methods of answering the challenge of heresy. The first was reform, the weeding out of those abuses which gave anti-sacerdotalism its case and its opportunity, reform whereby all might be enabled to recognize incontestably that Christ was plainly revealed in the life of His Church. The second was missionary propaganda, the utilization of the same weapon which the enemy so trenchantly wielded—that of persuasion. The third possible method was constraint.
CHAPTER III - ‘THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL’
In 1196 Pope Celestine III gave his sanction to a new order, of which the mother-house was in Fiore. From this place its founder derived his name, and he is generally known as Joachim of Flora. Born of a noble family and intended for a courtier, he had joined the Cistercians in the desire for a life of austere discipline, but finding its severities insufficient to satisfy his zeal had retired into a hermitage, where however would-be disciples sought him out, so that he had to put himself at their head. Joachim, who has been described as ‘the founder of modern mysticism,’44 regarded himself as inspired, and in his own life-time obtained the reputation of a prophet. As a prophet he is recognized in Dante.45 There is no question that Joachim was much under Greek influences. Calabria itself, the scene of most of his labours, was half-Greek; he paid more than one visit to Greece, came in contact with the Greek Church and also almost certainly with the Cathari, for Greece was a hotbed of their doctrines. There is some common ground between Catharism and the peculiar teachings with which the name of Abbot Joachim is associated. Except for a few unimportant pamphlets against the Jews and other adversaries of the Christian faith there are only three works of which he was the undoubted author—a concordance, a psalter and a commentary on the book of the Revelation. The authenticity of two epistles ascribed to him is probable, but many other works put down to his authorship after his death are certainly spurious.46
The contemporary reputation of Joachim would appear to have been derived as much from his spoken utterances as from his writings: but Adam Marsh prized the smallest fragments of his works, sending them whenever he could obtain them from Italy to Bishop Grosseteste. On the other hand, however interesting and indeed startling they may have been, they were not during their author’s lifetime regarded as in any way injurious. His reputation as a seer was wholly orthodox and unexceptionable. In 1200 he submitted his books to the Holy See for its approval, and the verdict was that they were undoubtedly of divine inspiration. Thirteen years later, indeed, certain speculations concerning the Trinity in one of his minor tracts were condemned by the Council of the Lateran. But the author was not personally condemned, and his order was definitely approved; while in 1220 Honorius III issued a bull declaring Joachim to have been a good Catholic.47
It is doubtful if the name of Joachim of Flora would ever have been of any more than very transitory importance had it not been for the appearance in 1254 of a work entitled ‘The Eternal Gospel,’ of which he was stated to be the author. No book of that title figures among the authentic works of Joachim, nor did he give that name to any collection of them. It seems that the book which appeared in Paris in 1254 consisted of Joachim’s three principal works—which had none of them been hitherto deemed heretical—with explanatory notes and a lengthy and all-important introduction (Introductorius in Evangelium Aeternum). It must have been rather in the notes and introduction than in the text that the heresy lay, in the interpretations put upon Joachim’s apocalyptic effusions rather than in the effusions themselves. The true author, therefore, of the heresies associated with ‘The Everlasting Gospel’ would appear to be the commentator, not the originator. The authorship of the introduction and the glosses was early ascribed to one of two persons—to a certain Gherardo da Borgo San Donnino by the contemporary chronicler Salimbene, to John of Parma by the inquisitor Eymeric in his ‘Directorium Inquisitorum,’ written more than a century later. In any case the author was a Franciscan.48 And between the conceptions contained in ‘The Everlasting Gospel’ and the Franciscan Order, it will be seen, there was a very close and a very significant connection.
We may take it that the compiler of the work which startled the world in 1254—whether it was Gherardo or John of Parma—is to be regarded less as an expounder of the teaching of Joachim of Flora than as an original thinker, either honestly finding a preceptor and a kindred soul in the prophet and simply elaborating his thesis, or else utilizing the apocalyptic utterances of a man who had died in the full odour of sanctity in order to build up a thesis essentially his own on esoteric writings easily susceptible of a new construction. It is sufficient that ‘The Everlasting Gospel’ has direct reference to that section of the Franciscans which was at the time led by John of Parma, and that in the new religion which the work predicts the Friars are to play the leading part as inaugurators. The work is indeed astoundingly revolutionary. In much the same way that Mazzini in his ‘From the Council to God’ proclaimed the emergence of a new religion of Humanity superseding Christianity did ‘The Everlasting Gospel’ proclaim a new religion, that of the Holy Ghost. But whereas condemnation of the Catholic Church was commonplace in the nineteenth century and humanitarian ideas familiar; in the thirteenth century it is rather astonishing to find an admission that Christianity has failed and that a new dispensation is necessary for the salvation of mankind. The text of ‘The Everlasting Gospel’ is the words in the book of the Revelation, ‘And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him, for the hour of his judgment is come.’49 Joachim had foretold in his ‘Concordia’ that the world would go through three cycles, those of the Father or the circumcision or the law; of the Son, crucifixion, grace; of the Holy Ghost, peace and love. The first had been the era of Judaism, of the Old Testament. It had led on to that of the New Testament and the Christian Church. The second period was very shortly to reach its accomplishment, and the third and last era, that of ‘The Everlasting Gospel,’ to be inaugurated by a new religious order. By mystic computations the date of the commencement of the final era was found to be 1260.
Fundamental to such a mystic conception of human history is the assumption that Christianity is not the whole and the sole truth, that it is not complete in itself, but only a partial revelation of God to man, destined to be superseded by a fuller, ampler revelation in the same way in which it had superseded Judaism. Such an assumption could only rest upon a pessimistic view of contemporary life and society, a feeling that it urgently needed a new saviour. Joachim strongly denounced the evils of his day, especially those evinced by the Church, which was given up to carnal appetites and neglected its duties, to the advantage of proselytizing heresies, for which it was thus itself indirectly responsible. The author or authors of ‘The Everlasting Gospel’ illustrated this very conception by elaborating a thesis really more destructive of the Catholic faith than Catharism itself. The ending of the second era was to be accompanied by great tribulations, but these grievous troubles would usher in the millennium, days of perfect justice, peace and happiness, in which God would be worshipped everywhere and in which the Eucharist and indeed all other sacraments would be needless, mankind being liberated from such burdens, so complete would be the knowledge of God in the heart of the individual man. The conversion of the world to this new dispensation, in which each man would live the devoted life of a monk, was to be brought about by the new mendicant order, in which would be manifested all the highest powers of man. What order could this be but the Franciscan?
The personality and career of St. Francis of Assisi are of profound significance in the history of mediæval Christianity. Their sanctity and spiritual power gave other men, such as Peter Damiani, Bruno, Stephen Harding, Norbert, Bernard, Dominic, a great reputation and authority even in their own lifetime. But Francis stood apart from and above all of them, even Bernard. His intense sincerity, his absolute, unconditional renunciation of all worldly things, the charm and beauty of his character made the man, upon whose body the στίγματα of Christ were said to have been seen, appear to his own day as one different from all other men—indeed so miraculously near to the spirit of his Master as to be hailed by some even as a second