Coimbra Seminars 03

This study explores the emergence of an implicit philosophy of attention within the historicist hermeneutics of apocalyptic thought in sixteenth-century Reformed Zurich. Focusing on the anticristological writings of Heinrich Bullinger, Rudolf Gwalther, and Heinrich Wolf, and read against the background of the historicist legacy of Joachim of Fiore, it argues that Reformed apocalyptic exegesis presupposes a structured form of attentio. In this context, attention is not merely devotional or psychological. It functions as a selective and interpretative vigilance directed toward Scripture and history, enabling the recognition of signs, stages, and turning points within a providential narrative. The identification of the Antichrist becomes part of a broader semiotics of history, requiring disciplined discernment, moral responsibility, and eschatological orientation. Sixteenth-century Zurich thus emerges as a significant laboratory in which attention operates as a mediating category between exegesis, historical consciousness, and ecclesial identity, revealing its central role within early modern theology of history.