Messianic Politics (i): Two Traditions

After a long hiatus, I hope to begin posting again on a semi-regular basis. It is always difficult to maintain the intensity of expectation once the one who is expected actually arrives. It was probably no coincidence that the series of posts that I had planned to compose on the theme of the messianic were more difficult to write while in the midst of my daughter's parousia.

There are at least two traditions of messianism; but I am not thinking here of the ones that correspond to the different Abrahamic faiths. The traditions I have in mind transcend and encompass, to some degree, those of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. We can call the one an inflationary messianism and the other a deflationary. The former corresponds roughly to a "revolutionary" model while the later to a "reform" model; however, these names are imprecise enough to be abandoned. What is at stake in both the inflationary and the deflationary modes of the messianic is the status of law -- but again, this is not, fundamentally, the difference between Judaism and Christianity.

In the deflationary mode messianism represents a relatively minor alteration of the order of things. Here is the classic talmudic formulation of the messianic era:

"This world differs from [that of] the days of the Messiah only in respect of servitude to [foreign] powers." (Sanhedrin 99a)

The messianic era -- as distinct, it should be noted from redemption -- will differ for the Jews in one important respect: they will not be living under the power or law of any foreign nation. But law as such -- and this is the important distinction -- is not different. Torah will still be followed. Christian analogues can be found as well. For instance when Jesus says,

"Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill." (Matt 5.17)

This tradition of messianism continues up to the present day. The majority voice within both Judaism and Christianity is that of a deflationary messianism -- even if the church imagines itself to be beyond (Jewish) law, it persists, for the most part, in subjection to (state) law; this is due, no doubt, to a certain way of reading Romans 13 that favours the status quo. This is not to say, however, that deflationary messianism is commensurate with a reactionary politics or a rigid conservatism. Levinas and Rosenzweig, for instance, are thinkers of deflationary messianism.

Inflationary messianism, on the other hand, takes a different view of law in the messianic era. Agamben, borrowing heavily from Gershom Scholem's work on the messianic idea states the matter this way: "The Messiah is... the figure through which religion confronts the problem of the Law, decisively reckoning with it." (Potentialities,163).

Scholem saw the origins of this tradition less in the biblical literature -- which, in the Jewish tradition, according to Scholem, does not have a fully developed idea of messianism; it merely anticipates the messianic era -- and more in later messianic movements. Here the Sabbatian movement of 1648 is exemplary. This movement saw the messianic era as inaugurating a time where the Torah should no longer be kept; indeed, when the Torah should be overtly disobeyed. Other modern proponents of inflationary messianism would include Marx (in a disavowed form) and Benjamin (especially his "Critique of Violence" essay). Derrida is a figure who is slightly more difficult to place within this framework. His thinking of "the messianic without messianism" does not speak of a messianic era, only the messianic interruption of the present. To pursue the thought further would inevitably leave him too close to a "historical messianism" of one kind or another.

I preface my future posts on the messianic with this in order to show that messianism can be deployed in at least two modes. For now my focus will be on the inflationary messianism of Scholem, Benjamin, Agamben (and Taubes).