No More Learning

To this day a life of this kind is still possible; for
after Christ,
to gospel
***
CE
* This applies apparently to Bismarck, the forger of the
Ems telegram and a sincere Christian. -TR.
c es
ot
mode
carote


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A CRITICISM OF CHRISTIANITY
179
]
.
)
it will
certain men, it is even necessary: genuine, primi-
tive Christianity will be possible in all ages.
Not a faith, but a course of action, above all a action,
course of inaction, non-interference, and a different
life. . . . States of consciousness, any sort of faith,
live.
a holding of certain things for true, as every psy-
chologist knows, are indeed of absolutely no con-
sequence, and are only of fifth-rate importance
compared with the value of the instincts: more
exactly, the whole concept of intellectual causality
is false. To reduce the fact of being a Christian,
or of Christianity, to a holding of something for
true, to a mere phenomenon of consciousness, is
tantamount to denying Christianity. In fact there
have never been any Christians. The "Christian,"
he who for two thousand years has been called a
Christian, is merely a psychological misunderstand. No Chrob hans
ing of self. Looked at more closely, there ruled
in him, notwithstanding all his faith, only instincts
-and what instincts ! —“Faith” in all ages, as for
instance in the case of Luther, has always been
merely a cloak, a pretext, a screen, behind which
the instincts played their game,-a prudent
form of
blindness in regard to the dominion of certain in-
stincts. "Faith "I have already characterised as
but instincts
»
a piece of really Christian eleverness, for peoplek
touch w/
reality
have always spoken of " faith” and acted according
to their instincts. In the Christian's world of
ideas there is nothing which even touches reality :
but I have already recognised in the instinctive
hatred of reality the actual motive force, the only
driving power at the root of Christianity. What
follows therefrom? That here, even in psychologicis,
dami
The motive
force


## p. 180 (#200) ############################################

180
THE ANTICHRIST
-
Spectacle
error is fundamental,—that is to say capable of
determining the spirit of things,—that is to say,
substance. Take one idea away from the whole,
and put one realistic fact in its stead,—and the
whole of Christianity_tumbles. . into nonentity! -
Surveyed from above, this strangest of all facts —
a religion not only dependent upon error, but in-
ventive and showing signs of genius only in those
errors which are dangerous and which poison life
and the human heart=remains a spectacle for gods,
for_those gods who are at the same time philo-
sophers and whom I met for instance in those
celebrated dialogues on the island of Naxos. At
the moment when they get rid of their loathing
(-and we do as well ! ), they will be thankful for
the spectacle the Christians have offered: the
wretched little planet called Earth perhaps deserves
on account of this curious case alone, a divine
glance, and divine interest. . . . Let us not there-
fare underestimate the Christians; the Christian,
false to the point of innocence in falsity, is far above
the apes,—in regard to the Christians a certain
well-known theory of Descent becomes a mere
good-natured compliment.
for bots
=philosopher
m
Christian
Innocent
"
40
-The fate of the gospel was decided at the
moment of the death,—it hung on the “cross. "
It was only death, this unexpected and ignominious
death; it was only the cross which as a rule was
reserved simply for the canaille,-only this appalling
paradox which confronted the disciples with the
actual riddle: Who was that? what was that?


## p. 181 (#201) ############################################

A CRITICISM OF CHRISTIANITY
181
reason.
*
The state produced by the excited and profoundly
wounded feelings of these men, the suspicion that
such a death might imply the refutation of their
cause, and the terrible note of interrogation : "why
precisely thus ? ” will be understood only too well.
In this case everything must be necessary, every-
thing must have meaning, a reason, the highest
The love of a disciple admits of no such
thing as accident. Only then did the chasm yawn:
who has killed him 2" "who was his natural
enemy? ”—this question rent the firmament like a
dominant
flash of lightning. Reply: dominant Judaism, its ] Judaian
ruling class. Thenceforward the disciple felt him-
self in revolt against established order; he under-
stood Jesus, after the fact, as one in revolt against Xestablishment
established order. Heretofore this warlike, this
nay-saying and nay-doing feature in Christ had
been lacking ; nay more, he was its contradiction.
The small primitive community had obviously
understood nothing of the principal factor of all,
which was the example of freedom and of superi-
ority to every form of resentment which lay in this
way of dying. And this shows how little they
understood him altogether! At bottom Jesus could
not have desired anything else by his death than to
give the strongest public example and proof of his
doctrine. . . . But his disciples were very far from
forgiving this death—though if they had done so it
would have been in the highest sense evangelical on
their part,-neither were they prepared, with a
gentle and serene calmness of heart, to offer them-
selves for a similar death. . . . Precisely the most
unevangelical feeling, revenge, became once more
-


