{"schema_version":1,"access":"public","rights":"Public-domain or compatibly licensed source editions; provenance is retained per record.","work":{"slug":"antichrist","title":"The Antichrist","author":"Friedrich Nietzsche","tradition":"european","language":"de","genre":"philosophy","period":"1888","source_url":"https://archive.org/details/nietzsche_antichrist","original":{"text":"### Preface\n\nDer Antichrist\n\n*Fluch auf das Christentum*\n\nDies Buch gehört den wenigsten. Vielleicht lebt selbst noch keiner von ihnen. Es mögen die sein, welche meinen Zarathustra verstehn: wie *dürfte* ich mich mit denen verwechseln, für welche heute schon Ohren wachsen? — Erst das Übermorgen gehört mir. Einige werden posthum geboren.\n\nDie Bedingungen, unter denen man mich versteht und dann *mit Notwendigkeit* versteht — ich kenne sie nur zu genau. Man muß rechtschaffen sein in geistigen Dingen bis zur Härte, um auch nur meinen Ernst, meine Leidenschaft auszuhalten. Man muß geübt sein, auf Bergen zu leben — das erbärmliche Zeitgeschwätz von Politik und Völker-Selbstsucht *unter* sich zu sehn. Man muß gleichgültig geworden sein, man muß nie fragen, ob die Wahrheit nützt, ob sie einem Verhängnis wird… Eine Vorliebe der Stärke für Fragen, zu denen niemand heute den Mut hat; der Mut zum *Verbotenen*; die Vorherbestimmung zum Labyrinth. Eine Erfahrung aus sieben Einsamkeiten. Neue Ohren für neue Musik. Neue Augen für das Fernste. Ein neues Gewissen für bisher stumm gebliebene Wahrheiten. *Und* der Wille zur Ökonomie großen Stils: seine Kraft, seine *Begeisterung* beisammenbehalten… Die Ehrfurcht vor sich; die Liebe zu sich; die unbedingte Freiheit-gegen sich…\n\nWohlan! Das allein sind meine Leser, meine rechten Leser, meine vorherbestimmten Leser: was liegt am *Rest*? — Der Rest ist bloß die Menschheit. — Man muß der Menschheit überlegen sein durch Kraft, durch *Höhe* der Seele — durch Verachtung …\n\n*Friedrich Nietzsche*\n\n### Sections 1–10\n\n[1]\n\n— Sehen wir uns ins Gesicht. Wir sind Hyperboreer — wir wissen gut genug, wie abseits wir leben. »Weder zu Lande noch zu Wasser wirst du den Weg zu den Hyperboreern finden«: das hat schon Pindar von uns gewußt. Jenseits des Nordens, des Eises, des Todes — *unser* Leben, *unser* Glück… Wir haben das Glück entdeckt, wir wissen den Weg, wir fanden den Ausgang aus ganzen Jahrtausenden des Labyrinths. Wer fand ihn *sonst*? — Der moderne Mensch etwa? — »Ich weiß nicht aus noch ein; ich bin alles, was nicht aus noch ein weiß« — seufzt der moderne Mensch … An dieser Modernität waren wir krank — am faulen Frieden, am feigen Kompromiß, an der ganzen tugendhaften Unsauberkeit des modernen Ja und Nein. Diese Toleranz und *largeur* des Herzens, die alles »verzeiht«, weil sie alles »begreift«, ist Schirokko für uns. Lieber im Eise leben, als unter modernen Tugenden und andern Südwinden!… Wir waren tapfer genug, wir schonten weder uns noch andere: aber wir wußten lange nicht, *wohin* mit unsrer Tapferkeit. Wir wurden düster, man hieß uns Fatalisten. *Unser* Fatum — das war die Fülle, die Spannung, die Stauung der Kräfte. Wir dürsteten nach Blitz und Taten, wir blieben am fernsten vom Glück der Schwächlinge, von der »Ergebung«… Ein Gewitter war in unsrer Luft, die Natur, die wir sind, verfinsterte sich — *denn wir hatten keinen Weg*. Formel unsres Glücks: ein Ja, ein Nein, eine gerade Linie, ein *Ziel*…\n\n[2]\n\nWas ist gut? — Alles, was das Gefühl der Macht, den Willen zur Macht, die Macht selbst im Menschen erhöht.\n\nWas ist schlecht? — Alles, was aus der Schwäche stammt.\n\nWas ist Glück? — Das Gefühl davon, daß die Macht *wächst* — daß ein Widerstand überwunden wird.\n\n*Nicht* Zufriedenheit, sondern mehr Macht; *nicht* Friede überhaupt sondern Krieg; *nicht* Tugend, sondern Tüchtigkeit (Tugend im Renaissance-Stile, *virtú*, moralinfreie Tugend).\n\nDie Schwachen und Mißratenen sollen zugrunde gehn: erster Satz *unsrer* Menschenliebe. Und man soll ihnen noch dazu helfen.\n\nWas ist schädlicher als irgendein Laster? — Das Mitleiden der Tat mit allen Mißratnen und Schwachen — das Christentum …\n\n[3]\n\nNicht was die Menschheit ablösen soll in der Reihenfolge der Wesen, ist das Problem, das ich hiermit stelle (- der Mensch ist ein *Ende* —): sondern welchen Typus Mensch man *züchten* soll, *wollen* soll, als den höherwertigeren lebenswürdigeren, zukunftsgewisseren.\n\nDieser höherwertigere Typus ist oft genug schon dagewesen: aber als ein Glücksfall, als eine Ausnahme, niemals als *gewollt*. Vielmehr ist *er* gerade am besten gefürchtet worden, er war bisher beinahe *das* Furchtbare — und aus der Furcht heraus wurde der umgekehrte Typus gewollt, gezüchtet, *erreicht*: das Haustier, das Herdentier, das kranke Tier Mensch —der Christ…\n\n[4]\n\nDie Menschheit stellt *nicht* eine Entwicklung zum Besseren oder Stärkeren oder Höheren dar, in der Weise, wie dies heute geglaubt wird. Der »Fortschritt« ist bloß eine moderne Idee, das heißt eine falsche Idee. Der Europäer von heute bleibt in seinem *Werte* tief unter dem Europäer der Renaissance; Fortentwicklung ist schlechterdings *nicht* mit irgendwelcher Notwendigkeit Erhöhung, Steigerung, Verstärkung.\n\nIn einem andern Sinne gibt es ein fortwährendes Gelingen einzelner Fälle an den verschiedensten Stellen der Erde und aus den verschiedensten Kulturen heraus, mit denen in der Tat sich ein *höherer* Typus darstellt: etwas, das im Verhältnis zur Gesamt-Menschheit eine Art Übermensch ist. Solche Glücksfälle des großen Gelingens waren immer möglich und werden vielleicht immer möglich sein. Und selbst ganze Geschlechter, Stämme, Völker können unter Umständen einen solchen *Treffer* darstellen.\n\n[5]\n\nMan soll das Christentum nicht schmücken und herausputzen: es hat einen *Todkrieg* gegen diesen *höheren* Typus Mensch gemacht, es hat alle Grundinstinkte dieses Typus in Bann getan, es hat aus diesen Instinkten das Böse, den Bösen herausdestilliert — der starke Mensch als der typisch Verwerfliche, der »verworfene Mensch«. Das Christentum hat die Partei alles Schwachen, Niedrigen, Mißratnen genommen, es hat ein Ideal aus dem *Widerspruch* gegen die Erhaltungs-Instinkte des starken Lebens gemacht; es hat die Vernunft selbst der geistig stärksten Naturen verdorben, indem es die obersten Werte der Geistigkeit als sündhaft, als irreführend, als *Versuchungen* empfinden lehrte. Das jammervollste Beispiel: die Verderbnis Pascals, der an die Verderbnis seiner Vernunft durch die Erbsünde glaubte, während sie nur durch sein Christentum verdorben war! —\n\n[6]\n\nEs ist ein schmerzliches, ein schauerliches Schauspiel, das mir aufgegangen ist: ich zog den Vorhang weg von der *Verdorbenheit* des Menschen. Dies Wort, in meinem Munde, ist wenigstens gegen einen Verdacht geschützt: daß es eine moralische Anklage des Menschen enthält. Es ist — ich möchte es nochmals unterstreichen — *moralinfrei* gemeint: und dies bis zu dem Grade, daß jene Verdorbenheit gerade dort von mir am stärksten empfunden wird, wo man bisher am bewußtesten zur »Tugend«, zur »Göttlichkeit« aspirierte. Ich verstehe Verdorbenheit, man errät es bereits, im Sinne von *décadence*: meine Behauptung ist, daß alle Werte, in denen jetzt die Menschheit ihre oberste Wünschbarkeit zusammenfaßt, *décadence*-Werte sind.\n\nIch nenne ein Tier, eine Gattung, ein Individuum verdorben, wenn es seine Instinkte verliert, wenn es wählt, wenn es *vorzieht*, was ihm nachteilig ist. Eine Geschichte der »höheren Gefühle«, der »Ideale der Menschheit« — und es ist möglich, daß ich sie erzählen muß — wäre beinahe auch die Erklärung dafür, *weshalb* der Mensch so verdorben ist. Das Leben selbst gilt mir als Instinkt für Wachstum, für Dauer, für Häufung von Kräften, für *Macht*: wo der Wille zur Macht *fehlt*, gibt es Niedergang. Meine Behauptung ist, daß allen obersten Werten der Menschheit dieser Wille fehlt — daß Niedergangs-Werte, *nihilistische* Werte unter den heiligsten Namen die Herrschaft führen.\n\n[7]\n\nMan nennt das Christentum die Religion des *Mitleidens*. — Das Mitleiden steht im Gegensatz zu den tonischen Affekten, welche die Energie des Lebensgefühls erhöhn: es wirkt depressiv. Man verliert Kraft, wenn man mitleidet. Durch das Mitleiden vermehrt und vervielfältigt sich die Einbuße an Kraft noch, die an sich schon das Leiden dem Leben bringt. Das Leiden selbst wird durch das Mitleiden ansteckend; unter Umständen kann mit ihm eine Gesamt-Einbuße an Leben und Lebens-Energie erreicht werden, die in einem absurden Verhältnis zum Quantum der Ursache steht (— der Fall vom Tode des Nazareners). Das ist der erste Gesichtspunkt; es gibt aber noch einen wichtigeren. Gesetzt, man mißt das Mitleiden nach dem Werte der Reaktionen, die es hervorzubringen pflegt, so erscheint sein lebensgefährlicher Charakter in einem noch viel helleren Lichte. Das Mitleiden kreuzt im ganzen großen das Gesetz der Entwicklung, welches das Gesetz der *Selektion* ist. Es erhält, was zum Untergange reif ist, es wehrt sich zugunsten der Enterbten und Verurteilten des Lebens, es gibt durch die Fülle des Mißratenen aller Art, das es im Leben *festhält*, dem Leben selbst einen düsteren und fragwürdigen Aspekt. Man hat gewagt, das Mitleiden eine Tugend zu nennen (— in jeder *vornehmen* Moral gilt es als Schwäche —); man ist weitergegangen, man hat aus ihm *die* Tugend, den Boden und Ursprung aller Tugenden gemacht — nur freilich, was man stets im Auge behalten muß, vom Gesichtspunkt einer Philosophie aus, welche nihilistisch war, welche die *Verneinung des Lebens* auf ihr Schild schrieb. Schopenhauer war in seinem Recht damit: durch das Mitleid wird das Leben verneint, *verneinungswürdiger* gemacht — Mitleiden ist die *Praxis* des Nihilismus. Nochmals gesagt: dieser depressive und kontagiöse Instinkt kreuzt jene Instinkte, welche auf Erhaltung und Wert-Erhöhung des Lebens aus sind: er ist ebenso als *Multiplikator* des Elends wie als *Konservator* alles Elenden ein Hauptwerkzeug zur Steigerung der *décadence* — Mitleiden überredet zum *Nichts*! … Man sagt nicht »Nichts«: man sagt dafür »Jenseits«: oder »Gott«; oder »das *wahre* Leben«; oder Nirvana, Erlösung, Seligkeit… Diese unschuldige Rhetorik aus dem Reich der religiös-moralischen Idiosynkrasie erscheint sofort *viel weniger unschuldig*, wenn man begreift, *welche* Tendenz hier den Mantel sublimer Worte um sich schlägt: die *lebensfeindliche* Tendenz. Schopenhauer war lebensfeindlich: *deshalb* wurde ihm das Mitleid zur Tugend … Aristoteles sah, wie man weiß, im Mitleiden einen krankhaften und gefährlichen Zustand, dem man gut täte, hier und da durch ein Purgativ beizukommen: er verstand die Tragödie als Purgativ. Vom Instinkte des Lebens aus müßte man in der Tat nach einem Mittel suchen, einer solchen krankhaften und gefährlichen Häufung des Mitleids, wie sie der Fall Schopenhauer (und leider auch unsre gesamte literarische und artistische *décadence* von St. Petersburg bis Paris, von Tolstoi bis Wagner) darstellt, einen Stich zu versetzen: damit sie *platzt*… Nichts ist ungesunder, inmitten unsrer ungesunden Modernität, als das christliche Mitleid. *Hier Arzt sein*, *hier* unerbittlich sein, *hier* das Messer führen — das gehört zu *uns*, das ist *unsre* Art Menschenliebe, damit sind *wir* Philosophen, wir Hyperboreer! —\n\n[8]\n\nEs ist notwendig zu sagen, *wen* wir als unsern Gegensatz fühlen — die Theologen und alles, was Theologen-Blut im Leibe hat — unsre ganze Philosophie… Man muß das Verhängnis aus der Nähe gesehn haben, noch besser, man muß es an *sich* erlebt, man muß an ihm fast zugrunde gegangen sein, um hier keinen Spaß mehr zu verstehn — (die Freigeisterei unsrer Herren Naturforscher und Physiologen ist in meinen Augen ein Spaß — ihnen fehlt die Leidenschaft in diesen Dingen, das *Leiden* an ihnen —). Jene Vergiftung reicht viel weiter, als man denkt: ich fand den Theologen-Instinkt des Hochmuts überall wieder, wo man sich heute als »Idealist« fühlt — wo man, vermöge einer höheren Abkunft, ein Recht in Anspruch nimmt, zur Wirklichkeit überlegen und fremd zu blicken … Der Idealist hat, ganz wie der Priester, alle großen Begriffe in der Hand (— und nicht nur in der Hand!), er spielt sie mit einer wohlwollenden Verachtung gegen den »Verstand«, die »Sinne«, die »Ehren«, das »Wohlleben«, die »Wissenschaft« aus, er sieht dergleichen *unter* sich, wie schädigende und verführerische Kräfte, über denen »der Geist« in reiner Fürsich-heit schwebt — als ob nicht Demut, Keuschheit, Armut, *Heiligkeit* mit einem Wort, dem Leben bisher unsäglich mehr Schaden getan hätten, als irgendwelche Furchtbarkeiten und Laster … Der reine Geist ist die reine Lüge… Solange der Priester noch als eine *höhere* Art Mensch gilt, dieser *Verneiner*, Verleumder, Vergifter des Lebens von *Beruf*, gibt es keine Antwort auf die Frage: was *ist* Wahrheit? Man hat bereits die Wahrheit auf den Kopf gestellt, wenn der bewußte Advokat des Nichts und der Verneinung als Vertreter der »Wahrheit« gilt…\n\n[9]\n\nDiesem Theologen-Instinkte mache ich den Krieg: ich fand seine Spur überall. Wer Theologen-Blut im Leibe hat, steht von vornherein zu allen Dingen schief und unehrlich. Das Pathos, das sich daraus entwickelt, heißt sich *Glaube*: das Auge ein für alle Mal vor sich schließen, um nicht am Aspekt unheilbarer Falschheit zu leiden. Man macht bei sich eine Moral, eine Tugend, eine Heiligkeit aus dieser fehlerhaften Optik zu allen Dingen, man knüpft das gute Gewissen an das *Falsch*sehen — man fordert, daß keine *andre* Art Optik mehr Wert haben dürfe, nachdem man die eigne mit den Namen »Gott«, »Erlösung«, »Ewigkeit« sakrosankt gemacht hat. Ich grub den Theologen-Instinkt noch überall aus: er ist die verbreitetste, die eigentlich *unterirdische* Form der Falschheit, die es auf Erden gibt. Was ein Theologe als wahr empfindet, das *muß* falsch sein: man hat daran beinahe ein Kriterium der Wahrheit. Es ist sein unterster Selbsterhaltungs-Instinkt, der verbietet, daß die Realität in irgendeinem Punkte zu Ehren oder auch nur zu Worte käme. So weit der Theologen-Einfluß reicht, ist das *Wert-Urteil* auf den Kopf gestellt, sind die Begriffe »wahr« und »falsch« notwendig umgekehrt: was dem Leben am schädlichsten ist, das heißt hier »wahr«, was es hebt, steigert, bejaht, rechtfertigt und triumphieren macht, das heißt »falsch«… Kommt es vor, daß Theologen durch das »Gewissen« der Fürsten (*oder* der Völker —) hindurch nach der Macht die Hand ausstrecken, zweifeln wir nicht, *was* jedesmal im Grunde sich begibt: der Wille zum Ende, der *nihilistische* Wille will zur Macht…\n\n[10]\n\nUnter Deutschen versteht man sofort, wenn ich sage, daß die Philosophie durch Theologen-Blut verderbt ist. Der protestantische Pfarrer ist Großvater der deutschen Philosophie, der Protestantismus selbst ihr *peccatum originale*. Definition des Protestantismus: die halbseitige Lähmung des Christentums — *und* der Vernunft… Man hat nur das Wort »Tübinger Stift« auszusprechen, um zu begreifen, *was* die deutsche Philosophie im Grunde ist — eine *hinterlistige* Theologie… Die Schwaben sind die besten Lügner in Deutschland, sie lügen unschuldig… Woher das Frohlocken, das beim Auftreten *Kants* durch die deutsche Gelehrtenwelt ging, die zu drei Vierteln aus Pfarrer- und Lehrer-Söhnen besteht — woher die deutsche Überzeugung, die auch heute noch ihr Echo findet, daß mit Kant eine Wendung zum *Besseren* beginne? Der Theologen-Instinkt im deutschen Gelehrten erriet, *was* nunmehr wieder möglich war… Ein Schleichweg zum alten Ideal stand offen, der Begriff »*wahre* Welt«, der Begriff der Moral als Essenz der Welt (— diese zwei bösartigsten Irrtümer, die es gibt!) waren jetzt wieder, dank einer verschmitzt-klugen Skepsis, wenn nicht beweisbar, so doch nicht mehr *widerlegbar* … Die Vernunft, das *Recht* der Vernunft reicht nicht so weit… Man hatte aus der Realität eine »Scheinbarkeit« gemacht; man hatte eine vollkommen *erlogne* Welt, die des Seienden, zur Realität gemacht… Der Erfolg Kants ist bloß ein Theologen-Erfolg: Kant war, gleich Luther, gleich Leibniz, ein Hemmschuh mehr in der an sich nicht taktfesten deutschen Rechtschaffenheit — —\n\n### Sections 11–20\n\n[11]\n\nEin Wort noch gegen Kant als *Moralist*. Eine Tugend muß *unsre* Erfindung sein, *unsre* persönlichste Notwehr und Notdurft: in jedem andern Sinne ist sie bloß eine Gefahr. Was nicht unser Leben bedingt, *schadet* ihm: eine Tugend bloß aus einem Respekts-Gefühle vor dem Begriff »Tugend«, wie Kant es wollte, ist schädlich. Die »Tugend«, die »Pflicht«, das »Gute an sich«, das Gute mit dem Charakter der Unpersönlichkeit und Allgemeingültigkeit — Hirngespinste, in denen sich der Niedergang, die letzte Entkäftigung des Lebens, das Königsberger Chinesentum ausdrückt. Das Umgekehrte wird von den tiefsten Erhaltungs- und Wachstumsgesetzen geboten: daß jeder sich *seine* Tugend, *seinen* kategorischen Imperativ erfinde. Ein Volk geht zusrunde, wenn es *seine* Pflicht mit dem Pflichtbegriff überhaupt verwechselt. Nichts ruiniert tiefer, innerlicher als jede »unpersönliche« Pflicht, jede Opferung vor dem Moloch der Abstraktion. — Daß man den kategorischen Imperativ Kants nicht als *lebensgefährlich* empfunden hat! … Der Theologen-Instinkt allein nahm ihn in Schutz! — Eine Handlung, zu der der Instinkt des Lebens zwingt, hat in der Lust ihren Beweis, eine *rechte* Handlung zu sein: und jener Nihilist mit christlich-dogmatischen Eingeweiden verstand die Lust als *Einwand*… Was zerstört schneller, als ohne innere Notwendigkeit, ohne eine tief persönliche Wahl, ohne *Lust* arbeiten, denken, fühlen? als Automat der »Pflicht«? Es ist geradezu das *Rezept* zur *décadence*, selbst zum Idiotismus… Kant wurde Idiot. — Und das war der Zeitgenosse *Goethes*! Dies Verhängnis von Spinne galt als der *deutsche* Philosoph — gilt es noch! … Ich hüte mich zu sagen, was ich von den Deutschen denke… Hat Kant nicht in der französischen Revolution den Übergang aus der unorganischen Form des Staats in die *organische* gesehn? Hat er sich nicht gefragt, ob es eine Begebenheit gibt, die gar nicht anders erklärt werden könne als durch eine moralische Anlage der Menschheit, so daß mit ihr, ein für allemal, die »Tendenz der Menschheit zum Guten« *bewiesen* sei? Antwort Kants: »das ist die Revolution.« Der fehlgreifende Instinkt in allem und jedem, die *Widernatur* als Instinkt, die deutsche *décadence* als Philosophie — *das ist Kant*! —\n\n[12]\n\nIch nehme ein paar Skeptiker beiseite, den anständigen Typus in der Geschichte der Philosophie: aber der Rest kennt die ersten Forderungen der intellektuellen Rechtschaffenheit nicht. Sie machen es allesamt wie die Weiblein, alle diese großen Schwärmer und Wundertiere — sie halten die »schönen Gefühle« bereits für Argumente, den »gehobenen Busen« für einen Blasebalg der Gottheit, die Überzeugung für ein *Kriterium* der Wahrheit. Zuletzt hat noch Kant, in »deutscher« Unschuld, diese Form der Korruption, diesen Mangel an intellektuellem Gewissen unter dem Begriff »praktische Vernunft« zu verwissenschaftlichen versucht: er erfand eigens eine Vernunft dafür, in welchem Falle man sich nicht um die Vernunft zu kümmern habe, nämlich wenn die Moral, wenn die erhabne Forderung »du sollst« laut wird. Erwägt man, daß bei fast allen Völkern der Philosoph nur die Weiterentwicklung des priesterlichen Typus ist, so überrascht dieses Erbstück des Priesters, die *Falschmünzerei vor sich selbst*, nicht mehr. Wenn man heilige Aufgaben hat, zum Beispiel die Menschen zu bessern, zu retten, zu erlösen — wenn man die Gottheit im Busen trägt, Mundstück jenseitiger Imperative ist, so steht man mit einer solchen Mission bereits außerhalb aller bloß verstandesmäßigen Wertungen — *selbst* schon geheiligt durch eine solche Aufgabe, selbst schon der Typus einer höheren Ordnung!… Was geht einen Priester die *Wissenschaft* an! Er steht zu hoch dafür! — Und der Priester hat bisher *geherrscht*! — Er *bestimmte* den Begriff »wahr« und »unwahr«!…\n\n[13]\n\nUnterschätzen wir dies nicht: *wir selbst*, wir freien Geister, sind bereits eine »Umwertung aller Werte«, eine *leibhafte* Kriegsund Siegs-Erklärung an alle alten Begriffe von »wahr« und »unwahr«. Die wertvollsten Einsichten werden am spätesten gefunden; aber die wertvollsten Einsichten sind die *Methoden*. *Alle* Methoden, *alle* Voraussetzungen unsrer jetzigen Wissenschaftlichkeit haben jahrtausendelang die tiefste Verachtung gegen sich gehabt: auf sie hin war man aus dem Verkehre mit »honetten« Menschen ausgeschlossen — man galt als »Feind Gottes«, als Verächter der Wahrheit, als »Besessener«. Als wissenschaftlicher Charakter war man Tschandala… Wir haben das ganze Pathos der Menschheit gegen uns gehabt — ihren Begriff von dem, was Wahrheit *sein soll*, was der Dienst der Wahrheit *sein soll*: jedes »du sollst« war bisher *gegen* uns gerichtet… Unsre Objekte, unsre Praktiken, unsre stille, vorsichtige, mißtrauische Art — alles das schien ihr vollkommen unwürdig und verächtlich. — Zuletzt dürfte man, mit einiger Billigkeit, sich fragen, ob es nicht eigentlich ein *ästhetischer* Geschmack war, was die Menschheit in so langer Blindheit gehalten hat: sie verlangte von der Wahrheit einen *pittoresken* Effekt, sie verlangte insgleichen vom Erkennenden, daß er stark auf die Sinne wirke. Unsre *Bescheidenheit* ging ihr am längsten wider den Geschmack … Oh, wie sie das errieten, diese Truthähne Gottes — —\n\n[14]\n\nWir haben umgelernt. Wir sind in allen Stücken bescheidner geworden. Wir leiten den Menschen nicht mehr vom »Geist«, von der »Gottheit« ab, wir haben ihn unter die Tiere zurückgestellt. Er gilt uns als das stärkste Tier, weil er das listigste ist: eine Folge davon ist seine Geistigkeit. Wir wehren uns andrerseits gegen eine Eitelkeit, die auch hier wieder laut werden möchte: wie als ob der Mensch die große Hinterabsicht der tierischen Entwicklung gewesen sei. Er ist durchaus keine Krone der Schöpfung: jedes Wesen ist, neben ihm, auf einer gleichen Stufe der Vollkommenheit … Und indem wir das behaupten, behaupten wir noch zuviel: der Mensch ist, relativ genommen, das mißratenste Tier, das krankhafteste, das von seinen Instinkten am gefährlichsten abgeirrte — freilich, mit alledem, auch das *interessanteste*! — Was die Tiere betrifft, so hat zuerst Descartes, mit verehrungswürdiger Kühnheit, den Gedanken gewagt, das Tier als *machina* zu verstehn: unsre ganze Physiologie bemüht sich um den Beweis dieses Satzes. Auch stellen wir logischerweise den Menschen nicht beiseite, wie noch Descartes tat: was überhaupt heute vom Menschen begriffen ist, geht genau so weit, als er machinal begriffen ist. Ehedem gab man dem Menschen, als seine Mitgift aus einer höheren Ordnung, den »freien Willen«: heute haben wir ihm selbst den Willen genommen, in dem Sinne, daß darunter kein Vermögen mehr verstanden werden darf. Das alte Wort »Wille« dient nur dazu, eine Resultante zu bezeichnen, eine Art individueller Reaktion, die notwendig auf eine Menge teils widersprechender, teils zusammenstimmender Reize folgt — der Wille »wirkt« nicht mehr, »bewegt« nicht mehr… Ehemals sah man im Bewußtsein des Menschen, im »Geist«, den Beweis seiner höheren Abkunft, seiner Göttlichkeit; um den Menschen zu *vollenden*, riet man ihm an, nach der Art der Schildkröte die Sinne in sich hineinzuziehn, den Verkehr mit dem Irdischen einzustellen, die sterbliche Hülle abzutun: dann blieb die Hauptsache von ihm zurück, der »reine Geist«. Wir haben uns auch hierüber besser besonnen: das Bewußtwerden, der »Geist«, gilt uns gerade als Symptom einer: relativen Unvollkommenheit des Organismus, als ein Versuchen, Tasten, Fehlgreifen, als eine Mühsal, bei der unnötig viel Nervenkraft verbraucht wird, — wir leugnen, daß irgend etwas vollkommen gemacht werden kann, solange es noch bewußt gemacht wird. Der »reine Geist« ist eine reine Dummheit: rechnen wir das Nervensystem und die Sinne ab, die »sterbliche Hülle«, so *verrechnen wir uns* — weiter nichts! …\n\n[15]\n\nWeder die Moral noch die Religion berührt sich im Christentume mit irgendeinem Punkte der Wirklichkeit. Lauter imaginäre *Ursachen* (»Gott«, »Seele«, »Ich«, »Geist«, »der freie Wille« — oder auch »der unfreie«): lauter imaginäre *Wirkungen* (»Sünde«, »Erlösung«, »Gnade«, »Strafe«, »Vergebung der Sünde«). Ein Verkehr zwischen imaginären *Wesen* (»Gott«, »Geister«, »Seelen«); eine imaginäre *Naturwissenschaft* (anthropozentrisch; völliger Mangel des Begriffs der natürlichen Ursachen); eine imganinäre *Psychologie* (lauter Selbst-Mißverständnisse, Interpretationen angenehmer oder unangenehmer Allgemeingefühle, zum Beispiel der Zustände des *nervus sympathicus*, mit Hilfe der Zeichensprache religiös-moralischer Idiosynkrasie — »Reue«, »Gewissensbiß«, »Versuchung des Teufels«, »die Nähe Gottes«); eine imaginäre *Teleologie* (»das Reich Gottes«, »das Jüngste Gericht«, »das ewige Leben«). — Diese reine *Fiktions-Welt* unterscheidet sich dadurch sehr zu ihren Ungunsten von der Traumwelt, daß letztere die Wirklichkeit *widerspiegelt*, während sie die Wirklichkeit fälscht, entwertet, verneint. Nachdem erst der Begriff »Natur« als Gegenbegriff zu »Gott« erfunden war, mußte »natürlich« das Wort sein für »verwerflich« — jene ganze Fiktions-Welt hat ihre Wurzel im *Haß* gegen das Natürliche (— die Wirklichkeit! —), sie ist der Ausdruck eines tiefen Mißbehagens am Wirklichen … *Aber damit ist alles erklärt*. Wer allein hat Gründe, sich *wegzulügen* aus der Wirklichkeit? Wer an ihr *leidet*. Aber an der Wirklichkeit leiden heißt eine *verunglückte* Wirklichkeit sein… Das Übergewicht der Unlustgefühle über die Lustgefühle ist die *Ursache* einer fiktiven Moral und Religion: ein solches Übergewicht gibt aber die Formel ab für *décadence*…\n\n[16]\n\nZu dem gleichen Schlusse nötigt eine Kritik des *christlichen Gottesbegriffs*. — Ein Volk, das noch an sich selbst glaubt, hat auch noch seinen eignen Gott. In ihm verehrt es die Bedingungen, durch die es obenauf ist, seine Tugenden, — es projiziert seine Lust an sich, sein Machtgefühl in ein Wesen, dem man dafür danken kann. Wer reich ist, will abgeben; ein stolzes Volk braucht einen Gott, um zu *opfern*… Religion, innerhalb solcher Voraussetzungen, ist eine Form der Dankbarkeit. Man ist für sich selber dankbar: dazu braucht man einen Gott. — Ein solcher Gott muß nützen und schaden können, muß Freund und Feind sein können — man bewundert ihn im Guten wie im Schlimmen. Die *widernatürliche* Kastration eines Gottes zu einem Gotte bloß des Guten läge hier außerhalb aller Wünschbarkeit. Man hat den bösen Gott so nötig als den guten: man verdankt ja die eigne Existenz nicht gerade der Toleranz, der Menschenfreundlichkeit… Was läge an einem Gotte, der nicht Zorn, Rache, Neid, Hohn, List, Gewalttat kennte? dem vielleicht nicht einmal die entzückenden *ardeurs* des Siegs und der Vernichtung bekannt wären? Man würde einen solchen Gott nicht verstehn: wozu sollte man ihn haben? — Freilich: wenn ein Volk zugrunde geht; wenn es den Glauben an Zukunft, seine Hoffnung auf Freiheit endgültig schwinden fühlt; wenn ihm die Unterwerfung als erste Nützlichkeit, die Tugenden der Unterworfenen als Erhaltungsbedingungen ins Bewußtsein treten, dann *muß* sich auch sein Gott verändern. Er wird jetzt Duckmäuser, furchtsam, bescheiden, rät zum »Frieden der Seele«, zum Nicht-mehr-hassen, zur Nachsicht, zur »Liebe« selbst gegen Freund und Feind. Er moralisiert beständig, er kriecht in die Höhle jeder Privattugend, wird Gott für jedermann, wird Privatmann, wird Kosmopolit… Ehemals stellte er ein Volk, die Stärke eines Volkes, alles Aggressive und Machtdurstige aus der Seele eines Volkes dar: jetzt ist er bloß noch der gute Gott… In der Tat, es gibt keine andre Alternative für Götter: *entweder* sind sie der Wille zur Macht — und so lange werden sie Volksgötter sein —, *oder* aber die Ohnmacht zur Macht — und dann werden sie notwendig *gut*…\n\n[17]\n\nWo in irgendwelcher Form der Wille zur Macht niedergeht, gibt es jedesmal auch einen physiologischen Rückgang, eine *décadence*. Die Gottheit der *décadence*, beschnitten an ihren männlichsten Tugenden und Trieben, wird nunmehr notwendig zum Gott der Physiologisch-Zurückgezogenen, der Schwachen. Sie heißen sich selbst *nicht* die Schwachen, sie heißen sich »die Guten«… Man versteht, ohne daß ein Wink noch not täte, in welchen Augenblicken der Geschichte erst die dualistische Fiktion eines guten und eines bösen Gottes möglich wird. Mit demselben Instinkte, mit dem die Unterworfnen ihren Gott zum »Guten an sich« herunterbringen, streichen sie aus dem Gotte ihrer Überwinder die guten Eigenschaften aus; sie nehmen Rache an ihren Herren, dadurch daß sie deren Gott *verteufeln*. — Der *gute* Gott, ebenso wie der Teufel: beide Ausgeburten der *décadence*. — Wie kann man heute noch der Einfalt christlicher Theologen so viel nachgeben, um mit ihnen zu dekretieren, die Fortentwicklung des Gottesbegriffs vom »Gotte Israels«, vom Volksgotte zum christlichen Gotte, zum Inbegriff alles Guten, sei ein *Fortschritt*? — Aber selbst Renan tut es. Als ob Renan ein Recht auf Einfalt hätte! Das Gegenteil springt doch in die Augen. Wenn die Voraussetzungen des *aufsteigenden* Lebens, wenn alles Starke, Tapfere, Herrische, Stolze aus dem Gottesbegriffe eliminiert werden, wenn er Schritt für Schritt zum Symbol eines Stabs für Müde, eines Rettungsankers für alle Ertrinkenden heruntersinkt, wenn er Arme-Leute-Gott, Sünder-Gott, Kranken-Gott *par excellence* wird, und das Prädikat »Heiland«, »Erlöser« gleichsam *übrig*bleibt als göttliches Prädikat überhaupt: *wovon* redet eine solche Verwandlung? eine solche *Reduktion* des Göttlichen? — Freilich: »das Reich Gottes« ist damit größer geworden. Ehemals hatte er nur sein Volk, sein »auserwähltes« Volk. Inzwischen ging er, ganz wie sein Volk selber, in die Fremde, auf Wanderschaft, er saß seitdem nirgendswo mehr still: bis er endlich überall heimisch wurde, der große Kosmopolit — bis er »die große Zahl« und die halbe Erde auf seine Seite bekam. Aber der Gott der »großen Zahl«, der Demokrat unter den Göttern, wurde trotzdem kein stolzer Heidengott: er blieb Jude, er blieb der Gott der Winkel, der Gott aller dunklen Ecken und Stellen, aller ungesunden Quartiere der ganzen Welt!… Sein Weltreich ist nach wie vor ein Unterwelts-Reich, ein Hospital, ein *souterrain*-Reich, ein Ghetto-Reich… Und er selbst, so blaß, so schwach, so *décadent*… Selbst die blassesten der Blassen wurden noch über ihn Herr, die Herrn Metaphysiker, die Begriffs-Albinos. Diese spannen so lange um ihn herum, bis er, hypnotisiert durch ihre Bewegungen, selbst Spinne, selbst Metaphysicus wurde. Nunmehr spann er wieder die Welt aus sich heraus — *sub specie Spinozae* —, nunmehr transfigurierte er sich ins immer Dünnere und Blässere, ward »Ideal«, ward »reiner Geist«, ward »*absolutum*«, ward »Ding an sich« … *Verfall eines Gottes*: Gott ward »Ding an sich«…\n\n[18]\n\nDer christliche Gottesbegriff — Gott als Krankengott, Gott als Spinne, Gott als Geist — ist einer der korruptesten Gottesbegriffe, die auf Erden erreicht worden sind; er stellt vielleicht selbst den Pegel des Tiefstands in der absteigenden Entwicklung des Götter-Typus dar. Gott zum *Widerspruch des Lebens* abgeartet, statt dessen Verklärung und ewiges *Ja* zu sein! In Gott dem Leben, der Natur, dem Willen zum Leben die Feindschaft angesagt! Gott die Formel für jede Verleumdung des »Diesseits«, für jede Lüge vom »Jenseits«! In Gott das Nichts vergöttlicht, der Wille zum Nichts heilig gesprochen! …\n\n[19]\n\nDaß die starken Rassen des nördlichen Europa den christlichen Gott nicht von sich gestoßen haben, macht ihrer religiösen Begabung wahrlich keine Ehre — um nicht vom Geschmacke zu reden. Mit einer solchen krankhaften und altersschwachen Ausgeburt der *décadence* hätten sie fertig werden *müssen*. Aber es liegt ein Fluch dafür auf ihnen, daß sie nicht mit ihm fertig geworden sind: sie haben die Krankheit, das Alter, den Widerspruch in alle ihre Instinkte aufgenommen — sie haben seitdem keinen Gott mehr *geschaffen*! Zwei Jahrtausende beinahe und nicht ein einziger neuer Gott! Sondern immer noch und wie zu Recht bestehend, wie ein *ultimatum* und *maximum* der gottbildenden Kraft, des *creator spiritus* im Menschen, dieser erbarmungswürdige Gott des christlichen Monotono-Theismus! Dies hybride Verfalls-Gebilde aus Null, Begriff und Widerspruch, in dem alle *décadence*-Instinkte, alle Feigheiten und Müdigkeiten der Seele ihre Sanktion haben! — —\n\n[20]\n\nMit meiner Verurteilung des Christentums möchte ich kein Unrecht gegen eine verwandte Religion begangen haben, die der Zahl der Bekenner nach sogar überwiegt: gegen den *Buddhismus*. Beide gehören als nihilistische Religionen zusammen — sie sind *décadence*-Religionen —, beide sind voneinander in der merkwürdigsten Weise getrennt. Daß man sie jetzt *vergleichen* kann, dafür ist der Kritiker des Christentums den indischen Gelehrten tief dankbar. — Der Buddhismus ist hundertmal realistischer als das Christentum — er hat die Erbschaft des objektiven und kühlen Probleme-Stellens im Leibe, er kommt *nach* einer Hunderte von Jahren dauernden philosophischen Bewegung; der Begriff »Gott« ist bereits abgetan, als er kommt. Der Buddhismus ist die einzige eigentlich *positivistische* Religion, die uns die Geschichte zeigt, auch noch in seiner Erkenntnistheorie (einem strengen Phänomenalismus —), er sagt nicht mehr »Kampf gegen die *Sünde*«, sondern, ganz der Wirklichkeit das Recht gebend, »Kampf gegen das *Leiden*«. Er hat — dies unterscheidet ihn tief vom Christentum — die Selbst-Betrügerei der Moral-Begriffe bereits hinter sich, — er steht, in meiner Sprache geredet, *jenseits* von Gut und Böse. — Die *zwei* physiologischen Tatsachen, auf denen er ruht und die er ins Auge faßt, sind: *einmal* eine übergroße Reizbarkeit der Sensibilität, welche sich als raffinierte Schmerzfähigkeit ausdrückt, *sodann* eine Übergeistigung, ein allzulanges Leben in Begriffen und logischen Prozeduren, unter dem der Person-Instinkt zum Vorteil des »Unpersönlichen« Schaden genommen hat (— beides Zustände, die wenigstens einige meiner Leser, die »Objektiven«, gleich mir selbst, aus Erfahrung kennen werden). Auf Grund dieser physiologischen Bedingungen ist eine *Depression* entstanden: gegen diese geht Buddha hygienisch vor. Er wendet dagegen das Leben im Freien an, das Wanderleben; die Mäßigung und die Wahl in der Kost; die Vorsicht gegen alle Spirituosa; die Vorsicht insgleichen gegen alle Affekte, die Galle machen, die das Blut erhitzen; *keine Sorge*, weder für sich, noch für andre. Er fordert Vorstellungen, die entweder Ruhe geben oder erheitern — er erfindet Mittel, die anderen sich abzugewöhnen. Er versteht die Güte, das Gütig-sein als gesundheit-fördernd. *Gebet* ist ausgeschlossen, ebenso wie die *Askese*; kein kategorischer Imperativ, kein *Zwang* überhaupt, selbst nicht innerhalb der Klostergemeinschaft (- man kann wieder hinaus —). Das alles wären Mittel, um jene übergroße Reizbarkeit zu verstärken. Eben darum fordert er auch keinen Kampf gegen Andersdenkende; seine Lehre wehrt sich gegen nichts mehr als gegen das Gefühl der Rache, der Abneigung, des *ressentiment* (— »nicht durch Feindschaft kommt Feindschaft zu Ende«: der rührende Refrain des ganzen Buddhismus …). Und das mit Recht: gerade diese Affekte wären vollkommen *ungesund* in Hinsicht auf die diätetische Hauptabsicht. Die geistige Ermüdung, die er vorfindet und die sich in einer allzugroßen »Objektivität« (das heißt Schwächung des Individual-Interesses, Verlust an Schwergewicht, an »Egoismus«) ausdrückt, bekämpft er mit einer strengen Zurückführung auch der geistigsten Interessen auf die *Person*. In der Lehre Buddhas wird der Egoismus Pflicht: das »eins ist not«, das »wie kommst *du* vom Leiden los« reguliert und begrenzt die geistige Diät (— man darf sich vielleicht an jenen Athener erinnern, der der reinen »Wissenschaftlichkeit« gleichfalls den Krieg machte, an Sokrates, der den Personal-Egoismus auch im Reich der Probleme zur Moral erhob).\n\n### Sections 21–30\n\n[21]\n\nDie Voraussetzung für den Buddhismus ist ein sehr mildes Klima, eine große Sanftmut und Liberalität in den Sitten, *kein Militarismus*; und daß es die höheren und selbst gelehrten Stände sind, in denen die Bewegung ihren Herd hat. Man will die Heiterkeit, die Stille, die Wunschlosigkeit als höchstes Ziel, und man *erreicht* sein Ziel. Der Buddhismus ist keine Religion, in der man bloß auf Vollkommenheit aspiriert: das Vollkommene ist der normale Fall. —\n\nIm Christentume kommen die Instinkte Unterworfner und Unterdrückter in den Vordergrund: es sind die niedersten Stände, die in ihm ihr Heil suchen. Hier wird als *Beschäftigung*, als Mit-. tel gegen die Langeweile die Kasuistik der Sünde, die Selbstkritik, die Gewissens-Inquisition geübt; hier wird der Affekt gegen einen *Mächtigen*, »Gott« genannt, beständig aufrecht erhalten (durch das Gebet); hier gilt das Höchste als unerreichbar, als Geschenk, als »Gnade«. Hier fehlt auch die Öffentlichkeit; der Versteck, der dunkle Raum ist christlich. Hier wird der Leib verachtet, die Hygiene als Sinnlichkeit abgelehnt; die Kirche wehrt sich selbst gegen die Reinlichkeit (— die erste christliche Maßregel nach Vertreibung der Mauren war die Schließung der öffentlichen Bäder, von denen Cordova allein 270 besaß). Christlich ist ein gewisser Sinn der Grausamkeit gegen sich und andre; der Haß gegen die Andersdenkenden; der Wille, zu verfolgen. Düstere und aufregende Vorstellungen sind im Vordergrunde; die höchstbegehrten, mit den höchsten Namen bezeichneten Zustände sind Epilepsoiden; die Diät wird so gewählt, daß sie morbide Erscheinungen begünstigt und die Nerven überreizt. Christlich ist die Todfeindschaft gegen die Herren der Erde, gegen die »Vornehmen« — und zugleich ein versteckter heimlicher Wettbewerb (-- man läßt ihnen den »Leib«, man will *nur* die »Seele« …). Christlich ist der Haß gegen den *Geist*, gegen Stolz, Mut, Freiheit, *libertinage* des Geistes; christlich ist der Haß gegen die *Sinne*, gegen die Freuden der *Sinne*, gegen die Freude überaupt…\n\n[22]\n\nDas Christentum, als es seinen ersten Boden verließ, die niedrigsten Stände, die *Unterwelt* der antiken Welt, als es unter Barbaren-Völkern nach Macht ausging, hatte hier nicht mehr *müde* Menschen zur Voraussetzung, sondern innerlich verwilderte und sich zerreißende — den starken Menschen, aber den mißratnen. Die Unzufriedenheit mit sich, das Leiden an sich ist hier *nicht* wie bei dem Buddhisten eine übermäßige Reizbarkeit und Schmerzfähigkeit, vielmehr umgekehrt ein übermächtiges Verlangen nach Wehe-tun, nach Auslassung der inneren Spannung in feindseligen Handlungen und Vorstellungen. Das Christentum hatte *barbarische* Begriffe und Werte nötig, um über Barbaren Herr zu werden: solche sind das Erstlingsopfer, das Bluttrinken im Abendmahl, die Verachtung des Geistes und der Kultur; die Folterung in allen Formen, sinnlich und unsinnlich; der große Pomp des Kultus. Der Buddhismus ist eine Religion für *späte* Menschen, für gütige, sanfte, übergeistig gewordne Rassen, die zu leicht Schmerz empfinden (— Europa ist noch lange nicht reif für ihn —): er ist eine Rückführung derselben zu Frieden und Heiterkeit, zur Diät im Geistigen, zu einer gewissen Abhärtung im Leiblichen. Das Christentum will über *Raubtiere* Herr werden; sein Mittel ist, sie *krank* zu machen — die Schwächung ist das christliche Rezept zur *Zähmung*, zur »Zivilisation«. Der Buddhismus ist eine Religion für den Schluß und die Müdigkeit der Zivilisation, das Christentum findet sie noch nicht einmal „Vor —es begründet sie unter Umständen.\n\n[23]\n\nDer Buddhismus, nochmals gesagt, ist hundertmal kälter, wahrhafter, objektiver. Er hat nicht mehr nötig, sich sein Leiden, seine Schmerzfähigkeit *anständig* zu machen durch die Interpretation der Sünde — er sagt bloß, was er denkt, »ich leide«. Dem Barbaren dagegen ist Leiden an sich nichts Anständiges: er braucht erst eine Auslegung, um es sich einzugestehn, *daß* er leidet (sein Instinkt weist ihn eher auf Verleugnung des Leidens, auf stilles Ertragen hin). Hier war das Wort »Teufel« eine Wohltat: man hatte einen übermächtigen und furchtbaren Feind — man brauchte sich nicht zu schämen, an einem solchen Feind zu leiden. —\n\nDas Christentum hat einige Feinheiten auf dem Grunde, die zum Orient gehören. Vor allem weiß es, daß es an sich ganz gleichgültig ist, ob etwas wahr ist, aber von höchster Wichtigkeit, *sofern* es als wahr geglaubt wird. Die Wahrheit und der *Glaube*, daß etwas wahr sei: zwei ganz auseinanderliegende Interessen-Welten, fast *Gegensatz*-Welten — man kommt zum einen und zum andern auf grundverschiednen Wegen. Hierüber wissend zu sein — das *macht* im Orient beinahe den Weisen: so verstehen es die Brahmanen, so versteht es Plato, so jeder Schüler esoterischer Weisheit. Wenn zum Beispiel ein *Glück* darin liegt, sich von der Sünde erlöst zu glauben, so tut als Voraussetzung dazu *nicht* not, daß der Mensch sündig sei, sondern daß er sich sündig *fühlt*. Wenn aber überhaupt vor allem *Glaube* not tut, so muß man die Vernunft, die Erkenntnis, die Forschung in Mißkredit bringen: der Weg zur Wahrheit wird zum *verbotnen* Weg. — Die starke *Hoffnung* ist ein viel größeres *Stimulans* des Lebens, als irgendein einzelnes wirklich eintretendes Glück. Man muß Leidende durch eine Hoffnung aufrecht erhalten, welcher durch keine Wirklichkeit widersprochen werden kann — welche nicht durch eine Erfüllung *abgetan* wird: eine Jenseits-Hoffnung. (Gerade wegen dieser Fähigkeit, den Unglücklichen hinzuhalten, galt die Hoffnung bei den Griechen als Übel der Übel, als das eigentlich *tückische* Übel: es blieb im Faß des Übels zurück). — Damit *Liebe* möglich ist, muß Gott Person sein; damit die untersten Instinkte mitreden können, muß Gott jung sein. Man hat für die Inbrunst der Weiber einen schönen Heiligen, für die der Männer eine Maria in den Vordergrund zu rücken. Dies unter der Voraussetzung, daß das Christentum auf einem Boden Herr werden will, wo aphrodisische oder Adonis-Kulte den *Begriff* des Kultus bereits bestimmt haben. Die Forderung der *Keuschheit* verstärkt die Vehemenz und Innerlichkeit des religiösen Instinkts — sie macht den Kultus wärmer, schwärmerischer, seelenvoller. — Die Liebe ist der Zustand, wo der Mensch die Dinge am meisten so sieht, wie sie *nicht* sind. Die illusorische Kraft ist da auf ihrer Höhe, ebenso die versüßende, die *verklärende* Kraft. Man erträgt in der Liebe mehr als sonst, man duldet alles. Es galt eine Religion zu erfinden, in der geliebt werden kann: damit ist man über das Schlimmste am Leben hinaus — man sieht es gar nicht mehr. — Soviel über die drei christlichen Tugenden Glaube, Liebe, Hoffnung: ich nenne sie die drei christlichen *Klugheiten*. — Der Buddhismus ist zu spät, zu positivistisch dazu, um noch auf diese Weise klug zu sein. —\n\n[24]\n\nIch berühre hier nur das Problem der *Entstehung* des Christentums. Der *erste* Satz zu dessen Lösung heißt: das Christentum ist einzig aus dem Boden zu verstehn, aus dem es gewachsen ist — es ist *nicht* eine Gegenbewegung gegen den jüdischen Instinkt, es ist dessen Folgerichtigkeit selbst, ein Schluß weiter in dessen furchteinflößender Logik. In der Formel des Erlösers: »Das Heil kommt von den Juden«. — Der *zweite* Satz heißt: der psychologische Typus des Galiläers ist noch erkennbar, aber erst in seiner vollständigen Entartung (die zugleich Verstümmlung und Überladung mit fremden Zügen ist —) hat er dazu dienen können, wozu er gebraucht worden ist, zum Typus eines *Erlösers* der Menschheit: —\n\nDie Juden sind das merkwürdigste Volk der Weltgeschichte, weil sie, vor die Frage von Sein und Nichtsein gestellt, mit einer vollkommen unheimlichen Bewußtheit das Sein *um jeden Preis* vorgezogen haben: dieser Preis war die radikale *Fälschung* aller Natur, aller Natürlichkeit, aller Realität, der ganzen inneren Welt so gut als der äußeren. Sie grenzten sich ab *gegen* alle Bedingungen, unter denen bisher ein Volk leben konnte, leben *durfte*; sie schufen aus sich einen Gegensatz-Begriff zu *natürlichen* Bedingungen — sie haben, der Reihe nach, die Religion, den Kultus, die Moral, die Geschichte, die Psychologie auf eine unheilbare Weise in den *Widerspruch zu deren Natur-Werten* umgedreht. Wir begegnen demselben Phänomene noch einmal und in unsäglich vergrößerten Proportionen, trotzdem nur als Kopie — die christliche Kirche entbehrt, im Vergleich zum »Volk der Heiligen«, jedes Anspruchs auf Originalität. Die Juden sind, ebendamit, das *verhängnisvollste* Volk der Weltgeschichte: in ihrer Nachwirkung haben sie die Menschheit dermaßen falsch gemacht, daß heute noch der Christ antijüdisch fühlen kann, ohne sich als die *letzte jüdische Konsequenz* zu verstehn.