A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

intertextuality in hildegard’s works 145
The magistra provides an extended description of these pious laypersons
and their eternal reward, emphasizing their commitment to selfexamination
and penitence.44
The fourth animal, the flying eagle, represents people living in the
world and leading a secular life: those who rise up to abstinence, casting
aside their sin, like Mary Magdalene, who chose “the best part”
(Lk. 10:42).45 Here Hildegard blends, as other medieval writers did, the
repentant woman sinner (Lk. 7:37–50) and Mary of Magdala (Mk. 16:9)
with Mary of Bethany.46 In two of the Expositiones, the magistra glosses
Mary Magdalene as peccatrix penitens.47 Letter 84R is distinctive from these
other references, in that Hildegard afffijirms the role of Mary Magdalene as
a model for penitent laypeople.
The magistra concludes the letter stating in the fijirst person: “But I, a
poor little form, weak and sickly since childhood, was compelled to write
this text, by a mystical and true vision, lying in bed seriously ill, with God
helping and commanding.”48 The phrase that Hildegard uses to describe
her seeing, in mystica et uera uisione, is nearly identical to what that she
employs elsewhere for Ezekiel’s vision: in mystica uisione.49 The magistra
combines this fijigure of strength, hidden in the weakness of her female
form, with an admonishment to prelates and teachers as well as a threat
of God’s punishment (uindicta Dei) for any who fail to heed her words.50
quasi cum pennis uolent, quia queque bona desideria sicut radius solis ex cordi iusti emittuntur,
unde et uelut pennata uidentur.”
44 Letters, 1, 84R, p. 189; Epistolarium, I, 84R, pp. 198–99, ll. 285–347.
45 Letters, 1, 84R, p. 190; Epistolarium, I, 84R, pp. 199–200, ll. 348–65.
46 This began with Gregory the Great’s fusion of the three Marys and became the standard
for medieval exegetes. See Gregory the Great, Homiliae in Hiezechihelem prophetam,
II, 8.21, p. 352, ll. 589–92: “In hoc fonte misericordiae lota est Maria Magdalene, quae prius
famosa peccatrix, postmodum lavit maculas lacrimis, detersit maculas corrigendo mores.”
Gregory the Great, Homiliae in evangelia, ed. R. Étaix (Turnhout, 1999), II, 25, pp. 215–16, ll.
285–314. Three biblical women become one: an unnamed sinner who washed Jesus’ feet
with her hair (Lk. 7:37–50); Mary of Bethany, who called upon Jesus to raise her brother
Lazarus from the dead (Jn. 11:1–45; 12:1–8); and Mary Magdalene, apostle to the apostles,
whom Jesus healed of seven demons (Mk. 16:9). See Katherine Ludwig Jansen, The Making
of the Magdalen: Preaching and Popular Devotion in the Later Middle Ages (Princeton,
2000), pp. 32–35.
47 Expo. Euang., 28, p. 269, ll. 1–2; Ibid., 29, p. 272, ll. 1–3. Hildegard, however, does not
dwell on the Magdalene, neither here nor in her other writings.
48 Letters, 1, 84R, p. 191; Epistolarium, I, 84R, p. 201, ll. 397–99: “Ego autem paupercula
forma, ab infantia mea debilis et infijirma, in mystica et uera uisione ad hanc scripturam
coacta sum, eamque in graui egritudine in lecto iacens, Deo iubente et adiuuante, conscripsi.”
See also p. 196, ll. 225–26, cited above in note 38.
49 See Scivias 2.4, p. 170, ll. 403–04: “ut in mystica uisione sua Ezekiel dicit.”
50 Letters, 1, 84R, p. 191; Epistolarium, I, 84R, p. 201, ll. 400–05. See Speaking New Mysteries,
p. 6, on Hildegard’s visionary claims and the lack thereof in the Expositiones.