Julia Eva Wannenmacher

(Berlin)

Apocalypse, Antichrists and the Third Age:

Joachim of Fiores Peaceful Revolution

1. Joachim of Fiore, Revelation, and the Power of Prophecy

Peaceful revolutions are one of mankinds oldest, and goldenest, dreams, the kind
which is often dreamt and seldom comes true. Probably this is the case because the
concept of a peaceful revolution in itself seems a contradiction in adiecto. Each
revolution, each turning upside-down of a society, of hitherto firm structures, of
social order, will necessarily find its opponents. Among those thinkers whose
names had most often been linked with revolution, renovation or reform theres
certainly Joachim of Fiore.1

Joachim of Fiore, who had seldom been viewed with indifference, as

Marjorie Reeves had stated,2 has not only been among the most influential
commentators of the Apocalypse in the Middle Ages. From the thirteenth century
until modern times, numerous religious or social revolutions, chiliast or no, claimed
him to be their spiritual father and inspiration. Among the multitude of posthumous
disciples, there were not only Dominicans and Franciscans, who as soon as about
1250 claimed the founders of their orders to be foretold by Joachim, but also the
more radical elements of Franciscan Friars, the Fraticelli or even the Apostolic
Brethren of Fra Dolcino. Yet we would be ill-advised to ascribe them all
undistinguished to Joachim of Fiore and his school, because it is known and well-
known that not only those among his fiercest enemies like the inquisitor Guido
Terreni, but also some of his most passionate followers as for example Thomas
Mntzer, had never read a single word of what Joachim of Fiore had actually
written but were dependent exclusively on Pseudo-Joachims writings. What
Marjorie Reeves described as Joachims double reputation3 is still valid.
Therefore, in judging Joachims more or less belligerent or peaceful intentions, one
has to distinguish carefully between Joachim of Fiores authentic writings, and the
much greater impact in the history of ideas which Pseudo-Joachim had.

1
On Joachims life, the most accurate survey is still Herbert Grundmann, Zur Biographie Joachims
von Fiore und Rainers von Ponza, in Id., Ausgewhlte Aufstze 2: Joachim von Fiore (Monumenta
Germaniae Historica, Schriften, 25, Stuttgart, Hirsemann, 1977) p. 255-360; on Joachims doctrine see
Bernard McGinn, The Calabrian Abbot. Joachim of Fiore in the History of Western Thought (New
York London, Macmillan, 1985), and more recently Matthias Riedl, Joachim von Fiore. Denker der
vollendeten Menschheit (Wrzburg, Knigshausen und Neumann, 2004), and Gian Luca Potest, Il
tempo dell'Apocalisse. Vita di Gioacchino da Fiore (Roma Bari, Laterza, 2004).
2
Marjorie Reeves, The Influence of Prophecy in the Later Middle Ages (Oxford, Oxford University
Press, 1969, Notre Dame, Notre Dame Press Edition, 19932), p. 3.
3
Ibid., p. 96.
 Indeed both terms Apocalypse and violent text do ring bells with any
reader of Joachims and joachite works.4 The German scholars Wilhelm Bousset
and Wilhelm Kamlah in the late 19th respectively early 20th centuries had stated that
as a commentator of the Apocalypse, Joachim had marked a new stage in its long
history, changing the age-old business of commenting Revelation forever.5 And but
afar from medieval scholars studies, Joachims name served as a label to a great
number of more or less violent religious movements or social upheavals around the
world, which claimed to fulfil what the Calabrian abbot had long ago prophesied.
Some modern examples are the Chilean Jesuit Manuel de Lacunza y Diaz (1731-
1801), whose millenarism brought his writings on the Index librorum
prohibitorum,6 Antnio Conselheiro (d. 1897), the founder and messianic leader of
the Brazilian settlement of Canudos in the late 19 th century, whose story the
Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa retells in his novel La Guerra del fin del mundo
7
from 1981 with its Joachimist dimension, or in Europe the baleful yearning for a
third empire.8

But in order to decide whether Joachims were violent texts, or the

Apocalypse in his reading, the first question to arise is, what are violent texts? A
violent text might either describe or provoke violence to deserve its name in the
first place, referring to actual violent deeds either historical, present, future or
fictional, describing or calling into action violent deeds, causing death and
destruction. In a more subtle sense, a text could be called violent according to the
impact it has on its readers, striking or dumbfounding them with unexpected
revelations, a violence of words which could be interpreted either positive or
negative, whereas violence in the above mentioned sense is at least according to
nowadays standards almost always a negative quantity.
4
At present, it is common use to describe pseudepigraphic texts, which were attributed to Joachim
of Fiore, but likely not written by him, as joachite, as well as any thoughts, ideas or ideals, which
in later times referred were to Joachim of Fiore or claimed to be influenced by him. The noun
Joachita, signifying a (posthumous) disciple of Joachim, seems to be have been minted by
Salimbene of Parma, see for example Reeves, The Influence of Prophecy, 59.
5
Wilhelm Bousset, Die Offenbarung Johannis, Kritisch-exegetischer Kommentar ber das Neue
Testament (Gttingen, Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 19065), p. 73, 76, 82, Wilhelm Kamlah,
Apokalypse und Geschichtstheologie. Die mittelalterliche Auslegung der Apokalypse vor Joachim
von Fiore (Berlin, Ebering, 1935), p. 115, 122.
6
On Lacunza, see Josep Ignasi Saranyana, El milenarismo lacunciano y la teologa de la
liberacin, Anuario de Historia de la Iglesia, XI (2002) p. 141-9; on Joachim of Fiore in Latin
America, see Ana de Zaballa Beascoechea, La discusin conceptual sobre el milenarismo y
mesianismo en Latinoamrica, Anuario de Historia de la Iglesia, X (2001) p. 353-62,
http://redalyc.uaemex.mx/pdf/355/35501022.pdf (on March 7, 2011).
7
Mario Vargas Llosa, The War of the End of the World, translated from Spanish (New York, Farrar
Straus Giroux, 1984, often reprinted), Marjorie Reeves, Warwick Gould, Joachim of Fiore and the
Myth of the Eternal Evangel in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Oxford, Clarendon Press,
19872), p. 346.
8
See e. g. Henri de Lubac, La postrit spirituelle de Joachim de Flore, vol. 1: De Joachim
Schelling (Paris, Lethielleux, 1978), and vol 2: De Saint-Simon nos jours (Paris, 1981), Karl
Lwith, Meaning in History, The Theological Implications of the Philosophy of History (Chicago,
University of Chicago Press, 1949, often reprinted), chapter 8: Joachim; on Joachim and the Third
Reich see Oswald Spengler, Der Untergang des Abendlandes. Umrisse einer Morphologie der
Weltgeschichte (Mnchen, C: H. Beck, 19232), who refers to Joachim a number of times, and
Burchard Brentjes, Der Mythos vom dritten Reich. Drei Jahrtausende Sehnsucht nach Erlsung
(Hannover, Fackeltrger, 1999).
2
 In Joachims commentary on Revelation, theres of course nearly every kind
of violence. In the first instant, it is contained in the text of the Apocalypse itself,
which Joachim quotes commenting sentence by sentence, verse by verse. Many of
the faithful are being described or prophesied to be killed, including the two
witnesses; the woman of Rev 12 and her newborn are persecuted and threatened,
but the apocalyptic beast, the whore of Babylon, and the dragon, the incorporation
of Evil itself, will all be killed in the end, too. The description of the apocalyptic
battle is meant to edifice, to inform, to warn and to strengthen the faithful, who,
though by no means capable of making an end to Evil without heavenly help, shall
be able to prepare themselves, to know and to patiently endure the imminent
tribulation and understand their role in Gods great plan of salvation. At least, this
is Joachims intention in writing his commentary. In this respect, Joachims
commentary doesnt differ greatly from other commentaries old and new. In some
others, it does.