\n\nIch habe in meiner »Genealogie der Moral« zum ersten Male den Gegensatz-Begriff einer *vornehmen* Moral und einer *ressentiment*-Moral psychologisch vorgeführt, letztere *aus dem Nein* gegen die erstere entsprungen: aber dies ist die jüdisch-christliche Moral ganz und gar. Um Nein sagen zu können zu allem, was 7 die *aufsteigende* Bewegung des Lebens, die Wohlgeratenheit, die Macht, die Schönheit, die Selbstbejahung auf Erden darstellt, mußte hier sich der Genie gewordne Instinkt des *ressentiment* eine *andre* Welt erfinden, von wo aus jene *Lebens-Bejahung* als das Böse, als das Verwerfliche an sich erschien. Psychologisch nachgerechnet, ist das jüdische Volk ein Volk der zähesten Lebenskraft, welches, unter unmögliche Bedingungen versetzt, freiwillig, aus der tiefsten Klugheit der Selbsterhaltung, die Partei aller *décadence*-Instinkte nimmt — *nicht* als von ihnen beherrscht, sondern weil es in ihnen eine Macht erriet, mit der man sich *gegen* »die Welt« durchsetzen kann. Die Juden sind das Gegenstück aller *décadents*: sie haben sie *darstellen* müssen bis zur Illusion, sie haben sich, mit einem *non plus ultra* des schauspielerischen Genies, an die Spitze aller *décadence*-Bewegungen zu stellen gewußt (— als Christentum des *Paulus* —), um aus ihnen etwas zu schaffen, das stärker ist als jede *Ja-sagende* Partei des Lebens. Die *décadence* ist, für die im Juden- und Christentum zur Macht verlangende Art von Mensch, eine *priesterliche* Art, nur *Mittel*: diese Art von Mensch hat ein Lebens-Interesse daran, die Menschheit *krank* zu machen und die Begriffe »gut« und »böse«, »wahr« und »falsch« in einen lebensgefährlichen und weltverleumderischen Linn umzudrehn. —\n\n[25]\n\nDie Geschichte Israels ist unschätzbar als typische Geschichte aller *Entnatürlichung* der Natur-Werte: ich deute fünf Tatsachen derselben an. Ursprünglich, vor allem in der Zeit des Königtums, stand auch Israel zu allen Dingen in der *richtigen*, das heißt der natürlichen Beziehung. Sein Javeh war der Ausdruck des Macht-Bewußtseins, der Freude an sich, der Hoffnung auf sich: in ihm erwartete man Sieg und Heil, mit ihm vertraute man der Natur, daß sie gibt, was das Volk nötig hat — vor allem Regen. Javeh ist der Gott Israels und *folglich* Gott der Gerechtigkeit: die Logik jedes Volks, das in Macht ist und ein gutes Gewissen davon hat. Im Fest-Kultus drücken sich diese beiden Seiten der Selbstbejahung eines Volkes aus: es ist dankbar für die großen Schicksale, durch die es obenauf kam, es ist dankbar im Verhältnis zum Jahreskreislauf und allem Glück in Viehzucht und Ackerbau. — Dieser Zustand der Dinge blieb noch lange das Ideal, auch als er auf eine traurige Weise abgetan war: die Anarchie im Innern, der Assyrer von außen. Aber das Volk hielt als höchste Wünschbarkeit jene Vision eines Königs fest, der ein guter Soldat und ein strenger Richter ist: vor allem jener typische Prophet (das heißt Kritiker und Satiriker des Augenblicks) Jesaja. — Aber jede Hoffnung blieb unerfüllt. Der alte Gott *konnte* nichts mehr von dem, was er ehemals konnte. Man hätte ihn fahren lassen sollen. Was geschah? Man *veränderte* seinen Begriff — man *entnatürlichte* seinen Begriff: um diesen Preis hielt man ihn fest. — Javeh der Gott der »Gerechtigkeit« — *nicht mehr* eine Einheit mit Israel, ein Ausdruck des Volks-Selbstgefühls: nur noch ein Gott unter Bedingungen … Sein Begriff wird ein Werkzeug in den Händen priesterlicher Agıtatoren, welche alles Glück nunmehr als Lohn, alles Unglück als Strafe für Ungehorsam gegen Gott, für »Sünde« interpretieren: jene verlogenste Interpretations-Manier einer angeblich »sittlichen Weltordnung«, mit der, ein für allemal, der Naturbegriff »Ursache« und »Wirkung« auf den Kopf gestellt ist. Wenn man erst, mit Lohn und Strafe, die natürliche Kausalität aus der Welt geschafft hat, bedarf man einer *widernatürlichen* Kausalität: der ganze Rest von Unnatur folgt nunmehr. Ein Gott, der *fordert* — an Stelle eines Gottes, der hilft, der Rat schafft, der im Grunde das Wort ist für jede glückliche Inspiration des Muts und des Selbstvertrauens… Die Moral nicht mehr der Ausdruck der Lebens- und Wachstums-Bedingungen eines Volks, nicht mehr sein unterster Instinkt des Lebens, sondern abstrakt geworden, Gegensatz zum Leben geworden — Moral als grundsätzliche Verschlechterung der Phantasie, als »böser Blick« für alle Dinge. *Was* ist jüdische, *was* ist christliche Moral? Der Zufall um seine Unschuld gebracht; das Unglück mit dem Begriff »Sünde« beschmutzt; das Wohlbefinden als Gefahr, als »Versuchung«; das physiologische Übelbefinden mit dem Gewissens-Wurm vergiftet…\n\n[26]\n\nDer Gottesbegriff gefälscht; der Moralbegriff gefälscht — die jüdische Priesterschaft blieb dabei nicht stehn. Man konnte die ganze *Geschichte* Israels nicht brauchen: fort mit ihr! — Diese Priester haben jenes Wunderwerk von Fälschung zustande gebracht, als deren Dokumente uns ein guter Teil der Bibel vorliegt: sie haben ihre eigne Volks-Vergangenheit mit einem Hohn ohnegleichen gegen jede Überlieferung, gegen jede historische Realität, *ins Religiöse übersetzt*, das heißt, aus ihr einen stupiden Heils-Mechanismus von Schuld gegen Javeh und Strafe, von Frömmigkeit gegen Javeh und Lohn gemacht. Wir würden diesen schmachvollsten Akt der Geschichts-Fälschung viel schmerzhafter empfinden, wenn uns nicht die *kirchliche* Geschichts-Interpretation von Jahrtausenden fast stumpf für die Forderungen der Rechtschaffenheit *in historicis* gemacht hätte. Und der Kirche sekundierten die Philosophen: die *Lüge* der »sittlichen Weltordnung« geht durch die ganze Entwicklung selbst der neueren Philosophie. Was bedeutet »sittliche Weltordnung«? Daß es, ein für allemal, einen Willen Gottes gibt, was der Mensch zu tun, was er zu lassen habe; daß der Wert eines Volkes, eines einzelnen sich danach bemesse, wie sehr oder wie wenig dem Willen Gottes gehorcht wird; daß in den Schicksalen eines Volkes, eines einzelnen sich der Wille Gottes als *herrschend*, das heißt als strafend und belohnend, je nach dem Grade des Gehorsanıs, beweist. — Die *Realität* an Stelle dieser erbarmungswürdigen Lüge heißt: eine parasitische Art Mensch, die nur auf Kosten aller gesunden Bildungen des Lebens gedeiht, der *Priester*, mißbraucht den Namen Gottes: er nennt einen Zustand der Gesellschaft, in dem der Priester den Wert der Dinge bestimmt, »das Reich Gottes«; er nennt die Mittel, vermöge deren ein solcher Zustand erreicht oder aufrechterhalten wird, »den Willen Gottes«; er mißt, mit einem kaltblütigen Zynismus, die Völker, die Zeiten, die einzelnen danach ab, ob sie der Priester-Übermacht nützten oder widerstrebten. Man sehe sie am Werk: unter den Händen derjüdischen Priester wurde die *große* Zeit in der Geschichte Israels eine Verfalls-Zeit, das Exil, das lange Unglück verwandelte sich in eine *ewige Strafe* für die große Zeit — eine Zeit, in der der Priester noch nichts war. Sie haben aus den mächtigen, *sehr frei* geratenen Gestalten der Geschichte Israels, je nach Bedürfnis, armselige Ducker und Mucker oder »Gottlose« gemacht, sie haben die Psychologie jedes großen Ereignisses auf die Idioten-Formel »Gehorsam *oder* Ungehorsam gegen Gott« vereinfacht. — Ein Schritt weiter: der »Wille Gottes« (das heißt die Erhaltungs-Bedingungen für die Macht des Priesters) muß *bekannt* sein — zu diesem Zwecke bedarf es einer »Offenbarung«. Auf deutsch: eine große literarische Fälschung wird nötig, eine »heilige Schrift« wird entdeckt — unter allem hieratischen Pomp, mit Bußtagen und Jammergeschrei über die lange »Sünde« wird sie öffentlich gemacht. Der »Wille Gottes« stand längst fest: das ganze Unheil liegt darin, daß man sich der »heiligen Schrift« entfremdet hat… Moses schon war der »Wille Gottes« offenbart… Was war geschehn? Der Priester hatte, mit Strenge, mit Pedanterie, bis auf die großen und kleinen Steuern, die man ihm zu zahlen hatte (— die schmackhaftesten Stücke vom Fleisch nicht zu vergessen: denn der Priester ist ein Beefsteak-Fresser), ein für allemal formuliert, *was er haben will*, »was der Wille Gottes ist«… Von nun an sind alle Dinge des Lebens so geordnet, daß der Priester *überall unentbehrlich* ist; in allen natürlichen Vorkommnissen des Lebens, bei der Geburt, der Ehe, der Krankheit, dem Tode, gar nicht vom »Opfer« (der Mahlzeit) zu reden, erscheint der heilige Parasit, um sie zu *entnatürlichen* — in seiner Sprache: zu »heiligen«… Denn dies muß man begreifen: jede *natürliche* Sitte, jede natürliche Institution (Staat, Gerichtsordnung, Ehe, Kranken- und Armenpflege), jede vom Instinkt des Lebens eingegebne Forderung, kurz alles, was seinen Wert *in sich* hat, wird durch den Parasitismus des Priesters (oder der »sittlichen Weltordnung«) grundsätzlich wertlos, wert-*widrig* gemacht: es bedarf nachträglich einer Sanktion — eine *wertverleihende* Macht tut not, welche die Natur darin verneint, welche eben damit erst einen Wert *schafft*… Der Priester entwertet, *entheiligt* die Natur: um diesen Preis besteht er überhaupt. — Der Ungehorsam gegen Gott, das heißt gegen den Priester, gegen »das Gesetz«, bekommt nun den Namen »Sünde«; die Mittel, sich wieder »mit Gott zu versöhnen«, sind, wie billig, Mittel, mit denen die Unterwerfung unter den Priester nur noch gründlicher gewährleistet ist: der Priester allein »erlöst« … Psychologisch nachgerechnet, werden in jeder priesterlich organisierten Gesellschaft die »Sünden« unentbehrlich: sie sind die eigentlichen Handhaben der Macht, der Priester *lebt* von den Sünden, er hat nötig, daß »gesündigt« wird… Oberster Satz: »Gott vergibt dem, der Buße tut« — auf deutsch: *der sich dem Priester unterwirft*. —\n\n[27]\n\nAuf einem dergestalt *falschen* Boden, wo jede Natur, jeder Naturwert, jede *Realität* die tiefsten Instinkte der herrschenden Klasse wider sich hatte, wuchs das *Christentum* auf, eine Todfeindschafts-Form gegen die Realität, die bisher nicht übertroffen worden ist. Das »heilige Volk«, das für alle Dinge nur Priester-Werte, nur Priester-Worte übrig behalten hatte und mit einer Schluß-Folgerichtigkeit, die Furcht einflößen kann, alles, was sonst noch an Macht auf Erden bestand, als »unheilig«, als »Welt«, als »Sünde« von sich abgetrennt hatte — dies Volk brachte für seinen Instinkt eine letzte Formel hervor, die logisch war bis zur Selbstverneinung: es verneinte, als *Christentum*, noch die letzte Form der Realität, das »heilige Volk«, das »Volk der Ausgewählten«, die *jüdische* Realität selbst. Der Fall ist ersten Rangs: die kleine aufständische Bewegung, die auf den Namen des Jesus von Nazareth getauft wird, ist der jüdische Instinkt *noch einmal* — anders gesagt, der Priester-Instinkt, der den Priester als Realität nicht mehr verträgt, die Erfindung einer noch *abgezogneren* Daseinsform, einer noch *unrealeren* Vision der Welt, als sie die Organisation einer Kirche bedingt. Das Christentum *verneint* die Kirche…\n\nIch sehe nicht ab, wogegen der Aufstand gerichtet war, als dessen Urheber Jesus verstanden oder *mißverstanden* worden ist, wenn es nicht der Aufstand gegen die jüdische Kirche war — »Kirche« genau in dem Sinn genommen, in dem wir heute das Wort nehmen. Es war ein Aufstand gegen »die Guten und Gerechten«, gegen »die Heiligen Israels«, gegen die Hierarchie der Gesellschaft — *nicht* gegen deren Verderbnis, sondern gegen die Kaste, das Privilegium, die Ordnung, die Formel; es war der *Unglaube* an die »höheren Menschen«, das *Nein* gesprochen gegen alles, was Priester und Theologe war. Aber die Hierarchie, die damit, wenn auch nur für einen Augenblick, in Frage gestellt wurde, war der Pfahlbau, auf dem das jüdische Volk, mitten im »Wasser«, überhaupt noch fortbestand — die mühsam errungene *letzte* Möglichkeit, übrigzubleiben, das Residuum seiner politischen Sonder-Existenz: ein Angriff auf sie war ein Angriff auf den tiefsten Volks-Instinkt, auf den zähesten Volks-Lebenswillen, der je auf Erden dagewesen ist. Dieser heilige Anarchist, der das niedere Volk, die Ausgestoßnen und »Sünder«, die *Tschandala* innerhalb des Judentums zum Widerspruch gegen die herrschende Ordnung aufrief — mit einer Sprache, falls den Evangelien zu trauen wäre, die auch heute noch nach Sibirien führen würde, war ein politischer Verbrecher, so weit eben politische Verbrecher in einer *absurd-unpolitischen* Gemeinschaft möglich waren. Dies brachte ihn ans Kreuz: der Beweis dafür ist die Aufschrift des Kreuzes. Er starb für *seine* Schuld — es fehlt jeder Grund dafür, so oft es auch behauptet worden ist, daß er für die Schuld andrer starb. —\n\n[28]\n\nEine vollkommen andre Frage ist es, ob er einen solchen Gegensatz überhaupt im Bewußtsein hatte — ob er nicht bloß als dieser Gegensatz *empfunden* wurde. Und hier erst berühre ich das Problem der *Psychologie des Erlösers*. — Ich bekenne, daß ich wenige Bücher mit solchen Schwierigkeiten lese wie die Evangelien. Diese Schwierigkeiten sind andre als die, an deren Nachweis die gelehrte Neugierde des deutschen Geistes einen ihrer unvergeßlichsten Triumphe gefeiert hat. Die Zeit ist fern, wo auch ich, gleich jedem jungen Gelehrten, mit der klugen Langsamkeit eines raffinierten Philologen das Werk des unvergleichlichen Strauß auskostete. Damals war ich zwanzig Jahre alt: jetzt bin ich zu ernst dafür. Was gehen mich die Widersprüche der »Überlieferung« an? Wie kann man Heiligen-Legenden überhaupt »Überlieferung« nennen! Die Geschichten von Heiligen sind die zweideutigste Literatur, die es überhaupt gibt: auf sie die wissenschaftliche Methode anwenden, *wenn sonst keine Urkunden vorliegen*, scheint mir von vornherein verurteilt — bloß gelehrter Müßiggang…\n\n[29]\n\nWas *mich* angeht, ist der psychologische Typus des Erlösers. Derselbe *könnte* ja in den Evangelien enthalten sein trotz den Evangelien, wie sehr auch immer verstümmelt oder mit fremden Zügen überladen: wie der des Franziskus von Assisi in seinen Legenden erhalten ist trotz seinen Legenden. *Nicht* die Wahrheit darüber, was er getan, was er gesagt, wie er eigentlich gestorben ist: sondern die Frage, *ob* sein Typus überhaupt noch vorstellbar, ob er »überliefert« ist? — Die Versuche, die ich kenne, aus den Evangelien sogar die *Geschichte* einer »Seele« herauszulesen, scheinen mir Beweise einer verabscheuungswürdigen psychologischen Leichtfertigkeit. Herr Renan, dieser Hanswurst *in psychologicis*, hat die zwei *ungehörigsten* Begriffe zu seiner Erklärung des Typus Jesus hinzugebracht, die es hierfür geben kann: den Begriff *Genie* und den Begriff *Held* (»*héros*«). Aber wenn irgend etwas unevangelisch ist, so ist es der Begriff Held. Gerade der Gegensatz zu allem Ringen, zu allem Sich-in-Kampf-fühlen ist hier Instinkt geworden: die Unfähigkeit zum Widerstand wird hier Moral (»widerstehe nicht dem Bösen!« das tiefste Wort der Evangelien, ihr Schlüssel in gewissem Sinne), die Seligkeit im Frieden, in der Sanftmut, im Nicht-feind-sein-*können*. Was heißt »frohe Botschaft«? Das wahre Leben, das ewige Leben ist gefunden, — es wird nicht verheißen, es ist da, es ist *in euch*: als Leben in der Liebe, in der Liebe ohne Abzug und Ausschluß, ohne Distanz. Jeder ist das Kind Gottes — Jesus nimmt durchaus nichts für sich allein in Anspruch —, als Kind Gottes ist jeder mit jedem gleich… Aus Jesus einen *Helden* machen! — Und was für ein Mißverständnis ist gar das Wort »Genie«! Unser ganzer Begriff, unser Kultur-Begriff »Geist« hat in der Welt, in der Jesus lebt, gar keinen Sinn. Mit der Strenge des Physiologen gesprochen, wäre hier ein ganz andres Wort eher noch am Platz: das Wort Idiot. Wir kennen einen Zustand krankhafter Reizbarkeit des *Tastsinns*, der dann vor jeder Berührung, vor jedem Anfassen eines festen Gegenstandes zurückschaudert. Man übersetze sich einen solchen physiologischen *habitus* in seine letzte Logik — als Instinkt-Haß gegen *jede* Realität, als Flucht ins »Unfaßliche«, ins »Unbegreifliche«, als Widerwille gegen jede Formel, jeden Zeit- und Raumbegriff, gegen alles, was fest, Sitte, Institution, Kirche ist, als Zu-Hause-sein in einer Welt, an die keine Art Realität mehr rührt, einer bloß noch »inneren« Welt, einer »wahren« Welt, einer »ewigen« Welt… »Das Reich Gottes *ist in euch*« …\n\n[30]\n\n*Der Instinkt-Haß gegen die Realität*: Folge einer extremen Leid- und Reizfähigkeit, welche überhaupt nicht mehr »berührt« werden will, weil sie jede Berührung zu tief empfindet.\n\n*Die Instinkt-Ausschließung aller Abneigung, aller Feindschaft, aller Grenzen und Distanzen im Gefühl*: Folge einer extremen Leid- und Reizfähigkeit, welche jedes Widerstreben, Widerstreben-müssen bereits als unerträgliche *Unlust* (das heißt als *schädlich*, als vom Selbsterhaltungs-Instinkte *widerraten*) empfindet und die Seligkeit (die Lust) allein darin kennt, nicht mehr, niemandem mehr, weder dem Übel noch dem Bösen, Widerstand zu leisten — die Liebe als einzige, als *letzte* Lebens-Möglichkeit…\n\nDies sind die zwei *physiologischen Realitäten*, auf denen, aus denen die Erlösungs-Lehre gewachsen ist. Ich nenne sie eine sublime Weiter-Entwicklung des Hedonismus auf durchaus morbider Grundlage. Nächstverwandt, wenn auch mit einem großen Zuschuß von griechischer Vitalität und Nervenkraft, bleibt ihr der Epikureismus, die Erlösungs-Lehre des Heidentums. Epikur ein *typischer décadent*: zuerst von mir als solcher erkannt. — Die Furcht vor Schmerz, selbst vor dem Unendlich-Kleinen im Schmerz — sie *kann* gar nicht anders enden als in einer *Religion der Liebe*…\n\n### Sections 31–40\n\n[31]\n\nIch habe meine Antwort auf das Problem vorweg gegeben. Die Voraussetzung für sie ist, daß der Typus des Erlösers uns nur in einer starken Entstellung erhalten ist. Diese Entstellung hat an sich viel Wahrscheinlichkeit: ein solcher Typus konnte aus mehreren Gründen nicht rein, nicht ganz, nicht frei von Zutaten bleiben. Es muß sowohl das Milieu, in dem sich diese fremde Gestalt bewegte, Spuren an ihm hinterlassen haben, als noch mehr die Geschichte, das *Schicksal* der ersten christlichen Gemeinde: aus ihm wurde, rückwirkend, der Typus mit Zügen bereichert, die erst aus dem Kriege und zu Zwecken der Propaganda verständlich werden. Jene seltsame und kranke Welt, in die uns die Evangelien einführen — eine Welt, wie aus einem russischen Romane, in der sich Auswurf der Gesellschaft, Nervenleiden und »kindliches« Idiotentum ein Stelldichein zu geben scheinen — muß unter allen Umständen den Typus *vergröbert* haben: die ersten Jünger insonderheit übersetzten ein ganz in Symbolen und Unfaßlichkeiten schwimmendes Sein erst in die eigne Krudität, um überhaupt etwas davon zu verstehn, — für sie war der Typus erst nach einer Einformung in bekanntere Formen *vorhanden* … Der Prophet, der Messias, der zukünftige Richter, der Morallehrer, der Wundermann, Johannes der Täufer — ebensoviele Gelegenheiten, den Typus zu verkennen… Unterschätzen wir endlich das *proprium* aller großen, namentlich sektiererischen Verehrung nicht: sie löscht die originalen, oft peinlich-fremden Züge und Idiosynkrasien an dem verehrten Wesen aus — *sie sieht sie selbst nicht*. Man hätte zu bedauern, daß nicht ein Dostojewskij in der Nähe dieses interessantesten *décadent* gelebt hat, ich meine, jemand, der gerade den ergreifenden Reiz einer solchen Mischung von Sublimem, Krankem und Kindlichem zu empfinden wußte.\n\nEin letzter Gesichtspunkt: der Typus *könnte*, als *décadence*-Typus, tatsächlich von einer eigentümlichen Vielheit und Widersprüchlichkeit gewesen sein: eine solche Möglichkeit ist nicht völlig auszuschließen. Trotzdem rät alles ab von ihr: gerade die Überlieferung würde für diesen Fall eine merkwürdig treue und objektive sein müssen: wovon wir Gründe haben das Gegenteil anzunehmen. Einstweilen klafft ein Widerspruch zwischen dem Berg-, See- und Wiesenprediger, dessen Erscheinung wie ein Buddha auf einem sehr wenig indischen Boden anmutet, und jenem Fanatiker des Angriffs, dem Theologen- und Priester-Todfeind, den Renans Bosheit als »*le grand maître en ironie*« verherrlicht hat. Ich selber zweifle nicht daran, daß das reichliche Maß Galle (und selbst von *esprit*) erst aus dem erregten Zustand der christlichen Propaganda auf den Typus des Meisters übergeflossen ist: man kennt ja reichlich die Unbedenklichkeit aller Sektierer, aus ihrem Meister sich ihre *Apologie* zurecht zu machen. Als die erste Gemeinde einen richtenden, hadernden, zürnenden, bösartig spitzfindigen Theologen nötig hatte, *gegen* Theologen, *schuf* sie sich ihren »Gott« nach ihrem Bedürfnisse: wie sie ihm auch jene völlig unevangelischen Begriffe, die sie jetzt nicht entbehren konnte, »Wiederkunft«, »Jüngstes Gericht«, jede Art zeitlicher Erwartung und Verheißung, ohne Zögern in den Mund gab. —\n\n[32]\n\nIch wehre mich, nochmals gesagt, dagegen, daß man den Fanatiker in den Typus des Erlösers einträgt: das Wort *impérieux*, das Renan gebraucht, *annulliert* allein schon den Typus. Die »gute Botschaft« ist eben, daß es keine Gegensätze mehr gibt; das Himmelreich gehört den *Kindern*; der Glaube, der hier laut wird, ist kein erkämpfter Glaube — er ist da, er ist von Anfang, er ist gleichsam eine ins Geistige zurücktretende Kindlichkeit. Der Fall der verzögerten und im Organismus unausgebildeten Pubertät, als Folgeerscheinung der Degenereszenz, ist wenigstens den Physiologen vertraut. — Ein solcher Glaube zürnt nicht, tadelt nicht, wehrt sich nicht: er bringt nicht »das Schwert« — er ahnt gar nicht, inwiefern er einmal trennen könnte. Er beweist sich nicht, weder durch Wunder, noch durch Lohn und Verheißung, noch gar »durch die Schrift«: er selbst ist jeden Augenblick sein Wunder, sein Lohn, sein Beweis, sein »Reich Gottes«. Dieser Glaube formuliert sich auch nicht — er *lebt*, er wehrt sich gegen Formeln. Freilich bestimmt der Zufall der Umgebung, der Sprache, der Vorbildung einen gewissen Kreis von Begriffen: das erste Christentum handhabt *nur* jüdisch-semitische Begriffe (— das Essen und Trinken beim Abendmahl gehört dahin, jener von der Kirche, wie alles Jüdische, so schlimm mißbrauchte Begriff).\n\nAber man hüte sich, darin mehr als eine Zeichenrede, eine Semiotik, eine Gelegenheit zu Gleichnissen zu sehn. Gerade, daß kein Wort wörtlich genommen wird, ist diesem Anti-Realisten die Vorbedingung, um überhaupt reden zu können. Unter Indern würde er sich der Sânkhyam-Begriffe, unter Chinesen der des Laotse bedient haben — und keinen Unterschied dabei fühlen. — Man könnte, mit einiger Toleranz im Ausdruck, Jesus einen »freien Geist« nennen — er macht sich aus allem Festen nichts: das Wort *tötet*, alles, was fest ist, *tötet*. Der Begriff, die *Erfahrung* »Leben«, wie er sie allein kennt, widerstrebt bei ihm jeder Art Wort, Formel, Gesetz, Glaube, Dogma. Er redet bloß vom Innersten: »Leben« oder »Wahrheit« oder »Licht« ist sein Wort für das Innerste — alles Übrige, die ganze Realität, die ganze Natur, die Sprache selbst, hat für ihn bloß den Wert eines Zeichens, eines Gleichnisses. — Man darf sich an dieser Stelle durchaus nicht vergreifen, so groß auch die Verführung ist, welche im christlichen, will sagen *kirchlichen* Vorurteil liegt: ein solcher Symbolist *par excellence* steht außerhalb aller Religion, aller Kult-Begriffe, aller Historie, aller Naturwissenschaft, aller Welt-Erfahrung, aller Kenntnisse, aller Politik, aller Psychologie, aller Bücher, aller Kunst — sein »Wissen« ist eben die *reine Torheit* darüber, *daß* es etwas dergleichen gibt. Die *Kultur* ist ihm nicht einmal vom Hörensagen bekannt, er hat keinen Kampf gegen sie nötig — er verneint sie nicht… Dasselbe gilt vom *Staat*, von der ganzen bürgerlichen Ordnung und Gesellschaft, von der *Arbeit*, vom Kriege — er hat nie einen Grund gehabt, »die Welt« zu verneinen, er hat den kirchlichen Begriff »Welt« nie geahnt… Das *Verneinen* ist eben das ihm ganz Unmögliche —. Insgleichen fehlt die Dialektik, es fehlt die Vorstellung davon, daß ein Glaube, eine »Wahrheit« durch Gründe bewiesen werden könnte (— *seine* Beweise sind innere »Lichter«, innere Lustgefühle und Selbstbejahungen, lauter »Beweise der Kraft« —). Eine solche Lehre *kann* auch nicht widersprechen: sie begreift gar nicht, daß es andre Lehren gibt, geben *kann*, sie weiß sich ein gegenteiliges Urteilen gar nicht vorzustellen… Wo sie es antrifft, wird sie aus innerstem Mitgefühle über »Blindheit« trauern — denn sie sieht das »Licht« —, aber keinen Einwand machen …\n\n[33]\n\nIn der ganzen Psychologie des »Evangeliums« fehlt der Begriff Schuld und Strafe; insgleichen der Begriff Lohn. Die »Sünde«, jedwedes Distanz-Verhältnis zwischen Gott und Mensch ist abgeschafft — *eben das ist die »frohe Botschaft«*. Die Seligkeit wird nicht verheißen, sie wird nicht an Bedingungen geknüpft: sie ist die *einzige* Realität — der Rest ist Zeichen, um von ihr zu reden…\n\nDie *Folge* eines solchen Zustandes projiziert sich in eine neue *Praktik*, die eigentlich evangelische Praktik. Nicht ein »Glaube« unterscheidet den Christen: der Christ handelt, er unterscheidet sich durch ein *andres* Handeln. Daß er dem, der böse gegen ihn ist, weder durch Wort, noch im Herzen Widerstand leistet. Daß er keinen Unterschied zwischen Fremden und Einheimischen, zwischen Juden und Nicht-Juden macht (»der Nächste« eigentlich der Glaubensgenosse, der Jude). Daß er sich gegen niemanden erzürnt, niemanden geringschätzt. Daß er sich bei Gerichtshöfen weder sehn läßt, noch in Anspruch nehmen läßt (»nicht schwören«). Daß er sich unter keinen Umständen, auch nicht im Falle bewiesener Untreue des Weibes, von seinem Weibe scheidet. — Alles im Grunde *ein* Satz, alles Folgen *eines* Instinkts. —\n\nDas Leben des Erlösers war nichts andres als *diese* Praktik — sein Tod war auch nichts andres… Er hatte keine Formeln, keinen Ritus für den Verkehr mit Gott mehr nötig — nicht einmal das Gebet. Er hat mit der ganzen jüdischen Buß- und Versöhnungslehre abgerechnet; er weiß, wie es allein die *Praktik* des Lebens ist, mit der man sich »göttlich«, »selig«, »evangelisch«, jederzeit ein »Kind Gottes« fühlt. *Nicht* »Buße«, *nicht* »Gebet um Vergebung« sind Wege zu Gott: die *evangelische Praktik allein* führt zu Gott, sie eben *ist* »Gott«! — Was mit dem Evangelium *abgetan* war, das war das Judentum der Begriffe »Sünde«, »Vergebung der Sünde«, »Glaube«, »Erlösung durch den Glauben« — die ganze jüdische *Kirchen*-Lehre war in der »frohen Botschaft« verneint.\n\nDer tiefe Instinkt dafür, wie man *leben* müsse, um sich »im Himmel« zu fühlen, um sich »ewig« zu fühlen, während man sich bei jedem andern Verhalten durchaus *nicht* »im Himmel« fühlt: dies allein ist die psychologische Realität der »Erlösung«. — Ein neuer Wandel, *nicht* ein neuer Glaube…\n\n[34]\n\nWenn ich irgend etwas von diesem großen Symbolisten verstehe, so ist es das, daß er nur *innere* Realitäten als Realitäten, als »Wahrheiten« nahm — daß er den Rest, alles Natürliche, Zeitliche, Räumliche, Historische nur als Zeichen, als Gelegenheit zu Gleichnissen verstand. Der Begriff »des Menschen Sohn« ist nicht eine konkrete Person, die in die Geschichte gehört, irgend etwas einzelnes, einmaliges, sondern eine »ewige« Tatsächlichkeit, ein von dem Zeitbegriff erlöstes psychologisches Symbol. Dasselbe gilt noch einmal, und im höchsten Sinne, von dem *Gott* dieses typischen Symbolisten, vom »Reich Gottes«, vom »Himmelreich«, von der »Kindschaft Gottes«. Nichts ist unchristlicher als die *kirchlichen Kruditäten* von einem Gott als *Person*, von einem »Reich Gottes«, welches *kommt*, von einem »Himmelreich« *jenseits*, von einem »Sohne Gottes«, der *zweiten Person* der Trinität. Dies alles ist — man vergebe mir den Ausdruck — die *Faust* auf dem Auge — oh auf was für einem Auge! — des Evangeliums: ein *welthistorischer Zynismus* in der Verhöhnung des Symbols… Aber es liegt ja auf der Hand, was mit dem Zeichen »Vater« und »Sohn« angerührt wird — nicht auf jeder Hand, ich gebe es zu: mit dem Wort »Sohn« ist der *Eintritt* in das Gesamt-Verklärungs-Gefühl aller Dinge (die Seligkeit) ausgedrückt, mit dem Wort »Vater« *dieses Gefühl selbst*, das Ewigkeits-, das Vollendungs-Gefühl. — Ich schäme mich daran zu erinnern, was die Kirche aus diesem Symbolismus gemacht hat: hat sie nicht eine Amphitryon-Geschichte an die Schwelle des christlichen »Glaubens« gesetzt? Und ein Dogma von der »unbefleckten Empfängnis« noch obendrein? … *Aber damit hat sie die Empfängnis befleckt* — —\n\nDas »Himmelreich« ist ein Zustand des Herzens — nicht etwas, das »über der Erde« oder »nach dem Tode« kommt. Der ganze Begriff des natürlichen Todes *fehlt* im Evangelium: der Tod ist keine Brücke, kein Übergang, er fehlt, weil einer ganz andern, bloß scheinbaren, bloß zu Zeichen nützlichen Welt zugehörig. Die »Todesstunde« ist *kein* christlicher Begriff — die »Stunde«, die Zeit, das physische Leben und seine Krisen sind gar nicht vorhanden für den Lehrer der »frohen Botschaft«… Das »Reich Gottes« ist nichts, das man erwartet; es hat kein Gestern und kein Übermorgen, es kommt nicht in »tausend Jahren« — es ist eine Erfahrung an einem Herzen; es ist überall da, es ist nirgends da…\n\n[35]\n\nDieser »frohe Botschafter« starb wie er lebte, wie er *lehrte* — *nicht* um »die Menschen zu erlösen«, sondern um zu zeigen, wie man zu leben hat. Die *Praktik* ist es, welche er der Menschheit hinterließ: sein Verhalten vor den Richtern, vor den Häschern, vor den Anklägern und aller Art Verleumdung und Hohn — sein Verhalten am *Kreuz*. Er widersteht nicht, er verteidigt nicht sein Recht, er tut keinen Schritt, der das Äußerste von ihm abwehrt, mehr noch, *er fordert es heraus*… Und er bittet, er leidet, er liebt *mit* denen, *in* denen, die ihm Böses tun. Die Worte zum *Schächer* am Kreuz enthalten das ganze Evangelium. »Das ist wahrlich ein *göttlicher* Mensch gewesen, ein Kind Gottes!« — sagt der Schächer. »Wenn du dies fühlst« — antwortet der Erlöser — »*so bist du im Paradiese*, so bist du ein Kind Gottes.« *Nicht* sich wehren, *nicht* erzürnen, *nicht* verantwortlich-machen … Sondern auch nicht dem Bösen widerstehen — ihn *lieben*…\n\n[36]\n\n— Erst wir, wir *freigewordenen* Geister, haben die Voraussetzung dafür, etwas zu verstehn, das neunzehn Jahrhunderte mißverstanden haben — jene Instinkt und Leidenschaft gewordene Rechtschaffenheit, welche der »heiligen Lüge« noch mehr als jeder andern Lüge den Krieg macht… Man war unsäglich entfernt von unsrer liebevollen und vorsichtigen Neutralität, von jener Zucht des Geistes, mit der allein das Erraten so fremder, so zarter Dinge ermöglicht wird: man wollte jederzeit, mit einer unverschämten Selbstsucht, nur *seinen* Vorteil darin, man hat aus dem Gegensatz zum Evangelium die *Kirche* aufgebaut…\n\nWer nach Zeichen dafür suchte, daß hinter dem großen Welten-Spiel eine ironische Göttlichkeit die Finger handhabe, er fände keinen kleinen Anhalt in dem *ungeheuren Fragezeichen*, das Christentum heißt. Daß die Menschheit vor dem Gegensatz dessen auf den Knien liegt, was der Ursprung, der Sinn, das *Recht* des Evangeliums war, daß sie in dem Begriff »Kirche« gerade das heilig gesprochen hat, was der »frohe Botschafter« als *unter* sich, als *hinter* sich empfand — man sucht vergebens nach einer größeren Form *welthistorischer Ironie* — —\n\n[37]\n\n— Unser Zeitalter ist stolz auf seinen historischen Sinn: wie hat es sich den Unsinn glaublich machen können, daß an dem Anfange des Christentums die *grobe Wundertäter- und Erlöser-Fabel* steht — und daß alles Spirituale und Symbolische erst eine spätere Entwicklung ist? Umgekehrt: die Geschichte des Christentums — und zwar vom Tode am Kreuze an — ist die Geschichte des schrittweise immer gröberen Mißverstehns eines *ursprünglichen* Symbolismus. Mit jeder Ausbreitung des Christentums über noch breitere, noch rohere Massen, denen die Voraussetzungen immer mehr abgingen, aus denen es geboren ist, wurde es nötiger, das Christentum zu *vulgarisieren*, zu *barbarisieren* — es hat Lehren und Riten aller *unterirdischen* Kulte des *imperium Romanum*, es hat den Unsinn aller Arten kranker Vernunft in sich eingeschluckt. Das Schicksal des Christentums liegt in der Notwendigkeit, daß sein Glaube selbst so krank, so niedrig und vulgär werden mußte, als die Bedürfnisse krank, niedrig und vulgär waren, die mit ihm befriedigt werden sollten. Als Kirche summiert sich endlich die *kranke Barbarei* selbst zur Macht — die Kirche, diese Todfeindschaftsform zu jeder Rechtschaffenheit, zu jeder *Höhe* der Seele, zu jeder Zucht des Geistes, zu jeder freimütigen und gütigen Menschlichkeit. — Die *christlichen* — die *vornehmen* Werte: erst wir, wir *freigewordnen* Geister, haben diesen größten Wert-Gegensatz, den es gibt, wiederhergestellt! —\n\n[38]\n\n— Ich unterdrücke an dieser Stelle einen Seufzer nicht. Es gibt Tage, wo mich ein Gefühl heimsucht, schwärzer als die schwärzeste Melancholie — die *Menschen-Verachtung*. Und damit ich keinen Zweifel darüber lasse, *was* ich verachte, *wen* ich verachte: der Mensch von Heute ist es, der Mensch, mit dem ich verhängnisvoll gleichzeitig bin. Der Mensch von Heute — ich ersticke an seinem unreinen Atem… Gegen das Vergangne bin ich, gleich allen Erkennenden, von einer großen Toleranz, das heißt *großmütigen* Selbstbezwingung: ich gehe durch die Irrenhaus-Welt ganzer Jahrtausende, heiße sie nun »Christentum«, »christlicher Glaube«, »christliche Kirche«, mit einer düsteren Vorsicht hindurch — ich hüte mich, die Menschheit für ihre Geisteskrankheiten verantwortlich zu machen. Aber mein Gefühl schlägt um, bricht heraus, sobald ich in die neuere Zeit, in *unsre* Zeit eintrete. Unsre Zeit ist *wissend*… Was ehemals bloß krank war, heute ward es unanständig — es ist unanständig, heute Christ zu sein. *Und hier beginnt mein Ekel*. — Ich sehe mich um: es ist kein Wort von dem mehr übriggeblieben, was ehemals »Wahrheit« hieß, wir halten es nicht mehr aus, wenn ein Priester das Wort »Wahrheit« auch nur in den Mund nimmt. Selbst bei dem bescheidensten Anspruch auf Rechtschaffenheit *muß* man heute wissen, daß ein Theologe, ein Priester, ein Papst mit jedem Satz, den er spricht, nicht nur irrt, sondern *lügt* — daß es ihm nicht mehr freisteht, aus »Unschuld«, aus »Unwissenheit« zu lügen. Auch der Priester weiß, so gut es jedermann weiß, daß es keinen »Gott« mehr gibt, keinen »Sünder«, keinen »Erlöser« — daß »freier Wille«, »sittliche Weltordnung« *Lügen* sind — der Ernst, die tiefe Selbstüberwindung des Geistes *erlaubt* niemandem mehr, hierüber *nicht* zu wissen… *Alle* Begriffe der Kirche sind erkannt als das, was sie sind, als die bösartigste Falschmünzerei, die es gibt, zum Zweck, die Natur, die Natur-Werte zu *entwerten*; der Priester selbst ist erkannt als das, was er ist, als die gefährlichste Art Parasit, als die eigentliche Giftspinne des Lebens… Wir wissen, unser *Gewissen* weiß es heute —, *was* überhaupt jene unheimlichen Erfindungen der Priester und der Kirche wert sind, *wozu sie dienten*, mit denen jener Zustand von Selbstschändung der Menschheit erreicht worden ist, der Ekel vor ihrem Anblick machen kann — die Begriffe »Jenseits«, »Jüngstes Gericht«, »Unsterblichkeit der Seele«, die »Seele« selbst: es sind Folter-Instrumente, es sind Systeme von Grausamkeiten, vermöge deren der Priester Herr wurde, Herr blieb… Jedermann weiß das: *und trotzdem bleibt alles beim alten*. Wohin kam das letzte Gefühl von Anstand, von Achtung vor sich selbst, wenn unsre Staatsmänner sogar, eine sonst sehr unbefangne Art Mensch und Antichristen der Tat durch und durch, sich heute noch Christen nennen und zum Abendmahl gehn?… Ein junger Fürst an der Spitze seiner Regimenter, prachtvoll als Ausdruck der Selbstsucht und Selbstüberhebung seines Volks — aber, *ohne* jede Scham, sich als Christen bekennend!… *Wen* verneint denn *das* Christentum? *was* heißt es »Welt«? Daß man Soldat, daß man Richter, daß man Patriot ist; daß man sich wehrt; daß man auf seine Ehre hält; daß man seinen Vorteil will; daß man *stolz* ist… Jede Praktik jedes Augenblicks, jeder Instinkt, jede zur *Tat* werdende Wertschätzung ist heute antichristlich: was für eine *Mißgeburt von Falschheit* muß der moderne Mensch sein, daß er sich trotzdem *nicht schämt*, Christ noch zu heißen!\n\n[39]\n\n— Ich kehre zurück, ich erzähle die *echte* Geschichte des Christentums. — Das Wort schon »Christentum« ist ein Mißverständnis —, im Grunde gab es nur einen Christen, und der *starb* am Kreuz. Das »Evangelium« starb am Kreuz. Was von diesem Augenblick an »Evangelium« heißt, war bereits der Gegensatz dessen, was *er* gelebt: eine »*schlimme* Botschaft«, ein *Dysangelium*. Es ist falsch bis zum Unsinn, wenn man in einem »Glauben«, etwa im Glauben an die Erlösung durch Christus das Abzeichen des Christen sieht: bloß die christliche *Praktik*, ein Leben so wie der, der am Kreuze starb, es *lebte*, ist christlich… Heute noch ist ein *solches* Leben möglich, für *gewisse* Menschen sogar notwendig: das echte, das ursprüngliche Christentum wird zu allen Zeiten möglich sein… *Nicht* ein Glauben, sondern ein Tun, ein Vieles-*nicht*-tun vor allem, ein andres *Sein*… Bewußtseins-Zustände, irgendein Glauben, ein Für-wahr-halten zum Beispiel — jeder Psycholog weiß das — sind ja vollkommen gleichgültig und fünften Ranges gegen den Wert der Instinkte: strenger geredet, der ganze Begriff geistiger Ursächlichkeit ist falsch. Das Christ-sein, die Christlichkeit auf ein Für-wahr-halten, auf eine bloße Bewußtseins-Phänomenalität reduzieren, heißt die Christlichkeit negieren. *In der Tat gab es gar keine Christen.* Der »Christ«, das, was seit zwei Jahrtausenden Christ heißt, ist bloß ein psychologisches Selbst-Mißverständnis. Genauer zugesehn, herrschten in ihm, *trotz* allem »Glauben«, *bloß* die Instinkte — und *was für Instinkte!* — Der »Glaube« war zu allen Zeiten, beispielsweise bei Luther, nur ein Mantel, ein Vorwand, ein *Vorhang*, hinter dem die Instinkte ihr Spiel spielten —, eine kluge *Blindheit* über die Herrschaft *gewisser* Instinkte… Der »Glaube« — ich nannte ihn schon die eigentliche christliche *Klugheit*, — man *sprach* immer vom »Glauben«, man *tat* immer nur vom Instinkte… In der Vorstellungswelt des Christen kommt nichts vor, was die Wirklichkeit auch nur anrührte: dagegen erkannten wir im Instinkt-Haß *gegen* jede Wirklichkeit das treibende, das einzig treibende Element in der Wurzel des Christentums. Was folgt daraus? Daß auch *in psychologicis* hier der Irrtum radikal, das heißt wesen-bestimmend, das heißt *Substanz* ist. *Ein* Begriff hier weg, eine einzige Realität an dessen Stelle — und das ganze Christentum rollt ins Nichts! — Aus der Höhe gesehn, bleibt diese fremdartigste aller Tatsachen, eine durch Irrtümer nicht nur bedingte, sondern *nur* in schädlichen, *nur* in leben- und herzvergiftenden Irrtümern erfinderische und selbst geniale Religion ein *Schauspiel für Götter* — für jene Gottheiten, welche zugleich Philosophen sind, und denen ich zum Beispiel bei jenen berühmten Zwiegesprächen auf Naxos begegnet bin. Im Augenblick, wo der *Ekel* von ihnen weicht (— *und* von uns!), werden sie dankbar für das Schauspiel des Christen: das erbärmliche kleine Gestirn, das Erde heißt, verdient vielleicht allein um *dieses* kuriosen Falls willen einen göttlichen Blick, eine göttliche Anteilnahme… Unterschätzen wir nämlich den Christen nicht: der Christ, falsch *bis zur Unschuld*, ist weit über dem Affen — in Hinsicht auf Christen wird eine bekannte Herkunfts-Theorie zur bloßen Artigkeit…\n\n[40]\n\n— Das Verhängnis des Evangeliums entschied sich mit dem Tode — es hing am »Kreuz«… Erst der Tod, dieser unerwartete schmähliche Tod, erst das Kreuz, das im allgemeinen bloß für die Kanaille aufgespart blieb — erst diese schauerlichste Paradoxie brachte die Jünger vor das eigentliche Rätsel: »*wer war das? was war das?*« — Das erschütterte und im Tiefsten beleidigte Gefühl, der Argwohn, es möchte ein solcher Tod die *Widerlegung* ihrer Sache sein, das schreckliche Fragezeichen »warum gerade so?