O Euchari in leta via

Sequence for St. Eucharius [Dec. 8] (R 476r) by Hildegard of Bingen Back to Table of Contents

1a. O Euchari, in leta via ambulasti ubi cum Filio Dei mansisti, illum tangendo et miracula eius que fecit videndo. 1b. Tu eum perfecte amasti cum sodales tui exterriti erant, pro eo quod homines erant, nec possibilitatem habebant bona perfecte intueri. 2a. Tu autem in ardenti amore plene caritatis illum amplexus es, cum manipulos preceptorum eius ad te collegisti. 2b. O Euchari, valde beatus fuisti cum Verbum Dei te in igne columbe imbuit, ubi tu quasi aurora illuminatus es, et sic fundamentum ecclesie edificasti. 3a. Et in pectore tuo choruscat dies in quo tria tabernacula supra marmoream columpnam stant in civitate Dei. 3b. Per os tuum Ecclesia ruminat vetus et novum vinum, videlicet poculum sanctitatis. 4a. Sed et in tua doctrina Ecclesia effecta est racionalis, ita quod supra montes clamavit ut colles et ligna se declinarent ac mamillas illius sugerent. 4b. Nunc in tua clara voce Filium Dei ora pro hac turba, ne in cerimoniis Dei deficiat, sed ut vivens holocaustum ante altare Dei fiat.

1a. O St. Eucharius, you walked upon the blessed way when with the Son of God you stayed— you touched the man and saw the wonders that he did. 1b. You loved him perfectly while your companions trembled, frightened by their mere humanity, they did not share the opportunity to gaze entirely upon the good. 2a. But you embraced him in the ardent love of fullest charity— the bundles of his sweet commands you gathered to yourself. 2b. O St. Eucharius, so deeply blessed you were when God’s Word drenched you in the fire of the dove— illumined like the dawn you laid the Church’s foundation. 3a. And in your breast burst forth the light of day— the gleam in which three tents upon the marble pillar stand within the City of our God. 3b. For through your mouth the Church can savor the wine both old and new— the cup of sanctity. 4a. Yet in your teaching, too, the Church embraced her rationality— her voice cried out above the peaks to call the hills and woods to be laid low and suck upon her breasts. 4b. Now in your crystal voice pray to the Son of God for this community, lest it should fail in serving God, but rather as a living sacrifice might burn before God’s altar.

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 sequence is one of two pieces that Hildegard wrote to celebrate St. Eucharius, the first bishop of Trier (for an introduction to St. Eucharius, see the notes for her responsory, O Euchari columba). As with many of her other compositions dedicated to saints, however, this one often reflects Hildegard’s own personality more than that of the saints themselves. In verse 1b, it is Eucharius’ intense and perfect love and devotion to the person of Christ that frees him from the fearful limitations that his mortal companions experience in trying to look upon the highest Good—reflective, perhaps, of the child-like joy and freedom from anxiety that Hildegard often reported feeling when bathed by the experience of the Living Light.^[1]

Verse 2b goes on to invoke several characteristically Hildegardian images and themes: Eucharius’ reception of the Holy Spirit’s dove-borne fire at Pentecost “drenches” (imbuit) him with the Word of God in the same way that Hildegard herself often described the flooding of her heart and mind with that same Word—both the second person of the Trinity and the Scriptures that were his revelation. That flooding fire then gleamed like the dawn—Hildegard’s favorite image for both the entrance of Christ’s light into the world in the Incarnation, the womb of his Virgin Mother in bearing that light of the sun, and the apostolic Mother Church’s mission to bring that light to all the world. Thus, Eucharius’ apostolic mission to lay the foundation of the Church in Trier is one of dawning light over the Mosel river.

Musical connections across the first two verses strengthen the Christological nature of his mission. The same melodic phrase is used for the words possibilitatem in Verse 1b (the ability to gaze upon Christ’s goodness) and ecclesie edificasti in Verse 2b (“you laid the Church’s [foundation]”). It was thus Eucharius' opportunity to see and experience the Son of God in the flesh that allowed him to be a founder of the Church. Similarly, the phrase cum verbum in the line 2 of Verse 2b departs from the parallel melody in Verse 2a and instead follows the melody of ubi cum filio from the second line of Verse 1a. The two phrases mirror each other in both meaning and music: Eucharius dwells with God’s Son in Verse 1a and then the Word of God imbues Eucharius with the fire of the dove in Verse 2a.

