Who was Joachim of Fiore?
Joachim of Fiore is the most important apocalyptic thinker of the whole medieval period, and maybe after the prophet John, the most important apocalyptic thinker in the history of Christianity. He’s born in Calabria, some time about 1135, from what we would call a middle class family today. And he was an official in the court of the Norman kings of Sicily when he had a spiritual conversion, and went off on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, a mysterious time about which we know little. When he returned to Calabria, he lived as a hermit for a number of years before eventually joining the Cistercian Order. … Joachim, like many 12th century monks, was fundamentally a scriptural commentator. And he tells us that he was trying to understand and write a commentary on the Book of Revelation, the Apocalypse, and finding it impossible. The book was too difficult. He couldn’t figure out its symbolism.
