| Part ofa series on |
| Eschatology |
|---|
|
|
Figures and items |
Millennialism (from Latin mille 'thousand' annus 'year' and -ism) or chiliasm (from theGreek equivalent) is a belief which is held by somereligious denominations. According to this belief, aMessianic Age (the so-calledChristian Millennium) will be established onEarth prior to theLast Judgment and the future permanent state of "eternity".[1]
Christianity andJudaism have both produced messianic movements which featured millennialist teachings—such as the notion that an earthly kingdom of God was at hand. Thesemillenarian movements often led to considerable social unrest.[2]
Similarities to millennialism also exist inZoroastrianism, which identified successive thousand-year periods, each of which will end in a cataclysm ofheresy and destruction, until the final destruction ofevil and the final destruction of the spirit of evil by a triumphant king of peace at the end of the final millennial age. Jewish and then Christian interpretations built on Zoroastrianism and onBabylonian astrology, resulting in the construction of a schema of a sequence of seven successive thousand-year periods ("millennia") of earthly human existence.[3]
Scholars have linked various social and political movements, both religious andsecular, to millennialist metaphors.
Most Christian millennialist thinking is based upon theBook of Revelation, specifically Revelation 20,[4] which describes the vision of an angel who descends from heaven with a large chain and a key to a bottomless pit, and captures Satan, imprisoning him for a thousand years:
He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years and threw him into the pit and locked and sealed it over him, so that he would deceive the nations no more, until the thousand years were ended. After that, he must be let out for a little while.
— Revelation 20:2–3[5]
The Book of Revelation then describes a series of judges who are seated on thrones, as well as John's vision of the souls of those who were beheaded for their testimony in favor of Jesus and their rejection of the mark of the beast. These souls:
came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years. (The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.) This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection. Over these the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him a thousand years
— Revelation 20:4–6[6]
During the first centuries after Christ, various forms of chiliasm (millennialism) were to be found in the Church, bothEast andWest.[7] Premillennialism held by the Early Church is called "historic premillennialism",[8] and it was supported in the early church byPapias,[9]Irenaeus,Justin Martyr,[10]Tertullian,[11]Polycarp,[12]Pseudo-Barnabas,[13]Methodius,Lactantius,[14]Commodianus,[15]Theophilus,[16]Melito,[17]Hippolytus of Rome,Victorinus of Pettau,[18][19]Nepos,Julius Africanus,Tatian[20] andMontanus.[21] However, the premillennial views of Montanus probably affected the later rejection of premillennialism in the Church, asMontanism was seen as a heresy.[20]
In the 2nd century, theAlogi (those who rejected all of John's writings) wereamillennial, as wasCaius in the first quarter of the 3rd century.[22] With the influence ofPlatonism,Clement of Alexandria andOrigen denied premillennialism.[23] Likewise,Dionysius of Alexandria (died 264) argued that Revelation was not written by John and could not be interpreted literally; he was amillennial.[24]
Justin Martyr (died 165), who had chiliastic tendencies in his theology, mentions differing views in hisDialogue with Trypho the Jew, chapter 80:[25]
"I and many others are of this opinion [premillennialism], and [believe] that such will take place, as you assuredly are aware; but, on the other hand, I signified to you that many who belong to the pure and pious faith, and are true Christians, think otherwise."[25]
Augustine in his early days affirmedpremillennialism, but later changed to amillennialism, causing the view to become popularized together withPope Gregory the Great.[26][27]
TheCatholic Encyclopedia notes that the 2nd-century proponents of variousGnostic beliefs (themselves considered heresies) also rejected millenarianism.[28]
 | This sectionneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Millennialism" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(June 2020) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Christian views on the future order of events diversified after theProtestant Reformation (c. 1517). In particular, new emphasis was placed on the passages in theBook of Revelation which seemed to say that as Christ would return to judge the living and the dead,Satan would be locked away for 1000 years, but then released on the world to instigatea final battle against God and his Saints.[29] PreviousCatholic andOrthodox theologians had no clear or consensus view on what this actually meant (only the concept of the end of the world coming unexpectedly, "like a thief in the night", and the concept of "theAntichrist" were almost universally held). Millennialist theories try to explain what this "1000 years of Satan bound in chains" would be like.