« — dieser Zustand begreift sich nur zu gut. Hier *mußte* alles notwendig sein, Sinn, Vernunft, höchste Vernunft haben; die Liebe eines Jüngers kennt keinen Zufall. Erst jetzt trat die Kluft auseinander: »*wer* hat ihn getötet? *wer* war sein natürlicher Feind?« — diese Frage sprang wie ein Blitz hervor. Antwort: das *herrschende* Judentum, sein oberster Stand. Man empfand sich von diesem Augenblick im Aufruhr *gegen* die Ordnung, man verstand hinterdrein Jesus als *im Aufruhr gegen die Ordnung*. Bis dahin *fehlte* dieser kriegerische, dieser Nein-sagende, Nein-tuende Zug in seinem Bilde; mehr noch, er war dessen Widerspruch. Offenbar hat die kleine Gemeinde gerade die Hauptsache *nicht* verstanden, das Vorbildliche in dieser Art zu sterben, die Freiheit, die Überlegenheit *über* jedes Gefühl von *ressentiment*: — ein Zeichen dafür, wie wenig überhaupt sie von ihm verstand! An sich konnte Jesus mit seinem Tode nichts wollen, als öffentlich die stärkste Probe, den *Beweis* seiner Lehre zu geben … Aber seine Jünger waren ferne davon, diesen Tod zu *verzeihen* — was evangelisch im höchsten Sinne gewesen wäre; oder gar sich zu einem gleichen Tode in sanfter und lieblicher Ruhe des Herzens *anzubieten*… Gerade das am meisten unevangelische Gefühl, die *Rache*, kam wieder obenauf. Unmöglich *konnte* die Sache mit diesem Tode zu Ende sein: man brauchte »Vergeltung«, »Gericht« (— und doch, was kann noch unevangelischer sein, als »Vergeltung«, »Strafe«, »Gericht-halten«!). Noch einmal kam die populäre Erwartung eines Messias in den Vordergrund; ein historischer Augenblick wurde ins Auge gefaßt: das »Reich Gottes« kommt zum Gericht über seine Feinde… Aber damit ist alles mißverstanden: das »Reich Gottes« als Schlußakt, als Verheißung! Das Evangelium war doch gerade das Dasein, das Erfülltsein, die *Wirklichkeit* dieses »Reichs« gewesen. Gerade ein solcher Tod *war* eben dieses »Reich Gottes«. Jetzt erst trug man die ganze Verachtung und Bitterkeit gegen Pharisäer und Theologen in den Typus des Meisters ein — man *machte* damit aus ihm einen Pharisäer und Theologen! Andrerseits hielt die wildgewordne Verehrung dieser ganz aus den Fugen geratenen Seelen jene evangelische Gleichberechtigung von jedermann zum Kind Gottes, die Jesus gelehrt hatte, nicht mehr aus, ihre Rache war, auf eine ausschweifende Weise Jesus *emporzuheben*, von sich abzulösen: ganz so, wie ehedem die Juden aus Rache an ihren Feinden ihren Gott von sich losgetrennt und in die Höhe gehoben haben. Der *eine* Gott und der *eine* Sohn Gottes: beides Erzeugnisse des *ressentiment* …\n\n### Sections 41–50\n\n[41]\n\n— Und von nun an tauchte ein absurdes Problem auf: »wie konnte Gott das zulassen!« Darauf fand die gestörte Vernunft der kleinen Gemeinschaft eine geradezu schrecklich absurde Antwort: Gott gab seinen Sohn zur Vergebung der Sünden, als *Opfer*. Wie war es mit einem Male zu Ende mit dem Evangelium! Das *Schuldopfer*, und zwar in seiner widerlichsten, barbarischsten Form, das Opfer des *Unschuldigen* für die Sünden der Schuldigen! Welches schauderhafte Heidentum! — Jesus hatte ja den Begriff »Schuld« selbst abgeschafft — er hat jede Kluft zwischen Gott und Mensch geleugnet, er *lebte* diese Einheit von Gott und Mensch als *seine* »frohe Botschaft« … Und *nicht* als Vorrecht! — Von nun an tritt schrittweise in den Typus des Erlösers hinein: die Lehre vom Gericht und von der Wiederkunft, die Lehre vom Tod als einem Opfertode, die Lehre von der *Auferstehung*, mit der der ganze Begriff »Seligkeit«, die ganze und einzige Realität des Evangeliums, eskamotiert ist — zugunsten eines Zustandes *nach* dem Tode!… Paulus hat diese Auffassung, diese *Unzucht* von Auffassung mit jener rabbinerhaften Frechheit, die ihn in allen Stücken auszeichnet, dahin logisiert: »*wenn* Christus nicht auferstanden ist von den Toten, so ist unser Glaube eitel«. — Und mit einem Male wurde aus dem Evangelium die verächtlichste aller unerfüllbaren Versprechungen, die *unverschämte* Lehre von der Personal-Unsterblichkeit … Paulus selbst lehrte sie noch als *Lohn*!…\n\n[42]\n\nMan sieht, *was* mit dem Tode am Kreuz zu Ende war: ein neuer, durchaus ursprünglicher Ansatz zu einer buddhistischen Friedensbewegung, zu einem tatsächlichen, *nicht* bloß verheißenden *Glück auf Erden*. Denn dies bleibt — ich hob es schon hervor — der Grundunterschied zwischen den beiden *décadence*-Religionen: der Buddhismus verspricht nicht, sondern hält, das Christentum verspricht alles, aber *hält nichts*. — Der »frohen Botschaft« folgte auf dem Fuß die *allerschlimmste*: die des Paulus. In Paulus verkörpert sich der Gegensatz-Typus zum »frohen Botschafter«, das Genie im Haß, in der Vision des Hasses, in der unerbittlichen Logik des Hasses. *Was* hat dieser Dysangelist alles dem Hasse zum Opfer gebracht! Vor allem den Erlöser: er schlug ihn an *sein* Kreuz. Das Leben, das Beispiel, die Lehre, der Tod, der Sinn und das Recht des ganzen Evangeliums — nichts war mehr vorhanden, als dieser Falschmünzer aus Haß begriff, was allein er brauchen konnte. *Nicht* die Realität, *nicht* die historische Wahrheit! … Und noch einmal verübte der Priester-Instinkt des Juden das gleiche große Verbrechen an der Historie — er strich das Gestern, das Vorgestern des Christentums einfach durch, er *erfand sich eine Geschichte des ersten Christentums*. Mehr noch: er fälschte die Geschichte Israels nochmals um, um als Vorgeschichte für *seine* Tat zu erscheinen: alle Propheten haben von *seinem* »Erlöser« geredet… Die Kirche fälschte später sogar die Geschichte der Menschheit zur Vorgeschichte des Christentums… Der Typus des Erlösers, die Lehre, die Praktik, der Tod, der Sinn des Todes, selbst das Nachher des Todes — nichts blieb unangetastet, nichts blieb auch nur ähnlich der Wirklichkeit. Paulus verlegte einfach das Schwergewicht jenes ganzen Daseins *hinter* dies Dasein — in die *Lüge* vom »wiederauferstandenen« Jesus. Er konnte im Grunde das Leben des Erlösers überhaupt nicht brauchen — er hatte den Tod am Kreuz nötig *und* etwas mehr noch… Einen Paulus, der seine Heimat an dem Hauptsitz der stoischen Aufklärung hatte, für ehrlich halten, wenn er sich aus einer Halluzination den *Beweis* vom *Noch*-Leben des Erlösers zurechtmacht, oder auch nur seiner Erzählung, *daß* er diese Halluzination gehabt hat, Glauben schenken, wäre eine wahre *niaiserie* seitens eines Psychologen: Paulus wollte den Zweck, *folglich* wollte er auch die Mittel… Was er selbst nicht glaubte, die Idioten, unter die er seine Lehre warf, glaubten es. — *Sein* Bedürfnis war die *Macht*; mit Paulus wollte nochmals der Priester zur Macht — er konnte nur Begriffe, Lehren, Symbole brauchen, mit denen man Massen tyrannisiert, Herden bildet. *Was* allein entlehnte später Mohammed dem Christentum? Die Erfindung des Paulus, sein Mittel zur Priester-Tyrannei, zur Herden-Bildung: den Unsterblichkeits-Glauben — *das heißt die Lehre vom »Gericht«* …\n\n[43]\n\nWenn man das Schwergewicht des Lebens *nicht* ins Leben, sondern ins »Jenseits« verlegt — ins *Nichts* —, so hat man dem Leben überhaupt das Schwergewicht genommen. Die große Lüge von der Personal-Unsterblichkeit zerstört jede Vernunft, jede Natur im Instinkte — alles, was wohltätig, was lebenfördernd, was zukunftverbürgend in den Instinkten ist, erregt nunmehr Mißtrauen. *So* zu leben, daß es keinen *Sinn* mehr hat zu leben, *das* wird jetzt zum »Sinn« des Lebens… Wozu Gemeinsinn, wozu Dankbarkeit noch für Herkunft und Vorfahren, wozu mitarbeiten, zutrauen, irgendein Gesamtwohl fördern und im Auge haben?… Ebenso viele »Versuchungen«, ebenso viele Ablenkungen vom »rechten Weg« — »*eins* ist not«… Daß jeder als »unsterbliche Seele« mit jedem gleichen Rang hat, daß in der Gesamtheit aller Wesen das »Heil« *jedes* einzelnen eine ewige Wichtigkeit in Anspruch nehmen darf, daß kleine Mucker und Dreiviertels-Verrückte sich einbilden dürfen, daß um ihreswillen die Gesetze der Natur beständig *durchbrochen* werden — eine solche Steigerung jeder Art Selbstsucht ins Unendliche, ins *Unverschämte* kann man nicht mit genug Verachtung brandmarken. Und doch verdankt das Christentum *dieser* erbarmungswürdigen Schmeichelei vor der Personal-Eitelkeit seinen *Sieg* — gerade alles Mißratene, Aufständisch-Gesinnte, Schlecht-weg-gekommne, den ganzen Auswurf und Abhub der Menschheit hat es damit zu sich überredet. Das »Heil der Seele« — auf deutsch: »die Welt dreht sich um *mich*« … Das Gift der Lehre »*gleiche* Rechte für alle« — das Christentum hat es am grundsätzlichsten ausgesät; das Christentum hat jedem Ehrfurchts- und Distanz-Gefühl zwischen Mensch und Mensch, das heißt der *Voraussetzung* zu jeder Erhöhung, zu jedem Wachstum der Kultur einen Todkrieg aus den heimlichsten Winkeln schlechter Instinkte gemacht — es hat aus dem *ressentiment* der Massen sich seine *Hauptwaffe* geschmiedet gegen *uns*, gegen alles Vornehme, Frohe, Hochherzige auf Erden, gegen unser Glück auf Erden… Die »Unsterblichkeit« jedem Petrus und Paulus zugestanden, war bisher das größte, das bösartigste Attentat auf die *vornehme* Menschlichkeit. — *Und* unterschätzen wir das Verhängnis nicht, das vom Christentum aus sich bis in die Politik eingeschlichen hat! Niemand hat heute mehr den Mut zu Sonderrechten, zu Herrschaftsrechten, zu einem Ehrfurchtsgefühl vor sich und seinesgleichen — zu einem *Pathos der Distanz* … Unsre Politik ist *krank* an diesem Mangel an Mut! — Der Aristokratismus der Gesinnung wurde durch die Seelen-Gleichheits-Lüge am unterirdischsten untergraben; und wenn der Glaube an das »Vorrecht der Meisten« Revolutionen macht und *machen wird* — das Christentum ist es, man zweifle nicht daran, *christliche* Werturteile sind es, welche jede Revolution bloß in Blut und Verbrechen übersetzt! Das Christentum ist ein Aufstand alles Am-Boden-Kriechenden gegen das, was *Höhe* hat: das Evangelium der »Niedrigen« *macht* niedrig…\n\n[44]\n\n— Die Evangelien sind unschätzbar als Zeugnis für die bereits unaufhaltsame Korruption *innerhalb* der ersten Gemeinde. Was Paulus später mit dem Logiker-Zynismus eines Rabbiners zu Ende führte, war trotzdem bloß der Verfalls-Prozeß, der mit dem Tode des Erlösers begann. — Diese Evangelien kann man nicht behutsam genug lesen; sie haben ihre Schwierigkeiten hinter jedem Wort. Ich bekenne, man wird es mir zugute halten, daß sie ebendamit für einen Psychologen ein Vergnügen ersten Ranges sind — als *Gegensatz* aller naiven Verderbnis, als das Raffinement *par excellence*, als Künstlerschaft in der psychologischen Verderbnis. Die Evangelien stehn für sich. Die Bibel überhaupt verträgt keinen Vergleich. Man ist unter Juden: *erster* Gesichtspunkt, um hier nicht völlig den Faden zu verlieren. Die hier geradezu Genie werdende Selbstverstellung ins »Heilige«, unter Büchern und Menschen nie annähernd sonst erreicht, diese Wort- und Gebärden-Falschmünzerei als *Kunst* ist nicht der Zufall irgendwelcher Einzel-Begabung, irgendwelcher Ausnahme-Natur. Hierzu gehört *Rasse*. Im Christentum, als der Kunst, heilig zu lügen, kommt das ganze Judentum, eine mehrhundertjährige jüdische allerernsthafteste Vorübung und Technik zur letzten Meisterschaft. Der Christ, diese *ultima ratio* der Lüge, ist der Jude noch einmal — *dreimal* selbst… Der grundsätzliche Wille, nur Begriffe, Symbole, Attitüden anzuwenden, welche aus der Praxis des Priesters bewiesen sind, die Instinkt-Ablehnung jeder *andren* Praxis, jeder *andren* Art Wert- und Nützlichkeits-Perspektive — das ist nicht nur Tradition, das ist *Erbschaft*: nur als Erbschaft wirkt es wie Natur. Die ganze Menschheit, die besten Köpfe der besten Zeiten sogar (einen ausgenommen, der vielleicht bloß ein Unmensch ist —) haben sich täuschen lassen. Man hat das Evangelium als *Buch der Unschuld* gelesen… kein kleiner Fingerzeig dafür, mit welcher Meisterschaft hier geschauspielert worden ist. — Freilich bekämen wir sie zu *sehen*, auch nur im Vorübergehn, alle diese wunderlichen Mucker und Kunst-Heiligen, so wäre es am Ende — und genau deshalb, weil *ich* keine Worte lese, ohne Gebärden zu sehn, *mache ich mit ihnen ein Ende*… Ich halte eine gewisse Art, die Augen aufzuschlagen, an ihnen nicht aus. — Zum Glück sind Bücher für die allermeisten bloß *Literatur* — — Man muß sich nicht irreführen lassen: »Richtet nicht!« sagen sie, aber sie schicken alles in die Hölle, was ihnen im Wege steht. Indem sie Gott richten lassen, richten sie selber; indem sie Gott verherrlichen, verherrlichen sie sich selber; indem sie die Tugenden *fordern*, deren sie gerade fähig sind — mehr noch, die sie nötig haben, um überhaupt oben zu bleiben —, geben sie sich den großen Anschein eines Ringens um die Tugend, eines Kampfes um die Herrschaft der Tugend. »Wir leben, wir sterben, wir opfern uns *für das Gute*« (— »die Wahrheit«, »das Licht«, das »Reich Gottes«): in Wahrheit tun sie, was sie nicht lassen können. Indem sie nach Art von Duckmäusern sich durchdrücken, im Winkel sitzen, im Schatten schattenhaft dahinleben, machen sie sich eine *Pflicht* daraus: als Pflicht erscheint ihr Leben der Demut, als Demut ist es ein Beweis mehr für Frömmigkeit… Ah diese demütige, keusche, barmherzige Art von Verlogenheit! »Für uns soll die Tugend selbst Zeugnis ablegen« … Man lese die Evangelien als Bücher der Verführung mit *Moral*: die Moral wird von diesen kleinen Leuten mit Beschlag belegt — sie wissen, was es auf sich hat mit der Moral! Die Menschheit wird am besten *genasführt* mit der Moral! — Die Realität ist, daß hier der bewußteste *Auserwählten-Dünkel* die Bescheidenheit spielt: man hat *sich*, die »Gemeinde«, die »Guten und Gerechten« ein für allemal auf die eine Seite gestellt, auf die »der Wahrheit« — und den Rest, »die Welt«, auf die andre… *Das* war die verhängnisvollste Art Größenwahn, die bisher auf Erden dagewesen ist: kleine Mißgeburten von Muckern und Lügnern fingen an, die Begriffe »Gott«, »Wahrheit«, »Licht«, »Geist«, »Liebe«, »Weisheit«, »Leben« für sich in Anspruch zu nehmen, gleichsam als Synonyma von sich, um damit die »Welt« gegen sich abzugrenzen, kleine Superlativ-Juden, reif für jede Art Irrenhaus, drehten die Werte überhaupt nach *sich* um, wie als ob erst der »Christ« der Sinn, das Salz, das Maß, auch das *letzte Gericht* vom ganzen Rest wäre… Das ganze Verhängnis wurde dadurch allein ermöglicht, daß schon eine verwandte, rassenverwandte Art von Größenwahn in der Welt war, der *jüdische*: sobald einmal die Kluft zwischen Juden und Judenchristen sich aufriß, blieb letzteren gar keine Wahl, als dieselben Prozeduren der Selbsterhaltung, die der jüdische Instinkt anriet, *gegen* die Juden selber anzuwenden, während die Juden sie bisher bloß gegen alles *Nicht*-Jüdische angewendet hatten. Der Christ ist nur ein Jude »*freieren*« Bekenntnisses. —\n\n[45]\n\n— Ich gebe ein paar Proben von dem, was sich diese kleinen Leute in den Kopf gesetzt, was sie ihrem Meister *in den Mund gelegt haben*: lauter Bekenntnisse »schöner Seelen«. —\n\n»Und welche euch nicht aufnehmen noch hören, da gehet von dannen hinaus und schüttelt den Staub ab von euren Füßen, zu einem Zeugnis über sie. Ich sage euch: Wahrlich, es wird Sodom und Gomorrha am Jüngsten Gericht erträglicher ergehn, denn solcher Stadt« (Markus 6, 11). — Wie *evangelisch*! …\n\n»Und wer der Kleinen einen ärgert, die an mich glauben, dem wäre es besser, daß ihm ein Mühlstein an seinen Hals gehängt würde und er in das Meer geworfen würde« (Markus 9, 42). — Wie *evangelisch*! …\n\n»Ärgert dich dein Auge, so wirf es von dir. Es ist dir besser, daß du einäugig in das Reich Gottes gehest, denn daß du zwei Augen habest und werdest in das höllische Feuer geworfen; da ihr Wurm nicht stirbt und ihr Feuer nicht erlischt« (Markus 9, 47). — Es ist nicht gerade das Auge gemeint…\n\n»Wahrlich, ich sage euch, es stehen etliche hier, die werden den Tod nicht schmecken, bis daß sie sehen das Reich Gottes mit Kraft kommen« (Markus 9, 1). — Gut *gelogen*, Löwe…\n\n»Wer mir will nachfolgen, der verleugne sich selbst und nehme sein Kreuz auf sich und folge mir nach. Denn…« (*Anmerkung eines Psychologen*. Die christliche Moral wird durch ihre *Denns* widerlegt: ihre »Gründe« widerlegen — so ist es christlich.) Markus 8, 34. —\n\n»Richtet nicht, *auf daß* ihr nicht gerichtet werdet. Mit welcherlei Maß ihr messet, wird *euch* gemessen werden« (Matthäus 7, 1). — Welcher Begriff von Gerechtigkeit, von einem »gerechten« Richter!…\n\n»Denn so ihr liebet, die euch lieben, *was werdet ihr für Lohn haben*? Tun nicht dasselbe auch die Zöllner? Und so ihr nur zu euren Brüdern freundlich tut, *was tut ihr Sonderliches*? Tun nicht die Zöllner auch also?« (Matthäus 5, 46.) — Prinzip der »christlichen Liebe«: sie will zuletzt gut *bezahlt* sein…\n\n»Wo *ihr* aber den Menschen ihre Fehler nicht vergebet, so wird euch euer Vater eure Fehler auch nicht vergeben« (Matthäus 6, 15), — Sehr kompromittierend für den genannten »Vater« …\n\n»Trachtet am ersten nach dem Reiche Gottes und nach seiner Gerechtigkeit, so wird euch solches alles zufallen« (Matthäus 6, 33). — Solches alles: nämlich Nahrung, Kleidung, die ganze Notdurft des Lebens. Ein *Irrtum*, bescheiden ausgedrückt … Kurz vorher erscheint Gott als Schneider, wenigstens in gewissen Fällen…\n\n»Freuet euch alsdann und hüpfet: *denn* siehe, euer Lohn ist groß im Himmel. Desgleichen taten ihre Väter den Propheten auch« (Lukas 6, 23). — *Unverschämtes* Gesindel! Es vergleicht sich bereits mit den Propheten …\n\n»Wisset ihr nicht, daß ihr Gottes Tempel seid und der Geist Gottes in euch wohnet? So jemand den Tempel Gottes verderbet, *den wird Gott verderben*: denn der Tempel Gottes ist heilig, *der seid ihr*« (Paulus I. Korinther 3, 16). — Dergleichen kann man nicht genug verachten …\n\n»Wisset ihr nicht, daß die Heiligen die Welt richten werden? So denn nun die Welt soll von *euch* gerichtet werden: seid ihr denn nicht gut genug, geringere Sachen zu richten?« (Paulus I. Korinther 6, 2.) — Leider nicht bloß die Rede eines Irrenhäuslers … Dieser *fürchterliche Betrüger* fährt wörtlich fort: »Wisset ihr nicht, daß *wir* über die Engel richten werden? Wie viel mehr über die zeitlichen Güter!«…\n\n»Hat nicht Gott die Weisheit dieser Welt zur Torheit gemacht? Denn dieweil die Welt durch ihre Weisheit Gott in seiner Weisheit nicht erkannte, gefiel es Gott wohl, durch törichte Predigt selig zu machen die, so daran glauben…; nicht viel Weise nach dem Fleisch, nicht viel Gewaltige, nicht viel Edle sind berufen. Sondern was töricht ist vor der Welt, *das hat Gott erwählet*, daß er die Weisen zuschanden mache; und was schwach ist vor der Welt, das hat Gott erwählet, daß er zuschanden mache, was stark ist; und das Unedle vor der Welt und das Verachtete hat Gott erwählet, und das da nichts ist, daß er zunichte mache, was etwas ist. Auf daß sich vor ihm kein Fleisch rühme« (Paulus I. Korinther 1, 20 ff.). — Um diese Stelle, ein Zeugnis allerersten Ranges für die Psychologie jeder Tschandala-Moral, zu *verstehn*, lese man die erste Abhandlung meiner *Genealogie der Moral*: in ihr wurde zum erstenmal der Gegensatz einer *vornehmen* und einer aus *ressentiment* und ohnmächtiger Rache gebornen Tschandala-Moral ans Licht gestellt. Paulus war der größte aller Apostel der Rache…\n\n[46]\n\n— *Was folgt daraus?* Daß man gut tut, Handschuhe anzuziehn, wenn man das Neue Testament liest. Die Nähe von so viel Unreinlichkeit zwingt beinahe dazu. Wir würden uns »erste Christen« so wenig wie polnische Juden zum Umgang wählen: nicht daß man gegen sie auch nur einen Einwand nötig hätte… Sie riechen beide nicht gut. — Ich habe vergebens im Neuen Testamente auch nur nach einem sympathischen Zuge ausgespäht; nichts ist darin, was frei, gütig, offenherzig, rechtschaffen wäre. Die Menschlichkeit hat hier noch nicht ihren ersten Anfang gemacht — die Instinkte der *Reinlichkeit* fehlen… Es gibt nur *schlechte* Instinkte im Neuen Testament, es gibt keinen Mut selbst zu diesen schlechten Instinkten. Alles ist Feigheit, alles ist Augenschließen und Selbstbetrug darin. Jedes Buch wird reinlich, wenn man eben das Neue Testament gelesen hat: ich las, um ein Beispiel zu geben, mit Entzücken unmittelbar nach Paulus jenen anmutigsten, übermütigsten Spötter Petronius, von dem man sagen könnte, was Domenico Boccaccio über Cesare Borgia an den Herzog von Parma schrieb: »*è tutto festo*« — unsterblich gesund, unsterblich heiter und wohlgeraten … Diese kleinen Mucker verrechnen sich nämlich in der Hauptsache. Sie greifen an, aber alles, was von ihnen angegriffen wird, ist damit *ausgezeichnet*. Wen ein »erster Christ« angreift, den besudelt er *nicht*… Umgekehrt: es ist eine Ehre, »erste Christen« gegen sich zu haben. Man liest das Neue Testament nicht ohne eine Vorliebe für das, was darin mißhandelt wird, — nicht zu reden von der »Weisheit dieser Welt«, welche ein frecher Windmacher »durch törichte Predigt« umsonst zuschanden zu machen sucht… Aber selbst die Pharisäer und Schriftgelehrten haben ihren Vorteil von einer solchen Gegnerschaft: sie müssen schon etwas wert gewesen sein, um auf eine so unanständige Weise gehaßt zu werden. Heuchelei — das wäre ein Vorwurf, den »erste Christen« machen *dürften*! — Zuletzt waren es die *Privilegierten*: dies genügt, der Tschandala-Haß braucht keine Gründe mehr. Der »erste Christ« — ich fürchte, auch der »letzte Christ«, *den ich vielleicht noch erleben werde* — ist Rebell gegen alles Privilegierte aus unterstem Instinkte — er lebt, er kämpft immer für »*gleiche Rechte*« … Genauer zugesehn, hat er keine Wahl. Will man, für seine Person, ein »Auserwählter Gottes« sein — oder ein »Tempel Gottes«, oder ein »Richter der Engel« —, so ist jedes *andre* Prinzip der Auswahl, zum Beispiel nach Rechtschaffenheit, nach Geist, nach Männlichkeit und Stolz, nach Schönheit und Freiheit des Herzens, einfach »Welt« — *das Böse an sich*… Moral: jedes Wort im Munde eines »ersten Christen« ist eine Lüge, jede Handlung, die er tut, eine Instinkt-Falschheit — alle seine Werte, alle seine Ziele sind schädlich, aber *wen* er haßt, *was* er haßt, *das hat Wert*… Der Christ, der Priester-Christ insonderheit, ist ein *Kriterium für Werte* — — Habe ich noch zu sagen, daß im ganzen Neuen Testament bloß eine *einzige* Figur vorkommt, die man ehren muß? Pilatus, der römische Statthalter. Einen Judenhandel *ernst* zu nehmen — dazu überredet er sich nicht. Ein Jude mehr oder weniger — was liegt daran?… Der vornehme Hohn eines Römers, vor dem ein unverschämter Mißbrauch mit dem Wort »Wahrheit« getrieben wird, hat das Neue Testament mit dem einzigen Wort bereichert, *das Wert hat* — das seine Kritik, seine *Vernichtung* selbst ist: »was ist Wahrheit!« …\n\n[47]\n\n— Das ist es nicht, was *uns* abscheidet, daß wir keinen Gott wiederfinden, weder in der Geschichte, noch in der Natur, noch *hinter* der Natur — sondern daß wir, was als Gott verehrt wurde, nicht als »göttlich«, sondern als erbarmungswürdig, als absurd, als schädlich empfinden, nicht nur als Irrtum, sondern als *Verbrechen am Leben*… Wir leugnen Gott als Gott… Wenn man uns diesen Gott der Christen *bewiese*, wir würden ihn noch weniger zu glauben wissen. — In Formel: *deus, qualem Paulus creavit, dei negatio*. — Eine Religion, wie das Christentum, die sich an keinem Punkte mit der Wirklichkeit berührt, die sofort dahinfällt, sobald die Wirklichkeit auch nur an einem Punkte zu Rechte kommt, muß billigerweise der »Weisheit der Welt«, will sagen *der Wissenschaft*, todfeind sein — sie wird alle Mittel gut heißen, mit denen die Zucht des Geistes, die Lauterkeit und Strenge in Gewissenssachen des Geistes, die vornehme Kühle und Freiheit des Geistes vergiftet, verleumdet, *verrufen* gemacht werden kann. Der »Glaube« als Imperativ ist das *Veto* gegen die Wissenschaft — *in praxi* die Lüge um jeden Preis… Paulus *begriff,* daß die Lüge — daß »der Glaube« nottat; die Kirche begriff später wieder Paulus. — Jener »Gott«, den Paulus sich erfand, ein Gott, der »die Weisheit der Welt« (im engern Sinn die beiden großen Gegnerinnen alles Aberglaubens, Philologie und Medizin) »zuschanden macht«, ist in Wahrheit nur der resolute *Entschluß* des Paulus selbst dazu: »Gott« seinen eignen Willen zu nennen, *thora*, das ist urjüdisch. Paulus *will* »die Weisheit der Welt« zuschanden machen: seine Feinde sind die *guten* Philologen und Ärzte alexandrinischer Schulung —, ihnen macht er den Krieg. In der Tat, man ist nicht Philolog und Arzt, ohne nicht zugleich auch *Antichrist* zu sein. Als Philolog schaut man nämlich *hinter* die »heiligen Bücher«, als Arzt *hinter* die physiologische Verkommenheit des typischen Christen. Der Arzt sagt »unheilbar«, der Philolog »Schwindel« …\n\n[48]\n\n— Hat man eigentlich die berühmte Geschichte verstanden, die am Anfang der Bibel steht — von der Höllenangst Gottes vor der *Wissenschaft?*… Man hat sie nicht verstanden. Dies Priesterbuch *par excellence* beginnt, wie billig, mit der großen inneren Schwierigkeit des Priester: *er* hat nur eine große Gefahr, *folglich* hat »Gott« nur eine große Gefahr. —\n\nDer alte Gott, ganz »Geist«, ganz Hoherpriester, ganz Vollkommenheit, lustwandelt in seinen Gärten: nur daß er sich langweilt. Gegen die Langeweile kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens. Was tut er? Er erfindet den Menschen — der Mensch ist unterhaltend…\n\nAber siehe da, auch der Mensch langweilt sich. Das Erbarmen Gottes mit der einzigen Not, die alle Paradiese an sich haben, kennt keine Grenzen: er schuf alsbald noch andre Tiere. *Erster* Fehlgriff Gottes: der Mensch fand die Tiere nicht unterhaltend — er herrschte über sie, er wollte nicht einmal »Tier« sein. — *Folglich* schuf Gott das Weib. Und in der Tat, mit der Langeweile hatte es nun ein Ende — aber auch mit anderem noch! Das Weib war der *zweite* Fehlgriff Gottes. — »Das Weib ist seinem Wesen nach Schlange, Heva« — das weiß jeder Priester; »vom Weib kommt *jedes* Unheil in der Welt« — das weiß ebenfalls jeder Priester. »*Folglich* kommt von ihm auch die *Wissenschaft*« … Erst durch das Weib lernte der Mensch vom Baume der Erkenntnis kosten. — Was war geschehn? Den alten Gott ergriff eine Höllenangst. Der Mensch selbst war sein *größter* Fehlgriff geworden, er hatte sich einen Rivalen geschaffen, die Wissenschaft macht *gottgleich*, — es ist mit Priestern und Göttern zu Ende, wenn der Mensch wissenschaftlich wird! — *Moral:* Die Wissenschaft ist das Verbotene an sich — sie allein ist verboten. Die Wissenschaft ist die *erste* Sünde, der Keim aller Sünde, die *Erb*sünde. *Dies allein ist Moral.* — »Du sollst *nicht* erkennen« — der Rest folgt daraus. — Die Höllenangst Gottes verhinderte ihn nicht, klug zu sein. Wie *wehrt* man sich gegen die Wissenschaft? das wurde für lange sein Hauptproblem. Antwort: fort mit dem Menschen aus dem Paradiese! Das Glück, der Müßiggang bringt auf Gedanken — alle Gedanken sind schlechte Gedanken … Der Mensch *soll* nicht denken. — Und der »Priester an sich« erfindet die Not, den Tod, die Lebensgefahr der Schwangerschaft, jede Art von Elend, Alter, Mühsal, die *Krankheit* vor allem — lauter Mittel im Kampfe mit der Wissenschaft! Die Not *erlaubt* dem Menschen nicht, zu denken… Und trotzdem! entsetzlich! Das Werk der Erkenntnis türmt sich auf, himmelstürmend, götter-andämmernd — was tun! — Der alte Gott erfindet den *Krieg,* er trennt die Völker, er macht, daß die Menschen sich gegenseitig vernichten (— die Priester haben immer den Krieg nötig gehabt…). Der Krieg — unter anderem ein großer Störenfried der Wissenschaft! — Unglaublich! Die Erkenntnis, die *Emanzipation vom Priester*, nimmt selbst trotz Kriegen zu. — Und ein letzter Entschluß kommt dem alten Gotte: »der Mensch ward wissenschaftlich — *es hilft nichts, man muß ihn ersäufen!*« …\n\n[49]\n\n— Man hat mich verstanden. Der Anfang der Bibel enthält die *ganze* Psychologie des Priesters. — Der Priester kennt nur *eine* große Gefahr: das ist die Wissenschaft — der gesunde Begriff von Ursache und Wirkung. Aber die Wissenschaft gedeiht im ganzen nur unter glücklichen Verhältnissen — man muß Zeit, man muß Geist *überflüssig* haben, um zu »erkennen«… »*Folglich* muß man den Menschen unglücklich machen« — dies war zu jeder Zeit die Logik des Priesters. — Man errät bereits, *was,* dieser Logik gemäß, damit erst in die Welt gekommen ist — die »*Sünde*«… Der Schuld- und Strafbegriff, die ganze »sittliche Weltordnung« ist erfunden *gegen* die Wissenschaft — gegen die Ablösung des Menschen vom Priester… Der Mensch soll *nicht* hinaus-, er soll in sich hineinsehn; er soll *nicht* klug und vorsichtig, als Lernender, in die Dinge sehn, er soll überhaupt gar nicht sehn: er soll *leiden*… Und er soll so *leiden*, daß er jederzeit den Priester nötig hat. — Weg mit den Ärzten! *Man hat einen Heiland nötig.* — Der Schuld- und Straf-Begriff, eingerechnet die Lehre von der »Gnade«, von der »Erlösung«, von der »Vergebung« — *Lügen* durch und durch und ohne jede psychologische Realität — sind erfunden, um den *Ursachen-Sinn* des Menschen zu zerstören: sie sind das Attentat gegen den Begriff Ursache und Wirkung! — Und *nicht* ein Attentat mit der Faust, mit dem Messer, mit der Ehrlichkeit in Haß und Liebe! Sondern aus den feigsten, listigsten, niedrigsten Instinkten heraus! Ein Priester-Attentat! Ein Parasiten-Attentat! Ein Vampyrismus bleicher unterirdischer Blutsauger!… Wenn die natürlichen Folgen einer Tat nicht mehr »natürlich« sind, sondern durch Begriffs-Gespenster des Aberglaubens, durch »Gott«, durch »Geister«, durch »Seelen« bewirkt gedacht werden, als bloß »moralische« Konsequenzen, als Lohn, Strafe, Wink, Erziehungsmittel, so ist die Voraussetzung zur Erkenntnis zerstört — so *hat man das größte Verbrechen an der Menschheit begangen.* — Die Sünde, nochmals gesagt, diese Selbstschändungs-Form des Menschen *par excellence*, ist erfunden, um Wissenschaft, um Kultur, um jede Erhöhung und Vornehmheit des Menschen unmöglich zu machen; der Priester *herrscht* durch die Erfindung der Sünde. —\n\n[50]\n\n— Ich erlasse mir an dieser Stelle eine Psychologie des »Glaubens«, der »Gläubigen« nicht, zum Nutzen, wie billig, gerade der »Gläubigen«. Wenn es heute noch an solchen nicht fehlt, die es nicht wissen, inwiefern es *unanständig* ist, »gläubig« zu sein — *oder* ein Abzeichen von *décadence*, von gebrochnem Willen zum Leben —, morgen schon werden sie es wissen. Meine Stimme erreicht auch die Harthörigen. — Es scheint, wenn anders ich mich nicht verhört habe, daß es unter Christen eine Art Kriterium der Wahrheit gibt, das man den »Beweis der Kraft« nennt. »Der Glaube macht selig: *also* ist er wahr.« — Man dürfte hier zunächst einwenden, daß gerade das Seligmachen nicht bewiesen, sondern nur *versprochen* ist: die Seligkeit an die Bedingung des »Glaubens« geknüpft — man soll selig werden, *weil* man glaubt… Aber *daß* tatsächlich eintritt, was der Priester dem Gläubigen für das jeder Kontrolle unzugängliche »Jenseits« verspricht, womit bewiese sich *das?* — Der angebliche »Beweis der Kraft« ist also im Grunde wieder nur ein Glaube daran, daß die Wirkung nicht ausbleibt, welche man sich vom Glauben verspricht. In Formel: »Ich glaube, daß der Glaube selig macht — *folglich* ist er wahr.« — Aber damit sind wir schon am Ende. Dies »*folglich*« wäre das *absurdum* selbst als Kriterium der Wahrheit. — Setzen wir aber, mit einiger Nachgiebigkeit, daß das Seligmachen durch den Glauben bewiesen sei ( — *nicht* nur gewünscht, *nicht* nur durch den etwas verdächtigen Mund eines Priesters versprochen): wäre Seligkeit — technischer geredet, *Lust* — jemals ein Beweis der Wahrheit? So wenig, daß es beinahe den Gegenbeweis, jedenfalls den höchsten Argwohn gegen »Wahrheit« abgibt, wenn Lustempfindungen über die Frage »was ist wahr?« mitreden. Der Beweis der »Lust« ist ein Beweis *für* »Lust« — nichts mehr; woher um alles in der Welt stünde es fest, daß gerade *wahre* Urteile mehr Vergnügen machten als falsche und, gemäß einer prästabilierten Harmonie, angenehme Gefühle mit Notwendigkeit hinter sich dreinzögen? — Die Erfahrung aller strengen, aller tief gearteten Geister lehrt *das Umgekehrte*. Man hat jeden Schrittbreit Wahrheit sich abringen müssen, man hat fast alles dagegen preisgeben müssen, woran sonst das Herz, woran unsre Liebe, unser Vertrauen zum Leben hängt. Es bedarf Größe der Seele dazu: der Dienst der Wahrheit ist der härteste Dienst. — Was heißt denn *rechtschaffen* sein in geistigen Dingen? Daß man streng gegen sein Herz ist, daß man die »schönen Gefühle« verachtet, daß man sich aus jedem Ja und Nein ein Gewissen macht! — — — Der Glaube macht selig: *folglich* lügt er…\n\n### Sections 51–62\n\n[51]\n\nDaß der Glaube unter Umständen selig macht, daß Seligkeit aus einer fixen Idee noch nicht eine *wahre* Idee macht, daß der Glaube keine Berge versetzt, wohl aber Berge *hinsetzt*, wo es keine gibt: ein flüchtiger Gang durch ein *Irrenhaus* klärt zur Genüge darüber auf. *Nicht* freilich einen Priester: denn der leugnet aus Instinkt, daß Krankheit Krankheit, daß Irrenhaus Irrenhaus ist. Das Christentum hat die Krankheit *nötig*, ungefähr wie das Griechentum einen Überschuß von Gesundheit nötig hat — krank-*machen* ist die eigentliche Hinterabsicht des ganzen Heilsprozeduren-Systems der Kirche. Und die Kirche selbst — ist sie nicht das katholische Irrenhaus als letztes Ideal? — Die Erde überhaupt als Irrenhaus? — Der religiöse Mensch, wie ihn die Kirche *will*, ist ein typischer *décadent*; der Zeitpunkt, wo eine religiöse Krisis über ein Volk Herr wird, ist jedesmal durch Nerven-Epidemien gekennzeichnet; die »innere Welt« des religiösen Menschen sieht der »inneren Welt« der Überreizten und Erschöpften zum Verwechseln ähnlich; die »höchsten« Zustände, welche das Christentum als Wert aller Werte über der Menschheit aufgehängt hat, sind epileptoide Formen — die Kirche hat nur Verrückte *oder* große Betrüger in *majorem dei honorem* heilig gesprochen… Ich habe mir einmal erlaubt, den ganzen christlichen Buß- und Erlösungs-*training* (den man heute am besten in England studiert) als eine methodisch erzeugte *folie circulaire* zu bezeichnen, wie billig, auf einem bereits dazu vorbereiteten, das heißt gründlich morbiden Boden. Es steht niemandem frei, Christ zu werden: man wird zum Christentum nicht »bekehrt« — man muß krank genug dazu sein… Wir anderen, die wir den *Mut* zur Gesundheit *und* auch zur Verachtung haben, wie dürfen *wir* eine Religion verachten, die den Leib mißverstehn lehrte! die den Seelen-Aberglauben nicht loswerden will! die aus der unzureichenden Ernährung ein »Verdienst« macht! die in der Gesundheit eine Art Feind, Teufel, Versuchung bekämpft! die sich einredete, man könne eine »vollkommne Seele« in einem Kadaver von Leib herumtragen, und dazu nötig hatte, einen neuen Begriff der »Vollkommenheit« sich zurechtzumachen, ein bleiches, krankhaftes, idiotisch-schwärmerisches Wesen, die sogenannte »Heiligkeit« — Heiligkeit, selbst bloß eine Symptomen-Reihe des verarmten, entnervten, unheilbar verdorbenen Leibes!… Die christliche Bewegung, als eine europäische Bewegung, ist von vornherein eine Gesamt-Bewegung der Ausschuß- und Abfalls-Elemente aller Art (— diese wollen mit dem Christentum zur Macht). Sie drückt *nicht* den Niedergang einer Rasse aus, sie ist eine Aggregat-Bildung sich zusammendrängender und sich suchender *décadence*-Formen von überall. Es ist *nicht*, wie man glaubt, die Korruption des Altertums selbst, des *vornehmen* Altertums, was das Christentum ermöglichte: man kann dem gelehrten Idiotismus, der auch heute noch so etwas aufrechterhält, nicht hart genug widersprechen. In der Zeit, wo die kranken, verdorbenen Tschandala-Schichten im ganzen *imperium* sich christianisierten, war gerade der *Gegentypus*, die Vornehmheit, in ihrer schönsten und reifsten Gestalt vorhanden. Die große Zahl wurde Herr; der Demokratismus der christlichen Instinkte *siegte*… Das Christentum war nicht »national«, nicht rassebedingt — es wendete sich an jede Art von Enterbten des Lebens, es hatte seine Verbündeten überall. Das Christentum hat die Ranküne der Kranken auf dem Grunde, den Instinkt *gegen* die Gesunden, *gegen* die Gesundheit gerichtet. Alles Wohlgeratene, Stolze, Übermütige, die Schönheit vor allem tut ihm in Ohren und Augen weh. Nochmals erinnre ich an das unschätzbare Wort des Paulus: »Was *schwach* ist vor der Welt, was *töricht* ist vor der Welt, das *Unedle* und *Verachtete* vor der Welt hat Gott erwählet«: *das* war die Formel, *in hoc signo* siegte die *décadence*. — *Gott am Kreuze* — versteht man immer noch die furchtbare Hintergedanklichkeit dieses Symbols nicht? — Alles was leidet, alles was am Kreuze hängt, ist *göttlich*… Wir alle hängen am Kreuze, folglich sind *wir* göttlich … Wir allein sind göttlich… Das Christentum war ein Sieg, eine *vornehmere* Gesinnung ging an ihm zugrunde — das Christentum war bisher das größte Unglück der Menschheit. — —\n\n[52]\n\nDas Christentum steht auch im Gegensatz zu aller *geistigen* Wohlgeratenheit — es *kann* nur die kranke Vernunft als christliche Vernunft brauchen, es nimmt die Partei alles Idiotischen, es spricht den Fluch aus gegen den »Geist«, gegen die *superbia* des gesunden Geistes. Weil die Krankheit zum Wesen des Christentums gehört, *muß* auch der typisch-christliche Zustand, »der Glaube«, eine Krankheitsform sein, *müssen* alle geraden, rechtschaffnen, wissenschaftlichen Wege zur Erkenntnis von der Kirche als *verbotene* Wege abgelehnt werden. Der Zweifel bereits ist eine Sünde… Der vollkommne Mangel an psychologischer Reinlichkeit beim Priester — im Blick sich verratend — ist eine *Folge*erscheinung der *décadence* — man hat die hysterischen Frauenzimmer, andrerseits rachitisch angelegte Kinder darauf hin zu beobachten, wie regelmäßig Falschheit aus Instinkt, Lust zu lügen, um zu lügen, Unfähigkeit zu geraden Blicken und Schritten der Ausdruck von *décadence* ist. »Glaube« heißt Nicht-wissen-*wollen*, was wahr ist. Der Pietist, der Priester beiderlei Geschlechts, ist falsch, *weil* er krank ist: sein Instinkt *verlangt*, daß die Wahrheit an keinem Punkt zu Rechte kommt. »Was krank macht, ist *gut*; was aus der Fülle, aus dem Überfluß, aus der Macht kommt, ist *böse*«: so empfindet der Gläubige. Die *Unfreiheit zur Lüge* — daran errate ich jeden vorherbestimmten Theologen. — Ein andres Abzeichen des Theologen ist sein *Unvermögen zur Philologie*. Unter Philologie soll hier, in einem sehr allgemeinen Sinne, die Kunst, *gut* zu lesen, verstanden werden — Tatsachen ablesen können, *ohne* sie durch Interpretation zu fälschen, *ohne* im Verlangen nach Verständnis die Vorsicht, die Geduld, die Feinheit zu verlieren. Philologie als *Ephexis* in der Interpretation: handle es sich nun um Bücher, um Zeitungs-Neuigkeiten, um Schicksale oder Wetter-Tatsachen — nicht zu reden vom »Heil der Seele« … Die Art, wie ein Theolog, gleichgültig ob in Berlin oder in Rom, ein »Schriftwort« auslegt oder ein Erlebnis, einen Sieg des vaterländischen Heers zum Beispiel unter der höheren Beleuchtung der Psalmen Davids, ist immer dergestalt *kühn*, daß ein Philolog dabei an allen Wänden emporläuft. Und was soll er gar anfangen, wenn Pietisten und andre Kühe aus dem Schwabenlande den armseligen Alltag und Stubenrauch ihres Daseins mit dem »Finger Gottes« zu einem Wunder von »Gnade«, von »Vorsehung«, von »Heilserfahrungen« zurecht machen! Der bescheidenste Aufwand von Geist, um nicht zu sagen von *Anstand*, müßte diese Interpreten doch dazu bringen, sich des vollkommen Kindischen und Unwürdigen eines solchen Mißbrauchs der göttlichen Fingerfertigkeit zu überführen. Mit einem noch so kleinen Maße von Frömmigkeit im Leibe sollte uns ein Gott, der zur rechten Zeit vom Schnupfen kuriert, oder der uns in einem Augenblick in die Kutsche steigen heißt, wo gerade ein großer Regen losbricht, ein so absurder Gott sein, daß man ihn abschaffen müßte, selbst wenn er existierte. Ein Gott als Dienstbote, als Briefträger, als Kalendermann — im Grunde ein Wort für die dümmste Art aller Zufälle… Die »göttliche Vorsehung«, wie sie heute noch ungefähr jeder dritte Mensch im »gebildeten Deutschland« glaubt, wäre ein Einwand gegen Gott, wie er stärker gar nicht gedacht werden könnte. Und in jedem Fall ist er ein Einwand gegen Deutsche! …\n\n[53]\n\n— Daß *Märtyrer* etwas für die Wahrheit einer Sache beweisen, ist so wenig wahr, daß ich leugnen möchte, es habe je ein Märtyrer überhaupt etwas mit der Wahrheit zu tun gehabt. In dem Tone, mit dem ein Märtyrer sein Für-wahr-halten der Welt an den Kopf wirft, drückt sich bereits ein so niedriger Grad intellektueller Rechtschaffenheit, eine solche *Stumpfheit* für die Frage »Wahrheit« aus, daß man einen Märtyrer nie zu widerlegen braucht. Die Wahrheit ist nichts, was einer hätte und ein andrer nicht hätte: so können höchstens Bauern oder Bauern-Apostel nach Art Luthers über die Wahrheit denken. Man darf sicher sein, daß je nach dem Grade der Gewissenhaftigkeit in Dingen des Geistes die Bescheidenheit, die *Bescheidung* in diesem Punkte immer größer wird. In fünf Sachen *wissen*, und mit zarter Hand es ablehnen, *sonst* zu wissen… »Wahrheit«, wie das Wort jeder Prophet, jeder Sektierer, jeder Freigeist, jeder Sozialist, jeder Kirchenmann versteht, ist ein vollkommner Beweis dafür, daß auch noch nicht einmal der Anfang mit jener Zucht des Geistes und Selbstüberwindung gemacht ist, die zum Finden irgendeiner kleinen, noch so kleinen Wahrheit not tut. — Die Märtyrer-Tode, anbei gesagt, sind ein großes Unglück in der Geschichte gewesen: sie *verführten*… Der Schluß aller Idioten, Weib und Volk eingerechnet, daß es mit einer Sache, für die jemand in den Tod geht (oder die gar, wie das erste Christentum, todsüchtige Epidemien erzeugt), etwas auf sich habe — dieser Schluß ist der Prüfung, dem Geist der Prüfung und Vorsicht unsäglich zum Hemmschuh geworden. Die Märtyrer *schadeten* der Wahrheit…\n\nAuch heute noch bedarf es nur einer Krudität der Verfolgung, um einer an sich noch so gleichgültigen Sektiererei einen *ehrenhaften* Namen zu schaffen. — Wie? ändert es am Werte einer Sache etwas, daß jemand für sie sein Leben läßt? — Ein Irrtum, der ehrenhaft wird, ist ein Irrtum, der einen Verführungsreiz mehr besitzt: glaubt ihr, daß wir euch Anlaß geben würden, ihr Herrn Theologen, für eure Lüge die Märtyrer zu machen? — Man widerlegt eine Sache, indem man sie achtungsvoll aufs Eis legt — ebenso widerlegt man auch Theologen… Gerade das war die welthistorische Dummheit aller Verfolger, daß sie der gegnerischen Sache den Anschein des Ehrenhaften gaben — daß sie ihr die Faszination des Martyriums zum Geschenk machten … Das Weib liegt heute noch auf den Knien vor dem Irrtum, weil man ihm gesagt hat, daß jemand dafür am Kreuze starb. *Ist denn das Kreuz ein Argument?