A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages; volume III — John Shaqi
A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages; volume IIILea, Henry Charles
History
A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages; volume III
Lea, Henry Charles
Inquisition -- History
Joachim considered himself inspired, and though in 1200 he submitted his
works unreservedly to the Holy See, he had no hesitation in speaking of
them as divinely revealed. During his lifetime he enjoyed the reputation
of a prophet. When Richard of England and Philip Augustus were at
Messina, they sent for him to inquire as to the outcome of their
crusade, and he is said to have foretold to them that the hour had not
yet come for the deliverance of Jerusalem. Others of his fulfilled
prophecies are also related, and the mystical character of the
apocalyptic speculations which he left behind him served to increase,
after his death, his reputation as a seer. His name became one
customarily employed for centuries when any dreamer or sharper desired
to attract attention, and quite a literature of forgeries grew up which
were ascribed to him. Somewhat more than a century after his death we
find the Dominican Pipino enumerating a long catalogue of his works with
the utmost respect for his predictions. In 1319 Bernard Délicieux places
unlimited confidence in a prophetical book of Joachim's in which there
were representations of all future popes with inscriptions and symbols
under them. Bernard points out the different pontiffs of his own period,
predicts the fate of John XXII., and declares that for two hundred years
there had been no mortal to whom so much was revealed as to Joachim.
Cola di Rienzo found in the pseudo-prophecies of Joachim the
encouragement that inspired his second attempt to govern Rome. The
Franciscan tract _De ultima, Ætate Ecclesiæ_, written in 1356, and long
ascribed to Wickliff, expresses the utmost reverence for Joachim, and
frequently cites his prophecies. The _Liber Conformitatum_, in 1385,
quotes repeatedly the prediction ascribed to Joachim as to the
foundation of the two Mendicant Orders, symbolized in those of the Dove
and of the Crow, and the tribulations to which the former was to be
exposed. Not long afterwards the hermit Telesforo da Cosenza drew from
the same source prophecies as to the course and termination of the Great
Schism, and the line of future popes until the coming of
Antichrist--prophecies which attracted sufficient attention to call for
a refutation from Henry of Hesse, one of the leading theologians of the
day. Cardinal Peter d'Ailly speaks with respect of Joachim's prophecies
concerning Antichrist, and couples him with the prophetess St.
Hildegarda, while the rationalistic Cornelius Agrippa endeavors to
explain his predictions by the occult powers of numbers. Human credulity
preserved his reputation as a prophet to modern times, and until at
least as late as the seventeenth century prophecies under his name were
published, containing series of popes with symbolical figures,
inscriptions, and explanations, apparently similar to the _Vaticinia
Pontificum_ which so completely possessed the confidence of Bernard
Délicieux. Even in the seventeenth century the Carmelites printed the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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