St. Hildegard's victorious atonement

Atonement was something that really attracted me away from Protestantism. My non-denominational setting taught that God was angry at our sin and sent Jesus to die for our sake, thus appeasing the wrath of God. Jesus's death took the penalty for our sins, and that penalty was separation from God. Of course, this is an odd theory to hold considering that if he took this penalty, he'd actually have to pay the price. But Jesus is God so he cannot actually be separated from God. I couldn't stand such a weird and twisted view of God being angry at us for our sins either. So this led me to consider a far more attractive view of the atonement which I was informed of by an Eastern Orthodox Christian who had commented on a YouTube video I had made back when I was highly anti-Trinitarian. It was an odd to have someone who actually wanted and desired an intellectual discussion with me at the time. It was odd to have someone who wanted to understand why I rejected orthodox teachings and wanted to show me what the orthodox teachings I was rejecting actually said. No one had wanted to do that before.

Indeed, reading through the early church fathers, one finds a wide variety of views on the atonement that significantly differ from the view I had been taught to believe growing up. Of course, Jesus paid a price for our sins but what that payment entailed and what that price was is significantly different than the payment of punishment to a God that was angry with us for the sin of Adam and Eve. That is quite an immature view of Christian doctrine and I soon found out that it wasn't just an inkling that I was bereft of sound doctrinal teaching growing up, it was the reality that I was totally bereft of sound doctrinal teaching growing up. "[W]hen a modern Western Christian turns to the Christian writers of the second and third centuries for their understanding of salvation in Christ, it is neither their attention to the teachings and example of Christ...nor their preoccupation with the passion and death of Christ..., but their emphasis on the saving significance of Christ that he will find the most unusual" (Pelikan, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition, 149). This focus on the saving significance began to heavily emphasize Christ's victory over sin and death and was largely lost in the Middle Ages through the Protestant Reformation but one such person keeps the emphasis very much in tact.

That person is St. Hildegard of Bingen. St. Hildegard was a Christian mystic in Germany who experienced severe seizures which allowed to see a multitudinous series of visions. These visions led her to writing a theological text abbreviated as the Scivias which is short for "Know the Ways". It is really a dogmatic theology in the genre of visionary literature. I've read many Christian mystics but I've never seen a mystical visionary experience being turned into such a dogmatic theology as this. St. Hildegard holds a highly advanced and quite commanding view of atonement theory in the work. And it breaks apart from much of Medieval thinking which started to favor the satisfaction approach of St. Anselm and the medicinal approach of the Thomistic school. I'll say more on that later. But St. Hildegard's atonement theory starts with where sin leads us.

Sin leads us under the imprisonment of the Devil. This is strongly emphasized and reiterated in St. Hildegard's work. "Man, wallowing in sins and labor under the heaviness of the flesh, from the power of the Devil" (Scivias, Bk.1 V2.14) was powerless to rescue himself. "Oh, what are these tabernacles that they should suffer so much danger from the deception of the Devil? But when, by God's gift, I remember that God  created me, then in the midst of oppressions I give this answer to the Devil's tempting: 'I will not yield to the fragile clay, but furiously war!'" (Bk.1 V4.6) "[H]umans through the Devil began to be crazy for magic arts" (Bk.1 V3.22)."The elect, whose inner understanding is clear, cast away all their wickedness of evil, being enlightened by these Virtues in the enlightenment of My will, and fight vigorously against the snares of the Devil" (Bk.1 V6.4). "[T]he Devil seduces different people by different images; so that they think that what he shows them, each according to his understanding, is true" (Bk.2 V.7.21).

For St. Hildegard, the source from which all evil flows from is the Devil. Every lust, every heresy, every immorality, are the Devil's temptations and the Devil's deceits. The entire life of Man is a spiritual battle against the Devil. Man is helpless to do anything against the forces of the Devil but the Virtues of Christ provide protection against the Devil's snares. The spiritual life of Man is war against the Devil and the dupes of the Devil and Man must run toward God to overcome the Devil. "[O]nly He Who, coming without sin, with a pure and sinless body, delivered [Man] by His Passion. Therefore, though human beings are born in sin, I nevertheless gather them into My heavenly kingdom when they faithfully seek it." (Bk.1 V2.14) Ultimately, the Devil will perish and the Truth will be known, "when the hissing and gaping of the Devil...is forsaken in time of desperation, the blessed will be praised in minds that sing, and they will make a flowing path of words to the pure fountain of the mighty Ruler." (Bk.3 V11.11-12)

There is a strong element of cosmic conflict in St. Hildegard's understanding of the atonement. "the King, mindful of the blood that was shed for the redemption of the human race, and for the love of the citzens of Heaven, will save him from his guilt and from the power of the Devil and accord him the salvation of the blessed so that he will not go into perdition" (Bk.2 V.5.11). For St. Hildegard, Man submitted himself to the power of the Devil in sin but God had broken the power of sin and guilt and allowed Man to be freed from sin through seeking Him and the Virtues of Christ. While St. Hildegard never specifically mentions the word "atonement", it is very striking that she nevertheless carries quite a highly advanced and heavily centralized view of the atonement in her theology. It centralizes on the conflict between the Devil and God and the Devil focuses his attention to lead Man away from God. But God continues to seek out Man and saves Man when Man follows Him in heart. The Devil continues to seek to torment Man with sin and guilt but God frees Man from sin and guilt and rescues Man from a life dedicated to the passions to one dedicated to the Passion. Quite different from the atonement theology I was taught growing up.