The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 1

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: The Second Generation of Spirituals

I. Olivi-Leading Light of the Spirituals

We now turn to the greatest figure belonging to the second generation of the Spirituals—PIERRE JEAN D’OLIVI (1248-1298). Born in Sérignan, a town of Languedoc, in southern France, he entered the order of the Franciscans in 1260, and received the finest theological training of his time. He was attracted by the teachings of the Spirituals, and soon became their outstanding exponent. Olivi recognized the serious mistake of depreciating and minimizing the lofty ideas of Joachim and his followers as those of an insignificant or even a heretical sect. He gave a new impetus to the heroic fight to bring these ideas to the knowledge of all, and to build them into the larger framework of the church, that they might receive general recognition and acceptance. PFF1 763.1

The Spirituals had not only always felt that they were called of God to high missionary endeavor, but also that their supreme task was to reform the church. So they tried to bring representatives of their movement, or at least sympathizers with it, into important positions in the church. In this they at times succeeded. But when the hermit pope, Celestine V, resigned in 1294, and Boniface VIII stepped into his place, the Spirituals had finally lost, because Boniface began almost immediately to suppress and to persecute them. This, in brief, is the historical background of the times during which Olivi worked, and during which he attempted once again to raise the banner of the Spirituals. PFF1 763.2

1. ROMAN CHURCH MUST BE ANTICHRIST

Olivi wrote a number of works. Two, however, are of chief interest to us. One is a letter addressed to the sons of Charles II of Naples, of the house of Anjou (c. 1295). The territory of Charles 2, it should be added, had become a haven for the persecuted Spirituals. The other work is entitled Postilla in Apocalypsim (Commentary on the Apocalypse), and its date is variously given as 1295, 1297, or 1299—the latter date being, of course, just after Olivi’s death. ¹ PFF1 764.1

In these two treatises we find the grand ideas about the manner and the processes through which God reveals Him self, and realizes His will in history. The essence of all history, he held, is rebirth or regeneration, which is always accomplished by suffering and death. ² This was most completely demonstrated through the incarnation of Christ. In like manner, and only under the same principle, will spiritual powers find their full realization in this material world. Olivi believed that in his own day—the fifth “epoch,” extending to the end of the thirteenth century—would be seen the complete reign of the church, and that the time of trouble and of Messianic travail was at hand. PFF1 764.2

This would be signified by the opening of the sixth seal and the sixth trumpet, as well as the outpouring of the sixth vial. And, as in the six hundredth year of Noah the fountains of the great deep were broken up and the windows of heaven were opened, so in like manner must the “whore of Babylon” be drowned by a flood, when under the sixth head of the beast which carries the great courtesan, the ten horns or kings of the earth receive power for one hour. They will then hate the woman and destroy her. Thereafter these kings will fight with the Lamb, but the Lamb will overpower them and gain the victory—because the Lamb is the King of kings. ³ Thus Olivi’s expectations were tied into the symbolism of the Apocalypse. PFF1 764.3

Although he employed harsh words to rebuke and brand the hierarchical church, these words, however, related solely to the then—existing status of the church. He did not see the child of deception in her in the earlier stages, but his condemnation fell upon the then-present feudal church of Rome, as the carnal church of the “fifth” period, one which must come to an end, and must, of necessity, be followed by the Church of the Spirit. ⁴ The cause of the decadence in the church, lust for power and wealth, was most markedly apparent in the general practice of simony. PFF1 765.1

The Church of the Spirit, freed from the poisoning influence of temporal possessions, as proclaimed by the Spirituals, and most eloquently defended by Olivi, was not to be considered a sect. Rather, she was regarded as the natural successor of the feudal church, because the latter had neglected her solemn task and forgotten to hold aloft the torch of truth. So the Spirituals were not a sect, Olivi averred, but the purified and sanctified church, which would soon obtain its rightful place, because it would have its historical position in the plan of God with mankind. PFF1 765.2

With this and similar statements he sought the transfer of authority from an individual primacy in the hierarchical church to a group primacy in the Church of the Spirit. If, therefore, the history of the Franciscan Order in general, and that of the Spirituals in particular, was the history of the church, then the Roman church who was persecuting the followers of Christ was the church of Satan, and must be the Antichrist. ⁵ The Roman church, he reasoned, must consequently be the whore of Babylon, the Beast from the bottomless pit. PFF1 765.3

