The
concepts “Beyond,” “Last Judgment,” “Immortality
of the Soul,” the “soul” itself, are merely so many
instruments of torture, so many systems of cruelty,
on the strength of which the priest became and
remained master.
concepts “Beyond,” “Last Judgment,” “Immortality
of the Soul,” the “soul” itself, are merely so many
instruments of torture, so many systems of cruelty,
on the strength of which the priest became and
remained master.
Nietzsche - v16 - Twilight of the Idols
How
can saintly legends be called “tradition” at all!
The stories of saints constitute the most ambiguous
literature on earth: to apply the scientific method
to them, when there are no other documents to hand,
seems to me to be a fatal procedure from the start
-simply learned fooling.
Х
Scientific
method
*
Imo
## p. 164 (#184) ############################################
164
THE ANTICHRIST
TYPE
29
The point that concerns me is the psychological
type of the Saviour. This type might be contained
the gospels, in spite of the gospels, and however
much it may have been mutilated, or overladen with
foreign features : just as that of Francis of Assisi is
contained in his legends in spite of his legends. It
is not a question of the truth concerning what he has
done, what he has said, and how he actually died;
but whether his type may still be conceived in any
way, whether it has been handed down to us at all?
-The attempts which to my knowledge have been
made to read the history of a “soul” out of the
gospels, seem to me to point only to disreputable
levity in psychological matters. M. Renan, that
buffoon in psychologicis, has contributed the two
most monstrous ideas imaginable to the explana-
tion of the type of Jesus: the idea of the genius and
the idea of the hero (“ héros ”). But if there is any-
thing thoroughly unevangelical surely it is the idea
of the hero. It is precisely the reverse of all struggle,
of all consciousness of taking part in the fight, that
has become instinctive here: the inability to resist
X is here converted into a morality (“ resist not evil,"
the profoundest sentence in the whole of the gospels,
their key in a certain sense), the blessedness of peace,
of gentleness, of not being able to be an enemy. What
is the meaning of “glad tidings"? —True life, eternal
life has been found—it is not promised, it is actually
here, it is in you ; it is life in love, in love free from
all selection or exclusion, free from all distance.
Everybody is the child of God - Jesus does not by
benins
>Hero
X
imp
## p. 165 (#185) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF CHRISTIANITY
165
. ! funny!
a
historical
interpretation
spirit & Jesus
.
any means claim anything for himself alone,--as
the child of God everybody is equal to everybody
else (Fancy making Jesus a hiero? And what
a tremendous misunderstanding the word “
"genius”
is! Our whole idea of “spirit,” which is a civilised
idea, could have had no meaning whatever in the
world in which Jesus lived. In the strict terms of
the physiologist, a very different word ought to be
used here. . . . We know of a condition of morbid
irritability of the sense of touch, which recoils shud-
dering from every kind of contact, and from every
attempt at grasping a solid object. Any such physio-
logical habitus reduced to its ultimate logical conclu-
sion, becomes an instinctive hatred of all reality, a
flight into the "intangible,” into the “incomprehens-
ible”; a repugnance to all formulæ, to every notion
of time and space, to everything that is established
such as customs, institutions, the church ; a feeling
at one's ease in a world in which no sign of reality
is any longer visible, a merely “inner” world, a
"true" world, an “eternal” world. . . . “The King-
“"
dom of God is within you. ”.
very
interesting
9
.
R
30
The instinctive hatred of reality is the outcome of
an extreme susceptibility to pain and to irritation,
which can no longer endure to be "touched" at alt,
because every sensation strikes too deep.
The instinctive exclusion of all aversion, of all hos-
tility of all boundaries and distances in feeling, is the
outcome of an extreme susceptibility to pain and to
irritation, which regards all resistance, all compul-
sory resistance as insufferable anguish (that is to
*
## p. 166 (#186) ############################################
166
THE ANTICHRIST
a
say, as harmful, as deprecated by the self-preservative
instinct), and which knows blessedness (happiness)
only when it is no longer obliged to offer resistance
to anybody, either evil or detrimental,—love as the
only ultimate possibility of life.
These are the two physiological realities upon which
and out of which the doctrine of salvation has grown.
I call them a sublime further development of hedon-
ism, upon a thoroughly morbid soil. Epicureanism,
the pagan theory of salvation, even though it pos-
sessed a large proportion of Greek vitality and
nervous energy, remains the most closely related to
the above. Epicurus was a typical decadent: and
I was the first to recognise him as such. —The terror
of pain, even of infinitely slight pain—such a state
cannot possibly help culminating in a religion of
love. . . .
31
I have given my reply to the problem in advance.
The prerequisite thereto was the admission of the
fact that the type of the Saviour has reached us
only in a very distorted form. This distortion in
itself is extremely feasible: for many reasons a type
of that kind could not be pure, whole, and free from
additions. The environment in which this strange
figure moved, must have left its mark upon him, and
the history, the destiny of the first Christian com-
munities must have done so to a still greater degree.
Thanks to that destiny, the type must have been
enriched retrospectively with features which can be
interpreted only as serving the purposes of war and
of propaganda. That strange and morbid world into
which the gospels lead us—a world which seems to
## p. 167 (#187) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF CHRISTIANITY
167
le
imp.
