Quaternity occupies a commanding position in the depth-psychological corpus, functioning simultaneously as an empirical observation, an archetypal schema, and a theological provocation. Jung identifies the quaternity as the organizing structure par excellence of wholeness—the fourfold pattern that appears spontaneously in mandalas, dreams, visions, and the symbolic systems of alchemy, Gnosticism, and comparative religion. Its authority derives not from philosophical convention but from the frequency with which the psyche generates four-membered structures when seeking orientation amid chaos. The central tension in this literature concerns the relationship between the quaternity and the Christian Trinity: whereas orthodoxy elaborates a threefold God-image, the unconscious persistently produces fourfold configurations, incorporating the repressed fourth—matter, evil, the feminine, the body—that trinitarian theology excludes. Jung reads this as an historically consequential symptom, treating the Assumption of Mary (1950) as the Church’s unconscious movement toward quaternary completeness. Edinger extends the analysis, arguing that trinity and quaternity are not rivals but complementary symbols—three for the dynamic process of individuation, four for its achieved wholeness. Von Franz documents the alchemical vacillation between three and four as a structural feature of the unconscious itself. Stein maps Jung’s stacked quaternities as a cosmological schema. Across all these voices, the quaternity remains inseparable from the symbolism of the Self.
The quaternity is an organizing schema par excellence, something like the crossed threads in a telescope. It is a system of co-ordinates that is used almost instinctively for dividing up and arranging a chaotic multiplicity
Jung defines the quaternity as the psyche’s primary instrument for imposing order on chaos, a universal coordinate system manifest across culture, cosmology, and psychological typology.
, Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self, 1951thesis
I use the term ‘quaternity’ for the mandala and similar structures that appear spontaneously in dreams and visions, or are ‘invented’ (from invenire = to find), to express a totality (like four winds and seasons or four sons, seraphim, evangelists, gospels, four-fold path, etc.).
Jung offers his most explicit nominal definition of quaternity, grounding the term empirically in spontaneous psychic productions that express totality.
, Collected Works Volume 18: The Symbolic Life, 1976thesis
The idea of a quaternity of divine principles was violently attacked by the Church Fathers when an attempt was made to add a fourth—God’s ‘essence’—to the Three Persons of the Trinity. This resistance to the quaternity is very odd, considering that the central Christian symbol, the Cross, is unmistakably a quaternity.
Jung exposes the theological paradox whereby Christianity suppresses the quaternity doctrinally while enshrining it symbolically in the Cross, pointing to a structural incompleteness in the Trinity.
, Psychology and Religion: West and East, 1958thesis
whereas the central Christian symbolism is a Trinity, the formula presented by the unconscious is a quaternity. In reality the orthodox Christian formula is not quite complete, because the dogmatic aspect of the evil principle is absent from the Trinity
Jung argues that the unconscious consistently corrects the theological Trinity by producing a quaternity that includes the repressed fourth element—the devil or principle of evil.
, Psychology and Religion: West and East, 1958thesis
the conscious personality would be a circle divided up in a definite way, and this generally turns out to be a quaternity. The quaternity of basic functions of consciousness meets this requirement… what we today call the schema of functions is archetypally prefigured by one of the oldest patterns of order known to man, namely the quaternity
Jung links the psychological typology of four functions directly to the archaic quaternity archetype, establishing that the functional model of consciousness is itself an instance of this primordial organizing schema.
, Mysterium Coniunctionis: An Inquiry into the Separation and Synthesis of Psychic Opposites in Alchemy, 1955thesis
it could even be called the archetype of wholeness. Because of this significance, the ‘quaternity of the One’ is the schema for all images of God, as depicted in the visions of Ezekiel, Daniel, and Enoch
Jung elevates the quaternity to the status of the archetype of wholeness itself, identifying it as the structural template underlying all God-images across prophetic and mystical traditions.
, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, 1959thesis
The Pythagorean quaternity was a natural phenomenon, an archetypal image, but it was not yet a moral problem… This flight from the darkness of nature’s depths culminates in trinitarian thinking… But the question of the fourth, rightly or wrongly, remained. It stayed down ‘below,’ and from there threw up the heretical notion of the quaternity and the speculations of Hermetic philosophy.
Jung traces the historical suppression of the quaternity as Christianity’s flight from nature into spirit, with the repressed fourth returning through alchemy and heresy.
, Psychology and Religion: West and East, 1958thesis
the quaternity is the sine qua non of divine birth and consequently of the inner life of the trinity… The trinity archetype seems to symbolize individuation as a process, while the quaternity symbolizes its goal or completed state. Three is the number for egohood; four is the number for wholeness, the Self.
Edinger articulates the complementary relationship between trinity and quaternity, assigning three to the process of development and four to the achieved wholeness of the Self.
, Ego and Archetype: Individuation and the Religious Function of the Psyche, 1972thesis
From the circle and quaternity motif is derived the symbol of the geometrically formed crystal and the wonder-working stone… The inhabitant, in his turn, has a relationship to the quaternity, and to the fifth as the unity of the four.
