The Origins of Christianity

From Jewish Messianism to Jesus

Without listing all the precursors who have been identified and who contributed to its development, we should, in accordance with the first Gospel (Mark), trace the origins of Christianity back to John the Baptist, a prominent figure at the turn of the century within the vast Jewish religious renewal movement known as “Yahad”—an alliance of diverse groups too narrowly referred to as Essenes— as the Qumran Scrolls show that this encompassed distinct tendencies—messianic, apocalyptic, and sectarian—all part of a broader movement. This “alliance”, or rather “new covenant”, is said to have been initiated around 70 BCE by the “Master of Justice” in opposition to the Pharisees, who had returned to power, and the high priests of the time. It should be emphasized that, in the Dead Sea Scrolls, the members of the Yahad present themselves as the “poor” (just as the Ebionites would later do) and refer to their community as the Nazarenes, meaning “guardians of the Covenant”—a term by which the early Christians (Stephen and Paul, notably) would later be designated in the Acts of the Apostles (24:5), although this designation—which has nothing to do with Nazareth—would later be reserved for the Baptists who remained committed to the Law and rejected Paul, or even the divinity of Christ or his humanity (as, later, the Elkasites did, who inspired Manichaeism and Islam). There are also the Mandaeans, who are not Christians—having not recognized Jesus—but who were among the disciples of John the Baptist (and, after his beheading, may have become disciples of Dositheus, who then presented himself as the promised Messiah). They were dualist Gnostics who continued the “baptism of John” but would continue to call themselves Nazarenes. In any case, there is an obvious continuity between Christianity and this “Essene” or Yahad Baptist movement (communion of bread and wine, etc.) and their apocalyptic messianism, which served as the fertile ground for early Christianity as they awaited the end while everything around them was collapsing. However, John the Baptist introduced a break that already contained the Christianity to come that he was announcing.

Indeed, one can see a contradiction in Flavius Josephus’s portrayal of John the Baptist—who had been an Essene and later a disciple of another baptist, Bannus—as he acknowledges John the Baptist’s ability to draw crowds while at the same time equating him with the sectarian practices of the Essenes, which makes it difficult to understand the considerable influence that justified his execution. However, while John the Baptist did indeed come from the same background, he distinguished himself—according to the Gospel—through the radical innovation of opening conversion by baptism to “all Israel”, a practice otherwise reserved for initiates after their purifying asceticism. This better explains the adoption of this Johannine baptism by the Hellenists and the diaspora, a rite that would form the foundation of Christianity. It is undoubtedly a retrospective illusion to portray John the Baptist as a forerunner of the openness to the conversion of non-Jews, but this was indeed at the heart of the discussions among the early Christians, right up to Paul, who definitively established it in the face of the hesitations of the Jewish Christians. In any case, here we have, with baptism and the openness to sinners—if not to pagans—the very foundation of Christianity as it was taking shape. The Gospels very explicitly place themselves in the tradition of John the Baptist, who is said to have announced the coming of Christ, who would succeed him, ushering in the Last Judgment and the end of time: “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand”.

Shortly after the martyrdom of John the Baptist, around the year 30, James the Just was presented as the leader of the first Christian community in Jerusalem—a fact that is anachronistic but attests to his spiritual authority, recognized by both Paul and Thomas. The fact that the title given to him in the Gospel—“brother of Jesus”—is repeated is misleading, for in pre-Gospel sources he is called “brother of Christ”, which is something entirely different; it does not refer to a specific historical figure but rather places him within the context of messianic Judaism. It is also significant that he was almost forgotten by the later Church. James the Just, regarded as a “master of the Law”, was essentially an ascetic and a religious figure devoted to the poor and revered as a saint in Jerusalem. According to Hegesippus, “James, nicknamed the Just, drank neither wine nor cider, ate no meat, did not cut his hair, did not use perfume, did not bathe, wore linen, and prayed at length for the people in the Temple”. This did not prevent him from being executed as well—thrown from the top of the Temple in 62 by the high priest, who viewed him as a rival and a heretic. A fringe scholar, Robert Eisenmann, sought to identify James the Just with the Essene “Master of Justice”, which does not correspond to the earlier dating of the Qumran Scrolls but highlights the kinship between his asceticism and that of the Essenes, albeit less mystical and sectarian. One might consider that the epistle attributed to James, though written much later, nonetheless reflects his views (blessed are the poor, love of neighbor, the overthrow of the rich, the demand for putting faith into practice rather than mere belief). The Ebionites, who were also Baptists, remained loyal to James, having rejected Paul because they refused to renounce their Judaism and remained rooted in Temple Judaism. They represent early Judeo-Christianity in the service of the poor and closely aligned with the Didache. We see, however, that while they, like James the Just, share many points in common with John the Baptist, they differ radically from him by remaining centered on the Temple and prioritizing works over conversion. This apparently did not prevent them from considering themselves part of the same movement of religious renewal (like the Hellenists, etc.).

