Joachim of Fiore and the Division of Christendom

Abstract

“Joachim of Fiore and the Division of Christendom.” Modern scholarship, including notably the work of R. I. Moore, generally portrays medieval Latin attitudes toward Greek Christians as marked by growing intolerance, hatred, and alienation. This article examines the representation of Latin and Greek difference as found in the writings of the famous Calabrian abbot Joachim of Fiore (1135–1202). Through his concordance of biblical and post-biblical history, Joachim came to the conclusion that the division of Christendom was a providential event, imparting to Latin Christians a place of primacy in God’s dispensation that was formerly reserved for the Jews and then for the Greeks. The abbot’s eschatological speculations, however, also lead him to foresee the peaceful reunion of the two churches through the efforts of a spiritual order of Latin monks, whose own religious tradition could be traced back to the Eastern Church. This influential vision of the divergence between the two Christian peoples calls on us to reconsider the proposition that intolerance and hatred were the normative Latin attitudes toward Greek Christians. At the same time, Joachim’s concern with the providential significance of the Latin Christian community suggests some of the ways that models of salvation history played a role in the formation of Western identity during a period that is frequently associated with the “making of Europe.”