Another great undertaking of 12th century historians, perhaps the most difficult, was the mastery of time. As a result of a hundred years of evolution, the entire West, finally, agreed to position every year in a continuous series from the birth of Christ, and everything, without exception, began finally to relate that very Christmas to one and the very same year - regardless of the doubts and hesitations they had. Then, after universal agreement had been established relative to the Christian Era, the historians had to resolve another complex problem: to indicate the year from the birth of Christ for various dates where the texts reported to them and to assign on one and the same chronological scale facts relative to which neither written sources nor human memory reported a precise time. Experts on church calendars, virtuosos in the area of chronology, and 12th century monks coped with this problem so successfully that even today it arouses amazement in us." (Bernard Guenee. "Histoire et culture historique dans l'occident medieval." Moscow, Yazyki Slavyanskoy Kul'tury (Languages of Slavic Culture), 2002, page 411).

 "In half a century of vigorous activity, Benedictine scholars salvaged, considering their capabilities, everything from the past that could be salvaged. It so happened that their successors did not find an incentive for new investigations in this area. They simply continued to talk about their own time. The 12^th century historians were above all researchers. The 13^th century historians were, first of all, witnesses" (ibid. page 412).

Much more profound information about the perception by mankind of such a notion, it is possible, as TIME is hiding behind these lines of the prominent modern French historian, Bernard Guenee. And about the essence of a chronology.

Two completely different things are understood by the term "chronology." (1) A chronology as a succession of events in time and (2) a chronology as a science about the measurement of time. At the same time, by "historical chronology" they understand a subordinate historic discipline which studies the systems of a method of numbering the years and the calendars of various peoples and states, and also helps to establish dates of historic events and the beginnings of historic sources.

A chronology (1) is a retrospective reconstruction, inasmuch as the only, sliding, point of counting time backwards -- present time, as a result, is conventional. This in full measure relates to historical chronology.

A chronology (2) is a natural science discipline, inasmuch as it is based on recurring measurements of oscillating and rotating natural cycles. This in full measure relates to astronomical chronology.

Observation of the surrounding environment does not give man an absolute "point for the start of time." The counting of time from the "Big Bang" is just as conventional as, let us say, from the "Creation." But an observation of the environment renders the ability of a comparison of ensuing events with natural cycles. And these observations also underlay the numerous variants of calendars long before the appearance of a chronology (1).

Which natural cycles has mankind been observing? The shortest - the daily cycle - of the rising and the setting of the sun. But this cycle, from the point of view of an observer from Earth, is uneven in the course of a day itself within the limits of one cycle (up to the Arctic Circle), and beyond the Arctic Circle the solar year generally degenerates into one day which consists of one day and one night.

Second in increase of relative duration is the "tidal" cycle (connected, as we now know, with the moon, but they didn't know this earlier.) The English word tide "flood" is the same as the German Zeit, the Swedish and Norwegian tid "time" (also compare the Dutch tij = flood and tijd = time), inasmuch as the coastal, and indeed, even more so, the island inhabitants, naturally, measured their activity with the high and low tides.

The somewhat prolonged lunar (monthly) cycle is most convenient because of the ability of counting two-week (English fortnight) intervals between the first and third quarters (the "growing" and "aging" moons) - phases of the moon, and also, considering the full moon and new moon - the determination of a weekly cycle and the establishment of a connection between daily and monthly cycles.

Still longer is the yearly cycle, subdivided into the "time of the year," it is settled only later - with the aid of devices which allow the determination of the equinox, and then also the solstice. This then relates also to the seasonal flooding of rivers (for example, of the Nile), and to the onset of a season of monsoons in the tropics.

The "Metonic Cycle" (19 years) and the "Solar Cycle" (28 years) are the next stage in the mastery of the natural cycles for a local, but more wide-scale, tie-in for time against the background of a starry sky. Observation of the planets is a qualifying factor of the second order relative to these fundamental cycles. (Weather conditions are a complicating factor, but which do not exclude observations of the heavenly bodies.) 