-
.
have been drawn from a Russian novel, where the
scum and dross of society, diseases of the nerves
and "childish” imbecility seem to have given each
other rendezvous—must in any case have coarsened
the type: the first disciples, especially must have
translated an existence conceived entirely in sym-
bols and abstractions into their own crudities, in
order at least to be able to understand something
about it,-for_them the type existed only after it
had been cast in a more familiar mould. . . The
prophet, the Messiah, the future judge, the teacher
of morals, the thaumaturgist, John the Baptist-all
these were but so many opportunities of misunder-
standing the type. . . . Finally, let us not under-
rate the proprium of all great and especially sectarian
veneration : very often it effaces from the venerated
object, all the original and frequently painfully un-
familiar traits and idiosyncrasies—it does not even see
them. It is greatly to be deplored that no Dostoi-
ewsky lived in the neighbourhood of this most in-
teresting decadent -I mean someone who would
have known how to feel the poignant charm of such
a mixture of the sublime, the morbid, and the child-
like. Finally, the type, as an example of decadenci:,
may actually have been extraordinarily multifarious
and contradictory: this, as a possible alternative, is
not to be altogether ignored. Albeit, everything
seems to point away from it; for, precisely in this
case, tradition would necessarily have been particu-
larly true and objective: whereas we have reasons
for assuming the reverse.
Meanwhile a yawning
chasm of contradiction separates the mountain, lake,
and pastoral preacher, who strikes us as a Buddha
## p. 168 (#188) ############################################
168
THE ANTICHRIST
(80 C
on a soil only very slightly Hindu, from that com-
bative fanatic, the mortal enemy of theologians and
priests, whom Renan's malice has glorified as “le
grand maître en ironie. ” For my part, I do not
doubt but what the greater part of this venom (and
even of esprit) was inoculated into the type of the
Master only as the outcome of the agitated con-
dition of Christian propaganda. For we have ample
reasons for knowing the unscrupulousness of all
sectarians when they wish to contrive their own
apology out of the person of their master. When
the first Christian community required a discerning,
wrangling, quarrelsome, malicious and hair-splitting
theologian, to oppose other theologians, it created
its “God” according to its needs; just as it did not
hesitate to put upon his lips those utterly unevan-
gelical ideas of “his second coming,” the “last judg-
ment,”-ideas with which it could not then dispense,
-and every kind of expectation and promise which
happened to be current.
1st
Christian
somwnity
was no
1
foratia
32
I can only repeat that I am opposed to the
importation of the fanatic into the type of the
Saviour: the word " impérieux," which Renan uses,
in itself annuls the type. The "glad tidings” are
simply that there are no longer any contradictions,
that the Kingdom of Heaven is for the children;
the faith which Taises its voice here is not a faith
that has been won by a struggle,-it is to hand, it
was there from the beginning, it is a sort of spiritual
return to childishness. The case of delayed and
undeveloped puberty in the organism, as the result
## p. 169 (#189) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF CHRISTIANITY
169
Childishness
of Heowen
of degeneration is at least familiar to physiologists.
A faith of this sort does not show anger, it does not
blame, neither does it defend itself: it does not
bring “the sword,”—it has no inkling of how it will
one day establish feuds between man and man. It
does not demonstrate itself, either by miracles, or
by reward and promises, or yet “through the scrip-
tures”: it is in itself at every moment its own
miracle, its own reward, its own proof, its own
“Kingdom of God. ” This faith cannot be formu-
lated — it lives, it guards against formulæ. The
accident of environment, of speech, of preparatory
culture, certainly determines a particular series of
conceptions : early Christianity deals only in Judæo-
Semitic conceptions (—the eating and drinking at
the last supper form part of these,—this idea which
-
like everything Jewish has been abused so mali-
ciously by the church). But one should guard
against seeing anything more than a language of
signs, semeiotics, an opportunity for parables in all
this. The very fact that no word is to be taken
literally, is the only condition on which this Anti-
realist is able to speak at all. Among Indians he
would have made use of the ideas of Sankhyam,
among Chinese, those of Lao-tze - and would not
have been aware of any difference. With a little
terminological laxity. Jesus might be called a "free
spirit”—he cares not a jot for anything that is
established: the word killeth, everything fixed
killeth. The idea, experience, “life" as he alone
knows it, is, according to him, opposed to every
kind of word, formula, law, faith and dogma. He
speaks only of the innermost things : -"life" or
_“
interesting
Jesus as
FREE
SPIRIT
## p. 170 (#190) ############################################
170
THE ANTICHRIST
His wisdon"
apainst
is
*
“truth,” or “light,” is his expression for the inner-
most thing,-everything else, the whole of reality,
the whole of nature, language even, has only the
value of a sign, of a simile for him. — It is of para-
mount importance not to make any mistake at this
point, however great may be the temptation there-
to that lies in Christian I mean to say, ecclesias-
tical prejudice. Any such essential symbolism
štands beyond the pale of all religion, all notions of
cult, all history, all natural science, all experience of
the world, all knowledge, all politics, all psychology,
all books and all Art for his "wisdom” is pre-
=
cisely the complete ignorance * of the existence of
such things. He has not even heard speak of
culture, he does not require to oppose it,—he does
not deny it. . . The same holds good of the state,
politle of the whole of civil and social order, of work and
of warthenever had any reason to deny the world,
he had not the vaguest notion of the ecclesiastical
concept “the world. " Denying is precisely
what was quite impossible to him. -Dialectic is also
quite absent, as likewise the idea that any faith, any
“ truth
can be proved by argument (his proof
are inner "lights," inward feelings of happiness and
self-affirmation, a host of "proofs of power
Neither can such a doctrine contradict, it does not
even realise the fact that there are or can be other
doctrines, it is absolutely incapable of imagining a
contrary judgment. Wherever it encounters
such things, from a feeling of profound sympathy it
.
o denial
of world
*" reine Thorheit" in the German text, referring once
again to Parsifal,—TR,
## p. 171 (#191) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF CHRISTIANITY
171
bemoans such “blindness,”—for it sees the “light,”
-but it raises no objections.
