Joachim of Fiores Radical Medieval Historiography

Joachim of Fiores Radical Medieval Historiography J. Douglas Varey MA STB God who once gave the spirit of prophecy to the prophets has given me the spirit of understanding, so that in Gods Spirit I very clearly understand all the mysteries of Holy Scripture, just as the holy prophets understood who once wrote it down in Gods Spirit.

Joachim of Fiore

Exiled in Southern ItalyIn 1936 Carlo Levi was sentenced to exile south of Salerno, punishment for criticizing fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. Christ Stopped at Eboli is the exiles account of life in this poor, illiterate region. According to Levi, Christ did stop at Eboli, where the road and the railway leave the coast of Salerno and turn into the desolate reaches of Lucania. Christ never came this far, nor did time, nor the individual soul, nor hope, nor the relation of cause to effect, nor reason nor history. . . . None of the pioneers of Western civilization brought here his sense of the passage of time, his deification of the State or that ceaseless activity which feeds upon itself. Carlo Levi was wrong. In the twelfth century Joachim of Fiore (c1135-1202), a significant medieval scientist, researched and wrote in southern Italy. He developed radical pre-modern historiographical methods to explain humanitys past and future. His methods were radical because his biblical analysis challenged existing historiographical assumptions. He understood his challenge in an intriguing manner. Some think that the historical understanding is the history itself which is called the letter, but this is not sothe history is one thing, the historical reality is another. He embarked on a journey to discover historical reality. Here we describe the man, twelfth century historiography and seven pre-modern techniques he employed to solve the mysteries of Gods plan for humanity. We draw on twentieth century Joachimite scholarship and quotes from the Italian monk substantiate our theses. Who was this Medieval Scientist from Southern Italy?

Joachim was born in Calabria, Italys geographic toe. His father was a lawyer serving a local Norman kingdom. As a young man he experienced a call to religious vocation and made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Subsequently he became a monk and abbot in a poor Benedictine monastery in Curazzo, Calabria. Joachim sought to improve his community to have it adopted by the esteemed Cistercian movement and eventually he achieved his goal. When about fifty, he embarked on a scientific quest to explain the meaning of history. He left Curazzo and, after study and meditation, founded the order of St. John at Fiore in the Sila Mountains in neighbouring Lucania region thus establishing his geographic connection to Carlo Levi. He set out to transcend even Cistercian monastic standards creating a saintly commune worthy of the coming age of the Spirit.

Naming his order St. John was significant and Joachims intense study of the biblical Revelation of John confirms his Johannine preference. Ernest Benz argues that Peter dies the death of a martyr, John survives him for a long time. Thus the papal Church, which has Peter as its historical prototype, dies. The Church of the Spiritthe Church of Johnwill survive to the end of the world. The Abbot sought to realize the promised ordo spiritualis of the end of time. But he was not a conscious revolutionary himself. Nevertheless, his theology of the Spirit forced the prophet, with a certain inner logic, to contribute actively toward the overcoming of the present age . . . bringing about the coming of the promised one.

Joachim built a reputation on his monastic leadership and scholarly writings. Three popes consulted him. Marjorie Reeves describes his intellectual journey while analyzing his conversation with Pope Lucius III in 1184. We see him when he is just beginning to move away from the conventional career of an able monk caught in the treadmill of administering a Cistercian house. His mind is venturing out into new paths of thought and meditation upon the total meaning of history and the mysterious activity of the Trinity, interpenetrating all ages. Bernard McGinn describes another significant meeting. Joachim was acquiring an international reputation as a holy man and prophet. How else can we explain the famous interview that Richard Lion-Heart had with the abbot in Messina sometime in the first months of 1191 as he awaited the good weather that would speed him on his way to the East? The Crusader visited Joachim to garner advice about Gods intentions before confronting Sultan Saladin.

Joachim consulted with popes and political leaders, but his primary calling was study and writing. The Calabrian might be described as a Janus-figure among the major Christian theologians of history. On the one hand, he was a reactionary, a monastic thinker of limited background and education out of step with the ideas of theology and church governance that were coming to dominate his time. But he also was forward-looking, with an inner-worldly hope for the future more profound than almost any other classical Christian theologian. His ideas resulted in an historical vision with powerful impact. Spiritual man, intense student, copious writer, founder of his own monastery and consultant to the elite: Joachims biography was impressive. His theological/historical theories were challenged, but Joachims visionary perspective continued to fascinate people.

Confronting Eight Centuries of Historiographical Taboo

Joachim launched an attack on St. Augustines dictate prohibiting speculation about Gods plans for the future, the end of time. The fifth century bishop/theologian argued convincingly that eschatological visions based on biblical writings like Revelation and Daniel would result in social and religious chaos. Augustine de-divinized historical reflection. For centuries virtually no one went looking for Gods suprahistorical plan of human salvation. Joachim re-divinized history using research methods of his own design. According to Marcea Eliade, historys linear progress in the Eternal Gospel of Joachim of Floris . . . appears in all its coherence, as an integral element of a magnificent eschatology of history, the most significant contribution to Christianity in this field since St. Augustines. The Abbot maintained he was not challenging the Bishop of Hippo, but simply fulfilling Gods call to unravel the divine plan. Nevertheless, his writings defied centuries of ecclesiastical prohibition. Popes anticipated receiving his works, but Joachim edited them till he died. He sensed his discoveries would offend church authorities, but he never set out to challenge the Holy See. I would defend no view of mine against its holy faith, fully believing what it believes, receiving its corrections in morals as in doctrine, rejecting whom it rejects, accepting whom it accepts, and firmly believing that the gates of hell will not prevail against it. Strange words from one whose writings flouted Augustines theology and the churchs social policy.

Twelfth Century Historiography

If one wants to appreciate fully the significance of Joachim of Fiores contributions, the historical state of mind before and during his time must be understood. James Burke, a science historian, is cynical about the eras historical writing. There was no concept of history; there were only chivalrous romances and chronicles based on widely differing monastic views of what had happened in the world beyond the communitys walls. There was no geography, no natural history and no science, because there could be no sure confirmation of the data upon which such subjects would rely. A robust modernist critique of medieval historiography. Delno West and Sandra Zimdars-Swartz rebuff Burkes scepticism, but paint a rather bleak picture. In the Middle Ages . . . the usefulness of inquiry into the past was not considered of particular importance for the reason that the medieval mind did not regard history as a source of significant knowledge. Understanding Gods plan was foremost. The Bible, not history, was the source book for salvations drama.

