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Title: Diagrammatic Design and the Doctrine of the Trinity in Joachim of Fiore
Author(s): AMBRUS, Gábor
Journal: Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses
Volume: 90    Issue: 4   Date: 2014   
Pages: 617-641
DOI: 10.2143/ETL.90.4.1000001

Abstract :
In the oeuvre of Joachim of Fiore (ca. 1135-1202), his Trinitarian way of thinking and his diagrammatic fashion of shaping ideas represent two major and corresponding tendencies. Indeed, the wide interplay between these tendencies allows for a basic conceptual exchange that renders the Trinity as Joachim’s 'diagrammatic doctrine' and his diagrams as a 'Trinitarian medium'. On the one hand, Joachim develops the diagrammatic potential that is inherent in the Trinitarian dogma by its numerical character: the three propria, the five relationes, the seven modi and especially the two diffinitiones prompt him to approach history and creation through the Trinity as a medium. On the other hand, his drawn diagrams such as the Ten-Chord Psaltery and the IEUE Circles are profoundly Trinitarian by making use of the representation of the Trinity as a framework organising further doctrinal contents.

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