Joachim of Fiore predicted Christianity’s victory through missionaries, not armies

Evidence

Joachim of Fiore, the Calabrian abbot and mystic that Richard had stopped to visit on his way East, identified Muhammad and Saladin with key elements in the Apocalypse and predicted that Christendom would be devastated by an alliance between Saracen armies and Cathar heretics. This devastation would be followed by a final Christian victory to be won not by crusading armies but by humble, pious missionaries. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1005 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

‘Spiritually they can behave among other people in two ways. One way is not to make disputes and controversies, but to be subject to every human creature for God’s sake, and to witness that they are Christians. The other way is, when they see that God pleases, to preach the word of God …’ They were to remember that they had given themselves and their bodies to Christ. If St Francis himself once chose the second of these two methods, the idea of silent witness, which is what the first amounts to, was even more revolutionary. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 670 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: A medieval mystic predicted Christendom’s triumph through missionaries, not crusades — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1005; Francis’s missionary rule made silent witness of Christians a radical alternative to preaching — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 670; Eldredge reframed Jesus as a warrior rather than a pacifist — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne: How White…, 397

Broader Connections

• A medieval mystic predicted Christendom’s triumph through missionaries, not crusades #corroborates (1.00) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1005
• Francis’s missionary rule made silent witness of Christians a radical alternative to preaching #complicates (0.90) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 670