R.G. Collingwood, on the other hand, praises twelfth century historiography because the attempt to distinguish periods in history is a mark of advanced and mature historical thought, not afraid to interpret facts instead of merely ascertaining them; but here as elsewhere medieval thought, though never deficient in boldness and originality, showed itself unable to make good its promises. Pre-modern historians undertook to explain the divine plan because it not only gave the key to what God had done in the past, it showed us what God was going to do in the future. . . . Thus medieval historiography looked forward to the end of history as something foreordained by God and, through revelation, foreknown to man . . . . Some medieval historians, chiefly the Abbot, developed impressive pre-modern analytical tools to describe the future. M.-D. Chenu believes they laboured for the balanced development of Christian thought: that of history as an expression of the temporal order of salvation. He continues: it was not the least splendid achievement of Latin Christendom in the twelfth century to awaken in mens minds an active awareness of human history. Historians sometimes provided practical information for contemporary politicians. For example, Joachims views of the imminent crisis of history and the role that the Church was to play in this fit in very well with the peace party in the Roman Curia during these turbulent decades. There is no reason to doubt that the abbot himself would have been fully conscious of the political implications of his prophetic efforts. God intended something new to occur: societys leaders were intrigued by scholarly forecasts. Janet Coleman provides an intriguing portrait of twelfth century studies. Students of history produced a literal but exemplary historiography designed to explain and not simply allegorize events of the past. History as a succession of discrete, exemplary anecdotes to be understood literally as the primary signification of experience, would emerge to stand side by side with history as allegory. On one hand, an increasing scientific observation of things as they are in their discreteness combined, on the other, with an overarching prophetic attention to all else that was indeterminate and contingent, serving to explain in two modes the direction and shape of history as it had been, as it was in the present, as it was to be. Her analysis accurately describes Joachims scientific approach yet she says little about him though he made extensive use of methodical research and predictive analysis.Joachims Historical Writings Set Him ApartJoachim of Fiore startles us by his sudden appearance and revolutionary doctrine of history. It is true that the twelfth century had been showing a quickened interest in the meaning of history and in prophetic destiny. . . . Anxiety about the future was in the air, but Joachims doctrine, in his own age, seems to spring out of his own inner experience, just as he himself first appears, unheralded, before Pope Lucius III at Veroli in 1184. Reeves argues that Joachimlike so many other medieval thinkersrejoiced in looking for these inner meanings, but interpreted them, not so much in terms of the individual Christians salvation, as in those of the destiny of the whole human race. Salvation historys focus changed with the Abbot.

West and Zimdars-Swartz contend that his bold historians imagination enabled him to discover new pathways. The importance of Joachim of Fiore is that he considered inquiry into history as another path to knowing God. He sensed that historical inquiry would provide the key which unlocked hidden meaning in Scripture, not only to understand the past, but to interpret the future. Knowing God was critical in medieval epistemology and the Abbots methods gave him the wherewithal.

With his historians mind, Joachim could visualize what he felt was the entire cosmic plan of God, a plan with a clear beginning in Genesis that moved in a straight line to a finality at the end of time. He presented an outline of the main historical events, past, present, and future. . . . He developed a vision from study and systematic thought processes. His historians imagination led him to the logical conclusion that historys greatest age was yet to be livedthat somehow change was the very fabric of history.

He is the archetype of medieval history-based future forecasting. Coleman criticizes monks sense of times past, but depicts our Abbot otherwise because the writings of the renegade Cistercian Joachim of Flora at the end of the century emphasised the importance of the past, of the self and of human history as part of his schema of an unrepeatable and progressive pattern of human development. Students of historiography perceive the Calabrian Abbot as employing distinctive processes to illustrate the divine plan.

Joachims Pre-Modern Science

The great task of medieval historiography was the task of discovering and expounding the divine plan. Joachims pre-modern science did just that. Berger and Luckmanns sociology of knowledge theory helps us appreciate medieval scientific assumptions. Man is biologically predestined to construct and to inhabit a world with others. This world becomes for him the dominant and definitive reality. Its limits are set by nature, but once constructed, this world acts back upon nature. In the dialectic between nature and the socially constructed world the human organism itself is transformed. In this same dialectic man produces reality and thereby produces himself. In each age, humans, interfacing with circumstances and nature, create a unique social reality. The gulf between Joachims medieval thought and modern thinking is clear. Joachim lived in a different reality.We focus on pre-modern epistemology, the ways and means by which something can be known, as the basis for examining the Abbots historiography. Johannes Kepler lived long after Joachim yet he underlines the Abbots epistemological assumption. Kepler saw himself as a priest of the Most High God with respect to the Book of Nature who, by discovering the pattern which God had imposed on the cosmos, was thinking Gods thoughts after Him. John Headley Brooks argues medieval scholars struggled to think Gods thoughts in order to understand life and the world. Proponents of scientific inquiry would often argue that God had revealed Himself in two booksthe book of His words (the Bible) and the book of His works (nature). As one was under obligation to study the former, so too there was an obligation to study the latter. Joachim focused on the former source. D.A. Carson succinctly describes Joachims epistemological theory.

Pre-modern epistemology is a notoriously loose catchall category for what is common in Judeo-Christian epistemology before the Enlightenment. The important fact is that most people presupposed that God exists and knows everything. That means that all human knowing is necessarily an infinitesimally small subset of Gods knowledge. Otherwise put, our knowledge depends on revelationi.e., on God disclosing some part of what he knows, however that revelation is accomplished.

Assumptions underlying the Abbots ways of knowing are: first, epistemology does not begin with the self, with me: it begins with God; second, Human epistemology revolved around the given of Gods existence, attributes, and character; third, it was usually tied to a fairly open universe: the connection between the universe and what God does is so open that a firm, evidence-based, coherent, and predictive science of the physical world remains largely alien and, fourth, in an open universe, divine interventions may be so continuous and so unconstrained by the kinds of cause and effect sequences we take for granted today that a large space is opened up for superstition, magic, and fear. Collingwood argues that medieval historians did not want an accurate and scientific study of the actual facts of history; what they wanted was an accurate and scientific study of the divine attributes, a theology based securely on the double foundation of faith and reason. . . . This was the Abbots agenda, precisely. Reeves paints a skilful picture of pre-modern historiography. The medieval concept of prophecy presupposed a divine providence working out its will in history, a set of given clues as to that meaning implanted in history, and a gift of illumination to chosen men called to discern those clues and from them to prophesy to their generation. . . . Such an approach to the future was in part deterministic, but never mechanistic. Our Chosen Mans methods were anything but mechanical. Reeves concludes her analysis: This style of thought became widespread in the later Middle Ages after receiving a tremendous impetus from the prophetic message of Joachim of Fiore. Throughout he presupposed constructive epistemology that assumes the existence of knowledge and tries to explain its nature and genesis. Paradoxically, epistemological questions are on our contemporary scientific/philosophical agenda because post-modern perceptions are challenging modernist ways of knowing. In the preface to Liber Concordie, a confident Joachim sounds a literary trumpet blast announcing previously inscrutable divine plans.

The signs as described in the gospel show clearly the dismay and ruin of the century which is now running down and must perish. Hence I believe that it will not be in vain to submit to the vigilance of the believers, through this work, those matters which divine economy has made known to my unworthy person in order to awaken the torpid hearts from their slumber by a violent noise and to induce them, if possible, by a new kind of exegesis to the contempt of the world.

He was pre-modern predictive and his prophecies were grounded in his epistemological assumptions.

Joachims Seven Methods Unravel and Reveal the Divine Plan

At the heart of this article, we describe seven pre-modern historiographical methods Joachim used to determine Gods plan. The Abbot:

1) employed spiritualis intellectus to access divine wisdom;

2) developed novel exegetical techniques to uncover the plan;

3) discovered concordance between Testaments and later historical events;

4) developed trinitarian science to discern the Spirits third era;

5) untangled the apocalyptic vision woven into the Revelation of John;

6) created visual symbols to elucidate his discoveries, and

7) discovered and promoted the concept of progress.

The Creator is the source of all knowledge. Joachim employed these methods to discern and reveal Gods intention for humanity.

