27830347

JOACHIM OF FLORA: A Critical Survey of his Canon, Teachings, Sources, Biography and
Influence
Author(s): MORTON W. BLOOMFIELD
Source: Traditio, Vol. 13 (1957), pp. 249-311
Published by: Fordham University
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JOACHIM OF FLORA
A Critical Survey of his Canon, Teachings, Sources,
Biography and Influence
By MORTON W. BLOOMFIELD1
One of the most significant and influential figures of the 4 renaissance of

the twelfth century, ' though not mentioned by Charles Haskins in his monu
mental work of that title (Cambridge 1927), was the Calabrian Joachim of
Flora, a man who contributed nothing directly to the revival of science, to
a knowledge of Greek or Latin antiquity, or to the rise of a secular attitude.
Long before the date of the appearance of Haskins' work, however, since
Michelet in fact, Joachim's name was associated with the Renaissance, and
in the early years of this century this link was emphasized by Burdach and his
followers. He is supposed to have done more to orient men's minds towards,
and to have aroused expectations of, a coming new age in the later Middle
1 The text of this article is based on an address delivered by the author to the Medieval
Club of New York in March, 1956. Recently two excellent oeuvres de synth?se have been
published on Joachim: Jeanne Bignami-Odier, 'Travaux r?cents sur Joachim de Flore,'
Le moyen ?ge 58 (1952) 145-61 and Herbert Grundmann, Neue Forschungen ?ber Joachim
von Fiore (M?nstersche Forschungen ed. J. Trier and H. Grundmann; Marburg 1950). To
these, George La Piana, 'Joachim of Flora: A Critical Survey,' Speculum 7 (1932) 257-82,
whose title I have echoed, should be added. Although I do not think I am either reduplicat
ing or superseding their important contributions, I am indebted to these three works.
The literature in English devoted exclusively to our Abbot before the recent work of
Dr. Marjorie E. Reeves, is not extensive. George Frederick Holmes, 'Joachim Abbot of
Flora,' The Southern Magazine 15 (1874) 393-404 and 'Joachim and the Joachites,' ibid.
517-29; G. E. Troutbeck, 'A Forerunner of St. Francis of Assisi,' The Nineteenth Century
and After 52 (1902) 140-52; Anon. (A.T.S. Goodrich?), 'The Prophet of Calabria: Joachim
of Floris and the Eternal Gospel/ The Church Quarterly Review 65 (1907-08) 17-48 (a review
article of several books); and Henry Bett, Joachim of Flora (Great Medieval Churchmen,
ed. L. Elliott Binns; London 1931) provide the major examples. Karl L?with has recently
devoted a very important chapter (with minor inaccuraries however) to Joachim in his
Meaning in History: The Theological Implication of the Philosophy of History (Chicago 1949)
145-59.
The following special abbreviations will be used in this paper: AFH (Archivum francis
canum historicum), AHDL (Archives d'histoire doctrinale et litt?raire du moyen ?ge), ALKG
(Archiv f?r Litteratur- und Kirchengeschichte des Mittelalters), ASCL (Archivio storico per
la Calabria e la Lucania), BGPT (Beitr?ge zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des
Mittelalters), MF (Miscellanea francescana), MIOG (Mitteilungen des Instituts f?r ?ster
reichische Geschichtsforschung), RHR (Revue d'histoire des religions), RTAM (Recherches de
th?ologie ancienne et m?di?vale), ST (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologica), ZKG (Zeit
schrift f?r Kirchengeschichte), ZKT (Zeitschrift f?r katholische Theologie), ZWT (Zeitschrift
f?r wissenschaftliche Theologie). ? The symbol ** at the end of a footnote indicates additional
bibliographical information which came to my attention in the course of proofreading an4
which is assembled below, pp. 309-10,
250 TRADITIO
Ages than anyone else. Whether one wishes to go as far as Burdach went2
(and I myself certainly do not wish to do so), it is at least true that his works
and the works associated with his name helped to create the ferment that
was eventually, in a few centuries, to make men feel that they were in a new
era of rebirth and that a period of darkness lay behind them.
The problems connected with Joachim of Flora are numerous and involved
and have generated much heat and even fire. Today, after some hundred
years of scholarly investigation, we are still far from having answered many
fundamental questions about this influential figure. The facts or at least
the basic facts must be known before we can assess Joachim's role in intellec
tual history, and until they are established as far as is possible, much of our
work must be in the dark. Of the five basic factual questions which can be
asked of any writer or thinker in history?what are his intellectual antecedents,
who is he, what did he write, what did he say or mean, whom did he affect
(questions of background, biography, canon and text, intellectual position,
and influence)?only the last has been answered of Joachim with any thor
oughness and confidence. We do know a great deal about Joachim's influence
on the world, his relations to the Spiritual Franciscans, and the prophetic
and apocalyptic literature of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. But on
the other questions, we find conflicting answers among the authorities and
even violent disagreements?and many blanks, some inevitable and some not.
These five basic questions cannot be ultimately separated from each other,
for often our answer to one turns upon what the answer is to another. For
convenience of presentation, however, we can try to keep them apart. My
purpose here is not to answer these questions, which at present would be
impossible anyway, but to summarize briefly our state of knowledge on each
of them?or at least the first four?, to raise what seem to me pertinent sub
questions that lead towards more exact answers, and to make some suggestions
as to possible answers. Finally I hope to make some tentative generalizations
about Joachim's significance on the basis of this summing-up.
I
Although the question of sources comes first in time, perhaps I may be for
given if I break the order I have established, to deal first briefly with Joachim's
2 Eug?ne Anitchkof, Joachim de Flore et les milieux courtois (Rome/Paris 1931) 12ff.
attacks Burdach's theory of Joachim as a precursor of the Renaissance. H. Grundmann,
Studien ?ber Joachim von Floris: Beitr?ge zur Kulturgeschichte des Mittelalters und der
Renaissance (Leipzig and Berlin 1927) 5 n. 6 also questions the role of Joachim as a forerunner
of the Renaissance; see also the measured criticism of Burdach's views of Joachism in
Karl Borinski, Die Weltwiedergeburtsidee in den neueren Zeiten, I: Der Streit um der Renais
sance und die Entstehungsgeschichte der historischen Beziehungsbegriffe Renaissance und
Mittelalter (SB Akad. Munich 1919, Heft 1) 15ff,
JOACHIM OF FLORA 251
canon3 and views?the third andfourthgeneral subjects?so that we may t hen more
profitably bring forward the matter of sources, biography and influence. What
did Joachim write and what did he say ? To these let us first turn our attention.
All authorities are agreed that the Concordia novi et veteris Testamenti*
the Expositio in Apocalypsim5 and the Psalterium decem chordarum are Joa
chim's basic works. They are also agreed that two very influential works
often attributed to him in the past and sometimes still spoken of as his are
apocryphal and written at least thirty years after his death (in 1202)?the
Expositio in Hieremiam* and the Expositio in Isaiam.1 These two may have
3 Although the unauthentic nature of the Commentaries on Jeremiah and Isaiah had
been recognized earlier in the century (see note 6), the pioneer work on Joachim's canon
was done by Heinrich Denifle, ' Das Evangelium aeternum und die Commission zu Anagni,'
ALKG 1 (1885) 90ff. See also F. Ehrle's article on Joachim in Kirchenlexicon 6. For recent
works on Joachim's canon, see E. Jordan, ' Joachim de Flore,' DThC 8.1429ff.; Emil Donckel,
' Studien ?ber die Prophezeiung des Fr. Telesforus von Cosenza, O.F.M. (1365-1386), ' AFH
26 (1933) 50ff.; Jeanne Bignami-Odier, 'Notes sur deux manuscrits de la Biblioth?que du
Vatican contenant des trait?s in?dits de Joachim de Flore, ' M?langes d'arch?ologie et d'his
toire (?cole fran?aise de Rome) 54 (1937) 211-41; J. C. Huck, Joachim von Floris und die
joachitische Literatur (Freiburg im Breisgau 1938) 127ff. and 190ff. (a poorly organized
and unreliable book; see the review by Grundmann in Theologische Literaturzeitung 64
[1939] 176-8. Huck has printed two of Joachim's minor works ? the Dialogi de praescientia
Dei et praedestinatione electorum [pp. 278-87] from MS Padua Bibl. Anton. 322, and the
Enchiridion in Apocalypsim from MSS Paris, B.N. lat. 2142 and Vatican Reg. lat. 132
[pp. 287ff.]. The Enchiridion, however, exists in another version. Both texts are apparently
inaccurate [see Tondelli, 'Gli inediti' 3-4]); L. Tondelli, 'Gli inediti dell'abate Gioacchino
da Fiore,' ASCL 12 (1942) 1-12; Herbert Grundmann (note 1) 15-31; F. Russo, Bibliografia
gioachimita (Biblioteca di bibliografia italiana; Florence 1954). (A modernization of an
earlier bibliography which appeared in ASCL 6 [1936]. It covers a wider range, of course,
than Joachim's canon and is the most useful extant guide to writings by and on Joachim
in spite of its errors and impr?cisions.) A definitive bibliographical and canonical work
on Joachita and ps.-Joachita cries out to be done. It is an absolute preliminary to the
long hoped for definitive edition of all his works.**
4 There is a summary of this work, called Summula seu Breviloquium super concordia novi
et veteris testamenti, to the MSS of which in Russo's Bibliography (p. 20) should be added
British Museum MS Egerton 1150. It is probably the work of a 14th-century Spanish or
Sicilian Joachite, possibly a Minorite.
6 A long summary of parts of the Expositio is available in English in E. B. Elliott, Horae
Apocalypticae: or a Commentary on the Apocalypse... 4 (5th ed. London 1862) 384-422.**
6 Printed by Lazarus de Soardis in Venice 1516; by Bernardinus Benalius in Venice 1525;
and in Cologne 1577. It is noteworthy that this pseudo-Joachite work was printed three
times in the sixteenth century as compared to a single printing of each of Joachim's three
major works (1519 for the Concordia and 1527 for the Expositio and Psalterium, both in
Venice). The root of the Jeremiah Commentary is probably Concordia 5.107, fols. 125r-v.
The classic article on the Jeremiah and Isaiah Commentaries is D. Baur, ' Friederich's kri
tische Untersuchung der dem Abt Joachim von Floris zugeschriebenen Commentare zu
Jesajas und Jeremias,' ZWT 2 (1859) 349-63; 449-514. Friederich gives a history of their
interpretations, good summaries of their contents, and showed for the first time that they
could not be genuine works of Joachim.
7 Printed by Lazarus de Soardis in 1517 in Venice,
252 TRADITIO
been written by disciples or followers of Joachim in southern Italy between

1240 and 1266, although a possible Franciscan authorship cannot be com
pletely ruled out. The Commentary on Jeremiah was especially popular. It
is obviously directed against Frederick II. It praises and criticizes the Cis
tercians under symbols such as the Pharisees and speaks of new orders sym
bolized by the raven and the dove which Noah had released from the Ark
(the true Church).8 This supposed prediction was taken by the Dominicans
and Franciscans to refer to themselves,9 but it is of course post eventum. It
is based on the idea, in genuine Joachite writings, of the new orders of spiri
tual men which were to dominate the new age. It attacks Constantine's Do
nation and the evils of the Church much more openly and violently than Joa
chim ever does. The Jeremiah Commentary was extremely popular and helped
to make Joachim's reputation as a successful prophet.
The Dominicans and especially the Franciscans pushed these supposed pro
phecies of Joachim in regard to their Orders10 as a means of raising their prestige
and overcoming the charge of novelty frequently levelled against them. Yet
if Joachim's name helped the friars, they in turn, whom he had apparently
predicted, helped his reputation. This mutual benefit along with the general
hostility of the Church to Frederick II11 helps to explain the great popularity
of the Commentary on Jeremiah.
Among the more extensive minor works, the De articulis fidei, the Tractatus
super quatuor Evangelia, and the Adversus Judaeos are universally accepted
as genuine. The first two have been satisfactorily edited by Buonaiuti and
handsomely printed in the past thirty years.12 In fact these two works are
8 I am following the recent interpretation of the Jeremiah Commentary given by Marjorie

Reeves, 'The Abbot Joachim's Disciples and the Cistercian Order,' Sophia 19 (1951) 360ff.
The older interpretation sees in it a work of the radical Franciscans and its criticism mainly
directed against their conservative brethren. The date c. 1240 seems however too early for
it to have emanated from Franciscan circles. Dr. Reeves' arguments are strong. She sees
the work, as issuing from the Florensian order in the south of Italy. Besides the symbolism
of the raven and the dove, the Jeremiah commentary also uses the pairs Esau and Jacob,
Joseph and Benjamin, etc.
9 In the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance Joachim was thought, on the basis largely
of this work, to have also predicted the rise of the Austin friars; see A. Possevini, Apparatus
sacri... 2 (Venice 1606) 102. Gregorio de Lauro, in 1660, goes much further in his Magni
divinique prophetae bead Ioannis Ioachim... (Naples), and in a reductio ad absurdum proves
that the Abbot predicted the advent of the Dominicans, Franciscans, Carmelites, Austin
Friars, Theatin es, and Jesuits as well as the subsequent history of the Cistercians !
10 Joachim is even supposed to have done the mosaics of St. Francis and St. Dominic
in St. Mark's, Venice. See Jordan, 'Joachim,' DThC 8.1440 and F. Campolongo, II Gioa
chinismo nella storia e nelVarte (Naples 1930) 20-1.
11 And his ' seed, ' as with Peter John Olivi in the last decades of the thirteenth century.
12 Tractatus super quatuor Evangelia di Gioacchino da Fiore (Istituto storico italiano,
Fonti per la storia d'Italia 67; Rome 1930) and De Articulis fidei di Gioacchino da Fiore
the most accessible of all of Joachim's writings. For his three major works,
we are still forced to rely on early sixteenth-century books presented in a
most unattractive and hard to read format.13 In fact one of the pressing needs
of Joachite studies at present is a scholarly modern edition of these basic
works. It is hard to know when we may expect them, although Grundmann
has been reported for a long time to be working on this task.
Then there are a large number of small works on which varying attitudes
have been taken and whose authenticity is difficult to establish beyond ques
tion. The Expositio in Apocalypsim has several appendages, one of which
is a 'testament' in form of an introductory letter.14 In it, Joachim (if he wrote
it, as seems likely)15 submits all his work to the correction of the Holy See.16
Even if the testament is not genuine, I think no one can question the genuine
(ibid. 78; Rome 1936). See the critical reviews by Ezio Franceschini, ' Il codice padovano
Antoniano XIV, 322, e il testo dei Tractatus super quatuor Evangelia di Gioacchino da
Fiore,' Aevum 9 (1935) 481-92 and G. Ottaviano in Archivio di filosofia 1 (1931) 73-82.
13 Dr. Reeves in her dissertation, Studies in the Reputation and Influence of the Abbot
Joachim of Fiore, chiefly in the 15th and 16th centuries (University of London 1932) 93ff.
has shown why Venice (see above note 6) was especially a center of Joachim interest in the
late 15th and early 16th centuries. It was there that a bitter quarrel centered between the
Augustinian friars and canons, and Joachim was called upon as an authority. The mosaics
in St. Mark's were no doubt a further stimulus, mot to speak of Venetian political ambitions
which could use prophecies. The edition of the Oraculum Cyrilli cum expositione abbatis
Joachim, a pseudo-Joachite work printed in Venice by de Soardis in 1516, fols. 51v-54v,
contains several small prophecies which were supposed to have been found in Mestre just
outside of Venice.
14 Also found in the prefatory material in the printed version of the Concordia. Inasmuch
as I have not been able to examine the MSS, I am not sure, but following Russo's biblio
graphy and my own knowledge, I think there are a Praefatio seu Introductorius to the Apo
calypse (not to be confused with Gerardo de Borgo San Donnino's Introductorius to the Eter
nal Gospel; see below p. 295) and an Enchiridion in Apocalypsim,both of which sum up Joa
chim's theories and his interpretation of the Apocalypse. However, MSS of the Enchiridion
show some surprising differences, and two works may be masquerading under that title.
One version of the Enchiridion is partially printed by Huck (see above, note 3). Then there
is an introductory epistle to the Expositio itself which is apparently Joachim's so called
Testament. If it can be accepted as genuine, and I think it can, it is very valuable not only
for giving us a picture of Joachim's own attitude towards the Church but for deciding pro
blems of his canon. See Tondelli, Da Gioacchino a Dante, Nuovi studi ? Consensi e contrasti
(Turin 1944) 62-63 and Wilmart's sage comments, in his catalogue of the Vatican Reginenses,
on MS Reg. lat. 132, fols. 49v-95v.
16 Questioned by Mario Niccoli in his article 'Gioacchino da Fiore,' Enciclopedia Italiana
(Treccani) 17.148 and others. (Niccoli regards Joachim with disapproval.)
16 Joachim was probably well aware of the possible dangers in his interpretation and
method and no doubt sincerely submitted to papal judgment. Although we do not hear
of papal disapproval before the Lateran Council, in fact the contrary (see below p. 292), it
is possible that in his attack on Peter Lombard, which may be an early production, Joachim
became aware of strong opposition to his views and his skirting of heresy.
254 TRADITIO
ness of this attitude, which after his death was expressly mentioned by the
Fourth Lateran Council.17
Recently a commentary on the Benedictine rule attributed to Joachim has
been published, and the editors offer strong reasons for assuming its authen
ticity.18 This interesting opusculum has had an important role in one of the
quarrels which has raged around Joachim in modern times, for in it there is an
overt slighting remark about Peter Lombard, and it was precisely in defense
of the latter that the Fourth Lateran Council, held by Pope Innocent III
in 1215, condemned certain views said to be contained in a work of Joachim's
on the Trinity.19 Now, Foberti believes that Joachim never attacked Peter
Lombard at all, but that the Trinitarian writing attributed to him was a for
gery by disgruntled Cistercians who wished to blacken the name of one of
their sons who left the Order and established a new one.20 Consequently, in
Foberti's view, the commentary on the Benedictine rule is not genuine.
This brings us to the lost work by Joachim (if Foberti is wrong), the De
essentia seu unitate Trinitatis21 in which the Lateran Council says he attacked
17 ' ...idem Joachim omnia scripta sua nobis assignari mandaverit apostolicae Sedis judicio
approbanda, seu etiam corrigendp; dictans epistolam cui propria manu subscripsit, in qua
firmiter confitetur se illam fidem teuere, quam romana tenet Ecclesia, quae cunctorum fi
deJium, dispor erte Domino, mater est et magistra, ' IV Lateran Council c. 2 in Mansi 22.981-2
= Gregory IX, Decretals 1.1.2.
18 Cipriano Baraut, 'Un tratado inedito de Joaquin de Fiore: De vita sancti Benedicti
et de officio divino secundum eius doctrinam,' Analecta sacra tarraconensia 24 (1951) 3,3-122.
F. Foberti, Gioacchino da Fiore: Nuovi studi critici sulla mistica e la religiosit? in Calabria
(Biblioteca storica Sansoni 9; Florence 1934) 98 ff. denies its authenticity, while J. C. Huck,
Joachim von Floris (note 3) 6-7, 18ff. and 169ff. defends it.
19 For the text of the condemnation, see Mansi and the Decretals loc. cit. Many scholars
see in this condemnation a very important landmark in the history of Western thought ?
a sign of papal approval for the kind of thinking exemplified in Lombard which was to flower
in 13th and 14th-century scholasticism. See J. de Ghellinck, Le mouvement th?ologique du
xii* si?cle (Paris 1914) 160ff., esp. p. 163; 2nd ed. (1948) 263ff., 266; M. D. Chenu, ' Le dernier
avatar de la th?ologie orientale en occident au xiiie si?cle,' M?langes Auguste Pelzer...
(Universit? de Louvain, Recueil de travaux d'histoire et de philologie8 26; Louvain 1947)
177-81; and above all, Erich Przywara, ' Die Reichweite der Analogie als katholischer Grund
form,' Scholastik 15 (1940) 339-62; 508-32 (who does not distinguish between Joachim and
the Joachites and who sees pantheism in Joachim ? a judgment I find hard to support).
20 Vigorously argued in various articles and notes, but most completely presented in
Gioacchino da Fiore, Nuovi studi (Florence 1934) and Gioacchino da Fiore e il Gioacchinismo
(Padua 1942). As far as I know, Foberti converted no one, but, as Jeanne Bignami-Odier
has acutely pointed out, op. cit. (note 1) 153 and 161, Dr. Reeves' recent work (note 8) on
the Southern Italian Joachite movement after his death has given some support to Foberti's
argument. Bignami-Odier, op. cit. 159 also notes seventeenth-century suspicions of the
Cistercians' role in the condemnation of Joachim (see note 23).**
21 Matthew Paris puts it under the year 1179, which would make it an early if not the
first work of Joachim's. See below p. 263 on its date. Friedrich, in ZWT (note 6) 350 n. 3
suggests the De essentia was the first book of the Psalterium, but this is most unlikely
Peter Lombard. There was certainly a copy of the work in the papal library
at Avignon.22 It seems to have disappeared completely. No one, as far as I
know, has supported Foberti's rather preposterous charge of a Cistercian
forgery, and per se it is hard to believe, although we do have some evidence
from the 1190's of Cistercian antagonism to Joachim.23 Ottaviano especially
has shown that there is very early evidence shortly after the holding of the
Lateran Council that Joachim's followers were upset by the Lateran condem
nation.24 But they did not (as they certainly would have, if they had thought
the charge was a falsehood) repudiate the condemned views as falsely attri
buted to their master.25 However, except for some ambiguous references
The Liber contra Lombardum from Oxford MS Balliol 296, noted by Denifle, and edited by
Carmelo Ottaviano (Reale Accademia d'Italia, Studi e documenti 3; Rome 1934) is ? as
even its editor admits, although he does not carry his scepticism to the title page ? not by
Joachim at all. It may be a Joachite attack on the Lombardian position, although it needs
to be carefully studied in the light of the Trinitarian disputes of the 12th century.
22 See Maurice Faucon, La librairie des papes d'Avignon... I (Biblioth?ques des ?coles
fran?aises d'Ath?nes et de Rome 43; Paris, 1886) 125 (No. 361).
28 The idea of Cistercian hostility to Joachim as the cause of his condemnation is old
(see Giacinto d'lppolito, Vabate Gioacchino da Fiore [? Archicenobio florense e le nuove ri
cerche storiche sulla vita del grande Calabrese], Saggio storico [Cosenza 1928] 155). Manrique,
seventeenth-century historian of the Cistercians, recognizes this antagonism; see his Cister
ciensium seu verius ecclesiasticorum annalium... (Lyons 1649) under the year 1188 (III. iv
n. 11, p. 211). There is of course the threat of censure issued to Joachim and Brother Ray
nerius by the Chapter of the Order in 1192. See below p. 293.
24 'Un nuovo documento intorno alia condanna di Gioacchino da Fiore nel 1215,' Sophia
3 (1935) 476-82 and the later ' Un documento intorno alia condanna di Gioacchino da Fiore
nel 1215,' Siculorum Gymnasium: Rassegna semestrale d?lia Facolt? di Lettere e Filosofia
delV Universit? di Catania N.S. 2 (1949) 291-94. See Foberti's answer to Ottaviano in ' Nuo
va illustrazione del documento intorno alia condanna di Gioacchino da Fiore nel 1215,'
Sophia 5 (1937) 46-52, and Ottaviano's reply, ' Postilla' ibid. 53-58, Just recently, however,
after this paper was written, I discovered P. Francesco Russo, ' Un documento sulla condanna
di Gioacchino da Fiore nel 1215,' ASCL 20 (1951) 69-73, which very successfully impugns
the genuineness of Ottaviano's document (from MS Rome Casan. 1411), in which Peter
Lombard appears as a devil. For one thing the document is dated April 1215, whereas the
Lateran Council did not begin its deliberations until November of that year. There are
other inconsistencies and difficulties, but all this does not make Foberti's non-existent
Cistercian forgery a reality.
25 The accusation of Trinitarian heresy bothered the Joachites, as it reflected on the
truth of the Abbot's prophecies and his theory of history, which were the only elements in
his teachings which interested them. The Ottaviano document, even if it is later than 1215,
still provides evidence for this point. As Dr. B. Hirsch-Reich has pointed out, the aggressive
phrase ' errore procul haeretico ' in the Antiphon to Vespers sung in Calabria in honor of
Joachim provides further evidence on this point. William of St. Amour in his De Antichristo
uses the Lateran condemnation as evidence that everything Joachim argued must be sus
pect. Miss Lucy Allen Paton, Les Prophecies de Merlin, edited from M.S. 593 in the Biblio
th?que Municipale of Rennes 2 (The Modern Language Association of America, Monograph
Series 1; New York and London 1927) 189-90 points out that the author of the Merlin Pro
256 TRADITIO
in his other works, especially the Psalterium, and the brief allusion in the
Commentary on the Benedictine rule, we do not possess the substance of
Joachim's views, and it will therefore always be possible to question them.
In any event, St. Thomas26 took Joachim's views seriously enough to discuss
them and to say that Joachim did not understand Peter Lombard. This inter
pretation is quite possible, as Joachim was by no means a systematic thinker
nor at all scholastic-minded.27 In part at least, I think, Foberti was motivated,
as others at other times have been, by the desire to clear Joachim of the sus
picion of heresy. A number of scholars have considered him a heretic, although
his Trinitarian views alone have been formally condemned by the whole
Church and his other teachings only by a provincial synod at Aries in 1263.
The Fourth Lateran Council stressed his profession of assent to the faith
of the Roman Church;27a Innocent III,28 Honorius III,29 and Gregory
phecies (written between 1250 and 1279) emphasizes the orthodoxy of Merlin as a covert
criticism of Joachite prophecies.
26 On St. Thomas' criticism of Joachim, see Ernst Benz, 'Joachim-Studien III: Thomas
von Aquin und Joachim de Fiore, Die katholische Antwort auf die spiritualistische Kirche
und Geschichtsanschauung, ' ZKG 53 (1934) 52-116. St. Thomas according to his biographer
William of Tocco (AS, March I 667) took Joachim seriously enough to read him carefully
and underline his errors in the text he was using. Aquinas' attack on Joachim's Trinitarian
views may be read in ST 1 q. 39 a.5 (the core of his objection is that Joachim confused 4 essen
tial' nouns with 'personal' nouns when speaking of God. Joachim apparently stated that
essence begot essence in his endeavor to stress the reality of the three-ness of the unity.
See below, p. 264); on his idea of a third age (although he does not mention his name), in
ST 2.1 q. 106-108, esp. q. 106 a.4 and in De potentia, q.5. a.6 ad 9 ('Non enim legi evange
licae alius status succedit, quae ad perfectum adduxit'); and on whether the date of the
end of the world can be predicted, in ST 3 suppl. q. 77 a.2 (on this last point see below, notes
233 and 234). On Joachim as a prophet, St. Thomas wrote ' Joachim qui per tales conjec
turas de futuris aliqua vera praedixit et in aliquibus deceptus fuit,' In lib. IV sent. dist.
43 q.l a.3. See also his Expositio in decretalem secundam (Parma ed. 16, Opusculum 20)
which is devoted to a discussion of Joachim's Trinitarian theory and a defense of Peter
Lombard. It gives us some knowledge of Joachim's arguments and should be studied
carefully. St. Bonaventure, although he was to some extent influenced by Joachim, also
attacks his views on the Trinity, In lib. I sent. dist. 5 a.2.q.2, dub. 4 (Quaracchi ed. 1.121).
See also below note 83. Grundmann views Bonaventure's whole Collationes in Hexaemeron
as an attack on Joachim, especially the Concordia, Book V, which is to some extent a com
mentary on Genesis and the account of the Creation ('Dante und Joachim von Fiore, zu
Paradiso X-XII,' Deutsches Dante-Jahrbuch 14 [1932] 232ff.)
27 See Expositio 9.Iff. (f. 130v) (references to the Expositio are by chapter and verse of
the Apocalypse when possible, and folio). Joachim also was suspicious of Gratian andCanon law.
27a See note 17.
28 ' In nullo tarnen per hoc Florensi monasterio, cujus ipse Joachim extitit institutor, vo
lumus derogari. ' IV Lateran Council c. 2 in Mansi 22.981-2.
29 See J. C. Huck, Joachim von Floris (note 3) 267-8. Honorius III even defends Joachim's
general orthodoxy in letters to the Archbishop of Cosenza and the Bishop of Bisignano
(see Charles du Plessis d'Argentr?, Collectio judiciorum I [Paris 1728-1736] 121); AS, May
VII 101-02; and apparently in Domenico Taccone-T. Gallucci, Regesti dei romani ponte/ici
IX30 all showed much respect to the order?the Florensians?Joachim founded,

