouncements of the Council of Nicaea as revised in the Greek East. It was translated into Latin, and the statement that the Holy S pirit proceeds from the father and the S on (lioque) was added in S pain (589 A.D.) to mark the triumph of Trinitarian orthodoxy over Arianism. The Western acceptance of this addition has remained a source of controversy between East and West down to modern times. The Athanasian Creed is falsely a ributed to Athanasius, the anti-Arian patriarch of Alexandria, but it seems to have originated in North Africa or Gaul before the ninth century, reecting the Trinitarian views of Augustine of Hippo. S ince the Athanasian Creed rarely appears in the liturgy, usually being assigned to the oce of P rime on a major feast, it might be suggested that this is an address for such a feast, perhaps the patronal feast of S aint Rupert. This might help explain the conation of the exposition with The Life of Rupert in the Vienna manuscript and the printed texts.15 The exhortation to the nuns may be taken as addressing complaints within the community. It emphasises the divine impetus to move the community to Rupertsberg and to a empt reconciliation with the monks of Disibodenberg. The exhortation oers the nuns the prospect of being bereft of their spiritual mother, together with an admonition that they preserve charity among themselves; then Hildegard calls down divine punishment on any who might threaten to disrupt her community. The transition from exhortation to exposition is made by introducing another virtue, wisdom, through whom charity speaks. Wisdom, one of the feminine gures well-known to readers of the abbess works,16 is described, in biblical terms, as a builder even of humans, who are loveable on account of wisdom and charity, which are described as one. These virtues incline the human race to humility, which submits to God; but the fall has divided many from God, just as the rebellion of the fallen angels divided the hosts of heaven. What follows in Hildegards text summarises much of what the abbess had wri en in Scivias, recounting the old covenant, the coming of the Christ, the sun of justice, the ordering of the Church, which is able to thunder against unrepentant sinners, especially indels and cruel tyrants.17 Two leading examples of defenders of the Church are mentioned, John the Evangelist and Athanasius of Alexandria, the great enemy of the Arian heresy. With this mention of Athanasius, the discourse moves to an explanation of the so-called Athanasian Creed. As John wrote a Gospel concerning divinity, Athanasius defended the unity of divinity, which those desiring salvation must arm. Here Hildegard clearly arms the Trinitarian doctrine of the Latin Church, saying: The faith is true, that one God in Trinity of persons, the same Trinity in one God, must be honoured gloriously without any confusion [of the persons] of division of the unity, because the one God is inseparably in the one substance of divinity. S he then embarks upon a paraphrase of the Athanasian armation of unity and denial of confusion of the three persons. Without God nothing and no one would exist, since (here she refers once more to God), all things were made through the Word. Following this armation, the abbess resorts to metaphor, not an unusual device of twelfth-century theologians. O ne need only think of Abelards use of wax as a metaphor in his discussion of the Trinity18 to discern this. Recall, also, the use of coloured diagrams by Joachim of Flora, near the end of the century, to relate this central Christian mystery to the unfolding of history.19 Hildegards metaphor of choice in this instance is that of re. Hildegards resort to this metaphor comes as no surprise to readers of Scivias, where the human gure of sapphire hue appears at the beginning of the second vision in the second book of that work.20 The same gure reappears in the third vision of the second book to skin away the blackness of sin from the baptised and clothe them in pure white.21 The exposition of the second vision emphasises the need to invoke the Trinity, one God in three persons, and identies charity with the incarnate S on. It then oers two metaphors for the Trinity, stone and re. In Scivias, the persons of the Trinity are identied as light, red power and ery heat, making up a ame. The rst is the Father, showing brightness to the faithful; the second, the S on; the third, the ardent S pirit.22 The Explanation takes this metaphor and expands it, working into the exposition further paraphrases of the Athanasian Creed. There the Father is the re; the S on, the mobile ame, which is visible in its golden colour; the S pirit is the coruscation which is seen as the wind that moves the ame. These three share the characteristic of burning. Without these characteristics, re would cease to be re. O ne notes amid the several armations of the unity of the divinity and unconfused distinction of the persons a distinctly Western theology of the Holy S pirit. According to Hildegard, The Holy S pirit, proceeding from the Father and the S on in the truth of prophecy, made the prophets prophecy. This is a clear armation of the Latin doctrine of the double procession of the Holy S pirit, which was roundly rejected by the Eastern or Greek Church. This doctrine was represented in the Latin liturgy by the appearance in the Nicene Creed of the term lioque (and from the S on), an addition which would be hotly debated to the present day whenever the separated churches discussed reunion.23 Hildegard folded into this paraphrase of the Athanasian Creed a discussion of the relationship between the Trinity and the human soul, where the soul is treated as created in the image of the divinity. In the terms of her metaphor, Hildegard armed that the soul is re. Furthermore, she armed that the souls re pervades the whole human body. This re is identied with rationality and its expression in speech. Here, as in the description of coruscation, identied with the S pirit, a direct tie is charted between re and the wind which moves a ame. The emphasis is upon movement, but movement does not belong to humans of their own power. This power comes from God. Men may imitate God by creating objects, but these cannot live. O nly God can bestow that gift. The fallen human race learns this lesson of derivation by harsh experience. Like Adam they a ain knowledge of good and evil, and those who
