personal triumph; the belief salva this world, despite all sorrow, opposition, and
forgiveness and the absence anger and contempt; the absence desire rewarded;
the refusal be bound anybody; abandon ment that most spiritual and intellectual;
sense
tion death;
?
forgiveness and the absence anger and contempt; the absence desire rewarded;
the refusal be bound anybody; abandon ment that most spiritual and intellectual;
sense
tion death;
?
Nietzsche - Works - v14 - Will to Power - a
to of in
of
of
of
a it to
is
ofis is
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of
of
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? I28 THE WILL TO POWER.
and of the designs of the future: re-birth, im. mortality.
I 49.
greatest fetter, the most telling spur, and the strongest pinion,
Our belief in ourselves is the
Christianity ought to have elevated the innocence of man to the position of an article of belief-- men would then have become gods: in those days believing was still possible.
I 5 O.
The egregious history: were the corruption Paganism that opened the road Christianity. As matter fact, was the enfeeblement and moralisation of the man of
--> antiquity. The new interpretation natural functions, which made them appear like vices, had already gone before
I5
Religions are ultimately wrecked by the belief
? morality.
God becomes untenable,--hence "Atheism,"--as
The idea the Christian moral
though there could no other god.
Culture likewise wrecked by the belief
morality. For when the necessary and only possible conditions growth are revealed,
nobody will any longer countenance (Buddh ism).
? ? it
of it
as if it
of its
be ! alie of
is
of
in
to
in
of
I.
of
? CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
I 52.
I29
The physiology of Nihilistic religions. --All in
all, the Nihilistic religions are systematised histories of sickness described in religious and moral ter
minology.
*
In pagan cultures it is around the interpretation
of the great annual cycles that the religious cult turns; in Christianity it is around a cycle of
paralytic phenomena.
I 53.
This Nihilistic religion gathers together all the
decadent elements and things of like order which it can find in antiquity, viz. :--
(a) The weak and the botched (the refuse of the ancient world, and that of which it rid itself with most violence).
(b) Those who are morally obsessed and anti pagan.
(c) Those who are weary of politics and in different (the blase? Romans), the denationalised,
who know not what they are.
(d) Those who are tired of themselves--who
are happy to be party to a subterranean conspiracy.
I 54.
Buddha versus Christ. --Among the Nihilistic religions, Christianity and Buddhism may always
be sharply distinguished. Buddhism is the ex
pression of a fine evening, perfectly sweet and
mild--it is a sort of gratitude towards all that VOL. I. I
-
? ? ? ? I30
THE WILL TO POWER.
lies hidden, including that which it entirely lacks, viz. , bitterness, disillusionment, and resent ment. Finally it possesses lofty intellectual love; it has got over all the subtlety of philosophical
contradictions, and is even resting after
precisely from that source that intellectual glory and its glow
though
derives sunset
originated the higher classes).
Christianity degenerative movement, con
sisting
elements: race,
all the morbid elements which are
attractive and which gravitate one another. therefore not national religion, not
determined by race:
all kinds decaying and excremental not the expression the downfall from the root, an agglomeration
appeals the disinherited foundation resent
? everywhere;
ment against all that
need
damnation opposed
successful and dominant: symbol which represents the
everything successful and dominant. every form intellectual move
consists
ment, philosophy: takes up the cudgels
for idiots, and utters curse upon intellect. Resentment against those who are gifted, learned,
intellectually independent: all these suspects the element of success and domination.
55.
Buddhism this thought prevails: "All passions, everything which creates emotions and _-leads blood, call action"--to this extent
alone are believers warned against evil. For
mutually
? ? its
all is it it
to
In
is
to in It of
It
it . of of (it it is . a is
of it is,is in to of is
is aaa
to
I a isit
it ofa
of
in a of
it
all
of
of
a it,
to to of asit
->
its
? CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
I31
action has no sense, it merely binds one to
existence. All existence, however, has no sense.
Evil is interpreted as that which leads to irration alism: to the affirmation of means whose end is
denied. A road to nonentity is the desideratum,
hence all emotional impulses are regarded with horror. For instance: "On no account seek after
revenge! Be the enemy of no one! "--The Hedonism of the weary finds highest expression here. Nothing more utterly foreign Buddhism *
St. Paul: nothing"
its instinct than the the religious man, and,
above all, that form
Christianity with the name "Love. " Moreover,
the cultured and very intellectual classes who
find blessedness Buddhism: race wearied and besotted by centuries philosophical quarrels,
but not beneath all culture as those classes were from which Christianity sprang. the Buddhistic ideal, there essentially an emancipa
tion from good and evil: very subtle suggestion Beyond all morality thought out its teaching, and this Beyond supposed be
compatible with perfection,--the condition being,
that even good actions are only needed pro tem,
than the Jewish fanaticism
could be more contrary tension, fire, and unrest
? merely means,--that say, free from all action.
56.
order be
sensuality which sanctifies
How very curious see Nihilistic religion such Christianity, sprung from, and keeping with, decrepit and worn-out people, who have
? ? a as
it
is I
in is
to
is
a
of
of to
a to
is is to in
a
of
to
its
in in
. . .
as a
to
In
of a
it is
to
is of
/
? I32
THE WILL TO POWER.
outlived all strong instincts, being transferred step
by step to another environment--that is to say, to a land of young people, who have not yet lived at all. The joy of the final chapter, of the fold and of the evening, preached to barbarians and Germans! How thoroughly all of it must first have been barbarised, Germanised ! To those who had dreamed of a Walhalla : who found happiness only in war! --A supernational religion preached in the midst of chaos, where no nations get existed even.
I 57.
The only way to refute priests and religions is
this: to show that their errors are no longer
beneficent--that they are rather harmful; in short,
that their own "proof of power" no longer holds good. . . .
2. CONCERNING THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY.
158.
Christianity as an historical reality should not be confounded with that one root which its name
recalls. The other roots, from which it has
sprung, are by far the more important. It is an unprecedented abuse of names to identify such
manifestations of decay and such abortions as the "Christian Church," "Christian belief," and
"Christian life," with that Holy Name. What did Christ deny? --Everything which to-day is called Christian,
? ? ? ? CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
I 59.
I33
The whole of the Christian creed--all Christian "truth," is idle falsehood and deception, and is
precisely
bottom of the first Christian movement.
the reverse of that which was at the
All that which in the ecclesiastical sense is
Christian, is just exactly what is most radically
anti-Christian: crowds of things and people appear instead of symbols, history takes the place of
eternal facts, it is forms, rites, and dogmas instead "practice" life. To really
Christian would mean be absolutely indifferent dogmas, cults, priests, church, and theology.