and specifically exempted it from any reproach. In any case, it may be said
that none of Joachim's extant works has ever been formally condemned by
the Church. In 1346 apparently an attempt was made by some of Joachim's
partisans to open canonization proceedings.
There are a number of other minor works, including two interesting poems31
on the next world which may have influenced Dante and which may be ge
nuine, but I shall not discuss them here.
The last work to be mentioned is in some ways the most exciting ? the
Liber figurarum.32 Salimbene in his autobiography33 ? which, incidentally,
is full of references to the Abbot and which shows his great impact on the
Franciscans ? alludes to a book of drawings or figures by Joachim/4 The
genuine works and the Jeremiah and Isaiah commentaries are also frequently
illustrated by tables and figures in the manuscripts and printed editions.
One of the manuscripts, Dresden A.121,is especially notable for its illustrative
drawings. But it came as a totally unexpected surprise, and made the whole
problem of illustrations35 fall into place, when Monsignor Tondelli in 1937
alle chiese di Calabria (Rome 1902) 133, which I have not been able to consult. See Russo's
review of Niccoli's articles in the Enciclopedia Italiana on Joachim and the Spiritual Fran
ciscans, ASGL 7 (1937) 88-89.
80 A most ardent patron of the Florensians. See Andr? Gallebaut, ' Le Joachimite Beno?t, '
AFH 20 (1927) esp. 221-22 and F. Caraffa, 17 monastero florense di S. Maria delta Gloria
presso Anagni (Rome 1940), passim. See also below note 202. ? Lazarus de Soardis, before
printing in Venice a number of Joachite and ps.-Joachite works in 1517 (see above note 7),
obtained in 1516 the Pope's approval to do so.
81 De patria celesti and De gloria paradisi, printed at the end of the 1527 Venice edition
of the Expositio and Psalterium. For these two poems and their possible influence on Dante,
see Francesco Mango, 'L'Abate Gioacchino, a Giovanni Mestica...,' II Propugnatore (of Bo
logna) 19.2 (1886) 241ff. Most scholars accept them as genuine. See also B. Hirsch-Reich
in M. Reeves and B. Hirsch-Reich, ' The Seven Seals in the Writings of Joachim of Fiore, '
RTAM 21 (1954) 231-32 and notes 73 and 75. The latter article also prints the opusculum
De septem sigillis which the authors argue convincingly is genuine. To their list of MSS
(pp. 231ff.) should be added the version in the Pierpont Morgan Library MS 631, ff. 47r-48r.**
82 See the long review article by F. Russo, ' II libro delle figure attribuito a Gioacchino
da Fiore,' MF 41 (1941) 326-44. Russo sees the influence of the Jeremiah Commentary on
the Liber and hence tends to doubt its early authenticity. Both may owe their similarities,
however, to a common source in Joachite circles. He also raises some troubling objections,
as for instance the anti-German element in some figures, which does not seem to have
been characteristic of Joachim in his later years, when the Liber is supposed to have been
written.
88 On Salimbene's Joachism, see Ephraim Emerton, ' Fra Salimbene and the Franciscan
Ideal,' Harvard Theological Review 8 (1915) 480-503 and G. G. Coulton, From St. Francis
to Dante (2nd ed. London 1907) 150-66.
84 The Protocol of Anagni also alludes to a book of figures; see Denifle (note 3) 122.
36 For excellent clarifying articles on the various figures associated with Joachim's works,
258 TRADITIO
announced the discovery in Reggio Emilia of a complete manuscript of Joa

chite drawings which, following Salimbene, he named the Liber figurarum.
Although there had before been much discussion of Joachim's possible influence
on Dante, this announcement and the subsequent publication of the work in
194037 aroused much further speculation and excitement among Dante scholars.
One of the symbols for the clergy in the new age was found to be a dog (canis).
Immediately it looked as if the age-old mystery of the veltro had been solved.38
Crcles representing the Trinity (although this symbol occurs in some manu
sicripts of Joachim's other works and was well known)39 and various other
points of resemblance to Dante were called to scholars' attention by Tondelli
in his not well-organized introduction. In the midst of war, this publication
did not get much attention outside Italy. In 1944, however, Fritz Saxl an
nounced the discovery of a second copy of the Liber figuramm in the Library
of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. This manuscript (225A) proved to be an
even better and older copy of the work, coming probably from South Italy.40
Just a few years ago, before Tondelli's death, a revised edition of the Liber
figuramm was issued with the help of two Oxford scholars, Dr. Marjorie Reeves
s?e Marjorie E. Reeves, 'The Liber Figuramm of Joachim of Fiore,' Mediaeval and Renais
sance Studies 2 (1951) 57-81 and Reeves and Hirsch-Reich, ' The Figurae of Joachim of Fiore,
Genuine and Spurious Collections,' ibid. 3 (1954) 170-99. Note however Lorenzo Minio
Paluello's review of Mediaeval and Renaissance Studies 2 and his comments on the first
article in Rivista storica italiana 63 (1951) 255-57. To the various illustrated MSS mentioned
in these two articles, MS Florence, Bibl. Laurenziana, Conv. Soppr. 358 should be added.
A strong argument for the genuineness of the Liber figuramm is that Joachim frequently
in his authentic works refers to, and uses, figures to clarify his argument.
38 Actually Fournier, in Revue des questions historiques 67 (1900) 459n and G. Bondatti
in Giaocchinismo e francescanesimo nal dugento (S. Maria degli Angeli 1924) had earlier sug
gested that the Dresden MS A. 121 was a copy of the Liber figuramm.
37 t/W0 volumes, Turin.
38 In 1913, Edmund G. Gardner, Dante and The Mystics (London) 195 suggested Joachism
as the explanation of this figure. Papini in 1933 (see his Dante vivo [trans. New York 1935]
280-97) before the discovery of the Liber suggested the Joachite origin of veltro and urged
its name might conceal the Vang EL eTeRnO (see below, p. 304). There are many difficulties
in any identification of the veltro with the Holy Ghost or any Joachite concept, not the
least of which is the fact that the veltro is to be the saviour of Italy, a somewhat restricted
nationalistic task for a Person of the Trinity. See Foberti's criticism of Papini in MF 39
(1939) 158ff. and F. Russo, 'Rassegna gioacchimito-dantesca, * MF 38 (1938) 70. On the
whole subject of Joachite influence on Dante, see below pp. 303ff.
89 See G. Manacorda, Poesia e contemplazione: Gioacchino da Fiore ? S. Francesco ? Dante
?S. Caterina (Florence 1946/7), who denies a Joachite model for the Dantean circles. In
general, however, there is a much better case for the circles being of Joachite origin than
for the preceding identification. See the article by B. Hirsch-Reich, cited below, note 121
40 Although southern France has also been suggested as its provenance; see Minio-Paluello
(above, not? 35).
and Dr. Beatrice Hirsch-Reich,41 which included the wealth of the Oxford
material. Now at last we have a full edition of these very interesting drawings
together with the previously known material from all the manuscripts and
editions properly related. The Liber itself includes many drawings never
known before, and most of the tables and drawings in the other works du
plicate those in the Liber.
The problem of authenticity here is difficult. The drawings in general agree
with Joachim's views as expressed in his authentic works, but there are ad
ditions and a few contradictions, although Joachim is not always consistent
in any case. The view which Monsignor Tondelli42 and Doctors Reeves and
Hirsch-Reich hold is probably sound : that it is a genuine attempt to illustrate
the Abbot's views, prepared before or shortly after his death by disciples
fully cognizant of his ideas, including some perhaps he had not put in writing.
The book makes many of his concepts clearer, and with his rather murky
style and method, with his contradictions, these visual aids are most useful.
They give us a number of details, for instance, about the coming third age,
not known before, and also show that Joachim did perhaps not emphasize
the future43 as much as some enthusiastic scholars have thought, although a
close perusal of his writings might have revealed this earlier.
Foberti44 and Russo45 denied the validity of the Liber as representative of
Joachim's genuine views. It contains a brief reference to Lombard46 and per
haps gives more details about the third age than Foberti would like. Although
I don't think its authenticity is established as well as that of the Commentary
41 Turin 1953. See also B. Hirsch-Reich's discussion of the edition and a defence of the
work's authenticity in 'Das Figurenbuch Joachims von Fiore,' RTAM 21 (1954) 144-47.
42 See Tondelli, 'Nuove prove d?lia genuinit? del Libro delle Figure di Gioacchino da
Fiore,' La scuola cattolica (April 1942) 3-23, reprinted in Da Gioacchino a Dante: Nuovi
studi ? consensi e contrasti (Turin 1944) 34-63.
48 E. Schott, 'Die Gedanken des Abtes Joachim von Floris,' ZKG 23 (1902) 164 makes
the point that Joachim is more interested in the past than even the present. Miss Reeves
has been emphasizing recently the importance of a double parallelism (between the Old
Testament age and the present age) rather than a triple one in Joachim. Mrs. Bignami
Odier points out ('Travaux r?cents,' Le moyen ?ge 58 [1952] 158) that Dr. Reeves' emphasis
on Joachim's double rather than triple mode of thought agrees with Grundmann's view in
his Studien ?ber Joachim von Fiore (Leipzig 1927) 72ff. See, however, Bloomfield and
Reeves, 'The Penetration of Joachism into Northern Europe,' Speculum 29 (1954) 793 n.
87, where the point is made that it is after all rather difficult to be detailed about a third
age not yet entered upon.
44 See e.g. Foberti, Gioacchino da Fiore e il gioacchinismo (Padua 1942) 227ff.
46 Russo is less dogmatic on the point. See above note 32 for Russo's opinion. Mrs.
Bignami-Odier, in her review of Tondelli's edition in Biblioth?que de V?cole de Chartes 103
(1942) 250-51, discusses the objections of Foberti and Russo. For Tondelli's defence, see
above note 42.
4e Liber figurarum, first edition, II 61 (reproduced from the Dresden MS).
260 TRADITIO
on the Benedictine Rule, where we have verbal stylistic evidence, it is not

unreasonable to accept as probably sound the estimate of the scholars who
gave us the latest edition, referred to above. The Liber is certainly an inter
pretation of Joachim's thought by someone close to him or his circle and is of
inestimable value in understanding the history of Joachism. The only doubt
? and this is what I mean by its authenticity ? is whether it was composed
by Joachim himself or someone under his control, or by a later and less re
liable follower.47
II
What in brief did Joachim teach? This is not an easy question to answer.
Joachim is for the most part not a systematic thinker, often his style is murky
and his method rhetorical rather than logical.48 Practically all of his writings
are in the form of commentaries on established, usually Biblical texts, and
one can find contradictions or apparent contradictions between his works and
indeed in different parts of the same work. One is frequently not quite sure
what he means. When he speaks of Rome as Babylon, the context frequently
does not tell us whether the allusion is to contemporary Rome or not. He says
at one point that he is a farmer.49 Buonaiuti50 used this statement to argue
that he was of humble birth. But Foberti51 says this remark refers to his
Cistercian connections or even to being a loyal son of the Church, for are we
not all laborers in the vineyard?52 When Joachim speaks of having visited
Jerusalem,53 does this refer to a spiritual or an actual journey? Questions of
47 ' Il me semblerait qu'il s'agit plut?t d'un disciple imbu des id?es de son ma?tre, vrai
joachimite, dans le bon sens du mot et non dans le sens p?joratif, et qui, dans les derni?res
ann?es de la vie du penseur, ou dans les vingt-cinq ann?es qui suivirent, ?labora ce r?sum?
pour illustrer les uvres de son ma?tre,' Bignami-Odier's review (above, note 45). Some
drawings, of course, found in MSS and editions of the genuine works, undoubtedly are Joa
chim's own. See above, note 35.
48 ' ...non una costruzione teologica, ma una grandiosa visione poetico-religiosa, ' G. Mana
corda (note 39) 40. This is a point which Buonaiuti has emphasized especially in his attack
on Fournier's interpretation of Joachim's thought (see below, notes 100 and 101). For Buo
naiuti's view, see his Gioacchino da Fiore: I tempi ? La vita ? II messagio (Rome 1931)
184, 195, 208 etc.
49 'Sum homo agricola a juventute mea,' Expositio 14.14ff. (fol. 175r).
50 Buonaiuti (note 48) 129 n. 1. See the summary in Rivista storica italiana 48 (1931)
305-23.
51 'Appunti gioachimiti: la nascita, casato, la condizione sociale,' ASCL 3 (1933) 224ff.
(reprinted in Gioacchino da Fiore, Nuovi studi... [Florence 1934] 21ff.) and Gioacchino da
Fiore e il gioacchinismo... (Padua 1942) 99-100. Giuseppe Marchese, La Badia di Sambucina:
Saggio storico sul movimento cistercense nel mezzogiorno d'Italia (Lecce 1932) 158-59, also
argues that the statement cannot be literal.
62 See e.g. 1 Cor. 3.9.
53 'Sicut ipsi vidimus Hierosolymis..., ' Super quatuor Evangelia (ed. Buonaiuti) 93.
this sort arise again and again. Sometimes he speaks of seven ages, sometimes
of a pattern of five and seven,54 sometimes of the three states (his most famous
idea); sometimes he seems to be paralleling only Old Testament history with
known Christian history, sometimes he speaks in triples, bringing in a third
age. His attitude to many subjects, for instance the Greek Church, seems to
be compounded of contradictions. Part of the problem is to enter Joachim's
mind. He was a lyrical, not a systematic thinker. To put together his views
in an orderly fashion does much violence to the reality of his vivid and incon
sistent thought.55 Some of these contradictions may vanish if we could be
sure of the chronology of his writings, but this goal is difficult to achieve, for
there is much evidence that Joachim worked on his writings simultaneously
and changed them frequently.56 But a closer comparative examination of
his texts and the manuscripts in which they are enshrined may yet clear up
some of these problems. Yet if we are to talk of him at all, we must make
some attempt to present his ideas in a systematic form.
First of all, it must be said that Joachim is not a mystic in the true or exact
sense of the term. Or to put it another way ? in his writings he is not a mystic
unless we wish to use the word very loosely. He was concerned with the king
dom of God in history57 and, except indirectly, not with the union of the in
dividual soul with God. He may be called an eschatological or an apocalyptic
thinker, but a mystic only by those who imagine the word has the meaning
Joachim apparently did have various mystical and illuminative experiences. See e.g.
Expositio 1.10 (fol. 39r-v) and preface to the Psalterium, fol. 227r-v. Yet as I read these
words in their context (e.g. the reference to the Armenians in Jerusalem), it seems obvious
that here at least the words are to be taken literally.
54 See Reeves (note 35) 77ff.
56 See E. Buonaiuti, 'Prolegomeni alia storia di Gioacchino da Fiore/ Ricerche religiose
4 (1928) 404. As a good example of Joachim's inattention to detail and contradictions,
we may look at Concordia 2 tr. 1 c. 4, fol. 8r, where he says the 'initiatio' of the present
age 'est ab Helyseo propheta sive ab O?ia [Uzziah] rege iuda' and then further in the same
passage 'initiatio ab O?ia sive a diebus Asa, sub quo vocatus est Helyseus ab Helya pro
pheta. ' Who is the initiator (precursor really) of the second age ? We have, as most com
mentators, taken Uzziah (see below, p. 268), as it is he who is most frequently so denominated.
This would seem to us to be a most important point in his system, and yet Joachim is here,
as elsewhere, vague. We are therefore wrong in pressing Joachim to an absolutely clear-cut
and unambiguous scheme, for he did not think in that fashion nor consider it important.
58 See Jordan, 'Joachim de Flore,' DThC 8.1429 and Reeves (note 13) 11 n.
57 Cf. the sage words of ?tienne Gilson, 'En annon?ant la bonne nouvelle, l'?vangile
n'avait pas seulement promis aux justes une sorte de b?atitude individuelle, il leur avait
annonc? l'entr?e dans un Royaume, c'est-?-dire, dans une soci?t? de justes, unis par les
liens de leur commune b?atitude,' L9Esprit de la philosophie m?di?vale (2nd ed. ?tudes de
philosophie m?di?vale 33; Paris 1944) 367-68. Walter Nigg, Das ewige Reich: Geschichte
einer Sehnsucht und einer Entt?uschung (Erlenbach/Zuri?h 1944) 169 stresses the ?entrality
of the 'Reich' concept in Joachim's thinking.
262 TRADITIO
of mysterious or prophetical. If one wishes to violate language, he could per

haps be called a social or historical mystic. He regarded himself as an exe
gete 58 or commentator inspired by the gift of intelligence59 and not as a pro
phet or mystic. There is no longing for union with God in his writings or any
of the Song-of-Songs mysticism so characteristic of the Cistercians. This
last fact indeed is a strong argument against the Buonaiuti theory that intel
lectually Joachim was nourished in the Cistercian movement.60
In general, Joachim's teachings were on two basic subjects ? the nature
of the Trinity and the meaning of history. That these two notions are related
is clear, although Fournier,61 whose lucid work on Joachim's probable Trini
tarian theories is excellent, makes him too systematic a thinker by claiming
58 On Joachim's exegetical method, see Andr? P?zard, Dante sous la pluie de feu (Enfer,
Chant XV) (?tudes de philosophie m?di?vale 40; Paris 1950) 390-92 and 265-66 (comparison
With Dante); La Piana (note 1) 265; and below, note 92.
69 ' Istud donum, scilicet donum intellectus, tantae claritatis est et acuminis in quibus
dam, ut valde assimiletur spiritui prophetiae, qualem crediderunt nonnulli fuisse in abbate
Joachim, et ipsemet de seipso dixisse [dixit?], quia non erat ei datus spiritus prophetiae sed
Spiritus intelligentiae. Si quis autem inspexerit libros ejus, quos scripsit super Apocalypsim
et super concordiam duorum testamentorum, mirabitur donum intellectus in eo,' William
of Auvergne, De virtutibus (after 1217) in Opera 1 (Paris 1674) 152. Joachim speaks of
'nos qui cum essemus nouissimi' being allowed by grace to penetrate the literal meaning
of the Bible so as to go 'de claritate in claritatem,' Concordia 2.1, fol. 6r. In his preface to
the Concordia, he said his work is a new kind of exegesis. Traditionally the gift of intelligence
is associated with the Holy Ghost ('ad quern specialiter pertinet misticus intellectus,'
Concordia 2.2.2, fol. 7V) and with interpreting Scripture. This in turn is the essence of
religious prophecy. See Guillaume of Thierry, ' Est etiam prophetia discretio spirituum, et
in Scripturis sensuum cognitio occultorum, ' Expos, in Epist. ad Rom. 7 (PL 180.673) and
Abelard, '[Prophetia], id est gratia interpretandi, id est exponendi verba divina,' Expos,
in Epist. Pauli ad Rom. 4 (PL 178.939). Of course secular and pagan prophecy was re
cognized as possible (Aquinas, ST 2.2 q. 174, last article). The Sibyls, not to speak of others,
had to be accounted for. See W. Kamiah, Apokalypse und Geschichtstheologie (Berlin
1935) 108.
The orthodox view of Christian prophecy is that the revelations must not be contrary
to the truth of the Catholic faith (see Augustine, De unitate ecclesiae 19 [PL 43.428-32]
and cf. his De Genesi ad litteram 12 [PL 34.453 ff.]) and that the function of the true prophet
is to interpret by the spirit of intelligence the secrets in Scripture. Peter Damian, De sancta
simplicitate 4.5 (PL 145.698-99) argues that the act of humility whereby one renounces
learning is compensated for by the gift of mystical penetration into the deepest meanings
of Holy Scripture. This thought would not be at all alien to Joachim. See the references
in P. Alphand?ry, ' De quelques faits de proph?tisme dans des sectes latines ant?rieures
au Joachimisme,' RHR 52 (1905) 207ff.
80 See below, p. 283.
61 ?tudes sur Joachim de Flore et ses doctrines (Paris 1909). Tocco, Veresia nel medio evo
(Florence 1884) 326 denies any connection between Joachim's Trinitarian and historical
theories, as does Buonaiuti, Gioacchino (Rome 1931) 208. However, Grundmann, Studien
?ber Joachim (Leipzig 1927) 8 and Crocco, 'L'et?dello Spirito Santo in Gioacchino da
Fiore,' Humanitas 9 (1954) 729-30 agree that there is at least some connection,
that his theory of history grew out of his theory of the Trinity. Although the gen
eral outline is clear, what this relationship was exactly can only be guessed at.62
On his Trinitarian theory, our information is scanty. As mentioned above,
these views were condemned by the Fourth Lateran Council. Joachim says a
good deal about the Trinity in his Psalterium along with attacks on the Arians
and Sabellians, who, though ancient heretics, may well clothe contemporary
opponents. These terms were much thrown around in twelfth-century Trini
tarian polemic. But the difficulty here is that his views in the Psalterium63
seem perfectly orthodox and do not correspond to the statement of his views
as expressed in the articles of the Lateran Council. Some have gone over the
Psalterium very carefully and have culled out a few suspicious statements,64
but it must be admitted that Joachim's position in that work cannot have
been that condemned in 1215. Certainly in all his extant works, he admits
the unity as well as the threeness of God. We must assume then that the lost
De essentia, probably an early work, contained the false doctrines. These
early views are what interests us most, and to reconstruct them we must rely
on inference and the statement of his condemnation. The lost tractate was
probably written around the time of the Third Lateran Council in 1179 when
there was much discussion of Peter Lombard's Trinitarian and especially
Christological views.65
It is believed that Joachim accused Peter Lombard of Sabellianism and
Arianism, of overemphasizing the unity of God at the expense of His threeness
62 Joachim in his Enchiridion tells us his (historical) system arose from reading the Apo
calypse. He saw that the concordance between the Old Testament and its head, Jesus
(New Testament), would also apply to His body (the Church); see Tondelli, II libro delle
figure delV abate Gioacchino da Fiore I (Turin 1940) 145ff. See below, quotation in note 105.
63 Josef Bach, Die Dogmengeschichte des Mittelalters vom christologischen Standpunkte
oder die mittelalterliche Christologie vom achten bis sechzehnten Jahrhundert II (Vienna 1875)
734 recognizes that the Psalterium could not have been the condemned work, although he
finds a few anti-Lombardian statements in it. The Protocol of the Commission of Anagni
appointed to investigate the Eternal Evangel (see below, n.207) tried to find tritheism in the
Psalterium.**
64 Besides the references in the preceding note, see C. Ottaviano, 'Postilla,' Sophia 5
(1937) 55-56. The most suspicious statement in the Psalterium occurs on fol. 229v in the
passage beginning 'Item quod hiis nequius...,' where Joachim argues that substance (or
essence) must also be in the persons (see above note 26), using the traditional image of the
sun, its fire, rays, and heat. Note the marginal comments in MS Vat. lat. 5732 (XVth cent.)
of the Psalterium, fol. 2r etc. which point to parts of the work (one of which is the ' Item
quod hiis...' passage) which seem to the annotator to be 'contra Peter Lombardum.'
85 Matthew Paris discusses Joachim's Trinitarian heresy under this date, although per
haps too much ought not to be made of it. The time of the Council of Tours (1163) is also
a possible date, for it too was concerned with Christological and Trinitarian problems, but
on the whole 1163 seems too early. In Concordia 5.92, fol. 121v, Joachim speaks of the
pre sence of numerous Trinitarian and Christological errors in his time,
264 TRADITIO
to such an extent so as to make a quaternity of persons by separating the

deitas or essentia of God too distinctly from the persons. Lombard denied
that essence could beget essence, thereby separating the essence (or substance)
of God as unity from God as persons. Joachim wished to regard the persons
as more than relations and to possess substance. This, according to St. Thomas
(see above note 26), is a logical and terminological confusion. We shall discuss
this concept somewhat below in dealing with Joachim's possible sources.66
The general historical theory of Joachim67 is well known. Arguing on the
basis of analogies between the Old Testament and the period of the New
Testament down to his own time, and on certain New Testament texts like
Eph. 4.13 and 1 Cor. 13.10, he assumed a coming new period in the future.68
This 'trinity' of ages would correspond to the divine Trinity and would satisfy
a desire for order and rationality in history. Concordance is the key-word for
Joachim's method. The period of the Old Testament was primarily the age
of the Father, the period from the time of Jesus down to roughly Joachim's
time was that of the Son, and the third age, which is a naturally completing
period, would be that of the Holy Ghost, under whose aegis the Saracens and
Jews would be converted and about which certain general predictions could
be made. Each subsequent age follows the pattern of the first age, yet suffi
ciently loosely to satisfy prophetic zeal. The Old Testament, then, is the key
to the meaning of history.69 Joachim estimated that each age lasted for forty
66 In his lost early work, Joachim may have, as Th. de R?gnon, ?tudes de th?ologie positive
sur la Sainte Trinit? II (Paris 1892-98) 255ff. urges, taught a crude tritheism, but on the
basis of our present evidence that seems to be going too far. He certainly wished to em
phasize the threeness and persons of God, but that is not equivalent to tritheism. In general
it seems most unlikely that he did, although he may have used some unhappy or unfortunate
metaphors or similes to suggest collectivity, which gave rise to the misapprehension. For
instance even in the Psalterium, dist. 1, fol. 232v, discussing the Trinity, he speaks of the
three tribes of Judah ? Judah, Benjamin and Levi ? as one people. The text of the Lateran
Council indicates that Joachim used the following Biblical verses to support his position:
Acts 4.32; 1 Cor. 3.8; 1 Kings 22.4; John 17.21ff.; 1 John 5.7. Joachim was no dialectician
and should not have entered the lists against Peter Lombard.
67 See E. Benz, 'Joachim-Studien I: Die Kategorien der religi?sen Geschichtsdeutung
Joachims,' ZKG 50 (1931) 24-111.
68 There is some small evidence that the replacement of the second age will not be as com
plete as that of the first. Joachim has very complex theories about the various ages and
various kinds of ages; he was intoxicated with the idea. The three-fold division is, however,
the best known and most common in his writings. The concept of pattern, as the illustrations
and figures show, is a fundamental trait of his thought.
69 Its history is of a special kind. The people whose story it treated, the Israelites, bore
? to use Hugo of St. Victor's phrase ? a ' status excellentior. ' Hugo's theory was that
certain peoples or persons at times become the true representative of their age and are di
vinely ordered to move history forward. This conception is the philosophical root of the
translatio regni (or in some cases, studii) idea which so gripped medieval man, See W, A,
generations70 and had a precursor or germinator as well as an initiator or a