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imitate the diabolical author of the fall pass like wind. Nor can a human being be assimilated to the eternal godhead. The ve senses cannot comprehend God, despite bearing the divine image; nor can the mind. Not even the soul can a ain to God unaided. To the human race, in this limited and fallen condition, the S on came, clothed, like Adam, in esh. The Christs esh was like a knights arms, which are distinguishable even while he seemingly is hidden. Through Him the human race can discern the divinity concealed from limited creatures. Hildegard compares the incarnation with a ray of solar light. The right faith, which raises the human being above these limits, arms the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Passion, the Harrowing of Hell, the Resurrection and the Ascension. Hildegard looks beyond the First Coming of the Christ to the S econd, when the judge will winnow the just from the unjust. The penitent, whether in their lives or their deathbed confessions, will be rewarded; but the wicked, including idolaters, will be thrown down into the pit together with the devil. Hildegard concludes the Explanation with this chilling description of the judge who is to come. The last words of the text tie it back to the necessity of right belief: Therefore, one must believe in truth and condently: because there is one divinity in three persons and three persons in one divinity, they are like one life of eternity; and whoever does not believe this will be rooted out from the day of salvation. Here we meet the Hildegard of the campaign against Cathar errors, which were incompatible with her emphasis on the goodness of creation,24 and she also gives us a taste of the lash she inicted on lax monks and negligent prelates.25 But one should recall the other, more positive elements, of the discourse, its identication of re as the nature not just of God but of the human soul. The soul also is described in windy terms, as a breath from God, wherefore it understands many invisible things. Moreover, the presence of the Holy S pirit is described in pleasant terms, in terms which any reader of Hildegard readily will recognise as vivifying and moving all things. For only one root has in itself the viridity from which fruit proceeds. The Father is that root; the S on, the fruit; the S pirit, viridity. Here is a vision not of judgment but of the souls green and ourishing health. This mixture of re and wind has other resonances in the abbess works besides the reference to Scivias made above. In that work, in the third vision of the rst book, wind can be found representing the devils rage or the unity of faith, which carries truth to the ends of the earth.26 The Book of Divine Works shows the winds resisting the cruel North Wind, the devils cold blast. Moreover, in the same book, the author makes extensive use of the metaphor of ery wind, where the fruitfulness of the Earth is credited to the air and fruitful human actions are credited to the Holy S pirits grace. The S pirit appears there too as re, which warms the human being against the coldness of indierence and neglect. This re is credited with the good fruit yielded by those who serve God.27 It is worth wondering whether these metaphors of re and ery wind did not appeal all the more in a monastery ill heated by wood res, where cold northern blasts could chill the ngers of the scribe copying the texts of Hildegards visionary works. This closeness to the elements, including the longing to see the viridity of spring return, might oer us another clue, alongside the usual speculations about migraine, to help us explain the human dimension of the visionary experience of Hildegard of Bingen. O n a loftier level, in an age which seemed to many plagued by error rather than rich in faith, cold rather than warm in charity, even the commanding abbot Bernard of Clairvaux and his proteg Eugenius III, a monk who became the Roman ponti, may have found it comforting to warm themselves from the visionary work of a German abbess, who expressed basic orthodox doctrines in ery metaphors, seeing God as re, ame and coruscation, all expressing the burning nature of divinity, unity of nature with distinction of persons, and the human soul as an image of that re.28 T he T ranslation This translation was done from the version published in the Patrologia Latina, but it was corrected later against the Vienna manuscript and then against the Riesenkodex. The decision to end where the commentary on the Athanasian Creed nishes is my own, based on the fresh beginning, an exhortation to theologians, mentioned in the notes to this introduction. Neither the Vienna manuscript nor Migne ends there, but neither oers a be er point of termination. Moreover, the twelfth- century note at this place in the Riesenkodex conrms my hypothesis. More work, however, remains to be done on the tradition of this text and its relationship to the Life of S aint Rupert. The initial translation was suggested by Pastor Gretchen Cranz, and its revision for publication was urged by Margaret S chaus (Haverford College). Certain of the issues pertaining to the text were discussed with Grover Z inn (O berlin College), and the introduction is based on a paper presented to a session sponsored by the International Hildegard von Bingen S ociety during an International Congress on Medieval S tudies at Western Michigan U niversity. Katherine Christensen (Berea College) obtained the copy of the Vienna manuscript and a reference to the most recent article on the le ers of Abbess Hildegard.

Thomas M. Izbicki Johns Hopkins University

Saint Hildegards Explanation of the C reed of Saint Athanasius to a Gathering of Her Sisters O h daughters, you have followed Christs footsteps for love of chastity and have elected me, a poor li le thing, as your mother in humility and subjection for the sake of supernal exaltation, I say to you, not on account of myself but by a divine showing through a maternal womb. This place, the resting place of the relics of the blessed confessor Rupert, to whose protection you have ed, I found through evident miracles by Gods will for a sacrice of praise. I came to it with the permission of my masters; and, with divine aid, I a ained it freely for me and all those
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following me. Afterwards, however, by Gods admonition, I went to the mountain of blessed Disibod, from which I had seceded with permission, and laid this petition before all those living there, that our place and the lands given to us as alms should not be bound by them but loosed, nevertheless, seeking for prot in the salvation of our souls and solicitude for monastic discipline. According to what I perceived in true vision, I said to the father, the abbot of that place: S erene Light says, You are the father of the provost and of the health of the souls of my daughters mystical plantation. Their alms pertain neither `to you nor to your brothers, but your place should be their refuge. If, however, you should wish to persevere in your contrary words, gnashing teeth against us, you will be like the Amalekites and Antiochus, of whom it is wri en that he despoiled the Lords temple (1 Mach. 1:2324). Although some among you have said in their indignation, We wish to diminish their freeholds, then I Who Am (Exod. 3:14) say that you are the worst of robbers. If you are tempted to take away from them the shepherd of spiritual medicine, then I say to you again that you are like the sons of Belial, and, in this, you do not look to the Lords justice, wherefore Gods justice will destroy you. And when I, in a paupers form, begged from the aforesaid abbot and his brothers the aforesaid liberty of the place and of my daughters freeholds in these words, all of them granted this to me with a permission wri en in a book. All, both greater and lesser, seeing, hearing and perceiving these things, had greatest benevolence in these ma ers, so that they even were ratied in writing at Gods command. Wherefore the faithful should know, arm, eect and defend these things, so that they receive that blessing which God gave to Jacob and Israel. But oh how great the plaint which those daughters of mine will raise after their mothers death, since their mothers words no longer will spring up; and