(1) The immortality of the individual;
(2) The assumed existence of _another_ world;
(3) The absurd notion of punishment and expiation in the heart of the
interpretation of existence;
(4) The profanation of the divine nature of man, instead of its
accentuation, and the construction of a very profound chasm, which
can only be crossed by the help of a miracle or by means of the most
thorough self-contempt;
(5) The whole world of corrupted imagination and morbid passion,
instead of a simple and loving life of action, instead of Buddhistic
happiness attainable on earth;
(6) An ecclesiastical order with a priesthood, theology, cults, and
sacraments; in short, everything that Jesus of Nazareth _combated_;
(7) The _miraculous_ in everything and everybody, superstition too:
while precisely the trait which distinguished Judaism and primitive
Christianity was their _repugnance to_ miracles and their relative
_rationalism._
197.
_The psychological pre-requisites:--Ignorance_ and _lack of
culture,_--the sort of ignorance which has unlearned every kind of
shame: let any one imagine those impudent saints in the heart of
Athens;
The _Jewish instinct of a chosen people_: they appropriate _all the
virtues,_ without further ado, as their own, and regard the rest of
the world as their opposite; this is a profound sign of _spiritual
depravity_;
_The total lack of real aims_ and real _duties,_ for which other
virtues are required than those of the bigot--_the State undertook
this work for them_: and the impudent people still behaved as though
they had no need of the State. "Except ye become as little children"
--oh, how far we are from this psychological ingenuousness!
198.
The Founder of Christianity had to pay dearly for having directed His
teaching at the lowest classes of Jewish society and intelligence. They
understood Him only according to the limitations of their own spirit.
... It was a disgrace to concoct a history of salvation, a personal
God, a personal Saviour, a personal immortality, and to have retained
all the meanness of the "person," and of the "history" of a doctrine
which denies the reality of all that is personal and historical.
The legend of salvation takes the place of the symbolic "now" and "all
time," of the symbolic "here" and "everywhere"; and miracles appear
instead of the psychological symbol.
199.
Nothing is less innocent than the New Testament. The soil from which it
sprang is known.
These people, possessed of an inflexible will to assert themselves, and
who, once they had lost all natural hold on life, and had long existed
without any right to existence, still knew how to prevail by means of
hypotheses which were as unnatural as they were imaginary (calling
themselves the chosen people, the community of saints, the people of
the promised land, and the "Church"): these people made use of their
_pia fraus_ with such skill, and with such "clean consciences," that
one cannot be too cautious when they preach morality. When Jews step
forward as the personification of innocence, the danger must be great.
While reading the New Testament a man should have his small fund of
intelligence, mistrust, and wickedness constantly at hand.
People of the lowest origin, partly mob, outcasts not only from good
society, but also from respectable society; grown away from the
_atmosphere_ of culture, and free from discipline; ignorant, without
even a suspicion of the fact that conscience can also rule in spiritual
matters; in a word--the Jews: an instinctively crafty people, able to
create an advantage, a means of _seduction_ out of every conceivable
hypothesis of superstition, even out of ignorance itself.
200.
I regard Christianity as the most fatal and seductive lie that has ever
yet existed--as the greatest and most _impious lie_: I can discern the
last sprouts and branches of its ideal beneath every form of disguise,
I decline to enter into any compromise or false position in reference
to it--I urge people to declare open war with it.
The _morality of paltry people_ as the measure of all things: this is
the most repugnant kind of degeneracy that civilisation has ever yet
brought into existence. And this _kind of ideal_ is hanging still,
under the name of "God," over men's heads!!
201.
However modest one's demands may be concerning intellectual
cleanliness, when one touches the New Testament one cannot help
experiencing a sort of inexpressible feeling of discomfort; for the
unbounded cheek with which the least qualified people will have their
say in its pages, in regard to the greatest problems of existence,
and claim to sit in judgment on such matters, exceeds all limits. The
impudent levity with which the most unwieldy problems are spoken of
here (life, the world, God, the purpose of life), as if they were not
problems at all, but the most simple things which these little bigots
_know all about_!!!
202.
This was the most fatal form of insanity that has ever yet existed on
earth:--when these little lying abortions of bigotry begin laying claim
to the words "God," "last judgment," "truth," "love," "wisdom," "Holy
Spirit," and thereby distinguishing themselves from the rest of the
world; when such men begin to transvalue values to suit themselves, as
though they were the sense, the salt, the standard, and the measure of
all things; then all that one should do is this: build lunatic asylums
for their incarceration. To _persecute_ them was an egregious act of
antique folly: this was taking them too seriously; it was making them
serious.