Firstly, it shows some aspects of the Apocalypse as violent text which are
surprising, unusual and probably unparalleled. With a remarkable increase in the
number of Antichrists and persecutions, compared with previous commentaries of
Revelation or descriptions of the end of times, Joachims necessarily contains more
severe oppression, greater tribulations, and more violence than other, earlier
commentaries.

But before the defeat of the last Antichrist, well before the end of the world,
he expected a time of peace and earthly bliss, the third status, his Third Age of the
Holy Spirit. Joachim, as is generally known, had divided the time into three
subsequent stages and attributed them subsequently to God Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit. (They are not identical with the times ante legem, sub legem and sub gratia,
for of course the time of the Father comprises the times ante and sub legem, while
the Son is already sub gratia). He was not the only one to combine Trinitarian
speculation and theology of history in the twelfth century, and it is well possible
that knew the conceptions and works of his contemporaries on similar subjects,9 but
Joachims complex and elaborate system is as unique in its richness of detail as in
his innovative approach, and lastly by its far-reaching intrinsic consequences which
lingered under its surface.

For Joachim as for his followers, the expectation of a historical period of

radical and positive! - change in the life of the Church and of the world, which
would be brought about by the Spirit, was essential.

This opens the field to the second point of interest in which Joachim of
Fiore and his commentary on Revelation are linked with violence in texts. For the

9
The classical reading here is Alois Dempf, Sacrum Imperium. Geschichtsschreibung und
Staatsphilosophie des Mittelalters und der politischen Renaissance (Mnchen, Oldenbourg, 1929);
regrettably, he doesnt give any examples for his thesis of textual relations between Joachim and his
contemporaries. For some examples, see Julia Eva Wannenmacher, Hermeneutik der
Heilsgeschichte. De septem sigillis und die sieben Siegel im Werk Joachims von Fiore, Studies in
the History of Christian Tradition 118, (Leiden Boston, 2005), p. 37-58, and passim, ead., Ein
Wandel in der Auslegung durch Joachim von Fiore?, in Rainer Klotz, Christoph Winterer (ed.), Tot
Sacramenta quot verba. Die Kommentierung der Apokalypse von den Anfngen bis ins 12.
Jahrhundert (Mnster, Aschendorff, 2011, forthcoming).

3
history of its reception in later centuries proved Joachims Expositio in Apocalypsin
and the ideas purported it to be of lasting influence on mankinds ideas of the
imminent future as last stage in history, a stage which, in their conception, would
more often than not begin with a violent upheaval and rising to power of the
powerless, as a violent upstart of the Third Age. And in this, second phase of its
history, Joachims Expositio in Apocalypsin and the idea of a Third Age contained
therein proved to be potentially violent, and dangerous, to a much greater extant.
This paper will try to shed some light on both aspects.

2. Joachim of Fiores Commentary on Revelation: A Violent Text?

From Joachims perspective, the most dangerous sort of violence which threatened
Christianity did not come from abroad, was neither embodied in heathen
persecutors or godless princes, nor in Antichrist or other forces of Evil themselves.
It lay waiting in Scripture itself. The very first mention of vis in the Expositio refers
to no other violence than that of the letter, which kills (2 Cor 3:6), a verse which,
as Marjorie Reeves was the first to observe, Joachim quotes more often than any
other biblical reference. In the preface of his commentary, Joachim declares:

Only by his dying and rising from the dead it was given to our Lord to open the so
big and secret mysteries of this book [i. e. Revelation], because by the dying of
Christ the force of the letter which kills was ended, and the spiritual understanding,
which brings to life, lived.10

Joachim here uses the word vis, force or violence, and describes the
letter of the bible as a killing force, which in other places he compares with the
stone that lay before Jesus grave, a deadly weight, positioned to prevent the
resurrecting Son of God from leaving his grave, and thereby meaning to bury the
hidden spiritual understanding of Scripture, too.

In the first part of his Expositio, arriving at Rev 1:10 Fui in spiritu in
dominica die, Joachim describes the forceful and extraordinary sensation of
experiencing a revelation, when after much fruitless brooding the true meaning of
this verse was revealed to him in prayer and meditation, and he understood, Quid
sibi vult quod ait Iohannes: Fui in spiritu? Quid sibi vult quod sequitur: in
dominica die?, and filled with wonder he confessed this verse was altis repositus
sacramentis.11 He had understood, of course, that Christ, the Lion of the tribe of
Judah, the Lamb that appeared to have been killed, was the one who was
worthy to take the scroll and to break its seals.12 Now he concludes that by dying
and resurrecting Christ has opened the sealed scroll, and that the sealed scroll is
nothing less than the concordance between Old and New Testament, mirrored in the
seven days of Easter with their subsequent eight day, and likewise contained in the
eight parts of the Book of Revelation, which in itself describes the complete history

10
Joachim of Fiore, Expositio in Apocalypsin, Liber introductorius, Venetian Edition, fol. 3va (all
translations, unless otherwise identified, are my own).
11
Joachim of Fiore, Expositio in Apocalypsin, pars I, fol. 39rb.
12
Rev 5:1-6.