All the cycles mentioned are observed over the course of a human life. But not one of them assumes the need of man in some kind of open-ended chronology (1), inasmuch as from an everyday point of view the tie-in to some kind of them simultaneously is both essential and sufficient.

The only irreversible process which may induce man to an open-ended chronology is life itself. Only two dates are struck on grave stones: birth and death. All the remaining biography is secondary. Yes, a definite continuity of generations exists, which is realized in descendants, but not one of them (not with the cyclical gene of protozoa) is a precise replica of an ancestor. And over the course of a lifetime, people confront situations when the everyday counting of time is difficult ("a prisoner in solitary confinement without windows.") But sunset even beyond the Arctic Circle is not so fatal for man as for a one-day butterfly. The most ancient words, which reflect the notion of some kind of a final segment of time, characterize the relativity of the notion "open-ended time" for a man absolutely. 

I think hardly anyone will not see a clear connection between, let us say, the English year, the German Jahr and the Russian Yar(a) = spring (compare also with the Greco-Roman ora = "hour, time," and finally, era!) And so even the word, denoting a year in the Russian language ("god")  began to designate the notion "year" only in the 16^th century, and before that this word was connected with the notion "holiday," a "good (= suitable) time" (as the Serbs have now). The Ukrainian "godina" means "hour" (in Russian - "chas") but the Czech "chas" means simply "time." English week, German Woche mean "week," whereas the Russian derivative word - "vek" - initially meant "some elapsing period" (compare, for example, "40 years is a woman's lifespan"), but now it also is "100 years." That is, initially some period is implied, and therefore, in Ukrainian we have rik (plural roki, derived from "srok") which, again, now means "year," and so on. The Greek "chronos" still also means "time," and "year," and "duration" (compare also the Russian "krug.", and even English "ring" - from ancient "hring" ) The variety itself of the tie-in of words which reflect the notion of some defined time interval, for a CONCRETE period says in so many words that these notions have been fixed, according to historic measurements, quite recently.

In this connection, we turn attention to the fact that the Greek word ENH meant the "last day of the MONTH" (ENIAYTOC which has existed up to now means "year, a large time interval, a cycle, a period." But the Latin word ANN(US) = year and the Greek ENH - are twin brothers! Therefore, in OLDEN times, most likely, they counted by months (naturally, lunar.)

Here, for example, is what the Central Asian historian al-Biruni (traditionally dated to the 11^th century) writes: "They say that when a warning of a flood came to Tahmuras, and this happened 231 years before the flood, he gave an order to select in his kingdom a place with wholesome air and earth. The people did not find a place more worthy of such a name than Isfahan. Then Tahmuras ordered the preservation of all knowledge and the placing of it in the safest place. This is confirmed by the fact that in our time in Jay, [near] the city of Isfahan, they have discovered hills in which they, when they excavated them, found facilities, full of stacks of wood bast called "tuz" with which they cover the swords and shields. The bast was covered with some kind of characters, and no one knew anything about these characters and what in particular was inscribed."

It is obvious that it is possible to warn someone about a catastrophe approaching in 231 years, but to expect practical actions in the near future in order to avoid grave consequences is senseless even in our time: if he who both listens seriously and begins to engage in this problem - of a future far away from the closest descendants, then there will be an insignificant minority of them - even if it is to create excitement artificially. But, let us say, a warning 231 months before, that is, approximately 19 years - that is a fully realistic period for a predicted determination of fate both at the given moment of the living and of the generation immediately following. And this does not require bringing in such a religious notion as "prophecy."

Those OLDEN times ended when annual counting replaced monthly.

 When, then, was this able to happen?