The whole fatality was made possible by the fact that a similar form
of megalomania was already _in existence,_ the _Jewish_ form (once
the gulf separating the Jews from the Christian-Jews was bridged, the
Christian-Jews _were compelled_ to employ those self-preservative
measures afresh which were discovered by the Jewish instinct, for
their own self-preservation, after having accentuated them); and again
through the fact that Greek moral philosophy had done everything that
could be done to prepare the way for moral-fanaticism, even among
Greeks and Romans, and to render it palatable.... Plato, the great
importer of corruption, who was the first who refused to see Nature
in morality, and who had already deprived the Greek gods of all their
worth by his notion "_good_" was already tainted with _Jewish bigotry_
(in Egypt?).
203.
These small virtues of gregarious animals do not by any means lead
to "eternal life": to put them on the stage in such a way, and to
use them for one's own purpose is perhaps very smart; but to him who
keeps his eyes open, even here, it remains, in spite of all, the most
ludicrous performance. A man by no means deserves privileges, either on
earth or in heaven, because he happens to have attained to perfection
in the art of behaving like a good-natured little sheep; at best, he
only remains a dear, absurd little ram with horns--provided, of course,
he does not burst with vanity or excite indignation by assuming the
airs of a supreme judge.
What a terrible glow of false colouring here floods the meanest
virtues--as though they were the reflection of divine qualities!
The _natural_ purpose and utility of every virtue is systematically
_hushed up_; it can only be valuable in the light of a _divine_ command
or model, or in the light of the good which belongs to a beyond or a
spiritual world. (This is magnificent!--As if it were a question of the
_salvation of the soul_: but it was a means of making things bearable
here with as many beautiful sentiments as possible.)
204.
The _law,_ which is the fundamentally realistic formula of certain
self-preservative measures of a community, forbids certain actions
that have a definite tendency to jeopardise the welfare of that
community: it does _not_ forbid the attitude of mind which gives rise
to these actions--for in the pursuit of other ends the community
requires these forbidden actions, namely, when it is a matter of
opposing its _enemies._ The moral idealist now steps forward and says:
"God sees into men's hearts: the action itself counts for nothing;
the reprehensible attitude of mind from which it proceeds must be
extirpated ..." In normal conditions men laugh at such things; it is
only in exceptional cases, when a community lives _quite_ beyond the
need of waging war in order to maintain itself, that an ear is lent to
such things. Any attitude of mind is abandoned, the utility of which
cannot be conceived.
This was the case, for example, when Buddha appeared among a people
that was both peaceable and afflicted with great intellectual weariness.
This was also the case in regard to the first Christian community (as
also the Jewish), the primary condition of which was the absolutely
_unpolitical_ Jewish society. Christianity could grow only upon the
soil of Judaism--that is to say, among a people that had already
renounced the political life, and which led a sort of parasitic
existence within the Roman sphere of government, Christianity goes a
step _farther_: it allows men to "emasculate" themselves even more; the
circumstances actually favour their doing so.--_Nature_ is _expelled_
from morality when it is said, "Love ye your enemies": for _Nature's_
injunction, "Ye shall _love_ your neighbour and _hate_ your enemy,"
has now become senseless in the law (in instinct); now, even _the love
a man feels for his neighbour_ must first be based upon something (_a
sort of love of God_). _God_ is introduced everywhere, and _utility_
is withdrawn; the natural _origin_ of morality is denied everywhere:
the _veneration of Nature,_ which lies in _acknowledging a natural
morality,_ is _destroyed_ to the roots....
Whence comes the _seductive charm_ of this emasculate ideal of man? Why
are we not _disgusted_ by it, just as we are disgusted at the thought
of a eunuch?... The answer is obvious: it is not the voice of the
eunuch that revolts us, despite the cruel mutilation of which it is the
result; for, as a matter of fact, it has grown sweeter.... And owing to
the very fact that the "male organ" has been amputated from virtue, its
voice now has a feminine ring, which, formerly, was not to be discerned.
On the other hand, we have only to think of the terrible hardness,
dangers, and accidents to which a life of manly virtues leads--the
life of a Corsican, even at the present day, or that of a heathen Arab
(which resembles the Corsican's life even to the smallest detail:
the Arab's songs might have been written by Corsicans)--in order to
perceive how the most robust type of man was fascinated and moved by
the voluptuous ring of this "goodness" and "purity." ... A pastoral
melody ... an idyll ... the "good man": such things have most effect in
ages when tragedy is abroad.
