Hildegard Talks Back to Purity Culture
The Living Light says to you...never gravitate towards the shadow.
~ Hildegard of Bingen (trans. Carmen Acevedo Johnson)
Of course, I’ve read what St Paul said on modesty.
Have you? To the rich wives who were flaunting
about in their finery, diminishing every humbly-
born sister and fueling the gossip at
The Corinthian Arms,
he said, “Be modest. Be adorned in virtue.”
But have you seen the garments the Virtues wear?
No heaven-clothed Lily’s more splendid. And
the Virgins? The ones whose hemlines and
necklines you measure?
To them, he said nothing. So I give them my
brightest robes. I let them dance with all
the jubilation their God-imaging flesh can muster.
Why cloak the ecstatic stars with the dark
clouds of your lust?
Throw off your clouds. Look to the Sun and be
caught up in His dazzle like a planet in orbit,
then read St Paul again.
Matthew Pullar is a Melbourne-based poet. He has had poems published in Ekstasis, Poems for Ephesians, Amethyst Review, Heart of Flesh and Reformed Journal. His latest collection, This Teeming Mess of Glory (Wipf & Stock, 2025) was shortlisted for Australian Christian Book of the Year.
Amethyst Review 