There is another cosmic theory, the advent of which to her country, or at least to her circle, can be approximately dated from her work. Hildegard exhibits in a pronounced but peculiar and original form the doctrine of the macrocosm and microcosm. Hardly distinguishable in the _Scivias_ (1141-50), it appears definitely in the _Liber Vitae Meritorum_ (1158-62),[43] in which work, however, it takes no very prominent place, and is largely overlaid and concealed by other lines of thought. But in the _Liber Divinorum Operum_ (1163-70) this belief is the main theme. The book is indeed an elaborate attempt to demonstrate a similarity and relationship between the nature of the Godhead, the constitution of the universe, and the structure of man, and it thus forms a valuable compendium of the science of the day viewed from the standpoint of this theory. From whence did she derive the theory of macrocosm and microcosm? In outline its elements were easily accessible to her in Isidore’s _De Rerum Natura_ as well as in the Salernitan poems. But the work of Bernard Sylvestris of Tours, _De mundi universitate sive megacosmus et microcosmus_,[44] corresponds so closely both in form, in spirit, and sometimes even in phraseology, to the _Liber Divinorum Operum_ that it appears to us certain that Hildegard must have had access to it also. Bernard’s work can be dated between the years 1145-53 from his reference to the papacy of Eugenius III. This would correspond well with the appearance of his doctrines in the _Liber Vitae Meritorum_ (1158-62) and their full development in the _Liber Divinorum Operum_ (1163-70). Another contemporary writer with whom Hildegard presents points of contact is Hugh of St. Victor (1095-1141).[45] In his writings the doctrine of the relation of macrocosm and microcosm is more veiled than with Bernard Sylvestris. Nevertheless, his symbolic universe is on the lines of Hildegard’s belief, and the plan of his _De arca Noe mystica_ presents many parallels both to the _Scivias_ and to the _Liber Divinorum Operum_. If these do not owe anything directly to Hugh, they are at least products of the same mystical movement as were his works. We may also recall that at Hildegard’s date very complex cabalistic systems involving the doctrine of macrocosm and microcosm were being elaborated by the Jews, and that she lived in a district where Rabbinic mysticism specially flourished.[46] Benjamin of Tudela, who visited Bingen during Hildegard’s lifetime, tells us that he found there a congregation of his people. Since we know, moreover, that she was familiar with the Jews,[47] it is possible that she may have derived some of the very complex macrocosmic conceptions with which her last work is crowded from local Jewish students.