Apocalypse Now or Later: The Manuscript Tradition of the Super Prophetas (Super Esaiam) of Pseudo-Joachim of Fiore

The Abbot Joachim of Fiore (ca. 1130-1202) is without doubt among the most important figures in the intellectual history of the pre-modern West. His teleology of historical progression, culminating in a status of the Holy Spirit, offered a powerful critique of the evolution of medieval Christian society. His many heirs took this concept as a rallying point for dissent and reform. Yet the understanding of Joachim’s momentous legacy has long been hampered by a lacuna in the scholarship pertaining to those works spuriously attributed to the abbot, but which were among the most widely-read texts bearing his name.These pseudo-Joachite works, written by Joachim’s various heirs but under his name and often decades after his death, have long remained a mystery: comparatively unstudied, mostly unedited, and without clear analysis of the manuscript tradition behind them. Joachim scholars thus have had relatively little to say about how these works helped transmit Joachim’s ideas across Europe.

This dissertation represents a preliminary, yet essential, step toward both a comprehensive analysis and a critical edition of one of the most important examples of the pseudo-Joachite corpus, a compilation called Super Prophetas—also known as Super Esaiam Prophetam. Focusing on the extensive manuscript tradition behind this work, the dissertation is broadly divided in two parts. Part I serves as an introduction to the compilation itself. It settles the issues of authorship and dating, arguing that the compilation most likely originated among Joachim’s own religious community and arrived in its current form in the late 1260s, during the last stages of the Hohenstaufens’ conflict with the papacy. Part II is an overview of the manuscript tradition. It presents a first, provisional attempt to classify all known manuscript copies. The bulk of the section consists of a catalog of manuscripts, presenting thorough codicological research on each version. The section then concludes with a discussion of the distribution of the manuscripts, revealing the unexpected role that Bohemia especially played in its circulation. Taken together, these components force us to reconsider the transmission of Joachim’s legacy.