fructifier. Hence, around 1260, we would enter on the final age, which would
presumably last for about forty generations before the last Judgment. The
birth throes of each age are violent and give rise to antichrists.71 Each age,
however, is an advance over the preceding one, explains it, and gives a rationale
to its pattern. History is more than a collection of exempla ; in fact, it is
the progressive assimilation of society to the mystical body of Christ. The
human race progressively receives a fuller revelation of the meaning of time
and historical existence and progressively becomes more perfect. King Uz
ziah (Ozias)72 was the precursor of the second age, which was initiated by
Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist. St. Benedict73 was the precursor
of the coming age, which would be a 'spiritual' age. Yet from another point
of view, various Biblical and historical figures can spiritually represent the
various ages or moments in them, as Moses and Joshua, for instance, repre
sent the second and third ages repectively. These examples should again
warn us against over-systematizing Joachim's scheme.
Schneider, Geschichte und Geschichtsphilosophie bei Hugo von St. Victor (M?nstersche Bei
tr?ge zur Geschichtsforschung 53; M?nster i.W. 1933) 54, 56, 92ff. and 105.
70 Joachim is very generation-minded. See e.g. Concordia 5.118, fol. 134r and ?.l.llff.;
Psalterium 2, fols. 272-77, etc.
71 Some passages in the New Testament apparently admit the possibility of several anti
christs; see e.g. 1 John 2.18 and 2 John 7. In the latter part of the Middle Ages, it was widely
believed that there would be at least two ar tichrists, the ultimus, magnus, verus, personolis
or purus who would immediately precede Christ's last coming and Judgement and the mys
ticus (in the sense of foreshadowing) (sometimes corrupted to mixtus). On the latter, see
Otto of Freising, The Two Cities, trans. C. C. Mierow (Columbia Records of Civilizantio;
New York 1928) 457. St. John of Crpistraro (d. 1456) wrote a De antichristo ultimo. This
creates a curious problem, for one of the accusations of the Commission of Anagni, appointed
in 1256 to look into the Eternal Evangel dispute (see note 207), was that Joachim taught
two antichrists. On the distinction between the two see ?lso Moriz Ritter, 'Der Streit der
Franciscaner ?ber die Armuth,' Theologisches Literaturblatt 12 (1877) 123 and Angelo Mes
sini, 'Profetismo e profezie ritmiche italiane d'ispirazione gioachimito-francescana nei
secoli XIV e XV,' MF 37 (1937) 41-42.
72 Often erroneously said to be Hosea. See e.g. Alfons Rosenberg, Joachim von Fiore,
das Reich des heiligen Geistes (Munich/Planegg 1955) 26 (a German translation of parts of
Joachim's writing with an introduction).
73 Concordia 5.48. As Joshua had been appointed before Moses' death to the leadership
of the Jews (Concordia 3.1.14, fols. 31v-32r), so St. Benedict was the leader of the monastic
spiritual age before it is actually initiated. In a sense there are two initiators (or precursors)
of the third age, for Elisha in the Old Testament is also a precursor of St. Benedict. See
the rubrics in the MS of the Concordia in the Biblioteca Laurenziana, Conv. Soppr. 358, fols.
10r-llv. With Uzziah and Isaiah we are informed by the rubric that these are the initiatio
ordinis clericorum and with Asa and Elisha, initiatio ordinis monachorum and with Benedict,
se?unda initiatio ordinis mona?liorum,
266 TRADITIO
The first age was dominated by the Law, the second by Grace and the third
was to be under dominance of the Spirit and Love.74 It would be characterized
by 'viri spirituales' living a monastic form of life,75 just as the preceding age
had been characterized by the clergy and the first by married men.76 The
Church would continue to exist, but the sacraments would be spiritualized.
The role of the papacy in the new age is somewhat dubious, but probably the
Church would continue to be presided over by a purified Bishop of Rome.77
This doctrine, then, gave an explanation of their tribulations to those men of
the Middle Ages who cared to listen and provided them with a hope. Im
mediately after Joachim's death, many of the enemies of Frederick II found
consolation and strength in these teachings, and down on to the Renaissance
there were always some groups who drank hope at the fountain of the Cala
brian Abbot. In short, Joachism by its very nature was bound to have a
political significance?and could be used by both optimists and pessimists.78
74 Joachim has a whole series of triplets to characterize these ages such as: fear, faith, love;
law, cross, rest; work, suffering, contemplation; flesh, blood, spirit; Peter, Paul, John,
starlight, dawn, day; winter, spring, summer; grass, corn, wheat; water, wine, oil; servants,
children, friends; old men, youths, children (and in the opposite order); knowledge;
wisdom, perfect intelligence; married (or laity), clerics, monks, etc. See Concordia 5.84,
fol. 112'-*.
75 But ordinary man would apparently continue to marry and live, though under monastic
supervision. Each age does not cancel out entirely the preceding one. Joachim's tremendous
admiration for monasticism may be seen in Concordia 5.14 and 48 and De articulis fidei
(ed. Buonaiuti) 55ff. See also below p. 280ff. On characteristics of the future age, see E.
Buonaiuti, 'II testamento di Gioacchino da Fiore,' Ricerche religiose 4 (1928) 509ff. and A.
Crocco (note 61) 728-42 (a very conservative interpretation of Joachim but based on texts).
Very revealing for Joachim's view of the future age is the figure, ' Dispositio novi ordinis
pertinens ad tercium statum ad instar superne Jerusalem* (Tavola 12, Liber figurarum, ed.
Tondelli), discussed at length and reproduced in Grundmann (note 1) 85ff. The trouble here
is that the figure is much more detailed about the future age than any of Joachim's known
writings are. Grundmann, however, makes out a good case for the figure as representative
of Joachim's view and shows how it corresponds in general with Concordia 5.23. On future
orders see Expositio 11.3-6 (fol. 145vff.) and 14.4-5 (172r-v) and 17.5 (195r-v) (on filii Jeru
salem as opposed to the filii Babylonis) etc.**
76 Three orders (lay [or married], clerics, and monks [or contemplatives]) are discussed
in Expositio, Introductorius fol. 5r-v and 1.8, fol. 37v; Concordia 5.48ff.; Commentary on Rule
of St. Benedict (ed. C. Baraut) 45; Super quatuor Evangelia (ed. Buonaiuti) 91, etc. These
three grades or orders of chastity (and perfection) are traditional and may be found in Je
rome, Ambrose, Bede etc. The last two are grades usually presented as widows and virgins.
77 For Joachim's attitude towards the papacy, see Concordia, 5.65, fol. 95v (where Joachim
says the pope like the old David needs to be warmed by a virgin; the Church of Peter
is the throne of Christ, etc.) and Concordia 4.39. In Concordia 5.92, fols. 121v-122v, Mordecai
prefigures a future great pope. Joachim, it seems, is deliberately ambiguous in his comments
on the papacy. J. C. Huck, Joachim von Floris (note 3) 236 says the Church of the third age
will be presided over by a pope.
78 Joachim predicts then both a new age and a time of troubles. Pessimists were, as might
Just exactly what Joachim means by spiritualization of the sacraments79

has been the subject of much dispute. It is obviously a crucial point in de
termining his orthodoxy.80 To some (e.g. Foberti and Huck) it has seemed
no more than a belief in the purification of the Church Militant and its ministers,
or in a millenium not of this world.81 To others, some of whom wish to see
Joachim as a Reformer manqu?, this spiritualization of the sacraments means
much more. It seems to me that no matter how much it is modified, Joachim's
position does imply that the New Testament is not the final revelation of God,
or at least not fully understandable now. But Joachim is hesitant over, and
chary of, details about his third age and its implications. Both St. Thomas82
and St. Bonaventure83 expressly assert the finality of the present age in op
position to Joachim or at least ardent Joachites. At the least, these views
could give aid and comfort to heretics and schismatics against the Roman See.
Joachim, as mentioned above, himself submitted all his extant works to the
popes for approval, perhaps stimulated by the presumable furor over his
work against Peter Lombard, protested his loyalty to the Church, and attacked
bitterly the current heresy of the Patarenes in Italy. It need not, however,
surprise us to find his support claimed by the most radical of the Spiritual
Franciscans. For it was among these Franciscans that after his death he
found his chief, though not exclusive, support. Many of them equaled St.
Francis (and a few misguided, unlearned ones, even Peter John Olivi) with
be expected, more common. Millenarianists of all types welcomed Joachim for whatever
support they could find in him for their predictions of the coming of an Antichrist and the
last Judgment. Those who looked forward to a new age were fewer and are to be found
mainly among the 'spiritual' Franciscans. (See below p. 299f.). See A. Messini (note 71) 41.
79 See K. L?with, Meaning in History (Chicago 1949) 151.
80 On his orthodoxy, see Russo (note 32) 333ff. In general, Dempf, Benz, Grundmann,
and even more so Buonaiuti, tend to emphasize the non-orthodox side of Joachim's thought,
while Huck, Foberti, and Tondelli stress the orthodox. The line cannot be drawn, though,
as Protestant or anti-clerical vs. Catholic interpretations, for some Catholics take a very
disapproving attitude towards his faith, and occasionally a non-Catholic defends his ortho
doxy. Nineteenth-century scholars in general tended to see Joachim as more revolutionary
and proto-Protestant than modern ones. See e.g. Wilhelm Preger, Geschichte der deutschen
Mystik im Mittelalter I (Leipzig 1874) 196-207.
81 See e.g. H. Delacroix, Essai sur le mysticisme sp?culatif en Allemagne au quatorzi?me
si?cle (Paris 1900) 44, where he argues that the third age exists only in germ in Joachim's
genuine writings and is not really of this world at all. This position is hard to maintain
if one reads Joachim carefully, and is even more difficult if one takes as sound the evidence
afforded by the Liber figurarum.
82 ' ...nullus autem status praesentis vitae potest esse perfectior quam status novae legis...
quod immediate in finem ultimum introducit,' ST 2.1 q. 106 a.4; cf. De potentia q. 5. a.6
ad 9 (see above note 26).
83 'Post novum testamentum non erit aliud, nec aliquod sacramentum novae legis sub
trahi potest, quia illud testamentum aeternum est/ Collationes in Hexaemeron 16,2
(Quaracchi ed. 5.403).
268 TRADITIO
Jesus (or Zechariah) and Moses, as the initiator (fructifier) of the new age.
This idea, reinforced by the Saint's stigmata,84 was to prove extremely influential.
In assessing Joachim's attitude to his own age I think little or no attention
has been paid to the figure of King Uzziah (or Azariah) who is chosen as the
precursor of the second age. The choice of St. Benedict tells us that Joachim
conceived the third age in terms of monasticism. With what was Uzziah
associated?85 He was the King of Judea who was stricken with leprosy for
laying his hand on a priest and the altar of God. I think it is clear from this
figure that Joachim thought that the second age was characterized by the
interference of the secular power with the spiritual power as seen in this Judean
king. This inference, if sound, helps to explain the root of Joachim's dissatis
faction with his own time and also, paradoxically, his high concept of the
84 The stigmata confirmed to many the similarity of St. Francis to Christ and helped
to establish the gloss on Apoc. 7.2 (dealing with the angel of the sixth seal 'having the
seal of the living God') that St. Francis was here being referred to. This interpretation
is not Joachim's of course ? he usually interprets the angel traditionally as the pope or
Christ, but at one point (see below note 239) likens him to the novus dux ? yet it soon came
to be accepted even by non-spirituals like Bonaventure (in his Legenda maior) and Dante.
The conservative view of Francis' likeness to Christ is summed up in Bartholomew of Pisa's
De conformitate vitae B. Francisci ad vitam Domini Iesu Christi in 1399. This sense of paral
lelism goes back even to St. Francis' lifetime, although many details are later developments.
See Ferdinand M. Delorme, ' ?l?vations th?ologiques sur S. Fran?ois "l'autre ange au signe
du Dieu vivant" (Trait? in?dit du xiiie si?cle: c.1282),' Studi francescani N.S. 10 [21] (1924)
233-61 and P. Stephanus Bihel, ' S. Franciscus, fuitne ang?lus sexti sigilli? (Apoc. 7,2)'
Antonianum 2 (1927) 59-90. See below note 217.
85 His story may be found in 2 Chronicles (4 Kings) 26 and 2 Kings 14.21 and 15.1ff.
Uzziah (Vulgate: Ozias) is his name in Chronicles and Azariah in Kings. ' O?ias quia usur
pavit officium sacerdotii elephantino morbo percussus de domo Domini expulsus est,'
Concordia 5.118, fol. 134v. In Concordia 4.2, fol. 43r, Joachim works out some kind of parallel
between Uzziah and Adam, precursors of the second and first ages respectively. Both were
expelled, for instance, from God's presence because of pride. Although it may not be of
any significance, it should be noted that St. Ephraim the Syrian draws, in his hymns,
this very same comparison between Adam and Uzziah; see Edmund Beck, Ephraems Hymnen
?ber das Paradies, ?bersetzung und Kommentar (Studia Anselmiana 26; Rome 1951) 28,
130 and 160ff. Uzziah was frequently held up as an example of the king who tried to usurp
priestly functions and was stricken with leprosy by God as a punishment. See e.g. Grosse
teste's Letters No. 124 (ed. H. R. Luard, R. S.) 348-51 and Osbert of Clare, Letters No. 14
(ed. E. W. Williamson) 81. He was used as Biblical support for 'papalists' and a Biblical
warning for interfering laymen in the eleventh and twelfth centuries; see Max Hackelsperger,
Bibel und mittelalterlicher Reichsgedanke: Studien und Beitr?ge zum Gebrauch der Bibel im
Streit zwischen Kaisertum und Papstthum zur Zeit der Salier (Dissertation Munich; Bottrop
i.W. 1934) 39 and 60, where references are given to the works of Placidus of Nonantula
and Honorius Augustodunensis. Rabanus Maurus in the ninth century in his commentary
on 2 Kings 5 says Uzziah signifies the devil (PL 109.246) and in his commentary on 4 Kings
26 that he was originally a good man who went wrong (PL 109.511). The latter is pro
bably Joachim's view,
ideal role of the Church. His ideal was clearly theocratic, yet he must have felt
that both the powers of the world who encroached on the Church, and worldly
churchmen who welcomed or who were implicated in that movement were
to be condemned.86 Perhaps that is why he speaks of Antichrist as being alive
in his time in Rome, unless here his language is metaphorical.87
Also, Uzziah, like Adam, as Joachim himself points out,87a committed an
extremely grave sin and was severely punished by God. These precursors
of the first and second ages are both, then, sinners and imperfect men. It is
only fitting that an imperfect age have an imperfect precursor. How different
is St. Benedict, the precursor of the coming age ! In the figure of Uzziah is
thus concealed a very strong condemnation of the second age and Joachim's
own time. Uzziah is the Adam of our age and perhaps the second age is better
than the first by only so much as the sin of Uzziah is less than the sin of Adam.
The basic historical idea of Joachim, then, is very simple but also extra
ordinarily brilliant. It carried to what Buonaiuti has termed a logical con
clusion,88 in terms of a triune God, the basic idea of typology, which saw in
the Old Testament a foreshadowing of the glory to come. It combines the
idea of cycle and pattern with the special concept of the unique and linear,
which is characteristically historical. In a sense, if certain premises are adopted
it is hard to deny the 'logical' validity of Joachim's ideas. The orthodox
are somewhat attuned to certain of these premises. Perhaps what seems to
me a curious lack of strength, for instance, in St. Thomas' refutation of Joa
chim's idea of a new age,89 may be due to this apparent similarity of method
between Joachim's new typology and the traditional one. Joachim of course
did not mean that the New Testament was to lose its validity, any more than
the Old Testament had after the time of Jesus,89a but he did leave open the
way for a new revelation, a road which was seized by more than one heretic
in the later Middle Ages. After all if God abrogated his law once, they could
argue He might do it again.
Thus we find one of the ironies of history. A man who was essentially
conservative and even backward-looking became the chief impetus for a
radical movement in the later Middle Ages.90 Here was a man who disapproved
86 Cf. Concordia 5.63, where Joachim takes the story of David, Bathsheba and Uriah as
a warning against monks immersing themselves in the world. It is a confusion of orders.
87 See below, p. 290.
87 a See above, note 85.
88 Buonaiuti, Gioacchino 194.
89 ST 2.1. q. 106 a.4. See above note 26.
89a See also p. 276 and note 208 below.
90 'Die Neuheit seiner Ans?tze und das Revolution?re seiner Gedankeng?nge sind ihm
selbst [Joachim] wohl nicht immer ganz klar geworden, ' Karl August Fink, ' Joachim von
Fiore und die Krise des mittelalterlichen Geschichtsdenkens, ' Grosse Geschichtsdenker, ed.
Rudolf Stadelmann (T?bingen and Stuttgart 1949) 100.
270 TRADITIO
of scholasticism strongly, who felt the truth lay hidden in the Bible and only
open to those who possessed the spirit or gift of intelligence, who set up an
ideal of more complete monasticism than the world has ever known;91 yet
his influence was largely exercised through men who were violently anxious
to initiate a new age, although not always, it must be admitted, of a secular
type. His whole method of k allegory ' was in this very century being under
mined by Hugo and especially Andrew of St. Victor. Joachim carried it to
its final fruition. As an exegete, Joachim, especially on the Apocalypse, is
an important figure in reorienting the interpretation of the Bible away from
the Tychonian-Augustinian moral view to an historical, concrete view. He
goes back, as Kamlah has pointed out,92 to the Victorinus (d. 303) tradition
of applying the Apocalypse to contemporary history. The Apocalypse was
no longer a book of instruction but became again a book of prophecy.93 Joa
chim concretized the allegorical interpretation of the Bible by carrying this
method further than anyone had ever done and in so doing helped to drive
men back to the literal meaning of the text, although other forces were tending
that way too. By the principle of opposites passing into each other, the ex
treme application of the allegorical and symbolic method gives rise to the
literal and the old to the new. Joachim accepted the medieval idea that
only tradition could justify change to overthrow unconsciously tradition.
He used the medieval suspicion of novelty to make novelty possible. The
Old Testament as a key to history is both a justification of the past and a
spur to action for the future.94 By overemphasizing the past, he made theoret
ically possible its transcendence.
91 ' Cosi la sua [Joachim's] teoria veniva ad assumere il carattere della piu alta apoteosi
che mai sia stata fatta del monachismo,' Crocco (note 61) 733.
92 Wilhelm Kamiah (note 59 above). For Joachim's role in the history of the exegesis
of the Apocalypse see also Wilhelm Bousset, Die Offenbarung Johannis (Kritisch-exegetischer
Kommentar ?ber das Neue Testament, begr?ndet von H. A. W. Meyer; G?ttingen 1906)
73ff.; P. E.-B. Allo, Saint Jeant V Apocalypse (3rd ed. ?tudes Bibliques; Paris 1933) ccxlviii
ccci; Alois Wachtel, ' Die weltgeschichtliche Apocalypse ? Auslegung des Minoriten Alexan
der von Bremen,' Franziskanische Studien 24 (1937) 338-56; and the introduction to his
edition of Alexander's Expositio in Apocalypsim (MGH, Quellen zur Geistesgeschichte des
Mittelalters 1 ; Weimar 1955) (Wachtel is rather suspicious of Joachim and his orthodoxy.
Alexander of Bremen's Expositio was an early German commentary on the Apocalypse
influenced by Joachim and the Jeremiah Commentary [c. 1250]. In his prologue he accepts
the Joachite principle that the Apocalypse is a prophecy of the history of the Church of
Christ on earth); P. Arduinus Kleinhans, ' De studio Sacrae Scripturae in ordine Fratrum
Minorum saeculo XIII,' Antonianum 7 (1932) 413-40, esp. 430. See also above, note 58.
93 * Thus St. Augustine transformed the Apocalypse from a revelation of history into a
book of consolation for the spiritually besieged members of the City of God,' Ernest Lee
Tuveson, Millenium and Utopia: A Study in the Background of the Idea of Progress (Berke
ley and Los Angeles 1949) 17. See also Kamlah (note 59) 126.
94 ' Secundus status fuit sub evangelio, et manet usque nunc, in libertate quidem respcctu
The method was common, but Joachim, by pressing it to its uttermost,95

together possibly with the feeling that the Holy Ghost had not been given
His proper due, gave it a new turn altogether, which led to movements of which
I am sure the initiator had hardly dreamed. He was also, as a careful reading
of his works shows, inspired strongly by a sense of justice and a desire for a
better world which he conceived, of course, in religious terms.
In detail, I suspect his exegesis had a strong influence on later medieval
exegesis and on medieval art96 and possibly literature. The Joachite element
in the iconography of late medieval and Renaissance art has really not yet
been studied ; I suspect it is considerable.
Ill
The problem of Joachim's sources is also complex. Various solutions have
been proposed, and it is necessary to make a distinction between his Trini
tarian and historical theories. In general, it has been observed, Eastern theo
logians always emphasized rather the Trinity of the divine Persons, and the
West, after Augustine, the unity of the divine nature. The Greeks started
from the Persons who have the one divine essence, not from the essence as
revealed in their inner Trinitarian relations. The Byzantines also speculated
on and emphasized the role of the Holy Ghost a great deal.97 In these attitudes,
Joachim may well be Byzantine, yet there are signs that the Trinitarian dis
putes in the West in the twelfth century, especially those connected with
Gilbert de la Porr?e, and an emphasis on the influence of the Holy Ghost found
in the German exegetes and writers98 in the same period may also have tended
to foster more intense speculation on the threeness of the divine Persons
in the West. Guillaume de St. Thierry,99 friend of St. Bernard, meditated with
preterit!, sed non in libertate respectu futuri. Dicit enim apostolus: Nunc ex parte cognos
cimus et ex parte prophetamus...,' Expositio, Introductorius, fol. 5r.
95 ' Considerata sul terreno d?lia metodica esegetica, l'originalit? di Gioacchino ? pertanto
puramente quantitativa,' Buonaiuti in the preface to his edition of Super quatuor Evangelia,
p. xlvii. ' Sein [Joachim's] Drang, das Schriftwort richtig zu verstehen, war im Mittalter
nichts Neues, wohl aber war die Intensit?t, mit der er seiner Bibelbesch?ftigung oblag, nicht
allt?glich,' Walter Nigg (note 57) 161.
96 See F. Gampolongo, // gioacchinismo nella storia e nelVarte (Naples 1930) esp. 21ff.**
97 See V. Lossky, Essai sur la th?ologie mystique de l'?glise d'orient (Paris 1944).
98 Not unknown in France and England. Abaelard springs to mind for the first, and see
also Hugo of St. Victor (W. A. Schneider [note 69] 110). For the second see Gilbert Cris
pin's (d. 1117) De Spiritu Sancto, still unprinted in toto, cf. J. Armitage Robinson, Gilbert
Crispin (Notes and Documents Relating to Westminster Abbey 3; Cambridge 1911) 70ff.
99 On Guillaume, see J. M. D?chanet, Guillaume de Saint-Thierry et son oeuvre (Biblio
th?que m?di?vale, Spirituels pr?scolastiques 1; Bruges and Paris 1942) (pp. 89ff. for
views on the Trinity, which he considered to be for contemplation, not speculation); Un
trait? de la vie solitaire: Epis to la ad fratres de monte Dei de Guillaume de Saint-Thierry, ed.
272 TRADITIO
predilection on the Holy Ghost in his anti-scholastic views and mysticism.

As a Cistercian he may well have influenced Joachim in this matter. Yet he
is Christocentric in a way that the Calabrian is not, and he is not as historical
minded as are his fellow Cistercians, Otto of Freising and Ralph of Coggeshall.
We still know little of Gilbert's views, although recently much light has
been thrown on them,100 and the authorities disagree as to what he taught.
But even reading him superficially, I find it hard to credit him with any real
M. M. Davy (2 vols. Paris 1940-46); Andr? Adam, Guillaume de Saint-Thierry: Sa vie et ses
uvres (Th?se Lyon; Bourg 1923) esp. 63ff. (on his hatred of dialectic); Martin Grabmann,
Die Geschichte der scholastischen Methode II (Freiburg im Breisgau 1911) 274ff.; Otto Baltzer
Beitr?ge zur Geschichte des christologischen Dogmas in 11. und 12. Jahrhundert (Leipzig 1898)
39ff. For Greek influence on Guillaume see V. Lossky, Essai (note 97) 63 n. 2, and D?chanet,
'Aux sources de la doctrine spirituelle de Guillaume de Saint-Thierry: I, Saint Gr?goire?de
Nysse,' Collectanea ordinis cisterciensium reformatorum 5 (1938) 187-98 and 262-78. Ivanka,
' Byzantinische Theologumena und hellenische Philosophumena im zisterziensischen-bern
hardinischen Denken,' in Bernhard von Clairvaux, M?nch und Mystiker: Internationaler
Bernhard-kongress Mainz 1953 (ed. J. Lortz, Ver?ffentlich, des Instituts f?r europ?ische
Geschichte 6; Wiesbaden 1955) 168-75 states, without any documentation, that Guillaume's
psychology is at the basis of the Joachite movement ? especially the linking of the spiritual
aspect of the soul with the Holy Ghost. On the contrary, it seems to me, this kind of psycho
logizing is very alien to Joachim's mode of thought.
100 The basic book on Gilbert's influence on Joachim, especially through the Porretanian
Liber de ver a philosophia (last quarter of twelfth century, from Grenoble MS 290), is Paul
Fournier, ?tudes sur Joachim de Flore et ses doctrines (Paris 1909). On Gilbert and the Por
retani, see M. H. Vicaire, 'Les porr?tains et l'avicennisme avant 1215,' Revue des ^sciences
philosophiques et th?ologiques 26 (1937) 449-82 (Vicaire does not deny, p. 450, the
influence of the Porretani on Joachim, yet he makes the point that Gilbert and his followers
emphasized the divine unity above all); J. de Ghellinck, Le movement th?ologique du xii*
si?cle (2nd ed. Bruges, Brussels and Paris 1948) 175 (and bibliographical footnote p. 177);
W. Jansen, Der Kommentar des Clarenbaldus von Arras zu Boethius De Trinitate, ein Werk
aus der Schule von Chartres im 12. Jahrhundert (Breslauer Studien zur historischen Theologie,
ed. F. X. Seppelt 8; Breslau 1926) (Clarenbaldus opposed Gilbert apparently because he
felt he threatened the unity of the Trinity); Die Sententiae divinitatist ein Sentenzenbuch
der gilbertschen Schule, ed. B. Geyer (BGPT 7.2-3; M?nster i.W. 1909); Artur Landgraf,
' Untersuchungen zu den Eigenlehren Gilberts de la Porr?e,' ZKT 54 (1930) 180-213; Michael
E. Williams, The Teaching of Gilbert Porreta on the Trinity (Analecta Gregoriana, Series
facultatis theologicae, Sectio B [n.23] 56: Rome 1951) (to be used with caution); Sofia Vanni
Rovighi, 'La filosofia di Gilberto Porretano,' Miscellanea del Centro di studi medievali,
Serie prima (Pubblicazioni dell' Universit? cattolica del S. Cuore, N.S. 58; Milan 1956)
1-64; Martin Anton Schmidt, Gottheit und Trinit?t nach dem Kommentar des Gilbert Porreta
zu Boethius De Trinitate (Studia Philosophica; Jahrbuch der schweizerischen philosophi
schen Gesellschaft, Suppl. 7; Basel 1956); and the very important articles and texts printed
by Haring in Traditio 9 (1953) 177-211, Mediaeval Studies 13 (1951) 1-40, 15 (1953) 243-89,
and AHDL 29 (1954) 241-357. Haring has been an ardent defender of Gilbert's orthodoxy,
although he admits that some of his followers may have transgressed in this matter. It
is certain, however, that Gilbert at least left himself open to misinterpretation; see, e.g.,
his statement 'Omnis persona [of the Trinity] est per se una' (Haring, Med. St. 13.19) etc.
Haring, however, bases his comments on a close study of the texts.
influence on Joachim.101 He was violently opposed by a man Joachim admired

highly ? St. Bernard102 ? and his method of reasoning is highly organized
in a difficult scholastic style, with a heavy reliance on grammatical and logical
arguments. To me it seems unlikely that a man of Joachim's stripe would
have been able to understand him, let alone follow and support him. Of course
a watered down Porretanianism is possible as a source,103 but I think it unlikely.
Besides it is very doubtful whether Joachim's views are actually similar to
Gilbert's. Gilbert does seem to stress the importance of the persons, although
his views seem to support, if they are being misread as Haring104 affirms, a
quaternity rather than a trinity. I myself cannot unravel the tangled labyrinth
of twelfth-century Trinitarian speculation. Byzantine spirituality and Trini
tarianism seem, however, a more likely source for Joachim. Yet this as
sumption also creates problems as we shall shortly see. Joachim was much
opposed, as his Psalterium and other works reveal, to the negative and dia
lectical conception of the Trinity which had begun to appear in the West in
the twelfth century,105 as were also St. Bernard, Guillaume de St. Thierry,
and Gerhoh of Reichersberg, but his criticism was his own.
The accusation of teaching a quaternity was also made against Peter Lom
bard in roughly the same period by that violent Gautier (Walter) of St. Victor,
whose Contra quatuor labyrinthos (1177 or 1178) has recently been edited.106
101 See Buonaiuti (note 48) 208-09.

