THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL. 21 the Expositio, and the Decachordon — the development and spir- itualization of all that had preceded it. Even as Joachim had dwelt on the ascending scale of the three Eras, so the author of the Introduction characterized the progressive methods of the three Scriptures. The Old Testament is the first heaven, the New Testament the second heaven, the Everlasting Gospel the third heaven. The first is like the light of the stars, the second like that of the moon, and the third like that of the sun ; the first is the porch, the second the holy place, and the third the Holy of Holies ; the first is the rind, the second the nut, the third the ker- nel ; the first is earth, the second water, the third fire ; the first is literal, the second spiritual, and the third is the law promised in Jeremiah xxxi. The preaching and dissemination of this supreme and eternal law of God is committed to the barefooted Order (the Franciscans). At the threshold of the Old Law were three men, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob : at that of the New Law were three others, Zachariah, John the Baptist, and Christ : and at that of the coming age are three, the man in linen (Joachim), the Angel with the sharp sickle, and the Angel with the sign of the living God (Francis). In the blessed coming reign of the Holy Ghost men will live under the law" of love, as in the first Era they lived in fear, and in the second in grace. Joachim had argued against the con- tinuance of the sacraments ; Gherardo regarded them as symbols and enigmas, from which man would be liberated in the time to come, for love would replace all the observances founded upon the second Dispensation. This was destructive of the whole sacerdo- tal system, which was to be swept away and relegated to the limbo of the forgotten past ; and scarce less revolutionary was his bold declaration that the Abomination of Desolation would be a pope tainted with simony, w r ho, towards the end of the sixth age, now at hand, would obtain the papacy.*
- Protocol. Cornmiss. Anagniae (H. Denifle Archiv fur Litt.- etc., 1885, pp.
99-102, 109, 126, 135-6). It appears to me that Father DenifiVs laborious research has sufficiently proved that the errors commonly ascribed to the Everlasting Gospel (D'Argentre I. i. 162-5 ; Eymeric. Direct. Inq. P. n. Q. 9 ; Hermann. Korneri Chron. ap. Eccard. Corp. Hist. Med. iEvi. II. 849-51) are the strongly partisan accusations sent to Rome by William of St. Amour (ubi sup. pp. 76-86) which have led to
