MILLENARISM. – An eschatological error according to which Jesus Christ must reign visibly for a thousand years on this earth at the end of the world. It was also called chiliasm (from the Greek χιλιάς: thousand). According to the various forms assumed by the error, the events at the end of the world would follow one another in a somewhat different order. For the earliest proponents of m., Christ’s earthly reign would come between the first resurrection, proper to the just (the only ones to partake of the joys of the millennial kingdom), and the second, reserved for the damned, which would be followed by the universal judgment and the eternal assignment of punishments (hell) and joys (paradise). Among later millenarists, there is a certain uncertainty regarding the chronology of the kingdom: some consider it to precede the universal judgment, others to follow II. But the principal point on which millenarists are divided concerns the nature of the joys, which according to some would be sensual in character (carnal m.), while according to others they would be spiritual in nature (spiritual m.).
I. CARNAL M
Carnal m. is of Jewish origin. According to an ancient rabbinic tradition, the history of the world must conclude within seven thousand years, of which the first six would represent the first part of the Mosaic week (the premessianic age), and the last the sabbath, the millennium of rest and celebration, during which the messianic kingdom would be established in the peaceful enjoyment of all temporal goods (riches, the subjection of all peoples, the triumph of Israel). In the second century A.D., Cerinthus (v.) applied this theory to chapter 20 of the Apocalypse of s. Giovanni and, worsening the Jewish exegesis, asserted: « post resurrectionem regnum Christi in terra futurum ac rursus homines Hierosolymis degentes cupiditatibus et voluptati corporis obnoxios fore » (Caio Romano, in Eusebio, Hist. eccl., III, 28: PG 20, 274-75). The error, taken up with slight variations in the third century by Nepote, bishop of Arsinoe, and by Coracio (Eusebio, op. cit., 7, 27: ibid., 691), and in the fourth century by Apollinare di Laodicea (v.), was refuted by the Fathers and the scholastics; in the sixteenth century it reappeared among certain Protestants and was widely disseminated by the Pietists and other sects (Mennonites, Mormons, Trivigni, Adventists).II. SPIRITUAL M
Spiritual m. originated with Papias, who, in opposition to Cerinthus, understood in chap. 20 of the Apocalypse a kingdom full of spiritual joys, even though rich in temporal goods (Eusebius, op. cit., III, 39: ibid., 374). St. Irenaeus, a follower of Papias, announced that a day would come when « vinese nascentur singulae decem millia palmitum habentes et in uno palmite dena millia brachiorum... et cum apprehenderit aliquia sanctorum botrum, alius clamabit: botrus ego melior sum, me sume, per me Dominum benedictum » (Adv. Haeres., 5, 33: PG 7, 1213). This form of m., more or less tempered, appears in St. Justin, Tertullian, Commodian, Victorinus of Pettau, Hilary, Methodius of Olympus, Zeno of Verona, and also in St. Jerome and St. Augustine, who later, in their maturity, rejected this conception (cf. F. Alcañiz, Ecclesia patristica et millenarismus, Granata 1933: the author sympathizes with spiritual m.). In the Middle Ages, a fanatical return to this FIORE, IL (v.), Gerardo Segarelli (d. in 1260), fra' Dolcino (cf. Dante, Inferno, XXVIII, 55-60), and Ubertino da Casale (cf. F. Callaey, L'idéalisme franciscain spirituel au XIVe siècle: Etude sur Ubertin da Casale, Lovanio 1911, pp. 121-31). From the end of the eighteenth century, there have been theologians and exegetes who have looked favorably upon mitigated m.; for example, M. Lacunza (cf. A. F. Vaucher, Une célébrité oubliée: Le p. M. Lacunza y Diaz [1731-1801], Collonges-sous-Salève 1941), R. Eizaguirre (Apocalipsis interpretatio litteralis, Roma 1911), C. Morondo (Estudios millenarios, Isén 1922), I. Ramos (Summa isagogico-exegetica in libros N. T., II, Roma 1940, pp. 340-77), B. Ughi (La via, 2ª ed., Firenze 1949, passim: all'Indice 20 luglio 1950).III. EVALUATION
