Radical Joachimism denotes the heretical offshoot born, in the mid-13th century, from the forced reading of Joachim of Fiore (c. 1132-1202), the Calabrian Cistercian abbot who authored the doctrine of the three ages of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit[9]. Where Joachim submitted all his writings to the pope's judgment, his radical disciples made his books an "everlasting gospel" destined to replace the New Testament around 1260, and his third age a "spiritual Church" destined to abolish the hierarchy[10].
The affair broke out in Paris in 1254 with the book of the Franciscan Gerard of Borgo San Donnino, was judged at Anagni in 1255 by a commission of Alexander IV, then dragged on for seventy years: Franciscan Spirituals, Apostolics of Segarelli and Dolcino, apocryphal prophets of pseudo-Joachim, down to the pyres of Marseilles (1318) and Vercelli (1307), the Council of Vienne (1311-1312) and the bulls of John XXII[11][12].
The point this article establishes first, because everything else depends on it: Joachim himself is not a heretic. The Fourth Lateran Council (1215) condemned only a single Trinitarian opuscule of his against Peter Lombard, expressly sparing his monastery of Fiore[13]; Dante placed him in Paradise[14]; Saint Bonaventure took up his expectation of a time of the Spirit while correcting it[15]; Benedict XVI recalled in 2010 what the Church keeps of him and what she rejects[16]. The target of the present article is therefore not the Calabrian monk, treated in Joachim of Fiore and Joachimism, but what disciples made of him against the Church, and how the Church answered.
Joachim of Fiore is not a heretic: the obligatory starting point
What Lateran IV condemned, and what it spared
Thirteen years after Joachim's death (30 March 1202), the Fourth Lateran Council, under Innocent III, promulgated on 30 November 1215 its canon 2 Damnamus (Denzinger nos. 803-807)[17]. The condemned object is narrow and precise: the Trinitarian libellus by which Joachim accused Peter Lombard of quaternity, of making the divine essence a fourth reality alongside the three Persons[18]. The council closes its canon with a clause expressly sparing the monastery of Fiore, "whose rule is regular and observance salutary", and reports that Joachim had ordered all his writings to be handed over to the Apostolic See "to be approved or corrected"[19].
Neither the theology of the three status, nor the expectation of an age of the Spirit within the New Covenant, nor the founder's holiness of life is touched by this canon[20]. That is the juridical basis of the whole case: Joachim cannot be made a condemned man of the Church, and all later condemnations would strike theses Joachim neither wrote nor authorised, beginning with Gerard's[21].
Dante as witness: Joachim in Paradise, Dolcino in Hell
The finest testimony to the distinction between the master and his wayward disciples comes from Dante Alighieri, who places both sides in the afterlife, each in its place. In Paradise (canto XII), among the Dominicans, shines the Calabrian abbot:
"and beside me shone the Calabrian abbot Joachim, endowed with prophetic spirit" [22]
Pope Francis took up this verse in 2024, saluting in Joachim that "great believing visionary"[23]. But the same Dante, in Hell (canto XXVIII, among the sowers of schism), has Mohammed say that Fra Dolcino, the Joachimite chief of the Apostolics, must be warned of the end awaiting him unless he repents, a transparent allusion to the siege and pyre of 1307[24]. The master in heaven, the violent disciple in hell: the Comedy, composed between 1308 and 1320, is the first great poetic indictment of radical Joachimism[25].
Authentic Joachim and radical Joachimism: the table of the rupture
The following table fixes the boundary the rest of the article assumes: on the left, what Joachim actually held; on the right, what the radicals added to it, and what the Church condemned[26][27].
| Point of doctrine | Joachim of Fiore (never condemned on this point) | Radical Joachimism (condemned) |
|---|---|---|
| The three status | Three ages within the economy of salvation, the third remaining in the New Covenant | The third age abolishes the second: the New Testament expires around 1260 |
| The "everlasting gospel" (Rev 14:6) | A biblical expression denoting Christ's definitive proclamation | Joachim's books are that Gospel and replace the Bible |
| The hierarchy | Submission of all his writings to the pope (1200); Florensian order approved (1196) | A "spiritual Church" of the perfect makes popes, bishops and sacraments useless |
| The year 1260 | A computistical date proposed as a possible marker of the shift | A dogmatised date: end of the New Testament, advent of the Just |
| Attitude toward the Church | Reform through holiness, in obedience | Denunciation of the "carnal" Church, refusal of oaths and of the sacraments of the unworthy |
Saint Thomas Aquinas gave, as early as the 13th century, the doctrinal refutation of the central point: in the Summa theologiae (I-II, q. 106, a. 4), he establishes that the New Law will last until the end of the world and that "no other state will succeed this state of the New Law", refuting in advance the idea of a third age abolishing the New Testament[28]. The Catholic Encyclopedia sums up: "His central doctrine was confuted by St. Thomas"[29]. Saint Bonaventure kept the intuition, a seventh time of peace and outpouring of the Spirit, while rejecting the error: "After the New Testament there shall be no other, and no sacrament of the New Law can be taken away, for that Testament is everlasting" (Collationes in Hexaemeron XVI, 2)[30].
