Ecstatic Dissent

Speculum

Volumn 67, Issue 1, 1992, Pages 33-57

  Lerner, Robert E ^a  

^a NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84974073935     PISSN: 00387134     EISSN: 20408072     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/2863745     Document Type: Article

References (71)

1. Augustine, Epistolae 22.7 and Confessiones 13.18; Cassiodorus, Institutiones 1.16.1 (see the translation by L. W. Jones: Cassiodorus, An Introduction to Divine and Human Readings [New York, 1946], p. 112); Peter the Chanter as quoted by John W. Baldwin, Masters, Princes and Merchants: The Social Views of Peter the Chanter and His Circle (Princeton, 1970), 1:93. For further citations along the same lines see Jaroslav Pelikan, The Growth of Medieval Theology (600—1300) (Chicago, 1978), pp. 120–21.
2. Cassiodorus, Inst 1.16.1, trans. Jones, p. 112. See also Hugh of St. Victor, Didascalicon, ed. Charles Henry Buttimer (Washington, D.C., 1939), 5.10 (see the translation by Jerome Taylor [New York, 1961], pp. 133–34), who distinguishes among three types of students of Scripture: those who study it for worldly ambition and are to be condemned; those who study it for its “marvels” and are to be encouraged to seek more; and those who study it for salvation and are to be praised.
3. De doctrina Christiana 3.27.38; I quote the translation by D. W. Robertson, Jr., On Christian Doctrine (New York, 1958), p. 102. See also Hugh of St. Victor, Didascalicon 6.11.
4. Friedberg, Corpus iuris canonici (Leipzig, 1879–81), 1:998: “Quicumque aliter scripturam sanctam intelligit quam sensus Spiritus sancti flagitat, a quo conscripta est, licet de ecclesia non recesserit, tamen hereticus appellari potest.”
5. Dante, De monarchia 3.3; see the translation by Herbert Schneider, On World Government (New York, 1949), p. 56: “With the Church are also the writings of its doctors, Augustine and the others, whom the Holy Spirit guided, as anyone would agree who has seen their fruits.” Granted inevitable exceptions, I agree with Beryl Smalley about the paucity of originality in Christian exegesis during the centuries between the Fathers and the high Middle Ages; see Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1952), pp. 37—38, 44.
6. I refer primarily to Jean Leclercq's “contemplative monastic theologians” as opposed to “theologians of the schools.” See, e.g., Leclercq, “The Renewal of Theology, ” in Robert L. Benson and Giles Constable, eds., Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century (Cambridge, Mass., 1982), pp. 68—87, I believe, however, that Leclercq places insufficient emphasis on tendencies toward exegetical-doctrinal innovation in the work of these writers.
7. A masterly survey of Robert's life and thought, on which I rely heavily, is John H. Van Engen, Rupert of Deutz (Berkeley, 1983). For specialized treatment of his theology, see Mariano Magrassi, Teologia e storia nel pensiero di Ruperto di Deutz (Rome, 1959).
8. Van Engen, Rupert, p. 14, argues for the usage “Robert of St. Lawrence of Liege” but then declines to pursue this out of deference to convention. Beyond evidence for Robert's own preference adduced by Van Engen is the fact that he was called “Robert” even by a contemporary Rhineland author; see Hermannus quondam Judaeus, Opusculum de conversione sua, ed. G. Niemeyer, MGH, Quellen zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters 4 (Weimar, 1963), p. 76, 11. 19–21.
9. Van Engen, Rupert, pp. 3, 67. Walter Berschin, Os meum aperui: Die Autobiographie Ruperts von Deutz, Koinonia Oriens 18 (Cologne, 1985), p. 59, places Robert's productivity at the same level as that of Bede and Rabanus Maurus.
10. I quote, respectively, Friedrich Ohly, Hohelied-Studien: Grundzüge einer Geschichte der Hohelied-auslegung des Abendlandes bis um 1200 (Wiesbaden, 1958), p. 129, and Bernard McGinn, The Calabrian Abbot: Joachim of Fiore in the History of Western Thought (New York, 1985), p. 88, A reaffirmation of Robert's originality in Song of Songs exegesis is Ann W. Astell, The Song of Songs in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, N.Y., 1990), p. 44, n. 8. See also Van Engen, Rupert, p. 71: “beyond his astounding command of Scripture and the received exegetical tradition, what stands out most is his great sense of liberty with respect to that tradition.”
