A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

122 justin a. stover
For Hildegard, witchcraft is the abuse of philosophy. Playing on the double
identifijication of Mercury as planet and philosopher,60 Hildegard claims
that the ancient sages, having received some knowledge from God and
some from devils, learned to manipulate nature through magical means.61
But the divine voice responds to this image:
Man is living on the wings of rationality . . . But you, o magical art, have a
circle without a point. For when you make many inquiries in the circle of
creation, creation itself will deprive you of honor and riches and will cast
you like a stone into hell, for you stole the name of God for yourself.62
This phrase circulum absque puncto is immediately familiar as the reverse
of the punctum absque circulo in her letter to Odo. Magic manipulates the
efffects of created things while denying their concomitant cause in God.
Conversely, academic theologians like Gilbert acknowledge God but deny
his concomitant identity with his divinity and paternity. All of them abuse
their rationality.
Hildegard’s “Scholastic” Works
In the letters and discourses already discussed, Hildegard attempts to
demonstrate to the masters how they ought to conduct their scholarship.
sime reperierunt. Hec fortissimi et sapientissimi uiri ex parte a Deo, et ex parte a malignis
spiritibus adinuenerunt. Et quid hoc obfuit? Et sic se ipsos planetas nominauerunt, quoniam
de sole et de luna et de stellis plurimam sapientiam ac multas inquisitiones acceperunt. Ego
autem ubicumque uoluero, in artibus istis regno et dominor: scilicet in luminaribus celi, in
arboribus et in herbis ac in omnibus uirentibus terre, et in bestiis et in animalibus super
terram, ac in uermibus super terram et subtus terram. Et in itineribus meis quis mihi resistet?
Deus omnia creauit: unde in artibus istis illi nullam iniuriam facio.”
60 That is, Hermes Trismegistus, the legendary author of the Asclepius, a text which
was enjoying a considerable revival during this period. See Paolo Lucentini, “L’Asclepius
ermetico nel secolo XII,” in From Athens to Chartres, pp. 397–420. Hildegard may have had
fijirsthand exposure to the Asclepius, as Dronke argues (see “Platonic-Christian Allegories,”
p. 383, n. 11).
61 Imagining philosophers as magicians is not uncommon in the 12th century—there
circulated, for example, a work reputedly by Plato but translated from the Arabic that was
called the Book of the Cow; see David Pingree, “Plato’s Hermetic Book of the Cow,” in Il Neoplatonismo
nel rinascimento, ed. Pietro Prini (Rome, 1993), pp. 133–45. A number of magical
works attributed to Aristotle also circulated; see Charles Burnett, “Arabic, Greek and Latin
Works on Astrological Magic attributed to Aristotle,” in Pseudo-Aristotle in the Middle Ages,
eds. Jill Kraye, William F. Ryan, and Charles B. Schmitt (London, 1986), pp. 84–96.
62 Vite mer., 5.7, p. 223: “Homo in pennis rationalitatis uitalis est, et omne uolatile ac
reptile ex elementis uiuit et mouetur. Et homo sonum in rationalitate habet; reliqua autem
creatura muta est, nec se ipsam nec alios iuuare potest, sed offfijicium suum perfijicit. Tu
autem, o ars magica, circulum absque puncto habes. Nam cum in circulo creature multas
sciscitationes inquiris, ipsa creatura honorem et diuitias tibi abstrahet, et uelut lapidem in
infernum proiciet te, quoniam ipsi nomen Dei sui abstulisti.”