Joachim of Fiore

Joachim of Flora, in a 15th century woodcut

Joachim of Fiore, also known as Joachim of Flora and in Italian Gioacchino da Fiore (c. 1135 – March 30, 1202), was the founder of the monastic order of San Giovanni in Fiore (now Jure Vetere). He was a mystic, a theologian and an esoterist. His followers are called Joachimites.

Biography

Born in the small village of Celico near Cosenza, in Calabria, at the time part of the Kingdom of Sicily, Joachim was the son of Mauro the notary, and Gemma, his wife. He was educated at Cosenza, where he became a clerk in the courts and then a notary himself. His father, whose office was an influential one under the Norman kings of Sicily, placed him under the powerful Archbishop Etienne du Perche of Palermo, who also served as regent for the young William II of Sicily.

About 1159 Joachim went on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, where he underwent a spiritual crisis and conversion in Jerusalem that turned him from the worldly life. When he returned, he lived as a hermit for several years, wandering and preaching before joining the ascetic Cistercian abbey of Sambucina near Luzzi, Calabria, as a lay brother, where he devoted his time to lay preaching without taking holy orders. Under pressure from the ecclesiastical authorities, he formally joined the monks of the Abbey of Corazzo, and was ordained priest, in 1168 or 69. He then applied himself entirely to biblical study, with a special view to uncovering the arcane meaning concealed in the scriptures, above all the Book of Revelation. To his dismay, he was acclaimed abbot by the monks of Corazzo (c. 1177). He then attempted to join the monastery to the Cistercian Order, but was refused because of his community's poverty. In the winter of 1178, he appealed in person to William II, who granted the monks some lands.

In 1182, finding the duties of his office an intolerable hindrance to what he deemed his higher calling, he appealed, to Pope Lucius III, who relieved him of the administrative care of his abbey and warmly approved of his work, bidding him continue it in whatever monastery he thought best. He spent the following year and a half at the Cistercian Abbey of Casamari, engaged in the writing of his three great books. His dictations reportedly kept three scribes busy night and day. The young monk Lucas (afterwards Archbishop of Cosenza) acted as his secretary and was amazed to see so famous and eloquent a man wearing such humble clothing and was deeply impressed by the devotion with which he preached and said Mass.

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Based on a three-stage theory of God's providence in history, Joachim predicting dawn of a new age. He predicted the coming of an "angelic pope" who would do away with the corruption and luxury of the church and user in an age of the Holy Spirit in which monastic life would take a more prominent role. His interpretation of verses in the Book of Revelation led him to predict that the hierarchy of the church would become unnecessary and infidels such as Muslims and Jews would soon submit to the Christian faith. Although his books remained unpublished during his lifetime, the broad outlines of his teachings became well know. Many spiritual Franciscan monks acclaimed him as a prophet, a title he himself refused to accept.

Joachim's popularity soon became enormous, and some sources hold that Richard the Lionheart wished to meet him to discuss the Book of Revelation before leaving for the Third Crusade.

In 1184 Joachim was in Rome and was again encouraged by Pope Lucius III. Although his manuscripts had not yet begun to circulate and produce the controversy of later years, papal approbation was confirmed by Urban III in 1185, and again, more conditionally, by Clement III in 1187, the latter exhorting him to make no delay in completing his work and submitting it to the judgment of the Holy See.

Joachim retired first to the hermitage of Pietralata, writing all the while, and then founded the Abbey of Fiore (or Flora) in the mountains of Calabria. Flora became the center of a new and stricter branch of the Cistercian Order, approved by Celestine III in 1198. In 1200 Joachim publicly submitted all his writings to the examination of Pope Innocent III, but died before any judgment was passed.

The holiness of his life was widely known, and Dante affirmed that miracles were said to have been wrought at his tomb.

Theory of the three ages

The mystical basis of his teaching is his doctrine of the "Eternal Gospel," founded on an interpretation of the text in Revelation xiv, 6.

His theories can be considered millenarist; he believed that history, by analogy with the Trinity, was divided into three fundamental epochs:

• The Age of the Father, corresponding to the Old Testament, characterized by obedience of mankind to the Rules of God;
• The Age of the Son, between the advent of Christ and 1260, represented by the New Testament, when Man became the son of God;
• The Age of the Holy Spirit, impending (in 1260), when mankind was to come in direct contact with God, reaching the total freedom preached by the Christian message. The Kingdom of the Holy Spirit, a new dispensation of universal love, would proceed from the Gospel of Christ, but transcend the letter of it. In this new Age the ecclesiastical organization would be replaced and the Order of the Just would rule the Church. This Order of the Just was later identified with the Franciscan order by his follower Gerardo of Borgo San Donnino.

