Most religions have some version of a significantly better life, even if it is only after death, but Judaism and Christianity are permeated with utopian imagery. Christianity was the fount of Western utopianism and utopianism is a central concern, both positively and negatively, in recent Christian theology. Images of the utopian past (Eden) and the utopian future (heaven and hell, the Second Coming of Christ, and the millennium) relate to both this world and the next one, not just to some inaccessible past or problematic future. They become images of a better (or worse) life, often as fantasy, but equally often raising questions about why this life is not better now. In the Middle Ages, the clergy, and monks in particular, seemed to live better lives than those they ministered to, and some people asked why that better life was not available to all. People often wonder why churches seem to support the rich and powerful against the majority of believers. Since the rich and powerful can have a better life now, why cannot the rest of us?
Both the Old and New Testaments include many images and messages that fed into the development of Western utopianism. From the Old Testament, the depiction of Eden, the worldview of the prophets, and specific proposals made by the prophets were used by later utopians. From the New Testament, the message of Christ and the description of the apocalypse, Armageddon, and the millennium in the Revelation to John (Apocalypse of John) were immensely influential. In addition, the apocryphal books (those books not included in the Bible) include depictions of the apocalypse, Armageddon, and the millennium that influenced later Christian thinkers.
Eden is lost and supposedly not recoverable. After the Fall, it is uninhabited and the human race is locked out until the Second Coming of Christ, but Eden provided an image of unity with God – immortality, innocence, no fear of wild animals, no climatic extremes, and abundance without labour.
Descriptions of the Garden of Eden quickly became more elaborate than that depicted in Genesis, and the description by the 5th-century Latin poet Blossius Aemilius Dracontius (c. 455–c. 505) of Carthage in North Africa is typical.
A place there is diffusing rivers four,
With flowers ambrosial decked; where jewelled turf,
Where fragrant herbs abound that never fade,
The fairest garden in this world of God.
There fruit knows naught of season, but the year,
There ever blossoms earth’s eternal spring.
Fair vesture clothes the trees, a goodly band;
With leaves and sturdy branches well entwined
A dense-grown wall arises; from each tree
Depends its store, or lies in meadows strewn.
In sun’s hot rays it burneth not, by blasts
Is never shaken, or doth whirlwind rage
With fierce-conspiring gales; no ice can quell,
No hailstorm strike, nor under hoary frost
Grow white the fields. But there are breezes calm,
Rising from softer gust by gleaming springs.
Each tree is lightly stirred; by this mild breath
From moving leaves the tranquil show strays…
The Fall changed all this, and labour, fear, and death became the lot of humankind. There is no unity with God, and innocence is replaced by guilt, symbolized by the fig leaf. Utopianism is often read as the desire to overcome original sin and re-enter Eden, or, with sin gone, create a new utopia. As the political theorist Judith Shklar (1926–92) put it,
utopia was a way of rejecting that notion of ‘original sin’ which regarded natural human virtue and reason as feeble and fatally impaired faculties. Whatever else the classical utopias might say or fail to say, all were attacks on the radical theory of original sin.
There were actual and fictional expeditions to discover Eden and reports of its location were published, and in the 18th century Eden appeared on maps located in Armenia, because the Tigris and Euphrates originate in Armenia. As a result, Eden became a possibly discoverable earthly paradise, even one inhabited by a lost tribe or ruled by a good Christian prince. The explorers Christopher Columbus (1451–1506) and Amerigo Vespucci (1454–1512) both believed that they might have discovered the earthly paradise in the New World.
The prophets bewailed present conditions, warned of even worse calamities if the people did not mend their ways, and held out hope of better things if they did. This last part was not emphasized, but it was there. As Jeremiah said,
They shall come and sing aloud on the height of Zion, and they shall be radiant over the goodness of the Lord, over the grain, the wine, and the oil, and over the young of the flock and the herd; their life shall be like a watered garden and they shall languish no more. Then shall the maidens rejoice in the dance, and the young men and the old shall be merry. I will turn their morning into joy. I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow.
(31:12–13)
And Isaiah said something similar in his famous passage,
The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall feed; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The suckling child shall play with the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand in the adder’s den.
(11:6–8)
Isaiah in particular stresses the lack of enmity between human and animal and among animals that was a standard feature of most golden ages and earthly paradises. A common fear will disappear, and a child will be safe among formerly dangerous animals.
Still, the positive vision of the prophets was vague and very general. The closest thing to a classical utopia in the Old Testament is found in Ezekiel 40–48, which is a detailed description of the rebuilt Temple and the rituals which will take place there, but there is also some mention of the way in which land should be distributed to the Temple, the Prince, and the various tribes. The rebuilding of the Temple, he implies, should be taken as an opportunity for improving everyone’s life.