Method 1He Employed Spiritualis Intellectus to access Divine Wisdom

Spiritualis intellectus is the God-given ability to discern heavenly matters through visionary insight and spiritual understanding. The Abbot described intelligentia spiritualis in discussing Jesus conversion of water into wine (Gospel of John 2: 1-12.) Christs first miracle by which his disciples believed in him is the Holy Spirits greatest miracle, by which his perfect disciples knew his power, the changing of the letter into the spiritual understanding. Again when speaking metaphorically of Christs resurrection: the tomb of the letter was opened and the spiritual understanding appeared. Christs crucifiers intended to snuff out the spiritual understanding and bury it in the belly of the letter so that its voice might be heard no more in their streets nor have any further place in their possessions. Those blessed with intelligentia spiritualis went beyond factuality to inner meaning. Joachim discovered spiritual understanding through strenuous study. The spiritualis intellectus or intelligentia with which he believed he had been endowed was indeed a gift from on high, but it was poured out only on those who wrestled and agonized over the hard, external realities of the Letter. These sacred insights were not secret Gnostic revelations, but gifts provided to viri spirituales by orthodox Christianitys triune God.

Just as the historical understanding is ascribed to people in the world who remain in the faith of Christ, the moral understanding to those who have turned away from the worlds vanity, the tropological to the spiritual doctors, the contemplative to those who are free for prayers and psalms after long practice of the active life, so too the analogical understanding is proper to those who have put off the fleshs burden and rest in the blessed homeland.

Joachims analogical understanding distinguishes between facts, the fleshs burden, and insightful interpretation, rest in the blessed homeland. He was an analogical seer. In the Abbots words, The contemplative understanding is that which leaves the flesh completely behind and passes over into the spirit so that it grasps the servant as the active life and the free woman as the contemplative. Here he is contrasting Hagar, earth-bound servant, with Sarah, Abrahams spirit blessed wife.

The Calabrian criticized his predecessors because they were literalists. If preachers of the Gospel according to the letter were preferred to the Jewish doctors who preached Moses law, they are still far below those who have spiritual knowledge of that Gospel and who walk in no way according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit." There are profound differences between factual and spiritual perceptions. Invalid literal . . . readings of the text are both illogical and unproductive; illogical, because both the Old and New Testaments are full of problems, contradictions, and absurdities that call out for deeper readings; unproductive, because it would take only half a year, more or less, to exhaust the letter of Scripture, while spiritual understanding can nourish a lifetime. Thus his lifelong journey of spiritual discernment.

But how does the Abbots spiritualis intellectus methodology relate to our topic? Remember, Epistemology does not begin with the self, with me: it begins with God. Reeves describes the concept thus: each happening had a vertical point of reference, a thread in the hand of God who combined threads into patterns on the inner side of history. Spiritual understanding enabled Joachim to discern these threads woven into the divine design. Joachim clearly articulated a faith in a new age to come, an age of a new spiritual understanding which could be translated into the new knowledge of a scientific age. Spiritualis intelligentia gave him technological knowledge about the shape of the future. In the Abbots words, history is one thing, the historical reality is another. Intelligentia spiritualis was a treasured gift he embraced to pursue historical reality.

Method 2He Developed Novel Exegetical Techniques to Uncover Gods Plan

Exegesis was central to his scientific conclusions. Joachims exegesis is nothing more nor less than the judgment about Joachims thought as a whole. In the Abbots hands the interpretation of texts and historical events changed. His exegesis included understanding temporal process, events in post-biblical history: the significance of the temporal process is identical with the unfolding of the intellectus spiritualis: the meaning of world history is the history of exegesis. For example, tempora . . . ought to be reckoned not according to their number of years but according to their number of generations. For there were . . . sixty-three generations from Adam to Christ and sixty-three generations from Josiah to the end of the second status. He believed the second status would conclude in the thirteenth century. He rejected literal Scripture interpretation. The great enemy of the spiritual understanding . . . that is, the evil force at work in the world-historical process, is not so much the external evil of war and persecution, but its inner dynamism, the intellectual error of the persistence of the literal interpretation of the Scriptures. For him, the Bible was the sole source of knowledge; it contained the sum of all that needs to be known, but with a difference. Thus the brunt of the biblical message shifts away from a concern with cosmic truths, that is, the revelation of the nature of the universe and mans place in it, to truths about what the abbot called the plenitude historiae, the fullness of history. He believed through exegesis he could describe Gods plan for the entire human story. How did Joachim deal with Act 1:7 where Christ specifically denies his followers permission to know the Fathers future times or moments? Joachim argued Gods future plans were already laid out in Holy Scripture and he was simply uncovering them.

Karl Lwith, who introduced the writer to the Calabrian Abbot, explains Joachims unique exegetics.

Joachims interpretation of Scripture included extended and detailed examination of biblical passages that few scholars before him had explored in depth. . . . What is new and revolutionary in Joachims conception of the history of salvation is due to his prophetichistorical method of allegorical interpretation. But this exegesis served Joachims amazingly fertile imagination . . . for a dynamic understanding of revelation through an essential correlation between Scripture and history and between their respective interpretations. He was a book worm, but his book of choice was the Bible, not the ancient Greek philosophers of the scholastics. Robert Lerner desdcribes Joachims exegesis of the Hebrew Scriptures.

Arcane numerical patterns lay hidden that could only be perceived by the most alert insight. Breaking the code, moreover, necessitated the closest study of chapters and books of the Old Testament that Christians had seldom studied closely before, particularly lists of generations and histories of kings. But with appropriate learning and especially with the indispensable gift of spiritual intelligence, the Old Testament could be made to reveal both fearful and wondrous symmetries. Ancestral numbers identified scriptural parallels of historical significance. The key to Joachims historiography was that he studied prophecy to determine the outcome of events and to order those events, past, present, and future, into a systematic thought so as to produce a clear and logical arrangement of history. West and Zimdars-Swartz continue. Yes, that truth was obscured and had to have the sharpest scholarly tools of investigation and interpretation applied in order to pry out the information God had intended to convey to man. He employed cutting edge historiographical techniques to slice open up the heavenly design.

Joachims exegetical methodology enabled him to discern plenitude historiae, obscure divine intentions. Eventually he was bold enough to say that in Gods Spirit I very clearly understand all the mysteries of Holy Scripture.

