A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

248 susanne ruge
(vices) and in the darkness (locus of purifijication and hell), and each time
they appear anew as a small detail of the larger picture. The narrative
becomes animated as the vices speak and even move around a bit. There
is even movement within the purifying punishment; however, these are
limited motions that do not extend beyond the space granted them.
The flow of the narrative, which changes over the course of the text, follows
the Man in the Cosmos from top to bottom, from his head in heaven
to his feet above the abyss. The thematic development from the heavenly
to the earthly, from God in majesty to the merciful God, corresponds to
this image.
The only section with unlimited movement appears at the end, in part
six, as the events of the Last Days are depicted. The text describes how
the Man in the Cosmos rotates with the entire earth.93 Yet even here,
the movement takes place within the framework of the image, within the
cosmos.
The anchoring of themes to a single image results in a text in which the
reader can mark and learn individual themes according to the elements of
the image. Readers can replay the relationships literally before their eyes.
The “systematic theology presented within an image”94 thus has pedagogical
dimensions. There is no question that the Vite mer. contains a “Summa
theologiae in an image.”
In all of Hildegard’s visionary works, the entirety of theology remains
constantly in view. However, each of the three visionary texts has a diffferent
focus on this whole. Even the call to conversion and penance, which
appears in all three works, has diffferent characteristics in each. The Vite
mer., as a sermon calling for repentance in a theologically comprehensive
image, is certainly the text that addresses individual believers most
strongly, in that each individual is called upon to perform self-examination
and personal penance. Yet, the idiosyncrasy in Hildegard’s theology
remains apparent: the completely personal battle for faith plays out, even
here, within the greater cosmic relationship of the battle between God and
the devil, and is organized according to the scheme of salvation history.
93 Vite mer., 6.3, p. 265.
94 Ulrich, “Vision,” p. 25: “ins Bild gesetzte systematische Theologie.”