738662

research-article2018
FTH0010.1177/0966735017738662Feminist TheologySasongko

Article

Feminist Theology

Angling the Trinity from the

2018, Vol. 26(2) 195­–206
© The Author(s) 2018
Reprints and permissions:
Margin of Power: Vernacular sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0966735017738662
https://doi.org/10.1177/0966735017738662
Trinitarian Theology in journals.sagepub.com/home/fth

Hadewijch of Brabant and

Feminist Theology

Nindyo Sasongko

Abstract
In the wake of discourses in Trinitarian Theology, one can see that the debates still centre
around male theologians, past and present. This study explores a theological voice from the
margins of power through the thought of the thirteenth-century Beguine mystic Hadewijch of
Brabant. I contend that Hadewijch can be seen on par with those great male theologians. Through
her reading of William of St. Thierry and her fluency in Latin, she attained great knowledge of
scripture and of the doctors of the church, and, as such, she can be seen as one of the creative
theologians of her time. I will focus on her view of the Trinity and how such a view was deemed
dangerous by those at the centre of power. Finally, I will show aspects of her Trinitarian view
which can be appreciated by theologians of today.

Keywords
Hadewijch, vernacular, Trinity, Eastern, Western, feminist.

Introduction
Hadewijch of Brabant was one of the famous Beguine mystics. Living during the thir-
teenth and the first half of the fourteenth centuries, the Beguines were women who
answered the call to live in poverty among urban populations in the Low Countries,
Germany, and northern France, after the example of the apostolic church (vita apostol-
ica). These Beguine mystics committed themselves to chastity and the contemplative life

Corresponding author:
Nindyo Sasongko
Email: nsasongko@fordham.edu
196 Feminist Theology 26(2)

without taking religious vows (Madigan, 2015). Led by an experienced Beguine, each
beguinage (a Beguine house) could set its own rules of life and order.
The writings of Beguines such as Beatrijs of Nazareth (1200–1268), Hadewijch of
Brabant (ca. thirteenth century), Mechtild of Magdeburg (1207–1282), and Marguerite
Porete (d. 1310) are valued as a corpus which is used in modern studies of medieval
Europe, the history of Christianity, and comparative literature. Some of their works, such
as the poetry of Hadewijch, show that theological writing of that time was done not only
in Greek and Latin but in the languages of Europe. Many scholars consider the poetry of
Hadewijch to be among the finest works of all Dutch literature. Barbara Newman calls
her ‘the greatest mystical poet’ in Medieval Low Europe (Newman, 2003: 171; cf. Murk-
Jansen, 1998: 11; Dreyer, 2005: 105). Bernard McGinn describes her writing as difficult
to summarize compared with that of her contemporary mystics (McGinn, 1998: 200).
Valerie M. Lagorio even suggests that Hadewijch’s writing started ‘a new genre of medi-
eval religious poetry’ (Lagorio, 1984: 176).
Hadewijch’s life, however, remains mysterious. She never left a journal or any auto-
biographical notes. Scholars examine her writings to try to ascertain her location in the
social stratification of her times. The quality of her poetry indicates that she had a good
knowledge of Latin and French, and this suggests that she was from the upper social
strata. In the opinion of Bernard McGinn, her Letters indicate that she assumed leader-
ship in a beguinage, but then faced challenges which compelled her to become a wan-
derer (Letter 29). That text can be interpreted differently, however, since in it Hadewijch
described how God led her to the place where her relationship to the Divine Beloved
came to fruition. If, as seems likely, she was born into the upper social strata, she might
have pursued a vocation such as music (Lagorio, 1984: 200; cf. Murk-Jansen, 1998: 70).
Instead, she chose to leave behind the privilege of such a place in society when she was
invited to lead a group of Beguines. To this day, however, no scholar of medieval times
has claimed to have found all the details of Hadewijch’s life.
This article is not a survey of Hadewijch’s life nor of her poetry, but a study of her
theology. In particular, it is an exploration of her Trinitarian thought. I will show that,
with her fluency in Latin, she attained great knowledge of scripture and of the doctors of
the church and, as such, she can be seen as one of the most constructive theologians of
her time. From both the Eastern and the Western fathers of the church, I will highlight
those theological elements which seem to have been most influential in the development
of Hadewijch’s theology. Then, I will try to describe her ‘Trinitarian mysticism’. I will
note the opposition from the church hierarchy to the Beguines as another example of the
clash of power between the centre and from the margins. Finally, I will point to aspects
of Hadewijch’s theology which are appreciated by contemporary theologians.