* — — Aber über alle diese Dinge hat einer allein das Wort gesagt, das man seit Jahrtausenden nötig gehabt hätte — *Zarathustra*.\n\nBlutzeichen schrieben sie auf den Weg, den sie gingen, und ihre  \nTorheit lehrte, daß man mit Blut Wahrheit beweise.  \nAber Blut ist der schlechteste Zeuge der Wahrheit; Blut vergiftet  \ndie reinste Lehre noch zu Wahn und Haß der Herzen.  \nUnd wenn einer durchs Feuer ginge für seine Lehre — was beweist dies! Mehr ist’s wahrlich, daß aus eignem Brande die eigne  \nLehre kommt.\n\n[54]\n\nMan lasse sich nicht irreführen: große Geister sind Skeptiker. Zarathustra ist ein Skeptiker. Die Stärke, die *Freiheit* aus der Kraft und Überkraft des Geistes *beweist* sich durch Skepsis. Menschen der Überzeugung kommen für alles Grundsätzliche von Wert und Unwert gar nicht in Betracht. Überzeugungen sind Gefängnisse. Das sieht nicht weit genug, das sieht nicht *unter* sich: aber um über Wert und Unwert mitreden zu dürfen, muß man fünfhundert Überzeugungen *unter* sich sehn — *hinter* sich sehn… Ein Geist, der Großes will, der auch die Mittel dazu will, ist mit Notwendigkeit Skeptiker. Die *Freiheit* von jeder Art Überzeugungen *gehört* zur Stärke, das Frei-Blicken-*können*… Die große Leidenschaft, der Grund und die Macht seines Seins, noch aufgeklärter, noch despotischer, als er selbst es ist, nimmt seinen ganzen Intellekt in Dienst; sie macht unbedenklich; sie gibt ihm Mut sogar zu unheiligen Mitteln; sie *gönnt* ihm *unter* Umständen Überzeugungen. Die Überzeugung als *Mittel*: vieles erreicht man nur mittelst einer Überzeugung. Die große Leidenschaft braucht, verbraucht Überzeugungen, sie unterwirft sich ihnen nicht — sie weiß sich souverän. — Umgekehrt: das Bedürfnis nach Glauben, nach irgend etwas Unbedingtem von Ja und Nein, der Carlylismus, wenn man mir dies Wort nachsehn will, ist ein Bedürfnis der *Schwäche*. Der Mensch des Glaubens, der »Gläubige« jeder Art ist notwendig ein abhängiger Mensch — ein solcher, der sich nicht als Zweck, der von sich aus überhaupt nicht Zwecke ansetzen kann. Der »Gläubige« gehört *sich* nicht, er kann nur Mittel sein, er muß *verbraucht* werden, er hat jemand nötig, der ihn verbraucht. Sein Instinkt gibt einer Moral der Entselbstung die höchste Ehre: zu ihr überredet ihn alles, seine Klugheit, seine Erfahrung, seine Eitelkeit. Jede Art Glaube ist selbst ein Ausdruck von Entselbstung, von Selbst-Entfremdung … Erwägt man, wie notwendig den allermeisten ein Regulativ ist, das sie von außen her bindet und fest macht, wie der Zwang, in einem höheren Sinn die *Sklaverei*, die einzige und letzte Bedingung ist, unter der der willensschwächere Mensch, zumal das Weib, gedeiht: so versteht man auch die Überzeugung, den »Glauben«. Der Mensch der Überzeugung hat in ihr sein Rückgrat. Viele Dinge *nicht* sehn, in keinem Punkte unbefangen sein, Partei sein durch und durch, eine strenge und notwendige Optik in allen Werten haben — das allein bedingt es, daß eine solche Art Mensch überhaupt besteht. Aber damit ist sie der Gegensatz, der *Antagonist* des Wahrhaftigen — der Wahrheit… Dem Gläubigen steht es nicht frei, für die Frage »wahr« und »unwahr« überhaupt ein Gewissen zu haben: rechtschaffen sein an *dieser* Stelle wäre sofort sein Untergang. Die pathologische Bedingtheit seiner Optik macht aus dem Überzeugten den Fanatiker — Savonarola, Luther, Rousseau, Robespierre, Saint-Simon —, den Gegensatz-Typus des starken, des *freigewordnen* Geistes. Aber die große Attitüde dieser *kranken* Geister, dieser Epileptiker des Begriffs, wirkt auf die große Masse — die Fanatiker sind pittoresk, die Menschheit sieht Gebärden lieber, als daß sie *Gründe* hört…\n\n[55]\n\n— Einen Schritt weiter in der Psychologie der Überzeugung, des »Glaubens«. Es ist schon lange von mir zur Erwägung anheimgegeben worden, ob nicht die Überzeugungen gefährlichere Feinde der Wahrheit sind als die Lügen (Menschliches, Allzumenschliches I, Aphorismus 54 und 483). Diesmal möchte ich die entscheidende Frage tun: besteht zwischen Lüge und Überzeugung überhaupt ein Gegensatz? — Alle Welt glaubt es; aber was glaubt nicht alle Welt! — Eine jede Überzeugung hat ihre Geschichte, ihre Vorformen, ihre Tentativen und Fehlgriffe: sie *wird* Überzeugung, nachdem sie es lange *nicht* ist, nachdem sie es noch länger *kaum* ist. Wie? könnte unter diesen Embryonal-Formen der Überzeugung nicht auch die Lüge sein? — Mitunter bedarf es bloß eines Personen-Wechsels: im Sohn wird Überzeugung, was im Vater noch Lüge war. — Ich nenne Lüge: etwas *nicht* sehn wollen, das man sieht, etwas nicht so sehn wollen, wie man es sieht: ob die Lüge vor Zeugen oder ohne Zeugen statthat, kommt nicht in Betracht. Die gewöhnlichste Lüge ist die, mit der man sich selbst belügt; das Belügen andrer ist relativ der Ausnahmefall. — Nun ist dies *Nicht*-sehn-wollen, was man sieht, dies Nicht-so-sehn-wollen, wie man es sieht, beinahe die erste Bedingung für alle, die *Partei* sind, in irgendwelchem Sinne: der Parteimensch wird mit Notwendigkeit Lügner. Die deutsche Geschichtsschreibung zum Beispiel ist überzeugt, daß Rom der Despotismus war, daß die Germanen den Geist der Freiheit in die Welt gebracht haben: welcher Unterschied ist zwischen dieser Überzeugung und einer Lüge? Darf man sich noch darüber wundern, wenn, aus Instinkt, alle Parteien, auch die deutschen Historiker, die großen Worte der Moral im Munde haben — daß die Moral beinahe dadurch *fortbesteht*, daß der Parteimensch jeder Art jeden Augenblick sie nötig hat? — »Dies ist *unsre* Überzeugung: wir bekennen sie vor aller Welt, wir leben und sterben für sie — Respekt vor allem, was Überzeugungen hat!« — dergleichen habe ich sogar aus dem Mund von Antisemiten gehört. Im Gegenteil, meine Herrn! Ein Antisemit wird dadurch durchaus nicht anständiger, daß er aus Grundsatz lügt… Die Priester, die in solchen Dingen feiner sind und den Einwand sehr gut verstehn, der im Begriff einer Überzeugung, das heißt einer grundsätzlichen, *weil* zweckdienlichen Verlogenheit liegt, haben von den Juden her die Klugheit überkommen, an dieser Stelle den Begriff »Gott«, »Wille Gottes«, »Offenbarung Gottes« einzuschieben. Auch Kant, mit seinem kategorischen Imperativ, war auf dem gleichen Wege: seine Vernunft wurde hierin *praktisch*. — Es gibt Fragen, wo über Wahrheit und Unwahrheit dem Menschen die Entscheidung *nicht* zusteht; alle obersten Fragen, alle obersten Wert-Probleme sind jenseits der menschlichen Vernunft… Die *Grenzen* der Vernunft begreifen — *das* erst ist wahrhaft Philosophie … Wozu gab Gott dem Menschen die Offenbarung? Würde Gott etwas Überflüssiges getan haben? Der Mensch *kann* von sich nicht selber wissen, was gut und böse ist, darum lehrte ihn Gott seinen Willen… Moral: der Priester lügt *nicht* — die Frage »wahr« oder »unwahr« *gibt* es nicht in solchen Dingen, von denen Priester reden; diese Dinge erlauben gar nicht zu lügen. Denn um zu lügen, müßte man entscheiden können, *was* hier wahr ist. Aber das *kann* eben der Mensch nicht; der Priester ist damit nur das Mundstück Gottes. — Ein solcher Priester-Syllogismus ist durchaus nicht bloß jüdisch und christlich; das Recht zur Lüge und die *Klugheit* der »Offenbarung« gehört dem Typus Priester an, den décadence-Priestern so gut als den Heidentum-Priestern (— Heiden sind alle, die zum Leben ja sagen, denen »Gott« das Wort für das große Ja zu allen Dingen ist). — Das »Gesetz«, der »Wille Gottes«, das »heilige Buch«, die »Inspiration« — alles nur Worte für die Bedingungen, *unter* denen der Priester zur Macht kommt, *mit* denen er seine Macht aufrecht erhält — diese Begriffe finden sich auf dem Grunde aller Priester-Organisationen, aller priesterlichen oder philosophisch-priesterlichen Herrschaftsgebilde. Die »heilige Lüge« — dem Konfuzius, dem Gesetzbuch des Manu, dem Mohammed, der christlichen Kirche gemeinsam —: sie fehlt nicht bei Plato. »Die Wahrheit ist da«: dies bedeutet, wo nur es laut wird, *der Priester lügt*…\n\n[56]\n\n— Zuletzt kommt es darauf an, zu welchem *Zweck* gelogen wird. Daß im Christentum die »heiligen« Zwecke fehlen, ist *mein* Einwand gegen seine Mittel. Nur *schlechte* Zwecke: Vergiftung, Verleumdung, Verneinung des Lebens, die Verachtung des Leibes, die Herabwürdigung und Selbstschändung des Menschen durch den Begriff Sünde — *folglich* sind auch seine Mittel schlecht. — Ich lese mit einem entgegengesetzten Gefühle das Gesetzbuch des *Manu*, ein unvergleichlich geistiges und überlegenes Werk, das mit der Bibel auch nur in einem Atem *nennen* eine Sünde wider den *Geist* wäre. Man errät sofort: es hat eine wirkliche Philosophie hinter sich, *in* sich, nicht bloß ein übelriechendes Judain von Rabbinismus und Aberglauben — es gibt selbst dem verwöhntesten Psychologen etwas zu beißen. *Nicht* die Hauptsache zu vergessen, *der* Grundunterschied von jeder Art von Bibel: die *vornehmen* Stände, die Philosophen und die Krieger, halten mit ihm ihre Hand über der Menge; vornehme Werte überall, ein Vollkommenheits-Gefühl, ein Jasagen zum Leben, ein triumphierendes Wohlgefühl an sich und am Leben — die *Sonne* liegt auf dem ganzen Buch. — Alle die Dinge, an denen das Christentum seine unergründliche Gemeinheit ausläßt, die Zeugung zum Beispiel, das Weib, die Ehe, werden hier ernst, mit Ehrfurcht, mit Liebe und Zutrauen behandelt. Wie kann man eigentlich ein Buch in die Hände von Kindern und Frauen legen, das jenes niederträchtige Wort enthält: »Um der Hurerei willen habe ein jeglicher sein eignes Weib und eine jegliche ihren eignen Mann… es ist besser freien denn Brunst leiden«? Und *darf* man Christ sein, solange mit dem Begriff der *immaculata conceptio* die Entstehung des Menschen verchristlicht, das heißt *beschmutzt* ist?… Ich kenne kein Buch, wo dem Weibe so viele zarte und gütige Dinge gesagt würden, wie im Gesetzbuch des Manu; diese alten Graubärte und Heiligen haben eine Art, gegen Frauen artig zu sein, die vielleicht nicht übertroffen ist. »Der Mund einer Frau« — heißt es einmal —, »der Busen eines Mädchens, das Gebet eines Kindes, der Rauch des Opfers sind immer rein.« Eine andre Stelle: »es gibt gar nichts Reineres als das Licht der Sonne, den Schatten einer Kuh, die Luft, das Wasser, das Feuer und den Atem eines Mädchens.« Eine letzte Stelle — vielleicht auch eine heilige Lüge —: »alle Öffnungen des Leibes oberhalb des Nabels sind rein, alle unterhalb sind unrein. Nur beim Mädchen ist der ganze Körper rein.«\n\n[57]\n\nMan ertappt die *Unheiligkeit* der christlichen Mittel *in flagranti*, wenn man den *christlichen* Zweck einmal an dem Zweck des Manu-Gesetzbuches mißt — wenn man diesen größten Zweck-Gegensatz unter starkes Licht bringt. Es bleibt dem Kritiker des Christentums nicht erspart, das Christentum *verächtlich* zu machen. — Ein solches Gesetzbuch, wie das des Manu, entsteht wie jedes gute Gesetzbuch: es resümiert die Erfahrung, Klugheit und Experimental-Moral von langen Jahrhunderten, es schließt ab, es schafft nichts mehr. Die Voraussetzung zu einer Kodifikation seiner Art ist die Einsicht, daß die Mittel einer langsam und kostspielig erworbenen *Wahrheit* Autorität zu schaffen, grundverschieden von denen sind, mit denen man sie beweisen würde. Ein Gesetzbuch erzählt niemals den Nutzen, die Gründe, die Kasuistik in der Vorgeschichte eines Gesetzes: eben damit würde es den imperativischen Ton einbüßen, das »du sollst«, die Voraussetzung dafür, daß gehorcht wird. Das Problem liegt genau hierin. — An einem gewissen Punkte der Entwicklung eines Volks erklärt die einsichtigste, das heißt rück- und hinausblickendste Schicht desselben, die Erfahrung, nach der gelebt werden soll — das heißt *kann* —, für abgeschlossen. Ihr Ziel geht dahin, die Ernte möglichst reich und vollständig von den Zeiten des Experiments und der *schlimmen* Erfahrung heimzubringen. Was folglich vor allem jetzt zu verhüten ist, das ist das Noch-Fort-Experimentieren, die Fortdauer des flüssigen Zustands der Werte, das Prüfen, Wählen, Kritik-Üben der Werte *in infinitum*. Dem stellt man eine doppelte Mauer entgegen: einmal die *Offenbarung*, das ist die Behauptung, die Vernunft jener Gesetze sei *nicht* menschlicher Herkunft, *nicht* langsam und unter Fehlgriffen gesucht und gefunden, sondern, als göttlichen Ursprungs, ganz, vollkommen, ohne Geschichte, ein Geschenk, ein Wunder, bloß mitgeteilt… Sodann die *Tradition*, das ist die Behauptung, daß das Gesetz bereits seit uralten Zeiten bestanden habe, daß es pietätlos, ein Verbrechen an den Vorfahren sei, es in Zweifel zu ziehn. Die Autorität des Gesetzes begründet sich mit den Thesen: Gott *gab* es, die Vorfahren *lebten* es. — Die höhere Vernunft einer solchen Prozedur liegt in der Absicht, das Bewußtsein Schritt für Schritt von dem als richtig erkannten (das heißt durch eine ungeheure und scharf durchgesiebte Erfahrung *bewiesenen*) Leben zurückzudrängen: so daß der vollkommne Automatismus des Instinkts erreicht wird — diese Voraussetzung zu jeder Art Meisterschaft, zu jeder Art Vollkommenheit in der Kunst des Lebens. Ein Gesetzbuch nach Art des Manu aufstellen, heißt einem Volke fürderhin zugestehn, Meister zu werden, vollkommen zu werden — die höchste Kunst des Lebens zu ambitionieren. *Dazu muß es unbewußt gemacht werden*: dies der Zweck jeder heiligen Lüge. — Die *Ordnung der Kasten*, das oberste, das dominierende Gesetz, ist nur die Sanktion einer *Natur-Ordnung*, Natur-Gesetzlichkeit ersten Ranges, über die keine Willkür, keine »moderne Idee« Gewalt hat. Es treten in jeder gesunden Gesellschaft, sich gegenseitig bedingend, drei physiologisch verschieden-gravitierende Typen auseinander, von denen jeder seine eigne Hygiene, sein eignes Reich von Arbeit, seine eigne Art Vollkommenheits-Gefühl und Meisterschaft hat. Die Natur, *nicht* Manu, trennt die vorwiegend Geistigen, die vorwiegend Muskel- und Temperaments-Starken und die weder im einen, noch im andern ausgezeichneten dritten, die Mittelmäßigen, voneinander ab — die letzteren als die große Zahl, die ersteren als die Auswahl. Die oberste Kaste — ich nenne sie *die Wenigsten* — hat als die vollkommne auch die Vorrechte der wenigsten: dazu gehört es, das Glück, die Schönheit, die Güte auf Erden darzustellen. Nur die geistigsten Menschen haben die Erlaubnis zur Schönheit, *zum* Schönen: nur bei ihnen ist Güte nicht Schwäche. *Pulchrum est paucorum hominum*: das Gute ist ein Vorrecht. Nichts kann ihnen dagegen weniger zugestanden werden als häßliche Manieren oder ein pessimistischer Blick, ein Auge, das *verhäßlicht* —, oder gar eine Entrüstung über den Gesamt-Aspekt der Dinge. Die Entrüstung ist das Vorrecht der Tschandala; der Pessimismus desgleichen. »*Die Welt ist vollkommen*« — so redet der Instinkt der Geistigsten, der jasagende Instinkt —: »die Unvollkommenheit, das *Unter*-uns jeder Art, die Distanz, das Pathos der Distanz, der Tschandala selbst gehört noch zu dieser Vollkommenheit.« Die geistigsten Menschen, als die *Stärksten*, finden ihr Glück, worin andre ihren Untergang finden würden: im Labyrinth, in der Härte gegen sich und andre, im Versuch; ihre Lust ist die Selbstbezwingung: der Asketismus wird bei ihnen Natur, Bedürfnis, Instinkt. Die schwere Aufgabe gilt ihnen als Vorrecht; mit Lasten zu spielen, die andre erdrücken, eine *Erholung* … Erkenntnis — eine Form des Asketismus. — Sie sind die ehrwürdigste Art Mensch: das schließt nicht aus, daß sie die heiterste, die liebenswürdigste sind. Sie herrschen, nicht weil sie wollen, sondern weil sie *sind*; es steht ihnen nicht frei, die zweiten zu sein. — Die *zweiten*: das sind die Wächter des Rechts, die Pfleger der Ordnung und der Sicherheit, das sind die vornehmen Krieger, das ist der *König* vor allem als die höchste Formel von Krieger, Richter und Aufrechterhalter des Gesetzes. Die zweiten sind die Exekutive der Geistigsten, das Nächste, was zu ihnen gehört, das was ihnen alles *Grobe* in der Arbeit des Herrschens abnimmt — ihr Gefolge, ihre rechte Hand, ihre beste Schülerschaft. — In dem allem, nochmals gesagt, ist nichts von Willkür, nichts »gemacht«; was *anders* ist, ist gemacht — die Natur ist dann zuschanden gemacht… Die Ordnung der Kasten, die *Rangordnung*, formuliert nur das oberste Gesetz des Lebens selbst; die Abscheidung der drei Typen ist nötig zur Erhaltung der Gesellschaft, zur Ermöglichung höherer und höchster Typen — die *Ungleichheit* der Rechte ist erst die Bedingung dafür, daß es überhaupt Rechte gibt. — Ein Recht ist ein Vorrecht. In seiner Art Sein hat jeder auch sein Vorrecht. Unterschätzen wir die Vorrechte der *Mittelmäßigen* nicht. Das Leben nach der *Höhe* zu wird immer härter — die Kälte nimmt zu, die Verantwortlichkeit nimmt zu. Eine hohe Kultur ist eine Pyramide: sie kann nur auf einem breiten Boden stehn, sie hat zu allererst eine stark und gesund konsolidierte Mittelmäßigkeit zur Voraussetzung. Das Handwerk, der Handel, der Ackerbau, die *Wissenschaft*, der größte Teil der Kunst, der ganze Inbegriff der *Berufs*tätigkeit mit einem Wort, verträgt sich durchaus nur mit einem Mittelmaß im Können und Begehren; dergleichen wäre deplaziert unter Ausnahmen, der dazugehörige Instinkt widerspräche sowohl dem Aristokratismus als dem Anarchismus. Daß man ein öffentlicher Nutzen ist, ein Rad, eine Funktion, dazu gibt es eine Naturbestimmung: *nicht* die Gesellschaft, die Art *Glück*, deren die allermeisten bloß fähig sind, macht aus ihnen intelligente Maschinen. Für den Mittelmäßigen ist mittelmäßig sein ein Glück; die Meisterschaft in einem, die Spezialität ein natürlicher Instinkt. Es würde eines tieferen Geistes vollkommen unwürdig sein, in der Mittelmäßigkeit an sich schon einen Einwand zu sehn. Sie ist selbst die *erste* Notwendigkeit dafür, daß es Ausnahmen geben darf: eine hohe Kultur ist durch sie bedingt. Wenn der Ausnahme-Mensch gerade die Mittelmäßigen mit zarteren Fingern handhabt, als sich und seinesgleichen, so ist dies nicht bloß Höflichkeit des Herzens — es ist einfach seine *Pflicht*… Wen hasse ich unter dem Gesindel von Heute am besten? Das Sozialisten-Gesindel, die Tschandala-Apostel, die den Instinkt, die Lust, das Genügsamkeits-Gefühl des Arbeiters mit seinem kleinen Sein untergraben — die ihn neidisch machen, die ihn Rache lehren… Das Unrecht liegt niemals in un*gleiche*n Rechten, es liegt im Anspruch auf »gleiche« Rechte… Was ist *schlecht*? Aber ich sagte es schon: alles, was aus Schwäche, aus Neid, aus *Rache* stammt. — Der Anarchist und der Christ sind einer Herkunft…\n\n[58]\n\nIn der Tat, es macht einen Unterschied, zu welchem Zweck man lügt: ob man damit erhält oder *zerstört*. Man darf zwischen *Christ* und *Anarchist* eine vollkommne Gleichung aufstellen: ihr Zweck, ihr Instinkt geht nur auf Zerstörung. Den Beweis für diesen Satz hat man aus der Geschichte nur abzulesen: sie enthält ihn in entsetzlicher Deutlichkeit. Lernten wir eben eine religiöse Gesetzgebung kennen, deren Zweck war, die oberste Bedingung dafür, daß das Leben *gedeiht*, eine große Organisation der Gesellschaft zu »verewigen« — das Christentum hat seine Mission darin gefunden, mit eben einer solchen Organisation, *weil in ihr das Leben gedieh*, ein Ende zu machen. Dort sollte der Vernunft-Ertrag von langen Zeiten des Experiments und der Unsicherheit zum fernsten Nutzen angelegt und die Ernte so groß, so reichlich, so vollständig wie möglich heimgebracht werden: hier wurde, umgekehrt, über Nacht die Ernte *vergiftet*… Das, was *aere perennius* dastand, das *imperium Romanum*, die großartigste Organisations-Form unter schwierigen Bedingungen, die bisher erreicht worden ist, im Vergleich zu der alles Vorher, alles Nachher Stückwerk, Stümperei, Dilettantismus ist — jene heiligen Anarchisten haben sich eine »Frömmigkeit« daraus gemacht, »die Welt« *das heißt* das *imperium Romanum* zu zerstören, bis kein Stein auf dem andern blieb — bis selbst Germanen und andre Rüpel darüber Herr werden konnten… Der Christ und der Anarchist: beide *décadents* beide unfähig, anders als auflösend, vergiftend, verkümmernd, *blutaussaugend* zu wirken, beide der Instinkt des *Todhasses* gegen alles, was steht, was groß dasteht, was Dauer hat, was dem Leben Zukunft verspricht… Das Christentum war der Vampyr des *imperium Romanum* — es hat die ungeheure Tat der Römer, den Boden für eine große Kultur zu gewinnen, *die Zeit hat*, über Nacht ungetan gemacht. — Versteht man es immer noch nicht? Das *imperium Romanum*, das wir kennen, das uns die Geschichte der römischen Provinz immer besser kennen lehrt, dies bewunderungswürdigste Kunstwerk des großen Stils, war ein Anfang, sein Bau war berechnet, sich mit Jahrtausenden zu *beweisen* — es ist bis heute nie so gebaut, nie auch nur geträumt worden, in gleichem Maße *sub specie aeterni* zu bauen! — Diese Organisation war fest genug, schlechte Kaiser auszuhalten: der Zufall von Personen darf nichts in solchen Dingen zu tun haben — *erstes* Prinzip aller großen Architektur. Aber sie war nicht fest genug gegen die *korrupteste* Art Korruption, gegen den *Christen*… Dies heimliche Gewürm, das sich in Nacht, Nebel und Zweideutigkeit an alle einzelnen heranschlich und jedem einzelnen den Ernst für *wahre* Dinge, den Instinkt überhaupt für *Realitäten* aussog, diese feige, femininische und zuckersüße Bande hat Schritt für Schritt die »Seelen« diesem ungeheuren Bau entfremdet — jene wertvollen, jene männlich-vornehmen Naturen, die in der Sache Roms ihre eigne Sache, ihren eignen Ernst, ihren eignen Stolz empfanden. Diese Mucker-Schleicherei, die Konventikel-Heimlichkeit, düstere Begriffe wie Hölle, wie Opfer des Unschuldigen, wie *unio mystica* im Bluttrinken, vor allem das langsam aufgeschürte Feuer der Rache, der Tschandala-Rache — *das* wurde Herr über Rom, dieselbe Art von Religion, der in ihrer Präexistenz-Form schon Epikur den Krieg gemacht hatte. Man lese Lukrez, um zu begreifen, *was* Epikur bekämpft hat, *nicht* das Heidentum, sondern »das Christentum«, will sagen die Verderbnis der Seelen durch den Schuld-, durch den Straf- und Unsterblichkeits-Begriff. — Er bekämpfte die *unterirdischen* Kulte, das ganze latente Christentum — die Unsterblichkeit zu leugnen war damals schon eine wirkliche *Erlösung*. — Und Epikur hätte gesiegt, jeder achtbare Geist im römischen Reich war Epikureer: *da erschien Paulus*… Paulus, der Fleisch-, der Genie-gewordne Tschandala-Haß gegen Rom, gegen »die Welt«, der Jude, der *ewige* Jude *par excellence*… Was er erriet, das war, wie man mit Hilfe der kleinen sektiererischen Christen-Bewegung abseits des Judentums einen »Weltbrand« entzünden könne, wie man mit dem Symbol »Gott am Kreuze« alles Unten-Liegende, alles Heimlich-Aufrührerische, die ganze Erbschaft anarchistischer Umtriebe im Reich, zu einer ungeheuren Macht aufsummieren könne. »Das Heil kommt von den Juden.« — Das Christentum als Formel, um die unterirdischen Kulte aller Art, die des Osiris, der großen Mutter, des Mithras zum Beispiel, zu überbieten — *und* zu summieren: in dieser Einsicht besteht das Genie des Paulus. Sein Instinkt war darin so sicher, daß er die Vorstellungen, mit denen jene Tschandala-Religionen faszinierten, mit schonungsloser Gewalttätigkeit an der Wahrheit dem »Heilande« seiner Erfindung in den Mund legte, und nicht nur in den Mund — daß er aus ihm etwas *machte*, das auch ein Mithras-Priester verstehn konnte… Dies war sein Augenblick von Damaskus: er begriff, daß er den Unsterblichkeits-Glauben *nötig* hatte, um »die Welt« zu entwerten, daß der Begriff »Hölle« über Rom noch Herr wird — daß man mit dem »Jenseits« *das Leben tötet*… Nihilist und Christ: das reimt sich, das reimt sich nicht bloß…\n\n[59]\n\nDie ganze Arbeit der antiken Welt *umsonst*: ich habe kein Wort dafür, das mein Gefühl über etwas so Ungeheures ausdrückt. — Und in Anbetracht, daß ihre Arbeit eine Vorarbeit war, daß eben erst der Unterbau zu einer Arbeit von Jahrtausenden mit granitnem Selbstbewußtsein gelegt war, der ganze *Sinn* der antiken Welt umsonst!… Wozu Griechen? wozu Römer? — Alle Voraussetzungen zu einer gelehrten Kultur, alle wissenschaftlichen *Methoden* waren bereits da, man hatte die große, die unvergleichliche Kunst, gut zu lesen, bereits festgestellt — diese Voraussetzung zur Tradition der Kultur, zur Einheit der Wissenschaft; die Naturwissenschaft, im Bunde mit Mathematik und Mechanik, war auf dem allerbesten Wege — der *Tatsachen-Sinn*, der letzte und wertvollste aller Sinne, hatte seine Schulen, seine bereits Jahrhunderte alte Tradition! Versteht man das? Alles *Wesentliche* war gefunden, um an die Arbeit gehn zu können — die Methoden, man muß es zehnmal sagen, *sind* das Wesentliche, auch das Schwierigste, auch das, was am längsten die Gewohnheiten und Faulheiten gegen sich hat. Was wir heute, mit unsäglicher Selbstbezwingung — denn wir haben alle die schlechten Instinkte, die christlichen, irgendwie noch im Leibe — uns zurückerobert haben, den freien Blick vor der Realität, die vorsichtige Hand, die Geduld und den Ernst im Kleinsten, die ganze *Rechtschaffenheit* der Erkenntnis — sie war bereits da! vor mehr als zwei Jahrtausenden bereits! *Und*, dazu gerechnet, der gute, der feine Takt und Geschmack! *Nicht* als Gehirn-Dressur! *Nicht* als »deutsche« Bildung mit Rüpel-Manieren! Sondern als Leib, als Gebärde, als Instinkt — als Realität mit einem Wort… *Alles umsonst!* Über Nacht bloß noch eine Erinnerung! — Griechen! Römer! die Vornehmheit des Instinkts, der Geschmack, die methodische Forschung, das Genie der Organisation und Verwaltung, der Glaube, der *Wille* zur Menschen-Zukunft, das große Ja zu allen Dingen als *imperium Romanum* sichtbar, für alle Sinne sichtbar, der große Stil nicht mehr bloß Kunst, sondern Realität, Wahrheit, *Leben* geworden … — Und nicht durch ein Natur-Ereignis über Nacht verschüttet! Nicht durch Germanen und andre Schwerfüßler niedergetreten! Sondern von listigen, heimlichen, unsichtbaren, blutarmen Vampyren zuschanden gemacht! Nicht besiegt — nur ausgesogen!… Die versteckte Rachsucht, der kleine Neid *Herr* geworden! Alles Erbärmliche, An-sich-Leidende, Von-schlechten-Gefühlen-Heimgesuchte, die ganze *Ghetto-Welt* der Seele mit einem Male *obenauf*! — — Man lese nur irgendeinen christlichen Agitator, den heiligen Augustin zum Beispiel, um zu begreifen, um zu *riechen*, was für unsaubere Gesellen damit obenauf gekommen sind. Man würde sich ganz und gar betrügen, wenn man irgendwelchen Mangel an Verstand bei den Führern der christlichen Bewegung voraussetzte — o sie sind klug, klug, bis zur Heiligkeit, diese Herren Kirchenväter! Was ihnen abgeht, ist etwas ganz anderes. Die Natur hat sie vernachlässigt — sie vergaß, ihnen eine bescheidne Mitgift von achtbaren, von anständigen, von *reinlichen* Instinkten mitzugeben … Unter uns, es sind nicht einmal Männer… Wenn der Islam das Christentum verachtet, so hat er tausendmal recht dazu: der Islam hat *Männer* zur Voraussetzung …\n\n[60]\n\nDas Christentum hat uns um die Ernte der antiken Kultur gebracht, es hat uns später wieder um die Ernte der *Islam*-Kultur gebracht. Die wunderbare maurische Kultur-Welt Spaniens, *uns* im Grunde verwandter, zu Sinn und Geschmack redender als Rom und Griechenland, wurde *niedergetreten* (— ich sage nicht von was für Füßen —), warum? weil sie vornehmen, weil sie Männer-Instinkten ihre Entstehung verdankte, weil sie zum Leben ja sagte auch noch mit den seltnen und raffinierten Kostbarkeiten des maurischen Lebens!… Die Kreuzritter bekämpften später etwas, vor dem sich in den Staub zu legen ihnen besser angestanden hätte — eine Kultur, gegen die sich selbst unser neunzehntes Jahrhundert sehr arm, sehr »spät« vorkommen dürfte. — Freilich, sie wollten Beute machen: der Orient war reich… Man sei doch unbefangen! Kreuzzüge — die höhere Seeräuberei, weiter nichts! Der deutsche Adel, Wikinger-Adel im Grunde, war damit in seinem Elemente: die Kirche wußte nur zu gut, womit man deutschen Adel *hat*… Der deutsche Adel, immer die »Schweizer« der Kirche, immer im Dienste aller schlechten Instinkte der Kirche — aber *gut bezahlt*… Daß die Kirche gerade mit Hilfe deutscher Schwerter, deutschen Blutes und Mutes ihren Todfeindschafts-Krieg gegen alles Vornehme auf Erden durchgeführt hat! Es gibt an dieser Stelle eine Menge schmerzlicher Fragen. Der deutsche Adel *fehlt* beinahe in der Geschichte der höheren Kultur: man errät den Grund… Christentum, Alkohol — die beiden *großen* Mittel der Korruption… An sich sollte es ja keine Wahl geben, angesichts von Islam und Christentum, so wenig als angesichts eines Arabers und eines Juden. Die Entscheidung ist gegeben; es steht niemandem frei, hier noch zu wählen. Entweder *ist* man ein Tschandala, oder man ist es *nicht*… »Krieg mit Rom aufs Messer! Friede, Freundschaft mit dem Islam«: so empfand, so *tat* jener große Freigeist, das Genie unter den deutschen Kaisern, Friedrich der Zweite. Wie? muß ein Deutscher erst Genie, erst Freigeist sein, um *anständig* zu empfinden? Ich begreife nicht, wie ein Deutscher je *christlich* empfinden konnte…\n\n[61]\n\nHier tut es not, eine für Deutsche noch hundertmal peinlichere Erinnerung zu berühren. Die Deutschen haben Europa um die letzte große Kultur-Ernte gebracht, die es für Europa heimzubringen gab — um die der *Renaissance*. Versteht man endlich, *will* man verstehn, *was* die Renaissance war? Die *Umwertung der christlichen Werte*, der Versuch, mit allen Mitteln, mit allen Instinkten, mit allem Genie unternommen, die *Gegen*-Werte, die *vornehmen* Werte zum Sieg zu bringen… Es gab bisher nur *diesen* großen Krieg, es gab bisher keine entscheidendere Fragestellung als die der Renaissance — *meine* Frage ist ihre Frage —: es gab auch nie eine grundsätzlichere, eine geradere, eine strenger in ganzer Front und auf das Zentrum losgeführte Form des *Angriffs*! An der entscheidenden Stelle, im Sitz des Christentums selbst angreifen, hier die *vornehmen* Werte auf den Thron bringen, will sagen in die Instinkte, in die untersten Bedürfnisse und Begierden der daselbst Sitzenden *hinein*bringen … Ich sehe eine *Möglichkeit* vor mir von einem vollkommen überirdischen Zauber und Farbenreiz — es scheint mir, daß sie in allen Schaudern raffinierter Schönheit erglänzt, daß eine Kunst in ihr am Werke ist, so göttlich, so teufelsmäßig-göttlich, daß man Jahrtausende umsonst nach einer zweiten solchen Möglichkeit durchsucht; ich sehe ein Schauspiel, so sinnreich, so wunderbar paradox zugleich, daß alle Gottheiten des Olymps einen Anlaß zu einem unsterblichen Gelächter gehabt hätten — *Cesare Borgia als Papst*… Versteht man mich? … Wohlan, das wäre der Sieg gewesen, nach dem *ich* heute allein verlange —: damit war das Christentum *abgeschafft*! — Was geschah? Ein deutscher Mönch, Luther, kam nach Rom. Dieser Mönch, mit allen rachsüchtigen Instinkten eines verunglückten Priesters im Leibe, empörte sich in Rom *gegen* die Renaissance … Statt mit tiefster Dankbarkeit das Ungeheure zu verstehn, das geschehen war, die Überwindung des Christentums an seinem *Sitz* —, verstand sein Haß aus diesem Schauspiel nur seine Nahrung zu ziehn. Ein religiöser Mensch denkt nur an sich. — Luther sah die *Verderbnis* des Papsttums, während gerade das Gegenteil mit Händen zu greifen war: die alte Verderbnis, das *peccatum originale*, das Christentum saß *nicht* mehr auf dem Stuhl des Papstes! Sondern das Leben! Sondern der Triumph des Lebens! Sondern das große Ja zu allen hohen, schönen, verwegenen Dingen!… Und Luther *stellte die Kirche wieder her*: er griff sie an… Die Renaissance — ein Ereignis ohne Sinn, ein großes *Umsonst*! — Ah diese Deutschen, was sie uns schon gekostet haben! Umsonst — das war immer das *Werk* der Deutschen. — Die Reformation; Leibniz; Kant und die sogenannte deutsche Philosophie; die »Freiheits«-Kriege; das Reich — jedesmal ein Umsonst für etwas, das bereits da war, für etwas *Unwiederbringliches* … Es sind *meine* Feinde, ich bekenne es, diese Deutschen: ich verachte in ihnen jede Art von Begriffs- und Wert-Unsauberkeit, von *Feigheit* vor jedem rechtschaffnen Ja und Nein. Sie haben, seit einem Jahrtausend beinahe, alles verfilzt und verwirrt, woran sie mit ihren Fingern rührten, sie haben alle Halbheiten — Drei-Achtelsheiten! — auf dem Gewissen, an denen Europa krank ist — sie haben auch die unsauberste Art Christentum, die es gibt, die unheilbarste, die unwiderlegbarste, den Protestantismus auf dem Gewissen… Wenn man nicht fertig wird mit dem Christentum, die *Deutschen* werden daran schuld sein …\n\n[62]\n\n— Hiermit bin ich am Schluß und spreche mein Urteil. Ich *verurteile* das Christentum, ich erhebe gegen die christliche Kirche die furchtbarste aller Anklagen, die je ein Ankläger in den Mund genommen hat. Sie ist mir die höchste aller denkbaren Korruptionen, sie hat den Willen zur letzten auch nur möglichen Korruption gehabt. Die christliche Kirche ließ nichts mit ihrer Verderbnis unberührt, sie hat aus jedem Wert einen Unwert, aus jeder Wahrheit eine Lüge, aus jeder Rechtschaffenheit eine Seelen-Niedertracht gemacht. Man wage es noch, mir von ihren »humanitären« Segnungen zu reden! Irgendeinen Notstand *abschaffen* ging wider ihre tiefste Nützlichkeit: sie lebte von Notständen, sie *schuf* Notstände, um *sich* zu verewigen… Der Wurm der Sünde zum Beispiel: mit diesem Notstande hat erst die Kirche die Menschheit bereichert! — Die »Gleichheit der Seelen vor Gott«, diese Falschheit, dieser *Vorwand* für die *rancunes* aller Niedriggesinnten, dieser Sprengstoff von Begriff, der endlich Revolution, moderne Idee und Niedergangs-Prinzip der ganzen Gesellschafts-Ordnung geworden ist — ist *christlicher* Dynamit… »Humanitäre« Segnungen des Christentums! Aus der *humanitas* einen Selbst-Widerspruch, eine Kunst der Selbstschändung, einen Willen zur Lüge um jeden Preis, einen Widerwillen, eine Verachtung aller guten und rechtschaffnen Instinkte herauszuzüchten! Das wären mir Segnungen des Christentums! — Der Parasitismus als *einzige* Praxis der Kirche; mit ihrem Bleichsuchts-, ihrem »Heiligkeits«-Ideale jedes Blut, jede Liebe, jede Hoffnung zum Leben austrinkend; das Jenseits als Wille zur Verneinung jeder Realität; das Kreuz als Erkennungszeichen für die unterirdischste Verschwörung, die es je gegeben hat — gegen Gesundheit, Schönheit, Wohlgeratenheit, Tapferkeit, Geist, *Güte* der Seele, *gegen das Leben selbst*…\n\nDiese ewige Anklage des Christentums will ich an alle Wände schreiben, wo es nur Wände gibt — ich habe Buchstaben, um auch Blinde sehend zu machen … Ich heiße das Christentum den *einen* großen Fluch, die *eine* große innerlichste Verdorbenheit, den *einen* großen Instinkt der Rache, dem kein Mittel giftig, heimlich, unterirdisch, *klein* genug ist — ich heiße es den *einen* unsterblichen Schandfleck der Menschheit…\n\nUnd man rechnet die Zeit nach dem *dies nefastus*, mit dem dies Verhängnis anhob — nach dem *ersten* Tag des Christentums! — *Warum nicht lieber nach seinem letzten?* — *Nach heute?* — Umwertung aller Werte!\n\n### Law Against Christianity\n\nGegeben am Tage des Heils, am ersten Tage des Jahres Eins (— am 30. September 1888 der falschen Zeitrechnung)\n\n*Todkrieg gegen das Laster: das Laster ist das Christenthum.*\n\n[1]\n\n*Erster Satz.*—Lasterhaft ist jede Art Widernatur. Die lasterhafteste Art Mensch ist der Priester: er *lehrt* die Widernatur. Gegen den Priester hat man nicht Gründe, man hat das Zuchthaus.\n\n[2]\n\n*Zweiter Satz.*—Jede Theilnahme an einem Gottesdienste ist ein Attentat auf die öffentliche Sittlichkeit. Man soll härter gegen Protestanten als gegen Katholiken, härter gegen liberale Protestanten als gegen strenggläubige sein. Das Verbrecherische im Christsein nimmt in dem Maaße zu, als man sich der Wissenschaft nähert. Der Verbrecher der Verbrecher ist folglich der *Philolog*.\n\n[3]\n\n*Dritter Satz.*—Die fluchwürdigen Stätten, auf denen das Christenthum seine Basilisken-Eier gebrütet hat, sollen dem Erdboden gleich gemacht und als *verruchte* Stätten der Erde der Schrecken aller Nachwelt sein. Man soll giftige Schlangen auf ihnen züchten.\n\n[4]\n\n*Vierter Satz.*—Die Predigt der Keuschheit ist eine öffentliche Aufreizung zur Widernatur. Jede Verachtung des geschlechtlichen Lebens, jede Verunreinigung desselben durch den Begriff „unrein“ ist die eigentliche Sünde wider den heiligen Geist des Lebens.\n\n[5]\n\n*Fünfter Satz.*—Mit einem Priester an Einem Tische essen stößt aus: man excommunicirt sich damit aus der rechtschaffnen Gesellschaft. Der Priester ist *unser* Tschandala,—man soll ihn verfehmen, aushungern, in jede Art Wüste treiben.\n\n[6]\n\n*Sechster Satz.*—Man soll die „heilige“ Geschichte mit dem Namen nennen, den sie verdient, als *verfluchte* Geschichte; man soll die Worte „Gott“, „Heiland“, „Erlöser“, „Heiliger“ zu Schimpfworten machen, zu Verbrecher-Abzeichen gebrauchen.\n\n[7]\n\n*Siebenter Satz.*—Der Rest folgt daraus.\n\n*Der Antichrist*","download_url":"https://mouseia.org/api/works/antichrist/original.txt"},"translations":[{"id":"trn_antichrist_mouseia","translator":"Mouseia","kind":"curated","note":"Mouseia’s complete machine-assisted Musean translation, made directly from the German of the preface, all sixty-two sections and the seven-article Law Against Christianity, for fidelity, the author’s force and cadence, and modern clarity. Nietzsche’s own emphasis is kept.","text":"### Preface\n\nThe Antichrist\n\n*A Curse on Christianity*\n\nThis book belongs to the very few. Perhaps not one of them is alive yet. They may be those who understand my Zarathustra: how *could* I confuse myself with those for whom ears are already growing today?—Only the day after tomorrow belongs to me. Some are born posthumously.\n\nThe conditions under which one understands me, and then understands me *of necessity*—I know them all too well. One must be honest in matters of the spirit to the point of harshness merely to endure my seriousness, my passion. One must be practiced in living on mountains—in seeing the pitiful chatter of the day about politics and national selfishness *beneath* oneself. One must have become indifferent; one must never ask whether truth is useful, whether it will prove one's doom… The strong person's predilection for questions no one today has the courage to face; courage for the *forbidden*; predestination to the labyrinth. An experience drawn from seven solitudes. New ears for new music. New eyes for what is most distant. A new conscience for truths that have remained silent until now. *And* the will to economy on a grand scale: keeping one's strength, one's *enthusiasm*, intact… Reverence for oneself; love for oneself; unconditional freedom toward oneself…\n\nWell then! These alone are my readers, my rightful readers, my predestined readers: what does the *rest* matter?—The rest is merely humanity.—One must stand above humanity in strength, in *height* of soul—in contempt…\n\n*Friedrich Nietzsche*\n\n### Sections 1–10\n\n[1]\n\n—Let us look one another in the face. We are Hyperboreans—we know well enough how far off the beaten path we live. \"Neither by land nor by water will you find the way to the Hyperboreans\": Pindar already knew that about us. Beyond the north, the ice, death—*our* life, *our* happiness… We have discovered happiness; we know the way; we found the way out of whole millennia of the labyrinth. Who *else* found it?—Modern man, perhaps?—\"I know neither a way out nor a way in; I am everything that knows neither a way out nor a way in\"—modern man sighs… We were sick with this modernity—with its rotten peace, its cowardly compromise, all the virtuous uncleanliness of the modern Yes and No. This tolerance and *breadth* of heart that \"forgives\" everything because it \"understands\" everything is a sirocco to us. Better to live in ice than among modern virtues and other south winds!… We were brave enough; we spared neither ourselves nor others: but for a long time we did not know *where to turn* our bravery. We grew gloomy; they called us fatalists. *Our* fate—that was the fullness, the tension, the damming up of forces. We thirsted for lightning and deeds; we kept as far as possible from the happiness of weaklings, from \"resignation\"… A thunderstorm was in our air; the nature that we are grew dark—*for we had no path*. The formula of our happiness: a Yes, a No, a straight line, a *goal*…\n\n[2]\n\nWhat is good?—Everything that heightens the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself in the human being.\n\nWhat is bad?—Everything that comes from weakness.\n\nWhat is happiness?—The feeling that power is *growing*—that a resistance is being overcome.\n\n*Not* contentment, but more power; *not* peace at all, but war; *not* virtue, but prowess (virtue in the Renaissance style, *excellence*, virtue free of moraline).\n\nThe weak and the failures shall perish: first principle of *our* love of humanity. And they should even be helped to do so.\n\nWhat is more harmful than any vice?—Active pity for all failures and weaklings—Christianity…\n\n[3]\n\nThe problem I pose here is not what should replace humanity in the succession of beings (—the human being is an *end*—), but what type of human being we should *breed*, should *will*, as the more valuable, more worthy of life, more certain of a future.\n\nThis more valuable type has appeared often enough already: but as a stroke of luck, as an exception, never as something *willed*. On the contrary, *he* in particular has been feared most of all; until now he has been almost *the* embodiment of terror—and out of that fear the opposite type was willed, bred, *attained*: the domestic animal, the herd animal, the sick animal man—the Christian…\n\n[4]\n\nHumanity does *not* represent a development toward the better or stronger or higher in the way people believe today. \"Progress\" is merely a modern idea, which is to say a false idea. In *value*, today's European remains far below the European of the Renaissance; further development is simply *not* by any necessity an elevation, an enhancement, a strengthening.