Christianity.--The very word "Christianity" is a misunderstanding--at
bottom there was only one Christian, and he died on the cross. The
"Gospels" _died_ on the cross. What, from that moment onward, was called
the "Gospels" was the very reverse of what _he_ had lived: "bad
tidings," a _Dysangelium_.[14] It is an error amounting to
nonsensicality to see in "faith," and particularly in faith in salvation
through Christ, the distinguishing mark of the Christian: only the
Christian _way of life_, the life _lived_ by him who died on the cross,
is Christian.... To this day _such_ a life is still possible, and for
_certain_ men even necessary: genuine, primitive Christianity will
remain possible in all ages.... _Not_ faith, but acts; above all, an
_avoidance_ of acts, a different _state of being_.... States of
consciousness, faith of a sort, the acceptance, for example, of anything
as true--as every psychologist knows, the value of these things is
perfectly indifferent and fifth-rate compared to that of the instincts:
strictly speaking, the whole concept of intellectual causality is false.
To reduce being a Christian, the state of Christianity, to an acceptance
of truth, to a mere phenomenon of consciousness, is to formulate the
negation of Christianity. _In fact, there are no Christians._ The
"Christian"--he who for two thousand years has passed as a Christian--is
simply a psychological self-delusion. Closely examined, it appears
that, _despite_ all his "faith," he has been ruled _only_ by his
instincts--and _what instincts_!--In all ages--for example, in the case
of Luther--"faith" has been no more than a cloak, a pretense, a _curtain_
behind which the instincts have played their game--a shrewd _blindness_
to the domination of _certain_ of the instincts.... I have already
called "faith" the specially Christian form of _shrewdness_--people
always _talk_ of their "faith" and _act_ according to their
instincts.... In the world of ideas of the Christian there is nothing
that so much as touches reality: on the contrary, one recognizes
an instinctive _hatred_ of reality as the motive power, the only motive
power at the bottom of Christianity. What follows therefrom? That even
here, in _psychologicis_, there is a radical error, which is to say one
conditioning fundamentals, which is to say, one in _substance_. Take
away one idea and put a genuine reality in its place--and the whole of
Christianity crumbles to nothingness!--Viewed calmly, this strangest of
all phenomena, a religion not only depending on errors, but inventive
and ingenious _only_ in devising injurious errors, poisonous to life
and to the heart--this remains a _spectacle for the gods_--for those
gods who are also philosophers, and whom I have encountered, for
example, in the celebrated dialogues at Naxos. At the moment when their
_disgust_ leaves them (--and us!) they will be thankful for the
spectacle afforded by the Christians: perhaps because of _this_ curious
exhibition alone the wretched little planet called the earth deserves a
glance from omnipotence, a show of divine interest.... Therefore, let us
not underestimate the Christians: the Christian, false _to the point of
innocence_, is far above the ape--in its application to the Christians a
well-known theory of descent becomes a mere piece of politeness....
[14] So in the text. One of Nietzsche's numerous coinages, obviously
suggested by _Evangelium_, the German for _gospel_.
40.
--The fate of the Gospels was decided by death--it hung on the "cross."...
