In the Mosaic account of creation, we find the primitive ground for making the vic torious era of the church last a thousand years. That account was regarded by the Jews. and by the Judaic Christians as a type of the destinies of creation. Now, by a strictly literal interpretation of the 4th verse of the 90th Psalm. it was supposed that a day of God was arithmetically equal to a thousand years; lienoe the 6 days of creation were understood to indicate that the earth would pass through 6,000 years of labor and suffer ina, to be followed by a 7th day—that is, 1000 years orrest and happiness. In the Book ontevelation (chap. xx.) this view is presented. Still, the rabbinical traditions differ -widely among themselves as to the duration of the happy period. Instead of 1000 years, some of them count 40, 70, 90, 365, 400, 600, 2,000, or A.000, or so many years as have elapsed from the creation of the world or the flood. The Gospel of Nicodemus makes it 500 years, etc. In fact, the systems of apocalyptic chronology were of a varied and somewhat arbitrary cast; according as their originators laid greater stress upon the Apocalypse, the Book of Daniel, the Song of Songs, the Jewish " Gematria," or Com putation of Letters--a very pliable art. in itself—or on astronomy,. astrology, " natural phenomena," and the like.
The lapse of time chilling the ardor of the primitive Christian belief in the nearness of the parousia had without doubt also the tendency to give a more shadowy, and there fore a more spiritual aspect to the kingdom over which the expected Messiah was to reign. The influence of the Alexandrian philosophy contributed to produce the same result. Origen, for example, first started the idea that instead of a perpetual opposition of paganism to Christianity—instead of a final and desperate conflict between the two— instead of an insolent triumph on the part of the saints, aud a, servile submission on the part of the unbelievers, the real progress and victory of Christianity would consist iu the gradual spread of the truth throughout the world, and in the voluntary homage paid to it by all secular powers. This was an immense advance on the views previously enter tained. It is owing largely to Origen and his disciple Dionysius that more spiritual con ceptions of the millennium finally established themselves in the church; at all events, they furnished the fathers with the majority of their arguments. Yet even in the Egypto-Alexandrian church, millenarianism, in its most literal form, was widely diffused, and was only eradicated by the great wisdom and moderation of Dionysius. The Mon tanists (q.v.) generally, as might be expected from the enthusiastic tendencies of the sect, were extreme millenarians or chiliasts, and, being considered a heretical sect, con tributed largely to bring chiliasm into discredit, or, at all events, their own carnal form of chiliasm, which Tertullian himself attacked. Caius, the presbyter, in his "Disputa tion" against the 3Iontanist Proclus, traces its origin to the hated heretic Cerinthus, whom be accuses of forging a certain revelation, which he passed of as the work of an apostle. From his description of this revelation it is almost certain—strange as it may appear— that he alludes to the canonical Apocalypse. Lactantius, in the beginniw, of the 4th c., was the last important church father who indulged in chiliastic dreams, while among. its earlier advocates may be mentioned chiefly Nepos, Methodius, Korakion, Apollinarms, Victorinus, etc. In the 5th c. St. Jerome and St. Augustine expressly combated certain fanatics who still hoped for the advent of a millennial kingdom whose pleasures included those of the flesh. But from this time the church formally rejected millenarianism in its sensuous " visible" form, although the doctrine every now and then made its reappear ance, especially as a general popular belief, in the most sudden and obstinate manner. Thus the expectation of the last day in the year 1000 A.D. re-invested the doctrine with a transitory importance; but it lost all credit again when the hopes, so keenly excited by the crusades, faded away before the stern reality of Saracenic success, and the predic tions of the Everla,sting Gospel, a work of Joachim de Floris, a Franciscan abbot (died 1212), remained unfulfilled.
