The Revolutionary Millennialism of Thomas Paine

The Revolutionary M illennialism onmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA of Thom as Paine JA C K F R U C H T M A N , JR . As one of the most politically ad vance dthinke rsof the late e ighte e nth ce ntury ,Thomas Paine has ge ne rallyb e e n re gard e d as the most influe ntial write rin the age of the Ame ricanand French Revolutions.1 His C om m on Sense, published in early 1776, convinced hundreds of Americans that it was in their own best interests to separate completely and permanently from Britain. During the Revolution, in his Am erican Crisis series, he ral­ lied the troops with periodic calls to arms to remind them of the high purpose to which they had dedicated their lives and blood. And, finally, in the 1790s, he moved beyond his earlier advocacy of political reform to the more radical arena of social welfare. In the second part of the Rights of M an and in Agrarian Justice, he set forth an array of socio-economic proposals which he was certain would renew the lives of the poor and dispossessed. Paine's advanced thinking has led some modern commen­ tators to conclude that he was never concerned with a Whig interpretation of the past, because he was always looking to the moment when men would achieve universal harmony, or as he called it "universal civilization."2 This harmony would come about when men made full use of their reason, for it was their rational faculty that gave shape to both present and future change. Paine's emphasis on universal political and social change was not, how­ ever, phrased only in the language of revolutionary politics. At times, he employed another available language, that of the coming republican apoca­ lypse, to describe his broad vision of the perfectibility that men might experience in this life. These two perspectives — his modernist outlook and 65 66 / FRUCHTMANonmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA his "se cularmille nnialism" —we rene ve rincompatib le :he use dthe mb oth fre que ntly , some time sinte rchange ab ly , to convince his aud ie ncethat he was ce rtain that his vision of the e nd of time was we ll-found e d , b ase d as it was on a re asonab leasse ssme ntof the human e ve ntshe himse lfhad witne sse d . 3 And y e t,Paine smille nnialismne ve rfitte de asilyinto the main­ stream of eighteenth-century views of the apocalypse. After all, he was a man who denied an active role of God in the world; he believed that the scriptures were fabulous and mythological; and his faith was based on what men ought to do, and not what God could do for them. In contrast, someone who did in fact fit into the more traditional and conventional millennialist mainstream in the late eighteenth century was Joseph Priestley, scientist, preacher, and prolific writer on the subject.4 Priestley, as both scientist and theologian, undertook a lifelong, deliber­ ate, and inexhaustible search of Biblical scripture to determine when the great prophecies of the Apocalypse would actually be fulfilled. His search ultimately led him to conclude that they would not be fulfilled in the dis­ tant future, but in his own time or at the very least (sometimes he did hedge) shortly after his own time. Anyone who studies Paine's theological views will be immediately struck by his lack of all the necessary ingredients to be a genuine millennialist. For example, he displayed neither sensitivity to nor belief in those com­ pelling elements of Biblical prophecy that moved Joseph Priestley. Accord­ ing to Priestley, the prophets of RQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA D aniel and Revelation had correctly fore­ told the events relating to the perfection of the world which were being worked out in his own time. In May of 1795, Priestley wrote to his friend and associate Theophilus Lindsey that his interest in European politics was due only to "the attention I give to the fulfillment of prophecy."5 A few months later, in a letter to Thomas Belsham, he noted that "the great events are those we are now looking for."6 Paine had...