The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 1

V. Year-Day Principle for Five Months and 1260 Years

1. FIVE MONTHS OF 150 PROPHETIC DAYS ARE LITERAL YEARS

In his work on the Apocalypse, Joachim applies the year-day principle to the five months of Revelation 9, referring to the locusts as the heretical Catharist perfecti. The location of this 150-year period is admittedly unknown, for he does not know whence this sect came—only that it has existed a long time. PFF1 712.2

“But wherefore the five months? Possibly because five months have 150 days; and sometimes a day is wont to designate a year; truly thirty days, one generation of years., Probably, therefore, five months signify five generations of years, namely 150 years, because it is a long time from whence that sect was fostered, although we do not know whence it originated or grew.” ⁹⁷ PFF1 712.3

But Joachim’s most noteworthy use of the year-day principle is in connection with the 1260 days. The key to his whole chronological scheme is the symbolic period variously named as forty-two months, three and one-half times or years, and 1260 days. He calls this “that great number which contains all these mysteries. For there are 42 months or 1260 days, and they designate nothing else than 1260 years, in which the mysteries of the New Testament consist.” ⁹⁸ PFF1 712.4

2. THE 1260 DAYS ARE 1 260 YEARS “WITHOUT DOUBT.”

Having established a concord, or correspondence, of events, between the Old and New Testament times in the seven seals, Joachim tries to formulate a correspondence of time. The forty-two generations ⁹⁹ of the Old Testament age of the Father are taken as a type of forty-two spiritual generations of the New Testament age of the Son, which is 1260 years if thirty years are counted for each generation. In connection with the 1260 days of the symbolic woman.—the church—of Revelation 12, hidden in the seclusion of the wilderness, Joachim makes a remarkable application of the year-day principle, destined to reverberate through the centuries following: PFF1 713.1

“The generations of the church, under the space of 30 years, are to be taken each under its unit of thirty; so that just as Matthew includes the time of the first state under the space of 42 generations, so there is no doubt that the time of the second ends in the same number of generations, especially since this is shown to be signified in the number of days during which Elijah was hidden from the face of Ahab, and during which the woman clothed with the sun, who signifies the church, remained hidden in the wilderness from the face of the serpent, to day without doubt being accepted for a year and a thousand two hundred and sixty days for the same number of years.” ¹⁰⁰ PFF1 713.2

3. ANTICIPATED BY JEWISH YEAR-DAY APPLICATION

Application of the year-day principle to the longer time periods of Daniel had appeared first among Jewish expositors some three centuries before any Christian interpreters are known to have so applied it. Nahawendi, in the early ninth century, was evidently the first to interpret the 1290 and 2300 days as years. Then Saadia, Jeroham, Hakohen, Jephet ibn Ali, and Rashi of the tenth century applied it not only to the 70 weeks but also to one or more of the 1290—, 1335—, and 2300-day periods. And Hanasi and Eliezer, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and Nahmanides in the thirteenth, similarly extended it to the longer time periods of Daniel. ¹⁰¹ PFF1 713.3

To what extent Joachim and the Joachimites, who likewise applied the year day principle to these same periods, were acquainted with or aware of these interpretations, we do not know. But it is most likely that they had some knowledge of this application. That there were some exchanges of ideas between, the two groups is evident, as, for instance, in the debate between Nahmanides and Fra Pablo in 1263, before King James of Aragon. The significance of these interpretations will become increasingly apparent in Volumes II to IV. PFF1 714.1

4. EXPECTS THE PERIOD TO END BEFORE 1260

Joachim would seem to imply that the third age, that of the Spirit, would begin about the year 1260, although he is inclined to expect it earlier than that. He refuses to be dogmatic about it. Note what he says immediately after the sentence in which he lays down the principle “a day without doubt being accepted for a year.” He prefers rather to remain uncertain as to whether Zacharias and his son John the Baptist should be counted as two generations of the forty-two—and therefore the third age placed only forty generations, or 1200 years, after Christ—or whether there are two more generations left after that time. And in the latter case he wonders whether the two remaining generations will run the same length as the others or will be shortened for the elect’s sake, possibly to three and a half years. ¹⁰² PFF1 714.2

