eschatology (from Gk. ἔσχατος, ‘last’, and λόγος, ‘discourse’),
the doctrine of the last things, that is the ultimate destiny both of the individual soul and the whole created order. The term first appears in English in the 19th cent., but the topic forms the subject of the final section of the creeds and systematic theologies. When the end of the world did not come as expected in the early Church, it became peripheral to most Christian theology, but the imminent expectation of it erupted from time to time in sectarian circles (... ...
Access to the complete content on Oxford Reference requires a subscription or purchase. Public users are able to search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter without a subscription.
Please subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you have purchased a print title that contains an access token, please see the token for information about how to register your code.
For questions on access or troubleshooting, please check our FAQs, and if you can''t find the answer there, please contact us.