THE DESTROYERS

The Eternal Heresy: Joachim's Third Age (John Derbyshire, August 12, 2003, National Review)

I was fortunate enough to have the services of my own personal spy at the convention. I will not imperil his career by giving his name, or quoting him in any way that might identify him; I only want to take one of his remarks as a starting point for some general ruminations about the state of the world and of my church.

The remark occurred in reply to an e-mail I sent in which I said I thought that Eugene Robinson, the "gay bishop" (though he will not actually be a bishop till consecrated, sometime later this year) had shown great selfishness in allowing his election to go ahead, knowing the damage it would cause in our church. My spy agreed, and added: "He espouses the heresy of Joachim of Flora." He then went on to sketch the outlines of that heresy for me. I was interested, and my interest led me to those cursory researches over the weekend.

Joachim of Flora (often written written "...of Fiore") died just about 800 years ago. He was a holy man, a monk and an ascetic, who in 1189 founded a monastic order, the Florians. This order became extinct in A.D. 1570. Joachim himself does not seem to have been considered a heretic in his own time, and the Florians never were, either. He was, however, an intellectual who wrote books. The theories he laid out in his books were taken up by others in the 13th century, and were stirred into the general stew of heresies that flourished at that time. "The heresy of Joachim" therefore is not strictly an accurate term; it should be "the heresy of those who claimed to be Joachim's intellectual disciples." Leaving that aside, what was this heresy, and why should anyone care about it 800 years later?

The argument of Joachim's three books elaborated the idea of the "Eternal Gospel" mentioned in Revelation 14.vi. As best I can understand it, he believed in an evolution of human consciousness through history. This evolution had three great phases, corresponding to the three persons of the Trinity.

The first phase was under the hand of the Father. In this phase, human beings were too spiritually dumb to do anything but obey. The text corresponding to this phase is the Old Testament, and this phase was carried forward by the Jews.

The second phase belonged to the Son, whose presence on earth ushered it in. (Or heralded it - I am not clear on this point. There seem to have been periods of transition.) Now men could study, reason, and interpret. Their basis for doing those things was the New Testament, and this phase of human history was supervised by the Catholic Church.

The third phase, which Joachim believed was imminent - he calculated, on the basis of certain Biblical prophecies, that it would arrive in 1260 - would belong to the Holy Ghost. In this last age there would be universal harmony on earth. (All this is supposed to happen within human history, before the Last Times.) Joachim seems to have thought that everyone would live in monasteries, with all goods in common. There would be no need of any scriptures or church, as the Holy Ghost would guide all hearts, and whatever men did would ipso facto be right.

The "Eternal Gospel" was the deep teaching, the one that underlies both Old and New Testaments, and even goes beyond both, supersedes both. It lies behind Scripture and needs to be teased out, gradually brought to light by the diligent researches of a tireless intellectual inquirer like Joachim. Once it has been teased out and propagated, of course, mankind will be ready for the Third Age.

Now you see why my friend thought of Bishop Robinson in this context. Away with all that fusty old scripture stuff! No more need for that! This is a new age, Joachim's Third Age, when we have attained sufficient wisdom that we can throw out all those stupid old prohibitions and sanctions. Our long spiritual apprenticeship is over. Our own hearts can guide us now; and whatever they guide us to, will be right! Fay ce que voudres! An even more obvious parallel - Paul Johnson notes it in the passage on Joachim in his History of Christianity - is with the historical theories of Karl Marx, though of course for Marx it was to be the state, not the church, that would "wither away" in a property-free reign of universal earthly bliss.

One is reminded of both Hawthorne's story, Earth's Holocaust, which was mentioned earlier in the week, and of Michael Oakeshott's, Rationalism in Politics:

But what is important to observe in such a man [the Rationalist] (for it is characteristic) is not the decisions and actions he is inspired to make, but the source of his inspiration, his idea (and with him it will be a deliberate and conscious idea) of political activity. He believes, of course, in the open mind, the mind free from prejudice and its relic, habit. He believes that the unhindered human 'reason' (if only it can be brought to bear) is an infallible guide in political activity. Further, he believes in argument as the technique and operation of 'reason'; the truth of an opinion and the 'rational' ground (not the use) of an institution is all that matters to him. Consequently, much of his political activity consists in bringing the social, political, legal and institutional inheritance of his society before the tribunal of his intellect; and the rest is rational administration, 'reason' exercising an uncontrolled jurisdiction over the circumstances of the case. To the Rationalist, nothing is of value merely because it exists (and certainly not because it has existed for many generations), familiarity has no worth, and nothing is to be left standing for want of scrutiny. And his disposition makes both destruction and creation easier for him to understand and engage in, than acceptance or reform. To patch up, to repair (that is, to do anything which requires a patient knowledge of the material), he regards as waste of time: and he always prefers the invention of a new device to making use of a current and well-tried expedient. He does not recognize change unless it is a self-consciously induced change, and consequently he falls easily into the error of identifying the customary and the traditional with the changeless. This is aptly illustrated by the rationalist attitude towards a tradition of ideas. There is, of course, no question either of retaining or improving such a tradition, for both these involve an attitude of submission. It must be destroyed. And to fill its place the Rationalist puts something of his own making--an ideology, the formalized abridgment of the supposed substratum of rational truth contained in the tradition.

To be a conservative is to place value on precisely those things which would be found wanting before a "tribunal of the intellect". Posted by Orrin Judd at August 12, 2003 7:23 PM