Unknown artist, after Saint Hildegard
Miniature of Synagogue, from the Scivias Codex of St Hildegard of Bingen, c.1930 after the lost original of c.1175, Hand copy on parchment, St Hildegard Abbey, Rüdesheim-Eibingen; fol. 035, Photo: St Hildegard Abbey, Rüdesheim-Eibingen
‘A Mother in Israel’
Commentary by Lauren Beversluis
Thirty-five illuminations accompany Saint Hildegard’s twelfth-century masterpiece, Scivias, or ‘Know the Ways [of the Lord]’. These were painted at Hildegard’s monastery around the time of her death, and are available to us in a handmade facsimile which was faithfully copied circa 1930 (the original manuscript was lost during the Second World War).
The brilliant and distinctive illuminations of Scivias illustrate Hildegard’s mystical visions, and creatively render their extraordinary nature. Hildegard’s ‘secondary world’—that of her visions—contains great feats of architecture, unified by a principle of creation which has at its core the Incarnation.
In the fifth vision of Book 1, Hildegard describes her vision of the personified figure of Synagogue:
Therefore you see the image of a woman, pale from her head to her navel; she is the Synagogue, which is the mother of the Incarnation of the Son of God. From the time her children began to be born until their full strength she foresaw in the shadows the secrets of God, but did not fully reveal them. (Sciv. 1.5:133)
Synagogue is here represented as a mother to Israel, and ultimately, the mother of the Incarnation of the Son of God. In the illumination she stands tall, her arms crossed and her eyes closed as if in contemplation or sleep, awaiting the dawn that is Christ. Moses with his tablets are held to her chest (in pectore); Abraham and the prophets are nestled in her ‘womb’ (in ventre).
Before Deborah ‘arose as a mother in Israel’, society was unable to function, and fear and chaos reigned (Judges 5:6–7). Deborah restored order and unity to the Israelites; she gathered her people together, and protected and strengthened them, that they might carry out the will of God. As a guardian of Israel’s covenant and people, Deborah is an image of the archetypal mother Synagogue, who gathers unto herself her children. She nourishes them in the faith and guides them on the path to salvation.
References
Gutjahr, OSB, Hiltrud, and Maura Zátonyi OSB. 2011. Geschaut im Lebendigen Licht—Die Miniaturen des Liber Scivias der Hildegard von Bingen, 1 (Beuron: Beuroner Kunstverlag)
Saint Hildegard (1098–1179). 1990. Scivias, trans. by Columba Hart and Jane Bishop (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press)