\n\nIn another sense, individual successes continually appear in the most varied places on earth and out of the most varied cultures, and in them a *higher* type does indeed emerge: something that, in relation to humanity as a whole, is a kind of overhuman. Such strokes of luck, such great successes, have always been possible and perhaps always will be possible. And even entire lineages, tribes, peoples may, under certain circumstances, represent such a *lucky hit*.\n\n[5]\n\nChristianity must not be decked out and prettified: it has waged a *war to the death* against this *higher* type of human being; it has placed all the fundamental instincts of this type under a ban; from these instincts it has distilled evil, the evil one—the strong human being as the very type of the reprehensible, the \"reprobate.\" Christianity has taken the side of everything weak, low, and ill-formed; it has made an ideal out of *opposition* to the self-preserving instincts of strong life; it has corrupted the reason of even the intellectually strongest natures by teaching people to feel the highest values of the intellect to be sinful, misleading, *temptations*. The most pitiable example: the corruption of Pascal, who believed his reason had been corrupted by original sin, when it had been corrupted only by his Christianity!—\n\n[6]\n\nIt is a painful, a dreadful spectacle that has opened before me: I drew back the curtain on the *corruption* of the human being. This word, in my mouth, is protected against at least one suspicion: that it contains a moral indictment of humanity. Its meaning—I should like to underline this once more—is *free of moraline*: so much so that I feel this corruption most keenly precisely where people have so far aspired most consciously to \"virtue,\" to \"divinity.\" I understand corruption, as will already have been guessed, in the sense of *decadence*: my contention is that all the values in which humanity now sums up its highest aspirations are values of *decadence*.\n\nI call an animal, a species, an individual corrupt when it loses its instincts, when it chooses, when it *prefers*, what harms it. A history of the \"higher feelings,\" of the \"ideals of humanity\"—and it is possible that I shall have to tell it—would also come close to explaining *why* the human being is so corrupt. Life itself, to me, is an instinct for growth, for endurance, for the accumulation of forces, for *power*: where the will to power is *lacking*, there is decline. My contention is that all humanity's highest values lack this will—that values of decline, *nihilistic* values, rule under the holiest names.\n\n[7]\n\nChristianity is called the religion of *pity*.—Pity stands opposed to the tonic emotions that heighten the energy of the feeling of life: it has a depressive effect. We lose strength when we pity. Through pity, the loss of strength that suffering already brings to life is further increased and multiplied. Suffering itself becomes contagious through pity; under certain circumstances, it can bring about a total loss of life and vital energy absurdly out of proportion to the magnitude of its cause (—the case of the Nazarene's death). That is the first consideration; but there is a still more important one. Suppose we measure pity by the value of the reactions it usually produces: its life-threatening character then appears in a far brighter light. Broadly speaking, pity thwarts the law of development, which is the law of *selection*. It preserves what is ripe for destruction; it fights on behalf of life's disinherited and condemned; through the abundance of failures of every kind that it *holds fast* in life, it gives life itself a gloomy and questionable aspect. People have dared to call pity a virtue (—in every *noble* morality it counts as weakness—); they have gone further and made it *the* virtue, the ground and origin of all virtues—though only, as we must always keep in mind, from the standpoint of a philosophy that was nihilistic, that inscribed the *negation of life* on its banner. Schopenhauer was right in this: through pity, life is negated, made *more worthy of negation*—pity is the *practice* of nihilism. To say it again: this depressive and contagious instinct thwarts those instincts directed toward preserving life and enhancing its value: as a *multiplier* of misery and as a *preserver* of everything miserable, it is a chief instrument for intensifying *decadence*—pity persuades us toward *nothingness*!… People do not say \"nothingness\": instead they say \"the beyond\"; or \"God\"; or \"*true* life\"; or nirvana, redemption, blessedness… This innocent rhetoric from the realm of religious-moral idiosyncrasy at once appears *far less innocent* once we grasp *what* tendency is wrapping itself here in the mantle of sublime words: the tendency *hostile to life*. Schopenhauer was hostile to life: *that is why* pity became a virtue for him… Aristotle, as we know, saw pity as a morbid and dangerous condition that one would do well to treat now and then with a purgative: he understood tragedy as a purgative. From the standpoint of life's instinct, we would indeed have to seek a means of puncturing such a morbid and dangerous accumulation of pity as the case of Schopenhauer represents (and unfortunately our entire literary and artistic *decadence* as well, from St. Petersburg to Paris, from Tolstoy to Wagner): so that it *bursts*… Nothing is more unhealthy, amid our unhealthy modernity, than Christian pity. *To be a physician here*, to be relentless *here*, to wield the knife *here*—that belongs to *us*, that is *our* kind of love of humanity, that is what makes *us* philosophers, us Hyperboreans!—\n\n[8]\n\nIt is necessary to say *whom* we feel to be our opposite—the theologians and everything with theologians' blood in its veins—our entire philosophy… One must have seen this calamity at close range; better still, one must have experienced it *oneself*, must have almost perished from it, to stop treating this as a joke—(the freethinking of our gentlemen natural scientists and physiologists is a joke in my eyes—they lack passion in these matters, the *suffering* they entail—). That poisoning reaches much further than people think: I have rediscovered the theologian's instinct of arrogance wherever people today feel themselves to be \"idealists\"—wherever, by virtue of a higher descent, they claim the right to look upon reality from above and as strangers… Like the priest, the idealist holds all the great concepts in his hand (—and not only in his hand!); with benevolent contempt he plays them off against \"understanding,\" the \"senses,\" \"honors,\" \"good living,\" \"science\"; he sees such things *beneath* him, as harmful and seductive forces above which \"the spirit\" hovers in pure self-contained being—as though humility, chastity, poverty, in a word *holiness*, had not done life unspeakably more harm than any horrors and vices… Pure spirit is pure lie… As long as the priest still counts as a *higher* kind of human being, this *negator*, slanderer, poisoner of life by *profession*, there is no answer to the question: what *is* truth? Truth has already been turned on its head when the conscious advocate of nothingness and negation counts as the representative of \"truth\"…\n\n[9]\n\nI wage war on this theologian's instinct: I found its traces everywhere. Anyone with theologians' blood in his veins stands from the outset in a crooked and dishonest relation to all things. The pathos that develops from this calls itself *faith*: closing one's eyes to oneself once and for all, so as not to suffer at the sight of incurable falsity. One makes a morality, a virtue, a holiness for oneself out of this faulty view of all things; one attaches a good conscience to seeing *falsely*—one demands that no *other* way of seeing be allowed any value, having made one's own sacrosanct with the names \"God,\" \"redemption,\" \"eternity.\" Wherever I dug, I unearthed the theologian's instinct: it is the most widespread, the truly *subterranean* form of falsity on earth. What a theologian feels to be true *must* be false: one has almost a criterion of truth in that. It is his deepest instinct of self-preservation that forbids reality from being honored, or even heard, at any point. As far as the theologian's influence reaches, *value judgment* is turned on its head, the concepts \"true\" and \"false\" are necessarily reversed: what harms life most is called \"true\" here; what elevates, enhances, affirms, justifies it and makes it triumph is called \"false\"… When theologians reach for power through the \"conscience\" of princes (*or* of peoples—), let us not doubt *what* is really happening each time: the will to the end, the *nihilistic* will, wills power…\n\n[10]\n\nAmong Germans, people understand at once when I say that philosophy is corrupted by theologians' blood. The Protestant pastor is the grandfather of German philosophy, Protestantism itself its *original sin*. Definition of Protestantism: paralysis of one side of Christianity—*and* of reason… One need only say \"Tübingen Seminary\" to grasp *what* German philosophy is at bottom—a *cunning* theology… The Swabians are the best liars in Germany; they lie innocently… What explains the jubilation that swept through the German scholarly world at the appearance of *Kant*—a world made up three-quarters of pastors' and teachers' sons—what explains the German conviction, still echoed today, that Kant marks a turn for the *better*? The theologian's instinct in the German scholar divined *what* was now possible again… A back way to the old ideal lay open; the concept of the \"*true* world,\" the concept of morality as the essence of the world (—the two most pernicious errors there are!), were now, thanks to a shrewdly cunning skepticism, if not provable, at least no longer *refutable*… Reason, the *jurisdiction* of reason, does not reach that far… Reality had been made into an \"appearance\"; a completely *fabricated* world, the world of being, had been made into reality… Kant's success is merely a theologian's success: Kant, like Luther, like Leibniz, was one more brake on German honesty, which is none too sure-footed to begin with——\n\n### Sections 11–20\n\n[11]\n\nOne more word against Kant as a *moralist*. A virtue must be *our* invention, *our* most personal self-defense and necessity: in any other sense it is merely a danger. Whatever does not sustain our life *harms* it: a virtue practiced merely out of respect for the concept \"virtue,\" as Kant wanted, is harmful. \"Virtue,\" \"duty,\" the \"good in itself,\" goodness characterized by impersonality and universal validity—phantoms in which decline, the final enfeeblement of life, the Chinese mentality of Königsberg find expression. The deepest laws of preservation and growth command the opposite: that each person invent *his own* virtue, *his own* categorical imperative. A people perishes when it confuses *its own* duty with the concept of duty in general. Nothing ruins us more deeply, more inwardly, than any \"impersonal\" duty, any sacrifice before the Moloch of abstraction.—To think that Kant's categorical imperative was not felt to be *a danger to life*!… The theologian's instinct alone took it under its protection!—An action compelled by the instinct of life finds in pleasure its proof of being a *right* action: and that nihilist with Christian-dogmatic entrails understood pleasure as an *objection*… What destroys more quickly than working, thinking, feeling without inner necessity, without a deeply personal choice, without *pleasure*? As an automaton of \"duty\"? It is nothing less than the *recipe* for *decadence*, even for idiocy… Kant became an idiot.—And this man was *Goethe's* contemporary! This calamitous spider passed for *the German* philosopher—still does!… I take care not to say what I think of the Germans… Did Kant not see in the French Revolution the transition from the inorganic form of the state to the *organic*? Did he not ask himself whether there was an event that could be explained in no other way than by a moral disposition in humanity, so that through it humanity's \"tendency toward the good\" would be *proved* once and for all? Kant's answer: \"That is the Revolution.\" An instinct that goes wrong in each and every thing, *anti-nature* as instinct, German *decadence* as philosophy—*that is Kant*!—\n\n[12]\n\nI set aside a few skeptics, the decent type in the history of philosophy: but the rest do not know the first demands of intellectual honesty. All these great enthusiasts and prodigies behave like little women—they already take \"beautiful feelings\" for arguments, the \"heaving bosom\" for a bellows of divinity, conviction for a *criterion* of truth. Finally even Kant, in his \"German\" innocence, tried to dress this form of corruption, this lack of intellectual conscience, in scientific clothes under the concept \"practical reason\": he expressly invented a reason for the case in which one need not bother with reason, namely, when morality, when the sublime demand \"you shall\" makes itself heard. If we consider that among almost all peoples the philosopher is merely a further development of the priestly type, this inheritance from the priest, *counterfeiting before oneself*, ceases to surprise us. When one has holy tasks—for example, to improve, save, redeem humanity—when one carries divinity in one's breast, is the mouthpiece of imperatives from beyond, then such a mission already places one outside all merely rational valuations—already sanctified *oneself* by such a task, already oneself the type of a higher order!… What does a priest care about *science*! He stands too high for that!—And until now the priest has *ruled*!—He *determined* the concepts \"true\" and \"untrue\"!…\n\n[13]\n\nLet us not underestimate this: *we ourselves*, we free spirits, are already a \"revaluation of all values,\" an *embodied* declaration of war and victory against all the old concepts of \"true\" and \"untrue.\" The most valuable insights are found last; but the most valuable insights are the *methods*. *All* the methods, *all* the presuppositions of our present scientific practice have had the deepest contempt leveled against them for millennia: on their account one was excluded from the company of \"respectable\" people—one counted as an \"enemy of God,\" a despiser of truth, a \"possessed\" person. As a scientific mind, one was a Chandala… We have had the whole pathos of humanity against us—its concept of what truth *ought to be*, of what service to truth *ought to be*: every \"you shall\" has so far been directed *against* us… Our objects, our practices, our quiet, cautious, distrustful manner—all this seemed to humanity utterly unworthy and contemptible.—In the end, one might with some fairness ask whether it was not really an *aesthetic* taste that kept humanity blind for so long: it demanded a *picturesque* effect from truth; likewise it demanded that the seeker of knowledge make a powerful impression on the senses. Our *modesty* offended its taste longest of all… Oh, how they divined that, those turkeys of God——\n\n[14]\n\nWe have learned differently. We have become more modest in every respect. We no longer derive the human being from \"spirit,\" from \"divinity\"; we have placed him back among the animals. We regard him as the strongest animal because he is the most cunning: his intellectuality is a consequence of this. On the other hand, we resist a vanity that would like to make itself heard here too: as though the human being had been the great ulterior purpose of animal evolution. He is by no means the crown of creation: every being beside him stands on an equal level of perfection… And in saying this, we still say too much: relatively speaking, the human being is the most ill-formed animal, the sickliest, the one that has strayed most dangerously from its instincts—admittedly, with all that, also the *most interesting*!—As for animals, Descartes was the first, with admirable boldness, to venture the thought of understanding the animal as a *machine*: our entire physiology strives to prove this proposition. Nor, logically, do we set the human being apart, as Descartes still did: whatever is understood about the human being today extends precisely as far as he is understood as a machine. Formerly, the human being was given \"free will\" as his dowry from a higher order: today we have taken even will away from him, in the sense that it must no longer be understood as a faculty. The old word \"will\" serves only to designate a resultant, a kind of individual reaction that necessarily follows a multitude of partly conflicting, partly concordant stimuli—the will no longer \"acts,\" no longer \"moves\"… Formerly, people saw in human consciousness, in \"spirit,\" proof of a higher descent, of divinity; to *perfect* the human being, they advised him to draw his senses into himself like a turtle, to cease all intercourse with earthly things, to cast off the mortal shell: then the essential part of him remained, \"pure spirit.\" We have thought better of this too: becoming conscious, \"spirit,\" now counts for us precisely as a symptom of the organism's relative imperfection, as experimenting, groping, missing the mark, as a toil that consumes an unnecessary amount of nervous energy—we deny that anything can be made perfect as long as it is still being done consciously. \"Pure spirit\" is pure stupidity: if we subtract the nervous system and the senses, the \"mortal shell,\" then *our calculation is wrong*—nothing more!…\n\n[15]\n\nIn Christianity, neither morality nor religion touches reality at any point. Nothing but imaginary *causes* (\"God,\" \"soul,\" \"I,\" \"spirit,\" \"free will\"—or even \"unfree will\"); nothing but imaginary *effects* (\"sin,\" \"redemption,\" \"grace,\" \"punishment,\" \"forgiveness of sin\"). An intercourse between imaginary *beings* (\"God,\" \"spirits,\" \"souls\"); an imaginary *natural science* (anthropocentric; a complete absence of the concept of natural causes); an imaginary *psychology* (nothing but misunderstandings of oneself, interpretations of pleasant or unpleasant general feelings—for example, the states of the *sympathetic nerve*—with the aid of the sign language of religious-moral idiosyncrasy—\"repentance,\" \"pangs of conscience,\" \"the devil's temptation,\" \"the nearness of God\"); an imaginary *teleology* (\"the kingdom of God,\" \"the Last Judgment,\" \"eternal life\").—This pure *world of fiction* differs greatly to its disadvantage from the dream world, in that the latter *reflects* reality, while the former falsifies, devalues, negates reality. Once the concept \"nature\" had been invented as the opposite of \"God,\" \"natural\" had to become the word for \"reprehensible\"—that whole world of fiction has its root in *hatred* of the natural (—of reality!—); it is the expression of a deep unease in the face of what is real… *But that explains everything*. Who alone has reasons to *lie his way out* of reality? Whoever *suffers* from it. But to suffer from reality means to be a *failed* reality… The preponderance of feelings of displeasure over feelings of pleasure is the *cause* of a fictitious morality and religion: such a preponderance, however, supplies the formula for *decadence*…\n\n[16]\n\nA critique of the *Christian concept of God* compels the same conclusion.—A people that still believes in itself still has its own god. In him it reveres the conditions through which it holds the upper hand, its virtues—it projects its delight in itself, its feeling of power, into a being whom it can thank for them. Whoever is rich wants to give; a proud people needs a god in order to *sacrifice*… Religion, on these assumptions, is a form of gratitude. One is grateful for oneself: for that, one needs a god.—Such a god must be able to help and harm, must be able to be friend and enemy—he is admired in good and in evil alike. The *unnatural* castration of a god into a god of goodness alone would here lie beyond anything desirable. The evil god is as necessary as the good one: after all, one hardly owes one's own existence to tolerance, to benevolence toward humanity… What use would a god be who knew nothing of anger, revenge, envy, mockery, cunning, violence? Who perhaps did not even know the intoxicating *fervors* of victory and annihilation? One would not understand such a god: why have him?—Admittedly, when a people is perishing; when it feels its faith in the future, its hope of freedom, fading away for good; when submission enters its consciousness as the foremost advantage, the virtues of the subjected as the conditions of survival, then its god *must* change as well. He now becomes a cringing hypocrite, fearful, modest, advises \"peace of soul,\" hating no more, forbearance, \"love\" even toward friend and enemy. He moralizes incessantly; he crawls into the cave of every private virtue, becomes a god for everyone, becomes a private person, becomes a cosmopolitan… Formerly he represented a people, the strength of a people, everything aggressive and thirsty for power in a people's soul: now he is merely the good god… In fact, there is no other alternative for gods: *either* they are the will to power—and so long as they are, they will be gods of a people—*or* else incapacity for power—and then they necessarily become *good*…\n\n[17]\n\nWherever the will to power declines in any form, there is also, every time, a physiological regression, a *decadence*. The divinity of *decadence*, circumcised in its most virile virtues and drives, now necessarily becomes the god of the physiologically diminished, the weak. They do *not* call themselves the weak; they call themselves \"the good\"… No further hint is needed to understand at what moments in history the dualistic fiction of a good and an evil god first becomes possible. With the same instinct by which the subjected reduce their god to \"goodness in itself,\" they strike the good qualities out of their conquerors' god; they take revenge on their masters by *demonizing* their god.—The *good* god, just like the devil: both spawn of *decadence*.—How can anyone today still yield so far to the simplemindedness of Christian theologians as to decree with them that the further development of the concept of God from the \"God of Israel,\" from a people's god to the Christian God, the embodiment of all goodness, is *progress*?—But even Renan does it. As though Renan had a right to be simpleminded! The opposite stares us in the face. When the prerequisites of *ascending* life, when everything strong, brave, commanding, proud is eliminated from the concept of God; when, step by step, he sinks to the symbol of a staff for the weary, a saving anchor for all who are drowning; when he becomes the poor people's god, the sinners' god, the sick people's god *above all others*, and the predicate \"savior,\" \"redeemer\" is, as it were, all that *remains* as a divine predicate at all: *what* does such a transformation speak of? Such a *reduction* of the divine?—Admittedly, \"the kingdom of God\" has grown larger in the process. Formerly he had only his people, his \"chosen\" people. In the meantime, like his people themselves, he went abroad, took to wandering, and from then on could settle nowhere: until at last he made himself at home everywhere, the great cosmopolitan—until he won \"the great number\" and half the earth to his side. But the god of \"the great number,\" the democrat among gods, did not become a proud pagan god for all that: he remained a Jew, remained the god of hidden corners, the god of all the dark nooks and places, of all the unhealthy quarters of the whole world!… His world empire remains an underworld empire, a hospital, a *cellar* empire, a ghetto empire… And he himself, so pale, so weak, so *decadent*… Even the palest of the pale became his masters, the gentlemen metaphysicians, the albinos of concepts. They spun their webs around him so long that, hypnotized by their movements, he himself became a spider, himself a metaphysician. Now he spun the world out of himself again—*in the guise of Spinoza*—now he transfigured himself into something ever thinner and paler, became \"ideal,\" became \"pure spirit,\" became \"the *absolute*,\" became \"thing in itself\"… *Decline of a god*: God became \"thing in itself\"…\n\n[18]\n\nThe Christian concept of God—God as god of the sick, God as spider, God as spirit—is one of the most corrupt concepts of God ever attained on earth; perhaps it even marks the low-water line in the descending development of the divine type. God degenerated into the *contradiction of life*, instead of being its transfiguration and eternal *Yes*! In God, enmity declared against life, nature, the will to life! God the formula for every slander of \"this world,\" for every lie about \"the beyond\"! In God, nothingness deified, the will to nothingness canonized!…\n\n[19]\n\nThat the strong races of northern Europe have not cast off the Christian God truly does no credit to their religious gifts—not to mention their taste. They *ought* to have done away with such a sickly and senile spawn of *decadence*. But a curse lies upon them for not having done away with him: they have taken sickness, age, contradiction into all their instincts—since then they have *created* no god! Almost two millennia and not a single new god! Instead, still here, as though rightfully existing, as though the *last word* and *highest achievement* of the god-forming power, of the *creative spirit* in the human being, this pitiable god of Christian monotono-theism! This hybrid product of decay made of zero, concept, and contradiction, in which all the instincts of *decadence*, all the soul's cowardice and weariness, find their sanction!——\n\n[20]\n\nIn condemning Christianity, I would not wish to have wronged a kindred religion that even surpasses it in number of adherents: *Buddhism*. Both belong together as nihilistic religions—they are religions of *decadence*—yet both are separated from one another in the most remarkable way. For the fact that we can now *compare* them, the critic of Christianity is deeply grateful to the scholars of India.—Buddhism is a hundred times more realistic than Christianity—it carries in its blood the inheritance of an objective and cool way of posing problems; it comes *after* a philosophical movement lasting hundreds of years; the concept \"God\" has already been disposed of when it arrives. Buddhism is the only truly *positivistic* religion history shows us, even in its theory of knowledge (a strict phenomenalism—); it no longer says \"struggle against *sin*,\" but, fully granting reality its due, \"struggle against *suffering*.\" It has—and this distinguishes it profoundly from Christianity—already left behind the self-deception of moral concepts; in my language, it stands *beyond* good and evil.—The *two* physiological facts on which it rests and which it keeps in view are: *first*, an excessive sensory excitability that expresses itself as a refined capacity for pain; *then*, an overintellectualization, a life spent too long in concepts and logical procedures, under which the personal instinct has suffered to the advantage of the \"impersonal\" (—both conditions that at least some of my readers, the \"objective\" ones, will know from experience, as I do myself). On the basis of these physiological conditions, a *depression* has arisen: Buddha proceeds against it with hygienic measures. He prescribes life in the open air, the wandering life; moderation and selectiveness in diet; caution toward all alcoholic drinks; likewise caution toward all emotions that stir the bile, that heat the blood; *no worry*, either for oneself or for others. He calls for ideas that either bring calm or cheerfulness—he devises means of breaking the habit of the others. He understands goodness, being kind, as conducive to health. *Prayer* is ruled out, as is *asceticism*; no categorical imperative, no *compulsion* at all, not even within the monastic community (—one can leave again—). All these would be means of intensifying that excessive excitability. For the very same reason, he calls for no struggle against those who think differently; his teaching resists nothing more than the feeling of revenge, of aversion, of *resentment* (—\"enmity does not come to an end through enmity\": the moving refrain of all Buddhism…). And rightly so: precisely these emotions would be utterly *unhealthy* in view of the chief aim of this regimen. The intellectual fatigue he finds, expressed in an excessive \"objectivity\" (that is, a weakening of individual interest, a loss of center of gravity, of \"egoism\"), he combats by rigorously directing even the most intellectual interests back to the *person*. In Buddha's teaching egoism becomes duty: \"one thing is needed,\" \"how can *you* free yourself from suffering?\" regulate and limit the intellectual diet (—one may perhaps recall that Athenian who likewise waged war on pure \"scientific practice,\" Socrates, who elevated personal egoism into a morality even in the realm of problems).\n\n### Sections 21–30\n\n[21]\n\nBuddhism presupposes a very mild climate, great gentleness and liberality of manners, *no militarism*; it also presupposes that the movement has its center among the higher and even the learned classes. Serenity, stillness, freedom from desire are sought as the highest goal, and that goal is *attained*. Buddhism is not a religion in which one merely aspires to perfection: perfection is the normal case.—\n\nIn Christianity the instincts of the subjugated and oppressed come to the fore: it is the lowest classes that seek their salvation in it. Here the casuistry of sin, self-criticism, the inquisition of conscience are practiced as an *occupation*, a remedy for boredom; here the emotion directed toward a *powerful being* called “God” is constantly sustained (through prayer); here the highest is held to be unattainable, a gift, “grace.” Here, too, openness is absent; the hiding place, the dark room is Christian. Here the body is despised, hygiene rejected as sensuality; the Church resists even cleanliness (—the first Christian measure after the expulsion of the Moors was to close the public baths, of which Cordova alone possessed 270). A certain taste for cruelty toward oneself and others is Christian; so are hatred of those who think differently and the will to persecute. Gloomy and agitating ideas stand in the foreground; the states most ardently desired, designated by the loftiest names, are epileptoid; the diet is chosen to foster morbid manifestations and overstimulate the nerves. Christian is the mortal enmity toward the lords of the earth, toward the “noble”—and at the same time a concealed, secret rivalry (—one leaves them the “body,” one wants *only* the “soul”…). Christian is hatred of the *intellect*, of pride, courage, freedom, the intellect's *unbridled liberty*; Christian is hatred of the *senses*, of the pleasures of the *senses*, of pleasure altogether…\n\n[22]\n\nWhen Christianity left its first soil, the lowest classes, the *underworld* of the ancient world, and set out in pursuit of power among barbarian peoples, it no longer presupposed *weary* human beings, but people inwardly savage and tearing themselves apart—the strong human being, but the one who had gone wrong. Dissatisfaction with oneself, suffering from oneself, is here *not*, as with the Buddhist, an excessive susceptibility to irritation and pain, but rather its opposite: an overpowering craving to inflict pain, to discharge inward tension in hostile actions and ideas. Christianity needed *barbaric* concepts and values to master barbarians: such are the sacrifice of the firstborn, the drinking of blood in Communion, contempt for the intellect and culture; torture in every form, physical and nonphysical; the great pomp of worship. Buddhism is a religion for *late* human beings, for kindly, gentle races grown excessively intellectual, who feel pain too easily (—Europe is still far from ripe for it—): it leads them back to peace and serenity, to a diet for the intellect, to a certain hardening of the body. Christianity seeks to master *beasts of prey*; its means is to make them *sick*—weakening is the Christian prescription for *taming*, for “civilization.” Buddhism is a religion for the end and the weariness of civilization; Christianity does not even find civilization already in existence—under certain circumstances it establishes it.\n\n[23]\n\nBuddhism, to say it once more, is a hundred times colder, more truthful, more objective. It no longer needs to make its suffering, its susceptibility to pain, *respectable* by interpreting it as sin—it simply says what it thinks: “I suffer.” To the barbarian, by contrast, suffering is in itself nothing respectable: he first needs an interpretation before he can admit to himself *that* he suffers (his instinct points him rather toward denying suffering, toward bearing it in silence). Here the word “devil” was a blessing: one had an overpowering and terrible enemy—one did not need to be ashamed of suffering at the hands of such an enemy.—\n\nChristianity has certain subtleties at its foundation that belong to the Orient. Above all, it knows that whether something is true is in itself quite immaterial, but that it is of the utmost importance *insofar as* it is believed to be true. Truth and the *belief* that something is true: two worlds of interest lying far apart, almost *opposing* worlds—one reaches each of them by fundamentally different paths. To know this—this almost *makes* the sage in the Orient: the Brahmans understand it so, as does Plato, as does every disciple of esoteric wisdom. If, for example, there is *happiness* in believing oneself redeemed from sin, then its prerequisite is *not* that a person should be sinful, but that he should *feel* sinful. But if *faith* is needed above all else, then reason, knowledge, inquiry must be discredited: the path to truth becomes the *forbidden* path.—A strong *hope* is a far greater *stimulant* to life than any single happiness that actually comes to pass. Sufferers must be sustained by a hope that no reality can contradict—that cannot be *disposed of* by fulfillment: a hope of the beyond. (Precisely because of this capacity to keep the unfortunate waiting, the Greeks considered hope the evil of evils, the truly *treacherous* evil: it remained behind in the jar of evils.)—For *love* to be possible, God must be a person; for the lowest instincts to have a say, God must be young. A handsome saint must be brought to the foreground for the ardor of women, a Mary for that of men. This presupposes that Christianity seeks mastery on soil where cults of Aphrodite or Adonis have already determined the *concept* of worship. The demand for *chastity* intensifies the vehemence and inwardness of the religious instinct—it makes worship warmer, more rapturous, more soulful.—Love is the state in which a person most sees things as they are *not*. The power of illusion is then at its height, as is the power that sweetens, that *transfigures*. In love one endures more than otherwise, one tolerates everything. The task was to invent a religion in which one can love: with that one has passed beyond the worst in life—one no longer sees it at all.—So much for the three Christian virtues, faith, love, hope: I call them the three Christian *stratagems*.—Buddhism is too late, too positivistic, to be cunning in this way any longer.—\n\n[24]\n\nHere I touch only on the problem of Christianity's *origin*. The *first* proposition toward its solution is this: Christianity can be understood only through the soil from which it grew—it is *not* a countermovement against the Jewish instinct, it is that instinct's very consistency, one further conclusion in its fear-inspiring logic. In the Redeemer's formula: “Salvation comes from the Jews.”—The *second* proposition is this: the psychological type of the Galilean is still recognizable, but only in its complete degeneration (which is at once mutilation and overloading with alien traits—) could it serve the purpose for which it was employed, as the type of a *redeemer* of humanity:—\n\nThe Jews are the most remarkable people in world history because, confronted with the question of being or nonbeing, they chose being *at any price*, with a perfectly uncanny awareness: that price was the radical *falsification* of all nature, all naturalness, all reality, of the entire inner world no less than the outer. They defined themselves *in opposition to* all the conditions under which a people had hitherto been able to live, had been *allowed* to live; out of themselves they created a concept opposed to *natural* conditions—one after another they irreparably inverted religion, worship, morality, history, psychology into *contradictions of their natural values*. We encounter the same phenomenon once again, on an unspeakably magnified scale, though only as a copy—the Christian Church, compared with the “people of saints,” has no claim whatever to originality. Precisely for this reason, the Jews are the most *disastrous* people in world history: through their continuing influence they have made humanity so false that even today a Christian can feel anti-Jewish without understanding himself as the *ultimate Jewish consequence*.\n\nIn my “On the Genealogy of Morality,” I presented for the first time the psychological opposition between a *noble* morality and a morality of *resentment*, the latter springing *from the No* directed against the former: but this is Jewish-Christian morality through and through. To be able to say No to everything that represents the *ascending* movement of life, to flourishing, power, beauty, self-affirmation on earth, the instinct of *resentment*, become genius, had to invent *another* world from which that *affirmation of life* appeared as evil, as the reprehensible in itself. Reckoned psychologically, the Jewish people are a people of the most tenacious vitality, who, placed under impossible conditions, voluntarily, out of the profoundest cunning of self-preservation, take the side of all the instincts of *decadence*—*not* because they were ruled by them, but because they divined in them a power with which to prevail *against* “the world.” The Jews are the opposite of all *decadents*: they had to *portray* them to the point of illusion; with an *unsurpassable degree* of theatrical genius, they knew how to place themselves at the head of all movements of *decadence* (—as the Christianity of *Paul*—), in order to create from them something stronger than any *Yes-saying* party of life. For the kind of human being that seeks power in Judaism and Christianity, a *priestly* kind, *decadence* is only a *means*: this kind of human being has a vital interest in making humanity *sick* and in twisting the concepts “good” and “evil,” “true” and “false” into a meaning dangerous to life and slanderous of the world.—\n\n[25]\n\nThe history of Israel is invaluable as the typical history of every *denaturing* of natural values: I indicate five facts from it. Originally, above all in the age of the monarchy, Israel too stood in the *right* relation to all things, that is, the natural one. Its Yahweh was the expression of its consciousness of power, its delight in itself, its hope for itself: in him it expected victory and salvation; with him it trusted nature to give what the people needed—above all, rain. Yahweh is the God of Israel and *consequently* the God of justice: the logic of every people that holds power and has a good conscience about it. In festival worship these two sides of a people's self-affirmation find expression: it is grateful for the great strokes of destiny through which it rose to supremacy, it is grateful for the cycle of the year and all good fortune in livestock and agriculture.—This state of things long remained the ideal, even when it had been sadly done away with: anarchy within, the Assyrian without. But the people clung, as the highest object of desire, to that vision of a king who is a good soldier and a stern judge: above all, that typical prophet (that is, critic and satirist of the moment), Isaiah.—But every hope remained unfulfilled. The old God *could* no longer do any of the things he once could. They should have let him go. What happened? They *changed* the concept of him—they *denatured* it: at this price they held on to him.—Yahweh, the God of “justice”—*no longer* one with Israel, an expression of the people's sense of itself: now only a God on conditions… The concept of him becomes a tool in the hands of priestly agitators, who now interpret all good fortune as a reward, all misfortune as punishment for disobedience to God, for “sin”: that most mendacious manner of interpretation, an allegedly “moral world order,” with which the natural concepts “cause” and “effect” are turned upside down once and for all. Once one has eliminated natural causality from the world by means of reward and punishment, one needs an *unnatural* causality: all the rest of the unnatural now follows. A God who *demands*—in place of a God who helps, who finds a way, who is at bottom the word for every happy inspiration of courage and self-confidence… Morality no longer the expression of a people's conditions of life and growth, no longer its deepest instinct of life, but grown abstract, grown into an opposition to life—morality as a systematic corruption of the imagination, as the “evil eye” for all things. *What* is Jewish morality, *what* is Christian morality? Chance robbed of its innocence; misfortune sullied with the concept “sin”; well-being as danger, as “temptation”; physiological distress poisoned with the gnawing worm of conscience…\n\n[26]\n\nThe concept of God falsified; the concept of morality falsified—the Jewish priesthood did not stop there. The entire *history* of Israel was of no use: away with it!