As I shall show in the next section, the original definition of millennium—so different from our current madness about calendric transitions at “even” thousand-year intervals—arose from an important feature in the “standard” apocalyptic story of Christian traditions, a truly wild tale from the Bible’s last book, chapter 20 of Revelation. The fascinating story of how this concept transmogrified into our current form of millennial madness requires a discussion of the second great mental strategy for ordering our confusing world.
The Second Strategy, Numbers of Ultimate Meaning
The human brain is the most complex computing device ever evolved in the history of our planet. I do not doubt that conventional Darwinian reasons of adaptive advantage underlie its unparalleled size and intricacy. Nonetheless, many of our brain’s most distinctive attributes, centerpieces for any concept of a universal human nature, cannot be viewed as direct products of natural selection but must arise as incidental side consequences of the original reasons for such an increase in size. (For example, if I buy a personal computer only to keep the spreadsheet of my family finances, the machine, by virtue of inbuilt structure and quite apart from my intent, can perform a plethora of unanticipated tasks as yet unconceived by any user. The more complex the device, the greater the number of potential side consequences. The human brain is ever so much more powerful than this personal computer.)
The jaws of hell fastened by an angel, from the Psalter of Henry of Bloise, Bishop of Winchester. Illuminated manuscript, twelfth century. (illustration credit 1.1)
Thus, for example, the human brain did not get large so that we could read, or write, or reckon the pattern of solar eclipses—for we developed these skills long after our brain reached its current size. Similarly, I can imagine adaptive value for some aspects of reasoning that might be called arithmetical or calculational. A hunter might want to report the size of a mammoth herd, or a gatherer the dimensions of a field full of tubers. We might require more complex systems to gauge the degrees of bloodline relationship so important to systems of social fealty that might yield Darwinian advantages. But we surely cannot argue that natural selection favored large brains so that we might seek patterns in numerical cycles, and then impart even a “deeper” meaning to these pure and recurring abstractions than we grant to the messiness of natural objects. Yet what foible of our search for knowledge, what intellectual drive of the ages, could be more distinctly human?
In listing the few motivating passions of his life, Bertrand Russell stated that he had “tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux.” (As the two other chief components of his search for knowledge, Russell then sought “to understand the hearts of men” and “to know why the stars shine”—both also relevant to the questions of millennial madness.)
My argument for the origin of our fascination with numerical regularity closely parallels my claims about our affinity for dichotomous classification. In part, we latch on to numerical regularity, and seek deep meaning therein, because such order does underlie much of nature’s patterning. The periodic table, after all, is not an arbitrary human mnemonic, and Newtonian gravity does work by a law of inverse squares. But our search for numerical order, and our overinterpretations, run so far beyond what nature could possibly exemplify, that we can only postulate some inherent mental bias as a driving force. I argued above that this bias almost surely evolved as a side consequence of natural selection, not as a direct adaptation—and must therefore bear a complex and indirect relationship to any concept of utility. Our searches for numerical order lead as often to terminal nuttiness as to profound insight.
The catalogue of numerical schemes seriously proposed as the nature of God or the underlying order of the cosmos would fill a baroque volume of staggering variety. (Nicholas Campion’s recent book, The Great Year: Astrology, Millenarianism and History in the Western Tradition, Penguin, 1994, presents a good introduction.) Some scholars, divines, and mystics have based their schemes on twos (for our dichotomies), others on threes (for the trinity), others on fours (C. G. Jung’s nomination for a primal number), others on fives (for our digits), others on sevens (for the notes of the scale and the planets of Ptolemy’s system), others on nines (the square of the trinity) … and so it goes.
This theme of number mysticism as a second mental device for ordering nature enters our millennial story through powerful interaction with the first device of twofold classification—particularly with the cyclic side of time’s dichotomy and the catastrophic end of change’s dichotomy. Imagine the pizzazz gained by any claim for a paroxysmal finale if a sage can penetrate the numerical order of the universe to know exactly how long a current cycle must be—and precisely when it must end!
Millennial thought arises from the linkage of general apocalypticism with a specific numerical theory about the forthcoming end. As stated above, a commitment to cycles based on simple numbers doesn’t specify either a duration or an ending time—and nearly anything even mildly plausible has been proposed (and cultishly believed) at one time or another. The particular form of apocalypticism known as millennialism or chiliasm (from classical words for “a thousand,” the first Latin, the second Greek)—the most popular numerical scheme in the history of Christian apocalypticism, though entirely arbitrary with respect to nature, as I argue in the preface of this book—regards the number 1,000 as the hidden basis for both the solution of natural order and the salvation of human souls.
But 1,000 of what, and 1,000 when? The rest of this chapter documents a subtle shift in our primary definition of the millennium—from the duration of a blissful age following a forthcoming apocalypse, to the measured passage of a thousand years, perhaps preceding the same apocalypse. How and why did we move from the millennium as apocalypse to the millennium as calendrics?
