Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/103

 JUAN DE PERA-TALLADA. §7 The ostensible cause of his punishment was his Joachitic spec- ulation as to Antichrist, though, as Wadding observes, many holy men did the same without animadversion, like St. Vicente Ferrer, who in 1412 not only predicted Antichrist, but asserted that he was already nine years old, and who was canonized, not persecuted. Milicz of Cremsier also, as Ave have seen, though persecuted, was acquitted. Fray Juan's reveries, however, trenched on the borders of the Everlasting Gospel, although keeping within the bounds of orthodoxy. In his prison, in November, 1349, he wrote out an account of a miraculous vision vouchsafed him in 1345, in return for continued prayer and maceration. Louis of Bavaria was the Antichrist who would subjugate Europe and Africa in 1366, while a similar tyrant would arise in Asia. Then would come a schism with two popes ; Antichrist would lord it over the whole earth and many heretical sects would arise. After the death of Anti- christ would follow fifty-five years of war ; the Jews would be converted, and with the destruction of the kingdom of Antichrist the Millennium would open. Then the converted Jews would pos- sess the world, all would be Tertiaries of St. Francis, and the Franciscans would be models of holiness and poverty. The her- etics would take refuge in inaccessible mountains and the islands of the sea, whence they would emerge at the close of the Millen- nium ; the second Antichrist would appear and bring a period of great suffering, until fire would fall from heaven and destroy him and his followers, after which would follow the end of the world and the Day of Judgment.* Meditation in prison seems to have modified somewhat his pro- phetic vision, and in 1356 he wrote his Vade mecum in Tribula- tione, in which he foretold that the vices of the clergy would lead to the speedy spoliation of the Church ; in six years it would be reduced to a state of apostolical poverty, and by 1370 would com- mence the process of recuperation which would bring all mankind under the domination of Christ and of his earthly representative (Fascic. Rer. Expetend. et Fugiend. II. 497).— Froissart, Liv. I. P. ii. ch. 124 Liv. in. ch. 27.— Rolewink Fascic. Temp. ann. 1364.— Mag. Chron. Belgic. (Pis torii III. 336).— Meyeri Anna!. Flandr. ann. 1359. — Henr. Rebdorff. Annal. ann 1351.— Paul ^Emylii de Reb. Gest. Francor. (Ed. 1569, pp. 491-2).— M. Flac Illyr. Cat. Test. Veritat. Lib. xvnr. p. 1786 (Ed. 1608).
 * Wadding, ann. 1357, No. 17.— Pelayo, op. cit. I. 501-2.