The Philosophical Cosmology of Hildegard of Bingen
Created | Updated Aug 31, 2005
Hildegard looks at the cosmos, and seeks to describe and to understand it; her cosmology is therefore not merely descriptive, as for instance we find in Newton or Galileo, but philosophical, trying to place natural phenomena into a framework which derives from Greek philosophy.
The result of this is a combination of exceptionally fine observations, coupled with explanations which seem, to us bizarre, because it derives from premises which do not form part of the modern world-view, and have been superceded by better explanatory models, principally those of science.
We see this most clearly in her attempt to understand all kinds of phenomena in terms of the four elements - air, fire, water, earth. So that Hildegard may write "the moon is made of fire and thin air"; in her model, the sun ignites the moon, which gradually waxes to its fullness like firewood or a burning house. But what happens after? When the moon is full "like a pregnant women", it "sends forth its light and passes it to the stars, which are then made brighter". Yet despite her explanations, consider how close she is in her observations: she links the light of the moon to the sun, and she notices that as the moon wanes, the stars appear brighter in the darker sky.
What happens to the light of the stars? As the moon gains in brightness, of course, these fade. But in her cosmology, they have received heat from the moon, so they now give it out to the earth at night, and begin to fade again. This heats the air, which gives up its moisture to the earth, thus accounting for the presence of dew. And the whole cycle is continually repeating. Again, we see the chain of reasoning: the stars are observed to fade, so they must be sending out heat into the air. Hildegard notes that dew occurs overnight, and so links this to the heat of the stars. It is in fact the heat of the sun, and the cold of the night air that produces dew, but we have the benefit of hindsight. Hildegard makes the wrong connection, but she is right in supposing a connection between heat and dew.
She also notes that "when the stars appear at night, then burning spheres and projectiles are sometimes seen flying in the air"; she accounts for these in terms of the stars "sending out fire and energy into the air", the air then "purges itself" so that "its impurities fall from it like dregs". Note that she is a careful observer of the night sky, and has clearly some experience of shooting stars, meteorites, and the like, which are wonderfully described as "falling like dregs".
With regard to the planets, they "have their orbits in the heights and depths of the firmament where the sun’s rays do not reach, and where its splendour is hardly shown"; again an accurate observation that planets are only observed during night, or on the threshold of sunrise or sunset. She regards them as "restraining the sun’s speed", which is possibly an explanation for the retrograde motion observed in the planets. The five planets (the number then known) as seen as containing the sun "as the five senses hold the body together". Again it is interesting that, like Kepler, she is trying to grasp some binding element which links sun and stars, even if her explanation is not correct. But one should note that when Newton proposed gravitation - a strange force somehow acting at a distance with no visible connections - he was cautious and fearful in promulgating what was then seen as a most occult explanation.
I have only considered briefly a few of the observations made by Hildegard: she also described eclipses of the moon, lightening ("the threads of the air"), and other phenomena. The explanatory framework of air, fire, water, earth is applied to the cosmological picture, and also applied by her to the understanding of human beings, so that her discussion of precious stones and their beneficial effects on people takes into account the cosmological picture.
What can we learn from Hildegard here? I do not think we can go back and accept her explanations for the cycle of the moon, for dew, for the planets, and so on. The old Greek (mainly Aristotelian) picture of air, fire, water and earth has ceased to provide scientific explanations, and has instead been isolated as a form of occult symbolism; the linkage to the natural world no longer exists in the same way as it did in the Mediaeval picture. They can be employed in ritual magic, such as casting circles, but the linkage does not exist as it did for Hildegard, because fundamentally, the cosmological picture it portrayed was not correct, and is not one we use today. Hidegard was seeking a framework in which we could understand both the cosmos and the individual, and if we seek to adopt, not all her conclusions, but her idea of such a framework, then we are truly following in her spirit.
For us, the picture is even more problematic. We have an earth that is millions of years old, a cosmos that is vast, and complexity of entropy, the decay of the sun, our smallness in the galaxy, our short span of existence compared to the deep time of life of earth, our species possible extinction. How do we combine the cosmological picture with the personal, in such a way to make sense of our place in the order of things?
One solution is a pragmatic one: simply to ignore the problem, bracket it off, and adopt much of the Medieval world-view in practice. That is a solution often found in many religious traditions, including neopagan ones. The atheist does not see there is a problem at all; everything is an accident of history, including cosmic history. Many people do not care anyway. I do not think either is satisfactory for any religious or philosophical tradition which seeks to find meaning in life, both personal and cosmological, and I would suggest that we need - as Hildegard would have done - to ponder this anew.
