1
2
3
4 This volume is protected by copyright. It’s an integral part of the volume: Garritano Flaviano, La Sambucina. Una grande abbazia nell’Europa medievale (with collaboration of E. Bellomo and A. Crisafulli), Libritalia, 2022.
5 JOACHIM of FIORE between SAINT BERNARD of CLAIRVAUX and FLORIS* Rabanus is here, shining on my side the Calabrian abbot Giovacchino, gifted with a prophetic spirit. Dante, Paradiso, canto XII (vv.139-141). Among the many figures who went to the Sambucina monastery, Joachim is also known, who crossed the door of this abbey as a ″refuge for the soul″. The figure of d Joachim of Fiore is studied all over the world and there are many publications concerning him. Today we can certainly say that, thanks to the Calabrian abbot with a ″gifted prophetic spirit″, our magna Sila is visited by many scholars who go to the International Center of Gioachimiti Studies, located right inside the ancient Florentine monastery of San Giovanni in Fiore (CS)1 . We do not want to speak here of the many manuscripts of the ″Calabrian abbot″ or of the publications concerning him, but we want to dwell on the period he spent at the Cistercian abbey of Sambucina. Or rather, we will talk about his experience as a Cistercian monk and abbot. Fr. Francesco Russo writes that Joachim was born between 1130-11352 in the hamlet of Celico and comes from a * From: Garritano Flaviano, La Sambucina. Una grande abbazia nell’Europa medievale, Luzzi, Libritalia, 2022. 1 https://www.centrostudigioachimiti.it/ 2 This hypothesis is deduced ″taking as a basis the indication of Ralph of Coggeshall (Radulphi de Coggeshall), according to which Joachim in his conversation with the French Cistercian abbot Adam of Perseigne in Rome in 1195 (or 1196) ‹‹demonstrated approximately 60 years›› (videbatur autem fere sexagenarius), in Herbert
6 middle-class family. The main and most reliable source of his life remains unquestionably the biography3 written about him by Abbot Luca Campano, his friend, scribe and companion on various missions. On the occasion of the crusade of 1148-494 Joachim went to the East and visited Constantinople, Syria and Palestine. Again according to the studies of Fr. Francesco Russo, he returns to Calabria in 1150 ca. and enters the Cistercians of Sambucina of Luzzi, where he is hosted by Sigismondo Abbot and remains there for about a year. On this first experience, Prof. Giuseppe Marchese in his book on Sambucina tells us that due to his maturity he is assigned the role of porter5 . But we have not found any documents proving this. Grundmann specifies that neither then nor later did he become a monk of Sambucina, let alone his porter, the latter hypothesis being the result of a legend6 . We can certainly say that the first monastery that Joachim entered was precisely that of Sambucina; and here his Grundmann, Gioacchino da Fiore. Life and works, Rome, International Center of Gioachimiti Studies, Ed. Viella, 1997, p.136. 3 Virtutum B. Joachim Synopsys, Ed. Ughelli, Italia Sacra, IX, p. 205- 208; Paperbroch, in Acta Sanctorum, mai VII, p. 93-95. 4 According to Bernard McGinn, Joachim made his journey to the East around 1167, see: Bernard McGinn, L'abate Calabrese, Genoa, Centro Internazionale di Studi Gioachimiti, Casa Editrice Marietti, 1990. Joachim himself speaks of this journey in his Treatises or essays on four Gospels. 5 In the Cistercian order, the role of doorkeeper in importance was subordinated only to the abbot and prior. 6 In the Life it does not say that Joachim was the porter of the Sambucina; Gregory de Laude extrapolated it, as he himself declares, from a legend of the Byzantine chronicler Laonikos Chalkokondyles (d. 1463), in Grundamann H., Ibidem, p. 158.