Jung traces the symbolic derivations of the quaternity motif through crystal, stone, city, vessel, and water, showing the quaternity as a generative nucleus for a wide family of wholeness symbols.
, Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self, 1951supporting
the king, being Christ, is at the same time the Trinity, and that the introduction of a fourth person, the Queen, makes it a quaternity. The royal pair represents in ideal form the unity of the Two under the rule of the One
Jung reads the heavenly coronation of Mary as the unconscious completion of the Trinity into a quaternity through the introduction of the feminine fourth, the Queen of Heaven.
, Psychology and Religion: West and East, 1958supporting
The apotropaic significance of the quaternity is borne out by Ezekiel 9:4, where the prophet, at the behest of the Lord, sets a cross on the foreheads of the righteous to protect them from punishment… As attributes of God and also symbols in their own right, the quaternity and the cross signify wholeness.
Jung demonstrates the protective and apotropaic function of the quaternity in biblical tradition, identifying the cross as its emblematic form and both as equivalent symbols of divine wholeness.
, Collected Works Volume 3: The Psychogenesis of Mental Disease, 1907supporting
side by side with the distinctive leanings of alchemy (and of the unconscious) towards quaternity there is always a vacillation between three and four which comes out over and over again… Four signifies the feminine, motherly, physical; three the masculine, fatherly
Von Franz documents, following Jung, the structural oscillation between three and four in alchemical symbolism, interpreting it as a reflection of the tension between masculine-spiritual and feminine-material principles in the unconscious.
, Aurora Consurgens: A Document Attributed to Thomas Aquinas on the Problem of Opposites in Alchemy, 1966supporting
above which are the Homo and Anthropos quaternities and below which fall the Lapis and Rotundum quaternities. The circle at the Homo position locates the position of ego-consciousness.
Stein explicates Jung’s stacked quaternary cosmology from Aion, in which four nested quaternities map the vertical axis from ego-consciousness to transcendent wholeness.
, Jung’s Map of the Soul: An Introduction, 1998supporting
The lapis quaternity, which is a product of alchemical gnosis, brings us to the interesting physical speculations of alchemy.
Jung identifies the lapis quaternity as a distinctly alchemical contribution to the quaternary schema, linking it to speculative natural philosophy and the fourfold elemental theory.
, Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self, 1951supporting
you would have a fourfold structure: you would have the sun above and behind the male figure, and the moon above and behind the female figure… Jung, in ‘The Psychology of the Transference,’ calls the marriage quaternio, the fourfold structure.
Edinger explicates the marriage quaternio as a clinical and symbolic instance of the quaternity, structured by the archetypal masculine-feminine axis in the transference relationship.
, The Mysterium Lectures: A Journey Through C.G. Jung’s Mysterium Coniunctionis, 1995supporting
two pairs of opposites, making a quaternio (p3 + p2q + pq2 + q3), are needed to represent physical reality. Here we meet, at any rate in veiled form, the dilemma of three and four alluded to in the opening words of the Timaeus.
Jung presents an algebraic formulation of the quaternity, arguing that two pairs of opposites—rather than one—are required to represent reality in full, echoing Plato’s Timaean dilemma.
, Psychology and Religion: West and East, 1958supporting
the initial state of wholeness is marked by four mutually antagonistic tendencies—4 being the minimum number by which a circle can be naturally and clearly defined.
Jung establishes the geometric and psychological rationale for four as the minimal number for defining wholeness, grounding the quaternity in both spatial and psychic necessity.
, Collected Works Volume 16: The Practice of Psychotherapy, 1954supporting
The fourfold Mercurius is also the tree or its spiritus vegetativus… The four forms of Hermes in Egyptian Hellenism are clearly derived from the four sons of Horus. A god with four faces is mentioned as early as the Pyramid Texts of the fourth and fifth dynasties.
Jung traces the fourfold structure of Mercurius and Hermes through Egyptian religion and Hellenism, showing the deep historical roots of the quaternity in theomorphic representation.
, Alchemical Studies, 1967supporting
a pattern of order which, like a psychological ‘view-finder’ marked with a cross or circle divided into four, is superimposed on the psychic chaos so that each content falls into place and the weltering confusion is held together by the protective circle
Jung describes the mandala’s fourfold organizing function as a psychological instrument that imposes quaternary order on psychic chaos, implicitly invoking the quaternity’s structuring role.
, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, 1963aside
In this symbolic image we see, first of all, an indication of the quaternary in the cross, four lines being arranged so as to meet in a common point. Joined with the number 3, which denotes the moon, the sun, and fire, this [quaternary] will produce the number 7
Pauli, expounding Kepler’s symbolic arithmetic, illustrates how the quaternary cross joined with the ternary number produces seven—a demonstration of the numerical logic underlying the three-four tension.
, Writings on Physics and Philosophy, 1994aside
this number is called by the wise the ‘Origin and Source of the whole Godhead’. Nature herself, deriving her origin from the Godhead, also lays claim to this number as to her fundamental principle.
Pauli documents Kepler’s Neoplatonic source attributing the quaternary to the divine origin of both God and Nature, providing a historical context for the archetype’s theological valence.
, Writings on Physics and Philosophy, 1994aside