These statements were not merely theological derivations, but the result of a series of severe persecutions and cruel privations to which the Spirituals were exposed for more than half a century. ⁶ It was to them clearly the fifth period of the church, during which the pope and his clerics persecuted the Christlike lives of His true followers. It was indeed the midnight hour of spiritual darkness. ⁷ PFF1 765.4

However, these courageous endeavors of Olivi were of no avail; he was not able to reform the church. The Church of the Spirit became a sect, and later its heritage was kept alive among the Beghards and Beguines. Olivi’s great theological concept became thus derided as that of a despised sect Olivi, however, was highly Venerated by his followers, and after his death in 1298 his burial site become the mecca of pilgrimage, until the friars dug up Olivi’s bones and destroyed the shrine. PFF1 766.1

Pope John XXII (1316-1334) ordered an inquiry, con ducted by a commission of doctors, who condemned sixty articles of Olivi’s work on the Apocalypse. ⁸ However, at the close of the fourteenth century the opinions of Olivi were vindicated by Bartholomew of Pisa. But his writings remained under the ban until Pope Sixtus IV (1471-1484), himself a Minorite, ordered them examined afresh, and declared them orthodox. ⁹ PFF1 766.2

2. BABYLONIAN ROME HASTENING TO DESTRUCTION

Olivi deals with the seven ages of the church, together with the progressive development of paralleling Antichristianism and Christian principles, to the last climactic struggle—this to be followed by the new world, or age of the Holy Spirit. ¹⁰ The Babylon of the Apocalypse Olivi uniformly represents as the corrupt church of Rome, hurrying to ruin. And he describes her destruction in pointed terms, as the following citation attests: PFF1 766.3

” ‘She is Babylon, the great whore, because wickedness thrives and spreads in her, not only intensively but extensively; so that the good in her are like a few grains of gold in a vast sand—heap; and as the Jews in Babylon were captives, and grievously oppressed, so will the spirit of the righteous, in this period, be oppressed and afflicted beyond endurance, by the countless host of a fleshly church, which they are enforced to serve against their will. The Babylon which stood in heathendom, made all men drunk with her idolatries; so that Babylon, which is the fleshly church, has made herself and all the people in subjection to her drunk, and led them astray by her shameful carnalities, simony, and worldly pomp. And as, previous to her fall, her malice and her power grievously oppressed the spirit of the elect, and hindered the conversion of the world, so will her overthrow be to the saints as a release from their captivity.’” ¹¹ PFF1 766.4

3. APOCALYPSE COMMENTARY BASED ON JOACHIM’S

Olivi’s Postilla in Apocalypsim (Commentary on the Apocalypse) became the favorite book of the Spirituals. It was based on Joachim’s treatise on the Apocalypse, and portrayed the carnal church as ripening for judgment and awaiting the victory of the spiritual order; yet it did not follow Joachim in detail. PFF1 767.1

Olivi’s third state, the age of the Spirit, shows a difference from Joachim in respect to its duration, for it was expected to be a long period: PFF1 767.2

“The state of the church from the condemnation of Babylon, that is, the carnal church, up to the end of the world ought to have so much space of time that the whole world and all Israel may be converted to Christ, and that time may ascend from the sea by appropriate stages up to the meridian, and then by appropriate stages descend to so great an evening and night of iniquity that scarcely will He find faith on the earth, and that through the abundance of evil Christ will as it were be compelled to come to judgment. For far be it [from the truth] that the third principal state of the world, bearing appropriately the image of the Holy Spirit, should be momentary or so ridiculously and disproportionately abbreviated.” ¹² PFF1 767.3

Olivi’s longer outlook is exemplified by his late dating of the 2300 days, as will be seen later. He, of course, had to find a later ending than Joachim’s for the 42 generations, or 1260 years. Olivi begins them from the seventh year after the death of Christ, to which date he assigns the elevation of Peter to the Primacy, that is, his acceptance of the cathedra at Antioch, and later Rome. Thus they would end thirteen centuries from Christ, from which number “only three years remain.” ¹³ PFF1 767.4