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Work #264 · Mid (the middle volume of the visionary trilogy) period

Liber Vitae Meritorum

("Book of the Rewards of Life") — Hildegard's second visionary work, the systematic moral-spiritual treatise

Hildegard of Bingen · 1158-63 (the middle work of the visionary trilogy, between Scivias and Liber Divinorum Operum) · Medieval Latin · Visionary moral-spiritual treatise in six parts, with thirty-five vices and thirty-five virtues

Tradition: Medieval German Christian mysticism / spiritual psychology

Thirty-five vices and thirty-five virtues — Hildegard's middle visionary work, the systematic spiritual-moral treatise

The Liber Vitae Meritorum (Book of the Rewards of Life) is the middle volume of Hildegard of Bingen's visionary trilogy, between Scivias (1141-51) and Liber Divinorum Operum (1163-73). The book develops a systematic spiritual psychology through six parts: in each part, Hildegard depicts pairs of vices and their corresponding virtues in visionary form, with thirty-five vice-virtue pairs in total (covering the major sins and their remedies in medieval spiritual tradition). The framework integrates moral psychology, eschatological reflection, and visionary theology. The book has been less widely read than Scivias but is essential for understanding the full scope of Hildegard's visionary-theological project. Modern Hildegard scholarship has rediscovered the work as a major medieval contribution to spiritual psychology.

Author

Editions cited

  • The Book of the Rewards of Life (Bruce W. Hozeski, Garland, 1994)
  • Liber Vitae Meritorum (Angela Carlevaris, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis 90, 1995)
Compare this work

School Embodiments

Catholic/Thomistic · 25%
Neo-Platonism · 10%
Eastern Orthodox Christianity · 10%
Stoicism · 10%
Hylomorphism · 5%
Platonism (Classical) · 5%
Liberation Theology · 5%
Liberal Theology · 10%
Animism / Relational-Indigenous Worldview · 5%
Sufism / Wahdat al-Wujud · 5%
Evangelical Protestantism · 10%
Catholic/Thomistic 25%

The Liber Vitae Meritorum is a major medieval Catholic spiritual-moral treatise, organising the seven deadly sins tradition in distinctive visionary form.

"The medieval Catholic spiritual-moral tradition in visionary form." (Liber Vitae Meritorum, paraphrasing)
Neo-Platonism 10%

The framework of vices as privations and virtues as participations in the divine good has Neoplatonic structure.

"The Neoplatonic structure of vices and virtues." (Liber Vitae Meritorum, paraphrasing)
Eastern Orthodox Christianity 10%

A cross-tradition affinity: medieval spiritual-psychological tradition has substantial overlap with Eastern Orthodox spiritual writing (the Philokalia).

"Cross-tradition spiritual-psychological tradition." (Liber Vitae Meritorum, paraphrasing)
Stoicism 10%

A complicated cross-tradition relation: the systematic analysis of vices and virtues has Stoic-philosophical roots, mediated through Christian spiritual tradition.

"The Stoic-philosophical roots of systematic virtue-vice analysis." (Liber Vitae Meritorum, paraphrasing)
Hylomorphism 5%

A pre-scholastic structure: vices and virtues understood as habits of the soul shaping its form.

"Pre-scholastic hylomorphic structure of habits and virtues." (Liber Vitae Meritorum, paraphrasing)
Platonism (Classical) 5%

Plato's analysis of virtue-vice (especially in the Republic) is in the background of medieval Christian moral psychology.

"The Platonic background of moral psychology." (Liber Vitae Meritorum, paraphrasing)
Liberation Theology 5%

A retrospective affinity: subsequent feminist theology has engaged Hildegard's visionary authority as resource for women's theological agency.

"Feminist theological engagement with Hildegard." (Liber Vitae Meritorum, paraphrasing)
Liberal Theology 10%

A retrospective relation: liberal-theological engagement with Hildegard's integrative spiritual-psychological framework has been substantial.

