Voxmea and the voice of God: fides quae y fides qua en la Vida de Santa Oria de Berceo

Abstract

In the first vision of Berceo’s Vida de Santa Oria, in which Oria’s soul is transported in a journey through Heavenly Paradise, we find an enigmatic figure, a young woman called Voxmea, who orders Oria to come back down to earth and prophesies to her that if she is able to keep living virtuously and to avoid sin she will return to Heaven after her death to take possession of a rich golden chair destined for her. This article intends to interprete Voxmea as an allegory of a particular kind of objective faith and belief corresponding to Augustinian cathegories of fides quae and credere Deo, and opposing to another type of subjective and loving faith and belief named fides qua and credere in Deum.