The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 1
IV. Exposition of Apocalypse Presents Notable Advances
1. SEVEN PERIODS PARALLEL SEVEN OLD TESTAMENT DIVISIONS
In the “Prologue” to his Expositio ... in Apocalipsim, Joachim expressly states that he does not enter upon this work presumptuously, but by authorization. In the “Introductory Book,” Joachim summarizes the three ages of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: (1) From Abraham to John the Baptist; (2) from John the Baptist to the fullness of the Gentiles; and (3) from the expiration of that time to the consummation, His idea of the harmony of the two Testaments is illustrated by his application of the seven seals 52 to the sevenfold division of the Christian Era, paralleling seven Old Testament divisions from Abraham onward. This needs to be grasped as the setting for his further exposition. PFF1 703.2
(1) From Christ’s resurrection to the death of John the apostle. (Paralleling Jacob to Moses and Joshua.) PFF1 703.3
(2) From the death of John to Constantine. (Paralleling Moses and Joshua to Samuel and David.) PFF1 703.4
(3) From Constantine to Justinian. (Paralleling Samuel and David to Elijah and Elisha.) (4) From Justinian to Charlemagne. (Paralleling Elijah and Elisha to Isaiah and Hezekiah.) PFF1 703.5
(5) From Charlemagne to the present days. (Paralleling Isaiah and Hezekiah to Judah’s captivity.) PFF1 704.1
(6) From present days to the smiting of new Babylon. (Paralleling the Jews’ return to Malachi’s death.) PFF1 704.2
(7) The last state, the Sabbath of the Lord’s saints, until the coming of the Lord. (Paralleling Malachi’s death to Zacharias the father of John the Baptist.) 53 PFF1 704.3
2. SEVEN SEALS SPAN CHRISTIAN ERA
Joachim gives a further exposition of the seven seals’ under chapter 6, which may be summarized thus: PFF1 704.4
(1) The white horse: The primitive church; Christ, the rider; heralded by the Apostolic order. PFF1 704.5
(2) The red horse: The pagan Roman priests; the devil or the Roman emperors, the rider; the order of martyrs. PFF1 704.6
(3) The black horse: The Arian clergy; the balances, the Arian disputations, the barley, wheat, oil, and’ wine, are the historical, typical, moral, and anagogical interpretations; the order of Catholic doctors. PFF1 704.7
(4) The pale horse: The Saracens; Mohammed, the rider; the order of hermits and virgins. PFF1 704.8
(5) The altar: The Roman church clergy and monks; the martyrs under persecution in Spain (ending in Joachim’s time). PFF1 704.9
(6) Judgment of Babylon (of whoever attacks the Roman church); persecution. PFF1 704.10
(7) The last Sabbath of rest; silence” of the contemplative life. 54 PFF1 704.11
Referring to the angel of Daniel 12:7, Joachim compares this “time, times, and a half” with the periods of Revelation: PFF1 704.12
“The seven seals are contained in these forty-two generations; and it is nothing else to say: in the time, and times, and dividing of time will be fulfilled all the wonders of that one, than that which another angel, or perhaps, one and the same, says under the sixth angel sounding the trumpet: There shall be time no longer, but in the voice of the seventh angel, when the trumpet shall begin to sound, the mystery of God shall be consummated. O wonderful concord under the sixth seal the angel is said to take this oath in the Old Testament; and under the, opening of the sixth in the New.” 55 PFF1 704.13
3. SEVEN TRUMPETS AGAIN COVER CHRISTIAN ERA
Under the trumpets, Joachim again retrogresses to the beginning of the gospel dispensation. The locusts of the fifth trumpet, of his own day, he understands to be the schismatic’s or heretics, specifically the Patarines, who were the “Manichaean” or, Catharist type of heretics. “These are those heretics who are commonly called Pathareni, that is, among some; and among others are called by different names.” 56 PFF1 705.1
4. Two WITNESSES ARE TWO ORDERS
The Two Witnesses of Revelation 11 are possibly the traditional Enoch and Elijah, more likely Moses and Elijah, Enoch being represented by the angel of Revelation 10. These three are reckoned the same as the flying angels of chapter 14. 57 But Moses and Elijah are most likely spiritual—an order of clerics and one of monks. Joachim identifies the “everlasting gospel” as the gospel “in the Spirit,” belonging to the third age of the contemplative church. 58 The forty-two months of treading down the city are the same as the time of Daniel’s Little Horn, and the Witnesses’ preaching is three and a half years. 59 When Enoch and Elijah come twelve men will be chosen, like the patriarchs and apostles, to preach to the Jews; and there will be most famous monasteries, like the twelve tribes and the twelve churches (the five churches of Peter and the seven of John). In this connection he mentions five principal Cistercian houses. 60 PFF1 705.2
