The sixth vision is of the orders of celestial spirits, and harks back to the Celestial Hierarchy of Dionysius the Areopagite. In the height of the celestial secrets Hildegard sees a shining company of supernal spirits having as it were wings (pennas) across their breasts, and bearing before them a face like the human countenance, in which the look of man was mirrored. These are angels spreading as wings the desires of their profound intelligence; not that they have wings, like birds; but they quickly do the will of God in their desires, as a man flees quickly in his thoughts.[1] They manifest the beauty of rationality through their faces, wherein God scrutinizes the works of men. For these angels see to the accomplishment of the will of God in men; and then in themselves they show the actions of men.
Another celestial company was seen, also having as it were wings over their breasts, and bearing before them a face like the human countenance in which the image of the Son of Man shone as in a mirror. These are archangels contemplating the will of God in the desires of their own intelligences, and displaying the grace of rationality; they glorify the incarnate Word by figuring in their attributes the mysteries of the Incarnation. This vision, symbolizing the angelic intelligence, is consciously and rationally constructed.
Perhaps the same may be said of the second vision of the second Book:[2]
"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
