O pulcre facies

Psalm antiphon for Virgins (D 165r, R 471rb, Scivias III.13.7a) Back to Table of Contents
by Hildegard of Bingen

O pulcre facies Deum aspicientes et in aurora edificantes, o beate virgines, quam nobiles estis, in quibus rex se consideravit, cum in vobis omnia celestia ornamenta presignavit, ubi etiam suavissimus hortus estis, in omnibus ornamentis redolentes.

O faces fair that gaze on God and build upon the dawn— O virgins blessed, how noble! In you the King can glimpse himself, for in you he sealed once all the ornaments of heaven, where too you are the lushest garden, the fragrances of all its ornaments.

Latin collated from the transcription of Beverly Lomer and the edition of Barbara Newman; translation by Nathaniel M. Campbell.

Commentary
by Nathaniel M. Campbell and Beverly Lomer

This antiphon and the responsory that follows it, O nobilissima viriditas, are the two pieces devoted to the Choir of Virgins in the celestial symphony of the final vision of Scivias (III.13.7). Whether as individual virgins in this antiphon or collectively as bearers of verdant virginity in the responsory, they are portrayed as analogues of the Virgin Mary. Were it not for the plural nouns in this antiphon and the manuscript rubrics identifying the songs as de virginibus, “for virgins,” one would be tempted to interpret them as pieces devoted to Mary, for the imagery recalls the attributes Hildegard assigns to her in the songs addressed to her. They mirror, for example, the two pieces devoted to the Virgin Mary that opened the Scivias symphony (III.13.1), O splendidissima gemma and O tu suavissima virga. In the latter responsory, the “divinity gazed upon a daughter’s beauty” (divinitas in pulcherrimam filiam aspexit), while in this antiphon, the gaze is reflected back by the beautiful faces of God’s daughters (O pulcre facies Deum aspicientes).

Other images common in Hildegard’s Marian corpus are gathered here, too—the dawn light in Hodie aperuit; the nobility of O frondens virga; and the nearly continuous imagery of the Virgin’s blooming branch and flower, enunciated here with the image of the aromatic garden (see e.g. verses 2-4 of O viridissima virga). Hildegard regularly refers to Mary as “a joyful ornament” (in the versicle of O clarissima) and a mirror of divine beauty (verse 4a of O virga ac diadema). In O quam magnum miraculum, God the King enters into “the female form subdued,” and it is quite simply woman (femina) who “builds up every sweet perfume of virtues” (omnem suavissimum odorem virtutum edificavit) to adorn the heavens. Likewise in this antiphon, God the King sees himself in the faces of the virgins as Mary was the mirror of the divine beauty.

Sanctity is often described by Hildegard as fragrant, and thus the concluding melisma on redolentes, a musical gesture of emphasis and the only melisma of any length in the piece, solidifies the theme of the special holiness of virgin women. The enclosed garden (hortus conclusus) was a common medieval metaphor for virginity, but in Hildegard’s hands (probably frequently smudged with dirt and streaked with green from actually working in the garden), it springs into beautiful, verdant, fragrant life. Experiencing the warm sunshine beaming into the garden and bursting its flowers into bloom might very well have provoked Hildegard in her praise of virgins in this antiphon, which also echoes her description of the Order of Virgins amid the towering figure of Ecclesia, Holy Mother Church in Scivias II.5.5:^[1]

Scivias II.5: Orders of the Church.
Rupertsberg MS, fol. 66r.

But you see that from her throat to her navel another splendor, red in color, encircles her. This means that after the teaching of the apostles had so invigorated the Church (…), there arose the noblest perfection of churchly religion, which tasted heavenly sweetness with burning ardor and stringently restrained itself in order to gird itself with secret power; rejecting the union of human coupling, it avoided the division caused by the bitterness of the flesh. How?

That splendor glows like the dawn from her throat to her breasts, for this perfection arose from the taste of the excitement of miracles and extended in virginal gladness to the sweet nourishment of churchly religion. And it shines from her breasts to her navel mixed with purple and blue; for she fortified herself for the stringency of inner chastity by the noblest training, namely by imitating the Passion of My Son to gain the celestial love He guarded in His heart. Therefore, where it glows like the dawn, its brightness shines forth as high as the secret places of Heaven; for the perfection that flowers in the state of virginity directs its strength not downward toward heavenly things, but miraculously upward to what is in Heaven.

As most perfect handmaids of the Virgin Mother Church and successors of the Virgin Mother Mary, the women in Hildegard’s convent live out virginal fecundity. The verb presignavit is, in this regard, particularly significant—it shows that virgins have a special place in God’s order and plan for the beauty of the world. At the heart of Hildegard’s perception of the relationship between eternity and time, divinity and humanity, is the notion that Christ’s Incarnation was eternally predestined. By corollary, the means by which God became Man—the Virgin Mother who bore him—was also predestined before all time; and thus, the female figures who mediate God’s presence and activity into the world after and in analogue to her are also predestined. If God had foreseen Mary’s blooming branch in the very first moment of creation (so verse 3a of O virga ac diadema), then so too did he foresee the fragrant gardens of his virgins blooming throughout the Church.

Transcription and Music Notes

E mode
Range: D below the final to G an octave and a third above the final
Setting: primarily syllabic, with some neumatic segments and one long melisma

The salutation in this antiphon is not as straightforward as is often the case, as there is no clear outlining by the final of the mode in the first phrase. O pulcre facies (“O beautiful faces”), which might be considered a brief greeting, begins on the final but concludes on A. This strategy leads to the conclusion that the next two segments should extend the initial salutation. Deum aspicientes (“gazing on God”) employs D and G as tonal markers, neither of which are usually grammatically significant pitches in this mode. This supports the notion that the phrase is an extension of the first and connected to what comes after. The final phrase, et in aurora edificantes (“and building upon the dawn”) concludes on the final It is thus possible to consider the three phrases (lines 1-3 in the transcription) as the entire salutatio. Though it is a bit long, it makes better sense musically than subdividing it. Of course, in performance, breaths might have to be taken, but the rhetorical effect would be enhanced if the entirety were conveyed as a single phrase.

O beate virgines begins the next idea, and is more predictably outlined by the modal final. The remainder of the piece employs the fifth as its grammatical marker. Lines 8 and 9 (omnia celestia ornamenta presignavit) comprise a single phrase, and a tick barline has been inserted to indicate this continuity.

The seventh line of the piece presents an odd juxtaposition of musical and textual grammar. The verb consideravit ends one grammatical phrase in the text, while the conjunction cum begins another subordinate clause. In normal practice, syntactic units of text would coincide with musical phrases, with the first phrase ending on the final (or, as in this piece, the fifth), and the next phrase beginning there. But in this line, the two textual clauses are conjoined within a single musical phrase, though the conjunction is made on the octave of the final.

The final image commences with ubi etiam suavissimus hortus estis (“where too you are the lushest garden”). The pitch B remains the primary tonal marker until the conclusion of the long melisma on redolentes on the final. The use of A to end the phrase in omnibus ornamentis is a bit surprising, as one would expect to hear B. Redolentes, however, is clearly its own unit.

Further Resources for O pulcre facies

• Hildegard of Bingen, Symphonia, ed. Barbara Newman (Cornell Univ. Press, 1988 / 1998), pp. 218 and 303-304.
• Entry in the CANTUS Database: http://cantus.uwaterloo.ca/chant/588634
• For a discography of this piece, see the comprehensive list by Pierre-F. Roberge: Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179) - A discography

Footnotes

^[1] Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias, trans. Mother Columba Hart and Jane Bishop (Paulist Press, 1990), pp. 204-205; Latin text ed. Führkötter and Carlevaris, CCCM 43 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1978), pp. 179-180. ↩

O successores

Psalm antiphon for Confessors (D 164r, R 470va, Scivias III.13.6a) Back to Table of Contents
by Hildegard of Bingen

O successores fortissimi leonis, inter templum et altare dominantes in ministratione eius sicut angeli sonant in laudibus et sicut assunt populis in adiutorio, vos estis inter illos qui hec faciunt, semper curam habentes in officio Agni.

