Things thought too long: Joachim then and now

Abstract The reputation of Joachim of Fiore (c.1132–1202) is eight centuries old. My ‘now’ and ‘then’ span an infinitesimal period—the thirty-odd years since the publication of Marjorie Reeves, The influence of prophecy in the later Middle Ages (1969). His reputation became legendary when his Florensian Order commemorated him (according to the Acta Sanctorum), in the antiphon to vespers for his day as ‘Beatus Joachim, spiritu dotatus prophetico, decoratus intelligentia; errore procul haeretico, dixit futura ut praesentia’ Dante reused these words in Paradiso XII: ‘Endowed with a spirit of prophecy’ — certainly, but his doctrine of the Trinity had been condemned by the fourth Lateran Council in 1215. His saintly reputation remained secure until the Commission of Anagni and the papal condemnation of one of his followers in 1255, following the scandal of the Eternal Evangel in the University of Paris (1254/5).