So far, there is only an evolution of Judaism and no mention yet of Jesus (at least in the oldest part), much less of the crucifixion. This is where the Hellenization of Judaism comes into play, asserting itself from Philo of Alexandria to the Therapists who sought to heal souls, while other esoteric traditions were developing, such as that of Hermes Trismegistus (who spoke of the Son of God). The name of Jesus would become the standard-bearer of the Jewish (or Gnostic) esoteric movement, which found expression in the Gospel of Thomas, according to which the kingdom is within us. This “Gospel”, while spiritualizing inner baptism, explicitly pledges allegiance to John the Baptist (“no one is greater than John the Baptist”), as well as to James the Just (Jesus said to them: “Wherever you are, you will go to James the Just, for whom heaven and earth were created”). This allows us to date it and clearly shows how James the Just—who emphasized the “works” of faith and cannot be equated with Thomas—was able to unite the various pre-Christian movements through his holiness but also through his concern for the poor, a concern shared by all.

It is possible that the name “Jesus”—a very common name but one meaning “Savior” (like the first name “Salvatore”)—had already been adopted by the disciples of John the Baptist as the name of the expected Savior, but it first appears with Thomas to give a Jewish flavor to “hermetic” wisdom, though it is reduced to the simple formula introducing each of the logia: “Jesus said”. It contains numerous “parables", and sayings that would be taken up in the Gospels (half of the 114 logia) and are believed to belong to a “Q source” from which Matthew and Luke drew, and which may simply be an early version of this “proto-Gospel”, devoid of any narrative or crucifixion of this Jesus, a master of wisdom and inner salvation, but foreshadowing the Beatitudes (a reversal of values). It should be emphasized, however, that in the Sermon on the Mount (an initiatory text), there are two nearly incompatible parts: the Beatitudes, which stand above the Law and are very distant from Essenism, and the “Antitheses” whose guilt-inducing rigor is closer to it—evidence of a patchwork of contradictory positions. There are also several layers of redaction in the Gospel of Thomas as we know it, with later logia being post-Gospel (or Gnostic), but it is impossible to reduce this collection of “sayings of Jesus” to a mere abridgment of the Gospels, as believers claim; and it is precisely because these teachings predated Jesus’ supposed preaching that his existence is by no means necessary.

Similarly, the Didache cannot be reduced to a summary of the Gospels, as one might think at first glance; this is particularly true of its oldest sections on the two paths, which are more reminiscent of the Qumran Scrolls, and especially the “Rule of the Community”, albeit in a less rigorous form. Nevertheless, its prescriptions are exactly those of the Gospels—even more so than in the Gospel of Thomas—except that, in this case, they are not even attributed to Jesus, who is barely mentioned and only as a servant of God, with no further biographical details or account of his crucifixion. We find there the supreme commandment (“You shall love your neighbor as yourself”) [but it should be noted that this is merely an extreme version of Hillel’s more conventional teaching (“Do not do to your neighbor what is hateful to you. This is the whole Torah”)]. The fact that new prophets are acknowledged attests to the transitional stage of a collective development stemming from John the Baptist and the idea of a Jesus who would divide the Hellenists from the Jewish Christians. Here, too, there are several versions and varied styles, perhaps adding the mention of the Gospel (in the singular), or even of Jesus and the Trinity, to a text that organizes the community but seems to predate the Gospels (even though excerpts are found in Matthew). In any case, it remains tied to the rites of Judaism and gives little prominence to Jesus. Nothing is certain, except that it adds to our understanding of the early days of Christianity.