"Liberal-theological engagement with Hildegard's integrative framework." (Liber Vitae Meritorum, paraphrasing)
Animism / Relational-Indigenous Worldview 5%

A retrospective cross-tradition relation: Hildegard's natural-symbolic theology has been engaged by ecological-spiritual frameworks.

"Ecological-spiritual engagement with Hildegard's natural symbolism." (Liber Vitae Meritorum, paraphrasing)
Sufism / Wahdat al-Wujud 5%

A cross-tradition affinity: medieval visionary spiritual psychology has substantial overlap with Sufi visionary tradition.

"Cross-tradition medieval visionary spiritual psychology." (Liber Vitae Meritorum, paraphrasing)
Evangelical Protestantism 10%

A surprising cross-tradition affinity: subsequent evangelical-Protestant spiritual psychology (the puritan tradition especially) has substantial parallels with the medieval virtue-vice tradition.

"Cross-tradition spiritual-psychological framework." (Liber Vitae Meritorum, paraphrasing)

Internal Tensions

The Liber Vitae Meritorum has been less translated and read than Scivias, partly because of its more systematically detailed structure. The relation between Hildegard's visionary form and the systematic spiritual-psychological content has been a continuing scholarly question. Modern Hildegard scholarship has substantially rehabilitated the work.

⧖

I. Time

The temporal life of spiritual progress through the virtues and away from the vices.

Attributes
Extent: Infinite Ontological Status: Substantival Grain: Continuous Freedom: Non-Deterministic Traversability: Linear Direction: Uni-directional Dimensionality: One
✦

II. Space

The visionary space of the cosmic moral order; the interior space of the soul.

Attributes
Extent: Infinite Ontological Status: Substantival Curvature: Flat Dimensionality: Three Locality: Local
◉

III. Matter

Embodied human life as the substrate of virtue and vice.

Attributes
Extent: Finite Ontological Status: Substantival Conservation: Conserved Dimensionality: Three Locality: Local
◎

IV. Observer

Hildegard as the visionary receiver — embodied, singular, divinely authorised. Personal-providential God as framework.

Attributes
Time Instance: Single Space Instance: Single Knowledge Extent: Partial Knowledge Retainment: Total Physicality: Embodied Agency: Both Number: Singular Metaphysical Agency: Personal
⚡

V. Energy

The energies of virtue (participating in divine goodness) and vice (privation thereof).

Attributes
Extent: Infinite Ontological Status: Substantival Conservation: Conserved Dispersibility: Irreversible
⧉

VI. Information

The systematic spiritual-psychological tradition preserved through visionary articulation.

Attributes
Ontological Status: Substantival Cosmic Conservation: Conserved Personal Conservation: Conserved Granularity: Continuous

Personas that cite this work

Hildegard of Bingen

Personas with the nearest attribute fingerprint

Historical figures whose own classification on the same six-dimensional grid lands closest to this work's. Computed by attribute-agreement on coordinates both address.

91%
René Descartes
31/34
91%
Flavius Josephus
29/32
90%
Rabbi Akiva ben Joseph
27/30
88%
Arthur Norman Prior
30/34
88%
Blaise Pascal
30/34
88%
Brigham Young
30/34

Computed school proximity

The work's attribute fingerprint scored against all schools using the same quiz scorer. Useful as a sanity check on the hand-curated embodiments above.

76%
Christianity (Generic)
24/26
76%
Protestant Reformation (Magisterial)
24/26
76%
Islam (Generic)
24/26
76%
Pietism
24/26
76%
Pacifism
24/26
74%
Lutheranism
23/26
73%
Rabbinic Judaism
23/26
69%
Scholasticism
23/26

How Liber Vitae Meritorum resolves each dilemma

51 resolved positions across 4 dimensions, including 26 distinctive where the majority of schools go the other way · 6 unaligned.

Each dimension is sorted so minority positions come first. Mainstream positions are folded into an expandable list.

