Radix-matrix: The Virgin Mary in the cosmos of Ramon Llull

Abstract

During the second part of the 13th century in Europe while Ramón Llull (ca. 1232-1316) writes about the mother’s God, Maria has got an important place in the liturgy and the Christian theology. So Maria appears in the texts, the devotional practises and the Occident’s iconography. But the singularity that Llull gives Maria, makes stand out among the proposals of this time. Moreover it will be in two of these books, the Arbor maternalis of the “arbor scientiae” and, of course, in the Liber de Sancta Maria where his thoughts of Mother’s God has got the highest expression and gives character to unknown tones and shades in this moment by the scholastic theology of this century. Three aspects must have a special treatment in this analysis: first, the infinitive dimension, that Maria acquires like the divine fruit’s root; second, the “con-passion” of Maria like the inseparable counterpoint of the Son’s Passion; and finally the bordering quality, of dividing line of dawn, that Llull confers on Mary, which renders her, above all, womb of creation.