Trinitarian Theology: East and West

For the Trinitarian theology of the Eastern Church, God the Father is seen as the source
without source. Creation reflects the face of the Logos of the Father. Creation is directed
by the Father’s goodwill and benevolence through the medium of the Son and the Spirit.
In the economy of the Trinity, the one God cannot be separated into the individual action
of each person. Hence, the Fatherhood of God is none other than the one, entire Divine
Being (McGuckin, 2008: 158, 161; cf. McGuckin, 2011: 53, 59).
Sasongko 197

The understanding that the Father conveyed the promise of salvation through the old
covenant, which the Son fulfilled, and the Spirit which then built the Church is rejected
in Eastern theology. As Gregory of Nazianzus (c. 329–390) emphasized,

When I think of any One of the Three I think of him as the whole, . . . I cannot grasp the greatness
of that One so as to attribute a greater greatness to the rest. When I contemplate the Three together,
I see but one torch, and cannot divide or measure out the undivided Light (Bobrinskoy, 2008: 49).

In opposition to the accusation that the East believed in three gods, Gregory of Nyssa
stressed that the three natures in the Godhead are indivisible. He demonstrated the ‘sin-
gularity and coequality of the undivided nature’ of the Trinity:

We believe and confess that in every deed and thought, either of this world or beyond this
world, either in time or eternity, the Holy Spirit is to be understood as joined with the Father
and Son. Nor is he lacking in any form of will, or energy, or anything else that can be implied
in a devout conception of the Supreme Goodness . . . we acknowledge his inseparable union
with them: that is, one in nature, in honour, in godhead, in glory and majesty, in almighty
power, and in all devout belief (McGuckin, 2008: 137).

Characteristic in Gregory’s writings is the idea of ‘eternal progress’ between the

Creator and creation – that God’s power (dynamis) set in place a sequential order of crea-
tion. Lewis Ayers outlines Gregory’s idea of creation:

The creation is an act of God’s power and follows an ordered sequence in which God, after
creating dark unformed matter, endows the dark matter with the light and fire of his own power.
Then, through the delegated action of this power, individual natures come into being. The will,
mirroring the divine power, diversifies into a variety of distinct and unitary natures each with
its own “natural, divinely endowed power” (Ayers, 2004: 350–51).

In the West, all major theologians believed that Divine Nature is the source of the
Godhead. Augustine strove to find appropriate language to express his thinking about the
Trinity. Language, he felt, must be an instrument to elevate and purify the soul. All material
form and content to depict God must be stripped away. So, his doctrine of the Trinity is
based on the immateriality of divinity. God is not to be imagined in any materialistic way,
but as ‘faithful understanding’ (intellectus fidei). Augustine declared that ‘a flesh bound
habit of thought cannot grasp’ the equality of the three persons of the Godhead. This is so
because ‘we desire to understand as far as it is given us the eternity and equality and unity
of the Trinity, and since we must believe before we can understand, we must take care that
our faith is not fabricated’ (Barnes, 2011: 81). In other words, theological vocabulary can
shape each person’s concept of God. If, however, God remains bound in language, then
God becomes an idol – a god of materialistic constructs. This led Augustine to the famous
‘psychological analogy’ of memory, intelligence, and will (memoria sui, intelligentia sui,
voluntas sui) to describe the Trinity. In using this analogy, Augustine was inviting every
soul to develop a discipline of faith – to train the mind, to form the heart, and to encourage
the will, for thereby one may find ways to be united with the Holy Trinity. Catherine
Mowry LaCugna summarizes Augustine’s view thus: ‘By contemplating itself, the soul
contemplates God and is united with God’ (LaCugna, 1991: 94–95).
198 Feminist Theology 26(2)