4
of Gods chosen people, from the beginning to the end. It comes as no surprise,
when Joachim remembers the moment he experienced like this:

But in this very night something similar happened, around midnight, as I think, and
at the hour when our Lion of the tribe of Judah is believed to have risen from the
Dead. Then suddenly, while I was meditating, something appeared to me, which I
saw in the brightness of my inner eyes, and the completeness of this very book [i.
e. Revelation], and the concordance between the Old and the New Testament, and
wasnt I thus reminded of the said chapter, and why John has said: I was in the
Spirit on the Lords Day, and whether it mattered, that this very revelation of this
book is said to hava happened on a Lords.13

In fact this paragraph contains what Robert Lerner called Joachims three
big ideas,14 the concordance of the Testaments, the conception of the completeness
of the Apocalypse and the Trinitarian view of history, attributing three stages or
status to the three persons of the Godhead, which Joachim explained hereafter.

He then described both typicos intellectus or senses of the Book of

Revelation, one belonging to the second, the other to third status, and promised to
concentrate on what belongs to the third, because he saw his own presence in the
very beginning of this third status:15

Therefore, the New Testament was founded at the same time, when the scriptures
of the Old Testament began to be opened; but it [i. e. the New Testament], too,
began to be opened not long after this, and its inner meaning began to lie open
before the Faithful, for they understood that there is a mystical understanding in it,
from the very moment on when these things took place, at first only the Apostles,
to whom the firstfruit of the Spirit was given, and after them many others, who
were taught by the same Spirit. But what of it, if the New Testament was open so
soon? Did Christ, who was hidden in it, appear in the open, as soon as he ascended
from the grave? Or wasnt his apparition much rather delayed until the evening?
But what does until the evening, usque ad vesperum, mean, if not: until the sixth
time? If now both openings are being treated simultaneously, it is clear that this
sixth time according to Churchs yearly turn is the end of the 40 days, but the day
of Passover the beginning of the Passover celebrations. In the first sense, this
means that the opening of the Old Testament is delayed until Christ, while the
opening of the New not in such a way, but from the same time on has been carried
out by spiritual men. Concerning that sense which belongs to the third status,
we have to be careful, because like in the previous sense the day of the Lords
resurrection signified the beginning of the second status, in the sense belonging to
the third status it signifies the beginning of the third, which will take place after
end, or rather during the end of the second.16

In this passage, hugely understudied compared to the preceding description

of his visionary insights at the night before Easter, Joachim highlights the relation

13
Joachim of Fiore, Expositio in Apocalypsin, pars I, fol. 39va.
14
Rober E. Lerner, Art. Joachim von Fiore, TRE, 17 (Berlin - New York, de Gruyter, 1988) p. 84-
8.
15
Joachim of Fiore, Expositio in Apocalypsin, pars I, fol. 39vb.
16
Ibid., fol. 40ra-b.

5
between the second and the third status with respect to the growing insight into
Scripture, which begins on Easter Monday, at least for the Old Testament, while the
hidden meaning, the mysticus intellectus, is revealed first only to the Apostles as
the primitie, the Firstfruit, and after them to those who are enlightened by the
Spirit, gifted with spiritual insight, i. e. the often mentioned intelligentia spiritualis.
In order to understand the meaning of Scripture and bring it to life, the Spirit
presents the Faithful with intelligentia spiritualis, a gift which is predesigned in the
evening at Emmaus, when the risen Lord shared their meal with his disciples and
opened their minds, that they might understand the Scriptures.17 This spiritual
understanding is, in Joachims opinion, the Christian equivalent to Old Testament
prophecy, the powerful gift of the spiritual men of the Third Age or status in
history.

It is precisely the conception of the Third Age in history which was

responsible for Joachims lasting influence in the history of ideas, the detailed
description of which would have surprised the historic Joachim probably in more
than once case.

What did the Third Age, the Time of the Spirit, in Joachims conception
look like? There is more than one answer to this, because during the long years of
Joachims active writing, this conception underwent significant changes, and with
the progress in time its outlines get ever more blurry, and Joachims image of the
Third Age in history finally looses its sharp moulding.

It does so paralleling the development of Joachims image and description

of the persecutors. Joachim had a lifelong reputation as an expert on Antichrist, and
one of his favorite designs was the dramatic figure of the red dragon of the
Apocalypse,18 whose heads and tail symbolized from old the worst of
Christianitys, and Israels, persecutors, from Pharaoh and Antiochus IV
Epiphanus, Nero, Constans Arrianus, Muhammad to Sultan Saladin or even the
Staufian Emperors. Joachim was not the first to name the dragons heads, but he did
so more elaborate and in much greater detail than any author before him, using and
carefully adapting the exegetical tradition to meet his own need and that of his
time.19

But Joachims dramatically colourful image of the dragon, too, had faded,
so to speak. While in earlier stages of his works he didnt hesitate to name the
dragons heads even identifying them with e.g. a Salian Emperor or his
contemporary Saladin, thereby qualifying them as apocalyptic persecutors, he
refrained from this practice in later years. In Saladins case, we know he removed
his name from the list of persecutors after Saladins death, not surprisingly; but in
the youngest of Joachims utterances, there is a general tendency to emphasize less
the persecutors diabolic qualities but to strengthen the Christians awareness of

17
Luke 24:45.
18
Rev 12:3 and passim.
19
On the image and identity of the dragon and its heads, see Julia Eva Wannenmacher, Dragon,
Antichrist, Millennium: Joachim of Fiore and the Opening of the Seals, in Rossana E. Guglielmetti
(ed.), LApocalisse nel Medioevo (Firenze, SISMEL, Ed. del Galluzzo, 2011; forthcoming).

6
both the self-inflicted and transient character of all and even the worst persecutions,
and to describe and declare them as mere tools in the skilled hands of the Almighty,
used to shape and polish the chosen people and to distinguish them from the
reprobates.
Alongside with this development there is a growing incertitude about the
precise form and feature not only of the Third Age in general, but also its spiritual
men traceable in Joachims writings. While the younger Joachim still expected a
group of seven monasteries which would supersede the five Cistercian mother
houses, and play a crucial role in the Third Age, the seven monasteries arent
mentioned any more in Joachims later and more mature descriptions of the third
status.20 It has been suspected that Joachim primarily expected these seven
monasteries to become reality when he founded a new religious order of his own,
and that later, when his wish had come true, he no longer needed this conception to
justify his recess from the Cistercian Order, or even that he simply realized that not
even in his own order, its monasteries and among their inhabitants, there were such
spiritual qualities to be found which could signify the houses of his own order as
the seven monasteries he had once anticipated.