The practice Christianity no more an im possible phantasy than the practice Buddhism is: merely means happiness.
I6O.
Jesus goes straight the point, the "Kingdom
of Heaven" the heart, and He does not find the
means duty the Jewish Church; He even
regards the reality Judaism (its need main
tain itself) nothing; He concerned purely with the inner man.
Neither does He make anything all the coarse forms relating man's intercourse with God: He opposed the whole the teaching
repentance and atonement; He points out how
man ought live order feel himself "deified," and how futile on his part hope live
? properly by showing repentance
and contrition
? ? to
of
of
be
to
/
A4
of
to
to to
in
it is
of toasin a
is
itin to aof
is of all
to to
to toof
of
to
is
is
? I34
THE WILL TO POWER.
for his sins. "Sin is of no account" is practically his chief standpoint.
Sin, repentance, forgiveness,--all
this does not belong to Christianity . . . it is Judaism or
Paganism which has become mixed up with Christ's teaching.
I6 I.
The Kingdom of Heaven is a state of the heart
(of children it is written, "for theirs is the
Kingdom of Heaven"): it has nothing to do with superterrestrial things. The Kingdom of God "cometh," not chronologically or historically, not
on a certain day in the calendar; it is not something which one day appears and was not previously there; it is a "change of feeling in the individual,"
it is something which may come at any time and which may be absent at any time. . . .
I62.
The thief on the cross :--When the criminal him self, who endures a painful death, declares: "the way this Jesus suffers and dies, without a murmur of revolt or enmity, graciously and resignedly, is the only right way," he assents to the gospel; and by this very fact he is in Paradise. . . .
I63.
Jesus bids us:--not to resist, either by deeds or in our heart, him who ill-treats us;
He bids us admit of no grounds for separating ourselves from our wives;
? ? ? ? CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
I35
He bids us make no distinction between A foreigners and fellow-countrymen, strangers and familiars;
He bids us show anger to no one, and treat no one with contempt;--give alms secretly; not to desire to become rich;--not to swear;--not to
stand in judgment;--become reconciled with our
enemies and forgive offences;--not to in public.
"Blessedness" is nothing promised: it is here,
with we only wish live and act par- ticular way.
I64.
justice abominable corruption
"And whosoever shall not Verily say unto you, shall
? 2. /
? Additions --The whole the
Subsequent
prophet- and thaumaturgist-attitudes and the bad temper; while the conjuring-up supreme
tribunal
(see Mark receive you.
more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrha," etc. ). The "fig tree" (Matt. xxi. 18, 19): "Now the morning returned into the city, hungered.
And when he saw fig tree the way, came and found nothing thereon, but leaves only,
and said unto Let no fruit grow on thee hence forward for ever. And presently the fig tree withered away. "
I65.
The teaching rewards and punishments has become mixed up with Christianity way
quite absurd; everything thereby spoilt.
which
? ? is
us, if
is
in a
he
he in It
of a
in of a
it, of
. vi.
to it,
be
a
. 1 1:
in
as he
of
is I an
to
"
? 136
THE WILL TO POWER.
In the same way, the practice of the first ecclesia militans, of the Apostle Paul and his attitude, is
put forward as if it had been commanded or pre determined.
The subsequent glorification of the actual life and teaching of the first Christians: as if every thing had been prescribed beforehand and had been only a matter of following directions And as for the fulfilment of scriptural prophecies: how much of all that is more than forgery and cooking?
I66.
? /
|-> ordinary life: nothing could have been more
Jesus opposed a real life, a life in truth, to
foreign to His mind than the somewhat heavy nonsense of an "eternal Peter,"--of the eternal duration of a single person. Precisely what He combats is the exaggerated importance of the
"person": how can He wish to immortalise it?
He likewise combats the hierarchy within the community; He never promises a certain propor
tion of reward for a certain proportion of deserts: how can He have meant to teach the doctrine of
punishment and reward in a Beyond P
167.
Christianity is an ingenuous attempt at bringing about a Buddhistic movement in favour of peace, sprung from the very heart of the resenting masses . . . but transformed by Paul into a mysterious pagan cult, which was ultimately able to accord
-
? ? ? *
with the whole of State organisation . . . and which carries on war, condemns, tortures, conjures, and hates.
Paul bases his teaching upon the need of mystery felt by the great masses capable of religious emotions: he seeks a victim, a bloody phantasmagoria, which may be equal to a contest with the images of a secret cult: God on the cross, the drinking of blood, the unio mystica with the "Victim. "
He seeks the prolongation of life after death (the blessed and atoned after-life of the individual soul) which he puts in causal relation with the victim already referred to (according to the type of Dionysos, Mithras, Osiris).
He feels the necessity of bringing notions of guilt and sin into the foreground, not a new practice of life (as Jesus Himself demonstrated and
taught), but a new cult, a new belief, a beliefin a mira
culous metamorphosis ("Salvation" through belief).
He understood the great needs of the pagan world, and he gave quite an absolutely arbitrary
picture of those two plain facts, Christ's life and
death. He gave the whole a new accent, altering the equilibrium everywhere . . . he was one of
the most active destroyers of primitive Christianity.
The attempt made on the life of priests and theo
logians culminated, thanks to Paul, in a new priest:
hood and theology--a ruling caste and a Church. The attempt made to suppress the fussy im*
portance of the "person," culminated in the belief in the eternal "personality" (and in the anxiety concerning "eternal salvation" . . and the
CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
137
? ? ? . ),
in
/
f
? THE WILL TO POWER.
138
most paradoxical exaggeration of individual egoism.
This is the humorous side of the question--
tragic humour: Paul again set up on a large scale
precisely what Jesus had overthrown by His life.
At last, when the Church edifice was complete, it even sanctioned the existence of the State.
I68.
The Church is precisely that against which Jesus inveighed--and against which He taught
His disciples to fight.
I69.
A God who died for our sins, salvation through faith, resurrection after death--all these things are the counterfeit coins of real Christianity, for which that pernicious blockhead Paul must be held responsible.
The life which must serve as an example consists in love and humility; in the abundance of hearty emotion which does not even exclude the lowliest; in the formal renunciation of all desire of making
rights felt, all defence; conquest, the
?
personal triumph; the belief salva this world, despite all sorrow, opposition, and
forgiveness and the absence anger and contempt; the absence desire rewarded;
the refusal be bound anybody; abandon ment that most spiritual and intellectual;
sense
tion death;
? ? to all
in
in of
to is
of
in
its
of to a
in
of
in
to
be of
in
in
.
? CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
I39
A. --in fact, a very proud life controlled by the will 4 *
of a servile and poor life.
