No More Learning

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
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of to a
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in
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.
? 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. . .
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? 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
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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
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? 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
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? 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
? ? ? ? I5o
THE WILL TO POWER.
understood: the force which created struggle against itself.
urges
Only party standing for peace and innocence
can this insurrectionary movement hope be
successful: must conquer by means excessive mildness, sweetness, softness, and its instincts are
aware this. The feat was deny and con demn the force, which man the expression, and press the reverse that force continually
the fore, by word and deed.
8O.
The pretence youthfulness. --It mistake imagine that, with Christianity, an ingenuous and youthful people rose against old culture;
the story goes that was out the lowest levels
society, where Christianity flourished and shot
its roots, that the more profound source life
gushed forth afresh: but nothing can under stood the psychology Christianity, be
? supposed that youth among strength race.
was the expression revived
the diseases another
absence
the nerves seem give one rendezvous in this crowd -- the
known duty, the feeling that every
people,
the resuscitated
rather typical form moral-softening and hysteria,
decadence,
amid general hotch-potch races and people that had lost all aims and had grown weary and sick. The wonderful company which gathered round this master-seducer the populace, would not be all out place Russian novel: all
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? CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
I5I
thing is nearing its end, that nothing is any longer
worth while, and that contentment lies in dolce far niente.
The power and certainty of the future in the
Jew's instinct, its monstrous will for life and for power, lies in its ruling classes; the people who
are best dis this exhausted condition of their instincts. On the one hand, they are sick of every thing; on the other, they are content with each
upheld primitive Christianity
tinguished by
other, with themselves and for themselves.
\
Christianity regarded as emancipated Judaism (just as a nobility which is both racial and in
? digenous ultimately emancipates
I 81.
itself from these conditions, and goes in search of kindred
elements. . .
(1) As Church (community) on the territory
the State, an unpolitical institution.
(2) As life, breeding, practice, art living.
(3) As religion of sin (sin committed against God, being the only recognised kind, and the only
cause all suffering), with universal cure for There no sin save against God; what done against men, man shall not sit judgment upon,
nor call account, except the name God. At the same time, all commandments (love): everything associated with God, and all acts are performed according
God's will. Beneath this arrangement there lies exceptional intelligence
very narrow life, such that led the
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? 152
THE WILL TO POWER.
Esquimaux, can only be endured by most peaceful
and indulgent people: the Judaeo-Christian dogma turns against sin in favour of the "sinner").
I 82.
The Jewish priesthood understood how to present everything it claimed to be right as a
divine precept, as an act of obedience to God, and also to introduce all those things which conduced to preserve Israel and were the conditions of its existence (for instance: the large number of "works": circumcision and the cult of sacrifices, as the very pivot of the national conscience), not as Nature, but as God.
This process continued, within the very heart of
Judaism, where the need of these "works" was not felt (that is to say, as a means of keeping a race distinct), a priestly sort of man was pictured, whose
bearing towards the aristocracy was like that of "noble nature"; a spontaneous and non-caste
sacerdotalism of the soul, which now, in order to throw opposite into strong relief, attaches value, not the "dutiful acts" themselves, but the sentiment.
At bottom, the problem was once again, how
make certain kind soul prevail: was also
popular insurrection the midst priestly people--a pietistic movement coming from below
(sinners, publicans, women, and children). Jesus
Nazareth was the symbol their sect. And again, order believe themselves, they were
? theological transfiguration: they require nothing less than "the Son God"
need
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? CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
I53
order to create a belief for themselves. And just .
as the priesthood had falsified the whole history of Israel, another attempt was made, here, to alter
and falsify the whole history of mankind in such a way as to make Christianity seem like the most
important event it contained. This movement could have originated only upon the soil of Judaism,
the main feature of which was the confounding of
guilt with sorrow and the reduction of all sin to sin against God. Of all this, Christianity is the
second degree of power.
I83.
The symbolism of Christianity is based upon
that of Judaism, which had already transfigured
all reality (history, Nature) into a holy and artificial unreality--which refused to recognise
real history, and which showed no more interest in a natural course of things.
I84.
The Jews made the attempt to prevail, after two of their castes--the warrior and the agri cultural castes, had disappeared from their midst.
In this sense they are the "castrated people": they have their priests and then--their Chandala. .
How easily a disturbance occurs among them-- an insurrection of their Chandala. This was the
origin of Christianity.
Owing to the fact that they had no knowledge of
warriors except as their masters, they introduced
\
? ? ? ? I54
THE WILL TO POWER.
enmity towards the nobles, the men of honour, pride, and power, and the ruling classes, into their religion: they are pessimists from indignation. . . .
Thus they created a very important and novel position: the priests in the van of the Chandala --against the noble classes. . . .
Christianity was the logical conclusion of this movement: even in the Jewish priesthood, it still scented the existence of the caste, of the privileged
and noble minority--it therefore did away with priests.
Christ is the unit of the Chandala who removes
the priest . . . the Chandala who redeems himself. . . .
That is why the French Revolution is the lineal descendant and the continuator of Christianity-- it is characterised by an instinct of hate towards castes, nobles, and the last privileges.
185.
The "Christian Ideal" put on the stage with Jewish astuteness -- these are the fundamental
psychological forces of "nature":--
Revolt against the ruling spiritual powers;
? make those virtues which facili the lowly, standard all call God that which no more than the self-preservative instinct that
The attempt tate the happiness values--in fact,
class man possessed least vitality;
Obedience and absolute abstention from war
and resistance, justified by this ideal;
? ? of
of
a
to
to of
its
of is of
? CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
I55
The love of one another as a result of the love of God.