7 initial cultural formation must have taken place, with a particular predilection for the studies of the sacred scriptures and ″…they will constitute the center of his vast literary production and will make him the most original exegete of the Middle Ages and one of the most profound connoisseurs of the Sacred Scriptures of the twelfth century"7 . Evidently already a few decades after its foundation the monks of this monastery were known and appreciated. After about a year spent in Sambucina, Joachim had not yet become a Cistercian. Shortly thereafter he moved to a locality near Rende, where he began to preach to the inhabitants. But, realizing that for the role of preacher he does not have the permission of the Bishop, he decides to go to Catanzaro to be ordained a priest. During the journey, near the monastery of Corazzo, he talks to a ″Grecus monachus nobilis″ 8 . The latter asks him questions about what his purpose is and what his intentions are and tells him the parable of the slothful servant, who does not put to use and does not increase the talent entrusted to him. Only then did Joachim decide to convert and enter the monastery of Corazzo as a monk. After a period of novitiate, he became prior and in 1177 abbot of Corazzo, albeit reluctantly9 . 7 Crocco Antonio, Joachim of Fiore. The most singular and fascinating figure of the Christian Middle Ages, Naples, Edizioni Empireo, 1960. 8A monk called Greco [...], this is how some write, but some manuscripts say (not) blind, perhaps by mistake, in Domenico Martire, La Calabria sacra e profana, vol.II, pag. 77. Grundmann adds that perhaps in the Vita Caeco was written instead of Graeco, and according to him this is the most correct hypothesis. 9 In the initial part of the Psalterium it is clear that the appointment as abbot of Corazzo was not appreciated by him, since it distracted him from the beloved task of the edifying word and the office of abbot imposed on him a series of ″administrative″ occupations that
8 He did not immediately accept the position and initially took refuge in the monastery of the Holy Trinity near Acri10. But here he doesn't stay long, since the environment is not very edifying, and he returns to Sambucina. The abbot of Sambucina Simeone and his prior Ilario, together with the archbishop of Cosenza Ruffo, the executioner of Rende, called Melis, and still other characters, convince Joachim to return to Corazzo and to accept the position of abbot. Ultimately, after the first experience of the novitiate in Sambucina, Joachim became prior and then in a short time abbot of Corazzo (1177). The assignment lasted about a decade, during which he tried to govern the whole monastic community in the best possible way and to always defend the possessions of the abbey. But, as we have already said, Joachim sees this commitment as an impediment to completing his studies and his writings. During the period in which Joachim was abbot, in fact, he demonstrated a versatility of behavior which aimed at reconciling the government of the monastic community with the dedication to the contemplative life. There are not many documents of his administrative activity in the decade in which he was abbot of Corazzo. But from the few remaining it is clear that he manages to grow the community, to defend its possessions and also to obtain many awards and donations from the rulers. His primary objective was to affiliate his monastery of Corazzo to the Cistercian Order, which at that time was well regarded by the church of Rome and also defended by the rulers. Initially, as is natural, Joachim turned to Sambucina. But this monastery, distracted him from his studies and by the kind of mystical life he led; these activities seemed almost profane to him. 10 Municipality of the Sila grande located in the province of Cosenza and bordering the mountain of Luzzi.
9 where he had been twice, does not accept Corazzo as filiation due to his poverty and that of the monks: propter paupertatem, ut dicebat, et inopiam monachorum. Joachim, already known outside the borders of his region, also addressed Casamari, receiving the same negative response, despite the esteem reserved for him by Abbot Giraldo. From Casamari he receives hospitality for a year and a half (1182-3) to be able to write his works. Here, in Casamari, he began drafting the Concordia, the Expositio and the Psalter. In Veroli, Pope Lucius III incited him to complete his writings. This authorization to write, licentia scribendi, allows Joachim to derogate from the Cistercian rule according to which, in order to be able to write, the preliminary approval of the General Chapter is required. Approval that would certainly require a very long time. In 1186 he went to Verona11 to Pope Urban III, who renewed the authorization to write and sent him back to Calabria, encouraging him to continue his writings. Pope Clement III also wrote a letter to Joachim, reminding him not to keep the talentum scientie entrusted to him hidden and urging him to complete his exegetical works, which would then be submitted to the unquestionable judgment of the Holy See. Despite the two refusals to incorporate into the Cistercian Order (Sambucina and Casamari), Joachim did not give up and in 1188 obtained from Pope Clement III the classification of his monastery in the Cistercian Order thanks to affiliation to the Fossanova abbey12 . 11 The chronicler Robert of Auxerre tells of Joachim's visit to Pope Urban III. 12The abbey of Fossanova after a few years, 11 December 1192, also became the mother house of Santo Stefano del Bosco, a Carthusian monastery founded by San Bruno and located in Serra San Bruno in the current province of Vibo Valentia in Calabria.