33
-
The whole psychology of the “gospels” lacks*
the concept of guilt and punishment, as also that
of reward. Sin,” any sort of aloofness between
God and man, is done away with,—this is precisely
what constitutes the "glad tidings. Eternal bliss
is not promised, it is not bound
is not bound up with certain
conditions ; it is the only reality—the rest consists
only of signs wherewith to speak about it.
The results of such a state project themselves
into a new practice of life, the actual evangelical
practice. It is not a "faith” which distinguishes
the Christians: the Christian acts, he distinguishes
himself by means of a different mode of action.
He does not resist his enemy either by words or
in his heart. He draws no distinction between
foreigners and natives, between Jews and Gentiles
(“ the neighbour” really means the co-religionist, intresting
the Jew). He is angry with no one, he despises no
He neither shows himself at the tribunals nor
does he acknowledge any of their claims (“Swear
not at all”). He never under any circumstances
divorces his wife, even when her infidelity has been
proved. --All this is at bottom one principle, it is all
the outcome of one instinct.
The life of the Saviour was naught else than Practice
this practice,-neither was his death. He no longer
required any formulæ, any rites for his relations
with God—not even prayer. He has done with all
one.
## p. 172 (#192) ############################################
172
THE ANTICHRIST
feel «
(
road to
God
»
in chroot
the Jewish teaching of repentance and of atonement;
che alone knows the mode of life which makes one
divine,"
”d saved,” “evangelical,” and at all
times a child of God. " Not "repentance,” not
prayer and
forgiveness are the roads to God:
the evangelical mode of life alone leads to God, it is
“God. ”—That which the gospels abolished was the
Judaism of the concepts “sin,” “forgiveness of
sin,” “ faith,” “salvation through faith,”—the whole
doctrine of the Jewish church was denied by the
“glad tidings. "
The profound instinct of how one must live in
order to feel“ in Heaven," in order to feel “eternal,”
while in every other respect one feels by no means
“in Heaven”: this alone is the psychological reality
a
(R
[img]
of “ Salvation. ” FA new life and not a new faith.
]
*
ino
Ifa
as
fo
GREAT
SYMBOLT
»
34
If I understand anything at all about this great
symbolist, it is this that be regarded only inner.
facts as facts, as "truths,”-that he understood the
rest, everything natural, temporal, material and
historical, only as signs, as opportunities for parables.
The concept “the Son of Man," is not a concrete
personality belonging to history, anything individual
and isolated, but an “eternal” fact, a psychological
@[ symbol divorced from the concept of time. The
same is true, and in the highest degree, of the God
of this typical symbolist, of the “ Kingdom of God,”
of the “Kingdom of Heaven," and of the “Sonship
of God. ” Nothing is more un-Christlike than the
ecclesiastical crudity of a personal God, of a King-
1
an Christonlike
**
## p. 173 (#193) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF CHRISTIANITY
173
Heaven” beyond
9)
Signs
/
Father son
church
dom of God that is coming, of a “Kingdom of
; of a “Son of God” as the second
person of the Trinity. All this, if I may be for-
given the expression, is as fitting as a square peg in
a round hole-and oh! what a hole ! —the gospels :
a world-historic cynicism in the scorn of symbols. . . .
But what is meant by the signs “Father” and
Son,” is of course obvious—not to everybody, I
admit: with the word "Son,” entrance into the
feeling of the general transfiguration of all things
(beatitude) is expressed, with the word “Father,"
this feeling itself, the feeling of eternity and of per-
fection. —1 blush to have to remind you of what
the Church has done with this symbolism : has it
not set an Amphitryon story at the threshold of the
Christian “faith”? And a dogma of immaculate
conception into the bargain ? . . . But by so doing
it defiled conception. --
The “Kingdom of Heaven” is a state of the heart *
-not something which exists“ beyond this earth”
or comes to you “after death. ” The whole idea of
natural death is lacking in the gospels. Death is
not a bridge, not a means of access : it is absent
because it belongs to quite a different and merely
(apparent world the only use of which is to furnish
signs, similes. The “hour of death" is not a Chris-
tian idea—the “hour," time in general, physical life
and its crises do not exist for the messenger of “glad
tidings. ” . . . The “Kingdom of God” is not some-
thing that is expected ; it has no yesterday nor any
day after to-morrow, it is not going to come in a
"thousand years ”-it is an experience of a human
heart; it is everywhere, it is nowhere.
//
K. of te
a state
of hee
R'
P
apparent
vores
**
## p. 174 (#194) ############################################
174
Jesus
THE ANTICHRIST
evaluation
imp. posituie
an
.
35
This messenger of glad tidings” died as he lived
and as he taught—not in order “to save mankind,"
but in order to show how one ought to live. It was
a mode of life that he bequeathed to mankind : his
behaviour before his judges, his attitude towards his
executioners, his accusers, and all kinds of calumny
and scorn,-his demeanour on the cross. He offers
no resistance; he does not defend his rights; he
takes no step to ward off the most extreme conse-
quences, he does more,—he provokes them. And
he prays, suffers and loves with those, in those, who
treat him ill. . . . Not to defend one's self, not to
show anger, not to hold anyone responsible. .
But to refrain from resisting even the evil one—to
Tove him.
everying
-Only we spirits that have become free, possess
the necessary condition for understanding something
which nineteen centuries have misunderstood,—that
honesty which has become an instinct and a passion
in us, and which wages war upon the "holy lie” with
“
even more vigour than upon every other lie. .
Mankind was unspeakably far from our beneficent
and cautious neutrality, from that discipline of the
mind, which, alone, renders the solution of such
strange and subtle things possible: at all times, with
shameless egoism, all that people sought was their
own advantage in these matters, the Church was
built up out of contradiction to the gospel.
Whoever might seek for signs pointing to the
guiding fingers of an ironical deity behind the great
36
free
spints
.