Once the Church had allowed itself to take
over all the Christian practice, and had formally
sanctioned the State,--that kind of life which Jesus combats and condemns,--it was obliged to lay
the sense of Christianity in other things than early Christian ideals--that is to say, in the faith in
incredible things, in the ceremonial of prayers, worship, feasts, etc. etc. The notions "sin," "for giveness," "punishment," "reward"--everything,
in fact, which had nothing in common with, and was quite absent from, primitive Christianity, now
comes into the foreground.
An appalling stew of Greek philosophy and
Judaism; asceticism; continual judgments and condemnations; the order of rank, etc.
17o.
Christianity has, from the first, always trans formed the symbolical into crude realities:
(1) The antitheses "true life" and "false life. " were misunderstood and changed into "life here" and "life beyond. "
(2) The notion "eternal life," as opposed to
the personal life which is ephemeral, is translated into "personal immortality";
(3) The process of fraternising by means of sharing the same food and drink, after the Hebrew
Arabian manner, is interpreted as the "miracle of transubstantiation. "
(4) "Resurrection" which was intended to
? ? ? ? I4O
THE WILL TO POWER.
mean the entrance to the "true life," in the sense of being intellectually "born again," becomes an historical contingency, supposed to take place at some moment after death;
(5) The teaching of the Son of man as the "Son of God,"--that is to say, the life-relationship
between man and God,--becomes the "second person of the Trinity," and thus the filial relation ship of every man--even the lowest--to God, is done away with ;
(6) Salvation through faith (that is to say, that
there is no other way to this filial relationship to God, save through the practice of life taught by
Christ) becomes transformed into the belief that
there is a miraculous way of atoning for all sin; though not through our own endeavours, but by means of Christ:
For all these purposes, "Christ on the Cross"
had to be interpreted afresh. The death itself
would certainly not be the principal feature of the
event . . . it was only another sign pointing to
the way in which one should behave towards the authorities and the laws of the world--that one
was not to defend oneself--this was the exemplary life.
I7 I.
Concerning the psychology of Paul--The im
portant fact is Christ's death. This remains to be explained. . . . That there may be truth or
error in an explanation never entered these people's heads: one day a sublime possibility
strikes them, "His death might mean so and so "
? ? ? ? CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
I4I
--and it forthwith becomes so and so. An hypo
thesis is proved by the sublime ardour it lends to its discoverer. .
"The proof of strength": i. e. , a thought is
demonstrated by effects ("by their fruits,"
the Bible ingenuously says); that which fires en thusiasm must be true,--what one loses one's blood for must be true--
every department this world thought,
the sudden feeling power which an idea imparts him who responsible for placed the credit of that idea:--and as there seems no other way honouring idea than by calling true,
the first epithet honoured with the word true. How could have any effect other wise? was imagined by some power: that power were not real, could not the cause anything. The thought then understood
inspired: the effect causes has something the violent nature of demoniacal influence--
thought which decadent like Paul could
? not resist and which thus "proved" true! ! !
completely yields,
All these holy epileptics and visionaries did not possess thousandth part the honesty
philologist, nowadays, reads text, tests the truth an historical
self-criticism with which
event. cretins.
Beside us, such people were moral 72.
thing effective: total absence
true, intellectual
matters little whether provided
? ? It
it. . .
be
a . is
of
of it
a
of
he
is
it, is
be
if
to
I
a
it
of
or
to
aait it
it
is an
of
be
is
A as to
. of In . a It.
in is ofof
as
of
its
? I42
THE WILL TO POWER.
uprightness. Everything is good, whether it be lying, slander, or shameless "cooking," provided
it serve to heighten the degree of heat to the
point at which people "believe. "
We are face to face with an actual school for
the teaching of the means wherewith men are seduced to a belief: we see systematic contempt for
those spheres whence contradiction might come (that is to say, for reason, philosophy, wisdom,
doubt, and caution); a shameless praising and glorification of the teaching, with continual refer
ences to the fact that it was God who presented us with it--that the apostle signifies nothing--
that no criticism is brooked, but only faith, ac ceptance; that it is the greatest blessing and
favour to receive such a doctrine of salvation; that the state in which one should receive
ought one the profoundest thankfulness and humility.
The resentment which the lowly feel against all those high places, continually turned
account: the fact that this teaching revealed them the reverse the wisdom the world, against the power the world, seduces them
This teaching convinces the outcasts and the
? botched all sorts and conditions; blessedness, advantages, and privileges
insignificant and most humble men;
promises
the most fanaticises the poor, the small, and the foolish, and fills them
with insane vanity, though they were the mean
ing and salt the earth. -
Again, say, all this cannot be sufficiently
contemned, we spare ourselves criticism the
? ? a
of
I of of
to
as
of of
of is
it toit
ofis
to to to
it.
as
in
be
. . .
it,
? --the
CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
I43
teaching; it is sufficient to take note of the means it uses in order to be aware of the nature of the
phenomenon one is examining. It identified itself with virtue, it appropriated the whole of the fasci nating power of virtue, shamelessly, for its own
purposes . . . it availed itself of the power of
paradox, and of the need, manifested by old civilisations, for pepper and absurdity; it amazed
and revolted at the same time; it provoked per secutions and ill-treatment.
It is the same kind of well-thought-out meanness with which the Jewish priesthood established their power and built up their Church. . . .
One must be able to discern: (1) that warmth of passion "love" (resting on a base of ardent sensuality); (2) the thoroughly ignoble character of Christianity:--the continual exaggeration and verbosity;--the lack of cool intellectuality and irony;--the unmilitary character of all instincts;
? priestly prejudices against manly pride, sensuality, the sciences, the arts.
I73.
Paul seeks power against ruling Judaism,--
his attempt too weak.
the notion "Jew": the "race"
means denying the very basis
ture. The "martyr," the "fanatic," the value
strong belief Christianity the form decay the old world, after the latter's collapse, and
characterised by the fact that brings all the most sickly and unhealthy elements and needs the top.
Transvaluation put aside: but that the whole struc
? ? it
is
of is
. .
to
of
its
of all
it is
of
of
: is
? I44
THE WILL TO POWER.
Consequently other instincts had to step into the foreground, in order to constitute an entity, a power
able to stand alone--in short, a condition of tense
sorrow was necessary, like that out of which the
Jews had derived their instinct of self-preserva tion. . . .
The persecution of Christians was invaluable for this purpose.
Unity in the face of danger; the conversion of
the masses becomes the only means of putting an
end to the persecution of the individual. (The notion "conversion" is therefore made as elastic
as possible. )
I 74.
The Christian Judaic life: here resentment did not prevail. The great persecutions alone could
have driven out the passions to that extent--as
also the ardour of love and hate.
