 |
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
| ||||||||
Millennialism (or chiliasm), from millennium, which literally means "thousand years", is a belief in some Christian denominations, literature and folk religion, that at some point in the future there will be a Golden Age, a Paradise on earth when universal peace will reign, when all people will dwell in prosperity, the cosmos will be healed, and "Christ will reign". This is not the "end of the world", but the penultimate age, prior to when it is believed that the world will end. Some believe that between the millennium and the final end of the world there will be a brief period to allow a final battle with Satan, or a time of the Anti-Christ, and then comes the last judgment.
Millennialism is also a doctrine of Zoroastrianism concerning successive thousand year periods, each of which will end in a cataclysm of heresy and destruction, until the final destruction of evil and of the spirit of evil by a triumphant king of peace at the end of the final millennial age (supposed by some to be 2000 C.E.). "Then Catholic Church (and actually pronounced a heresy already in 431 AD), millennialism, which had clearly been there in Jewish thought before, received a new interpretation and fresh impetus through the arrival of Christianity. A millennium is (a) a period of one thousand years, and, in particular, (b) Christ's thousand-year rule on this earth, either directly preceding or immediately following the Second Coming (and the Day of Judgement).
The millennium reverses the previous period of evil and suffering; it rewards the virtuous for their courage while punishing the evil-doers, with a clear separation of saints and sinners. The vision of a thousand-year period of bliss for the faithful, to be enjoyed here on earth ("heaven on earth"), exerted an irresistible power. Although the picture of life in the millennial era is almost wilfully obscure and hardly more appealing than that of, say, the Golden Age, what has made the millennium much more powerful than the Golden Age or Paradise myths are the activities of the sects and movements that it has inspired. Throughout the ages, hundreds of sects were convinced that the millennium was imminent, about to begin in the (very) near future, with precise dates given on many occasions.
Premillennial sects look for signs of Christ's imminent return. Other chiliast sects, such as the prophetic Anabaptist followers of Thomas Müntzer, have believed that the millennium had already begun, with only their own members having realized this fact. Consequently, they have attempted to live out their own vision of millennial life, radically overturning the beliefs and practices of the surrounding society. In doing so, they offered a model of the good life and expressed their hope that soon the rest of the world would follow and live like they did.
See Christian eschatology for a discussion of "premillennialism" and "postmillennialism".
Millennial sects have typically believed that the transition from the present age to the millennium would be anything but smooth, with the Antichrist having to be defeated and Jesus Christ's reign on earth having to be established (half of the millenial theories posit that the battle with the Antichrist will be after the 1000 years). At times, this expectation of disastrous wars which bring an end to the present age has been seen by leaders of some movements as their responsibility to bring about.
On the other hand, those who did not believe in the millennium also imagined the end of the world as chaotic and catastrophic. The word Apocalypse has been used for this final phase of human history as we know it, with Armageddon as the site of the last decisive battle on the Day of Judgement.
An (or the) Apocalypse [from Greek apo "off", "from", "away", "un-" and kalyptein "cover"] is,
The Book of Revelation is not easy to interpret. Numerous painters and sculptors have produced works of art dealing with the Apocalypse. For example, they portrayed the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, symbolizing pestilence, war, famine, and death.
The early Christian concept had ramifications far beyond strictly religious concern during the centuries to come, as it was blended and enhanced with ideas of utopia.
In the wake of early millennial thinking, the Three Ages philosophy (Drei-Reiche-Lehre) developed. Making use of the dogma of the Trinity, the Italian monk and theologian Joachim of Fiore (d. 1202) claimed that all of human history was a succession of three ages:
It was believed that the Age of the Holy Spirit would begin at around 1260, and that from then on all believers would be living as monks, mystically transfigured and full of praise for God, for a thousand years until Judgement Day would put an end to the history of our planet.
In the Modern Era, with the impact of religion on everyday life gradually decreasing and eventually almost vanishing, some of the concepts of millennial thinking have found their way into various secular ideas, usually in the form of a belief that a certain historical event will (or already has) fundamentally changed human society. For example, the French Revolution seemed to many to be ushering in the millennial age of reason. Also, the philosophies of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (d. 1831) and Karl Marx (d. 1883) carried strong millennial overtones. As late as 1970, Yale law teacher Charles A. Reich coined the term "Consciousness III" in his best seller The Greening of America, in which he spoke of a new age ushered in by the hippie generation. However, these secular theories generally have little or nothing to do with the original millennial thinking, or with each other.
The most controversial interpretation of the Three Ages philosophy and of millennialism in general is Hitler's "Third Reich" ("Drittes Reich", "Tausendjähriges Reich"), which, in his vision, would last for a thousand years - but which in reality only lasted for 12 years (1933-1945).
The phrase "Third Reich" was coined by the conservative German thinker Arthur Moeller van den Bruck (b. 1876, suicide 1925), who in 1923 published a book entitled Das Dritte Reich, which eventually became a catchphrase that survived the Nazi regime.
Looking back at German history, two periods were distinguished:
These were now to be followed -- after the interval of the Weimar Republic (1918 - 1933), during which constitutionalism, parliamentarism and even pacifism ruled -- by:
In a speech held on 27 November 1937, Hitler commented on his plans to have major parts of Berlin torn down and rebuilt:
|
||||
| View Live Article | This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License | |
||