*
## p. 175 (#195) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF CHRISTIANITY
175
comedy of existence, would find no small argument
in the huge note of interrogation that is called ]
Christianity. The fact that mankind is on its knees
before the reverse of that which formed the origin,
the meaning and the rights of the gospel; the fact
that, in the idea “Church," precisely that is pro-
nounced holy which the “messenger of glad tidings”
regarded as beneath him, as behind him - one might
seek in vain for a more egregious example of world-
historic irony:
hotory of
Chistianity
= harstory of
symbohon
P)
37
historical sense C
Our age is proud of its historical sense how
could it allow itself to be convinced of the nonsensi-
cal idea that at the beginning Christianity consisted
only of the clumsy fable of the thaumaturgist and of
the Saviour, and that all its spiritual and symbolic
side was only developed later ? On the contrary :
the history of Christianity-from the death on the
cross onwards—is the history of a gradual and ever
coarser misunderstanding of an original symbolism.
With every extension of Christianity over ever
larger and fuder masses, who were ever less able to
grasp its first principles, the need of vulgarising and
barbarising it increased proportionately—itabsorbed
the teachings and rites of all the subterranean cults
of the imperium Romanum, as well as the nonsense
of every kind of morbid reasoning. The fatal
feature of Christianity lies in the necessary fact that
its faith had to become as morbid, base and vulgar
as the needs to which it had to minister were morbid,
base and vulgar. Morbid barbarism at last braces
itself together for power in the form of the Church
ruder masses"
## p. 176 (#196) ############################################
176
THE ANTICHRIST
-the Church, this deadly hostility to all honesty
to all loftiness of the soul, to all discipline of the
mind, to all frank and kindly humanity. —Christian
and noble values : only we spirits who have become
free have re-established this contrast in values which
is the greatest that has ever existed on earth! -
/
contrast
established
by free
spmns
38 l modern man
m)
despise
mon-of-tota
- I cannot, at this point, stifle a sigh. There are
days when I am visited by a feeling blacker than
the blackest melancholy—the contempt of man. And
in order that I may leave you in no doubt as to
what I despise, whom I despise: I declare that it is
the man of to-day, the man with whom I am fatally
contemporaneous. The man of to-day, T am as-
phyxiated by his foul breath. . . . Towards the
past, like all knights of knowledge, I am profoundly
tolerant,—that is to say, I exercise a sort of generous
self-control : with gloomy caution I pass through
whole millennia of this mad-house world, and
whether it be called “Christianity,"
“
“ Christian
Faith,” or “Christian Church," I take care not to
hold mankind responsible for its mental disorders.
But my feeling suddenly changes, and vents itself
the moment I enter the modern age, our age. Our
. . . That which formerly was merely
morbid, is now positively indecent. It is indecent
nowadays to be a Christian. And it is here that my
loathing begins. I look about me: not a word of
what was formerly known as “truth” has remained
standing; we can no longer endure to hear a priest
even pronounce the word "truth. ” Even he who
age knows. .
Indecent
,
to te
a chanthme
## p. 177 (#197) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF CHRISTIANITY
177
lie! !
makes but the most modest claims upon truth, must
know at present, that a theologian, a priest, or a
pope, not only errs but actually lies, with every word | Pope lies
,
that he utters,—and that he is no longer able to
lie from “innocence,” from “ignorance. ” Even the
priest knows quite as well as everybody else does
that there is no longer any. “God," any “sinner” or
any “Saviour," and that “free will,” and “a moral free will
order of the universe are lies. Seriousness, the
profound self-conquest of the spirit no longer allows
anyone to be ignorant about this. . . . All the con-
cepts of the Church have been revealed in their true
colours—that is to say, as the most vicious frauds on
earth, calculated to depreciate nature and all natural
values. The priest himself has been recognised as
what he is—that is to say, as the most dangerous
kind of parasite, as the actual venomous spider of
existence. At present we know, our conscience
knows, the real value of the gruesome inventions
which the priests and the Church have made, and
what end they served. By means of them that state
of self-profanation on the part of man has been
attained, the sight of which makes one heave.
The
concepts “Beyond,” “Last Judgment,” “Immortality
of the Soul,” the “soul” itself, are merely so many
instruments of torture, so many systems of cruelty,
on the strength of which the priest became and
remained master. (Everybody knows this, and
nevertheless everything
remains as it was. Whither
has the last shred of decency, of self-respect gone, if
nowadays even our(statesmena body of men who
are otherwise so unembarrassed, and such thorough
anti-Christians in deed—still declare themselves
.
.
Priestly
mears
of tortur
g
Statesman
12
## p. 178 (#198) ############################################
178
THE ANTICHRIST
Christians and still Aock to communion ? *
Fancy a prince at the head of his legions, mag-
nificent as the expression of the egoism and self-
exaltation of his people,—but shameless enough to
acknowledge himself a Christian! . . . What then
does Christianity deny? What does it call“ world”?
“The world” to Christianity means that a man is
a soldier, a judge, a patriot, that he defends himself,
that he values his honour, that he desires his own
advantage, that he is proud. . The conduct of
every moment, every instinct, every valuation that
leads to a deed, is at present anti-Christian :-what
an abortion of falsehood modern man must be, in
order to be able without a blush still to call himself
a Christian !
WORLD
+
.
Genuine
moto tra
39
-I will retrace my steps, and will tell you thef
genuine history of Christianity. 7 The very word
"Christianity” is a misunderstanding,—truth
tell, there never was more than one Christian,
and he died on the Cross. The "gospel" died on
the cross. That which thenceforward was called
gospel" was the reverse of that “gospel” that
Christ had lived: it was “evil tidings," a dysangel.
It is false to the point of nonsense to see in “faith,
in the faith in salvation through Christ, the dis-
tinguishing trait of the Christian: the only thing
that is Christian is the Christian mode of existence,
a life such as he led who died on the Cross.