Successors of the mighty Lion, between the temple and the altar commanding in his service: as angels sing in praise resounding and quicken to defend the people with their aid— so you among them as they do these things keep ever carefully the office of the Lamb.

Latin collated from the transcription of Beverly Lomer and the edition of Barbara Newman; translation by Nathaniel M. Campbell.

Commentary: Themes and Theology
by Nathaniel M. Campbell

The first piece devoted to the choir of confessors—a class that for Hildegard consists of the clergy in general—in her vision of the heavenly symphony in Scivias III.13.6, this antiphon turns from the sacramental duties of their priestly office described in O vos imitatores to look at their Christ-like role as the servant-leaders of the Church: leading the people of God in their praise, helping them like the guardian angels, waging the battle against the fallen angel, and in all things imitating Christ’s mighty strength as the Lion and sacrificial love as the Lamb.^[1]

This ministry of the confessors is situated within the particular progression of salvation history, reflected in the placement of the choir of confessors after those of the apostles and martyrs in the celestial symphony. After the apostolic dawn of the Church and the flowing of the martyr’s rose-red blood, this choir of confessors took its place among her orders, as likewise described in Hildegard’s exegesis of the Pillar of the Word of God in Scivias III.4.11:

For in the clear light in which My Son preached and spread the truth there have grown up apostles who announce that true light, and martyrs who faithfully shed their blood like strong soldiers, and confessors who officiate after My Son, and virgins who follow the Supernal Branch, and all My other elect, who rejoice in the fountain of happiness and the font of salvation, baptized by the Holy Spirit and ardently going “from virtue unto virtue” (Ps. 83:8[84:7]).^[2]

In the antiphon above, the confessors in their office as “successors” or “imitators” of Christ take a middle place between the early martyrs, whose blood “watered” the foundations of the Church, and the order of Virgins who crown Ecclesia, the Church. Thus, the second line situates them as heirs of both the ancient prophets and the martyrs by alluding to Christ’s words of castigation against the scribes and Pharisees for “shedding the blood of the prophets, (…) from the blood of innocent Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar [quem occidistis inter templum et altare]” (Matt. 23:30 and 35). Moreover, Hildegard transforms their commanding rule (dominantes) over the Church into the service of her ministers (in ministratione); as Barbara Newman notes, “Following Christ’s example and commandment, they exercised their spiritual lordship only through service (Luke 22:25-26)” (Symphonia, p. 290).

As Hildegard explains in her discussion of the Church’s administration of the sacraments of Eucharist and confession in Scivias II.6.92:

One who desires the power of an office for his own boastful pride and not for the glory of My name is to Me like a putrid corpse, but one who seeks it desiring from it not his pride but My honor will be glorious in My kingdom. And so priests should take on the office of spiritual government not for their own sakes but for Mine, that they may rule more surely and devoutly over My people.

In the previous vision’s discussion of the clergy’s office of pastoral service, Hildegard compares them to the shepherd Abel:

The followers [of the apostles], who took their places, faithfully traverse streets and farms and cities and other places, regions and lands, carrying the health-giving charisms and announcing the divine law to the people. For they are fathers and stewards, carefully chosen to make church rules known to the people by their teaching and to distribute to them the food of life. (…)

So, as Abel was in charge of his flock, pasturing and guarding it and with simple devotion offering its increase and its fatty nourishment to God [Genesis 4:4], let the chrism-makers [bishops], who are set over the children of the Church, who are the sheep of Christ, pasture them according to His plan, faithfully nourish them by their words, teaching them the church rules, and protect them forcefully from the snares of the ancient waylayer, and offer gifts from some of them, with sincere reflection, to the Observer of all.
     —Scivias II.5.2

Scivias I.6: Choirs of Angels.
Rupertsberg MS, fol. 38r.

Although the antiphon above never mentions him, that “ancient waylayer” lies always in the background of Hildegard’s view of the Church’s place in salvation history, her battle against him, and her relationship to the angels. In comparing the office of the Church’s pastors to the angels as they both praise God and, as guardians, come to the aid of humankind, Hildegard draws on the belief that God created the angels for a twofold service, “for the honor of His name and for human salvation”—the latter office “by assigning some to help humans in their need, and others to manifest to people the judgments of His secrets” (Scivias I.6.1). Moreover, Hildegard held firmly to the belief that humankind was created to fill the tenth and highest choir of angels, left empty by the fall of Lucifer and his companions, as she explains Scivias III.2.19.^[3]

Musically, Hildegard emphasizes the scope of the angelic analogy by having its two phrases (sicut angeli sonant in laudibus / et sicut assunt populis - in adiutorio) traverse a significant range, from the lowest note of the piece, A below the final (connecting laudibus, “praise,” with in adiutorio, “with aid”), to the D an octave above the final (on sicut, “as,” and assunt, “quicken to defend”). On the other hand, the angels stand slightly apart from the rest of the antiphon, as the analogy is the only phrase to open on a note other than the final (A on sicut). For all their glory, the angels lack the singular grace bestowed on humankind: participation in the divine nature itself, in the form of the Incarnation. Only humans can be “successors of the mighty Lion.” This is why the highest note of the antiphon—F an octave and a third above the final—comes near the end, on officio, “the office of the Lamb” which the confessors carefully keep.

Still, angelic ministry serves for Hildegard as an exemplar for a human ministry that is destined to surpass it. The angels and archangels offer their service to both God and God’s creation (humankind) with a humility to be imitated by the clergy:

Therefore have peace and charity and humility among you, as the souls of the just do not envy the office of the angels, and the angels announce lesser things in the normal course of events, while the faithful people humbly obey. Therefore, let each fulfill his office faithfully. How?

Let those who are vowed monks, like the archangels, renew their powerful assistance whenever there is a great occasion of necessity in the Church; and let those who have the office of clerics, like the angels, do their business in the daily life of their institution; and let people who want to attain to supreme beatitude faithfully receive their words.
     —Scivias II.5.36

The clergy of the Church thus assume the twofold office of the angels, analogous to Christ’s twofold summary of the law’s commandment of love: they praise and love God, and they serve and love their neighbors, the children of God and inheritors of the kingdom. As governors, they mediate the angels’ manifestation of God’s commands to his people; as pastors, they “keep and feed God’s sheep to imitate Him in honor” (Scivias III.9.22

Scivias III.9: The Tower of the Church.
Rupertsberg MS, fol. 192r
(full-page miniature rotated 90 degrees
counterclockwise from original orientation).

Finally, as successors of Christ, the confessors are also the successors of the apostles, the Church’s first leaders-in-service who “stand out among the defenders of the Church as its first founders” (Scivias III.9.15). As the successors of the apostles, the confessors also provide that defense, as Hildegard indicates through her interpretation of Song of Songs 4:4:

“Your neck is like the tower of David, which is built with bulwarks; a thousand bucklers hang upon it, all the armor of the valiant.” This is to say:

The Incarnation of the mighty Lion [fortissimi leonis], the Son of the Supreme Ruler, Who arose from the blooming of the Virgin, is the strongest instrument of the new grace; and so too the strength of your incorrupt faith, O Bride, is set as the sure rampart of the faithful people. How? All your children stand and join themselves into the walls around your strength, nourished by the new light that trickles from the pure living Fountain. And in this strong joining they cannot be destroyed or dismembered, anymore than the victorious weapons of true David could be defeated. How?

