Hope and Heresy

Apocalyptic expectations played a key role in defining the horizons of life and expectation in early modern Europe. Hope and Heresy investigates the problematic status of a particular kind of apocalyptic expectation—that of a future felicity on earth before the Last Judgement—within Lutheran confessional culture between approximately 1570 and 1630. Among Lutherans expectations of a future felicity were often considered manifestations of a heresy called chiliasm, because they contravened the pess