One institution found throughout the Old Testament that many have seen as the basis for a utopia is the Jubilee year described in Leviticus 25, Nehemiah 10:31, Exodus 3:10–12, and, more radically, in Deuteronomy 15:1–18. The basic principle is that every seventh year, the land shall lie fallow and be given a rest. But Deuteronomy goes much further by saying that every seventh year all debts must be forgiven, except those owed by foreigners, and all the passages stress assistance to the poor and fair dealing. The Jubilee 2000 movement to forgive Third World debt took its name from this practice.
13. Edward Hicks’s (1780–1849) The Peaceable Kingdom of the Branch (1834) was one of sixtyone versions of the subject painted by Hicks based on Isaiah 11:6–8
At a more general level, Isaiah says that in the future there will be no more war, saying:
He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall learn war any more.
(2:4)
Jewish writings not included in the Christian Bible also presented versions of a better future. The Book of Jubilees (153–105 BCE) said that:
And all their days they shall complete and live in peace and joy, And there shall be no Satan nor any evil destroyer; For all their days shall be days of blessing and healing.
And the Sibylline Book of Oracles said:
For Earth the universal mother shall give to mortals her best fruit in countless store of corn, wine and oil. Yea, from heaven shall come a sweet draught of luscious honey, the trees shall yield their proper fruits, and rich flocks, and kine and lambs of sheep and kids of goats. He will cause sweet fountains of white milk to burst forth. And the cities shall be full of good things and the fields rich: neither shall there be any sword throughout the land nor battle din: nor shall the earth be convulsed any more with deep-drawn groans. No war shall be any more nor drought throughout the land, no famine nor hail to work havoc on the crops. But there shall be a great peace throughout all the earth, and king shall be friendly with king till the end of the age, and a common law for man throughout all the earth shall the Eternal perfect in the starry heaven for all those things which have been wrought by miserable mortals.
Later Christian readers of the Old Testament stressed both the positive messages found in the prophets and the emphasis on laws designed to encourage people to lead the life that God wanted them to lead. And many developed law-based utopias designed to do the same thing, often, reflecting the prophetic approach, stressing the punishments that would be inflicted for failure to follow the laws.
The New Testament depicts Christ coming to save humankind and speaks of a God of love rather than punishment. There is no utopia as such in the New Testament, but the message of equality, forgiveness, and loving strangers as well as neighbours provided the basis of much Western utopianism and many literary utopias. One of the regular themes was simply that a good society would result if people adhered to Christ’s message, with the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:3–11) outlining the rewards for good behaviour, saying:
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets who were before you.
And Matthew 5:48 said You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.’
The most common form of utopian writing during this period were apocalypses, which foresaw an imminent cataclysm in which God would destroy the wicked and raise the righteous for a life in a messianic kingdom. Most such works were excluded from the Bible, and the Revelation to John or the Apocalypse of John is the major canonical example. The opening of the seven seals and the blowing of the seven trumpets described there is a catalogue of horrible punishments that go on and on until the entire earth and all of its inhabitants are destroyed. But after the thousand-year rule of the righteous and Armageddon, or the final war between good and evil, a new universe will be created.
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband; and I heard a great voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling of God is with men. He will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself will be with them; He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away’.
(21:1–4)
This is then followed by a description of the new Jerusalem, emphasizing that it is built out of precious metals and jewels. For example, ‘And the building of the wall of it was of jasper: and the city was pure gold, like unto clear glass’ (21:18).
Most apocalypses are non-canonical and describe the messianic kingdom in terms reminiscent of the golden age. For example, II Baruch, also called the Apocalypse of Baruch, says:
And then healing shall descend in dew, and disease shall withdraw, and anxiety and anguish and lamentation pass from amongst men, and gladness proceed through the whole earth. And no one shall again die untimely, nor shall any adversity suddenly befall … And women shall no longer then have pain when they bear, nor shall they suffer torment when they yield the fruit of the womb, and it shall come to pass in those days that the reapers shall not grow weary, nor those that build be toilworn; for the works shall of themselves speedily advance together with those who do them in much tranquility.
The Book of Enoch presents a similar picture, and golden-age messianic kingdoms are also found in the writings of the early Church Fathers. In The Divine Institutes, Lactantius wrote that
the earth will open its fruitfulness, and bring forth most abundant fruit of its own accord; the rocky mountains shall drop with honey; streams of wine shall run down, and rivers flow with milk: in short, the world itself shall rejoice, and all nature exult, being received and set free from the dominion of evil and impiety, and guilt and error.
14. The New Jerusalem descending on Earth is described in the Revelation to John (21:16). This illustration is from a 14th-century tapestry
Thus, while the actual Eden may not be accessible, alternative Edens might be.