The result of this is a combination of exceptionally fine observations, coupled with explanations which seem, to us bizarre, because it derives from premises which do not form part of the modern world-view, and have been superceded by better explanatory models, principally those of science.
We see this most clearly in her attempt to understand all kinds of phenomena in terms of the four elements - air, fire, water, earth. So that Hildegard may write "the moon is made of fire and thin air"; in her model, the sun ignites the moon, which gradually waxes to its fullness like firewood or a burning house. But what happens after? When the moon is full "like a pregnant women", it "sends forth its light and passes it to the stars, which are then made brighter". Yet despite her explanations, consider how close she is in her observations: she links the light of the moon to the sun, and she notices that as the moon wanes, the stars appear brighter in the darker sky.
What happens to the light of the stars? As the moon gains in brightness, of course, these fade. But in her cosmology, they have received heat from the moon, so they now give it out to the earth at night, and begin to fade again. This heats the air, which gives up its moisture to the earth, thus accounting for the presence of dew. And the whole cycle is continually repeating. Again, we see the chain of reasoning: the stars are observed to fade, so they must be sending out heat into the air. Hildegard notes that dew occurs overnight, and so links this to the heat of the stars. It is in fact the heat of the sun, and the cold of the night air that produces dew, but we have the benefit of hindsight. Hildegard makes the wrong connection, but she is right in supposing a connection between heat and dew.
She also notes that "when the stars appear at night, then burning spheres and projectiles are sometimes seen flying in the air"; she accounts for these in terms of the stars "sending out fire and energy into the air", the air then "purges itself" so that "its impurities fall from it like dregs". Note that she is a careful observer of the night sky, and has clearly some experience of shooting stars, meteorites, and the like, which are wonderfully described as "falling like dregs".
With regard to the planets, they "have their orbits in the heights and depths of the firmament where the sun’s rays do not reach, and where its splendour is hardly shown"; again an accurate observation that planets are only observed during night, or on the threshold of sunrise or sunset. She regards them as "restraining the sun’s speed", which is possibly an explanation for the retrograde motion observed in the planets. The five planets (the number then known) as seen as containing the sun "as the five senses hold the body together". Again it is interesting that, like Kepler, she is trying to grasp some binding element which links sun and stars, even if her explanation is not correct. But one should note that when Newton proposed gravitation - a strange force somehow acting at a distance with no visible connections - he was cautious and fearful in promulgating what was then seen as a most occult explanation.
I have only considered briefly a few of the observations made by Hildegard: she also described eclipses of the moon, lightening ("the threads of the air"), and other phenomena. The explanatory framework of air, fire, water, earth is applied to the cosmological picture, and also applied by her to the understanding of human beings, so that her discussion of precious stones and their beneficial effects on people takes into account the cosmological picture.
What can we learn from Hildegard here? I do not think we can go back and accept her explanations for the cycle of the moon, for dew, for the planets, and so on. The old Greek (mainly Aristotelian) picture of air, fire, water and earth has ceased to provide scientific explanations, and has instead been isolated as a form of occult symbolism; the linkage to the natural world no longer exists in the same way as it did in the Mediaeval picture. They can be employed in ritual magic, such as casting circles, but the linkage does not exist as it did for Hildegard, because fundamentally, the cosmological picture it portrayed was not correct, and is not one we use today. Hidegard was seeking a framework in which we could understand both the cosmos and the individual, and if we seek to adopt, not all her conclusions, but her idea of such a framework, then we are truly following in her spirit.
For us, the picture is even more problematic. We have an earth that is millions of years old, a cosmos that is vast, and complexity of entropy, the decay of the sun, our smallness in the galaxy, our short span of existence compared to the deep time of life of earth, our species possible extinction. How do we combine the cosmological picture with the personal, in such a way to make sense of our place in the order of things?
One solution is a pragmatic one: simply to ignore the problem, bracket it off, and adopt much of the Medieval world-view in practice. That is a solution often found in many religious traditions, including neopagan ones. The atheist does not see there is a problem at all; everything is an accident of history, including cosmic history. Many people do not care anyway. I do not think either is satisfactory for any religious or philosophical tradition which seeks to find meaning in life, both personal and cosmological, and I would suggest that we need - as Hildegard would have done - to ponder this anew.