The Fusion of the Jesus of Wisdom and the Sacrificed Christ

Beyond the emergence of this elusive figure of Jesus, those whom the Acts of the Apostles call the Hellenists (referred to as Nazarenes) would be decisive actors in early Christianity—the very people Paul sought to persecute before his conversion on the road to Damascus, where these disciples of John the Baptist had withdrawn. He did not invent the Jesus Christ of his vision, since he was fighting against his followers—notably because they opposed the Temple and sought to be more universal in their outlook. It is clear that these Hellenists were indeed disciples of John the Baptist, for they adopted his baptism and made it available to all. In any case, it was these Greek-speaking Jews who, after the death of John the Baptist, are said to have shaped the figure of Jesus whom John had announced as his successor, merging the Jesus as a teacher of wisdom with the mystical Christ of the Essenes—the figure of the “Suffering Servant” (Isaiah 53)—and even his Passover sacrifice, but as a cosmic rather than an earthly event, just as in Paul’s writings (who, however, would not adopt the dimension of the sage-teacher, unlike the Gospels). It was through them that Christianity was able to begin the fusion of Jewish tradition with Platonism (following in the footsteps of Philo of Alexandria), detaching it from political messianism and ethnic identity in favor of an eschatological millenarianism—convinced that the end was very near.

These Greco-Essene were indeed the first Christians and the most overlooked, even though they appear in the Acts of the Apostles alongside the charismatic-prophetic figures of Philip and Stephen. Stephen would become the first Christian martyr, stoned to death for challenging the notion that God could be confined within a temple. He impressed others with his faith, proclaiming, “I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God”, and even crying out, before falling under the blows, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them!” However, it is by no means certain that, for him, Jesus had already come, since he spoke of him in the future tense: “for we have heard him say that Jesus will destroy this place and change the customs that Moses handed down to us.” The protests of the Hellenists, as recorded, against the exclusion of their widows from the relief efforts for the poor in Jerusalem, reveal both the rejection they faced and their sense of belonging to the same community. However, after Stephen’s martyrdom, the Hellenists were driven out of Jerusalem and joined the diaspora, particularly in the region of Damascus, becoming the first missionaries of the new faith. They converted people (including non-Jews) through baptism, a rite that was detached from any specific location, independent of the Temple, and thus highly mobile. The early days of Christianity were essentially a baptismal movement in which baptism replaced circumcision as a marker of belonging to the community (along with shared meals and participation in supporting the poor). “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved” (Mark). Note that a distinction is made between those who received the “baptism of John” (Acts 18:24–25) and those who received the “baptism of Jesus”, the latter eventually supplanting the former.

Paul, the Revelation of the Cross, and the Theology of Weakness

It is on this basis that Paul will truly establish a Christianity open to the Gentiles and distinct from Judaism, although it remained fairly marginal before the Jewish War and the destruction of the Temple. He, too, will recognize the authority of James—or at least seek his impossible approval—in the abandonment of Jewish law. His relationship with the Hellenists is just as ambiguous, for he profoundly altered their theology, relying solely on revelations from his own visions (in Acts 9–29, the Hellenists even sought to kill him). In fact, he transforms their heavenly Christ into a crucified and resurrected figure, “a stumbling block to the Jews and folly to the Greeks”. Thus, there is no longer any question of Jesus as a teacher of wisdom—a wisdom to which he contrasts the cross (perhaps targeting Apollos, who practiced “John’s baptism” and taught the wisdom of Jesus). On the contrary, he emphasizes the apocalyptic tendency of Persian inspiration, already present, among others, among the Essenes (Rule of the War of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness). Although he presents himself as having been a Pharisee before, one can consider that “Paul” is first and foremost the name of the profound influence of Persian cosmology—so prevalent in Antioch, where he began his preaching, which was the capital of the Seleucid Iranian Empire (to which Tarsus belonged) until 64 B.C. (before falling under Parthian influence in 40 BCE)—and which would become, in a sense, the “capital” of the early non-Jewish Christians. He was, however, merely extending this influence onto the Judaism of his time, which softened its dualism (a dualism that would recur constantly throughout history).

His theology, thus building on late Judaism and the Qumran Scrolls—which were influenced by Persia—indeed draws on numerous themes from Zoroastrianism, particularly the sacrifice and resurrection of the final savior. The “Son of Man” plays the role of the Saoshyant, the Zoroastrian savior—the miraculous son of Zoroaster, born in a cave to a virgin conceived by the prophet’s preserved seed—tasked with defeating Evil and raising the dead. The phrase “Son of Man”, already found in the Book of Enoch and the Aramaic Qumran scrolls, clearly reveals—despite its denial—this Persian origin, as does the ancient repetition of the dualisms of light/darkness, good/evil, truth/falsehood, or the themes of paradise, resurrection, judgment, and final salvation. Paul thus draws upon the form of Judaism most heavily influenced by Persia (the Magi in Matthew will illustrate this connection to Persia) to emphasize it to the point of breaking with Judaism.