It was only death, that unexpected and shameful death; it was only
the cross, which was usually reserved for the canaille only--it was only
this appalling paradox which brought the disciples face to face with the
real riddle: "_Who was it? what was it_?"--The feeling of dismay, of
profound affront and injury; the suspicion that such a death might
involve a _refutation_ of their cause; the terrible question, "Why just
in this way?"--this state of mind is only too easy to understand. Here
everything _must_ be accounted for as necessary; everything must have a
meaning, a reason, the highest sort of reason; the love of a disciple
excludes all chance. Only then did the chasm of doubt yawn: "_Who_ put
him to death? who was his natural enemy?"--this question flashed like a
lightning-stroke. Answer: dominant Judaism, its ruling class. From that
moment, one found one's self in revolt _against_ the established order,
and began to understand Jesus as _in revolt against the established
order_. Until then this militant, this nay-saying, nay-doing element in
his character had been lacking; what is more, he had appeared to present
its opposite. Obviously, the little community had _not_ understood what
was precisely the most important thing of all: the example offered by
this way of dying, the freedom from and superiority to every feeling of
_ressentiment_--a plain indication of how little he was understood at
all! All that Jesus could hope to accomplish by his death, in itself,
was to offer the strongest possible proof, or _example_, of his
teachings in the most public manner.... But his disciples were very far
from _forgiving_ his death--though to have done so would have accorded
with the Gospels in the highest degree; and neither were they prepared
to _offer_ themselves, with gentle and serene calmness of heart, for a
similar death.... On the contrary, it was precisely the most
unevangelical of feelings, _revenge_, that now possessed them. It seemed
impossible that the cause should perish with his death: "recompense" and
"judgment" became necessary (--yet what could be less evangelical than
"recompense," "punishment," and "sitting in judgment"!). Once more the
popular belief in the coming of a messiah appeared in the foreground;
attention was rivetted upon an historical moment: the "kingdom of God"
is to come, with judgment upon his enemies.... But in all this there was
a wholesale misunderstanding: imagine the "kingdom of God" as a last
act, as a mere promise! The Gospels had been, in fact, the incarnation,
the fulfilment, the _realization_ of this "kingdom of God." It was only
now that all the familiar contempt for and bitterness against Pharisees
and theologians began to appear in the character of the Master--he was
thereby _turned_ into a Pharisee and theologian himself! On the other
hand, the savage veneration of these completely unbalanced souls could
no longer endure the Gospel doctrine, taught by Jesus, of the equal
right of all men to be children of God: their revenge took the form of
_elevating_ Jesus in an extravagant fashion, and thus separating him
from themselves: just as, in earlier times, the Jews, to revenge
themselves upon their enemies, separated themselves from their God, and
placed him on a great height. The One God and the Only Son of God: both
were products of _ressentiment_....
41.
--And from that time onward an absurd problem offered itself: "how
_could_ God allow it!" To which the deranged reason of the little
community formulated an answer that was terrifying in its absurdity: God
gave his son as a _sacrifice_ for the forgiveness of sins. At once there
was an end of the gospels! Sacrifice for sin, and in its most obnoxious
and barbarous form: sacrifice of the _innocent_ for the sins of the
guilty! What appalling paganism!--Jesus himself had done away with the
very concept of "guilt," he denied that there was any gulf fixed between
God and man; he _lived_ this unity between God and man, and that was
precisely _his_ "glad tidings".... And _not_ as a mere privilege!--From
this time forward the type of the Saviour was corrupted, bit by bit, by
the doctrine of judgment and of the second coming, the doctrine of death
as a sacrifice, the doctrine of the _resurrection_, by means of which
the entire concept of "blessedness," the whole and only reality of the
gospels, is juggled away--in favour of a state of existence _after_
death!... St. Paul, with that rabbinical impudence which shows itself in
all his doings, gave a logical quality to that conception, that
_indecent_ conception, in this way: "_If_ Christ did not rise from the
dead, then all our faith is in vain!"--And at once there sprang from the
Gospels the most contemptible of all unfulfillable promises, the
_shameless_ doctrine of personal immortality.... Paul even preached it
as a _reward_....
42.
One now begins to see just _what_ it was that came to an end with the
death on the cross: a new and thoroughly original effort to found a
Buddhistic peace movement, and so establish _happiness on earth_--real,
_not_ merely promised. For this remains--as I have already pointed
out--the essential difference between the two religions of _décadence_:
Buddhism promises nothing, but actually fulfils; Christianity promises
everything, but _fulfils nothing_.--Hard upon the heels of the "glad
tidings" came the worst imaginable: those of Paul. In Paul is incarnated
the very opposite of the "bearer of glad tidings"; he represents the
genius for hatred, the vision of hatred, the relentless logic of hatred.