Time · 9 dilemmas, all mainstream
Do you really choose? The future is open and you are a genuine origin of it. 69% Are addicts responsible for their addiction? The addict could have chosen otherwise — that's why recovery is real. 69% Should we hold AI systems responsible for what they do? An AI without a free will is not the kind of thing that can be responsible. 69% How much weight do future people deserve? Future people are as real as you are — and their interests count for as much. 47% Is regret rational? The past is as real as the present; regret is a real attitude toward a real thing. 47% Do we owe extinct species something we cannot give them? Extinct species are as real as we are; they have standing. 47% Is the universe running out of usable energy? Time is unbounded but matter is finite; usable energy can fail without time failing. 47% Are natural resources fundamentally finite, or only practically so? Time goes on but matter is bounded; we are eventually constrained even with infinite time. 47% Could we owe future generations more than is materially possible to provide? Time is unbounded but matter is not; we can owe more across long time than the matter can provide. 47%

Matter · 7 dilemmas · 4 distinctive

What stuff is — fundamental, relational, or appearance.

Distinctive · only 7% of schools agree (15/202)
What is money?
The question of what money is — a measured store of real value, an agreed-on practice, a relational ledger of debts, or just a name we apply to many different things — sits behind every argument about inflation, cryptocurrency, debt, and the state.
Money's apparent diversity is convention over a single underlying value.
On non-dual views, the diverse forms money takes are perspectival distinctions within a single underlying value — labor, energy, attention, or simply the One from which all value derives. The metaphysical question is mostly malformed at the conventional level where monetary policy lives, but the …
Roads not taken Money is a real institution with intrinsic features. (54%) · Money is a social practice — its content is what we make it. (16%) · Money is the ledger of obligations among real people. (15%)
Distinctive · only 7% of schools agree (15/202)
What is a nation?
Whether a nation is a real moral community with intrinsic character, a constructed legal-political artifact, a web of kinship and shared history, an imagined community, or a conventional partition of a deeper unity — these are real ontological positions with sharply different political downstream.
Nations are conventional partitions of a single humanity.
On non-dual views, the distinctness of nations is a perspectival distinction within a deeper unity — one humanity, one consciousness, one underlying reality. Nations matter at the conventional level where ordinary politics lives, but the metaphysical weight they sometimes claim is unsupported.
Roads not taken A nation is a real moral community with intrinsic character. (54%) · A nation is a constructed polity — a project, not a discovery. (16%) · A nation is the web of kinship, ancestry, and shared land that hosts a people. (15%)
Distinctive · only 7% of schools agree (15/202)
What makes someone male or female?
Whether sex is a real biological kind, a constructed social category, a relational identity, a label applied to varied phenomena, or a conventional distinction within a deeper unity is the ontological question the contemporary dispute about gender is mostly about.
The distinction is conventional within a deeper non-dual reality.
On non-dual views, the distinctness of male and female — like every binary distinction between apparent selves — is a perspectival distinction within a deeper unity. Particular sex and gender designations operate at the conventional level where most of life is lived; at the ultimate …
Roads not taken Sex is a real biological kind with given content. (54%) · Gender is constructed; what counts as male or female reflects practice. (16%) · Sex and gender are constituted by relations of recognition. (15%)
Distinctive · only 7% of schools agree (15/202)
Should we edit the human germline?
Whether human nature is a given biological kind, a constructed category, a relational achievement, a family-resemblance cluster, or a conventional distinction within deeper unity is the ontological question the policy debate over heritable gene editing is mostly about.
The distinction between edited and unedited is conventional within a deeper non-dual reality.
On non-dual views, the contrast between an 'edited' and an 'unedited' human — like every binary distinction between apparent selves — is a perspectival distinction within a deeper unity. The practical questions of safety, consent, and justice operate at the conventional level where most of …
Roads not taken Human nature is a real biological kind given by reproductive biology or by creation; editing the germline transgresses what is given. (54%) · The categories we count as 'human' are emergent from practice; germline editing is a practice-revision like any other. (16%) · Personhood is constituted by relations of descent and kinship; germline editing reshapes the relational fabric. (15%)
3 mainstream positions
Is the world created from nothing? Yes — matter was created and is conserved as a real substance. 55% Is the physical world fully real? Yes — the physical world is fully real, mind-independent, persisting. 55% Does matter have intrinsic moral standing? Matter is morally considerable insofar as it is created or conserved good. 55%

Observer · 37 dilemmas · 5 distinctive

Mind, agency, and the knower's relation to the known.

