Walter Benjamin (1892 - 1940)
From Ken Krimstein, The Three Escapes of Hannah Arendt.
Walter Benjamin, 'Theses on the History of Philosophy' in Illuminations.
From thesis ii
Our coming was expected on earth. Like every generation that preceded us, we have been endowed with a weak Messianic power, a power to which the past has a claim.
From thesis vi
In every era the attempt must be made anew to wrest tradition away from a conformist that is about to overpower it. The Messiah comes not only as the redeemer, he comes as the subduer of the Antichrist. Only that historian will have the fight of fanning the spark of hope in the past who is firmly convinced that even the dead will not be safe from the enemy if he wins. And this enemy has not ceased to be victorious.
From thesis xvii
…[the historical materialist] recognizes the sign of a Messianic cessation of happening, or, put differently, a revolutionary change in the fight for the oppressed past. He takes cognizance of it in order to blast a specific era out of the homogeneous course of history - blasting a specific life out of the era or a specific work out of the lifework. As a result of this method the lifework is preserved in this work and at the same time cancelled; in the lifework, the era; and in the era, the entire course of history. The nourishing fruit of the historically understood contains time as a precious but tasteless seed.
From thesis A
Historicism contents itself with establishing a causal connection between various moments in history. But no fact that is a cause is for that very reason historical. It became historical posthumously, as it were, through events that may be separated from it by thousands of years. A historian who takes this as his point of departure stops telling the sequence of events like the beads of a rosary. Instead, he grasps the constellation which his own era has formed with a definite earlier one. Thus he establishes a conception of the present as the ‘time of the now’ which is shot through with chips of Messianic time.
From thesis B
The soothsayers who found out from time what it had in store certainly did not experience time as either homogeneous or empty. Anyone who keeps this in mind will perhaps get an idea of how past times were experienced in remembrance - namely in just the same way. We know that the Jews were prohibited from investigating the future. The Torah and the prayers instruct them in remembrance, however. This stripped the future of its magic, to which all those succumb who turn to the soothsayers for enlightenment. This does not imply, however, that for the Jews the future turned into homogeneous, empty time. For every second of time was the strait gate through which the Messiah might enter.
From thesis ii
Our coming was expected on earth. Like every generation that preceded us, we have been endowed with a weak Messianic power, a power to which the past has a claim.
From thesis vi
In every era the attempt must be made anew to wrest tradition away from a conformist that is about to overpower it. The Messiah comes not only as the redeemer, he comes as the subduer of the Antichrist. Only that historian will have the fight of fanning the spark of hope in the past who is firmly convinced that even the dead will not be safe from the enemy if he wins. And this enemy has not ceased to be victorious.
From thesis xvii
…[the historical materialist] recognizes the sign of a Messianic cessation of happening, or, put differently, a revolutionary change in the fight for the oppressed past. He takes cognizance of it in order to blast a specific era out of the homogeneous course of history - blasting a specific life out of the era or a specific work out of the lifework. As a result of this method the lifework is preserved in this work and at the same time cancelled; in the lifework, the era; and in the era, the entire course of history. The nourishing fruit of the historically understood contains time as a precious but tasteless seed.
From thesis A
Historicism contents itself with establishing a causal connection between various moments in history. But no fact that is a cause is for that very reason historical. It became historical posthumously, as it were, through events that may be separated from it by thousands of years. A historian who takes this as his point of departure stops telling the sequence of events like the beads of a rosary. Instead, he grasps the constellation which his own era has formed with a definite earlier one. Thus he establishes a conception of the present as the ‘time of the now’ which is shot through with chips of Messianic time.
From thesis B
The soothsayers who found out from time what it had in store certainly did not experience time as either homogeneous or empty. Anyone who keeps this in mind will perhaps get an idea of how past times were experienced in remembrance - namely in just the same way. We know that the Jews were prohibited from investigating the future. The Torah and the prayers instruct them in remembrance, however. This stripped the future of its magic, to which all those succumb who turn to the soothsayers for enlightenment. This does not imply, however, that for the Jews the future turned into homogeneous, empty time. For every second of time was the strait gate through which the Messiah might enter.
Emanuel Levinas (1906 - 1995)
'Messianic Texts' in Difficult Freedom.
...Samuel also has a very high opinion of the messianic era, but he does not believe that the Other, as a poor man, is merely the accident of a regrettable historical regime...
Contrary to Samuel, who does not therefore separate the messianic era from the difficulties encountered by morality and its attempts to surpass them, Rabbi Johanan envisages a pure and gracious spiritual life that is in some way stripped of the heavy load of things which is made concrete by economics. In his vision one can have direct relationships with the Other, who no longer appears as poor but as friend; there are no more professions, only arts; and the economic repercussions of actions no longer have any bearing. Rabbi Johanan in some way believes in the ideal of a disincarnated spirit, of total grace and harmony, an ideal exempt from any drama; while Samuel, on the other had, feels the permanent effort of renewal demanded by this spiritual life.
'Messianic Texts' in Difficult Freedom.
...Samuel also has a very high opinion of the messianic era, but he does not believe that the Other, as a poor man, is merely the accident of a regrettable historical regime...
Contrary to Samuel, who does not therefore separate the messianic era from the difficulties encountered by morality and its attempts to surpass them, Rabbi Johanan envisages a pure and gracious spiritual life that is in some way stripped of the heavy load of things which is made concrete by economics. In his vision one can have direct relationships with the Other, who no longer appears as poor but as friend; there are no more professions, only arts; and the economic repercussions of actions no longer have any bearing. Rabbi Johanan in some way believes in the ideal of a disincarnated spirit, of total grace and harmony, an ideal exempt from any drama; while Samuel, on the other had, feels the permanent effort of renewal demanded by this spiritual life.