The viri spirituales however, who were to bring about and play a leading
role in the Third Age, are a conception which was not depending on any order or
monastic vow. Joachim had found them in the Apocalypse, of course. They are
none other but the two witnesses of Rev 11, who will prophesy one thousand two
hundred sixty days, clothed in sackcloth,21 in the last days, and will finally be
killed by the apocalyptic beast and resuscitated by God.

In Joachims commentary, the discussion of the two witnesses is one of the

lengthiest, and most interesting passages. 22 Here, he employs his magisterial
exegetical skills, displays his vast knowledge, and in the end of his discoure on the
two witnesses he presents a most daring and innovative explanation, basing on
traditional beliefs and methods, yet in its results significantly different, fresh and
original.

His witnesses are no longer simply Enoch or Elijah, nor Mosesor Jeremiah
redivivi, but they prefigure a group of spiritual leaders, fit to guide Gods people
into and through the last persecutions and further. It is this description, and the
possibilities lying therein, which fueled and kindled the fantasy of later readers of
his commentary from the Franciscans and Dominicans of the thirteenth century
until modern political theories well into the 20th century.

Joachims Third Age, although with a great deal of violence inferred by the
apocalyptic beast, its agents and underlings, was a decidedly peaceful revolution, if
the term revolution could be applied to it at all. He describes the time of the Spirit
as a time of a spiritual church, the church of the monks, which would surpass and
replace the times and churches of laics and clerics, like the time of the Spirit
follows the times of God Father and Son. But it is quite clear that Joachim never

20
Wannenmacher, Hermeneutik der Heilsgeschichte, p. 65-87.
21
Rev 11:3.
22
Joachim of Fiore, Expositio in Apocalypsin, pars III, fol. 145va-149vb.

7
meant, expected or intended any kind of violent upheaval in order to effectuate the
advent of this new time. Like God Father and Son are still valiant during the time of
the Spirit, the community of laics and clerics still exists in the time of the monks.
Each of the three orders of laics, clerics and monks in turn has its own special time,
its own design and tasks, but each in its own right will last until the very end of
time. Although the spiritual church of the Third Age of the Spirit which Joachim
expected would thoroughly differ from Gods people in the time of the Father, the
laics, or that of the Son, namely the clerics, Joachim stated clearly that none of the
first two orders would cease to exist.

He describes the sequence of peoples, orders, and status in manifold images,

not only the colorful diagrams of the Liber figurarum, 23 but most notably
illustrated by biblical characters to signify the times of Father, Son and Spirit and
the three orders of laics, clerics and monks, the concordances between the two
Testaments or diffinitiones,24 the sequence of persecutions and persecutors, and
lastly the opening of the seven seals of Rev 5.25

3. Dramatic Changes: A Completely New Threat of Violence in Joachims

Expositio in Apocalypsin

The exegetic tradition had it that each of the seven seals in Christian history has its
own persecutor, barring the seventh, which was free of any tribulation, and
symbolizing Sabbath, while the sixth day or seal has a double persecution.26 The
exegetic basis for this is the collecting of manna from Exod. 26:22, where the
children of Israel were told to collect a double amount of manna on the day before
the Sabbath, the sixth day of the week, and none on Sabbath itself. Another key
verse is Job 5:19: In sex tribulationibus liberabit te, et in septima non tanget te
malum. Although the double persecution of the sixth seal or aetas and its exegetic
foundation has until recently been attributed to Joachim only, it is in fact prescribed
by tradition and modelled by authors as influential as Pope Gregory I or Bede the
23
On the Liber figurarum, see Marjorie E. Reeves, Beatrice Hirsch-Reich, The Figurae of Joachim
of Fiore (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1972), Marco Rainini, Disegni dei tempi. Il Liber
Figurarum e la teologia figurativa di Gioacchino da Fiore, Opere di Gioacchino da Fiore: testi e
strumenti, 18 (Roma, Viella, 2006).
24
On the two dispensationes, see most recently E. Randolph Daniel, Joachims Unnoticed Pattern
of History: The Second Diffinitio, in Julia Eva Wannenmacher (ed.), Joachim of Fiore and the
Influence of Inspiration. Essays in Memory of Marjorie E. Reeves (Farnham, Ashgate, 2011,
forthcoming).
25
On the seven seals, see Marjorie Reeves, Beatrice Hirsch-Reich, The Seven Seals in the Writings
of Joachim of Fiore. With Special Reference to the Tract De septem sigillis, RTAM, 21 (1954) p.
211-247, Wannenmacher, Hermeneutik der Heilsgeschichte.
26
The underlying structure for this is the classical division of time into aetates as witnessed in
Augustine, De civitate Dei, lib. xxii, cap. 30, ed. Bernhard Dombart, Alfons Kalb, SL 48 (Turnhout,
Brepols, 1955), p. 865-6, PL 42 (Paris, 1861), col. 804. For Joachim, the seven seals and their
respective openings cover these aetates in differing stages, the sixth aetas containing the first six
openings, while the seventh and eighth aetates are congruent with the seventh opening and the
eighth, concluding paragraph of the seals respectively, and each of the openings is being described
in the corresponding part of the Apocalypse, which Joachim divided into eight parts. Cf.
Wannenmacher, Hermeneutik der Heilsgeschichte, table at p. 253, and passim.

8
Venerable. In Joachims century, it was used by writers as important as Bernard of
Clairvaux or Baldwin of Ford, the archbishop of Canterbury.27 So in attributing a
double persecution to the opening of the sixth seal Joachim is not in the least
original. But exactly here, in the sixth part of the Apocalypse, compared to
traditional partitions of the book (i. e. the Bedan, which Joachim followed up to
here) the beginning of a dramatic depart from tradition can be witnessed.

