The Three Eras is a Judeo-Christian scheme of

periodization In historiography, periodization is the process or study of categorizing the past into discrete, quantified, and named blocks of time for the purpose of study or analysis.Adam Rabinowitz. It's about time: historical periodization and Linked Ancie ...

historiography Historiography is the study of the methods of historians in developing history as an academic discipline, and by extension is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiography of a specific topic covers how historians hav ...

, called also ''Vaticinium Eliae'' (prophecy of Elijah or Elias). A three-period division of time appears in the

Babylonian Talmud The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law ('' halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cen ...

: the period before the giving of the law (''

Torah The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the s ...

''); the period subject to the law; and the period of the

Messiah In Abrahamic religions, a messiah or messias (; , ; , ; ) is a saviour or liberator of a group of people. The concepts of '' mashiach'', messianism, and of a Messianic Age originated in Judaism, and in the Hebrew Bible, in which a ''mashiach ...

. This scheme was later adapted to Christian use, with three periods corresponding to the persons of the

Trinity The Christian doctrine of the Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the central dogma concerning the nature of God in most Christian churches, which defines one God existing in three coequal, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons: God the ...

. In that form it was taken up by

Joachim of Fiore Joachim of Fiore, also known as Joachim of Flora and in Italian Gioacchino da Fiore (c. 1135 – 30 March 1202), was an Italian Christian theologian, Catholic abbot, and the founder of the monastic order of San Giovanni in Fiore. According to ...

; it had been held in a similar form a little earlier by the

Amalricians The Amalricians were a pantheist, free love movement named after Amalric of Bena. The beliefs are thought to have influenced the Brethren of the Free Spirit. The beginnings of medieval pantheistic Christian theology lie in the early 13th century ...

. After the

Protestant Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...

the scheme of the "prophecy of Elias" was popularised by

Philip Melanchthon Philip Melanchthon. (born Philipp Schwartzerdt; 16 February 1497 – 19 April 1560) was a German Lutheran Protestant Reformers, reformer, collaborator with Martin Luther, the first systematic theologian of the Protestant Reformation, intellect ...

and his

Lutheran Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Cathol ...

collaborators, using ''

Carion's Chronicle Johann Carion (22 March 1499 – 2 February 1537) was a German astrologer, known also for historical writings. Life He was court astrologer to Elector Joachim I Nestor of Brandenburg. A prognostication he published in 1521 gained him a later re ...

'' as a vehicle, heavily edited into due form. The three periods were 'without the law', 'under law', and 'under grace'. With each period attributed a length of two millennia, the scheme was applied to predict the end of time (or at least the commencement of a final seventh millennium). This was done by

Johann Heinrich Alsted Johann Heinrich Alsted (March 1588 – November 9, 1638), "the true parent of all the Encyclopædias", s:Budget of Paradoxes/O. was a German-born Transylvanian Saxon Calvinist minister and academic, known for his varied interests: in Ramism and ...

in the 17th century. The scheme was widely influential in its tripartite structure, seen also in the chronology of

Achilles Pirmin Gasser Achilles Pirmin Gasser (3 November 1505 – 4 December 1577) was a German physician and astrologer. He is now known as a well-connected humanistic scholar, and supporter of both Copernicus and Rheticus. Life Born in Lindau, he studied mathemati ...

.Robert S. Westman, ''The Copernican Question: Prognostication, Skepticism, and Celestial Order'', pp. 119–120.

Notes

{{reflist Judeo-Christian topics Religious philosophy

See also

Notes