_What_, indeed, has not this dysangelist sacrificed to hatred! Above
all, the Saviour: he nailed him to _his own_ cross. The life, the
example, the teaching, the death of Christ, the meaning and the law of
the whole gospels--nothing was left of all this after that counterfeiter
in hatred had reduced it to his uses. Surely _not_ reality; surely _not_
historical truth!... Once more the priestly instinct of the Jew
perpetrated the same old master crime against history--he simply struck
out the yesterday and the day before yesterday of Christianity, and
_invented his own history of Christian beginnings_. Going further, he
treated the history of Israel to another falsification, so that it
became a mere prologue to _his_ achievement: all the prophets, it now
appeared, had referred to _his_ "Saviour."... Later on the church even
falsified the history of man in order to make it a prologue to
Christianity.... The figure of the Saviour, his teaching, his way of
life, his death, the meaning of his death, even the consequences of his
death--nothing remained untouched, nothing remained in even remote
contact with reality. Paul simply shifted the centre of gravity of that
whole life to a place _behind_ this existence--in the _lie_ of the
"risen" Jesus. At bottom, he had no use for the life of the
Saviour--what he needed was the death on the cross, _and_ something
more. To see anything honest in such a man as Paul, whose home was at
the centre of the Stoical enlightenment, when he converts an
hallucination into a _proof_ of the resurrection of the Saviour, or even
to believe his tale that he suffered from this hallucination
himself--this would be a genuine _niaiserie_ in a psychologist. Paul
willed the end; _therefore_ he also willed the means.... What he himself
didn't believe was swallowed readily enough by the idiots among whom he
spread _his_ teaching.--What _he_ wanted was power; in Paul the priest
once more reached out for power--he had use only for such concepts,
teachings and symbols as served the purpose of tyrannizing over the
masses and organizing mobs. _What_ was the only part of Christianity
that Mohammed borrowed later on? Paul's invention, his device for
establishing priestly tyranny and organizing the mob: the belief in the
immortality of the soul--_that is to say, the doctrine of
"judgment"_....
43.
When the centre of gravity of life is placed, _not_ in life itself, but
in "the beyond"--in _nothingness_--then one has taken away its centre of
gravity altogether. The vast lie of personal immortality destroys all
reason, all natural instinct--henceforth, everything in the instincts
that is beneficial, that fosters life and that safeguards the future is
a cause of suspicion. So to live that life no longer has any meaning:
_this_ is now the "meaning" of life.... Why be public-spirited? Why take
any pride in descent and forefathers? Why labour together, trust one
another, or concern one's self about the common welfare, and try to
serve it?... Merely so many "temptations," so many strayings from the
"straight path."--"_One_ thing only is necessary".... That every man,
because he has an "immortal soul," is as good as every other man; that
in an infinite universe of things the "salvation" of _every_ individual
may lay claim to eternal importance; that insignificant bigots and the
three-fourths insane may assume that the laws of nature are constantly
_suspended_ in their behalf--it is impossible to lavish too much
contempt upon such a magnification of every sort of selfishness to
infinity, to _insolence_. And yet Christianity has to thank precisely
_this_ miserable flattery of personal vanity for its _triumph_--it was
thus that it lured all the botched, the dissatisfied, the fallen upon
evil days, the whole refuse and off-scouring of humanity to its side.
The "salvation of the soul"--in plain English: "the world revolves
around _me_."... The poisonous doctrine, "_equal_ rights for all," has
been propagated as a Christian principle: out of the secret nooks and
crannies of bad instinct Christianity has waged a deadly war upon all
feelings of reverence and distance between man and man, which is to
say, upon the first _prerequisite_ to every step upward, to every
development of civilization--out of the _ressentiment_ of the masses it
has forged its chief weapons against _us_, against everything noble,
joyous and high-spirited on earth, against our happiness on earth.... To
allow "immortality" to every Peter and Paul was the greatest, the most
vicious outrage upon _noble_ humanity ever perpetrated.--_And_ let us
not underestimate the fatal influence that Christianity has had, even
upon politics! Nowadays no one has courage any more for special rights,
for the right of dominion, for feelings of honourable pride in himself
and his equals--for the _pathos of distance_.... Our politics is sick
with this lack of courage!--The aristocratic attitude of mind has been
undermined by the lie of the equality of souls; and if belief in the
"privileges of the majority" makes and _will continue to make_
revolutions--it is Christianity, let us not doubt, and _Christian_
valuations, which convert every revolution into a carnival of blood and
crime! Christianity is a revolt of all creatures that creep on the
ground against everything that is _lofty_: the gospel of the "lowly"
_lowers_....