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
## p. 179 (#199) ############################################
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
## p. 187 (#207) ############################################
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
## p. 188 (#208) ############################################
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, . .
can saintly legends be called “tradition” at all!
The stories of saints constitute the most ambiguous
literature on earth: to apply the scientific method
to them, when there are no other documents to hand,
seems to me to be a fatal procedure from the start
-simply learned fooling.
Х
Scientific
method
*
Imo
## p. 164 (#184) ############################################
164
THE ANTICHRIST
TYPE
29
The point that concerns me is the psychological
type of the Saviour. This type might be contained
the gospels, in spite of the gospels, and however
much it may have been mutilated, or overladen with
foreign features : just as that of Francis of Assisi is
contained in his legends in spite of his legends. It
is not a question of the truth concerning what he has
done, what he has said, and how he actually died;
but whether his type may still be conceived in any
way, whether it has been handed down to us at all?
-The attempts which to my knowledge have been
made to read the history of a “soul” out of the
gospels, seem to me to point only to disreputable
levity in psychological matters. M. Renan, that
buffoon in psychologicis, has contributed the two
most monstrous ideas imaginable to the explana-
tion of the type of Jesus: the idea of the genius and
the idea of the hero (“ héros ”). But if there is any-
thing thoroughly unevangelical surely it is the idea
of the hero. It is precisely the reverse of all struggle,
of all consciousness of taking part in the fight, that
has become instinctive here: the inability to resist
X is here converted into a morality (“ resist not evil,"
the profoundest sentence in the whole of the gospels,
their key in a certain sense), the blessedness of peace,
of gentleness, of not being able to be an enemy. What
is the meaning of “glad tidings"? —True life, eternal
life has been found—it is not promised, it is actually
here, it is in you ; it is life in love, in love free from
all selection or exclusion, free from all distance.
Everybody is the child of God - Jesus does not by
benins
>Hero
X
imp
## p. 165 (#185) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF CHRISTIANITY
165
. ! funny!
a
historical
interpretation
spirit & Jesus
.
any means claim anything for himself alone,--as
the child of God everybody is equal to everybody
else (Fancy making Jesus a hiero? And what
a tremendous misunderstanding the word “
"genius”
is! Our whole idea of “spirit,” which is a civilised
idea, could have had no meaning whatever in the
world in which Jesus lived. In the strict terms of
the physiologist, a very different word ought to be
used here. . . . We know of a condition of morbid
irritability of the sense of touch, which recoils shud-
dering from every kind of contact, and from every
attempt at grasping a solid object. Any such physio-
logical habitus reduced to its ultimate logical conclu-
sion, becomes an instinctive hatred of all reality, a
flight into the "intangible,” into the “incomprehens-
ible”; a repugnance to all formulæ, to every notion
of time and space, to everything that is established
such as customs, institutions, the church ; a feeling
at one's ease in a world in which no sign of reality
is any longer visible, a merely “inner” world, a
"true" world, an “eternal” world. . . . “The King-
“"
dom of God is within you. ”.
very
interesting
9
.
R
30
The instinctive hatred of reality is the outcome of
an extreme susceptibility to pain and to irritation,
which can no longer endure to be "touched" at alt,
because every sensation strikes too deep.
The instinctive exclusion of all aversion, of all hos-
tility of all boundaries and distances in feeling, is the
outcome of an extreme susceptibility to pain and to
irritation, which regards all resistance, all compul-
sory resistance as insufferable anguish (that is to
*
## p. 166 (#186) ############################################
166
THE ANTICHRIST
a
say, as harmful, as deprecated by the self-preservative
instinct), and which knows blessedness (happiness)
only when it is no longer obliged to offer resistance
to anybody, either evil or detrimental,—love as the
only ultimate possibility of life.
These are the two physiological realities upon which
and out of which the doctrine of salvation has grown.
I call them a sublime further development of hedon-
ism, upon a thoroughly morbid soil. Epicureanism,
the pagan theory of salvation, even though it pos-
sessed a large proportion of Greek vitality and
nervous energy, remains the most closely related to
the above. Epicurus was a typical decadent: and
I was the first to recognise him as such. —The terror
of pain, even of infinitely slight pain—such a state
cannot possibly help culminating in a religion of
love. . . .
31
I have given my reply to the problem in advance.
The prerequisite thereto was the admission of the
fact that the type of the Saviour has reached us
only in a very distorted form. This distortion in
itself is extremely feasible: for many reasons a type
of that kind could not be pure, whole, and free from
additions. The environment in which this strange
figure moved, must have left its mark upon him, and
the history, the destiny of the first Christian com-
munities must have done so to a still greater degree.
Thanks to that destiny, the type must have been
enriched retrospectively with features which can be
interpreted only as serving the purposes of war and
of propaganda. That strange and morbid world into
which the gospels lead us—a world which seems to
## p. 167 (#187) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF CHRISTIANITY
167
le
imp.
-
.
have been drawn from a Russian novel, where the
scum and dross of society, diseases of the nerves
and "childish” imbecility seem to have given each
other rendezvous—must in any case have coarsened
the type: the first disciples, especially must have
translated an existence conceived entirely in sym-
bols and abstractions into their own crudities, in
order at least to be able to understand something
about it,-for_them the type existed only after it
had been cast in a more familiar mould. . . The
prophet, the Messiah, the future judge, the teacher
of morals, the thaumaturgist, John the Baptist-all
these were but so many opportunities of misunder-
standing the type. . . . Finally, let us not under-
rate the proprium of all great and especially sectarian
veneration : very often it effaces from the venerated
object, all the original and frequently painfully un-
familiar traits and idiosyncrasies—it does not even see
them. It is greatly to be deplored that no Dostoi-
ewsky lived in the neighbourhood of this most in-
teresting decadent -I mean someone who would
have known how to feel the poignant charm of such
a mixture of the sublime, the morbid, and the child-
like. Finally, the type, as an example of decadenci:,
may actually have been extraordinarily multifarious
and contradictory: this, as a possible alternative, is
not to be altogether ignored. Albeit, everything
seems to point away from it; for, precisely in this
case, tradition would necessarily have been particu-
larly true and objective: whereas we have reasons
for assuming the reverse.
