Concept
Messianism
Overview
Messianism is the belief in the advent of a messiah who acts as the savior of a group of people. Some religions also have messianism-related concepts. Religions with a messiah concept include Christianity (Jesus), Hinduism (Kalki), Judaism (Mashiach), Islam (Isa), Druze faith (Hamza ibn Ali), Zoroastrianism (Saoshyant), Buddhism (Maitreya),
Taoism (Li Hong), and Bábism (He whom God shall make manifest).
In Judaism, the messiah will be a future Jewish king from the line of David and redeemer of the Jewish people and humanity. In Christianity, Jesus is the messiah, the savior, the redeemer, and God. In Islam, Jesus was a prophet and the messiah of the Jewish people who will return in the end times.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
But by sacred things one must not understand simply those personal beings which are called gods or spirits; a rock, a tree, a spring, a pebble, a piece of wood, a house, in a word, anything can be sacred. A rite can have this character; in fact, the rite does not exist which does not have it to a certain degree.
Émile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life
States what Messianism is.
(ib. 18). They are called “enemies,” “foes,” “adversaries”; by worshipping idols they are said to provoke God to jealousy, anger, and wrath. How great, then, must be the offence of him who has a wrong opinion of God Himself, and believes Him to be different from what He truly is, i.e., assumes that He does not exist, that He consists of two elements, that He is corporeal, that He is subject to external influence, or…
Moses Maimonides, The guide for the perplexed
States what Messianism is.
These two world religions, which dominate the main centres of spiritual culture, do not, surely, owe their supremacy over other religious cults to the external conditions of their origin. Indeed, these conditions differ in the two cases.
Wilhelm Max Wundt, Elements of Folk Psychology Outline of a Psychological History of the Development of Mankind
Close in meaning to Messianism; the term itself is not named.
Philosophers who discussed Messianism
Related ideas
- Rabbinic Judaism
- Jesus
- God in Christianity
- Hinduism
- Judaism
- Adam Mickiewicz
- Jewish eschatology
- Menachem Mendel Schneerson
- Christians
- Muhammad
- Messiah
- Modern paganism
- Tuscany
- Oxford
- Old Testament
- Orthodox Judaism
- Chinese Buddhism
- Christianity in the 1st century
- Portugal
- Paganism
- Boston
- Reincarnation
- Reform Judaism
- Romanticism
Place in the tradition
Part of History of philosophy in Poland.