Various types of millennialism exist with regard toChristian eschatology, especially withinProtestantism, such asPremillennialism,Postmillennialism, andAmillennialism. The first two refer to different views of the relationship between the "millennial Kingdom" and Christ's second coming.
Premillennialism sees Christ's second advent as preceding the millennium, thereby separating theSecond Coming from theFinal Judgment. In this view, "Christ's reign" will be physically on the earth.
Postmillennialism sees Christ's second coming as subsequent to the millennium and concurrent with the final judgment. In this view "Christ's reign" (during the millennium) will be spiritual in and through thechurch.
Amillennialism sees the 1000 year kingdom as being metaphorically described in Rev. 20:1–6 in which "Christ's reign" is current in and through the church. Thus, while this view does not hold to a future millennial reign, it does hold that the New Heavens and New Earth will appear upon the return of Christ.
TheCatholic Church strongly condemns millennialism as the following shows:
The Antichrist's deception already begins to take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize within history that messianic hope which can only be realized beyond history through the eschatological judgment. The Church has rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom to come under the name of millenarianism, especially the "intrinsically perverse" political form of a secular messianism.
— Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1995[30]
TheBible Student movement is a millennialist movement based on views expressed in "The Divine Plan of the Ages," in 1886, in Volume One of theStudies in the Scriptures series, by PastorCharles Taze Russell. (This series is still being published, since 1927, by theDawn Bible Students Association.) Bible Students believe that there will be a universal opportunity for every person, past and present, not previously recipients of a heavenly calling, to gain everlasting life on Earth during the Millennium.[31]
Jehovah's Witnesses believe that Christ will rule from heaven for 1,000 years as king over the earth, assisted by the144,000 ascended humans. According to them during this 1,000 year reign the earth will become a paradise, like the Garden of Eden, and humans will themselves return to the perfection lost by Adam and Eve.[32]
Also known asEastern Lightning, The Church of Almighty God mentions in its teachings the Age of Millennial Kingdom, which will follow the catastrophes prophesied in the Book of Revelation in the Bible.[33]
Counter to much of thePentecostal movement, which tends towards belief in premillennialism, the rise of the Antichrist, and the decay of the world prior to the Second Coming, theNew Apostolic Reformation's focus is instead on an "optimistic" eschatology. It holds that most end-time prophecies have long since been fulfilled and that modern-dayprophets and apostles have divine authority; the end times will be an era in which obedient Christians, through usingspiritual warfare and shaping all aspects of society into aligning with their Christian beliefs (Seven Mountain Mandate), will bring about the Second Coming.[34][35]
![[icon]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=http%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aWiki_letter_w_cropped.svg) | This sectionneeds expansion. You can help byadding to it.(November 2018) |
Millennialist thinking first emerged inJewish apocryphal literature of the tumultuousSecond Temple period,[36]
Gerschom Scholem profiles medieval and early modern Jewish millennialist teachings in his bookSabbatai Sevi, the mystical messiah, which focuses on the 17th-century movement centered on the self-proclaimed messiahship (1648) ofSabbatai Zevi[37] (1626–1676)
TheProphet Muhammad has stated[38] that a man from his Household will come and rid the world of all injustice and tyranny. He will be known as theMahdi.
Muslims also believe thatJesus will come alongside the Mahdi and will fight together with him against oppression and injustice, where the Mahdi will rule for a period of time before theDay of Judgement. The Mahdi is noted in the Sunni books,Sunan Abi Dawud 4285,Sunan Ibn Majah 4083, andSahih Muslim 2913.
Shia and Sunni Muslims differ on who exactly the Mahdi is. While they both agree that he will come alongside Jesus to save mankind from injustice and oppression; Sunnis believe he is yet to be born, while Shias believe that he is currently alive and inoccultation.