***
With this, we have realised to what extent the "idealist" (the ideal
eunuch) also proceeds from a definite reality and is not merely a
visionary.... He has perceived precisely that, for his kind of reality,
a brutal injunction of the sort which prohibits certain actions has no
sense (because the instinct which would urge him to these actions is
_weakened,_ thanks to a long need of practice, and of compulsion to
practise). The castrator formulates a host of new self-preservative
measures for a perfectly definite species of men: in this sense he is
a realist. The _means_ to which he has recourse for establishing his
legislation, are the same as those of ancient legislators: he appeals
to all authorities, to "God," and he exploits the notions "guilt and
punishment"--that is to say, he avails himself of the whole of the
older ideal, but interprets it differently; for instance: punishment is
given a place in the inner self (it is called the pang of conscience).
In practice this kind of man _meets with his end_ the moment the
exceptional conditions favouring his existence cease to prevail--a sort
of insular happiness, like that of Tahiti, and of the little Jews in
the Roman provinces. Their only _natural_ foe is the soil from which
they spring: they must wage war against that, and once more give their
_offensive_ and _defensive_ passions rope in order to be equal to
it: their opponents are the adherents of the old ideal (this kind of
hostility is shown on a grand scale by Paul in relation to Judaism, and
by Luther in relation to the priestly ascetic ideal). The mildest form
of this antagonism is certainly that of the first Buddhists; perhaps
nothing has given rise to so much work, as the enfeeblement and
discouragement of the feeling of _antagonism._ The struggle against
resentment almost seems the Buddhist's first duty; thus only is his
_peace_ of soul secured. To isolate oneself without bitterness, this
presupposes the existence of a surprisingly mild and sweet order of
men,--saints....
***
The _Astuteness of moral castration._--How is war waged against
the virile passions and valuations? No violent physical means are
available; the war must therefore be one of ruses, spells, and lies--in
short, a "spiritual war."
First recipe: One appropriates virtue in general, and makes it the main
feature of one's ideal; the older ideal is denied and declared to be
_the reverse of all ideals._ Slander has to be carried to a fine art
for this purpose.
Second recipe: A type of man is set up as a general _standard_; and
this is projected into all things, behind all things, and behind the
destiny of all things--as God.
Third recipe: The opponents of one's ideal are declared to be the
opponents of God; one arrogates to oneself a _right_ to great pathos,
to power, and a right to curse and to bless.
Fourth recipe: All suffering, all gruesome, terrible, and fatal things
are declared to be the results of opposition to _ones_ ideal--all
suffering is _punishment_ even in the case of one's adherents (except
it be a trial, etc.).
Fifth recipe: One goes so far as to regard Nature as the reverse of
one's ideal, and the lengthy sojourn amid natural conditions is
considered a great trial of patience--a sort of martyrdom; one studies
contempt, both in one's attitudes and one's looks towards all "natural
things."
Sixth recipe: The triumph of anti-naturalism and ideal castration,
the triumph of the world of the pure, good, sinless, and blessed, is
projected into the future as the consummation, the finale, the great
hope, and the "Coming of the Kingdom of God."
I hope that one may still be allowed to _laugh_ at this artificial
hoisting up of a small species of man to the position of an absolute
standard of all things?
205.
What I do not at all like in Jesus of Nazareth and His Apostle Paul,
is that they _stuffed so much into the heads of paltry people,_ as
if their modest virtues were worth so much ado. We have had to pay
dearly for it all; for they brought the most valuable qualities of both
virtue and man into ill repute; they set the guilty conscience and the
self-respect of noble souls at loggerheads, and they led the _braver,
more magnanimous, more daring, and more excessive_ tendencies of strong
souls astray--even to self-destruction.
206.
In the New Testament, and especially in the Gospels, I discern
absolutely no sign of a "_Divine_" voice: but rather an _indirect
form_ of the most subterranean fury, both in slander and
destructiveness--one of the most dishonest forms of hatred. It lacks
_all_ knowledge of the qualities of a _higher nature._ It makes an
impudent abuse of all kinds of plausibilities, and the whole stock of
proverbs is used up and foisted upon one in its pages. Was it necessary
to make a _God_ come in order to appeal to those publicans and to say
to them, etc. etc.?
