APOCALYPTIC SPIRITUALITY
TREATISES AND LETTERS OF LACTANTIUS,
ADDSO OF MONTIER-EN-DER,
JOACHIM OF FIORE, THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS,
SAVONAROLA

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Theology Today

APOCALYPTIC SPIRITUALITY-TREATISES AND LETTERS OF
LACTANTIUS, ADSO OF MONTIER-EN-DER, JOACHIM OF FIORE
THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS, SAVONAROLA
translation and introduction by Bernard McGinn
preface by Marjorie Reeves.

Tust as Jesus Christ came with true signs, but cloaked and hidden because of the likeness
of sinful buman nature so that he was hardly recognized us the Christ by even a feu so too
the seventh king will come with false signs and will be bidden and cloaked because of his
appearance of spiritual justice, so that only a few will be able to recognize that be is the
Antichrist."
Joachim of Fiore, 1135-1202

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus" (Apoc. 22:20). The significance of these closing
words of the New Testament for later Christian spirituality is the subject of
this volume.

This book makes available major texts in the Christian apocalyptic literature
from the 4th to the 16th centuries. The apocalyptic tradition is that of traditional
prophecy based on revelation and concerned with the end of the world
Even an age such as ours characterized by its scientific and rationalistic
outlook has strong elements of literal apocalypticism found in fundamentalist
and charismatic groups. The popular success of Hal Lindsey's The Late
Great Planet Earth is evidence of this. Also the present hunger for apocalypse
has adopted a variety of secular disguises typified by Robert Heilbroner's
An Inquiry into the Human Prospect. Contemporary theologians like
Kasemann, Pannenberg, Rahner, Moltmann and others have devoted much
of their work to the meaning of apocalyptic thought. This is a collection
which can show the traditional roots of this contemporary phenomenon.
Dr: Bernard McGinn says in his introduction, "These treatises and letters
have been chosen because of the way in which they manifest how beliefs
about the imminent end affected the lives of their adherents.. Perhaps
the task for us today is that by seeing how the lives of Lactantius, the monk
Adso, Joachim of Fiore, The Spiritual Franciscans and Savonarola were
affected by their apocalyptic vision we can recognize how our lives are
being affected by the contemporary prophetic sense of the end of histor.y