Method 3He Discovered Concordance between Testaments and Later Historical Events

An intellectus spiritualis moment: About the middle of the nights silence, as I think, the hour when it is thought that our Lion of the tribe of Judah rose from the dead, as I was meditating, suddenly something of the fullness of this book and of the entire harmony of the Old and New testaments was perceived with clarity of understanding in my minds eye. Joachim believed that in examining the relation between similar things we may be able to come closer to the Authors intention the more we grasp that things new agree with those old and that they accord in their reality. Thus each figure and event of the Old Testament, if understood spiritually, is a promise and signification of a corresponding figure and event of the New Testament. Detailed research predominates in his concordance studies. There is little treatment according to the spirit, more according to the letter, that is according to the concordance of letter to letter of the two Testaments. Joachim believed that he perceived concordance correctly as a similarity, equality and proportion of the New and the Old Testaments. He went beyond inter-testamental typology. The latter was Joachims point of departure, but he turned it into something different and much more daring. Typology is a way of reading passages in the Old Testament as prefiguring the life of Christ or sacraments of the Church . . . . Joachims concordance hermeneutic goes further and reads all the history in the Old Testament as prefiguring in different ways the entire life of the Church, from its founding until the end of time. West and Zimdars-Swartz underline his concordance skills: The insight of Joachim is simply that, by careful analysis of past events and characters, by identifying the parallels and by selectively comparing them, he felt that he had found the key to future expectation as outlined in Holy Scripture. Old Testament and New Testament were parallel halves of history which corresponded in significant details so that the astute observer and reader could extend these parallels and correspondences into the time from the Resurrection to the twelfth century and into the future. Benz joins the conversation. Joachim became a prophet because of this elucidation of the inner relationship which exists between the first two periods of the history of salvation, those of the Old and New Testaments. How salvation will be realized in the future, third period can be predicted from the manner in which it came to pass in the first two, those of the Father and of the Son. Joachim himself declares: We have said that the spiritual understanding proceeds from the concordance of the two Testaments and that it is manifold so that according to it Jerusalem, Babylon and the other things written there and in the other places in Scripture have so many things to signify that from each book comes an abyss and a fountain of water gushing to eternal life (John 4: 14.) Concordance studies enabled him to identify clashes between new Jerusalems and Babylons surging up in his own day. What others might consider biblical minutia, revealed for him insights into historical occurrences. His concordia focus is another example of pre-modern epistemology. Through studying scriptural names, ages, generations and parallel figures, Old Testament and New, Gods divine plan for the future emerges. As the Abbot declared, we understand new things better if we carefully investigate the old.

Method 4He Developed Trinitarian Science to Discern the Spirits Third Era The Holy Trinity was fundamental to Joachims historiographical conclusions. Just as God is a Trinity, so too the works of the three times agree with the individual Persons of the Godhead by the signification of the mystery. The Calabrians trinitarian science disclosed the divine nature. The Lord has promised us that the whole understanding of truth is to be found in the Trinity. Further, Now we are ready to speak of the concordance of the three operations which began to be evident in the three status of the world one after the other . . . . The Abbot spent his life unravelling the inner Trinitarian relations of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the significance of the three status which comprise the whole of sacred history. . . . He concentrated on the third era, that of the Holy Spirit. Church Fathers wrote much to explain the New Testament, its perfect exposure is being kept to be made in the third of the worlds status. And the third status has reserved his own time for himself in which he will do his work, not like some divine powers which are called gifts of the Holy Spirit, but like true Lord and God, just as the Father and Son. Each trinitarian Person displays unique divine characteristics accessible to those blessed with intelligentia spiritualis and willing to expend countless hours of analysis.The Abbot unravelled the complex trinitarian agenda and its impact on human history. Historical developments do not change Divinity, but rather history must adopt the structure it does precisely because God, its creator, is three Persons. The course of salvation history has an overarching unity because it is the product of the one Lord who performs all works ad extra as a single cause . . . . Ad extra, from outside: God controls historical developments. Kreiger argues that Joachims historiography assumes theological historicism. Divine interventions shape history.

What techniques did he use to discover Gods trinitarian design? Benz has a theory. It appears that the two viewpoints of constant development and continuous re-creation are mutually exclusive. In actual fact, they are dialectically interdependent. Their connection represents the secret of historical life itself. All development . . . is a dramatic process of continuous death and continuous rebirth. The German historians reference to dialectic signifies thesis, antithesis and synthesis, the Platonic reasoning that Peter Abelard reintroduced to European thinking. Joachim, on the contrary, was adamant that his analytical thinking related to the Holy Trinity and not to Plato. Dialectic hides what is clear, is the cause of vain argument, rivalry and blasphemy, as is proved by those arrogant scribes who by their reasoning fall into blasphemy. Here is a more likely Joachimite sequence: first, an era of human history is imagined by a trinitarian status ; second, after understanding the status will, divinely chosen people contribute to building the new epoch and, third, transformed history emerges at the trinitarian status command and the viri spirituales direction. The Abbots writings celebrated Sacred History with a radical promise. He revealed evolving trinitarian possibilities to a social consciousness expecting no significant change until Christs return.

Joachim describes the three ages.

The mysteries of Holy Scripture point us to three orders (states, or conditions) of the world: to the first, in which we were under the Law; to the second, in which we are under grace; to the third, which we already imminently expect, and in which we shall be under a yet more abundant grace . . . The first condition is therefore that of perception, the second that of partially perfected wisdom, the third, the fullness of knowledge.

The first condition is in the bondage of slaves, the second in the bondage of sons, the third in liberty. The first in fear, the second in faith, the third in love. The first in the condition of thralls, the second of freemen, the third of friends. . . . The first stands in the light of the stars, the second in the light of the dawn, the third in the brightness of day.

He counted the generations and concluded that his inspiration, Benedict of Nursia, inaugurated the Spirit age. It had its beginning from Saint Benedict, began to bear its fruit in the twenty-second generation from that saint, and will be consummated in the consummation of the world. Joachim calculated that the twenty-second generation will begin about 1260. Through his trinitarian science Joachim explained human history and discovered divinely devised future plans, immanent and imminent. Thus he demonstrated Keplers contention that scientists think Gods thoughts after Him. Method 5He Untangled the Apocalyptic Vision in the Revelation of John In John of Patmos Revelation 5: 2 the Angel asks, Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals? Joachim believed he was the one. Carefully analyzing the Apocalypse, he uncovered the key of things past, the knowledge of things to come; the opening of what is sealed, the uncovering of what is hidden. The revelation was not made public at the time it was shown to John, nor even when it was begun in the Lords Resurrection, but rather in the Church at the sixth tempus whose beginning moments we already grasp when the book which at one time was closed is shown open in the hand of the angel who is seen to descend from heaven. Joachim was a sixth tempus scientist unscrambling Johannine prophecies. He valued Revelation above other biblical books. Outside of John of the Apocalypse he has no rival in the apocalyptic tradition. Even in comparison with his illustrious forebear, the combination of author and iconographer we find in the person of the abbot of Fiore provides us with an insight into the genesis and development of apocalyptic symbols that is unique. West and Zimdars-Swartz concur. Perhaps Joachim and St. John thought alike because both had a deep sense of history and a philosophy of history. At any rate, the Apocalypse is the only book in the New Testament primarily dedicated to the meaning of history and Joachim understood that. The Abbots arcane scholarship led him to surprising conclusions, for example, that Revelation unfolds the meaning of the Old Testament. Joachim saw the Apocalypse as first and foremost a precise and detailed message about the whole course of Gods plan for history. What Augustine described as apocalyptic myths were in Revelation actually signposts describing Gods preordained future. Was pre-modern science involved in Joachims analysis of the Bibles ultimate book? McGinn describes his analysis as architectonic, systemized and comprehensive. He squeezed numerological details from Revelation related to both Testaments and subsequent history. Emmerson and Herzman affirm that Joachim, more than other twelfth century researchers, was able to set history and prophecy side by side and identify the various sequences of seven in the Apocalypse with patterns, events, orders, or key figures of Church history. Joachim was consulted by priests and politicians because, through Revelation research, he confidently explained Gods predetermined plan. The intricacies of the relations of ages, times, and states in the Calabrians thought belies any simple sense of linear progression, but historical process still receives its meaning from the final events toward which it is moving. His investigation uncovered no end-of-time retribution but a bountiful, earthly third age. Revelations mysterious message was not about history, but about historical reality. Method 6He Created Visual Symbols to Elucidate his Discoveries

Joachim describes a symbolic moment. I was very frightened and was moved to call on the Holy Spirit whose feast day it was to deign to show me the holy mystery of the Trinity. . . . I began to pray the psalms to complete the number I had intended. At this moment without delay the shape of a ten-stringed psaltery appeared in my mind. The mystery of the Holy Trinity shone so brightly and clearly in it that I was at once impelled to cry out, What God is as great as our God? In this spiritualis intellectus moment, the psaltery image revealed triune relationships.