so: Alas! Alas! We would cling for a long time, willingly, with tears, in groaning and lamentation, to our mothers breasts, if we had her present with us now! For which reason, oh daughters of God, I admonish that you have charity between you, just as I, your mother from my girlhood, have warned you, so that you may be in most clear29 light with the angels because of your benevolence and most strong in your strengths, just as your father Benedict taught you. May the Holy S pirit confer gifts on you, because, after my end, you will not hear my voice any longer. But may my voice, which frequently sounded among you in charity, never fall into oblivion among you. My daughters now glow red in their hearts on account of the sadness which they have for their mother, panting and sighing for things celestial. Afterwards they will shine with a most clear and ruddy light by Gods grace and be the strongest knights in his household. Wherefore, if anyone wishes to arouse discord in this throng of my daughters and disruption of this habitation and its spiritual discipline, may the gift of the Holy S pirit turn this away from that his heart. Nevertheless, if, feeling contempt for God, he should do it, let the Lords hand kill him before all the people, because he is worthy of being confounded. For this reason, oh daughters, inhabit this place which you have chosen for soldiering for God with all devotion and stability, so that you may a ain supernal prizes in it. Wherefore charity says through wisdom: I was ordained from of old (Ecclesi. 24:14); and I was at the formation of the rst man, when he was molded by God, because God created heaven, earth and the rest of the creatures wisely on account of man, so that he might be sustained and fed by them. Wherefore wisdom rightly can be called a builder, since she went around heaven and earth and weighed them with a fair weight. The esh of man, however, is fully infused with the soul in the veins and nerves, so that the esh always is sustained by the soul; and, because man even knows creatures through the soul, he has them in delight and joy. For thus man is loveable in esh and soul, because of mercy and charity, since wisdom and charity are one. Through these two virtues, wisdom and charity, angels and men submit to God in humility, since humility frequently bends itself to Gods honour; and so it gathers all the virtues to itself. And so God molded man in these virtues lest all should perish, just as all the angels did not perish, since many remained with God; others, however, fell with the ancient serpent. God created man in wisdom, vivied him in charity, ruled him in humility and obedience, so that he should understand how he should live. But the leading angel did not wish to understand these things, that he could not exist from himself, since only one life is from itself, from which all living things are. For that reason he fell from life; and he dried out, just as happens to creatures, to trees, herbs and other creatures, since any things falling from them dry out because they do not taste sap. Indeed, an angel lives from God; man, however, is Gods full work, since God always is at work in him, which man can understand in himself, because, as long as he lives in this life, he does not cease to think and do something wherever he is. When, however, he has nished in this life, he lives innitely in another life. Thus, when man does good things, he is made like the good angels. S ince, however, he does not know the great honour, how God formed him, and ees from due obedience, not acting in humility, but, wishing to exist from himself, made like the worst angels, he falls like S atan from life and dries up. You, however, oh man, wish God to be culpable in these things. For that reason he replied to you: Did you create yourself? No. Is it be er, therefore, that you serve yourself rather than Him Who created you? What price could you pay for yourself, since you did not make yourself? Nothing but the pain of re. Thus angels, men and the rest of Gods creatures are divided into these two parts, just as was done to you when God marked man in circumcision. S ince the rst deceiver deluded the rst man fallaciously, so whoever is made disobedient to God consents to his words and has acted out of disobedience, as he advised him. But a part was separated out through circumcision in obedience to Gods command, when the benevolent Abraham obeyed God, acting thus just as He commanded him (Gen. 17:23). Then the deceiver murmured within himself with
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craft, turning loose this evil through certain men, so that it would not be possible for them to confess a God Whom they could not see, hear or touch. Thus he raged among the people who had been marked by obedience; and he recalled how he had deceived the rst man, when he said, You will be like God, knowing good and evil (Gen. 3:5). He loosed a worse arrogance among them, that they could know God only through fornication, because He was in the form of a man; and, if God created man, why did he hide Himself so that man was unable to see, hear or comprehend Him? The whole O ld Law and the people truly marked did not and, up to then, could not vanquish this deceiver and those erring men; but God vanquished them before the last day and conquered before every people in such a way that the O ld Law, with all those who practiced circumcision, even with them, because they were in the aforesaid error, lasted until the nativity of Christ, when the true sun of justice appeared in truth. The same sun gave great splendor through His doctrine; He was seen and heard in His humanity. The prophets heralded Him, just as there are planets besides the sun, which God foresaw when He xed the rmament with all its ornaments (Gen. 1:14). To sun, moon and stars God added water; and He placed there, with the tempest, clouds which lightning bolts pierce and the sound of thunder occasionally sunders, so that they are moved about. S o God established that creature, the sun, to serve man, even foreshadowing through it His S on, Whom the prophets foretold and on Whose humanity they touched in the service of prophecy, just as the planets sustain the sun by serving it. For prophecy, which said, Behold, a virgin shall conceive (Is. 7:14), touched upon His humanity, because the intactness of the Virgin conceived by the heat of the Holy S pirit, and not by the heat of the esh. As the sun transxes something with its rays, so that it warms all things by its heat, yet it is not consumed, so the sun of justice proceeded from the intact Virgin and illuminated the whole world. Just as the sun illuminates the whole world through the rmament, which, nevertheless remains intact, so the Virgin bore a S on, Whose name is Immanuel, because He proceeded from her in integrity, as the sun shines through the rmament, neither being divided. Therefore, He is God With U s, because in the same incarnation, which arose in the Virgins womb from the overshadowing of the Holy S pirit, holy divinity was entirely whole, like the sun in the rmament; and the might of divinity transcends the heavens, the depths and all the creatures. Nevertheless, the S on of God was with us then through His holy humanity. By the oering of His body and His doctrine He is with us now and will be until we see Him manifestly. The waters