Joachimites
Joachimites, also known as Joachites were a millenarian group that arose from the Franciscans in the thirteenth century. They based their ideas on the works of Joachim of Flora (or Joachim of Fiore, both names are used at points). However they went further than he ever did in rejection of the Church of their own age.
Inspiration of Joachim
Joachim's works seem to divide history into three ages. The first age was of the Father. The age of the Father was the age of the Old Covenant. The second age was of the Son and therefore the world of Christianity. The third and final age would be that of the Holy Spirit. In this new age an "Eternal Gospel" would be revealed "fulfilling" and replacing the organized church. After that society would be realigned on an egalitarian and utopian monastic base. The first age is said to have been of forty two generations. The second age would also be of 42 generations. Joachim seemed to suggest the Christian era would end in 1260 with the coming of the Anti-Christ. After that his utopian age would arrive.
Initially this did not cause condemnation; efforts recently have even been made toward his canonization, as what was meant was disputed. Several readers seem to have felt his utopian age would literally be heaven or it would in least be the age after the Second Coming. This idea came from it being after the Anti-Christ and tribulations. To state the Church would be unnecessary then was acceptable.
Controversy
In 1215 some of his ideas were condemned in the Fourth Council of the Lateran. Further, his admirers came to believe the beginning of this New Age would be ushered in by the coming of a virtuous Pope from the Franciscan order. They considered Celestine V to be this Pope. His resignation, and death in 1296 in the dungeons of the next Pope, was considered a sign of the coming of the Anti-Christ. Around this time, or somewhat before, they further decided Joachim's own writings were the Eternal Gospel or the road to it.
As for themselves, the movements moving toward a more this-worldly approach caused some influence. It was one of the first movements to be heavily geared toward the future as being made perfectible through human action. This action was largely to lead toward a great supernatural event, but had a great deal of real world notions of progress. This was also generally unacceptable at this time, as utopian revelations were deemed to be foolishness or even heresy.
Influences
The Joachimites believed this new age would be egalitarian and essentially monastic. Later offshoots of Joachimites thought went a good deal further. The Brethren of the Free Spirit or the Ranters are often believed to have accepted elements of Joachimite thought. The Brethren of the Free Spirit's view of history has a noticeable resemblance. However they declared a new age to have already occurred, or occurring, whereas the Joachimites tended to place it in a future after the Catholic Church withered away. English confusion of the Beghards with practices of "Free Spirit" type groups is sometimes said to have been the origin of the old British legal term "bugger."
Another sect inspired by his theories was the Dulcinian heresy.
Others indicate parallels between the Joachimites and later millenarian forms of Christianity. It is fairly common for millenarian or messianic Christian movements to link themselves to leading to a new age of the Holy Spirit. Groups as diverse as the Shakers, Mita Congregation, and the Holy Spirit Movement indicated a new age of the Holy Spirit was in some sense dawning. Others relate the Joachimites idea to any group that believes in the "New Age."
There are less direct ideological linkages to the Protestant Reformation and less historically confirmed ones to Marxism. The Joachimites, and not Joachim himself, were condemned by the Church after Celestine V. Other rhetoric they used would be mirrored by a few of the early leaders of the Reformation.The Joachimites' idea of being a new revelation which superseded Christianity would not be adopted by any significant figure in the Reformation. Their idea that the hierarchical, authoritarian structure of the Church would collapse, to lead toward a leaderless egalitarian communal state is seen by some as an indirect influence, or at least a precursor, to Marx's idea of perfect communist democracy arising from the dictatorship of the proletariat, a concept which the twentieth century popes have rejected.
References
- Bernard McGinn, The Calabrian Abbot: Joachim of Fiore in the History of Western Thought (New York, MacMillan, 1985).
- Marjorie Reeves, The Influence of Prophecy in the Later Middle Ages: A Study in Joachimism (Notre Dame (IN), University of Notre Dame Press, 1993).
- Lerner, R. E. The Feast of Saint Abraham: Medieval Millenarians and the Jews (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000).