Old Document Review 'On the Seven Seals of the Apocalypse'

This ancient document was written by Joachim of Fiore (d.1202) and features his interpretations of what the seals in the Book of Revelations represent.  Joachim sees the seals as representing the story of the church between the first and the second coming of Jesus.

However his understanding goes much deeper, when Joachim looks at history he sees a link to the Trinity, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are matched to the Old Testament, the life of Jesus and the New Testament.  Whats more, is that each of these eras can be broken down into seven periods of time which will match with the corresponding period in the next era.  These seven periods are also represented by the seven seals which are laid out in the Book of Revelations.  As always periods of time divided into seven can also be linked to how the Mayans viewed time, each period of time is seen to have seven days and six nights.

For example the first period in the Old Testament is seen from Abraham to the promised land, which is matched to the New Testament period of time from John the Baptist to the early church.  This matching carries on as far as the sixth seal which Joachim seen as matching against his own era, and everything that was happening during his lifetime such as the crusades and so on.  Joachim foretells that soon the Catholic Church shall be overthrown or challenged by a new church (the rise of Protestants?) and he sees this as the time where Satan will be bound up into his prison.  Then in the seventh seal will be the second coming.

Old Document Review 'On the Apocalypse of the Apostle John

This old document was written by the dominican preacher Nicholas of Gorran (d.1295) and was composed between 1263 and 1285 A.D. only four copies of the manuscript have survived through the passage of time.

In this document Nicholas analyses the Apocalypse (Revelations) , the most intriguing part of this read was finding both the similarities and differences between Nicholas and another dominican preacher of the same time and same location by the name of Hugh of Saint Cher.

Nicholas believes that the Seven Seals represent the seven parts of the life of Jesus; conception, nativity, death, descent into hell, resurrection, ascension and the coming judgement. Very similar to Hugh's version yet to two preachers cite different references from the Old Testament.

Furthermore he recognizes that the visions from chapter five of Revelations is a continuation of the vision from the previous chapter. To Nicholas, the seven seals also mirror the seven days of existence, that all time is enveloped into seven days. This is obvious not literal to actual days but symbolic days of a greater calender. This is something that the Mayans also believed, that the world goes in cycles of seven days and six nights, that belief was centre to their infamous calender.