have made them. But information about God, the person, is only found in the Bible—or in God’s ‘autobiography,’ if you like.”
“You’re good at finding examples.”
“Mmmm...”
For the first time Alberto just sat there thinking— without answering.
“Does all this have anything to do with Hilde?” Sophie could not help asking.
“We don’t know whether there is a ‘Hilde’ at all.”
“But we know someone is planting evidence of her all over the place. Postcards, a silk scarf, a green wallet, a stocking ...”
Alberto nodded. “And it seems as if it is Hilde’s father who is deciding how many clues he will plant,” he said. “For now, all we know is that someone is sending us a lot of postcards. I wish he would write something about himself too. But we shall return to that later.”
“It’s a quarter to eleven. I’ll have to get home before the end of the Middle Ages.”
“I shall just conclude with a few words about how Aquinas adopted Aristotle’s philosophy in all the areas where it did not collide with the Church’s theology. These included his logic, his theory of knowledge, and not least his natural philosophy. Do you recall, for example, how Aristotle described the progressive scale of life from plants and animals to humans?”
Sophie nodded.
“Aristotle believed that this scale indicated a God that constituted a sort of maximum of existence. This scheme of things was not difficult to align with Christian theology. According to Aquinas, there was a progressive degree of existence from plants and animals to man, from man to angels, and from angels to God. Man, like animals, has a body and sensory organs, but man also has intelligence which enables him to reason things out.
Angels have no such body with sensory organs, which is why they have spontaneous and immediate intelligence. They have no need to ‘ponder,’ like humans; they have no need to reason out conclusions. They know everything that man can know without having to learn it step by step like us. And since angels have no body, they can never die. They are not everlasting like God, because they were once created by God. But they have no body that they must one day depart from, and so they will never die.”
“That sounds lovely!”
“But up above the angels, God rules, Sophie. He can see and know everything in one single coherent vision.”
“So he can see us now.”
“Yes, perhaps he can. But not ‘now.’ For God, time does not exist as it does for us. Our ‘now’ is not God’s ‘now.’ Because many weeks pass for us, they do not necessarily pass for God.”
“That’s creepy!” Sophie exclaimed. She put her hand over her mouth. Alberto looked down at her, and Sophie continued: “I got another card from Hilde’s father yesterday. He wrote something like—even if it takes a week or two for Sophie, that doesn’t have to mean it will be that long for us. That’s almost the same as what you said about God!”
Sophie could see a sudden frown flash across Alberto’s face beneath the brown cowl.
“He ought to be ashamed of himself!”
Sophie didn’t quite understand what Alberto meant. He went on: “Unfortunately, Aquinas also adopted Aristotle’s view of women. You may perhaps recall that Aristotle thought a woman was more or less an incomplete man. He also thought that children only inherit the father’s characteristics, since a woman was passive and receptive while the man was active and creative. According to Aquinas, these views harmonized with the message of the Bible—which, for example, tells us that woman was made out of Adam’s rib.”
“Nonsense!”
“It’s interesting to note that the eggs of mammals were not discovered until 1827. It was therefore perhaps not so surprising that people thought it was the man who was the creative and lifegiving force in reproduction. We can moreover note that, according to Aquinas, it is only as nature-being that woman is inferior to man. Woman’s soul is equal to man’s soul. In Heaven there is complete equality of the sexes because all physical gender differences cease to exist.”
“That’s cold comfort. Weren’t there any women philosophers in the Middle Ages?”
“The life of the church in the Middle Ages was heavily dominated by men. But that did not mean that there were no women thinkers. One of them was Hildegard of Bingen...”
Sophie’s eyes widened:
“Does she have anything to do with Hilde?”
“What a question! Hildegard lived as a nun in the Rhine Valley from 1098 to 1179. In spite of being a woman, she worked as preacher, author, physician, botanist, and naturalist. She is an example of the fact that women were often more practical, more scientific even, in the Middle Ages.”
“But what about Hilde?”
“It was an ancient Christian and Jewish belief that God was not only a man. He also had a female side, or ‘mother nature.’ Women, too, are created in God’s likeness. In Greek, this female side of God is called Sophia. ‘Sophia’ or ‘Sophie’ means wisdom.”
Sophie shook her head resignedly. Why had nobody ever told her that? And why had she never asked?
Alberto continued: “Sophia, or God’s mother nature, had a certain significance both for Jews and in the Greek Orthodox Church throughout the Middle Ages. In the west she was forgotten. But along comes Hildegard. Sophia appeared to her in a vision, dressed in a golden tunic adorned with costly jewels ...”
Sophie stood up. Sophia had revealed herself to Hildegard in a vision ...
“Maybe I will appear to Hilde.”
She sat down again. For the third time Alberto laid his hand on her shoulder.
“That is something we must look into. But now it is past eleven o’clock. You must go home, and we are approaching a new era. I shall summon you to a meeting on the Renaissance. Hermes will come get you in the garden.”
With that the strange monk rose and began to walk toward the church. Sophie stayed where she was, thinking about Hildegard and Sophia, Hilde and Sophie. Suddenly she jumped up and ran after the monk-robed philosopher, calling:
“Was there also an Alberto in the Middle Ages?”
Alberto slowed his pace somewhat, turned his head slightly and said, “Aquinas had a famous philosophy teacher called Albert the Great...”
With that he bowed his head and disappeared through the door of St. Mary’s Church.
Sophie was not satisfied with his answer. She followed him into the church. But now it was completely empty. Did he go through the floor?
Just as she was leaving the church she noticed a picture of the Madonna. She went up to it and studied it closely. Suddenly she discovered a little drop of water under one of the Madonna’s eyes. Was it a tear?
Sophie rushed out of the church and hurried back to Joanna’s.
The Renaissance
…O divine lineage in mortal guise…
It was just twelve when Sophie reached Joanna’s front gate, out of breath with running. Joanna was standing in the front yard outside her family’s yellow house.
“You’ve been gone for five hours!” Joanna said sharply.
Sophie shook her head.
“No, I’ve been gone for more than a thousand years.”
“Where on earth have you been? You’re crazy. Your mom called half an hour ago.”
“What did you tell her?”
“I said you were at the drugstore. She said would you call her when you got back. But you should have seen my mom and dad when they came in with hot chocolate and rolls at ten this morning ... and your bed was empty.”
“What did you say to them?”