## p. 182 (#202) ############################################

182
THE ANTICHRIST
e
Hobbesina
K. of bod
of K.
»
ascendant. It was impossible for the cause to end
with this death : “compensation” and “judgment
were required (and forsooth, what could be more
unevangelical than “compensation,” “punishment,”
“judgment”! ) The popular expectation of a Mes-
siah once more became prominent; attention was
fixed upon one historical moment: the “Kingdom
of God” descends to sit in judgment upon his
enemies. But this proves that everything was
misunderstood : the “Kingdom of God” regarded
as the last scene of the last act, as a promise! But
the Gospel had clearly been the living, the fulfil-
ment, the reality of this “Kingdom of God. ” It
was precisely a death such as Christ's that was this
“Kingdom of God. ” It was only now that all
the
contempt for the Pharisees and the theologians, and
all bitter feelings towards them, were introduced
into the character of the Master,—and by this means
he himself was converted into a Pharisee and a
theologian! On the other hand, the savage venera-
tion of these completely unhinged souls could no
longer endure that evangelical right of every man
to be the child of God, which Jesus had taught:
their revenge consisted in elevating Jesus in a
manner devoid of all reason, and in separating him
from themselves: just as, formerly, the Jews, with
the view of revenging themselves on their enemies,
separated themselves from their God, and placed
him high above them. The Only God, and the Only
Son of God:both were products of resentment.
Х
resentma,
41
-And from this time forward an absurd problem


## p. 183 (#203) ############################################

A CRITICISM OF CHRISTIANITY
183
]
absurd!
rose into prominence : “how could God allow it to
happen? ”. To this question the disordered minds
of the small community found a reply which in its
absurdity was literally terrifying : God gave his
Son as a sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins. Alas!
how prompt and sudden was the end of the gospel !
Expiatory sacrifice for guilt, and
indeed in its most
repulsive and barbaric form,--the sacrifice of the
innocent for the sins of the guilty! What appalling
Paganism ! —For Jesus himself had done away with
the concept“ guilt,”—he denied any gulf between
God and man, he lived this unity between God and
man, it was this that constituted his “glad tidings. ”
“
And he did not teach it as a privilege!
—Thence-
forward there was gradually imported into the type
of the Saviour the doctrine of the Last Judgment,
and of the "second coming," the doctrine of sacrificial
death, and the doctrine of Resurrection, by means
of which the whole concept“ blessedness," the entire
and only reality of the gospel, is conjured away—in
favour of a state after death! . . . St Paul, with that
rabbinic impudence which characterises all his
doings, rationalised this conception, this prostitution
of a conception, as follows: "if Christ did not rise
from the dead, our_faith is vain. " —And, in a triče,
the most contemptible of all unrealisable promises,
the impudent doctrine of personal immortality, was
woven out of the gospel. St Paul even preached
this immortality as a reward,
42
You now realise what it was that came to an end
with the death on the cross : a new and thoroughly
Cron


