“Wisdom also distributes in this reflected shadow all things equal in measure, so that one thing should not exceed another in weight, nor should one thing be able to move another contrary to its nature. For she overcomes and restrains every wicked plot of the devil because she existed before all evils began and after their ending, she shall remain, strong in her power, and nothing can stand against her. ” This is a beginning of a paragraph that the first image says to St.Hildegard of Bingen after she sees a vision of three images standing in a fountain with a cloud of saints over them. Although the text is mainly about the unification of Hildegard with God, this part of the text is good reading in understanding the idea of wisdom in the middle ages. While the former is an explanation of why Hildegard lived such a conventional life, the latter is a clear guide in understanding wisdom as part of the Spirit of God that is eternal and in understanding wisdom as part of a balance of nature.
“Wisdom” in the common meaning refers to the experience, knowledge or good judgment (wiki) in a person. Within the context, however, Wisdom is a persona that is part of God. It is equally distributed and has power beyond all things. “She has never called upon any for help, nor has she lacked for anything, for she is the first and last.” The final words of this sentence give us a quality of Wisdom, which is that Wisdom is the beginning of everything, like the Arche, and also the end of everything. In this sense, we can take out the meaning that a Neo-Platonist would take out: everything comes from Wisdom, everything will return to Wisdom. However, the problem in this is that Hildegard’s vision does not include only Wisdom as that which is distributed by the Spirit of God. The problematic situation is clear: how can Wisdom exist before and after everything, when it is a part of something else?
If we look at the word ‘wisdom’ concerning the eternity of knowledge, “Sapientia” is the only thing that survives death. It is eternal, unlike all other things, including the earth itself. In this sense, the text also relates to “The Consolation of Philosophy”; where the Lady Philosophy console Boethius by saying that even though he has lost everything, that which remains is his knowledge, i.e., his wisdom. If we look at what comes right after this passage, Wisdom is personified as a figure, which brings out prophets into the world. The prophets here could be the philosophers of the age, but in this case, it seems to be Hildegard herself, because she is the one who has a vision in which God speaks to her in various images and tells her what to say to the people so that they may find salvation. In this context, Wisdom becomes a guide to have in living a life filled with the Spirit of God Such a living, in the Middle Ages, is a life that would be vitreous and significant.
Another vital aspect of Wisdom in this text is that it is that which keeps the balance of nature. It is distributed as such that “one thing should not exceed another in weight.” If we look at what is not written, we can read the importance of balance being emphasized in these lines. A balance was an important thing to have in the Middle Ages, It was so important, that those who had problems either physically or psychologically were considered as sick people, or, in other words, people with imbalance. Hildegard’s vision, here, is a clear-cut guide into how to attain balance. By having the harmony within oneself- achieved through knowledge and possibly through the unification of church, a person can achieve balance. The idea of Wisdom, in the text, presents us a new way of looking into the visions of Hildegard. It allows the reader to go beyond the very literal and even figurative meaning of the word ‘wisdom’ into the anagogical and sometimes the topological meaning. Wisdom, in the anagogical meaning, refers to the balance of nature with which a person receives eternity. In the topological meaning, wisdom refers to refers to a part of the Spirit of God that is distributed, so having it would mean that a person has a part of the Spirit of God. This is also evidence that men were created as the ‘image of God.’