102 See e.g. Concordia 4.38, fol. 59r and Expositio 3.8, fol. 87v. On the twelfth-century
suspicion of the new dialectic, see Baltzer (note 99) 28-44. See below, note 107.
108 M. Bergeron, ' La structure du concept latin de personne, ' ?tudes d'histoire litt?raire
et doctrinale du xiiie si?cle* 2 (Publications de l'Institut d'?tudes m?di?vales d'Ottawa;
Paris and Ottawa 1932) 154 and J. de Ghellinck, Vessor de la litt?rature latine au xihsi?cle I
(Brussels and Paris 1946) 90 both take Joachim as a pure Porretan, as is still the generally
accepted opinion since Fournier. See Haring's criticism of Bergeron's understanding of
Gilbert in Med. St. 13 (1951) 18 n. 62. Antonio Grocco, ' La formazione dottrinale di Gioac
chino da Fiore e le fonti d?lia sua teologia trinitaria,' Sophia 23 (1955) 192-96 denies cate
gorically Gilbert's influence on Joachim in the matter of the Trinity.
104 See references to Haring's works in note 100 above.
105 ' In un'epoca ammaliata dal nascente dialettismo scolastico, che minacciava, ai suoi
[Joachim's] occhi, di ridurre il mistero piu augusto del Gristianesimo ad un semplice para
digma di verit? astratte e lontane di cui era estremamente arduo cogliere Tintimo nesso con
le esigenze della vita e d?lia storia, egli consid?ra la Trinit? come il prototipo trascendente ed
il centro supremo di convergenze di lutta la storia umana,' Crocco (note 61) 729.
106 By P. Glorieux, in AHDL 27 (1952) 187-335. The accusation is made in op. cit. 3.4
(p. 252), but the force of the parallel is weakened, for Walter in this tendentious and ill
tempered work finds a 'quaternity' containing two Sons in the Lombard's teaching. How
ever, in the ' Additamenta posteriora'(p. 310) he comes closer to Joachim's position (although
the term quaternity is not here used) by accusing Lombard of separating the essences or
substance of God from the three Persons. Quaternity was a common counter-word and term
of abuse in the Trinitarian disputes of the period. St. Bernard and Geoffrey of Auxerre ap
parently used it against Gilbert (I), see Haring, Mediaeval Studies 13 (1951) 13 and 21;
274 TRADITIO
However, until we know more about these doctrinal quarrels of the twelfth
century in the West?and much is now being done in that field?and until
the Trinitarian are clearly separated from the Christological disputes of the
time, we cannot be sure; and above all we do not have Joachim's main con
tribution to the subject. Joachim had no special Christological theory, but
he did attack the Lombardian view of the Trinity. It may well be that in his
resentment (a resentment shared with St. Bernard) against early scholasti
cism,107 he seized on what he thought was a good point ? the Lombard's
Trinitarian theory ? to attack the whole movement. For one who knows
his mind somewhat, it would not be surprising if, as St. Thomas said, Joachim
did not understand what Peter was talking about.
As to the sources of his historical theories, we have no exact predecessor
but in a way an embarrassment of riches. A favorite and very old view108
is to take Joachim's insistence on the coming revelation of the Holy Ghost
as a revival or influence of the Montanist heresy. This third-century move
ment,109 to the blandishments of which Tertullian110 himself succumbed, em
phasized the importance of individual inspiration by the Holy Ghost and
Achard of St. Victor, however, like Gautier apparently also attacked Peter Lombard with
the same term; see Jean Chatillon, 'Achard de Saint Victor et les controverses christologiques
du xiie si?cle,' M?langes offerts au R. P. Ferdinand Cauallera... (Toulouse 1948) 332. Gerhoh
of Reichersberg accused Gilbert, on the other hand, as Joachim did Peter Lombard, of
overemphasizing the unity of God at the expense of his three-ness (Liber de nou. hujus tem
poris 13). All this gives some idea of the difficulty of arriving at the truth in this matter.
107 See above, note 102. Joachim's resentment against dialectic or early scholasticism
may be seen e.g. in Expositio 3.8 (fol. 86v ff; esp. 87v). A recent statement of St. Bernard's
attitude towards knowledge, science, and theology is to be found in Erich Kleineidam,
'Wissen, Wissenschaft, Theologie bei Bernhard von Clairvaux,' Bernhard von Clairvaux,
M?nch und Mystiker (note 99) 128-67.
108 See e.g. Johann Nepomuk Schneider, Die chiliastische Doctrin und ihr Verh?ltniss
zur christlichen Glaubenslehre (Schaffhausen 1859) 224ff.; A.T.S. Goodrich(?) (note 1) 19ff.
and 47-48; John S. Carroll, In Patria: An Exposition of Dante's Paradiso (London, New
York and Toronto 1911 [?]) 229 n.3; Tocco, Veresia nel medio evo (Florence 1884) 406ff.
and more recently, E. Anitchkof (note 2) 72, who has a fanciful theory of neo-Montanists
in the Basilian monasteries of Mount Mercurion in Calabria. See also Alfonso Ricolfi, ' In
f?ussi gioachimitici su Dante e i Fideli d'Amore,' II Giornale Dantesco 33, N.S. 3 (1932) 182.
109 See Jaroslav Pelikan, 'Montanism and its Trinitarian Significance,' Church History
25 (1956) 99-109 (he makes the point that there was possibly a variety of Trinitarian theories
among the Montanists).
no por Tertullian's views about the reign of the Holy Ghost, see his De exhortatione cas
titatis 4 (PL 2.968-69), De pudicitia 11-12 and 21 (PL 2.1053-54; 1077-80) and De jejunio
12 (PL 2.1020-23). 'Justitia... primo fuit in rudimentis, natura Deum metuens: de hinc
per Legem et prophetas promovit in infantiam: de hinc per Evangelium efferbuit in juven
tutem: nunc per Paracletum componitur in maturitatem, ' De virginibus velandis 1 (LP
2.938). ' Si enim Christus abstulit quod Moyses praecepit... cur non et Paracletus abstulerit
quod Paulus induisit,' De monogamia 14 (PL 2.1000).
denied the finality of the New Testament. New revelations were granted to
the elect, who could change the regular customs and beliefs of the Church.
It also spoke af a new age when all men would be inspired by the Holy Ghost,
who was so to speak the divine pedagogue. It offered a strong challenge to
the early Church and stimulated a strong reaction which eventually suppressed
the movement. It was, however, oriented individually and morally rather
than socially and historically.111 It did not claim, as Joachim did, to have
any objective criteria for the determination of truth. It was not rooted in
history and the paradigm of the Old Testament. The ideal of Montanism was
a primitivism and its method was ecstasy.112 The absence of direct links
between the Montanists and Joachim makes a theory of direct influence diffi
cult to maintain.
Origen's cyclic view of history has also been called upon to explain Joachim's
characteristic idea.113 He too was an important exegete and theoretically
allowed for a further revelation.114 It is possible that he may have exercised
a minor influence on Joachim, as he was never forgotten in either the West
of the East.
Part of the problem of determining Joachim's sources in this matter is to
determine what Joachim actually means. St. Paul speaks of, or implies, three
ages115 ? ante legem, sub lege and sub gratia ? although he believed he was
111 'Apparently the idea that a new age, the Age of the Paraclete, had set in was advanced
to explain the prophetic gifts of the leaders of the new movement [Montanism] and not to
elaborate a new theory of history, ' George Boas, Essays in Primitivism and Related Ideas
in the Middle Ages (Baltimore 1948) 208. See also P. Alphand?ry, 'De quelques faits de
proph?tisme...' RHR 52 (1905) 177 n.l, where he points out significant differences between
Joachism and Montanism. There is, of course, a Montanist stream in the history of Chris
tianity, and some of Joachim's disciples no doubt immersed themselves in it; but I am con
cerned with Joachim himself and with historically possible, direct influences. See David
Saville Muzzey, 'Were the Spiritual Franciscans Montanist Heretics?' American Journal
of Theology 12 (1908) 392-421 and 588-608 (His answer is no.)
118 '...la r?v?lation joachimite est le contraire de la proph?tie spontan?e; elle est calcul?e
et raisonneuse...,' P. Alphand?ry (preceding note) 200.
14? See C. Ottaviano in the preface to his edition of the Liber contra Lombardum (Rome
1934) 54ff. He claims Origenism reached Joachim through Basilian monks or through Eri
gena or both. Earlier Xavier Rousselot, Histoire de V?vangile ?ternel (Paris 1861) 59-60
also made the same claim. Przywara (note 19) 347 also links Origen and Joachim, although
it is doubtful whether he is thinking of an historical link. H. de Lubac, Histoire et esprit:
L'intelligence de l'?criture d'apr?s Orig?ne (Paris 1950) 220-21 denies any connection between
the two, possibly to some extent because he is concerned with defending Origen's orthodoxy.
114 For some texts of Origen which bear on this subject, see De princ. 4.25; In Joan. 1.9.10;
In Rom. 1.4.11.54 and In Lev. Horn. 13.2.
115 On the whole subject of world ages (resting on Old Testament and classical speculation),
see Ernst Bemheim, Mittelalterliche Zeitanschauungen in ihrem Einfluss auf Politik und
Geschichtsschreibung, I: Die Zeitanschauungen (only part published) (T?bingen 1918); Schnei
der (note 69) 102-15; Heinrich Scholz, Glaube und Unglaube in der Weltgeschichte (Leipzig
276 TRADITIO
in the last. The new age of Joachim may just be the thousand years of peace
after the coming of the ultimate Antichrist, which would be one possible inter
pretation of the Apocalypse (20.2ff.). It is of course true that any religion which
rests, or claims to rest, upon a special historical revelation, or revelations, must
have a theory of history to give a rationale to that revelation, if God's creation
and His actions are to be explained at all. Implicit in the whole Judeo-Christian
religious tradition ? and the same holds for Islam ? is a theory of history
and progression, indeed a dynamic concept of history, although in all
these religions there have been movements and denominations which attempted
to deny this dynamism or at least check it.
But it seems to me that Joachim was doing something fundamentally
different. He specifically linked a new age to the Holy Ghost and particu
larized the nature of the expected progress. Progress in the Catholic tradition
when emphasized was always conceived of within terms of the present Chris
tian dispensation, but Joachim thought of progress on a new level and in a
new dispensation for which, however one may look at it, there could in the
last analysis be no room in the orthodox tradition of the Church. His new
age was not a mere prelude to the Day of Doom (although in a sense it was
just that), but a great forward step in man's religious education and awareness
of God in the framework of a new status or economy. His concept of per
fection demanded at least partially a historical solution. And above all, it
could to some extent be predicted. Man is thus raised above the necessity
of history. In effect, Joachim, although he himself played down this aspect,
denied the finality of the New Testament as a guide to man's spiritual experience
and destiny. I don't think he would have denied its general validity any more
than the Old Testament, a 'dated' Testament, is now denied, but he would
1911) 154ff.; J. Dani?lou, 'La typologie mill?nariste de la semaine dans le Christianisme

primitif,' Vigiliae Christianae 2 (1948) 1-16 (especially on Irenaeus); Roderich Schmidt,
'Aetates mundi, Die Weltalter als Gliederungsprinzip der Geschichte,' ZKG 67 (1955-56)
288-317; V. Grumel, 'Les premi?res ?res mondiales,' Revue des ?tudes byzantines 10 (1952)
93-108; F. Hipler, Die christliche Geschichts-Auffassung (Cologne 1884) 9ff. Augustine
gave currency to the idea of seven ages paralleling the seven days of creation for the Middle
Ages (see Scholz above): De Genesi contra Manich. 1.23, 35-41 (PL 34.180-93); Ennar. in Ps.
92.1 (PL 37.1182); De diver, quaest. 83.58.2 (PL 40.43-44) (the biological metaphors and
references to generations here may have directly influenced Joachim); De catech. rud. 39
(PL 40.338); and De Trin. 4.7 (PL 42.892). For the four-kingdoms idea based on Daniel,
see Conrad Trieber, 'Die Idee der vier Weltreiche,' Hermes 27 (1892) 321-44; H. H. Rowley,
Darius the Mede and the Four World Empires in the Book of Daniel: A Historical Study
of Contemporary Theories (Cardiff 1935) esp. 61ff; Edmund J. J. Kocken, De Theorie van de
vier wereldrijken en van de overdracht der wereldheerschappij tot op Innocentius III (Acade
mische Proefschrift, Nijmegen 1935); J. W. Swain, 'The Theory of the Four Monarchies,
Opposition History under the Roman Empire,' Classical Philology 35 (1940) 1-21. These
are concerned primarily with the early history of the concept. St. Jerome was the chief
source of this notion, along, of course, with the book of Daniel, for the Middle Ages.**
have to admit, he would be forced to admit if he listened to logic at all, that

the New Testament need not ultimately be absolutely binding for all time.
St. Augustine is no doubt a major influence on Joachim.116 He quotes
him extensively and is much indebted to his general approach. I do not think,
however, that much that is uniquely Joachite can be attributed to his influence.
Yet his thought is pervaded by St. Augustine's conclusions and method.
Joachim is not so psychologically oriented as Augustine was, and, as we have
seen, his whole concept of the Bible as a historical blueprint for the future
is definitely non-Augustinian.117
The Catharist theory, actively urged by Tocco118 and Anitchkof,119 can be
dismissed. Not only does Joachim attack the Patarenes?the Italian Ca
tharists ? consistently and strongly,120 but there is nothing in Joachim's con
cepts to indicate any similarity with the Catharist condemnation of the flesh,
their dualism, their probable repudiation of history, their ritualism, their
concept of the elect, and so forth.121
116 Like all seminal thinkers, St. Augustine is hard to categorize simply. To some, like
Paolo Brezzi ('Ottone di Frisinga,' Bullettino delV Istituto storico italiano per il medio
evo e Archivio muratoriano 54 [1939] 151ff. and ' La concezione agostiniana d?lia Gitt? di
Dio e le sue interpretazioni medioevali,' Rivista storica italiana, Serie 5.3 fasc. 4 [Dec.
1938] 62-94), Augustine had a progressive view of secular history. If accepted, this view
would put Joachim closer to Augustine than is usually assumed. Brezzi's two articles are
of the utmost importance for understanding Augustine's influence on medieval historical
thinking and for Otto of Freising and twelfth-century historiography. See also Theodor
E. Mommsen, 'St. Augustine and the Christian Idea of Progress,' Journal of the History
of Ideas 12 (1951) 346-74 and W. von Loewenich, Augustin und das christliche Geschichts
denken (Munich 1947). On St. Augustine's influence on Joachim, see Super quatuor Evan
gelia, ed. Buonaiuti, pp. xlvi-xlviii, n.l; G. G. Coulton, From St. Francis to Dante (2nd ed.
London 1907) 151; Heinrich Scholtz (note 115) 183.
117 John Scotus Erigena has been suggested as a source for Joachim's historical theories,
see Anitchkof (note 2) 283ff. and 397; E. Gebhart, Mystics and Heretics in Italy at the End
of the Middle Ages, trans. E. M. Hulme (London 1922) 75ff.; George Boas (note 111) 208-09
and 201-03; F. Hipler, Die christliche Geschichts-Auffassung (Cologne 1884) 38-9; C. Otta
viano, 'Il Tractatus super quatuor Evangelia di Gioacchino da Fiore,' Archivio di filosofia
1 (1931) 77. However, Erigena in general seems to follow his master, the Pseudo-Dionysius,
in making the historical pattern the ' sacerdotium ' of the Law, the ' sacerdotium ' of the
New Testament, and the third ' sacerdotium' of heaven, see Comm. in s. evangelium secundum
Joannem (PL 122.308).
118 Veresia nel medio evo (Florence 1884) 402ff.
119 Joachim de Flore (Paris/Rome 1931) 56ff.
120 He attacks the Waldensians also; see De articulis fidei (ed. Buonaiuti) 64.
121 There persists even today an old theory that Joachim was a gnostic. ' The doctrine
[of Joachim] was a non-descript monster, with Marcion for its father and Maximilla for
his mother,' H. [Algernon Herbert?], 'Antichrist in the Thirteenth Century,' The British
Magazine and Monthly Register 16 (1839) 493. We find this charge again in Eric Voegelin,
The New Science of Politics: An Introduction (Chicago 1952) HOff., who sees Joachim as the
villain of history. It is hard in any normal use of language to see how Joachim can be
278 TRADITIO
In recent years, Grundmann122 and Dempf123 have been emphasizing the paral
lels between what might be called the German historical and exegetical or
symbolical school of the twelfth century and Joachim. This conservative
group, going back to Carolingian developments, includes Otto of Freising,124
a fellow Cistercian, Anselm of Havelberg,125 Rupert of Deutz,126 Gerhoh of
accused of Gnosticism. The problem of the 'villain of history* raises another issue which
cannot be discussed here. See some of my comments below, pp. 307ff. Alfons Rosenberg
(note 72) 12 also calls Joachim a gnostic, but he says.he is using the term in a special sense.
What this sense is I have not been able to discover. For possible Jewish influence on
Joachim, see G. G. Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (2nd ed. New York 1946)
178-80 (who points out parallels but says the influence is probably not direct) and 'The
Meaning of the Torah in Jewish Mysticism II,' Diogenes 15 (1956) 68, 86, 92-3. See also
F. Beck, 'Die r?tselhaften Worte in Dante's Vita Nova (? 12),' Zeitschrift f?r romanische
Philologie 47 (1927) 1-27, esp. 7-8 (his conclusions are doubtful); Henry Bett, Joachim of
Flora (London 1931) 59ff.; and B. Hirsch-Reich's important article, * Die Quelle der Trini
t?tskreise von Joachim von Fiore und Dante,' Sophia 22 (1954) 170-78 (who shows that the
source of Joachim's [and probably Dante's] circles representing God is Petrus Alphonsus,
a converted Jew. It may be significant in view of Joachim's emphasis on the 'threeness'
of God that he leaves out Peter's overall unifying circle around the three smaller circles).
The Talmud, Sanh?drin 97a, in a section devoted to the subject of the duration of the world,
reports the opinion of the school of Elijah that the world will last 6000 years ? 2000 of
Tohu (no positive law), 2000 of Torah, and 2000 of the Messiah (also repeated in Abodah,
Zarah, 9a). Rashi glosses this passage by saying this pattern is prefigured in the six days
of the Creation followed by the Sabbath (of another 1000 years). Cf. also the old Jewish
idea of the tertium genus hominum (Zechariah 13.8ff.); see Leo Baeck, ' Das dritte Geschlecht, '
Jewish Studies in Memory of George A. Kohut 1874-1933, ed. Baron and Marx (New York
1935) 40-46. ? G. G. Coulton, Five Centuries of Religion (Cambridge Studies in Medieval
Life and Thought 2; Cambridge 1927) 116 n. 2 and p. 120 suggests vaguely an Islamic
source for Joachim's characteristic theory.
122 H. Grundmann, Studien ?ber Joachim (Leipzig 1927) 90ff.
123 Alois Dempf, Sacrum Imperium (Munich and Berlin 1929) 268 et passim, A. Rosenberg
(note 72) 28 sees Joachim as the apogee of medieval symbolism.
124 On Otto, see Brezzi (note 116); F. Hipler (note 117) 41ff.; J. Schmidlin, 'Die Philo
sophie Ottos von Freising,' Philosophisches Jahrbuch 18 (1905) 156-75; 312-23; 409-23;
Johannes Sp?rl, Grundformen hochmittelalterlicher Geschichtsanschauung (Munich 1935)
32ff. To Otto, history is Heilsgeschichte, and we can realize on earth the Kingdom of God.
125 On Anselm, see Sp?rl (note 124) 18ff.; Georg Schreiber, ' Pr?monstratenserkultur des
12. Jahrhunderts,' Analecta Praemonstratensia 16 (1940) 91ff. et passim, and 'Studien ?ber
Anselm von Havelberg,' ibid. 18 (1942) 5-90; Fran?ois Petit, La spiritualit? des Pr?montr?s
au xii* et xiii* si?cles (?tudes de th?ologie et d'histoire de la spiritualit? 10; Paris 1947)
62ff. (especially for his view of the Holy Ghost and of progress); W. Kamlah (note 59)
66ff.; Foberti, Gioacchino da Fiore, Nuovi Studi (Florence 1934) 64ff.
126 See W. Kamlah (note 59) 75ff. and A. Moureaux, 'La Vie apostolique ? propos de
Rupert de Deutz,' Revue liturgique et monastique 21 (1935-36) 71-78, 125-41, 264-76; J.
Beumer, 'Rupert von Deutz und seine "Vermittlungstheologie",' M?nchener theologische
Zeitschrift 4 (1953) 255-70. Rupert's De Trinitate et operibus eins has a Trinitarian concept
of history but the third age is not in the future.
Reichersberg,127 Honorius Augustodunensis,128 and perhaps Hugo of St. Vic

tor.129 There is in general a number of similarities in attitudes and even ideas130
between these figures and Joachim, but yet when all is said and done his uni
queness still shines out. It is not generally recognized that at least some of
these similarities may be due to a common source in Byzantium.130a In general,
however, the German division of history tends to be rather static and me
chanical and lacks the dynamism of Joachim's scheme. Otto and Anselm had
a strong historical consciousness and applied in their own ways the idea of
the four kingdoms of Daniel, or the seven ages of the Church or of the world
from Augustine. Both were somewhat eschatologically oriented and even
more interested in the meaning of contemporary history. Both felt that a
new age of some sort was possible. Rupert of Deutz helped to give authority
to the philosophy of monasticism, had a concept of recapitulation, and believed
that the Holy Ghost renews creation. He, like Joachim, reflects an older
tradition of Benedictine piety and mysticism. Gerhoh, a rather cantankerous
complainer and antischolastic, often writes with Biblical parallels in mind and
continually reminds us of the coming of Antichrist. Hugo of St. Victor felt
that the clue to the progress of history was a gradual healing of the damage
of the Fall and a long story of the reparation of its evil results.131 The spread
of knowledge is a step in that renovation. There are three dispensations cor
responding to the Trinity, but these work simultaneously, not successively.
127 For a good example of Gerhoh's Biblical symbolic writing and his rather strident voice,
see his letter (1155-56) to Pope Adrian IV printed in Oliver Joseph Thatcher, 'Studies
concerning Adrian IV,' Investigations Representing the Departments of Political Economy,
Political Science, History, Sociology and Anthropology (The Decennial Publications, The
University of Chicago, First Series 4; 1903) 184-238.
128 Especially his Speculum Ecclesiae. See Schneider (note 69) 111, where he refers to
Honorius' argument that if Christ is the center of history and if there were five ages before
Him (on the basis of the seven-ages theory of Augustine), there must be five after Him (those
of the Apostles, Martyrs, Teachers, Monks and Antichrist). He thought, significantly
enough, that his own lifetime fell in the age of the monks.
129 Xavier Rousselot (note 113) 43-44 suggested certain similarities between Joachim's
ideas and those of Hugh and Richard of St. Victor (and Abaelard). Franz Kampers, Die
deutsche Kaiseridee in Proph?tie und Sage (Munich 1896) 71 proposed the Victorines as Joa
chim's main source. For further material on Hugo see below, note 131.
130 For a general treatment of these figures and the rise of a sense of history in the twelfth
century, see M.-D. Chenu, 'Conscience de l'histoire et th?ologie au xnie si?cle,' AHDL
29 (1954) 107-33. The dispensatio concept is most important. See above, note 115.
130a See below, 282ff.
131 ' Sex diebus perfecta est rerum conditio, et sex etatibus perficitur hominum reparatio, '
Hugo of St. Victor, De tribus maximis circumstantiis gestorum, ed. William M. Green, Spe
culum 18 (1943) 491. On Hugo's theory of history, see Grabmann (note 99) II 272ff., esp*
276ff.; P. Brezzi, 'Ottone di Frisinga' (note 116) 169-70; W. A. Schneider (note 69) passim,
esp, 115; F. Hipler (note 115) 40-41,
280 TRADITIO
To him, also, Christ is the center of the universe and of history;132 but not
to Joachim.
It is hard to know whether these ideas are only part and parcel of the Zeit
geist in which Joachim even in Calabria to some extent shared, or whether he
actually read these writers. He may have, and even to think of these figures
in connection with him enriches and broadens our insight into his thought.
Like his contemporaries, he was interested in the meaning of history and in
the nature of the Trinity. There is no hint in them of the Old Testament as
a key to all of history (although, as with all medieval men, parallels to sacred
history are often sought, especially in sermons), nor of a new age of the Holy
Ghost to repeat the primal pattern on a new level. At the most, like the
Fathers in general, they thought the mission of the Holy Ghost was to develop
and spread the teachings of Christ, not to complete them. Some sense of Joa
chim's thought, however, does come through a perusal of their works.
Although Joachim left the Cistercian order, there is no doubt that he was
strongly influenced by the Cistercian renewal of monastic ideals.133 As Professor
Ladner has so ably pointed out,134 the idea of monasticism has always been
183 'Der christologische Gedanke gilt als Zentralidee des Systems von Hugo; er beherrscht
auch die Geschichte, und zwar in ihrem tiefsten Sinn, ' Schneider (note 69) 26.
133 Buonaiuti (note 48) pp. xi and 97ff. has most strongly urged this point in recent years.
My own feeling is that he went too far and ignored some important differences; see above,
p. 262 and below, p. 282. For Buonaiuti's position, see La Piana (note 1) 258. Ottaviano in
the preface to his edition of the Liber contra Lombardum (Rome 1934) 49 criticizes B.'s thesis
and asks why Joachim did find it necessary to leave his order. Mario Niccoli, however, in
' Gioacchino da Fiore, ' Enciclopedia Italiana 17.148-49 denies all German and Greek influence
on Joachim and finds the origin of his thought in Latin monasticism and Cistercianism.
See also for Cistercianism as a way of thought in the twelfth century, Brezzi, 'Ottone' (note
116) 174ff.; J. Sp?rl, 'Das Alte und das Neue,' Historisches Jahrbuch 50 (1930) 338ff.; Max
Dietrich, Die Zisterzienser und ihre Stellung zum mittelalterlichen Reichsgedanken (Disser
tation Munich; Salzburg 1934) (primarily concerned with Hohenstaufen politics); H. Grund
mann, Religi?se Bewegungen im Mittelalter (Berlin 1935) 5; also his excellent supplementary
and bibliographical article, 'Neue Beitr?ge zur Geschichte der religi?sen Bewegungen im
Mittelalter,' Archiv f?r Kulturgeschichte 38 (1955) 129-82, on a variety of 'religious move
ments' in the later Middle Ages.
134 See his important article, 'Die mittelalterliche Reform-Idee und ihr Verh?ltnis zur
Idee der Renaissance,' MIOG 60 (1952) 31-59, esp. 48ff. On p. 57, he discusses the relation
of Joachim to the Cistercian movement. ? See also Georg Schreiber, ' Vorfranziskanisches
Genossenschaftswesen, Baurisse und Forschungsaufgaben: Byzantinische Beziehungen,' ZKG
62 (1943-44) 35-71 (reprinted in his Gemeinschaften des Mittelalters, Recht und Verfassung,
Kult und Fr?mmigkeit, Gesammelte Abhandlungen I [Regensburg and M?nster 1948] 397
436, the whole of which should also be studied). See also Schreiber's ' Die Pr?monstratenser
und der Kult des hl. Johannes Evangelist: Quellgr?nde mittelalterlicher Mystik,' ZKT
65 (1941) 1-31. Schreiber argues for a strong Byzantine influence in the foundation, or
ganization and life of the Cluniac, Premonstratensian and Cistercian movements. See also
Rose Graham, 'The Relation of Cluny to Some Other Movements of Monastic Reform,'
associated in Christianity with the idea of reform and rebirth, an idea which
may be seen in St. Augustine and the Benedictine rule itself. It is an attempt
to seize, with the help of God, perfection, a step in the 'divinization' of man,135
as a counterpart to the 'humanization' of God, a concept which has been very
influential especially in the Greek Church. One might say that Joachim his
toricized the Greek and monastic idea of 'deification' and increase in perfec
tion. Rupert of Deutz emphasized anew the old idea of the cloister as the
counterpart of heaven on earth, and there are others in this century, like
Anselm of Havelberg and Odo of Canterbury, who saw the meaning of monas
ticism in mystical and even historical terms.136 To reach perfection, as far as
is possible to a creature, one must be a monk.137 The Cistercians gave a new
impetus to this conception and helped to create a new type of piety in the
twelfth century; and they no doubt influenced Joachim a great deal. Yet
Joachim's thought is not Christocentric, nor is there any Song-of-Songs mys
ticism in him as in the early Cistercians, although St. Bernard138 was his modern
ideal along with St. Benedict. These men were prototypes of the new age,
Journal of Theological Studies 15 (1914) 179-95. ? On the tradition of monastic scriptural

