Joachim of Fiore - his writing contra Lombard receives Lateran Council and Aquinas reactions

[Steven Avery]

Roger of Wendover's Flowers of History: Comprising the History of ..., Volume 2
By Roger (of Wendover)
https://books.google.com/books?id=eQNIAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA46

======================================================

 

[Steven Avery]

Fourth Lateran Council 1215

[Riedl] Joachim of Fiore is more famous for his theology of history than for his doctrine of the Trinity proper. He is, however, one of the few theologians explicitly sentenced by a general council: the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 denounced Joachim’s book on the unity and essence of the Trinity, which criticized Peter Lombard’s Sentences for its doctrine of the Trinity. The Council, in turn, canonized the latter’s Trinitarian teaching.
[Peter Lombard's "Sentences"]. (Riedl, A Companion to Joachim of Fiore. 2017, p. 41)

• [Hales] This most numerous council of the representatives of the Greek and Latin churches was chiefly convened for the examination of certain opinions of the famous Italian father, Joachim, founder of the congregation of Flora. These opinions were accused of Arianism, and were unanimously condemned by the council. In their acts, written in Latin, and translated into Greek, we find a reference to this verse: "It is read in the canonical epistle of John, there are three that bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one." Joachim, it seems, had interpreted “these three are one” (Latin: tres unum sunt), to signify unity of consent only, in these heavenly witnesses. And he justified the interpretation, by alleging that the same words were found also in the eighth verse, “according to some copies” (Latin: sicut in quibusdam codicibus invenitur) as well as in the seventh: but in the eighth verse, being applied to the earthly witnesses, where they could only express unity of consent or of testimony, [the verses being parallel] he contended that he had a right to take them [the last clause “these three are one”] in the same sense in the seventh verse too. (William Hales, [Letter to the Editor] Sabellian, or Unitarian Controversy. Letter XI. Antijacobin Review, Sabellian Controversy, vol 1, May 1816 p. 606)

• 2. On the error of abbot Joachim. Fourth Lateran Council 1215.
• We therefore condemn and reprove that small book or treatise which abbot Joachim published against master Peter Lombard concerning the unity or essence of the Trinity, in which he calls Peter Lombard a heretic and a madman because he said in his Sentences, “For there is a certain supreme reality which is the Father and the Son and the holy Spirit, and it neither begets nor is begotten nor does it proceed”. He asserts from this that Peter Lombard ascribes to God not so much a Trinity as a quaternity, that is to say three persons and a common essence as if this were a fourth person. Abbot Joachim clearly protests that there does not exist any reality which is the Father and the Son and the holy Spirit-neither an essence nor a substance nor a nature — although he concedes that the Father and the Son and the holy Spirit are one essence, one substance and one nature. He professes, however, that such a unity is not true and proper but rather collective and analogous, in the way that many persons are said to be one people and many faithful one church, according to that saying : Of the multitude of believers there was one heart and one mind, and Whoever adheres to God is one spirit with him; again He who plants and he who waters are one, and all of us are one body in Christ; and again in the book of Kings, My people and your people are one. In support of this opinion he especially uses the saying which Christ uttered in the gospel concerning the faithful : I wish, Father, that they may be one in us, just as we are one, so that they may be made perfect in one. For, he says, Christ’s faithful are not one in the sense of a single reality which is common to all. They are one only in this sense, that they form one church through the unity of the catholic faith, and finally one kingdom through a union of indissoluble charity. Thus we read in the canonical letter of John : For there are three that bear witness in heaven, the Father and the Word and the holy Spirit, and these three are one; and he immediately adds, And the three that bear witness on earth are the spirit, water and blood, and the three are one, according to some manuscripts.

• We, however, with the approval of this sacred and universal council, believe and confess with Peter Lombard that there exists a certain supreme reality, incomprehensible and ineffable, which truly is the Father and the Son and the holy Spirit, the three persons together and each one of them separately. Therefore in God there is only a Trinity, not a quaternity, since each of the three persons is that reality — that is to say substance, essence or divine nature-which alone is the principle of all things, besides which no other principle can be found. This reality neither begets nor is begotten nor proceeds; the Father begets, the Son is begotten and the holy Spirit proceeds. Thus there is a distinction of persons but a unity of nature. Although therefore the Father is one person, the Son another person and the holy Spirit another person, they are not different realities, but rather that which is the Father is the Son and the holy Spirit, altogether the same; thus according to the orthodox and catholic faith they are believed to be consubstantial. For the Father, in begetting the Son from eternity, gave him his substance, as he himself testifies : What the Father gave me is greater than all. It cannot be said that the Father gave him part of his substance and kept part for himself since the Father’s substance is indivisible, inasmuch as it is altogether simple. Nor can it be said that the Father transferred his substance to the Son, in the act of begetting, as if he gave it to the Son in such a way that he did not retain it for himself; for otherwise he would have ceased to be substance. It is therefore clear that in being begotten the Son received the Father’s substance without it being diminished in any way, and thus the Father and the Son have the same substance. Thus the Father and the Son and also the holy Spirit proceeding from both are the same reality.