Paris 1254: Gerard of Borgo San Donnino and the "everlasting gospel"
The book that caused the scandal
In 1254, in Paris, the Franciscan Gerard of Borgo San Donnino (Borgo San Donnino, today Fidenza, in Emilia) published a book entitled Introductorium in Evangelium aeternum, Introduction to the Everlasting Gospel[31]. The title referred to the verse of Revelation in which an angel bears "an everlasting gospel to proclaim" (Rev 14:6)[32]. Gerard drew from it three theses[33] that landed like a bombshell in a University then torn by the quarrel of seculars and Mendicants:
- Joachim's writings are the "everlasting gospel" announced by Revelation, superior to both the Old and the New Testament;
- In 1260 the New Testament will expire: Joachim's Gospel will replace Christ's Gospel, as the New had replaced the Old;
- The "order of the Just" called to govern the Church after the advent of the age of the Holy Spirit is the Franciscan order, in other words, the existing ecclesial hierarchy will be abolished in favour of a spiritual Church of the perfect[34].
Joachim had never written that: he had placed his third status within the New Covenant and submitted all his writings to the pope[35]. Gerard turned a monastic hope into a programme for replacing the Church, and it is exactly that passage from inside to outside which defines radical Joachimism[36].
William of Saint-Amour and the university war
The scandal broke at the height of the quarrel between the secular masters and the Mendicants of the University of Paris[37]. The seculars' leader, William of Saint-Amour, seized on the affair: in early 1256 he published his great indictment De periculis novissimorum temporum (On the Perils of the Last Times), which used the everlasting gospel as proof of the dangers the new orders posed to the Church[38]. The book was in turn condemned by Alexander IV at Anagni, on 5 October 1256, the Church refusing both the Joachimite heresy and the anti-mendicant exploitation of the scandal[39]. Held fast: the 1254-1256 affair condemns two symmetrical excesses, and spares the mendicant orders as such, whose saints (Bonaventure, Thomas, Clare) are precisely their contemporaries[40].
Anagni 1255: Alexander IV's commission
As early as the summer of 1255, Pope Alexander IV entrusted the examination of Gerard's book to a commission of three cardinals convened at Anagni: the Introductorium was set against Joachim's authentic works, sent expressly from the monastery of Fiore in Calabria[41]. The protocol (report) of October 1255, edited in the 19th century by Fr Denifle, shows the method: compare the disciple with the master, and condemn what the master never said[42].
On the exact scope of the act, the sources diverge, and honesty requires saying so: the Catholic Encyclopedia holds that "the condemnation involved the teaching of Joachim himself" and dates the solemn condemnation to 1256; Schaff-Herzog reports a bull of 4 November 1255 condemning the Introductorium "without censuring, however, the writings of Joachim"[43]. In both versions, Gerard is condemned and ends his days in prison; in both versions, Joachim's case remains distinct from his disciple's[44][45]. No serious source has Saint Bonaventure or Saint Thomas taking part in the commission's work[46].
A synod convened at Arles in 1260 or 1263 in turn condemned Joachim's writings, but that decision by a local authority never obtained general ecclesial scope[47]. It illustrates the climate all the same: after 1254, Joachim's name smells of sulphur, and only great minds, Bonaventure, Thomas, still knew how to distinguish the master from his disciples[48].
Pseudo-Joachim: a factory of apocrypha
The Super Hieremiam, apocalyptic best-seller of the 1240s
Radical Joachimism lived not only on Gerard: it lived on an apocryphal literature put under the Calabrian's name to make him say what he had never said[49]. The most influential of these forgeries is the commentary Super Hieremiam prophetam, drafted in the 1240s, in the thick of the struggle between Frederick II and the papacy, and falsely attributed to Joachim[50]. The work identifies Emperor Frederick II with the apocalyptic persecutor and announces the imminent triumph of the spiritual Church: it is that text, not Joachim, which supplied the radicals with their political reading of Revelation, an emperor-tyrant, an angelic pope to come, a Church to purify by the sword of prophecy[51].
