File:Shield-Trinity-Scutum-Fidei-earliest-and-latest-major-variants.svg

[edit] Summary

The earliest and most recent major variations of the "Shield of the Trinity" or "Scutum Fidei" diagram of traditional Christian trinitarian symbolism.

Left

A slightly schematized version of the forms of the diagram found in several 13th-century manuscripts, including a 1208-1216 manuscript of Peter of Poitiers' Compendium Historiae in Genealogia Christi, the heraldic shields in Matthew Paris' "Chronica Majora" (1250-1259 A.D.), and a 1247-1258 manuscript of the writings of John of Wallingford. In two of these manuscripts, the cross is actually shown as a detailed artistic illumination of Christ on the cross, which is not attempted here.

Right

A example of the type of depiction recently popularized among some English-speaking Protestants by books such as "The Moody Handbook of Theology" by Paul P. Enns (1989) and "Charts of Christian Theology and Doctrine" by H. Wayne House (1992), etc. The version here was redrawn from scratch (with exactly symmetric geometry, increased relative lowercase font size etc.).

See article Shield of the Trinity for further explanation and discussion.

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