The Medieval Context

After the Fourth Crusade in 1204, during which crusaders from the West sacked the
Byzantine capital and desecrated altars and monasteries, the attitude of Eastern Christians
to the West changed dramatically. Western Christians were seen as brutal and hostile, not
only towards Muslims, but also towards their fellow Christians in the East (Cantor, 1994:
299; Lynch and Adamo, 2014: 186; Madigan, 1998: 166). One result of this was an era
during which, as Anthony McGuckin expresses it, there was ‘a sharp frost in the air’
between the two traditions. Costly, even irreparable destruction of cultures and relation-
ships was deeply felt both in the East and the West (McGuckin, 2008: 21–22). From that
time, most of the Orthodox world was subjected to rule by foreigners, while the Latin
world experienced power and prosperity. Cities grew rapidly in Europe. Schools emerged
and then joined together to form universities in major cities, such as Paris and Bologna.
Theologians of the Latin tradition seldom read theological works from the East (cf.
Angold, 2006: 53–78), but were immersed in Augustinian thought through the works of
Hugh of St. Victor and Bonaventure (cf. Turner, 1995: 74–101). The wounds caused by
the Great Schism did not heal for many centuries, even in the area of theology.
In the West, there were many debates over Trinitarian doctrine. Anselm’s Cur Deus
Homo was very influential. He was not satisfied with the classic doctrine of Christus
Victor in which God seemed to have owed Satan for the redemption of human beings.
Human beings were deceived into following Satan. Anselm believed, however, that Paul
the Apostle taught that redemption is God’s free act solely because of God’s glory. Here,
Satan does not have any part in redemption. God sent God’s own Son, who was both God
and human, to make the satisfaction which was due only to God. Anselm stood against
Roscellin of Compèigne (c. 1050–1125) whose Trinitarian thought was influenced by
nominalism and who was accused of Tritheism at the Synod of Soissons in 1092. A
Tritheism nuance was also found in the Trinitarian thought of Peter Abelard (1079–1142),
a pupil of Roscellin. On the atonement, Abelard believed that the sacrifice of Christ was
to set an example of obedience and sanctity. Bonaventure (c. 1221–1274), a Franciscan
theologian, echoed the Trinitarian thought of Augustine. He believed that memory, intel-
ligence, and will are the reflection of the Trinity of ‘Father, Word, and Love’, and that the
human soul with its ‘trinity of powers’ – memory, intellect, and choice – reflects the
image of God stamped on human beings (cf. King, 1998: 78).
Perhaps the theological capstone at those times was the work of the Dominicans,
especially that of Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274). Called the most important thinker of
the Dominican Order, Thomas was indebted to the philosophical thinking of Aristotle
and used it in his theological writings, along with the theological heritage of Augustine
and other Fathers of the Church. According to Anselm Min, Thomas was indebted to
both Eastern and Western Fathers. ‘He accepts the idea of generation as the communica-
tion of the same divine nature’, Min asserts, ‘the location of all personal differences in
relationality and the subsequent relational definition of the divine person, the necessity
of distinguishing between relative and essential predications, and the doctrine of mutual
perichōrēsis based on the sharing of the identical divine nature’ (Min, 2011: 104). From
the Western tradition, Thomas was indebted to the Augustinian model of the mind in
describing the three persons of the Trinity (cf. Turner, 2013). The influences from both
Sasongko 199

the Eastern and Western traditions were developed by Thomas into a comprehensive,
coherent, and sophisticated system.
All the theological debates in the West, however, were carried on by men. The percep-
tion of women was very low in the society of that time. According to the canon law, a
husband was viewed as justified if he beat a disobedient wife. In religious matters, the
church affirmed that men were needed to control the excessive enthusiasm, heresy, or
abuses to which women were seen to be susceptible. Women judged to be guided by
spiritual enthusiasm were placed under the authority and supervision of the clerks or
monks (Madigan, 1998: 167).
The Beguines were laywomen who opposed many of the perceptions of women found
among the populace.1 These women felt they could not just stay silent in their homes,
while secularity and materialistic attitudes were prevalent in society. Like the Poor Clares
(another mystic movement started by St. Clare of Assisi [1194–1253]), historian Philip
Sheldrake suggests that the Beguines ‘went against the natural order of society and
involved deliberate denial of their background and an acceptance of a way of life that
was socially distasteful’ (Sheldrake, 1995: 150). They went to live together with other
women for a period of time, normally a year or two, and live in a beguinage. They com-
mitted themselves not only to the contemplative life but also to social action, such as
taking care of widows, the sick, and the elderly, and also educating poor children. After
that, they could choose to leave the beguinage and live a normal, usually married life.
People could see that these women had adopted a maverick lifestyle. They might even
think that the Beguines were rustics or idiots, since the women, without the consent of
the church, speculated about theological matters in the vernacular. The Beguines, how-
ever, offered an alternative lifestyle in a male-dominated society. For the Beguines,,
women had the possibility to develop their own religious experience and expression
(Sheldrake, 1995: 151).

