everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him, for the hour of his judgment is come.’[49] Joachim had foretold in his ‘Concordia’ that the world would go through three cycles, those of the Father or the circumcision or the law; of the Son, crucifixion, grace; of the Holy Ghost, peace and love. The first had been the era of Judaism, of the Old Testament. It had led on to that of the New Testament and the Christian Church. The second period was very shortly to reach its accomplishment, and the third and last era, that of ‘The Everlasting Gospel,’ to be inaugurated by a new religious order. By mystic computations the date of the commencement of the final era was found to be 1260. Fundamental to such a mystic conception of human history is the assumption that Christianity is not the whole and the sole truth, that it is not complete in itself, but only a partial revelation of God to man, destined to be superseded by a fuller, ampler revelation in the same way in which it had superseded Judaism. Such an assumption could only rest upon a pessimistic view of contemporary life and society, a feeling that it urgently needed a new saviour. Joachim strongly denounced the evils of his day, especially those evinced by the Church, which was given up to carnal appetites and neglected its duties, to the advantage of proselytizing heresies, for which it was thus itself indirectly responsible. The author or authors of ‘The Everlasting Gospel’ illustrated this very conception by elaborating a thesis really more destructive of the Catholic faith than Catharism itself. The ending of the second era was to be accompanied by great tribulations, but these grievous troubles would usher in the millennium, days of perfect justice, peace and happiness, in which God would be worshipped everywhere and in which the Eucharist and indeed all other sacraments would be needless, mankind being liberated from such burdens, so complete would be the knowledge of God in the heart of the individual man. The conversion of the world to this new dispensation, in which each man would live the devoted life of a monk, was to be brought about by the new mendicant order, in which would be manifested all the highest powers of man. What order could this be but the Franciscan?