Scivias

A book of visions completed around 1151 by Hildegard, a Benedictine abbess in the Rhineland. The title shortens Scito vias Domini, 'know the ways of the Lord'. In the opening declaration she says that in 1141 a fiery light poured into her mind and a voice told her to write what she saw. The book has three parts and twenty-six visions. Each vision is first described as an image, such as the universe as a great egg wrapped in fire, and then explained, line by line, by a heavenly voice. Part I covers God, creation, the fall of Lucifer and of Adam and Eve, and the human soul. Part II treats redemption through Christ, the Church and the sacraments. Part III shows a vast building of salvation, the virtues as allegorical figures, the end of time and the Last Judgement, and closes with songs of praise. Pope Eugenius III is reported to have approved her writing at the Synod of Trier in 1147–1148.

It is the first major work of a remarkable twelfth-century woman thinker, and its pairing of vivid images with careful explanation shows a distinctive visionary way of doing theology and cosmology.