THE BIBLICAL AND PARA-BIBLICAL ORIGINS OF MILLENNARIANISM
The tendency to periodization of world history is an essential component of millennarianism. Another essential component is the idea of a return to the paradisiac conditions of the primeval era. " Classical " biblical and para-biblical millennarianism is the result of a combination of these two factors, with additional background provided by the idea of a divine " retribution ", i. e. God compensating his faithful people for the time during which they have suffered. Parallels are also offered by extra-biblical traditions among Israel's Near Eastern neighbours, particularly Persian calculation of the duration of the world in multiples of 1 000 years.
" WILL CHRIST COME (AGAIN) ? "
Faith in the glorious coming of Christ at the end of time in order to judge the living and the dead represents a key article of the Faith of the Church since its inception. The one who came in order to inaugurate the Kingdom of God on earth, is expected to come again in glory in order to bring it to its completion. The New Testament, it is true, does not furnish a detailed description as to " when " and " how " this is to come about. It emphasizes, rather, the need to be vigilant in order to welcome the full establishment of God's Kingdom which will profoundly transform humankind and its habitat according to the Image of the Son of God.
JUSTIN : THE OBJECTIFYING OF MILLENARIANISM
Justin used to decry all those who would interpret the Scriptures in too objectifying a fashion. However, his attitude changes in relation to Latterdays, where he objectifies Christ's reign on Earth for 1 000 years. This article reveals two keys which should shed some light on the inference process which contributed to the " Justinian paradox ". First, the spirit of prophecy inherited from Christ, whose resurrection in flesh would guarantee that of his disciples, and the near end of " this world ". With the second key, the canonization of the johannic Apocalypse (the Revelation), Justin anchors the interpretation to the text and confirms the traditional validity of the Revelation. In this way, he asserts his faith in Christ, rectifies the millenarian exaggerations, and revokes the gnostic concept of a purely spiritual resurrection.
MEDIEVAL MILLENARIANISMS. A SURVEY OF RECENT RESEARCH
Theories and beliefs concerning the end of the world were a larger component of religious life during the middle ages than in the later history of the large Christian denominations. It is thus not surprising that we are now strongly interested in the medieval eschatological world. The number of studies has virtually multiplied over the past fifty years. Bernard McGinn has published (1975) and updated (1982) studies which provide an outline of what has been proposed by fifty years of research into the apocalyptic beliefs of the middle ages. In this essay, we propose to present an analogous inventory for the past fifteen years. This survey will pay particular attention to millenarian views with respect to their social and political content.
THOMAS MÜNTZER, A UNIQUE CASE
Thomas Müntzer, his works as well as his personality, has always been problematic. As a radical representative of the Reformation, he provoked Luther's disapproval. Modern criticism sees in him either a precursor of social revolution or a visionary mystic. By examining his life as well as his written works, we wish to attempt a balanced critical approach. First and foremost he is an original religious thinker, led by events and by his way of thinking towards revolutionary activity. His works bear witness to a certain millenarianism, a desire to establish God's reign on earth. But most especially it is his prophetic vision which best characterizes both his theoretical works and his public activity, up to and including the justification of violence.
LOUIS RIEL, A MESSIAH FOR THE WORLD
Although Louis Riel espoused the tragic destiny of the French Métis Nation, it is fascinating to contemplate, within the blossoming of his messianism, the playful role of a fertile symbolism. The Father of Manitoba was able to traverse the strait of the Spirit at will in order to draw from it new symbolic keys, which were to ensure the transformation as well as the liberation of his people. The mythical audacity of this christic Buffalo (" Bison christique ") was equal to his political courage. But the gallows of this world do not tolerate nonconformists, and reduce them to silence…
TOWARDS A RESURGENCE OF MILLENARIANISMS ?
CONTEMPORARY APOCALYPTIC MOVEMENTS
The phenomenon of millenarianist-inspired movements and writings has largely been documented since the appearance of Norman Cohn's classic study, The Pursuit of the Millenium. However, contemporary apocalyptic movements, whether linked or not to millenarianism and although they are highly visible in the media (for example, Waco and the Order of the Solar Temple), are less well documented and more difficult to comprehend. This study is neither the work of a specialist in history nor in the sociology of religion, but rather that of a bible scholar engaged in research on the book of Apocalypse who, as a result of this work, is periodically faced with the enigma of fundamentalist and sometimes millenarianist works by contemporary apocalyptic movements.