11. Commentaria in Evangelium Sancti Iohannis, ed. R. Haacke, CCCM 9 (Turnhout, 1969), p. 7 (PL 169:206): “Igitur alta mysteria, que in hoc splendore evangelii velut grandis aquila pervolavit magnus doctor Augustinus, nos eadem quidem via sed non omnino eisdem vestigiis subsequi enitemur.” De sancta Trinitate et operibus eius, ed. R. Haacke, CCCM 22 (Turnhout, 1972), p. 699 (PL 167:659): “Equidem ante nos magni patres hanc rationem subintellexerunt,… quamvis grandis auctoritatis sint et sanctitatis vel sapientiae ipsorum magnitudo nos opprimat, nos magis evangelica Christi auctoritate ducimur quam cuiuslibet eloquentiae argumentatis.”
12. Commentarium in Apocalypsim, PL 169:825—27: “Quod ego (ut putabat ipse) ultra id quod antiquiores patres librum hunc exponendo senserunt vel dixerunt, aliquid utiliter supererogare possem…. Sed dicet aliquis: lam satis est, quod alii meliores et sanctiores nihilominus et doctiores invenerunt atque scripserunt. Illicitum est, temerarium est, adjicere quidpiam ad ea que a nominatis catholicisque Patribus dicta sunt…. Ad hec inquam: Nimirum sanctarum spatiosus ager Scripturarum, omnibus Christi confessoribus communis est, et tractandi illas nulli jure negari potest licentia, dummodo salva fide, quod sentit, dicat, aut scribat. Quis namque recte indignetur, eo quod in eadem possessione post unum aut duos puteos, quos foderunt Patres precedentes, plures proprio fodiant labore filii succedentes?… Itaque… nobis quoque concedant, post illos puteos quos foderunt, id est, post illos tractatus quos tractaverunt Patres et priores nostri, et alios fodere puteos proprii vomere ingenii.” On the innovative context of Robert's Revelation commentary see below.
13. On the trial, Van Engen, Rupert, pp. 158—180. For the charge of heresy on the grounds of differing with St. Augustine, p. 144, n. 35 (citing Robert's own narrative): “At illi me ex hoc diffamare coeperunt tanquam haereticum qui dixissem non esse in canone beatum Augustinum.”
14. Van Engen, Rupert, p. 217; see also p. 218, n. 107.
15. The narrative in book 12 of Robert's Matthew commentary, De gloria et honore filii hominis super Mattheum, is edited by R. Haacke, CCCM 29 (Turnhout, 1979), pp. 366–86 (PL 168:1587-1604). The entire text is now available in a fluent German translation: Berschin, Os meum aperui. For a useful summary, Van Engen, Rupert, pp. 50—52.
16. Ed. Haacke, p. 366 (PL 168:1587-88): “post tam multos sanctos patres catholicos atque nominatissimos, quorum scripta sufficienter impleverunt armaria ecclesiarum Christi, ego… animum inducerem ad scribendum tam copiose.”
17. Ed. Haacke, p. 372 (PL 168:1593): “Hec locutus est: noli timere, et designans super sanctum altare quedam sanctorum phylacteria auro fabrefacta… adhuc enim, ait, “eris melior quam ista sunt.” Visio hec tam manifesta fuit, ut veraciter dicere possim, quia lsive in corpore, “sive extra corpus nescio, Deus scit” [2 Corin. 12.2].”
18. Ed. Haacke, p. 383 (PL. 168:1601): “cum inter osculandum suum ipse os aperiret, ut profundius oscularer.” Later in his account Robert links this experience with the opening words of the Song of Songs: “Osculetur me osculo oris sui”; ed. Haacke, p. 385 (PL 168:1603).
19. Ibid., p. 373 (PL 168:1593): “scripturam sanctam mihi aperuit, et multis sanctorum Patrum sententiis, quorum in sancta ecclesia digne Celebris est memoria… aliquanta meliora dixerim.”
20. Ibid., p. 384 (PL 168:1602): “ego autem extunc os meutn aperui [Ps. 118(119).131], et cessare quin scriberem nequaquam potui, et usque nunc, etiam si velim, tacere non possum.” Despite Robert's ultimate emphasis on ongoing inspiration by the Holy Spirit (see n. 25, below), the Christocentric aspect of his breakthrough is worth stressing: not only, that is, did he first feel licensed for exegetical insight by his embrace with Christ, but his entire autobiographical narrative was inserted into what was in effect a life of Christ at the point between Christ's Passion and Resurrection, the point where Christ moves from being typified by the ox to where he is typified by the “roaring lion of Judah”; ibid., pp. 397–98 (PL 168:1613-14).
