Thanks for all the suppositions thus far. I've done a bit further reading
through a translation of Hildegard I have here looking for her specific
reference to these spices, but I can find none. I did happen upon some
observations regarding the Flood; she makes several remarks to the effect
that the world was a different place before the Flood: " . . . the water
before the Flood was not so swift in its passage nor so fluid as it
afterward was. But it was as if it had a kind of covering over it that held
it back somewhat and so it flowed little by little. And the earth was not
clayey but dry and friable, since it was not yet perfused by the water"
(Flanagan, Secrets of God, 107). Could there have been a belief that these
miraculous spices were available to humanity in this "different" world that
existed before the Flood, but were subsequently covered by the waters? I
usually think of any such treasures as being taken away with the expulsion
from paradise, but this idea jumped out at me as I was reading the text.
The study in which the spices were mentioned is by Heinrich Schipperges, at
the University of Heidelberg. Does anyone know him or a way we might
contact him to ask this question?
Ron Ganze
CSULB
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