might be depicted in the Gospels, in however mutilated a form and
however much overladen with extraneous characters--that is, in _spite_
of the Gospels; just as the figure of Francis of Assisi shows itself in
his legends in spite of his legends. It is _not_ a question of mere
truthful evidence as to what he did, what he said and how he actually
died; the question is, whether his type is still conceivable, whether it
has been handed down to us.--All the attempts that I know of to read the
_history_ of a "soul" in the Gospels seem to me to reveal only a
lamentable psychological levity. M. Renan, that mountebank _in
psychologicus_, has contributed the two most _unseemly_ notions to this
business of explaining the type of Jesus: the notion of the _genius_ and
that of the _hero_ ("_héros_"). But if there is anything essentially
unevangelical, it is surely the concept of the hero. What the Gospels
make instinctive is precisely the reverse of all heroic struggle, of
all taste for conflict: the very incapacity for resistance is here
converted into something moral: ("resist not evil!"--the most profound
sentence in the Gospels, perhaps the true key to them), to wit, the
blessedness of peace, of gentleness, the _inability_ to be an enemy.
What is the meaning of "glad tidings"?--The true life, the life eternal
has been found--it is not merely promised, it is here, it is in _you_;
it is the life that lies in love free from all retreats and exclusions,
from all keeping of distances. Every one is the child of God--Jesus
claims nothing for himself alone--as the child of God each man is the
equal of every other man.... Imagine making Jesus a _hero_!--And what a
tremendous misunderstanding appears in the word "genius"! Our whole
conception of the "spiritual," the whole conception of our civilization,
could have had no meaning in the world that Jesus lived in. In the
strict sense of the physiologist, a quite different word ought to be
used here.... We all know that there is a morbid sensibility of the
tactile nerves which causes those suffering from it to recoil from every
touch, and from every effort to grasp a solid object. Brought to its
logical conclusion, such a physiological _habitus_ becomes an
instinctive hatred of all reality, a flight into the "intangible," into
the "incomprehensible"; a distaste for all formulae, for all conceptions
of time and space, for everything established--customs, institutions,
the church--; a feeling of being at home in a world in which no sort of
reality survives, a merely "inner" world, a "true" world, an "eternal"
world.... "The Kingdom of God is within _you_"....
30.
_The instinctive hatred of reality_: the consequence of an extreme
susceptibility to pain and irritation--so great that merely to be
"touched" becomes unendurable, for every sensation is too profound.
_The instinctive exclusion of all aversion, all hostility, all bounds
and distances in feeling_: the consequence of an extreme susceptibility
to pain and irritation--so great that it senses all resistance, all
compulsion to resistance, as unbearable _anguish_ (--that is to say, as
_harmful_, as _prohibited_ by the instinct of self-preservation), and
regards blessedness (joy) as possible only when it is no longer
necessary to offer resistance to anybody or anything, however evil or
dangerous--love, as the only, as the _ultimate_ possibility of life....
These are the two _physiological realities_ upon and out of which the
doctrine of salvation has sprung. I call them a sublime
super-development of hedonism upon a thoroughly unsalubrious soil. What
stands most closely related to them, though with a large admixture of
Greek vitality and nerve-force, is epicureanism, the theory of salvation
of paganism. Epicurus was a _typical décadent_: I was the first to
recognize him.--The fear of pain, even of infinitely slight pain--the
end of this _can_ be nothing save a _religion of love_....
31.
