在中世纪的欧洲，基督教会曾面临如何解释上帝的“三一性”问题，亚流派的“部分主义”主张圣子为受造物，否认其与圣父、圣灵同质，圣帕特里克则用三叶草来解释圣父、圣子和圣灵合一的奥秘，即一个实体包含三个位格，这个解释巩固了“三位一体不可分割”的教义，而亚流派则被大公会议否定，在后世也被列为异端。虽然这是位格之争，但也可以视为人类对抗混沌的原初力量的再一次尝试。

为什么要把“部分主义”叫做混沌的原初力量？

古希腊神话中的怪物奇美拉，其形象为狮头、羊身、蛇尾，能喷火。它象征混乱与自然的混合体，后被英雄柏勒洛丰斩杀。制度性的宗教出现之前，人类文明都是通过神话解释自然或超自然现象，其中出现许多对人或动物不同身体部位拆解拼合的形象，这种形象往往是神秘或崇高的。

在拉康的符号学中，整体图像是一种暴力（符号系统 ），所有符号都是拟制的想象，“奇美拉”才是主体符号学的原初官能。古代对于“部分”的崇拜或恐惧就是来自于人类的符号学本能，人类在进入“符号界”之前，并没有一个背景性的秩序来整合自然图像，任由这种符号性的本能、亦或者说是知性的分析力拆析一切，任何东西都是一个部分。在进入“符号界”之后，未被符号化的剩余（客体小a）仍会以创伤形式持续侵扰主体，主体还能在不知觉中瞥见的这种拆解和拼合的力量，但却不敢把这个神秘的力量说成是主体性的一种特征。

性征化的想象当中，恋物或者是对于部分身体的顾恋，就是对客体小a（Objet a）的固着——爱部分胜过爱整个人。


In medieval Europe, the Christian Church faced the challenge of explaining the "triune" nature of God. The Arian "partialism" claimed that the Son was a created being, denying his consubstantiality with the Father and the Holy Spirit. St. Patrick, however, used the shamrock to illustrate the mystery of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as one essence in three persons, thereby reinforcing the doctrine of the "indivisible Trinity." The Arian view was rejected by ecumenical councils and later deemed heretical. While this was a debate about personhood, it can also be seen as another attempt by humanity to confront the primordial force of chaos.

Why is the "partialism"  as the primordial force of chaos?

In Greek mythology, the monster Chimera—with its lion's head, goat's body, and serpent's tail, capable of breathing fire—symbolized disorder and the hybridity of nature, until it was slain by the hero Bellerophon. Before the emergence of institutionalized religion, human civilizations relied on myths to explain natural or supernatural phenomena, often featuring fragmented and reassembled images of humans or animals—figures that were regarded as mystical or sublime.

In Lacanian semiotics, the unified image is a form of violence (the symbolic order), where all signs are fabricated imaginaries. The "Chimera" represents the primordial faculty of subjective semiotics. Ancient reverence or fear of "partial" entities stemmed from humanity's semiotic instinct—before entering the "symbolic order," there was no overarching structure to integrate natural imagery, leaving this semiotic drive (or analytical intellect) to dissect everything into parts. Even after entering the symbolic order, the unsymbolized remnant (the objet petit a) continues to haunt the subject as trauma. The subject may occasionally glimpse this deconstructive and recombinative force but dares not acknowledge it as a feature of subjectivity.

In the realm of sexualized imagination, fetishism or fixation on body parts reflects an attachment to the “objet a”—loving the part more than the whole person.