• When, therefore, the Truth prays to the Father for those faithful to him, saying I wish that they may be one in us just as we are one, this word one means for the faithful a union of love in grace, and for the divine persons a unity of identity in nature, as the Truth says elsewhere, You must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect {2} , as if he were to say more plainly, You must be perfect in the perfection of grace, just as your Father is perfect in the perfection that is his by nature, each in his own way. For between creator and creature there can be noted no similarity so great that a greater dissimilarity cannot be seen between them. If anyone therefore ventures to defend or approve the opinion or doctrine of the aforesaid Joachim on this matter, let him be refuted by all as a heretic. By this, however, we do not intend anything to the detriment of the monastery of Fiore, which Joachim founded, because there both the instruction is according to rule and the observance is healthy; especially since Joachim ordered all his writings to be handed over to us, to be approved or corrected according to the judgment of the apostolic see. He dictated a letter, which he signed with his own hand, in which he firmly confesses that he holds the faith held by the Roman church, which is by God’s plan the mother and mistress of all the faithful.

• We also reject and condemn that most perverse doctrine of the impious Amalric, whose mind the father of lies blinded to such an extent that his teaching is to be regarded as mad more than as heretical.
• Fourth Lateran Council 1215, 2. On the error of abbot Joachim. Translation by Norman P. Tanner.
<www.papalencyclicals.net/councils/ecum12-2.htm>

 

[Steven Avery]

CARM
https://forums.carm.org/threads/jer...lgate-new-testament.10317/page-11#post-787181

This quote referencing Ben David (John Jones) summarizes much of the info.

Ben David
Porson (Richard Porson 1759 – 1808), in his ”Letters to Travis", p. 155, gives the following quotation:” Abbot Joachim (1135-1202) compared the final clauses of the seventh and eighth verses, whence he inferred, that the same expression ought to be interpreted in the same manner. Since, therefore, he said, nothing more than unity of testimony and consent can be meant by ”tres unum sunt” [Three are one] in the eighth verse, nothing more than unity of testimony and consent is meant in the seventh. This opinion the Lateran Council (AD 1215) and Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) confuted [Joachim's interpretation], by cutting out the clause in the eighth verse.

This mangling even remained in the Complutensian Polyglot. It is a fascinating history.

Here is a good description, with more detail, the author is:

William Hales (1747-1831)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Hales

Memoir of the Controversy Respecting the Three Heavenly Witnesses (1830)
William Orme
https://archive.org/details/memoircontrover00abbogoog/page/n178/mode/2up

To few writers of the present age is the theological and critical reader more indebted than to the Rev. Dr. Hales, of Trinity College, Dublin. His “New Analysis of Chronology,” which appeared in 1811, and following years—contains an immense mass of most valuable learning—not merely relating to chronology, but to all matters of a biblical nature. In the second volume of this work, pp. 905, 906, he has given his opinion, that the verse in question is spurious. Six years after this, however, Dr. Hales declared himself, “at length perfectly satisfied of the authenticity and credibility of the disputed clause, from a more critical view of the whole of the evidence, extemal and internal, for and against it.”

Antijacobin Review Vol 50 (1816)
Sabellian or Unitarian Controversy Letter XII
William Hales (1747-1831)
https://books.google.com/books?id=NevTxkZHhJYC&pg=PA605

But, it may well be asked, how came the Complutensian editors to expunge the clausule from the eighth verse, and to transfer it so injudiciously to the seventh verse; suppressing the proper clausule of the seventh, τρεῖς εἰς τὸ ἐν εἰσὶν ?

We may answer, through improper deference to the authority of the general council of Lateran, A. D. 1215.