            For designation of the calendar year, besides ENIATOC, the Greeks also have other words: ???NOC which already has been mentioned, and ETOC, the same as in the Russian "summer" for the designation of years in the plural. The presence itself of several words for the designation of one and the same notion (according to Emile Benveniste) says that in the past they had a somewhat different  meaning. (But, as it is thought, in the works of Homer the words ENIATOC and ETOC were used as synonyms. At the same time, it is difficult to judge whether ENIAUTOC is connected with ENH-AUTOC - "this period, that same period," compare also he = that, or, let us say, directly with ENH-ETOC, that is period = year.) 

Both that and the other respond to the notion "end of the counting." But it is important that the word ENH has one more, at first glance, meaning not connected with the first: "the day after tomorrow." We shall add that for the designation of a month there is the all-European MHN(AC). On consideration of the Russian "month" in the meaning of the "crescent of the moon," MHN takes on the meaning "rise of the moon after the new moon," in contrast to ENH - "the day before the death of the moon," that is, "the end of counting," "the end of the period" besides. Therefore, the meaning "the day after tomorrow," most likely, arose as "the night after the new moon."

We note that up to now not one religious basis for the motivation of the aforesaid has been brought in - there just had been no need.   

Now we shall examine the evolution of such "historic" notions as "century" and "millennium," which have no direct relationship to the life or the natural cycles. (It is obvious that these notions were able to evolve only after the adoption of a universal decimal counting system.)

They translate the Latin word saeculum as "sort, generation, a human lifetime" and as "century." However, this word initially was in no way connected with the notion of a "hundred" (the number.) But a human lifetime and the change of generations, as we see, is connected directly with the notion "life cycle," in which connection the word "cycle" is considered everywhere as adopted from the Greek kyklos "circle."

In this connection it is somewhat logical to examine this "Greek" circle in comparison with the Slavic "kolo" = circle (cf. also with Eng. "coil"). (Compare "se kolo" with the Rumanian secol "century," Italian secolo, Portuguese seculo, French siecle, Spanish siglo, and also with the Spanish sequelo = consequence.) In other words - it is a GENERATION, a rotation of life in changing generations. A generation according to "Constantine's Indiction" is 15 years, the recurrent taxation on inheritance in an indicated order.  The "Chinese," it is but the "Aztec" (!) period for a generation - 20 years (3 generations for a 60-year calendar cycle. We note that if the Chinese calendar is connected with the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, then it could not have been created earlier than 1323.)

For comparison: right now a change of regular generations in the military occurs approximately over 12 - 15 years (and even, for example, in the Osman military 500 years earlier from a beginning recruit to a veteran it was 2 generations: 25 - 30 years.) The elite bureaucratic civil system of a "progression to administrative bosses" is also approximately once in 15 years. Not only does life span play a role in the determination of an average statistical term of a generation, but also simply the onset of fertility (14 - 18 years). Then follows a period of personality formation, the mastering of professions and the acquisition of families (up to 30), the most productive, the "adult," period is approximately from 30 to 45 years, the "mature" period is 45-60, the "pension" is 60-75, and further there is only the gerontological. He who has advanced so far. But on average, the number which characterizes the change of generations clearly is close to that same 15-year "indiction" - that is, to some average conventional term, but defined by experience.

 "Constantine's Decree" is, per se, a consolidation of some statistical data which had been collected by the time of its appearance.  And what is more, this is not religious, but fully "civil," that is a "worldly" rotation, that is a "secular age": a notion, which, probably, was being well preserved even under the circumstances of a religious demarcation and attempts  at the establishment of a universal CHURCH calendar all the way up to the Gregorian of 1583. In other words: approximately to the end of the traditional 15^th century, it is possible, there WAS NO accounting for centuries at all.

The word "seculaire" (the spelling since 1611) in the French language assumed the meaning of "centuries" for the first time in the form "seculare" in 1549. Before this, the word "centenaire" (from 1370) was used in the meaning of "centuries." The latter is derived from "hundred" (cent) and "a hundred" (centain). And "seculaire," as too "siecle" (century, epoch, the present) is not! And this is direct evidence that the introduction of the notion "century" as a chronological cycle is connected not only with religiously-based calendar reform, but also directly with "secularization" (secularisation, from 1567), that is, with the establishment also of new "worldly" (in French, seculier, from 1260) rules.

