Freud has shown beyond reasonable hope of successful refutation, that experiences which the mind has completely forgotten leave emotional 'tones' which remain active and are the determining cause of physical and mental conditions. A thought 'complex' is a system of ideas or associations with an especially strong emotional tone. A complex may be of extreme interest to an individual by reason of his social education and hereditary mentality and yet be out of harmony with e.g., security of life and property: so a conflict arises in the mind. This conflicting complex is gotten rid of in various ways; rationalization, repression, disassociation, or what not, but the energy or interest which initiated the complex remains none the less and something must become of its force. This undirected emotional force is the cause of dreams, neuroses, and psychic trauma.[8] Such in the most sketchy outline is Freud's idea. The application to the case under consideration is obvious. Patriotism was a repressed 'complex' to the peoples of Phrygia, Egypt, and Roman Africa. The mental conflict brought on by the repression was rationalized easily enough, no doubt, so far as the conscious mind of the populace was concerned, but the disassociated emotional energy was let loose on other concepts with which it had no proper connection originally, i.e., problems of philosophical speculation. Chiliasm was a speculative concept of a sort to make an especial appeal under the circumstances. So far as his conscious mind was concerned the Phrygian might be perfectly reconciled to Roman political supremacy. He might rationally prove to his own satisfaction that such political supremacy was really to his own advantage in the long run. Any idea of resistance was sure to be repressed by the certainty of losing his property and life. Yet the emotional energy of his patriotism remained and it naturally associated itself with any idea that lay at hand. Chiliasm happened to be at hand. The glorified, divine kingdom of the Saints of God on earth was the psychic equivalent of that Phrygian kingdom whose national existence had been forever extinguished by Rome. Similarly that national patriotism which under other historical circumstances might have found satisfaction in the glory of an independent Egypt now found expression in the borrowed phraseology of Jewish and Christian apocalyptical literature. The same is true of course of the Punic and Nomadic strata of the population of Roman Africa. To the new Jerusalem which was to come down out of heaven from God, these peoples transferred their now useless and hopeless longing for the Carthage of the days of Hannibal and for Jugurthan Numidia.
If, as we have endeavored to show, Chiliasm represented the strivings of repressed, national patriotisms, we can readily understand the increasing opposition it encountered on the part of the great dignitaries of the Church. As the Christian hierarchy became increasingly perfected, the desire of the prelates for unity and cohesion in the Church became correspondingly greater. But national patriotism is essentially a disrupting and disintegrating force to any imperialistic organization, civil or ecclesiastical. Chiliasm being associated with this separatist tendency, naturally came to be regarded as heretical, and as such, was suppressed.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Cf. R. Charles, Doctrine of a Future Life.
[2] Cf. S. J. Case, The Messianic Hope.
[3] Cf. Il., III, 187.
[4] Cf. W. M. Ramsay., Art. Phrygians, Enc. of Religion and Ethics.
[5] Cf. Buckle, Intro. to the Hist. of Civilization in England.
[6] Cf. Eusebius, Eccl. Hist., VII, 24 seq.
[7] Cf. Alex. Graham, Roman Africa.