—These priests brought off that marvel of falsification whose documents lie before us in a good part of the Bible: with an unparalleled contempt for every tradition, every historical reality, they *translated their own people's past into religious terms*, that is, made it into a stupid mechanism of salvation, of guilt before Yahweh and punishment, of piety toward Yahweh and reward. We would feel this most shameful act of historical falsification far more painfully had not millennia of *ecclesiastical* interpretation of history made us almost insensible to the demands of integrity *in historical matters*. And the philosophers seconded the Church: the *lie* of the “moral world order” runs through the entire development even of modern philosophy. What does “moral world order” mean? That there is, once and for all, a will of God concerning what human beings should do and leave undone; that the value of a people, of an individual, is measured by how much or how little the will of God is obeyed; that in the destinies of a people, of an individual, the will of God proves itself *sovereign*, that is, punishing and rewarding according to the degree of obedience.—The *reality* in place of this pitiable lie is this: a parasitic kind of human being, thriving only at the expense of all the healthy formations of life, the *priest*, abuses the name of God: he calls a state of society in which the priest determines the value of things “the kingdom of God”; he calls the means by which such a state is attained or maintained “the will of God”; with cold-blooded cynicism, he measures peoples, ages, individuals by whether they served or resisted the priest's supremacy. Watch them at work: in the hands of the Jewish priests, the *great* age in Israel's history became an age of decline; exile, the long misfortune, turned into an *eternal punishment* for the great age—an age in which the priest was still nothing. As their needs dictated, they made the mighty, *very free-spirited* figures of Israel's history into wretched cringers and sanctimonious hypocrites or into “godless men”; they simplified the psychology of every great event into the idiot's formula “obedience *or* disobedience to God.”—A step further: the “will of God” (that is, the conditions preserving the priest's power) must be *known*—for this purpose a “revelation” is needed. In plain language: a great literary forgery becomes necessary, a “holy scripture” is discovered—with all the pomp of the priesthood, with days of penance and cries of lamentation over the long “sin,” it is made public. The “will of God” had long been established: all the mischief lies in people's estrangement from “holy scripture”… The “will of God” had already been revealed to Moses… What had happened? The priest had formulated once and for all, with rigor, with pedantry, down to the taxes great and small that had to be paid to him (—not forgetting the choicest cuts of meat: for the priest is a beefsteak-guzzler), *what he wants to have*, “what the will of God is”… From now on, all the things of life are so arranged that the priest is *indispensable everywhere*; at every natural occurrence in life, at birth, marriage, sickness, death, not to mention “sacrifice” (the meal), the holy parasite appears to *denature* them—in his language, to “sanctify” them… For this must be understood: every *natural* custom, every natural institution (state, judicial system, marriage, care of the sick and poor), every demand inspired by the instinct of life, in short, everything that has its value *in itself*, is made fundamentally worthless, *hostile* to value, by the parasitism of the priest (or of the “moral world order”): it subsequently needs a sanction—a *value-bestowing* power is required, one that denies the nature within it and only thereby *creates* a value… The priest devalues, *desecrates* nature: only at this price does he exist at all.—Disobedience to God, that is, to the priest, to “the law,” now receives the name “sin”; the means of becoming “reconciled with God” again are, as is only fitting, means by which submission to the priest is guaranteed still more thoroughly: the priest alone “redeems”… Reckoned psychologically, “sins” become indispensable in every society organized by priests: they are the true levers of power; the priest *lives* on sins, he needs people to “sin”… Supreme principle: “God forgives whoever does penance”—in plain language: *whoever submits to the priest*.—\n\n[27]\n\nOn so *false* a soil, where everything natural, every natural value, every *reality* had the deepest instincts of the ruling class against it, *Christianity* grew up, a form of mortal enmity toward reality that has never yet been surpassed. The “holy people,” which had retained only priestly values, only priestly words for all things, and with a consistency of inference capable of inspiring fear had severed from itself everything else on earth that possessed power as “unholy,” as “world,” as “sin”—this people produced a final formula for its instinct, logical to the point of self-negation: as *Christianity*, it denied even the last form of reality, the “holy people,” the “people of the chosen,” *Jewish* reality itself. The case is of the first order: the little insurgent movement baptized with the name of Jesus of Nazareth is the Jewish instinct *once again*—in other words, the priestly instinct that can no longer tolerate the priest as a reality, the invention of a still more *abstract* form of existence, a still more *unreal* vision of the world than the organization of a church requires. Christianity *negates* the Church…\n\nI cannot see what the uprising of which Jesus has been understood or *misunderstood* as the instigator was directed against, if it was not an uprising against the Jewish Church—“Church” taken in precisely the sense in which we use the word today. It was an uprising against “the good and the just,” against “the saints of Israel,” against the hierarchy of society—*not* against its corruption, but against caste, privilege, order, formula; it was *disbelief* in the “higher human beings,” the *No* spoken against everything that was priest and theologian. But the hierarchy thus called into question, if only for a moment, was the structure on stilts upon which the Jewish people still survived at all, in the midst of “water”—the hard-won *last* possibility of survival, the remnant of its separate political existence: an attack on it was an attack on the deepest instinct of a people, on the most tenacious popular will to life that has ever existed on earth. This holy anarchist, who called the lowly, the outcasts and “sinners,” the *Chandala* within Judaism, to resist the established order—with language that, if the Gospels were to be trusted, would still lead to Siberia today—was a political criminal, insofar as political criminals were possible at all in an *absurdly unpolitical* community. This brought him to the cross: the proof is the inscription on the cross. He died for *his own* guilt—there is no ground whatever for the claim, however often it has been made, that he died for the guilt of others.—\n\n[28]\n\nAn entirely different question is whether he was conscious of such an opposition at all—whether he was not merely *felt* to be that opposition. And only here do I touch on the problem of the *psychology of the Redeemer*.—I confess that I read few books with such difficulties as the Gospels. These difficulties are different from those whose demonstration marked one of the most unforgettable triumphs of the German intellect's scholarly curiosity. Far distant is the time when I too, like every young scholar, savored the work of the incomparable Strauss with the knowing slowness of a sophisticated philologist. I was twenty years old then: now I am too serious for that. What do the contradictions of “tradition” matter to me? How can one call saints' legends “tradition” at all! Stories of saints are the most dubious literature in existence: to apply the scientific method to them, *when no other documents are available*, seems to me doomed from the outset—mere scholarly idleness…\n\n[29]\n\nWhat concerns *me* is the psychological type of the Redeemer. It *could*, after all, be contained in the Gospels despite the Gospels, however mutilated or overloaded with alien traits: just as that of Francis of Assisi is preserved in his legends despite his legends. *Not* the truth about what he did, what he said, how he actually died: but the question *whether* his type can still be conceived at all, whether it has been “handed down”?—The attempts I know to read even the *history* of a “soul” out of the Gospels seem to me evidence of an abominable psychological frivolity. Mr. Renan, that buffoon *in psychological matters*, has introduced into his explanation of the type Jesus the two most *inappropriate* concepts conceivable here: the concept *genius* and the concept *hero* (“*hero*”). But if anything is unevangelical, it is the concept of the hero. Precisely the opposite of all struggle, of all feeling oneself in combat, has here become instinct: the incapacity for resistance here becomes morality (“do not resist evil!”—the deepest saying in the Gospels, their key in a certain sense), blessedness in peace, in gentleness, in the *inability* to be an enemy. What does “glad tidings” mean? True life, eternal life, has been found—it is not promised, it is here, it is *within you*: as life in love, in love without qualification or exclusion, without distance. Everyone is the child of God—Jesus claims nothing whatever for himself alone—as a child of God, everyone is equal to everyone else… To make a *hero* of Jesus!—And what a misunderstanding the word “genius” is! Our whole concept, our cultural concept “spirit,” has no meaning at all in the world in which Jesus lives. Speaking with the rigor of a physiologist, an entirely different word would be more appropriate here: the word idiot. We know a condition of morbid irritability of the *sense of touch*, which then recoils from every contact, from every grasping of a solid object. Follow such a physiological *disposition* through to its ultimate logic—as an instinctive hatred of *every* reality, as a flight into the “intangible,” the “incomprehensible,” as an aversion to every formula, every concept of time and space, to everything fixed, everything that is custom, institution, Church, as being at home in a world no kind of reality touches any longer, a merely “inner” world, a “true” world, an “eternal” world… “The kingdom of God *is within you*”…\n\n[30]\n\n*Instinctive hatred of reality*: the consequence of an extreme susceptibility to suffering and irritation that no longer wishes to be “touched” at all, because it feels every touch too deeply.\n\n*The instinctive exclusion of all aversion, all enmity, all boundaries and distances in feeling*: the consequence of an extreme susceptibility to suffering and irritation that already feels every resistance, every necessity of resisting, as unbearable *displeasure* (that is, as *harmful*, as *counseled against* by the instinct of self-preservation), and knows blessedness (pleasure) only in no longer resisting anything or anyone, neither affliction nor evil—love as the sole, the *last* possibility of life…\n\nThese are the two *physiological realities* upon which, out of which, the doctrine of redemption grew. I call it a sublime further development of hedonism on a thoroughly morbid foundation. Its nearest relative, though with a great admixture of Greek vitality and nervous strength, remains Epicureanism, the pagan doctrine of redemption. Epicurus a *typical decadent*: first recognized as such by me.—The fear of pain, even of the infinitely small in pain—it *cannot* end otherwise than in a *religion of love*…\n\n### Sections 31–40\n\n[31]\n\nI have given my answer to the problem in advance. Its premise is that the type of the Redeemer has come down to us only in a gravely distorted form. This distortion is in itself highly probable: for several reasons such a type could not remain pure, complete, free of additions. Both the milieu in which this alien figure moved and, still more, the history, the *destiny* of the first Christian community must have left their traces upon him: from that history the type was retrospectively enriched with traits intelligible only in terms of warfare and the purposes of propaganda. That strange and sick world into which the Gospels lead us—a world as if from a Russian novel, in which the refuse of society, nervous disorders, and “childlike” idiocy seem to have arranged a rendezvous—must in any case have *coarsened* the type: the first disciples in particular first translated an existence wholly afloat in symbols and intangibilities into their own crudity, in order to understand anything of it at all—for them the type only *existed* after it had been molded into more familiar forms… The prophet, the Messiah, the future judge, the moral teacher, the miracle worker, John the Baptist—so many opportunities to misunderstand the type… Finally, let us not underestimate the *distinctive quality* of all great veneration, especially sectarian veneration: it effaces the original, often painfully alien traits and idiosyncrasies of the being revered—*it does not itself see them*. One must regret that no Dostoevsky lived near this most interesting *decadent*: I mean someone who knew how to feel the poignant fascination of such a mixture of the sublime, the sick, and the childlike.\n\nOne final point of view: as a type of *decadence*, the type *could* in fact have possessed a peculiar multiplicity and contradictoriness: such a possibility cannot be wholly excluded. Yet everything argues against it: in that case, precisely the tradition would have to be remarkably faithful and objective, whereas we have reasons to assume the opposite. As things stand, a contradiction gapes between the preacher on the mountain, by the lake, and in the meadows, whose appearance suggests a Buddha on very un-Indian soil, and that fanatic of attack, that mortal enemy of theologians and priests, whom Renan's malice glorified as “*the great master of irony*.” I myself do not doubt that the abundant measure of gall (and even of *wit*) overflowed onto the type of the master only from the agitated state of Christian propaganda: the unscrupulousness of all sectarians in making their master serve as their *defense* is amply known. When the first community needed a judging, quarrelsome, wrathful, maliciously hair-splitting theologian *against* theologians, it *created* its “God” to suit its need: just as it unhesitatingly put into his mouth those wholly unevangelical concepts it could no longer do without, the “Second Coming,” the “Last Judgment,” every kind of expectation and promise concerning time.—\n\n[32]\n\nI resist, to say it once more, the insertion of the fanatic into the type of the Redeemer: the word *imperious*, which Renan uses, alone *nullifies* the type. The “good tidings” are precisely that there are no longer any oppositions; the kingdom of heaven belongs to the *children*; the faith that speaks here is no hard-won faith—it is there, it is there from the beginning, it is, as it were, a childlikeness retreating into the realm of the mind. The case of delayed puberty, undeveloped in the organism as a consequence of degeneration, is familiar at least to physiologists.—Such a faith does not rage, does not rebuke, does not defend itself: it does not bring “the sword”—it has no inkling how it could ever divide. It does not prove itself, whether through miracles, through reward and promise, or indeed “through scripture”: it is itself at every moment its miracle, its reward, its proof, its “kingdom of God.” Nor does this faith formulate itself—it *lives*, it resists formulas. Admittedly, the accidents of surroundings, language, and prior education determine a certain range of concepts: earliest Christianity handles *only* Jewish-Semitic concepts (—eating and drinking at Communion belong here, that concept so grievously abused by the Church, like everything Jewish).\n\nBut one must beware of seeing in this anything more than a language of signs, a semiotics, an opportunity for parables. Precisely that no word is taken literally is this anti-realist's precondition for being able to speak at all. Among Indians he would have used the concepts of Sankhya, among Chinese those of Lao-tzu—and felt no difference.—With some latitude of expression, one could call Jesus a “free spirit”—he cares nothing for anything fixed: the word *kills*, everything fixed *kills*. The concept, the *experience* of “life,” in the sole form in which he knows it, resists in him every kind of word, formula, law, faith, dogma. He speaks only of the innermost: “life” or “truth” or “light” is his word for the innermost—everything else, all reality, all nature, language itself, has for him only the value of a sign, a parable.—One must on no account go astray here, however great the temptation lodged in Christian, which is to say *ecclesiastical*, prejudice: such a symbolist *in the fullest sense* stands outside all religion, all concepts of worship, all history, all natural science, all experience of the world, all knowledge, all politics, all psychology, all books, all art—his “knowledge” is precisely *pure folly*, unaware *that* any such things exist. *Culture* is not known to him even by hearsay; he has no need to struggle against it—he does not negate it… The same holds for the *state*, for the whole civic order and society, for *work*, for war—he has never had a reason to negate “the world,” he has never suspected the ecclesiastical concept “world”… *Negation* is precisely what is wholly impossible for him.—Likewise, dialectic is absent, as is the idea that a faith, a “truth,” could be proved by reasons (—*his* proofs are inner “lights,” inner feelings of pleasure and self-affirmations, nothing but “proofs of power”—). Such a teaching also *cannot* contradict: it does not comprehend at all that there are, that there *can* be, other teachings; it cannot even imagine a contrary judgment… Where it encounters one, it will mourn over “blindness” out of the deepest fellow feeling—for it sees the “light”—but raise no objection…\n\n[33]\n\nIn the whole psychology of the “Gospel,” the concept of guilt and punishment is absent; likewise the concept of reward. “Sin,” every relation of distance between God and humanity, is abolished—*precisely this is the “glad tidings.”* Blessedness is not promised, it is not tied to conditions: it is the *only* reality—the rest is signs by which to speak of it…\n\nThe *consequence* of such a state projects itself into a new *practice*, the truly evangelical practice. It is not a “faith” that distinguishes the Christian: the Christian acts, he distinguishes himself by a *different* way of acting. By offering no resistance, either in words or in his heart, to anyone who does him evil. By making no distinction between foreigners and natives, between Jews and non-Jews (“the neighbor” properly means the fellow believer, the Jew). By growing angry with no one, despising no one. By neither appearing in courts of law nor allowing himself to be called upon there (“do not swear oaths”). By not divorcing his wife under any circumstances, not even when her infidelity has been proved.—At bottom all *one* principle, all consequences of *one* instinct.—\n\nThe Redeemer's life was nothing other than *this* practice—his death was nothing else either… He no longer needed formulas, any ritual for communion with God—not even prayer. He has settled accounts with the whole Jewish doctrine of penance and reconciliation; he knows that it is solely the *practice* of life through which one feels “divine,” “blessed,” “evangelical,” at every moment a “child of God.” *Not* “penance,” *not* “prayer for forgiveness” are paths to God: *evangelical practice alone* leads to God, it precisely *is* “God”!—What the Gospel had *done away with* was the Judaism of the concepts “sin,” “forgiveness of sin,” “faith,” “redemption through faith”—the entire Jewish doctrine of the *Church* was negated in the “glad tidings.”\n\nThe deep instinct for how one must *live* in order to feel oneself “in heaven,” to feel oneself “eternal,” while with every other kind of conduct one feels oneself decidedly *not* “in heaven”: this alone is the psychological reality of “redemption.”—A new way of life, *not* a new faith…\n\n[34]\n\nIf I understand anything about this great symbolist, it is that he took only *inner* realities as realities, as “truths”—that he understood the rest, everything natural, temporal, spatial, historical, only as signs, as occasions for parables. The concept “the Son of Man” is not a concrete person belonging to history, something individual, unique, but an “eternal” fact, a psychological symbol redeemed from the concept of time. The same holds, once again and in the highest sense, for the *God* of this typical symbolist, for the “kingdom of God,” the “kingdom of heaven,” “being a child of God.” Nothing is more unchristian than the *ecclesiastical crudities* of a God as a *person*, of a “kingdom of God” that *comes*, of a “kingdom of heaven” *beyond*, of a “Son of God,” the *second person* of the Trinity. All this is—forgive me the expression—the *fist* in the eye—oh, and what an eye!—of the Gospel: a *world-historical cynicism* in its mockery of the symbol… Yet what is touched upon by the signs “Father” and “Son” is palpable—not to everyone, I admit: the word “Son” expresses *entry* into the feeling of the universal transfiguration of all things (blessedness); the word “Father,” *this feeling itself*, the feeling of eternity, of perfection.—I am ashamed to recall what the Church has made of this symbolism: has it not placed an Amphitryon story on the threshold of the Christian “faith”? And a dogma of the “immaculate conception” into the bargain?… *But with that it has defiled conception*——\n\nThe “kingdom of heaven” is a state of the heart—not something that comes “above the earth” or “after death.” The whole concept of natural death is *absent* from the Gospel: death is no bridge, no transition; it is absent because it belongs to an entirely different world, a merely apparent world, useful only for signs. The “hour of death” is *not* a Christian concept—the “hour,” time, physical life and its crises do not exist at all for the teacher of the “glad tidings”… The “kingdom of God” is nothing one awaits; it has no yesterday and no day after tomorrow, it does not come in “a thousand years”—it is an experience within a heart; it is everywhere, it is nowhere…\n\n[35]\n\nThis “bearer of glad tidings” died as he lived, as he *taught*—*not* to “redeem humanity,” but to show how one must live. It is the *practice* he left to humanity: his conduct before the judges, before the officers who seized him, before the accusers and every kind of slander and mockery—his conduct on the *cross*. He does not resist, he does not defend his rights, he takes no step to ward off the worst; more than that, *he provokes it*… And he pleads, he suffers, he loves *with* those, *in* those, who do him evil. The words to the *criminal* on the cross contain the whole Gospel. “This truly was a *divine* man, a child of God!”—says the criminal. “If you feel this”—answers the Redeemer—“*then you are in paradise*, then you are a child of God.” *Not* to defend oneself, *not* to grow angry, *not* to hold responsible… But not to resist the evil man either—to *love* him…\n\n[36]\n\n—Only we, we spirits who have *become free*, possess the prerequisite for understanding something that nineteen centuries have misunderstood—that integrity become instinct and passion which wages war on the “holy lie” even more than on any other lie… People were unspeakably far from our loving and cautious neutrality, from that discipline of the intellect which alone makes it possible to divine things so alien, so delicate: at every turn, with shameless selfishness, they wanted only *their own* advantage in it; out of the antithesis of the Gospel they built the *Church*…\n\nAnyone seeking signs that an ironic divinity has its fingers at work behind the great cosmic drama would find no small support in the *enormous question mark* called Christianity. That humanity kneels before the opposite of what was the origin, the meaning, the *justification* of the Gospel; that in the concept “Church” it has canonized precisely what the “bearer of glad tidings” felt to be *beneath* him, *behind* him—one searches in vain for a greater form of *world-historical irony*——\n\n[37]\n\n—Our age is proud of its historical sense: how could it persuade itself to believe the nonsense that Christianity begins with the *crude fable of the miracle worker and redeemer*—and that everything spiritual and symbolic is only a later development? On the contrary: the history of Christianity—beginning, indeed, with the death on the cross—is the history of the progressively coarser misunderstanding of an *original* symbolism. With every extension of Christianity to still broader, still cruder masses, who increasingly lacked the preconditions from which it was born, it became more necessary to *vulgarize* Christianity, to *barbarize* it—it swallowed the doctrines and rites of all the *underground* cults of the *Roman Empire*; it swallowed the nonsense of every kind of diseased reason. Christianity's fate lies in the necessity that its faith itself had to become as sick, as low and vulgar, as the needs were sick, low, and vulgar that it was meant to satisfy. As the Church, *sick barbarism* itself finally masses into power—the Church, this form of mortal enmity toward all integrity, every *height* of the soul, all discipline of the intellect, every expression of frank and kindly humanity.—*Christian* values—*noble* values: only we, we spirits who have *become free*, have restored this greatest opposition of values there is!—\n\n[38]\n\n—At this point I will not suppress a sigh. There are days when a feeling visits me, blacker than the blackest melancholy—*contempt for humanity*. And to leave no doubt as to *what* I despise, *whom* I despise: it is the human being of today, the human being I am doomed to share this age with. The human being of today—I choke on his unclean breath… Toward the past I have, like all who seek knowledge, a great tolerance, that is, *magnanimous* self-restraint: I pass through the madhouse world of whole millennia, whether it be called “Christianity,” “Christian faith,” or “Christian Church,” with a somber caution—I take care not to hold humanity responsible for its mental illnesses. But my feeling changes, breaks out, as soon as I enter the modern age, *our* age. Our age *knows*… What was once merely sick has today become indecent—it is indecent to be a Christian today. *And here my disgust begins*.—I look around me: not one word remains of what was once called “truth”; we can no longer bear it when a priest so much as takes the word “truth” into his mouth. Even with the most modest claim to integrity, one *must* know today that a theologian, a priest, a pope, with every sentence he speaks, not only errs but *lies*—that he is no longer at liberty to lie out of “innocence,” out of “ignorance.” The priest too knows, as well as everyone knows, that there is no longer any “God,” any “sinner,” any “redeemer”—that “free will,” “moral world order” are *lies*—the seriousness, the profound self-overcoming of the intellect no longer *allows* anyone *not* to know about these things… *All* the Church's concepts have been recognized for what they are, the most malicious counterfeiting there is, designed to *devalue* nature, natural values; the priest himself has been recognized for what he is, the most dangerous kind of parasite, the true venomous spider of life… We know, our *conscience* knows today, *what* those uncanny inventions of the priests and the Church are worth at all, *what purpose they served*, through which that condition of humanity's self-defilement was achieved that can make one recoil in disgust at the sight of it—the concepts “beyond,” “Last Judgment,” “immortality of the soul,” the “soul” itself: they are instruments of torture, systems of cruelties by which the priest became master, remained master… Everyone knows this: *and yet everything stays as it was*. Where has the last feeling of decency, of self-respect gone, if even our statesmen, otherwise a very uninhibited kind of human being and antichrists in deed through and through, still call themselves Christians today and take Communion?… A young prince at the head of his regiments, magnificent as an expression of his people's selfishness and self-exaltation—but, *without* a trace of shame, professing himself a Christian!… *Whom*, then, does *this* Christianity negate? *What* does it call “world”? That one is a soldier, a judge, a patriot; that one defends oneself; that one sets store by one's honor; that one seeks one's advantage; that one is *proud*… Every practice of every moment, every instinct, every valuation that becomes a *deed* is anti-Christian today: what a *misshapen offspring of falsehood* modern humanity must be, that it nevertheless is *not ashamed* still to be called Christian!\n\n[39]\n\n—I return; I tell the *true* history of Christianity.—The very word “Christianity” is a misunderstanding—at bottom there was only one Christian, and he *died* on the cross. The “Gospel” died on the cross. What has been called “Gospel” from that moment onward was already the opposite of what *he* had lived: “*ill* tidings,” a *bad gospel*. It is false to the point of absurdity to see in a “faith,” say in faith in redemption through Christ, the distinguishing mark of the Christian: only Christian *practice*, a life such as the one who died on the cross *lived*, is Christian… Even today *such* a life is possible, for *certain* people even necessary: genuine, original Christianity will be possible at all times… *Not* a believing but a doing, above all a *not*-doing of many things, a different *being*… States of consciousness, any sort of belief, taking something to be true, for example—as every psychologist knows—are utterly immaterial and of fifth-rate importance beside the value of the instincts: more strictly speaking, the whole concept of mental causation is false. To reduce being a Christian, Christian character, to taking something as true, to a mere phenomenon of consciousness, is to negate Christian character. *In fact there were no Christians at all.* The “Christian,” what has been called Christian for two millennia, is merely a psychological self-misunderstanding. On closer inspection, *despite* all “faith,” *only* the instincts ruled in him—and *what instincts!*—“Faith” was at all times, in Luther for example, only a cloak, a pretext, a *curtain* behind which the instincts played their game—a cunning *blindness* to the rule of *certain* instincts… “Faith”—I have already called it the truly Christian *stratagem*—people always *spoke* of “faith,” people always *acted* only from instinct… In the Christian's world of ideas there is nothing that so much as touches reality: by contrast, we have recognized instinctive hatred *of* every reality as the driving, the sole driving element at Christianity's root. What follows from this? That here, in *psychological matters* too, error is radical, that is, determines the essence, that is, is *substance*. Remove *one* concept here, put a single reality in its place—and all Christianity tumbles into nothingness!—Seen from above, this strangest of all facts—a religion not merely conditioned by errors, but inventive and even ingenious *only* in harmful errors, *only* in errors that poison life and the heart—remains a *spectacle for gods*: for those divinities who are also philosophers, and whom I encountered, for example, in those famous dialogues on Naxos. The moment *disgust* leaves them (—*and* us!), they become grateful for the spectacle of the Christian: the wretched little celestial body called earth perhaps merits a divine glance, a divine interest, solely on account of *this* curious case… For let us not underestimate the Christian: the Christian, false *to the point of innocence*, is far above the ape—with regard to Christians, a familiar theory of descent becomes a mere courtesy…\n\n[40]\n\n—The fate of the Gospel was decided by the death—it hung on the “cross”… Only the death, this unexpected, shameful death, only the cross, generally reserved for the rabble alone—only this most horrifying paradox confronted the disciples with the real riddle: “*Who was that? What was that?*”—The shattered and most deeply wounded feeling, the suspicion that such a death might be the *refutation* of their cause, the terrible question mark “why precisely like this?”—this state is all too comprehensible. Here everything *had* to be necessary, to have meaning, reason, the highest reason; a disciple's love knows no accident. Only now did the gulf open: “*Who* killed him? *Who* was his natural enemy?”—this question flashed forth like lightning. Answer: *ruling* Judaism, its highest class. From that moment on, they felt themselves in revolt *against* the established order; afterward they understood Jesus as *in revolt against the established order*. Until then this warlike, this No-saying, No-doing trait had been *absent* from his image; more than that, it contradicted it. Clearly the little community *did not* understand precisely the essential thing, the exemplary character of this way of dying, the freedom, the superiority *over* every feeling of *resentment*:—a sign of how little it understood of him at all! In itself, Jesus could have intended nothing by his death but to give publicly the strongest test, the *proof* of his teaching… But his disciples were far from *forgiving* this death—which would have been evangelical in the highest sense; still less from *offering themselves* to a like death in gentle and loving calm of heart… Precisely the most unevangelical feeling, *revenge*, came to the fore again. The cause *could* not possibly be over with this death: “retribution,” “judgment” were needed (—and yet what can be more unevangelical than “retribution,” “punishment,” “passing judgment”!). Once again the popular expectation of a Messiah came to the foreground; a historical moment was envisaged: the “kingdom of God” comes to pass judgment on his enemies… But with that, everything is misunderstood: the “kingdom of God” as final act, as promise! Yet the Gospel had been precisely the existence, the fulfillment, the *reality* of this “kingdom.” Precisely such a death *was* this very “kingdom of God.” Only now did they inscribe all their contempt and bitterness toward Pharisees and theologians into the type of the master—thereby they *made* him a Pharisee and theologian! On the other hand, the veneration run wild in these wholly unhinged souls could no longer endure that evangelical equal right of everyone to be a child of God which Jesus had taught; their revenge was to *exalt* Jesus extravagantly, to sever him from themselves: exactly as the Jews had once, in revenge against their enemies, separated their God from themselves and raised him on high. The *one* God and the *one* Son of God: both products of *resentment*…\n\n### Sections 41–50\n\n[41]\n\n—And from now on an absurd problem arose: \"How could God allow this!\" To this the disordered reason of the little community found an answer downright appalling in its absurdity: God gave his son for the forgiveness of sins, as a *sacrifice*. How suddenly the gospel was at an end! The *guilt offering*, and in its most repulsive, most barbaric form at that: the sacrifice of the *innocent* for the sins of the guilty! What a ghastly paganism!—Jesus had, after all, abolished the very concept of \"guilt\"—he had denied every gulf between God and humanity; he *lived* this unity of God and humanity as *his* \"glad tidings\"… And *not* as a privilege!—From now on, step by step, there enters into the type of the redeemer the doctrine of judgment and the second coming, the doctrine of death as a sacrificial death, the doctrine of the *resurrection*, by which the whole concept of \"blessedness,\" the entire and only reality of the gospel, is conjured away—in favor of a condition *after* death!… With that rabbinical effrontery that distinguishes him in every respect, Paul carried this interpretation, this *obscenity* of an interpretation, to the logical conclusion: \"*If* Christ has not risen from the dead, then our faith is vain.\"—And all at once the gospel became the most contemptible of all unfulfillable promises, the *shameless* doctrine of personal immortality… Paul himself still taught it as a *reward*!…\n\n[42]\n\nWe can see *what* came to an end with the death on the cross: a new, entirely original beginning of a Buddhist peace movement, of actual *happiness on earth*, *not* merely promised happiness. For this remains—as I have already emphasized—the fundamental difference between the two religions of *decadence*: Buddhism does not promise but delivers; Christianity promises everything but *delivers nothing*.—The \"glad tidings\" were followed at once by the *very worst*: those of Paul. In Paul is embodied the type opposed to the \"bearer of glad tidings,\" the genius of hatred, of the vision of hatred, of the inexorable logic of hatred. *What* did this bearer of evil tidings not sacrifice to hatred! Above all, the redeemer: he nailed him to *his* cross. The life, the example, the teaching, the death, the meaning and justification of the entire gospel—nothing was left once this counterfeiter out of hatred grasped what alone he could use. *Not* reality, *not* historical truth!… And once again the Jew's priestly instinct committed the same great crime against history—he simply struck out Christianity's yesterday and day before yesterday; he *invented a history of early Christianity for himself*. More still: he falsified the history of Israel once again, to make it appear as the prehistory of *his* deed: all the prophets had spoken of *his* \"redeemer\"… Later the Church even falsified the history of humanity into the prehistory of Christianity… The type of the redeemer, the teaching, the practice, the death, the meaning of the death, even what came after the death—nothing remained untouched, nothing retained even a likeness to reality. Paul simply shifted the center of gravity of that entire existence *beyond* this existence—into the *lie* of the \"risen\" Jesus. Fundamentally, he had no use at all for the redeemer's life—he needed the death on the cross *and* something more besides… To take a Paul whose home was in the chief seat of Stoic enlightenment as honest when he concocts from a hallucination the *proof* that the redeemer is *still* alive, or even to believe his story *that* he had this hallucination, would be truly *simpleminded* on a psychologist's part: Paul wanted the end; *consequently* he also wanted the means… What he himself did not believe, the idiots among whom he flung his teaching believed.—*His* need was *power*; with Paul the priest once again sought power—he could use only concepts, doctrines, symbols with which to tyrannize over masses and form herds. *What* alone did Muhammad later borrow from Christianity? Paul's invention, his means to priestly tyranny, to the formation of herds: belief in immortality—*that is, the doctrine of \"judgment\"*…\n\n[43]\n\nIf we place life's center of gravity *not* in life but in the \"beyond\"—in *nothingness*—we have robbed life of its center of gravity altogether. The great lie of personal immortality destroys all reason, all naturalness in instinct—everything in the instincts that is beneficial, that furthers life, that guarantees a future now arouses mistrust. To live in *such* a way that there is no longer any *sense* in living—*that* now becomes the \"sense\" of life… Why public spirit, why any further gratitude for one's origins and ancestors, why cooperate, trust, promote or keep in view any common good?… So many \"temptations,\" so many diversions from the \"right path\"—\"*one* thing is needed\"… That everyone, as an \"immortal soul,\" ranks equally with everyone else; that within the totality of all beings the \"salvation\" of *each* individual may claim eternal importance; that petty sanctimonious hypocrites and the three-quarters-mad may imagine the laws of nature are continually *broken* for their sake—one cannot brand with enough contempt such an escalation of every kind of selfishness into the infinite, into the *shameless*. And yet Christianity owes its *victory* to *this* pitiful flattery of personal vanity—with it, Christianity won over precisely everything ill-constituted, rebellious-minded, shortchanged, all the refuse and dregs of humanity. The \"salvation of the soul\"—in plain language: \"The world revolves around *me*\"… The poison of the doctrine of \"*equal* rights for all\"—Christianity has sown it more fundamentally than anything else; from the most secret corners of bad instincts, Christianity has waged a war to the death against every feeling of reverence and distance between one person and another, that is, against the *precondition* of every elevation, every growth of culture—it has forged from the *resentment* of the masses its *chief weapon* against *us*, against everything noble, joyful, greathearted on earth, against our happiness on earth… \"Immortality\" granted to every Peter and Paul has been the greatest, most malicious assault yet upon *noble* humanity.—*And* let us not underestimate the fatal influence that has crept from Christianity into politics! No one today has the courage for special rights, for rights of dominion, for a feeling of reverence toward himself and his equals—for a *pathos of distance*… Our politics is *sick* from this lack of courage!