exegesis in the West, see J. Leclercq, ' ?crits monastiques sur la Bible aux xie-xiiie si?cles, '
Mediaeval Studies 15 (1953) 95-106.
135 See Concordia 2.1.8, fol. 9V, where Joachim says mankind has to pass through the Tri
nity to attain perfection. ? The root of the 'deification' idea is perhaps to be found in
Plato's Theaeletus 176a-c, and it is certainly present in Philo and St. Irenaeus. See, on the
whole concept, the important article by M. Lot-Borodine, ' La doctrine de la d?ification
dans l'?glise grecque jusqu'au xie si?cle,' RHR 105 (1932) 5-43; 106 (1932) 525-74; 107
(1933) 8-55; Jules Gross, La divinisation du chr?tien d'apr?s les p?res grecs: Contribution
historique ? la doctrine de la gr?ce (Th?se Strasbourg; Paris 1938); Philip T. Wild, The Di
vinization of Man According to Saint Hilary of Poitiers (Pontificia facultas theologica Se
minarii sanctae Mariae ad Lacum, Dissertationes ad Lauream 21; Mundelein, Illinois, 1950);
Fritz Taeger, 'Zur Vergottung des Menschen im Altertum,' ZKG 61 (1942) 3-26. Ladner
(note 134) 37ff. discusses the concept especially in Gregory of Nyssa and Augustine.
136 The root of the idea of the cloister as heaven on earth is in the Pseudo-Dionysius,
who saw in the monastic hierarchy the pattern of the heavenly hierarchy. On Anselm of
Havelberg's view of monks, see Sp?rl, Grundformen (note 124) 27 (monks as the ' geschichts
bildender Faktor'). For Odo, see the quotation in La Piana (note 1) 257. See also Hugh
de Fouilloi's De claustro animae, which treats of three cloisters, the material, the spiritual
(the soul) and heaven. St. Bernard writes 'vere claustrum est paradisus,' Sermones de di
versis (Xenia Bernardina 1.3; Vienna 1891) 906. Gf. Piers Plowman B X 300-01.**
137 See E. Benz, 'La messianit? di San Benedetto, Contributo alia filosofia della storia
di Gioacchino da Fiore,' Ricerche religiose 7 (1931) 336-53 on the role of the philosophy
of monasticism in Joachim and others; and D. Ursmer Berli?re, L'asc?se b?n?dictine des ori
gines ? la fin du xii* si?cle: Essai historique (Collection Pax 1; Paris 1927).
138 ' Der Reformeifer Bernhards gl?hte auch in Joachims Seele von Jugend an, ' Huck,
(note 3) 5. On Bernard's eschatology, see Fritz W. H. Radcke, Die eschatologischen An
schauungen Bernhards von Clairvaux... (Dissertation Greifswald; Langensalza 1915). Joa
chim discusses in terms of various parallels the Cistercians in Concordia 4.36-39 inter alia,
and in Table 23 of the Liber fignrarmn. See below, note 14L
282 TRADITIO
and Joachim always speaks highly of them. Even the early Cistercian approach
to the Bible, 'on which they meditated day and night/ is quite different
from that of Joachim, in whom we find no Biblical lyricism and who was not
a mystic nor a psychologist. His thought was centered on the Bible, but his
approach was 'scientific' and sober. He may have used some of the expressions
of his fellow-Cistercians but he understood them differently.139
The second age is characterized by the interference of the secular powers
with the true Church, as Uzziah its prototype shows. But in the third age,
a monastic Church is to embrace all mankind.140 Even the author of the pseudo
Joachite Commentary on Jeremiah, although he probably castigates those
Cistercians who persecuted Joachim as Pharisees, praises the order as a whole
and felt they were destined to bear the chief duties of the new age. Although
Joachim is not very open about it,141 I think he felt the same.
Up until 1931, when Buonaiuti published his important book on Joachim,142
the general view which Renan,143 Tocco,144 Gebhart,145 Founder146 and Anitch
kof147 had fostered was that the chief sources of Joachim's thought were By
zantine. Southern Italy had been for a long time in the Byzantine orbit,148
139 See P. Dumontier, Saint Bernard et la Bible (Paris 1953) esp. 84ff.
140 ' Que est autem firmitas Christi, nisi ilia vita que instituta est a sanctis patribus et
tradita nobis in eisdem libellis ? Quos non omnes fid?les eo modo quo deuoti monachi legunt
et reverentur, quia de sola in eis agitur prefectione monachorum,' Concordia 5.74, fol. 102v.
141 See Concordia 2.1.13, fol. llv, and above note 138.
142 Gioacchino da Fiore (note 48). The same view was presented earlier by Buonaiuti in
'Prolegomeni alia storia di Gioacchino da Fiore,' Ricerche religiose 4 (1928) 385-419. Even
earlier August Heisenberg in 'Das Problem der Renaissance in Byzanz,' Historische Zeit
schrift 133 (1926) 405 denied Byzantine influence on Joachim. Huck (note 3) lOlff. et
passim, strongly repudiates Greek influence. Very recently, Crocco, 'La formazione dot
trinale,' Sophia 23 (1955) 192-96 also denies, except for Joachim's Trinitarianism, any By
zantine influence. He points out that Joachim rarely quotes or makes reference to Byzan
tine or easte.n Fathers and that the Latin monks of Calabria were bearers of Latin
traditions. It may be said, however, that Joachim rarely refers to any authority except
the Bible.
143 Leaders of Christian and Antichristian Thought, trans. Wm. M. Thompson (London
1891 [?]) 129-205 esp. 189-90 (French original in Revue des deux mondes 64 [1866] 94-142).
144 Studii francescani (Nuova biblioteca della letteratura, storia ed arte, ed. F. Torraca 3;
Naples 1909) 191-222 and Veresia nel medio evo (Florence 1884) 261-409, esp. 387ff.
145 Mystics and Heretics in Italy at the End of the Middle Ages, trans. (London 1922) 70-93.
146 ?tudes sur Joachim de Flore et ses doctrines (Paris 1909) 4ff., 14, 16.
147 Joachim de Flore et les milieux courtois (Paris/Rome 1931) ? a stimulating but very
unsound book.
148 On southern Italy and its relations with Byzantium, see Jules Gay,L'Italie m?ridionale
et Vempire byzantin depuis Vav?nement de Basile Ier jusqu'? la prise de Bari par les Normands
(867-1071) (Paris 1904) and 'Notes sur l'hell?nisme sicilien, de l'occupation arabe ? la con
qu?te normande,' Byzantion 1 (1924) 215-28; Peter Charanis, 'On the Question of the Hel
lenization of Sicily and Southern Italy during the Middle Ages,' American Historical Re*
and it seemed only natural to assume that the Greek Church nurtured Joa
chim's thought. Buonaiuti violently attacked this view; he pointed out that
Joachim came from a part of Calabria which was very much under Norman
and anti-Greek influence, and denied the Byzantine basis of his thought.
The Normans supported the Cistercians to counteract the Basilians and Greek
influence. At about the same time as Buonaiuti was arguing thus, Grundmann
and Dempf had been showing the general parallels between German thinkers
of the twelfth century149 and Joachim. I believe, however, the reaction has
gone too far. Even assuming that Joachim did come from a part of Calabria
where Norman influence was strong, it does not follow that he could not have
been influenced by Greek modes of thought. Even in France, we now know,
there was at this time a strong Byzantine influence in art and ideas.150 Schreiber
has emphasized Byzantine influences on Western monastic reform move
ments.151 Although Joachim openly based his ideas on Western thinkers, and
at least partially is in the Western line, we cannot a priori rule out Greek and
Eastern influence. A closer study of this element in the south of Italy may
view 52 (1946-7) 74-86; Ferdinand Chalandon, Jean II Comn?ne (1118-1143) et Manuel I

Comn?ne (1143-1180) (Paris 1912) and Histoire de la domination normande en Italie et en
Sicile (Paris 1907); Charles H. Haskins, Studies in the History of Mediaeval Science, 2nd ed.
(Harvard Historical Studies 27; Cambridge 1927) 141-93 (on Sicily mainly); Baronne Diane
de Guldencrone, n?e de Gobineau, L'Italie byzantine, ?tude sur le haut moyen-?ge (Paris
1914); Francesco Giunta, Bizantini e bizantinismo nella Sicila normanna (Palermo 1950?);
Silvano Borsari, 'La bizantinizzazione religiosa del mezzogiorno d'Italia,' ASCL 19 (1950)
209-25; 20 (1951) 5-20 (mostly concerned with the early medieval period); P. Francesco
Russo, 'Relazioni culturali tra la Calabria e l'Oriente bizantino nel medioevo,' Bollettino
della Badia Greca di Grottaferrata, N.S. 7 (1953) 49-64 (somewhat over-enthusiastic and
unreliable).
149 Who, as I have suggested above, may have been influenced themselves by Byzantium,
especially since the days of Otto II.
150 See M.-D. Chenu, 'Le dernier avatar de la th?ologie orientale,' M?langes Auguste
Pelzer... (Louvain 1947) 165-66; Haskins (note 148) 194ff. et passim; Werner Ohnsorge,
'Byzanz und das Abendland im 9. und 10. Jahrhundert: Zur Entwicklung des Kaiserbe
griffes und der Staatsideologie,' Saeculum 5 (1954) 194-220; Otto Treitinger, Die ostr?mische
Kaiser- und Reichsidee nach ihrer Gestaltung im h?fischen Zeremoniell (Jena 1938); Bernard
Leib, Rome, Kiev et Byzance ? la fin du xi* si?cle: Rapports religieux des Latins et des Gr?co
Russes sous le pontificat d'Urbain II (1088-1099) (Paris 1944); J. Gay, 'L'abbaye de
Cluny et Byzance au d?but du xii* si?cle,' ?chos d'Orient 39 (1931) 84-90; Charles Diehl,
La soci?t? byzantine ? l'?poque des Comn?nes, Conferences faites ? Bucarest (avril 1929)
(Paris 1929) 75-90; N. Iorga, Relations entre l'Orient et l'Occident, Conf?rences faites a la
Sorbonne (Institut roumain pour l'?tude de l'Europe du sud-est; Paris 1923) esp. 121-39;
A. Dondaine, 'Hugues ?th?rien et L?on Toscan,' AHDL 27 (1952) 67-134. ? In art there
is much evidence, see, e.g. the representation of the Trinity in Herrad of Landsberg's Hortus,
fol. 8r, and in MS Vat. gr. 1162, fol. 113* of the late eleventh or twelfth century, containing
illustrations to the homilies of Jacobus Coccinobaphos (I am indebted for this reference to
Miss Rosalie B/Green of the Index of Christian Art at Princeton University).
* * See note 134 above.
284 TRADITIO
reveal some actual sources. Of course, one must be careful in this whole matter
of influences and sources. There is, for instance, a long tradition of Biblical
study in the Greek monasteries of South Italy;152 yet one must hesitate to
ascribe this trait in Joachim to the Greeks, for Biblical study was everywhere
a major occupation of monks.153 Yet some particular emphasis may be found
some day to show Greek influence here.154
I do not think Joachim was influenced to any extent by Greek theologians,
except perhaps Origen. For instance, St. Gregory Nazianzen in his Orationes
theologicae 5.26 (PG 36.161) writes of the gradual revelation to man of the Holy
Ghost, which he calls obscure even in the New Testament. This passage has
been used as an example of Greek influence on Joachim. But here St. Gregory
is not thinking of a third age under the special patronage of the Holy Ghost
but merely speaking of what is a well-known fact ? that the threeness of
152 For Italo-Greek monasticism in Calabria and Sicily, see K. Lake, ' The Greek Monas
teries in South Italy,' Journal of Theological Studies 4 (1903) 345-68;517-42; 5 (1904) 22-41,
189-202; Alberto Vaccari, La Grecia nelV Italia m?ridionale, Studi letterari e bibliografia
(Orientalia Christiana 3.3.13; Rome 1925) 273-328 (pp. 277ff. deal with the study of Scrip
ture in the Basilian monasteries of the south); Domenico L. Raschella, Saggio storico sul
monachismo italo-greco in Calabria (Messina 1925), who discusses, pp. 46ff., the study of
the Bible and its exegesis in Calabrian Basilian monasteries. 'Delia S. Scritture i monaci
greci rivelano perfetta cognizione... di tutti [Bible and eastern Fathers] e specialmente
del Nazanzieno fanno d?lie esposizioni esegetiche, le quali formano poi argomento di dis
cussioni, ' ibid. 49. Cf. also p. 93. ? For the Latin monasteries in the south see Hans-Walter
Klewitz, 'Die Anf?nge des Cistercienserordens im normannisch-sizilischen K?nigreich,'
Studien und Mitteilungen zur Geschichte des Benediktiner-Ordens und seiner Zweige 52
(1934) 236-51; Lynn Townsend White, Jr., Latin Monasticism in Norman Sicily (Mediaeval
Academy of America Monograph 13; Cambridge, Mass. 1938); Chalandon, Histoire de la
domination normande (Paris 1907), esp. II 708ff. et passim. ? For St. Nilus' interest in Scrip
ture, see PG 120.145A. St. Luke of Armenti (d. 993) (AS Oct. VI 332ff.) was much given,
as was Joachim, to meditating on and interpreting the 'profunda mysteria' (338) of the
words of the Bible. He was instructed in these by St. Elias Spelaeotes (d. c. 960). Luke
also had the spirit of prophecy and prophesied, moved by the Holy Ghost, about the Sara
cens. See also Simeon the New, Oratio 19 (PG 120.401ff.), Oratio 15 (PG 120.385) and
Capitula practica 60 (PG 120. 633-34).
153 See Leclercq (note 134 above) and Berli?re (note 137) 169ff on 'lectio divin a' in monas
teries.
154 There is also a Byzantine tradition of prophecy centered especially, but not exclusively,
around Emperor Leo the Wise; see e.g. Ch. Gidel, Nouvelles ?tudes sur la litt?rature grecque
moderne (Les litt?ratures de l'Orient 3; Paris 1878) 303-12; Rodolphe Guillaud, 'Le droit
divin ? Byzance, ' Eos, Commentarii societatis philologae Polonorum 42 (1947) 160ff.; P.
Alphand?ry, 'De quelques faits de proph?tisme,' RHR 52 (1905) 206 n.l (argues that the
Basilian monks of Southern Italy especially cultivated prophecy). See Michael Psellus,
The Chronographia (trans. E. R. A. Sewter, Rare Masterpieces of Philosophy and Science,
ed. W. Stark; New Haven 1953) 95, 138-39, 150-52, 201 and 204. ? Direct influence on
Joachim is possible although debatable; but on the later Joachite prophecies Greek prophecy
definitely did exercise a notable influence,
the one Godhead was only gradually revealed to man, although this is used
to strengthen the idea of the possibility of spiritual progress.155 St. Epiphanius,
to take another example, said the divine unity was first proclamied by Moses,
the divine duality (Father and Son) by the Prophets, and the Trinity in the
Gospels. Yet this too is hardly Joachite in spite of its implication of pro
gress.156 St. Gregory of Nyssa has a very dynamic conception of history which
bears some general similarity to that of Joachim, but we need not call upon
his direct influence to explain it.157
If we search Joachim's works for possible Greek influence, we must be im
pressed by two facts ? the rarity of any reference to a Greek theologian and
the ambiguity of Joachim's attitude towards the Greek Church.158 In the
past, those who wished to play down Greek influence quoted Joachim's un
sympathetic remarks and neglected his favorable ones.159 And in recent years
165 See Theodor Schermann, Die Gottheit des heiligen Geistes (Freiburg im Breisgau 1901)
146ff.
156 See Jules Lebreton, History of the Dogma of the Trinity I (trans. A. Thorold; London
1939) 416. Among the Fathers, perhaps Hippolytus, most of whose writings are, however,
lost, comes closest to Joachim, at least in his view that the whole history of the Church
(not merely the life of Christ) can be predicted from the events of the pre-Christian times,
especially the lives of the patriarchs. On this point see Hipler (note 115) 16. In his Contra
haeresin Noeti 14 (PG 10.821-22), Hippolytus seems to speak of a progressive revelation
by each of the Persons of the Trinity. A much more common but less Joachite^view is to
see the history of the Church in the life of Jesus; see Leo the Great, e.g. Sermo 38(37). 1
(PL 54.260) and Gregory, Moralia 23.1 (PL 76.251). ? Some heresies like Sabellianism
may have believed in some form of Trinitarian ages; see Athanasius, Contra Arianos 4.13-14
and 25, and Epiphanius, Adversus haereses 62 (PG 41.1051ff.)
157 See Jean Dani?lou, ' Akolouthia chez Gr?goire de Nysse,' Revue des sciences religieuses
27 (1953) 219-49.
158 See, besides Crocco (note 142 above), F. Tocco, Veresia nel medio evo (Florence 1884)
401; Buonaiuti's preface to his edition of Joachim's Super quatuor Evangelia, p. xxv, where
he says the fact that Joachim expected a revival in the Greek Church does not prove a friendly
attitude towards the Greeks; he also expected a revival and conversion of Israel. But Joa
chim does speak at times more warmly of the Greeks than a mere expectation of a return
to the fold would warrant. For Buonaiuti's opinions expressed elsewhere, see note 142
above; and see ' II testamento di Gioacchino da Fiore/ Ricerche religiose 4 (1928) 506 n. 3
(where he speaks of the antipathy towards the Greek Church which pervades all his writ
ings). See also H. Grundmann, Studien 9-10 and H. Haupt, 'Zur Geschichte des Joachi
mismus, ' ZKG 7 (1885) 390-91.
159 He praises the Greeks in Concordia 2.1.27, fol. 17v; 2.2.4, fol. 20v; 4.8. fol. 47v; 5.47,
fol. 82r and 5.48, fol. 83r; Expositio 1.20, fol. 49v and 11.1-2, fol. 143v. He writes, ' ...populus
Grecorum, qui electus est ad imaginem spiritus sancti' in Concordia 2.2.4, high praise indeed
for one who felt the future belonged to the Holy Ghost. Anti-Greek views may be found
in Concordia 5.47, 48,50, 70 (fols. 82', 83r, 85r, 98v) and Expositio 11.1-2 (fol. 142v) and 15.7
(fol. 185v). In general he devotes much space in his writings to the Greek Church, its nature
and destiny. Frequently, as the above references show, the same section contains both
praise and blame for the Greeks. See below, note 162.
286 TRADITIO
this in general has been the dominant attitude. But actually Joachim also
praises the Greek Church highly. He attacks its theory of the procession
of the Holy Ghost160 and often gives it unfavorable prototypes?e.g., Israel
or Samaria is the Greek Church, Judea is Rome.161 However, he also puts the
Greeks under the special protection of John as the West is under Peter. John
is the symbol of contemplation and the highest form of Christian life which
is to be the pattern for the third age. He refers often favorably to the Greek
penchant for monasticism 162 and even implies that on their return to the
Roman Church they may take precedence over Peter. One particular quo
tation strikes me as of special interest ? Joachim says that even now the
Greek church is persecuting those who walk under the protection of the Holy
Ghost.163 These words may indicate that Joachim has some sympathy for
the various heretical movements in twelfth-century Byzantium, and they
may explain his ambivalent attitude, although we must not rule out a true
ambiguity of attitude, or the continual revision of Joachim's works when
he may well have had different feelings on this issue at different times.
1 wish to suggest two possible Byzantine sources for some of Joachim's
ideasC (I am not sufficiently at home in Byzantine studies and indeed lack the
linguistic equipment to do more than suggest these as possibilities.) The
revival of monastic and individual mysticism, based on the Bible and the
liturgy, associated with Simeon the New (d. 1022) and his pupil Nicetas Ste
thatos164 (d.c. 1055) in the eleventh century, may well have influenced Joachim
160 '...sicut ecclesia Graecorum, quae negat spiritum sanctum proeedere a Filio Dei/
Expositio 11.1-2 (fol. 142v). Cf. Concordia 2.1.2, fol. 7* and 9r.
161 Expositio 11.1-2 (foL 142v). See also Super quatuor Evangelia (ed. Buonaiuti) 139
and 278 and Concordia 2.1.27, fol. 17v.
162 The Greeks are rebels ' qui gloriantur de perfectione ilia antiqua monachorum suo
rum,' Concordia 2.1.27. This chapter has much on the whole subject of the Greeks; on the
same folio side, however, he describes them as 'ambulantes usque in finem in erroribus
suis.' In Concordia 2.1.7, fol. 9*, he says the separation of the Greek and Roman Churches
is the work of the Holy Ghost.
163 ' [Greci]... persequuntur eos qui ambulant secundum spiritum usque in presentem diem, '
Concordia 5.57, fol. 89r. Cf. Concordia 5.50, fol. 85r.
164 On these figures, see Ir?n?e Hausherr, Un grand mystique byzantin: Vie de Sym?on
le nouveau th?ologien (946-1022) par Nic?tas St?thatosf Texte grec in?dit publi? avec intro
duction... (Orientalia Christiana 12 [No. 45]; Rome 1928) (a good study; but see M. Lot
Borodine's criticism of it in RHR 107 [1933] 14n). The long life by Nicetas is lost; Hausherr
prints the abridged version by the author. For Simeon's emphasis on the Holy Ghost see
pp. 188-89. See also Basile Tatakis, La philosophie byzantine (Histoire de la philosophie
ed. E. Br?hier, Fascicule suppl?mentaire 2; Paris 1949) 141-51. For some works of Simeon
and Nicetas, see PG 120; Symeon der Theologe, Licht vom Licht: Hymnen trans. Kilian
Kirchhoff (Munich 1951); Nicetas Stethatos, Le Paradis spirituel et autres textes... ed. Marie
Chalendard (Th?se Paris; Paris and Lyons 1945); and Hausherr, above. ? In Capitula prac
tica 60 (PG 120.633-34), Simeon grants that the future may be known from the Bible. See
also references to Simeon in note 152 above.
directly or indirectly. Their monastery, the Studion, had much influence

in Calabria.165 In the picture of the different monastic orders in the third
age in the Liber figurarum, Table 12, we find a spiritual father or director at
the head of each order.166 This is a special feature of Byzantine monasticism,
first urged by John Climacus, and is especially characteristic of Simeon's
recommendations on the spiritual life. Reading Simeon also makes one think
of Joachim. There is the same intensity, the same reliance on Biblical texts,
and even some stylistic similarities. Both Simeon and Nicetas are opposed
to learning and put much emphasis on the Holy Ghost.167 The Holy Ghost
inspires the intelligence of the saint who should teach and prophesy. All this
is, however, vague enough and needs a thorough investigation by someone
linguistically competent in Byzantine Greek.168 There are also of course obvious
differences between Simeon and Joachim. Simeon is not very historical
minded. He is a genuine mystic, while Joachim is not.
The second possibility I have already suggested. Uspenskij169 long ago
pointed out that not only in the West but also in the East we find doctrinal
quarrels over Christology andTrinitarianism in the twelfth century. Although
the heresy of Soterichos Panteugenios170 of 1157 was primarily Christological
165 See Russo, 'Relazioni culturali, ' Bollettino della Badia Greca di Grottaferrata, N.S.
7 (1953) 53.
166 Also an important point in Bonaventure's spirituality. This emphasis on a spiritual
guide or director may be another indirect influence of Joachim on Bonaventure.
187 See Chalandon, Jean II (note 148) 54-55. This special reverence for the Holy Ghost
is very characteristic of the Eastern Churches. See M. Lot-Borodine, 'La doctrine de la
d?ification,' RHR 107 (1933) 35ff.; and V. Lossky (note 97) 153ff. and 241ff. and La proces
sion du Saint-Esprit dans la doctrine trinitaire orthodoxe (M?langes de l'Institut orthodoxe
fran?ais de Paris; Paris 1948).
168 There is some evidence for an interest in the idea of progressive perfection in the Trini
ty. See the discussion of Eustratios of Nicaea's (early twelfth century) views in S. Salaville,
' Philosophie et th?ologie ou ?pisodes scolastiques ? Byzance de 1059 ? 1117,' ?chos d'Orient
33 (1930) 153-54.
169 See his article in Russian, 'The Philosophical Movement...' published in the Journal
of the Ministry of Public Instruction for 1891 (see Salaville [note 168] 132ff.). Earlier Josef
Bach (note 63) II 725ff. made this same point. See also Louis Petit, ' Documents in?dits
sur le Concile de 1166 et ses derniers adversaires, ' Vizantiiski Vremennik (Bv^avr?va Xgovix?)
11 (1904) 466ff.
17 lOn Soterichos Panteugenios, see Lysimaque conomos, La vie religieuse dans l'empire
byzantin au temps des Comn?nes et des Anges (Th?se Paris; 1918) 30ff.; J. M. Hussey, Church
and Learning in the Byzantine Empire 867-1185 (London 1937) 99ff.; Johannes Dr?seke,
'Der Dialog des Soterichos Panteugenios, neu herausgegeben,' ZWT 29 (1886) 224-37;
Heinrich Pachali, 'Soterichos Panteugenios und Nikolaos von Methone,' ZWT 50 (1907)
347-74; J. V. Grumel, Les regestes des actes du Patriarcat de Constantinople 1.3 (Le Patriar
cat byzantin, Recherches de diplomatique, d'histoire et de g?ographie eccl?siastique, pu
bli?es par l'Institut fran?ais d'?tudes byzantines; Bucharest and Paris 1932ff.) 105ff.; Basile
Tatakis (note 164) 219-21; Martin Jugie, Theologia dogmatica Christianorum orientalium
288 TRADITIO
and Eucharistical, there were Trinitarian implications, and it is possible that

the latter may have influenced Joachim.171 Then in 1166, in the case of Deme
trios Lampe,172 the very text 'My Father is greater than I' (John 14.28) that
is quoted in the Lateran condemnation of Joachim occupied an important
role. All this too is vague, but it may have some fruitful possibilities. A minor
point in the Panteugenios dispute may have been the coming role of the Holy
Ghost. It suggests a third age, and in Russia173 in later times we do find among
some of the heretical sects174 a belief similar to Joachim's, which implies a
common source in Byzantium. Perhaps it was the persecution to which Pan
teugenios and Lampe were both subjected which prompted Joachim's remark
that those who walk by the Holy Ghost are being persecuted by the Greek
Church at the present time. Besides there is some evidence that Joachim
was in the East, possibly in Constantinople, in the very year (1157) of the
Panteugenios controversy. However, more on this last point shortly.
ab Ecclesia Catholica dissidentium III (Paris 1930) 317ff. ? The synodica, which were read
on the Feast of Orthodoxy (the first Sunday in Lent), established in 842 or 843, poured
out anathema on all heresies. These synodica, especially older versions, are of the utmost
value in establishing the nature of various Byzantine heresies. Uspenskii published an old
version, possibly from the time of Soterichos, with a Russian translation in Zapiski Impera
torskago novorossijskago Universiteta 59 (Odessa 1893) 407-502 (pp. 428-33 on Soterichos'
errors). (See the attack on Uspenskii's text by Anton Michel, Humbert und Kerullarios,
Quellen und Studien zum Schisma des XL Jahrhunderts II [Quellen und Forschungen aus
dem Gebiete der Geschichte in Verbindung mit ihrem historischen Institut in Rom, ed.
G?rres-Gesellschaft; Paderborn, 1930] 2 n.l, on the bibliography of the synodicon). See
also D. Norbert Gappuyns, ' Le synodicon de l'?glise de Rhodes au xiiie si?cle, ' ?chos d'Orient
33 (1934) 196-217, esp. 199. Besides these synodica, see also the History of Cinnamus 4.16ff.
in PG 133.517ff. and the Treasury of Nicetas Choniates 24 in PG 140.137ff. (preceded by
Soterichos' dialogue reprinted from Mai, Spicilegium Romanum 10 [1844]).
171 Gf. also the earlier 'case' of John Italos, whose teachings were condemned in 1076-77
and 1082; see Pelopidas Etienne Stephanou, Jean Italos, philosophe et humaniste (Orientalia
Christiana Analecta 134; Rome 1949).
172 See conomos (note 170) 50ff.; Hussey HOff.; Cappuyns loc. cit.; Petit (note 169)
465-93; A. Dondaine, 'Hugues ?th?rien et L?on Toscan,' AHDL 27 (1952) 82-84; F. Cha
landon, Jean II (note 148) 643ff.; C.-J. Hefele, Histoire des conciles d'apr?s les documents
originaux V 2 (tr. H. Leclercq; Paris 1913) 911-13; 1045-1049. ? Lampe returned from Ger
many around 1160 full of the problem of the equality of the Son (and presumably the Holy
Ghost) with the Father.
173 It was Constantine, Patriarch of Russia, who raised the whole Panteugenios issue by
asking for a ruling on the subject from Constantinople. He may have had good reason from
the situation in his own patriarchy for so doing.
174 See Frederick C. Conybeare, Russian Dissenters (Harvard Theological Studies 10;
Cambridge 1921) 165ff. (on some bezpopovtsy sects).**
IV
Turning to Joachim's biography,175 we also find obscurities. The major