I have already given my answer to the problem. The prerequisite to it is
the assumption that the type of the Saviour has reached us only in a
greatly distorted form. This distortion is very probable: there are many
reasons why a type of that sort should not be handed down in a pure
form, complete and free of additions. The milieu in which this strange
figure moved must have left marks upon him, and more must have been
imprinted by the history, the _destiny_, of the early Christian
communities; the latter indeed, must have embellished the type
retrospectively with characters which can be understood only as serving
the purposes of war and of propaganda. That strange and sickly world
into which the Gospels lead us--a world apparently out of a Russian
novel, in which the scum of society, nervous maladies and "childish"
idiocy keep a tryst--must, in any case, have _coarsened_ the type: the
first disciples, in particular, must have been forced to translate an
existence visible only in symbols and incomprehensibilities into their
own crudity, in order to understand it at all--in their sight the type
could take on reality only after it had been recast in a familiar
mould.... The prophet, the messiah, the future judge, the teacher of
morals, the worker of wonders, John the Baptist--all these merely
presented chances to misunderstand it.... Finally, let us not underrate
the _proprium_ of all great, and especially all sectarian veneration: it
tends to erase from the venerated objects all its original traits and
idiosyncrasies, often so painfully strange--_it does not even see
them_. It is greatly to be regretted that no Dostoyevsky lived in the
neighbourhood of this most interesting _décadent_--I mean some one who
would have felt the poignant charm of such a compound of the sublime,
the morbid and the childish. In the last analysis, the type, as a type
of the _décadence_, may actually have been peculiarly complex and
contradictory: such a possibility is not to be lost sight of.
Nevertheless, the probabilities seem to be against it, for in that case
tradition would have been particularly accurate and objective, whereas
we have reasons for assuming the contrary. Meanwhile, there is a
contradiction between the peaceful preacher of the mount, the sea-shore
and the fields, who appears like a new Buddha on a soil very unlike
India's, and the aggressive fanatic, the mortal enemy of theologians and
ecclesiastics, who stands glorified by Renan's malice as "_le grand
maître en ironie_." I myself haven't any doubt that the greater part of
this venom (and no less of _esprit_) got itself into the concept of the
Master only as a result of the excited nature of Christian propaganda:
we all know the unscrupulousness of sectarians when they set out to turn
their leader into an _apologia_ for themselves. When the early
Christians had need of an adroit, contentious, pugnacious and
maliciously subtle theologian to tackle other theologians, they
_created_ a "god" that met that need, just as they put into his mouth
without hesitation certain ideas that were necessary to them but that
were utterly at odds with the Gospels--"the second coming," "the last
judgment," all sorts of expectations and promises, current at the
time.--
32.
I can only repeat that I set myself against all efforts to intrude the
fanatic into the figure of the Saviour: the very word _impérieux_, used
by Renan, is alone enough to _annul_ the type. What the "glad tidings"
tell us is simply that there are no more contradictions; the kingdom of
heaven belongs to _children_; the faith that is voiced here is no more
an embattled faith--it is at hand, it has been from the beginning, it is
a sort of recrudescent childishness of the spirit. The physiologists, at
all events, are familiar with such a delayed and incomplete puberty in
the living organism, the result of degeneration. A faith of this sort is
not furious, it does not denounce, it does not defend itself: it does
not come with "the sword"--it does not realize how it will one day set
man against man. It does not manifest itself either by miracles, or by
rewards and promises, or by "scriptures": it is itself, first and last,
its own miracle, its own reward, its own promise, its own "kingdom of
God." This faith does not formulate itself--it simply _lives_, and so
guards itself against formulae. To be sure, the accident of environment,
of educational background gives prominence to concepts of a certain
sort: in primitive Christianity one finds _only_ concepts of a
Judaeo-Semitic character (--that of eating and drinking at the last
supper belongs to this category--an idea which, like everything else
Jewish, has been badly mauled by the church). But let us be careful not
to see in all this anything more than symbolical language, semantics[6]
an opportunity to speak in parables. It is only on the theory that no