The strong tower is the strength of Christ Jesus the Son of God, and in it the conquering hosts of the faithful are tested without defeat. No adversary can boast of prevailing over them, for they hold fast to Christ, true God and true Human, through Whom in your Second Coming all your children will gloriously attain adulthood in salvation. To this end the pure Incarnation was foretold by the prophets and adorned by precious gems of virtue. And it was manifested through the world for the salvation of believers through the bulwarks of apostolic doctrine who planted the justice of the True Light.
(…)
And so a thousand bucklers, perfect defenses of the perfected faith, hang from the Son of God. And the first shepherds of the Church follow His example and despise themselves for the hope of Heaven; they pour out their blood to protect the Catholic faith from the fiery darts of the Devil, which wound human souls. And the other elect, who follow them, also form a heavenly militia and take arms to establish the love of God in this world.
     —Scivias III.9.15-17

Transcription and Music Notes
by Beverly Lomer

Mode: D
Range: A below the final to F an octave and a third above the final
Setting: primarily syllabic, one long melisma on final word

The phrasing in this piece is fairly straightforward, outlined primarily by the final of the mode. The salutation can be construed briefly as O successores (“O successors”), or to encompass the next phrase, fortissimi leonis (“of the mighty Lion”) Though the second option completes the textual thought, each of the two melodic phrases is outlined by D, the modal final.

The Bb is signed in instances where a tritone occurs and on the melodic figure, A,B,A. Flats are not consistent between the manuscripts. Note also that the melodic progression on the final melisma on agni contains repeated notes. One might want to flat the B in the descent, because it then lands on F. However, the landing on F might also be understood as a descent from A, which is repeated. Hence, the B in the previous phrase segment can be read as a part of a smaller descent that ends on A and thus would not carry a flat. Neither manuscript signs a flat here. In keeping with the signed flat in Dendermonde on A,B,A earlier (p. 1, line 6 of the transcription), one might include a flat on this same figure in the final melisma.

Further Resources for O successores

• Hildegard of Bingen, Symphonia, ed. Barbara Newman (Cornell Univ. Press, 1988 / 1998), pp. 176 and 290.
• For a discography of this piece, see the comprehensive list by Pierre-F. Roberge: Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179) - A discography

Footnotes

^[1] Although this antiphon follows the responsory for confessors (O vos imitatores) in the Riesdenkodex (fol. 470va), it comes first in Scivias III.13.6. ↩
^[2] All quotes from Scivias adapted from the trans. of Mother Columba Hart and Jane Bishop (New York: Paulist Press, 1990); Latin text ed. Führkötter and Carlevaris, CCCM 43 and 43a (Turnhout: Brepols, 1978). ↩
^[3] As she explains Scivias III.2.19: “God foresaw that what had fallen in the lost group [of angels] could be more firmly restored in another. How? He created humankind from the mud of the earth, living in soul and body, to attain to the glory from which the apostate Devil and his followers were cast out. Humankind is thus exceedingly dear to God, Who made them truly in His own image and likeness; they were to exercvise all the virtues in the perfection of holiness, as indeed God formed all creatures to do, and to work in humble obedience to do acts of virtue, and so to fulfill the function of praise among the glorious orders of angels. And thus, in this height of blessedness, humankind was to augment the praise of the heavenly spirits who praise God with assiduous devotion, and so fill up the place left empty by the lost angel who fell in his presumption.” ↩

O vos imitatores

Responsory for Confessors (D 163v-164r, R 470rb,Back to Table of Contents
Stuttgart, Württembergische Landesbibliothek, Cod. theol. et phil. 4° 253, fol. 40v, Scivias III.13.6b) by Hildegard of Bingen

V. O vos imitatores excelse persone in preciosissima et gloriosissima significatione, o quam magnus est vester ornatus, ubi homo procedit, solvens et stringens in Deo pigros et peregrinos, R. etiam ornans candidos et nigros et magna onera remittens. V. Nam et angelici ordinis officia habetis, et fortissima fundamenta prescitis, ubicumque constituenda sunt, unde magnus est vester honor— R. etiam ornans candidos et nigros et magna onera remittens.

V. O actors, you who play the Highest Role within that precious drama, that glorious sacrament! How great and beautiful your vested costume, as steps forth such a man to loose and bind in God the slacker and sojourner, R. to beautify the shining and the squalid, and their heavy burdens to remit. V. For you both hold the office of the angels and foreknow where’er the firm foundations of the Church are to be laid— this twofold duty marks your honor grand: R. to beautify the shining and the squalid, and their heavy burdens to remit.

Latin collated from the transcription of Beverly Lomer and the edition of Barbara Newman; translation by Nathaniel M. Campbell.

Commentary: Themes and Theology
by Nathaniel M. Campbell

In this responsory, adapted from one of the two verses sung in praise of the choir of confessors in the heavenly symphony of Scivias III.13,^[1] Hildegard uses the language of drama to explain the office of the Church’s principal clergy in their roles as “imitators” (imitatores) of the person of Christ, celebrating the Eucharist and hearing confessions under the apostolic power of “binding and loosing,” to remit the burden of the penitent’s sins. Moreover, they also participate in the “duties of the angelic order” (angelici ordinis officia)—the offering of praise in song to the Lord—and, guided by the Holy Spirit, receive the special knowledge of where to found new churches and monasteries.^[2]

Scivias II.6: Crucifixion
and Eucharist.
Rupertsberg MS, fol. 86r

As with the other parts of the heavenly symphony at the end of Scivias, this responsory reflects upon elements earlier in the work—in this case, Hildegard’s vision of the Crucifixion and Eucharist in Scivias II.6. As the first illustration that accompanies this vision in the Rupertsberg manuscript makes clear, the drama of Christ’s life, culminating in his sacrifice upon the Cross, pierces through time to be reenacted and re-presented upon the altar each time the Church celebrates her dowry, the Eucharist. In both that vision and this responsory, moreover, the priestly office of performing the Eucharist is intimately intertwined with his office of granting absolution to the confessed penitent. Both Eucharist and Confession regenerate the faithful person into the life of the Resurrected, by lifting them up out of the sin they inherited from Adam and into the glory they receive from Christ, the New Adam. Moreover, each sacrament revolves around actions of memory:^[3] in the Eucharist, both God and we the Church remember Christ’s sacrifice, while in Confession, each sinner turns away from the deceit that keeps their sin unremembered, “concealed in his secret heart,” and instead makes “manifest his sins, that he may have a witness to his penitence” (Scivias II.6.87).^[4]

In Hildegard’s Eucharistic vision, Christ’s initial establishment of that ritual of memory becomes the script that the Church follows in each subsequent performance of the drama. The most vivid part of the vision is the heavenly spotlight that streams down upon the altar during each performance. Thus this play is unlike any other, for the stage crosses the divide between time and eternity: “in its most precious and glorious signification” (in preciosissima et gloriosissima significatione), God acts together with the priest, beholding the same memories, repeating the same lines, and through them, recreating the world (words in italics are from Hildegard’s description of the vision; the voice speaking is that from heaven):

When a priest clad in sacred vestments approaches that altar to celebrate the divine mysteries, you see that a great calm light is brought to it from Heaven by angels. For when he who has the charge of souls is girded with the sacred cincture and approaches the life-giving table to immolate the innocent Lamb, at once the great light of the heavenly inheritance drives away the darkness, shining with the help of celestial spirits from the secret places of Heaven. And it completely illumines the plan of sanctification, for here is the food of the soul by which believers are saved. How? Because the Church in the voice of the priest seeks her dowry, which is the body and the poured-out blood of My Son, in order to be fit for blessed childbearing in saving souls (…). And so then I, Who am the unfailing Light, illumine the place of that consecration with My holiness, to the honor of the body and blood of My Only-Begotten.