The device is constant: take the authority of the monk dead in the odour of sanctity in 1202, and press it into the service of the passions of the moment[52]. Marjorie Reeves, the English historian who reconstructed this dossier (The Influence of Prophecy in the Later Middle Ages, Oxford, 1969), shows that almost the whole of the 13th-century "Joachimite" literature is thus spurious, and that it is that literature, not Joachim, which the condemnations target when they speak of the "writings of Joachim"[53].
Vaticinia, Oraculum Cyrilli and the angelic pope
In the last decades of the 13th century there appeared, still under cover of Joachim's name, the Vaticinia de summis pontificibus, a gallery of popes to come, good and bad, which would feed for two centuries the expectation of an angelic pope (pastor angelicus) called to reform the Church[54]. The Oraculum Cyrilli, another piece from the same factory, likewise prophesied a purification of the papacy[55]. These texts have nothing of the Calabrian: they are ecclesiastical weapons, used in turn by the Spirituals against the Avignon popes, then by the conciliarists, then by preachers of every stripe[56]. Radical Joachimism thus becomes, from the late 13th century on, less a doctrine than a reservoir of interchangeable prophecies, a trait distinguishing it from all other medieval heresies, Cathar or Waldensian, which at least had a stable doctrine[57].
Arnold of Villanova, the prophet physician
The most learned case in this nebula is that of Arnold of Villanova (c. 1240-1311), physician to kings and popes, alchemist and exegete[58]. Around 1299-1300 he presented to the Paris theologians his De tempore adventus Antichristi, which announced the Antichrist as near and called for reform: the book was seized and its author briefly arrested by the Paris official[59]. Arnold died in 1311, but his spiritual writings were re-examined and condemned after his death by the provincial council of Tarragona (1316)[60]. His dossier shows the mechanism: a sincere reforming piety, grafted onto Joachimite computation, sliding toward dating and denunciation, and the Church cutting not on the person but on the propositions[61].
The Franciscan Spirituals: when poverty turns apocalyptic
John of Parma (1247-1257) and the Joachimite wing of the order
Joachimism entered the Franciscan order at the top: John of Parma, sixth minister general (1247-1257), surrounded by brothers marked by Joachim, including the Provençal preacher Hugh of Digne, let the hope of the third age colour the government of the order[62]. The crisis broke with the everlasting-gospel affair, carried by a Franciscan: at the Roman chapter of 2 February 1257, John of Parma had to resign, and it was Saint Bonaventure who succeeded him (1257-1274) to restore the order to orthodoxy, without denying the expectation of a time of the Spirit, but purging it of the substitution error[63][64].
John of Parma is no heretic: he is a moderate overwhelmed, whom the Church treated with telling gentleness, for he himself proposed Bonaventure as successor[65]. The lesson holds for the whole dossier: the Church struck theses, not men when they submitted, and she knew how to keep, with Bonaventure, what was true in Joachim[66].
Celestine V (1294): the disappointed hope of the Spirituals
In the summer of 1294, the election of the old hermit Peter of Morrone, Celestine V, raised the Spirituals' enthusiasm: here was the announced angelic pope, the pontiff of absolute poverty who would inaugurate the age of the Spirit[67]. Five months later, on 13 December 1294, Celestine abdicated, and his successor Boniface VIII had him imprisoned[68]. The disappointment was terrible and durably structured radical Joachimism: henceforth the reigning pope would no longer be the hope but the probable Antichrist, and the true Church would be the little band of the faithful to poverty, an ecclesiology of rupture leading straight to the Fraticelli[69].
Peter John Olivi (d. 1298) and the Lectura condemned in 1326
The Spirituals' theologian was Peter John Olivi (Serignan, 1248 - Narbonne, 14 March 1298), a Languedoc Franciscan of redoubtable intellectual rigour[70]. His Lectura (or Postilla) super Apocalipsim read the Church's history as the combat of the two cities, with broad borrowings from Joachim, to the point that a commission of theologians marked sixty sentences in it as suspect, for the most part Joachimite quotations[71].
Olivi died in peace with the Church, venerated by his brothers to the point that his Narbonne tomb became a pilgrimage site, until the superiors dispersed his remains and destroyed the shrine[72]. But his writings survived: when Emperor Louis IV of Bavaria used them in his Sachsenhausen appeal (1324) against John XXII, the pope had the sentences extracted from the Lectura condemned on 8 February 1326, twenty-eight years after the author's death[73]. Note the Roman method, constant since Anagni: judging written, dated, verifiable propositions, never a memory, never a party[74].