Hildegard’s symbolist mind, deeply imbued with every resonant image of Scripture impressed from years of monastic reading and prayer, leaps next from that dawn light to the light of the Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-8) in verse 3a, recalling also the inability of Eucharius’ companions to gaze fully upon that dazzling light. The three tents that Peter offered to build for the Transfigured Christ and his two mystical companions, Moses and Elijah, now gleam not on Mt. Tabor but upon a pillar in the heavenly City of God—the momentary Transfiguration of the Gospel now itself transformed into the eternal glory of the ascended Christ.

This marble pillar with its three tabernacles also recalls two tri-cornered pillars that appeared upon the Edifice of Salvation that Hildegard described in Part 3 of Scivias: the Pillar of the Word of God (Vision 4) and the Pillar of the Trinity (Vision 7). The former, near the northern corner of the Edifice, is the color of steel “with edges sharp as a sword” facing East, North, and South, which represent “the beginning of the knowledge of God through the divine Law;” “the gospel of My Son;” and “the profound and rich wisdom of the principal teachers (doctores), who through the fire of the Holy Spirit made known what was obscure in the Law and the prophets, and showed their fruition in the Gospels,” respectively (Scivias 3.4.6).^[2] Of the three phases of salvation history delineated by this pillar, St. Eucharius would have belonged to the radiance that Hildegard saw echoing from the northern to the southern edge, in which she “saw apostles, martyrs, confessors and virgins, and many other saints, walking in great joy”—the faces between the flames on the right half of the pillar in the image accompanying this vision in the Rupertsberg manuscript. He may also have joined that final edge of teachers, as the sequence celebrates his teaching as the foundational endowment of the Church at Trier. As Hildegard again describes the doctores in whose company she is now numbered:

They touched on the outward content of the Scriptures in the work of the Father’s goodness, and sweetly ruminated on their mystical significance. (…) As the Gospel was spread, the wisdom of the saints broadened; they burned in the Holy Spirit, seeking It in depth so as to find through It the deepening of their understanding of the Word of God, strengthened by the faith of the Christian people. And so the sense of the Scriptures that went froth from the mouth of the holy teachers broadened too.
     —Scivias 3.4.6 and .12

The second tri-cornered pillar appears at the west corner of the Edifice and represents the Trinity. The explication of this purple-black column with sharpened edges the color of steel relates the Trinity’s relationship to the course of salvation history and offers an extended and specific meditation on the apostolic mission of evangelization celebrated in this sequence devoted to the work of St. Eucharius. Each of this column’s razor-sharp edges cuts away a symbolic feature—dry straw, little wings, and decaying branches—that represent those who wander away from or reject the true knowledge of the Trinity—heretics, Jews, and pagans, respectively. The edges then become in ch. 7 the fire-producing flint-stone in an elaborate parable of God’s repeated mission of messengers and the violent, fiery punishment of those who dallied or failed. Of particular importance for today’s sequence in this parable’s explanation is the story it tells of Christ’s disciples and the early Church, ringing upon themes of fear and inadequacy, the coming of the Holy Spirit’s fire to remove that fear, and evangelization as the building of God’s city, founded upon his holy commandments:

But His disciples, while the Son was with them in the world in His body, were foolish and unknowing and unresponsive, slow to understand His words in the Spirit and to fulfill them in work. For they heard them only as in a dream; they were simple, timid and frightened, and had not yet been strengthened.
(…)
But after the Son of God had ascended to the Father, through the Son and according to His promise the Holy Spirit descended. (…) And because the apostles had been taught by the Son, the Holy Spirit bathed them in Its fire (in calore suo perfudit eos). (…) And the Holy Spirit took their human fear from them so ardently and so quickly that they became firm and not soft, and dead to all adversity that could befall them. (…)

And so, going forth, they made their way among the faithless people (…) and to these they announced the words of salvation and of the truth faith in Christ. (…) And they built the holy city of the commandments of God (sanctam civitatem praeceptorum Dei), thus rebuilding the city which that seducer the Devil had taken from them in Adam, and restored it to them in the faith that leads to salvation.
     —Scivias 3.7.7

The ministries of “this holy city of the commandments of God”—the Church—occupy Hildegard’s attention in the last three verses of the sequence above. In verse 3b, Eucharius’ preaching of the Word of God is received by the Church, which then ruminates upon it—literally chewing upon the words of Scripture spoken from his mouth to receive nourishment. Hildegard then adapts the image of the old and new wines from Matthew 9:17 to the Old and New Testaments, to unite the scriptural Word of God with the eucharistic Word received in the holy chalice of communion.