sources here, besides a few documents, are an early-thirteenth-century Life
by Luke of Cosenza,176 Joachim's secretary, who later became a Bishop, and
an early-seventeenth-century (1612) biography by a Florensian?Jacobus
Graecus?based on the Tutini MS in the Biblioteca Nazionale, Naples, and
local traditions.177 Both were inspired to some extent by the desire to rehabi
litate his name and even to obtain his beatification.178 Joachim has frequently
been the subject of dispute, and the seventeenth century, like most of its pre
decessors and successors, was no exception. A seventeenth-century pro-Joa
176 On Joachim's biography, see E. Schott, ' Joachim der Abt von Floris,' ZKG 22 (1901)
343-61; E. Buonaiuti, Gioacchino da Fiore (note 48) 123ff.; Nicola Lafortuna, Vita dello
abate Gioacchino, Tabellione projeta e novatore del secolo XII (2nd ed. Girgenti 1876) (some
what romanticized but not bad); H. Grundmann, Neue Forschungen (note 1) 3Iff. There
are any number of romantic reconstructions of Joachim's life such as Vol. I of L'?vangile
?ternel by Emmanuel Aegerter (Les textes du Christianisme 3 and 4; Paris 1928) which cannot
be trusted. Vol. II of L'?vangile ?ternel contains translations into French of selected
passages of Joachim's works, the exact sources of which (except for the book) are not given.
The early materials for Joachim's biography (the Tutini MS, see below, note 177) have
recently been printed in part by C. Baraut, ' Las antiguas biografias de Joaquin de Fiore
y sus fuentes,' Analecta sacra tarraconensia 26 (1953) 195-232. The Bollandists, AS, May
VII (Paris and Rome 1867) 87-141 (for May 29) also printed some basic source materials
including Luke of Cosenza's (note 176) thirteenth-century Life. Ferdinando Ughelli, Italia
sacra sive de episcopis Italiae et insularum adjacentium 9 (ed. 2, Venice 1721) under appro
priate years, cols. 195ff. reprints a number of basic documents on the life of Joachim and
that of his Order. He, too, apparently used the Tutini MS. He also prints Luke's Life
(cols. 205-08). Especially valuable is Ughelli's report of Joachim's relations with the various
archbishops of Cosenza and the royal family. On the English chroniclers, see below.
176 virtutum beati Joachimi synopsis.
177 Printed Cosenza 1612, and reedited with omissions in the AS. The Tutini MS (Naples,
B.N. Brancacciana I.F.2) of the late sixteenth century is copied from earlier materials at
S. Giovanni in Fiore, see J. Rousset, as reported in the communication of Ch. Diehl, Comptes
rendus Acad. Inscr. (Paris 1932) 177-78; E. Jamison, 'The Sicilian Norman Kingdom/
Proceedings British Acad. 24 (1938) 266 and 284 n. 79.
178 A petition for his canonization was actually presented in 1346 (printed in AS, May VII
1111*), but it apparently never got very far. A notable defense of Joachim, although not
presenting any new material, may be found in Gregorius de Lauro, Magni divinique prophetae
beati Ioajinis Ioachim abbatis sacri cisterciensis ordinis monasterii Floris et Florensis ordinis
institutoris... (Naples 1660), dealing with his life, miracles and prophecies. He also used
the Tutini MS. As a Cistercian writing with great pride of a fellow Cistercian, there is no.
allegedly successful prophecy which he hesitates to attribute to his subject (see above,
note 9). Cistercian pride in Joachim in the same century may be seen in the historian of
the order, Angelo Manrique, Ecclesiasticorum annalium... 3 (Lyons 1649) under 1189 etc.
For further evidence of the interest of the seventeenth century in Joachim, see the two
MSS of that century in the Biblioteca Vallicelliana, Rome, 1.33 and 0.89.
290 TRADITIO
chim 'boom' may be seen in the fact that Papebroch was sufficiently impressed
to include Joachim in a May volume of the Acta Sanctorum, printing there
the Luke and part of the Graecus biographies and some other source materials.379
Certain letters purporting to come from Joachim and playing on his fame
were forged in the seventeenth century to give glory to the Cala family of
Naples.180
The most interesting report on Joachim's life, which gives us a vivid picture
of him, is, however, the section in Roger Hoveden's History on Richard the
Lion-hearted's visit to Messina on the Third Crusade in 1190-91.181 It exists
in two forms ? in the so-called Benedict of Peterborough (really the first
redaction of Hoveden's Chronicle) and in his Chronicle proper. He reports the
impression Joachim made upon the King and his attendants. He was called
for by the King as the most notable Calabrian celebrity and prophet, and a
number of questions were put to him which, as befits a prophet, he answered
in sufficiently clouded form.182 One of his most interesting answers is
that he thought Antichrist (i.e., not the final Antichrist obviously) had perhaps
been born and was now alive and in Rome.183 The implication is that the Pope
was or could be Antichrist. This answer, given Joachim's close relations with
the papacy, together with the general tone of the interview, has led some
like Buonaiuti to doubt its accuracy. Even earlier the Bollandists of the seven
teenth century, when they came to collect materials for Joachim's life, re
jected Hoveden and Coggeshall. The recent tendency illustrated by Miss
Evelyn Jamison and Father de Ghellinck is to give full credence to the material
Hoveden presented.184
179 Note 175. See also the Jesuit Ant. Possevmi, Apparatus sacer... 2 (Venice 1606) 101-03
for a long and not unsympathetic notice of Joachim. He attacked the Lutheran interpre
tation of Joachim's prophecies, which had created a problem for Catholic supporters of
Joachim in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
180 See Tondelli, 'Un epistolario di Gioacehino da Fiore e un falso di Filippo Stocchi, '
Sophia 19 (1951) 372-77.
181 See his Chronica 3 (ed. Wm. Stubbs, R.S.; London 1870) 75-79 (sub anno 1190). Hor
den follows this description of Joachim with Adso's work on Antichrist and another
anonymous tractate on the same subject, to contrast their views with those Joachim has
just expressed in his discussion with Richard. It was this dramatic aspect of Joachism
? the possible prediction of Antichrist and other prophecies ? which most interested
his immediate contemporaries.
182 One was concerned with the defeat of Saladin.
183 1 John 4.3 makes the point that the Antichrist has already been born. St. Martin of
Tours c. 380 believed that the Antichrist had been born and was in his boyhood. So also
Bishop Rainer of Florence (1071-1113).
m Tne crowning evidence is, however, the fact that Joachim makes the same point in
his genuine Expositio 9.11, fol. 133r: 'presentem puto esse in mundo.' See also Stubbs on
the authenticity of Hoveden's report in his edition pp. 76-77.
Ralph Coggeshall, another English chronicler, says Joachim in 1195 looked

about sixty.185 This would put his birth c.1135 and although others have sug
gested 1145, this year seems a reasonable guess. Part of our lack of knowl
edge about Joachim's biography and the history of his Order is due, as
Mrs. Bignami-Odier has pointed out, to the absence of official documents
and the poor state of preservation of archives in southern Italy.186
We do know, however, the date of his death ? March 30, 1202 ? although
for a while it too was questioned.187 There is, as I have noted, some doubt
as to Joachim's background ? one tradition makes him a peasant, another
the son of a tabellio (a municipal notary). I am inclined to favor the latter.
There would be a good reason for inventing the first but, as far as I can see,
none for the second. When Joachim speaks of himself as a farmer, we cannot,
as Foberti has pointed out,188 be sure that the statement can be taken literally,
inasmuch as his whole style is allegorical in the extreme. It may even have
given rise to the false story. But even stronger is the association of Joachim's
ideas with poverty, especially the evangelical poverty of the Spiritual Fran
ciscans, and a humble birth would fit in very well with the desires of that
movement. There is on the other hand no good reason why anyone should
make up the story that he was the son of a tabellio.
The early biographers and legends report a trip as a juvenculus, as Luke
puts it, to the East ? Constantinople, Syria and Palestine ? where he ex
perienced a conversion and on Mount Thabor a mystical vision.189 Some of
these sources say Joachim was a frivolous youth like St. Francis and in Con
stantinople or the East in the presence of a plague suffered a conversion.
186 Chronicon Ang?icanum (ed. Stevenson, R.S.; London 1875) 69, reporting the testimony
of Abbot Adam of Perseigne. According to the Cistercian Coggeshall, Joachim told Adam
that Innocent III would not have a successor and that Babylon, where Antichrist is to be
born, is Rome. Pp. 67-70 deal with Joachim in general, who, Coggeshall says, was not
subjected very much to Cistercian discipline.
186 'Travaux r?cents,' Le moyen ?ge 58 (1952) 149. ? On Joachim's iconography and por
traits, see Jean Rousset, 'Il pi? antico ritratto di Gioacchino da Fiore,' ASCL 3 (1933)
317-24.
187 Huck did so in Joachim von F loris (1938) 87ff. on the basis of a comment he read
(or misread) in MS Vat. Lat. 3822 and urged the date was 1205. However, Caraffa, II
monastero florense di S. Maria della Gloria (Rome 1940) 3 n.5 and ?liger, ' Ein pseudo-pro
phetischer Text aus Spanien,' Kirchengeschichtliche Studien P. Michael Bihl>O.F.M. als
Ehrengaben dargeboten (Kolmar 1944) 23 n.l, have both proved that the traditional date
is correct.
188 Gioacchino da Fiore (Florence 1934) 27ff.; G. Marchese (note 51) 158-59.
189 On some of the problems connected with this vision, see H. Grundmann, ' Kleine
Beitr?ge ?ber Joachim von Fiore,' ZKG 48 (1929) 151-52. The text of Joachim's office
contains the phrase, ' Deus qui gloriam tuam tribus apostolis in monte Thabor manifestasti
et in eodem loco B. Joachim veritatem scripturarum revelasti...,' printed in Nicola La
fortuna (note 175) 112 n.
292 TRADITIO
Then he proceeded to Palestine and Mount Thabor whence he returned de

termined to devote his life to God. If the trip is genuine190 (and, although the
parallel with St. Francis is suspect, it may well be so, as Grundmann writes)
it could have taken place in 1156-57 at the time of the Panteugenios quarrel,
and indeed Joachim could have become personally acquainted with the issues.
Interestingly enough, researches into the history of epidemics191 reveal that
in 1157 there was a bad plague in the East, although the center was Arabia
and Syria rather than Constantinople. Some confused memory of this real
plague may be embedded in this story. One cannot, however, make too much
of this point.
There is a story that Peter Lombard visited Calabria and died at the Cister
cian monastery of Sambucina192 in 1164. If this should be true, Joachim may
have met him there, for he entered the Cistercian order probably at Sambucina
shortly after his return from the East, presumably around 1159. In 1177
he is Abbot of the Cistercian monastery at Corazzo. In 1182-83, he went to
Casamari and'worked on his writings there with the help of scriveners, including
his later biographer, Luke. He probably expounded a prophecy to Pope
Lucius III at Veroli in 1184. In 1186 he visited Pope Urban III in Verona.
Two years later, Pope Clement III ordered him to submit his writings for
the approval of the Curia. These relations with different popes are attested
to by various letters the authenticity of which has been questioned by Buo
naiuti, who in his Modernist interpretation193 of Joachim did not wish to see
him on good terms with the Church. Grundmann, however, accepts them
with good arguments as genuine. In 1188 or 1189?the date is doubtful194?
190 p# Foberti in 'Appunti gioacchimiti, la nascita, il casato, la condizione sociale,'

ASGL 3 (1933) 220 says that 1147-49, during the time of the Second Crusade, would be a
suitable date for his trip to the ' luoghi santi. ' This date seems too early to me.
191 See A. v. Kremer, ' Ueber die grossen Seuchen des Orients nach arabischen Quellen, '
Sb. Akad. Vienna (1880) 81 and 126-27 (there were also plagues in the east in 1142 and 1163
but one is too early and the other probably too late); Georg Sticker, Abhandlungen aus
der Seuchengeschichte und Seuchenlehre 11 : Die Geschichte der Pest (Giessen 1908) 39 (for 1157).
192 See Marchese (note 51 above); Grundmann, Neue Forschungen 41-42.
193 A good introduction in English to the Buonaiuti view of Joachim is to be found in
Vida Dutton Scudder, 'Joachim of Flora and the Friars,' The Privilege of Age; Essays Se
cular and Spiritual (New York 1939) 193-210 (reprinted from Christendom 1938).
m yet in 1190-1, the Gesta (first version of Hoveden) refers to Joachim as Abbot of
Corazzo, see E. Jamison (note 177) 263. (This lecture gives a good picture of the interview
with Richard I.) J. de Ghellinck, L'essor de la litt?rature latine au xiie si?cle I (Brussels and
Paris 1946) 199 accepts 1192 as the date of the foundation of the Order. This is the year of
the Cistercian command to Joachim to return or be considered a fugitive. Possibly he
left for the Sila in 1188 or 1189 and only a few years later decided definitively to break
with his original Order, or Hoveden may have been using the title ' abbot ' loosely. Ughelli
(note 175) 195 and Russo, 'L'eredit? di Gioacchino da Fiore,' ASCL 21 (1952) accept 1189
as the correct date.
probably owing to dissatisfaction with the state of Cistercian piety and spiri
tuality in Calabria, he left his convent and retired to the Sila, that barren
Calabrian plateau and range where he founded a community of hermits,
the base of his new Order.195 The Chapter General of the Cistercians in 1192
ordered him and another brother to return or be considered fugitives.196 We
do not know enough of the attitude of the Cistercians towards Joachim and
his new Order in these early days. The command of 1192 implies censure,
but whether Cistercian antagonism was widespread is unknown. Centuries
later it was certainly assuaged, and the histories of the Order tended to take
a favorable view of the Abbot. Joachim on the other hand admired the Cis
tercians to the end. That this early conflict would lead to a forgery to blacken
his name, as Foberti suggested, seems unlikely.1968.
We know little of the history of the Order,197 although there are some docu
ments showing that the mother house at San Giovanni in Fiore was engaged
in quarrels with a neighboring Basilian monastery in the late twelfth and
early thirteenth centuries.198 Joachim, as the meeting with King Richard
and his contacts with the Normans and Hohenstaufens in his later years
show, was by now no doubt a well-known figure. Henry VI and his widow
Constance gave substantial support to San Giovanni. The extent of Joachim's
relations with Germans is not clear, but on the whole, in spite of some harsh
words in his writings, presumably written earlier, they were probably friendly.199
195 There may have been a strong Calabrian tradition of hermits which about a century
before had apparently sufficiently impressed Stephan of Thiers to found, on returning to his
native France, c. 1080, a community from which the Order of Grammont developed. See
Jean-Berthold Mahn, Vordre cistercien et son gouvernement des origines au milieu du xiiie
si?cle (1098-1266) (2nd ed. Paris 1951) 28-29. Many Basilians lived as hermits. In the 1090's,
St. Bruno founded a few Carthusian houses of hermits in Calabria,
m printed in Mart?ne and Durand, Thesaurus novus anecdotorum 4 (Paris 1717) 1274 ? 12.
196a See Additional Note, p. 310 below.
197 It ended apparently in 1633 when the last houses reentered the Cistercian Order.
Some had earlier done so and some had joined the Dominican friars (there are differences
of opinion on the date and mode of the final dissolution of the Florensians). On the history
of the Order see E. Schott, 'Joachim, der Abt von Floris,' ZKG 22 (1901) 358ff.; Russo
(note 194 above); Andr? Callebaut, 'Le joachimite Beno?t,' AFH 20 (1927) 219-22; Giacinto
d'lppolito, ?Abate Gioacchino da Fiore (Cosenza 1928) (a local historian who must be
used with caution); Biagio Cappelli, ' II titolo dell' ordine del Fiore,' ASCL 22 (1953) 39-54;
Cesare Minicucci, 'Contributo agli studi storici florensi,' Brutium 17 (Reggio Calabria
1938) 77-79, 92-93; F. Caraffa (note 187); C. Baraut, 'Per la storia dei monasteri Florensi,'
Benedictina 4 (1950) 241-68 (not seen).
198 Documents printed in Ughelli (note 175) 198-201. See also F. Campolongo, Le dottrine
dell' abate Gioacchino e il delitto di eresia (2nd ed. Naples 1929) 22 n. and Lafortuna (note
175) 100-03.
199 See Franz Pelster, ' Ein Elogium Joachims von Fiore auf Kaiser Heinrich II und seine
Gemahlin die heilige Kunigunde,' Liber Floridus; Mittellateinische Studien, Paul Lehmann...
gewidmet... (ed. B. Bischoff and Suso Brechter; St. Ottilien 1950) 329-54. Pelster strangely
294 TRADITIO
In 1196200 Pope Celestine III approved the Florensian rule, which we unfor
tunately no longer possess.201 If a copy were extant, we could get a clearer
picture of what Joachim objected to in the Cistercian rule and what he wished
a religious community to be like. It probably was a more stringent organi
zation. It is doubtful whether after this date the Cistercians could actively
object to the new Order any longer. The history of the Florensians as far as
we can reconstruct it is disappointing. The Order became very wealthy and
very conservative quickly and did little even to further the renown of its
founder after the first few decades. It is strange when we regard its subsequent
history to recall Pope Gregory IX's admiration for it.202
V
The influence of Joachim has been extensively studied, probably because
of its dramatic element.203 The dispute over his views in the thirteenth century
came to head in 1255-56, a few years before the supposed entry into the third
persists, in the face of simple chronology (not to speak of the opinion of all Joachim scho
lars), in regarding the De seminibus (or semine) scripturarum (see below, note 236) as a
genuine work of the Abbot although he admits it was written in 1204-05. The work may
be Joachite, although its main method of determining the future by the alphabet is not;
it was certainly associated with Joachim's name from the late thirteenth century on.
200 Goggeshall (see note 185 above) on the authority of Adam de Perseigne reports that
Joachim was at the Curia in 1195, probably, as Jordan suggests, to get papal approval for
his new Order. For Celestine's bull, see PL 206.1183.
201 Buoraiuti, 'II testamento di Gioacchino da Fiore,' Ricerche religiose 4 (1928) 507 n.
suggests that an outline the of rule may be found ir. Concordia 5.23, be ginning,'Bene autem
redirent christiani ad formam illam, si unaquaeque... ' F. Caraffa (note 187) 5ff. speculates
on the possible contents of the rule. See also Grundmann (note 1) 85ff., who suggests that
Table 13 of the Liber figurarum (Dispositio novi ordinis pertinens ad tercium statum ad instar
saperne Jerusalem) gives us clues. The crucial question here is how Joachim regarded his
Order in terms of the third age ? was it to be a pattern for it? To some extent at least
he must have thought so, but it is obvious that at least the picture in Table 13 of the seventh
Oratorium sancti Abrae for conjugati cannot have been a feature of Fiore (see Grundmann
op. cit. 101-02). Joachim may, as Grundmann suggests, however, have had an initial group
ing of 5 houses with the hope for two more (for conjugati and clerici in the new age). The
Order could have been ready to take over in the new age ? a kind of skeleton third-age
monastery so to speak. The pattern of various houses is no doubt based on the conception
of heavenly mansions and reveals the Order's eschatological orientation as well as Joachim's
(and the monastic) theory of the monastery as the closest terrestrial imitation of heaven,
which it prefigures and of which it is a foretaste. On the heavenly mansions in the Middle
Ages, see Ray C. Petry, Christian Eschatology and Social Thought (New York and Nash
ville 1956) 337ff. with appropriate references.
202 In his bull canonizing St. Dominic, Gregory IX referred to the Dominicans, Francis
cans, Cistercians, and Florensians as the four pillars of the church. See above, note 30.
203 For the early years (before 1250) of Joachim's influence, see Bloomfield and Reeves,
' The Penetration of Joachism into Northern Europe, ' Speculum 29 (1954) 772-93 and Reeves,
'The Abbot Joachim's Disciples and the Cistercian Order,' Sophia 19 (1951) 355-71.**
age, with the famous quarrel at the University of Paris over the Eternal
Evangel.204 There is a large bibliography on this dispute which involved St.
Thomas and St. Bonaventure as well as a host of well-known names. On the
political level, it was a protest by the seculars led by William of St. Amour
against the growing influence of the friars in University life and probably
elsewhere. On a theoretical level it involved many of the Joachite issues as
well as the whole subject of evangelical poverty and its role in the quest for
perfection. It also involved, as Schleyer has pointed out,205 the question of
papal as against episcopal claims and possibly, from a long-range point of
view, the whole question of early Gallicanism.
It was sparked by the publication by a radical Franciscan, Gerardo de
Borgo San Donnino, 4qui in Sicilia nutritus fuit in seculo,'206 of the Introduction
to the Eternel Gospel which, as reconstructed by Denifle,207 apparently contained
204 Chenu (note 150) 173ff. sees the condemnation of some of Joachim's Trinitarian
views at least implied in the condemnation by the masters of the University of Paris in
1241 of some ten propositions held by some of their number there. ? For a bibliography
of this dispute, see Bloomfield and Reeves (note 203) 772 n. 2 and F. X. Seppelt, Der Kampf
der Bettelorden, an der Universit?t Paris in der Mitte des 13. Jahrhunderts (Kirchengeschicht
liche Abhandlungen 2 and 6; Breslau 1905-08) I 197-241; II 73-139; Hastings Rashdall, The
Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages I (new ed. by F. M. Powicke and A. B. Emden;
Oxford 1936) 344-97; T. Denkinger, 'Die Bettelorden in der franz?sischen didaktischen
Literatur des 13. Jahrhunderts, besonders bei Rutebeuf und im Roman de la Rose,' Fran
ziskanische Studien 2 (1915) 63-109; 286-313, and ' Die Bettelorden im sogenannten Testament
und Codicille de Jehan de Meun,' ibid. 3 (1916) 339-53; Max Bierbaum, Bettelorden und
Weltgeistlichkeit an der Universit?t Paris: Texte und Untersuchungen zum literarischen
Armuts- und Exemtionsstreit des 12. Jahrhunderts (1255-1272) (Franziskanische Studien,
Beiheft 2; M?nster i.W. 1920) (a valuable collection of texts); Apollonia Koperska, Die
Stellung der religi?sen Orden zu der Profanwissenschaften im 12. und 13. Jahrhundert (Frei
burg, Switzerland 1914) 135-77.
206 'Disputes scolastiques sur les ?tats de perfection,' RTAM 10 (1938) 279-93 (Schleyer
under-emphasizes the theoretical and dogmatic issues of the quarrel, but it is a valuable
corrective) and Anf?nge des Gallikanismus im 13. Jahrhundert; Der Widerstand des franz?
sischen Klerus gegen die Privilegierung der Bettelorden (Historische Studien 314; Berlin 1937).
? William of St. Amour claimed that bishops, and hence parish priests, derived their au
thority immediately from Christ through the Apostles and not from the pope.
206 Salimbene, Cronica II ed. F. Bernini (Scrittori d'ltalia 187-188; Bari 1942) 132. This
southern Italian background tends to support Reeves' thesis of a Joachite center in southern
Italy in the decades following Joachim's death, although not the thesis that it was in Cister
cian and Florensian houses, for Gerardo was a Franciscan.
207 See 'Das Evangelium aeternum und die Commission zu Anagni,' ALKG 1 (1885)
49-142. Apparently glosses on this work, rather than the introduction or extracts from
Joachim himself, were condemned by the Commission at Anagni. From Cardinal Eudes
de Ch?teauroux, a member of the Anagni Commission, we get in one of his sermons another
picture of this dispute which has generally been ignored; see P. Gratien, Sermons francis
cains du Cardinal Eudes de Ch?teauroux (?. 1273) (Extrait des ?tudes franciscaines 29 and
30, Ann?e 1913; Paris and Couvin 1913) 35-39, Sermon 4. ? Gerardo paralleled Abraham,
296 TRADITIO
an inflammatory introduction followed by long selections frojn Joachim's

writings with heretical or seditious glosses. It apparently claimed that it was
the new Evangel for the third age.208 A list of 31 propositions extracted from
the work of professors at the University of Paris examining the matter is
most revealing,209 but it can be seen that many of them are not genuine Joa
chite ideas, although they may perhaps have grown out of these. William of
St. Amour seized upon the book as an excellent example of the perfidy of
the friars and wrote his famous attack on the friars, De periculis nouissimorum
temporum. I shall not go into the ins and outs of this quarrel, which kept Paris
and Europe in an uproar for a good many years and created much bitterness.
It is discussed at length in Jean de Meun's part of the Roman de la Rose210
and in some poems of Rutebeuf,211 which gave it a wide currency among the
literati. It is a curious quarrel, in which the different elements are hard to
separate. Most curious of all I think is the fact that William's writings, full
of a sense of impending doom and references to Antichrist, seem almost as
Joachite, as Joachism was understood in those days, as those of his opponents.212
To him the activity of the friars was convincing proof of the imminence of
Antichrist ? in fact they were his agents, and Joachim a heretic was their
inspiration.213 It is the strong condemnation of this work and of the Intro
Isaac and Jacob; Zechariah, John, and Jesus; and Joachim, Dominic and Francis; see E.
Benz, 'Joachim-Studien I' (note 67) 107.
208 To Joachim, the eternal Gospel of Apoc. 14.6 means a new spiritual interpretation of
the Old and New Testaments, and certainly not a book. In Psalterium 1, fols. 259v - 260r
he discusses the concept, saying inter alia that it is 'illud quod procedit de evangelio Christi,
littera enim occidit, spiritus autem vivificat.' ? The third age is not to have a newer Testa
ment but to possess a new enlightenment into the meaning of the two already given us.
See James C. Robertson, History of the Christian Church from the Apostolic Age to the Re
formation V (revised ed. London 1874) 345. In Super quatuor Evangelia (ed. Buonaiuti)
86, Joachim also says, ' evangelium regni, vel a Iohanne evangelium eternum, nisi quia illud
quod mandatum est nobis a Christo vel apostolis... ' or in other words, the eternal Gospel is
the true commands of Christ and his Apostles.
209 Most recently published by Benz in ZKG 51 (1932) 415-55 along with general comments.
The fourth is the most controversial: ' quod recessus ecclesiae grecorum ab ecclesia romana
fuit a Spiritu Sancto'; a statement actually to be found in Joachim's genuine works, but
taken out of context; see reference in note 162 above.
210 Who says that Joachim taught that Peter (the New Testament) and Paul must give
way to John (the third age). Cf. Psalterium 1, fol. 265v and Concordia 2.2.5, fols. 20v ff.
etc. on Peter and John.
211 La Complainte de Constantinoble, lines 37ff.; Du Pharisian; Les Ordres de Paris, lines
61ff.; De Sainte ?glise, lines 37ff.
212 'Nos sumus in ultima aetate hujus mundi, et ilia aetas jam plus duravit aliis, quae
currunt per millenarium annorum; quia ista duravit per 1255 annos, ' De periculis 8. Schleyer,
Anf?nge (note 205) 32 n. 27 denies, however, that William has true eschatological fervor.
For the criticism see H. Rashdall (note 204) 386 n. 1 and Benz (note 209) 449.
218 Edmond Faral has recently edited another work of William of St. Amour's; see his
ductorius, I think, rather than the Lateran condemnation which has given
rise to the general belief that Joachim's own historical views have been offi
cially judged as heretical.
A long list of names can be adduced to show the passage of Joachism into
the later Middle Ages.214 Many of the late medieval heresies or semi-heresies
show its influence, but the good Abbot also impressed many loyal sons of the
Church. The quarrel over the Eternal Evangel and the appeal of Joachism
in general can be attributed to the growing sense of dissatisfaction with the
abuses which had crept into the Church and the strong desire for a return to
the simplicities of the Apostolic and primitive Church.215 The profoundly
spiritual revolutionary implications of many Gospel passages were one of the
major roots of this dissatisfaction, a dissatisfaction visible in many sensitive
loyal sons of the Church such as Dante and Chaucer, who did not spare their
criticisms, although they did not go so far as some of their hot-headed con
'Les Responsiones de Guillaume de Saint-Amour,' AHDL 25 and 26 (1950-51) 337-94.

