Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.31823/d.34.1.1
Quasi fenestraliter – Notion of God’s Mysteries in Selected Works by Saint Hildegard of Bingen
Marija-Ana Dürrigl
orcid.org/0000-0002-7715-1953
; Old Church Slavonic Institute, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The paper analyses distinctive images, an original syntagm and a lexical neologism as illustrations of Hildegard of Bingen’s literary style and hermeneutical approach. She uses vivid imagery to place the familiar into an unusual setting, thereby imbuing it with new spiritual and moral nuances of meaning. The relation between the material world and the transcendental is evoked by the window metaphor (it both reveals and conceals), by the original phrase fenestralia loca, and by the neologism fenestraliter. The interpretation of that word is limited as it is Hildegard’s invention and a hapax legomenon. It does, however, indicate that God’s mysteries can only be sensed, because sin has distanced humans from God and the fullness of comprehension. In His mercy, however, God opens particular fenestralia loca which humans must continually seek and consider as instructions for a virtuous life. Thus humans can fulfill their duty as God’s collaborators and take an active part in God’s work on Earth
Keywords
Saint Hildegard of Bingen; medieval literature; theology; vision; letter; neologism; hermeneutics
Hrčak ID:
347400
URI
Publication date:
26.5.2026.
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