Imagining the End: Visions of

viri spirituales

, see Coelius, 

Collectanea

,

ff. 



v–



r, and 



v. Coelius’s references to the 

pastor angelicus

 are rather subdued and seem

Notes to Chapter 8

---

369

to depend on Galatinus, as his exegesis of  Apocalypse 



 may indicate. Unlike Galatinus, however,

he says that any Angelic Pope must appear 

after

 Antichrist’s destruction (f. 



 v).



. In 

Collectanea

, ff. 



v–



v, Coelius refuses to speculate about the length of  the

predicted millennium, but in ff. 



v–



v he allows that it should be a long time in order to

allow for those who fall into vices and forget the Lord’s return time to repent.



. Coelius, 

Collectanea

 (ff. 



v–



r): ‘In qua re hoc solum pro certo habemus, quia

foelicissimum illud futurum est ecclesiae regnum, cuius vel brevissimum tempus pro longissimo

merito sui computabitur, quando pii exultabunt et inerrabili laetitia iucundabuntur, et de

Antichristi interitu et de eorum pace, praesertim vero de Christi gloria … Quod dum fiet,

pulchra admodum tranquillitate conticescent universa. Tunc laetiores in suo cursu dies erunt,

sol blandior spiculis ludentibus irradiabit, non mugiet horrendo tonitruo caelum, nec fulmina

irati Dei iacentur. Tum ros et hymber complutu tellurem amplius foecundabunt, ridebunt

exortu astra … Quid plura? Tunc redibunt aurea saecula.’ Immediately before this, Coelius

adopts a traditional topos in identifying the millennium with the half-hour silence in heaven of

Apocalypse 



: 



.



. Gaspar a Melo, 

Commentaria in Apocalypsin divi Iohannis Evangelistae

 (Valladolid, 



)

contains 



 numbered pages and another 



 unnumbered pages of  indices and addenda. I

know of  no modern discussions of  Melo.



. Among the medievals, his favourite commentators were Bede, Rupert of  Deutz, Richard

of  St Victor, and St Thomas Aquinas (the commentary 

Vidit Jacob

, now generally assigned to

the school of  Hugh of  St Cher). Joachim makes a modest appearance, being cited about sixteen

times in the first twelve chapters. Melo shows no real acquaintance with the distinctive aspects

of  Joachim’s exegesis.



. For example, the war in heaven between Michael and the Dragon of  Apocalypse 



: 



signifies the constant struggle between good and evil in the Church (Melo, 

Commentaria

, pp.



–



).



. His historicizations tend to be universal and therefore essentially moralizations. For

example, the seven heads of  the dragon (Apocalypse 



: 



) do not signify seven specific

persecutors, as they had for Joachim and his followers, but symbolize all evil rulers from the

beginning of  history down to Antichrist (Melo, 

Commentaria

, pp. 



–



).



. See, e.g., the whole of  the comment on ch. 



 (Melo,