94 GUGLIELMA AND DOLCINO. were wont to assemble. When he died he instituted the abbey as his heir, and the inheritance could not have been inconsider- able. There were, doubtless, other instances of similar liberality of which the evidences have not reached us.* All this was innocent enough, but within the circle of those who worshipped Guglielma there was a little band of initiated who believed in her as the incarnation of the Holy Ghost. The history of the Joachites has shown us the readiness which existed to look upon Christianity as a temporary phase of religion, to be shortly succeeded by the reign of the Holy Ghost, when the Church of Rome would give place to a new and higher organiza- tion. It was not difficult, therefore, for. the Guglielmites to per- suade themselves that they had enjoyed the society of the Para- clete, who was shortly to appear, when the Holy Spirit would be received in tongues of flame by the disciples, the heathen and the Jew would be converted, and there would be a new church usher- ing in the era of love and blessedness, for which man had been sighing through the weary centuries. Of this doctrine Andrea was chief apostle. He claimed to be the first and only spiritual son of Guglielma, from whom he had received the revelation, and he embroidered it to suit the credulity of the disciples. The Arch- angel Raphael had announced to the blessed Constance the incar- nation in her of the Holy Ghost ; a year afterwards, Guglielma was born on the holy day of Pentecost ; she had chosen the form of a woman, for if she had come as man she would have died like Christ, and the whole world would have perished. On one occa- sion, in her chamber, she had changed a chair into an ox, and had told him to hold it if he could, but when he attempted to do so it disappeared. The same indulgences were obtainable by visiting her tomb at Chiaravalle as by a pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre. Wafers which had been consecrated by laying them on the tomb were eagerly partaken of by the disciples, as a new form of com- munion. Besides the two regular feast-days, there was a third for the initiated, significantly held on Pentecost, the day when she was expected to reappear. Meanwhile, the devotion of the faith- ful was stimulated by stories of her being in communication with
- Ogniben, op. cit. pp. 20-1, 25-6, 31, 36, 49-50, 56-7, 61, 72-3, 74, 93-4, 104,
116.— Tamburini, Storia dell' Inquisizione, II. 17-18.
