A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

76 constant j. mews
true life” (res viva et vera vita), always going around in circles greater than
the one before until it became like a great river fijilling his heart and soul.
The interior man wanted to see more clearly what that living substance
was, but it stayed hidden. “Finally I saw, he says, that that most beautiful
substance was like liquid gold.”64
The alius quidam referred to in this passage is certainly Rupert himself.
He was here quoting almost word for word from the longer account
that he provides of his early experiences within the 12th book of his commentary
on Matthew, written c.1125–1127.65 Here he describes to Kuno,
formerly abbot of Siegburg and now bishop of Regensburg, the visions
which provoked him to embark on his literary career. Kuno had insisted
that he explain why it was that after the Fathers of the Church had written
so much, Rupert should devote himself to writing so much more about
the meaning of Scripture. Like Hildegard, Rupert had been committed to
the religious life by his parents when he was still a child. His conversion
experience only started when as a young man, while contemplating an
image of the Son of God, he was overwhelmed by the inner signifijicance
of what he saw. He gazed upon the living Son of Man on the cross, not
with his physical eyes, but with his inner sight.66 He was carried away by a
taste of inner sweetness. Disappointed that this experience did not return,
he confesses that he stayed in bed until he was called in a dream to visit
the church. A sequence of visionary experiences followed. During Mass,
he saw three persons of great dignity standing by the altar; two of them
were of great age, and the third was a young man of distinguished form
and regal dignity, as he could see from his clothing, who embraced him
like a brother.67 Rupert did not recognize immediately that this was the
Son of God. Initially terrifijied by a prophecy that he would not live beyond
another eight years, he subsequently realized that this should not be taken
literally and that it was impossible to know when he would die.68
64 Rupert of Deutz, De glorifijicatione Trinitatis 2.18, PL 169:48D–49D.
65 Rupert of Deutz, De Gloria et honore fijilii hominis. Super Matthaeum 12, ed. Rhaban
Haacke, CCCM 29 (Turnhout, 1979), pp. 366–85. Walter Berschin has translated this autobiography
into German under the title, Os meum aperui. Die Autobiographie Ruperts von
Deutz, Koinonia Oriens 18 (Cologne, 1985), and comments on this text in “Visione e vocazione
allo scrivere. L’autobiografijia di Ruperto di Deutz,” Schede Medievali 19 (1990): 297–303.
Peter Dinzelbacher, ed., Le ‘Visiones’ nella cultura medievale: testi della VI Settimana residenziale
di studi medievali Carini, 20–25 ottobre 1986, Scrinium 14 (Palermo, 1994).
66 Rupert of Deutz, Super Matthaeum, CCCM 29:369.
67 Ibid., CCCM 29:370–72.
68 Ibid., CCCM 29:374–75.