For when the priest begins to invoke me on the sanctified altar, and I consider that My Son offered Me bread and wine at the supper of death just before leaving the world; then I see that My Son did this in the hour of His death, as he was about to perish on the wood of the cross, so that when the blessed offering of the holy sacrifice is offered to Me by a priest I might always have His Passion in My sight, never blotting it from My sharp vision. For He too offered Me bread and wine in the outpouring of His blood, when He cast down death and raised up humanity. (…)

The Bride of My Son offers the gift of bread and wine on My altar with a most devoted purpose. How? To remind me in faithful memory by the hand of the priest that in this same oblation I delivered up the body and blood of My Son. How? Because the sufferings of My Only-Begotten are seen perpetually in the secret places of Heaven; and thus that oblation is united to My Son in My ardent heat in a profoundly miraculous way and becomes most truly His body and blood. And thence the Church is quickened with blessed strength.
     —Scivias II.6.6-11

For Hildegard’s typological mind, the signification of the Eucharistic sacrifice encompasses not just the Crucifixion, but also its foreshadowing in the Passover feast and the Exodus from Egypt. This provides her a natural bridge to consider its role in freeing the sinner from the bondage of sin:

“Remember this day in which you came forth out of Egypt, and out of the house of bondage; with a strong hand the Lord brought you forth out of this place, so look that you eat no leavened bread” [Exodus 13:3]. What does this mean?

You who wish to be imitators [imitatores] of My Son, turn your eyes from death to life and keep in mind the salvation of that Day which is My Son, Who trampled death and gave life, so that you went forth from the wretched exile of perdition; you threw off the thick darkness of infidelity and tore yourselves away from the house of the Devil, to whom Adam’s transgression had given you. Turn your eyes from earthly to heavenly actions, for by divine power I the Lord have led you out of evil; I Who rule all with such strength that no obstacle can stand against My might, but I sharply penetrate all things. So through My Son I have snatched you from the place where you shamefully lay in your wickedness, serving death by your infidelity instead of doing good works.

And now that you are freed in My Only-Begotten from that oppression, go from strength to strength and take care not to admit into your consciences the infidelity, which does not strengthen but bitterly weighs down your heart. What does this mean? Do not follow the arts of the Devil or the other fictions people devise for themselves (…), but imitate My Son as a mirror of faith, Who delivered you from the prison of Hell when He gave Himself for you to the suffering of the cross. And, that you may more carefully follow in His footsteps, strengthen your hearts with the celestial bread, and so with faithful devotion receive His body. For He came from Heaven and was born of the sweet and pure Virgin, and, by suffering for you on the cross, gave you His very self; so that now you may receive the sweet and pure bread, which is His body, consecrated on the altar by divine invocation, without any bitterness but with sincere affection, and thus escape from humanity’s inner hunger and attain to the banquet of eternal beatitude.
     —Scivias II.6.27

The “thick darkness of infidelity” that the light of this glorious sacrament dispels, and the “inner hunger” that it fulfills with its “sweet and pure bread”—these are the shadows and lusts of sin that, in enflaming a person with their dark fire, make a person “eat and drink unworthily” of the Eucharist (1 Corinthians 11:29). It is in her exegesis of St. Paul’s description of the Eucharist that Hildegard pivots to the failure of memory and the concealment of the truth with sin:

Truly I say to you, anyone who, being unworthy and foul with sin, eats the bread of life or receives the cup of salvation, which is the sacrament of Him Who is the Lord of Heaven and Earth, shall feel himself at fault for it. How? Because he receives the body and blood of the Lord, the Savior of the world, snarling and dying; inclined to evil and polluted with uncleanness, he forgets the fear of the Lord and approaches the palace of healing redemption in a state of contamination. And so he commits murder there. How? By treating the sacrament presumptuously, concealing his crimes without cleansing or washing them by penance; and so with many wounds he tears himself to pieces.
     —Scivias II.6.58

But there is a remedy for this state of corrupted memory and intentional forgetting:

But if anyone labors under too great a number of these tendencies and is not able to resist them by themselves, let them with devoted purpose seek Me and humbly uncover to Me the wounds of their heart. How? Let them lay bare these wounds by making a humble confession to a priest. And why is this? Because true confession is a second resurrection. How? The human race was slain by the fall of the old Adam; the new Adam by His death raised it up. And so the resurrection of souls arose in the death of the new Adam. (…) Hence confession was instituted, to raise people up after they fall. And so anyone who confesses their sins to a priest for love of Me rises again from death to life; as the woman who purged herself from her impurity with tears at the banquet in the presence of My Son was snatched away from uncleanness (cf. Luke 7:36-50).
(…)
Faithful people should seek the help of My Son, because when they repeat the ancient crime of Adam after baptism they cannot rise from their fall by themselves. And therefore they should seek counsel as it were from the patriarchs and prophets, and derive instruction as if from the high priests and the ordinary priests, and accept help as if from the apostles, laying bare their wounds and displaying their sins truly and purely. How?

They should confess their sins to the priest, who is the minister of My Son, with devoted heart and mouth. And then the priest will give them a remedy of penance and bury their sins in the death of My Only-Begotten. And then they will rise again to life and glorify the Resurrection of My Son.
     —Scivias II.6.82-83

Hildegard then turns her attention to those priests, with dire warnings against those who abuse their office, whether by failing “to teach true doctrine to the people” by not exhorting them to penance, or by their own crimes “in perverse filth and adulterous wickedness” (Scivias II.6.94-95). Throughout her works, the Visionary Doctor consistently castigated the clergy for their failures and sins, for she holds them the higher standard of responsibility and integrity owed the honor of their office:

You, rather than others, have received in My Son the keys of Heaven; which are righteous decisions of just judgment made in knowledge of the Scriptures, as long as you consider rightly what you should bind. What does this mean?

When people stubbornly oppose themselves to My Law, you must inspire them with fear of My judgment. And if they do not then correct themselves, extend over them your power of binding. How? You will bind these rebels in My words with a clear voice, and show them the power of the binding; for their stubbornness they are bound in My sign, as My Son showed to the Church’s first pastor, saying:

“I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. And whatsoever you shall bind on earth, it will be bound also in Heaven; and whatsoever you shall loose on earth, it will be loosed also in Heaven” (Matthew 16:19). What does this mean? I, Who have all power in Heaven and earth, by My grace give to you, My devout imitators [imitatores], those judgments that touch the dignity of the Kingdom of Heaven. As you see people sin on earth, you will bind the wicked deed on earth with just judgment, and it will be entangled in its wickedness and bound in Heaven; it will be separated and driven out from Heaven, for in the heavenly mansions there is no freedom and no place for iniquity. But after I withdraw a person’s soul from their body, you will not extend your judgment over them, for that judgment is Mine. Likewise, if a transgressor is penitent, you will loose on earth the chain you fastened on him in rebellion, and it will be loosed in the secret places of Heaven, for God does not reject the groans of a devout heart. But after the person’s death you will pray for their soul, but you cannot absolve it from being bound.
(…)
This is the purpose of that binding: that one who perversely refuses to obey Me or the precepts of their superiors may be separated by My word from celestial things. Thus Adam, when he disobeyed Me, was by My command cast out of Paradise. And until such a person repents and obeys, they will not be received into the company of the faithful; as the human race was recalled to the celestial country by the martyrdom of My obedient Son.
     —Scivias II.6.96-97 and 99

Scivias II.6: Eucharist, detail of recipients.
Rupertsberg MS, fol. 86v.

Finally, we turn to Hildegard’s description of the effects of this sacrament of penance, “to beautify the shining and the squalid” (etiam ornans candidos et nigros). This recalls her vision of the various states of grace and iniquity in which people might approach to receive the Eucharist, as illustrated below the priest at the altar in the second illustration for Scivias II.6 in the Rupertsberg manuscript:

And as other people approached the priest to receive the sacrament, I notice five modes of being in them. For some were bright of body and fiery of soul, and others seemed pale of body and shadowed of soul; some were hairy of body and seemed dirty in soul, because it was pervaded with unclean human pollution; others were surrounded in body by sharp thorns and leprous of soul; and others appeared bloody of body and foul as a decayed corpse in soul. And all these received the same sacraments; and as they did, some were bathed in fiery brilliance, but the others were overshadowed by a dark cloud.
     —Scivias II.6, Vision

In chs. 51-57, Hildegard offers an elaboration of these states of soul. Only the first (“bright of body and fiery of soul”) approach the altar “clear in faith about the sacrament, (…) and because they are sanctified by this mystery they will appear in this same body in Heaven after the resurrection of the dead; and their souls are transformed and enkindled by the fiery gift of the Holy Spirit, so that, flooded with enlightenment, they reject earthly things and long for the heavenly ones” (Scivias II.6.52). Each of the other four states of soul are mired in ever graver levels of sin—yet to each, Hildegard’s exposition holds out the offer of redemption: “the fountain of salvation will still flow for them if they take care to wash themselves from this wickedness of theirs by worthy penitence” (Scivias II.6.56).

