Encyclopaedia Britannica Online
Millennialism
religion
Alternative Title: chiliasm, millenarianism
Table of Contents
Introduction
The nature of millennialism
Early Christian millennialism
Patristic and medieval millennialism
Millennialism from the Renaissance to the modern world
Non-Christian millennialism
Millennialism, also called millenarianism or chiliasm, the belief, expressed in the book of Revelation to John, the last book of the New Testament, that Christ will establish a 1,000-year reign of the saints on earth (the millennium) before the Last Judgment. More broadly defined, it is a cross-cultural concept grounded in the expectation of a time of supernatural peace and abundance on earth.
Vision of the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven, from the Bamberg Apocalypse, c. 1000–20; in the Bamberg State Library, Germany (MS. 140).Courtesy of the Staatsbibliothek Bamberg, Germany
The nature of millennialism
Millennialism offers a version of the fundamental eschatological belief that at the end of time (the “End,” or “Endtime”) God will judge the living and the resurrected dead. This belief in ultimate divine justice provides a rationale for theodicy, the reconciliation of God’s goodness with the existence of evil in the world. In providing solace for the suffering of countless generations of believers—Jews, Christians, Muslims, and Buddhists—millennialism has had immense appeal in every age. Although its name comes from the 1,000-year period mentioned in the Revelation to John, millennialism is primarily concerned with the earthly nature of the coming “new world.” This radical transformation promises an end to existing institutions of power and, therefore, infuses millennial beliefs with a revolutionary quality that threatens those in authority.
The key determinant of millennialism’s impact on society is timing. As long as the day of redemption is yet to come, millennial hopes console the suffering and inspire patience and political quiescence. Driven by a sense of imminence, however, believers in apocalyptic millennialism can become disruptive and even revolt against the sociopolitical order in an attempt to bring about the promised kingdom of peace. Thus, apocalyptic millennialism has been a powerful and volatile catalyst throughout the ages. No matter how often apocalyptic beliefs have proved wrong and no matter how much chaos has been wrought by millennial efforts to establish God’s kingdom on earth, apocalyptic expectations are repeatedly revived. From the Jewish revolts against Rome in the 1st and 2nd centuries, which resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths, to the Taiping Rebellion in the 19th century, which led to 20–35 million deaths, such movements tend to self-destruct in spectacular fashion. For all the costly failures, however, the appeal of millennialism remains, and generation after generation of devotees have sought the chimerical kingdom.
Despite all its dangers, apocalyptic millennialism offers immense rewards: believers find themselves at the centre of the ultimate universal drama in which their every act has cosmic significance. Cosmic messages appear in the smallest incident and in every coincidence. Moreover, the approach of the Endtime and the promise of a new world liberates believers from all earthly inhibitions; fears of corporeal authority vanish, and a wide range of repressed feelings—sexual, emotional, and violent—burst forth. Such a combination proves irresistible for many.
From their earliest manifestations, millennial beliefs have divided into two tendencies: (1) those based on a hierarchical imperial vision of a coming kingdom that will be overseen by a just, if authoritarian, ruler who will conquer the forces of chaos and (2) those linked by a popular vision of holy anarchy, in which man’s domination of his fellow man will cease. Many aspiring world conquerors used millennial “saviour” imagery to bolster their rule, and, among Muslims and Christians in the Middle Ages, imperial uses of millennial imagery proliferated. The contrary millennial tendency, however, was marked by a profoundly anti-imperial, antiauthoritarian thrust. Indeed, one of the major strains of Hebrew messianic imagery foresaw a time when men would “beat” the instruments of war and domination into tools of peace and prosperity (Isaiah 2:1–4), each person sitting under his own tree, enjoying the fruits of honest labour undisturbed (Micah 4:1–4). This millennialism foresees the end of the rapacious aristocracy and the beginning of the peace of the commoner. Perhaps no idea offered a more subversive connotation in the ancient world, where aristocratic empires dominated almost every area of cultivated land. Early Christian millennialism
Apostolic Christianity demonstrated many of the traits of the second, popular tendency of apocalyptic millennialism: the rhetoric of the meek overcoming the powerful and arrogant, the imminence of the Lord’s day of wrath and the coming kingdom of heaven, a leader with a following among common people, rituals of initiation into a group preparing for the Endtime, fervent spirituality and radical restructuring of community bonds, large crowds, the prominence of women visionaries, and the shift from a disappointed messianic hope (the Crucifixion) to a revised expectation (the Second Coming, or Parousia).
The only missing element (which is prominent in some contemporary strains of Jewish millennialism), is violence, apparently subsumed under the passion for martyrdom. Violence did, however, become a notable part of Christian millennialism well after the apostolic age, appearing first among the Circumcellions, a revolutionary nationalist group in 4th-century North Africa.
The fundamental problem for early Christianity, as for all apocalyptic movements, was the passage of time, which brought with it the profound disappointment of unfulfilled expectations. Those who did not abandon the movement responded to the delay of the Parousia by organizing communities and rituals that created a foretaste of the coming world. Above all, the passing of time called for a new temporal horizon. The End would come not immediately, not even soon, but rather in the fullness of time, once the tasks assigned by God—especially the work of evangelism—were completed.
As Christianity evolved from a charismatic cult on the fringes of society into an institution eager to live in harmony with that society, the hopes of apocalyptic millenarianism embarrassed church leaders, who emphasized that Jesus’ kingdom was "not of this world." Whereas almost every prominent Christian writer of the 1st century posited a literal millennialism, by late in the 2nd century ecclesiastical writers had begun an assault on millenarian texts (especially the Revelation to John, the only New Testament text to explicitly address an earthly kingdom). Origen, an early 3rd-century theologian, argued that the millennium should be interpreted allegorically; others attempted to eliminate Revelation from the canon altogether (the Eastern church succeeded). When Christianity became the official state religion, millenarianism was pushed to the very margins of acceptable Christian thought.
Despite these efforts by the church hierarchy to remove millennialism from formal theology, apocalyptic fears and millennial hopes remained powerful among Christians. Paradoxically, antimillenarian writings, like St. Jerome’s commentary on The Book of Daniel, provided the basis for new forms of millennialism, such as belief in the “Refreshment of the Saints” (a 45-day period of respite during which the saints who had survived the tribulations of the Endtime would enjoy peace on earth). Above all, charismatic prophets used apocalyptic calculations drawn from Revelation and The Book of Daniel to excite the faithful. Perhaps in recognition of this appeal, church leaders compromised when dealing with those who remained deeply attached to hopes for a real millennium. Consequently, as early as the 2nd century, two of the principal themes of medieval millennialism emerged: the use of an antiapocalyptic chronology to postpone the End, thus encouraging patience, and the transformation of the Roman Empire into a positive eschatological force.