How does one measure whether a “Speculum” is of sufficiently broad interest to be worthy of an article in Speculum? I refer to Marguerite Porete's Mirror of Simple Souls, which I believe amply meets the test. Since the publication of the Middle French text of the Mirror in 1965, two translations have appeared in modern French, two in Italian, one in German, one in Spanish, and one in Catalan. Two translations are also available in English. Both have remained in print (...) since their initial appearance in the 1990s; one is owned by 576 libraries worldwide, and the other by 160, to which might be added 279 copies of an earlier English translation made from the Middle English version of the Mirror. A rough count of secondary works on Marguerite published in the last twenty-five years adds up to some one hundred books and articles. Quite intriguing is the diverse use made of Marguerite and her work outside of the academy. In 2001 an “installation opera” about Marguerite based on a libretto by the noted poet Anne Carson was performed in New York City; the following year a “Requiem für Marguerite Porete” with “dance and musical interpretation” was performed in Karlsruhe. A Web site promoting Eastern wisdom explains that Marguerite's “works illumine the nature of the soul in language which is remarkably reminiscent of Vedic teaching on the Atma, the individual soul.” And yes, she has been unofficially canonized, for another Web site informs readers about the “martyrdom” of “Saint Marguerite of Hainaut called la Porète.”. (shrink)

Conversations with the Calabrian abbot Joachim of Fiore had a way of turning to the imminent advent of Antichrist: “Antichrist was coming very soon,” Joachim might say, or “Antichrist was already born in Rome,” or “the age culminating in Antichrist's persecutions will begin in a mere four years.”’ It is hence not surprising that Joachim became most famous in his own lifetime as a prophet of Antichrist. But how exactly did Joachim's warnings concerning Antichrist's imminent advent fit in with his (...) overall view of the history of salvation? Joachim's contemporaries had more difficulty in understanding this larger issue than they had in grasping his urgent message that Antichrist was coming soon, and central questions concerning the nature of Joachim's Antichrist thought still have not been resolved by modern scholarship. Above all, two problems of interpretation remain outstanding: Given the certainty that Joachim actually believed in the coming of many Antichrists, which of these several was for him the “real and true” one? Given that Joachim's “real and true” Antichrist can indeed be identified, how did his conception of this eschatological villain compare with that of prior medieval tradition? In seeking to answer both questions I hope to show concurrently that Joachim's Antichrist theology was enormously innovative, daring, and subtle, as his thinking was in so many other regards. (shrink)

Devout Christians of the high and later Middle Ages were caught in a terrible predicament about reading Scripture. Countless authorities urged them to ponder God's word as often and searchingly as possible. St. Augustine deemed Scripture the closest approach to God on earth, teaching “the difference between day and night.” For Cassiodorus, Scripture was “the object of ever-increasing desire, the endless sufficiency [for which] the blessed hunger.” For Peter the Chanter it was the “vessel to transport us across life's boundless (...) sea.” Those who contemplated Scripture with pious intention could never be blamed, not even were they to find new truths in it, for, as Augustine said, “What could God have more generously and abundantly provided in the divine writings than that the same words might be understood in various ways?” Nonetheless, despite those encouragements, canon law ruled severely that “whoever interprets Holy Scripture in a way other than the Holy Spirit demands can be called a heretic even if he does not separate himself from the Church.”. (shrink)

The “fallacy of negative evidence” in historical scholarship is well exemplified by the assumption that In agro dominico, John XXII's bull condemning the errors of Meister Eckhart, was published only in the ecclesiastical province of Cologne. Scholarship on the subject has taken the limited publication of In agro dominico for granted on the grounds that nothing has been known to show that the bull was sent elsewhere. Seeing “nobody on the road,” some experts have even been able to see wording (...) in papal legislation that normal eyesight cannot find, namely, an explicit statement limiting the publication of the bull against Eckhart to the city, diocese, and province of Cologne. Were it true that John XXII restricted the publication of In agro dominico, then it might follow, as some recent scholars have maintained, that John wished to minimize the significance of Eckhart's trial and its outcome. But is it true? (shrink)