Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/26

10 THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS. subsequently, it is necessary to cast a glance at one of the most remarkable spiritual developments of the thirteenth century. Its opening years had witnessed the death of Joachim of Flora, a man who may be regarded as the founder of modern mysticism. Sprung from a rich and noble family, and trained for the life of a courtier under Roger the Xorman Duke of Apulia, a sudden de- sire to see the holy places took him, while yet a youth, to the East, with a retinue of servitors. A pestilence was raging when he reached Constantinople, which so impressed him with the mis- eries and vanities of life that he dismissed his suite and continued his voyage as an humble pilgrim with a single companion. His legend relates that he fell in the desert overcome with thirst, and had a vision of a man standing by a river of oil, and saying to him, " Drink of this stream," which he did to satiety, and when he awoke, although previously illiterate, he had a knowledge of all Scripture. The following Lent he passed in an old well on Mount Tabor ; in the night of the Resurrection a great splendor appeared to him, he was tilled with divine light to understand the concordance of the Old and Xew Laws, and every difficulty and every obscurity vanished. These tales, repeated until the seven- teenth century, show the profound and lasting impression which he left upon the minds of men.* Thenceforth his life was dedicated to the service of God. Re- turning home, he avoided his father's house, and commenced preach- ing to the people ; but this was not permissible to a layman, so he entered the priesthood and the severe Cistercian Order. Chosen Abbot of Corazzo, he fled, but was brought back and forced to as- sume the duties of the office, till he visited Rome, in 1181, and ob- tained from Lucius III. permission to lay it down. Even the severe Cistercian discipline did not satisfy his thirst for austerity, and he retired to a hermitage at Pietralata, where his reputation for sanctity drew disciples around him, and in spite of his yearning for solitude he found himself at the head of a new Order, of which the Rule, anticipating the Mendicants in its urgency of poverty, was approved by Celestin III. in 1196. Already it had spread from the mother-house of San Giovanni in Fiore, and numbered several other monasteries.f • Tocco, L'Eresia nel Medio Evo, Firenze, 1884, pp. 265-70. — Profetie dell' Abate Gioachino, Venezia, 1646, p. 8. t Tocco, op. cit. pp. 271-81.— Ccelestin. PP. III. Epist. 279.