## p. 184 (#204) ############################################

184
THE ANTICHRIST
.
Buda.
&
christ.
original effort towards a Buddhistic movement of
peace, towards real and not merely promised happi-
ness on earth. For, as I have already pointed out,
this remains the fundamental difference between the
two religions of decadence: Buddhism promises little
but fulfils more, Christianity promises everything
but fulfils nothing. -The "glad tidings
were fol-
lowed closely by the absolutely worst tidings—those
of St Paul. Paul is the incarnation of a type which
is the reverse of that of the Saviour; he is the genius
in hatred, in the standpoint of hatred, and in the
relentless logic of hatred. And alas what did this
dysangelist not sacrifice to his hatred! Above all
the Saviour himself: he nailed him to his cross.
Christ's life, his example, his doctrine and death, the
sense and the right of the gospel-not a vestige of
all this was left, once this forger, prompted by his
hatred, had understood in it only that which could
serve his
purpose. Not reality: not historical truth!
And once more, the sacerdotal instinct of
the Jew, perpetrated the same great crime against
history,-he simply cancelled the yesterday, and the
day before that, out of Christianity; he contrived of
his own accord a history of the birth of Christianity.
He did more: he once more falsified the history of
Israel, so as to make it appear as a prologue to
his mission : all the prophets had referred to his
“Saviour. ” Later on the Church even distorted
the history of mankind so as to convert it into
a prelude to Christianity. . . . The type of the
Saviour, his teaching, his life, his death, the meaning
of his death, even the sequel to his death-nothing
remained untouched, nothing was left which even


## p. 185 (#205) ############################################

A CRITICISM OF CHRISTIANITY
185
remotely resembled reality. St Paul simply trans-
ferred the centre of gravity of the whole of that
great life, to a place behind this life --in the lie of
the “resuscitated ” Christ. At bottom, he had no
possible use for the life of the Saviour,-he needed
the death on the cross, and something more. To
regard as honest a man like St Paul (a man whose
home was the very headquarters of Stoical enlighten-
ment) when he devises a proof of the continued
existence of the Saviour out of a hallucination; or
even to believe him when he declares that he had
this hallucination, would amount to foolishness on
the part of a psychologist: St Paul desired the end,
consequently he also desired the means. . . .
. . Even
what he himself did not believe, was believed in by
the idiots among whom he spread his doctrine. -
What he wanted was power"; with St Paul the priest
again aspired to power,- he could make use only of
concepts, doctrines, symbols with which masses may
be tyrannised over, and with which herds are formed. "
What was the only part of Christianity which was
subsequently borrowed by Muhamed ? St Paul s
invention, his expedient for priestly tyranny and to
the formation of herds: the belief in immortality-
that is to say, the doctrine of the “ Last Judgment. "
a
Il Power
43
When the centre of gravity of life is laid, not in
life, but in a beyond-in nonentity,-life is utterly
robbed of its balance. The great lie of personal
immortality destroys all reason, all nature in the
instincts,—everything in the instincts that is bene-
ficent, that promotes life and that is a guarantee


## p. 186 (#206) ############################################

186
THE ANTICHRIST
.
of the future, henceforward aroused suspicion.
The very meaning of life is now construed as the
effort to live in such a way that life no longer has
any point. . . . Why show any public spirit? Why
be grateful for one's origin and one's forebears ?
Why collaborate with one's fellows, and be confi-
dent? Why be concerned about the general weal
or strive after it? . . . All these things are merely
so many “temptations," so many deviations from the
“straight path. ” “One thing only is necessary. ”
That everybody, as an “immortal soul,” should have
equal rank, that in the totality of beings, the “sal-
vation” of each individual may lay claim to eternal
importance, that insignificant bigots and three-
quarter-lunatics may have the right to suppose that
the laws of nature may be persistently broken on
their account,—any such magnification of every
kind of selfishness to infinity, to insolence, cannot
be branded with sufficient contempt. And yet it
is to this miserable flattery of personal vanity that
Christianity owes its triumph,—by this means it
lured all the bungled and the botched, all revolt-
ing and revolted people, all abortions, the whole
the refuse and offal of humanity, over to its side.
The “salvation of the soul”-in plain English:
“the world revolves around me. ” The poison
of the doctrine “equal rights for all”—has been
dispensed with the greatest thoroughness by Christi-
anity: Christianity, prompted by the most secret
recesses of bad instincts, has waged a deadly war
upon all feeling of reverence and distance between
man and man—that is to say, the prerequisite of
all elevation, of every growth in culture; out of