According to Joachim, only in this third Age will it be possible to really understand the words of God in its deepest meanings, and not merely literally. He concluded that this age would begin in 1260 based on the Book of Revelation (verses 11:3 and 12:6, which mention "one thousand two hundred and sixty days"). In this year, instead of the parousia (second Advent of Christ), a new Epoch of peace and concord would begin, thus making the hierarchy of the Church unnecessary.

Joachim distinguished between the "reign of justice" or of "law," in an imperfect society, and the "reign of freedom" in a perfect society.

Legacy

After his death, Joachim's teachings became highly controversial and had a major impact on the millenialist movements of the thirteenth century and beyond. The Fourth Council of the Lateran in 1215 condemned some of Joachim's ideas about the nature of the Trinity, but did not declare him a heretic.

In the mid twelfth century, Joachim's views became extremely popular among the Francisans. The writings of Gerard of Borgo San Donnino were particularly controversial. They held that, about the year 1200, the spirit of life had gone out of the two Testaments and that Joachim's three books themselves constituted this "Eternal Gospel." The Catholic priesthood and the whole teaching of the New Testament was to be rendered void in a few years. The head of the Franciscans, John of Parma was pressured to resign his post because of his "Joachist" views. His successor, Saint Bonaventure, repressed the more extreme tendencies of Joachim's teachings, but echoes of Joachim's ideas can be seen in Bonaveture's writings as well.

Among the more zealous of the Spiritual Franciscans , an overtly "Joachist" group arose, many of whom saw Antichrist already in the world in the person of Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor. Meanwhile, the failure of the ecclesiastic reform movements led to passionate calls for a return to apostolic poverty among the entire clergy. The Dulcinians and Brethren of the Free Spirit went so far as to engage serious violence against church property and wealthy bishops.

As the appointed year of 1260 approached, spurious works began to circulate under Joachim's name: De Oneribus Prophetarum, an Expositio Sybillae et Merlini ("Exposition of the Sibyl and Merlin") and commentaries on the prophecies of Jeremiah and Isaiah. Finally Pope Alexander IV formally condemned Joachim's writings and those of his follower Gerardo of Borgo San Donnino, setting up a commission that in 1263 in Synod of Arles eventually declared his theories outright heresy. Thomas Aquinas criticized his theories in his Summa Theologica.

Nevertheless, Jochim's ideas continue to find fetile soil in the minds of many medieval Christians who hoped for reform in the church and the coming of a new age. A later leader of the Spiritual Franciscans, Pier Giovanni Olivi (d. 1297), revived Jochim's teachings, as did Ubertino da Casale, who left the order in 1317. The latter plays a role in the popular Umberto Ecco novel and popular motion picture The Name of the Rose, along with two monks whose past association with the Dulcinians results in their trial and execution for heresy.

In The Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri placed Joachim in paradise. Echoes of his three-stage theory of history have been traced to several movements leading up to the Protestant Reformation and even to later theories such as Marxism and the Divine Principle of the Unfication Church.

See also

• Ernesto Buonaiuti (one of the first researchers in Joachinism)
• Herbert Grundman (famous German researcher in Joachinism)
• List of Christian mystics
• Vaticinia de Summis Pontificibus

Further reading

• Henri de Lubac, La Postérité spirituelle de Joachim de Flore, Lethielleux, 1979 and 1981 (French)

Books

• "Liber Concordiae Novi ac Veteris Testamenti ("Harmony of the Old and New Testaments"): his most important work.
• Expositio in Apocalipsim ("Exposition of the Book of Revelation")
• Psalterium Decem Cordarum ("Psaltery of Ten Strings")
• Treatise on the four Gospels
• The late thirteenth-century set of pseudo-prophecies, united with a later series under the title Vaticinia de Summis Pontificibus was attached to his name without any basis in truth.

External links

• Joachim of Fiore's circles diagram and Trinitarian symbolism
• Neo-Joachimism (German)
• Catholic Encyclopedia: "Joachim of Flora"
• International Center for Joachimist Studies

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