A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

intertextuality in hildegard’s works 157
Rupert claimed, just as Hildegard did, that a vision provided the source
for his understanding of Scripture, and some echoes of Rupert’s works
are found in Hildegard’s Expositiones euangeliorum and the Symphonia.104
Rupert in De sancta Trinitate drew heavily on Gregory the Great’s Homilies
on Ezekiel, as did much other medieval commentary.
Hildegard’s two interpretations of the four faces or animals difffer from
those of Rupert of Deutz. Rupert states that the four faces represent not
only the evangelists but also four sacraments (presumably baptism, laying
on of hands, Eucharist, and penance), four events in Christ’s journey
(incarnation, passion, resurrection, and ascension), and four virtues (prudence,
which is associated with the human face; temperance, which is
linked to the calf ’s face; fortitude, which is expectedly the quality of the
lion; and justice, which the eagle designates).105 This designation of the
four virtues follows Jerome and Gregory the Great.106 Rupert interweaves
the four sets of four meanings, moving from allegory to Christology and
sacramental and moral theology, whereas Hildegard sees the four faces
on the one hand tropologically, as the four orders of society which she
instructs on proper conduct, and on the other as qualities of God which
demonstrate the power of God’s innumerable works.
Wilhelm Neuss signaled the influence of Rupert of Deutz’s interpretation
of Ezekiel on the frescoes depicting Ezekiel’s visions at the church
of Schwarzrheindorf outside Bonn.107 Founded by Arnold of Wied, archbishop
of Cologne, the church was consecrated in 1151 in the presence
of the Emperor Conrad III and his brother, the chronicler Otto of Freising,
among others. Twenty scenes portray Ezekiel’s vision of the destruction
and rebuilding of Jerusalem. The iconographic program has been
interpreted in the context of the Second Crusade and anti-Semitism in
104 See the Opera minora, Index fontium, pp. 586–87. Speaking New Mysteries discusses
diffferences and parallels between Hildegard and Rupert, chiefly on pp. 11–12, 29–30, 158–59.
On the visionary link between Rupert and Ezekiel, see Bernard McGinn, The Growth of
Mysticism (New York, 1994) p. 329.
105 Rupert of Deutz, De sancta trinitate et operibus eius, ed. Rhaban Haacke, 4 vols.,
CCCM 21–24 (Turnhout, 1971–72), vol. 23 (1972), Liber 30, In Hiezecihelem prophetam commentariorum,
pp. 1643–1737, at p. 1645, ll. 102–04; p. 1646, ll. 137–39; p. 1652, ll. 351–59.
106 See note 95 above.
107 Wilhelm Neuss, Das Buch Ezechiel in Theologie und Kunst bis zum Ende des XII. Jahrhunderts,
mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Gemälde in der Kirche zu Schwarzrheindorf;
ein Beitrag zur Entwicklungsgeschichte der Typologie der christlichen Kunst, vornehmlich
in den Benediktinerklöstern, von Dr. theol. Wilhelm Neuss . . . Mit 86 Abbildungen, gedruckt
mit Unterstützung der Provinzialverwaltung der Rheinprovinz (Münster in Westf., 1912),
pp. 114–31, 265–97.