La ‘conciencia como escriba’: una escena de escritura interior en la obra de Hildegard de Bingen

Abstract

The image of the ‘inner book' as a record of our actions and thoughts, has had amain role in the Christian conception of spirituality, especially during the Middle Ages. As the Apocalyptic texts of the Bible relate, this one and individual record will be read by God during the Last Judgment and, according to that writing, He will judge the mankind. This text is focused on a metaphor that is present in several medieval treatises and sermons, the ‘conscience as scribe', and more precisely, on the way in which the Benedictine visionary Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) explains how this revealing writing takes place, in her Liber Divinorum Operum (Book of the Divine Works), where both writing and reading are activities directly related to the spiritual life of the individuals.