44.
--The gospels are invaluable as evidence of the corruption that was
already persistent _within_ the primitive community. That which Paul,
with the cynical logic of a rabbi, later developed to a conclusion was
at bottom merely a process of decay that had begun with the death of the
Saviour.--These gospels cannot be read too carefully; difficulties lurk
behind every word. I confess--I hope it will not be held against
me--that it is precisely for this reason that they offer first-rate joy
to a psychologist--as the _opposite_ of all merely naïve corruption, as
refinement _par excellence_, as an artistic triumph in psychological
corruption. The gospels, in fact, stand alone. The Bible as a whole is
not to be compared to them. Here we are among Jews: this is the _first_
thing to be borne in mind if we are not to lose the thread of the
matter. This positive genius for conjuring up a delusion of personal
"holiness" unmatched anywhere else, either in books or by men; this
elevation of fraud in word and attitude to the level of an _art_--all
this is not an accident due to the chance talents of an individual, or
to any violation of nature. The thing responsible is _race_. The whole
of Judaism appears in Christianity as the art of concocting holy lies,
and there, after many centuries of earnest Jewish training and hard
practice of Jewish technic, the business comes to the stage of mastery.
The Christian, that _ultima ratio_ of lying, is the Jew all over
again--he is _threefold_ the Jew.... The underlying will to make use
only of such concepts, symbols and attitudes as fit into priestly
practice, the instinctive repudiation of every _other_ mode of thought,
and every other method of estimating values and utilities--this is not
only tradition, it is _inheritance_: only as an inheritance is it able
to operate with the force of nature. The whole of mankind, even the best
minds of the best ages (with one exception, perhaps hardly human--),
have permitted themselves to be deceived. The gospels have been read as
a _book of innocence_ ... surely no small indication of the high skill
with which the trick has been done.--Of course, if we could actually
_see_ these astounding bigots and bogus saints, even if only for an
instant, the farce would come to an end,--and it is precisely because
_I_ cannot read a word of theirs without seeing their attitudinizing
that _I have made an end of them_.... I simply cannot endure the way
they have of rolling up their eyes.--For the majority, happily enough,
books are mere _literature_.--Let us not be led astray: they say "judge
not," and yet they condemn to hell whoever stands in their way. In
letting God sit in judgment they judge themselves; in glorifying God
they glorify themselves; in _demanding_ that every one show the virtues
which they themselves happen to be capable of--still more, which they
_must_ have in order to remain on top--they assume the grand air of men
struggling for virtue, of men engaging in a war that virtue may prevail.
"We live, we die, we sacrifice ourselves _for the good_" (--"the truth,"
"the light," "the kingdom of God"): in point of fact, they simply do
what they cannot help doing. Forced, like hypocrites, to be sneaky, to
hide in corners, to slink along in the shadows, they convert their
necessity into a _duty_: it is on grounds of duty that they account for
their lives of humility, and that humility becomes merely one more proof
of their piety.... Ah, that humble, chaste, charitable brand of fraud!