This most numerous council of the representatives of the Greek and Latin churches was chiefly convened for the examination of certain opinions of the famous Italian father, Joachim, founder of the congregation of Flora. These opinions were accused of Arianism, and were unanimously condemned by the council. In their acts, written in Latin, and translated into Greek, we find a reference to this verse: “It is read in the canonical epistle of John, there are three that bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one." Joachim, it seems, had interpreted tres unum sunt, to signify unity of consent only, in these heavenly witnesses. And he justified the interpretation, by alleging that the same words were found also in the eighth verse, according to some copies (sicut in quibusdam codicibus invenitur) as well as in the seventh: but in the eighth verse, being applied to the earthly witnesses, where they could only express unity of consent or of testimony, he contended that he had a right to take them in the same sense in the seventh verse too. To counteract this heretical interpretation, as they considered it, excluding unity of substance, the Fathers, of the Council expunged the clausule in the eighth verse, as appears from their Greek translation of their acts, in which it is omitted. And in this they were followed by Thomas Aquinas, who says, that "it was not extant in the true copies of the eighth verse; but that it was said to be added by the Arian heretics, to pervert the sound understanding of it in the seventh verse." On the contrary, we have the valuable testimony of Professor Porson, assuring us, that “twenty-nine Latin MSS. the fairest, the oldest, and the most correct, in general, have the clausule of the eighth verse," Leiters, p. 152. Hence, the Complutensian editors found it necessary to apologize for omitting it in the eighth verse, by pleading the authority of the Lateran council, and of Thomas Aquinas, against Joachim, in their marginal note, referring to 1 John, v. 7, 8, which is given entire by Travis, Appendix, No. xl. p. 80.

The Lateran Council, however, have given their powerful sanction to the authenticity of the seventh verse, by reciting the following variety of it in their Greek translation of the Acts. ... Still, however, the acquiescence of the Greek patriarchs of Constantinople and Jerusalem, who were present at the council, and of the deputies of the patriarchs of Antioch and Alexandria, who attended in their stead ; and the concurrence of the representatives of the Oriental church, in these acts, furnish indisputable evidence, that the seventh varse was no where controverted in the thirteenth Century.

(William Hales, [Letter to the Editor] Sabellian, or Unitarian Controversy. Letter XI. Antijacobin Review, Sabellian Controversy, vol 1, May 1816 p. 606-607)

An additional source that covers Joachim and his critique of Peter Lombard, which really is the start of this whole mess.

Roger of Wendover's Flowers of History: Comprising the History of England from the Descent of the Saxons to A.D. 1235. Formerly Ascribed to Matthew Paris, Volume 2 (1849)
by Roger (of Wendover)
https://books.google.com/books?id=eQNIAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA46

 

[Steven Avery]

History of Italian Philosophy Vol 1 (2008)
Eugenio Garin

History of Italian Philosophy

This book is a treasure house of Italian philosophy. Narrating and explaining the history of Italian philosophers from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century, the author identifies the specificity, peculiarity, originality, and novelty of Italian philosophical thought in the men and women of...

books.google.com

 

[Steven Avery]

The Origins And Antecedents Of Joachim Of Fiore's (1135-1202) (2018)
Historical-Continuous Method Of Prophetic InterpretationHistorical-Continuous Method Of Prophetic Interpretation
Dojcin Zivadinovic
Andrews University, zivadino@andrews.ed
https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2922&context=dissertations

Some studies have suggested that Joachim’s family might have been of Greek origin. The name Joachim, although unusual in Western Europe, was more common among Greek Christians.21 In one of his works, Joachim mentions having several discussions with the learned Greeks of his area. It has also been noted that many of Joachim's later disciples and biographers were Greek.22

21 Grundmann notes that the name Joachim was rare in northern Europe but was used among Greek Christians because it was the name of Mary's father according to the apocryphal gospel of James. Grundmann, “Zur Biographie,” 333-34 and 546. See James R. Montague, ed. and trans., “Book of James or Protoevangelium,” in The Apochryphal New Testament (Oxford. UK: Clarendon. 1924), 39-48. ( James Rhodes Montague )

22 See Tractatus super Quatuor Evangelia. ed. E. Buonaioti (Rome. Italy: Tipografla del Senato. 1930. reprinted 1966), 222. For more details on the relationship between Joachim and the Greeks, see Paul J. Alexander, “The Diffusion of Byzantine Apocalypses in the Medieval West and the Begimiings of Joachimism,” in Prophecy and Millenarianism: Essays in Honour of Marjorie Reeves, ed. Ami Williams (Essex, UK: Longman, 1980), 80.


