Viriditas
Viriditas (Latin, literally "greenness," formerly translated as "viridity"[1]) is a word meaning vitality, fecundity, lushness, verdure, or growth. It is particularly associated with abbess Hildegard von Bingen, who used it to refer to or symbolize spiritual and physical health, often as a reflection of the divine word or as an aspect of the divine nature.
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Use by earliest writers
"Viriditas" appears several times in Gregory the Great's Moralia in Job, to refer to the spiritual health to which Job aspires. Augustine uses the term exactly once in City of God, to describe mutability. In a collection of over a hundred 12th-century love letters, said to be those between Héloïse and Abelard, the woman uses "viriditas" three times but the man does not use it. Abelard did use "viriditas" in at least one sermon, however.[2][3]
Use by Hildegard von Bingen
Viriditas is one of Hildegard's guiding images, used constantly in all of her works. It has been suggested that the lushness of the imagery is possibly due to the lushness of her surroundings at Disibodenberg. Her extensive use of the term can be frustrating in its diversity of uses.[4]
In Scivias, Hildegard focused foremost on viriditas as an attribute of the divine nature.[5] In her works it has been translated in various ways, such as freshness, vitality, fertility, fecundity, fruitfulness, verdure, or growth. In Hildegard's understanding, it is a metaphor for spiritual and physical health, which is visible in the divine word.[2] "Homeostasis" could be considered as a more common replacement, but without the theological and spiritual connotations that viriditas has.
Use by Kim Stanley Robinson
The science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson used it nontheologically to mean "the green force of life, expanding into the Universe."
"Look at the pattern this seashell makes. The dappled whorl, curving inward to infinity. That's the shape of the universe itself. There's a constant pressure, pushing toward pattern. A tendency in matter to evolve into ever more complex forms. It's a kind of pattern gravity, a holy greening power we call viriditas, and it is the driving force in the cosmos. Life, you see."[6]
Notes
References
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- Barbara Newman. Voice of the Living Light: Hildegard of Bingen and Her World. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.
- Anne H. King-Lenzmeier. Hildegard of Bingen: An Integrated Vision. Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 2001.