When the creatures a man most loves are
sacrificed before his eyes for the sake of his faith, that man becomes aggressive; the triumph of Christianity is due to its persecutors.
Asceticism is not specifically Christian: this is what Schopenhauer misunderstood. It only shoots up in Christianity, wherever it would have existed without that religion.
? the torture and tor a particular soil, where Christian values have taken
Melancholy Christianity,
ment of the conscience, is also only a peculiarity of
root: it is not
Christianity properly speaking.
Christianity
of diseases which grow from morbid soil: one could
has absorbed all the different kinds
? ? ? anity type
decadence.
75.
CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
I45
reproach it simply with the fact that it did not
know how to resist any contagion. But that
precisely is the essential feature of Christi
The reality which Christianity was able
build up its power consisted the small dispersed Jewish families, with their warmth, tenderness, and peculiar readiness help, which, the whole
the Roman Empire, was perhaps the most incom
being "chosen people," concealed beneath
cloak humility, and by their secret denial all that was uppermost and that possessed power
and splendour, although there was no shade envy their denial. To have recognised this
power, have regarded this blessed state com
pagans
genius: use up the treasure latent energy and cautious happiness for the purposes "a Jewish Church free confession," and avail himself all the Jewish experience, their propa ganda, and their expertness the preservation
community under foreign power--this what
he conceived be his duty. He was who
discovered that absolutely unpolitical and isolated body paltry people, and their art asserting
themselves and pushing themselves the front,
by means host acquired virtues which are VOL. K
prehensible
? and least familiar their character istics; they were also united by their pride
municable, seductive,
and infectious even where were concerned--this constituted Paul's
? ? I.
of
of to
toin ofa
is a
of a
of
to of
it
it.
to
a
of
on to
of I
a
is
to
of
as
of
in
of
of of
of
as
a of
a at
of
to
to
"*----
? 146
THE WILL TO POWER.
made to represent the only forms of virtue ("the self-preservative measure and weapon of success
of a certain class of man").
The principle of love comes from the small community of Jewish people: a very passionate
soul glows here, beneath the ashes of humility and
wretchedness: it is neither Greek, Indian, nor
German. The song in praise of love which Paul
wrote is not Christian; it is the Jewish flare of that
eternal flame which is Semitic. If Christianity has done anything essentially new in a psychological
sense, it is this, that it has increased the temperature of the soul among those cooler and more noble
races who were at that time at the head of affairs; it discovered that the most wretched life could be
made rich and invaluable, by means of an eleva tion of the temperature of the soul. . . .
It is easily understood that a transfer of this sort
could not take place among the ruling classes: the
Jews and Christians were at a disadvantage owing
to their bad manners--spiritual strength and
passion, when accompanied by bad manners, only
? provoke loathing
(I become aware of these bad
manners while reading the New Testament). It
was necessary to be related both in baseness and
sorrow with this type of lower manhood in order
to feel anything attractive in him. . . . The atti
tude a man maintains towards the New Testament
is a test of the amount of classical taste he may have in him (see Tacitus); he who is not revolted by who does not feel honestly and deeply that the presence sort faeda superstitio when reading and who does not draw
? ? it,
he he is
in
of a
of
it,
? CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
I47
his hand back so as not to soil his fingers--such a man does not know what is classical. A man
must feel about "the cross" as Goethe did. "
176.
The reaction of paltry people --Love provides
the feeling of highest power. It should be under stood to what extent, not man in general, but only a certain kind of man is speaking here.
"We are godly in love, we shall be "the children of God"; God loves us and wants nothing from us save love"; that is to say: all morality, obedi ence, and action, do not produce the same feeling
of power and freedom as love does;--a man does
nothing wicked from sheer love, but he does much
more than if he were prompted by obedience and virtue alone.
Here is the happiness of the herd, the communal feeling in big things as in small, the living senti
ment of unity felt as the sum of the feeling of life. Helping, caring for, and being useful, constantly
kindle the feeling of power; visible success, the
* Vieles kann ich ertragen. Die meisten beschwerlichen , Dinge
? Duld' ich mit ruhigem Mut, wie es ein Gott mir gebeut. Wenige sind mir jedoch wie Gift und Schlange zuwider;
Viere: Rauch des Tabaks, Wanzen, und Knoblauch und *. Goethe's Venetian Epigrams, No. 67.
Much can I bear. Things the most irksome
I endure with such patience as comes from a god. Four things, however, repulse me like venom --
Tobacco smoke, garlic, bugs, and the cross. --(TRANSLATOR's NoTE. )
? ? ? 148
THE WILL TO POWER.
expression of pleasure, emphasise the feeling of power; pride is not lacking either, it is felt in the
form of the community, the House of God, and the "chosen people. "
As a matter of fact, man has once more experi enced an "alte? ration" of his personality: this time he called his feeling of love--God. The awaken
ing of such a feeling must be pictured; it is a sort of ecstasy, a strange language, a "Gospel"--it was this newness which did not allow man to attribute
love to himself--he thought it was God leading
him on and taking shape in his heart. "God
descends among men," one's neighbour is trans
figured and becomes a God (in so far as he provokes
the sentiment of love). Jesus is the neighbour, the moment He is transfigured in thought into a God,
and into a cause provoking the feeling of power.
177.
Believers are aware that they owe an infinite
amount to Christianity, and therefore conclude that its Founder must have been a man of the
first rank. . . . This conclusion is false, but it is typical of the reverents. Regarded objectively, it the first place, just possible that they are
mistaken concerning the extent their debt Christianity: man's convictions prove nothing concerning the thing he convinced about, and
religions they are more likely give rise
suspicions. debt owing Founder
? Secondly, possible Christianity not due its
that the all, but the whole structure, the
? ? at
to .
in a
it is is
to
.
to
is
in
is,
to
of
to
to
? CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
I49
whole thing--to the Church, etc. The notion
"Founder" is so very equivocal, that it may stand even for the accidental cause of a movement:
the person of the Founder has been inflated in proportion as the Church has grown: but even this process of veneration allows of the conclusion that, at one time or other, this Founder was some thing exceedingly
insecure and doubtful--in the
beginning. . . . Let any one think of the free and
easy way in which Paul treats the problem of the personality of Jesus, how he almost juggles with
it: some one who died, who was seen after His
death, -some one whom the Jews delivered up to
death--all this was only the theme--Paul wrote the music to it.
178.
The founder of a religion may be quite insignifi cant--a wax vesta and no more !
I 79.
