Joachim of Fiore
JOACHIM OF FIORE (c. 1135–1202) was an Italian monk and biblical exegete. Joachim was born in Calabria, and after a pilgrimage to Palestine he returned to southern Italy, where he became successively abbot of the Benedictine, later Cistercian, monastery at Curazzo and founder of his own Florensian congregation at San Giovanni in Fiore. The Mediterranean was then a crossroads of history, with pilgrims and Crusaders coming and going and rumors of "the infidel" rife. Joachim was acutely aware of living in the end time and sought an interpretation of history through biblical exegesis illumined by spiritual understanding, a view elaborated upon in works such as Liber Concordie Novi ac Veteris Testamenti (1519), Expositio in Apocalypsim (1527), and Psalterium decem chordarum (1527).
Joachim recorded two experiences of mystical illumination (and hints of a third) in which the trinitarian understanding of history was revealed to him. He developed his theology of history through investigations into biblical concords, or sequences. The first sequence arises from the relation of the old and new dispensations. The second sequence, the procession of the Holy Spirit from both Father and Son, exemplifies his famous "pattern of threes": the first stage (statusi) that of the law, belongs to the Father and lasts until the incarnation of Jesus Christ; the second, that of grace, belongs to the Son and lasts until a near future point; the third, that of the Spirit, proceeding from the first two and characterized by love and liberty, runs until the second advent of Christ. Joachim found the clues for his scheme of history in particular biblical sequences, for instance, in the references to the twelve patriarchs, the twelve apostles, and the twelve expected future leaders, and in references to Noah's sending forth of a raven and a dove paralleling the mission of Paul and Barnabas, which he took as evidence for the future founding of two orders of spiritual people.
Joachim's originality lay in the concept of a third stage still to come, whereas in the standard threefold pattern (before the law, under the law, and under grace) the church had already entered the third stage. Joachim believed that the transition to the third status must be made only through the tribulation of the greatest Antichrist (the seventh dragon's head), who was imminent. This age to come, the age of the Spirit (equated with the seventh, or sabbath, age), was part of history and should be distinguished from the eighth day of eternity.
Joachim was recognized as a prophet in his lifetime. Richard I of England, leading the Third Crusade, interviewed him at Messina. In the thirteenth century his concept of the coming of two orders of spiritual people achieved a "prophetic scoop" when the Dominicans ("ravens") and Franciscans ("doves") were founded. In both orders, especially the Franciscan, some friars claimed the role outlined by Joachim, which successively fired the imagination not only of heretical groups—the Apostolic Brethren, Fraticelli, Provençal Beguines, and others—but also of some Augustinian hermits and Jesuits. Pseudo-Joachimist works spread the prophecies, and Joachimist influence is traceable as late as the seventeenth century in the myths of the Angelic Pope and the Last World Emperor. In 1254 occurred the "scandal of the eternal evangel," when a Franciscan proclaimed Joachim's works to be the new gospel, replacing the Old and New Testaments. This was widely documented and later referred to by Lessing, the eighteenth-century German philosopher whose Education of the Human Race was widely influential in promoting an optimistic view of the future age. Consequently, the nineteenth century saw a revival of interest in Joachim's third status among visionaries such as Jules Michelet, Edgar Quinet, Pierre Leroux, and George Sand who were antiecclesiastical but looked for a new gospel. Some scholars claim Joachim as the source of all later threefold patterns of history, but this is questionable.
Bibliography
Bloomfield, Morton. "Joachim of Flora: A Critical Survey of His Canon, Teachings, Sources, Biography, and Influence." Traditio 13 (1957): 249–311. The best bibliographical survey, now updated in "Recent Scholarship on Joachim of Fiore and His Influence," in Prophecy and Millenarianism, edited by Ann Williams (London, 1980), pp. 23–52.
McGinn, Bernard. The Calabrian Abbot. New York, 1985. An account of Joachim's place in the history of Western thought.
Reeves, Marjorie E. The Influence of Prophecy in the Later Middle Ages. Oxford, 1969. Deals with Joachim's life and thought and traces his influence down to the seventeenth century.
Reeves, Marjorie E. Joachim of Fiore and the Prophetic Future. London, 1976. A brief account summarizing material in the preceding and the following book and incorporating some new material.
Reeves, Marjorie E., and Beatrice Hirsch-Reich. The Figurae of Joachim of Fiore. Oxford, 1972. A study of Joachim's use of symbolism, especially in his Liber figurarum.
West, Delno C., ed. Joachim of Fiore in Christian Thought: Essays on the Influence of the Calabrian Prophet. 2 vols. New York, 1975. Reprints essays from various journals, dating from 1930 to 1971.
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