The Trinitarian Mysticism of Hadewijch

Hadewijch was not the only theologian-mystic who wrote about the Trinity in the ver-
nacular. Her contemporary Beguine mystics, such as Mechtild of Magdeburg and
Marguerite Porete, also did the same. In this, they drew images from their culture to
explain about the Trinity using the language of the laypeople. This is evident in the words
of Mechtild: ‘When I recall that the heavenly Father is the blessed host there, Jesus the
cup, the Holy Spirit the pure wine, and I think how the whole Trinity is filled cup and

1 The movement was founded by Lambert le Begue (d. 1177), also called ‘the Stammerer’ who
also started a similar movement among men, the Beghards. Pope Honorious III (1216–1227)
approved movement for women living together in poverty and chastity and doing works
of charity. This papal dispensation was supposed to be granted in 1215 by Pope Innocent
III (1198–1216) through Jacques of Vitry (1180–1240). However, because the pope died,
Jacques had to wait for a new pope to be elected. The movement was eventually condemned
by the Council of Vienne in 1329, following the execution of Marguerite Porete (Furlong,
1996: 102; Murk-Jansen, 1998: 23–24; Kirsch, 2008: 137–38).
200 Feminist Theology 26(2)

Minne the mighty cellaress, God knows I would gladly accept if she invited me to the
inn’ (Newman, 1995: 157). Later, Marguerite Porete wrote that the principle of divine
unity is different from the persons of the Trinity, echoing ‘Godhead beyond God’ in the
thought of Meister Eckhart. This principle also enables human beings to be united to the
Divine Being. Hence, Finne Amour is the divine Essence, or the principle of Unity in the
Trinity, which opens the possibility for human beings to share the divine life. Thus
Marguerite wrote,

God is all Power, and all Wisdom, and perfect Goodness, and that God the Father has
accomplished the work of the Incarnation, and the Son also and the Holy Spirit also. Thus God
the Father has joined human nature to the person of God the Son, and the person of God the Son
has joined [human nature] to the person of Himself, and God the Holy Spirit has joined [human
nature] to the person of God the Son. So then God possesses in Him one sole nature, that is
divine nature; . . . One God alone in three persons, three persons and one God alone. This God
is everywhere in His divine nature, but humanity is glorified in paradise . . . (Porete, 1993: 96).

The theological tone in Marguerite also echoed the Western Trinitarian understanding
which emphasized the divine Essence as the uniting principle of the Trinity. In Hadewijch,
however, minne did not reflect divine essence other than the Trinity itself. Hadewijch
believed that the Incarnate One and the Spirit of Life proceeds from the Creator God,
echoing the Trinitarian thought of the Cappadocian Fathers.
Hadewijch’s concept of the Trinity was written in the vernacular.2 Her choice of words
and phrases was neither derived from the authority of the church nor the established
dogma, but from the language of laypeople. The key to understanding Hadewijch’s the-
ology is the Dutch word minne, which is most often translated as ‘love’. Because of the
importance of this word in her theology, Hadewijch is considered to have been among
those women mystics who were called ‘love mystics’ (Minnemystiek) (Dickens, 2009:
60).3 For Hadewijch, minne was the mystical bond of intimacy between the human lover
and the Trinity through which the soul experiences its relation to God. As Bernard
McGinn shows, it is in the inner relations of the Trinity that humans begin to feel what is
meant when it is said that ‘Minne demands Minne’, not in human experiences but first in
the inner relations of the Trinity (McGinn, 1998: 207). In her writings, Hadewijch
described love in tripartite ways which are prevalent in the writings of St. Augustine. For
instance, she wrote, ‘If we loved all that Love loves’, and ‘Nobody who has loved Love
with love’. Hence, Dickens is right that for Hadewijch, the tripartite expression of love

