faith possible. Messianic time, as the examples of Abraham and the Hebrew prophets show, is rooted in divine providence. And divine providence relates the first things (protology if you like) with the end things (eschatology). Outside an acceptance of this divine order and its operations in the world, then, the possibilities for political critique and resistance opened up by the state of messianic exception cannot be utilized. Agamben mentions the church only derogatively. He does not relate Paul’s