12 THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS. to explain his predictions by the occult powers of numbers. Hu- man credulity preserved his reputation as a prophet to modern times, and until at least as late as the seventeenth century prophe- cies under his name were published, containing series of popes with symbolical figures, inscriptions, and explanations, apparently similar to the Vaticinia Pontificum which so completely possessed the confidence of Bernard Delicieux. Even in the seventeenth century the Carmelites printed the Oraculum Angelicum of Cyril, with its pseudo-Joachitic commentary, as a proof of the antiquity of their Order.* Joachim's immense and durable reputation as a prophet was due not so much to his genuine works as to the spurious ones cir- culated under his name. These were numerous — Prophecies of Cyril, and of the Erythraean Sybil, Commentaries on Jeremiah, the Vaticinia Pontificum, the De Oneribus Ecclesice and De Septem Temporibus Ecclesioe. In some of these, reference to Frederic II. would seem to indicate a period of composition about the year 1250, when the strife between the papacy and empire was at the hottest, and the current prophecies of Merlin were freely drawn upon in framing their exegesis. There can be little doubt that their authors were Franciscans of the Puritan party, and their fearless denunciations of existing evils show how impatient had grown the spirit of dissatisfaction. The apocalyptic prophecies
- Lib. Concordiae Proef. (Venet. 1519). — Fr. Francisci Pipini Chron. (Muratori
S. R. I. IX. 498-500).— Rog. Hovedens. ann. 1190.— MSS. Bib. Nat, fonds latin, No 4270, fol. 260-2.— Couiba, La Riforma in Italia, I. 388.— Lech ler's Wickliffe, Lori- mer's Translation, II. 321.— Lib. Conformitat. Lib. i. Fruct. i. P. 2; Fruct. ix. P. 2 (fol. 12, 91). — Telesphori de magnis Tribulationibus Prceem. — Henric. de Hassia contra Vaticin. Telesphori c. xi. (Pez Thesaur. I. n. 521). — Franz Ehrle (Archiv fur Lit.- u. Kirchengeschichte, 1886, p. 331). — P. d'Ailly Concord. Astron.Veritat. c. lix. (August. Vindel. 1490). — H. Cornel. Agripp. de Occult. Philosoph. Lib. n. c. ii. The Vaticinia Pontificum of the pseudo-Joachim long remained a popular oracle. I have met with editions of Venice issued in 1589, 1600, 1605, and 1646, of Ferrara in 1591, of Frankfort in 1608, of Padua in 1625, and of Naples in 1660, an J there are doubtless numerous others. Dante represents Bonaventura as pointing out the saints — " Raban e quivi, e lucemi dallato II Calavrese abate Giovacchino Di spirito profetico dotato." — (Paradiso xn.).
