Avatars of the Millennial Kingdom. The Path of Millenarianism between Ancient and Modern

Abstract

There are serious arguments in favor of the fact that the significance of millenarianist-type eschatologies for the history of the Church (and in particular for the history of Christian dogmas) is more extensive than we are usually tempted to believe. Today it is acknowledged (with significant frequency) that the millenarianist exegeses were majority until the 3^rd-4^th centuries AD, partly regaining an audience starting with the first decades of the 16^th century, with the emergence of the first communities affiliated with the radical tendencies of the Reformation. Given these circumstances, our study aims to explore some of the elements of continuity and/ or disparity between ancient and modern acceptations of millenarianist thought, with an emphasis on the theological basis of the eschatological interpretations and visions under discussion. Therefore, our approach will be a predominantly analytical one, in an attempt to make available to the specialized reader a few reference points that can be used and developed later on.