e, and on the other by her saintly nature and
poetic temperament, as well as by her intimate and personal attitude
towards things touching the inner life.

The world, in Mechthild's day, was in a state of unrest and of
looked-for change. Mankind was ever haunted by forebodings of the
approaching happening of something momentous. Whole-hearted faith in
the Church was waning, and although outward conformity still
prevailed, there existed very diverse opinions, tolerated so long as
they did not become too obtrusive. Prophetic writings, giving
expression to the yearnings of the time--yearnings fomented and
fostered by the prevailing misery caused, in no small degree, by the
wars between Pope and Emperor--taught that the world was on the brink
of a new era. One of the most influential of these writings, entitled
_The Eternal Gospel_, and said to embody the revelations of Abbot
Joachim of Flora (1130-1202), proclaimed that the dispensations of God
the Father and God the Son--the first two eras of the Church--were
past or passing, and that these would be succeeded by a third
era--that of the Holy Ghost--when men's eyes would be opened by the
Spirit, and when there would be a time of perfection and freedom,
without the necessity of disciplinary institutions. In this fair age
it was the hermits, monks, and nuns who, whilst not superseding the
rulers of the Church, were to lead it into new paths, for to Joachim
the visible Church could not, where all is moving, remain unchanged,
and his counsel was, to keep pace with the advancing world. Naturally
such sentiments aroused ecclesiastical alarm, and, later, were
condemned by the fourth Lateran Council (1215), though Dante, withal a
good son of the Church, made bold to see in Paradise the "Abbott
Joachim, endowed with prophetic Spirit" (_Par._ xii. 140).[22] When
Mechthild wrote her predictions on the last days, Joachim's teachings,
owing to the stir which their unorthodoxy had created--not only in the
Church and amongst the preaching friars, but also in the University of
Paris, whence all manner of polemical discussions freely
circulated--were well known in Germany, and there can be but little
doubt that Mechthild knew of them, probably from the Dominicans, who
found special favour in her sight, and that they greatly influenced
her own prophetic warnings to the Church.

[22] Cf. Edmund G. Gardner, _Joachim of Flora and the
Everlasting Gospel_. Franciscan Essays, Bri. Soc.