Here is what the historian Apollon Grigor'evich Kuz'min writes ("The Beginning of Rus."  Moscow, Veche Publishers, 2003, page 201): "We note that the literal meaning of the word "vek" in ancient times is the age of an object, a phenomenon, a man. This is well known and confirmed by a large quantity of sources (Sreznevskiy, etc.). This word was most used for the designation of the life of one generation. The MAIN meaning of the Latin conformity to the Slavic vek is saeculum - exactly a "GENERATION," "a HUMAN age," (Anan'ev et al.) The Complete Latin Dictionary. 1862, page 761)."  Further, Kuz'min talks about Russian sources in which it follows from context that "vechi" = generations and not centuries. (The same thing regards, for example, also the "ancient Icelandic" old - "generation, time, century" (compare with Russian leto = summer.)

Even more amusing is the English century, which is borrowed from the French, but centurie never meant "century" in French, but only a military element - "a hundred"! It is then the "Roman century" (noted for the first time in 1284). And the time of the appearance of English "century" which stands by itself as the designation of a hundred years is direct evidence to the time of the  introduction of counting by centuries - simultaneously with the French seculaire, and with the appearance of the notions of Trecento and Quatrocento and the like. The likely time of the origin of the idea itself of counting by centuries is no earlier than the end of the 15th century and most likely - the first half of the 16th century.

It is important that the definition "century" (saeculum) = 100 years is axiomatic, that is, not requiring (and even not having) proof. The meaning of the word saeculum = "100 years" was not able to disappear from use after its legendary establishment for more than 1,000 years. There really are no natural reasons for maintenance of this axiom. And there couldn't be.
What is more, the maintenance of the meaning saeculum = "century" simply is inconceivable without the PRECEEDING notion "decade" in a denary system.  The numeral 100 in a denary system occupies a wholly definite place in the hierarchy of this system relative to the base 10. The very word dekada "decade," which designates "decade," was noted for the first time only in 1385.

 (And the legendary "decennalia," supposedly introduced by Augustus and which came to light in 1540, has no relationship to the continuous counting of time.)

If one looks at the traditional dates enumerated above, then the oldest of them is 1260. This hardly is an accidental coincidence, as will be shown below.

Even the Greek notion of "chilieterida" as "millennium" is traced back no further than that time.  Etymologists are trying to connect the Greek "chilia" = 1,000 with the word "chera, cheri" - hand, having in mind that one can look at both it and the other as a certain "end of counting." We note that the word "chilia" is in no way connected with the common Indo-European word "hundred" (Greek hekato.) Just as even the Greek "miriada" = 10,000 designates simply "many," and the Old Russian designation 10,000 = "t'ma." And the Latin mille - this is originally also simply "many," and only later is "thousand." In the Balto-Slav-German linguistic habitat the situation is completely different, inasmuch as the compound word "tysyacha" (English thousand, German tausend and the like) initially designates "a rich hundred," that is a "great hundred." Here, in contrast to the Greek and Romance languages, the reflection of a denary system of counting to a thousand is completely clear.

Chilia - the origin of this Greek word is just as vague in Greek itself as it is transparent in the Arabic: "The broad notion of guile (CHILIA) was used, in particular, for the name of techniques which we at the present time would relate to the category of applied mathematics and mechanics. Ilm al-khial - the "science of skillful techniques" (literally "the science of guile," author's note) is discovered in the medieval classifications of the sciences. To outwit God - and some medieval Moslems posed such a problem to themselves." ("A Comparative Study of Civilizations." A reader. Moscow, Aspect Press, 2001, pages 289-290.  Aristotle, Omar Khayyam, Iskhak as-Sabani, Ibn Ketiba ad-Dinuri and Ibn al-Irabi developed "ilm al-khial." "Al-Mundji," Beirut, 2000).  And the Jewish cabalists posed exactly the same problem to themselves, in which connection everyone developed their ideas in that same 13^th century ("The Zohar"), and in the 16th century they were picked up even by the Protestant mystics (Jakob Boehme).