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A CRITICISM OF CHRISTIANITY
187
the resentment of the masses it wrought its princi-
pal weapons against us, against everything noble,
joyful, exalted on earth, against our happiness on
earth. . . . To grant“ immortality” to every St Peter
and St Paul, was the greatest, the most vicious out-
rage upon noble humanity that has ever been perpe-
trated. And do not let us underestimate the fatal
influence which, springing from Christianity, has
insinuated itself even into politics! Nowadays no
one has the courage of special rights, of rights of
dominion, of a feeling of self-respect and of respect
for his equals,—of pathos of distance. Our politics
are diseased with this lack of courage ! —The aristo-
cratic attitude of mind has been most thoroughly
undermined by the lie of the equality of souls ;
and if the belief in the “privilege of the greatest
number” creates and will continue to create revolu-
tions,—it is Christianity, let there be no doubt
about it, and Christian values, which convert every
revolution into blood and crime! Christianity is
the revolt of all things that crawl on their bellies
against everything that is lofty : the gospel of the
“lowly” lowers.
-د
X
44
-The Gospels are invaluable as a testimony of
the corruption which was already persistent within
the first Christian communities. That which St
Paul, with the logician's cynicism of a Rabbi, carried
to its logical conclusion, was nevertheless merely
the process of decay which began with the death of
the Saviour. —These gospels cannot be read too
cautiously; difficulties lurk behind every word they


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188
THE ANTICHRIST
contain. I confess, and people will not take this
amiss, that they are precisely on that account a joy
of the first rank for a psychologist,—as the reverse
of all naïve perversity, as refinement par excellence,
as a masterpiece of art in psychological corruption.
The gospels stand alone. Altogether the Bible
allows of no comparison. The first thing to be
remembered if we do not wish to lose the scent here,
is, that we are among Jews. The dissembling of
holiness which, here, literally amounts to genius,
and which has never been even approximately
achieved elsewhere either by books or by men, this
fraud in word and pose which in this book is
elevated to an Art, is not the accident of any
individual gift, of any exceptional nature. These
qualities are a matter of race. With Christianity,
the art of telling holy lies, which constitutes the
whole of Judaism, reaches its final mastership, thanks
to many centuries of Jewish and most thoroughly
serious training and practice. The Christian, this
ultima ratio of falsehood, is the Jew over again-he
is even three times a Jew. The fundamental
will only to make use of concepts, symbols and
poses, which are demonstrated by the practice of
the priests, the instinctive repudiation of every other
kind of practice, every other standpoint of valuation
and of utility — all this is not only tradition, it is
hereditary : only as an inheritance is it able to work
like nature. The whole of mankind, the best brains,
and even the best ages—(one man only excepted
who is perhaps only a monster)—have allowed them-
selves to be deceived. The gospels were read as
the book of innocence . . . this is no insignificant
.
-


## p. 189 (#209) ############################################

A CRITICISM OF CHRISTIANITY
189
-
.
-
X
sign of the virtuosity with which deception has been
practised here. —Of course, if we could only succeed
in seeing all these amazing bigots and pretended
saints, even for a moment, all would be at an end-
and it is precisely because I can read no single word
of theirs, without seeing their pretentious poses,
that I have made an end of them. . . . I cannot
endure a certain way they have of casting their eyes
heavenwards. -Fortunately for Christianity, books
are for the greatest number, merely literature. We
must not let ourselves be led away : "judge not! ”
they say, but they dispatch all those to hell who
stand in their way. Inasmuch as they let God
do the judging, they themselves judge; inasmuch
as they glorify God, they glorify themselves, inas-
much as they exact those virtues of which they them-
selves happen to be capable
nay more, of which
they are in need in order to be able to remain on
top at all ;—they assume the grand airs of struggling
for virtue, of struggling for the dominion of virtue.
"We live, we die, we sacrifice ourselves for the
good” (-"the Truth,” “the Light,” “the Kingdom
of God”): as a matter of fact they do only what
they cannot help doing. Like sneaks they have to
play a humble part; sit away in corners, and remain
obscurely in the shade, and they make all this appear
a duty : their humble life now appears as a duty,
and their humility is one proof the more of their
piety, . . . Oh, what a humble, chaste and compas-
sionate kind of falsity! “Virtue itself shall bear us
testimony. ”. . . Only read the gospels as books
calculated to seduce by means of morality: morality
is appropriated by these petty people,—they know