Concerning the psychological problem of Christi
anity. -- The driving forces are : resentment,
popular insurrection, the revolt of the bungled and
the botched. (In Buddhism it is different: it #) not born of resentment. It rather combats resent
ment because the latter leads to action. )
This party, which stands for freedom, under stands that the abandonment of antagonism in thought and deed is a condition of distinction and
preservation. Here lies the psychological difficulty which has stood in the way of Christianity being
?
of
of
of
a it to
is
ofis is
I
of
of
is
is
of to in
se, of
a it
of to ;is to
inaa a
of as itis to
is
is is a is
in
? I28 THE WILL TO POWER.
and of the designs of the future: re-birth, im. mortality.
I 49.
greatest fetter, the most telling spur, and the strongest pinion,
Our belief in ourselves is the
Christianity ought to have elevated the innocence of man to the position of an article of belief-- men would then have become gods: in those days believing was still possible.
I 5 O.
The egregious history: were the corruption Paganism that opened the road Christianity. As matter fact, was the enfeeblement and moralisation of the man of
--> antiquity. The new interpretation natural functions, which made them appear like vices, had already gone before
I5
Religions are ultimately wrecked by the belief
? morality.
God becomes untenable,--hence "Atheism,"--as
The idea the Christian moral
though there could no other god.
Culture likewise wrecked by the belief
morality. For when the necessary and only possible conditions growth are revealed,
nobody will any longer countenance (Buddh ism).
? ? it
of it
as if it
of its
be ! alie of
is
of
in
to
in
of
I.
of
? CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
I 52.
I29
The physiology of Nihilistic religions. --All in
all, the Nihilistic religions are systematised histories of sickness described in religious and moral ter
minology.
*
In pagan cultures it is around the interpretation
of the great annual cycles that the religious cult turns; in Christianity it is around a cycle of
paralytic phenomena.
I 53.
This Nihilistic religion gathers together all the
decadent elements and things of like order which it can find in antiquity, viz. :--
(a) The weak and the botched (the refuse of the ancient world, and that of which it rid itself with most violence).
(b) Those who are morally obsessed and anti pagan.
(c) Those who are weary of politics and in different (the blase? Romans), the denationalised,
who know not what they are.
(d) Those who are tired of themselves--who
are happy to be party to a subterranean conspiracy.
I 54.
Buddha versus Christ. --Among the Nihilistic religions, Christianity and Buddhism may always
be sharply distinguished. Buddhism is the ex
pression of a fine evening, perfectly sweet and
mild--it is a sort of gratitude towards all that VOL. I. I
-
? ? ? ? I30
THE WILL TO POWER.
lies hidden, including that which it entirely lacks, viz. , bitterness, disillusionment, and resent ment. Finally it possesses lofty intellectual love; it has got over all the subtlety of philosophical
contradictions, and is even resting after
precisely from that source that intellectual glory and its glow
though
derives sunset
originated the higher classes).
Christianity degenerative movement, con
sisting
elements: race,
all the morbid elements which are
attractive and which gravitate one another. therefore not national religion, not
determined by race:
all kinds decaying and excremental not the expression the downfall from the root, an agglomeration
appeals the disinherited foundation resent
? everywhere;
ment against all that
need
damnation opposed
successful and dominant: symbol which represents the
everything successful and dominant. every form intellectual move
consists
ment, philosophy: takes up the cudgels
for idiots, and utters curse upon intellect. Resentment against those who are gifted, learned,
intellectually independent: all these suspects the element of success and domination.
55.
Buddhism this thought prevails: "All passions, everything which creates emotions and _-leads blood, call action"--to this extent
alone are believers warned against evil. For
mutually
? ? its
all is it it
to
In
is
to in It of
It
it . of of (it it is . a is
of it is,is in to of is
is aaa
to
I a isit
it ofa
of
in a of
it
all
of
of
a it,
to to of asit
->
its
? CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
I31
action has no sense, it merely binds one to
existence. All existence, however, has no sense.
Evil is interpreted as that which leads to irration alism: to the affirmation of means whose end is
denied. A road to nonentity is the desideratum,
hence all emotional impulses are regarded with horror. For instance: "On no account seek after
revenge! Be the enemy of no one! "--The Hedonism of the weary finds highest expression here. Nothing more utterly foreign Buddhism *
St. Paul: nothing"
its instinct than the the religious man, and,
above all, that form
Christianity with the name "Love. " Moreover,
the cultured and very intellectual classes who
find blessedness Buddhism: race wearied and besotted by centuries philosophical quarrels,
but not beneath all culture as those classes were from which Christianity sprang. the Buddhistic ideal, there essentially an emancipa
tion from good and evil: very subtle suggestion Beyond all morality thought out its teaching, and this Beyond supposed be
compatible with perfection,--the condition being,
that even good actions are only needed pro tem,
than the Jewish fanaticism
could be more contrary tension, fire, and unrest
? merely means,--that say, free from all action.
56.
order be
sensuality which sanctifies
How very curious see Nihilistic religion such Christianity, sprung from, and keeping with, decrepit and worn-out people, who have
? ? a as
it
is I
in is
to
is
a
of
of to
a to
is is to in
a
of
to
its
in in
. . .
as a
to
In
of a
it is
to
is of
/
? I32
THE WILL TO POWER.
outlived all strong instincts, being transferred step
by step to another environment--that is to say, to a land of young people, who have not yet lived at all. The joy of the final chapter, of the fold and of the evening, preached to barbarians and Germans! How thoroughly all of it must first have been barbarised, Germanised ! To those who had dreamed of a Walhalla : who found happiness only in war! --A supernational religion preached in the midst of chaos, where no nations get existed even.
I 57.
The only way to refute priests and religions is
this: to show that their errors are no longer
beneficent--that they are rather harmful; in short,
that their own "proof of power" no longer holds good. . . .
2. CONCERNING THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY.
158.
Christianity as an historical reality should not be confounded with that one root which its name
recalls. The other roots, from which it has
sprung, are by far the more important. It is an unprecedented abuse of names to identify such
manifestations of decay and such abortions as the "Christian Church," "Christian belief," and
"Christian life," with that Holy Name. What did Christ deny? --Everything which to-day is called Christian,
? ? ? ? CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
I 59.
I33
The whole of the Christian creed--all Christian "truth," is idle falsehood and deception, and is
precisely
bottom of the first Christian movement.
the reverse of that which was at the
All that which in the ecclesiastical sense is
Christian, is just exactly what is most radically
anti-Christian: crowds of things and people appear instead of symbols, history takes the place of
eternal facts, it is forms, rites, and dogmas instead "practice" life. To really
Christian would mean be absolutely indifferent dogmas, cults, priests, church, and theology.
The practice Christianity no more an im possible phantasy than the practice Buddhism is: merely means happiness.
I6O.
Jesus goes straight the point, the "Kingdom
of Heaven" the heart, and He does not find the
means duty the Jewish Church; He even
regards the reality Judaism (its need main
tain itself) nothing; He concerned purely with the inner man.
Neither does He make anything all the coarse forms relating man's intercourse with God: He opposed the whole the teaching
repentance and atonement; He points out how
man ought live order feel himself "deified," and how futile on his part hope live
? properly by showing repentance
and contrition
? ? to
of
of
be
to
/
A4
of
to
to to
in
it is
of toasin a
is
itin to aof
is of all
to to
to toof
of
to
is
is
? I34
THE WILL TO POWER.
for his sins. "Sin is of no account" is practically his chief standpoint.
Sin, repentance, forgiveness,--all
this does not belong to Christianity . . . it is Judaism or
Paganism which has become mixed up with Christ's teaching.
I6 I.
The Kingdom of Heaven is a state of the heart
(of children it is written, "for theirs is the
Kingdom of Heaven"): it has nothing to do with superterrestrial things. The Kingdom of God "cometh," not chronologically or historically, not
on a certain day in the calendar; it is not something which one day appears and was not previously there; it is a "change of feeling in the individual,"
it is something which may come at any time and which may be absent at any time. . . .
I62.
The thief on the cross :--When the criminal him self, who endures a painful death, declares: "the way this Jesus suffers and dies, without a murmur of revolt or enmity, graciously and resignedly, is the only right way," he assents to the gospel; and by this very fact he is in Paradise. . . .
I63.
Jesus bids us:--not to resist, either by deeds or in our heart, him who ill-treats us;
He bids us admit of no grounds for separating ourselves from our wives;
? ? ? ? CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
I35
He bids us make no distinction between A foreigners and fellow-countrymen, strangers and familiars;
He bids us show anger to no one, and treat no one with contempt;--give alms secretly; not to desire to become rich;--not to swear;--not to
stand in judgment;--become reconciled with our
enemies and forgive offences;--not to in public.
"Blessedness" is nothing promised: it is here,
with we only wish live and act par- ticular way.
I64.
justice abominable corruption
"And whosoever shall not Verily say unto you, shall
? 2. /
? Additions --The whole the
Subsequent
prophet- and thaumaturgist-attitudes and the bad temper; while the conjuring-up supreme
tribunal
(see Mark receive you.
more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrha," etc. ). The "fig tree" (Matt. xxi. 18, 19): "Now the morning returned into the city, hungered.
And when he saw fig tree the way, came and found nothing thereon, but leaves only,
and said unto Let no fruit grow on thee hence forward for ever. And presently the fig tree withered away. "
I65.
The teaching rewards and punishments has become mixed up with Christianity way
quite absurd; everything thereby spoilt.
which
? ? is
us, if
is
in a
he
he in It
of a
in of a
it, of
. vi.
to it,
be
a
. 1 1:
in
as he
of
is I an
to
"
? 136
THE WILL TO POWER.
In the same way, the practice of the first ecclesia militans, of the Apostle Paul and his attitude, is
put forward as if it had been commanded or pre determined.
The subsequent glorification of the actual life and teaching of the first Christians: as if every thing had been prescribed beforehand and had been only a matter of following directions And as for the fulfilment of scriptural prophecies: how much of all that is more than forgery and cooking?
I66.
? /
|-> ordinary life: nothing could have been more
Jesus opposed a real life, a life in truth, to
foreign to His mind than the somewhat heavy nonsense of an "eternal Peter,"--of the eternal duration of a single person. Precisely what He combats is the exaggerated importance of the
"person": how can He wish to immortalise it?
He likewise combats the hierarchy within the community; He never promises a certain propor
tion of reward for a certain proportion of deserts: how can He have meant to teach the doctrine of
punishment and reward in a Beyond P
167.
Christianity is an ingenuous attempt at bringing about a Buddhistic movement in favour of peace, sprung from the very heart of the resenting masses . . . but transformed by Paul into a mysterious pagan cult, which was ultimately able to accord
-
? ? ? *
with the whole of State organisation . . . and which carries on war, condemns, tortures, conjures, and hates.
Paul bases his teaching upon the need of mystery felt by the great masses capable of religious emotions: he seeks a victim, a bloody phantasmagoria, which may be equal to a contest with the images of a secret cult: God on the cross, the drinking of blood, the unio mystica with the "Victim. "
He seeks the prolongation of life after death (the blessed and atoned after-life of the individual soul) which he puts in causal relation with the victim already referred to (according to the type of Dionysos, Mithras, Osiris).
He feels the necessity of bringing notions of guilt and sin into the foreground, not a new practice of life (as Jesus Himself demonstrated and
taught), but a new cult, a new belief, a beliefin a mira
culous metamorphosis ("Salvation" through belief).
He understood the great needs of the pagan world, and he gave quite an absolutely arbitrary
picture of those two plain facts, Christ's life and
death. He gave the whole a new accent, altering the equilibrium everywhere . . . he was one of
the most active destroyers of primitive Christianity.
The attempt made on the life of priests and theo
logians culminated, thanks to Paul, in a new priest:
hood and theology--a ruling caste and a Church. The attempt made to suppress the fussy im*
portance of the "person," culminated in the belief in the eternal "personality" (and in the anxiety concerning "eternal salvation" . . and the
CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
137
? ? ? . ),
in
/
f
? THE WILL TO POWER.
138
most paradoxical exaggeration of individual egoism.
This is the humorous side of the question--
tragic humour: Paul again set up on a large scale
precisely what Jesus had overthrown by His life.
At last, when the Church edifice was complete, it even sanctioned the existence of the State.
I68.
The Church is precisely that against which Jesus inveighed--and against which He taught
His disciples to fight.
I69.
A God who died for our sins, salvation through faith, resurrection after death--all these things are the counterfeit coins of real Christianity, for which that pernicious blockhead Paul must be held responsible.
The life which must serve as an example consists in love and humility; in the abundance of hearty emotion which does not even exclude the lowliest; in the formal renunciation of all desire of making
rights felt, all defence; conquest, the
?
personal triumph; the belief salva this world, despite all sorrow, opposition, and
forgiveness and the absence anger and contempt; the absence desire rewarded;
the refusal be bound anybody; abandon ment that most spiritual and intellectual;
sense
tion death;
? ? to all
in
in of
to is
of
in
its
of to a
in
of
in
to
be of
in
in
.
? CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
I39
A. --in fact, a very proud life controlled by the will 4 *
of a servile and poor life.
Once the Church had allowed itself to take
over all the Christian practice, and had formally
sanctioned the State,--that kind of life which Jesus combats and condemns,--it was obliged to lay
the sense of Christianity in other things than early Christian ideals--that is to say, in the faith in
incredible things, in the ceremonial of prayers, worship, feasts, etc. etc. The notions "sin," "for giveness," "punishment," "reward"--everything,
in fact, which had nothing in common with, and was quite absent from, primitive Christianity, now
comes into the foreground.
An appalling stew of Greek philosophy and
Judaism; asceticism; continual judgments and condemnations; the order of rank, etc.
17o.
Christianity has, from the first, always trans formed the symbolical into crude realities:
(1) The antitheses "true life" and "false life. " were misunderstood and changed into "life here" and "life beyond. "
(2) The notion "eternal life," as opposed to
the personal life which is ephemeral, is translated into "personal immortality";
(3) The process of fraternising by means of sharing the same food and drink, after the Hebrew
Arabian manner, is interpreted as the "miracle of transubstantiation. "
(4) "Resurrection" which was intended to
? ? ? ? I4O
THE WILL TO POWER.
mean the entrance to the "true life," in the sense of being intellectually "born again," becomes an historical contingency, supposed to take place at some moment after death;
(5) The teaching of the Son of man as the "Son of God,"--that is to say, the life-relationship
between man and God,--becomes the "second person of the Trinity," and thus the filial relation ship of every man--even the lowest--to God, is done away with ;
(6) Salvation through faith (that is to say, that
there is no other way to this filial relationship to God, save through the practice of life taught by
Christ) becomes transformed into the belief that
there is a miraculous way of atoning for all sin; though not through our own endeavours, but by means of Christ:
For all these purposes, "Christ on the Cross"
had to be interpreted afresh. The death itself
would certainly not be the principal feature of the
event . . . it was only another sign pointing to
the way in which one should behave towards the authorities and the laws of the world--that one
was not to defend oneself--this was the exemplary life.
I7 I.
Concerning the psychology of Paul--The im
portant fact is Christ's death. This remains to be explained. . . . That there may be truth or
error in an explanation never entered these people's heads: one day a sublime possibility
strikes them, "His death might mean so and so "
? ? ? ? CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
I4I
--and it forthwith becomes so and so. An hypo
thesis is proved by the sublime ardour it lends to its discoverer. .
"The proof of strength": i. e. , a thought is
demonstrated by effects ("by their fruits,"
the Bible ingenuously says); that which fires en thusiasm must be true,--what one loses one's blood for must be true--
every department this world thought,
the sudden feeling power which an idea imparts him who responsible for placed the credit of that idea:--and as there seems no other way honouring idea than by calling true,
the first epithet honoured with the word true. How could have any effect other wise? was imagined by some power: that power were not real, could not the cause anything. The thought then understood
inspired: the effect causes has something the violent nature of demoniacal influence--
thought which decadent like Paul could
? not resist and which thus "proved" true! ! !
completely yields,
All these holy epileptics and visionaries did not possess thousandth part the honesty
philologist, nowadays, reads text, tests the truth an historical
self-criticism with which
event. cretins.
Beside us, such people were moral 72.
thing effective: total absence
true, intellectual
matters little whether provided
? ? It
it. . .
be
a . is
of
of it
a
of
he
is
it, is
be
if
to
I
a
it
of
or
to
aait it
it
is an
of
be
is
A as to
. of In . a It.
in is ofof
as
of
its
? I42
THE WILL TO POWER.
uprightness. Everything is good, whether it be lying, slander, or shameless "cooking," provided
it serve to heighten the degree of heat to the
point at which people "believe. "
We are face to face with an actual school for
the teaching of the means wherewith men are seduced to a belief: we see systematic contempt for
those spheres whence contradiction might come (that is to say, for reason, philosophy, wisdom,
doubt, and caution); a shameless praising and glorification of the teaching, with continual refer
ences to the fact that it was God who presented us with it--that the apostle signifies nothing--
that no criticism is brooked, but only faith, ac ceptance; that it is the greatest blessing and
favour to receive such a doctrine of salvation; that the state in which one should receive
ought one the profoundest thankfulness and humility.
The resentment which the lowly feel against all those high places, continually turned
account: the fact that this teaching revealed them the reverse the wisdom the world, against the power the world, seduces them
This teaching convinces the outcasts and the
? botched all sorts and conditions; blessedness, advantages, and privileges
insignificant and most humble men;
promises
the most fanaticises the poor, the small, and the foolish, and fills them
with insane vanity, though they were the mean
ing and salt the earth. -
Again, say, all this cannot be sufficiently
contemned, we spare ourselves criticism the
? ? a
of
I of of
to
as
of of
of is
it toit
ofis
to to to
it.
as
in
be
. . .
it,
? --the
CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
I43
teaching; it is sufficient to take note of the means it uses in order to be aware of the nature of the
phenomenon one is examining. It identified itself with virtue, it appropriated the whole of the fasci nating power of virtue, shamelessly, for its own
purposes . . . it availed itself of the power of
paradox, and of the need, manifested by old civilisations, for pepper and absurdity; it amazed
and revolted at the same time; it provoked per secutions and ill-treatment.
It is the same kind of well-thought-out meanness with which the Jewish priesthood established their power and built up their Church. . . .
One must be able to discern: (1) that warmth of passion "love" (resting on a base of ardent sensuality); (2) the thoroughly ignoble character of Christianity:--the continual exaggeration and verbosity;--the lack of cool intellectuality and irony;--the unmilitary character of all instincts;
? priestly prejudices against manly pride, sensuality, the sciences, the arts.
I73.
Paul seeks power against ruling Judaism,--
his attempt too weak.
the notion "Jew": the "race"
means denying the very basis
ture. The "martyr," the "fanatic," the value
strong belief Christianity the form decay the old world, after the latter's collapse, and
characterised by the fact that brings all the most sickly and unhealthy elements and needs the top.
Transvaluation put aside: but that the whole struc
? ? it
is
of is
. .
to
of
its
of all
it is
of
of
: is
? I44
THE WILL TO POWER.
Consequently other instincts had to step into the foreground, in order to constitute an entity, a power
able to stand alone--in short, a condition of tense
sorrow was necessary, like that out of which the
Jews had derived their instinct of self-preserva tion. . . .
The persecution of Christians was invaluable for this purpose.
Unity in the face of danger; the conversion of
the masses becomes the only means of putting an
end to the persecution of the individual. (The notion "conversion" is therefore made as elastic
as possible. )
I 74.
The Christian Judaic life: here resentment did not prevail. The great persecutions alone could
have driven out the passions to that extent--as
also the ardour of love and hate.
When the creatures a man most loves are
sacrificed before his eyes for the sake of his faith, that man becomes aggressive; the triumph of Christianity is due to its persecutors.
Asceticism is not specifically Christian: this is what Schopenhauer misunderstood. It only shoots up in Christianity, wherever it would have existed without that religion.
? the torture and tor a particular soil, where Christian values have taken
Melancholy Christianity,
ment of the conscience, is also only a peculiarity of
root: it is not
Christianity properly speaking.
Christianity
of diseases which grow from morbid soil: one could
has absorbed all the different kinds
? ? ? anity type
decadence.
75.
CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
I45
reproach it simply with the fact that it did not
know how to resist any contagion. But that
precisely is the essential feature of Christi
The reality which Christianity was able
build up its power consisted the small dispersed Jewish families, with their warmth, tenderness, and peculiar readiness help, which, the whole
the Roman Empire, was perhaps the most incom
being "chosen people," concealed beneath
cloak humility, and by their secret denial all that was uppermost and that possessed power
and splendour, although there was no shade envy their denial. To have recognised this
power, have regarded this blessed state com
pagans
genius: use up the treasure latent energy and cautious happiness for the purposes "a Jewish Church free confession," and avail himself all the Jewish experience, their propa ganda, and their expertness the preservation
community under foreign power--this what
he conceived be his duty. He was who
discovered that absolutely unpolitical and isolated body paltry people, and their art asserting
themselves and pushing themselves the front,
by means host acquired virtues which are VOL. K
prehensible
? and least familiar their character istics; they were also united by their pride
municable, seductive,
and infectious even where were concerned--this constituted Paul's
? ? I.
of
of to
toin ofa
is a
of a
of
to of
it
it.
to
a
of
on to
of I
a
is
to
of
as
of
in
of
of of
of
as
a of
a at
of
to
to
"*----
? 146
THE WILL TO POWER.
made to represent the only forms of virtue ("the self-preservative measure and weapon of success
of a certain class of man").
The principle of love comes from the small community of Jewish people: a very passionate
soul glows here, beneath the ashes of humility and
wretchedness: it is neither Greek, Indian, nor
German. The song in praise of love which Paul
wrote is not Christian; it is the Jewish flare of that
eternal flame which is Semitic. If Christianity has done anything essentially new in a psychological
sense, it is this, that it has increased the temperature of the soul among those cooler and more noble
races who were at that time at the head of affairs; it discovered that the most wretched life could be
made rich and invaluable, by means of an eleva tion of the temperature of the soul. . . .
It is easily understood that a transfer of this sort
could not take place among the ruling classes: the
Jews and Christians were at a disadvantage owing
to their bad manners--spiritual strength and
passion, when accompanied by bad manners, only
? provoke loathing
(I become aware of these bad
manners while reading the New Testament). It
was necessary to be related both in baseness and
sorrow with this type of lower manhood in order
to feel anything attractive in him. . . . The atti
tude a man maintains towards the New Testament
is a test of the amount of classical taste he may have in him (see Tacitus); he who is not revolted by who does not feel honestly and deeply that the presence sort faeda superstitio when reading and who does not draw
? ? it,
he he is
in
of a
of
it,
? CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
I47
his hand back so as not to soil his fingers--such a man does not know what is classical. A man
must feel about "the cross" as Goethe did. "
176.
The reaction of paltry people --Love provides
the feeling of highest power. It should be under stood to what extent, not man in general, but only a certain kind of man is speaking here.
"We are godly in love, we shall be "the children of God"; God loves us and wants nothing from us save love"; that is to say: all morality, obedi ence, and action, do not produce the same feeling
of power and freedom as love does;--a man does
nothing wicked from sheer love, but he does much
more than if he were prompted by obedience and virtue alone.
Here is the happiness of the herd, the communal feeling in big things as in small, the living senti
ment of unity felt as the sum of the feeling of life. Helping, caring for, and being useful, constantly
kindle the feeling of power; visible success, the
* Vieles kann ich ertragen. Die meisten beschwerlichen , Dinge
? Duld' ich mit ruhigem Mut, wie es ein Gott mir gebeut. Wenige sind mir jedoch wie Gift und Schlange zuwider;
Viere: Rauch des Tabaks, Wanzen, und Knoblauch und *. Goethe's Venetian Epigrams, No. 67.
Much can I bear. Things the most irksome
I endure with such patience as comes from a god. Four things, however, repulse me like venom --
Tobacco smoke, garlic, bugs, and the cross. --(TRANSLATOR's NoTE. )
? ? ? 148
THE WILL TO POWER.
expression of pleasure, emphasise the feeling of power; pride is not lacking either, it is felt in the
form of the community, the House of God, and the "chosen people. "
As a matter of fact, man has once more experi enced an "alte? ration" of his personality: this time he called his feeling of love--God. The awaken
ing of such a feeling must be pictured; it is a sort of ecstasy, a strange language, a "Gospel"--it was this newness which did not allow man to attribute
love to himself--he thought it was God leading
him on and taking shape in his heart. "God
descends among men," one's neighbour is trans
figured and becomes a God (in so far as he provokes
the sentiment of love). Jesus is the neighbour, the moment He is transfigured in thought into a God,
and into a cause provoking the feeling of power.
177.
Believers are aware that they owe an infinite
amount to Christianity, and therefore conclude that its Founder must have been a man of the
first rank. . . . This conclusion is false, but it is typical of the reverents. Regarded objectively, it the first place, just possible that they are
mistaken concerning the extent their debt Christianity: man's convictions prove nothing concerning the thing he convinced about, and
religions they are more likely give rise
suspicions. debt owing Founder
? Secondly, possible Christianity not due its
that the all, but the whole structure, the
? ? at
to .
in a
it is is
to
.
to
is
in
is,
to
of
to
to
? CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
I49
whole thing--to the Church, etc. The notion
"Founder" is so very equivocal, that it may stand even for the accidental cause of a movement:
the person of the Founder has been inflated in proportion as the Church has grown: but even this process of veneration allows of the conclusion that, at one time or other, this Founder was some thing exceedingly
insecure and doubtful--in the
beginning. . . . Let any one think of the free and
easy way in which Paul treats the problem of the personality of Jesus, how he almost juggles with
it: some one who died, who was seen after His
death, -some one whom the Jews delivered up to
death--all this was only the theme--Paul wrote the music to it.
178.
The founder of a religion may be quite insignifi cant--a wax vesta and no more !
I 79.
Concerning the psychological problem of Christi
anity. -- The driving forces are : resentment,
popular insurrection, the revolt of the bungled and
the botched. (In Buddhism it is different: it #) not born of resentment. It rather combats resent
ment because the latter leads to action. )
This party, which stands for freedom, under stands that the abandonment of antagonism in thought and deed is a condition of distinction and
preservation. Here lies the psychological difficulty which has stood in the way of Christianity being
?