The next verse reveals Hildegard’s awareness of the seasonal place of St. Eucharius’ feast day, which always falls within Advent, by adapting images drawn from the prophecies of Isaiah. In particular, she evokes the voice crying out in the wilderness and from a high mountain of Isaiah 40:1-9, promising the coming of God unto Jerusalem when “every mountain and hill shall be made low” (Is 40:4)—but now, as Barbara Newman notes, the hills and woods are laying down to suckle at the breast of Mother Church, “who nurses the world with the milk of doctrine, inverting the messianic promise of Isaiah 60:16” (Newman, Symphonia, p. 302). In teaching the fulfillment of that promise, St. Eucharius helped “the Church to be made rational” (Ecclesia effecta est racionalis), to embrace the Reason at the root of the Incarnate Word.

Finally, the sequence petitions Eucharius’ prayers for the community of monks that continues the ministry of the Church in Trier that he had established centuries before—a petition that their service before God’s altar should be quickened into the living, burning sacrifice of true worship. Drawing again from Hildegard’s discussion of the pillar of the Trinity:

When the old rituals failed and the new holiness arose, the worship of the Holy Trinity was most plainly proclaimed; for it was openly believed that the Heavenly Father sent His Son, conceived by the Holy Spirit, into the world. And the Son sought the glory of His Father and not His own, and disclosed the profound consolation of the Holy Spirit, as had been foretold; and thus it was hidden on no side, but was proclaimed both to the faithful, who abode in God’s work, and to the unbelievers, who stood outside the faith.
     —Scivias 3.7.2

Transcription and Music Notes
by Beverly Lomer

Mode: E
Range: C below the final to E an octave above the final
Setting: syllabic with some pneumatic elements

In this sequence, Hildegard stays mainly true to the form of repeated melody on the versicles, but as is typical, she does sometimes stray from it, as well. The final E and the fifth serve as the primary tonal markers to begin and/or end phrases. She does also on occasion end phrases on G and open them with A; for example, see lines 4 and 5 on page one of the transcription.

Due to Hildegard’s approach to musical grammar, please consider the following phrasing options:

There is a tick barline after ambulasti on the second line of page 1 of the transcription, as some might prefer to create a longer phrase combining the first two lines as a single opening. It would be difficult to perform, perhaps; but a breath, not a full pause, could be taken after line one.

In 3a, there is a tick barline after dies on the first line of that verse. In quo begins similarly to ruminat on line two of verse 3b. Since beginning a phrase with an A/G figure has already been established, moving in quo to the next line makes sense. For purposes of clarity and not crowding the line, a barline has been employed rather than moving the notes to the following line.

Verses 4a and 4b are somewhat irregular. Because 4b uses the E/G figure regularly to open phrases, I have placed a tick barline after ecclesia on line two of 4a. This allows for the option to open the phrase either with A/G or with E/G.

This piece contains a number of compound neumes. Where the compound figure includes individually ligated neumes, slurs have been added. When there is a single pitch included with the compound neume, no slurs have been included, indicating most likely an articulation on the single note.

Further Resources for O Euchari in leta via

• Hildegard of Bingen, Symphonia, ed. Barbara Newman (Cornell Univ. Press, 1988 / 1998), pp. 208-10 and 301-302.
• For a discography of this piece, see the comprehensive list by Pierre-F. Roberge: Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179) - A discography

Footnotes

^[1] See especially her description of this in her famous letter 103r to Guibert of Gembloux, Letter 103r, trans. Baird and Ehrman, The Letters of Hildegard of Bingen, vol. 2 (Oxford Univ. Press, 1998), p. 24. ↩
^[2] Translation adapted from Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias, trans. Mother Columba Hart and Jane Bishop (Paulist Press, 1990); Latin text ed. Führkötter and Carlevaris, CCCM 43a (Turnhout: Brepols, 1978). ↩