Although temporarily suppressed because of its radical implications, the apocalypse and millennial expectations have been immensely influential and can be traced throughout the Middle Ages, when they came to focus on the hope of a Last World Emperor who was to bring a period of improvement on earth before the coming of the Antichrist. Such expectations can be seen in political movements in 17th- and 18th-century England and in the beliefs of the American Puritans and, later, the American Revolution. More recently, there is the American publishing phenomenon the Left Behind series, which includes a basic 13 volumes plus graphic novels, videos, video games, books for children, and related products, all describing those left on earth after the Rapture – a premillennialist belief based on I Thessalonians in which all the saved are taken from this world at one time, through the struggle between good and evil to the Second Coming of Christ.
Two influential images were added to Christian utopianism in the Middle Ages, St Brendan’s Island and the Land of Prester John from the late 12th century. St Brendan’s island appeared on maps as late as the 15th and 16th centuries, and when the explorer Vasco da Gama (c. 1460/69–1534) set sail, he carried letters to Prester John, so both figured in the Christian imagination for centuries.
As Ireland was Christianized, traditional voyage tales called Immrama were themselves Christianized or replaced with Christian parables using the same form. The most famous was the ‘Voyage of St Brendan’, possibly written as early as 800, which exists in a number of varying versions in different languages. In what may be the earliest version, Brendan and a few of his monks seek the Promised Land of the Saints, which is presented in quite austere terms. In other, much more elaborate, versions, Brendan and his monks visit Paradise, the entrance to which is guarded by dragons and a great sword, but God’s messenger welcomes them and admits them to Paradise, where:
Those who live there will experience no hardship, and harsh winds will be unknown, as will heat and cold, affliction and hunger, thirst and privation. There will be a plentiful supply of whatever one desires and everyone will be certain they will not lose what they want most; it will be there at all times and always ready.
The other great medieval tale, the land of Prester John, became one of the great myths of the late Middle Ages. It was supposedly visited by John Mandeville and described in The Travels of Sir John Mandeville (1499), together with many real and fanciful places, such as a community of Amazons and one of monsters. Many explorers set out to find it; many reported back that they had. Found or not, the basic characteristics of Prester John’s land remained roughly the same. Prester John was the essence of the holy, Christian ruler; the land he ruled was one where a true Christian could lead a fully Christian life, something not possible elsewhere. This fully Christian life has to be a utopia. The life could not be perfect because perfection must await the millennium, but it could be much better lived under a good Christian prince than under any other regime. One literature of the time came to be called ‘instructions to princes’ and told princes how to behave to become good Christian princes and thus to produce better lives for all their subjects.
All of these descriptions are point by point responses to the curse of the Fall, but none are accessible to the human race without the intervention of God. Even the righteous do not simply choose themselves but are chosen by God, and this is true even of the ultimate utopia, heaven.
The actual conditions of heaven or paradise are not as adequately described as are the earthly paradises, but heaven is roughly similar to a golden age except not as pleasure-oriented. Of course, there is no death since that has already happened. The spiritual existence usually has no need of food, shelter, sex, or work. Unity with God provides all that is needed forever.
The 4th-century ‘Apocalypse of Paul’, which became popular in Western Christianity, provided early descriptions of heaven and hell that became part of Western culture. Heaven was a typical earthly paradise.
And I looked around upon that land, and I saw a river flowing with milk and honey, and there were trees planted by the bank of that river, full of fruit; moreover, each single tree bore twelve fruits in the year, having various and diverse fruits; and I saw the created things which are in that place and all the work of God, and I saw there palms of twenty cubits, but others of ten cubits; and that land was seven times brighter than silver. And there were trees full of fruits from the roots to the highest branches, of ten thousand fruits of palms upon ten thousand fruits. The grapevines had ten thousand plants. Moreover in the single vines there were ten thousand bunches and in each of these a thousand single grapes; moreover these single trees bore a thousand fruits.
And hell was horrific:
And I saw there a river boiling with fire, and in it a multitude of men and women immersed up to their knees, and other men up to their naval, others even up to the lips, others up to the hair …And I saw to the north a place of various and diverse punishments full of men and women, and a river of fire ran down into it.
And a revision of heaven and hell by St Augustine (354–430) as the City of God and the Earthly City was also influential. Augustine divided souls, living or dead, into the damned, who are the overwhelming majority, and the elect or saved. Among the living, only God knows who is a member of which city; it is impossible for the individual or any other living person to know. Thus, while a this-worldly dystopia might be possible, a utopia would not be.
But the image of hell that entered people’s imaginations was that pictured in Dante’s (1265–1321) Inferno, with its gradations of sinners undergoing various tortures. The most common image is one of fire, which is depicted in Dante even though the innermost circle presided over by Satan is actually frozen.
While in Christianity the Second Coming of Christ might occur at any time, it was impossible to know when, and no one could be sure that they would be among the saved. Many calculations were made regarding the date, and there were proposals about how to help bring it about, but over time the expectation faded for most, but not all, Christians. This situation was simply unacceptable. Human beings could not believe that life could not be better, and they wondered both what a better life would look like and how to bring it about.
