messianic
/ˌmɛsɪˈanɪk
/adjective
1Relating to the Messiah: the messianic role of Jesus...
- Even though healing was not the basis for claims about his messianic role or divine identity, the gospels' interpretation of his identity and power include frequent references to that activity.
- After a visit to an isolated community of desert mystics, Jesus takes on a messianic role, which deepens after a transforming experience of temptation in the wilderness.
- What Jesus did on the road to Emmaus, the early church had to do in order to be able to understand, on the basis of the Scriptures, how both death and resurrection were part of God's plan of messianic salvation.
1.1Inspired by hope or belief in a messiah: the messianic expectations of that time...
- Hellenization, the Maccabean revolt, Hasmonean rule, the rise of the Pharisees, the Qumran sect, the messianic hope of a coming Davidic King, the rule of Herod, and more are covered.
- Not only did the Israelites claim that the world we know is not the world that God intended, but they also expressed their hope in a messianic age in which God's original intention would be realized.
- These messianic beliefs in turn led them to start a religion-driven settlement of the whole Promised Land in the Occupied Territories.
2Fervent or passionate: an admirable messianic zeal...
- From him descended in the subsequent centuries serious intellectuals, hard men ready to commit violence, messianic figures whose zeal seems most foreign to twenty-first-century realities.
- The defence secretary, whose department was, for reasons which still seem unfathomable, allowed to run what counted for peace as well as the war, lacked this messianic zeal.
- He was said to have been messianic in his zeal to make vaccinations mandatory because of his alleged stockpile of smallpox that, needless to say, never turned up.
Derivatives
messianism
/ noun ...- At worst, it could unleash an end-of-days messianism in three monotheistic religions, with unforeseeable consequences.
- This places them alongside many other current religious groups who emphasize radicalism, charisma, messianism and fundamentalism.
- Shermer lumps superstition, cargo cults, UFO suicide cults, messianism and millennialism with historical religion without making any distinctions between them.
Origin
Mid 19th century: from French messianique, from Messie (see messiah), on the pattern of rabbinique 'rabbinical'.