However, this is not a conversion to Persian dualism—as Manichaeism would later be—but a reinterpretation in the shadow of the cross, intended as a strict monotheism that transcends dualism through the recognition that evil has no independent existence—despite the adoption of the figure of Satan (“the god of this world” 2 Cor 4:4), who replaces the Zoroastrian “God of Evil” in the cosmic struggle between Good and Evil. The irony of (sacred) history is that this monotheism, which rejects dualism, will need the Trinity to preserve its coherence.

The essential point is not there, but in what lies at the heart of his theology of the cross—which is the strength of the weak and the defeated. “When I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:10). Salvation does not come “in spite of defeat”, but “through defeat” and within defeat. This reversal of values, in keeping with the Beatitudes, is one of the few things it has in common with Thomas—a view that undoubtedly made it a “religion of slaves,” yet one that was just as appealing to elites weary of Stoicism and the hollow morality of the Masters. René Girard claims that the novelty of Christianity lay in recognizing the innocence of the victim, which is simply absurd, given how many examples there are. The sacrifice of the god is not in itself original. Admittedly, the transformation of weakness into strength is found almost everywhere (not only in Taoism), but Paul’s theology of weakness is more radical in its reversal of values. Even if Paul is remembered above all for the unshakable strength of charity and a Love superior to the Law, it is clear that his theology of defeat would prove decisive after 70.

There are several points to emphasize: first, that in his early letters—and despite an obvious interpolation that is not at all in his style (1 Cor. 15:3–5)—Paul speaks no more than Thomas of a historical Jesus but only of a divine Jesus Christ, the one of his vision; and above all, he is the first to introduce the theme of his crucifixion (kerygmatic). He speaks only of this, but as a cosmic drama with no (or very little) reference to historical facts. His earliest letters are dated to the 40s, whereas the first accounts of Christ’s Passion date from after 70. It can be said that it is from his epistles that the emergence of universal Christianity dates, which makes Christ’s crucifixion the sacrifice that saves us. This marks a reversal of apocalypticism and a messianism rooted in the past, for the expected Messiah has already come—not in glory but covered in infamy—which signals the end of Jewish political messianism, though it retains a connection to Judaism and will ultimately fit perfectly within the Empire (“There is no longer Jew or Greek”).

The Gospels

While Christianity does indeed find its distinctive character in Paul and the theology of the cross, this constitutes only one element that must coexist with other tendencies—a fact that the Gospel of Mark would realize much later. The Gospel of Mark is not merely a narrative portrayal of its mystical concepts and the Passion, but combines them with the Jesus who is a teacher of wisdom, thereby uniting the various communities of the “New Covenant” and providing, in a readily communicable form, the foundations of the new religion. The Gospels should not be viewed as the works of a single author but rather as the products of communities that adopted them and made them successful. The fact that it is written in Greek suggests that it was produced by a Hellenistic Baptist community, as the Gospel begins with John the Baptist announcing the one who is to follow. In any case, this “first” Gospel should not be reduced to a narrative of Jesus’ life peppered with miracles intended to dazzle the crowds; rather, by refusing to reduce Christ to his saving sacrifice—as Paul does—it reintroduces into its theology a whole body of teaching (notably that of Thomas) that had been absent. Christ’s life is not limited to his passion, which gives it meaning; rather, it is twofold: first, proclaiming truths that are misunderstood, and finally offering himself as a sacrifice to save us—which implies “two natures” of Christ, for he has much to say to us and to pass on to us, not merely to participate in a cosmic drama that erases original sin. It is significant, moreover, that while the resurrection serves as proof of faith, Mark’s original version ends with the empty tomb, without the resurrected Jesus appearing to the apostles.