The apocalyptic and millennial writings came together in Joachim of Fiore (c. 1135–1202) who influenced, directly or indirectly, generations of later writers. Joachim predicted that there would be a third age yet to come in which a new spiritual state of being would transform existing social and political institutions, including the Church, and thus would be something like a utopia.
The utopian elements in Joachim’s writings and in the thought of most of his varied followers was generally a vague millenarianism, although there were many heretical sects at roughly the same time that had differing notions of what life in the millennium would be like. But it was only in the Radical Reformation that life in the millennium became specific, with, for example, Mary Cary’s The Little Horns Doom and Downfall (1651) giving a detailed description of the utopia to come. Then the radical potential of Christianity blossomed forth and many utopias were imagined and put into practice.
Krishan Kumar has argued in his Religion and Utopia that there is a profound contradiction between the Christian religion and utopia. Utopia is of this world; for many, religion is primarily concerned with the next; therefore, utopia is heretical. For example, the Hungarian-American Catholic philosopher Thomas Molnar (b. 1921) wrote, ‘Utopian thought is itself evil.’
The theological argument against utopianism is much simpler than the one in favour of it because it is based on the common assumption that utopianism is rooted in the denial of original sin.
The theologian Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) regularly attacked what he called ‘The utopian illusions and sentimental aberrations of modern liberal culture’ which ‘are really all derived from the basic error of negating the fact of original sin’. Adam and Eve broke God’s commandment and were punished by expulsion from the Garden of Eden and to a life of toil, pain, fear, and death. Any belief that suggests that these punishments can be overcome by human action must be heretical.
The argument in favour of utopianism is based on Christ’s message and ministry, which is seen as utopian in that it was often directed at human problems that could be solved by human action. Theologians such as Paul Tillich (1886–1965) have argued that the utopian elements in Christianity, particularly its eschatological character, are a significant source of its strength. In addition, Marxist writers such as Ernst Bloch have incorporated Christian eschatology into their Marxism and have developed a non-religious ‘theology’ of hope. This conflict became particularly important in the 20th century with the development of the social gospel movement, Christian socialism, and the serious competition that alternative belief systems such as Communism have posed to Christianity.
The advocates of utopia in recent Christian theology are best represented by Tillich, who wrote, ‘I believe it can be shown that utopia has a foundation in man’s being.’ For Tillich, we are utopians because we are human; utopia is, in the first place, the rejection or ‘denial of what is negative in human existence’; and all utopias are devices for representing man overcoming his finitude. Utopia partakes of truth ‘because it expresses man’s essence, the inner aim of his existence; it shows what man has as inner aim and what he must have for future fulfillment as a person’. But utopia also partakes of untruth because it ‘forgets the finitude and alienation of man, it forgets that man as finite unites being and non-being and that under the conditions of existence man is always estranged from his true being’. Further, utopia is both fruitful and unfruitful because it opens up new possibilities for humanity but at the same time suggests that things that are impossible are in fact possible. It is powerful because it ‘is able to transform the given’. It is impotent because ‘it leads inevitably to disillusionment’. And he concludes on a note of qualified hope, arguing that utopia is always and necessarily suspended between ‘possibility and impossibility.
In addition, the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber (1878–1965), author of Paths in Utopia (1946 in Hebrew; 1949 in English), argued for the centrality of utopianism to both Judaism and Christianity, seeing utopia as the application to the real world of the messianism found in both religions. But he warned of the danger of turning utopia into a blueprint that must be followed.
By providing alternative futures, the utopia challenges the present to justify itself in values that transcend the immediate questions of power. The utopia emphasizes that life is for humans and that society should be designed to achieve the fulfilment of all the people in it.
The oppositional function of utopia has recently been seen in Liberation Theology, which clearly had a utopian vision in its ‘Preferential Option for the Poor’ and included a form of intentional community known as ‘communautés de base’, or ‘base communities, as a fundamental part of bringing about social change. Liberation Theology explicitly opposed the support of the rich and powerful by the Church in South America. In doing so, it appealed to Christ’s and St Francis’s egalitarianism in particular. Gustavo Gutíerrez (b. 1928), a Peruvian theologian and one of the founders of Liberation Theology, refers explicitly to the utopian function of his theology. As Liberation Theology expanded out of the Roman Catholic Church, which suppressed it, into Protestantism, and to Black Theology in particular, it added race and then gender to class.
Today, there are many Christian intentional communities, some extremely conservative, some very radical, trying to live the life they believe Christianity requires of them. The conservative ones tend to withdraw from the larger society; the radical ones tend to engage directly with the larger society.
Thus, the close connection between Christianity and utopianism continues even while many Christians believe it to be heretical.