also are present to the S un of Justice with the moon and stars, so that He might send His disciples into the whole world to preach the gospel to every creature (Mk. 16:15). For what the prophets foretold about him He fullled in Himself, just as God rested from all His work on the seventh day of creation (Gen. 2:2). As God then made every creature subject to man to serve him, so now the S on of God, after His ascension, commi ed to the disciples the works of His incarnation, since they preach the gospel to every creature by His command. They showed men the right faith concerning the S on of God, since, while remaining with Him, they saw His miracles and knew, just as the sun shines in the rmament. S o, with an innumerable multitude of peoples receiving the faith, the Church was ordered as the moon is set in the rmament with the stars. The same peoples, with the Holy S pirit inspiring them, established among themselves diverse teachers and prelates, who sustain the whole Church, as the rmament is decked with the sun, moon and stars. Afterwards thunder and lightning were stirred up by indels and cruel tyrants, who a acked like wolves the Lords faithful, who burned for the faith like the sun shines in its strength, and shed their blood, so that there was no one left to bury them (3 Kgs. 19:10). Thunders too, which sounded rst for Gods enemies who have not ceased sinning, in the case of S atan, when he was cast down into Hell, also arose; and lightning appeared to many Christians who divided the faith through indelity and burned many Catholics, just as was done to Arius, whom Athanasius trampled down entirely. S trengthened by John the evangelist, who reclined against the breast of Jesus (Jn. 13:23), so that he soared high when he wrote by mystical inspiration a gospel about divinity, likewise the same Athanasius, fortifying the Church, wrote afterwards of the unity of divinity, that every man who wishes to be saved should hold the intact and inviolate faith, believing in God perfectly, lest, cast down to Hell, he become hellish. The faith is true, that one Trinity of persons, the same Trinity in one God, must be honoured gloriously without any confusion of persons or division30 of unity, because the one God is inseparably in the one substance of divinity.31 Neither is the Father other in substance; nor is the S on other; nor is the Holy S pirit other. Nor are they separated from one another in substance of divinity; but in the Father, S on and Holy S pirit there is one divinity of one substance in the glory of majesty.32 Yet the person of the Father, which is neither that of the S on or that of the Holy S pirit, is other; that of the S on, which is neither that of the Father nor that of the Holy S pirit, is other; that of the Holy S pirit, which is neither that of the Father or of the S on, is other. There is one inseparable divinity of these persons, equal and stable honour, coeternal and invincible potency. For such is the Father in divinity and not in person; such is the S on in divinity and not in person; such too is the Holy S pirit in divinity and not in person.33 Although the Father is other, the S on is other and the Holy S pirit is other in distinction of persons, nevertheless, the Father is not another thing, the S on is not another thing, the Holy S pirit is not another thing in substance of divinity. How are these persons to be understood? Certainly God is understandable in his Word, and He lives. God created the world, that is, man with all his glory. What ought to be so, God always had in eternity. God alone, without Whom no one exists, made this. Without his existing, who could have been made? No one at all! God made all things in His Word, as John, who reclined against the breast of Christ (Jn. 13:23), arms. But God is re, and ame hides in this re. This ame is mobile in life. In this re, however, there is not division except distinction of persons. Material and visible re is of a golden colour; and, in this re, ame, which blows in a strong wind, coruscates. Any re would not coruscate here unless it were aming, and it would not be mobile except by means of the wind. Wherefore there are three words for this re. For ame is from re; and re coruscates from ame and only is mobile by means of a strong wind. Fire also burns with ame; and this whole burning equally pervades and lls re and ame. If there were no burning in re, it would not be re; nor would it have the thunder of ame. But the soul is re; and its re pervades the whole body in which it is, that is, the veins with blood, the bones with nerves and the esh with
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colour. It is inextinguishable. The re of the soul has burning in rationality, by means of which it u ers speech. If the soul were not ery, it would not melt what has frozen; nor could it build up the body with blood-lled veins. Because the soul is windy with rationality, it divides its heat rightly through every place in the body, lest the body should lose shape. When the soul extracts itself from the body, the body fails, since wood cannot burn without the burning of re. For man, like God, is rational; and the rationality of man resounds in the wind with re. Rationality, then, is a great force, ery and undivided. If it were not ery, it would not be windy; and, if it were not windy, it would not resound. S o God created all things; and, apart from Him, no one ever made anything living, although by his art a man may fabricate something which, nevertheless, cannot live, since man has a beginning. He Who created all things was not created, because there was no beginning before Him; but He is without beginning, and all things are in Him, since all things were made through Him (Jn. 1:3). Through those things which man ees from fear, lest they injure him, he has trust in the Lord, crying out that he should succor him or keep him in the repose of rest. Through those things which are on account of man and which exist for him, since he works with them, and which are present to him placidly and conveniently, he learns to have love for God. If man knew nothing except what is mild and pleasant for him, he would not know, which would be the same thing, what it is called. Wherefore he has deepest knowledge from the weight of the harshness of harmful things and knows what is good and evil; and, like Adam, he knows how to name them (Gen. 2:19). For, if he knew only one thing, the work of God would not be perfect in him. He would not know the thing he saw; and he would not know what and of what sort was the thing which he heard. For that reason he would be empty and extinguished, just as that which is burned is converted into charcoal. And so, as was said,34 the Father is uncreated, the S on too is uncreated, and so the Holy S pirit is uncreated, since these three persons are one God, and all creatures were created by the same God without Whom nothing was made (Jn. 1:3). Indeed the devil wishes in the beginning, which was at the beginning, the likeness of Him Who is without beginning, which in no way could have been done, because he was nothing, since life and truth are in God; but there is vanity, which is inated pride, which passed like the wind, in the fallen angel and man. What is done by God and in God is life in itself; and God crushed the head of the one who rst sowed the aforesaid evils (Gen. 3:15) and