Chiliasm

[Dr. Goodword]

• chiliasm •

Pronunciation: ki-li-æ-zêm • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun, mass

Meaning: (Christianity) The belief that Christ will return triumphant and rule the world in peace for a millennium, millennialism, millennarianism (Revelation 20:1-6).

Notes: Chiliasm has had a struggle among believers: "The Gnostics opposed Chiliasm on the basis of their belief in the impossibility of paradise on Earth for redeemed sinners." The improbability of the Millennium that the chiliasm predicts was treated differently in the Eastern and Western Churches: "The Western Church's reaction to chiliasm was to set the time of the Second Advent (the Millennium) in the distant future."

In Play: Chiliasm has had a struggle among believers: "The Gnostics opposed Chiliasm on the basis of their belief in the impossibility of bliss on Earth for redeemed sinners." The improbability of the Millennium that the chiliasm predicts was treated differently in the Eastern and Western Churches: "The Western Church's reaction to chiliasm was to set the time of the Second Advent (the Millenium) in the distant future."

Word History: Today's Good Word is from a Latinized form (KH > CH) of Greek khiliasmos, based on khilia "thousand". That is why the initial CH is pronounced [k]. It was passed down from PIE g'heslo- "thousand", source also of Sanskrit sahasram "thousand", Farsi (Persian) hazar "thousand", borrowed by Armenian for its hazar "thousand", Hindi-Urdu hazaar "thousand", Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, and Nepali hajara "thousand". Serbian hiljada "thousand), Macedonian iljada, and Bulgarian xiljadi "thousand" were borrowed from Greek. This word seems to have found its comfort zone among the eastern Indo-European languages. The western IE languages chose a compound made up of teue- "to swell, enlarge" + k'ent- "hundred", like English thousand, German tausend, Polish tysiąc,and Russian tysyacha.(Now a bow to our old friend [since 2007] Sue Gold, now retired from Westtown School, for spotting today's arcane Good Word and sharing it with us.)

[Slava]

It's a bit of a chore keeping all the 1,000-year words straight at times. A millennium, the Millennium, the turn of the millennium. Then we have millennials, aka Gen Y. Millennialists have their own role here, too (even if my spell-check doesn't take to them).

[MTC]

When does the 1000 year period begin?

[Dr. Goodword]

According to the Book of Revelation, at the second Advent, the second coming of Jesus Christ, when he descends from the Heavens in his original, fully fleshed form. There will be 1000 years of peace, good will--paradise on Earth.

Then the devil and his hordes will arise for the final battle between good and evil will be called Armageddon.

The BooK of Revelation was written about 90 AD by an anonymous author who had prophetic religious visions, thought to be a monk named "John". Why it was included in the New Testament is a matter of some controversy.

[Debbymoge]

MTC, are you asking about the millennium as the end of the world, or just the start of a new millennium?
I yield the floor to anyone who knows about that stuff if the question is the first.
If it is the second, I say each millennium (literal calendar type) begins with the year X 0 0 1, just as each century begins with X 0 1. I get a bit bent out of shape when people use X 0 0 0 and X 0 0.
I don't remember the year 0 ever having been spoken of.

[Slava]

Of course, A millennium can be anywhere. One from now would take us to 7/7/3023.

[Dr. Goodword]

I was talking about The Millennium as the Church uses it.

[Debbymoge]

I'm sorry I'm not clear in my responses. It happens often now.
I understood your reference, Dear Doctor, to mean the start of the Millennium would be the end of the world as we know it, made plain by the Second Coming. At that point, all "time" would begin again as I understand it.
I was responding to MTC who did not capitalize the word, and that's why I asked which sort of millennium he meant.
Slava, yes a millennium can begin at any time. So can a century or a year.
However, I think in general usage, people mean year (unqualified) to start on January 1, as opposed to, for example, "a year from today".
My gripe is and always has been that if you are talking about a century or a millennium, people in general think that, for example, both the 20th century and the second millennium began on January 1 of 2000.

I don't.