For Joachim, the sixth part of the Apocalypse ends with what is now Rev
19:21 (for Bede, it ends only with Rev 20:15), and Joachims seventh part of the
Apocalypse begins Rev 20:1.28 The chaining of Satan, the Thousand Year Reign,
which Augustine had fixed within history, in the sixth aetas, comprising the
Christians presence from the Ascension until the second coming of the Lord, was
now shifted into the next aetas, the opening of the seventh seal, and also Satans
last battle and final defeat were now in only in this future stage of time, the seventh
aetas and the opening of the seventh seal. The result of this was that in Joachims
eschatological conception the seventh opening, the seventh aetas with its
traditionally transcendental quality was now well within history, to be expected in
near future, cast with mere human characters, and threatened by the certain
expectation of another, unheard-of, and extremely terrible persecution. The
chaining of the dragon was still to expected, the Thousand Year Reign not, as
Augustine had said, the presence of the Christians, from the Ascension to thr Last
Judgment, but it was a time of earthly bliss which was still to come, though not
only in the afterlife, but well within Joachims, and his contemporarys, earthly
existence. A dire threat, but also, a blissful time is lying immediately before us.
This is, in short, the heart of the message, the true core of the radical changes
Joachims commentary on Revelation incurred in the history of exegetic tradition.

The dragon, the ancient serpent,29 whose seven heads were battled and
defeated during the seven persecutions of the openings of the previous six seals, the
sixth and seventh head both in the opening of the sixth seal, has no more head left.
The last persecutor, the final Antichrist,30 is signified in the cauda draconis.31 It is
the fiercest enemy, the deadly weapon with which Satan fights his last battle. The

27
See Wannenmacher, Hermeneutik der Heilsgeschichte, p. 161-4. Bede, Bruno of Segni and
Baldwin referred to Exod. 26, while Gregorys Moralia in Iob and Bernard in his Sermones quoted
Job.
28
On the respective parts of Apocalypse see Kamlah, Apokalypse und Geschichtstheologie, p. 20-1,
on Joachims new conception and its consequences see Wannenmacher, Hermeneutik der
Heilsgeschichte, p.98, n. 2, p. 164-5, 184-5.
29
Rev 20:2.
30
On Joachims varying conceptions of Antichrist and his identities, see Raoul Manselli, Il
problema del doppio Anticristo in Gioacchino da Fiore, in Karl Hauck, Hubert Mordek (ed.),
Geschichtsschreibung und geistliches Leben im Mittelalter. Festschrift fr Heinz Lwe (Kln
Wien, Bhlau, 1978) p. 427-49, Julia Eva Wannenmacher Die Macht des Bsen. Zur Rolle und
Bedeutung des Antichristen in der Eschatologie Joachims von Fiore, Florensia, Bollettino del Centro
Internazionale di Studi Gioachimiti, 13/14 (1999/2000) p. 365-78.
31
Cf. Rev 12:4.

9
last force of Satan are the nations at the four corners of the earth, Gog and
Magog, whom Satan deceived to bring them together for the battle.32

With one persecution more than any other commentator of the Apocalypse,
or any other conception of the apocalyptic drama before him, Joachim truly opens a
new chapter in the history of apocalyptic thought and exegetic tradition. Until then,
it was truly unthinkable to fill the seventh, as yet peaceful aetas, with any
persecution, not to mention an even worse one than all those before. Joachim thus
introduces an additional Antichrist after the traditional Antichrist of the sixth seal, a
new eschatological persecutor who is to expected well within time, but with
transcendental qualities.

But Joachims conception of the seventh opening or aetas as filled with the
most terrible persecution ever is only side of the coin. By his new partitioning of
the Apocalypse, the Thousand Year Reign, too, was positioned differently.
Therefore, the second news is the exiting possibility of a likewise unheard-of stage
of earthly bliss well before the end of time, separated from the eternal bliss only by
this final persecution of the last Antichrist, to be expected in near future.

It is hard to say exactly how Joachim envisaged his Third Age, the time of
the monks, the viri spirituales, and the third status of the Spirit. Although Joachim
expects the (clerical) church of Peter to be replaced by the (monastic) church of
John, Joachim truly was and remained a faithful son of the Roman See, and never
mentions a replacement of papacy by whatsoever future institution. In any case, he
would have been ill-advised to do so, and the scrupulous readers of his works at the
curia, in the monasteries and schools of his time would have unfailingly detected
any such hint. And indeed Marjorie Reeves wonders

whether Joachim really looked forward to the achievement of human perfection in

the third status, that is, within history. In spite of his great lyrical outbursts on the
glories of the Age of the Spirit, he does not fail to remember its finitude: as the
Seventh Day it is held distinct from the Eighth Day of Eternity; like the other
status, it too will end in a tribulation . Joachims optimistic expectation in
history did not lead him into the error of belief in the perfectibility of Man within
his mortal life.33

She suspects that his exegesis in detail could carry him into statements
which were theologically compromising without sufficient awareness of the
danger.34 But if this was the case, it was not only Joachim who failed to see it for
neither in his lifetime nor soon afterwards, he had been accused of millenarism or
chiliasm.

4. Joachims Third Age as Expected by his Posthumous Disciples: A

Dangerous Heritage

32
Rev 20:7.
33
Reeves, The Influence of Prophecy, p. 132.
34
Ibid.

10
With Joachims ideas in the air, the apocalyptic drama was now staged on many
scenes. It was not only in his famous conversation with Richard I of England in
Messina that Joachim35 claimed to have special insights into the whereabouts of
Antichrist and claimed him to be already among the living, but generally his
description of the Third Age, its imminent stage of bliss, but also its approaching,
earthly yet unearthly terrible persecution was soon burned into the minds of those
interested into apocalyptic thought and the Last Days in general. This included of
course not only men of the church, wheter at the curia, dwelling in monasteries or
preaching in churches. It also, or even more so, referred to all those who were
seeking new forms of religious life, feeling the urgent need of reform in the Roman
Church, to the masterminds and intellectual leaders at the Staufian Court, and soon
also to the Emperor himself.