work is to be taken literally that this anti-realist is able to speak at
all. Set down among Hindus he would have made use of the concepts of
Sankhya,[7] and among Chinese he would have employed those of
Lao-tse[8]--and in neither case would it have made any difference to
him.--With a little freedom in the use of words, one might actually call
Jesus a "free spirit"[9]--he cares nothing for what is established: the
word _killeth_,[10] whatever is established _killeth_. The idea of
"life" as an _experience_, as he alone conceives it, stands opposed to
his mind to every sort of word, formula, law, belief and dogma. He
speaks only of inner things: "life" or "truth" or "light" is his word
for the innermost--in his sight everything else, the whole of reality,
all nature, even language, has significance only as sign, as
allegory.--Here it is of paramount importance to be led into no error by
the temptations lying in Christian, or rather _ecclesiastical_
prejudices: such a symbolism _par excellence_ stands outside all
religion, all notions of worship, all history, all natural science, all
worldly experience, all knowledge, all politics, all psychology, all
books, all art--his "wisdom" is precisely a _pure ignorance_[11] of all
such things. He has never heard of _culture_; he doesn't have to make
war on it--he doesn't even deny it.... The same thing may be said of the
_state_, of the whole bourgeoise social order, of labour, of war--he has
no ground for denying "the world," for he knows nothing of the
ecclesiastical concept of "the world".... _Denial_ is precisely the
thing that is impossible to him.--In the same way he lacks argumentative
capacity, and has no belief that an article of faith, a "truth," may be
established by proofs (--_his_ proofs are inner "lights," subjective
sensations of happiness and self-approval, simple "proofs of power"--).
Such a doctrine _cannot_ contradict: it doesn't know that other
doctrines exist, or _can_ exist, and is wholly incapable of imagining
anything opposed to it.... If anything of the sort is ever encountered,
it laments the "blindness" with sincere sympathy--for it alone has
"light"--but it does not offer objections....
[6] The word _Semiotik_ is in the text, but it is probable that
_Semantik_ is what Nietzsche had in mind.
[7] One of the six great systems of Hindu philosophy.
[8] The reputed founder of Taoism.
[9] Nietzsche's name for one accepting his own philosophy.
[10] That is, the strict letter of the law--the chief target of Jesus's
early preaching.
[11] A reference to the "pure ignorance" (_reine Thorheit_) of Parsifal.
33.
In the whole psychology of the "Gospels" the concepts of guilt and
punishment are lacking, and so is that of reward. "Sin," which means
anything that puts a distance between God and man, is abolished--_this
is precisely the "glad tidings."_ Eternal bliss is not merely promised,
nor is it bound up with conditions: it is conceived as the _only_
reality--what remains consists merely of signs useful in speaking of it.
The _results_ of such a point of view project themselves into a new _way
of life_, the special evangelical way of life. It is not a "belief" that
marks off the Christian; he is distinguished by a different mode of
action; he acts _differently_. He offers no resistance, either by word
or in his heart, to those who stand against him. He draws no distinction
between strangers and countrymen, Jews and Gentiles ("neighbour," of
course, means fellow-believer, Jew). He is angry with no one, and he
despises no one. He neither appeals to the courts of justice nor heeds
their mandates ("Swear not at all").[12] He never under any
circumstances divorces his wife, even when he has proofs of her
infidelity.--And under all of this is one principle; all of it arises
from one instinct.--
[12] Matthew v, 34.
The life of the Saviour was simply a carrying out of this way of
life--and so was his death.... He no longer needed any formula or ritual
in his relations with God--not even prayer. He had rejected the whole of
the Jewish doctrine of repentance and atonement; he _knew_ that it was
only by a _way_ of life that one could feel one's self "divine,"
"blessed," "evangelical," a "child of God." _Not_ by "repentance," _not_
by "prayer and forgiveness" is the way to God: _only the Gospel way_
leads to God--it is _itself_ "God!"--What the Gospels _abolished_ was
the Judaism in the concepts of "sin," "forgiveness of sin," "faith,"
"salvation through faith"--the whole _ecclesiastical_ dogma of the Jews
was denied by the "glad tidings."
The deep instinct which prompts the Christian how to _live_ so that he
will feel that he is "in heaven" and is "immortal," despite many reasons
for feeling that he is _not_ "in heaven": this is the only psychological
reality in "salvation."--A new way of life, _not_ a new faith....