21. Van Engen, Rupert, p. 54, quoting the prologue to Robert's De divinis officiis.
22. Super Mattheum, ed. Haacke, p. 366 (PL 168:1588).
23. Ibid., p. 370 (PL 168:1588, 1591).
24. It should be noted that in addition to special visionary appearances of the Father and the Son Robert reported special appearances of the Holy Spirit; ibid., pp. 375—376 (PL 168:1596A). In addition, the ongoing grace of his insight was a gift of the Spirit in particular; ibid., p. 385 (PL 168:1603D): “non ex timore spiritus, non ex presumptione proprii cordis, sed ex dono mihi accidisset gratie Domini, ex dignatione Spiritus sancti, fiduciam talem habere tractandi sanctarum Scripturarum sacramenta.” On his own inspiration as proof of the continued action of the Spirit in the world, Van Engen, Rupert, p. 363.
25. I explore the dialectic between exegesis and inspiration in Joachim's career at greater length in “Joachim of Fiore's Breakthrough to Chiliasm, Cristianesimo nella storia 6 (1985), 489—512. See also my “Antichrists and Antichrist in Joachim of Fiore, ” Speculum 60 (1985), 553–70. For the best general account of Joachim's life and work in English, see McGinn, Calabrian Abbot.
26. hold to the chronology of my “Joachim's Breakthrough” despite the criticism by Kurt-Victor Selge, “L'origine delle opere di Gioacchino da Fiore, ” in Ovidio Capitani and Jürgen Miethke, eds., L'attesa della fine dei tempi nel medioevo (Bologna, 1990), pp. 87—131, at p. Ill, n. 56. Selge's alternatives depend on his redating of Joachim's De vita sancti Benedicti to late 1187 or early 1188, but in my view this redating cannot be sustained on the basis of the evidence he presents.
27. On the resolutely moralizing, ahistorical exegesis of Revelation of the period between the ninth century and the end of the eleventh century, see Guy Lobrichon, “Conserver, reformer, transformer le monde? Les manipulations de I'Apocalypse au moyen age central, ” in Peter Ganz, ed., The Role of the Book in Medieval Culture (Turnhout, 1986), 2:75—94. The fullest historicizing approach taken before Joachim was that of Robert of Liège; see below.
28. De civitate Dei 18.52—53. Augustine himself interpreted the time covered by Revelation as standing for “the whole period… from the first coming of Christ until the end of the world” (ibid. 20.8) but shunned all attempts to find identifiable patterns within it. In the concise formulation of Wilhelm Kamlah, Apokalypse und Geschichtstheologie: Die mittelalterliche Auslegung der Apokalypse vor Joachim von Fiore, Historische Studien 285 (Berlin, 1935), p. 62, earlier Apocalypse commentaries treated the work “as a consideration of the historical earthly existence of the Church, but not as a consideration of Church history.”
29. De civitate Dei 20.9.
30. On Joachim's direct confrontation with Augustine, see the excellent account in McGinn, Calabrian Abbot, p. 154. Proof that the concordance hermeneutic did not necessarily entail chiliasm is found in Joachim's early commentary on the Samian Sibyl; see my “Antichrists and Antichrist in Joachim, ” pp. 555–57.
31. Joachim's legitimizing inspiration for that was a visionary experience in Casamari at Pentecost, which I place after the Easter vision; see my “Joachim's Breakthrough, ” pp. 492–93.