Transcription and Music Notes
by Beverly Lomer

C mode
Range: F below the final to C an octave above
Setting: Primarily syllabic, one long melisma, several short melismatic segments

The responsory begins with a syllabic setting of the salutatio, “O you imitators of the most exalted person.” This is a bit different, as Hildegard often favors a more elaborate treatment of the opening greeting. The only substantial melisma in the piece is found on remittens at the end of the repetendum.

As is typical of the songs in which C is the final, the Bb is notated only in the lower octave. In this case, there are quite a number of differences between the manuscripts. In Dendermonde, most of the cadences on C that are preceded by B indicate a flat. This is not always the case in the Riesenkodex. Though we have added no editorial ficta, take note of the last line of page 1 of the transcription. The Bb noted in Dendermonde should be continued until the cadence on C, and similar figures should be treated the same elsewhere. For example, on page 2, line 5, the descent from G to B and finish on C appears elsewhere in Dendermonde with a notated flat. Our recommendation is to add the flat here and in other instances of repetition as well.

The second refrain, Etiam ornans…, differs in R from the way it appears earlier, as well as differing from D. It should be internally consistent.

Further Resources for O vos imitatores

• Hildegard of Bingen, Symphonia, ed. Barbara Newman (Cornell Univ. Press, 1988 / 1998), pp. 174 and 289.
• For a discography of this piece, see the comprehensive list by Pierre-F. Roberge: Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179) - A discography

Footnotes

^[1] Although the responsory appears first in the Riesdenkodex’s ordering of the Symphonia (on fol. 470rb), it follows the antiphon for confessors (O successores) in Scivias III.13.6. ↩
^[2] I will look more closely at the connections between the offices of the angels and the confessors in relation to Hildegard’s antiphon for confessors, O successores. Newman notes: “In the verse [Hildegard] calls to mind two additional privileges of these saints: they share in the angelic office, the singing of God’s praise, and they found churches on sites that have been providentially revealed to them. The abbess may have been remembering her own vision of the Rupertsberg as a site for her new monastery.” (Symphonia, p. 289) ↩
^[3] See Anne W. Astell, “‘Memoriam Fecit’: The Eucharist, Memory, Reform, and Regeneration in Hildegard of Bingen’s Scivias and Nicholas of Cusa’s Sermons,” in Reassessing Reform: A Historical Investigation into Church Renewal, ed. Christopher M. Bellitto and David Zachariah Flanagin (Catholic University of America Press, 2012), pp. 190-213. ↩
^[4] All quotes from Scivias II.6 adapted from the trans. of Mother Columba Hart and Jane Bishop (New York: Paulist Press, 1990), pp. 237-89; Latin text ed. Führkötter and Carlevaris, CCCM 43 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1978), pp. 229-306. ↩

Vos flores rosarum

Responsory for Martyrs (D 163v, R 470r, Scivias III.13.5b) by Hildegard of Bingen Back to Table of Contents

R. Vos flores rosarum, qui in effusione sanguinis vestri beati estis in maximis gaudiis redolentibus et sudantibus in emptione que fluxit de interiori mente consilii manentis ante evum R. in illo, in quo non erat constitutio a capite. V. Sit honor in consortio vestro, qui estis instrumentum ecclesie et qui in vulneribus vestri sanguinis undatis: R. In illo, in quo non erat constitutio a capite.

R. You buds of roses, within your blood outpoured you’re blessed in joys supreme and fragrant, distilled of that redemption that flowed from th’ inmost heart of counsel kept before all time R. in him who was unfounded at the source. V. An honor in your fellowship! The Church’s instrument you are as in your wounds, your waves of blood, you surge: R. in him who was unfounded at the source.

Latin collated from the transcription of Beverly Lomer and the edition of Barbara Newman; translation by Nathaniel M. Campbell.

Commentary: Themes and Theology
by Nathaniel M. Campbell

The sweet perfume of the red rose pours forth like blood, and so the martyrs’ wounds and waves of blood exude that same joyous fragrance as they flow across the world and “water” the Church’s mission—and in all of this, their suffering participates in Christ’s, whose blood was eternally predestined to redeem that world. The poetic images in this responsory twist and strain against the boundaries of language and even concept, their synaesthetic transformations tying color and aroma with powerful movements of flow and surge, yet all rooted in the timeless counsel of him who has no foundation, for he is himself the foundation.

Barbara Newman has judged this piece, “Hildegard’s poetry at its simultaneous best and worst: it is brimming with intensity and strangeness, but the startling images are sabotaged by unwieldy syntax.” (Symphonia, p. 288) Two features contribute to this syntactic muddiness: first, the oblique case of the participles redolentibus (“fragrant”) and sudantibus (“distilled”) in the opening respond; and second, Hildegard’s penchant for setting much of the piece’s content within a series of nested relative clauses. From the perspective of meaning, the participles should logically refer to the flowers that represent the martyrs; however, Hildegard has syntactically transferred them to the maximis gaudiis (“joys supreme”) in which the martyr-blooms are blessed. The transferred epithets, however, assist in moving the focus of the piece from the martyrs themselves to their participation in Christ’s eternal exemplar of sweet and joyous suffering.

Similarly, although the elaborately nested relative clauses do make it more difficult sometimes to follow the train of thought, they also serve to unify the imagery’s synaesthetic transfigurations. Moreover, Hildegard uses the music to clarify what Newman has criticized as a “strained image [submerged] in a further metaphysical conceit.” (Symphonia, p. 299) She echoes melodic lines that span the responsory’s full octave range on the phrases in maximis gaudiis and de interiori mente, thus providing the crucial link between the concrete image of the martyrs’ rose-scented blood and Hildegard’s invocation of the Incarnation as predestined “before all time” in the divine “eternal counsel.” The martyrs’ “joys supreme” are the beatific vision, their union with and reward for imitating the bloodied but Risen Christ, in whose central redemptive act God “chose us [and them] before the foundation of the world” (Ephesians 1:4: elegit nos in ipso ante mundi constitutionem). It is by that participation in the eternal that their rose-like wounds can exude the aromatic fragrance of Christ’s presence both within and outside of time.

Hildegard’s attempt to describe that timeless and “eternal counsel” (Ps. 32[33]:11) also fumbles through an awkward set of expressions in the respondendum, which literally reads, “in him in whom there was no foundation from the head.” The phrasing was likely triggered by that verse in Ephesians—yet Hildegard strives to go beyond it to express that fact that, though the world has an establishment and framework (constitutio) with a beginning or source (a capite), the one in whom the world has that establishment and beginning is himself without beginning or establishment. Christ is the foundation and the head not only of the Church but, by analogy, of all creation—or rather, as Hildegard describes in her exegesis of of Genesis 1 in Liber Divinorum Operum II.1.17-42, the Church is the final and fulfilled reflection of that primal constitution.

The seeming inelegance of the refrain’s phrasing reflects the same roughshod difficulties that Hildegard faced in the antiphon, Laus Trinitati, where her attempts to express the practically inexpressible in her unpolished Latin often leave her anxiously fumbling through several metaphors and half-formed images. In this responsory, we see one way in which her poetry can vault that hurdle, by employing images that elastically connect the universal and particular. This symbolist mode of thinking allows the concrete images of rose, blood, perfume, and gushing wave to coexist in this responsory with the abstract notion of an unfounded and eternal source from which those concrete images flow.