34.
If I understand anything at all about this great symbolist, it is this:
that he regarded only _subjective_ realities as realities, as
"truths"--that he saw everything else, everything natural, temporal,
spatial and historical, merely as signs, as materials for parables. The
concept of "the Son of God" does not connote a concrete person in
history, an isolated and definite individual, but an "eternal" fact, a
psychological symbol set free from the concept of time. The same thing
is true, and in the highest sense, of the _God_ of this typical
symbolist, of the "kingdom of God," and of the "sonship of God." Nothing
could be more un-Christian than the _crude ecclesiastical_ notions of
God as a _person_, of a "kingdom of God" that is to come, of a "kingdom
of heaven" beyond, and of a "son of God" as the _second person_ of the
Trinity. All this--if I may be forgiven the phrase--is like thrusting
one's fist into the eye (and what an eye!) of the Gospels: a disrespect
for symbols amounting to _world-historical cynicism_.... But it is
nevertheless obvious enough what is meant by the symbols "Father" and
"Son"--not, of course, to every one--: the word "Son" expresses
_entrance_ into the feeling that there is a general transformation of
all things (beatitude), and "Father" expresses _that feeling
itself_--the sensation of eternity and of perfection.--I am ashamed to
remind you of what the church has made of this symbolism: has it not set
an Amphitryon story[13] at the threshold of the Christian "faith"? And a
dogma of "immaculate conception" for good measure?... _And thereby it
has robbed conception of its immaculateness_--
[13] Amphitryon was the son of Alcaeus, King of Tiryns.
His wife was Alcmene. During his absence she was visited by Zeus, and
bore Heracles.
The "kingdom of heaven" is a state of the heart--not something to come
"beyond the world" or "after death." The whole idea of natural death is
_absent_ from the Gospels: death is not a bridge, not a passing; it is
absent because it belongs to a quite different, a merely apparent world,
useful only as a symbol. The "hour of death" is _not_ a Christian
idea--"hours," time, the physical life and its crises have no existence
for the bearer of "glad tidings."... The "kingdom of God" is not
something that men wait for: it had no yesterday and no day after
tomorrow, it is not going to come at a "millennium"--it is an experience
of the heart, it is everywhere and it is nowhere....
35.
This "bearer of glad tidings" died as he lived and _taught_--_not_ to
"save mankind," but to show mankind how to live. It was a _way of life_
that he bequeathed to man: his demeanour before the judges, before the
officers, before his accusers--his demeanour on the _cross_. He does not
resist; he does not defend his rights; he makes no effort to ward off
the most extreme penalty--more, _he invites it_.... And he prays,
suffers and loves _with_ those, _in_ those, who do him evil.... _Not_ to
defend one's self, _not_ to show anger, _not_ to lay blames.... On the
contrary, to submit even to the Evil One--to _love_ him....
36.
--We free spirits--we are the first to have the necessary prerequisite
to understanding what nineteen centuries have misunderstood--that
instinct and passion for integrity which makes war upon the "holy lie"
even more than upon all other lies.... Mankind was unspeakably far from
our benevolent and cautious neutrality, from that discipline of the
spirit which alone makes possible the solution of such strange and
subtle things: what men always sought, with shameless egoism, was their
_own_ advantage therein; they created the _church_ out of denial of the
Gospels....
Whoever sought for signs of an ironical divinity's hand in the great
drama of existence would find no small indication thereof in the
_stupendous question-mark_ that is called Christianity. That mankind
should be on its knees before the very antithesis of what was the
origin, the meaning and the _law_ of the Gospels--that in the concept of
the "church" the very things should be pronounced holy that the "bearer
of glad tidings" regards as _beneath_ him and _behind_ him--it would be
impossible to surpass this as a grand example of _world-historical
irony_--
37.