MILLENNIUM AS APOCALYPSE
Millennium does mean, by etymology, a period of one thousand years. This concept, however, did not arise within the field of practical calendrics, or the measurement of time, but in the domain of eschatology, or futuristic visions about a blessed end of time. Millennial thinking is embedded in the two major apocalyptic books of the Bible—Daniel in the Old Testament and Revelation in the New. In particular, the traditional Christian millennium is a future epoch that will last for one thousand years and end with a final battle and Last Judgment of all the dead. As described by Saint John in one of his oracular visions (Revelation 20), Satan shall be bound for one thousand years and cast into the bottomless pit; Christ shall return and reign for this millennium with resurrected Christian martyrs. Satan shall then be loosed; he shall team up with Gog, Magog, and a host of other evildoers, for a final battle; Christ and the good guys win, the devils end up in “the lake of fire and brimstone”; all the dead are now resurrected and, in a Last Judgment at this true end of time, either rise to live with Jesus or end up in that other, unpleasant place along with most of history’s interesting characters.
And I saw an angel come down from heaven.… And he laid hold on … Satan, and bound him a thousand years, and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him … and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus … and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.… And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle … and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them. And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone.… And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened.… And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. (Revelation 20:1–15)
The religious and political potency of this vision has resonated throughout our subsequent history. Many statements in the New Testament indicate that Jesus and his initial followers did not expect any long delay in the fulfillment of the apoca
lypse and the inception of the millennium. Speaking through one of his angels, Jesus states in the last chapter of Revelation (and of the entire Bible): “And he saith unto me, Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book: for the time is at hand.… Behold I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.… Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city” (Revelation 22:10, 12, 14).
The Synoptic Gospels reinforce this theme with a more specific timing. Jesus describes the forthcoming apocalypse in terms similar to John’s later account in Revelation (and also to the available Old Testament sources of Daniel and Ezekiel), though without John’s flamboyant details: “So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just; and shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 13:49–50). Moreover, Jesus states clearly that the end shall not be long delayed and shall surely occur within the lifetime of some people who heard his words:
Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father, with his angels, and then he shall reward every man according to his works. Verily I say unto you, There shall be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom. (Matthew 16:24–28; see also Mark 9:1)
We do not, I think, vitiate the moral value of Jesus’ more radical teachings when we properly regard them as rules for action in a corrupt and dying world slated for quick replacement by a blessed age—a new regime that would allocate rewards and punishments according to the character of one’s life during the strictly limited tenure of the present order. We might not want to turn the other cheek if bullies and tyrants could look forward to a thousand years of easy domination. And if our worldly gains cannot accumulate for more than a generation or so, while our qualities of soul will determine our future (and eternal) state in a new age so soon to come, then practical reasons of the moment—and not only ethical values for the ages—will favor the calculus of soul over gold.
Sinners in Hell, Last Judgement (circa 1240), anonymous. Relief. (illustration credit 1.2)
Jesus’ error of timing did not dampen the enthusiasm of apocalyptically inclined supporters, and every subsequent generation has featured millenarian movements. The first Christian version of some significance unfolded only twenty years or so after the Roman suppression of Bar Kochba’s revolt finally extinguished Jewish life in Jerusalem, and ended the immediacy of the more secular and messianic form of Jewish apocalypticism. Montanus began to preach in Phrygia (now central Turkey) in about A.D. 156. Aided by two young female disciples, Prisca and Maximilla, Montanus fell into trances and announced the imminent second coming of Christ, as the heavenly city of Jerusalem would descend to earth and establish itself on the plain between the Phrygian villages of Pepuza and Tymion. Establishing a pattern to be repeated throughout history on many subsequent mountaintops, deserts, valleys, and mesas, the Montanists left their towns (leading to the virtual abandonment of several early Christian communities) and went to the appointed place to await the grand deliverance—which, as usual, and needless to say, never occurred.
However, and also initiating a pattern among true believers that would persist forever after, this spectacular failure of a clear and central prediction did not extinguish the movement, and Montanism remained strong for several hundred years, persisting until the ninth century and even gaining the support of Tertullian, perhaps the most prolific writer among early Christians (Tertullian left the Catholic Church to join the Montanists in 212). Followers admired the asceticism and moral rigor of the movement, and failure of an apocalyptic prediction can always be rationalized with a variety of excuses, from miscalculation to a mix-up between metaphorical and literal interpretations.
