eschatologyn.
/ɛskəˈtɒlədʒi/ Theology.
a. The department of theological science concerned with ‘the four last things: death, judgement, heaven, and hell’.
ΘΚΠ
society > faith > aspects of faith > Bible, Scripture > biblical events > Second Coming > [noun] > apocalypse > doctrine of or belief in
chiliasm1610
millenarism1650
chilianism1662
millenarianism1829
eschatology1844
apocalypticism1884
apocalyptism1889
millenniarism1890
apocalyptic1898
millennialism1906
1844 G. Bush Anastasis (1845) Pref. v Scriptural Eschatology.
1858 J. Martineau Stud. Christianity 228 The Eschatology of the Apocalypse and the Epistles.
1879 Baldw. Brown in Christian World 24 Dec. 825/3 Eschatology, the science of the last things, is, as a science, one of the most baseless.
b. In recent theological writing, esp. as ‘realized eschatology’ (see quot. 1957), the sense of this word has been modified to connote the present ‘realization’ and significance of the ‘last things’ in the Christian life.
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1950 Sc. Jrnl. Theol. 3 90 Correspondingly for Christians..eschatology is being anticipated in the here and now, and the glory of the parousia throws its light backwards into the present life of the Church.
1957 F. L. Cross Oxf. Dict. Christian Church 462/1 In modern Protestant theology eschatology has been given a new meaning, esp. through the studies of A. Schweitzer... Acc. to him, primitive Christianity was exclusively an eschatological preaching of judgement and salvation. Eschatological considerations are also a dominant factor of the teaching of K. Barth and his school..which sees the life of the individual Christian and of the Church as a series of ‘decisions’ invested with an eschatological character... Recently many attempts have been made to draw out the present and abiding significance of future eschatological happenings, e.g. by C. H. Dodd in his conception of ‘realized eschatology’.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1891; most recently modified version published online September 2019).
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n.1844