It is clear that in Joachim’s opinion the second of the three ages is about to end in his day, and the critical period is to-be expected between 1200 and 1260, beginning about 1200, ¹⁰³ but it is not clear how the year 1200 fits into the scheme. PFF1 714.3

On the one hand he seems to compute the full 42 months to the year 1200. PFF1 714.4

“For as we have written above in this work, from Adam to Jacob were 21 generations, from Jacob indeed to Christ 42 generations. Likewise from Uzziah to Christ 21 generations, and from Christ to the time of this tyrant, as our opinion holds, as it were 42 generations. These forty-two generations are of thirty years each, and are called forty-two months, or 1260 days, or a time and times and half a time .... There are from Adam, in all, up to the year 1200 from the incarnation of the Lord, 105 generations, although the two last are of uncertain time and moment.” ¹⁰⁴ PFF1 714.5

On the other hand, he seems to reckon 1260 years from Christ, with the year 1200 at the end of the fortieth generation, where he places his own time on a tabulation, ¹⁰⁵ with forty-one and forty-two yet to come, but he is uncertain whether these final two run the full thirty years each, ending in 1260, or whether they are shortened. He suggests elsewhere that the sixth and seventh periods, which begin together, may be very short, spanned by the time of Antichrist. ¹⁰⁶ PFF1 715.1

As to the problem of how he can reckon 1260 years from Christ ending about the year 1200, he gives an intriguing and typically medieval explanation in his work on the Gospels. He is discussing the forty-two generations from Abraham to Christ, or rather to Joseph, as listed in Matthew 1. He notes that the list of forty-two generations contains only forty names, and brings up several irrelevant parallels to show that this passage contains a mystery. ¹⁰⁷ So, he continues, the number forty is held in the sum, but “the consummation of mysteries is extended to the forty-second number.” PFF1 715.2

The number of generations of the church up to the conversion of Israel corresponds to the number of months during which Elijah prevented rain, and during which the woman, the church, fled from the dragon into solitude. She spends forty of these months in peace, of a sort, but two in a period of darkness in connection with the consummation of the mystery at the sounding of the seventh trumpet—the period of tribulation followed by the darkening of the sun and the moon, and the falling of the stars, and the rest, whose length no one knows. ¹⁰⁸ PFF1 715.3

It is clear that Joachim himself never intended to press a precise year for the epoch of the Spirit. But after his death the specific year, 1260, came to be considered by Joachim’s followers as the fatal date that would begin the new age, so much so that when it passed without any notable event some ceased to believe any of his teachings. PFF1 716.1

5. BECOMES PROPHET OF THE NEW AGE

Joachim’s teachings would have remained without great significance or influence were it not for the fact that a few years after his death Francis of Assisi preached the evangelical ideal with unsurpassed force. He seemed to be the direct fulfillment of the coming Dux (leader) in that new era of the Spirit predicted by Joachim. Joachim’s writings now became important, and he became the prophet of the new and final age of the world. People began to look for the opposite pole to the Spiritual Franciscans, and believed they had found it in the emperor Frederick II. If he should die in 1260, he certainly would be the Antichrist, they thought. Numerous writings sprang up under Joachim’s name, and these pseudo-Joachim writings were even more widely canvassed in Franciscan circles. PFF1 716.2

It was the Franciscan principle not to remain secluded in stately cloisters but to mingle freely among the common people, there to preach and to help. Therefore these ideas became widely known among all strata of the population. What Joachim had still avoided in pinning prophecy down to exact dates, these Franciscan Spirituals no longer did. Concerning this significant development we shall hear in a later chapter. But one thing is certain: Joachim of Floris stands at the turning point of an epoch—the turning point from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance and modern times, a transition which he was instrumental in achieving. His hope had been that the new age would be the age of the Spirit; he did not imagine that it would become the age of science. Now let us consider the subsequent influence of his teachings. PFF1 716.3