JOACHIMITES. The followers of Joachim (a. 1130 1200) of Floris in Calabria. Joachim was Abbot of the Cistercian monastery of Floris. He wrote books on the prophecies of the Old and New Testament, and on the doctrine of the Trinity. He held, as regards the Trinity, that "the three divine Persons were one God only in the same sense as many human persons are all men or Christians one with each other and with Christ " (Oath. Diet.). This teaching was condemned by the Fourth Lateran Council (1215). As regards the New Testament, influenced, as he claimed, by special spiritual revelations. Joachim wished to persuade the clergy to seek inward spiritualization by renouncing the world, in the manner of the apostles, and practising a rigid monasticism. This counsel appealed forcibly to some of the Franciscans. The teaching in the work " The Eternal Gospel," which was compiled and edited by one of his disciples (probably a Franciscan), helped consider ably to prepare the way for the millenarianism of the thirteenth century. P. Puenjer gives the outlines of
" The Eternal Gospel " as follows: " The history of the Christian Church runs through three great periods : the Age of the Father, extending from the creation of the world to John the Baptist; the Age of the Son, from the incarnation of Christ to the year 1260; and. the Age of the Holy Spirit, which was regarded as beginning with that year. This last period is prepared by a boundless increase of abominations in the Church and life, as well as by the appearance of the Antichrist, who is more or less distinctly indicated as Frederick II. The charac teristic of this new Age is to be derived from the con templative life in which, with the right understanding of Scripture, the whole of previous history will come to appear in its true light." See J. H. Blunt; B. Puenjer.