The belief that a divine saviour will return to earth and ‘save’ the true believers. This concept was brought into prominence in critical theory by the work of German philosopher Benjamin, Walter. In his late essay, ‘Theses on the Philosophy of History’ (included in the collection of his essays selected by Arendt, Hannah, Illuminations (1968)), Benjamin compares the moment of revolutionary rupture to that of the arrival of the messiah. Messianism has since become a code word in political philosophy for the belief that history is not a continuum that progresses inexorably from one moment to the next, but is instead a series of punctuations. Derrida, Jacques’s work on Benjamin focuses almost exclusively on this aspect of his work.