READINGS for HS 4476 MEDIEVAL HERETICS AND INQUISITORS

32
BERNARD GUI ON FRA DOLCINO
the passage in the Prophet Isaiah about the burned peg [ref. uncertain], and that in Obadiah near the
end, which begins "In Mount Zion there shall be salvation . . ." [Obad. 17], meaning that there will
be a Holy Pope who will reign in the Church. And he applies the passage in the Prophet Ezekiel, near
the end of the book, where it speaks of the pastors who pasture themselves [Ez. 34]. There, when it
speaks of the "mountains of Israel" who will endure many persecutions on account of God, he
explains that this refers to himself and his followers [Ez. 36:4]. That holy fourth pope, whom the
Apocalypse calls the Angel of Philadelphia [Apoc. 3:7], will not be chosen by the cardinals, because
these same cardinals will have been destroyed by Frederick, along with the third pope. Rather, he
will be chosen by God, through Frederick, who will be ruling and reigning. And then, the same
Dolcino and the members of his Apostolic congregation will everywhere be freed, along with all the
spiritual members of the other orders. And these will join the aforesaid congregation and receive the
Grace of the Holy Spirit. Thus the Church will be renewed. And, when the aforesaid evil people have
been destroyed, the these will reign and bear fruit until the End of the World. And, in the three "years
of a hireling" mentioned in the Prophet Isaiah [Is. 21:16], the evil ones are supposed to be consumed
and cut off, as was said above.
So, the years should be understood and interpreted in this way: the first of the three years was
1303, when there was desolation on the King of the South and upon Pope Boniface [VIII]; the
second year was 1304, during which there was supposed to be a devastation of all the clergy, monks,
nuns, and other religious of the Minors, Preachers, and Hieronymites, who been going from bad to
worse till that time. All was this was to be effected in these two years, that is to say from 1304 to
1305, by Frederick, the Emperor of the Romans. And the said Dolcino asserted that he had received
a certain revelation from God about how all this would occur, and that he was in hiding because of
the persecution of himself and others; but that later they would come into the open and appear
publicly. This ends the selections from the letters and writings of Dolcino.
Dolcino's aforesaid letters contained these things and much else, which was not so much false
and absurd as it was deluded and demented. I have described these selections so that their falsity,
absurdity, and insanity will be evident to present and future readers in the light of what happened.
For, as I write this, on the first of May in the year of Our Lord 1316, ten years have already passed,
and those things that he said were about to occur in the near future have in no way come about.
Rather, the exposition and interpretation of the Sacred Scriptures that he gave in his letters has
proved, in every case, to be false and ludicrous, as well as being completely unsupported by the true
and commonly received opinions of the Saints and Doctors of the Church. Thus, the aforesaid
Dolcino was both a false prophet, sent not by God but by the Devil, and a demented heresiarch, who
as teacher of heresy and error deluded many others.