===================================

The fourth seal, introduced by the image of the pale horse (Rev 6:8), represents the fourth period of the Christian Church, which Joachim calls the period of the virgins. It is characterized by the rise of monastic orders and Church clerics. The members of both
groups took vows of celibacy. This period begins with the reign of Justinian I (d. 565) and ends with the death of the last Greek pope, Zachary (d. AD 752).39

39Joachim, EA. 116ab: Joachim. LC (D), 296.

 

[Steven Avery]

Joachim of Fiore (1135-1202 AD)
• Joachim of Fiore, also known as Joachim of Flora and in Italian Gioacchino da Fiore (c. 1135 – 30 March
1202), was an Italian theologian and the founder of the monastic order of San Giovanni in Fiore. According to
theologian Bernard McGinn,”Joachim of Fiore is the most important apocalyptic thinker of the whole medieval
period."[1] Later followers, inspired by his works in eschatology and historicist theories, are called Joachimites.
• [Early Life] Born in the small village of Celico near Cosenza, in Calabria (at the time part of the Kingdom of
Sicily), Joachim was the son of Mauro de Celico, a well-placed notary,[2] and of Gemma, his wife. He was
educated at Cosenza, where he became first a clerk in the courts, and then a notary himself. In 1166–1167 he
worked for Stephen du Perche, archbishop of Palermo (c. 1167–1168) and counsellor of Margaret of Navarre,
regent for the young William II of Sicily.

• [Pilgrimage] About 1159 he went on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, where he experienced a spiritual crisis and
conversion in Jerusalem that turned him away from a worldly life. When he returned, he lived as a hermit for
several years, wandering and preaching before joining the Cistercian abbey of Sambucina near Luzzi in
Calabria, as a lay brother without taking the religious habit.[2] There he devoted his time to lay preaching. The
ecclesiastical authorities raised objections to his mode of life, he joined the monks of the Abbey of Corazzo,
and was ordained a priest, apparently in 1168. He applied himself entirely to Biblical study, with a special view
to uncovering the arcane meanings he thought were concealed in the Scriptures, especially in the apostle
John's Revelation. To his dismay, the monks of Corazzo proclaimed him their abbot (c. 1177). He then
attempted to join the monastery to the Cistercian Order, but was refused because of the community's poverty.
In the winter of 1178 he appealed in person to William II, who granted the monks some lands.

• [3 Books] In 1182 Joachim appealed to Pope Lucius III, who relieved him of the temporal care of his abbey,
and warmly approved of his work, bidding him continue it in whatever monastery he thought best. Joachim
spent the following year and a half at the Cistercian Abbey of Casamari, where he engaged in writing his three
great books. There the young monk, Lucas (afterwards Archbishop of Cosenza), who acted as his secretary,
was amazed to see so famous and eloquent a man wearing such rags, and the wonderful devotion with which
he preached and said Mass.[2]

• [Abbey of Fiore] In 1184 he was in Rome, interpreting an obscure prophecy found among the papers of
Cardinal Matthew of Angers, and was encouraged by Pope Lucius III. Succeeding popes confirmed the papal
approbation, though his manuscripts had not begun to circulate. Joachim retired first to the hermitage of
Pietralata, writing all the while, and then founded the Abbey of Fiore (Flora) in the mountains of Calabria. He
refused the request of King Tancred of Sicily (r. 1189–1194) to move his new religious foundation to the
existing Cistercian monastery of Santa Maria della Matina.

• [Predictions] He theorized the dawn of a new age, based on his interpretation of verses in the Book of
Revelation, in which the Church would be unnecessary and in which infidels would unite with Christians.
Members of the spiritual wing of the Franciscan order acclaimed him as a prophet. His popularity was
enormous in the period. Richard the Lionheart met with him in Messina before leaving for the Third Crusade of
1189–1192 to ask for his prophetic advice.[1] His famous Trinitarian”IEUE”interlaced-circles diagram was
influenced by the different 3-circles Tetragrammaton-Trinity diagram of Petrus Alphonsi, and in turn led to the
use of the Borromean rings as a symbol of the Christian Trinity (and possibly also influenced the development
of the Shield of the Trinity diagram).[5]

• [Last Days] On Good Friday in 1196, Empress Constance, also Queen of Sicily, summoned Joachim of
Fiore to Palermo to hear her confession in the Palatine Chapel. Initially the empress sat on a raised chair, but
when Joachim told her that as they were at the places of Christ and Mary Magdalene, she needed to lower
herself, she sat on the ground.[3] Fiore became the center of a new and stricter branch of the Cistercian order,
approved by Celestine III in 1198. In 1200 Joachim publicly submitted all his writings to the examination of
Innocent III, but died in 1202 before any judgment was passed. The holiness of his life was widely known:
Dante affirmed that miracles were said to have been wrought at his tomb,[4] and, though never officially
beatified, he is still venerated as a beatus on May 29.
• Joachim of Fiore. Wikipedia. <en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joachim_of_Fiore>