—The aristocratic cast of mind was undermined most insidiously by the lie of the equality of souls; and if belief in the \"privilege of the majority\" makes revolutions and *will make them*—it is Christianity, let there be no doubt, it is *Christian* value judgments that every revolution merely translates into blood and crime! Christianity is an uprising of everything that crawls on the ground against whatever has *height*: the gospel of the \"lowly\" *makes* people low…\n\n[44]\n\n—The Gospels are invaluable as testimony to the already unstoppable corruption *within* the first community. What Paul later brought to completion with a rabbi's logical cynicism was nevertheless merely the process of decay that began with the redeemer's death.—One cannot read these Gospels cautiously enough; their difficulties lie behind every word. I confess—and I trust I will be forgiven for it—that for precisely this reason they are a pleasure of the first order for a psychologist—as the *opposite* of all naive corruption, as the *supreme refinement*, as artistry in psychological corruption. The Gospels stand alone. The Bible as a whole is beyond comparison. We are among Jews: the *first* point to bear in mind if we are not to lose the thread entirely here. This dissimulation of oneself as \"holy,\" which here becomes nothing less than genius and has never been remotely equaled elsewhere among books or people, this counterfeiting of words and gestures as an *art*, is not the accident of some individual talent, some exceptional nature. It takes *race* for this. In Christianity, as the art of lying in a holy manner, the whole of Judaism, several centuries of the most earnest Jewish preliminary training and technique, achieves its final mastery. The Christian, this *last resort* of the lie, is the Jew all over again—*three times* over, in fact… The fundamental will to employ only concepts, symbols, attitudes that have proved themselves in priestly practice, the instinctive rejection of every *other* practice, every *other* kind of perspective on value and usefulness—this is not merely tradition, it is *inheritance*: only as inheritance does it act like nature. The whole of humanity, even the finest minds of the finest ages (with one exception, who may be no more than an inhuman being—), has let itself be deceived. People have read the gospel as a *book of innocence*… no small indication of the mastery of the acting here.—Of course, if we could *see* them, even in passing, all these strange hypocrites and counterfeit saints, it would be all over—and precisely because *I* read no words without seeing gestures, *I make an end of them*… I cannot bear a certain way they have of raising their eyes.—Fortunately, for the great majority, books are merely *literature*——We must not let ourselves be misled: \"Do not judge!\" they say, but they send everything that stands in their way to hell. In letting God judge, they themselves judge; in glorifying God, they glorify themselves; in *demanding* the virtues of which they happen to be capable—more still, which they need in order to stay on top at all—they give themselves the grand appearance of striving for virtue, of fighting for the dominion of virtue. \"We live, we die, we sacrifice ourselves *for the good*\" (—\"truth,\" \"light,\" the \"kingdom of God\"): in reality they do what they cannot help doing. By forcing their way through like sneaks, sitting in corners, living shadowy lives in the shadows, they make a *duty* of it: their life of humility appears as duty; as humility it is one more proof of piety… Ah, this humble, chaste, merciful kind of mendacity! \"Let virtue itself bear witness for us\"… Read the Gospels as books of seduction by means of *morality*: these little people seize possession of morality—they know what morality can do! Morality is the best means of *leading humanity by the nose*!—The reality is that here the most conscious *conceit of being chosen* plays at modesty: they have placed *themselves*, the \"community,\" the \"good and righteous,\" once and for all on one side, the side of \"truth\"—and the rest, \"the world,\" on the other… *This* was the most disastrous kind of megalomania that had yet existed on earth: little monstrosities of hypocrites and liars began to claim the concepts \"God,\" \"truth,\" \"light,\" \"spirit,\" \"love,\" \"wisdom,\" \"life\" for themselves, as though these were synonyms for themselves, in order to mark off the \"world\" against themselves; little superlative Jews, ripe for every kind of madhouse, revalued all values to suit *themselves*, as though only the \"Christian\" were the meaning, the salt, the measure, even the *last judgment* of all the rest… This entire calamity was made possible only because a related, racially related kind of megalomania was already in the world, the *Jewish* kind: once the gulf between Jews and Jewish Christians opened up, the latter had no choice but to turn *against* the Jews themselves those same procedures of self-preservation that the Jewish instinct recommended, whereas the Jews had previously used them only against everything *non*-Jewish. The Christian is merely a Jew of a \"*freer*\" confession of faith.—\n\n[45]\n\n—I offer a few samples of what these little people got into their heads, what they *put into their master's mouth*: nothing but confessions of \"beautiful souls.\"—\n\n\"And wherever people do not welcome you or listen to you, leave that place and shake the dust from your feet as testimony against them. I tell you: truly, Sodom and Gomorrah will fare better at the Last Judgment than such a town\" (Markus 6, 11).—How *evangelical*!…\n\n\"And whoever causes one of the little ones who believe in me to stumble would be better off if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea\" (Markus 9, 42).—How *evangelical*!…\n\n\"If your eye causes you to stumble, throw it away. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hellfire, where their worm does not die and their fire does not go out\" (Markus 9, 47).—It is not exactly the eye that is meant…\n\n\"Truly, I tell you, some standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God coming in power\" (Markus 9, 1).—A fine *lie*, lion…\n\n\"Whoever wishes to follow me must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. Because…\" (*A psychologist's note*. Christian morality is refuted by its *becauses*: its \"reasons\" refute it—that is Christian.) Markus 8, 34.—\n\n\"Do not judge, *so that* you will not be judged. By whatever measure you measure, *you* will be measured\" (Matthäus 7, 1).—What a concept of justice, of a \"just\" judge!…\n\n\"For if you love those who love you, *what reward will you have*? Do the tax collectors not do the same? And if you are friendly only to your brothers, *what is special about what you do*? Do the tax collectors not do that too?\" (Matthäus 5, 46.)—The principle of \"Christian love\": in the end it wants to be well *paid*…\n\n\"But if *you* do not forgive people their faults, your Father will not forgive you your faults either\" (Matthäus 6, 15),—Very compromising for the \"Father\" in question…\n\n\"Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will come to you\" (Matthäus 6, 33).—All these things: namely food, clothing, all life's necessities. An *error*, to put it mildly… Shortly before this, God appears as a tailor, at least in certain cases…\n\n\"Rejoice then and leap: *for* look, your reward in heaven is great. Their fathers did the same to the prophets\" (Lukas 6, 23).—*Shameless* rabble! Already it compares itself to the prophets…\n\n\"Do you not know that you are God's temple and that the spirit of God lives in you? If anyone destroys the temple of God, *God will destroy him*: for God's temple is holy, *and that is what you are*\" (Paulus I. Korinther 3, 16).—One cannot despise such things enough…\n\n\"Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? If, then, the world is to be judged by *you*, are you not good enough to judge lesser matters?\" (Paulus I. Korinther 6, 2.)—Unfortunately, not merely the speech of a madhouse inmate… This *terrible impostor* continues in these very words: \"Do you not know that *we* will judge the angels? How much more so temporal goods!\"…\n\n\"Has God not made the wisdom of this world foolishness? For since the world through its wisdom did not recognize God in his wisdom, God was pleased to save those who believe in it through foolish preaching…; not many wise according to the flesh, not many powerful, not many noble are called. Rather, what is foolish before the world, *that God has chosen*, to put the wise to shame; and what is weak before the world God has chosen to put what is strong to shame; and what is ignoble before the world and what is despised God has chosen, and what is nothing, to bring to nothing what is something. So that no flesh should boast before him\" (Paulus I. Korinther 1, 20 ff.).—To *understand* this passage, testimony of the very first order to the psychology of every Chandala morality, read the first essay of my *On the Genealogy of Morality*: there, for the first time, the opposition between a *noble* morality and a Chandala morality born of *resentment* and powerless revenge was brought to light. Paul was the greatest of all apostles of revenge…\n\n[46]\n\n—*What follows from this?* That one does well to put on gloves when reading the New Testament. The proximity of so much filth almost demands it. We would no more choose \"early Christians\" as companions than Polish Jews: not that one would need even a single objection against them… Neither smells good.—I have searched the New Testament in vain for even one appealing trait; there is nothing in it that is free, kind, openhearted, honest. Humanity has not yet made its first beginning here—the instincts of *cleanliness* are missing… There are only *bad* instincts in the New Testament, and not even the courage for these bad instincts. Everything in it is cowardice, everything a shutting of the eyes and self-deception. Every book becomes clean when one has just read the New Testament: to give an example, immediately after Paul I read with delight that most graceful, most exuberant mocker Petronius, of whom one could say what Domenico Boccaccio wrote of Cesare Borgia to the Duke of Parma: \"*he is all festivity*\"—immortally healthy, immortally cheerful and well-constituted… These petty hypocrites, you see, miscalculate on the main point. They attack, but everything they attack is thereby *distinguished*. Whoever an \"early Christian\" attacks is *not* soiled by him… On the contrary: it is an honor to have \"early Christians\" against you. One does not read the New Testament without a preference for whatever is mistreated in it—not to mention the \"wisdom of this world,\" which an impudent windbag tries in vain to put to shame \"through foolish preaching\"… But even the Pharisees and scribes benefit from such opposition: they must have been worth something to be hated in so indecent a manner. Hypocrisy—as though \"early Christians\" were *entitled* to make that accusation!—In the end, they were the *privileged*: that is enough; Chandala hatred needs no further reasons. The \"early Christian\"—I fear also the \"last Christian,\" *whom I may yet live to see*—is a rebel against everything privileged out of his lowest instinct—he lives, he fights always for \"*equal rights*\"… On closer inspection, he has no choice. If one wishes, for one's own part, to be a \"chosen one of God\"—or a \"temple of God,\" or a \"judge of angels\"—then every *other* principle of selection, for example by honesty, by intellect, by manliness and pride, by beauty and freedom of heart, is simply \"the world\"—*evil in itself*… Moral: every word in the mouth of an \"early Christian\" is a lie, every action he performs an instinctive falsity—all his values, all his aims are harmful, but *whom* he hates, *what* he hates, *that has value*… The Christian, the priestly Christian in particular, is a *criterion of values*——Need I still say that in the whole New Testament there is only one *single* figure whom one must honor? Pilate, the Roman governor. To take a Jewish affair *seriously*—he cannot persuade himself to do that. One Jew more or less—what does it matter?… The noble scorn of a Roman, in whose presence the word \"truth\" is being shamelessly abused, has enriched the New Testament with the only saying *that has value*—that is its criticism, its very *annihilation*: \"What is truth!\"…\n\n[47]\n\n—What sets *us* apart is not that we find no God, whether in history or in nature or *behind* nature—but that we feel what has been worshiped as God to be not \"divine\" but pitiful, absurd, harmful, not merely an error but a *crime against life*… We deny God as God… If this God of the Christians were *proved* to us, we would know even less how to believe in him.—In a formula: *God, as Paul created him, is the negation of God*.—A religion like Christianity, which has no point of contact with reality, which collapses the moment reality gains its rights at even a single point, must reasonably be a mortal enemy of the \"wisdom of the world,\" meaning *science*—it will approve every means by which the discipline of the mind, its integrity and rigor in matters of intellectual conscience, its noble coolness and freedom can be poisoned, slandered, *brought into disrepute*. \"Faith\" as an imperative is the *veto* against science—*in practice*, the lie at any price… Paul *grasped* that the lie—that \"faith\"—was necessary; the Church later grasped Paul in turn.—That \"God\" Paul invented for himself, a God who \"puts to shame\" the \"wisdom of the world\" (in the narrower sense, the two great adversaries of all superstition, philology and medicine), is in truth nothing but Paul's own resolute *decision* to do so: to call one's own will \"God,\" *Torah*—that is primordially Jewish. Paul *wants* to put the \"wisdom of the world\" to shame: his enemies are the *good* philologists and physicians trained in Alexandria—he makes war on them. In fact, one cannot be a philologist or physician without also being an *Antichrist*. For as a philologist one looks *behind* the \"holy books,\" as a physician *behind* the physiological degeneration of the typical Christian. The physician says \"incurable,\" the philologist \"fraud\"…\n\n[48]\n\n—Has anyone really understood the famous story at the beginning of the Bible—of God's hellish terror of *science*?… No one has understood it. This *supreme* priestly book begins, as is only fitting, with the priest's great inward difficulty: *he* has only one great danger, *consequently* \"God\" has only one great danger.—\n\nThe old God, all \"spirit,\" all high priest, all perfection, strolls through his gardens: except that he is bored. Against boredom even gods struggle in vain. What does he do? He invents man—man is entertaining…\n\nBut look, man is bored too. God's pity for the sole affliction common to all paradises knows no bounds: he promptly created other animals as well. God's *first* blunder: man did not find the animals entertaining—he ruled over them; he did not even want to be an \"animal.\"—*Consequently* God created woman. And in fact, boredom was now at an end—but so were other things besides! Woman was God's *second* blunder.—\"Woman is in her essence a serpent, Eve\"—every priest knows that; \"*every* calamity in the world comes from woman\"—every priest knows that too. \"*Consequently*, so does *science*\"… Only through woman did man learn to taste of the tree of knowledge.—What had happened? A hellish terror seized the old God. Man himself had become his *greatest* blunder; he had created a rival for himself; science makes one *godlike*—it is all over for priests and gods when man becomes scientific!—*Moral:* Science is the forbidden thing in itself—it alone is forbidden. Science is the *first* sin, the seed of all sin, the *inherited* sin. *This alone is morality.*—\"You shall *not* know\"—the rest follows from that.—God's hellish terror did not prevent him from being clever. How does one *defend* oneself against science? That became his chief problem for a long time. Answer: out of paradise with man! Happiness, idleness give people ideas—all ideas are bad ideas… Man *must* not think.—And the \"priest as such\" invents distress, death, the mortal danger of pregnancy, every kind of misery, old age, toil, above all *sickness*—nothing but means of fighting science! Distress does not *allow* man to think… And yet! Horrors! The work of knowledge towers up, storming heaven, bringing twilight to the gods—what is to be done!—The old God invents *war*, he divides the peoples, he makes human beings destroy one another (—priests have always needed war…). War—among other things, a great disrupter of science!—Unbelievable! Knowledge, *emancipation from the priest*, increases even in spite of wars.—And a final decision comes to the old God: \"Man has become scientific—*there is no help for it, he must be drowned!*\"…\n\n[49]\n\n—You have understood me. The beginning of the Bible contains the *entire* psychology of the priest.—The priest knows only *one* great danger: science—the sound concept of cause and effect. But science thrives, on the whole, only under favorable conditions—one must have time, one must have intellect *to spare*, in order to \"know\"… \"*Consequently*, man must be made unhappy\"—this has been the priest's logic in every age.—One can already guess *what*, in keeping with this logic, first came into the world through it—\"*sin*\"… The concept of guilt and punishment, the entire \"moral world order,\" was invented *against* science—against man's detachment from the priest… Man is *not* to look outward; he is to look into himself; he is *not* to look into things intelligently and cautiously, as a learner; he is not to look at all: he is to *suffer*… And he is to *suffer* in such a way that he needs the priest at all times.—Away with physicians! *A savior is needed.*—The concepts of guilt and punishment, including the doctrines of \"grace,\" of \"redemption,\" of \"forgiveness\"—*lies* through and through, without any psychological reality—were invented to destroy man's *sense of causality*: they are the assault upon the concept of cause and effect!—And *not* an assault with the fist, with the knife, with honesty in hatred and love! But out of the most cowardly, most cunning, lowest instincts! A priestly assault! A parasitic assault! A vampirism of pale subterranean bloodsuckers!… When the natural consequences of a deed are no longer \"natural,\" but are conceived as brought about by the phantom concepts of superstition, by \"God,\" by \"spirits,\" by \"souls,\" as merely \"moral\" consequences, as reward, punishment, hint, means of education, then the precondition of knowledge is destroyed—then *the greatest crime against humanity has been committed*.—Sin, to say it once more, this *supreme* form of human self-defilement, was invented to make science, culture, every elevation and nobility of humanity impossible; the priest *rules* through the invention of sin.—\n\n[50]\n\n—I will not spare myself a psychology of \"faith,\" of the \"faithful,\" at this point—for the benefit, as is only fitting, of the \"faithful\" themselves. If there is still no shortage today of those who do not know how *indecent* it is to be \"faithful\"—*or* how it is a mark of *decadence*, of a broken will to live—by tomorrow they will know. My voice reaches even the hard of hearing.—It seems, unless I have misheard, that among Christians there is a kind of criterion of truth called the \"proof of power.\" \"Faith brings blessedness: *therefore* it is true.\"—One might first object here that precisely this bringing of blessedness is not proved but merely *promised*: blessedness is tied to the condition of \"faith\"—one is to become blessed *because* one believes… But *that* what the priest promises the believer for the \"beyond,\" inaccessible to any verification, actually comes to pass—what would prove *that*?—The supposed \"proof of power\" is thus fundamentally nothing more than another belief that the effect one expects from faith will not fail to occur. In a formula: \"I believe that faith brings blessedness—*consequently* it is true.\"—But with that we are already at an end. This \"*consequently*\" would be *absurdity* itself as a criterion of truth.—But let us suppose, with some indulgence, that the bringing of blessedness through faith were proved (—*not* merely wished for, *not* merely promised by a priest's somewhat suspect mouth): would blessedness—more technically speaking, *pleasure*—ever be a proof of truth? So little so that it almost furnishes proof of the opposite, or at any rate grounds for the gravest suspicion of \"truth,\" when sensations of pleasure have a say in the question \"What is true?\" The proof of \"pleasure\" is a proof *of* \"pleasure\"—nothing more; how in the world could it be established that *true* judgments in particular give more enjoyment than false ones and, in accordance with a preestablished harmony, necessarily draw pleasant feelings in their wake?—The experience of all rigorous minds, all minds of a deep nature, teaches *the reverse*. Every inch of truth has had to be wrested from oneself; in exchange one has had to surrender almost everything to which the heart otherwise clings, to which our love, our trust in life clings. It takes greatness of soul for this: the service of truth is the hardest service.—What, then, does it mean to be *honest* in intellectual matters? To be severe with one's heart, to despise \"beautiful feelings,\" to make every yes and no a matter of conscience!———Faith brings blessedness: *consequently* it lies…\n\n### Sections 51–62\n\n[51]\n\nThat faith can, under certain circumstances, bring bliss; that the bliss produced by a fixed idea does not yet make that idea *true*; that faith does not move mountains but does *put* mountains where there are none—a brief walk through a *madhouse* makes all this plain enough. *Not*, of course, to a priest: for his instinct is to deny that sickness is sickness, that a madhouse is a madhouse. Christianity *needs* sickness much as the Greek world needs a surplus of health—to *make* people sick is the real ulterior purpose of the Church's entire system of procedures for salvation. And the Church itself—is it not the Catholic madhouse as the ultimate ideal?—The whole earth as a madhouse?—The religious person, as the Church *wants* him, is a typical *decadent*; whenever a religious crisis masters a people, epidemics of nervous disorders mark the moment; the religious person's \"inner world\" is so like the \"inner world\" of the overstimulated and exhausted that one could mistake the two; the \"highest\" states, which Christianity has hung above humanity as the value of all values, are epileptoid forms—the Church has canonized only madmen *or* great swindlers for *the greater glory of God*… I once took the liberty of calling the whole Christian *training* in penance and redemption (best studied today in England) a methodically induced *circular insanity*, naturally on ground already prepared for it—that is, thoroughly diseased ground. No one is free to become a Christian: one is not \"converted\" to Christianity—one must be sick enough for it… We others, who have the *courage* for health *and* for contempt as well, how much reason *we* have to despise a religion that taught people to misunderstand the body! That refuses to rid itself of superstition about the soul! That makes a \"merit\" of inadequate nourishment! That fights health as a kind of enemy, devil, temptation! That persuaded itself one could carry a \"perfect soul\" about in the corpse of a body, and to do so had to fashion a new concept of \"perfection\" for itself, a pale, sickly, idiotically rapturous condition, so-called \"holiness\"—holiness, itself merely a series of symptoms of an impoverished, enervated, incurably ruined body!… The Christian movement, as a European movement, is from the outset a collective movement of reject and refuse elements of every kind (—these seek power through Christianity). It does *not* express the decline of a race; it is an aggregation of forms of *decadence* from everywhere, pressing together and seeking one another out. It is *not*, as people believe, the corruption of antiquity itself, of *noble* antiquity, that made Christianity possible: one cannot contradict too fiercely the learned idiocy that upholds such a thing even today. At the time when the sick, corrupted Chandala strata throughout the *empire* were becoming Christian, precisely the *opposite type*, nobility, existed in its most beautiful and mature form. The greater number became master; the democratism of Christian instincts *triumphed*… Christianity was not \"national,\" not determined by race—it appealed to every kind of person disinherited by life; it had its allies everywhere. At Christianity's foundation lies the rancor of the sick, an instinct directed *against* the healthy, *against* health. Everything well constituted, proud, high-spirited, beauty above all, hurts its ears and eyes. Once again I recall Paul's priceless words: \"What is *weak* before the world, what is *foolish* before the world, the *base* and *despised* before the world, God has chosen\": *that* was the formula, *under this sign* *decadence* triumphed.—*God on the cross*—do people still not understand the terrible ulterior meaning of this symbol?—Everything that suffers, everything that hangs on the cross, is *divine*… We all hang on the cross, therefore *we* are divine… We alone are divine… Christianity was a victory; a *nobler* disposition perished through it—Christianity has so far been humanity's greatest misfortune.— —\n\n[52]\n\nChristianity also stands opposed to everything well constituted in the *intellect*—it *can* use only sick reason as Christian reason; it takes the side of everything idiotic; it pronounces a curse upon \"the intellect,\" upon the *pride* of the healthy intellect. Because sickness belongs to the essence of Christianity, the typically Christian state, \"faith,\" *must* also be a form of sickness; all straight, honest, scientific paths to knowledge *must* be rejected by the Church as *forbidden* paths. Doubt itself is already a sin… The priest's complete lack of psychological cleanliness—betrayed in his eyes—is a *consequence* of *decadence*—one need only observe hysterical females and, on the other hand, children predisposed to rickets to see how regularly instinctive falseness, a delight in lying for the sake of lying, an inability to look straight or walk straight, express *decadence*. \"Faith\" means not *wanting* to know what is true. The Pietist, the priest of either sex, is false *because* he is sick: his instinct *demands* that truth be denied its due at every point. \"What makes people sick is *good*; what comes from fullness, from abundance, from power, is *evil*\": this is how the believer feels. *Compulsion to lie*—by this I recognize every predestined theologian.—Another mark of the theologian is his *incapacity for philology*. Philology is to be understood here, in a very general sense, as the art of reading *well*—of being able to read facts *without* falsifying them by interpretation, *without* losing caution, patience, subtlety in the desire to understand. Philology as *restraint* in interpretation: whether it concerns books, newspaper reports, destinies, or facts about the weather—not to mention the \"salvation of the soul\"… The way a theologian, whether in Berlin or Rome, interprets a \"passage of scripture\" or an experience, a victory of the fatherland's army, for example, in the higher illumination of the Psalms of David, is always so *bold* that it drives a philologist up the wall. And what is he to do when Pietists and other cows from Swabia use the \"finger of God\" to turn the wretched everyday life and indoor smoke of their existence into a miracle of \"grace,\" of \"providence,\" of \"experiences of salvation\"! The most modest expenditure of intellect, not to say of *decency*, ought surely to bring these interpreters to convict themselves of the utter childishness and unworthiness of such an abuse of divine dexterity. With even the slightest measure of piety in us, a God who cures a cold at just the right time, or tells us to step into a carriage at the very moment a heavy rain breaks out, ought to seem so absurd a God that we would have to abolish him even if he existed. A God as domestic servant, as mail carrier, as almanac maker—at bottom a word for the stupidest kind of chance occurrences… \"Divine providence,\" as roughly one person in three in \"educated Germany\" still believes in it today, would be an objection to God more powerful than any one could possibly conceive. And in any case it is an objection to Germans!…\n\n[53]\n\n—It is so far from true that *martyrs* prove anything about the truth of a cause that I would deny any martyr has ever had anything at all to do with truth. The very tone in which a martyr flings his conviction in the world's face expresses so low a degree of intellectual honesty, such *insensibility* to the question of \"truth,\" that one never needs to refute a martyr. Truth is not something one person possesses and another does not: at most, peasants or apostles to peasants in the manner of Luther can think of truth that way. One may be certain that the greater one's conscientiousness in matters of the intellect, the greater one's modesty, one's *self-restraint* on this point. To *know* in five matters, and with a delicate hand decline to know in *any others*… \"Truth,\" as every prophet, every sectarian, every freethinker, every socialist, every churchman understands the word, is perfect proof that not even a beginning has been made in that discipline of the intellect and self-overcoming needed to discover any little truth, however little.—The deaths of martyrs, incidentally, have been a great misfortune in history: they *seduced*… The inference drawn by all idiots, women and the common people included, that a cause for which someone goes to his death (or which, like early Christianity, even produces epidemics of the lust for death) must have something to it—this inference has been an unspeakable hindrance to inquiry, to the spirit of inquiry and caution. The martyrs *harmed* truth…\n\nEven today, a single act of crude persecution is enough to give the most inherently insignificant sectarianism an *honorable* name.—What? Does it change the value of a cause that someone lays down his life for it?—An error that becomes honorable is an error with one more seductive charm: do you believe, gentlemen theologians, that we would give you the occasion to play the martyrs for your lie?—One refutes a cause by respectfully putting it on ice—one refutes theologians in the same way… Precisely this was the world-historical stupidity of all persecutors: they gave the opposing cause the appearance of honor—they made it a present of the fascination of martyrdom… Woman still kneels before error today because she has been told that someone died for it on the cross. *Is the cross an argument, then?*— —But on all these matters one man alone has spoken the word that was needed for millennia—*Zarathustra*.\n\nThey wrote signs of blood along the road they traveled, and their  \nfolly taught that truth is proved with blood.  \nBut blood is the worst witness to truth; blood poisons  \neven the purest teaching into delusion and hatred in the heart.  \nAnd if someone went through fire for his teaching—what does that prove! Truly, it means far more for one's own burning to give rise to one's own  \nteaching.\n\n[54]\n\nLet no one be misled: great minds are skeptics. Zarathustra is a skeptic. Strength, the *freedom* that comes from the force and superabundance of the intellect, *proves* itself through skepticism. People of conviction do not even enter into consideration on any fundamental question of value and worthlessness. Convictions are prisons. Such people do not see far enough; they do not see *beneath* themselves: but to have a say about value and worthlessness, one must see five hundred convictions *beneath* oneself—*behind* oneself… A mind that wills great things, that also wills the means to them, is necessarily skeptical. *Freedom* from convictions of every kind *belongs* to strength, the *ability* to look freely… The great passion, the ground and power of the mind's being, still more enlightened, still more despotic than the mind itself, takes its entire intellect into service; it makes it unscrupulous; it gives it courage even for unholy means; it *allows* it convictions *under certain circumstances*. Conviction as a *means*: much can be achieved only by means of a conviction. The great passion uses convictions, uses them up; it does not submit to them—it knows itself sovereign.—Conversely: the need for faith, for something unconditional in Yes and No, Carlylism, if I may be forgiven the word, is a need born of *weakness*. The person of faith, the \"believer\" of every kind, is necessarily a dependent person—someone who cannot set himself as an end, who cannot set ends at all on his own. The \"believer\" does not belong to *himself*; he can only be a means; he must be *used up*; he needs someone to use him up. His instinct pays the highest honor to a morality of self-abnegation: everything persuades him toward it, his shrewdness, his experience, his vanity. Every kind of faith is itself an expression of self-abnegation, of self-alienation… When one considers how necessary it is for the vast majority to have a regulating authority that binds and fixes them from outside, how constraint, in a higher sense *slavery*, is the sole and ultimate condition under which the person of weaker will, especially woman, flourishes, then one also understands conviction, \"faith.\" The person of conviction has his backbone in it. *Not* to see many things, to be unprejudiced on no point, to be partisan through and through, to have a strict and necessary perspective on all values—this alone makes it possible for such a kind of person to exist at all. But this makes him the opposite, the *antagonist* of the truthful person—of truth… The believer is not free to have a conscience at all on the question of \"true\" and \"untrue\": to be honest at *this* point would instantly be his undoing. The pathological conditioning of his perspective makes the person of conviction a fanatic—Savonarola, Luther, Rousseau, Robespierre, Saint-Simon—the opposite type to the strong, *liberated* mind. But the grand pose of these *sick* minds, these epileptics of the concept, affects the great mass—the fanatics are picturesque; humanity would rather watch gestures than hear *reasons*…\n\n[55]\n\n—A step further in the psychology of conviction, of \"faith.\" Long ago I offered for consideration the question whether convictions are not more dangerous enemies of truth than lies (Menschliches, Allzumenschliches I, Aphorismus 54 und 483). This time I would like to ask the decisive question: is there any opposition at all between a lie and a conviction?—Everyone believes there is; but what doesn't everyone believe!—Every conviction has its history, its preliminary forms, its tentative efforts and blunders: it *becomes* a conviction after a long time of *not* being one, after a still longer time of *scarcely* being one. What? Could a lie not also be among these embryonic forms of conviction?—Sometimes all that is needed is a change of persons: in the son, what was still a lie in the father becomes conviction.—I call it a lie to *refuse* to see something one sees, to refuse to see something as one sees it: whether the lie occurs before witnesses or without witnesses is of no account. The most common lie is the one with which one lies to oneself; lying to others is relatively exceptional.—Now this *refusal* to see what one sees, this refusal to see it as one sees it, is almost the first condition for everyone who is *partisan* in any sense: the partisan necessarily becomes a liar. German historiography, for example, is convinced that Rome was despotism, that the Germanic peoples brought the spirit of freedom into the world: what difference is there between this conviction and a lie? Can one still be surprised if, by instinct, all parties, German historians included, have the grand words of morality on their lips—if morality virtually *continues to exist* because partisans of every kind need it at every moment?—\"This is *our* conviction: we profess it before all the world, we live and die for it—respect for everyone who has convictions!\"—I have heard such things even from the mouths of antisemites. On the contrary, gentlemen! An antisemite becomes not the least bit more decent by lying on principle… Priests, who are subtler in such matters and understand very well the objection inherent in the concept of a conviction—that is, of a mendacity practiced on principle *because* it serves a purpose—have inherited from the Jews the shrewdness to insert at this point the concepts \"God,\" \"God's will,\" \"God's revelation.\" Kant, too, with his categorical imperative, was on the same path: here his reason became *practical*.—There are questions on which human beings have *no* right to decide about truth and untruth; all the highest questions, all the highest problems of value, lie beyond human reason… To grasp the *limits* of reason—*that* alone is truly philosophy… Why did God give human beings revelation? Would God have done something superfluous? Human beings *cannot* know for themselves what is good and evil; therefore God taught them his will… Moral: the priest does *not* lie—the question of \"true\" or \"untrue\" does not *exist* in such matters as priests discuss; these matters do not permit lying at all. For to lie one would have to be able to decide *what* is true here. But that is precisely what human beings *cannot* do; the priest is thus merely God's mouthpiece.—Such a priestly syllogism is by no means merely Jewish and Christian; the right to lie and the *shrewdness* of \"revelation\" belong to the priestly type, to priests of decadence as much as to priests of paganism (—pagans are all those who say Yes to life, for whom \"God\" is the word for the great Yes to all things).—The \"law,\" the \"will of God,\" the \"holy book,\" \"inspiration\"—all merely words for the conditions *under* which the priest comes to power, *with* which he maintains his power—these concepts lie at the foundation of all priestly organizations, all priestly or philosophical-priestly structures of domination. The \"holy lie\"—common to Confucius, the lawbook of Manu, Muhammad, the Christian Church—is not absent in Plato. \"The truth is here\": wherever this is proclaimed, it means *the priest is lying*…\n\n[56]\n\n—In the end, what matters is the *purpose* for which one lies. That Christianity lacks \"holy\" ends is *my* objection to its means. Only *bad* ends: poisoning, slandering, negating life, contempt for the body, the degradation and self-defilement of human beings through the concept of sin—*consequently* its means are bad as well.—I read the lawbook of *Manu* with the opposite feeling, an incomparably intellectual and superior work that it would be a sin against the *intellect* even to *mention* in the same breath as the Bible. One immediately senses that it has a real philosophy behind it, *within* it, not merely a foul-smelling Judaic brew of rabbinism and superstition—it gives even the most spoiled psychologist something to sink his teeth into. *Not* to forget the main thing, *the* fundamental distinction from every kind of Bible: with this book the *noble* estates, the philosophers and the warriors, hold their hand over the multitude; noble values everywhere, a feeling of perfection, a Yes to life, a triumphant sense of well-being in oneself and in life—the *sun* rests on the whole book.—All the things on which Christianity vents its unfathomable baseness—procreation, for example, woman, marriage—are treated here seriously, with reverence, with love and trust. How can anyone put a book into the hands of children and women that contains those vile words: \"Because of fornication, let every man have his own wife and every woman her own husband… it is better to marry than to burn with lust\"? And *may* one be a Christian as long as the origin of human beings is Christianized—that is, *befouled*—by the concept of the *immaculate conception*?… I know no book that says so many tender and kindly things to woman as the lawbook of Manu; these old graybeards and saints have a way of being gracious to women that has perhaps never been surpassed. \"A woman's mouth,\" it says in one place, \"a girl's bosom, a child's prayer, the smoke of sacrifice are always pure.\" Another passage: \"There is nothing purer than the light of the sun, the shadow of a cow, the air, water, fire, and a girl's breath.\" One final passage—perhaps also a holy lie—: \"All openings of the body above the navel are pure, all below it are impure. Only in the girl is the whole body pure.\"\n\n[57]\n\nOne catches the *unholiness* of Christian means *in the act* when one measures the *Christian* end against the end of Manu's lawbook—when one brings this greatest opposition of ends into a strong light. The critic of Christianity cannot be spared the task of making Christianity *contemptible*.—A lawbook such as Manu's arises like every good lawbook: it sums up the experience, shrewdness, and experimental morality of long centuries; it brings things to a close; it no longer creates. The prerequisite for a codification of its kind is the insight that the means of giving authority to a *truth* acquired slowly and at great cost are fundamentally different from those by which one would prove it. A lawbook never recounts the utility, the reasons, the case-by-case deliberations in a law's prehistory: to do so would cost it its imperative tone, its \"you shall,\" the prerequisite for obedience. This is precisely where the problem lies.