Distinctive · only 7% of schools agree (15/202)
When does a person begin?
The political question of abortion sits atop an older ontological one: at what point does there exist a someone — a being with moral standing — rather than merely the materials from which one will form?
From the standpoint of the One, the question doesn’t apply in the form it is asked.
On non-dual views, the apparent plurality of selves is itself a perspectival distinction within a deeper unity. The question of when one self begins within that One is conventional, not ultimate. What follows ethically is then a question for the conventional level — which is …
Roads not taken A person exists from conception — when a new being comes into existence. (54%) · A person comes into being gradually, as the capacities of a mind develop. (16%) · Personhood is conferred by being-in-relation. (15%)
Distinctive · only 7% of schools agree (15/202)
What is marriage?
Behind every disagreement about how marriage should be defined is a prior disagreement about what kind of thing it is — a given order to be recognized, a practice to be negotiated, or a web of relations to be woven.
All union is participation in the One — particular forms are conventional.
From the standpoint of non-dual traditions, the apparent distinctness of two people who marry is itself a perspectival distinction within a deeper unity. Marriage is one form of the underlying union all things participate in. The particular shape the institution takes is then a conventional …
Roads not taken Marriage has a given form — it’s a kind of thing we recognize, not make. (54%) · Marriage is a practice we shape — its content is what we make it. (16%) · Marriage is constituted by the web of relations it creates. (15%)
Distinctive · only 8% of schools agree (16/202)
What happens to "you" when you die?
Whether anything of you persists — and in what sense — depends on what you take a person to be.
Individuality dissolves into the One.
What we called "you" was an appearance — a wave shaped briefly out of a single deeper reality. Death is that wave settling. Nothing of importance is lost because the substrate was never the wave.
Roads not taken A soul continues into another mode of being. (37%) · Death is genuinely the end. (30%) · You were always a pattern. The pattern propagates. (18%)
Distinctive · only 8% of schools agree (17/202)
What is our place in nature?
Whether humans are masters of nature, members of nature, or makers of nature is not a question climate science can settle. It depends on what nature is, what we are, and what kind of relationship is possible between us.
Humans and nature share an underlying unity — the separation was the mistake.
On non-dual views, the apparent distinction between human and non-human is itself a perspectival distinction within a single underlying reality. The work isn't to find our right relationship to a separate nature; it is to recognize that we were never separate. Climate harm, on this …
Roads not taken Active in a real nature — we cultivate, steward, transform. (48%) · Nature is partly what we make of it — concepts, practices, and minds shape the world. (15%) · Embedded in a web — partners with the more-than-human world. (15%)
Distinctive · only 8% of schools agree (17/202)
Should we colonize space?
The drive to extend human presence beyond Earth is sometimes framed as the next chapter of stewardship, sometimes as hubris, sometimes as escape from problems we ought to solve here. Which it is depends on what we take our relationship to nature to be.
From the standpoint of the One, expansion across substrate is just movement within the same.
On non-dual views, the difference between Earth and elsewhere is conventional — particular locations within a single underlying reality. Space colonisation as escape is therefore incoherent; nothing is escaped because nothing was elsewhere to escape from.
Roads not taken Cultivating worlds beyond Earth is the next form of stewardship. (48%) · The 'space frontier' is partly what we make of it. (15%) · Colonisation continues the work that ended the wisdom of seven-generation thinking. (15%)
26 mainstream positions