The trick : The denial of all natural mobilia, and their transference to the spiritual world beyond . . . the exploitation of virtue and its veneration for wholly interested motives, gradual denial of virtue in everything that is not Christian.
I 86.
The profound contempt with which the Christian
was treated by the noble people of antiquity, is of
the same order as the present instinctive aversion
to Jews: it is the hatred which free and self
? respecting
classes feel towards those who wish to
creep in secretly, and who combine an awkward bearing with foolish self-sufficiency.
The New Testament is the gospel of a com pletely ignoble species of man; its pretensions to
highest values--yea, to all values, fact, revolting--even nowadays.
187.
How little the subject matters!
which gives the thing life What
matter
the spirit quantity
stuffy and sick-room air there all that chattet about "redemption," "love," "blessedness," "faith,"
"truth," "eternal life"! Let any one look into really pagan book and compare the two; for in
stance, Petronius, nothing all done, said, desired, and valued, which, according bigoted Christian estimate, not sin, even deadly sin. And yet how happy one feels with the purer air, the
? ? is
or
at
is in
in
|
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to is as
is aa
a
of
of
is,
? 156
THE WILL TO POWER.
superiorintellectuality, the quicker pace, and the free
overflowing strength which is certain of the future I In the whole of the New Testament there is not
one bouffonnerie: but that fact alone would suffice to refute any book. . . .
I 88.
The profound lack of dignity with which all life,
which is not Christian, is condemned: it does not
suffice them to think meanly of their actual oppon
ents, they cannot do with less than a general
slander of everything that is not themselves. . . .
An abject and crafty soul is in the most perfect harmony with the arrogance of piety, as witness
the early Christians.
The future : they see that they are heavily paid
for Theirs the muddiest kind of spirit
? arranged confirm the prophecies the Scriptures:
that exists. The whole Christ's life
He behaves suchwise order that they may be right.
189.
The deceptive interpretation the words, the doings, and the condition dying people; the natural fear death, for instance, systematically confounded with the supposed fear what happen "after death. "
I90.
The Christians have done exactly what the Jews did before them. They introduced what they
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.
in of of
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is so
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.
.
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? CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
I57
thing necessary to self-preservation into their Master's
teaching, and wove His life into They likewise credited Him with all the wisdom of maker of
proverbs--in short, they represented their every day life and activity act obedience, and
thus sanctified their propaganda.
What all depends upon, may gathered
from Paul: not much. What remains the development type saint, out the values which these people regarded saintly.
The whole the "doctrine miracles," in cluding the resurrection, the result self
conceived to be an innovation and a
? glorification
ascribed itself, but
the part the community, which
its Master those qualities ascribed higher degree (or, better still,
derived strength from Him.
The Christians have never led the life which
Jesus commanded them lead, and the impudent fable the "justification by faith," and its unique
and transcendental significance, only the result the Church's lack courage and will acknow
ledging those "works" which Jesus commanded. The Buddhist behaves differently from the non
Buddhist;
the world does, and possesses Christianity
but the Christian behaves all the rest
ceremonies and states of the soul.
The profound and contemptible falsehood
Christianity Europe makes deserve the con tempt the Arabs, Hindoos, and Chinese.
? ? of
of of
of
to its
in
in on a
it
us
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? 158
THE WILL TO POWER.
Let any one listen to the words of the first German statesman, concerning that which has preoccupied Europe for the last forty years.
I 92.
"Faith" or "works"? --But that the "works," the habit of particular works may engender a certain set of values or thoughts, is just as natural as it would be unnatural for "works" to proceed from mere valuations. Man must practise, not how to strengthen feelings of value, but how to strengthen action: first of all, one must be able to do some thing. . . . Luther's Christian Dilettantism. Faith is an asses' bridge. The background consists of a profound conviction on the part of Luther and his peers, that they are unable to accomplish Christian "works," a personal fact, disguised under an extreme doubt as to whether all action
is not sin and devil's work, so that the worth of life depends upon isolated and highly-strained conditions of inactivity (prayer, effusion, etc. ). -- Ultimately, Luther would be right: the instincts which are expressed by the whole bearing of the
? Only in turning absolutely away from themselves, and in becoming absorbed in the opposite of themselves,
reformers are the most brutal that exist.
only by
existence endurable to them.
means of an illusion ("faith") was
I93.
"What was to be done in order to believe? "--
an absurd question. That which is wrong with
? ? ? CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
I59
Christianity that does none the things that Christ commanded.
contempt.
mean life, but seen through the eye
I94.
The entrance into the real life--a man saves his own life living the life the multitude.
95.
Christianity has become something fundament
ally different from what its Founder wished
be. the great anti-pagan movement anti
quity, formulated with the use the life, teaching,
and "words" the Founder Christianity, but
? interpreted quite arbitrarily, according
scheme
embodying profoundly different needs: translated
into the language all the subterranean religions then existing.
the rise Pessimism (whereas Jesus wished bring the peace and the happiness
the lambs): and moreover the Pessimism the weak, the inferior, the suffering, and the
oppressed.
Its mortal enemies are (1) Power, whether the form character, intellect, taste, and
"worldliness"; (2) the "good cheer" classical times, the noble levity and scepticism, hard pride,
eccentric dissipation, and cold frugality the sage,
Greek refinement manners, words, and form.
Its mortal enemy much the Roman the Greek.
? ? as
of of
of
it
or of of
to a
of
of of
is to
of
as of I
by
is,
is in
of of
it
in
of
to
of
It
It is
It is a
of of
of
? 16O THE WILL TO POWER.
The attempt on the part of anti-paganism to
establish itself on a philosophical basis, and to
make tenets possible: shows taste for the ambiguous figures antique culture, and above
all for Plato, who was, more than any other, an
anti-Hellene and Semite instinct.