Seeking to determine whether a prophet who was actually crucified (or a Jesus hanged on the eve of Passover, as mentioned in the Talmud) could have served as a model is a hopeless and futile endeavor, for it was not this event that sparked Christianity but rather Paul’s vision, followed by the destruction of the temple. Admittedly, there was no shortage of preachers, healers, and prophets of the apocalypse at that time, but vague similarities are not enough for believers; they want to believe in miracles and the resurrection! Those who are determined to uphold the historicity of a Jesus—of whom there is no archaeological evidence—are unable to specify which one; this supposedly simpler hypothesis adds nothing, other than to assume that the early believers were indeed speaking of a specific man, and that the Gospels are not reconstructions—except that they draw on earlier traditions—and that those who denied his historical existence were just as ancient (Docetism, etc.). Above all, this “historicity” suppresses the real history of early Christianity and its diversity. In fact, to present this new theology of the cross and salvation through defeat, there was no need—after the mass crucifixions of the Jewish War—for any specific real-life events. As always, it was the success of these orally transmitted gospels (there were dozens of them, some highly fantastical) that validated the approach, with each gospel seeking to answer questions left unresolved by its predecessors (resurrection, virgin birth, etc.). Thus, Matthew sought to correct the weaknesses in Mark’s account by including the story of Jesus’ birth, adding other parables from Thomas (or the Q source)—as Luke would later do—and, above all, integrating Jesus’ life and death into Judaism as the “fulfillment of the Scriptures.” Luke, in turn, will advocate a more Pauline vision in which the Ascension narrates Jesus’ transformation into the cosmic Christ (the Ascension of Isaiah will seek to link this with the descent of the heavenly Christ from the seventh heaven to Earth) but Luke will also make John the Baptist a sort of counterpart to Jesus and his miraculous birth, tracing a lineage beginning with John’s opening of baptism to all, then passing the torch to Jesus before his passion opens it “to the nations”, transcending Judaism by universalizing it—a process that Paul will merely complete in this continuity. One might say that Matthew writes for the Jews and Luke for the Gentiles. It is not their historical value that accounts for the success of the Gospels, as demonstrated by the Gospel of John—which is more “Gnostic” and centered on the Incarnation—and which achieves the feat of transforming the crucifixion into glorification through a final reversal! All these rewritings distorted the original project each time—especially, of course, after it became the official religion; but it was not until the beginning of the second century, with Ignatius of Antioch portraying Jesus as a martyr (having borne witness in his flesh through his sacrifice), that his humanity and the Incarnation began to assert themselves against “Docetist” interpretations.

From Marcion’s New Testament to the Establishment of Dogma

Although Paul may have founded many Christian communities during his missionary journeys, with some remaining faithful to him, it cannot be said that he played a central role in the early days; his openness to pagans and his break with the Law drew increasing hostility from Jewish Christians as nationalism rose, ultimately leading to the Jewish War (those persecuted by Nero were Jewish Christians). In any case, he did not have the status of an apostle attributed to him in the Acts of the Apostles and recognized by Clement, who quotes his “Hymn to Charity” (1 Cor. 13), but while his epistles may have circulated in certain circles, we know of them only through Marcion—which nonetheless attests to a certain degree of obscurity, even though he was present at the very dawn of Christianity and was its true founder, having provided the framework for the religion of the crucified one that the Gospels had subsequently adopted. His theology must have been held by a very small minority at first, before spreading once the defeat of Judaism was complete—but above all through its popularization in the Gospels. It therefore took Marcion’s publication of Paul’s letters—very late in the game—for the Roman Church to adopt them, positioning Paul both at the very beginning of Christianity and at its conclusion.

Marcion’s role in the formalization of Catholic orthodoxy is highly revealing of the situation at that relatively late date, when he, too, disputed the historical existence of Jesus. He retained only the Gospel of Luke in its Sinope version, stripped of all Jewish references and quotations from the Old Testament, as well as the birth and genealogy of Jesus, but he believed that his anti-Jewish Christianity could fit within the Christian movement to the point of donating a considerable sum (200,000 sesterces) to the Roman Church, which nevertheless excommunicated him in 144 for heresy, without preventing the Marcionite Church from flourishing.

He did indeed advocate a dualistic doctrine, further evidence of the influence of Zoroastrianism and of a dualism that had permeated not only late Judaism—as we have seen—and the Essene and Baptist sects, or the magi Simon and Theudas, but also the new cult of Mithras, which would much later inspire the quest for the Grail. Not being Jewish but a Greek from northern Turkey, his contribution lay in contrasting the vengeful God of the “Old Testament” with the God of Love of the “New Testament” (as he called Jesus’s preaching), where, Paul insisted, love replaces the Law, thus preaching a break with Judaism that would be rejected by the Church (since the Incarnation requires its historicity), although the Church would adopt its vocabulary. It was in response to his condemnation that he published his sources: his Gospel (the Sinope version of Luke) and, above all, the Epistles—ten letters from Paul, collected for the first time—which would this time be adopted by the Church (in a revised form). For it was in response to Marcion’s offensive that the Church sought to formulate its Creed and harmonize the Gospels, as Tatian’s Diatessaron attempted to do in 160. The four Gospels would henceforth be cited together, but it was indeed the publication of Paul’s letters that brought about their final coherence, reconnecting them to their original source.