## p. 190 (#210) ############################################

190
THE ANTICHRIST
.
»
what morality can do! The best way of leading
mankind by the nose is with morality! The fact is
that the most conscious conceit of people who believe
themselves to be chosen, here simulates modesty :
in this way they, the Christian community, the
“good and the just ” place themselves once and for
all on a certain side, the side “of Truth”—and the
rest of mankind, "the world” on the other.
This was the most fatal kind of megalomania that
had ever yet existed on earth: insignificant little
abortions of bigots and liars began to lay sole claim
to the concepts “God,” “Truth”. “ Light,” “Spirit,"
,
“Love,” “Wisdom,” “Life," as if these things were,
so to speak, synonyms of themselves, in order to
fence themselves off from “the world”; little ultra-
Jews, ripe for every kind of madhouse, twisted values
round in order to suit themselves, just as if the
Christian, alone, were the meaning, the salt, the
standard and even the “ultimate tribunal” of all
the rest of mankind. . . . The whole fatality was
rendered possible only because a kind of megalo-
mania, akin to this one and allied to it in race,-
the Jewish kind—was already to hand in the world :
the very moment the gulf between Jews and Judæo-
Christians was opened, the latter had no alternative
left, but to adopt the same self-preservative measures
as the Jewish instinct suggested, even against the
Jews themselves, whereas the Jews, theretofore, had
employed these same measures only against the
Gentiles. The Christian is nothing more than an
anarchical Jew.
45
-Let me give you a few examples of what these


## p. 191 (#211) ############################################

A CRITICISM OF CHRISTIANITY
191
1
evangelical!
lo
resintomo
vengeful
paltry people have stuffed into their heads, what
they have laid on the lips of their Master: quite
a host of confessions from “beautiful souls. ".
“And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear
you, when ye depart thence, shake off the dust
under your feet for a testimony against them.
Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable
for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judg-
ment, than for that city. ” (Mark vi. 11. )—How
92
“And whosoever shall offend one of these little
ones that believe in me, it is better for him that
a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he
were cast into the sea. " (Mark ix. 42. )—How
evangelical ! . .
“And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is
better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God
with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into
hell fire : where their worm dieth not, and the fire
is not quenched. ” (Mark ix. 47, 48. )—The eye is not
precisely what is meant in this passage.
“Verily I say unto you, That there be some of
them that stand here, which shall not taste of death,
till they have seen the kingdom of God come with
power. ” (Mark ix. 1. )—Well lied, lion ! *
“Whosoever will come after me, let him deny
himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.
For
(A psychologist's comment. Christian
morality is refuted by its “For's”: its reasons”
refute,—this is Christian. ) (Mark viii. 34. )
(.
* An adaptation of Shakespeare's “Well roared, lion
(Mid. N, D. , Act 5, Sc. i. ), the lion, as is well known, being
the symbol for St Mark in Christian literature and Art. --TR.
X
X
.


## p. 192 (#212) ############################################

192
THE ANTICHRIST
t
1
+
.
t
+
"Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with
what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged. '
(Matthew vii. I, 2. )—What a strange notion of
justice on the part of a "just" judge! .
“For if ye love them which love you, what reward
have ye? do not even the publicans the same?
And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye
more than others ? do not even the publicans so? "
(Matthew v. 46, 47. ) The principle of “Christian
love”: it insists upon being well paid.
“But if ye forgive not men their trespasses
neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. ”
(Matthew vi. 15. )—Very compromising for the
“ Father” in question.
"But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his
"
righteousness; and all these things shall be added
unto you. ” (Matthew vi. 33. )—“All these things. ”
—that is to say, food, clothing, all the necessities
of life. To use a moderate expression, this is an
error. Shortly before this God appears as a
tailor, at least in certain cases. . .
“Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for,
behold, your reward is great in heaven: for in the
like manner did their fathers unto the prophets. ”
(Luke vi. 23. )—Impudent rabble! They dare to
compare themselves with the prophets. . .
“Know ye not that ye are the temple of God
and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If
any man defile the temple of God, him shall God
destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which
temple ye are. ” (St Paul, 1 Corinthians iii. 16, 17. )
"
-One cannot have too much contempt for this
sort of things
-