5. WOMAN IS CHURCH, DRAGON Is DEVIL
The travailing woman of Revelation 12 is in general the whole church, and in particular the church of hermits and virgins. 61 The dragon is the devil, the body is all the wicked multitude, and the seven heads are seven successive persecuting kings through the period of the church. The ten horns are the ten kings to come; the tail is the last tyrant (Antichrist); the man-child is Christ. 62 PFF1 705.3
6. BEASTS ARE USURPATIONS OF KINGLY AND PRIESTLY POWERS
The first beast of Revelation 13 is a combination of the four beasts of Daniel. The lion means the Jews; the second beast, the pagans; the third beast, the Arians, whose’ four heads are the (Arian) Greeks, the Goths, the Vandals, and the Lombards; the fourth beast, the Saracens. 63 The head wounded and healed is the Saracens. They seem to have revived in his time after earlier defeats, but perhaps this is a future spiritual wounding, with the revival in the time of the eleventh king. 64 PFF1 706.1
The second beast of Revelation 13 is the sect of the false prophets, and his two horns are an imitation of the expected Enoch and Elijah. 65 When the new Babylon (Rome) has been given into the hand of the beast to smite, when the eleventh king rules among the Saracens, then the false prophets will have their opportunity. They will go over to ‘the civil power and betray the Christian religion. 66 Just as the first beast` will have his final Saracen king, so the beast with two horns will have a false pontiff, who will be Antichrist. PFF1 706.2
“Truly it seems that just as that beast which comes up from the sea is to have a certain great `king from his sect who is like Nero and a quasi, emperor of the whole world, so the beast which will come up from the, land is to have a certain great prelate who is similar to Simon Magus, and, a quasi universal pontiff in all the world, and he is, that Antichrist concerning whom Paul says that he will be lifted up and opposed above everything that is called or that is worshiped, so that he sits in the temple of God showing himself as if he were God.” 67 PFF1 706.3
Some doctors, he continues, say that the eleventh king is Antichrist, but Joachim is willing to accept that also. The dragon is one, but he has many heads, and there are many Antichrists. Elsewhere Joachim hints that Antichrist will usurp the place of the pope. PFF1 707.1
“Antichrist will usurp for himself the kingdom of Christ, saying that he is the Son of God, and he will sit as Lord in His temple, seeking to extinguish the vicar of Christ and those who were on his side, and persecuting them from city to city .... PFF1 707.2
“Perhaps since there will be many Antichrists, someone would say that in Absalom was meant not only that greatest persecutor whom the Lord Jesus will slay with the breath of His mouth, but someone else according to which we read that some have usurped the Roman see, and we find that this has happened recently under the emperor Frederick [Barbarossa, says Buonaiuti]. I think, however, that a considerable multitude of Greeks and Jews will already have been collected for the use of the church when that happens.” 68 PFF1 707.3
7. NUMBER 666 NOT YET REVEALED
The image is a traditon made by the false prophets in memory of the first beast, saying that it was the kingdom which was to remain forever. 69 Of the number 666, says Joachim, we must wait and know the name before speculating as to the number; but the number is not revealed. Yet he continues with a colorful speculation on the 666 as the whole period between Adam and Antichrist. 70 PFF1 707.4
8. THE THREE ANGELS AND THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL
Joachim says that the three angels may be future, because the first is said to have “the everlasting gospel,” but he thinks that the first angel of Revelation 14 comes at the opening of the fifth seal. (either the announcer of the woes, or the angel of Revelation 10), but the other two at the opening of the sixth seal, the time of Antichrist the Two Witnesses who preach 1260 days. 71 Perhaps, he says, they are Moses, Enoch, and Elijah, who will come as three great preachers in the end of this second age, announcing the everlasting gospel, the fall of Babylon, and the wrath poured on the worshipers of the beast. 72 The eternal gospel, he says elsewhere, is that of the Spirit; the literal gospel is temporal, not eternal. 73 PFF1 707.5
9. GOD’S SEAT HAS BECOME SEAT OF BEAST
The vials are made to parallel the seals and the trumpets, beginning with the early church again, but considered as the outpouring of God’s wrath in the same periods. 74 One point is of interest in the fifth vial, which is poured out upon the false ones among the clergy and conventuals, who, under the form of the church, which is God’s seat, have become the seat of the beast, which is the kingdom of Antichrist ruling at least from the beginning of the church in his members. Another is that the sixth is poured on the Roman Empire, whose peoples are the river of Rome, the new Babylon. 75 The seventh plague cleanses the air, or the spiritual church, which remains after the judgment on Babylon. 76 PFF1 708.1
10. HARLOT SYMBOLIZES THE REPROBATE OF ROME
The Harlot of Revelation 17 is understood as Rome, in the sense of all the reprobate who blaspheme the church of the just—Jerusalem—who sojourns among them. She is not only the city of Rome; or all of it—far from it—but the whole multitude of wicked men, those born of the flesh, in the whole extent of the Christian empire. 77 The “kings of the earth” are bad prelates who compromise with the wicked ones. 78 In the seven heads of the scarlet beast (the same as the beast of chapter 13 and of Daniel), he sees successive persecuting kingdoms of unbelievers—the Judaic, the pagan Roman, the four Arian powers (Greek, Gothic, Vandal, Lombard), and, the Saracen kingdoms. 79 It is to the sons of Babylon within the Roman church and empire to whom the doom of Roman Christendom belongs. 80 Babylon’s destruction by the beast brings the liberation of the just and the conversion of the Jews. 81 But before the establishment of the kingdom there is one more tribulation yet to come. PFF1 708.2
11. OVERTHROW OE BEAST AND ANTICHRIST
After the rejoicing over the destruction of Babylon comes the final battle of Antichrist, the beast in the phase of the seventh king. He is uncertain whether Antichrist is the sixth or the seventh head, but he thinks that it involves both the beast and the false prophet (identified elsewhere as the Saracen quasi emperor and the heretical quasi pope). Christ will ‘conquer those nations personally or through His saints. 82 PFF1 709.1
“Indeed we are certain, and all, the church of the righteous unshakably hold that He is to come in the glory of His Father to judge the living and dead, and the world with fire, but whether in the time of Antichrist or afterward it is doubted by many .... I, however, think that He Himself will come to destroy him, on account of what He Himself says in the Gospel: ‘But immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light.’ For if He did not say ‘Immediately’ the question would remain doubtful enough on this point. But since this is said, it seems that while Antichrist is still reigning, Christ will come that He Himself might put an lend to his reign and his blasphemy.” 83 PFF1 709.2
Joachim is uncertain whether the armies accompanying Christ are the dead who are in Christ, or those who ‘were raised at the time of His resurrection, `or, as he rather thinks, the earthly saints. 84 After the beast and the false prophet are cast into the lake of fire, and the rest cut down by the sword from His mouth, none are left except a “small people,” for in the seventh period none except the saints are living. 85 PFF1 709.3
12. A NEW NOTE ON THE MILLENNIUM
In Revelation 20 the seventh period of the world is portrayed, which is the third age of the Spirit. This is not the actual seventh millenary from the world’s creation, Joachim says, but the seventh age of the world, really of indefinite length, possibly very short, dated from the overthrow of Antichrist and the beast. 86 PFF1 709.4