Meanwhile, as time wore on, and as Christianity became a substantial secular power rather than a persecuted and radical sect, the inevitable backlash occurred, establishing a fundamental contrast that pervades the history of apocalyptic thought. For obvious reasons, established governments, doctrines, and powers must firmly oppose, and actively combat, any prophetic doctrine, and especially any mass movement, centered upon a claim for an imminent and cataclysmic termination of earthly order! Apocalypticism is the province of the wretched, the downtrodden, the dispossessed, the political radical, the theological revolutionary, and the self-proclaimed savior—not the belief of people happily at the helm. What, then, did triumphant Christianity do when its newfound secular success began to press upon the undeniable scriptural authority for apocalyptic expectations?
Two strategies have long prevailed among comfortable establishments that can’t deny their own millenarian documents and traditions. First, one can argue that the millennium must, indeed, eventually arrive—but in a future so distant and unknowable that the issue need scarcely influence our daily lives. Second, and more commonly, one can reinterpret the millennium in a metaphorical or allegorical way, and even argue that the blessed event has already occurred. In the classic formulation, virtually canonical in Catholic circles since Saint Augustine’s origination in his early fifth-century masterpiece, Civitas Dei (The City of God), the millennium must be viewed allegorically as a spiritual state collectively entered by the Church at Pentecost—the descent of the Holy Ghost to the apostles soon after Christ’s resurrection—and fully subject to contemporary personal experience by mystical communion with God. This argument, needless to say, serves a social purpose for a powerful and conservative institution wishing to maintain a status quo of daily influence and to suppress wild theories about actual and imminent ends of the world.
This fundamental sociological division—the key to understanding the power of millennial thinking in Western history—was summarized particularly well, albeit in a highly partisan fashion, by the late seventeenth-century English divine Thomas Burnet (who will figure prominently in the next section of this chapter). As an Anglican priest, a champion of the Reformation, and an anti-Catholic (though not nearly so vehement as many of his famous contemporaries, including Oliver Cromwell and John Milton), Burnet linked millenarian thought to social and religious reform, and then tied the rejection of apocalypticism to support of a comfortable and established order. (I also love the sweep of Burnet’s expansive and flavorful seventeenth-century prose style, and I quote from my own copy of his beautiful book.)
I never yet met with a Popish doctor that held [supported] the Millennium.… It was always indeed uneasy, and gave offense, to the Church in Rome, because it does not suit to that scheme of Christianity which they have drawn. They suppose Christ reigns already, by his Vicar, the Pope: and treads upon the necks of emperors and kings. And if they could but suppress the Northern Heresie [that is, the Reformation], as they call it, they do not know what a Millennium would signify, or how the Church could be in a happier condition than she is.… The Church of Rome hath been in prosperity and greatness, and the commanding Church in Christendom, for so long or longer, and hath ruled the nations with a rod of iron.… And the Millennium being properly a reward and triumph for those who have come out of persecution, such as have lived always in pomp and prosperity can pretend to no share in it, or benefit by it. This has made the Church of Rome have always an evil eye upon this doctrine, because it seemed to have an evil eye upon her. And as she grew in splendor, and greatness, she eclipsed and obscured it more and more: so that it would have been lost out of the World as an obsolete error, if it had not been revived by some of the Reformation.
Millenarianism drove the most radical of the Reformationists—and only by grasping their firm belief in the imminent end of time can we understa
nd their willingness to engage in militarily hopeless revolt, or to endure the most unspeakable tortures (not that they had much choice) before subsequent execution. Thus, the Anabaptist Thomas Müntzer, convinced that he was living at the very “end of all ages,” led the Thuringian peasants in their ill-fated revolt of 1525, and ended up racked and decapitated for his pains. (Martin Luther may have had his radical moments in theology, but he was horrified by the political revolution of the peasants, and he urged that they all be exterminated like dogs, and without mercy—as they were, and by the tens of thousands.)
Millenarian movements have continued on the Protestant fringe (sometimes not so “fringey” in episodes of general enthusiasm or social unrest) and have left their impact upon several major groups (who do not always wish to own their apocalyptic origins). The Hutterite communities of the western United States and Canada, for example, trace their origin to another millenarian German Anabaptist, Jakob Hutter, who was tortured and burned as a heretic in 1536.
The best known, if shortly flaring, millenarian movement in American history reached a climax in New York and Massachusetts during the 1840s, where as many as 100,000 believers followed the apocalyptic message of William Miller, a former army officer and self-proclaimed preacher who announced, based on his reading of Daniel and Revelation, that Christ would return and engulf the world in fiery conflagration sometime between March 2l, 1843, and March 2l, 1844. When this prophecy failed to materialize (or spiritualize), Miller set a later date of October 22, 1844. The uneventful passage of this second Second Coming—known as “The Great Disappointment” in Millerite circles—led to a conference in 1845, devoted to what a later age would call “damage control.” Needless to say, many followers had left the fold, for nothing dulls enthusiasm quite so effectively as the spectacular failure of a central prediction.
Questioning the Millennium Page 4