16th century (Münster – 1525–1535)

The Reformation and the last things: the rejection of chiliasm and the Münster "kingdom"

The Protestant churches of the Reformation rejected the doctrine of the millennium: Luther scornfully rejected the "dream" of an earthly kingdom of Christ before the Judgment, the Augsburg Confession (art. 17) condemns the "Jewish opinions" that before the resurrection of the dead the saints will take over the kingdom of the world, and the Second Helvetic Confession (ch. 11) the "Jewish dreams" of a golden age on earth before the day of Judgment. The Reformers taught that the risen body will be the same as the present one, distinguished a particular judgment at death from the general judgment, and held to eternal blessedness and eternal punishment. Chiliasm revived among the more fanatical Anabaptists: under the pressure of persecution Melchior Hoffman expected an imminent end and a New Jerusalem and rejected the absolute pacifism of the early Anabaptists, and his followers Jan Matthys and John of Leiden turned the expectation into a call to arms. In Münster they seized power, proclaimed the end at hand, expelled the "ungodly," and John declared himself king of the New Zion; the fall of the city was a deathblow to revolutionary Anabaptism.