Reeves and Beatrice Hirsch-Reich have dedicated a book to The Figurae of Joachim of Fiore. Symbols and numerology featured prominently in his work. Rather than employing academias discursive modes of Scholastic reasoning, he utilized icons as pathways to understanding. Joachim . . . testified that he achieved many of his most profound insights through revelations seen in symbolic figurae . . . he also felt compelled to illustrate his apocalyptic ideas through the construction of figurae of striking power and great complexity. Joachims figurae functioned in his day not unlike Einsteins E=mc in ours: concise yet packed with significant information. His images translated historical discoveries into visual hypotheses. They provided the most convincing answer to the mystery of history available in the later Middle Ages. His figurae lent scientific authority to his discoveries. The Seven Headed Dragon of Revelation 12: 3 symbolized evil figures over the centuries and into Joachims time. When the last dragon is defeated the age of the Spirit will break forth.

The Seven-Headed Dragon Figure

The Abbot used biological illustrations extensively with an emphasis on botany. West and Zimdars-Swartz explain illustrations for his Byzantine theories.

His biological symbolism, although not unique in the exegeses of Scripture, is ideal to his philosophy of history because trees, flowers, and plant life show most clearly an unfolding, a becoming. He used flora to symbolize the interrelationships of the three status and the dynamic character of history and to indicate the potential of human and institutional development. Seeds, the fledgling growths, the maturing plants, can easily symbolize the full fructification of a species.

The species in question is the human race. The progressive nature of the abbots views is evident in the organic and developmental images he used in his symbolism. For Joachim history was a matter of harmonic growth, not mere succession, as his lush trees, intertwined circles, and musical instruments show. Biological symbolism illustrated Gods coming age of fecundity.

Tree Circles from the Liber Figurarum, MS. Dresden, A. 121, f. 93v

He was a scientist with a burning desire to communicate his findings. He used images to that end. Joachims symbols not only synthesize disparate elements into new and more universal forms but they also enable these elements to interact in the new combinations so that each image takes on richer meaning because it is now seen in the light of all the others. With the Calabrian Abbot, a pattern of cosmic order in the natural world has been transformed into the cosmic order of salvation in the spiritual world. Another example of medieval epistemology: figurae enable comprehension of scientific truths.

Method 7He Discovered and Promoted the Concept of Progress

Joachim speaks: The Father is a principle, the Son is a principle, the Holy Spirit is a principlenot three principles, but one principle, but because the faithful acknowledge that God is three Persons, he has willed to be three sorts of principles at three proper times of which the first belongs especially to the Father, the second to the Son, the third to the Holy Spirit. Each trinitarian Figure has different characteristics. They are seen to be distinct by their own limits and signification. Over time the Divine expresses Self in new ways and the possibility of terrestrial change emerges. Joachims research revealed seven divine gifts had been sent to chosen creatures, but these gifts begin to exist from the time from which the creatures begin to exist to whom they are sent . . . . Not, of course, that [divine] nature with which there is no alteration or shadow of change is mutable, but because the creatures in whose behalf all this is said did not exist at that time. Divinity is immutable, but because different earthly creatures emerge over time, Gods relationship with creation changes. Out of the Unchangeable comes change. Medieval theology, rooted in St. Augustine, argued strenuously that God was unchanging and significant change would come only with the eschatological conclusion. Luckmann and Berger contend that humanity creates reality unique to its era. Through research the Calabrian introduced a profound alternative to his contemporaries understanding. Joachims concept of progress reshaped the European consciousness. The Holy Trinitys relationship with humanity changes over time. Human progress ensues. In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Thomas Kuhn argues that paradigm shifts have world-shattering impact on how scientists comprehend their subject matter.

Examining the record of past research from the vantage of contemporary historiography, the historian of science may be tempted to exclaim that when paradigms change, the world itself changes with them. Led by a new paradigm, scientists adopt new instruments and look in new places. Even more important, during revolutions scientists see new and different things when looking with familiar instruments in places they have looked before. It is rather as if the professional community had been suddenly transported to another planet where familiar objects are seen in a different light and are joined by unfamiliar ones as well.

Joachim of Fiore, the pre-modern scientist, produced an innovative hypothesis resulting in an historiographical paradigm shift. The concept of progress, the Abbots assumption shattering insight, was nothing less than another planet concept. A different model of celestial/terrestrial relationship emerged resulting in social transformation. He reinforced his progress theory with additional data: we acknowledge two times and two peoplesthe time of the fathers and that of the sons, the Jewish people and the Gentile people from whom proceeds the one church of spiritual men. Two blend into one and a third emerges. Again, if we enumerate in order the generations of the ages beginning from Adam who was the first parent of all, in almost each decade of generations a beginning is found . . . . Joachims strenuous exegesis discovered a variety of new beginnings. For centuries authorities had discouraged speculation about possibilities of a better life: Wait for the Eschaton. Only then will life be better for the elect! Suddenly a spiritual, intellectual giant in remote southern Italy began publishing scholarly works based on scientific analysis of that most authoritative literary source, the Holy Bible. He also argued that post-biblical events, when properly analyzed, suggested human transformation was to occur before the End. Joachim is the first theologian of history who introduced the idea of progress into the theology of history. Development and progress are not understood in human terms, as the growth of a germ which has been planted within humanity itself. They are, rather, considered as steps in the progressive self-realization and self-revelation of the divine Trinity in the history of mankind. It is another, completely new type of Christian expectation of the end of time in which the idea of evolution and progress is applied for the first time to the history of salvation. McGinn describes Joachims transported to another planet thesis. The abbot of Fiore . . . advances beyond classic apocalyptic views in the important element of immanent teleology found in his thought. . . . The progress that is being achieved is the gradual spiritualization of the elect under the action of the Holy Trinity. Progress is achieved by people leaving aside human machinations and, guided by meditation and prayer, execute divine wisdom. Stilland this is the decisive pointJoachim does have a sense of progress and renewal within the world that breaks with the pessimism of Augustine and most earlier medieval theology. Truly a paradigm shift. Giuan-Luca Potesta underlines Joachims conclusions. The third state was . . . an era where history would grow younger. The meek and humble would be its protagonists, and during this time the promise of the Magnificat would be fulfilled, and the mystery of the divine election of the youngestJacobinstead of the eldestEsauwould be fully revealed. So many hope-filled biblical images were about to be realized. The third status Spirit breathes where he wills and divides to each from his store as he desires. In Joachims words, spiritual understanding, proceeding from both Testaments, is one that pertains especially to the Holy Spirit. It was going to happen soon. This will not take place in the days of your grandchildren or in the old age of your children, but in your own days, few and evil. The third age was to be a thousand years of human opportunity, the great Sabbath . . . at the end of the world . . . , the last revelation of Gods purpose on earth and in time. Is it any wonder that so many were intrigued by his vision? His audience wanted a better world, a positive extension of history and not a traumatic conclusion to earthly life. New heights of grace, knowledge, freedom and love, sunshine and lilies all evoke the coming age of freedom. And Holy Spirit thinking is reappearing in our post-modern world. Scholars speak of an emerging age of the Spirit in western Christian life and thinking making reference to Joachim of Fiore.