Carnal m., being diametrically opposed to the Christian spirit (cf. Mt. 22:30; Rom. 14:17; I Cor. 15:50), was rejected from its very inception as a heresy. Cerinthus was refuted by Caius Romanus and Origen (De principiis, 2, 11: PG 11, 241). Nepos and Coracion were convinced of their error by St. Dionysius of Alexandria (Eusebius, op. cit., VII, 24: ibid., 20, 691). Apollinaris of Laodicea was opposed, also on account of this error, by the greatest Christian writers of the fourth and fifth centuries (Basil, Gregory Nazianzen, Jerome, Epiphanius, Theodoret). Spiritual m. too, which fascinated so many minds, has no proof whatever in its favor; indeed, it is directly opposed to the teaching of the symbols of faith (cf. Denz-U, 423), in which there is mention only of two comings of Christ, that in humilitate and that in gloria, for the purpose of carrying out the universal judgment, which will be immediately followed by the final retribution for each person: Mt. 16:27: « Filius hominis venturus est in gloria Patris sui cum Angelis, tunc reddet unicuique secundum opera sua ». From this perspective the millennium cannot take place.These and other biblical and patristic arguments led the most authoritative theologians (St. Thomas, IV Sent., d. 43, q. 1, a. 3, qc. 1; St. Robert Bellarmine, De Romano Pontifice, 1, 3, cap. 17) to regard mitigated m. as rash, indeed erroneous. Recently the Holy Office (21 June 1944) declared: « Systema millenarismi mitigati tuto doceri non potest » (AAS, 36, [1944], p. 212; cf. G. Gilleman, Condamnation du millénarisme mitigé, in Nouvelle revue théologique, 67 [1945], pp. 239–41).
IV. RELATED ERRORS
Connected with m. is the theory of the golden age of the Church. According to an anonymous Anglican (Of the State of the Church to future age, London 1864), a time will come when, with the papacy and the arrogance of absolute governments removed, a universal civil-religious democracy will be established, in which citizens will enjoy lasting peace, undisturbed by any physical or moral evil, all intent on enjoying the benefits brought by the progress of the sciences and the arts. This “sun of the future” attracted the attention of many figures in Anglicanism (e.g., Tommaso Newton, bishop of Bristol), and in the nineteenth century it was widely disseminated in England by Waughan and in France by Agier (cf. E. Mèric, L'altra vita, II, Italian trans., Turin 1927, pp. 303–11). At the end of the same century, the rosy conception was adopted, with various modifications (especially concerning the fate of the papacy), by various Catholic authors (e.g., Callegari, Courtrai, Bigou, Schneider, Caballero Infante, Alvarez Navarro). Somewhat different is the system of eschatological renewal advocated by canon E. A. Chaubaty in three substantial volumes (Etudes... sur l'avenir de l'Eglise catholique selon le plan divin ou la régénération de l'humanité et la rénovation de l'univers, Poitiers 1890–93). At the end of the world, the people present during the cataclysms foretold by Sacred Scripture will survive the universal conflagration and give rise to a pure progeny, without original sin, destined to constitute the new Jerusalem, in which Jesus Christ will reign visibly, assisted by his vicar, the Pope.Such conceptions are fundamentally erroneous because they are contrary to the evangelical concept of the kingdom of God on earth, in which there will always be sufferings (Mt. 5:11; Lc. 9:23; Io. 15:20; Act. 14:25; Rom. 8:29) and imperfections (Mt. 13:24–30, 47; Lc. 10:3). Chaubaty’s opinion must be regarded as a grave error, since it denies what was defined at the Council of Trent concerning original sin, which will affect all generations descended from Adam (Denz-U, 792). Moreover, the work of the canon from Anjou was placed on the Index on 18 December 1896.
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