32. Expositio in Apocalypsim (Venice, 1527; repr. Frankfurt, 1964), fol. 21 Ira.
33. See Lerner, “Joachim's Breakthrough, ” pp. 510–11.
34. For an introduction to Arnold's career as a prophet and further bibliography, Harold Lee et al., Western Mediterranean Prophecy: The School of Joachim of Fiore and the Fourteenth-Century Breviloquium, Studies and Texts 88 (Toronto, 1989), pp. 27–46. I have treated Arnold's relations with Boniface VIII in “The Pope and the Doctor, ” The Yale Review 78 (1988–89), 62–79. My dating of Arnold's discovery to 1290 is based on a statement in his Tractatus quidam in quo respondetur obiectionibus (hereafter: Responsio obiectionibus), which places his divulging of a treatise describing it to certain Carthusians seven years after the event and his divulging of it in Paris “almost four years” after that; see the text in Miquel Batllori, “Dos nous escrits espirituals d'Arnau de Vilanova, ” Analecta sacra Tarraconensia 28 (1955), 45–70, at p. 61. In fact, the treatise that Arnold brought to Paris is internally dated to 1297, and his dissemination of the treatise in Paris occurred in the autumn of 1300; see De tempore adventus Antichristi, ed. Josep Perarnau i Espelt, in “El text primitiu del De mysterio cymbalorum ecclesiae d'Arnau de Vilanova, ” Arxiu de textos Catalans antics 7/8 (1988–89), 7–169, at p. 142; for the dating of the mission, Michael R. McVaugh, “Further Documents for the Biography of Arnau de Vilanova, ” Acta Hispanica ad medicinae scientiarumque historiam illustrandam 2 (1982), 363–72, at pp. 367–68 (correcting earlier assumptions that placed the mission in 1299). On the authenticity of the Responsio obiectionibus, see Robert E. Lerner, “The Prophetic Manuscripts of the Renaissance Magus Pierleone of Spoleto, ” in II profetismo gioachimita tra Quattrocento e Cinquecento, ed. Gian Luca Potesta (Genoa, 1991), pp. 97–116, at pp. 108–9. The independent confirmation of its statements about the chronology of the dissemination of De tempore adventus Antichristi provides further proof of its authenticity.
35. Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, ed. Heinrich Denifle and Emile Chatelain (Paris, 1891—1899), 2:90.
36. See Arnold's letter of 12 October 1300 in Chartularium, pp. 87–90, at p. 88: “vos sedetis super speculam, vos estis propheta… callumpniose vero quia in opusculo meo non continetur quod ego sederem vel sedeam super speculam, sed quod speculatores ecclesie Christi debent adversariis interrogantibus taliter respondere.” Certainly the charge “vos estis propheta” did not come out of thin air, for in the De adventu Antichristi Arnold did argue that all those “called to preach” could be speculatores on the model of the prophets; see Perarnau, “El text, ” p. 135: “Et licet speculatores ordinarii sint prelati et curam animarum habentes, unde et de apostolis, quorum vices prelati gerunt, ait beatus Petrus ‘Speculatores facti sumus’ nihilominus etiam speculatores existunt omnes missi ad predicandum, qui vices gerunt in ecclesia prophetarum.” Yet Arnold avoided saying explicitly that he himself was called to preach, and the passage cannot be taken to mean that speculatores who serve in the office of prophets themselves possess prophetic inspiration.
37. For Arnold's reference to the visions of others, see his De mysterio cymbalorum, ed. Perarnau, “El text, ” pp. 102–4.
38. The letter is edited by Heinrich Finke, Aus den Tagen Bonifaz VIII (Munster, 1902), pp. CLX—CLXII. (The treatise, Philosophia catholica, was actually dedicated to the college of cardinals but sent simultaneously to the pope.)
39. Ambassador's report to James of Aragon, 20 February 1304: “vix aperit iste papa os suum nisi ad Predicatores.” See Francesco Santi, “Niccolò da Prato e Jaume II d'Aragona, ” Archivio storico pratese 59 (1983), 13—36, at p. 16, citing Heinrich Finke, Acta Aragonensia (1291—1327) (Berlin, 1908), 1:162. Arnold's fortunes were no doubt at a low early in 1304 for the additional reason that the French crown would have liked to have seen him condemned in order to help vindicate its indictment of Boniface VIII.
40. Arnold responded specifically to the charge of relapsing into heresy in a protest of 18 July 1304; see Finke, Aits den Tagen, p. CXCIV.
41. Responsio O. Obiectionibus, edited in part in Batllori, “Dos nous escrits, ” pp. 57—70, with the reports of miraculous experiences at pp. 60—61. The treatise, which survives in only one manuscript (the exemplar of which was probably made in Perugia in 1304–5), lacks a dedication and therefore may be unfinished. Perhaps Arnold decided not to “publish” this work for tactical reasons.