The Responsiones, poorly edited in the 1632 edition of William's works as Casus et articuli
super quibus accusatus, is a further defense of his position, written after 1256 with somewhat
attenuated arguments.
214 Inasmuch as this last divisior of my paper (see above, p. 250) has been more fully treated
and explored than the others, I shall cover the ground very rapidly. I am also passing over a
number of ' fringe ' theories such as those of Anitchkof, best summed up in his Joachim de
Flore (note 2), that the Gatharists and Joachim are behind the Grail Legend and much other
literature of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries (see the thorough criticism by M. Lot
Borodine in Romania 56 [1930] 526-57, and Antonio Viscardi, ' Settarismo e letteratura nel
medio evo,' Riuista di sintesi letteraria 1 [1934] 31ff.). Joachism in general has much appeal
to various esoteric interpreters of European culture. See also, e.g., Gertrude Leigh, The
Passing of Beatrice: A Study in the Heterodoxy of Dante (London 1932). Most of these
attempts, needless to say, are worthless and devoid of scholarship and genuine insight.
However, this should not be said of Anitchkof, who often is very perceptive even though
he must be used with caution. See below, note 256. ? Joachim's name was frequently thrown
around with abandon in the Middle Ages and was attached to many prophecies which are
patertly not his; see e.g. Ruth Kestenberg-Gladstein, 'A Joachimite Prophecy Concerning
Bohemia,' The Slavonic and East European Review 34.82 (1955) 34-55. The thirteenth
century Italian aspect of the subject was studied at some length, with texts, by Holder
Egger in Neues Archiv 25 (1899), 30 (1905) and 33 (1908). Joachim was especially popular
as a so-called herald of Antichrist, while his serious historical theory had less appeal.
215 Morghen sees this desire, and not doctrinal concerns, at the root of most later medieval
heresies and religious protests. See his ' L'eresia nel medioevo ' (which first appeared in the
Archivio della R. Deputazione romana di Storia patria 67 [N.S. 10; 1944] 97-151) and ' La
crisi della religiosit? m?di?vale' (which first appeared in Ricerche religiose 1947 and in which
he sagely discusses Joachim), both reprinted in Medioevo cristiano (Biblioteca di cultura
moderna 491; Bari 1951) 212-86 and 287-303. ? Joachim himself writes, 'Necesse quippe
est, ut succ?d?t similitudo vera apostolice vite, in qua non acquirebatur possessio terrene
hereditatis, sed vendebatur potius...,' Concordia 4.39, fol. 59v (cf. 4.25); 'Reformari statum
ecclesie in eum gradum et similitudinem, in quo fuit tempore apostolorum, ' Concordia 5.86
fol, 114r,
298 TRADITIO
temporaries. Joachism, or a developed Joachism, gave many of these latter

the stick with which to beat the Church, and to more sober men, a philosophy
of reform and rebirth. The Franciscans with the history of their founder
perpetually in mind were especially impressionable. These spirits had a strong
sense of the necessity to endure tribulation, as the early Christians and Christ
had endured it, out of which a purified world and Church would come.216
It is possible that Joachim influenced to some extent St. Francis himself,
although I must say the parallels so far-adduced are not completely convinc
ing.217 At the beginning of the thirteenth century in France, we have the
Amalrician movement, which poses in relation to Joachism a problem at
present unsolvable.218 Some of its beliefs, condemned as heretical by the Fourth
Lateran Council, are amazingly similar to Joachim's. The question is how Amau
ry de B?ne could have encountered at this early date the thought of Joachim.
With the early Franciscans, there is no longer any room for doubt.219 Many
of those who protested inwardly against Fra Elia's220 organization of the Order
216 'The whole thirteenth century was conscious of a most intimate kinship with the
first century of the Christian era, introduced by the prophecy of Abbot Joachim of Flora, '
Ernst Kantorowicz, Frederick the Second, 1194-1250, trans. E. O. Lorimer (Makers of the
Middle Ages; New York 1931) 335. According to Kantorowicz, Frederick II was also in
fluenced by Joachism and looked upon himself as the bri iger of a new age (see ibid. 395-96
and 506-07). His enemies agreed with this view but equated him with Antichrist, a position
he too at times accepted (pp. 603ff.).
217 On the whole subject, see Foberti, Gioacchino da Fiore, Nuovi studi (Florence 1934)
(who denies any influence); H. Grundmann 'Dante und Joachim von Fiore, zu Paradiso
X-XII, ' Deutsches Dante-Jahrbuch 14 (1932) 226; the long review of the Enciclopedia Italiana
articles on Joachim by F. Russo in ASCL 7 (1937) 79-90; H. Hefele, Die Bettelorden und
das religi?seVolksieben Ober- und Mittelitaliens im XIII. Jahrhundert (Beitr?ge zur Kultur
geschichte des Mittelalters und der Renaissance, ed. W. Goetz 9; Leipzig and Berlin 1910)
39 (who denies any influence of Joachim on Francis and finds little influence on popular
life in Italy anywhere). ? Buonauiti has been the strongest supporter of direct influence
although his parallels are too general. He even propos?s that the term 'minorit?' was
suggested by Joachim, see ' Prolegomeni...,' Ricerche religiose 4(1928) 418-19 n.l. Joachim
in Concordia 5.18, fol. 69v uses the term parvuli to characterize the monastic order of the
future. Joachim is probably echoing the parvuli of Matt. 18.3. See also the point made by
Bloomfield and Reeves (note 203) 772 n. 3; and below note 219. ? For the common Fran
ciscan gloss on Apoc. 7.2 see above, note 84.
218 On Amaury of B?ne and the Amalricians see the comments and references in Bloomfield
and Reeves (note 203) 782-83 and n. 47, and H. Grundmann, Studien (note 2) 163ff.
219 See above, note 84 and Charles H. Lyttle, ' The Stigmata of St. Francis, Considered
in the Light of Possible Joachimite Influence upon Thomas of Celano, ' Abstract of a Paper
read Dec. 31, 1912, Papers of the American Society of Church History2 4 (1914) 79-85 (he ar
gues that Celano's picture of Francis' stigmata was influenced by Joachim, as were Fra
Elia's letter on the subject, the canonization bull of Gregory IX, and hymns for his office
attributed to Celano and Gregory, with their phrases 'novus ordo,' 'caput draconis ulti
mum' etc. Fra Leo was the source for Celano).
220 See the interchange between Fqberti and F.R. (Russo) in 'Gioacchino da Fiore, S.
were drawn to Joachim ; and Hugh of Digne,221 in the 1240's, as Salimbene

shows quite clearly, formed a Joachite cell in the Order in Provence. John
of Parma,222 minister-general of the Order 1247-1257, was definitely affected
by Joachism, and even St. Bonaventure was not untouched.223 Peter John
Olivi, that brilliant thinker (1247-97),224 gave a tremendous impetus to the
movement within the Order and may be considered the founder of the Spiri
tual or Fraticelli wing of Franciscanism.225 He lectured in Florence at Santa
Bonaventura, Frate Elia,' MF 38 (1938) 519-24, and Russo, 'L'abbate Gioaechino ? S.

Bonaventura ? Frate Elia,' ibid. 35 (1935) 277-80.
221 See Ren? de Nantes, Histoire des spirituels dans Vordre de saint Fran?ois (Biblioth?que
d'histoire franciscaine 1; Paris and Gouvin 1909) 181ff. and the text published by Florovsky,
AFH 5 (1912).
222 See Karl Balthasar, Geschichte des Armutsstreites im Franziskanerorden (M?nster i. W.
1911) 136ff.
228 Recently Stewart C. Easton, Roger Bacon and his Search for a Universal Science:
A Reconsideration of his Life and Work... (Oxford 1952) has argued that Bacon was a sym
pathizer with the Joachite left-wing Franciscans later known as the Spirituals. Easton
may be right, although one would have more confidence in his thesis if he had shown an
accurate knowledge of Joachim and his teachings. See also Bondatti (note 36) 45ff.
224 Olivi, of course, did not put St. Francis on a par with Christ ? Christ is the center
of history, and the third age is the sixth and seventh ages of the Church ? but to him St.
Francis occupied a unique position as a human, as initiator of the third age. See Benz,
Ecclesia spiritualis (Stuttgart 1934) 301. Most of the Joachite ideas in Olivi are in his com
mentary on the Apocalypse and not in his other voluminous writings; on this commentary,
besides Benz, see Bousset, Die Offenbarung Johannis (Kritisch-exegetischer Kommentar
?ber das Neue Testament begr?ndet von H. A. W. Meyer; G?ttingen 1906) 78ff; and Raoul
Manselli, La ' Lectura super Apocalipsim' di Pietro di Giovanni Olivi: Ricerche sull' esca
tologismo medioevale (Istituto storico italiano per il Medio Evo, Studi storici 19-21; Rome
1955). Until Dr. Manselli publishes his edition of Olivi's Postillae on the Apocalypse, his
most ' spiritual ' work, one must be content with the extracts from it published in Baluze,
Miscellanea novo ordine digesta II (ed. Mansi; Lucca 1761-64) 258-76, or D?llinger, Bei
tr?ge zu Sektengeschichte des Mittelalters II (Munich 1890) 526-85. A number of Olivi's
philosophical works are available in early printed books or in modern editions, thus the
Quaestiones in secundum librdm sententiarum by B. Jansen (3 vols. Quaracchi 1922-26). ?
For some general references to Olivi see F. Ehrle, ' Petrus Johannis Olivi, sein Leben und
seine Schriften,' ALKG 3 (1887) 409-552; Louis Jarraux, 'Pierre Jean Olivi, sa vie, sa
doctrine,' ?tudes franciscaines 45 (1933) 129-53; 277-98; 513-29; J. Koch, 'Die Verurteilung
Olivis auf dem Konzil von Vienne und ihre Vorgeschichte,' Scholastik 5 (1930) 489-522;
Bernhard Jansen, 'Der Augustinismus des Petrus Johannis Olivi,' Aus der Geisteswelt des
Mittelalters II (BGPT; M?nster i.W. 1935) 878-95; Ewald M?ller, Das Konzil von Vienne
1311-12, Seine Quellen und seine Geschichte (Vorreformationsgeschichtliche Forschungen,
ed. H. Finke 12; M?nster i.W. 1934) 236-386; D?cima L. Douie, The Nature and the Effect
of the Heresy of the Fraticelli (Manchester 1932) 81ff. P. Gratien in his excellent Histoire
de la fondation et de l'?volution de Vordre des Fr?res mineurs au xiiie si?cle (Paris and Gem
bloux 1928) has much to say on Olivi, pp. 380ff. et passim.
225 On the Spirituals and Fraticelli, see Jos? M. Pou y Marti, Visionarios, beguinos y fra
ticelos catalanes (Siglos XII-XV) (Vich 1930) (reprinted from Archivio Ibero-Americano
lift); H. Haupt, 'Zur Geschichte des Joachimismus,' ZKG 7 (1885) 372-425; Bemardus
300 TRADITIO
Croce226 in 1287 and could have been heard by Dante. Ubertino da Casale227 and
Angelo Clareno228 were prominent Italian Fraticelli in the first quarter of the four
teenth century. Olivi was taken as their master, and a group of southern French
Guidonis, Practica inquistionis heretice pravitatis 5 (ed. G. Douais; Paris 1886) 264ff.; Li
varius ?liger, 'Beitr?ge zur Geschichte der Spiritualen, Fratizellen und Clarener in Mittel
italien, ' ZKG 45 (1927) 215-42; Francesco Russo, ' Gioacchinismo e Francescanesimo, '
MF 41 (1941) 61-73; Mercedes van Heuckelum, Spritualistische Str?mungen an den H?fen
von Aragon und Anjou w?hrend der H?he des Armutsstreits (Abhandlungen zur mittleren
und neueren Geschichte 38; Berlin and Leipzig 1912); F. Tocco, Studii francescani (Naples
1909) 239-310; 311-38; 406-546 and La Quistione delta povert? net secolo XIV, secondo nuovi
documenti (Naples 1910); Ernst Benz, 'Die Geschichtstheologie der Franziskanerspiritualen
des 13. und 14. Jahrhunderts nach neuen Quellen,' ZKG 52 (1933) 90-121; 'Die Kategorien
des eschatologischen Zeitbewusstseins, Studien zur Geschichtstheologie der Franziskaner
spiritualen, ' Deutsche Vierteljahreschrift f?r Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte 11
(1933) 200-29; and Ecclesia Spiritualis (note 224); David Saville Muzzey, The Spiritual
Franciscans (New York 1907, reprinted Washington and London 1914); Ren? de Nantes,
Histoire des spirituels (note 221); E. Buonaiuti, 'Gioacchino da Fiore ed Elia da Cor
tona, ' Ricerche religiose 7(1931) 53-59 and ' Il messagio gioachimita e la religio francescana, '
Religio (formerly Ricerche religiose) 14 (1938) 86-109; Gratien (note 224 above).
226 See Francesco Sarri, ' Pier di Giovanni Olivi e Ubertino da Casale, Maestri di teologia
a Firenze (Sec. XIII),' Studi francescani N.S. 11 (1925) 88-125.
227 For Ubertino, see J. C. Huck, Ubertin von Casale und dessen Ideenkreis: Ein Beitrag
zum Zeitalter Dantes (Freiburg im Breisgau 1903); E. Gurney Salter, 'Ubertino da Casale,'
Franciscan Essays by Paul Sabotier and Others (British Society of Franciscan Studies, Extra
Series 1; Aberdeen 1912) 108-23; Balthasar (note 222) 151ff. and 251ff.; F. Callaey, 'Les
id?es mystico-politiques d'un franciscain spirituel,' Revue d'histoire eccl?siastique 11 (1910)
483-504; 693-727 and L'id?alisme franciscain spirituel au xive si?cle: ?tude sur Ubertin de
Casale (Universit? de Louvain, Recueil de travaux 28; Louvain, Paris and Brussels 1911);
Ernst Knoth, Ubertino von Casale: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Franziskaner an der Wende
des 13. und 14. Jahrhunderts (Marburg 1903); Albinus Heysse, 'Ubertini de Casali opuscu
lum Super tribus sceleribus,' AFH 10 (1917) 103-74 (his views on poverty); E. Benz, 'Die
Kategorien' (note 225) 213; Douie (note 224) 120ff.
Stimulated by Bonaventure's Lignum vitae de mysterio passionis and his own passionate
views, Ubertino in 1305 wrote his masterpiece, Arbor vite crucifixe Iesu, an important
work in the history of modern piety and an influence on Dante, as a long meditation on,
and description of, the earthly life of Jesus, in five books, in which he emphasizes His
poverty and the necessity of imitating Him. He frequently digresses to discuss current sub
jects. The last book is essentially a commentary on the Apocalypse where his Joachism and
' Olivism ' comes out strongly. He makes many parallels between Jesus and Francis. He
emphasizes the new men of the future (' jesunculi') and the necessity of Caritas. The Arbor
vitae of the title comes from Apoc. 22.2.
228 On Angelo, see his Expositio regulae fratrum minorum ed. L. Oliger (Quaracchi 1912)
with its excellent introduction, and his Historia septem tribulationum ed. partly by Ehrle
in ALKG 2 (1886) 125-55; 256-327, and partly by F. Tocco in 'Le prime due Tribolazioni
dell'ordine dei minori,' Rendiconti Accad. LinceP 17 (Rome 1908) 3-32; 97-131; 221-36;
299-328; Victorinus Doucet,'Angelus Clarinus ad Alvarum Pelagium, Apologia pro vita
sua/ AFH 34 (1946) 63-200; Lydia von Auw, Angelo Clareno et les Spirituels franciscains
(Lausanne 1952); Douie (note 324) 49ff,
heretics also looked upon him as their guide. The Spirituals believed that
the spiritual primacy would pass to them as representatives of all mankind
from the Church, which had originally obtained it from the Synagogue ? all
foreshadowed in David replacing Saul.
Arnold of Villanova, the famous Catalan physician and alchemist, tried to
combine Joachism with his scientific theories.229 He argued that the purpose
of medicine and alchemy was to rehabilitate the physical side of man and
matter in preparation for the new age. The third age had to rest its spirituality
upon the base of psychosomatically perfect men joined together in love.230
Medicine, hence, has an eschatological function.231 Like other Joachites,
Arnold also speculated on the coming of Antichrist. Even a sober Dominican
like John Quidort of Paris, now recognized as an important political thinker,
was moved to speculate in a Joachite framework (De antichristo et fine saeculi)
on the same figure.232 Even the passing of the date, 1260, when the 'third
229 On Arnold of Villanova as theologian and thinker, see M. Menendez y Pelayo, Historia
de los heterodoxos espanoles II (ed. F. F. Corso; Buenos Aires 1945) 124-56; Heinrich Finke
Aus den Tagen Bonifaz VIII; Funde und Forschungen (Vorreformationsgeschichtliche
Forschungen 3; M?nster i.W. 1902) 191ff.; Paul Diepgen, Arnald von Villanova als Politiker
und Laientheologe (Abhandlungen zur mittleren und neueren Geschichte 9; Berlin and Leip
zig 1909); van Heukelum (note 225) 6ff.; Tomas Carreras y Artau and Joaquin Carreras y
Artau, Filosofia cristiana de los siglos XIII al XV (Historia de la filosofia espanola 1; Madrid
1939) 199-230 and 641-47; Francesco Ehrle, 'Arnaldo da Villanova ed i Thomatiste: Con
tributo alla storia della scuola tomistica,' Gregorianum 1 (1920) 475-501; Jos? M. Pou y
Marti (note 225) 34ff.; Raoul Manselli, 'La religiosit? d'Arnaldo da Villanova,' Bullettino
delV Istituto storico italiano per il medio evo e Archivio muratoriano 63 (1951) 1-100, and
'Arnaldo da Villanova, diplomatico, medico, teologo e riformatore religioso aile soglie del
sec. XV,' Humanitas 8 (1953) 268-70.
230 This conception is developed out of that of the ' new man ' whom Christ made possible
according to St. Paul (see e.g. Col. 3 and 2 Cor. 3.18) and the Gospel (John 3.3-8). The
new covenant created a new man; a third age must also so do (see Ubertino da Casale, note
227). See G. Ladner (note 134) 35-37 (on St. Paul's views). Cf. also E. Benz, 'Die Ge
schichtstheologie' (note 225) 95-96 (on Olivi's views) and 102ff. (on Arnold's views).
231 So does logic, apparently. See the interesting 'Spiritual' treatise on logic in MS Vat.
Borgh. 54, fols. 113v-127v (cf. Borgh. 88, fols. 14r-55v).
232 Although the influence of Joachim on the Franciscans has been widely recognized
and studied, it has not in general been noted that the Dominicans were by no means unin
fluenced by the Calabrian. Besides John of Paris, see Livarius ?liger, ' Ein pseudopropheti
scher Text aus Spanien ?ber die heiligen Franziskus und Dominikus (13. Jahrhundert),'
Kirchengeschichtliche Studien P. Michael Bihl O.F.M... dargeboten (Kolmar 1944) 13-28;
H. Haupt, 'Zur Geschichte des Joachimismus,' ZKG 7 (1885) 401ff.; E. G. Gardner, Dante
and the Mystics: A Study of the Mystical Aspect of the Divina Commedia and its Relations
with Some of its Mediaeval Sources (London 1913) 191 n.2; E. Jordan in DThC 8.1438-39;
Eduardus Winkelmann, Fratris Arnoldi ord. praed. De correctione ecclesiae... (Berlin 1865);
B. Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (2nd ed. Oxford 1952); J. Bignami
Odier, 'Les visions de Robert d'Uz?s O.P. (d.1296),' Archivum fratrum praedicatorum 25
(1955) 258-310.
302 TRADITIO
age' was to begin, did not spike Joachist guns but only stimulated more
spectacular and ingenious firing.
As an example of early fourteenth-century opposition, however, one may
mention Henry Harclay the Englishman, who devoted at least a quaestio(c. 1313)
and part of a sermon233 to an answer to those Joachites, semi-Joachites, and
others who all believed the time of the coming of Antichrist could be predicted.234
Neither he nor anyone else however could stop this type of speculation or
Joachism in general. In the mid-fourteenth century we find the Franciscan
alchemist and prophet, Jean de Roquetaillade235 under the domination of
Joachism as it was then understood, and attracting the interest ? both favo
rable and unfavorable ? of a large number of men from cardinals to madmen.
Wyclif was well aware of him, as well as of Joachite speculation in general,
and although I think it doubtful that he read his works in the original, he refers
to the Abbot Joachim more than once. There were, however, manuscripts of
his works available in England in the fourteenth century.236 And so it can
233 MS Lambeth 61, fol. 145v. ? Henry shows a very good knowledge of Joachim's writings
and, although opposed to him on this issue, he admits that Joachim is right on many subjects.
Himself a secular, he is especially opposed to John Quidort (see note 234) and the Domini
cans.
234 See F. Pelster, ' Die Quaestio Heinrichs von Harclay ?ber die zweite Ankunft Christi
und die Erwartung des baldigen Weltendes zu Anfang des XIV. Jahrhunderts,' Archivio
italiano per la storia d?lia piet? 1 (1951) 25-82 (cf. its earlier version in Miscellanea Fran
cesco Ehr le I [Studi e Testi 37; Vatican City 1924] 307-56). B. Hirsch-Reich criticizes and
supplements Pelster in her 'Heinrichs von Harclay Polemik gegen die Berechnung der
zweiten Ankunft Christi,' RTAM 20 (1953) 144-49. Pelster discusses the general debate over
this question in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century ? with John Quidort,
Arnold of Villanova, Peter d'Alverny, Nicholas of Lyra, and the Carmelite Guido of Terrena
as participants (Pelster is curiously inaccurate at times; e.g. he refers to one of Joachim's
works as the Concordia decem cordarum), ?St.Thomas denied that anyone could predict the
time of the coming of Antichrist, although he admitted that Joachim did predict some things
correctly (ST 3 suppl. q.77 a.2). See also Eudes de Ch?teauroux, Sermons (note 207) 35-38.
In the fourteenth century, besides those referred to by Pelster (note 233), Hugh of New
castle, Tractatus de victoria Christi contra Antichristum (printed 1470) 2.24-25; John Eshen
den, the English astronomer of the mid-century (see Bodleian MS Ashmole 192 [xvii cent,
transcript of Ashmole 393] pp. lOlff.; he denies surprisingly enough the validity of sucq
predictions), and John Wyclif, Trialogus 4.40 (ed. Lechler, pp. 390-91), all show interest in
the subject. On Eshenden, see Lynn Thorndike, A History of Magic and Experimental
Science III (New York 1934) 325-46.
235 See D?llinger, ' Der Weissagungsglaube und das Prophetentum in der christlichen
Zeit,' Kleinere Schriften (ed. F. H. Reusch; Stuttgart 1890) 535ff.; Jos? M. Pou y Marti
(note 225) 289ff.; Jeanne Bignami-Odier, ?tudes sur Jean de Roquetaillade (Johannes de
Rupescissa) (Paris 1952) (based on an earlier thesis of 1925 at the ?cole des Chartes); and
E. F. Jacob, 'John of Roquetaillade,' Bulletin of the John Rylands Library Manchester 39
(1956-57) 75-96. Thorndike (note 234) 347-69 discusses Roquetaillade as scientist and al
chemist.
288 Moreover, a number of pseudo-Joachite works were very popular in England. A cu
go on?Cola da Rienzi, St. Vincent Ferrer, Nicholas of Cusa, Savonarola

and beyond.237
A word or two about Dante.238 The indefatigable Dante scholars have been
concerned with the possible influence of Joachim, Olivi, and Ubertino da
Casale on the Divine Comedy for a long time, and the discovery of the Liber
figurarum stimulated this quest. I think all are agreed that, although the
exact degree is subject to dispute, these figures did exercise some influence
on him. The concept of the dux, I think, certainly owes much to Joachim,
who gave Dux Zerubabbel (Zorobabel),239 the leader of the Jews back from
the Babylonian captivity, an important role in the recurring pattern of reha
bilitation in history. The Vulgate calls him dux, and Joachim emphasized
rious 'Prophecie Ioachim in maiori libro de concordanciis ' (sic), mostly about the late
1350's and 1360's, is found in a number of MSS (B.M. Royal 8 G IV, Cotton Vesp. E. VII;
Bodley Ashmole 393,?Digby 218; Cambridge Corpus Christi 138, and apparently Peniarth
50; on the Continent: Florence Riccardiana 688 and B.N. fran?. 902 [in Latin]) and needs
to be investigated. ? The De semine Scripturarum, written probably in Germany 1204/5
(it appealed very much to Arnold of Villanova, who put it on a par with the Bible !), had
a strong English following (see e.g. Geoffrey Baker, Chronicon [ed. E. Maunde Thompson;
Oxford 1889] 173 and The Last Age of the Church [ed. J. H. Todd?; Dublin 1840]). It attempts
to predict the end of the world by using the Latin alphabet, one century for each letter,
starting with the founding of Rome. Wyclif in his Trialogus makes use of it (or the Noticia
saeculi) as does the author of The Last Age of the Church. On the De semine and the Noticia,
see Beatrix Hirsch in MIOG 38 (1920) 580ff. and 40 (1925) 317-35; Herbert Grundmann,
'Uber die Schriften des Alexander von Roes,' Deutsches Archiv f?r Erforschung des Mittel
alters 8 (1950) 161ff.; Franz Wilhelm, 'Die Schriften des Jordanus von Osnabr?ck: Ein
Beitrag zur Geschichte der Publizistik im 13. Jahrhundert,' MIOG 19 (1898) 615-75 (text
of Noticia, pp. 661-75); a recent edition of the Noticia is to be found in Die Schriften des
Alexander von Roes, ed. Grundmann und Heimpel (Deutsches Mittelalter; Kritische Studien
texte der Monumenta Germaniae Historica 4 [Weimar 1949]).**
237 For pseudo-Joachite prophecies of the later Middle Ages, see Angeio Messini, ' Pro
fetismo (note 71) MF 37 (1937) 39-54; 39 (1939) 109-30; Leone Tondelli, ' Profezia
gioacchimita del sec. XIII delle regioni veneti, ' Studi e documenti d?lia R. Deputazione
di Storia patria per le provincie modenesi 4 (1940) 1-7; H. Grundmann's review of Lucy A.
Paton's Les prophecies de Merlin, in G?ttingische Gelehrte Anzeigen (1928) 562-83.
238 For a bibliography of the relations between Joachism and Dante, see Appendix.
238 It is not clear whether the dux in Dante is to be thought of as an ideal pope or an ideal
emperor. Zerubabbel as a religio-secular leader could be the prototype of either or both.
The same problem arises with the veltro. ? Joachim's most weighty pronouncement on Ze
rubabbel occurs in Concordia 4.31, fol. 56r: ' In ecclesia incipiet generatio 42a, anno vel hora
qua Deus melius nouit. In qua videlicet generatione peracta prius tribulatione generali et
purgato diligenter tritico ab vniuersis zizaniis, ascendet quasi dux nouus de Babylone,
vniuersalis scilicet pontifex noue Hierusalem, hoc est sancte matris ecclesie. ' He imme
diately goes on to relate this nouus dux to the angel ' ascendentem ab ortu solis' (Apoc. 7.2).
Expositio fol. 120v compares the ideal Roman Pontiff to Zerubabbel, who rebuilt Jerusalem.
See also the picture of the novus Zorobabel in the Breviloquium in B.M. Egerton MS 1150,
fol. 89v (see above, note 4). Osbert of Clare compares Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury
to a 'novus Zorobabel' (c. 1138) in Letters No. 36 (ed. E. W. Williamson) p. 124.
304 TRADITIO
his role in the return from Babylon, which along with Egypt is the classic
symbol for evil. Combined with other current ideas, this Joachite exegesis
certainly influenced Dante in his idea of a reformer-pope or possibly saviour
emperor. The veltro is less clear, in spite of Papini's arguments, as an example
of Joachism.240
Pope Celestine V, the hermit pope who resigned his office a short time
after assuming it, and the immediate predecessor of a pope of a very different
type, Boniface VIII, was the ideal of many of the later Joachites. His pontifi
cate and background helped to formulate the idea of the angelic pope,241 the
religious counterpart of the saviour-emperor,242 which so strongly impregnated
240 See above, note 38.

