The Living Handbook of

Messianism

An open, peer-reviewed reference work

Messianism as a living field guide to rupture, hope, power and return.

Browse the Handbook

Four curated entry points into messianism.

01
Themes
Texts, iconology, film and performance - the recurring forms in which messianic hope is articulated.
02
Regions
Mapping the geographic diffusion of messianic movements across continents and centuries.
03
Timeline
From late-antique apocalypticism to twenty-first century political theology - a long duree.
04
Sources
Pamphlets, periodicals, manuscripts and digital archives that document messianic discourse.

Latest Entries

Recently added to the Handbook.

Florentine sixteenth-century painting depicting the Resurrection of Christ

Political Theology12 min read

Donald Trump as Messiah and King Cyrus

How a 21st-century American president came to be cast in the role of the Persian liberator of Israel - and what the comparison reveals about the longue duree of messianic political imagination.

By

Barbara Schmitz

March 14, 2026

Texts
Reading the Apocalypse on Patmos
By M. Lindner
Films
Fassbinder and the Failed Prophet
By J. Aydemir
Sources
Sabbatai Zevi in the European Imagination
By R. Cohen
Iconology
Bodhisattva Iconographies in Gandhara
By P. Rao

Media Forms

Explore messianism across texts, images, film, and performance.

Texts
Scripture, commentary and apocalyptic literature.
Iconology
Visual repertoires of redemption.
Films
Cinematic re-imaginings of prophets.
Performance
Passion plays, ritual and music.

Motif Graph

Every entry, tagged. Every motif, connected.

Open Full Graph

Every entry in the Handbook is tagged against a shared controlled vocabulary of messianic motifs, persons and practices. The graph emerges from these tags - edges thicken as more entries cite the same connection.

Hub. The single root concept anchoring the field of inquiry.
Primary clusters. The five conceptual dimensions of person-centered messianism.
Motifs. The leaf vocabulary applied to each entry during editorial review.

Hover a node to trace its citation neighborhood.

Recently tagged

Trump as Cyrus
Sabbatai Zevi
Fassbinder - Niklashauser
Apocalypse of John
Gandharan Bodhisattva
Florentine Resurrection

Edge weightClusterMotif

Engraved seventeenth-century portrait of a bearded scholar in a turban, evoking historical messianic claimants — Sabbatai Zevi, engraving · 17th c.

Call for Applications · 2026-2027

International fellowships in person-centered messianism.

CEMES invites scholars whose work critically and creatively engages with messianic figures, personas and imaginaries across cultural, political, religious and social contexts. The first cohort begins in November 2026 and convenes around the emergence of messianic phenomena in specific historical and cultural settings.

8-10

Fellows per year

Nov 2026

Cohort begins

All

Disciplines welcomed

Apply for a Fellowship Subscribe to the Newsletter

Engraved Temple of Time chart visualising philosophers, theologians and poets across centuries — Temple of Time · chronological chart