Meanwhile a yawning
chasm of contradiction separates the mountain, lake,
and pastoral preacher, who strikes us as a Buddha
## p. 168 (#188) ############################################
168
THE ANTICHRIST
(80 C
on a soil only very slightly Hindu, from that com-
bative fanatic, the mortal enemy of theologians and
priests, whom Renan's malice has glorified as “le
grand maître en ironie. ” For my part, I do not
doubt but what the greater part of this venom (and
even of esprit) was inoculated into the type of the
Master only as the outcome of the agitated con-
dition of Christian propaganda. For we have ample
reasons for knowing the unscrupulousness of all
sectarians when they wish to contrive their own
apology out of the person of their master. When
the first Christian community required a discerning,
wrangling, quarrelsome, malicious and hair-splitting
theologian, to oppose other theologians, it created
its “God” according to its needs; just as it did not
hesitate to put upon his lips those utterly unevan-
gelical ideas of “his second coming,” the “last judg-
ment,”-ideas with which it could not then dispense,
-and every kind of expectation and promise which
happened to be current.
1st
Christian
somwnity
was no
1
foratia
32
I can only repeat that I am opposed to the
importation of the fanatic into the type of the
Saviour: the word " impérieux," which Renan uses,
in itself annuls the type. The "glad tidings” are
simply that there are no longer any contradictions,
that the Kingdom of Heaven is for the children;
the faith which Taises its voice here is not a faith
that has been won by a struggle,-it is to hand, it
was there from the beginning, it is a sort of spiritual
return to childishness. The case of delayed and
undeveloped puberty in the organism, as the result
## p. 169 (#189) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF CHRISTIANITY
169
Childishness
of Heowen
of degeneration is at least familiar to physiologists.
A faith of this sort does not show anger, it does not
blame, neither does it defend itself: it does not
bring “the sword,”—it has no inkling of how it will
one day establish feuds between man and man. It
does not demonstrate itself, either by miracles, or
by reward and promises, or yet “through the scrip-
tures”: it is in itself at every moment its own
miracle, its own reward, its own proof, its own
“Kingdom of God. ” This faith cannot be formu-
lated — it lives, it guards against formulæ. The
accident of environment, of speech, of preparatory
culture, certainly determines a particular series of
conceptions : early Christianity deals only in Judæo-
Semitic conceptions (—the eating and drinking at
the last supper form part of these,—this idea which
-
like everything Jewish has been abused so mali-
ciously by the church). But one should guard
against seeing anything more than a language of
signs, semeiotics, an opportunity for parables in all
this. The very fact that no word is to be taken
literally, is the only condition on which this Anti-
realist is able to speak at all. Among Indians he
would have made use of the ideas of Sankhyam,
among Chinese, those of Lao-tze - and would not
have been aware of any difference. With a little
terminological laxity. Jesus might be called a "free
spirit”—he cares not a jot for anything that is
established: the word killeth, everything fixed
killeth. The idea, experience, “life" as he alone
knows it, is, according to him, opposed to every
kind of word, formula, law, faith and dogma. He
speaks only of the innermost things : -"life" or
_“
interesting
Jesus as
FREE
SPIRIT
## p. 170 (#190) ############################################
170
THE ANTICHRIST
His wisdon"
apainst
is
*
“truth,” or “light,” is his expression for the inner-
most thing,-everything else, the whole of reality,
the whole of nature, language even, has only the
value of a sign, of a simile for him. — It is of para-
mount importance not to make any mistake at this
point, however great may be the temptation there-
to that lies in Christian I mean to say, ecclesias-
tical prejudice. Any such essential symbolism
štands beyond the pale of all religion, all notions of
cult, all history, all natural science, all experience of
the world, all knowledge, all politics, all psychology,
all books and all Art for his "wisdom” is pre-
=
cisely the complete ignorance * of the existence of
such things. He has not even heard speak of
culture, he does not require to oppose it,—he does
not deny it. . . The same holds good of the state,
politle of the whole of civil and social order, of work and
of warthenever had any reason to deny the world,
he had not the vaguest notion of the ecclesiastical
concept “the world. " Denying is precisely
what was quite impossible to him. -Dialectic is also
quite absent, as likewise the idea that any faith, any
“ truth
can be proved by argument (his proof
are inner "lights," inward feelings of happiness and
self-affirmation, a host of "proofs of power
Neither can such a doctrine contradict, it does not
even realise the fact that there are or can be other
doctrines, it is absolutely incapable of imagining a
contrary judgment. Wherever it encounters
such things, from a feeling of profound sympathy it
.
o denial
of world
*" reine Thorheit" in the German text, referring once
again to Parsifal,—TR,
## p. 171 (#191) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF CHRISTIANITY
171
bemoans such “blindness,”—for it sees the “light,”
-but it raises no objections.
33
-
The whole psychology of the “gospels” lacks*
the concept of guilt and punishment, as also that
of reward. Sin,” any sort of aloofness between
God and man, is done away with,—this is precisely
what constitutes the "glad tidings. Eternal bliss
is not promised, it is not bound
is not bound up with certain
conditions ; it is the only reality—the rest consists
only of signs wherewith to speak about it.