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A CRITICISM OF CHRISTIANITY
193
“Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the
world? and if the world shall be judged by you,
are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters ?
(St Paul, 1 Corinthians vi. 2. )—Unfortunately this is
not merely the speech of a lunatic. . . . This appal-
ling impostor proceeds thus : “Know ye not that we
shall judge angels? how much more things that
pertain to this life? ”
“Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this
world? For after that in the wisdom of God, the
world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God
by the foolishness of preaching to save them that
believe . . . not many wise men after the flesh, not
many mighty, not many noble are called: But
God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to
confound the wise ; and God hath chosen the weak
things of the world to confound the things which
are mighty; And base things of the world, and
things which are despised, hath God chosen ; yea,
and things which are not, to bring to nought things
that are: That no flesh should glory in his pre-
sence. ” (St Paul, 1 Corinthians i. 20 et seq. )-In
order to understand this passage, which is of the
highest importance as an example of the psychology
of every Chandala morality, the reader should refer
to my Genealogy of Morals : in this book, the con-
trast between a noble and a Chandala morality
born of resentment and impotent revengefulness, is
brought to light for the first time. St Paul was the
greatest of all the apostles of revenge.
X
46
What follows from this? That one does well to
13


## p. 194 (#214) ############################################

194
THE ANTICHRIST
»
put on one's gloves when reading the New Testa-
ment. The proximity of so much pitch almost
defiles one. We should feel just as little inclined to
hobnob with “the first Christians” as with Polish
Jews : not that we need explain our objections.
They 'simply smell bad. —In vain have I sought for
a single sympathetic feature in the New Testament;
there is not a trace of freedom, kindliness, open-
heartedness and honesty to be found in it. Humane-
ness has not even made a start in this book, while
cleanly instincts are entirely absent from it. . . .
Only evil instincts are to be found in the New
Testament, it shows no sign of courage, these people
lack even the courage of their evil instincts. All is
cowardice, all is a closing of one's eyes and self-
deception. Every book becomes clean, after one
has just read the New Testament: for instance, im-
mediately after laying down St Paul, I read with
particular delight that most charming and most
wanton of scoffers, Petronius, of whom someone
might say what Domenico Boccaccio wrote to the
Duke of Parma about Cæsar Borgia : “è tutto festo”
-immortally healthy, immortally cheerful and well-
constituted. . . . These petty bigots err in their
calculations and in the most important thing of all.
They certainly attack; but everything they assail
is, by that very fact alone, distinguished. He whom
a "primitive Christian” attacks, is not thereby
sullied. . . . Conversely it is an honour to be
opposed by “primitive Christians. ” One cannot
read the New Testament without feeling a prefer-
ence for everything in it which is the subject of
abuse—not to speak of the “wisdom of this world,”
)


