The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 1

VI. Joachim Traces Prophecy in History

Joachim’s contribution lay more in the forces he set in motion than in his voluminous, involved, and fantastic exposition. Indeed, the end results of his influence were entirely different from what he would have wished,, and the doctrines attached erroneously to his name by his followers carried more weight than his own genuine teachings. PFF1 903.2

1. PIONEER OF YEAR-DAY PRINCIPLE

Joachim as the first Christian writer applied the year-day principle to the 1260 days (though he was anticipated by Jewish expositors over some three centuries. Within three years of his depth the 2304 days were reckoned as twenty-three centuries in De Semine, from which Villanova, at the end of the thirteenth century, derived the year-day principle of Ezekiel as a basic scale to be applied to other periods—a principle used for the 190 aid 1935 days by Olive and followed by Ubertino and other Spirituals, and later incorporated into standard Protestant exegesis. PFF1 903.3

2. SEES FUTURE BINDING OF SATAN

He spoke, for the first time since Augustine, of a future binding of Satan, yet clung to the old theory also, and placed the thousand years in the past. Although he himself did not set a date, his writings caused widespread expectation of the end of the age in 1260, and later in 1300. PFF1 903.4

Joachim brought into vogue the interpretation of prophecy in the light of historical fulfillment, a principle which remained basic long after his specific and fantastic applications were forgotten. PFF1 904.1

3. EVANGELICAL IDEALS IN CONTRAST WITH REALITY

Joachim’s ideal of a new age of spiritual values was rejected by the degenerate church but cherished and striven for by reforming elements, and it exerted not a little influence on movements that contributed eventually to the rise of the Reformation. And, ironically, the very works which he submitted humbly to the popes for approval, which contained not a word of disloyalty to the Roman church or the Papacy, drew such a picture of the ideal church in the Age of the Spirit that the painful contrast between Joachim’s dream and the actual conditions led his followers to repudiate ecclesiastical corruption, greed, and intrigue and to point the accusing finger at the church as scarlet Babylon and at the pope as the Antichrist. PFF1 904.2