One result of Joachims increasing number of Antichrists in his eschatology,

and their grown nearness to human presence, was that the number of Antichrists in
the air also became affluent. Joachims Antichrists, as described in the Expositio,
are of definitely human character and nature, mere instruments in the hand of Satan.
The increasing awareness of the imminence of the apocalyptic drama, its near stage
of bliss, but also its lingering threat of another, already transcendent persecution,
though peracted by a human persecutor, could not but immediately suggest to
identify whoever was considered to be of potential danger to the welfare of Church
and Faithful with this near but eschatological persecutor. Though Joachim the
longer the less identified any human character with Antichrist, the dragons last
head or tail, it was through him that thirteenth century polemics were enabled to
earnestly label their opponent with the name of Antichrist, a force of Evil, a willing
tool in the claws of Satan, designed to feign features and attributes of Christ, as
pseudochrist, fit to do signs and wonders, ita ut in errorem inducantur si fieri
potest etiam electi.36 Only a few decades after Joachims death, the controversy
between Pope Gregory IX and Emperor Frederick II reached new heights of
pungency and scorn, when both opponents alternately characterized their adversary
as Antichrist, aimed to deceive Gods people, and to destroy church and faith.
Moreover, Frederick II was not reluctant to praise himself as attributed with nearly
messianic traits of character, which he used purposeful in political controversies
with either Pope or cities, trying to persuade the latter to side with him against the
Pope.37 Allowing the Third Age, a higher stage in history, to begin now, was in
fact, according to Marjorie Reeves,

35
The meeting is reported by English chroniclers, notably Roger of Howden, Chronica, ed. W.
Stubbs (Rolls Series 51/3, London, 1870), p. 75-9, and other historiographical works, see John
Gillingham, Richard I (New Haven London, Yale University Press, 1999), p. 138-9.
36
Matt 24:24.
37
On Frederick II, see most recently Hubert Houben, Kaiser Friedrich II. (1194-1250). Herrscher,
Mensch und Mythos (Stuttgart, Kohlhammer, 2008), and Olaf Rader, Friedrich II. Der Sizilianer auf
dem Kaiserthron. Eine Biografie (Mnchen, C. H. Beck, 20101, 20113).

11
 the spearhead of Joachims original thought [which] lies in the great imaginative
step which he took when he threw the full manifestation of the Third Person of the
Trinity forward into the period ahead.38

Indeed this step, and the weapon it produced, could have most poignant
consequences, too, as these controversies show.

Among numerous political prophecies, which were produced ever since the
early thirteenth century and for which the fifteenth century Vaticinia de summis
pontificis are by far not the last examples,39 there is a great number of texts directly
or indirectly linked with the name of Joachim of Fiore, who had died in 1202. They
are prophecies or commentaries on already existing prophecies, most prominently
those of Sibyls,40 or combinations of both, and written under the name of Joachim,
disguised as conversation between Joachim and his friend Rainer of Ponza, or as
letters from Joachim to the Emperor Henry VI (whom he in fact had met, and
known well a real case of prophecy as political influence, and a rare one by
preventing violence, too).41 They use Joachims name in order to claim his
authority, and make their audience wonder and admire the prophetic abilities of the
late seer, who foretold future tribulations, kings and queens who lived and died
long after his own life and death. Such joachite prophecies were the preeminent and
most characteristic means of political propaganda in the thirteenth century. Indeed
Joachim had made Antichrist enter the scene of contemporary history.

But the most vital, and prolific reception of Joachim took place elsewhere:
in the houses or (if not existing an important question, as was to be seen) among
the different groups of monastic orders, old and new, for whose members Joachims
commentary on Revelation provided the most apted and uplifting exegetically
based arguments. No description of this phenomenon could be more fitting than
Marjorie Reevess:

A prophet foretells the future: he can also create it. For the historian the history of
prophecy contains the delicate problem of the interplay between word and action.
Are prophecies fulfilled because of their far-seeing diagnosis or because of the
response they evoke in action? The historical significance of Joachim lies in the
dynamic quality of certain key ideas which he proclaimed. They worked
underground in the following centuries, from time to time springing to new life in
a group or an individual. Their vital quality arose from the fact that they worked in
the imagination, moving to hope and so to action; thus their impact was emotional
rather than intellectual. As the leaven acted, Joachims conceptions become
debased, but in so far as his ideas stirred the expectations of men, we can

38
Marjorie Reeves, The Originality and Influence of Joachim of Fiore, Traditio, 36 (1980) p. 269-
316, again in ead., The Prophetic Sense of History in Medieval and Renaissance Europe (Aldershot,
Ashgate, 1999) IV, at p. 288.
39
On the Vaticinia, see Reeves, The Influence of Prophecy, p. 453-62.
40
For an example see Christian Jostmann, Sibilla Erithea Babilonica: Papsttum und Prophetie im
13. Jahrhundert, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Schriften, 54 (Hannover, Hahnsche
Buchhandlung, 2006).
41
Vita b. Joachimi abbatis, ed. Herbert Grundmann, Zur Biographie, p. 350-1 resp.. 536-8 and
ibid. p. 316-18 resp. 501-3; Peter Csendes, Heinrich VI., Gestalten des Mittelalters und der
Renaissance (Darmstadt, Primus Verlag/Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1997), p. 102.
12
 legitimately call these movements Joachimist. In this sense many expressions of
religious hopes and fears fot the future can be called Joachimist in inspiration right
down to the sixteenth century. This can be shown by tracing the history of certain
themes in the tradition of Last Things. Here one of Joachims key ideas was the
expectation of new orders of spiritual men sent ad vesperi huius seculi, that is, in
fine huius sexte etatis. From the thirteenth to the sixteenth century, and even
beyond, there were those who fastened on these conception of future spiritual
orders and found in it the understanding of their own mission in the world.42

Joachims description of the spritual men could not but inflame the minds of
the new religious orders in the thirteenth century:

But I believe that in this time the life of the monks will be like pelting rain to water
the planes of the earth, in all perfection and justice of brotherly love. The life of
the Anachorites, however, will be like fire, burning in love and jealousy for God,
destroying weeds and thorns by their fire, so that neither the good ones will lack
grace to their salvation, nor the godless ones can abuse Gods patience above
measure. Therefore, that order will be rather mild and gentle to yield the harvest of
Gods chosen people as if in the Spirit of Moses, this order will be wilder and more
fiery to collect the harvest of the reprobates as if in the Spirit of Elijah. This will
happen thus, because like the preaching of this order will end the labor of the
chosen ones, and the threatening of that the reprobates perfidy, so that neither
those will need to suffice more in the service of labor, nor these be allowed to
further their wicked ways, rather both shall come and stand before Christs
judgment seat, and each shall be issued with according to their deeds, be it good or
bad.43