2 As noted by Norman Cantor, the twelfth century marked the beginning of a number of prolific
writers, many of them secular clerks, university students, noble persons. Based as far afield as
northern Italy, southern France and western Germany, they wrote many genres of literature in
vernacular languages (Cantor, 1994: 344).
3 Thus, Hadewijch was not the only Beguine to use minne in her corpus. Beatrijs of Nazareth
also expressed her experience with God using the same word. ‘Love leaves her neither peace’,
thus she wrote, ‘nor respite, nor rest. Love raises her up and casts her down, suddenly draws
her closely only to torment her later, make her die to bring her back to life again, wounds her
and heals her, drives her to madness and then makes her wise again. It is in this way that love
draws her to a higher state’ (Murk-Jansen, 1998: 55; italics are mine).
Sasongko 201

consisting subject, object, and the bond of love is inherited from the Augustinian tradi-
tion of the Trinity (Dickens, 2009: 61).4 Consequently, anyone who wants to attain the
mystical relation with God, must also practise the demands of minne, that is, love as the
way to participate in the divine life. In her first letter, Hadewijch wrote thus:

Since God has manifested by his virtues that radiant love which was uncomprehended, whereby
he illuminated all the virtues in the radiance of all his love, may he illuminate you and enlighten
you by the pure radiance with which he shines resplendent for himself and for all his friends
and those he most dearly loves! (Letter 1: 1–7, Hadewijch, 1980: 47; italics are mine).

Some scholars suggest that the Trinitarian theology of Hadewijch of Brabant was
closer to the Greek than the Latin tradition (Hart, 1980: 6–7). Indeed, Hadewijch often
wrote of God as Totality, an understanding which is close to that of the Greek Fathers:

God is disclosed to me as Presence; God is to me an Effusion; God is to me Totality. God is

present to me with the Son, in sweetness; God with the Holy Spirit is an Effusion for me in
richness; God is for me; with the Father, Totality with bliss. Thus God is to me in Three Persons
one Lord, and one Lord in Three Persons, and in these Three Persons he is to my soul in the
manifoldness of the divine riches (Letters 28: 26–47; italics mine).

To this, she added: ‘And what is God’s excellence? It is the Being of the Godhead in the
Unity, and the Unity in the totality, and the totality in manifestation, the manifestation in
glory, and glory in fruition, and fruition in eternity. God’s graces are all excellent’ (Letters
28: 80–92). Clearly, Hadewijch did not try to avoid the difficulty of writing about the
persons of the Godhead.
The totality of the Trinity works together in revelation and this revelation will lead to
the source of being, the Creator God – the Father. ‘Thus God works with Three Persons’,
she wrote, ‘and with Three Persons as one Lord; and with one Lord as Three Persons; and
with Three Persons in an manifoldness of the Divine riches; and with the manifoldness
of the divine riches in the souls he has blessed, whom he has led into the mystery of the
Father, and all of whom he has made blissful’ (Letters 28:101–20). This understanding
is also clearly reflected in her vision thus:

And placed in front of the cross I saw a seat like a disk, which was more radiant to see than the
sun and its most radiant power (cf. Apoc. 1:16); and beneath the disk stood three pillars. The
first pillar was like burning fire. The second was like a precious stone that is called topaz; it has
the nature of gold and the brightness of the air, as well as the colours of all gems. The third was
like a precious stone that is called amethyst and has a purple colour like the rose and the violet.
And in the middle under the disk, a whirlpool revolved in such a frightful manner and was so
terrible to set that heaven and earth might have been astonished and made fearful by it.

The seat that resembled a disk was eternity. The three pillars were the three names under which
wretched ones who are far from Love understand him. The pillar like fire is the name of the

4 For references to Hadewijch, see Poems in Couplets 12.25 and 10.71. Dickens does not
explain that Hadewijch also inherited the Eastern teaching on the Trinity which stresses the
plurality of divine Personhood, however.
202 Feminist Theology 26(2)

Holy Spirit. The pillar like topaz is the name of the Father. The pillar like the amethyst is the
name of the Son. The profound whirlpool, which is so frightfully dark, is divine fruition in its
hidden storms (Vision 1: 214–45; italics mine).

