Zarathustra now meets the last pope, and, in a poetical form, we get
Nietzsche’s description of the course Judaism and Christianity pursued
before they reached their final break-up in Atheism, Agnosticism, and
the like. The God of a strong, warlike race—the God of Israel—is a
jealous, revengeful God. He is a power that can be pictured and endured
only by a hardy and courageous race, a race rich enough to sacrifice and
to lose in sacrifice. The image of this God degenerates with the people
that appropriate it, and gradually He becomes a God of love—“soft and
mellow,” a lower middle-class deity, who is “pitiful.” He can no longer
be a God who requires sacrifice, for we ourselves are no longer rich
enough for that. The tables are therefore turned upon Him; HE must
sacrifice to us. His pity becomes so great that he actually does
sacrifice something to us—His only begotten Son. Such a process
carried to its logical conclusions must ultimately end in His own
destruction, and thus we find the pope declaring that God was one day
suffocated by His all-too-great pity. What follows is clear enough.
Zarathustra recognises another higher man in the ex-pope and sends him
too as a guest to the cave.