The job description the Franciscans and Dominicans found in these passages
must have been more than welcome. The question whether this was a case of
diagnosis or response is still unsolved.44 But in Southern Italy and Southern
France, in Franciscan or Dominican circles, Florensian and Cistercian houses
Joachims ideas were alive and working. They were discussed at the Roman Curia
and at the schools of Paris, they travelled north to England and northern German
parts, and more often than not kindled vigorous, even ardent discussions. The Super
Hieremiam, one of the first and probably the most influential joachite work, written
(roughly) late in the first half of the thirteenth century, was already filled to the
brim with passionate anger about the unjust condemnation of Joachims Trinitarian
theology of 1215 and saw a Cistercian conspiracy at work, an order the text boldly
criticizes.45 While the authors of the Super Hieremiam are still unknown, and even
its provenience from either Florensian or Franciscan writers remains uncertain, we
can be sure that as early as 1240 there were professed Joachites among the
Franciscans, most notably Hugh of Digne (d. about 1255) in Provence,46 and his
42
Reeves, The Influence of Prophecy, p. 135.
43
Joachim of Fiore, Expositio in Apocalypsin, pars IV, fol. 176rb.
44
Reeves, The Influence of Prophecy, p. 145.
45
On the Super Hieremiam, see Bernhard Tpfer, Das kommende Reich des Friedens. Zur
Entwicklung chiliastischer Zukunftshoffnungen im Hochmittelalter (Berlin, Akademie Verlag,
1964), p. 108-124.
46
On Hugh of Digne, see Luke Wadding, Annales Minorum, (Roma, 1731), vol. IV, p. 401, vol. V,
p. 54, 113, Tpfer, Das kommende Reich, 124f.
13
friend, the notorious and (luckily) loquacious Salimbene of Parma.47 But the most
dramatic incident transpired about another Franciscan, Gerard of Borgo San
Donnino.48 He was the first to explicitly appropriate a Joachite image of the future
to the Franciscan Order. Gerard, whose original ideas can be conceived only via the
Protocol of the Commission of Anagni, was the first, and for some centuries the
last, too, to unfold the revolutionary potential of Joachims Trinitarian conception
of history. Gerard had resumed Joachims three main works as a new and Eternal
Evangel, with the result for his own order, ut exaltet huiusmodi ordinem
incredibiliter et intempestive super alios ordines, immo super totam ecclesiam. 49
Explosive as it was, the potential danger of causing a revolution to end the second
status by force and bring the third into life as a total replacement of all that
vanished together with Gerard.

As Marjorie Reeves has shown, later medieval Joachites invariably referred

less to the Third Age than to the scheme of seven tribulations. A famous example is
the Franciscan Spiritual Angelo Clareno (d. 1337), who in his Historia septem
tribulationem follows Joachims pattern of tribulations in history,50 which the
Franciscan Order vicariously suffers, and depicts the orders great future, if only it
will be true to its pristine ideals of poverty and purity. The opponents within the
order had Angelo and his allies confined in prison, and like many Franciscans of
the thirteenth century they were later sent as missionaries into far countries (in
Angelos case, Armenia, in others China or Northern Africa), where some of them
even actively seeked martyrdom. Only all too short, and brutally ended, was their
hope when the hermit Celestine V was elected pope, whom they expected to be the
Angelic pope of the Last Days, when in the same year, 1294, Celestine was
replaced by Boniface VIII, for Franciscans (and many others) a most unholy pope.
Like Angelo Clareno, his confrres Petrus Johannes Olivi (d. 1298),51 and later Jean
de Roquetaillade (d. about 1366)52 were mostly arguing about the ideal of
evangelical poverty as befitting the future role of their order, and found themselves
opposing the incumbent conception of the order, which confined e. g. Jean de
Roquetaillade to a life in prison, albeit with enough books and writing material to
write political prophecies of substantial length and number. He was not only a

47
Oswald Holder-Egger, Zur Lebensgeschichte des Bruders Salimbene de Adam, Neues Archiv,
37 (1912) p. 163-218, Neues Archiv, 38 (1913) p. 469-81.
48
Tpfer, Das kommende Reich, p. 126-131.
49
Protocol of Anagni, ed. Heinrich Denifle, Das Evangelium Aeternum und die Commission zu
Anagni, Archiv fr Litteratur- und Kirchengeschichte des Mittelalters, I (1885) p. 49-142, at p.
115.
50
Angelo Clareno, A Chronicle or History of the Seven Tribulations of the Order of Brothers Minor,
translated from the Latin by David Burr and Randolph E. Daniel (St Bonaventure, NY, Franciscan
Institute Publications, 2005).
51
Marco Bartoli, Lescatologia in Pietro di Giovanni Olivi, in Edith Psztor (ed.), Attese
escatologiche dei secoli XII-XIV, Atti del Convegno, LAquila, 11-12 settembre 2003 (LAquila,
Colacchi, 2004) p. 163-78.
52
Robert E. Lerner, John the Astonishing, Oliviana, 3, 2009:
http://oliviana.revues.org/index335.html (March 4, 2011).

14
prophet of Antichrist and a future Angelic, and naturally Franciscan, pope, but also
an alchemist. An unusual combination, perhaps, but useful, as Jean de
Roquetaillade supposes, because

Amidst the ecclesial, political, military, and epidemical disasters of the century,
prophecy and alchemy offered hope that by discerning the hidden purposes of God
in scripture, history, and nature, humans could survive and even thrive. 53

For all of them, the intention to follow their ideal St Francis, which was the
reason for the heated discussions around them, derived in their perspective directly
from the writings of Joachim of Fiore, who had foretold St Francis as the founder of
the new order, and themselves as the new spiritual men. For them, St Francis
signifies the transition from the second to the third status, like Christ the transition
from the second to the third, and it is not by chance that later the Franciscan
Bartholomew of Pisa (d. about 1401) writes a treatise with the title De conformitate
vitae b. Francisci ad vitam Domini Jesu.

It was the most radical group within the Franciscan Order, the Fraticelli,
who gave Joachite-Franciscan self-conception its new, and more definitive turn. In
their perspective, the Roman Church will not only be superseded one day by the
more perfect Franciscans, as all Spiritual Franciscans saw it, too. For the Fraticelli,
the pope then John XXII was in fact the agent of churchs destruction and
downfall, the personification of Antichrist. They themselves were the only future
survivors of a second deluge. Their conception of tribulation and renovation, often
in vernacular verses, is directly influenced by Joachim.