Ubertino of Casale, Angelo Clareno and the four of Marseilles
Two names embody the next generation. Ubertino of Casale (1259 - c. 1329), summoned before Benedict XI for his excessive criticisms then relegated to the convent of La Verna, wrote there in 1305, in three months and seven days he says, his immense work, the Arbor vitae crucifixae Jesu, in which he takes up and develops large parts of Olivi's apocalyptic commentary, and names the persecutors by name[75]. Angelo Clareno (d. 1337), chief of the poor hermits of central Italy sheltered for a time by Celestine V, organised the resistance of the Clareni and wrote the history of the Spirituals' persecution, forging the movement's martyrological memory[76].
Repression culminated in spring 1318 at Marseilles: four Spirituals, refusing to submit to the judgment of the order and the pope on poverty and obedience, were burned[77]. It is little, four men, and it is the whole dossier: the Church never pursued poverty (which she had just solemnly defended at Vienne), but obstinacy in disobedience and the ecclesiology of rupture[78]. The sequel of this story, the Italian Fraticelli and the Languedoc beguins, belongs to the neighbouring articles: Fraticelli and Heterodox Beguins and Beghards.
The Apostolics: Segarelli (d. 1300) and Dolcino (d. 1307)
Gerard Segarelli and the Apostles' habit
Around 1260, at Parma, a man of the people, Gerard Segarelli, founded the Order of Apostles (Apostolici): long beard and hair, coarse white habit, a wandering mendicant life in literal imitation of the Apostles[79]. The movement blended the Franciscan ideal of poverty with the Joachimite expectation of the third age, without a very fixed doctrine, but with a growing refusal of ecclesiastical authority that had it condemned by Honorius IV (11 March 1286) then by Nicholas IV (1290)[80].
Segarelli was imprisoned in 1294, escaped, was retaken, abjured his errors, then relapsed, and, as a relapsed heretic, was handed to the secular arm and burned at Parma on 18 July 1300[81]. His end illustrates medieval discipline toward heresy: men were burned neither for an error (pardoned after abjuration), nor for poverty (which the Franciscans lived beside them), but for the obstinacy of the relapsed who, after abjuring, plunged back in[82].
Fra Dolcino, Margaret and the Vercelli crusade
After 1300 the movement passed to Fra Dolcino (Novara, c. 1250), who had joined the Apostles between 1288 and 1292[83]. Dolcino hardened the doctrine into an apocalyptic system: prophetic letters announcing the ruin of the carnal Church, expectation of a holy pope, quasi-military organisation of his faithful, with at his side his "spiritual sister" Margaret[84]. Hunted down, the Apostolics entrenched themselves on Mount Rubello near Vercelli, where hunger and cold wrought as much ravage as the crusaders summoned against them: taken in March 1307, about a hundred survivors were captured by the bishop of Vercelli[85].
Dolcino and Margaret, refusing to retract, were burned at Vercelli on 1 June 1307[86]. It is that end, not a well-defined doctrine, which carried Dolcino into memory: Dante, writing Hell in those years, has him announced there in advance[87]. Historians note that Dolcinian propaganda dragged on well after 1307 in northern Italy, proof that radical Joachimism survived its chiefs as a state of mind more than as a Church[88].
The Church's answer, act by act
The following table gathers all the official acts punctuating the dossier: it is the juridical backbone of the article, and the proof that the Church proceeded by precise judgments, never by indiscriminate persecution[89][90].