threw the one who is without life into Hell. The Father, Who can be compassed by no capacity nor limited by number, like those things which were made at the beginning can, is immense.35 God had all things in His presence, but He did not create all of them at once. Wherefore there even is a certain sequence in creatures, just as in man, who is made an infant, a boy, a youth, an old man and decrepit, which anyone can comprehend. It must be understood that in the S on and the Holy S pirit are immensities; nor can they be comprehended by capacity or number. The Father also is eternal in that eternity which never began and in which, like a revolving wheel, neither beginning nor end is perceived. God is a spirit (Jn. 4:24). Certainly every spirit is incomprehensible and indivisible. For eternity, without all commutation, is what is said: He was and is; He remains eternal. Nor is anyone assimilated to God in it, for eternity is unique; and all His creatures were made through it. The S on, eternal with the Father in divinity, imbued what was taken from a creature, that is man.36 Divinity so claried what was taken on, just as a ray is imprinted by the sun. The sun, however, sheds its light on the earth; nor is it augmented or diminished on account of this. The S on of God, coming into the world, was neither augmented nor diminished in divinity, since He imbued what He had taken on, just as God had clothed Adam, made from a fragile creature, lest he should seem nude (Gen. 4:21). Certainly man never could see eternity except in humanity, because divinity lies concealed in humanity. Thus the S on is known by the pu ing on of humanity, as an armored man is known by his arms, so that he does not seem hidden in them. The Holy S pirit, Who was present at the beginning of every creature and made it active by breathing into it, is eternal and coeternal with the Father and the S on. There are not three eternities in God; but one eternity is in Him, and not three, as Arius made fragments of Him, like the members of a man cut o in amputation. But eternity is one divinity which the rationality of man, despite his strongest works, cannot name with one name. S ince man has a beginning, he returns to ash; therefore, he is unable to declare the things which are before the beginning and after the end. But, holding one faith in his soul, he speaks of the substance of God, which is spiritual. The soul is a breath from God; wherefore it understands many invisible things and senses in right faith the unity of divinity, because there are not three uncreated gods; but there is one God, uncreated and immense, neither in three ways nor divided into three parts.37 The Father is omnipotent, Who, through His Word, Who is His omnipotent S on, created all things, which the Holy S pirit, Who is life, so passed through that the warmth of re and ames burns. Nevertheless, there are not three omnipotent ones; but God in three persons is one omnipotent God.38 As it would be inconvenient for a man, who is one man with a rational soul, to be divided into three, since then there would be no whole life but a mortal corpse, how could a unique life, in which there is no mortality of beginning and change, be divided? But God is the Father, Who is powerful; God is the S on, Who is the potency of the Father; God is the Holy S pirit, Who is the life from which every life proceeds. There are not, however, three gods; but there is one unique deity without any division, whose powerful force is named with individual names.39 S o by ruling the Lord is the Father; by working the Lord is the S on; by vivifying the Lord is the Holy S pirit. These are a whole divinity with three names, just as God indicated all His work in one force of divinity. Nor are there three Lords ruling individually; but one divinity with full integrity is in the three forces of the three persons, ruling, working, also vivifying all creatures and moving them to their duty. And so there is one Lord.40 The Lord made these two works, that is, angel and man, with every other. An angel is a spirit; man, however, is made in the image and likeness of God (Gen. 1:27), so that he works through the ve sense of his body, by which he is not divided, but through them is wise, knowing and understanding how to do his works. God distinguished these three forces in man through this, that mans soul, which moves the body to working, is rational; and in this the ve senses of mans body are perfected fully. Through sight man knows creatures; through hearing rationality tells him what he thus hears; by smell he discerns what is convenient or inconvenient to use; by taste he knows by whom and what he is fed; and by touch he does good and evil. He rules all his works with the aforesaid ve senses. Thus these ve senses are joined in man as if
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in one, so that he never lacks another; and they are in one man, who, nevertheless, is not divided into two or three men; but he perfects all his works with these ve senses, and he is one man. Through the fact that a man is wise, knowing and understanding he understands creatures. Likewise, through creatures and His great works, he knows God, Whom he is not able to see except in faith. S o man comprehends and knows all things in creatures through his ve senses, because he loves by sight, judges by taste, discerns by hearing, chooses what is convenient to himself by smelling and does what pleases him through touch. In this he exemplies God, Who created all creatures. S o too a man, from the fact that he is wise, knows what is pleasing or harmful to him. From the fact that he is knowing, he constrains a creature by commanding, so that it is subject, ministering to him. What he wishes he draws to himself; what he does not wish he ees. From the fact that he is understanding, he knows what bets each creature as its duty. With these three powers and their appendices, a man is rational in his soul, which never is divided, so that even if some limb of a man is severed by the devils wiles, a rational animal is in no way divided by this. The body, however, is an edice of the soul, which works through it according to its sensibility, just as a mill wheel is turned by water. All peoples anointed with chrism, therefore, confess the three persons to be in unity but that the three persons are one true and rm divinity. S ince three souls are not one in one rational animal, which has three powers, but the soul is one, why should there be separable division in the unity of divinity, when all things were created by God?41 O ne must never say, therefore, that there are three gods or three Lords;42 but one is called God, because He created all things, and O ne is called Lord, Whom all creatures invoke as Lord and Whose sheep they are. Therefore, it is forbidden that any singularity should be had in the unity of divinity, because God is wise. The Father was made by no one, since no one appeared before Him by whom He could have been bego en or created; but He is eternal, without beginning. The S on, without any separation, is from the Father alone, not made at the beginning or created with members, but bego en, as light is from the sun, without any separation. Here He assumed esh from the Virgin Mary; but brightness of divinity did not recede from Him, because He was with the Father in divinity eternally, although