The dramatic culmination of Joachite hopes in the thirteenth and early

fourteenth centuries were the sect of the Apostolic Brethren and their leaders,
Gerardo Segarelli (d. 1300) and particularly Fra Dolcino (d. 1307).54 Theirs was a
laic or in any case popular movement, for at least Gerardo Segarelli is known to
have vainly seeked admission to the Franciscan Order, while the origin, perhaps
even the real name of Fra Dolcino are still subject of speculation. Yet whoever he
truly was some say, the son of a priest from Vercelli, or the illegitimate son of a
wealthy family from Novara he was well-read in Joachims theology of history,
modified and reorganised it according to the needs and situation of his own time.
He introduced a fourth status, which was far more radical concerning its ideals of
poverty, and declared the present church as rotten and declined, destined to if
necessary, even by force perish and brought to an end. Likewise, all other orders,
barring only the true sons of St Francis namely the Apostolic Brethren , would
perish and not survive until the end of time. For the Apostolic Brethren, the Roman
Church was the apocalyptic whore of Babylon, and all its past spiritual power had
been transferred to them. Their expected Third Age of the Holy Spirit, described
according to Joachim, was now reserved only for one group, the survivors, the
Apostolic Brethren.

53
David E. Timmer, on Leah de Vun, Prophecy, Alchemy, and the End of Time: John of Rupescissa
in the Late Middle Ages (New York, Columbia University Press, 2009), in Church History, 79
(2010) p. 705-07, at 707.
54
Giovanni Miccoli, Art. Dolcino, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, XL (Roma, Treccani,
1991) p. 440-4.

15
 Fra Dolcino and the Apostolic Brethren carried repudiation of
ecclesiastical power to the extreme,55 as Marjorie Reeves puts it, and a likewise
extreme outburst of violence was enrolled in the final acts of war between
Dolcinos followers and the worldly arm of the church. They, too, felt violence to
be a legitimate means to achieve their goals; with respect to their preeminent role in
the apocalyptic drama, they thought it their right to plunder houses, devastate
villages and even to kill those who did not oblige their ideals. But finally in 1307,
they were besieged and captured by the inquisition, Fra Dolcino and his consort
tortured and executed; his doctrines, which he had written down in several
manifests, are only traceable in the documents of the inquisitors.

This sad episode might be, at least before modern times and the massacre at
Canudos, which ended The war at the end the world, the most violent, and shocking
result of Joachim of Fiores lecture of, and commentary on the Apocalypse. Still it
is an awkward fact that at so many moments in history when apocalyptic hopes rise
and clash, Joachims name is mentioned, his ideas being referred to. This was the
case for the Bohemian Taborites56 in the early, as well as for Savonarolas
Florentine kingdom of God in the late fifteenth century, 57 as it was afterwards for
the left wing of the German Reformation and its charismatic preacher Thomas
Mntzer (d. 1525), who explicitly refers to Pseudo-Joachims Super Hieremiam.58
He, too, had seen church in a crisis, the sword of Gods justice hanging above, with
a definite errand to resist, to fight, and to free church from its corrupt prelates.

Not only to Savonarolas Florence, but also to Mntzers Thuringia and

many other, similar scenes in history applies what George Eliot describes:

The church, it was said, had never been so disgraced in its head, had never shown
so few signs of renovating, vital belief in its lower members; nevertheless it was
much more prosperous than in some past days. The heavens were fair and smiling
above; and below there were no signs of earthquake.
Yet at that time, as we have seen, there was a man in Florence who for two
years and more had been preaching that a scourge was at hand; that the world was
certainly not framed for the lasting convenience of hypocrites, libertines, and
oppressors. From the midst of those smiling heavens he had seen a sword hanging
the sword of Gods justice which was speedily to descend with purifying
punishment on the Church and the world. In brilliant Ferrara, seventeen years
before, the contradiction between mens lives and their professed beliefs had
pressed upon him with a force that had been enough to destroy his appetite for the
world, and at the age of twenty-three had driven him into the cloister. He believed

55
Reeves, The Influence of Prophecy, p. 244.
56
Norman Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennnium. Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical
Anarchists of the Middle Ages (London, 1957, often reprinted), chapter X.
57
Lorenzo Polizzotto, The Elect Nation. The Savonarolan Movement in Florence, 1494-1545,
Oxford - Warburg Studies (Oxford - New York, Oxford University Press, 1994).
58
Eugne Hone, The radical German reformer Thomas Mntzer (c. 1489-1525): The impact of
mystical and apocalyptic traditions on his theological thought, in Michael Wilks (ed.), Prophecy
and Eschatology, Studies in church history, Subsidia 10 (Oxford, Boydell and Brewer, 1994) p. 65-
74, at 68, n. 8.

16
 that God had committed to the Church the sacred lamp of truth for the guidance
and salvation of men, and he saw that the Church, in its corruption, had become a
sepulchre to hide the lamp.59

Other, mostly later examples have been described by Bernhard Tpfer,60

Norman Cohn,61 Henri de Lubac62 or Marjorie Reeves and Warwick Gould.63
Norman Cohns theory on the emergence of chiliastic movements is entirely
positivist and locates its roots solely in poverty and hopelessness. Marjorie Reeves
and Warwick Gould, however, conclude with the question whether the original
suppression of Trinitarian theology of history might have been one reason why later
apocalyptic millenarism became so virulent, and violent.

The danger in Joachim is perceptible, his ideas still being treated cautiously.
Rumors had it that before the eighth centenary of his death, when his Calabrian
compatriots were working on another of their countless attempts to transfer him
from condemned to sacred, beginning as early as 1346, the then Cardinal Ratzinger
of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had declared Joachimism a
threat, because, as is related, we must not allow people to believe there can be a
better life on earth than this one.64 Augustine might have applauded, but would
church history, would Christianity have gained or lost by forgetting or neglecting
Joachims explosive heritage? Marjorie Reeves and Warwick Gould end their
volume expressing their hope that

The Eternal Evangel will abide our question while such synergies [i. e. from the
efforts for Joachims canonization and contemporary scholarship] inherent in the
association of an exalted name with heresy remain.65

59
George Eliot, Romola, book II, chapter xxi (London, 1862/63).
60
Tpfer, Das kommende Reich des Friedens.
61
Cohn, The Pursuit.
62
de Lubac, La postrit spirituelle.
63
Reeves, Gould, Joachim of Fiore and the Myth of the Eternal Evangel, 347-8.
64
Ibid., p. 368.
65
Ibid., p. 369.
17