AN OVERVIEW OF WESTERN MILLENARIANISM
This article focuses on the eternal hope of finding, in future, the worldly paradise of our origins. This hope may be called " nostalgia for the future ". In writing my book (Mille ans de bonheur), I stayed within the framework of the project on which I've been working for twenty years and whose object is to explore, successively in the past, our civilization's fears and need for security, and then to reawaken the dreams of happiness. Thus I have tried in my most recent search to encompass western millenarianism. This research led me from the prophecies of the Old Testament to the New Age, and to reconstruct the pathways, which are more important than we would normally think, which have historically linked millenarianism to utopias and to the ideology of progress.
THE YEAR 2000 BUG : A PROBLEMATIC ENTRY INTO A NEW MILLENNIUM
January 1st of the year 2000 will soon be upon us, and many people fear that the famous Y2K bug will bring about insurmountable problems. The present essay examines the situation six months before that fateful date, and tries to analyze this great fear of the year 2000. There is no reason to panic, but common sense tells us to wisely assess what needs to be done in case a few things go awry because of human folly rather than because of glitches in our computer technology.
IN QUEST OF SIGNS :
FROM IMAGERY OF THE END TO APOCALYPTIC CULTURE
Contemporary western imagery is impregnated with the idea of the end. The year 2000, for those who cling to eschatological thought, is inserted into an apocalyptic logic which is at once revealing and catastrophic. This interpretation finds an echo in alarmist discourse of all kinds, which feeds on whatever news is current. If it is not history or ideologies which are presumed to be finished, then it is literature or the novel, music, painting, books and publishing, culture ; or it is the author who is declared dead, then man, then God. The " end " is this object of thought which dialogue or interpretative practices are attempting to pinpoint, to go beyond, or simply to exorcise. It is part of a semiotic process which leads the spirit to slacken into a triple temporality essential to all narrative-building : it is the menace, perceived in the present, of a future event which puts an end to what came before, the imminence of which is attested to by ancient sources.
MAURICE BLANCHOT :
WRITING AS IF IT WERE THE END OF TIME
" Something arrives, the end begins ", says the narrative voice of la Folie du jour. But this catastrophic event, incessantly announced in the works of Maurice Blanchot, is still yet to come. Writing and disaster : one and the other, for Blanchot at least, call for a change of epoch, a radical overturning of time : the Apocalypse maybe ? But, after all, doesn't literature speak to us " as if from the end of time " ? This question, crucial for our understanding of literature, reinscribes the trial and exigency of writing, as well as the concepts of justice and responsibility (Emmanuel Levinas), in the haunting of the apocalyptic event and the awaiting of Judgment Day.
TOWARDS A SPIRITUALITY FOR THE THIRD MILLENNIUM
The undertakings of the new planetary awareness and culture are invalidating the old spiritual models inspired by Christianity. A new spiritual paradigm is emerging from the present religious effervescence. Centred on subjectivity and defying established religions and external gods, the developing western spirituality escapes the clutches of dogma and clerics, and is slipping away from Judeo-Christian anthropomorphism and from the Greek intellectual models. Contrary to all religious categorizing, it is inserting itself into the psychic structures of natural man. It is a spirituality based on dialogue : dialogue with science, with psychology and with the various religious traditions and, in particular, with the geographic Orient, its wisdom and its archetypes. This new paradigm is overcoming all stultifying dualisms and is freeing itself from the hegemony of functional reason in order to be more tuned in to myths and symbols.
ETHICS AT THE DAWN OF THE YEAR 2000
In spite of the tendency to evil, a constituent part of human nature, is our stay on earth liveable ? After the horrors of the past and the present, shame is a good point of departure to reflect on ethical action. It is the duty of the various expressions of morality to propose criteria for a good life and just action. Among contemporary moralities, liberal ethics, based on the individual and on standards of justice, and community ethics, centred on community values and a sense of the common good, are both very fertile but each have their limitations. At the beginning of the XXIst century, ethics has the task of further developing the concept of freedom. The recognition of my freedom in the freedom of others, and vice versa, is only possible within the context of community &emdash; local or international &emdash; where the practice of social justice or of peace permits the coexistence of these freedoms.
THE END-OF-THE-WORLD ANXIETY :
REVEALING THE CONTEMPORARY RELIGIOUS MENTALITY
On the eve of the year 2000, millenarianisms are enjoying new success. According to millenarianists, God's direct intervention will re-establish paradise on earth. Now, today, a sort of great fear seems to have seized certain of our contemporaries in an anxious climate of imminent apocalypse and of waiting for the end of time. The period in which we live has had many catastrophes following the great cataclysm of World War Two : economic and social upheavals, conflicts and revolutions, atomic threats, even certain incomprehensible variations in the weather. " Considered globally, this disparate mixture of miseries might suggest that a great upheaval is in progress and may generate a high level of existential anxiety, which in certain cases is expressed in religious terms. " (E. Foucart, 1982)