Such a powerful yet fluid linkage between outer and inner world, concrete image and spiritual reality also allowed Hildegard—in a tradition stretching back to the late antique foundations of monasticism—to see the virgin monastic as the true heir to the martyr’s imitation of Christ. As with so many of the pieces of the celestial symphony in the final vision of Scivias, this responsory connects its particular addressee—the martyrs—to the order of virgins to which Hildegard belonged. Its language is redolent of her description in Scivias II.5.13 of the brightest burning light encircling the figure of the Church:

This symbolizes the perfection of those who imitate the Passion of My Son in the ardor of their love and strongly adorn the Church with their self-restraint. How? Because they are the high building of the growing treasury of the divine counsel [in divino consilio]. For when the Church was invigorated and grew stronger, to increase her beauty there came forth a living fragrance [vivens odor], vowing the way of secret regeneration. What does this mean? That there then arose the wonderful order, which attained to My Son in the beauty of His example; for as My Son came into the world separated from the common people, so this army lives in the world separated from the rest of the people. This people first arose individually in the desert and in hiding, as balsam sweetly oozes from the tree, and then grew into a great multitude, as the tree extends its branches. And I blessed and sanctified this people, for they are to Me the lovely flowers of roses and lilies [amantissimi flores rosarum et lilioroum], which grow in the fields without human labor.^[1]

The same cryptic lyricism that characterizes the responsory above is also found in this passage, as Hildegard employs unique images to describe the monastic life—so much so that the translators of this passage added bracketed glosses, to explain that “a living fragrance” means the monks, and “vowing the way of secret regeneration” their religious profession.

Finally, the blooming, bloodied rose of Christ’s passion and those who imitate it recalls the woman who, above all others in the Middle Ages, was associated with the rose, its thorns pricking her heart as she gazed upon her crucified Son: the Virgin Mother Mary. The flower was, unsurprisingly, one of Hildegard’s favorite images for the Virgin (in e.g. Ave generosa or O virga ac diadema); but her more unusual connection to this responsory for martyrs is in the role she shares with them as an instrumentum, as seen in the responsory, O clarissima. As they roll forth as perfumed waves in the wounds of their blood (in vulneribus vestri sanguinis undatis) to water the Church, they echo the Virgin’s role as an “instrument of life” spreading the sweet perfume of the medicinal balm that she poured forth out of her womb—the very same redemption “that flowed from th’ inmost heart of counsel kept before all time,” redolent with the sweet aroma of the blood of Christ and his passionate imitators.

Transcription and Music Notes
by Beverly Lomer

Mode: C
Range: G below the final to G an octave and a fifth above
Setting: neumatic with some melismas, one lengthy melisma

Tonal markers in this piece include C and G, the fifth above the final. Vos flores rosarum differs from many of Hildegard’s C-mode pieces, however, in that there are no signed flats on B in either manuscript source. The actual “modal” intent of Hildegard’s C pieces is not always clear, as the presence of the Bb might be an indication of transposition. Here, the absence of the Bb might indicate a true use of C as the final in its own right, with the G as secondary tone.

The first statement is an extended salutation, as indicated by the use of G as a secondary stopping point, finally ending completely on C after beati estis. The transcription includes a tick barline after vestri on p. 1, line 3, as a possible breathing/phrasing point which accords with the text.

Because C and G function as such obvious grammatical markers in this responsory, the phrasing in general is fairly straightforward. Some lines that begin with C and end on G (as transcribed) can be considered to continue until the next cadence on C, though this can make for phrases that stretch across several lines and may be too long to be sung on a single breath. In some cases, as for example at the end of line 6 on p. 1 (gaudiis), a tick barline has been inserted to indicate the appropriate phrasal ending. In others, the decision is left to the singer or reader.

The long melisma at the end of the respondenum (p. 3, on a capite) has been divided after the pitch G, and the second line begins on C. This break seems to fit best with Hildegard’s musical grammar.

The large number of differences between the manuscripts has necessitated the frequent use of multiple annotations and ossia staves.

Further Resources for Vos flores rosarum

• Hildegard of Bingen, Symphonia, ed. Barbara Newman (Cornell Univ. Press, 1988 / 1998), pp. pp. 172-3 and 288-9.
• For a discography of this piece, see the comprehensive list by Pierre-F. Roberge: Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179) - A discography

Footnotes

^[1] Adapted from Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias, trans. Mother Columba Hart and Jane Bishop (New York: Paulist Press, 1990), p. 209; Latin text from the edition of Adelgundis Führkötter and Angela Carlevaris, CCCM 43 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1978), pp. 186-7. ↩

O victoriosissimi triumphatores

Psalm antiphon for Martyrs (D 163r-v, R 470ra, Scivias III.13.4b) Back to Table of Contents
by Hildegard of Bingen

O victoriosissimi triumphatores, qui in effusione sanguinis vestri salutantes edificationem ecclesie, intrastis sanguinem Agni, epulantes cum vitulo occiso: O quam magnam mercedem habetis, quia corpora vestra viventes despexistis, imitantes Agnum Dei, ornantes penam eius, in qua vos introduxit in restaurationem hereditatis.

O victors in your triumph! Your blood poured out, you hail the building of the Church— for you have entered in the Lamb’s own blood, and now enjoy the feast with the slaughtered calf. How great is your reward! Your living bodies you’ve despised in imitation of God’s Lamb— his pain you take as glory, for through it he has brought you to your inheritance restored!

Latin collated from the transcription of Beverly Lomer and the edition of Barbara Newman; translation by Nathaniel M. Campbell.

Commentary: Themes and Theology
by Nathaniel M. Campbell

Scivias III.13:
Heavenly Symphony.
Rupertsberg MS, fol. 229r

This is one of two pieces addressed to the Choir of Martyrs in the final vision of Hildegard’s Scivias (III.13). In the illustration of this celestial symphony in the Rupertsberg manuscript, the roundel that contains the choir of martyrs appears in the lower left, beneath that of the patriarchs and prophets—as they had foretold the coming of the Lamb of God (cf. John the Baptist’s cry in John 1:29), so the martyrs followed that Lamb to the slaughter. As Barbara Newman notes (Symphonia, p. 208), the Tertullianic dictum, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church,” had become commonplace by the Middle Ages, and this antiphon joyously celebrates their role in building the Church with the shedding of their blood, whereafter they entered into the eternal feast of the Lamb as their reward.

Scivias III.13.5a
Riesenkodex, fol. 133ra.

The imagery in the first half of the antiphon is, in fact, quite fluid, because of the indefinite placement of the two participles, salutantes and epulantes, and the finite verb, intrastis. The textual phrasing given above, with edificationem ecclesie the object of salutantes and sanguinem Agni the object of intrastis, is based on the punctuation for this antiphon’s text in the Riesenkodex, as it appears in Scivias III.13.5a (fol. 133ra, shown at left), which marks a phrasal break after ecclesie. However, as Beverly Lomer notes below, the musical grammar does not in any way support this phrasal break. Instead, if we are guided by the musical structure, one striking image—of entering into the Lamb’s blood—gives way to another—of feasting upon that blood:

O victoriosissimi triumphatores, qui in effusione sanguinis vestri salutantes, edificationem ecclesie intrastis, sanguinem Agni epulantes cum vitulo occiso.

O victors in your triumph! Saluting with the shedding of your blood, you've entered the building of the Church, feasting upon the blood of the Lamb as with the slaughtered calf.