"Virtue itself shall bear witness for us."... One may read the gospels
as books of _moral_ seduction: these petty folks fasten themselves to
morality--they know the uses of morality! Morality is the best of all
devices for leading mankind _by the nose_!--The fact is that the
conscious conceit of the chosen here disguises itself as modesty: it is
in this way that _they_, the "community," the "good and just," range
themselves, once and for always, on one side, the side of "the
truth"--and the rest of mankind, "the world," on the other.... In _that_
we observe the most fatal sort of megalomania that the earth has ever
seen: little abortions of bigots and liars began to claim exclusive
rights in the concepts of "God," "the truth," "the light," "the spirit,"
"love," "wisdom" and "life," as if these things were synonyms of
themselves and thereby they sought to fence themselves off from the
"world"; little super-Jews, ripe for some sort of madhouse, turned
values upside down in order to meet _their_ notions, just as if the
Christian were the meaning, the salt, the standard and even the _last
judgment_ of all the rest.... The whole disaster was only made possible
by the fact that there already existed in the world a similar
megalomania, allied to this one in race, to wit, the _Jewish_: once a
chasm began to yawn between Jews and Judaeo-Christians, the latter had
no choice but to employ the self-preservative measures that the Jewish
instinct had devised, even _against_ the Jews themselves, whereas the
Jews had employed them only against non-Jews. The Christian is simply a
Jew of the "reformed" confession.--
45.
--I offer a few examples of the sort of thing these petty people have
got into their heads--what they have _put into the mouth_ of the Master:
the unalloyed creed of "beautiful souls."--
"And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear you, when ye depart
thence, shake off the dust under your feet for a testimony against them.
Verily I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrha
in the day of judgment, than for that city" (Mark vi, 11)--How
_evangelical_!...
"And whosoever shall offend one of _these_ little ones that believe in
me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck,
and he were cast into the sea" (Mark ix, 42).--How _evangelical_!...
"And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for
thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes
to be cast into hell fire; Where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not
quenched." (Mark ix, 47.[15])--It is not exactly the eye that is
meant....
[15] To which, without mentioning it, Nietzsche adds verse 48.
"Verily I say unto you, That there be some of them that stand here,
which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of God
come with power." (Mark ix, 1.)--Well _lied_, lion![16]...
[16] A paraphrase of Demetrius' "Well roar'd, Lion!" in act v, scene 1
of "A Midsummer Night's Dream." The lion, of course, is the familiar
Christian symbol for Mark.
"Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his
cross, and follow me. _For_..." (_Note of a psychologist._ Christian
morality is refuted by its _fors_: its reasons are against it,--this
makes it Christian.) Mark viii, 34.--
"Judge not, that ye be not judged. With what measure ye mete, it shall
be measured to you again." (Matthew vii, 1.[17])--What a notion of
justice, of a "just" judge!...
[17] Nietzsche also quotes part of verse 2.
"For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even
the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye
more _than others_? do not even the publicans so?" (Matthew v,
46.[18])--Principle of "Christian love": it insists upon being well
_paid_ in the end....
[18] The quotation also includes verse 47.
"But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father
forgive your trespasses." (Matthew vi, 15.)--Very compromising for the
said "father."...
"But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all
these things shall be added unto you." (Matthew vi, 33.)--All these
things: namely, food, clothing, all the necessities of life. An _error_,
to put it mildly.... A bit before this God appears as a tailor, at least
in certain cases....
"Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward _is_
great in heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers unto the
prophets." (Luke vi, 23.)--_Impudent_ rabble! It compares itself to the
prophets....
"Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and _that_ the spirit of God
dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, _him shall God
destroy_; for the temple of God is holy, _which temple ye are_." (Paul,
1 Corinthians iii, 16.[19])--For that sort of thing one cannot have
enough contempt....
[19] And 17.
"Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world
shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters?"
(Paul, 1 Corinthians vi, 2.)--Unfortunately, not merely the speech of
a lunatic.... This _frightful impostor_ then proceeds: "Know ye not
that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this
life?"...
"Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in
the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by
the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.... Not many wise
men after the flesh, not men mighty, not many noble _are called_: But
God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise;
and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things
which are mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are
despised, hath God chosen, _yea_, and things which are not, to bring to
nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his presence."
(Paul, 1 Corinthians i, 20ff.[20])--In order to _understand_ this
passage, a first-rate example of the psychology underlying every
Chandala-morality, one should read the first part of my "Genealogy of
Morals": there, for the first time, the antagonism between a _noble_
morality and a morality born of _ressentiment_ and impotent vengefulness
is exhibited. Paul was the greatest of all apostles of revenge....
[20] Verses 20, 21, 26, 27, 28, 29.
46.