A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

142 kienzle and stevens
Mary, and thus with the culminating work of divinity.20 Virginity is not
without fecundity, she afffijirms, against criticism of the virginal life, for the
Virgin gave birth to the Son of God, through whom all things were made.21
The virgin freely gathers to herself all the golden garbed virtues of the
Old and New Testaments, which God worked in his saints.22 Hildegard
skillfully ties her themes together with this analogy, furthering her moral
exegesis, defending the religious life for women, and perhaps even having
in mind the golden-threaded garments her nuns wore on feast days—a
practice criticized by her Augustinian sister, Tenxwind.23
Hildegard next introduces Ezekiel’s wheel, which, she explains, prefijigured
virginity in the era “under the law.”24 Virginity is the eternal force
that saves humanity, both through the incarnation and after the incarnation
through continuing miracles.25 The wheel of Ezekiel, therefore,
demonstrates that virginity has always been with God and was the instrument
through which humanity gained salvation. Hildegard describes the
eternality of the wheel of virginity with the words “without beginning
and without end” (sine initio et sine fijine), a phrase that appears in earlier
exegesis, particularly in the commentary on John’s Gospel.26
20 Letters, 1, 84R, pp. 185–86; Epistolarium, I, 84R, p. 131–34: “Virginitas quoque solem
signifijicat qui totum mundum illuminat, quia Deus uirginitatem sibi adjunxit, que uiro
relicto illum genuit quem radius diuinitatis perfudit, qui et omnia regit.”
21 Letters, 1, 84R, p. 186; Epistolarium, I, 84R, pp. 193–94, ll. 145–47: “Sic uirginitas
absque fecunditate non est, quoniam Virgo Deum et hominem, per quem omnia facta
sunt, genuit.” The devil in the Ordo uirtutum launches this attack on the chorus of virtues:
Ordo, p. 520, ll. 321–23.
22 Letters, 1, 84R, p. 186; Epistolarium, I, 84R, p. 194, ll. 147–51: “Sed et hoc modo omnes
uirtutes ueteris et noui testamenti, quas Deus in sanctis suis operatus est, uelut uestimentum
auro decoratum deauratae sunt, et has uirgo ad se libere colliget, quoniam ligatura
uiri eam non constringet.”
23 See Speaking New Mysteries, pp. 199–244.
24 Letters, 1, 84R, p. 186; Epistolarium, I, 84R, p. 194, ll. 152–54. “Rota quoque quam Ezechiel
uidit, uirginitatem presignauit, quia eadem uirginitas ante incarnationem Filii Dei
in lege prefijigurata est.” Ambrose includes Ezekiel’s wheels and the four animals in his De
virginitate, which will be discussed further below. See Christman, What Did Ezekiel See?,
pp. 110–15.
25 Letters, 1, 84R, p. 186; Epistolarium, I, 84R, p. 194, ll. 154–56: “Post incarnationem
autem eius illa mirabiliter plurima miracula operatur, quoniam Deus per ipsam omnia
piacula purgauit et unamquamque institutionem recte ordinauit.”
26 Letters, 1, 84R, p. 186; Epistolarium, I, 84R, p. 194, ll. 157–59: “Virginitas quippe uetera
sufffert et noua sustinet, et ipsa radix et fundamentum est omnium bonorum, quia semper
et semper cum illo fuit qui sine initio et sine fijine est.”