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Synopsis
JOACHIM OF FLORIS. Very little is
known with certainty of the life of this remarkable man. The biography which
Jacobus Græcus Syllanæus, a monk of the monastery of Flore,
published in 1612, is very little reliable, in spite of the authors
appeal to elder documents; and the notes of his friend and secretary Jacobus
have not come down to us in their original form. He is said to have been born
at Cælicum, a village near Cosenza, in 1145, and to have been brought to
the court of Roger II. of Sicily when he was fourteen years old (Roger II.,
however, died in 1154). After a pilgrimage to
the holy Land, he became monk, and afterwards abbot, of the Cistercian monastery of Corace in Calabria...
But he afterwards left that place, and retired, with his friend Rainerius, to
the mountain solitudes of Sylæ, near Cosenza. There he built a new
monastery (St. Joannis en Flori), of which he became abbot, and into which he
introduced a set of rules more severe than those of the Cistercians. The
monastery was confirmed as an independent institution by Cælestine III.,
and became the mother of several other similar establishments. Three popes -
Lucius III., Urban III., and Clement III. - took an interest in his
prophetico-apocalyptical studies; and in a document drawn up in 1200, and
containing the names of his works, - Concordia utriusque testamenti; Expositiones in Apocal., Psalterium; Contra Judæos; Contra Cathol. Fid. Adversarios, of which the two last have perished, -
he admonished his brother-abbots to lay his works before the Pope, and obtain
his sanction. He died between September, 1201, and June, 1202.
The first point in which Joachim drew down
upon himself the censure of the Church, though not until after his death, was
his polemics against the scholastic exposition of the doctrine of the Holy
Trinity by Petrus Lombardus. The
Lombards definition of the divine essence seemed to him to lead to a
quaternity; but, in his attempt to escape from this error, he himself fell into
a kind of tritheism, which was severely censured by the Fourth Council of the Lateran, 1215 (Mansi: Concil., xxii. 981). Of still graver import were those speculations
which developed from his eschatological views,
and which finally assumed a decidedly anti-Roman and anti-churchly tendency.
Joachim taught that there had been a reign of the Father from the creation to
the birth of Christ, and a reign of the Son, which should come to an end in
1260, and be followed by a reign of the Holy Spirit. These views were adopted
by certain groups of the Franciscan order, and
gave rise to the idea of an everlasting gospel, which should supersede both the
Old and the New Testament. The Introductorius in Evangelium Æternum,
written by Ghehardinus de Burgo Sancti Domini, and published in Paris, 1254,
made an inunense sensation, and caused a still further development of the
apocalyptical ideas of Joachim.
G Voigt, "Joachim of Floris,"
Philip Schaff, ed., A Religious Encyclopaedia or Dictionary of Biblical,
Historical, Doctrinal, and Practical Theology, 3rd edn, Vol. 2. Toronto,
New York & London: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1894. p.1183.
|
David Allen,
"Abbot Joachim of Fiore: The Trinity and the Church of the Spirit," Paraclete 23.3 (1989): 29-32. |
|
M.W.
Bloomfield, "Recent Scholarship of Joachim of Fiore and His Influence," A.
Williams, ed. Prophecy and Millenarianism: Essays in Honour of Marjorie
Reeves. Harlow: Longman Group, 1980. bk. ISBN: 0582361362. pp.21-52. |
|
E. Randolph
Daniel, "Joachim of Fiore: New Editions and Studies," Christianesimo Nella
Storia 21.3 (2000): 675-685. |
|
G. Dickson,
"Prophecy and rationalism: Joachim of Fiore, Jewish messianism and the
Children's Crusade of 1212," Florensia 13-14 (1999-2000):
97-104. |
|
Warwick Gould & Marjorie
Reeves, Joachim of Fiore and the Myth of the Eternal Evangel in the
Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, rev. edn. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2001. Hbk. ISBN: 0199242305. pp.448. |
|
International
Center for Joachimist Studies |
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David Larsen,
"Joachim of Fiore: The Rebirth of Futurism," Covenant Quarterly 60.1
(2002): 1-15. |
|
Bernard
McGinn, "The Abbot and the Doctors: Scholastic Reactions to the Radical
Eschatology of Joachim of Fiore," Church History 40.1 (1971):
30-47. |
|
Bernard
McGinn, ed., Apocalyptic Spirituality: Treatises and Letters by Lactantius,
Adso of Montier-en-Derl, Joachim of Fiore, the Spiritual Franciscans and
Savonarola. London: SPCK, 1980. Pbk. ISBN: 0281037450. pp.257. |
|
Bernard
McGinn, "Symbolism in the Thought of Joachim of Fiore," A. Williams & M.W.
Bloomfield, eds., Prophecy and Millenarianism: Essays in Honour of Marjorie
Reeves. Harlow: Longman Group, 1980. bk. ISBN: 0582361362. |
|
Bernard
McGinn, The Calabrian Abbot: Joachim of Fiore in the History of Western
Thought. Macmillan USA, 1985. Hbk. ISBN: 0029195500. pp.280. |
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Jürgen
Moltmann, "Christian Hope: Messianic Or Transcendent? A Theological Discussion
With Joachim Of Fiore And Thomas Aquinas," Horizons 12.2 (1985):
328-348. |
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Marjorie
E. Reeves, The Influence of Prophecy in the Later Middle Ages. A Study of
Joachimism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Hbk. ISBN: 0198270305.
pp.588. |
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Marjorie E. Reeves, Joachim of Fiore and
the Prophetic Future, updated edn. Sutton Publishing, 1999. Pbk. ISBN:
075092151X. pp.224. |
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Marjorie E. Reeves & W.
Gould, Joachim of Fiore and the Myth of the Eternal Evangel in the
Fourteenth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987. Hbk. ISBN:
0199242305. pp.448. |
|
Fiona Robb,
"Who Hath Chosen the Better Part? (Luke 10,42): Pope Innocent III and Joachim
of Fiore on the Diverse Forms of Religious Life," Monastic Studies 2
(1991): 157-70. |
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Fiona Robb,
"Did Innocent III Personally Condemn Joachim of Fiore?" Florenzia 7
(1993): 77-91. |
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Ernest Crewdson Thomas [1876-1950], History of the Schoolmen. London: Williams & Norgate Ltd., 1941. Hbk. pp.677. pdf [This material is in the Public Domain] |
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Delno C.
West, ed. Joachim of Fiore in Christian Thought. Essays on the Influence of
the Calabrian Prophet, 2 Vols.. New York: New York : B. Franklin, 1975.
ISBN: 0891020373. pp.xxiv + 631. |
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