SCIENTIA DEI, the Knowledge of God

I’ve been preparing for a Lenten Day of Prayer using Hildegard of Bingen as a woman for today. In Sister of Wisdom: St. Hildegard’s Theology of the Feminine, by Barbara Newman, I first read of Scientia Dei, and I knew I wanted to paint my own version of this magnificent feminine face:

“A figure of Wisdom first appears in Scivias III, where Hildegard saw the Word of God symbolized by a three-sided pillar crowned with a radiant dove. The three sides, she was told, signify the Word of God as manifested in the ancient law (patriarchs and prophets), the new life of grace (apostles, martyrs, and virgins), and the wisdom of the doctors...At this point, there appears the figure of Scientia Dei, the Knowledge of God, standing in a building that represents the heavenly City or the Church…Scientia Dei appears as a veiled woman with one hand raised in a gesture of forbearance. She is colored entirely with gold leaf and set off by the backdrop of a starry sky…

(From Hildegard’s own words:)

‘The image denotes the Knowledge of God, for she watches over all people and all things in heaven and on earth, being of such radiance and brightness that, for the measureless splendor that shines in her, you cannot gaze on her face or on the garments she wears. For she is awesome in terror as the Thunderer’s lightning, and gentle in goodness as the sunshine. Hence, in her terror and her gentleness, she is incomprehensible to mortals, because of the dread radiance of divinity in her face and the brightness that dwells in her as the robe of her beauty. She is like the sun, which none can contemplate in its blazing face or in the glorious garment of its rays. For she is with all and in all, and of beauty so great in her mystery that no one could know how sweetly she bears with people, and what unfathomable mercy she spares them.’

“Scientia Dei embodies a paradoxical union of tenderness, radiance, and terror…Terrible yet tempered, gentle yet dreadful, she conveys both the awesome beauty of divine things and the saving restraint…that makes epiphanies bearable.

(From the book of the Wisdom of Solomon:)

“For she is the splendor of the eternal light,
And immaculate mirror of God’s majesty,
And image of his goodness…
For she is more beautiful than the sun,
and above all the order of the stars;
compared with the light,
she is found before it…

Therefore she reaches from end to end mightily
and orders all things sweetly. (Wisdom7:26-8:1)”

In Hildegard’s vision, she saw Scientia Dei (the Knowledge of God) as a veiled woman. For today, 2010, I see her as having her veil removed. She is a daring woman, a brave woman, a woman who knows who she is, and what her task is. For me, like the Black Madonna, she dares to look me in the face; she dares me to love the “little ones”, and she dares me to dare to be who I was created to be. She’s formidable, yet gentle and merciful.

Instead of gold, I clothed her in purple, for me, a symbol of majesty and wisdom. Her clothing has golden universal symbols of wisdom embroidered on them. And for me, since we, you and I, are the temple of the Holy One, the golden building represents you and me, God’s holy temple.