"The Serpent Has Suffocated in a Woman"
A Study of Eve and Mary in the Liturgical Songs of Hildegard of Bingen
The fifth chapter of Romans draws a link between Eden and the Incarnation. Verse 17 reads,
“If, because of the one man’s trespass, death exercised dominion through that one, much more surely will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness exercise dominion in life through the one man, Jesus Christ” (NRSV).
If this verse were to be paraphrased, it might be, “By one person death entered the world and through one person life entered the world.” Before reading Hildegard, I read Romans 5 as exclusively talking about Adam and Christ. I still view this chapter as talking about the corruption of humanity in Eden and the restoration of life in Christ, yet reading the Liturgical Songs of Hildegard of Bingen has formed enriching insights on this passage of Scripture and the narratives it references.
In Hildegard’s Liturgical Songs, she also forms parallels between Eden and the Incarnation. It seems she is drawing from Romans 5 in her writings, only she is using different characters. She focuses on Eve and Mary in her narrative. Where our English translations say something to the effect of, “through one man sin entered the world and through one man life entered the world,” Hildegard might draw an implied link between Eden and the Incarnation and say, “through one woman sin entered the world and through one woman life entered the world.” To avoid confusion, it may be helpful to note that the word “man,” as in exclusively referencing a male individual, does not appear in the Greek, only the phrase tou henos which means “the one.” We know that the second tou henos is Jesus because the text says so. The point of this study is not to over-gender these verses or say something the original texts do not say, but to draw out ancient insights from a medieval abbess and theologian.
Hildegard writes several Antiphons in her Liturgical Songs. My study has included Antiphons 5, 6, 7, 16 and one hymn–Hymn 12.1 Hildegard praises Mary more than most Protestants would be comfortable with, yet she always returns to the power of God in empowering Mary to give life to the one who would defeat death. She addresses Mary, writing,
“the fountain from the heart of the Father has streamed into you through which he created the primordial matter of the world.”
Here she first mentions Eve, saying Eve overturned this glorious work “like a whirlwind.” (Antiphon 5). In her sixth Antiphon, she directly links what happened in Eden to the role of Mary in the plan of restoration.
“The Serpent has suffocated in a woman. Thus the flower of the virgin Mary radiates illuminated in the first red of daybreak.”
Hildegard’s prose is deeply poetic as she includes references to the Garden, Incarnation, Christ, Mary, and the Resurrection. Her next sentence may be called the thesis of her writing in these Songs. Antiphon 7 begins,
“Because a woman instituted death; the clear Virgin has abolished it.”
Hildegard is not saying Mary alone abolished death, and I do not believe she is saying Mary “redeemed” womanhood. Viewing Eve as what not to be as a woman and Mary as the perfect model of “womanhood” is far too narrow of a vision for female image bearers and not at all what Scripture suggests. It does not tell the whole story. Although her link between the sin of a woman in the Garden and the agency of a woman in bringing Life to a dying world is insightful, it is not to be understood that Mary—or God through Mary—redeemed any flaw in women that is inherent to female nature. Where many founding church fathers as well as some modern individuals would point to the Genesis narrative as proof that women are more easily deceived than men—how many times have we heard from the pulpit, ‘there’s a reason the serpent went to Eve first?’—God chooses a woman to bring the Son of God into the world to save the world—men and women—from the deception and vices of the devil.
It is worth noting that Hildegard herself does not hold the view that Eve was deceived just as any other person might have been. Here she aligns with the church figures who would point to Eve as proof women are more easily deceived and weaker. Rebecca Garber paraphrases Hildegard’s view of the deception of Eve,
“Eve yielded to the serpent’s seductions not out of willfulness or pride but because of her softer nature.”2
In Hildegard’s Scivias, she writes that women are by nature weaker and subordinate to men—not that they have a gender role to play—but that women are unavoidably weaker and subordinate.3 As much as I desire Hildegard to be this empowering female figure who tears down the notion that women are inherently subordinate by appealing to Mary’s role in the Incarnation, this does not appear to be her intent. I also doubt her intent was to paint motherhood as the ideal for women by drawing on God’s use of Mary in this way. She was an abbess and her community of women were committed to celibacy. Motherhood was a vocation but not the only one and not above the others. If anything was above the other, she would have followed a common notion of her time in viewing the single life as “holier” than marriage.