Both the “slaughtered calf” and the “restoration of the inheritance” recall the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32)—the calf was prepared for the feast when the son returned home repentant, a sign of his restoration to his forgiving father. Indeed, Hildegard connects the two concepts musically by setting vitulo and restaurationem hereditatis to lengthy melismas that first reach the piece’s highest pitch before cascading down the scale. The connection becomes clearer in Hildegard’s exegesis of this parable in Scivias III.1.5, where she uses it to illustrate the journey of repentance:

As the Scripture says in the Gospel, the younger son said, “I will arise and go to my father and say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before you, and am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me as one of your hired servants’” [Luke 15:18]. This is to say: A person who, admonished by the Holy Spirit, comes to himself after a fall into sin says, “I want to rise up from the unendurable sins whose heavy guilt I can no longer bear. I will retrace my steps in memory, lamenting and sorrowing over my sins, until I come to my Father, Who is my Father because he created me. And I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against Heaven, wronging the celestial work that is myself; You formed me by Your will, and touched me in creating me, so that I should be only celestial in my deeds, but I have belittled myself by shameful actions. And I have sinned before You, because I have forsaken the humanity of my nature. (…)

“‘But now, let me be as Your servant, redeemed at the price of Your Son’s blood. You gave Him at a price so great that not even death can ever repay it; but that price allows penitence to arise from Your Son’s Passion, and so sets sinners free. I have lost my rightful inheritance as a child of Adam, for he, who was created a son in justice, was stripped of that joyful glory; but now the blood of Your Son and penitence have redeemed the sins of humanity.’”^[1]

What is the connection between this desperate confession of repentance and the glories of the martyrs celebrated in today’s antiphon? In the vision whose explication contains this exegetical confession of the repentant sinner, Hildegard saw the human person clutched at God’s breast, “something like black and filthy muck [limum nigrum et lutulentum], as big as a human heart, surrounded with precious stones and pearls” (Scivias III.1). These “precious stones” represent the saints, whose beauty aids the penitent on their journey:

They are surrounded by ornaments [ornamentis], those great ones who rise up among them: martyrs and holy virgins like precious stones, and innocent and penitent children of redemption like pearls; so that by them the mire [of their sins] is surpassingly adorned, and the virtues, which so gloriously shine in God, shine also in the human body.
     —Scivias III.1.4

In the antiphon above, the shedding of the martyr’s blood joins with the punishment and pain (penam) endured by the Lamb as the glorious adornments of the City of God—the gems that form its foundation and walls, as described in Apocalypse 21. Moreover, Hildegard perceived the restoration of “the inheritance lost in Adam” as one especially of the restoration of music, the symphony that resounds in those jeweled walls, including this song of celebration for the martyr’s victory:

He poured out His beautiful blood and knew in His body the darkness of death. And thus conquering the Devil, he delivered from Hell his elect, who were held prostrate there, and by His redeeming touch brought them back to the inheritance they had lost in Adam [ad hereditatem…reduxit]. As they were returning to their inheritance, timbrels and harps and all kinds of music burst forth, because humankind, who had lain in perdition but now stood upright in blessedness, had been freed by heavenly power and escaped from death.
     —Scivias II.1.13

When the martyrs pour out their own blood in imitation of Christ, the two streams seem to commingle sacramentally in the heavenly feast shared at the altar. The martyr’s act of imitation makes him into an agent of divine grace, a conduit for the redeeming power of the blood into which he has now entered. What makes Hildegard’s treatment of this sacramental and liturgical act unique is its musicality, for the “new song” of the heavenly Jerusalem that rang out when Adam’s inheritance had been restored to the children of earth echoed the resounding cry of Christ’s own blood upon the Cross, as Hildegard evocatively described in the antiphon, O cruor sanguinis. Finally, this is the “new song” that she and her nuns offer in divine praise, for their virginal sacrifice of the desires of the flesh was the counterpart to the martyr’s sacrifice of his flesh (cf. Scivias II.5, discussed in the Commentary on the antiphon for St. John, O speculum columbe). This fundamental connection between martyr and virgin allows Hildegard to assimilate the martyr’s participation in the heavenly court to her own order of virgins, as she articulated for them a preeminent place in the Church’s hierarchy—in the Rupertsberg Scivias illustration above, the roundel of the Choir of Virgins appears in the middle of the other five human choirs.

Transcription and Music Notes
by Beverly Lomer

E mode
Range: A below the final to G an octave and a third above final
Setting: syllabic, neumatic, and some melismas

The antiphon opens with the salutation, O victoriosissimi triumphatores, broken into two segments, each outlined by the final E. Each subsequent small phrase is grammatically demarcated by E. On the first page of the transcription, in the interest of readablility, long phrases have been continued across multiple lines in lines 5 and 6 (edificationem ecclesie intrastis) and 8-10 (epulantes cum vitulo occiso).

Although textual evidence places a break between ecclesie and intrastis (see comments by Nathaniel Campbell above), the melodic line contains no such break, as the pitch D is not used as a grammatical indicator in this piece. In addition, the melody on sanguinem agni is also quite clearly marked out as a sense unit by the modal final, making it impossible to group intrastis with it. It is possible that the musical grammar reflects Hildegard’s original sense of the textual units, but that by the time the Riesenkodex was produced in the 1170’s, the interpretation had shifted. Singers are free, of course, to group the units as they prefer.

The next segment, epulantes cum vitulo occiso, can also be regarded as a single lyrical and musical thought. The tick barline that appears after occiso should be regarded as the completion of the entire unit. If it is too long to sing, then the best break would be at the end of epulantes.

Readers will notice that B becomes a phrase marker in the second half of the antiphon. This is not unusual, as it is the fifth of the mode and hence can bear this function.

The doxology appears only in D and in the margin next to the staff. It is not possible to know for certain what pitches are intended. I opted to transcribe literally, but the pitches seem unlikely for the mode.

Further Resources for O victoriosissimi triumphatores

• Hildegard of Bingen, Symphonia, ed. Barbara Newman (Cornell Univ. Press, 1988 / 1998), pp. 170 and 288.
• For a discography of this piece, see the comprehensive list by Pierre-F. Roberge: Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179) - A discography

Footnotes

^[1] All quotes from Scivias adapted from the translation of Mother Columba Hart and Jane Bishop (New York: Paulist Press, 1990); Latin text ed. A. Führkötter and A. Carlevaris, CCCM 43-43a (Turnhout: Brepols, 1978). ↩

O dulcis electe

Responsory for St. John the Evangelist [Dec. 27] (D 161v-162r, R 469vb-470ra Back to Table of Contents
by Hildegard of Bingen

R. O dulcis electe, qui in ardore ardentis effulsisti, radix, et qui in splendore Patris elucidasti mistica, et qui intrasti cubiculum castitatis in aurea civitate quam construxit rex, cum accepit sceptrum regionum: R. Prebe adiutorium peregrinis. V. Tu enim auxisti pluviam precessoribus tuis, qui miserunt illam in viriditate pigmentariorum. R. Prebe adiutorium peregrinis.

R. O chosen sweet, inflamed by Flame you gleamed, a root, and in the Father’s radiance you beamed the mysteries, and went into the bed of chastity within the golden City, constructed by the King when he received the scepter of the lands: R. To pilgrims lend your aid. V. For you have swelled the rain together with your predecessors, who cast it with the spicers’ viridity. R. To pilgrims lend your aid.

Latin collated from the transcription of Beverly Lomer and the edition of Barbara Newman; translation by Nathaniel M. Campbell.

Commentary: Themes and Theology
by Nathaniel M. Campbell

This responsory for St. John complements the imagery of its companion antiphon, O speculum columbe especially in its treatment of John’s special vocation—shared by Hildegard and her nuns—as a virgin contemplative. Like that antiphon, its opening is structured around three images, here arranged into three relative clauses (qui…): a gleaming root set aflame by the flaming Son; a mirroring beam of the Father’s mysteries; and the virgin’s destined home with that Son, the shining Lamb at the center of the New Jerusalem (Revelation 21:23). The pilgrims for whom the repetendum seeks John’s aid are the virgin nuns, making their way along the pilgrimage road of this life to the royal bedchamber in the golden City of God, where they will recline (as John did at the Last Supper) with their Bridegroom, Christ. (The bridal imagery returns in Hildegard’s compositions for virgins, especially the antiphon, O pulcre facies, and the “symphony,” O dulcissime amator.)

