WERNER HAMACHERtice—a trial, therefore, about the very form of the trial—and the question that the jury
has to deliberate is presumably: whether messianic justice istrulyabsent or not; whether
justice, even if it be a future justice, exists; and whether it would be just if it did exist, or
just if it did not. Plato’s myth ofkrisisstrips souls of all their phenomenal veils. Benjamin’s
mystery, by contrast, invokes witnesses who testify to the coming of the Messiah and of
justice by means of phenomena: the poet who feels them, the artist who sees them, the
musician who hears them, and the philosopher who knows them. But the court listens to
the witnesses with the same mistrust that it reserves for the grievance, since their testimo-
nies don’t match and arrive at anything but a synthesis or a synesthesia. The fact that the
court comes to no decision and fears to be driven away because of its inconclusiveness;
the fact that it finally flees out ofanxiety, without having reached a judgment and pro-
nounced right: this breakdown of the court constitutes—without a single word of judg-
ment—the verdict passed on the court, the verdict passed on any possible conclusion, on
any possible judgment, and on the entire sphere of right represented by it. That which
remainsin the Platonic court of the dead is the bare act of judging, suddenly and unend-
ingly. Benjamin’s world court, by contrast, knows no judgment but only the attempt to
reach one. Whatremainsare the prosecutor with his complaint and the witnesses with
their contradictory testimonies. The last sentence of Benjamin’s text states that ‘‘only
the plaintiff and the witnesses remain [bleiben]’’ after ‘‘the entire jury has fled.’’ The
Messiah—and justice with him—have ‘‘failed to appear [Ausbleiben]’’ during the course
of the entire world historical process. At the end of historyremainsthe dispute about the
one who persistentlyremained absent. The judgment should have brought about a deci-
sion about whether to admit the grievance or not, but also a decision about whether the
accused, the one who remains absent, really remains absent and in what sense he might
do so. The question that remains open is not about the sense of being but rather about
the sense of the remaining [Bleiben] and remaining absent [Ausbleiben] of justice. This
question is resolved neither through a judgment nor through a judicial decision; neverthe-
less, Benjamin’s fable leaves the possibility open that a decision might still occur—yet
occur precisely through the dissolution of the court.
It is evident that the Messiah does not enter into history. It is equally evident that
messianic justice is not the object of a judgment. The mystery, however, lies in the fact
that the collapse of the historical trial about justice could itself be just. It could, indeed,
correspond to justice that it is not a theme of right, and it could be a testimony for justice
that right has to fail when a decision about justice needs to be reached. But what does it
mean that no judgment is possible about the Messiah—about justice and about the
human, along with his complaint and his testimony?
It might mean that justice cannot be an object of judgment and of decision, of con-
clusion and the formation of consent, since it is itself a process (Prozeß) thatasa process
can only remain just if it isn’t from the beginning concluded by a telos, a goal, or an
intentional object. Justice would thus be not a purpose but an event; it would be history
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