At the same time, the word "chilia" is fully comparable with the Baltic-Slavic-German words which reflect besides a certain interval, a cycle: Ukrainian khvilina "minute," Czech chvile, Polish chwila; Lithuanian valanda "a time interval," English while, Dutch wijl, German Weile; Swedish vila "a rest, repose, to lie, to rest", Norse hvil (rest), hvile "to rest;" English while, whilst "for the time being, meanwhile," Dutch wijl, German weil, and also wave: Ukrainian khvilya, Byelorussian khvalya, Bulgarian v"lna, Czech vlna, Latvian vilnis, Dutch zwalp, German Welle, Swedish svall, Norwegian svalk, English swell "choppiness, surge" and so on. We note again that in the Book of Psalms literally side-by-side is the referenced "millennium" as derived from "chilia" (90:5), and "flood" (90:6). We again draw attention to the fact that the word "wave" is now also used as a certain indication of time.

But what did "millennium" mean until the appearance of an open-ended chronology?  From where in general was the interpretation by the Biblicists of the duration of the "day of creation" as a millennium? Or, if one follows the ilm al-chial, NOW could one just as successfully interpret "day of creation" as a billion years, while bringing into it, besides, the physicists, too? (This arbitrariness is the same type as  "render unto God what is God's, unto Caesar what is Caesar's"... well, and unto the locksmith what is the locksmith's.) 

What really happened in 1259/1260, actually, is known today to the one Lord God, but there is real physical and chemical evidence of the extraordinary NATURAL events of the time. The historians write that in expectation of the end of the world, people who had gone mad ran into the woods and committed suicide.

The traces of a catastrophic event are observed everywhere in the Arctic glacial core samples in the form of exceptionally powerful and keen (in the assessment of time) acidic and sulfate spikes in the investigation of samples of native ice which relate to this year. Over the course of 5,000 years before this, and also after this, up to now nothing of the kind has been noted.

As vulcanologists think, it was the hugest eruptive event, the discharge of which was transported from the source throughout the whole world. (Langway C.C.Jr., Clausen H.B., Hammer C.U. An inter-hemispheric time-marker in ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica /Ann. Glaciol., 10, 1988, p. 102-108.) In which connection, a sign of this eruption is noted in the ice cores both of the northern and of the southern hemisphere, which can are evidence not only of the great power of the eruption, but also of the fact that it happened more likely in the lower latitudes than in the middle or especially in the upper.

 Nonetheless, there has been no success in tying the sulfate and acid spikes of "1259" to a concrete volcano. There also is the opinion that this catastrophic event was able to act as a trigger for the start of the Little Ice Age owing to the pollution of the atmosphere with the solid and flying products of the eruption.

One can evaluate the catastrophic effect of the 1259 event in the power of the spewing of sulphuric acid into the atmosphere in comparison with the eruption of the Tambora volcano (1815), the total aerosol discharge of which into the stratosphere was then in the estimates of Rampino and others on the order of 200 megatons. [Rampino M.R., Self S., Stothers R.B. Volcanic winters.- Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences. Lett., 16, 1988, p.73-99.]. The works [Raynaud D. The total gas content in polar ice core. - The climatic record in polar ice. Cambridge, 1983, p.79-82.; and Gerlach T.M., Graeber E.J. Volatile budget of Kilauea volcano. - Nature, v. 313, N6000, 1985, p.273-277] estimate the discharge into the stratosphere of aerosol sulphuric acid as a result of an eruption of the Toba volcano (nearly 75,000 years ago) to be from 9?10^14 to 5x10^15 grams, at that time as a total aerosol discharge, and according to Rampino for this eruption - from 1,000 megatons and higher. From this it follows (with an assumption of an equivalent proportion of the components of the discharge for Toba and the event of 1259), that in 1259 from 3.6?10^14 to 2x10^15 grams were discharged, that is, on the order of 1,000 megatons of aerosol, which contained not less than 100 million tons of sulphuric acid. Plainly speaking, so much sulphuric acid came out in 1260 that a little would show up even now.