| Date | Act and authority | Target | Scope |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30 November 1215 | Canon 2 Damnamus, Lateran IV (Innocent III) | Joachim's Trinitarian libellus against Peter Lombard | The monastery of Fiore is spared; the theology of history is untouched |
| 1255 (October protocol) | Commission of three cardinals at Anagni (Alexander IV) | Gerard's Introductorium | Solemn condemnation in 1256 (or bull of 4 November 1255 per Schaff-Herzog) |
| 5 October 1256 | Condemnation of the De periculis (Alexander IV, Anagni) | William of Saint-Amour | The anti-mendicant exploitation is refused too |
| 1260 or 1263 | Synod of Arles | Joachim's writings | Local authority only, without general scope |
| 11 March 1286, then 1290 | Honorius IV, then Nicholas IV | Segarelli's Order of Apostles | Condemnation of the movement, before the persons |
| 18 July 1300 | Pyre of Parma | Segarelli, relapsed | Penalty of the obstinate relapsed, not of poverty |
| 1 June 1307 | Pyre of Vercelli | Dolcino and Margaret | Military and judicial end of the Apostolics |
| 6 May 1312 (Vienne) | Cum de quibusdam, Ad nostrum, Exivi de paradiso (Clement V) | Heterodox Beghards and Beguines; Franciscan poverty defended | Eight errors condemned; orthodox poverty solemnly confirmed |
| 1316 | Provincial council of Tarragona | Spiritual writings of Arnold of Villanova | Posthumous condemnation, on propositions |
| October 1317 - 30 December 1317 - 23 January 1318 | Quorundam exigit, Sancta Romana, Gloriosam Ecclesiam (John XXII) | Unsubmissive Spirituals, Fraticelli (five specified errors) | Excommunication strikes the ecclesiology of rupture |
| Spring 1318 | Pyre of Marseilles | Four unsubmissive Spirituals | Obstinacy, not poverty |
| 8 December 1322 - 12 November 1323 - 10 November 1324 | Ad conditorem, Cum inter nonnullos, Quia quorundam (John XXII) | Theses on Christ's absolute poverty | Settle a theological debate, not a Joachimite heresy |
| 8 February 1326 | Condemnation of the sentences extracted from the Lectura (John XXII) | Peter John Olivi, dead in 1298 | Sixty sentences, mostly Joachimite; the man is not condemned as a heretic |
Two remarks are in order. First, the Council of Vienne (1311-1312) condemned errors while defending poverty: its constitution Exivi de paradiso solemnly confirmed the Franciscan ideal, decisive proof that poverty was not the crime pursued[91]. Second, John XXII always distinguished the levels: Gloriosam Ecclesiam excommunicates an ecclesiology ("carnal" Church, priesthood denied, oath refused), while the constitutions on poverty settle a school debate become a conflict of obedience[92].
What the Church condemned, and what she kept
The rule of discernment: CCC 676
The Catechism of the Catholic Church gives the rule judging the whole dossier, and judging today the millenarianisms of every stripe:
"The Antichrist's deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatological judgement. The Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism." [93]
Radical Joachimism falls exactly under this definition: claiming to accomplish within history, in 1260, through a visible spiritual Church, what will only be accomplished beyond it[94]. That is why this article refers, for the doctrinal substance, to Millenarianism and the Reign of the Spirit: radical Joachimism is a species of the millenarianist genus, its most learned medieval form[95].
What the saints kept: Bonaventure, Thomas, and Ratzinger
Saint Bonaventure, in his Collations on the Hexaemeron preached at Paris in 1273, takes up the expectation of a seventh time of peace after tribulation, but purifying it: the New Testament is everlasting, no sacrament shall be taken from it[96]. The young Joseph Ratzinger showed in his 1957 habilitation that therein lies the whole difference between Joachimite gnosis and Catholic hope: one replaces, the other fulfils[97]. Become Benedict XVI, he said it again in 2010:
"1. Saint Bonaventure rejects the idea of the Trinitarian rhythm of history. God is one for the whole of history and he does not divide himself into three divinities. [...] 2. Jesus Christ is the last word of God" [98]
And Henri de Lubac, in his great synthesis The Spiritual Posterity of Joachim of Fiore (1979-1981), drew the line this article follows: unceasingly distinguishing the orthodox monk and the heretical posterity, to keep hope without imposture[99]. So too the line of Fr Iannuzzi's thesis on the Divine Will (Gregorian, 2012): the intra-testamentary fulfilment awaited by Bonaventure has nothing to do with the abolition of the New Testament preached by Gerard[100].
Answer to the objection: "the Church burned poor men"
The objection is honest and deserves a frank answer: yes, men who meant to be poor like Francis ended on pyres, Segarelli (1300), Dolcino (1307), four Spirituals (1318)[101][102][103]. But three facts forbid making it a persecution of poverty. One: the Church never condemned poverty, she defended it at Vienne (Exivi de paradiso, 1312) while condemning errors[104]. Two: the poor and obedient Franciscans, the immense 15th-century Observance, flourished after these tragedies without ever being troubled[105]. Three: each pyre struck relapsed or obstinately unsubmissive men after abjuration or summons, under the penal law of the time, which the Church also applied to many other matters[106]. That penal law may be debated, the neighbouring article on the Inquisition does so, but poverty cannot be said to have been the crime: the crime was the breach of obedience doubled with a parallel Church[107].