He imbued what He took on in time, esh from the Virgin Mary. The Holy S pirit is the life which moves all breathing in creatures. Here life was made by no one breathing, nor created by anyone else, nor bego en by anyone else; but He exists coeternal and coequal with the Father and the S on. He was present at the rst creation of the world, because the S pirit of the Lord moved above the waters (Gen. 1:2), inscribing the circle of the whole world, when the Word of God said, Let it be. The Holy S pirit, proceeding from the Father and the S on in the truth of prophecy, made the prophets prophesy. They nevertheless often obscured the profundity of prophecy, although they wrote the text, since sometimes they spoke through signs in shadow and night vision. Coming upon the apostles in ery tongues (Act 2:3), He lled all of them and made them other men than they had been, so that they saw those tongues and felt the touch of the same Holy S pirit Himself, Who had appeared to no man before the nativity of Christ nor will appear thereafter, since Christ is the only-bego en S on of God. He appeared to them in ery tongues, because the Virgin Mary conceived the S on of God in His ery heat; and so He proceeds from the Father and the S on. S ince the apostles saw Him in re, He spoke openly with wisdom and intelligence. Because the S on of God was conceived by the Holy S pirit in the Virgin Mary,43 the Holy S pirit remained in Him, remains and is with Him forever; nor are they ever separated from one another. Therefore, the intact and pure faith is that the Holy S pirit proceeds from the Father and the S on, as was said above. This is what the S on, Who proceeds from the Father (Jn. 15:26), said in honour of the Father, heeding that His incarnation was in time, although there is no time with the paternal divinity.44 S o there is one Father; and not three fathers, but one Father, since, if He were not the Father, He would not have bego en the S on. If the S on had not been bego en, the world would not have been created. Also, there is one S on; not three sons, but one, through Whom all things were made, consubstantial with the Father. And there is one Holy S pirit; not three holy spirits, but one, vivifying and moving all things.45 For only one root has in itself the viridity from which fruit proceeds. This is esteemed unequally; nevertheless, they are in one root. Why, therefore, would the creator of all not be in a trinity of persons? O ne must understand by the root the Fathers person, by the fruit the S ons person and by viridity the Holy S pirits person. They are not separated from one another, but God is one. In this unity of the Trinity, with nothing preceding before, nothing following after, nothing greater in magnicence, nothing less in potency,46 all the persons of the Trinity, without any emptiness, join Themselves into one and exist in eternity and equality, coeternal and coequal,47 so that nothing is in those persons of which it could be said, on account of divinity, that it is and was not, great and small, since God, lacking beginning and end, receives neither augmentation nor loss, because He is immutable. The work of God in a creature, previously not formed, now appears formed; and it passes through time, expanding and shrinking. There are three persons, therefore, in the unity; and one God must be worshiped in three persons, since He created all things.48 He is the life from which all living things proceed, which any of the faithful undoubtedly will accept thus. It is necessary for the faithful person, lest he separate himself from the catholic faith, to believe the incarnation of the S on of God to be true.49 He should consider himself, how he is created and how, working a body with the rational soul, he is one. God foresaw before time the form of man in which He would assume esh; and whoever doubts this denies himself. Nor does he believe that he is one man in three ways in the two natures of body and soul, because, if one of these three, soul, body and rationality, of which man is made up, is lacking, he is not a man. For a rational man is in the soul, which perfects some things in the body with the sound of words, since the creatures are present to man like branches on a tree, because man was not created without the rest of the creatures, just as a tree is not created without branches. In truth, therefore, the right faith is that Christ, the S on of God, born before time, is God; and He is true man by taking on esh. And so God the S on is from the substance of the Father, since He is coeternal with Him without time and is coequal, bego en before the ages, because All things were made through Him (Jn. 1:3). But through His humanity, which time has, He is man from the substance of his mother.50 He, then, is full God in the integrity of eternity and full man with a rational soul and clean esh, without any virile mixing of human nature. He is coequal with the Father in the eternity of divinity; He is lesser than Him, however, in humanity, which time has. He, being God and man, nevertheless, was not divided in two; but there is one Christ, not by changing of divinity in the esh but by the assumption of esh, which
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divinity joined to Itself and which He so infused with his brightness as a ray of the sun shines in the sun. Nor, on account of this, were the substance of divinity and the substance of humanity confused together; but there is one Christ, the true S on of God, in the persons true unity. As there is no change on account of the esh of man in a rational animal soul, since that rational spirit which infuses the whole human body, moving all the works of the man who does them, is from God, and so the soul and the esh are one man. S o too, without any doubt, the S on of God, born before the ages, imbued the esh assumed fully from the Virgin, as was said above. Being God and man, Christ is one, certainly called Christ from the anointing of Gods grace. He was wounded in His humanity by piercing with nails and a lance (Jn. 19:34) on account of the one wound of the rst man, which he inicted on all his progeny, so that He cleansed it with the shedding of His blood, suused it with the anointing of the oil of grace and bound it with penance, when a man bewails that he has sinned. The wounded one descended spiritually into the pit of Hell and there drew many to Himself, that is, He drew from Hell itself the rst man and all who ever touched God in the conduct of human honour and placed them in the place of delights and joys which they had lost with their rst parent. O n the third day He rose from the death of the sleeping body.51 In this He signied the three persons of deity. Ascending in the same body, He went to heaven; and there He sits reigning at the right hand of the Father.52 This is the salvation of the people who believe, giving life to those whom He redeemed with His blood. All these things were foreknown before the time of every beginning, since the Word of the Father by Whom all things were made (Jn. 1:3) imbued esh, so that He might redeem man, whom He had formed. The same S on of God will come at the end of the age as the just judge to judge the living and the dead, the living who do the works of faith, the dead who did the works of death by indelity. With the sound of the trumpet calling, like a footstool, man