See W. D. Wallis, Messiahs, Their Role in Civilization (1943); J. Klausner, The Messianic Idea in Israel (1955); A. H. Silver, A History of Messianic Speculation in Israel (1955); V. Lanternari, The Religions of the Oppressed: A Study of Modern Messianic Cults (1963); and G. Scholem, The Messianic Idea in Judaism (1971).
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Hiawatha, fl. c.1550, legendary chief of the Onondaga of North America. He is credited with founding the Iroquois Confederacy. He is the hero of the well-known poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfell...
Agnus Dei [Lat.], the Lamb of God, i.e., Jesus. The lamb of the Passover sacrifice is said to prefigure the crucifixion. Isaiah calls the expected Messiah the Lamb of God, and Jesus is met by ...
Sabbatai Zevi, 1626–76, Jewish mystic and pseudo-Messiah, founder of the Sabbatean sect, b. Smyrna. After a period of study of Lurianic kabbalah (see Luria, Isaac ben Solomon), he became deepl...
Moon, Sun Myung, 1920–, Korean religious leader. He was an engineering student and dock worker before founding (1954) the Unification Church with a doctrine loosely based on Christianity as in...
Rastafarianism, a religious-cultural movement that began (1930s) in Jamaica. Rastafarians believe that Haile Selassie, also named Ras Tafari, the last emperor of Ethiopia (d. 1975), is the Mes...
Bar Kokba, Simon, or Simon Bar Cochba [Heb.,=son of the star], d. A.D. 135, Hebrew hero and leader of a major revolt against Rome under Hadrian (132–135). He may have claimed to be a Messiah; ...
Klopstock, Friedrich Gottlieb, 1724–1803, German poet, important for his influence upon Goethe, the Göttingen poets, and the Sturm und Drang movement. His epic Messias (4 vol., 1748–73, tr. Th...
Frank, Jacob, c.1726–1791, Polish Jewish sectarian and adventurer, b. Podolia as Jacob Ben Judah Leib. He founded the Frankists, a heretical Jewish sect that was an anti-Talmudic outgrowth of ...
Handel, George Frideric, 1685–1759, English composer, b. Halle, Germany. Handel was one of the greatest masters of baroque music, most widely celebrated for his majestic oratorio Messiah. Of G...
Jesus or Jesus Christ, 1st-century Jewish teacher and prophet in whom Christians have traditionally seen the Messiah [Heb.,=annointed one, whence Christ from the Greek] and whom they have char...
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