At the period of the reformation, millenarianism once more experienced a partial revival, because it was not a difficult matter to apply some of its symbolism to the papacy. The pope, for example, was Antichrist--a belief still adhered to by some extreme Protestants. Yet the doctrine was not adopted by the great body of the reformers, but by some fanatical sects, such as the Anabaptists and by the Theosophists of the 17th century. During the civil and religious wars in France and England, when great excite ment prevailed, it was also prominent. The fifth, men, of Cromwell's time were
millenarians of the most exaggerated and dangerous sort. Their peculiar tenet was that the millennium had come, and that they were the saints who were to inherit the earth. The excesses of the French Roman Catholic Mystics and Quietists terminated in chilias tic views. Among the Protestants it was during the thirty years' war that the most enthusiastic and learned chiliasts flourished. These may—broadly—be brought under the three chief heads of exegetical chiliasts, who, by some biblical dates, endeavored to compute the predicted time; akkenti.itk or cabalistic chiliasts, who endeavored to hasten the period by some mystical discovery; and chiliasts, who wished to reduce the governments of the world to a biblical standard. See A NABAPTISTS, 3ItNZER. The awful suffering and wide-spread desolation of that time led pious hearts to solace themselves with the hope of a peaceful and glorious future. Since then the penchant which has sprung up for expounding the prophetical books of the Bible, and particularly the Apocalypse, with a view to present events has given the doctrine a faint semi-theo logical life, very different, however, from the earnest, practical faith of the first Chris tians. Among the foremost chiliastic teachers of modern centuries are to be mentioned Ezechiel Meth, Paul Felgenhauer, bishop Comenius (Lux in Tenebris, 1657); prof. Jurien (L' Accomplissement des Prophities, 1686); Serarius (Assertion du 1?egne de Mille Ans, etc., ab. 1670); Poiret (Economie Divine, 1687); J. Mede (C/av. Apoeal. 1627); while Thomas Burnet and W. Whiston endeavored to give chiliasm ft geological foundation, but with out finding much favor. Spener,. on account of his Hoffnung besserer Zeiten, has been accused of chiliasm; no less Joachim Lange (Lield,und Becht); and Swedenborg employed apocalyptic images to set forth the transfigured world of the senses. Latterly, especially since the rise and extension of missionary enterprise, the opinion has obtained a wide cur rency that after the conversion of the whole world to Christianity, a blissful and glorious era will ensue; but not much stress—except by extreme literalists--is now laid on the nature or duration of this far-off felicity. In fact, the comtnon Christian conception of a mil lennium without a visibly present Christ, as held at the present day, is little different, so far as results are concerned, from the belief of • philosophers in the perfectibility of the race. The essence of both conceptions is the cessation of sin and sorrow, the preva lence of holiness and happiness. But this departs widely from the " ancient hope of the church"—a kingdom of visible majesty, with Jesus and the saints ruling the world from Jerusalem, the central city of the earth I Great eagerness and not a little ingenuity have been exhibited by many persons in fixing a date for the commencement of the millenniutn. The celebrated' theologian, Johami Albrecht Henget (Erkliirte Offenbarung; Reden fiir's Volk), who, in the 18th c., revived an earnest interest in the subject among orthodox Protestants, asserted from a study of the prophecies that the millennium would begin in 1836. This date was lono. popular. Bengel's general millenarianism was adopted by Oetinger (d. 1782), and widely spread throturhout Germany in a more or less poetic form by Hahn, Crusius„Tung Stilling, Lavai-er, and Hess (Briefe fiber die Offen& Joh.). Some of the greatest of the more recent German theologians are millenarians, such as Rothe, Delitzsch, Hoffman, Kurtz, Hebart, Thiersch, Nitzsch, P. Lange, and Ebrard. Swedenborg, to whom reference has already been made, held that the last judgment took place iu 1757, and that the new church, or " Church of the New Jerusalem," as his followers designate themselves—in other words, the millennial era, then began. In America, considerable agitation was excited by the preaching of one William Miller, who fixed the second advent of Christ about 1843. Of late years, the most noted English millenarian is Dr. John Cumming, who originally placed the end of the present dispensation in 1866 or 1867; but as that time drew near without any millennial symptoms, he was understood to have modified his original views considerably, and now conjectures that the beginning of the millennium will not differ so much after all front the years immediately preceding it, as people commonly suppose. See Corrodi's Kritische Gesehichte des Clalu.tsmus (Zurich, 1794, 4 vols.); Calixtus, De Chiliasmo cum antiquo tum pridem. renato Helmst, (1692, 4to); Klee, Tentam Hist. erit. de Mil, prim. stee. Herbip. (1825); Mfinter, Dogmengesehielde, etc. A really good history of chiliasm, however, is as yet a desideratum.