Paradise Postponed: Johann Heinrich Alsted and the Birth of Calvinist Millenarianism : Johann Heinrich Alsted and the birth of Calvinist millenarianism

l. i ALSTED, MEDE ANDTHE BIRTH OFCALVINIST MILLENARIANISM In the past thirty to forty years, the spread and influence of millenarianism within the Protestant world has been traced from the Reformation to the present day by dozens of scholarly studies. ' Medieval historians have lo- ted echoes in the modem world ofeschatological innovations deriving from 2 their period, above all those originating with Joachim of Fiore. Social and political historians, attracted especially by the function of millenarianism as a proto-revolutionary ideology, have focused on its influences at times of acute political crisis. ' Intellectual historians have also noted its role in of- I Two recent guides to this literature are Ted Daniels, M illen nia lis m : a n Int erna ti onal Bibli o g raph y (New York, 1992); John 1. Collins, Bernard McGinn and Stephen J. Stein (eds. ), Th e E ncy clo pe di a o f A p oca lyp t icis m (3 vols. , New York, 1998). 2 Notably MarjorieReeves, Th e Influ en c e of Proph e c y in th e Lat er Middl e Ages : a Study in J o a chimi sm (Oxford, 1969; repr. Notre Dame, 1993); Delno C. West (ed.