Nothing could be more vulgar than this struggle with the _Pharisees,_
carried on with a host of absurd and unpractical moral pretences; the
mob, of course, has always been entertained by such feats. Fancy the
reproach of "hypocrisy!" coming from those lips! Nothing could be more
vulgar than this treatment of one's opponents--a most insidious sign of
nobility or its _reverse...._
207.
Primitive Christianity is the _abolition_ of the _State_: it prohibits
oaths, military service, courts of justice, self-defence or the defence
of a community, and denies the difference between fellow-countrymen and
strangers, as also the _order of castes._
_Christs example_; He does not withstand those who ill-treat Him; He
does not defend Himself; He does more, He "offers the left cheek"
(to the demand: "Tell us whether thou be the Christ?" He replies:
"Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of
power, and coming in the clouds of heaven"). He forbids His disciples
to defend Him; He calls attention to the fact that He could get help
if He wished to, but _will_ not.
Christianity also means the _abolition of society,_ it prizes
everything that society despises, its very growth takes place among the
outcasts, the condemned, and the leprous of all kinds, as also among
"publicans," "sinners," prostitutes, and the most foolish of men (the
"fisher folk "); it despises the rich, the scholarly, the noble, the
virtuous, and the "punctilious." ...
208.
The war against the noble and the powerful, as it is waged in the New
Testament, is reminiscent of Reynard the Fox and his methods: but
_plus_ the Christian unction and the more absolute refusal to recognise
one's own craftiness.
209.
The Gospel is the announcement that the road to happiness lies open for
the lowly and the poor--that all one has to do is to emancipate one's
self from all institutions, traditions, and the tutelage of the higher
classes. Thus Christianity is no more than the _typical teaching of
Socialists._
Property, acquisitions, mother-country, status and rank, tribunals,
the police, the State, the Church, Education, Art, militarism: all
these are so many obstacles in the way of happiness, so many mistakes,
snares, and devil's artifices, on which the Gospel passes sentence--all
this is typical of socialistic doctrines.
Behind all this there is the outburst, the explosion, of a
concentrated loathing of the "masters,"--the instinct which discerns
the happiness of freedom after such long oppression.... (Mostly a
symptom of the fact that the inferior classes have been treated too
humanely, that their tongues already taste a joy which is forbidden
them.... It is not hunger that provokes revolutions, but the fact that
the mob have contracted an appetite _en mangeant...._)
210.
Let the _New Testament only be read as a book of seduction_: in it
virtue is appropriated, with the idea that public opinion is best
won with it,--and as a matter of fact it is a very modest kind of
_virtue,_ which recognises only the ideal gregarious animal and nothing
more (including, of course, the herdsmen): a puny, soft, benevolent,
helpful, and gushingly-satisfied kind of virtue which to the outside
world is quite devoid of pretensions,--and which separates the "world"
entirely from itself. The _crassest arrogance_ which fancies that the
destiny of man turns around it, and it alone, and that on the one side
the community of believers represents what is right, and on the other
the world represents what is false and eternally to be reproved and
rejected. The most _imbecile hatred_ of all things in power, which,
however, never goes so far as to touch these things. A kind of _inner
detachment_ which, outwardly, leaves everything as it was (servitude
and slavery; and knowing how to convert _everything_ into a means of
serving God and virtue).
211.
Christianity is possible as the _most private_ form of life; it
presupposes the existence of a narrow, isolated, and absolutely
unpolitical society--it belongs to the conventicle. On the other hand,
a "Christian _State_," "Christian politics," are pieces of downright
impudence; they are lies, like, for instance, a Christian leadership
of an army, which in the end regards "the God of hosts" as chief of
the staff. Even the Papacy has never been able to carry on politics
in a Christian way...; and when Reformers indulge in politics, as
Luther did, it is well known that they are just as ardent followers of
Machiavelli as any other immoralists or tyrants.
212.
Christianity is still possible at any moment. It is not bound to any
one of the impudent dogmas that have adorned themselves with its name:
it needs neither the teaching of the _personal God,_ nor of _sin,_
nor of _immortality,_ nor of _redemption,_ nor of _faith_; it has
absolutely no need whatever of metaphysics, and it needs asceticism and
Christian "natural science" still less. Christianity is a _method of
life,_ not a system of belief. It tells us how we should behave, not
what we should believe.
He who says to-day: "I refuse to be a soldier," "I care not for
tribunals," "I lay no claim to the services of the police," "I will
not do anything that disturbs the peace within me: and if I must
suffer on that account, nothing can so well maintain my inward peace as
suffering"--such a man would be a Christian.
213.
