The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 1

II. Gerhoh of Reichersberg-Worldly Church Is Antichrist

GERHOH OF REICHERSBERG (1093-1169) was born in Polling, Upper Bavaria. He received his education in various schools of learning, and was accepted as a teacher in one of the cathedral schools. Later he became abbot of Reichersberg. Full of zeal in aiding the church to attain her rightful station among men, he fought in the forefront of the battle for realization of the ideals and demands of Rome. On the other hand, however, he was not satisfied with the laxity and worldliness of the church, and minced no words in condemning unrighteousness. He was a friend of bishops and rulers, and liked at the court of Rome; nevertheless popes and prelates had to put up with his severe criticisms. PFF1 791.3

Gerhoh held a highly spiritual concept of the church. He idealized her as an immaculate bride, loyal to her bridegroom. Therefore the corrupted worldly church constituted a new Babylon. And the bishops who carried on wars, and fought and meddled in worldly affairs, were bound with a twofold chain—the chain of the feudal vow and the chain of fear. In reality, nothing should belong to the bishop except the tithe. And that tithe should be divided into three parts, one for the clerics, another for building churches, and a third part for widows and orphans. PFF1 792.1

In 1142 Gerhoh wrote his Libellus de Ordine Donorum Spiritus Sancti (Booklet on the Order of Gifts of the Holy Spirit). Here he explains that the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit are the seven trumpets. Five times, now, the trumpets have voiced the victory of the church—the victory of the apostles, of the martyrs, of the doctors; and now in the sixth period they will proclaim the victory over the Simonists and Nicolaitans. Pope Gregory VII has already called for a more spiritual kingdom, but the victory is not yet complete. The full freedom of the church has not yet been achieved, he reasons. PFF1 792.2

Gerhoh lived in an extraordinarily agitated time. In the decades between 1140 and 1160 fell the unhappy Crusade of 1147 to 1149, the rebellion of the Romans under Arnold of Brescia, ¹⁰ the schism between two rival popes, and the schism between the two philosophies of nominalism and realism. In his time also the Antichrist was a subject of fear and apprehension; the play Ludus de Antichristo had become popular. Gerhoh, however, did not approve of the latter. In his Libellus de Investigatione Antichristi (Booklet About the Investigations of Antichrist), in 1162 or 1163, he tries to prove that Antichrist should be conceived of neither as a person nor as coming from Dan or from Babylon. These terms should be understood in a spiritual and broader way. PFF1 792.3

Antichrist is the spirit of the time, the spirit of worldliness in the church. The struggle between the emperors and the popes, and between popes and counterpopes, is the unleashing of the forces of Gog and Magog, he thought. Like Joseph in Egypt, who had been freed from the dungeon and lifted to Pharaoh’s chariot, so the church was in the same manner lifted by Constantine onto the royal horse. In the church, however, times of elation and times of sufferings alternate, and now a mingling of the two powers has taken place. The spiritual and temporal forces have been interwoven. Bishops are pastors of the flock as well as worldly judges. That is a clear indication of the workings of this unspeakable beast of Revelation, whose mysterious number is 666, a number which signifies threefold worldliness. ¹¹ PFF1 792.4

In this, Gerhoh becomes a forerunner of the later interpretation, pointing away from a personal Antichrist of Jewish origin to a spiritual but apostate force. To him the worldly church is symbolized in the figure of Antichrist. But the full and revolutionary force of such a statement became understood only gradually. The church had to make more extravagant claims before men could gain the clearest understanding as to who this dire figure of Antichrist might be. We have seen how the Spirituals among the Franciscans were thinking, for a time, that Antichrist might find its personification in Emperor Frederick II, which, in a way, was a return to the former conception of an individual. It will be well at this point to turn the spotlight briefly upon that life-and-death struggle between the Papacy and the empire in the days of Frederick II (1194-1250). PFF1 793.1