Divinity is in its omniscience and omnipotence like a wheel, a circle, a whole, that can neither be understood, nor divided, nor begun nor ended.

Hildegard of Bingen

Like a Circle

Topic: The Natural World

It is important to Hildegard that God be imaged essentially as curved and circular. This is an ancient tradition wherever women’s religions are allowed their say: the Divinity as circle, or circle in motion, that is, spiral. Hildegard writes elsewhere: “A wheel was shown to me, wonderful to behold. Divinity is in its omniscience and omnipotence like a wheel, a circle, a whole, that can neither be understood, nor divided, nor begun nor ended.” And again, “just as a circle embraces all that is within it, so does the Godhead embrace all.

Hildegard of Bingen

Hildegard of Bingen OSB (1098 – 17 September 1179), also known as Saint Hildegard and Sibyl of the Rhine, was a German Benedictine abbess, writer, composer, philosopher, Christian mystic, visionary, and polymath. She is considered to be the founder of scientific natural history in Germany.
Hildegard was elected magistra by her fellow nuns in 1136; she founded the monasteries of Rupertsberg in 1150 and Eibingen in 1165. One of her works as a composer, the Ordo Virtutum, is an early example of liturgical drama and arguably the oldest surviving morality play. She wrote theological, botanical, and medicinal texts, as well as letters, liturgical songs, and poems, while supervising miniature illuminations in the Rupertsberg manuscript of her first work, Scivias. She is also noted for the invention of a constructed language known as Lingua Ignota.
[From Wikipedia]

(1098-1179) Christianity

Fox, Matthew. Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen. Simon and Schuster.

Hildegard of Bingen

Matthew Fox, Hildegard of Bingen

Hildegard understands this mandala to represent the Divine Trinity. “One light, three persons, one God,” she declares. It is important to Hildegard that God be imaged essentially as curved and circular. This is an ancient tradition wherever women’s religions are allowed their say: the Divinity as circle, or circle in motion, that is, spiral. Hildegard writes elsewhere: “A wheel was shown to me, wonderful to behold. Divinity is in its omniscience and omnipotence like a wheel, a circle, a whole, that can neither be understood, nor divided, nor begun nor ended.” And again, “just as a circle embraces all that is within it, so does the Godhead embrace all.”

The imagery of God as circle, God that embraces all, that encompasses all, is deeply maternal. “Godhead,” which is feminine in both Latin and German, is an all-embracing name for divinity. We celebrate here the curved and all-encompassing power of God. Yet we also celebrate God’s nearness, for Hildegard also says: “God hugs you. You are encircled by the arms of the mystery of God.” Thus God’s power is not an abstract power or a vengeful power but a maternal, loving, and deeply personal power. It is a compassionate power. This power cannot in the long run be excluded from our lives or from our universe. For “no one has the power to divide this circle, to surpass it, or to limit it.”

Additional Hildegard of Bingen Quotes

“Just as a circle embraces all that is within it,

So does the God-head embrace all.

No one has the power to divide this Circle,

To surpass it,

Or to limit it.”

—Hildegard of Bingen. [Fox, Matthew. Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen.]

“God hugs you. You are encircled by the arms of the mystery of God.”

—Hildegard of Bingen [Fox, Matthew. Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen.]

Like a Circle

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