Perhaps the same may be said of the second vision of the second Book:[572]
“Then I saw a most glorious light and in it a human form of sapphire hue, all aflame with a most gentle glowing fire; and that glorious light was infused in the glowing fire, and the fire was infused in the glorious light; and both light and fire transfused that human form—all inter-existent as one light, one virtue, and one power.”
This vision of the Trinity, in which the glorious light is the Father, the human form is the Son, and the fire is the Holy Spirit, may remind the reader of the closing “vision” of the thirty-third canto of Dante’s Paradiso.
The third Book contains manifold visions of a four-sided edifice set upon a mountain, and built with a double (biformis) wall. Here an infinitude of symbolic detail illustrates the entire Christian Faith. Observe a part of the symbolism of the twofold wall: the wall is double (in duabus formis). One of its formae[573] is speculative knowledge, which man possesses through careful and penetrating investigation of the speculation of his mind; so that he may be circumspect in all his ways. The other forma of the wall represents the homo operans.
“This speculative knowledge shines in the brightness of the light of day, that through it men may see and consider their acts. This brightness is of the human mind carefully looking about itself; and this glorious knowledge appears as a white mist permeating the minds of the peoples, as quickly as mist is scattered through the air; it is light as the light of day, after the brightness of that most glorious work which God benignly works in men, to wit, that they shun evil and do the good which shines in them as the light of day.... This knowledge is speculative, for it is like a mirror (speculum) in which a man sees whether his face be fair or blotched; thus this knowledge views the good and evil in the deed done.”[574]
The Scivias closes with visions of the Last Judgment, splendid, ordered, tremendous, and rendered audible in hymns rising to the Virgin and to Christ. Apostles, martyrs, saints chant the refrains of victory which echo the past militancy of this faithful choir.
The visions of Elizabeth of Schönau and Hildegard of Bingen set forth universal dogmas and convictions. They show the action of the imaginative and rational faculties and the full use of the acquired knowledge possessed by the women to whom they came. Such visions spring from the mind—quite different are those born of love. Emotion dominates the latter; their motives are subjective; they are personal experiences having no clear pertinency to the lives of others. If the visions of Hildegard were object lessons, the blissful ecstasies of Mary of Ognies and Liutgard of Tongern were specifically their own, very nearly as the intimate consolation of a wife from a husband, or a lady from her faithful knight, would be that woman’s and none other’s.
One cannot say that there was no love of God before Jesus was born; still less that men had not conceived of God as loving them. Nevertheless in Jesus’ words God became lovable as never before, and God’s love of man was shown anew, and was anew set forth as the perfect pattern of human love. In Christ, God offered the sacrifice which afore He had demanded of Abraham: for “God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son.” That Son carried out the Father’s act: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend.” So men learned the final teaching: “God is love.”
A new love also was aroused by the personality of Jesus. Was this the love of God or love of man? Rather, it was such as to reveal the two as one. In Jesus’ teachings, love of God and love of man might not be severed: “As ye have done it unto one of the least of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” And the love which He inspired for himself was at once a love of man and love of God.[575] Think of that love, new in the world, with which, more than with her ointment or her tears, the woman who had been a sinner bathed the Master’s feet.