chiliasm

• Chiliasm

From Ancient Greek χιλιασμός (khiliasmós), from χίλιοι (khílioi, “thousand”).

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /ˈkɪ.lɪæ.z(ə)m/

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chiliasm (plural chiliasms)

1. Belief in an earthly thousand-year period of peace and prosperity, sometimes equated with the return of Jesus for that period.
   • 1975, Gershom Gerhard Scholem (translated by R. J. Zwi Werblowsky), Sabbatai Sevi: The Mystical Messiah, 1626-1676, page 101:

     It was, however, in the Puritan movement in England, and in similar movements on the continent — especially the Bohemian Brethren — that chiliasm asserted its greatest vitality as an historical force.

   • 1985, Colin Loader, The Intellectual Development of Karl Mannheim, page 104:

     One of them, bureaucratic conservatism, represented the routinized sphere of administration, whereas the other, chiliasm, gave rise to the utopian consciousness and modern politics.

   • 2008, Detlef Garbe, Between Resistance and Martyrdom: Jehovah's Witnesses in the Third Reich, page 49:

     It is a known fact that Bolshevism has unmistakable characteristics of apocalyptic chiliasm, albeit misinterpreted in a physical, earthly way.

• millenarianism
• (belief): premillennialism

• chiliad
• chiliast
• chiliastic

• Michalis

Borrowed from French chiliasme.

chiliasm n (uncountable)

1. chiliasm