Joachim did for the topic of prophecy . . . what other Scholastics did for their subjects of interest. He put the whole matter into order by a strict application of accepted scholarly apparatus . . . , but the end result was more than a systematic ordering of prophetic systems. Joachims kaleidoscopic and powerful imagination produced the most comprehensive analysis of history in the Middle Ages. A powerful description of his pre-modern historiographical science! His cosmic vision of history, ever moving forward toward a new age of peace and prosperity, was a seed for ideas of progress. . . . History has movement, regardless of temporal successes or failures. There is a destiny for man and the destiny is one of a better life in time on earth. Joachims epistemological research revealed that the Holy Ones Persona changes over time. The outcome of his research was a radical change in human expectations. All perfection was not to be found in the past, in some Golden Age, such as the time of the Primitive Church, which later ages could only hope to revive in imperfect fashion. No, the age of perfection lay ahead. . . . The third status, though profoundly spiritual, is both a new stage of history and a new kind of society within history. The Impact of Joachims Historiographical Discoveries

In his own time, the Cistercian was perceived as a monk of virtue and integrity, a mystical master, an exegetical giant. He stood apart from academia and papal governance of his day, engaged, as he was, in what many contemporaries considered a strange form of biblical research. At the churchs Lateran Council in 1215, his some of his writings, but not the man, were condemned because he had criticized the trinitarian theology of Peter Lombard. The Abbot had a long-term impact because his predictions were based upon medieval science. His clever, creative employment of pre-modern epistemology resulted in a paradigm shift in peoples understanding of future possibilities. According to West and Zimdars-Swartz, Joachims greatest legacy was his historiography. Joachims original view of a cosmic world order was fresh and it was sustaining. It became implanted into the minds of Western men and was nurtured by intellectual inheritance. His historiography was persuasive and ultimately incited diverse men to action. From this ferment emerged a powerful and seductive vision for individuals, groups and movements. Joachims authoritative third status vision launched a multi-faceted eight-hundred-year explosion of innovative, sometimes revolutionary movements focused on reshaping human history in order to build a new world. Trinitarian thinking became secularized, intellectualized and politicized in a wide variety of ways, sometimes disturbingly destructive. Norman Cohn suggests that Joachim invented a new prophetic system, which was to be the most influential one known to Europe until the appearance of Marxism . . . .

Irving Horowitz believes Joachims third age thinking made the monastic calling more attractive. This pre-knowledge of future success, sanctioned as it is by an historical telos, makes all sacrifices seem trivial. Asceticism becomes transformed from an economic necessity into a moral virtue. Thirteenth century Spiritual Franciscan fascination with Joachism confirms this point. In his schemata the order of the married which flourished in the first time seems to pertain to the Father . . . , the order of preachers in the second time to the Son, and so the order of monks to whom the last great times are given pertains to the Holy Spirit. His research changed how monks perceived their calling and future monasticism.

Westfall Thompson identifies the Abbots early sway. Joachism, that strange mystical, wistful everlasting gospel . . . spread beyond the Alps and was capturing mens hearts by its visionary nature. Huizinga suggests Joachim was the first precursor of the renaissance and Lee, Reeves and Silano insist the apocalyptic writings of Joachim of Fiore were of fundamental importance in forming the world-view and shaping the historical consciousness of the later Middle Ages. His third era hypothesis with its utopian foci created an intelligibility to the entire historical process. This lucidity was used and abused in many ways. People described as Gnostic intellectuals promoted a secularized post-renaissance version of the Calabrians future predictions. According to Eliade, it was especially the projection onto the historical future and the concrete nature of this Third Age that fascinated philosophers and ideologues of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. This obscure Italian monk caught my attention because of his impact on twentieth century political ideology. Hitlers Third Reich and Lenins Third International have been perceived as distorted examples of the Abbots third age science. Southern corroborates this articles thesis. Joachim emerges from what I may call the scientific and intellectual enquires of the twelfth century. His science conferred authority on his writings and his ways of knowing methodologies, described herein, lent substance and credibility to his vision of the future. People were confident in his calculations and embraced his better world. More than that, they went to work to make his future forecasts happen. Marjorie Reeves, queen of twentieth century Joachimite scholarship, summarizes the Abbots impact. It is not the devout biblical exegete who has lingered longest in the historical memory, but the imaginative, artistic apostle of a bold new spirit, a spirit which bloweth where it listeth. The Abbot who submitted all his writings to the authority of the Pope has become transformed into a symbol of anarchy and revolutionary change. A Calabrian Who Changed the World

We conclude where we began. Carlo Levi described the intellectual barrenness of southern Italy. None of the pioneers of Western civilization brought here his sense of the passage of time, his deification of the State or that ceaseless activity which feeds upon itself. In fact, a forerunner of modern Western civilization researched and wrote there in the twelfth century. The Abbots trinitarian science contributed to future oriented creeds: liberalism, socialism, communism and fascism. Joachims sense of historical progress was transmuted into Mussolinis deification of the State leading to Levis internal exile. Italian fascism was constructed, in part, upon visionary foundations laid by the pivotal Calabrian. Nevertheless, these ideologies contradicted Joachims historiographical conclusions. The Abbot was looking for a Spirit world, not a fascist empire.

We close with a paradigmatic moment. On one occasion, when rain clouds disappeared from over the church where Joachim was officiating, he saluted the sun, sang Veni Creator Spiritus and led the congregation forth to contemplate the shining landscape.

Lift up the eyes of your mind from the dust of the earth; leave behind raging crowds and clashing words! In the Spirit follow the angel into the desert; with him ascend that mountain vast and high so that you can see the deep counsels hidden from days of old and from endless generations.

Joachim of Fiore

Endnotes

Ralph of Coggeshall, Cronicon Anglicanum (Rs 66, 68) quoted in Bernard McGinn, The Calabrian Abbot Joachim of Fiore in the History of Western Thought (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1985) 29. Endnotes references to McGinn relate to this book.

Carlo Levi, Christ Stopped at Eboli trans. Frances Frenaye (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1963) 4.

Some authors refer to him as Joachim of Floris.

Joachim, Liber Concordie Novi ac Veteris Testamenti (Venice, 1519), V. 1 (f. 60v), McGinn, 131. Joachim of Fiores works are listed in McGinns The Calabrian Abbot, xi-xii.

In the eleventh century armed groups from Normandy invaded southern Italy and establishing small kingdoms.

Ernest Benz, Evolution and Christian Hope Mans Concept of the Future from the Early Fathers to Teilhard de Chardin, trans. Heinz G. Frank (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1966) 46.

Ibid., 48.

Marjorie Reeves, The Influence of Prophecy in the Later Middle Ages: A Study of Joachimism (Oxford: at the Clarendon Press, 1969) 4-5.

McGinn, 26.

Ibid., 236.

Leonard Krieger, Times Reasons, Philosophies of History Old and New (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1989) 17.

Mircea Eliade, Cosmos and History The Myth of the Eternal Return, trans. Willard R. Trask (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1959) 145. Joachims Eternal Gospel thinking was inspired by Revelation 14: 6.

Joachim, Expositio Epistola Prologalis (f. lv), McGinn, 29. From Bernard McGinn, Visions of the End: Apocalyptic Traditions in the Middle Ages (New York: Columbia University Press, 1979) 141.