The burning heat and flame (ardore) of that virginal eroticism espoused to Christ, the Flame burning with love (ardentis), also connects to the sunlight of O speculum columbe—the paradox of seething passion sublimated into sweet repose, a classic move of twelfth-century monastic devotional literature. The imagery of light, gleaming and beaming (effulsisti…elucidasti), also connects this piece to Hildegard’s compositions for the prophets (O spectabiles viri and O vos felices radices). John’s sweet election is to be ingrafted into the root of light, knowledge, and being itself, to become a conduit (we might think of a fiber-optic cable) for Christ, the true Light declared in the prologue of his Gospel (John 1:9). This office of shining beacon and mirror of God is shared by all God’s chosen prophets and servants—in Hildegard’s typology, a line stretching from Adam to herself:

For with divine strength, prophecy began in God’s first work—Adam—throughout the time when the old law appeared with its harshness and then came to an end with the advent of the ardor of justice and truth. Prophecy has thus shown from generation to generation through the various ages of humankind, like a light in the darkness (John 1:5), and it will not rest from its sound until the world’s ending, offering words of multivalent signification because it is imbued with diverse mysteries by the Holy Spirit’s inspiration. For prophecy exists in humankind like the soul in the body, because as the soul is hidden within the body and the body is governed by it, so prophecy that comes from the spirit of God, who excels all creation, is invisible, and by it every failure is reproached and all who leave the path of righteousness are led back.
(…)
The prophets indeed had said that the woman who was to give birth ought to come forth from the act of charity, like the branch from the root of Jesse (Isaiah 11:1)—and they all ascribed this virginal birth to the King, the Son of God. For when this woman enclosed the Son of God and humans saw and heard him in the likeness of their own image, they loved him more than if they had not seen him—for what humans see in shadow they cannot know in fullness. So too when the prophets spoke in the sound of shadow, they often passed through as if in shadow those things that nevertheless were all afterwards rendered in solid form among humans, because prophecy’s sound proceeds from the hidden mysteries of divinity.
     —Liber Divinorum Operum III.2.2-3^[1]

This combination of truth-revealing light and sound shines with echoes in Hildegard’s compositions for the apostles, O cohors milicie and O lucidissima apostolorum turba, precisely because proclaiming the Light is the Church’s mission. It is thus also a characteristic feature of Hildegard’s own synaesthetic visionary and prophetic experience—and so she invokes John’s visionary and contemplative gift when she describes “the extraordinary mystical vision” that provoked the writing of the Liber Divinorum Operum:

It was as if the inspiration of God were sprinkling drops of sweet rain into my soul’s knowing, the very same with which the Spirit instructed John the Evangelist when he drank in from the breast of Jesus the most profound of revelations. His sense at that time were so touched by the sacred Divinity that he revealed hidden mysteries and works, saying, “In the beginning was the Word…” (John 1:1), etc.
     —Vita S. Hildegardis (“Life of St. Hildegard”), II.16^[2]

These are the very same drops of rain celebrated in this responsory’s verse, as the beaming root bursts into bloom “with the spicers’ viridity” (in virditate pigmentariorum). The garden imagery (again recalled from O speculum columbe) is, in the literal sense, of the specialist’s herbarium or perhaps even apothecary, where one cultivates those particular plants renowned for their perfumes, spices, or special pigments (the range of meanings associated with pigmentum). But as with all of her natural images, Hildegard always has ready a spiritual extension—in this case, the spice-maker (pigmentarius) is her special term for bishops and priests, who produce the healing chrism and fragrant balm with which to anoint sinners for salvation:

The apostolic teaching shone around the head of the Church when the apostles first began to build her up by their preaching; moving through different places, they collected workers who would strengthen her in the Catholic faith and make themselves into priests and bishops and all the ecclesiastical orders (…). Therefore, the chrism-makers [pigmentarii] conform to that teaching (…). What does this mean? That [the apostles’] followers, who took their places, faithfully traverse streets and farms and cities and other places, regions and lands, carrying the health-giving chrisms [saluberrima pigmenta] and announcing the divine law to the people. (…) For they have this office that they may openly serve the bread of life to the people.
     —Scivias II.5.1^[3]

This description of the Church’s ministers as pigmentarii comes at the opening of the very same vision in Scivias that later centers on the order of virgins to which Hildegard and her nuns belonged, gleaming and beaming at the heart of Mother Church, singing the new song of the heavenly Jerusalem that John the Divine described in Revelation 14 (as discussed in the Commentary on O speculum columbe). St. John’s sweet rain nourished the Promised Land of the Church to spring forth the choicest blooms, redolent with salvific fragrance, shining like gemstones in the golden City’s walls (cf. Revelation 21) to declare the True Light (cf. John 1:8-9), and resounding with the Word’s purest voice.

Transcription and Music Notes
by Beverly Lomer

E mode
Range: A below the final to C above
Setting: Combination melismas, neumatic, and syllabic settings

This work is primarily organized by the final, E. The transcription phrasing follows the musical structure. The Verse departs somewhat from the grammatical punctuation by the final and employs the C below and the G above as tonal markers.

In those cases where phrases are too long to be fit on a single line, they are continued, and a tick barline has been placed at the conclusion. In some cases, singers might opt to phrase differently while keeping essentially within the outline by E. For example, the salutation, O dulcis electe, is quite long, and one might elect to separate out each of the words or to group as: O / dulcis electe.

Lines 7 and 8 on page 1 of the transcription contain four segments, each outlined by the final (et qui in splendore / patris elucidasti / mistica / et qui intrasti), which might be combined or separated differently. In particular, one could follow the textual syntax and begin One could also, a line with the final segment, et qui intrasti. Hildegard sometimes goes to the note below the final to initiate a phrase with a conjunction, such as et. However, in this case, the melody does not immediately move to the final, as it generally does when she employs this strategy. Intrasti also ends similarly to the line above (elucidasti), while the melody on cubiculum begins similarly to the other opening statements on et qui in splendore and mistica. The phrasing in the transcription thus preserves these musical structures, even when in conflict with the textual structures. (See the introductory article on the Music page on Hildegard’s use of rhetorical strategy, including repetition of beginning and ending phrases, for more information.)

The repetendum is indicated at the end of the piece by the repetition of Prebe, as per the manuscript sources.

Further Resources for O eterne Deus

• Hildegard of Bingen, Symphonia, ed. Barbara Newman (Cornell Univ. Press, 1988 / 1998), pp. 168 and 287-8.
• For a discography of this piece, see the comprehensive list by Pierre-F. Roberge: Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179) - A discography

Footnotes

^[1] Liber diuinorum operum III.2-3: Latin text ed. A. Derolez and P. Dronke, CCCM 92 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1996), pp. 355-6; trans. Nathaniel M. Campbell, in St. Hildegard of Bingen, The Book of Divine Works (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, forthcoming). On this “treatise on prophecy” in the context of Hildegard’s own vocation, see Bernard McGinn, “‘Trumpets of the Mysteries of God’: Prophetesses in Late Medieval Christianity,” pp. 125-42, esp. 127-9, in Propheten und Prophezeiungen—Prophets and Prophecies, ed. Matthias Ridel and Tilo Schabert (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2005). ↩
^[2] Trans. by Anna Silvas in Jutta & Hildegard: The Biographical Sources (Brepols, 1998; Pennsylvania State Pres, 1999), p. 179; Latin text ed. Monika Klaes, Vita Sanctae Hildegardis—Leben der heiligen Hildegard (Fontes Christiani, Bd. 29; Herder, 1998), p. 172: “Et de Dei inspiratione in scientiam anime mee quasi gutte suavis pluvie spargebantur, quia et Spiritus sanctus Iohannem evagnelistam imbuit, cum de pectore Iesu profundissimam revelationem suxit, ubi sensus ipsius sancta divinitate ita tactus est, quod absconsa mysteria et opera aperuit, ‘In principio,’ inquiens, ‘erat verbum’ etc.” ↩
^[3] Scivias II.5.1: trans. Mother Columba Hart and Jane Bishop (Paulist Press, 1994), pp. 202-3; Latin text in the edition of Führkötter and Carlevaris, CCCM 43 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1978), pp. 177-8. ↩