10 In any case, in 1189 the contrast between the abbot of Corazzo, Joachim, and his monks sharpened considerably and so our abbot-theologian decided to retire with his companion Raniero to a location that still today has not been precisely identified, called Pietralata13, where he continued his studies and his writings. Here Joachim matured the idea of a new Congregation, ″… Faithful to his increasingly apocalyptic perspectives, [Joachim] seemed to think that the forms of monasticism he saw around him would no longer be able to cope with the threats of the time ″14. Thus ends his monastic experience as a Cistercian! In this new phase, Joachim had a real ‹‹spiritual crisis›› which led him to renounce the abbey dignity of Corazzo and to incur the consequent condemnation of the Cistercians. In the General Chapter of 1192 they recalled him and Raniero da Ponza15 declaring them ″fugitives″16, therefore to be avoided, if they had not returned to the Order. A decision which the Cistercians of southern Italy certainly did not comply with: Casamari, Sambucina, Corazzo and Palermo. To avoid further reprisals, 13 Location halfway up the coast of the pre-Sila Cosenza. Luca Campano also joined him here, before becoming abbot of Sambucina. 14 Bernard McGinn, Ibid., p. 41. 15 Raniero da Ponza, who accompanied Joachim in his first retreat in the Sila mountains, was also the promoter of the election of Luca Campano as abbot of Sambucina and later covered a prestigious and leading role under the pontificate of Innocent III. 16 ″Pro evocando Joachim dudum abbate et Rainiero monacho a Capitulo generali litterae dirigantur. Si vero usque ad festum S. Joannis Baptistaevenire contempserint, omnes abbates et fratres Ordinis nostri eos ut fugitivos devitent″, in Canivez J., Statuta Capitulorum Generalium Ordinis Cisterciensis, t. I, p. 154.
11 Joachim and other older monks who had followed him went to Rome to see Pope Clement III, who exempted him from his abbey duties at Corazzo and asked the monks to work for the full incorporation of the see into the Cistercian Order, under the patronage of the Abbot of Fossanova17. Joachim thus aims to further reform the Cistercian Order, trying to return to the original Benedictine Rule and to do this he retires to the cold and solitary lands of the Sila. Like Benedetto who went up from Subiaco to Monte Cassino, Joachim immediately made a new "ascent up the mountain". In this choice of his to go up to Sila, and get away from everyone, Joachim of Fiore seems to follow the thought of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux on what to choose between monastic life and study18: ‹‹…believe those who have 17 One of the Cistercian abbots of Fossanova of that period, Goffredo di Auxerre, former secretary of Saint Bernard, widely criticized Joachim for choosing him and certainly, in the General Chapter, undertook to try to discredit him and have him declared fugitive. Evident were the interests that motivated the choice to discredit Joachim, a powerful figure also recognized by the emperors, since with his action he would have brought about divisions in the Cistercian Order and loss of donations from the rulers in favor of the new Florentine Order. In a fragment of a letter, Godfrey harshly attacks Joachim defining him as a false prophet of Jewish origin, who had obtained some favor thanks to his Cistercian habit: ‹‹Nec mediocrem ei confert auctoritatem ipsum barbarum nomen; dicitur enim Ioachim…››, in Sermon, Godfrey of Auxerre, ms. 503, fol. 126v, BM, Troyes. These accusations against Joachim were of course not true and he [Joachim] upon learning of them replied to these accusations with the text ″Intelligentia super calathis″. 18 St. Bernard's advice dates back to 1125 when he wrote to an English cleric, Henry Murdach, who was undecided between the desire for a monastic life and that of study.
12 experience: you will find more in wilds than in books. The wood and the stones will teach you what you cannot hear from the teachers'> (Ep. 106,2). The Cistercians had now grown considerably, both in terms of the number of monasteries and in terms of possessions, and the administration of all these assets distracted the monks from their rule, based on poverty. Furthermore, many monastic communities no longer derived their livelihood from working the land and raising sheep and cattle, but above all from the income deriving from their vast estates. This involved a departure from the rule desired by Saint Bernard. Therefore Joachim of Fiore in this phase is very critical of the corruption of the Church and of the behavior of the monks: ″In reality, even many abbots on the occasion of privileges and for the care of ecclesiastical property, immersing themselves in secular affairs, have completely lost the gift of contemplating the reality of heaven"19 . Again: ″Since the time of Saint Benedict, under which the Christian people were confirmed in the Catholic faith, that perfection of the hermitic life has disappeared from the world at the moment in which the monks began to have farms and peasants and to have no glory other than the name ″20. Elsewhere he writes that ″monasteries have neglected many of the rules of St. Benedict, they wanted to be rich under the rule of poverty″21 . Again: ″Since the time of Saint Benedict, under which the Christian people were confirmed in the Catholic faith, that perfection of the hermitic life has disappeared from the world at the moment in which the monks began to have farms and 19 Concordia, f. 94 b-d, p. 243. 20 Concordia, 101 r2. 21 E, 80V 1-2.