The three pillars in this vision depict the three-ness of the Trinity as a reality in which
there can be no separation between the three persons. The same emphasis is made in
Eastern iconography by painting the three persons sitting together to share communion.
Nevertheless, the Latin tradition was also present in her writings, especially that of
Augustine, most likely through her reading of works by William of St. Thierry.5 The
three elements of memory, intelligence, and will were very important in her thought, and
this triad is prevalent throughout the writings of Augustine. Hadewijch wrote: ‘He gave
us his Nature in the soul, where three powers whereby to love his Three Persons: with
enlightened reason, the Father; with the memory, the wise Son of God; and with the high
flaming will, the Holy Spirit. This was the gift that his Nature gave ours to love him with’
(Letters 22:137–42).6 Like Augustine, Hadewijch used a ‘psychological analogy’ for her
Trinitarian thought. In addition, the use of a non-material analogy of Subsistence-
Effusiveness-Totality as the Godself in eternity can be found in Letter 28:121–45: ‘Then
the soul sees, and it sees nothing. It sees a truth – Subsistent-Effusive-Total – which is
God himself in eternity. The soul waits; God gives, and it receives’.
Hadewijch wrote about love and reason, stressing that love without reason is incom-
plete. This understanding may well have been adapted from William of St. Therry’s
famous phrase ‘love itself is reason’ (amor ipse intellectus est). It points to the transfor-
mation of human intellect and love within one’s soul in conformity with the divine
(Murk-Jansen, 1998: 68). Hadewijch detailed what she understood as the relation
between love and reason with these words: ‘There are three things through which one
lives for love, here with the Trinity and, in the beyond, in the Unity . . . one desires Love
under the guidance of reason, and one desires to content her with all just works of perfec-
tion, and to be perfect and worthy of all perfection’ (Letters 30:107–13). Only in this
way, can one be united with the Trinity.

The Vernacular Trinity and the Problem of Power

In the medieval period, women living in chastity and contemplation without placing
themselves under the authority of men were susceptible to the accusation of being a
heretical movement. In the opinion of Grace Jantzen, ‘Women who sought to live inde-
pendently pious lives, not under obedience to men, were too vulnerable to accusations of

5 William of St. Thierry wrote as such: ‘In order therefore that the rational soul created in man
may cleave to God, the Father claims himself memory; the Son, reason; and the Holy Spirit,
proceeding from both the Father and the Son claims the will, proceeding from both memory
and reason’ (Hart, 1980: 9).
6 Hadewijch is not consistent in her depiction of Reason to the Father. In Letter 30, she wrote
that the reason which motivates believer to perfection reflects the Son; the will of love which
brings virtues belongs to the Spirit; the drive to be like God depicts the Father (see also
Dreyer, 2005: 113).
Sasongko 203

heresy and even witchcraft’ (Jantzen, 1995: 206). The accusations were often made up by
the accusers, rather than being based on demonstrable facts. Nevertheless, at the Council
of Vienne (1312), the vernacular Trinity of Hadewijch and her sister Beguines were
judged to be detrimental and were censured:

We have been told that certain women commonly called beguines afflicted by a kind of
madness, discuss the Holy Trinity and the divine essence, and express opinions on matters of
faith and doctrine contrary to the catholic faith, deceiving many simple people. Since these
women promise no obedience to anyone and do not renounce their property or profess and
approved Rule, they are certainly not “religious”, . . . We have therefore decided and decreed
with the approval of the Council that their way of life is to be permanently forbidden and
altogether excluded from the Church of God (R. W. Southern, cited in Jantzen, 1995: 206).