Such an abrupt impact on the environment was not able to occur without very serious damage for the flora and fauna.

The fact that nowhere are there any records about a specific, gigantic eruption of a volcano (and it clearly should have taken place in the inhabited part of the Ecumene), speaks of the fact that this had to be NOT a volcanic, but an extraterrial event, that is, a catastrophe caused by an extraterrestrial source.

            From the end of the 14^th century a natural climatic fall of temperature actually began in Europe - as an undulating attenuation of a cataclysm, which was expressed in two minima - the Maunder, and afterwards also the Sporer. In the  14^th century, seafaring in the Atlantic practically ceased due to constant storms. From that same time, people began to build levees and dams - as in Moscow, so it was in Holland. The tides in the enclosed Adriatic Sea were an order stronger than now. Traces of the so-called "Dunkirk Transgressions" are well preserved to this time in northern Germany - covered with the sand and silt of the woods and countryside. There is no Aral Sea on the maps of the 14th-17th centuries - it is simply an arm of the Caspian, which because of this  is oriented length-wise not from the south to the north, but from the west to the east. (According to the information of the geographer A.V. Shnitnikov, the Caspian Transgression fits exactly at the 13-15th centuries.) And what is more, a huge lake existed at the location of the Baraba Steppe, and the present Karakum and Kyzylkum deserts were densely populated.

All of this may be explained by the consequences of the Earth's relaxation after an impulse excitation from the outside. The migration of rats and the spreading of the plague in the 14^th century may be looked at as a direct consequence of the cataclysm. And not only one disease - the common plague, but also the bubonic plague, and tuberculosis, and scurvy and so on. The "Time of the Plague" - as a generalized description - ended in the middle of the 15^th century.

            In this connection, the designation itself of the Middle Ages is typical too in 15-16^th century sources.

The Latin expression "media tempestas" (1469) is recorded for the first time, where the word "tempestas" means not simply time, but "a time of tempest, a time of cataclysms," (compare, for example, the English tempest - "storm"), that is, it communicates a clearly negative characterization of the events of this temporary interval. Later the formulation "media antiquitas" (1494) appears, that is, "middle antiquity, that is, an interval approximately from the middle 13^th century through the middle 15^th century is considered as the time of the "middle antiquity." Later the expressions "media tempus" and "medium aetas" (1531), that is, simply, "a middle time, a middle epoch," were noted. And in 1596 alone - "saeculum medium," simultaneously with "medium aevum" - as early as after the fact that the word saeculum "vek" was associated with the notion "century." However, the expression "middle ages" finally took on the modern meaning only at the end of the 17^th century.

            It also relates to the notion of antiquity. The word antique was noted in the French language in the 13^th century. It is thought that it was made from the Latin antiquus. But in Latin, "antequos" means "until some kind of events." Until just which events? The Italian word antico came into use in the second half of the 15^th century. And here is what Vasari (1511-1574), the greatest art historian and critic of the 16^th century, who introduced in turn the term "Gothic" writes: "This style was invented by the Goths, because after that, as the ancient buildings were DESTROYED and wars ruined the architects, the SURVIVORS began to build in this style, raising vaultings on lancet arches and filling all Italy with the Devil knows what kind of  structures."

            A catastrophe caused by an observed extraterrestrial source, was unable not to leave traces too in the mentality of mankind. An earthquake or flood does not give directly grounds for connecting such natural cataclysms with "divine punishment" - for this a visual observation of cosmic and atmospheric phenomena is needed - that is, a sign. In which connection, the sign is perfectly unordinary: It is not lightning, the northern lights, solar and lunar eclipses which are observed not infrequently and do not bear perceptible harm. Comets and huge meteors come much closer to this role if their debris reaches Earth.

