The Subject as Agony

Abstract

Through an analysis of a brief passage from the Gospels (Jesus’ Prayer in Gethsemane), the article attempts to show how Christianity has emphasized the aspect of agony in the constitution of the subject. Emerging from a fundamental fracture, the subject could be a stage for displacements, a continuous disconnecting and reconnecting of parts in search of a constitution always under threat. A such, Christianity must have promoted a sensitivity in which the subject, a structure of relationships heavily charged with esthesis, is organized starting from a primordial weakness and desire. The observation of Jesus’ intimacy –the topic of the analyzed passage− allows knowing the subject by antonomasia.