Hildegard was a product of her time in regard to her subordinate view of women and yet, in many ways, she was ahead of her time in her writing and teaching roles. There are many more layers I have yet to study of this Benedictine nun to understand her writings for all they are worth. I have gathered this: Part of the reason why she constantly marvels at how God uses Mary in the Incarnation is because she saw herself and other women as the weaker, subordinate, softer sex. “If God can use Mary–a woman, he can use anyone,” I almost hear her say. This is a good lesson for Christians today if we lose the notion that God using women is more miraculous than God using men.
It is a great wonder, Hildegard marvels, that,
“into the humble form of a woman the King entered.” ” God did this,” she writes, “because humility rises above everything” (Antiphon 11).
There is symbolism here but not prescriptive womanhood. One does not humble herself because of her gender. Hildegard might make the argument that by nature women are images of humility, hence her awe of Mary—but then would that not make women more closely imitatio Christi? It is written that the humility of Christ is to be imitated by all Christians (Phil 2). Much can be said about the great significance of Christ entering the world through a woman, but suffice it to say that this phenomenon shows once again that the economy of God is different from the economy of our world. He exalts the humble and uses those who make themselves available—women and men—for his miraculous purposes.
Hildegard’s method seems to be to create a rhythm of reversals in the stories of Eve and Mary. Eve brought sin but Mary brought life. Eve was not death and sin personified and Mary was not everlasting life and salvation personified. The Serpent and Christ are the agents here. Mary is admired because she was chosen to carry the One who would bring everlasting life and salvation. Hildegard returns to her admiration of Mary for carrying the Son of God in a longer hymn in her Liturgical Songs.
“The highest Word in you took on flesh…your body has contained joy…Virgin, you carried the Son of God” (Hymn 12).
The last phrase from the excerpt of this hymn is a powerful one. No one in first century Nazareth would have expected that a woman would be chosen to bring the long awaited Word into the world after 400 years of silence. It is true that “nothing will be impossible with God” (Luke 1:37).
The point of this piece is to bring the theological insights of Hildegard of Bingen on Eve and Mary into conversation with Romans 5 and modern assumptions about the two women in Hildegard’s Liturgical Songs. While the original text of Romans 5 is not referencing Mary, Hildegard’s reflections are helpful and devotional in nature when we read her Songs as testament to the power of God in using the most humble of servants to accomplish miraculous things. In first century Nazareth, it was a statement about the Kingdom of God that the Son of God was born of a woman. This Kingdom was unlike the militant Roman empire and misogynistic, patriarchal society. This Kingdom began with nine months of morning sickness, aches, and pain. In giving life, Mary broke her body and gave herself for food to the one who would give the same for her. Redemption was already in motion, “for the serpent has suffocated in a woman” (Antiphon 6).
References to the Antiphons and Hymns drawn from the translation of Barbara L. Grant in Medieval Women’s Visionary Literature. Petroff, Elizabeth. Medieval Women’s Visionary Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.
Rebecca L.R. Garber, “Where is the Body?” in Hildegard of Bingen: A Book of Essays, ed. Maud Burnett McInerney (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998), 103‑32. Quote taken from The Gospel According to Eve. Benckhuysen, Amanda Joyce. The Gospel According to Eve : a History of Women’s Interpretation. Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Academic, 2019.
Hildegard von Bingen, Scivias, bk. 1, vision 2, numbers 10‑11.
Beautiful thank you 💕
Incredible scholarship! Very excited for this newsletter, Emma :)