18. The human being contains three paths A human being contains three paths: namely, soul, body and senses. On these three paths, human life runs its course. The soul fills the body with life and brings forth the senses; for its part the body attracts the soul to it and opens the senses; in turn the senses touch the body and draw the soul to them. The soul provides the body with life like fire flooding the darkness with light; it has two major powers like two arms: the understanding and the will. Not that the soul has these limbs to move herself about; rather she reveals herself in these two powers like the sun manifesting itself in the splendour of its light. Therefore human being, you are not a bundle of veins; pay attention to the knowledge of the scriptures.

19. Human understanding Human understanding is connected to the soul like the arms to the body. For just as the arm is joined to the hand and the hand to the fingers, so also there is no doubt that understanding proceeds from the soul and activates the other powers of the soul, by which it knows and recognizes human actions. For over all the other powers of the soul it is understanding which distinguishes what is good from what is bad in human actions. Understanding is therefore a teacher through whom all things are known, for in this way he shakes out all things just as the wheat is separated from the stalks and husks; he examines what things are useful and what are useless, what things are lovable and what are hateful, what things belong to life and what to death. Just as food without salt is bland, so also the other powers of the soul are weak and unknowing without it. Understanding is in the soul like the shoulders in the body, acting as the moving force behind the other powers of the soul, giving them strength like the shoulders give strength to the body. It is flexible, like the bend of the arm, discerning both the divine and the human in God. Thus human understanding works with true faith, for like the articulation of the fingers of the hand it can distinguish between many diverse actions. It therefore operates differently from the other forces of the soul. Why is this?

20. The will The will warms an action, the mind receives it, and thought bodies it forth. The understanding, however, discerns an action by the process of knowing good and evil just as the angels also have an understanding that loves good and hates evil. And just as the body has a heart, so too the soul has understanding, which exercises its power in one part of the soul just as the will does in another. How does this happen? The will in fact has great power in the soul. How does this come about? The soul stands, so to speak, in the corner of the house, that is, in the firm support of the heart, like a man standing in the corner of a house in order to survey the whole house and supervise its running. He raises his right arm to give a sign and points out things useful to the house as he turns towards the east. The soul does likewise on the roadways of the whole body when she looks towards the rising of the sun. The soul uses the will, as it were like her right arm, as a firm support for the veins and the bones and the movement of the whole body, for the will directs every action, whether for good or ill

3. Redemption (Scivias II, 1) In a version of the creation, the fall of Adam, and the redemption of humanity, Hildegard presents the story of her vision in a series of mysterious pictures. The work of God, for instance, is seen as a shining fire with a flame the ‘colour of air, and the creation of the cosmos takes place when a dark sphere of air representing the basic matter of the world is brought into contact with the divine fire and illumined with light. Later, the fire merges with the brightness of the dawn on earth, the dawn being the light of the Incarnation, and the power of redemption centres on the appearance of a ‘light-filled man’. In the original illustration to the scene, preserved in the Rupertsberg manuscript (see Introduction I. i), the ‘light-filled man’ is a reddish golden figure surrounded by large golden flames above his head and emerging from a red and golden circle, presumably the dawn, at the bottom of the picture

2. The words of Job ‘Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the Lord hath wrought this? In whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind.’7 What does this mean? No creature can be so stupid by nature that it is ignorant of all the causes and relationships which make up its fruitfulness and fertility.8 And how is this? The sky has light, the light air, the air birds; the earth nourishes the greenness, the greenness the fruit, the fruit the animals; all testify that they were established by a mighty hand – the great power of the Lord of all, who through the force of his strength has worked all things so that none may fail in their usefulness. All creatures live and move in the omnipotence of the Creator, not only those who seek the earth and earthly things as do cattle, which do not have rationality by the inspiration of God, but also those who inhabit human flesh in which they partake of rationality, power of discernment, and wisdom. How is this? The soul encircles earthly matters, at work through the many changes that fleshly customs demand of it. But the spirit raises itself up in two ways: on the one hand by heaving sighs, groanings and desires for God,9 on the other by seeking as it were through commands to exercise sovereignty, influence and autonomy in various areas, because through reason the spirit has the power of discernment. Therefore, also, the human being contains the likeness of heaven and earth within her.10 How does this come about? The human creature contains a circle in which there appear the qualities of discernment, breath of life and rationality, just as in the heavens there are stars, air and birds. Likewise, the human creature contains a receptacle in which there appear the moisture of the humours, germination and parturition, just as on earth there is greenness, fruitfulness and animals. What does this mean? Human creature! You are a wholeness in every created thing and yet you forget your creator! All things subject to you obey their creator as they were made to. But only you desire to transgress his commandments?

3. Before and after the Incarnation the Word remains indivisibly and eternally with the Father You see in your vision ‘the fire having a flame the colour of the air, brightly burning in the gentle breeze, and as inseparable from the shining fire as a human being is inseparable from his inner organs’. This is the infinite Word, which is in the Father before time, before the working of creation. In the glow of love, this Word was to become incarnate, in the course of time, miraculously and without stain or weight of sin, through the pure green vigour11 of the Holy Spirit in the dawn of blessed maidenhood. And before his assumption of flesh the Word was indivisible in the Father and remained inseparable in him after his assumption of human nature. For as a human being cannot exist without the breath of air in his inner organs, in the same way, the unique Word cannot be separated in any way from the Father

desire to transgress his commandments? 3. Before and after the Incarnation the Word remains indivisibly and eternally with the Father You see in your vision ‘the fire having a flame the colour of the air, brightly burning in the gentle breeze, and as inseparable from the shining fire as a human being is inseparable from his inner organs’. This is the infinite Word, which is in the Father before time, before the working of creation. In the glow of love, this Word was to become incarnate, in the course of time, miraculously and without stain or weight of sin, through the pure green vigour11 of the Holy Spirit in the dawn of blessed maidenhood. And before his assumption of flesh the Word was indivisible in the Father and remained inseparable in him after his assumption of human nature. For as a human being cannot exist without the breath of air in his inner organs, in the same way, the unique Word cannot be separated in any way from the Father.

annot be separated in any way from the Father.

4. Why the Son of God is called the Word And why is he called the Word? For the following reason. Through the speaking of the localized word,12 which is impermanent, in the dust of humanity, wise and prudent people understand the commands of a ruler and the reason for his commands.13 Similarly also, through the utterance of the unlocalized Word, which is permanent in the inextinguishable life that lives through eternity, the strength of the Father is understood by the various creatures of the world who sense and recognize it as the origin of their created state. Likewise, just as the capacity and the glory of the human being are known by the functioning word, so the sanctity and the goodness of the Father shine through the perfectly filled Word