A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

212 leigh-choate, flynn, and fassler
Example 3. Three A phrases from the sequence O Ecclesia, fijirst strophe
of the song by the German vernacular Wach! and set to music unheard in
earlier strophes. From beginning to end, Hildegard’s music points to the
allegorical signifijicance of the piece as a whole.
This allegory is also immediately apparent in the musical structure. The
interwoven melodies of the opening strophes create a multilayered exposition
of the Church as the bride of the Song of Songs and of Ursula as a consecrated
virgin yearning to be the bride of Christ. Hildegard employs the
biblical place Bethel (“house of God”) to sustain both images. Bethel has
special signifijicance in her exegesis in Scivias and in her chant texts. It is
here that Jacob had the vision of the ladder to heaven (Gen. 28:11–22) and
where he returned to build a new altar at God’s command (Gen. 35:1–7).
The commemorative liturgy for the dedication of the church found in
most offfijice manuscripts features chants whose texts describe Jacob’s
vision and his return to Bethel (e.g. Engelberg 103, fol. 156). In O Ecclesia,
Ursula has a vision of Christ and longs for him, consecrating her body and
anticipating mystical union with the Lord. In this she is, like the Virgin
Mary, an archetype of the Church (Ecclesia); Ecclesia ever presents the
dowry of Christ’s body and blood for the salvation of souls. Hildegard says
of Ecclesia in Scivias 2.6: “By divine power she was led to Him, and raised
herself upward so that she was sprinkled by the blood from His side; and
thus, by the will of the Heavenly Father, she was joined with Him in happy
betrothal and nobly dowered with His body and blood.”40
40 Scivias (Eng.), p. 237; Scivias 2.6, pp. 229–30: “Et post haec uidi cum Filius Dei in
cruce pependit quod praedicta muliebris imago uelut lucidus splendor ex antique consilio
propere progrediens per diuinam potentiam ad ipsum adducta est, et sanguine qui