--Our age is proud of its historical sense: how, then, could it delude
itself into believing that the _crude fable of the wonder-worker and
Saviour_ constituted the beginnings of Christianity--and that everything
spiritual and symbolical in it only came later? Quite to the contrary,
the whole history of Christianity--from the death on the cross
onward--is the history of a progressively clumsier misunderstanding of
an _original_ symbolism. With every extension of Christianity among
larger and ruder masses, even less capable of grasping the principles
that gave birth to it, the need arose to make it more and more _vulgar_
and _barbarous_--it absorbed the teachings and rites of all the
_subterranean_ cults of the _imperium Romanum_, and the absurdities
engendered by all sorts of sickly reasoning. It was the fate of
Christianity that its faith had to become as sickly, as low and as
vulgar as the needs were sickly, low and vulgar to which it had to
administer. A _sickly barbarism_ finally lifts itself to power as the
church--the church, that incarnation of deadly hostility to all honesty,
to all loftiness of soul, to all discipline of the spirit, to all
spontaneous and kindly humanity.--_Christian_ values--_noble_ values: it
is only we, we _free_ spirits, who have re-established this greatest of
all antitheses in values!...
38.
--I cannot, at this place, avoid a sigh. There are days when I am
visited by a feeling blacker than the blackest melancholy--_contempt of
man_. Let me leave no doubt as to _what_ I despise, _whom_ I despise:
it is the man of today, the man with whom I am unhappily
contemporaneous. The man of today--I am suffocated by his foul
breath!... Toward the past, like all who understand, I am full of
tolerance, which is to say, _generous_ self-control: with gloomy caution
I pass through whole millenniums of this madhouse of a world, call it
"Christianity," "Christian faith" or the "Christian church," as you
will--I take care not to hold mankind responsible for its lunacies. But
my feeling changes and breaks out irresistibly the moment I enter modern
times, _our_ times. Our age _knows better_.... What was formerly merely
sickly now becomes indecent--it is indecent to be a Christian today.
_And here my disgust begins._--I look about me: not a word survives of
what was once called "truth"; we can no longer bear to hear a priest
pronounce the word. Even a man who makes the most modest pretensions to
integrity _must_ know that a theologian, a priest, a pope of today not
only errs when he speaks, but actually _lies_--and that he no longer
escapes blame for his lie through "innocence" or "ignorance." The priest
knows, as every one knows, that there is no longer any "God," or any
"sinner," or any "Saviour"--that "free will" and the "moral order of the
world" are lies--: serious reflection, the profound self-conquest of the
spirit, _allow_ no man to pretend that he does _not_ know it.... _All_
the ideas of the church are now recognized for what they are--as the
worst counterfeits in existence, invented to debase nature and all
natural values; the priest himself is seen as he actually is--as the
most dangerous form of parasite, as the venomous spider of creation....
We know, our _conscience_ now knows--just _what_ the real value of all
those sinister inventions of priest and church has been and _what ends
they have served_, with their debasement of humanity to a state of
self-pollution, the very sight of which excites loathing,--the concepts
"the other world," "the last judgment," "the immortality of the soul,"
the "soul" itself: they are all merely so many instruments of torture,
systems of cruelty, whereby the priest becomes master and remains
master.... Every one knows this, _but nevertheless things remain as
before_. What has become of the last trace of decent feeling, of
self-respect, when our statesmen, otherwise an unconventional class of
men and thoroughly anti-Christian in their acts, now call themselves
Christians and go to the communion-table?... A prince at the head of his
armies, magnificent as the expression of the egoism and arrogance of his
people--and yet acknowledging, _without_ any shame, that he is a
Christian!... Whom, then, does Christianity deny? _what_ does it call
"the world"? To be a _soldier_, to be a judge, to be a patriot; to
defend one's self; to be careful of one's honour; to desire one's own
advantage; to be _proud_ ... every act of everyday, every instinct,
every valuation that shows itself in a _deed_, is now anti-Christian:
what a _monster of falsehood_ the modern man must be to call himself
nevertheless, and _without_ shame, a Christian!--
39.