A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

intertextuality in hildegard’s works 149
elsewhere to the process of conception, which she compares to the wheel
of a mill.64 Not only the physical but also the moral processes within the
body are viewed as wheel-like. In Expositio 56 on Luke 21:25–33, the magistra
describes the virtues moving in circles, tossed about by tempests in
the body “like the wheels that Ezekiel saw.”65 This movement recalls Ezekiel
1:19, the movement of the wheels in conjunction with a human(oid)
body.66 Hildegard’s depiction of the virtues, which struggle tempestuously
within the body and compete against vices to gain sway over the human,
mirrors the cosmic struggle between good and evil, which, correspondingly,
endures until the end of the world, like the wheel that never stops
turning or a circle with no end or beginning.67 Here as elsewhere, Hildegard
reveals the Platonic concept of microcosm and macrocosm, and
notably the influence of Origen as he describes the mundus minor within
the human being.68
In Expositio 1, Hildegard describes another sort of circular motion, the
movement of flying creatures. God the creator, through the magistra’s
voice, addresses the birds on their appropriate behavior and states: “Trace
the circles of your flight” (gira circulos uolatus tui).69 This language may
echo Jerome’s paraphrasing of Ecclesiastes 1:6 in his Commentary on Ezekiel,
where he explains Ezekiel 1:15–18—“the wheel in the midst of the
wheel” (rota in medio rote)—and says: “The Spirit goes circling in a circle
and returns into its own circles” (gyrans girando uadit spiritus et in circulos
suos reuertitur).70
In Symphonia 52, O Euchari columba, Hildegard associates the circular
motion of a flying creature with the spheres of the Spirit’s movement.
64 Diu. operum 1.4.14, pp. 145–46, ll. 19–28; 1.4.29, p. 164, ll. 44–50; Expo. Euang., 9, p. 213,
ll. 89–90.
65 Expo. Euang., 56, p. 328, ll. 11–14: “Nam uirtutes, scilicet racionalitas, fijides, spes, caritas
et ceterae uires animae, celorum, quia celestes sunt, mouebuntur, pre tempestatibus quae
in ambitu corporis sunt, euntes et redeuntes, quasi rotae quas Ezekiel uidit.”
66 Ezek. 1:19: “Cumque ambularent animalia ambulabant pariter et rote iuxta ea. Et cum
eleuarentur animalia de terra eleuabant simul et rote.”
67 For an overview of the virtues and vices in the Ordo uirtutum and the 12th century
generally, as well as an exploration of the concept’s roots in Origen, Gregory the Great, and
Plato, see Speaking New Mysteries, pp. 199–244.
68 Speaking New Mysteries, pp. 84–92.
69 Expo. Euang., p. 189, ll. 50–51.
70 Jerome, Commentarii in Hiezechielem, ed. Franciscus Glorie, CCSL 75 (Turnhout,
1964), I, 1.15–18, pp. 19–20, l. 481. Glossa ordinaria, II, p. 225, has a marginal note on “rota in
medio rote” from Jerome. The Vulgate for Eccl. 1:6 reads: “gyrat per meridiem et flectitur ad
aquilonem lustrans universa circuitu pergit spiritus et in circulos suos regreditur.”