Christian Syncretism

However, while the Pauline epistles were indeed integrated into the “proto-Catholic” canon beginning in 170, it was a “corrected” Paul—no longer the apocalyptic Paul nor the dualistic Paul of Marcion—but a doctrinal Paul, serving the ecclesial order and providing theological justification for spiritual authority, concealing the subtleties of his theology of the crucifixion and weakness beneath more conventional traditions (charity). Christianity did not arise from a prophet named Jesus, nor from John the Baptist, nor from Paul alone, but from a series of successive reconfigurations: apocalyptic expectation and the call to conversion (John the Baptist), Judean asceticism devoted to the poor (James), Hellenized wisdom (Thomas), the theology of the crucifixion and universal salvation (Paul), followed by proto-Catholic standardization (which is the purpose of the councils). This is not a mere arbitrary and contingent juxtaposition but the synergy resulting from the combination of a prophetic pole, a communal pole, and Hellenized circles that developed a universalist interpretation. Prophetic tradition provided religious energy, the community provided a social structure, and Hellenization enabled expansion, but it was Paul’s most original and decisive act that constituted a complete reversal of the initial apocalyptic outlook.

Amid a multitude of sects, the development of Christianity cannot be attributed to a single man, nor to a single source, nor to an immutable revealed doctrine—if only because of its internal contradiction between the figure of a heavenly Christ, disregarding his historical life, and what the Gospels would make of it: a mythological narrative that one must believe in, with all its absurdities and miracles. These contradictions, which gave rise to numerous “heresies”, are the scars of its multiple origins, of a continuous rearrangement of Jewish, Persian, and Mediterranean traditions, from which the “theology of weakness” and of the cross was forged—a theology that would dominate the West for centuries and continue to evolve, notably during the era of martyrs exalted by Montanism and, of course, Augustine, who would prove to be a pivotal figure, particularly in the development of inner guilt—less pronounced among Eastern Christians—or, finally, the belated integration of a cult of the Virgin, a resurgence not only of Zoroastrianism but also of Celtic traditions, which reflected the importance of women’s faith. The irony is indeed that “we were expecting the kingdom, and we got the Church”!

But what is astonishing is to see opposing conceptions both claiming to represent true Christianity, without doubting that they belong to the same broader movement (calls for unity are constant). There was an undeniable appeal to its universal morality as well as its eschatology, bringing together all sorts of theologies—much like Marxism has seen a wide variety of interpretations and splinter groups citing Marx, all believing in equality and the end of history without agreeing on the rest. Thus, we find various figures that are more or less incompatible: the one God and the Law of Judaism, the Greek Logos and the dualism of flesh and spirit, the god who dies and is reborn from the mystery cults and Zoroastrianism, and the traditions of wisdom and Egyptian Hermeticism. These contradictions, however, made it possible to address different audiences: the devout Jew, reassured by references to the fulfillment of prophecies in Matthew; the illiterate masses, captivated by the narrative and miraculous accounts in Mark; the mystics who identified with Paul’s cosmic Christ or the secret sayings of the Gospel of Thomas. But they could all come together around the Beatitudes and charity.

The end times, between what is already here and what is not yet

“Benjamin is to Paul what the modern catastrophe is to the cross: the moment when defeat becomes promise.” Jacob Taubes

With Walter Benjamin, the “theology of defeat” survives the death of God in a secular version of the Pauline kairos: time is not continuous; it is constantly suspended by the possibility of redemption. Redemption through the negative—the salvific power of disaster—is found in Adorno, Taubes, Agamben, and Žižek. For Taubes, Paul conceives of kairos, time in tension, “the time of the end”: “I tell you, brothers, the time has grown short” (1 Cor. 7). What is remarkable, in fact, is that, ever since Paul, Christianity has found itself in an in-between time—one with which we are quite familiar—between the “already-there” and the “not-yet” of a long-awaited end to history. Since Christ died for us on the cross, there is no other savior to await; the kingdom is already here in the transformation of the Empire, even before the final apocalypse that the early Christians believed was imminent (just as we do). Yet everything continues as before—what, then, is this endless period of limbo, this “phoney war” before the catastrophe?