HIT:
...And [for] anyone who misunderstands that, John says,”there are three that bear witness in earth, the spirit, the blood and the water: and there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost”
(Joachim of Fiore, Ten stringed Psalter, 1527, p. 231v)

26 Et qui male
27 intelligit quod ait Joannes.”Tres sunt qui
28 testimonium dant in terra: Spiritus. san-
29 guis & aqua: et tres sunt qui testimonium
30 dant in celo: pater : verbum : et spiritus san-
31 ctus”
(Joachim of Fiore, Psalterium Decem Cordarum, 1527, p. 231v)

 

[Steven Avery]

RGA - p. 60

The Acts of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) contain an interesting detail of some relevance to the transmission of the comma. The first book of the Council’s Acts deals with matters of doctrine, beginning with the condemnation of certain criticisms of the lost treatise On the unity or essence of the Trinity (De unitate seu essentia Trinitatis) by Joachim of Fiore (c. 1135-1202). Joachim had accused Peter Lombard (Sententiæ I.1, dist. 5) of introducing a fourth element to the Trinity, an essence shared by all three persons (communis essentia), which is not ingenerated, generated or proceeding. Joachim had suggested rather that we ought to think of the Trinity in terms of a collectivity of three separate beings. His argument ran as follows: Jesus had prayed that his followers—that is, the church—might be one, just as he and the Father are one (Jn 17:22). It is clear that the members of the church are not one thing, but still may be thought of as one in the sense of belonging to a collectivity. Likewise, when John says that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit testifying in heaven are one, he is clearly not attributing to them a unity of essence, since the following verse asserts that the Spirit, the water and the blood are also one, and this latter assertion can only refer to an agreement of testimony rather than a unity of essence.102 Joachim’s suggestion that the Trinity is merely a collectivity rather than an indissoluble union of three eternally consubstantial persons earned him the Council’s condemnation.

1960, 142, 233, 375.

102 The text of the Lateran Council’s decision is in Denzinger, 2001, 359-362, §§ 803-808, esp. 803:
“Ad hanc autem suam sententiam adstruendam illud potissimum verbum inducit, quod
Christus de fidelibus inquit in Evangelio: Volo, pater, ut sint unum in nobis, sicut et nos unus
sumus, ut sint consummati in unum. Non enim, ut ait, fideles Christi sunt unum, id est quædam
una res, quæ communis sit omnibus, sed hoc modo sunt unum, id est una Ecclesia, propter
catholicæ fidei unitatem, et tandem unum regnum, propter unionem indissolubilis caritatis,
quemadmodum in canonica Ioannis Apostoli epistola legitur: Quia tres sunt, qui testimonium
dant in cælo, Pater, et Filius, et Spiritus Sanctus: et hi tres unum sunt, statimque subiungitur: Et
tres sunt, qui testimonium dant in terra: Spiritus, aqua et sanguis: et hi tres unum sunt, sicut in
quibusdam codicibus invenitur.”

Joachim’s position on the comma has certain similarities to that of Ambrosius Autpertus († 784), who said that since the three that bear witness in heaven are one, so their testimony must also be one; see his Expositio in Apocalypsin, CCCM 27:42-43:
“De quo et subditur: QVI EST TESTIS FIDELIS, PRIMOGENITVS MORTVORVM, ET PRINCEPS REGVM TERRÆ. Ea locutionis regula, quam supra præmisimus, solus hoc [43] loco Filius testis uocatur fidelis, cum et Pater et Spiritus Sanctus simul testimonium fidele perhibeant de ipsis, sicut
scriptum est: Tres sunt qui testimonium dicunt de cælo, Pater et Verbum et Spiritus Sanctus, et hi tres unum sunt. Sciendum autem, quia sicut hi tres unum sunt, sic horum testimonium unum esse cognoscitur, quamquam alterius testimonio alter insinuetur.” Ambrosius cites the comma
again, CCCM 27:182. See also Garin, 2008, 1:25-26.