Delno C. West and Sandra Zimdars-Swartz, Joachim of Fiore A Study in Spiritual Perceptions and History (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983) xi.

James Burke, The Day the Universe Changed (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1985) 108-09.

West and Zimdars-Swartz, xi.

R. G. Collingwood, The Idea of History (Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1941) 53-54.

M.-D. Chenu, Nature, Man, and Society in the Twelfth Century Theology and the New Awareness of History, selected, edited and translated by Jerome Taylor & Lester K. Little (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979)162.

McGinn, 24

Janet Coleman, Ancient and Medieval Memories Studies in the Reconstruction of the Past (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992) 287.

Marjorie Reeves, Joachim of Fiore and the Prophetic Future (London: SPCK, 1976) 2.

Ibid., 10-11.

West and Zimdars-Swartz, xi-xii.

Ibid., 111-12.

Coleman, 286-87 with reference to Reeves, Influence of Prophecy and Reeves, Joachim of Fiore and the Prophetic Future.

Collingwood, 53.

Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality, A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (New York: Anchor Books, 1967) 183.

Henry, John, The Scientific Revolution and the Origins of Modern Science, 2nd edition (New York: Palgrave, 2002) 86.

Brooke, John Headley, Science and Religion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991) 22.

D. A. Carson, Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church Understanding a Movement and Its Implications (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005) 88.

Carson, 88-89.

Collingwood, 55-56.

M. Reeves, Influence of Prophecy Preface, no page numbers.

Ibid., 16.

Aaron Zimmerman, Moral Epistemology (London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2010) 23.

Joachim, Liber Concordie, Preface, Karl Lwith, Meaning in History (Chicago: Phoenix Books, The University of Chicago, 1949) 139.

Joachim, Tractatus super quatuor Evangelia di Gioacchino da Fiore, ed. Ernesto Buonaiuti (Rome: Istituto Storico Italiano, Fonti per la Storia dItalia, 1930) 146, McGinn, 128.

Joachim, Expositio in Apocalypsim (Venice, 1527) f. 153vb, McGinn, 125.

Ibid., Expositio f. 95ra, McGinn, 127.

Reeves, Joachim of Fiore and the Prophetic Future, 16.

Joachim, Tractatus, 288, McGinn, 128.

Liber Concordie V. 1 (ff. 60vb-61ra), McGinn, 132.

Sarah was Abrahams wife and Hagar her servant whom she gave to her husband to bear his child, Genesis 16.

Joachim, Tractatus, 21, McGinn, 125.

McGinn, 126 with reference to Tractatus, 286.

Reeves, Joachim of Fiore and the Prophetic Future, 16.

Marjorie Reeves and Warwick Gould, Joachim of Fiore & the Myth of the Eternal Evangel in the Nineteenth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986) 318.

McGinn, 137.

Ibid., 125.

Joachim, The Book of Concordance, Book 2, Part 1, trans. and notes by E. Randolph Daniel in McGinn, Apocalyptic Spirituality Treatises and Letters trans. and introduced by Bernard McGinn, preface by Marjorie Reeves (New York: Paulist Press, 1979) 134. Tempora are times or eras.

Joachim, The Book of Concordance, Book 2, Part 1, trans. and notes by E. Randolph Daniel in McGinn, Apocalyptic Spirituality, 126.

McGinn, 124.

Lwith, 150.

Robert E. Lerner, The Feast of St. Abraham Medieval Millenarianism and the Jews (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001), 13.

West and Zimdars-Swartz, 110-11.

Joachim, Expositio f. 39 r-v, McGinn, 21-22. Translation from McGinn, Visions, 130.

Ibid., Expositio, (f. 5 r), McGinn, 150.

Lwith, 149.

Joachim, Liber Concordie V.1, (f. 60va), McGinn, 130.

Ibid., Liber Concordie, II.1.2, (f. 7rb; ed. E. Randolph Daniel, Abbot Joachim of Fiore (Philadelphia: Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 73, Part 8, 1973) 62, McGinn, 130.

Lerner, 12-13

West and Zimdars-Swartz, xiii

Ibid., pp xi-xii.

Benz, 38.

Joachim, Liber Concordie V. 106 (f. 125 rb), McGinn, 124.

Ibid., Liber Concordie, III.1.1 (f. 25vb; ed. Daniel) 210-11, McGinn, 131.

Ibid., Expositio, (f. 37 va), McGinn, 156.

Ibid., Psalterium decem chordarum (Venice, 1527) f. 227r-v, McGinn, 22. Translation from McGinn, Apocalyptic Spirituality (New York: Classics of Western Spirituality, 1979) 99.

Ibid., Expositio, (f. 5 r), McGinn, 150. Status means era or age.

McGinn, 125.

Joachim, Liber Concordie, III.1.9 (f. 29rb; ed. Daniel) 232, McGinn, 126.

Ibid., Expositio (f. 37va), McGinn, 156.

McGinn, 161.

Krieger, 17 with reference to Lwith, Meaning in History, 156.

Benz, 47.

Joachim, Commentarium in Apocalypsim (Venice, 1527), Edward A. Armstrong, St. Francis: Nature Mystic The Derivation and Significance of the Nature Stories in the Franciscan Legend(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973) 70. (Commentarium describes the document McGinn refers to as Expositio.)

Ernst Breisach, Historiography, Ancient, Medieval and Modern, 3rd ed. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2007) 141. See Figure 10.3,Joachim of Fiores Tripartite Scheme of History, 142. Breisach is not alone. John Polkinghorne, physicist and Anglican priest, recently published Science and the Trinity: The Christian Encounter with Reality. He does not refer to Joachim, but it is interesting to see that trinitarian scientific thinking continues.

Joachim, Concordia Novi ac Veteris Testamenti, Venice, 1519, trans. E. Benz in Eranos-Jahrbuch, 1956, 314 f., quoted by Jrgen Moltmann in The Trinity and the Kingdom of God, trans. Margaret Kohl (London: SCM Press, 1981) 149.

Ibid., Liber Concordie, IV.2.1 (f. 56vb; Daniel) 405, McGinn, 187.

The final book in the bible, The Revelation of John, is also known as the Apocalypse, the Revelation of the future.

Joachim, Expositio, f. 3rb, McGinn, 147.

Ibid., Expositio f. 39 r-v, McGinn, 146. According to Joachim, the sixth tempus began in the twelfth century.

McGinn, 115.

West and Zimdars-Swartz, xiii.

McGinn, 88-89

Ibid., 156.

Richard K. Emmerson and Ronald B. Herzman, The Apocalyptic Imagination in Medieval Literature (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, c1992) 5.

McGinn, 191.

Joachim, Psalterium, McGinn, 22. Translation from McGinn, Apocalyptic Spirituality, 99.

Marjorie Reeves and Beatrice Hirsch-Reich, The Figurae of Joachim of Fiore (Oxford: University Press, 1972)

McGinn, 99

Ibid., 107.

Reeves, Influence of Prophecy, 505.

McGinn, 117.

Joachim, The Seven-Headed Dragon Figure, Tondelli, Reeves, and Hirsch-Reich, McGinn, 111.

West and Zimdars-Swartz, 13

McGinn, 191.

Joachim, Tree Circles, Reeves and Hirsch-Reich, Appendix, number 19.

McGinn, 115. Contemporary science uses images to represent scientific mysteries. A current example is the mysterious Higgs Boson Particle.

