1177–1202

Joachim of Fiore: the three ages of history and the expectation of the Age of the Spirit

Joachim of Fiore, a Cistercian from Calabria, was the first to divide history into three ages according to the number of the Persons of the Trinity. The Age of the Father runs from Adam to Christ, the period of the Old Testament and of life under the Law; the Age of the Son is the period of the New Testament, of the clergy and of grace, which will last forty-two generations of thirty years and in 1260 will give way to the Age of the Spirit. The Age of the Spirit is a time of contemplative monasticism and of the freedom of spiritual understanding: a new order will convert the whole world, the present corrupt church will be replaced by a new spiritual church, and the New Testament sacraments by new ones. Joachim was not condemned in his lifetime; according to González, at first the significance of the scheme for the life of the Church was not realized, but the "Spiritual" Franciscans saw themselves as representatives of the age of the Spirit.