42. Finke, Aus den Tagen, pp. CLXXVII-CXCII, at pp. 179-181.
43. That emerges rather clearly from a text written by someone close to Arnold, if not Arnold himself; the commentary on the prophetic treatise, Liber de Flore. See Herbert Grundmann, Liber de Flore: Eine Schrift der Franziskaner-Spiritualen aus dem Anfang des 14. Jahrhunderts, ” in Grundmann, Ausgewählte Aufsdtze, 2: Joachim von Fiore, MGH, Schriften 25/2 (Stuttgart, 1977), pp. 160-61: “dato quod habuisset per revelacionem, tamen ipse proponebat per modurn scolastice discussionis vel consideracionis, sicut apparet adhuc in primis edicionibus eius.”
44. On the reported “canonization” of Hildegard's visionary writings by Pope Eugenius III, see Herbert Grundmann, Ausgewählte Aufsatze, 1: Religiöse Bewegungen, MGH, Schriften 25/1 (Stuttgart, 1976), pp. 187–94. Despite Hiidegard's favorable reputation, when John Wyclif wished to learn prophetic truth he excluded her testimony, preferring to rely solely on Scripture; see Penn R. Szittya, The Antifraternal Tradition in Medieval Literature (Princeton, 1986), pp. 173—74. On the peculiar circumstances favorable to Bridget, see Colledge, “Epistola solitarii”\\\\\\\\ but note that when Bridget was disseminating revelations in Rome she “feared for the safety of her family [because] she was reviled as a sorceress” and that even she shrank from communicating a certain revelation to Pope Gregory XI “because it was not divinely commanded”; Colledge, p. 38.
45. A masterly survey of this theme in its initial formulation is Henri de Lubac, Exégése médiévale: Les quatre sens de l'Ecriture (Paris, 1959–62), 1/1:344—63.
46. Super Mattheum, ed. Haacke, p. 375 (PL 168:1595): “sicut Patris proprium est opus hominis conditio, et Filii proprium est opus redemptio, sic proprium est opus Spiritus sancti eiusdem hominis illuminatio….”
47. De sancta Trinitate et operibus eius, ed. R. Haacke, CCCM 21—24 (Turnhout 1971—72). See 21, pp. 279—280 (PL 167:324-25); and 23, p. 1782 (PL 167:1536): “Ille talis factus est, qui piscibus maris ceterisque animantibus preesset dignitate rationis, hic talis natus est, qui hominibus preemineret maiestate divinitatis vel primatu intelligentie spiritualis… ille per intellectum excellens ceteris animantibus vocabula ponit, et hic ad intelligendum Scripturas sensum hominibus aperit, quorum nomina in celo scripsit.”
48. On the similarities and differences between Robert and Joachim, see Ratzinger, Bonaventure, pp. 100–101, and Marjorie Reeves, “The Originality and Influence of Joachim of Fiore, ” Traditio 36 (1980), 269–316, at pp. 283-85.1 would add that Robert, unlike Joachim, shows no inclination toward chiliasm; thus, in his Comment, in Apoc., PL 169:925, he places no major salvational-historical event between the “calling of the gentiles” and the second coming, and he reads the thousand-year kingdom as the reign of the Church since the binding of Satan by Christ; see PL 169:1182-83, and De sancta Trin., ed. Haacke, pp. 2010–11 (PL 167:1732).
49. See his short Prefatio super Apocalipsim, ed. Kurt-Victor Selge, “Eine Einführung Joachims von Fiore in die Johannesapokalypse, ” Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters 46 (1990), 85–131, at p. 105: “sed et futurum non erat… ut aliquis post apostolos et evangelistas mitteretur propheta.,. Verum hoc in testamento novo raro contingit rariusque recipitur, ut et liberum sit nobis contemplando proficere et falsorum prophetarum nenias devitare possimus.” See further Selge's comment, p. 93: “So gelesen, ist der Text ein weiteres authentisches Zeugnis für Joachims Auffassung seiner Aufgabe, die nicht prophetisch ist, sondern auf die Intelligentia scripturarum zielt.”
50. Expos, in Apoc., fols, 27d-29d; Joachim of Fiore, Enchiridion super Apocalypsim, ed. Edward K. Burger, Studies and Texts 78 (Toronto, 1986), pp. 85–87.
51. Arnaldus de Villanova, Expositio super Apocalypsi, ed. J. Carreras i Artau et al. (Barcelona, 1971). For an analysis, Francesco Santi, Amau de Vilanova: l'obra espiritual (Valencia [1986]), pp. 163–241.
52. Expositio, ed. Carreras i Artau, p. 57: “Talis status [ecclesia Philadelphiae] ad secreta divinorum eloquiorum profundius satagit penetrare”; p. 67: “et pulso per doctrinam sacrorum eloquiorum.” On spiritual intelligence as the mode for the deepest understanding of Scripture, p. 93.