To go further
- Joachim of Fiore (c. 1132-1202) and Joachimism — the mother-article: the person, the three status, Lateran IV and the distinction with the radicals.
- Millenarianism and the Reign of the Spirit — the condemned doctrine (CCC 676) and the neighbouring licit hope.
- The 3 Great Ages of the World — the Catholic reading of the ages of history, with its safeguards.
- Fraticelli — the Italian sequel of the dossier: the five errors of Gloriosam Ecclesiam (1318) and the ecclesiological dissidence.
- Heterodox Beguins and Beghards — the Rhenish and Languedoc branch, Margaret Porette (1310), Vienne (1311-1312).
- The Free Spirit Heresy — the gnosis of impeccability, neighbouring and often mingled with radical Joachimism.
- Catharism — the other great medieval heresy, dualist this one: the contrast illuminates both dossiers.
- The Albigensians (12th-13th Century) — the crusade against the Midi Cathars, to compare repression with repression.
- The Waldensians (1170-1532) — from the Lyon poor to the Reformed: a fate opposite to the Apostolics'.
Notes and References
Henri de Lubac, S.J., La postérité spirituelle de Joachim de Flore, 2 vols.: vol. I — De Joachim à Schelling, Paris, Lethielleux (with Culture et Vérité, Namur), 1979; vol. II — De Saint-Simon à nos jours, Paris, Lethielleux, 1981. The reference work on Joachim's later reception and the dividing line between the orthodox monk and his heretical posterity.
1 27 57 99Wikipedia, Gerardo of Borgo San Donnino (consulted 4 October 2026): publication at Paris in 1254 of the Introductorium in Evangelium Aeternum, identification of the "order of the Just" called to govern the Church after the advent of the age of the Holy Spirit with the Franciscan order; M. Reeves, The Influence of Prophecy, 1969, pp. 59-70.
2 10 31 33 34Condemnation of the sentences extracted from Olivi's Lectura (Postilla) super Apocalipsim by John XXII, 8 February 1326: reservation of judgment (27 September 1322), two examinations (1318-1319, 1322-1326), sixty marked sentences, for the most part Joachimite quotations; the text of the pontifical act is lost. The trigger was Louis IV of Bavaria's use of Olivi's writings in his Sachsenhausen appeal (1324). Cf. Oliviana review 4 (2012); Catholic Encyclopedia, Peter John Olivi.
3 71 73 74Marjorie Reeves, The Influence of Prophecy in the Later Middle Ages: A Study in Joachimism, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1969, pp. 59-70 (Gerard of Borgo San Donnino, Anagni commission 1255, and the maintained distinction between Joachim and his disciple); on the whole spurious literature, the entire work, notably the demonstration that the condemnations most often target pseudo-Joachim.
4 21 26 36 45 52 53Catholic Encyclopedia, Joachim of Flora, vol. VIII, New York, Robert Appleton Company, 1910 (newadvent.org/cathen/08406c.htm): Joachim (Celico, c. 1132 - 30 March 1202), Cistercian abbot, founder of Fiore; cult as beatus on 29 May, "though never officially beatified"; condemnation of 1256 involving in her view Joachim's own teaching.
5 9Commission of three cardinals convened at Anagni (July-October 1255) on the mandate of Pope Alexander IV: examination of Gerard's Liber introductorius in Evangelium aeternum (Paris, 1254), set against Joachim's authentic works sent from Fiore; protocol (report) of October 1255, edited by H. Denifle (Das Evangelium aeternum und die Commission zu Anagni, Archiv für Litteratur- und Kirchengeschichte, vol. I, Berlin, 1885). The Catholic Encyclopedia dates the solemn condemnation to 1256; Schaff-Herzog reports a bull of 4 November 1255 condemning the Introductorius "without censuring, however, the writings of Joachim". M. Reeves, The Influence of Prophecy, 1969, pp. 59-70.
6 11 41 42 43 44 46 89Peter John Olivi (Serignan, 1248 - Narbonne, 14 March 1298); Narbonne tomb become a pilgrimage site, remains dispersed by the superiors. Cf. Wikipedia, Peter John Olivi (consulted 4 October 2026); Catholic Encyclopedia, Peter John Olivi.
7 70 72Fourth Lateran Council (1215), canon 2 Damnamus (Denzinger nos. 803-807); Norman P. Tanner, S.J. (ed.), Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, vol. I, Washington (Georgetown University Press) / London (Sheed & Ward), 1990, pp. 231-232 (Latin text and English translation, with the clause sparing the monastery of Fiore).