will submit to the very S on of God for judgement, since, seeing Him then, he who is worthy will be known. For at the advent of that judge, by the aforesaid call, the dead will rise with their bodies (1 Thes. 4:15). As every creature proceeds from the sound of the Word of God, every creature will assemble; and all will respond to their judge for their own works, which were done in the mortal body.53 Nor will anyone be able to excuse himself, because then each will see plainly his works, which he only knew before he had done. S ince this is like a garment for them, they will follow him anywhere. The one who did just and right works will go into the greater brightness of life, as the sun shines in the world, with their souls made bright by grace, wherefore the angels will praise God, because they did such great works that they are clothed gloriously, like a man who puts on a precious garment. Also, the S on of Man will raise to Himself in His blood all the innumerable multitude of those men who did penance perfectly before their end, or even at their end, and confessed their sins to God; and He will bestow mercy according to their works in this life. But the wicked, having no excuse for their unjust works and not knowing what they can say, those who adored idols through the arts of the devil and did bad works with the diabolical mob, will be clothed with their confusion; and they will descend with the devil into the pit of Hell, which he occupies since he wished to be like God.54 Therefore, one must believe in truth and condently. Because there is one divinity in three persons and three persons in one divinity, they are like the one life of eternity; and whoever does not believe this will be rooted out from the day of salvation.55 Appendix: T he T rue B eginning of the Life of St. Rupert You, oh masters and teachers of the people, why are you blind and deaf in the interior knowledge of le ers, which God handed down to you, how He established the sun, moon and stars, so that a rational person may know and discern the passage of time by means of them. Knowledge of the S criptures was handed down to you, so that in it, like in a solar ray, you may recognise any danger, so that by means of your teaching you may shed light, as the moon does into the shades of night, into the indelity of erring men, who are like the S adducees and heretics, and like many others who err in faith, who are included among you, and whom many of you know, living like ca le and beasts with their faces turned downward. For they do not see nor wish to know that they are rational through the breath of life. Nor do they lift up their heads to the one Who created them and Who rules through the ve senses that He gave them. Why, therefore, in a rational person is there a resemblance to a downward-looking animal that is awakened by a breath of air, which it exhales again and so comes to an end, that has no knowledge except what it senses, fears injury and does nothing by itself unless it is driven to do it? And how is it ing that a person should have fellowship with ca le, that is subject in service to someone, and is ruled by what it is fed and subject to the one who commands, since it is not rational? The supreme Father, therefore, says to the S on, just as was wri en by the Holy S pirit: Thou shalt rule them, kings, with a rod of iron, and shalt break them in pieces like a po ers vessel (P s. 2:9). This means that you chastise whoever resists you, those kings, with a rod of iron, that is hard; and shalt break them in pieces like a po ers vessel, that is made of clay, because they are of the earth. They do not enter the gate of righteousness through faith; nor are they noted for the fame of their good works, since they are thieves; they smite and destroy whatever they wish, by their own choice, because they are hypocrites, perverting the law to their own damnation. You, however, who are to your hearers in magisterial teaching like the moon and the stars, for whom you chew over S cripture, nevertheless, more for the sake of honor and the riches of this world than for the sake of God, hear and understand what should be much more necessary, that you dispel the nocturnal shades of erring and unfaithful men, who are ignorant in what way they would walk, so that you draw them to us by faith. Now, therefore, rule them, showing them by a true admonition that, in the beginning, God created heaven and earth, and the rest of creatures, for the sake of humankind, placed humanity in the pleasant place of Paradise, and gave them a command that was violated. O n account of this, humanity was expelled into the darkness of this exile. In the same violation, however, is shown how great a pity it was that humanity obeyed not the Creator but the one who seduced it (Gen. 3), since it is more just to obey the Lord than a lying servant, who made himself like his Lord.
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With these words, stir up their hearts with a rod of iron, so that they may know, lest they turn away from their Creator; or, if they fall away from Him by unfaithfulness, they may fall into the tomb of Hell with the one whom they have imitated. For those who persevere in unfaithfulness are broken like a po ers vessel, that seems to the po er worthless and unsuitable; and, because they have not done the works of faith, they cannot enter into eternal life, just as a badly made po ers vessel is not repaired but broken. U nderstand these things, you who rule the people; and look to the invisible God, Whom no one can overcome nor can see with carnal eyes; and understand how to rule your estate, that you have received from Him, since you have gloried in His name with great honor, and so rule the people, lest you be put to shame before Him on the day of judgment on account of your rule. Beware too lest you be so overcome with weariness by the pleasures of the esh and the delights of the world that you scarcely can open one eye for celestial doctrine. These things, however, are hard for you, because whoever a ends diligently to things celestial in the things that he rules wounds his whole body, since he withdraws himself from the desires of the esh. Therefore, for the sake of the fear of God, Who is the way and the truth, do not despise a person in the female form who writes these things, who is untaught in the knowledge of le ers and was feeble from her childhood to the sixtieth year of her age. This writing she did not see with the eyes nor hear with the ears of an outward person, but she saw and heard this writing in the inward knowledge of her soul. Do not wish, therefore, to raise your mind high, spurning her, since God made an irrational animal speak as He wished (Numbers 22:28). This vision that I saw in a paupers form did not depart from my soul from my childhood to the aforesaid age; and these things that have been said I have wri en in that place which, destroyed by certain tyrants, remained desolate for many years. In it rest the relics of S aint Rupert, who was noble according to the dignity of the present age and whom God gathered to Himself gloriously in the twentieth year of his age. Among His wonders this place now is restored at last by Gods grace after those years of desolation. The Lord then was mindful in the case of this His saint of what He said to His disciples, saying, But the very