The results of such a state project themselves
into a new practice of life, the actual evangelical
practice. It is not a "faith” which distinguishes
the Christians: the Christian acts, he distinguishes
himself by means of a different mode of action.
He does not resist his enemy either by words or
in his heart. He draws no distinction between
foreigners and natives, between Jews and Gentiles
(“ the neighbour” really means the co-religionist, intresting
the Jew). He is angry with no one, he despises no
He neither shows himself at the tribunals nor
does he acknowledge any of their claims (“Swear
not at all”). He never under any circumstances
divorces his wife, even when her infidelity has been
proved. --All this is at bottom one principle, it is all
the outcome of one instinct.
The life of the Saviour was naught else than Practice
this practice,-neither was his death. He no longer
required any formulæ, any rites for his relations
with God—not even prayer. He has done with all
one.
## p. 172 (#192) ############################################
172
THE ANTICHRIST
feel «
(
road to
God
»
in chroot
the Jewish teaching of repentance and of atonement;
che alone knows the mode of life which makes one
divine,"
”d saved,” “evangelical,” and at all
times a child of God. " Not "repentance,” not
prayer and
forgiveness are the roads to God:
the evangelical mode of life alone leads to God, it is
“God. ”—That which the gospels abolished was the
Judaism of the concepts “sin,” “forgiveness of
sin,” “ faith,” “salvation through faith,”—the whole
doctrine of the Jewish church was denied by the
“glad tidings. "
The profound instinct of how one must live in
order to feel“ in Heaven," in order to feel “eternal,”
while in every other respect one feels by no means
“in Heaven”: this alone is the psychological reality
a
(R
[img]
of “ Salvation. ” FA new life and not a new faith.
]
*
ino
Ifa
as
fo
GREAT
SYMBOLT
»
34
If I understand anything at all about this great
symbolist, it is this that be regarded only inner.
facts as facts, as "truths,”-that he understood the
rest, everything natural, temporal, material and
historical, only as signs, as opportunities for parables.
The concept “the Son of Man," is not a concrete
personality belonging to history, anything individual
and isolated, but an “eternal” fact, a psychological
@[ symbol divorced from the concept of time. The
same is true, and in the highest degree, of the God
of this typical symbolist, of the “ Kingdom of God,”
of the “Kingdom of Heaven," and of the “Sonship
of God. ” Nothing is more un-Christlike than the
ecclesiastical crudity of a personal God, of a King-
1
an Christonlike
**
## p. 173 (#193) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF CHRISTIANITY
173
Heaven” beyond
9)
Signs
/
Father son
church
dom of God that is coming, of a “Kingdom of
; of a “Son of God” as the second
person of the Trinity. All this, if I may be for-
given the expression, is as fitting as a square peg in
a round hole-and oh! what a hole ! —the gospels :
a world-historic cynicism in the scorn of symbols. . . .
But what is meant by the signs “Father” and
Son,” is of course obvious—not to everybody, I
admit: with the word "Son,” entrance into the
feeling of the general transfiguration of all things
(beatitude) is expressed, with the word “Father,"
this feeling itself, the feeling of eternity and of per-
fection. —1 blush to have to remind you of what
the Church has done with this symbolism : has it
not set an Amphitryon story at the threshold of the
Christian “faith”? And a dogma of immaculate
conception into the bargain ? . . . But by so doing
it defiled conception. --
The “Kingdom of Heaven” is a state of the heart *
-not something which exists“ beyond this earth”
or comes to you “after death. ” The whole idea of
natural death is lacking in the gospels. Death is
not a bridge, not a means of access : it is absent
because it belongs to quite a different and merely
(apparent world the only use of which is to furnish
signs, similes. The “hour of death" is not a Chris-
tian idea—the “hour," time in general, physical life
and its crises do not exist for the messenger of “glad
tidings. ” . . . The “Kingdom of God” is not some-
thing that is expected ; it has no yesterday nor any
day after to-morrow, it is not going to come in a
"thousand years ”-it is an experience of a human
heart; it is everywhere, it is nowhere.
//
K. of te
a state
of hee
R'
P
apparent
vores
**
## p. 174 (#194) ############################################
174
Jesus
THE ANTICHRIST
evaluation
imp. posituie
an
.
35
This messenger of glad tidings” died as he lived
and as he taught—not in order “to save mankind,"
but in order to show how one ought to live. It was
a mode of life that he bequeathed to mankind : his
behaviour before his judges, his attitude towards his
executioners, his accusers, and all kinds of calumny
and scorn,-his demeanour on the cross. He offers
no resistance; he does not defend his rights; he
takes no step to ward off the most extreme conse-
quences, he does more,—he provokes them. And
he prays, suffers and loves with those, in those, who
treat him ill. . . . Not to defend one's self, not to
show anger, not to hold anyone responsible. .
But to refrain from resisting even the evil one—to
Tove him.
everying
-Only we spirits that have become free, possess
the necessary condition for understanding something
which nineteen centuries have misunderstood,—that
honesty which has become an instinct and a passion
in us, and which wages war upon the "holy lie” with
“
even more vigour than upon every other lie. .
Mankind was unspeakably far from our beneficent
and cautious neutrality, from that discipline of the
mind, which, alone, renders the solution of such
strange and subtle things possible: at all times, with
shameless egoism, all that people sought was their
own advantage in these matters, the Church was
built up out of contradiction to the gospel.
Whoever might seek for signs pointing to the
guiding fingers of an ironical deity behind the great
36
free
spints
.