13 peasants and to have no glory other than the name ″. Elsewhere he writes that ″monasteries have neglected many of the rules of St. Benedict, they wanted to be rich under the rule of poverty″. It is clear that Joachim calls the monks to observe the Benedictine Rule, therefore to return to the spirit of poverty. In his comments on the Apocalypse (verses 2 and 3 of Chapter XV) Joachim writes a veritable hymn to poverty: ‹‹Whoever is truly a monk does not consider anything other than the lyre as his own. In fact, he cannot freely praise God who has a heart burdened by the ghosts of sensible reality and by the worries of the world…››. After the mid-12th century, numerous Cistercian monasteries had received many donations from the rulers and this generated abundance, therefore well-being and an easy life. All of this is seen by Joachim as a departure from the rigors and severity of the Rule and pushes him to detach himself from the Cistercian Order and return to the origins of the Benedictine Rule. Despite this, relations with Luca Campano, the Cistercian abbot of Sambucina in the period in which Joachim left the Cistercians to join his Florentine Order, were always based on mutual respect and friendship, as evidenced by the many events we have already mentioned in the paragraph on Abbot Luca Campano. From here we deduce the profound diversity of views between the General Chapter, which declares Joachim a fugitive, and the Cistercians of southern Italy, headed by Luca Campano, who instead have relations of real brotherhood with Joachim himself and not of adversity. It is precisely Luca Campano himself, the Cistercian abbot of Sambucina, who tells us about the various trips he made to Palermo together with Joachim, who by now had become ″abbas Floris″. Each of them with a different habit, but with a common purpose: to defend and enhance their Cistercian and Florentine monastic communities, in mutual respect. These two great figures of Latin culture, sons of their time, had already
14 understood that, even if they wore different habits, they had to walk together because their story had a common father. At this point it seems legitimate to ask how much the Cistercians, and in particular Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, influenced his vocation, his formation, his studies. As we reported above, Joachim was initially a Cistercian monk and due to his abilities he was also elected abbot of the abbey of Corazzo, a position he held for a decade. According to McGinn22 ″The abbot of Fiore was a very selective self-taught reader; he knew some Fathers relatively well: especially Augustine. Although often tacitly [...] Joachim depended on him [the Bishop of Hippo] in many respects and no doubt considered himself a faithful listener to this dominant voice of Latin theology. Among contemporaries, the only person we are sure of having read his works is Bernard of Clairvaux ″, the only one to be quoted verbatim. The main sources of Joachim's thought were essentially the Bible and his visionary experiences. Certainly Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, with his writings, had a ″determinative″ role on Joachim, who considered him as the greatest of monks after Benedict. In Joachim's writings there are several references to Saint Bernard of Clairvaux. In particular ″…in recalling his attestation of a correct Trinitarian theology, against those who wanted to introduce a quaternitas in God; and also as regards the place that Bernard himself occupies in the history of salvation″ 23 . In the three major 22 Bernard McGinn, Ibid., p. 85. 23 Bernard McGinn, ‹‹Alter Moyses››: the role of Bernard of Clairvaux in the thought of Joachim of Fiore, in Florensia bulletin of the International Center for Gioachimiti Studies, San Giovanni in Fiore, Year V, 1991, p. 8.
15 writings24 of Joachim, in particular in the Concordia, the Abbot of Clairvaux is greatly praised and even exalted as an opponent of the Trinitarian heresy. Ultimately Joachim of Fiore was with his works and his monastic reform a defender of the monastic ideal created by Saint Bernard of Clairvaux based on the principle ora et labora and that precisely in the years following the death of the Claravalense saint the monasteries of his own Order began to abandon with dangerous detours towards the increase of material goods. Sambucina, November 2023 Flaviano Garritano 24 Psalterium decem Chordarum, Liber de Concordia, Expositio in Apocalypsim.
16 1
17 2 3
18 4 5
19 6
20 Figures: 1. Florense arch. San Giovanni in Fiore (CS) 2. Protocenobium Jure Vetere. San Giovanni in Fiore (CS) (© G. R. Succurro) 3. Protocenobium Jure Vetere. San Giovanni in Fiore (CS) (© G. R. Succurro) 4. Protocenobium Jure Vetere. San Giovanni in Fiore (CS) 5. Florense abbey. San Giovanni in Fiore (CS) 6. True image of Gioacchino da Fiore, G. Greco, 1612.