Bahá'u'lláh mentioned in theKitáb-i-Íqán that God will renew the "City of God" about every thousand years,[39] and specifically mentioned that a newManifestation of God would not appear within 1,000 years (1852–2852 CE) of Bahá'u'lláh'sDispensation, but that the authority of Bahá'u'lláh's message could last up to 500,000 years.[40][41]
TheTheosophistAlice Bailey taught thatThe Christ orThe World Teacher would return "sometime after AD 2025", and that this would be theNew Age equivalent of the Christian concept of theSecond Coming of Christ. Note that the being she speaks of asThe World Teacher is the same as that spiritual being best known to other Theosophists asMaitreya.[42][43]
Millennial social movements, a specific form ofmillenarianism, have as their basis some concept of a cycle of one-thousand years. Sometimes[quantify] the two terms[which?] are used[by whom?] as synonyms, but purists regard this as not entirely accurate.[citation needed] Millennial social movements need not have a religious foundation, but they must[need quotation to verify] have a vision of anapocalypse that can beutopian ordystopian. Those associated with millennial social movements are "prone to [be violent]",[44] with certain types of millennialism connected to violence.[45]
In progressive millennialism, the "transformation of the social order is gradual and humans play a role in fostering that transformation".[46]
Catastrophic millennialism "deems the current social order as irrevocably corrupt, and total destruction of this order is necessary as the precursor to the building of a new, godly order".[47]
However, the link between millennialism and violence may be problematic, as new religious movements may stray from the catastrophic view as time progresses.[48][need quotation to verify]
The most controversial interpretation of thethree-age system and of millennialism in general involvesAdolf Hitler's "Third Reich" (Drittes Reich), which in his vision would last for a thousand years to come (Tausendjähriges Reich) but ultimately lasted for only 12 years (1933–1945).
The German thinkerArthur Moeller van den Bruck coined the phrase "Third Reich" and in 1923 published a book titledDas Dritte Reich. Looking back atGerman history, he distinguished two separate periods, and identified them withthe ages of the 12th-century Italian theologianJoachim of Fiore:
After the interval of theWeimar Republic (1918 onwards), during whichconstitutionalism,parliamentarianism and evenpacifism dominated, these were then to be followed by:
Although van den Bruck was unimpressed by Hitler when he met him in 1922 and did not join theNazi Party, nevertheless the Nazis adopted the term "Third Reich" to label thetotalitarian state they wanted to set up when they gained power, which theysucceeded in doing in 1933. Later, however, the Nazi authorities banned the informal use of "Third Reich" throughout the German press in the summer of 1939, instructing it to use more official terms such as "German Reich", "Greater German Reich", and "National Socialist Germany" exclusively.[49]
During the early part of the Third Reich manyGermans also referred to Hitler as being theGerman Messiah, especially when he conducted theNuremberg rallies,[citation needed] which came to be held annually (1933–1938) at a date somewhat before theSeptember equinox inNuremberg.
In a speech held on 27 November 1937, Hitler commented onhis plans to have major parts of Berlin torn down and rebuilt:
[...] einem tausendjährigen Volk mit tausendjähriger geschichtlicher und kultureller Vergangenheit für die vor ihm liegende unabsehbare Zukunft eine ebenbürtige tausendjährige Stadt zu bauen [...].
[...] to build a millennial city adequate [in splendour] to a thousand-year-old people with a thousand-year-old historical and cultural past, for its never-ending [glorious] future [...]
After Adolf Hitler's unsuccessful attempt to implement a thousand-year reign,the Vatican issued an official statement that millennial claims could not be safely taught and that the related scriptures in Revelation (also called the Apocalypse) should be understood spiritually. Catholic author Bernard LeFrois wrote:
Millenium [sic]: [...] Since the Holy Office decreed (July 21, 1944) that it cannot be safely taught that Christ at His Second Coming will reign visibly with only some of His saints (risen from the dead) for a period of time before the final and universal judgment, a spiritual millenium is to be seen in Apoc. 20:4–6. St. John gives a recapitulation of the activity of Satan, and the spiritual reign of the saints with Christ in heaven and in His Church on earth.
— [50]
The early Christian concepts of millennialism had ramifications far beyond strictly religious concerns during the centuries to come, as various theorists blended and enhanced them with ideas ofutopia.
In the wake of early millennial thinking, theThree Ages philosophy developed. The Italian monk andtheologianJoachim of Fiore (died 1202) saw all of human history as a succession of three ages:
It was believed[by whom?] that the Age of the Holy Spirit would begin atc. 1260, and that from then on all believers would live as monks, mystically transfigured and full of praise for God, for a thousand years untilJudgment Day would put an end to the history of our planet.
