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Declared a Doctor of the Church in 2012, St. Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) is one of the most remarkable figures of medieval Latin Christianity. A visionary theologian and prophetic reformer, as well as composer, artist, and natural scientist, her voice echoes across the centuries to offer today an integrated vision of the relationship between cosmos and humanity. Completed in 1173, The Book of Divine Works (Liber Divinorum Operum) is the culmination of the Visionary Doctor's theological project, offered here for the first time in a complete and scholarly English translation. The first part explores the intricate physical and spiritual relationships between the cosmos and the human person, with the famous image of the universal Man standing astride the cosmic spheres. The second part examines the rewards for virtue and the punishments for vice, mapped onto a geography of purgatory, hellmouth, and the road to the heavenly city. At the end of each Hildegard writes extensive commentaries on the Prologue to John's Gospel (Part 1) and the first chapter of Genesis (Part 2)-the only premodern woman to have done so. Finally, the third part tells the history of salvation, imagined as the City of God standing next to the mountain of God's foreknowledge, with Divine Love reigning over all. For Hildegard, the Incarnation is the key moment of all history, willed from eternity to complete God's Work. God's creative capacity and loving mission are thus shared with the humans he made in his image and likeness-for Hildegard, the incarnate Christ's tunic and the Word's creative rationality, respectively. Containing all creation within ourselves, we are divinely called to cooperate in the Creator's work, to enter into a fruitful and sustainable relationship with creation. The scope of Hildegard's visionary theology is both cosmic and close-reflections of God's loving self-revelation are both grand and utterly intimate, as the Work of God reaches from the very heart of infinity down into every smallest detail of the created world.… (more)
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Hildegard's writing is an eloquent and beautiful exposition of christian mysticism in the 11th century. Her intent in writing this work was in part to increase the practice of meditation for the purpose of mystical attainment, and in many ways it reads as a guide for the person who wants to 'see' god; a 'how to be a mystic' tract. This is quite different from Theresa of Avila's intent in her autobiography, in which she discusses mystical practice in terms of personal journeys and experiences as a mystic.
Hildegard is also an interesting figure in Christian (church) history: she comes not too long before Galileo and might have offered Catholicism something that some of those involved in the reformation would have sought. She was a powerful woman leader as an Abbess, and wrote letters (some of which are included by Fox here) to some of the most powerful people in the world, which usually well-received. The Catholic Church had a tenuous interaction with Hildegard however, as evidenced by her non-attainment of sainthood and the reversal (unwilling reversal, no doubt) of a decision to remove her from her position as abbess.