Millenarianism

The first major millenarian movement after the early Christian communities was Montanism. Montanus, its founder, sought to restore the enthusiasm of the early period of the church. Montanus's movement began about 172 C.E. He expected the Lord to return to Pepuza and Tymion, two small towns in Asia Minor. The New Jerusalem would soon descend to earth and the thousand-year reign of Christ would begin. Montanus encouraged his followers to live in strict asceticism to prepare for this Second Coming. The church turned against Montanus because millenarianism was not central in Christian doctrine and because ecstatic prophecy and private interpretation undermined church discipline.

St. Augustine of Hippo (354–430) effectively closed the door on millenarian speculation for centuries by writing against the kind of literal interpretation of Scriptures that promised a physical paradise on earth. But early in the Middle Ages Joachim of Fiore (1130 or 1135–1201 or 1202) reopened the door for many apocalyptic and renewal movements, such as the Spiritual Franciscans and the Fraticelli. Joachim believed his own age was in crisis and preached that human agency would contribute to bringing the church through to the final stage of history, the age of the Holy Spirit.

In many instances millenarian hopes and expectations became intertwined with political and social aspirations and resulted in a violent mix—especially when reform efforts, blocked by rigid church and secular authorities, became radical and extreme. Such a situation occurred, for instance, in the fifteenth century in Bohemia and Moravia, when the Hussite reform movement, blended with inchoate nationalistic feelings and social tensions, became the Hussite Revolution, which in turn spawned the radical millenarian movement of the Taborites. Using religious images and millenarian beliefs, Taborites created a short-lived millenarian society that fought violently against the forces sent to crush it.

In sixteenth-century Germany Lutheran reforms triggered a sense of liberation as well as disorientation amid social and religious changes. Just as Martin Luther used apocalyptic imagery to portray the pope as the Antichrist, Thomas Müntzer portrayed Luther as the Beast of the Apocalypse because Luther was countering Müntzer's reformist efforts. Müntzer committed himself to social and religious revolution, believing any who opposed this process of the last days must be violently annihilated. Anabaptist groups channeled reform hopes into efforts to establish a new golden age. Some groups preached a nonviolent awaiting for the end times, while other segments developed a fanatical millenarianism as authorities opposed them. In Münster the Anabaptists set up the new Kingdom of Zion, which came to a violent and bloody end in 1535.

At the end of the sixteenth century and early in the seventeenth, the political and religious conditions in England prompted a wave of millenarian interest and excitement. English Puritans increasingly interpreted biblical prophecies about calamities and the Second Coming as referring to contemporary situations. Learned men tried to decipher from Scripture the date when the end of the world might arrive. The most radical of English millenarians were known as the Fifth Monarchy Men (from the vision recounted in the Book of Daniel, chapter 7). In the early eighteenth century France's Camisards or "French Prophets" sought from the Catholic king some tolerance for their Protestant culture and practices. The Camisards believed their sufferings were part of God's plan for the coming of the millennium. Lay prophets, including many children, amid physical manifestations of shaking and convulsions, revealed that the Judgment Day was soon approaching, that the reign of the Beast of the Apocalypse would soon end.