RGA - p. 63

Ia.29.4 that Augustine had cited the comma in his De Trinitate, apparently confusing Augustine with Peter Lombard, Sentences
1.25.)108 In his remarks on the Lateran Council’s condemnation of Joachim’s proposition, Aquinas defends the canonicity of the comma. ... According to Aquinas, Joachim’s interpretation of the unity of the heavenly witnesses as one of love and testimony rather than one of essence was a perversion of its true sense. ... For Aquinas it was clear that Joachim had fallen into the error of the Arians, and had therefore rightly been condemned by the Council.109

108 Aquinas, 1964-1981, VI.56-57; Meehan, 1986, 8.
109 (Aquinas Latin)

RGA - p. 65
One of the issues discussed at the Fourth Lateran Council was a rapprochement between the Roman and Byzantine churches; as part of this process, the Acts of the Council were translated into Greek. The section in which Joachim’s propositions are condemned is the first documented occurrence of the comma in Greek.113

113 The passage from the Greek translation of the Acta is given in Martin, 1717, 138; Martin, 1722, 170; Horne, 1821, 4:505; Seiler, 1835, 616: ὅτι τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες ἐν οὐρανῷ, ὁ πατήρ, λόγος, καὶ πνεῦμα ἅγιον, καὶ τοὕτοι [sc. οὗτοι] οἱ τρεῖς ἕν εἰσιν. This reading resembles
that in Codex Montfortianus (except for the omission of τῷ before οὐρανῷ and the insertion of the article ὁ, which apparently does duty for all three persons) so closely that we might suspect that the scribe of Montfortianus had consulted this document. There is a fifteenth-century
Greek ms of the Acta of the Lateran Council in the Bodleian Library, but it is one of the Codices Barocciani, brought from Venice and given to the University in 1629 by Lord Pembroke (Cod. Barocc. 71, 84-87); see Coxe, 1853, 114

RGA - p. 84
(Surely Erasmus was not unaware of Aquinas’ condemnation of Joachim’s interpretation of these passages.)

RGA - p. 88
The new marginal note consists of a condensed extract from Thomas Aquinas’ commentary on the decision taken at the Fourth Lateran Council to condemn Joachim of Fiore’s position on the Trinity.35

The the Screech error on the Complutensian

RGA - p. 152-153
In Jn 10:30, Servetus notes that the neuter unum refers to unanimity and
concord of wills, not numerical sigularity. He approves of those early Christian
theologians who spoke of one ousia, that is, of the power given by the Father to
the Son, but he considered that the later coinages homousion, hypostasis and
persona arose from a distortion of the original meaning of ousia.7 When Servetus
comes to interpret the comma, his interpretation is surprisingly close to that of
Joachim of Fiore, as outlined and condemned by Aquinas in his exposition of the
decretal of the Lateran Council. Like Joachim, Servetus considered that the unity
of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit was one of testimony only, an interpretation
he also finds in the Glossa Ordinaria.8 Servetus would restate some of the same
arguments in his Christianismi restitutio (1553): that the one deity which is in the
Father was communicated to the Son, the only person in whom divinity was
communicated in an unmediated and corporeal way. From him the Holy and
substantial Spirit [halitus] was given to others. Turning to the matter of the
comma, Servetus argues that the three heavenly witnesses all bear witness to the
unity of the deity, and the three earthly witnesses—the water, blood and spirit
that issue from the dying Jesus—show that he was not an incoporeal being, but
that this man was really the Son of God. It is alway’s John’s intention, Servetus
emphasises, to underline Jesus’ status as Son of God.9

Grantley BCEME error, on Joachim, may only have RGA

BCEME p. 35
The new marginal note, drawn from Thomas Aquinas’ commentary on the condemnation of Joachim of Fiore’s position on the Trinity at the Fourth Lateran Council, has two functions. First, it gives an authoritative theological justification for the omission of the phrase καὶ οἱ τρεῖς εἰς τὸ ἕν εἰσιν at the end of v. 8 in the Complutensian edition. More importantly, it shows, on the authority of Aquinas himself, that Erasmus’ omission of the comma from his edition and his inclusion of the last phrase of v. 8 betrayed a hint of Arianism.

BCEME - p. 96
Biandrata declared that the first Christians had no doctrine of the Trinity, a conclusion reached earlier by Joachim of Fiore, Erasmus, Servet and Bernardino Ochino, a prominent Italian Franciscan who subsequently converted to Calvinism and then to Antitrinitarianism.

 

[Steven Avery]

Additional Joachim HITS, (need the one used by Lateran)

Expositio in Apocalypsim (1527)
https://books.google.com/books?id=r8RIAAAAcAAJ&pg=RA3-PA230-IA1