## p. 195 (#215) ############################################

A CRITICISM OF CHRISTIANITY
195
which an impudent windbag tries in vain to con-
found " by the foolishness of preaching. " Even the
Pharisees and the Scribes derive advantage from
such opposition: they must certainly have been
worth something in order to have been hated in such
a disreputable way. Hypocrisy—as if this were a
reproach which the “first Christians” were at liberty
to make ! —After all the Scribes and Pharisees were
the privileged ones: this was quite enough, the hatred
of the Chandala requires no other reasons. I very
much fear that the “first Christian”-as also the
“last Christian" whom I may yet be able to meet,-
is in his deepest instincts a rebel against everything
privileged; he lives and struggles unremittingly for
"equal rights”! . . . Regarded more closely, he
has no alternative. . . . If one's desire be person-
ally to represent “one of the chosen of God”_or
a “temple of God,” or “a judge of angels,”—then
”
every other principle of selection, for instance that
based upon a standard of honesty, intellect, manli-
ness and pride, or upon beauty and freedom of heart,
becomes the “world,”—evil in itself. Moral: every
word on the lips of a “first Christian” is a lie, every
action he does is an instinctive falsehood,-all his
values, all his aims are pernicious; but the man he
hates, the thing he hates, has value, . . . The Chris-
tian, more particularly the Christian priest, is a
criterion of values--Do I require to add that in the
whole of the New Testament only one figure appears
which we cannot help respecting? Pilate, the Roman
Governor. To take a Jewish quarrel seriously was
a thing he could not get himself to do. One Jew
more or less—what did it matter? . . . The noble
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196
THE ANTICHRIST
scorn of a Roman, in whose presence the word
"truth” had been shamelessly abused, has enriched
the New Testament with the only saying which is
of value,—and this saying is not only the criticism,
but actually the shattering of that Testament:
“What is truth! ”
.
47
-That which separates us from other people is
not the fact that we can discover no God, either in
history, or in nature, or behind nature,—but that we
regard what has been revered as “God," not as
“divine,” but as wretched, absurd, pernicious; not
as an error, but as a crime against life. . . . We
deny God as God. . . . If the existence of this
Christian God were proved to us, we should feel even
less able to believe in him. -In a formula : deus
qualem Paulus creavit, dei negatio. —A religion such
as Christianity which never once comes in touch
with reality, and which collapses the very moment
reality asserts its rights even on one single point,
must naturally be a mortal enemy of the “wisdom
of this world”-that is to say, science. It will call
all those means good with which mental discipline,
lucidity and severity in intellectual matters, nobility
and freedom of the intellect may be poisoned, calum-
niated and decried. “Faith” as an imperative is
a veto against science,-in praxi, it means lies at
any price. St Paul understood that falsehood—that
“ faith” was necessary; subsequently the Church
understood St Paul. - That “God” which St Paul
invented for himself, a God who “confounds” the
“wisdom of this world” (in a narrower sense, the
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A CRITICISM OF CHRISTIANITY
197
two great opponents of all superstition, philology
and medicine)
, means, in very truth, simply St Paul's
firm resolve to do so: to call his own will “God”,thora,
that is arch-Jewish. St Paul insists upon confound-
ing the “wisdom of this world”: his enemies are the
good old philologists and doctors of the Alexandrine
schools; it is on them that he wages war.
As a
matter of fact no one is either a philologist or a
doctor, who is not also an Antichrist. As a philolo-
gist, for instance, a man sees behind the “holy
books," as a doctor he sees behind the physiological
rottenness of the typical Christian. The doctor
says “incurable,” the philologist says “forgery. ”
48
-Has anybody ever really understood the cele-
brated story which stands at the beginning of the
Bible, --concerning God's deadly panic over science ?
. . Nobody has understood it. This essentially
sacerdotal book naturally begins with the great
inner difficulty of the priest: he knows only one
great danger, consequently “God” has only one
great danger. -
The old God, entirely “spirit,” a high-priest
through and through, and wholly perfect, is wander-
ing in a leisurely fashion round his garden ; but he
is bored. Against boredom even the gods them-
selves struggle in vain. * What does he do? He
invents man,-man is entertaining. . . . But, behold,
* A parody on a line in Schiller's "Jungfrau von Orleans ”
(Act 3, Sc. vi. ): “Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst
vergebens" (With stupidity even the gods themselves.
struggle in vain). -- TR.


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198
THE ANTICHRIST
even man begins to be bored. God's compassion for
the only form of misery which is peculiar to all
paradises, exceeds all bounds: so forthwith he
creates yet other animals. God's first mistake: man
did not think animals entertaining,—he dominated
them, he did not even wish to be an “animal. "
Consequently God created woman. And boredom
did indeed cease from that moment,—but many
other things ceased as well! Woman was God's
second mistake. —“Woman in her innermost nature
is a serpent, Heva"-every priest knows this : “all
evil came into this world through woman. ”—every
priest knows this too. Consequently science also
comes from woman. Only through woman did
man learn to taste of the tree of knowledge. —What
had happened? Panic had seized the old God.
Man himself had been his greatest mistake, he had
created a rival for himself, science makes vou equal
to God,—it is all up with priests and gods when man
becomes scientific! —Moral: science is the most pro-
hibited thing of all,—it alone, is forbidden. Science
is the first, the germ of all sins, the original sin.
This alone is morality. —“Thou shalt not know":-
the rest follows as a matter of course. God's panic
did not deprive him of his intelligence. How can
one guard against science? For ages this was his
principal problem.