Joachim of Fiore

(c. 1132–1202)

   Mystic and Philosopher.

   Joachim was a Cistercian monk who was at one stage Abbot of Corazzo, ltaly. Later he lived at Casamari and then at Fiore. He was the author of Liber Concordiae Novi et Veteris Testamenti, Expositio in Apocalypsim and Psalterium Decem Cordarum. In these works he argued that the whole of history can be divided into three periods: the first was the age of the Father in which humanity lived under law; the second was the age of the Son, which was lived under grace and the third would be the age of the Spirit. Joachim believed that this would begin in about 1260 and would be characterised by a rise of religious orders which would spiritualise the world. This teaching was highly popular in the Middle Ages and the Fraticelli and the Spiritual Franciscans saw themselves as the fulfilment of Joachim’s prophecies.

   M.W. Bloomfield, ‘Recent scholarship on Joachim of Fiore’, in A. Williams (ed.), Prophecy and Millenarianism (1980);

   M. Reeves, The Influence of Prophecy in the Later Middle Ages: A Study in Joachimism (1969).