Every Creature Formed from Divine Love

In a true vision of the spirit, my body fully awake, I saw, as it were, a beautiful girl of such great brightness, with so shining a face, that I could hardly gaze upon her.  She had a cloak whiter than snow and brighter than the stars, and she had on shoes of the purest gold.  And she held the moon and the sun in her right hand, and she embraced them lovingly.  On her breast there was an ivory tablet, and on this tablet there was an image of man colored like sapphire.  Every creature called this girl sovereign lady.  And to the image on her breast, she said: “With thee is the beginning in the day of thy strength: in the brightness of the saints: from the womb before the day-star I begot thee.”  And I heard a voice saying to me: “This girl that you see is Divine Love, and she has her dwelling place in eternity.  For when God wished to create the world, he bent down in sweetest love, and he provided for all necessary things, just as a father prepares the inheritance for his son.  Thus it was that in great ardor he established all his works in order.”  Then all creation in its various kinds and forms acknowledged its creator, for in the beginning divine love was the matrix from which he created all things, when he said, “Let there be, and it was done.”  Thus every creature was formed through divine love in the twinkling of an eye.

^{– from a letter of Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179)
to Adam, Abbot of Ebrach, written before 1166}

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