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Renaissance and Modern Thought on the Last Things: A Study in Changing Conceptions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2011

C. A. Patrides
C. A. Patrides
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University of California, Berkeley
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Extract

Of the changes that have taken place in theology since the Renaissance, none is more striking than the re-interpretation of the Mosaic account of the creation and fall of man, which has passed from the realm of history to that of ‘myth.’ Equally impressive, however, are the changes that have taken place in eschatology. This disagreement with our ancestors is not revolutionary on every point, since at least one fundamental idea, affirmed by George Hakewill in the earlier seventeenth century, still holds true. “That the world shall haue an end,” wrote Hakewill, “is as cleere to Christianity, as that there is a Sun in the firmament: And therefore, whereas there can hardly be named any other article of our faith, which some Heretiques haue not presumed to impugne or call into question; yet to my remembrance I never met with any who questioned this; & though at this day many & eager be the differences among Christians in other points of Religion, yet in this they all agree & ever did, that the world shall haue an end.” If on this, however, all Christians are agreed, the exact time of the Day of the Lord has been the subject of speculation ever since the advent of Christianity, not to mention Jewish apocalyptic thought.

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Research Article
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Harvard Theological Review , Volume 51 , Issue 3 , July 1958, pp. 169 - 185
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Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1958

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