Document Type

Preprint

Publication Date

1-1-2021

Journal / Book Title

Essays on Women in Western Esotericism

Abstract

According to Hildegard of Bingen, Cause et Cure or “Causes and Cures” in English, Adam saw God’s full prophesy for the structure of the world and the last day of the world that eventually the humankind will restore the secret knowledge given by God and they will come back to God. Here, the woman’s body works essential as it is not polluted by the first sin and it can save the humankind as the Virgin Mary gave birth to the Christ. The woman’s body became the important tool to restore the hidden knowledge of God as the body could remember God’s prophecy in sleeping: the bodily process that Eve was created from Adam’s flesh while his sleeping. I argue that this understanding of Eve is closely connected to Hildegard’s theological representation of the woman’s body which will bring restoration of God’s truth, as she expressed in the Scivias, “Know the Way of God.” I argue that Hildegard sees woman as the restoration of the esoteric knowledge of God from before the Fall. She uses the allegorical images of the female body in the process of salvation, comparing the woman’s recreative power to God’s creation. Comparing these esoteric roles of women as conduits of or key links in the understanding of divine knowledge in Hildegard’s writings is an especially fruitful path of analysis as she herself claimed to receive mystical knowledge from God. By focusing on these knowledge bearing women, including Hildegard, we see the positive examination of the woman’s body as salvational.

DOI

10.1007/978-3-030-76889-8_16

Journal ISSN / Book ISBN

191207210 (Orcid)

Published Citation

Lee, Minji. “True Knowledge of God Obscured in Mind and Body: Hildegard of Bingen’s Medical and Religious Understanding of Adam’s Fall.” In Essays on Women in Western Esotericism Beyond Seeresses and Sea Priestesses, edited by Amy Hall, 375-390. London: Palgrave Macmillan. 2022.

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