This is Communio Sanctorum, the history of the Christian Church, season two.

Years ago, I watched a TV show with Fascination as the host, a man by the name of James Burke,

started with a single item, and then over the name of James Burke, started with a single

item, and then over the course of the next hour showed its link to something else, then that

to something else, until after a dozen seemingly disconnected links, it arrived at some

marvel of modern convenience in daily life. The show was called Connections, and it's one of the

several things that stoked my love of history. So we start this episode with someone who at first

blush, well, has nothing to do with where we'll end. But Joachim of Fior provides a single piece of a

complex system that led to one of the biggest

controversies and surprises of the European Middle Ages.

Joachim was an Italian lad who, after a trip to the Holy Land, returned to Italy to join the

Cistercian monks.

He was ordained a priest in 1168, and in 1177 was made abbot of a monastery in Carradso.

He stayed for 14 years and then left to start a new order in Fiore.

Joaquin is one of many who would never have been known to history were it not for his

innovative ideas about history and eschatology.

He set forth all of history as belonging to three overlapping circles.

The age of the father roughly corresponds to the time of the Old Testament.

The age of the son, he calculated to be 42 periods of 30 years each, starting with the birth of Christ, and running until the year AD 1260,

then would commence the Age of the Spirit, which would be marked by a complete revamping of human society.

The church would succeed in its task of world evangelism, not only seeing most people saved,

but infiltrating human institutions to affect worldwide societal reform that would make

...