Messianism and the Christ

From the Sketches in Messianism series

The political philosopher Giorgio Agamben once wrote a commentary on the first sentence of the Book of Romans. It’s called The Time that Remains, and I'm very fond of it. It includes the following comments on how the Greek word christos tends to get translated, or rather not translated:

“Each reading and each new translation of the Pauline text must begin by keeping in mind the fact that christos is not a proper name, but is … the Greek translation of the Hebrew term mashiach, “the anointed,” that is, the Messiah. Paul has no familiarity with Jesus Christ, only with Jesus Messiah or the Messiah Jesus, as he writes interchangeably ... This presupposition is obvious in the sense that no one could seriously claim the contrary; nevertheless, it is anything but trivial. A millenary tradition that left the word christos untranslated ends by making the term Messiah disappear from Paul's text.”

If “christ” and “messiah” are just two translations of the same meaning, what's at stake? Very much indeed. Two millennia of separated usage has worn these two words into different shapes. It is perhaps by messy, unfortunate and sometimes inaccurate association that some will say one disposes of the world and the other redeems it; one endorses power and the other downcasts it; one belongs to a particular religious group and the other wanders with outliers; one invests in temples and the other dismantles them; one is wholly revealed and the other remains yet hidden and secret.

With slightly greater care, I would like to consider the boundaries implied by these two words. “Christ” quickly became the exclusive title of one particular person, so much so that most people now think it’s his name. “Messiah” on the other hand, is a category, a holding narrative, a web of hopes and dreams and political energies within which people, movements, experiences and courses of action might be understood.

By blotting out the “Messiah” with the “Christ” the Christian tradition made two things possible:

1. It was possible to do a reset on the frame of meaning within which this figure and the corresponding movement might be understood. They could be delivered from the dangerous social, political, economic energies associated with all things rashly messianic.

2. It was also possible to draw a tribal boundary around this figure. Christ: the figurehead of the Christians alone. This use of the word inadvertently takes power over the figure it signifies. It tells this Christ where he may not be found.

Meanwhile, a messiah might yet be a redeemer of all things. With use and wear, one term is religiously enclosed and the other remains open. It will be what it will be. Messianism is a term that transcends Christian categories, without excluding them, and indeed religious categories also.

This seems important even in the light of the messianic texts of the New Testament, which emphatically assert that the messiah could not, and should not, be enclosed within any particular religious community.

I hope none of this will be mistaken for some ghastly language-policing argument against using the word “christ”. That is not my meaning at all. I'm interested in how language behaves. But indeed, “each should remain as they are,” says Paulos. If it helps, you can hear me chanting it here.