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Chapter 7. Medieval Millenarianism
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616 Chapter 7 Medieval Millenarianism The prophetic eschatology of the Bible is responsible for the fact that, in a West wholly and irreversibly converted to Christianity, time was seen as an anxious expectation of a different and better future (see above, pp. 445–46). While this expectation, filtered and moderated by ancient rationalism and law, determined the Papal Revolution and the social transformations following in its wake, it was also the source of a very different tradition: revolutionary millenarianism. First, we will sketch briefly the evolution of millenarian ideas from biblical times until the dawn of the Middle Ages (section I).1 Then, we will give a short historical overview of the social movements associated with millenarianism between the eleventh and sixteenth centuries (therefore , we will overstep slightly the conventional time frame of the Middle Ages) (section II). Finally, we will present the ideologies that sustained these movements (section III). I. The Evolution of Millenarianism at the End of Antiquity A. From the Revelation of Saint John the Divine to Saint Augustine Millenarian belief—the literal interpretation of the Revelation of Saint John the Divine—which once found favor among many church fathers who did not dissociate it from Christian doctrine, 1 Our guides for this topic are Norman Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages, rev. and expanded ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970); Jean Delumeau, History of Paradise: The Garden of Eden in Myth and Tradition (New York: Continuum, 1995); Henri de Lubac, La postérité spirituelle de Joachim de Flore [The spiritual posterity of Joachim of Flora], 2 vols. (Paris: Lethielleux-Culture et Vérité, 1978). On the biblical sources of millenarianism, see above, pp. 441–45. Chapter 7. Medieval Millenarianism 617 came under harsh criticism from Origen (ca. 185–254) (see p. 443). One of Origen’s followers, Dionysius of Alexandria, went so far as to recommend the exclusion of the Revelation of Saint John the Divine from the Bible (the only divine source of millenarian ideas).2 The integration of the church into the Empire brought about an indirect solution to the problem by marginalizing in practice the social circles in which millenarianism had an appeal. The uncontrolled movements, which were inflamed by a restless hope for a profound and imminent transformation of the world, caused fear; efforts were made to deprive them of theological arguments that could be used to justify their cause. The definitive doctrinal condemnation of millenarianism is the work of Augustine. In book 20, chapters 7–17, of his City of God (near the end of his work, where the author sets out his ideas on the doctrine of the last things, the Last Judgment, hell, and paradise), Augustine proposes a symbolic interpretation of the book of Revelation. When John the Divine writes that he saw “an angel coming down from heaven, having the key of the abyss, and a chain in his hand” to lay hold on Satan “and [bind] him for a thousand years,” “and he cast him into the abyss” and “shut him up, and set a seal upon him,” this is not in reference to future realities, Augustine says, but describes what had occurred since the coming of Christ. With his preaching, death, and Resurrection, Jesus triumphed over Satan and prevented him from doing evil (Mark 3:27; Luke 11:22), thereby delivering humankind. In establishing the church, Jesus had already established the kingdom of God on earth, and because Satan can no longer triumph over the predestined, the souls of the elect already have access to salvation. The “seal” that binds Satan means that the wicked are not known here below: they are inextricably interspersed among the elect. The book of Revelation speaks of “this kingdom militant (de hoc regno militiæ), in which conflict with the enemy is still maintained, and war carried on with warring lusts, or government laid upon them as they yield, until we come to that most peaceful kingdom (illud pacatissimum regnum) in which we shall reign without an enemy” (20.9.2). The separation of the wheat from the chaff in the City of God and the earthly City will occur only at the Last Judgment. As for the 1,000 years, it is simply a reference to a long and indefinite time: the time that the church will last on earth. After this time will come the Parousia, the resurrection of the dead, and the Last Judgment: they will come suddenly...