Joachim combats the chiliastic idea of a future earthly kingdom of a thousand years He thinks those who make this seventh age the seventh thousand years are wrong according to the Greeks and the Latins, because the former claim more and the latter less-evidently a reference to the difference between the Septuagint and Vulgate (Hebrew) chronology of the world. He contends that the seventh age is not a specific time but that there will be a sabbatical period after the overthrow of the beast and the false prophet. 87 The final judgment of the Antichrist is not at the last moment of the world, for the end of the world does not always mean the very last time but the time of the end, or the last age. PFF1 710.1
“Already more than a thousand years have passed from [the time] when the blessed John said, ‘Little children, it is the last hour.’ Therefore there will be a time after the fall of Antichrist, but whether in the end of this time the Lord will come to judgment, or in the beginning, some have thought it ought to be doubted rather than defined.” 88 PFF1 710.2
This third age, with probably the personal advent of Christ at its beginning, and only the saints-those living the contemplative life-left in the church, differs radically from Augustine’s present millennium. He insists that Satan is to be bound, and suggests the possibility that the period may not be reckoned by recapitulation from the first advent. 89 Yet he reconciles it in some measure with Augustinianism, for he is a loyal son of the church, not an attacker of the traditional beliefs. The dragon began to be bound—some part of him, at least—at Christ’s death, but he is completely bound only when all the seven heads have been conquered “from that day or hour when the Beast and the False Prophet are cast into the lake of fire,” and the sabbatic seventh period therefore “began in part on the Sabbath when Christ rested in the sepulcher; [it will begin) according to its fullness, from the ruin of the Beast and the False Prophet.” 90 Thus the thousand years extend to the loosing of Satan and the battle with Gog and Magog. PFF1 710.3
“The Holy Spirit has already bound the devil in part, and He will bind him more fully in that day, .. until the time is fulfilled which is signified by the thousand years, from the time of the Lord’s resurrection to the time of his [Satan’s] loosing; shutting him up in the hearts of the tribes of the Scythians.” 91 PFF1 711.1
During the seventh, or sabbatical, age, when the devil is bound fully, the saints of the Most High reign in the spiritual “vision of God” in which the martyrs and certain of the righteous have been living since the hour of their death, during the thousand years. (The “dead who are in Christ,” the “perfect,” rise to heaven without delay.) 92 PFF1 711.2
“And this the kingdom of happy vision and of peace, which will be given according to its fullness to the multitude of the just after the ruin of the seventh king, takes its beginning from the very time of the resurrection of the Lord, and is rightly said to remain for a thousand years, so that the same time is understood of the imprisonment of the dragon, and of the kingdom of the saints, since also one is distinguished from the other by the cause. Yet the rest of the dead do not live with Christ. until the thousand years are completed, for to the righteous pertains the judgment of the Omnipotent.” 93 PFF1 711.3
13. “THOUSAND YEARS” NOT LITERAL
The perfect number 1,000 merely indicates fullness, not a future literal period, for the seventh age may be very short—possibly short enough to allow the same Man of Sin to take part in the battle at the end, when Satan is loosed and attacks the saints, and God will finally wind up the affairs of this earth in the general judgment. 94 PFF1 711.4
“Seeing that the Lord will come, who will illuminate the secret things of darkness, and will manifest the plans of the hearts. But in whatever manner it may be considered, yet this altogether holds true that at the time of the end of the world the devil will lead (away) these nations, and will lead them against the church of the elect, which will be loved by Christ, just as Rachel by her husband, so that he (the devil) will bring upon them and upon himself temporal and eternal judgment, lest he further have time and place for persecuting the church.” 95 PFF1 711.5
14. NEW HEAVEN AND EARTH THE BLISSFUL STATE
The new heaven and earth—in the blissful state, when the tares are gathered from the wheat—means the saints who no longer live according to the flesh, and the rest of the faithful who expect to see the kingdom through God’s mercy. The New Jerusalem is still distinguished as the church in its earthly state, 96 similar to Augustine’s view. PFF1 712.1