53. I have dealt with aspects of this subject in “Frederick II, Alive, Aloft, and Allayed, in Franciscan-Joachite Eschatology, ” in Werner Verbeke, eds., The Use and Abuse of Eschatology in the Middle Ages (Leuven, 1988), pp. 359–84. See also Stanislao da Campagnola, “Dai Viri Spirituales di Gioacchino da Fiore ai Fratres Spirituales di Francesco d'Assisi, ” Picenum sera-phicutn 11 (1974), 24–52, and Dieter Berg, “L'impero degli Svevi e il gioachimismo francescano, ” in Capitani and Miethke, L'attesa (above, n. 27), pp. 133–67. Berg cites further literature.
54. On Bonaventure's Joachism, Ratzinger, Bonaventure; E. Randolph Daniel, “St. Bonaventure's Debt to Joachim, ” Medievalia et humanistica 11 (1982), 61-75; and McGinn, Calabrian Abbot, pp. 213–19.
55. Legenda maior 11.1, 4.4. See the translation by Ewert Cousins, Bonaventure: The Soul's Journey to God; The Tree of Life; The Life of St. Francis (New York, 1978), pp. 281, 209. I was alerted to the significance of the second passage by Stanislao da Campagnola, “Dai Viri Spirituales, ” p. 45.
56. Collationes in hexaemeron 22.22. I quote the translation by Bernard McGinn, Visions of the End: Apocalyptic Traditions in the Middle Ages (New York, 1979), p. 201.
57. David Burr, “Bonaventure, Olivi and Franciscan Eschatology, ” Collectanea Franciscana 53, 23–40, at p. 33. On the subject of this paragraph see also Burr, “Olivi, Apocalyptic Expectation, and Visionary Experience, ” Traditio 41, 273—88, and Burr, Olivi and Fran ciscan Poverty: The Origins of the Usus Pauper Controversy (Philadelphia, 1989), pp. 172—183. Edith Pásztor, “L'escatologia gioachimitica nel francescanesimo: Pietro di Giovanni Olivi, ” in Capitani and Miethke, Vattesa, pp. 169—93, at p. 176, cites a hitherto unnoticed passage in Olivi's exegesis stating that the Earthly Paradise is characterized by “altitudo sapientie mistice et plenitudo intelligentie spiritualis.”
58. See the evidence cited by David Burr, The Persecution of Peter Olivi, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 66/5 (Philadelphia, 1976), p. 5, n. 1, and p. 73. In a letter of c. 1283 Olivi did claim inspiration about his own personal affairs; see P. Gratien de Paris, “Une lettre inedite de Pierre de Jean Olivi, ” Etudes franciscaines 29 (1913), 414—422, at pp. 416—17: “Et longe ante predixeram, non ut vates propheticus, set instinctu interioris spiritus inspiratus quia et si mundus vellet me ad ambitiones humani magisterii sublevare, Christus hoc nullatenus pateretur.”
59. See the attack on Olivi's followers of 1 March 1311 by representatives of the Franciscan majority, ed. Ehrle, “Zur Vorgeschichte, ” Archiv für Literatur und Kirchengeschichte des Mittelalters 2 (1886), 371: “Dixerunt quod dicta doctrina fratris P. predicti erat ita vera sicut evangelica… et quod fuit eidem a spiritu sancto revelata…. Et aliqui dixerunt, quod ipse frater P. erat ille angelus de quo dicitur in Apocalipsi, qui veniebat post ilium angelum, qui habebat signum dei vivi.” On the origins of the Olivi cult, Burr, Olivi and Franciscan Poverty, pp. 124–28. As the cult grew, it spread from members of the Franciscan order to members of the laity, the Beguins of Languedoc and Catalonia, who took similar positions; see n. 89, below.
60. Josef Koch, “Der Prozess gegen die Postille Olivis zur Apokalypse, ” Recherches de theologie ancienne et mtditvale 5, 302—15; Edith Pasztor, “Le polemiche sulla 'Lectura super Apocalipsim di Pietro di Giovanni Olivi fino alia sua condanna, ” Bullettino dell'Istituto storico italiano per il medio evo 70, 365—424; Thomas Turley, “John XXII and the Franciscans: A Reappraisal, ” in James R. Sweeney and Stanley Chodorow, eds, Popes, Teachers, and Canon Law in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, N.Y., 1989), pp. 74—87.
61. Jeanne Bignami-Odier, Etudes sur Jean de Roquetaillade (Paris, 1952), and my introduction to Rupescissa's Liber secretorum eventuum, ed. Christine Morerod-Fattebert (forthcoming).
62. The main exception here would be Joachim of Fiore, who was disinclined to extol the illiterate. It is true that Joachim criticized magistri who resisted the application of intellectus spirituals for enlightening the elect; see McGinn, Calabrian Abbot, pp. 166—67. Yet the laity are always held subordinate in Joachim's social thought; see Bernhard Töpfer, Das kommende Reich des Friedens (Berlin, 1964), pp. 77—80, and the discussion of Joachim's Dispositio novi ordinis in Marjorie Reeves and Beatrice Hirsch-Reich, The Figurae of Joachim of Fiore (Oxford, 1972), pp. 242–43.
63. See his sermon of 1267 for the Translation of St. Francis, ed. Robert E. Lerner, “A Collection of Sermons Given in Paris c. 1267, Including a New Text by Saint Bonaventura on the Life of Saint Francis, ” Speculum 49 (1974), 466—498, at p. 498: “Honorem fecerat Dominus ad pastores…. Item amavit piscatores et fecit eos principes. Amavit Deus istos et in fine, post istos, amavit mercatores.” A fuller version is in Bonaventure's Legenda maior 11.14; see the translation by Cousins, p. 290: “The exalted Teacher is accustomed to open his mysteries to the simple and the little ones, as was first seen in the case of David, the most distinguished of the prophets, and afterwards in Peter, the prince of the apostles, and finally in Francis, the poor man of Christ. Although these were simple men unskilled in learning, they were made illustrious by the teaching of the Holy Spirit.”
64. Respectively, the formal condemnation by the University of Paris and the treatise Contra Amaurianos, as in G. C. Capelle, Amaury de Bene: Etude sur son pantheisme formel (Paris, 1932), pp. 89, 92.
65. Caesarius of Heisterbach, ibid., p. 102.
66. University condemnation, ibid., p. 89: “Spiritus sanctus in nobis quotidie incarnatur”; Contra Amaurianos, ibid., p. 93: “usque ad V annos omnes homines erunt spirituales.”
67. Caesarius of Heisterbach, who scrupulously gives clerical titles, refers to William without one; ibid., p. 91. Aside from William, the other Amaurian leaders brought to trial in 1210 were technically in orders since most were students or faculty in the University of Paris, but about half of these were deacons or subdeacons.
68. William the Breton, ibid., p. 100: “sacerdotes, clerici et laici ac mulieres”; “mulieribus autem et aliis simplicibus.”
69. See my “An Angel of Philadelphia in the Reign of Philip the Fair; The Case of Guiard de Cressonessart, ” in William C. Jordan et al., Order and Innovation in the Middle Ages (Princeton, 1976), pp. 343–64, 529–40.
70. A recent account, with further bibliography, is Grado G. Merlo, Eretici ed eresie medievali (Bologna, 1989), pp. 119–26, 137; the best extended treatment remains Topfer, Reich des Friedens, pp. 293–324. A member of Dolcino's “Apostles” told inquisitors in 1299 that the sectaries were in a state of greater perfection than Augustine or Gregory (ibid., p. 291). Trials of Dolcino's followers in Bologna reveal the same emphasis on inspired “spiritual” interpretation of Scripture as found in the Franciscan-Joachite tradition; see Leonardo Paolini and Rainiero Orioli, eds., Acta S. Officii Bononie ab anno 1291 usque ad annum 1310 (Rome, 1984), 2:391: “Interrogate si Ecclesia habet intellectum et sapientiam scripturarum vel non, respondit quod credit quod non bene intelligunt pastores Ecclesie omnia dicta prophetarum et Apochalissi nisi a Deo eis reveletur. Interrogatus si credit quod revelatum fuerit Dolcino de Novaria de intellectu et sapiencia scripturarum, respondit quod sic….”
71. On Arnold's alliance with Spiritual Franciscans, see Grundmann, Aufsdtze, 2:129; note also the praise of “Petrus Iohannis” (Olivi) in Arnold's Responsio obiectionibus, p. 67. While technically Arnold was in the lowest ranks of the clergy — clericus uxoratus — he himself never seems to have appealed to this borderline status as a license for treating religious matters.