# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1875_S22
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

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Accordingly, in the better time of the Lutheran church, preachers were deposed if they adhered to chiliasm.

A. Pfeiffer makes the following division of chiliasm when he writes: "Chiliasm has its certain degrees, and we must therefore observe them well here and at the outset make a reasonable distinction between the grossest, the gross and the subtle chiliasm. The grossest chiliasts were Cerinthus and the Cerinthians, who introduced Epicureanism into their chiliasm, supposing that in Christ's kingdom one would live in gluttony, drinking and fleshly pleasures; to say nothing of other gross errors which they held (such as that Christ had not yet risen and would only afterwards rise). Therefore Philastrius, Epiphanius, Theodoret have counted them among the heretics, as they are accustomed to be regarded without contradiction to this day. . . . By the subtle chiliasm, however, we mean the opinion of those who indeed hold that the thousand years of Rev. 20 are not yet fulfilled, but that the glory promised there is still to be expected; yet so that they assert no visible return of Christ to an earthly kingdom, no personal reign, no double resurrection, and so forth, but only halcyonia (calm) and a peaceful state of the church, while leaving the actual manner, indeed also the time (how long it is actually to last) to God, as Laungus, Rallius, Coccejus, Brennius and others do. Such chiliasm we hold indeed to be false and erroneous, but, because the fundamental articles of the Christian faith are not touched by it, we hold it, especially when one treats it problematice (as of a matter not yet settled) and imposes his opinion on no one, to be no heresy. Rather the question will now be about the middle chiliasm, which we call the gross, and we call those the gross chiliasts who defend the same in its principal features." (Antichiliasmus, or Account and Examination of the Deceptive Dream of the So-called Chiliasts. Lübeck 1691. Page 111 ff.)

In the negotiation with Pastor Schieferdecker in the year 1857 the Missouri Synod therefore also expressly testified to him that it would not exclude him if he held nothing else than the "subtle chiliasm" named by Pfeiffer. But the chiliasm because of which one must dissolve church fellowship attacks articles of faith, namely: 1. concerning the church (in that it teaches that a time would come when the struggle against it would cease and it would become a visible one); 2. concerning the resurrection of the dead on the Last Day (since according to chiliasm there is to be a great resurrection of all saints or all martyrs before the Last Day) 3. concerning the return of Christ for judgment (since, as the chiliasts hold, Christ will first appear once more for the thousand-year kingdom);