*
## p. 175 (#195) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF CHRISTIANITY
175
comedy of existence, would find no small argument
in the huge note of interrogation that is called ]
Christianity. The fact that mankind is on its knees
before the reverse of that which formed the origin,
the meaning and the rights of the gospel; the fact
that, in the idea “Church," precisely that is pro-
nounced holy which the “messenger of glad tidings”
regarded as beneath him, as behind him - one might
seek in vain for a more egregious example of world-
historic irony:
hotory of
Chistianity
= harstory of
symbohon
P)
37
historical sense C
Our age is proud of its historical sense how
could it allow itself to be convinced of the nonsensi-
cal idea that at the beginning Christianity consisted
only of the clumsy fable of the thaumaturgist and of
the Saviour, and that all its spiritual and symbolic
side was only developed later ? On the contrary :
the history of Christianity-from the death on the
cross onwards—is the history of a gradual and ever
coarser misunderstanding of an original symbolism.
With every extension of Christianity over ever
larger and fuder masses, who were ever less able to
grasp its first principles, the need of vulgarising and
barbarising it increased proportionately—itabsorbed
the teachings and rites of all the subterranean cults
of the imperium Romanum, as well as the nonsense
of every kind of morbid reasoning. The fatal
feature of Christianity lies in the necessary fact that
its faith had to become as morbid, base and vulgar
as the needs to which it had to minister were morbid,
base and vulgar. Morbid barbarism at last braces
itself together for power in the form of the Church
ruder masses"
## p. 176 (#196) ############################################
176
THE ANTICHRIST
-the Church, this deadly hostility to all honesty
to all loftiness of the soul, to all discipline of the
mind, to all frank and kindly humanity. —Christian
and noble values : only we spirits who have become
free have re-established this contrast in values which
is the greatest that has ever existed on earth! -
/
contrast
established
by free
spmns
38 l modern man
m)
despise
mon-of-tota
- I cannot, at this point, stifle a sigh. There are
days when I am visited by a feeling blacker than
the blackest melancholy—the contempt of man. And
in order that I may leave you in no doubt as to
what I despise, whom I despise: I declare that it is
the man of to-day, the man with whom I am fatally
contemporaneous. The man of to-day, T am as-
phyxiated by his foul breath. . . . Towards the
past, like all knights of knowledge, I am profoundly
tolerant,—that is to say, I exercise a sort of generous
self-control : with gloomy caution I pass through
whole millennia of this mad-house world, and
whether it be called “Christianity,"
“
“ Christian
Faith,” or “Christian Church," I take care not to
hold mankind responsible for its mental disorders.
But my feeling suddenly changes, and vents itself
the moment I enter the modern age, our age. Our
. . . That which formerly was merely
morbid, is now positively indecent. It is indecent
nowadays to be a Christian. And it is here that my
loathing begins. I look about me: not a word of
what was formerly known as “truth” has remained
standing; we can no longer endure to hear a priest
even pronounce the word "truth. ” Even he who
age knows. .
Indecent
,
to te
a chanthme
## p. 177 (#197) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF CHRISTIANITY
177
lie! !
makes but the most modest claims upon truth, must
know at present, that a theologian, a priest, or a
pope, not only errs but actually lies, with every word | Pope lies
,
that he utters,—and that he is no longer able to
lie from “innocence,” from “ignorance. ” Even the
priest knows quite as well as everybody else does
that there is no longer any. “God," any “sinner” or
any “Saviour," and that “free will,” and “a moral free will
order of the universe are lies. Seriousness, the
profound self-conquest of the spirit no longer allows
anyone to be ignorant about this. . . . All the con-
cepts of the Church have been revealed in their true
colours—that is to say, as the most vicious frauds on
earth, calculated to depreciate nature and all natural
values. The priest himself has been recognised as
what he is—that is to say, as the most dangerous
kind of parasite, as the actual venomous spider of
existence. At present we know, our conscience
knows, the real value of the gruesome inventions
which the priests and the Church have made, and
what end they served. By means of them that state
of self-profanation on the part of man has been
attained, the sight of which makes one heave.
The
concepts “Beyond,” “Last Judgment,” “Immortality
of the Soul,” the “soul” itself, are merely so many
instruments of torture, so many systems of cruelty,
on the strength of which the priest became and
remained master. (Everybody knows this, and
nevertheless everything
remains as it was. Whither
has the last shred of decency, of self-respect gone, if
nowadays even our(statesmena body of men who
are otherwise so unembarrassed, and such thorough
anti-Christians in deed—still declare themselves
.
.
Priestly
mears
of tortur
g
Statesman
12
## p. 178 (#198) ############################################
178
THE ANTICHRIST
Christians and still Aock to communion ? *
Fancy a prince at the head of his legions, mag-
nificent as the expression of the egoism and self-
exaltation of his people,—but shameless enough to
acknowledge himself a Christian! . . . What then
does Christianity deny? What does it call“ world”?
“The world” to Christianity means that a man is
a soldier, a judge, a patriot, that he defends himself,
that he values his honour, that he desires his own
advantage, that he is proud. . The conduct of
every moment, every instinct, every valuation that
leads to a deed, is at present anti-Christian :-what
an abortion of falsehood modern man must be, in
order to be able without a blush still to call himself
a Christian !
WORLD
+
.
Genuine
moto tra
39
-I will retrace my steps, and will tell you thef
genuine history of Christianity. 7 The very word
"Christianity” is a misunderstanding,—truth
tell, there never was more than one Christian,
and he died on the Cross. The "gospel" died on
the cross. That which thenceforward was called
gospel" was the reverse of that “gospel” that
Christ had lived: it was “evil tidings," a dysangel.
It is false to the point of nonsense to see in “faith,
in the faith in salvation through Christ, the dis-
tinguishing trait of the Christian: the only thing
that is Christian is the Christian mode of existence,
a life such as he led who died on the Cross.
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
## p. 179 (#199) ############################################
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
## p. 187 (#207) ############################################
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
.
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A CRITICISM OF CHRISTIANITY
189
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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, . .