8 13 18 20 35Council of Vienne (1311-1312): constitutions Cum de quibusdam and Ad nostrum (eight errors of the heterodox Beghards and Beguines) and Exivi de paradiso (6 May 1312, solemn defence of the Franciscan ideal of poverty). Cf. Wikipedia, Council of Vienne (consulted 4 October 2026); Ignispedia article "Béguins et béghards hétérodoxes".
12 90 91 104Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy, Paradise, Canto XII, vv. 139-141: "e luce mi da lato / il calavrese abate Giovacchino, / di spirito profetico dotato". Critical edition: Giorgio Petrocchi, La Commedia secondo l'antica vulgata, Milan, Mondadori, 1966-1967.
14 22 25Benedict XVI, general audience of 10 March 2010, catechesis on Saint Bonaventure (2): Joachim "affirmed the existence of a Trinitarian rhythm of history" and "1. Saint Bonaventure rejects the idea of the Trinitarian rhythm of history. God is one for the whole of history and he does not divide himself into three divinities. […] 2. Jesus Christ is the last word of God". Text on vatican.va.
16 98Fourth Lateran Council (canon 2 De errore abbatis Ioachim, promulgated 30 November 1215 at the close of the council opened 11 November), Enchiridion Symbolorum (Denzinger), nos. 803-807.
17Fourth Lateran Council (canon 2, promulgated 30 November 1215), final clause, Denzinger no. 807 — "In nullo tamen per hoc Florensi monasterio … volumus derogari": the council in no way wishes the monastery of Fiore to be harmed, and reports that Joachim ordered all his writings to be handed over to the Apostolic See to be approved or corrected.
19Pope Francis, message for the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, 1 September 2024 (signed 27 June 2024), § 3: "Mi piace ricordare quel grande visionario credente che fu Gioacchino da Fiore, l'abate calabrese "di spirito profetico dotato", secondo Dante Alighieri" (note [2]: Divina Commedia, Paradiso, XII, 141). Text on vatican.va.
23Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy, Hell, Canto XXVIII (eighth circle, ninth bolgia, the sowers of schism): Mohammed charges Dante with warning Fra Dolcino. Composition of the canto in 1314-1315, just after the Vercelli pyre (1307).
24 87Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I-II, q. 106, a. 4 ("Whether the New Law will last till the end of the world?"): the New Law will last until the end of the world and "no other state will succeed this state of the New Law" (body of the article); Catholic Encyclopedia, Joachim of Flora: "His central doctrine was confuted by St. Thomas in the Summa Theologica (I-II, Q. cvi, a. 4)".
28 29Rev 14:6: the angel bearing the "evangelium aeternum" (Vulgate), the scriptural formula Gerard made the title of his book and the announcement of the New Testament's replacement.
32Catholic Encyclopedia, William of St-Amour (studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/tce/w/william-of-st-amour.html): Paris theology professor around 1250, leader of the seculars against the Mendicants; De periculis novissimorum temporum published in early 1256, condemned by Alexander IV at Anagni on 5 October 1256.
37 38 39 40Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, art. Joachim of Fiore: "a synod at Arles (1260 or 1263) afterward condemned the writings of Joachim, this decision obtained no general ecclesiastical authority".
47Joseph Ratzinger, Die Geschichtstheologie des heiligen Bonaventura (habilitation, Munich, 1957; book, München-Zürich, Schnell & Steiner, 1959); English trans.: The Theology of History in St. Bonaventure, trans. Z. Hayes, O.F.M., Chicago, Franciscan Herald Press, 1989. On Joachimite eschatological consciousness and its Bonaventurian correction: rejection of confining the New Testament to the second age, and decisive rejection of Joachim (pp. 104-118).
48 64 97On the whole pseudo-Joachimite literature: M. Reeves, The Influence of Prophecy, 1969; B. McGinn, The Calabrian Abbot: Joachim of Fiore in the History of Western Thought, New York, Macmillan, 1985.
49Bernard McGinn, Angel Pope and Papal Antichrist, 1978 (on the Super Hieremiam, apocryphal work drafted in the 1240s, at the heart of the struggle between Frederick II and the papacy, falsely attributed to Joachim; the emperor as apocalyptic persecutor).
50 51Vaticinia de summis pontificibus (Genus nequam group, last decades of the 13th century) and Oraculum Cyrilli: pseudo-Joachimite pieces from the "angelic pope" (pastor angelicus) factory; cf. M. Reeves, The Influence of Prophecy, 1969; B. McGinn, The Calabrian Abbot, 1985.