_Concerning the history of Christianity._--Continual change of
environment: Christian teaching is thus continually changing its
_centre of gravity._ The favouring of _low_ and _paltry_ people....
The development of _Caritas...._ The type "Christian" gradually
adopts everything that it originally rejected (_and in the rejection
of which it asserted its right to exist_). The Christian becomes a
citizen, a soldier, a judge, a workman, a merchant, a scholar, a
theologian, a priest, a philosopher, a farmer, an artist, a patriot,
a politician, a prince ... he re-enters all those _departments of
active life_ which he had forsworn (he defends himself, he establishes
tribunals, he punishes, he swears, he differentiates between people
and people, he contemns, and he shows anger). The whole life of the
Christian is ultimately exactly that life _from which Christ preached
deliverance...._ The Church is just as much a factor in the _triumph_
of the Antichrist, as the modern State and modern Nationalism.... The
Church is the barbarisation of Christianity.
214.
Among the powers that have mastered _Christianity_ are: Judaism
(_Paul_); Platonism (Augustine); The cult of mystery (the teaching of
salvation, the emblem of the "cross"); Asceticism (hostility towards
"Nature," "Reason," the "senses,"--the Orient ...).
215.
Christianity is a denaturalisation of gregarious morality: under the
power of the most complete misapprehensions and self-deceptions.
Democracy is a more natural form of it, and less sown with falsehood.
It is a fact that the oppressed, the low, and whole mob of slaves and
half-castes, _will prevail._
First step: they make themselves free--they detach themselves, at
first in fancy only; they recognise each other; they make themselves
paramount.
Second step: they enter the lists, they demand acknowledgment, equal
rights, "Justice."
Third step: they demand privileges (they draw the representatives of
power over to their side).
Fourth step: they _alone_ want all power, and they _have_ it.
There are _three elements_ in Christianity which must be distinguished:
_(a)_ the oppressed of all kinds, _(b)_ the mediocre of all kinds,
_(c)_ the dissatisfied and diseased of all kinds. The _first_ struggle
against the politically noble and their ideal; the second contend with
the exceptions and those who are in any way privileged (mentally or
physically); the third oppose the _natural instinct_ of the happy and
the sound.
Whenever a triumph is achieved, the second element steps to the fore;
for then Christianity has won over the sound and happy to its side
(as warriors in its cause), likewise the powerful (interested to this
extent in the conquest of the crowd)--and now it is the _gregarious
instinct,_ that _mediocre nature_ which is valuable in every respect,
that now gets its highest sanction through Christianity. This mediocre
nature ultimately becomes so conscious of itself (gains such courage
in regard to its own opinions), that it arrogates to itself even
_political power_....
Democracy is Christianity _made natural_: a sort of "return to Nature,"
once Christianity, owing to extreme anti-naturalness, might have been
overcome by the opposite valuation. Result: the aristocratic ideal
begins to _lose its natural character_ ("the higher man," "noble,"
"artist," "passion," "knowledge"; Romanticism as the cult of the
exceptional, genius, etc. etc.).
216.
_When the "masters" may also become Christians._--It is of the nature
of a _community_ (race, family, herd, tribe) to regard all those
conditions and aspirations which favour its survival, as in themselves
_valuable_; for instance: obedience, mutual assistance, respect,
moderation, pity--as also, to _suppress_ everything that happens to
stand in the way of the above.
It is likewise of the nature of the _rulers_ (whether they are
individuals or classes) to patronise and applaud those virtues which
make their subjects _amenable_ and _submissive_--conditions and
passions which may be utterly different from their own.
The _gregarious instinct_ and the _instinct of the rulers_ sometimes
_agree_ in approving of a certain number of qualities and
conditions,--but for different reasons: the first do so out of direct
egoism, the second out of indirect egoism.
_The submission to Christianity on the part of master races_ is
essentially the result of the conviction that Christianity is a
_religion for the herd,_ that it teaches obedience: in short, that
Christians are more easily ruled than non-Christians. With a hint of
this nature, the Pope, even nowadays, recommends Christian propaganda
to the ruling Sovereign of China.
It should also be added that the seductive power of the Christian ideal
works most strongly upon natures that love danger, adventure, and
contrasts; that love everything _that entails a risk,_ and wherewith a
_non plus ultra_ of powerful feeling may be attained. In this respect,
one has only to think of Saint Theresa, surrounded by the heroic
instincts of her brothers:--Christianity appears in those circumstances
as a dissipation of the will, as strength of will, as a will that is
Quixotic.