In particular, danger which occurs from the sky is the strongest religious motivation. In this connection a phenomenal occurrence of a prophecy is typical. If, let us say, the catastrophe was connected with the disintegration of a comet passing close by, then it was supposed to occur in not fewer than two phases, and this explains a lot: those who have survived a catastrophe and connected the appearance of a comet with it have told their children and grandchildren about it. One need not be a genius to grasp that a comet that is going behind the sun, which unfurls a tail sideways, opposite the start, has promised in so many words to return. But when it returned, there were no such catastrophic events as there had been the first time, although the sky grew red and once again a torrent of stone fell and so on. Therefore, the descendants decided that the fears of the ancestors were too exaggerated, and at the same time they simply put some prophets to death ("witch-hunts" and the like.)

When the witnesses to the catastrophe died out, the opinions of the descendants were divided: some considered that the coming of the Messiah had taken place, and they became Christians, others decided that the scale of the catastrophe was not that and they still had to await the Messiah - as the Orthodox Jews were educated. A third, the least literate, decided in general to do away with prophecy: they declared that the last of the prophets - Mohammed - will remain the last forever. But even subsequent generations continued to break off relations: Moslems split into Sunni and Shiite exactly on the grounds of prophecy, and part of the Christians preferred to have a permanently acting prophet in the person of the Roman Pope.      

 The most paradoxical is that the "ancient Jews" were split last - in the 18^th century the Hasidic movement arose, again on the grounds of the recognition of Saddic prophets! Such a model of development of present monotheism seems by no means groundless.

Purgatory is another religious notion, whose origin one may connect directly with catastrophe. The origin of the notions of "paradise" and "hell," as interconnected alternatives in the idea of what happens at the end of life, is fully natural. And here "Purgatory" is the idea of a procedure, with the aid of which the Supreme Being divides the "pure" and the "impure": he who has endured trial - they are the pure, those who have been lost were the impure, and for that they are punished.  The traditional historiography says that the idea of "Purgatory" was born in the 3rd century: (Jacques Le Goff. The birth of Purgatory. The University of Chicago Press. Chicago, USA. 1984) in the works of Clement, Origen and Cyrprian. Saint Augustine (4^th century) in the treatise "The City of God" uses the term "poenae purgatoriae" for the first time, from which also arose Purgatory.

However, after this - all the way up to the 12^th (!) century - the topic of Purgatory disappears from the sources. in order to reappear for violent discussion by the "fathers of the church," a list of whom is extremely impressive and includes Albert the Great, Bonaventure and Thomas Aquinas. It is thought that the canonization of Purgatory occurred in 1274 at the Council of Lyons. (At the same time the Pope supposedly in fact recognized Purgatory as a canon as early as 1254 in his own correspondence.) The apogee of the development of the purgatory topic is Dante's "Divine Comedy." However, the doctrine of Purgatory was introduced only in 1439 (!) and was confirmed in 1562, inasmuch as Martin Luther resumed the polemics about Purgatory at the start of the 16^th century. (At the same time, the Russian Orthodox Church never recognized the existence of Purgatory!)

It also is significant that at the turn of the 12^th - 13th centuries, in a sense a "French Jesus" appears on the historical scene - Francis of Assisi (Latin Franciscus Assisiensis, traditionally 1181/1182 - 1226), the founder of an order of "destitute" monks - the Franciscans, an advocate of the ideals of the "early faith." The most zealous guardians of the teaching of Francis of Assisi are the so-called "Spirituals," that is, "non-money grubbers," who are called upon to feed on only the "Holy Spirit."

 The "Joachimites" - the followers of another teacher - Joachim of Floris (1132-1202) - also spread the "heresy" of the French Jesus. He advanced the following ideas: