In this chapter I examine the means and purpose of separating the sacred from the non-sacred. I consider the point of entry to the Temple, a place of passage linking the numinous with the ordinary and enabling God to meet with his people. I begin by addressing the Virgin as a gateway mediating passage between heaven and earth in Gonzalo de Berceo's Milagros and Loores. I compare open and closed gates in theologians’ commentaries as well as in Hispanic liturgy.

Doorways and Entrances: Liminal Spaces in Gonzalo de Berceo's Poetry

Previous commentaries on the Loores rightly demonstrate that Gonzalo de Berceo began by providing an overview of salvation history. It has been noted how the overwhelming repetition of verbs in the second person creates this litany, turning the poem into both a ‘compendium historiae salutis’ and a ‘fons vitae’. Points of entry and points of exit play an important part in Berceo's writing and are found consistently among lists of biblical prefigurations of the Virgin. Among the Loores prefigurations is the gate in Ezekiel's vision: ‘La puerta bien cerrada que diz Eçechïel/ a ti significava que sempre fust fïel’:

First, he calls her ‘puerta bien cerrada’ (line 12a). He explains that the closed gateway signifies the Virgin because she was ‘fïel’ (line 12b). Her faithfulness to God means that she does not fail and her gate does not open to sin. The closed gate also points to her faithfulness to a vow of virginity. Falling into sin is equivalent to an open gateway for Gonzalo de Berceo.

He then links the gateway from Ezekiel's prophecy (Ezek. 44.2) to the conception and the birth of Christ: ‘por ti passó sennero el Sennor d’Israel’ (line 12c). With the word ‘sennero’ (line 12c), Berceo indicates that God alone gained entry to the closed womb of the Virgin, a closed gate, in order for her to become pregnant with the Son of God.