Joachim of Fiore's divisions of historical time also highly influenced theNew Age movement, which transformed the Three Ages philosophy into astrological terminology, relating theNorthern-hemisphere vernal equinox to differentconstellations of the zodiac. In this scenario the Age of the Father was recast[by whom?] as the Age of Aries, the Age of the Son became the Age of Pisces, and the Age of the Holy Spirit was called the Aquarian New Age. The current so-called "Age of Aquarius" will supposedly witness the development of a number of great changes for humankind,[51] reflecting the typical features of some manifestations of millennialism.[52]
Chiliasm drew on Jewish thought influenced by Persian Zoroastrianism and Babylonian astrology to divide the span of history into seven millennia under the seven planets. Christians saw in this 'Cosmic Week' schema a recapitulation of the creation account in Genesis. After six thousand years of earthly existence, a final, millennial 'day' of rest, or Sabbath of Creation, as it would later be called, could be expected.
Among the Apostolic Fathers Barnabas is the first and the only one who expressly teaches a pre-millennial reign of Christ on earth. He considers the Mosaic history of the creation a type of six ages of labor for the world, each lasting a thousand years, and of a millennium of rest, since with God 'one day is as a thousand years.' Millennial Sabbath on earth will be followed by an eight and eternal day in a new world, of which the Lord's Day (called by Barnabas 'the eighth day') is the type
Millennialism, as it developed in emerging forms of Judaism around 200 B.C.E., was a response to a much older conceptual problem and a specific historical crisis brought on by a program of Hellenization initiated by the Macedonian ruler, Antiochus IV (r. 175–164 B.C.E.), a successor of Alexander the Great (256–323 B.C.E.), who had conquered Syria-Palestine in 332 B.C.E.
Groups with millennial/apocalyptic expectations have been proposed to be prone to violence due to their fiery rhetoric condemning the existing social order and separation from that order. [...] However, there does not appear to be any simple connection between millennialism and violence. [...] While millennialism as a general form may not be linked to violence, there have been several suggestions that specific types of millennialism may be so connected.
Like all religious groups, Wessinger argues, millennial groups possess an 'ultimate concern' [...] When this concern – or 'millennial goal' – is threatened in some way, a group that possesses a radically dualistic perspective may in some cases seek to preserve or fulfill their goal through acts of violence. [...] By contrast, revolutionary millennial movements are likely to engage in pre-emptive, offensive actions, believing 'that revolutionary violence is necessary to become liberated from their persecutors and to set up the righteous government and society' [...]. [...] Finally, [...] Wessinger adds the category of fragile millennial groups, where violence stems from a combination of internal pressures and the perception or experience of external opposition.
With progressive millennialism, transformation of the social order is gradual and humans play a role in fostering that transformation.
Catastrophic millennialism deems the current social order as irrevocably corrupt, and total destruction of this order is necessary as the precursor to the building of a new, godly order.
[...] Since the Holy Office decreed (July 21, 1944) that it cannot be safely taught that Christ at His Second Coming will reign visibly with only some of His saints (risen from the dead) for a period of time before the final and universal judgment, a spiritual millenium is to be seen in Apoc. 20:4–6. St. John gives a recapitulation of the activity of Satan, and the spiritual reign of the saints with Christ in heaven and in His Church on earth.
{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)The New Age was commonly also defined in astrological terms, with the Age of Pisces said to be supplanted by the Age of Aquarius. The consequent evolutionary leap in the development of humankind was often portrayed as heralding a fundamental change in the understanding of the relationship between human beings and the universe. Such thought culminated in the blossoming of the New Age movement of the 1960s and early 1970s, with its characterization of the Age of Aquarius as the embodiment of holistic principles [...]. [...] the New Age would be marked by peace and harmony.
Transformational millennialism tends to foster programs of radical and often unrealistic social change [...]. [...] Currently, the most prominent form of transformational millennialism comes from the New Age movements set in motion by the millennial wave of the 1960s: environmentally harmonized communes.
