There was heresy in this book, with its doctrine of a still unrevealed, but everlasting Gospel of the Holy Ghost. Until its appearance the genuine utterances of Joachim were not prescribed, consisting as they did of prophecies, for example, as to the life of that monster Frederick II., and of denunciations of the pride and worldliness of ecclesiastics. Thus they fell in with the enthusiasms of the “spiritual” Franciscans, who still lived in an ecstasy of love and anticipation;—in the coming time some of them were to be dubbed Fratricelli, and under that name be held as heretics.
John of Parma was, of course, a “Joachite”; and “I was intimate with him,” says Salimbene, “from love and because I seemed to believe the writings of Abbot Joachim of the Order of the Flower.” John was likewise a friend (so strong a bond was the belief in the holy but over-prophetic Joachim) of Hugo of Montpellier, of whose manner and arguments we shall now let Salimbene speak.
“Once Hugo came from Pisa to Lucca, where the brothers had invited him to come and preach. He arrived at the hour for setting out for the cathedral service. And there the whole convent was assembled to accompany him and do him honour, and from desire to hear him too. And he wondered, seeing the brothers assembled outside of the convent door, and said: ‘Ah God! what are they going to do?’ The reply was, that they were there to do him honour, and to hear him. But he said: ‘I do not need such honour, for I am not pope. If they wish to hear, let them come after we have got there. I will go ahead with one companion, and I will not go with that band.’”
Hugo was worshipped by his admirers, and hated by those whom he disagreed with or denounced. Aside from his disputations in defence of Joachim, a sample of which will be given shortly, one can see what hate must have sprung from such invective as Salimbene reports him once to have addressed to a consistory of cardinals at Lyons, where the Pope then held court. Here is the story, quite too harsh for the respectable editors of the Parma edition of the Chronaca:
“The cardinals inquired of Brother Hugo for news (rumores). So he reviled them, as asses, saying: ‘I have no news, but a plenitude of peace in my conscience and before my God, who surpasses sense and keeps my heart and mind in Christ Jesus my Lord. I know that ye seek after news, and wait idle the live-long day. For ye are Athenians and not disciples of Christ. Of whom Luke says in the Acts: For all the Athenians and the strangers which were there had time for nothing else but to tell or hear some new thing. The disciples of Christ were fishers and weak men according to the world, but they converted the whole earth because the hand of the Lord was with them. They set forth and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them. But ye are those who build up Zion in blood (i.e. consanguinity) and Jerusalem in iniquity. For you choose your little nephews and relations for the benefices and dignities of the Church, and you exalt and make rich your clan, and shut out men good and fit who would be useful to the Church, and you prebendate children in their cradles. As a certain mountebank well has said: If with an accusative you would go to the Curia, you’ll take nothing if you don’t start with the dative! And another says, the Roman Curia cares not for a sheep without wool.’”
And with such like, Hugo continues a considerable space.
“Hearing these things the cardinals were cut to the heart and gnashed their teeth at him. But they had not the hardihood to reply; for the fear of the Lord came over them and the hand of the Lord was with him. Yet they wondered that he spoke to them so boldly; and finally it seemed best to them to slip out and leave him, nor did they question him, saying, as the Athenians to Paul: ‘We will hear thee again of this matter.’”[644]
Hugo’s invective is outdone by Salimbene’s closing scorn.
And now (to return to Salimbene’s journey) here at Hyères in the year 1248 many notaries and judges, and physicians and other men of learning, were assembled to hear Brother Hugo speak of the Abbot Joachim’s doctrines, and expound Holy Scripture, and predict the future. “And I was there to hear him; for long before I had been instructed in these teachings.” But there came two Preaching friars, and abode at the Franciscan house, since the Dominicans had no convent at Hyères. One was Brother Peter of Apulia, a learned man and a great speaker. After dinner a brother asked him what he thought of Abbot Joachim. He answered: “I care as much for Joachim as for the fifth wheel of a coach.”
Thereupon this brother hurried to Hugo’s chamber, and exclaimed in the presence of all the notables there: “Here is a brother Preacher who does not believe that doctrine at all.”