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I know many in the early church believed Chiliasm. What difference, if any, is there between the two?
Chiliasm always has negative connotations; historic premil not so much.
Chiliasm always has negative connotations; historic premil not so much.
What negative connotations does Chiliasm have?
Christian Chiliasm placed the resurrection of the righteous (the first resurrection) at the time of Jesus Christ's return and the inauguration of his earthly rule from Jerusalem. Based on Revelation 20:3, this view fixed the length of this rule as 1,000 years, hence the designation millennium (Latin) or chiliasm (Greek). At the end of this period the remainder of human beings will be raised for judgment with the subsequent eternal separation in either heaven or hell.
Chiliasm was an integral part of the polemic against Marcion and the Gnostics in Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Tertullian..... Other Champions of Chiliasm in early Christianity were Papias, Voctorinus, and Lactantius.
This non-chiliastic current of eschatological thought was widely pervasive in early Christianity and is represented in such writers as Hermas, Polycarp, the authors of the Epistle to Diognetus, Ascension of Isaiah, Apocalypse of Peter, Martyrdom of Polycarp, and Letter of the Churches of Vienne and Lyons, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Cyprian.