241 The first overt reference to the angelic pope (although he does not use the term) is to
be found in Roger Bacon. In his Compendium studii philosophiae (ed. Brewer in Opera quae
dam hactenus inedita; R.S.) 402-03, he speaks of a 'beatissimus papa qui omnes corruptiones
tollet de studio et ecclesia... et renovetur mundus et intret plenitudo gentium../ and links
an optimus papa with an optimus princeps; and in Opus tertium 24 (ed. Brewer ibid. p. 86)
he speaks of a prophecy written forty years before (c. 1227; the Commentary on Jeremiah ?)
according to which an ideal pope will arise who will cleanse the Church and destroy or
convert the Saracens and Tatars. There are suggestions of this idea in Joachim, as for in
stance Expositio on Apoc. 7.2 (see above, note 239). On the angelic pope, see K. Loffler,
' Der Engelpapst im Volksglauben und in der Proph?tie des Mittelalters, ' Deutsche Rund
schau 190 (1922) 59-66; Ernst Wadstein, Die eschatologische Ideengruppe (Leipzig 1896)
175-83; Messini (note 71) 50ff.; D?llinger, 'Der Weissagungsglaube,' Kleinere Schriften
(ed. Reusch; Stuttgart 1890) 509ff. and 541ff.; Friedrich Baethgen, Der Engelpapst, Idee
und Erscheinung (Leipzig 1943; consisting of 3 essays of which two are reprints).
242 The root idea of the saviour-emperor is to be found in the Tiburtine Sibyl and the
Pseudo-Methodius, based on memories of Alexander and Constantius (both angelic pope
and saviour are linked to the idea of the end of time and Antichrist, or at least to the be
ginning of a new age and dispensation). On the saviour-emperor, see Franz Kampers, Die
deutsche Kaiseridee in Proph?tie und Sage (2nd ed. of Kaiserprophetien und Kaisersagen
im Mittelalter [Munich 1896]); Vom Werdegange der abendl?ndischen Kaisermystik (Leipzig
and Berlin 1924); and 'Die Geburtsurkunde der abendl?ndischen Kaiseridee,' Historisches
Jahrbuch 36 (1915) 233-70; Carl Erdmann, 'Endkaiserglaube und Kreuzzugsgedanke im
11. Jahrhundert,' ZKG 51 (1932) 384-414 and Forschungen zur politischen Ideenwelt ed.
F. Baethgen (Berlin 1951); Ernst Kantorowicz, 'Zu den Rechtsgrundlagen der Kaisersage,'
Deutsches Archiv f?r Erforschung des Mittelalters 13 (1957) 115-50; Michael Kmosko, 'Das
R?tsel des Pseudomethodius,' Byzantion 6 (1931) 273-96; F. Nau, 'R?v?lations/ Journal
asiatique, Onzi?me s?rie 9 (1917) 415-71; G. Sackur, Sibyllinische Texte und Forschungen
(Halle 1898); Ernst H. Kantorowicz, ' Kaiser Friedrich II und das K?nigsbild des Hellenismus
(Marginalia Miscellanea),' Varia Variorum, Festgabe f?r Karl Reinhardt... (M?nster and
Cologne 1952) 169-93; Hermann Grauert, 'Zur deutschen Kaisersage,' Historisches Jahr
buch 13 (1892) 100-43; George H. Williams, The Norman Anonymous of 1100A.D.: Toward
the Identification and Evaluation of the So-called Anonymous of York (Harvard Theological
Studies 18; Cambridge 1951) (the Anonymous has an interesting division of history. In the
third age after the second Advent, there will be no priests; all men will be kings, images
of God); Percy Ernst Schramm, Kaiser, Rom und Renovatio: Studien und Texte zur Geschichte
des r?mischen Erneuerungsgedankens vom Ende des karolingisches Reiches bis zum Investitur
the thinking of the later Middle Ages. He is, however, usually taken by Dante
commentators to be condemned by the master to hell as the one who made
the great renunciation ('gran rifiuto'). One hesitates to think that Dante
should have put Celestine in hell, and there is much to be said in favor of a
recent argument that in Inferno 3.58-60 he is rather referring to Pontius Pilate.243
Dante also refers to Ubertino, still alive of course, in Paradiso 12.124-26,
but following another recent suggestion,244 I believe the usual interpretation of
line 126 'Ch'uno la fugge, e altro la coarta' (the problem here is the reference
of the two pronouns) as containing an unfavorable judgment on his extremism
is not correct. Dante was certainly influenced by his Arbor vitae crucifixi
Jesu Christi and possibly by other views of this Fraticello. In Purgatorio
32.148ff. the vision of the militant Church turning into a whore could well
be Olivian Joachism, and the tree of the Church (ibid. 37ff.) and the eagle
(109ff.) could well be inspired by the Liber figurarum. The Trinitarian circles
are probably Joachite.245
Most of these points have been made before. I wish to suggest two other
possible influences which as far as I know have not. The first is that the high
streit (Studien der Bibliothek Warburg 17; Leipzig and Berlin 1929); P. Alphand?ry, 'Notes
sur le messianisme m?di?val latin (xi-xiie si?cles),' ?cole pratique des hautes ?tudes, Section
des sciences religieuses, Rapports annuels 1912 (Paris 1912) 1-29 (he emphasizes the ritual
element); Arturo Graf, Roma nella memoria e nelle immaginazioni del medio evo (Turin 1923)
180-92 et passim; Ohnsorge (note 150 above).
248 By Mignosi; see Russo, 'Rassegna,' Miscellanea francescana 38 (1938) 70. See also
Auguste Valensin, Le Christianisme de Dante (Th?ologie: ?tudes publi?es sous la direction
de la Facult? de Th?ologie S.J. de Lyon-Fourvi?re 30; Paris 1954) lOlff. ? The fact that
Dante 'recognized' him may speak against the identification with Pilate, although there
is no positive evidence that Dante knew Celestine by sight; but at least he could have.
Of course, if he is referring to Celestine in condemning his 'rifiuto,' he is also in a sense
paying tribute to the hopes he originally raised.
244 Ambrogio Donini, ' Appunti per una storia del pensiero di Dante in rapporto al movi
mento gioachimita, ' Forty-seventh and Forty-eighth Annual Reports of the Dante Society
(Cambridge 1930). See Russo (note 243) 75 and Foberti in Miscellanea francescana 39 (1939)
169ff. Donini suggests that in line 126 'the one who fled' is Ubertino and 'the one who
tightens' is Aquasparta. The only flight Dante could be referring to, if he was doing so here,
is the transfer of Ubertino to the Benedictine Order in 1317. If Donini is right, Dante puts
Ubertino in a more favorable light than hitherto thought. In any case of course, the
indebtedness of Dante to Ubertino is beyond cavil.
245 See above, notes 39, 121, and, for a further possible influence, note 31. There is much
Joachite language (e.g. Paradiso 9.142 etc.) and there are many Joachite attitudes in the
poem, although proof is most difficult. Joachite Biblical exegesis and historical parallels
will be useful, I am sure, in explaining a number of Dante's allusions, e.g. the crucifixion
of Haman (type of Antichrist to Joachim, Concordia 5.92, fol. 122^) in Purgatorio 17.25-30
(I am indebted to Professor Edgar Wind for this example). The strong condemnation of the
Donation of Constantine is very characteristic of Joachite writings from the time of the
Jeremiah Commentary. See Leone Tondelli (note 14) 78ff.
306 TRADITIO
position Joachim gave to St. Bernard could have stimulated Dante to choose
him as his highest and final guide before the vision of Mary and the Trinity.
The second is the fact that Dante frequently refers to paradise as the 'beato
chiostro,' as for instance in Paradiso 25.127 and in Piccarda Donati's speech
in Paradiso 3. It is so called also in Purgatorio 15.57 and above all in Purgatorio
26.127ff. where Guido Guinicelli says to Dante : ' Now if thou hast such ample
privilege that it is permitted thee to go to the cloister in which Christ is Abbot
of the brotherhood (al chiostro nel quale ? Christo abate del collegio), do thou
say to Him a Paternoster for me, so far as is needful for us of this world where
the power to sin is no longer ours' (Sinclair translation).
Neither of these points are uniquely Joachim's, yet I cannot but feel that
the emphasis Joachim gave to St. Bernard and to monasticism as the pattern
of heaven and perfection246 was at the back of the poets' mind.
In the circle of the sun in paradise, St. Thomas introduces and praises Siger
of Brabant, his great enemy and a heretic, and St. Bonaventure does the same
for Joachim, the Calabrian Abbot, 'di spirito profetico dotato' (Par. 12.141),
whom in life he contradicted and corrected. These words echo the antiphon
sung on Joachim's feast day in Calabria. This parallel has been frequently
noted and has given rise to much dispute. Why did Dante favor and place
these men in the circle of divine learning and knowledge? The problem is,
of course, more acute in connection with Siger than with Joachim, but also
for the latter the fact remains at least strange. I shall not attempt to solve
this problem, but whatever else their presence may or may not indicate, it
certainly shows that Dante thought highly of the subject of this paper.247
Joachim is a very influential figure in the later Middle Ages. In fact, I
think it may be said that ever since his death he has been influential; perhaps
one might even discover a Joachite echo in Mussolini as Duce and in the Third
Reich of Hitler. Although his ideal was not secular, he has, since his time,
directly or indirectly, stimulated much Utopian and eschatological thinking248
246 See above, note 136.

247 Barbi, in 'II gioacehinismo franceseano e il veltro, ' Stadi Danteschi 18 (1934) 209-11
and 'Veltro, gioacehinismo e fedeli d'amore, sbardamenti e abberrazioni ' (part 5 of 'Nuovi
problemi della critica dantesca') ibid. 22 (1938) 29-46, takes a strong position against Joa
chite and ' Spiritual' influence on Dante. Barbi makes some good points although his cen
tral position is very dubious. Barbi would have strengthened his case if he revealed that
he knew what Joachim actually did say and teach.
248 por a discussion of Joachim's role in Western eschatological thinking, see Jakob Taubes,
Abendl?ndische Eschatologie (Beitr?ge zur Soziologie und Sozialphilosophie ed. R. K?nig
3; Berne 1947) 85ff., who perhpps overrates his influence. On pp. 90ff. he compares Joachim
with Hegel. See also Nicolas Berdyaev, The Divine and the Human, trans. R. M. French
(London 1949) 183. For Joachim's influence on Mazzini, see Attilio Pepe, ' Mazzini e Gioac
chino da Fiore,' ASGL 24 (1955) 489-92 (Pepe is stronger in his knowledge of Mazzini than
of Joachim).**
?sometimes, it must be admitted, bordering on the fantastic and insane.

But this story is too long to go into.249
VI
One of the problems of ecclesiology, ever since the belief in an imminent
return of Christ faded in the early Church, is the role of the Church militant.
The usual solution is that Jesus is allowing His Church some time on earth to
convert the sinners and non-Christians, to lead men towards perfection and
their true felicity.250 In this view the pastoral and missionary activity of the
Church below becomes one of its chief purposes.251 But Joachim proposed
another answer ? that time itself and revelation must be further expanded be
fore the Last Judgment can come. The generations after Christ are as impor
tant as those before Christ.252 The Kingdom of God on earth must first come
closer before we can enter on the Sabbath age. Joachim was opposed to a
distinction between the realms of nature and grace which has been characte
ristic of much thought in the West since the thirteenth century.
Father Yves Congar253 distinguishes the Old Testament 'prophetic logic'
of forecast and occasional divine interventions in history from the new ' apos
tolic logic' of communication of a gift made by Christ and continuing through
the Church. Traditional theology has kept prophecy to the period before
Jesus. Joachim in effect was reemphasizing the prophetic logic for the present
in preparation for a new, more perfect age or dispensation in which both logics
should be united. He repudiated the concept of prophetic logic being out
dated; he wished to reintroduce it into his view of the Church. He was not
Christocentric. Of course, these modern terms would be alien to Joachim's
way of thinking, but they explain well his endeavors. To him the Church,
as the body of Christ, must also be resurrected.254 God has ordained another
forward step for humanity, spiritually speaking, as He earlier ordained the
249 Local Calabrian journals provide many eulogizing articles on their native son and his
influence, most of which are of course worthless for scholarly purposes. A valuable paper,
which provides some names of poets who have referred to Joachim, was published by P.
Francesco Russo, 'Gioacchino da Fiore nella poesia,' in Brutium 19 (Reggio Calabria
1940) 25-29.
280 See Mark 13.10 and Matth. 24.14.
261 Erich Dinkier, '[The Idea of History in] Earliest Christianity,' The Idea of History
in the Ancient Near East (ed. R. C. Dentan, American Oriental Series 38; New Haven 1955)
171-214, who offers an excellent if occasionally tender tious treatment of the idea of history
in the New Testament. See also Theo Preiss, ' The Vision of History in the New Testament, '
The Journal of Religion 30 (1950) 157-70.
262 K. L?with, Meaning in History (Chicago 1949) 155.
258 See Adrian Hastings, 'The Prophet's Role in the Living Church,' The Downside Re
view 74 (1956) 43.
?M L?with (note 252) 246 n. 14.
308 TRADITIO
sacrifice of His Son and the rise of Christianity. Christian perfection is not
merely of a social, moral, and mystical, but also of a historical nature.255
The true meaning of the present Christian age is to be found in the future,
and it prefigures the future as Old Testament history prefigured the present.
This stimulating and heady idea has, in the minds of those who did not fully
understand it,256 perhaps done as much harm as good in history, but it is there
and like all ideas must be taken account of. In Joachim it is not an imprac
tical Utopianism but an attempted step towards understanding. Any theory
of progress can be open to misunderstanding and can be misused, as Joa
chim's certainly was, but this debasement does not necessarily reflect upon
its author.
Although it has certainly been the most influential of his ideas, Joachim's
concept of a pattern in history and of a third age is perhaps not his greatest
claim for originality. After all, the basic idea here is not original with him;
it is only the execution with mechanical consistency of a view of exegesis
and Heilsgeschichte which was well established before his time. I believe, how
ever, that the concept of the overlapping of the ages is original as far as I am
aware. The terms initium or initiatio, fructificatio or claritas, defectio and
terminus or finis are characteristic of this approach.257 Here we have a remark
ably organic conception of history,258 reminiscent of Hegel and of other
nineteenth-century thinkers. Until Joachim the concept of history was either
cyclic or unilinear, but with the Calabrian Abbot we find a remarkable syn
265 Some of Joachim's contemporaries, like Otto of Freising and Hugo of St. Victor, at
least implied such an historical understanding of the Kingdom of God preached by Jesus;
but to most medieval thinkers only heaven is the third and perfect stage.
256 I have not dealt here with various libertine groups influenced to some extent by Joa
chim, especially by his emphasis on the spirit of liberty and the Holy Ghost, like the sect
of the ' spirit of liberty ' discussed by Antonio de Stefano, ' Intorno alle origini e alia natura
della secta Spiritus libertatis' in Archivum romanicum 11 (1927) 150-67. According to its
opponent Alvarez Pelayo, a Franciscan of the fourteenth century, its members may be
described as ' habentes raptum ad placitum et fornicantes ad libitum. ' De Stefano tries,
in vain I think, to find some justification for this libertinism in the writings of the genuine
'Spirituals.' We also dismiss the 'Adamites,' which Wilhelm Franger, The Millenium
of Hieronymus Bosch: Outlines of a New Interpretation (trans. Chicago 1951) evokes to
explain Bosch's symbolism. They are extremely shadowy but were probably partially Joa
chite. Most later medieval heretical groups used some Joachite phrases at least. See above,
note 214.
257 See, for instance, the title of Table 20 of the Liber figurarum ? 'Ecclesia que pro
prietate misterii pertinet ad Spiritum Sanctum fuit in sterilitate a Johanne Baptista usque
ad presens, in fecunditate a presenti tempore usque ad finem ' (my italics). Such ' biological '
metaphors and terms are quite common in Joachim's works.
258 Noted briefly by E. Schott in 'Die Gedanken des Abtes Joachim von Floris,' ZKG
23 (1902) 182-83 and more fully in E. Benz, 'Joachim-Studien V (note 67) 30ff., 80ff. et
passim.**
thesis into an organic view: history is an interwoven developing nexus which

can be comprehended by the human mind. He offers us a key to history which
we, of course, cannot today accept literally; but the organic and contextual
approach to history with which his name must always be associated, when we
get down to the kernel of his thought, will help us to understand the historical
process which depends on the past and evolves in a rational if complex way
from the present and the past. Although it may not be predictable, or entirely
predictable, history is not merely the arbitrary, and context and a knowledge
of the past help us to explain it.
As I have said above, this aspect of Joachim's thought has not been his most
influential, but I think it is his most remarkable and original contribution.
Joachim is one of the fathers of the philosophy of history which emphasizes
both an evolving pattern and the importance of the unique fact. He is the
ancestor of Vico, Hegel and Croce. Schelling was amazed after he had worked
out his philosophy of history to discover that he had been anticipated by this
mysterious Calabrian.259 I should say that his amazement was most justified;
and in Joachim?no philosopher at all and perhaps not terribly intelligenty,
we do have a most extraordinary and gifted man of great spiritual intensit?
who by some accident or wild intuition discovered important ideas and gave
them currency, and through them affected history in many ways.**
The Ohio State University.
269 On the similarity of Schelling and Joachim, see Erich Frank, Philosophical Under
standing and Religious Truth (London, New York and Toronto 1945) 153, 169-71 and notes
18 and 19; H. Bett, Joachim of Flora (London 1931) 179.
**Additional Note. The following bibliographical information came to my attention
in the course of proofreading; it is arranged here in the order of the pertinent footnotes above.
Note 3: On Russo's Bibliografia, see the recent, important article by B. Hirsch-Reich,
'Eine Bibliographie ?ber Joachim von Fiore und dessen Nachwirkung,' RTAM 24 (1957)
27-44.
Note 5: A shorter version of the Expositio, the Apocalypis nova, also exists in MSS Dresden
A 121 and Vat. lat. 4860, apparently used by Spiritual Franciscans; see Grundmann (note
1 above) 27.
Note 20: The Bollandist Daniel Papebroch in the seventeenth century expressed doubts
as to the authenticity of the De essentia in his comments on Joachim, AS May VII.
Note 31: For other short works, see B. Reich-Hirsch, 'Eine Bibliographic.' (note 3,
addition) 29-30.
Note 63: For a recent analysis of Joachim's Trinitarianism as expressed in the Psalterium,
see A. Crocco, 'La teologia trinitaria di Gioacchino da Fiore,' Sophia 25 (1957) 218-32.
Crocco argues that at least part of the Psalterium is a well-organized and theologically
subtle, logical argument.
Note 75: For the third are, see also E. Benz, ' Creator Spiritus: Die Geistlehre des Joachim
von Fiore,' Eranos-Jahrbuch 25 (1956) 285-355, and Ruth Kestenburg-Gladstein, 'The
Third Reich: A Fifteenth-Century Polemic against Joachism, and its Background/ Journal
310 TRADITIO
Bibliographical Appendix
The Relations Between Joachim, the Joachites, and Dante
Friedrich Beck/ Die r?tselhaften Worte in Dante's Vita Nova (? 12),' Zeit
schrift f?r romanische Philologie 47 (1927) 1-27 (criticized by B. Hirsch-Reich, in
Sophia 22 [1954] 174 n.2); Guido Manacorda,Poesia e contemplazione, Gioacchino da
Fiore?S.Francesco?Dante?S. Caterina (Florence 1946/7) 45-55; Guido Bondatti,
Gioacchinismo e francescanesimo net dugento (S. Maria degli Angeli 1924) passim;
H. Grundmann, 'Dante und Joachim von Fiore, zu Paradiso X-XII,' Deutsches
Dante-Jahrbuch 14 (1932) 210-56; Etienne Gilson, Dante et la philosophie (?tudes
de philosophie m?di?vale 28; Paris 1939) 261ff. et passim; Francesco Russo,
' Il Libro d?lie figure attribuito a Gioacchino da Fiore, ' MF 41 (1941) 340-44
and 'Rassegna gioachimito-dantesca, ' ibid. 38 (1938) 65-83; Francesco Sarri,
'Pier di Giovanni Olivi e Ubertino da Casale, Maestri di teologia a Firenze (Sec.
XIII),' Studi francescani N.S. 11 (1925) 88-125, esp. 115ff.; Ambrogio Donini,
'Appunti per una storia del pensiero di Dante in rapporto al movimento gioa
chimita,' Forty-Seventh and Forty-Eighth Annual Reports of the Dante Society
(Cambridge 1930) 49-69; E. G. Gardner, Dante and the Mystics, A Study of the
Mystical Aspect of the Divina Commedia and its Relations with Some of its
of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 18 (1955) 245-95. The author of this polemic has
a very curious view that the people of the third age would be resurrected persons who would
not marry nor eat.
Note 96: See also R. Freyhan, ' Joachism and the English Apocalypse/ Journal of the
Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 18 (1955) 211-44.
Note 115: On the world ages, see also J.H. J. Van der Pot, De periodisering der geschiedenis:
Een ouerzicht der theorie?n (The Hague 1951).
Note 136: For Odo, see also Jean Leclercq, ' Profession monastique, bapt?me et p?nitence
d'apr?s Odon de Cantorb?ry/ Analecta monastica 2e s?rie (Studia Anselmiana 31; Rome
1953) 124-40.
Note 174: Ernst Bloch, Freiheit und Ordnung: Abriss der Sozial- Utopien (New York
1946) 60-61 sees the Joachite spirit in the history of the Eastern, esp. the Russian Church,
particularly in the idea of 'unabgeschlossene Offenbarung/
Note 196a: The Cistercian Geoffrey of Auxerre (d. after 1188) speaks of a prophet Joachim
as of Jewish ancestry in a fragment preserved in MS Troyes 506, fol. 126v, quoted by J.
Leclercq,' 'Le t?moignage de Geoffroy d Auxerre sur la vie cistercienne/ Analecta mon.
(note 136, addition) 200f. In spite of Dom Leclercq's interpretation, I doubt that this passage
can refer to our Abbot at this early date in France. If it does, it is our only evidence for this
fact. Is it an example of Cistercian hostility to Joachim?
Note 203: Recently, R. Freyhan (note 96, addition) argues that ' the English Apocalypse
[miniatures] was conceived in protest against the Joachist heresy* and tries to date the
miniatures on this premise. Although his iconographical remarks have some validity, Frey
han makes some serious errors in his general statements, which casts doubt on his conclusions.
Note 236: On the Prophecie Ioachim see Bloomfield and Reeves (note 203 above) 788.
Note 248: See also Will-Erich Peuckert, Die grosse Wende: Das apokalyptische Saeculum
und Luther (Hamburg 1948) 154ff., 185ff. and 640-41 (for Germany in particular); and Kesten
burg-Gladstein (note 75, addition) (for central Europe in particular).
Note 258: See also the recent article by Benz, 'Creator Spiritus...' (note 75, addition)
285ff., esp. 344ff.
Mediaeval Sources (London 1913) 184ff.; John S. Carroll, In Patria: An Exposition

of Dante's Paradiso (London, New York, Toronto 1911 [?]) 168-69, 217-35;
Alfonso Ricolfi, ' Influssi gioacchimitici su Dante e i Fedeli d'amore,' II Giornale
dantesco 23 (N.S. 3; 1932) 169-87; Francesco Foberti, 'Questioni dantesche
e storia francescana (Veltro-Gioacchinismo-Ubertino da Casale), ' MF 39 (1939)
153-71; Umberto Cosmo, 'Rassegna dantesca, ' Giornale storico delta letteratura
italiana 63 (1914) 342-92; Filippo Ermini, 'II Psalterium decem chordarum
di Gioacchino da Fiore e il simbolismo del Paradiso dantesco,' Miscellanea per
nozze Crocioni-Ruscelloni: Miscellanea di storia e filologia (Rome 1908) 191-99;
and (revised) in Medio evo latino: Studi e ricerche (Istituto di filologia romanza
della R. Universit? di Roma, Studi e testi; Modena 1938) 317-23; Luigi Alberto
Ferrai, ' Il gioacchimismo ed un luogo controverso del Canto XII del Paradiso
(v. 115-126) di Dante,' Atti e mem. Padova 299 (N.S. 14; 1898) 117-27; F. Tocco,
II canto XXXII del Purgatorio letto... nella Sala di Dante in Orsanmichele
(Lectura Dantis; Florence 1902); E. Buonaiuti, Dante come prof eta (Collezione
Uomini e idee 5; Modena 1936); U. Cosmo, L'ultima ascesa: Introduzione alia
lettura del ? Paradiso ? (Biblioteca di cultura moderna; Bari 1936) 138ff. and
150ff. and 'Le mistiche nozze di Frate Francesco con Madonna Povert?,' Gzor
nale dantesco 6 (1898) 49-82, 97-118; Domenico Guerri, 'Cinquecento dieci e cin
que: Purg. XXXIII, 43, ' Di alcuni versi dotti della Divina Commedia: Ricerche
sul sapere grammaticale di Dante (Collezione di opuscoli danteschi inediti o rari,
ed. G. L. Passerini; Citt? di Castello 1908) 115-76 (first published in Giornale
dantesco 13 [1905] and 15 [1907]); Leone Tondelli, Da Gioacchino a Dante:
Nuovi studi ? consensi e contrasti (Turin 1944) (a collection of essays some
of which were printed earlier); R. Glynn Faithfull, 'The Esoteric Interpretation
of Dante,' Italica 27 (1950) 82-87 esp. 85; Alfonso de Salvio, Dante and Heresy
(Boston 1936) 64ff.; Linus Urban L?cken, Antichrist and the Prophets of Anti
christ in the Chester Cycle (Diss. Catholic University of America; Washington
1940) passim; Auguste Jundt, ' L'apocalypse mystique du moyen ?ge et la Matelda
de Dante, ' Le?on d'ouverture, S?ance de rentr?e des cours de la Facult? de th?ologie
protestante de Paris, le 3 novembre 1886 (Paris 1886) 17-71; Francesco Mango,
'L'abate Gioacchino, a Giovanni Mestica...,' Il Propugnatore 19.2 (Bologna 1886)
217-82 esp. 241ff.; Andr? P?zard, Dante sous la pluie de feu (Enfer, Chant XV)
(?tudes de philosophie m?di?vale 40; Paris 1950) 265-66; Mich?le Barbi, 'Il
gioacchinismo francescano e il veltro,' Studi danteschi 18 (1934) 209-11 and
'Nuovi problemi della critica dantesca,' Part V, ibid. 23 (1938) 29-46; B. Hirsch
Reich, 'Die Quelle der Trinit?tskreise von Joachim von Fiore und Dante,'
Sophia 22 (1954) 170-78; Barbara Barclay Carter, 'Dante's Political Ideas,'
The Review of Politics 5 (1943) 339-55; Leone Tondelli, 'Rassegna gioacchimito
dantesca' Sophia 19 (1951) 74-78; Bruno Nardi, Dante e la cultura m?di?vale,
Nuovi saggi di filosofia dantesca (Biblioteca di cultura moderna 368; Bari 1942)
258ff; Leone Tondelli, Marjorie Reeves, and Beatrice Hirsch-Reich, Liber figura
rum (2nd ed. Turin 1953) ; Antonio Crocco, ' Profilo storico del Gioacchinismo
dalF Anno delV Alleluja a Cola di Rienzo,' Sophia 24 (1956) 201-11; Gaetano
Marcovaldi, Aspetti dello spirito di Dante (Rome 1955) 127-34.

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JOACHIM OF FLORA: A Critical Survey of his Canon, Teachings, Sources, Biography and

One of the most significant and influential figures of the 4 renaissance of

been written by disciples or followers of Joachim in southern Italy between

8 I am following the recent interpretation of the Jeremiah Commentary given by Marjorie

IX30 all showed much respect to the order?the Florensians?Joachim founded,

announced the discovery in Reggio Emilia of a complete manuscript of Joa

on the Benedictine Rule, where we have verbal stylistic evidence, it is not

of mysterious or prophetical. If one wishes to violate language, he could per

to such an extent so as to make a quaternity of persons by separating the

generations70 and had a precursor or germinator as well as an initiator or a

Just exactly what Joachim means by spiritualization of the sacraments79

The method was common, but Joachim, by pressing it to its uttermost,95

predilection on the Holy Ghost in his anti-scholastic views and mysticism.

influence on Joachim.101 He was violently opposed by a man Joachim admired

101 See Buonaiuti (note 48) 208-09.

1911) 154ff.; J. Dani?lou, 'La typologie mill?nariste de la semaine dans le Christianisme

have to admit, he would be forced to admit if he listened to logic at all, that

Reichersberg,127 Honorius Augustodunensis,128 and perhaps Hugo of St. Vic

Journal of Theological Studies 15 (1914) 179-95. ? On the tradition of monastic scriptural

view 52 (1946-7) 74-86; Ferdinand Chalandon, Jean II Comn?ne (1118-1143) et Manuel I

directly or indirectly. Their monastery, the Studion, had much influence

and Eucharistical, there were Trinitarian implications, and it is possible that

Turning to Joachim's biography,175 we also find obscurities. The major

Ralph Coggeshall, another English chronicler, says Joachim in 1195 looked

Then he proceeded to Palestine and Mount Thabor whence he returned de

190 p# Foberti in 'Appunti gioacchimiti, la nascita, il casato, la condizione sociale,'

an inflammatory introduction followed by long selections frojn Joachim's

'Les Responsiones de Guillaume de Saint-Amour,' AHDL 25 and 26 (1950-51) 337-94.

temporaries. Joachism, or a developed Joachism, gave many of these latter

were drawn to Joachim ; and Hugh of Digne,221 in the 1240's, as Salimbene

Bonaventura, Frate Elia,' MF 38 (1938) 519-24, and Russo, 'L'abbate Gioaechino ? S.

go on?Cola da Rienzi, St. Vincent Ferrer, Nicholas of Cusa, Savonarola

240 See above, note 38.

246 See above, note 136.

?sometimes, it must be admitted, bordering on the fantastic and insane.

thesis into an organic view: history is an interwoven developing nexus which

Mediaeval Sources (London 1913) 184ff.; John S. Carroll, In Patria: An Exposition

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