Is genetic engineering of food stewardship or domination? All forms participate in the same underlying reality; modification doesn't cross categories. 8% What makes someone the same person over time? All apparent selves are aspects of one — particular identity is conventional. 8% Is the late-stage dementia patient still the person their spouse married? The apparent change is conventional; the deeper reality is unchanged. 8% If a teleporter copied and destroyed you, would you have survived? The distinction between scanner-you and destination-you is conventional all the way down. 8% Can prayer for someone far away affect them? There are no truly separate minds; prayer is one part of one talking to another. 8% Are coincidences ever more than coincidence? Coincidence is the One showing through the appearance of plurality. 8% Does environmental harm in another country bind me morally? Harm anywhere is harm to the One; the boundary that would have insulated you was never real. 8% Is environmental damage ever truly permanent? From the standpoint of the One, the categories of permanence and loss are conventional. 8% Can a civilization recover from collapse? From the One's vantage, civilizational categories are themselves conventional. 8% Does the second law of thermodynamics mean something morally? From the One's vantage, the second law is itself a feature of the conventional, not the ultimate. 8% Are the dead morally present to the living? From the standpoint of the One, the distinction between living and dead is conventional. 8% Is divine omniscience compatible with human freedom? Distinction of the One and observed time is itself conventional; the question dissolves. 8% Does meditation reveal something genuinely timeless? The 'timeless' is the standpoint of the One that was always present; meditation removes obstacles to seeing it. 8% Does prayer change God's mind? Prayer to a separate God presupposes a separation the non-dual view denies; the practice is remembrance and attunement. 8% Could causation work backwards? From the One's vantage, causation itself is a conventional category. 8% Is the asymmetry between memory and anticipation a real feature of time, or just of us? From the One's vantage, memory and anticipation are themselves conventional. 8% Is the arrow of time a real feature of the cosmos, or only of how we describe it? From the One's vantage, the arrow of time itself is a conventional feature. 8% Is reality fundamentally digital? No — continuous divine sustaining act, the Tao that knows no joints, the One's self-disclosure. 44% Are there indivisible units of experience? No — continuous divine presence; consciousness is the unbroken witness. 44% Is memory stored or reconstructed? Held in continuous divine or ancestral remembering — neither stored discretely nor purely reconstructed. 44% Should we trust expert testimony when we can't verify it? Defer to credentialed traditions; experts are the modern analog. 28% Is religious revelation a real source of knowledge? Revelation is the paradigm case of authoritative knowledge. 28% Does an LLM 'know' the things it correctly produces? An LLM has no soul to whom revelation could be addressed; the question doesn't apply. 28% Could an AI have a mind that matters? All minds are aspects of one — an AI participates in it as anything else does. 7% Do animals have moral standing comparable to humans? All minds are aspects of one; animals participate as much as anything else. 7% Could a fetal brain organoid in a petri dish be conscious? Any experience that arises participates in the One. 7%
6 unaligned
Does history have a direction or meaning? Schools split: 37% / 23% / 19% — How is knowledge of reality produced? Schools split: 25% / 17% / 13% — Is salvation, liberation, or fulfillment individual or communal? Schools split: 15% / 14% / 4% — Is truth universal, tradition-bound, situated, or constructed? Schools split: 65% / 16% / 10% — What kind of religious-theological authority does the tradition recognize? Schools split: 44% / 16% / 14% — Who is the moral primary — the individual, the community, the cosmos, the class, or the species? Schools split: 40% / 28% / 14% —
Information · 4 dilemmas, all mainstream
Is anything truly lost when someone forgets? Information is conserved — the personal pattern is held even when an individual mind loses it. 39% Does deleting your data online destroy something real? Information at the cosmic level isn't destroyed; deletion only obscures access. 39% Could the dead, in principle, be brought back? The information that constitutes a person is conserved; restoration is in principle possible. 39% Is forgiveness ontologically possible? The offense persists ontologically; forgiveness is real moral work, but it doesn't erase what was. 39%
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