54 55 56Arnold of Villanova (c. 1240-1311), De tempore adventus Antichristi (presented at Paris around 1299-1300, seized, author briefly arrested); spiritual writings re-examined and condemned after his death by the provincial council of Tarragona (1316). Cf. F. Andrews, Influence of Joachim in the 13th Century (St Andrews); R. Manselli and the literature on Arnau de Vilanova.
58 59 60 61John of Parma (1209-1289), sixth minister general of the Franciscans (1247-1257); Roman chapter of 2 February 1257, resignation, succession of Saint Bonaventure (1257-1274), whom he himself proposed. On the Joachimite wing (Hugh of Digne) and the crisis: M. Reeves, The Influence of Prophecy, 1969; D. Burr, The Spiritual Franciscans (2001).
62 63 65Celestine V (Peter of Morrone, 1215-1296), pope from 5 July to 13 December 1294 (abdication), then prisoner of Boniface VIII; the Spirituals' hope and the turn toward the ecclesiology of rupture after the disappointment of 1294.
67 68 69Ubertino of Casale (1259 - c. 1329): summoned before Benedict XI, forbidden to preach at Perugia, relegated to La Verna, where he conceived and wrote in 1305, in three months and seven days he says, the Arbor vitae crucifixae Jesu Christi. Cf. Catholic Encyclopedia, Ubertino of Casale; Wikipedia, Ubertino of Casale (consulted 4 October 2026: taking up and developing Olivi's apocalyptic commentary).
75Angelo Clareno (d. 1337), chief of the poor hermits of central Italy (Clareni), sheltered for a time by Celestine V, then organiser of the spiritual resistance and historian of the persecution. Cf. Wikipedia, Spiritual Franciscanism (consulted 4 October 2026); D. Douie, The Nature and Effect of the Heresy of the Fraticelli, 1932.
76Spring 1318, Marseilles: four unsubmissive Spirituals burned after refusing to submit to the judgment of the order and the pope. The year 1318 also saw the bull Gloriosam Ecclesiam (23 January 1318). On poverty defended at the same moment at Vienne, see Vienne note.
77 78 103 105Gerard Segarelli (Parma): foundation of the Order of Apostles around 1260; condemnations of Honorius IV (11 March 1286) and Nicholas IV (1290); imprisoned in 1294, escaped, retaken, abjuration, relapse, pyre at Parma on 18 July 1300. Cf. Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. I (Apostolici); Wikipedia, Gerard Segarelli and Apostolic Brethren (consulted 4 October 2026).
79 80 81 82 101 106Fra Dolcino (Novara, c. 1250 - Vercelli, 1 June 1307): joined the Apostles between 1288 and 1292, chief after 1300, prophetic letters, entrenchment on Mount Rubello, capture in March 1307 (about one hundred and fifty captives including Dolcino and Margaret), Vercelli pyre on 1 June 1307. Dolcinian propaganda prolonged in northern Italy after 1307. Cf. Wikipedia, Fra Dolcino, Dulcinian, Apostolici (sects) (consulted 4 October 2026); Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed.
83 84 85 86 88 102Pope John XXII: Quorundam exigit (October 1317), Sancta Romana (December 1317, including 30 December — condemnation of the Fraticelli), Gloriosam Ecclesiam (23 January 1318, excommunication of the Fraticelli with five specified errors: Roman Church called "carnal", Roman priesthood denied, oath refused, sacraments of unworthy priests denied, exclusive observance of the Gospel claimed), Ad conditorem canonum (8 December 1322), Cum inter nonnullos (12 November 1323), Quia quorundam mentes (10 November 1324). Cf. Catholic Encyclopedia, Fraticelli; D. Douie, The Nature and Effect of the Heresy of the Fraticelli, 1932.
92 107Catechism of the Catholic Church, editio typica 1997, §676: "The Antichrist's deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatological judgement: even in its mitigated form, the Church has rejected this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism [...]" (wording of the official English text on vatican.va; the internal reference points to the Holy Office decree of 21 July 1944, DS 3839).
93 94 95Rev. Fr Joseph Leo Iannuzzi, Le don de la vie dans la Divine Volonté dans les écrits de Luisa Piccarreta, doctoral thesis, Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome, 2012 — on the distinction between the intra-testamentary fulfilment of the Bonaventurian expectation and radical Joachimism.
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