The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (989 page)

(1098–1179).
Medieval mystic and visionary. Brought up by a recluse, Jutta, in
c.
1116 she entered the Benedictine community that had gathered round her. In 1136 she succeeded Jutta as abbess. About 1150 she moved her community to Rupertsberg, near Bingen, on the Rhine. Encouraged by her confessor, she recorded some of her visions, and in 1147 Pope Eugenius III, under
Bernard of Clairvaux's
influence, gave guarded approval to them. Gathered together in her
Scivias
(‘Know Thy Ways’), her visions condemn contemporary vice and prophesy forthcoming disaster. But more importantly, they record an intelligent and direct seeing. Hildegard was immensely accomplished: as an artist, she illustrated her own books; as a healer, she wrote a
vade mecum
of medicine,
The Book of Simple Medicine
; as a musician, she composed a Symphonia with many song settings, and a morality play with eighty-two melodies. She was also a splendid correspondent, who saw women and men as equal in their work for God in the ‘creative greenness’ of his Spirit. Feast day in Germany, 17 Sept.

 
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(late 1st cent. BCE–early 1st cent. CE).
Leading Jewish
akham
(
sage
) of the second Temple period. He rapidly emerged as a prominent interpreter of
Torah
, developing his seven rules of
hermeneutics
. He became
nasi
(president) of the
Sanhedrin
, and, with
Shammai
, formed the last of the pairs (
zugot
) of scholars. In general, Hillel adopted the less rigorous interpretations of Torah, though
B.Shab
. 77a refers to six issues where Hillel was more rigorous.

 
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(Heb., ‘profanation of the name’). Description of any action that profanes the name of God. The phrase is used to denote any action which might bring disgrace to Judaism or to the Jewish community—the converse, in fact, of
Kiddush ha-Shem
.

 
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(d. 1396).
English mystic. After a period as a hermit, he became an Augustinian canon at Thurgarton Priory, Notts. His principal work, widely read in medieval England, is his
Ladder of Perfection
, which traces the soul's ascent to God in terms of the reformation of the image of God in the soul in two stages: reformation in faith, and in feeling, the former being the correction of false notions, the latter appropriation of the truth at the deepest level.

 
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Him
laya
.

(‘abode of snow’). A vast mountain range on the northern border of India, regarded as sacred by Tibetans and Hindus alike. According to the
Mah
bh
rata
, the gods sacrifice on the summits, and Mount
Meru
, the axis of the world and the source of its vitality, lies at its centre.