What was the underlying problem? Although the vernacular Trinity of Hadewijch was
drawn from the Eastern and Western traditions, it did not rest on the language of patriar-
chal society. Elsewhere she played gender reversal in the relationship between divine and
human: the Divine is depicted as Lady Love, whereas the human soul is a knight. For
Hadewijch, this gender reversal expounds that male only has little or no power, the male
yearning for love is in separation from the female beloved. As Dickens has put it, that
‘the world of the questing male emphasizes the absurd and otherworldly nature of the
human relations with God’ (Dickens, 2009: 69).
Also, her understanding of God and the humanity of Jesus was not based on the
accepted interpretation of Holy Scripture by the ecclesiastical hierarchy, but on her
vision. This led to the accusation of heresy, and as a result to the requirement that writing
and speaking in public be first approved by church authorities. As noted by Jantzen,
Hadewijch and some of her sister Beguines underwent severe persecution. It has been
suggested that carrying out witch hunts in Western society began with this treatment of
Hadewijch (Jantzen, 1995: 146). The vernacular Trinity of Hadewijch, however, can be
said to have been a voice from the underside. She was one of the first women to use the
voice of theology in a male-dominated culture. Her voice became a valuable addendum
to that of her male counterparts. As noted by Saskia Murk-Jansen, her legacy can be
traced, albeit dimly, to the Reformation and beyond. Later, her mysticism inspired the
great Flemish mystic Jan van Ruusbroec and his companions at the monastery in
Groenendael near Brussels, Belgium (Murk-Jansen, 1998: 118).
As history shows, tension can arise between theology from the centre of power and
theology from the margins of power, for there is no universal and all-embracing theol-
ogy. Theology, then and now, seeks to raise a voice to what has been silenced in society
and in society’s religion(s). The socio-cultural context is always influential in the devel-
opment of a theologian’s vocabulary. The vernacular Trinitarian vocabulary of Hadewijch
was a reflection of her experience as a devout woman in her society. In the methodology
of current Feminist Theology, questions concerning experience are viewed as important,
as notes Andrea Smith: ‘Whose experiences are being represented, and by whom? What
counts as “accurate” representation? How does the theologian claim to “know” the expe-
rience of collectivity, and what authorizes her to be its voice?’ (Smith, 1998: 54). For
Hadewijch and all her sister mystics, the experience of laypeople could be articulated in
their own vernacular language.
204 Feminist Theology 26(2)

Moreover, her Trinitarian thought, expressed in vernacular language, can be seen as,
in the words of Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, ‘an emancipatory retrieval of Christian
speech about God as Triune’ (Thistlethwaite, 1998: 115). The genius of Hadewijch is that
she used Minne or ‘love’ to point to God, while keeping the male-gender attribution for
the first and second persons of the Trinity. The Dutch noun Minne is feminine. So, she
could speak of God with a feminine term throughout her writings. Hadewijch saw God
as Lady Love, while she herself and her readers were viewed as the knight-errants who
were willing to give up all things in the pursuit of the lady. In the opinion of Saskia
Murk-Jansen, ‘This attribution of the female gender to God was a vivid way of represent-
ing the many reverses of the mystic life’ (Murk-Jansen, 1998: 51). Pointing to God with
the word Minne, a feminine term, can be seen as Hadewijch’s way of dealing with male-
dominated medieval culture’s use of only male-gender terms for God.
That Hadewijch explored the vernacular Trinitarian vocabulary, while not abandoning
the traditional wording of ‘Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit’ suggests that she understood
Trinitarian language to be not static, but rather that this Trinitarian imagination’s goal is,
to use a statement of Elizabeth Johnson: ‘to break the unconscious sway that male trini-
tarian imagery holds over the imaginations of even the most sophisticated thinkers’
(Johnson, 1992: 212). The mystery of the Triune God is born out of human experiences
of salvation. God vivifies, liberates, and restores. Long before Johnson, Hadewijch
seemed to feel understood that the Trinity is primarily beyond binary categories of male
and female. Hadewijch wrote that God is Subsistence, Effusiveness, and Totality. In her
work, Johnson shows that each hypostasis of the Trinity can be spoken of in female meta-
phors. Hadewijch was bold enough to cross-gender the hypostasis of God into the female
Minne, while she saw herself, the yearning soul, as the male knight.

Conclusion
This article is a brief sketch of the Trinitarian theology of Hadewijch of Brabant. As a
woman mystic who lived in the thirteenth century, her understanding of the Trinity was
mystical. Ursula King summarizes Hadewijch’s mystical Trinitarian understanding in
this way:

Hadewijch’s language expresses the superabundance of spiritual experience, reflecting her

participation in the Trinitarian mysteries. She celebrates the divine names: Presence in the Son,
Overflow in the Holy Spirit, Totality in the Father. Union with the three persons of the Holy
Trinity in active and contemplative life leads to ultimate Unity to repose and silence of the soul
in the depths of God (King, 1998: 98).

To know the Trinity is not to have knowledge about the divine; it is to experience
union with Godself. Hadewijch drew theological wisdom from both the Greek and Latin
traditions, especially those of Gregory of Nyssa and Augustine of Hippo. After the
schism in the church between West and East, Hadewijch became one of a few Western
theologians who were still influenced by the thinking of Eastern theologians. Many
books on theology and spirituality today do not mention Hadewijch even though medi-
eval scholars began to study her writings in the second half of the nineteenth century and
Sasongko 205

the first critical edition of her work was published in the first half of twentieth century.7
There is, however, a growing interest in exploring the mysticism of medieval women
mystics and putting it in dialogue with traditions from East and West. This means, I
think, that even today Hadewijch of Brabant may help to bridge the gap between Eastern
and Western Christians.

Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or
not-for-profit sectors.

References
Angold M (2006) Byzantium and the west 1204–1453. In: Angold M (ed.) The Cambridge History
of Eastern Christianity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 53–78.
Ayers L (2004) Nicaea and Its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology.
New York: Oxford University Press.
Barnes MR (2011) Latin Trinitarian theology. In: Phan PC (ed.) Cambridge Companion to the
Trinity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 70–86.
Bobrinskoy B (2008) God in Trinity. In: Cunningham MB, Theokritoff E (eds) The Cambridge
Companion to Orthodox Christian Theology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 49–
62.
Cantor N (1994) The Civilization of the Middle Ages, Revised Edition. New York: HarperPerennial.
Dickens AJ (2009) The Female Mystics: Great Women Thinkers of the Middle Ages. London: I.B.
Tauris.
Dreyer EA (2005) Passionate Spirituality: Hildegard of Bingen and Hadewijch of Brabant. New
York: Paulist Press.
Hadewijch (1980) The Complete Works. Hart MC (trans. and ed.) New York: Paulist Press.
Jantzen GM (1995) Power, Gender, and Christian Mysticism. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Johnson EA (1992) She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse. New
York: Crossroad.
King U (1998) Christian Mystics: The Spiritual Heart of the Christian Tradition. New York:
Simon & Schuster.
Kirsch J (2008) The Grand Inquisitor’s Manual: A History of Terror in the Name of God. New
York: HarperOne.
LaCugna CM (1991) God for Us: The Trinity and Christian Life. San Francisco, CA:
HarperSanFrancisco.
Lynch JH, Adamo PC (2014) The Medieval Church: A Brief History, Second Edition. New York:
Routledge.
Lagorio VM (1984) The medieval continental women mystics. In: Szarmach PE (ed.) An
Introduction to the Medieval Mystics of Europe. Albany, NY: State University of New York
Press, 161–94.
Madigan KJ (2015) Medieval Christianity: A New History. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Madigan S (ed.) (1998) Mystics, Visionaries, and Prophets: A Historical Anthology of Women’s
Spiritual Writings. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press.

7 According to José de Vinck, a critical edition of Hadewijch’s corpus was published in

1908/1914 under the direction of a Belgian priest, Fr. Van Mierlo (Vinck, 1985: 27).
206 Feminist Theology 26(2)

McGinn B (1998) The Flowering of Mysticism: Men and Women in the New Mysticism – 1200–
1350. New York: Crossroad.
McGuckin JA (2008) The Orthodox Church: An Introduction to Its History, Doctrine, and Spiritual
Culture. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
McGuckin JA (2011) The Trinity in the Greek fathers. In: Phan PC (ed.) Cambridge Companion
to the Trinity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 49–69.
Min AK (2011) Thomas Aquinas on the Trinity. In: Phan PC (ed.) Cambridge Companion to the
Trinity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 87–107.
Murk-Jansen S (1998) Brides in the Desert: The Spirituality of the Beguines. Maryknoll, NY:
Orbis Books.
Newman B (1995) The Virile Woman to WomanChrist: Studies in Medieval Religion and
Literature. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Newman B (2003) God and the Goddesses: Vision, Poetry and Belief in the Middle Ages.
Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Porete M (1993) Mirror of Simple Souls. Babinsky EL (trans.) Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press.
Sheldrake P (1995) Spirituality and History: Questions of Interpretation and Method. Maryknoll,
NY: Orbis Books.
Smith A (1998) Walking in balance: the spirituality/liberation praxis of native women. In:
Thistlethwaite SB, Engels MP (eds) Lift Every Voice: Constructing Christian Theologies
from the Underside. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 53–68.
Thistlethwaite SB (1998) On the Trinity. In: Thistlethwaite SB, Engels MP (eds) Lift Every Voice:
Constructing Christian Theologies from the Underside. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 115–28.
Turner D (1995) The Darkness of God: Negativity in Christian Mysticism. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Turner D (2013) Thomas Aquinas: A Portrait. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Vinck J de (1985) Revelations of Women Mystics: From Middle Ages to Modern Times. New
York: Alba House.