Reeves and Hirsch-Reich, 225.

Joachim, Expositio, f. 34ra, McGinn, 179.

Ibid., (f. 37 va), McGinn, 156.

Joachim, Psalterium. II, f. 261v, McGinn, 169.

Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1996) 111.

Joachim, Expositio, f. 37va, McGinn, 171.

Ibid., Psalterium, II, f. 272ra, McGinn, 182.

Benz, 39.

Ibid., 37.

Ibid, 35.

McGinn, 190-91.

Giuan-Luca Potesta, Joachim of Fiore, in Encyclopedia of Christian Theology, Vol. 2, ed. Jean-Yves Lacoste, (Oxford: Routledge Press, 2004) 818.

Joachim, Expositio, f. 6r, McGinn, 173.

Ibid., The Book of Concordance, Book 2, Part 1 in McGinn, Apocalyptic Spirituality, 133.

Ibid., Epistola universalis, ed. Jeanne Bignami-Odier, 233, as translated in Bernard McGinn, Apolcalyptic Spirituality (New York, Classics of Western Spirituality, 1979) 117.

Ibid., Expositio, f. 209vb, McGinn, 153.

Lwith, 150-51.

Diana Butler Bass, Christianity for the Rest of Us (New York: HarperOne, 2006) 206n120, Phyllis Tickle, The Great Emergence How Christianity is Changing and Why (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2012) 164n8, and Harvey Cox, The Future of Faith (New York: HarperOne, 2009) 8-10.

West and Zimdars-Swartz, 111.

Ibid., 112.

McGinn, 191.

West and Zimdars-Swartz, 110.

Norman Cohen, The Pursuit of the Millennium (London: Secker & Warburg, 1957) 99.

Irving Louis Horowitz, Philosophy, Science and the Sociology of Knowledge, Foreword Robert S. Cohen (Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, Publishers, 1976) 93.

Joachim, Expositio, f. 5r-v (trans. from Visions) 134, McGinn, 186.

James Westfall Thompson, A History of Historical Writing, Vol. 1 (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1942) 283.

Johan Huizinga, Men and Ideas: History, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, trans. James S. Holmes & Hans van Marle (New York: Meridian Books, 1959) 274.

Lee, Harold, Marjorie Reeves and Giulio Silano, Western Mediterranean Prophecy The School of Joachim of Fiore and the Fourteenth-Century Breviloquium (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1989) summary page, no number.

McGinn, 110.

Voegelin, Chapter 4, GnosticismThe Nature of Modernity, p 107-132.

Eliade in Forward to McGinns The Calabrian Abbot, xiv-xv.

R.W. Southern, Aspects of the European Tradition of Historical Writing: History as Prophecy, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Fifth Series, Volume 22 (London: University College Gower St., 1972) 173.

Reeves, Joachim of Fiore and the Prophetic Future, 174-75.

H. Paul Santmire, The Travail of Nature, The Ambiguous Ecological Promise of Christian Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1985) 114 with reference to Armstrong, St. Francis, 30.

Joachim, Liber Concordie Book II.1.1 (fl 5v; Daniel) 52, McGinn, 236.

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Carson, D. A., Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church Understanding a Movement and Its Implications (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005)

Chenu, M.-D., Nature, Man, and Society in the Twelfth Century Essays on New theological Perspectives in the Latin West, selected, edited and translated by Jerome Taylor & Lester K. Little (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979)

Cohen, H. Floris, The Scientific Revolution a Historiographical Inquiry (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1994)

Cohen, Norman, The Pursuit of the Millennium(London: Secker & Warburg, 1957)

Coleman, Janet, Ancient and Medieval Memories Studies in the Reconstruction of the Past (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992)

Crombie, A. C., Science, Optics and Music in Medieval and Early Modern Thought (London: The Hambledon Press, 1990)

Eliade, Mircea, Cosmos and History The Myth of the Eternal Return, trans. Willard R. Trask (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1959)

Emmerson, Richard K. and Ronald B. Herzman, The Apocalyptic Imagination in Medieval Literature (Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992)

Fontana, Josep, The Distorted Past, A Reinterpretation of Europe, trans. Colin Smith (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995)

Gilson, Etienne, History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages (New York: Random House, 1955)

Henry, John, The Scientific Revolution and the Origins of Modern Science, 2nd edition (New York: Palgrave, 2002)

Horowitz, Irving Louis, Philosophy, Science and the Sociology of Knowledge, Foreword Robert S. Cohen (Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, Publishers, 1976)

Huizinga, Johan, Men and Ideas Essays on History, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, trans. James S. Holmes & Hans van Marle (New York: Meridian Books, 1959)

Joachim of Fiore is quoted regularly and several of his symbolic images are exhibited in this article. All come from a variety of secondary sources credited in the Endnotes.

Krieger, Leonard, Times Reasons Philosophies of History Old and New (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1989)

Kuhn, Thomas S., The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1996)

Lee, Harold, Marjorie Reeves and Giulio Silano, Western Mediterranean Prophecy The School of Joachim of Fiore and the Fourteenth-Century Breviloquium (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1989)

Lerner, Robert E., The Feast of St. Abraham Medieval Millenarianism and the Jews (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001)

Levi, Carlo, Christ Stopped at Eboli, trans. Frances Frenaye (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1963)

Lwith, Karl, Meaning in History (Chicago: Phoenix Books, The University of Chicago, 1949)

McGinn, Bernard, Apocalyptic Spirituality Treatises and Letters, trans. & intro. Bernard McGinn, preface by Marjorie Reeves (New York: Paulist Press, 1979)

__________ The Calabrian Abbot Joachim of Fiore in the History of Western Thought (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1985)

Moltmann, Jrgen, The Trinity and the Kingdom of God, trans. Margaret Kohl (London: SCM Press, 1981)

Moyn, Samuel, Jewish and Christian Philosophy of History in A Companion to the Philosophy of History and Historiography, ed. Aviezer Tucker (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009)

Polkinghorne, John, Science and the Trinity The Christian Encounter With Reality (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004)

Potesta, Giuan-Luca, Joachim of Fiore, in Encyclopedia of Christian Theology, Vol. 2, ed. Jean-Yves Lacoste (Oxford: Routledge Press, 2004)

Procacci, Giuliano, History of the Italian People, trans. Anthony Paul (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1970)

Reeves, Marjorie, The Influence of Prophecy in the Later Middle Ages: A Study of Joachimism (Oxford: at the Clarendon Press, 1969)

__________ and Beatrice Hirsch-Reich, The Figurae of Joachim of Fiore (Oxford: University Press, 1972)

__________ Joachim of Fiore and the Prophetic Future (London: SPCK, 1976)

__________ and Warwick Gould, Joachim of Fiore and the Myth of the Eternal Evangel in the Nineteenth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986)

Santmire, H. Paul, The Travail of Nature The Ambiguous Ecological Promise of Christian Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1985)

Taylor, Hugh, History as a Science (Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1933)

Thompson, James Westfall, A History of Historical Writing, Vol. 1 (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1942)

Toulmin, Stephen, Cosmopolis The Hidden Agenda of Modernity (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1990)

Voegelin, Eric, The New Science of Politics (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1952)

West, Delno C. and Sandra Zimdars-Swartz, Joachim of Fiore A Study in Spiritual Perceptions and History (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983)

Zimmerman, Aaron, Moral Epistemology (London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2010)

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