Deep Sabbatianism pt. 4 Christian Comparison

A bit more of looking at Early Christianity next to Sabbatianism:

These two cases are the most important messianic phenomena in history, the most acute cases, with the most material and quality of material, in other words advanced in tradition, literature, creativity, zeal.

Spritiual Hero

In Christianity, the paradoxical Messiah was crucified, his death atones for sins, he will come in the future, and the believers are a spiritual community or network that mystically participates in Messiah and he in them, through their spiritual experiences, which are considered manifestation of Messiah himself.

These central components are definitely not traditional ideas but ALTERNATIVE ideas: Messiah was supposed to come once and for all and fulfill the redemption there and then, he was not supposed to die, and believers would just be there as followers and adherents, NOT a matter of mediated experience. 

In Sabbatianism, or at least the main thrust of it, the Messiah converted to a false foreign religion, his conversion is a mission of descent to ascent, by which to release sparks, which leads to redemption… this and many acts of tikkun. 

Separatism / Sectarianism

The Sabbatian believers embrace dissimulation, like him, and operate secretly in the Jewish communities, a secret sect within Judaism, while the Christian messianists slowly separate from mainstream Judaism as a sect.

Both pick up sectarian behavior, with an alternative and provocative affinity towards the Jewish religion. 

New Torah of Sorts

Both Christian and Sabbatian messianic believers developed a complexity in regards to the traditional concept of Torah...

Both movements developed an emphasis on or higher priority of spiritual mystical experience, above traditional directives, practices, and rituals. 

Inducive Activism

The Christians were busy at seeking new believers to join, while the Sabbatians busied themselves with their acts of tikkun that would hasten redemption.

In other words, both were preoccupied with activism, proactively hastening the redemption / apocalypse.

Prophetic Ecstacy

In both cases, we may assume that the people had intense and profound religious experiences, including ecstatic spiritual phenomena, understood as prophetic gifting or anointing. 

Paradoxical Apocalyptic

Both of course put the messianic persona in the center of their faith, and engaged with traditional ideas of apocalyptic redemption, and naturally, when the apocalyptic redemption did not take place, they adapted their thinking paradoxically, and that is how they explained how traditional redemption would eventually unfold, and how their actions and faith are that redemptive process. 

In Christianity, as far as the messianic redemption as an event had partially taken place, and the Torah had been changed in part, they approached the nations, Gentiles, non-Jews, as a component of the prophetic picture of redemption. 

In Sabbatianism, the messianic redemption as an event had partially taken place, and the Torah changed in part, so they operated secretly and mystically by tikkunim, to complete the mystical redemptive process. 

Some Sabbatians, led by one rabbi Yehuda the Hasid, left Poland for Israel, in the mindset that the redemption had started, and their coming to Israel is a proactive step in that direction, doing the redemption, hastening the redemption, manifesting the redemption. 

As a believer, in your paradoxical redemption manifest state, you identify components of the redemption and manifest them yourself, proactively.

By such an approach, another example, and a precursor of messianic Zionism, a thousand Sabbatians reached Jerusalem, but most died in a plague, including the leader. However, fun fact, he did manage to purchase a lot for the building of a synagogue named after him eventually, that stands today in the heart of the Jewish Quarter in the old city.

Simplified Observation

In summary, after another speculation on these two, we might define messianism in several different ways, but one way is a theory of messianism, based on several examples from the 2 acute messianic phenomena - Early Christianity and Sabbatianism, that is proactive behavior to induce the partial apocalypse or redemption, by implementing its components it becomes the fuller reality.