hairs of your head are all numbered (Mt. 10:30), nor did He wish to omit why He revealed this. We must write about the merits of the saints, how their good and right fame resounds in the ears of the faithful. The creature sings praises to God because he was created by Him. God then is eternal; and it is the creatures work to praise His name, since, if the soul were not in the body of a human being, that person would not live, nor can the esh move without the soul. S o an angel is praise in God, and a human being is work in God. And so His praise is in all His wonders and in the merits of the saints. He is true eternity, creating all things and renewing heaven and earth on the latest day. His height and depth no one else has touched, and the breadth of His knowledge no one else could grasp. And so this text of S cripture must be heard and understood by the faithful, O h how glorious is the Divinity Who, by creating and doing, reveals Himself through His own creature, just as He did in the three children, whom He so protected that, without any vision of the S criptures and without any teaching of men, they praised Him in the midst of the re (cf. Daniel 3). Just as the happy soul, having put aside the esh, desires to grasp and know nothing other than God, so these three blessed boys, still living in the esh, by desiring God ardently, depict the nature of the soul. God the Father also wished His S on to be named by the unbelief of ignorance in Nabuchodonosor, just as the evil spirits know Him, although they, to whom God so often showed His wonders, do not praise Him. S o too He manifested His omnipotence in the most mighty S amson, who, although he overcame lions and wild beasts with his strength (Judges 14:56), was deceived by his wife, as Adam was by Eve. He, nevertheless, recovering his strength, overcame that woman and the rest of his foes (Judges 16:2830), just as Christ, harrowing Hell, broke the might of His foes. David pregured Him in the most harsh ba le with Goliath (1 Kings [1 S amuel] 17:4950), that He would bind the ancient serpent through the humanity of His S on. He sent such might into a soft womanly disposition that a woman, killing Holofernes in the night, freed the people of Israel (Judith 13:811). In this she pregured the mother of the S on, through whom the faithful people would be freed. He pregured in the ancient saints, by the prophecy of the prophets and the holocausts of rams and bulls, the pact of the bond, because he foretold that the Church would be joined to His S on by the bond of matrimony. Through the taking on of humanity by the S on of God, the Church adheres to the S on of God, Who dowered her with His blood as a heritage for Himself, so that she might bear anew to life through baptism the ospring that Eve bore to death. For Christ married the Church to Himself in His blood, just as through the oath Abrahams servant swore under the thigh of his master (Gen. 24:2) is pregured that the Church must be married to Christ. But when Lucifer, with all those united to him, discerned that God the Father openly held a wedding for His S on, he roared within himself. As Cain spilled the blood of Abel (Gen. 4:8), so he invaded the hearts of the unbelievers and tyrants, so that they would seize, wound and kill the just, good and elect of God. This is what Christ said to His disciples, the parable of the king who sent his servants to invite guests to a wedding. But when they were unwilling, he sent other servants to them, so that they would come, since the feast was prepared (Mt. 24). But, when they neglected this, they bound his servants and killed them with contempt. S o too the Jews and other unbelievers, often gathering with great joy, blo ed out from the earth the ancient saints whom God rst sent and the apostles who were sent afterwards. God, however, by means of a bow set in the clouds of heaven, was mindful of His oath (Gen. 9:1318), when His S on, Whom the bow signied, Whom He wished to be born of an intact virginal nature triumphed, subduing all his foes powerfully. Although human beings were blo ed out by means of the water of the ood (Gen. 7:2123), nevertheless, in the new age of human beings recovered through the water of baptism, Christ reigns in the Church, appearing in the clouds like a bow. The Church then is joined to the S on of God, just as circumcision was to the Law, the observance of which anticipated the Church by signication. But the new age, that is gilded by the ornament of the Church, never will be derided entirely for some defect. Just as the bow in heaven does not fail, but is beheld with such fear that is scarcely can be seen with one eye, likewise this will be repeated in the S on of God. In the varied colors of the aforesaid bow, the might of the virtues of the thousandfold number of the saints is signied. In the ery color, chastity and continence; in purple, the martyrdoms of the martyrs; in jacinth, the teachings of the ancestors; in green, however, are represented the virtues of the good works of the saints, that, breathed out by the S on of God, proceed like rays from the sun.
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The aforesaid king, however, having sent his armies, killed those murderers and burned their city (Mt. 22:7), because, when they multiplied sorrows, that is by surpassing the ancients, almighty God was angered against His foes, when the Roman princes destroyed Jerusalem, which was suused with the blood of the true Lamb and the blood of the other saints, by undermining all of it. They destroyed all the citizens who dwelt in it by killing and selling56 them. Then the Church was rebuilt yet again, when the holy city, New Jerusalem, descended from heaven (Apoc. 21:2), prepared by God as a bride adorned for her husband, since the Lamb gathered to Himself humanity of infant, childish, youthful, mature and decrepit age, with whom He bedecked the Church in the newness of good works and in the humility of those virtues descending from heaven. Just so He perfects any of their good and holy works adorned by the Holy S pirit as a bride is adorned for her husband, when she burns with love for him. As the Church is joined to Christ, so too His elect, that is, blessed Rupert. God made him, whom He gave everything in his infancy, and whom He led to a good end, who was brilliant of birth and in the riches of this world, to be dear to God by the liberty of Gods blessing.57 For I see as in a true vision our blessed patron Rupert, deprived of his father, with his mother, a widow, living in this place, overowing with good works and serving God in chastity, humility and sanctity, having bought eternal rewards with things perishable and temporal. Just the living Light showed me in a true vision and taught me, so I will speak of it. Everywhere the opinion about true sanctity was that it could stay and remain there for a long time; where true sanctity was not, there a lie could long remain, as divine majesty showed openly when it transferred me, and some sisters with me, by a great miracle of great visions to the place of his relics, as openly appears to all who perceive. The father of the mother of blessed Rupert, therefore, originated in Lorraine etc. Those things that follow are read at the beginning of the life of S aint Rupert wri en by the same Hildegard.

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