apocalypticism, eschatological (end-time) views and movements that focus on cryptic revelations about a sudden, dramatic, and cataclysmic intervention of God in history; the judgment of all men; the salvation of the faithful elect; and the eventual rule of the elect with God in a renewed heaven and earth. Arising in Zoroastrianism, an Iranian religion founded by the 6th-century-bc prophet Zoroaster, apocalypticism was developed more fully in Judaic, Christian, and Islāmic eschatological speculation and movements. See also eschatology.