—At a certain point in a people's development, its most discerning stratum—that is, the one that looks furthest backward and ahead—declares the experience by which people are to live—that is, *can* live—complete. Its aim is to bring home the richest and fullest possible harvest from the ages of experiment and *bitter* experience. What must now be prevented above all, consequently, is further experimentation, the continued fluidity of values, the testing, choosing, criticizing of values *without end*. Against this one erects a double wall: first, *revelation*, that is, the assertion that the reason embodied in those laws is *not* of human origin, *not* sought and found slowly and through blunders, but, being of divine origin, whole, perfect, without a history, a gift, a miracle, simply communicated… Then *tradition*, that is, the assertion that the law has existed since ancient times, that to call it into question is impious, a crime against the ancestors. The law's authority is founded on these propositions: God *gave* it, the ancestors *lived* it.—The higher reason behind such a procedure lies in the intention of pushing consciousness back, step by step, from the life recognized as right (that is, *proved* by an immense and rigorously sifted body of experience), so that the perfect automatism of instinct is achieved—the prerequisite for every kind of mastery, every kind of perfection in the art of life. To establish a lawbook in the manner of Manu means granting a people the right henceforth to become masters, to become perfect—to aspire to the highest art of life. *For this, it must be made unconscious*: this is the purpose of every holy lie.—The *order of castes*, the highest, the dominant law, is merely the sanction of an *order of nature*, a natural law of the first rank over which no arbitrary will, no \"modern idea\" has any power. In every healthy society three types separate out, conditioning one another, with physiologically different centers of gravity; each has its own regimen of health, its own sphere of work, its own kind of feeling of perfection and mastery. Nature, *not* Manu, separates the predominantly intellectual, those predominantly strong in muscle and temperament, and the third group, distinguished in neither, the mediocre—the last as the great number, the first as the select. The highest caste—I call them *the fewest*—being the perfect one, also has the privileges of the fewest: among them, to embody happiness, beauty, goodness on earth. Only the most intellectual human beings are permitted beauty, permitted *the beautiful*: only in them is goodness not weakness. *The beautiful belongs to few people*: the good is a privilege. On the other hand, nothing can be less permissible for them than ugly manners or a pessimistic outlook, an eye that *makes things ugly*—or even indignation at the overall aspect of things. Indignation is the privilege of the Chandala; pessimism likewise. \"*The world is perfect*\"—so speaks the instinct of the most intellectual, the Yes-saying instinct—: \"Imperfection, every kind of thing *beneath* us, distance, the pathos of distance, even the Chandala himself belongs to this perfection.\" The most intellectual human beings, as the *strongest*, find their happiness where others would find their destruction: in the labyrinth, in severity toward themselves and others, in experiment; their delight is self-mastery: asceticism becomes nature, need, instinct in them. A difficult task counts as a privilege to them; playing with burdens that crush others, a *recreation*… Knowledge—a form of asceticism.—They are the most venerable kind of human being: this does not prevent them from being the most cheerful, the most lovable. They rule not because they want to, but because they *are*; they are not free to be second.—The *second*: these are the guardians of justice, the keepers of order and security, the noble warriors, above all the *king* as the highest formulation of warrior, judge, and upholder of the law. Those who rank second are the executive arm of the most intellectual, those closest to them, those who take all the *coarse* work of ruling off their hands—their retinue, their right hand, their best pupils.—In all this, let me say again, there is nothing arbitrary, nothing \"contrived\"; whatever is *otherwise* is contrived—then nature has been ruined… The order of castes, the *order of rank*, merely formulates the highest law of life itself; the separation of the three types is necessary to preserve society, to make higher and highest types possible—*inequality* of rights is the very condition for there being rights at all.—A right is a privilege. In his kind of being, everyone also has his privilege. Let us not underestimate the privileges of the *mediocre*. Life grows ever harder toward the *heights*—the cold increases, responsibility increases. A high culture is a pyramid: it can stand only on a broad base; its very first prerequisite is a strongly and healthily consolidated mediocrity. Crafts, commerce, agriculture, *science*, most of art, in a word the whole domain of *professional* activity, are compatible only with a middling measure of ability and desire; such things would be out of place among exceptions, and the corresponding instinct would contradict both aristocratism and anarchism. To be of public use, a wheel, a function, is a natural vocation: it is *not* society, but the kind of *happiness* of which the vast majority are alone capable, that makes intelligent machines of them. For the mediocre, being mediocre is happiness; mastery of one thing, specialization, is a natural instinct. It would be utterly unworthy of a deeper mind to see an objection in mediocrity as such. It is itself the *first* necessity if exceptions are to be possible: a high culture depends on it. When the exceptional person handles precisely the mediocre with gentler fingers than he uses for himself and his peers, this is not merely courtesy of the heart—it is simply his *duty*… Whom do I hate most among today's rabble? The socialist rabble, the Chandala apostles, who undermine the worker's instinct, his pleasure, his feeling of contentment with his little existence—who make him envious, who teach him revenge… Injustice never lies in un*equal* rights; it lies in the claim to \"equal\" rights… What is *bad*? But I have already said it: everything that comes from weakness, from envy, from *revenge*.—The anarchist and the Christian have the same ancestry…\n\n[58]\n\nIndeed, it makes a difference for what purpose one lies: whether one preserves or *destroys* by doing so. One may put a perfect equal sign between *Christian* and *anarchist*: their purpose, their instinct, aims only at destruction. The proof of this proposition need only be read from history: it contains that proof with terrifying clarity. We have just come to know a religious legislation whose purpose was to \"eternalize\" the highest condition for life to *flourish*, a great organization of society—Christianity found its mission in putting an end to just such an organization, *because life flourished within it*. There, the yield of reason from long ages of experiment and uncertainty was to be invested for the benefit of the most distant future, and the harvest brought home as great, as abundant, as complete as possible: here, on the contrary, the harvest was *poisoned* overnight… What stood *more enduring than bronze*, the *Roman Empire*, the grandest form of organization under difficult conditions that has yet been achieved, compared with which everything before and everything after is patchwork, bungling, amateurism—those holy anarchists made it an act of \"piety\" to destroy \"the world,\" *that is*, the *Roman Empire*, until not one stone remained on another—until even Germanic peoples and other louts could become its masters… The Christian and the anarchist: both *decadents*, both incapable of acting otherwise than by dissolving, poisoning, withering, *sucking blood*, both the instinct of *mortal hatred* against everything that stands, that stands in greatness, that endures, that promises life a future… Christianity was the vampire of the *Roman Empire*—overnight it undid the Romans' immense achievement of winning the ground for a great culture *that has time*.—Is this still not understood? The *Roman Empire* we know, which the history of the Roman provinces teaches us to know ever better, this most admirable work of art in the grand style, was a beginning; its construction was designed to *prove* itself over millennia—to this day no one has built like this, or even dreamed of building to the same degree *with eternity in view*!—This organization was firm enough to withstand bad emperors: the accident of persons must have no bearing on such things—the *first* principle of all great architecture. But it was not firm enough against the *most corrupt* kind of corruption, against the *Christian*… These secretive vermin, creeping up to every individual in darkness, fog, and ambiguity, sucking out of every individual his seriousness about *true* things, his instinct for *realities* altogether, this cowardly, effeminate, sickly-sweet gang, step by step estranged \"souls\" from that immense structure—those valuable, those manly and noble natures who felt their own cause, their own seriousness, their own pride in the cause of Rome. This sanctimonious creeping about, the secrecy of conventicles, gloomy concepts such as hell, such as the sacrifice of the innocent, such as *mystical union* in the drinking of blood, above all the slowly stoked fire of revenge, of Chandala revenge—*this* became master over Rome, the same kind of religion against which Epicurus had already waged war in its preexistent form. Read Lucretius to understand *what* Epicurus fought, *not* paganism, but \"Christianity,\" that is to say, the corruption of souls through the concepts of guilt, punishment, and immortality.—He fought the *underground* cults, the whole of latent Christianity—to deny immortality was already a genuine *redemption* then.—And Epicurus would have triumphed; every respectable mind in the Roman Empire was Epicurean: *then Paul appeared*… Paul, the Chandala hatred of Rome, of \"the world,\" become flesh, become genius, the Jew, the *eternal* Jew *in the fullest sense*… What he divined was how, with the help of the little sectarian Christian movement apart from Judaism, one could kindle a \"world conflagration,\" how, with the symbol \"God on the cross,\" one could add up everything lying at the bottom, everything secretly rebellious, the whole inheritance of anarchistic agitation in the Empire, into an immense power. \"Salvation comes from the Jews.\"—Christianity as a formula for outbidding the underground cults of every kind—those of Osiris, of the Great Mother, of Mithras, for example—*and* combining them: in this insight lies Paul's genius. His instinct was so sure in this that, with ruthless violence against the truth, he put the ideas with which those Chandala religions fascinated people into the mouth of the \"Savior\" he invented, and not only into his mouth—that he *made* him into something even a priest of Mithras could understand… This was his moment at Damascus: he understood that he *needed* the belief in immortality to devalue \"the world,\" that the concept of \"hell\" would yet become master over Rome—that with the \"beyond\" one *kills life*… Nihilist and Christian: they rhyme, and they do more than rhyme…\n\n[59]\n\nAll the labor of the ancient world *in vain*: I have no word to express my feeling about something so monstrous.—And considering that its labor was preparatory, that only just then, with a self-confidence of granite, the foundations had been laid for the work of millennia, the whole *meaning* of the ancient world in vain!… What were the Greeks for? What were the Romans for?—All the prerequisites for a scholarly culture, all the scientific *methods* were already there; the great, incomparable art of reading well had already been established—this prerequisite for the transmission of culture, for the unity of science; natural science, allied with mathematics and mechanics, was on the best possible path—the *sense for facts*, the last and most valuable of all the senses, had its schools, its tradition already centuries old! Is this understood? Everything *essential* had been found for work to begin—the methods, one must say it ten times, *are* the essential thing, also the most difficult thing, also what habits and laziness resist the longest. What we have won back for ourselves today, with unspeakable self-mastery—for we all still have the bad instincts, the Christian ones, in our bodies somehow—the free gaze before reality, the cautious hand, patience and seriousness in the smallest matters, the whole *honesty* of knowledge—it was already there! Already more than two millennia ago! *And*, added to this, good, refined tact and taste! *Not* as brain-training! *Not* as \"German\" education with a lout's manners! But as body, as gesture, as instinct—in a word, as reality… *All in vain!* Overnight, nothing but a memory!—Greeks! Romans! Nobility of instinct, taste, methodical research, genius for organization and administration, faith, the *will* to humanity's future, the great Yes to all things made visible as the *Roman Empire*, visible to every sense, the grand style no longer merely art but become reality, truth, *life*…—And not buried overnight by a natural event! Not trampled down by Germanic peoples and other heavy-footed creatures! But ruined by cunning, secretive, invisible, anemic vampires! Not conquered—only sucked dry!… Hidden vindictiveness, petty envy become *master*! Everything wretched, suffering from itself, plagued by bad feelings, the whole *ghetto-world* of the soul suddenly *on top*!— —One need only read any Christian agitator, Saint Augustine for example, to understand, to *smell*, what unclean fellows came out on top with this. One would be wholly mistaken to suppose any lack of intelligence in the leaders of the Christian movement—oh, they are clever, clever to the point of holiness, these gentlemen Church Fathers! What they lack is something quite different. Nature neglected them—it forgot to give them a modest endowment of respectable, decent, *clean* instincts… Between ourselves, they are not even men… When Islam despises Christianity, it has a thousandfold right to do so: Islam presupposes *men*…\n\n[60]\n\nChristianity robbed us of the harvest of ancient culture; later it robbed us again of the harvest of *Islamic* culture. The marvelous Moorish cultural world of Spain, fundamentally more akin to *us*, speaking more to our senses and taste than Rome and Greece, was *trampled down* (—I do not say by what sort of feet—), why? Because it owed its origin to noble instincts, to the instincts of men, because it said Yes to life even with the rare and exquisite treasures of Moorish life!… Later the Crusaders fought something before which it would have better become them to prostrate themselves in the dust—a culture beside which even our nineteenth century might well seem very poor, very \"late.\"—Of course, they wanted booty: the Orient was rich… Let us be unprejudiced! Crusades—piracy on a higher plane, nothing more! The German nobility, Viking nobility at bottom, was in its element here: the Church knew only too well how to *get* the German nobility… The German nobility, always the Church's \"Swiss,\" always in the service of all the Church's bad instincts—but *well paid*… That the Church waged its war of mortal enmity against everything noble on earth precisely with the help of German swords, German blood and courage! There are many painful questions at this point. The German nobility is almost *absent* from the history of higher culture: one can guess the reason… Christianity, alcohol—the two *great* means of corruption… In itself there should be no choice at all between Islam and Christianity, any more than between an Arab and a Jew. The decision is given; no one is free to choose here any longer. Either one *is* a Chandala or one is *not*… \"War to the knife with Rome! Peace, friendship with Islam\": so felt, so *acted* that great freethinker, the genius among German emperors, Frederick the Second. What? Must a German first be a genius, first a freethinker, to feel *decently*? I cannot understand how a German could ever feel *Christian*…\n\n[61]\n\nHere we must touch on a memory a hundred times more painful for Germans. The Germans robbed Europe of the last great cultural harvest that remained for Europe to bring home—the harvest of the *Renaissance*. Is it finally understood, does anyone *want* to understand, *what* the Renaissance was? The *revaluation of Christian values*, the attempt, undertaken with every means, every instinct, every power of genius, to bring the *opposite* values, the *noble* values, to victory… There has so far been only *this* great war; there has so far been no more decisive posing of the question than that of the Renaissance—*my* question is its question—: there has also never been a more fundamental, a more direct form of *attack*, one more rigorously driven forward along the whole front and toward the center! To attack at the decisive point, at the very seat of Christianity, to enthrone the *noble* values here—that is to say, to bring them *into* the instincts, into the deepest needs and desires of those seated there… I see before me a *possibility* of utterly unearthly magic and splendor of color—it seems to me to shine with every shudder of exquisite beauty, to have at work within it an art so divine, so devilishly divine, that one searches millennia in vain for a second such possibility; I see a spectacle so rich in meaning, so wonderfully paradoxical at the same time, that all the deities of Olympus would have had cause for immortal laughter—*Cesare Borgia as pope*… Am I understood?… Well, that would have been the victory for which *I* alone long today—with that, Christianity would have been *abolished*!—What happened? A German monk, Luther, came to Rome. This monk, with all the vengeful instincts of a failed priest in his body, rebelled in Rome *against* the Renaissance… Instead of understanding with the deepest gratitude the tremendous thing that had happened, the overcoming of Christianity at its *seat*, his hatred knew only how to draw nourishment from this spectacle. A religious person thinks only of himself.—Luther saw the *corruption* of the papacy, while precisely the opposite was palpable: the old corruption, *original sin*, Christianity, was *no longer* sitting on the papal throne! But life was! The triumph of life was! The great Yes to all lofty, beautiful, daring things was!… And Luther *restored the Church*: he attacked it… The Renaissance—an event without meaning, a great *In Vain*!—Ah, these Germans, what they have already cost us! In vain—that was always the Germans' *work*.—The Reformation; Leibniz; Kant and so-called German philosophy; the wars of \"liberation\"; the German Empire—each time an In Vain for something that was already there, for something *irretrievable*… They are *my* enemies, I confess it, these Germans: in them I despise every kind of uncleanliness in concepts and values, every kind of *cowardice* before every honest Yes and No. For nearly a millennium they have tangled and confused everything they have laid their fingers on; they have on their conscience all the half-measures—three-eighths-measures!—that make Europe sick—they also have on their conscience the most unclean kind of Christianity there is, the most incurable, the most irrefutable, Protestantism… If Christianity is not finished off, the *Germans* will be to blame…\n\n[62]\n\n—With this I come to the end and pronounce my judgment. I *condemn* Christianity; I bring against the Christian Church the most terrible of all accusations that any accuser has ever uttered. To me it is the highest of all conceivable corruptions; it has willed the ultimate corruption that could possibly exist. The Christian Church left nothing untouched by its depravity; it has turned every value into worthlessness, every truth into a lie, all honesty into baseness of soul. Let anyone still dare to speak to me of its \"humanitarian\" blessings! To *abolish* any distress ran counter to its deepest advantage: it lived on distress, it *created* distress to perpetuate *itself*… The worm of sin, for example: it was the Church that first enriched humanity with this distress!—The \"equality of souls before God,\" this falsehood, this *pretext* for the *resentments* of all the base-minded, this explosive concept that has finally become revolution, modern idea, and the principle of decline of the entire social order—is *Christian* dynamite… The \"humanitarian\" blessings of Christianity! To breed out of *humanity* a self-contradiction, an art of self-defilement, a will to lie at any price, an aversion to, a contempt for all good and honest instincts! Those are what I would call the blessings of Christianity!—Parasitism as the *sole* practice of the Church; with its ideal of anemia, of \"holiness,\" drinking dry all blood, all love, all hope for life; the beyond as the will to negate every reality; the cross as the identifying sign of the most subterranean conspiracy that has ever existed—against health, beauty, sound constitution, courage, intellect, *goodness* of soul, *against life itself*…\n\nI want to write this eternal accusation against Christianity on every wall, wherever there are walls—I have letters that will make even the blind see… I call Christianity the *one* great curse, the *one* great innermost corruption, the *one* great instinct of revenge for which no means is poisonous, secretive, subterranean, *petty* enough—I call it the *one* immortal blot of shame on humanity…\n\nAnd time is reckoned from the *accursed day* on which this calamity began—from the *first* day of Christianity!—*Why not rather from its last?*—*From today?*—Revaluation of all values!\n\n### Law Against Christianity\n\nGiven on the day of salvation, on the first day of the year One (—September 30, 1888, by the false reckoning of time)\n\n*War to the death against vice: the vice is Christianity.*\n\n[1]\n\n*First proposition.*—Every kind of opposition to nature is vicious. The most vicious kind of human being is the priest: he *teaches* opposition to nature. Against the priest one has no arguments; one has the penitentiary.\n\n[2]\n\n*Second proposition.*—Every participation in a religious service is an assault on public morality. One must be harsher with Protestants than with Catholics, harsher with liberal Protestants than with the orthodox. The criminality of being a Christian increases as one approaches science. The criminal of criminals is therefore the *philologist*.\n\n[3]\n\n*Third proposition.*—The accursed places where Christianity has hatched its basilisk eggs must be razed to the ground and, as *abominable* places on earth, be the terror of all posterity. One must breed venomous snakes on them.\n\n[4]\n\n*Fourth proposition.*—The preaching of chastity is a public incitement to opposition to nature. All contempt for sexual life, every defilement of it through the concept of \"impure,\" is the real sin against the holy spirit of life.\n\n[5]\n\n*Fifth proposition.*—To eat at the same table with a priest makes one an outcast: one thereby excommunicates oneself from decent society. The priest is *our* Chandala—one must outlaw him, starve him, drive him into every kind of desert.\n\n[6]\n\n*Sixth proposition.*—One must call \"sacred\" history by the name it deserves: *accursed* history; one must turn the words \"God,\" \"Savior,\" \"Redeemer,\" \"Saint\" into terms of abuse, use them as badges of criminals.\n\n[7]\n\n*Seventh proposition.*—The rest follows from this.\n\n*The Antichrist*","download_url":"https://mouseia.org/api/works/antichrist/translations/trn_antichrist_mouseia.txt"},{"id":"trn_antichrist_plain","translator":"Mouseia","kind":"plain","note":"Mouseia’s complete Plain English edition, made independently and directly from the same German text of the preface, all sixty-two sections and the Law Against Christianity. Nietzsche’s own emphasis is kept.","text":"### Preface\n\nThe Antichrist\n\n*A Curse on Christianity*\n\nThis book belongs to very few people. Perhaps none of them is alive yet. They may be the people who understand my Zarathustra. How *could* I confuse myself with those for whom ears are already growing today?—Only the day after tomorrow belongs to me. Some people are born after their deaths.\n\nI know only too well the conditions under which people understand me, and then understand me *of necessity*. You must be honest in intellectual matters to the point of harshness, just to bear my seriousness, my passion. You must be used to living on mountains—to seeing the wretched chatter of the day about politics and national selfishness *below* you. You must have become indifferent. You must never ask whether the truth is useful, whether it will be your downfall… A strength that prefers questions no one today has the courage to ask; courage for what is *forbidden*; being destined for the labyrinth. Experience gained in seven solitudes. New ears for new music. New eyes for the most distant things. A new conscience for truths that have so far stayed silent. *And* the will to manage your resources on a grand scale: to keep your strength, your *enthusiasm* together… Deep respect for yourself; love for yourself; complete freedom in dealing with yourself…\n\nWell then! These alone are my readers, my true readers, my destined readers. What does the *rest* matter?—The rest is only humanity.—You must stand above humanity through strength, through *height* of soul—through contempt…\n\n*Friedrich Nietzsche*\n\n### Sections 1–10\n\n[1]\n\n—Let's look each other in the face. We are Hyperboreans—we know well enough how far from everyone else we live. “Neither by land nor by water will you find the way to the Hyperboreans”: Pindar already knew that about us. Beyond the north, the ice, death—*our* life, *our* happiness… We have discovered happiness. We know the way. We found the exit from a labyrinth that lasted whole thousands of years. Who *else* found it?—Modern people, perhaps?—“I don't know which way to turn; I am everything that doesn't know which way to turn,” the modern person sighs… We were sick from this modernity—from its rotten peace, its cowardly compromises, all the virtuous filth of its Yes and No. This tolerance and *open-heartedness*, which “forgives” everything because it “understands” everything, is a sirocco to us. Better to live in ice than among modern virtues and other south winds!… We were brave enough. We spared neither ourselves nor anyone else. But for a long time we didn't know *where to direct* our courage. We grew gloomy; people called us fatalists. *Our* fate was fullness, tension, a buildup of forces. We thirsted for lightning and action. Nothing was further from us than the happiness of weaklings, than “resignation”… A thunderstorm was in our air. Our very nature grew dark—*because we had no path*. The formula for our happiness: a Yes, a No, a straight line, a *goal*…\n\n[2]\n\nWhat is good?—Everything that increases the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself in a person.\n\nWhat is bad?—Everything that comes from weakness.\n\nWhat is happiness?—The feeling that power is *growing*—that resistance is being overcome.\n\n*Not* contentment, but more power; *not* peace as such, but war; *not* virtue, but ability (virtue in the Renaissance style, *excellence*, virtue free of moralizing).\n\nThe weak and the failures should perish: the first principle of *our* love of humanity. And they should even be helped to do it.\n\nWhat is more harmful than any vice?—Acting out of pity for all the failures and the weak—Christianity…\n\n[3]\n\nThe problem I am posing here is not what should replace humanity in the succession of beings (the human being is an *end*). It is what type of human being we should *breed*, should *want*, as more valuable, more worthy of life, more certain of a future.\n\nThis more valuable type has appeared often enough already. But it has appeared as a lucky accident, an exception, never as something *intended*. In fact, *this* type has been feared more than any other. Until now it has been almost *the* thing to fear. That fear led people to want, breed, and *achieve* the opposite type: the domestic animal, the herd animal, the sick human animal—the Christian…\n\n[4]\n\nHumanity is *not* developing into something better or stronger or higher in the way people now believe. “Progress” is just a modern idea, which means a false idea. In *value*, today's European is far below the European of the Renaissance. Further development is simply *not* necessarily a rise, an increase, a strengthening.\n\nIn another sense, individual cases keep turning out well in very different parts of the earth and in very different cultures. In these cases a *higher* type really does appear: something that is a kind of superhuman being compared with humanity as a whole. Such lucky cases of great success have always been possible and perhaps always will be. Under certain conditions, even whole families, tribes, and peoples can be such a *success*.\n\n[5]\n\nWe should not dress Christianity up and make it look pretty. It has fought a *war to the death* against this *higher* human type. It has outlawed all this type's basic instincts. From these instincts it has distilled evil and the evil person—the strong person as the standard example of someone wicked, the “rejected person.” Christianity has sided with everything weak, low, and failed. It has made an ideal out of *opposition* to the instincts that preserve strong life. It has corrupted the reason of even people with the strongest minds by teaching them to see the highest intellectual values as sinful, misleading, as *temptations*. The most pitiful example is Pascal's corruption. He believed that original sin had corrupted his reason, when only his Christianity had corrupted it!—\n\n[6]\n\nA painful, horrifying sight has opened up before me: I pulled back the curtain on human *corruption*. In my mouth, at least, this word is safe from one suspicion: that it contains a moral accusation against humanity. It is meant—I want to stress this again—*without moralizing*. So much so that I feel this corruption most strongly precisely where people have most consciously aimed at “virtue,” at “divinity.” By corruption, as you will already have guessed, I mean *decadence*. My claim is that all the values in which humanity now sums up what it most desires are values of *decadence*.\n\nI call an animal, a species, an individual corrupt when it loses its instincts, when it chooses, when it *prefers*, what harms it. A history of the “higher feelings,” of the “ideals of humanity”—and I may have to tell that history—would almost also explain *why* humanity is so corrupt. I regard life itself as an instinct for growth, for endurance, for gathering strength, for *power*. Where the will to power is *missing*, there is decline. My claim is that all humanity's highest values lack this will—that values of decline, *nihilistic* values, rule under the holiest names.\n\n[7]\n\nChristianity is called the religion of *pity*.—Pity works against the feelings that strengthen us and heighten our sense of being alive: it depresses us. We lose strength when we feel pity. Pity increases and multiplies the loss of strength that suffering already brings to life on its own. Pity makes suffering itself contagious. In some circumstances it can produce a total loss of life and vital energy absurdly out of proportion to the size of its cause—the case of the Nazarene's death. That is the first point of view, but there is a more important one. Suppose we measure pity by the value of the reactions it usually produces. Then its life-threatening character appears in a much clearer light. On the whole, pity works against the law of development, which is the law of *selection*. It preserves what is ripe for destruction. It fights on behalf of those disinherited and condemned by life. By the mass of failures of every kind that it *keeps* alive, it makes life itself look gloomy and questionable. People have dared to call pity a virtue—in every *noble* morality it counts as weakness. They have gone further, making it *the* virtue, the foundation and source of all virtues. But this was, of course—and we must always keep this in mind—from the standpoint of a nihilistic philosophy, a philosophy that wrote the *denial of life* on its banner. Schopenhauer was right about this: pity denies life and makes it *more deserving of denial*—pity is the *practice* of nihilism. To say it again: this depressing and contagious instinct works against the instincts aimed at preserving life and increasing its value. Both as a *multiplier* of misery and as a *preserver* of everything miserable, it is a chief tool for increasing *decadence*—pity persuades people to choose *nothingness*!… People don't say “nothingness.” Instead they say “the beyond,” or “God,” or “the *true* life,” or nirvana, redemption, bliss… This innocent rhetoric from the realm of religious and moral peculiarities at once looks *much less innocent* when we understand *what* tendency is wrapping itself in a cloak of sublime words here: the tendency *hostile to life*. Schopenhauer was hostile to life: *that is why* pity became a virtue for him… Aristotle, as we know, saw pity as a sick and dangerous condition best treated with a purgative now and then. He understood tragedy as a purgative. From the standpoint of life's instinct, we really should look for a way to puncture such a sick and dangerous buildup of pity as the case of Schopenhauer represents—and, unfortunately, so does our whole literary and artistic *decadence*, from St. Petersburg to Paris, from Tolstoy to Wagner—so that it *bursts*… Nothing in our unhealthy modern world is unhealthier than Christian pity. *To be a doctor here*, to be ruthless *here*, to wield the knife *here*—that is *our* business, that is *our* kind of love for humanity, that is what makes *us* philosophers, us Hyperboreans!—\n\n[8]\n\nWe need to say *whom* we see as our opposite—the theologians and everything with theologians' blood in its body—our whole philosophy… You must have seen this disaster up close. Better still, you must have experienced it *yourself*, must have almost perished from it, to stop taking anything lightly here. (To my eyes, the freethinking of our natural scientists and physiologists is a joke. They lack passion in these matters, the *suffering* over them.) This poisoning reaches much further than people think. I have found the theologian's instinctive arrogance everywhere people today feel themselves to be “idealists”—where they claim, on the strength of some higher ancestry, the right to look down on reality as something foreign to them… Just like the priest, the idealist has all the great concepts in his hands—and not just in his hands! With kindly contempt, he plays them off against “understanding,” “the senses,” “honors,” “good living,” “science.” He sees such things as *beneath* him, as harmful and seductive forces above which “the spirit” floats, purely on its own—as though humility, chastity, poverty, *holiness* in a word, had not done unspeakably more harm to life up to now than any horrors or vices… Pure spirit is pure falsehood… As long as the priest still counts as a *higher* kind of human being—this *denier*, slanderer, and poisoner of life *by profession*—there is no answer to the question: what *is* truth? Truth has already been turned upside down when the conscious advocate of nothingness and denial counts as the representative of “truth”…\n\n[9]\n\nI make war on this theologian's instinct: I have found its traces everywhere. Anyone with theologians' blood in his body takes a crooked, dishonest position toward everything from the start. The passionate attitude that develops from this calls itself *faith*: shutting your eyes to yourself once and for all, to avoid suffering at the sight of incurable falsehood. You turn this faulty way of seeing everything into your own morality, virtue, holiness. You attach a good conscience to seeing *falsely*. Once you have made your own outlook sacred with the names “God,” “redemption,” “eternity,” you demand that no *other* outlook be allowed any value. Wherever I dug, I uncovered the theologian's instinct. It is the most widespread form of falsehood on earth, the truly *underground* form. What a theologian feels to be true *must* be false. That almost gives us a test for truth. His deepest instinct of self-preservation forbids reality to be honored on any point, or even allowed a word. Wherever the theologian's influence reaches, *value judgments* are turned upside down, and the concepts “true” and “false” are necessarily reversed. What harms life most is called “true” here. What lifts it, strengthens it, affirms it, justifies it, and makes it triumph is called “false”… When theologians reach for power through the “conscience” of rulers (*or* of peoples), let us not doubt *what* is really happening each time: the will to the end, the *nihilistic* will, wants power…\n\n[10]\n\nGermans understand at once when I say that philosophy is corrupted by theologians' blood. The Protestant pastor is the grandfather of German philosophy; Protestantism itself is its *original sin*. Definition of Protestantism: paralysis of one side of Christianity—*and* of reason… You only have to say “Tübingen Seminary” to understand *what* German philosophy really is—a *sneaky* theology… The Swabians are Germany's best liars. They lie innocently… Why did rejoicing sweep through the German scholarly world when *Kant* appeared—a world in which three quarters were sons of pastors and teachers? Why the German conviction, still echoed today, that Kant marked a turn for the *better*? The theologian's instinct in the German scholar guessed *what* was now possible again… A back way to the old ideal stood open. Thanks to a sly, clever skepticism, the idea of the “*true* world,” the idea of morality as the essence of the world—the two most malignant errors there are!—could once again, if not be proved, at least no longer be *refuted*… Reason, the *authority* of reason, does not reach that far… Reality had been turned into “mere appearance.” A completely *fabricated* world, the world of true being, had been made into reality… Kant's success is only a theologian's success. Like Luther, like Leibniz, Kant was one more brake on German honesty, which has trouble keeping a steady rhythm anyway——\n\n### Sections 11–20\n\n[11]\n\nOne more word against Kant as a *moralist*. A virtue must be *our* invention, *our* most personal defense and most personal need. In any other sense it is only a danger. What is not a condition of our life *harms* it. A virtue practiced merely out of respect for the idea of “virtue,” as Kant wanted, is harmful. “Virtue,” “duty,” the “good in itself,” the good that is impersonal and valid for everyone—these are fantasies that express decline, life's final loss of strength, the Chinese mentality of Königsberg. The deepest laws of preservation and growth command the opposite: everyone must invent *their own* virtue, *their own* categorical imperative. A people perishes when it confuses *its own* duty with the idea of duty in general. Nothing ruins us more deeply, more inwardly, than any “impersonal” duty, any sacrifice to the Moloch of abstraction.—How could people fail to feel that Kant's categorical imperative was *a danger to life*!… Only the theologian's instinct protected it!—An action forced on us by life's instinct proves itself a *right* action through pleasure. But that nihilist with Christian dogma in his guts saw pleasure as an *objection*… What destroys us faster than working, thinking, and feeling without an inner necessity, without a deeply personal choice, without *pleasure*? As an automaton of “duty”? It is nothing less than the *recipe* for *decadence*, even for idiocy… Kant became an idiot.—And this was *Goethe's* contemporary! This disastrous spider passed for the *German* philosopher—and still does!… I am careful not to say what I think of the Germans… Didn't Kant see the French Revolution as the transition from the inorganic form of the state to the *organic*? Didn't he ask himself whether there was an event that could only be explained by a moral disposition in humanity, so that it *proved*, once and for all, “humanity's tendency toward the good”? Kant's answer: “That is the Revolution.” An instinct that gets everything wrong, *opposition to nature* as an instinct, German *decadence* as philosophy—*that is Kant*!—\n\n[12]\n\nI make an exception for a few skeptics, the decent type in the history of philosophy. But the rest do not know the first requirements of intellectual honesty. All these great visionaries and wondrous creatures behave like little women. They already take “beautiful feelings” for arguments, the “swelling chest” for the bellows of divinity, conviction for a *test* of truth. Most recently, Kant, in his “German” innocence, even tried to make this form of corruption, this lack of intellectual conscience, scientific under the name “practical reason.” He invented a special reason for the case in which we need not bother with reason: when morality, when the lofty demand “you must,” speaks up. Consider that among almost all peoples the philosopher is only a further development of the priestly type. Then this inheritance from the priest—*paying oneself with counterfeit money*—is no longer surprising. When you have holy tasks—for example, to improve, save, redeem people—when you carry divinity in your breast and are the mouthpiece for commands from beyond, such a mission already places you outside all merely rational judgments. Such a task has already sanctified *you yourself*, already made you a type of a higher order!… What does a priest care about *science*! He stands too high for it!—And until now the priest has *ruled*!—He *determined* the concepts “true” and “untrue”!…\n\n[13]\n\nLet's not underestimate this: *we ourselves*, we free spirits, are already a “revaluation of all values,” a declaration of war and victory *in the flesh* against all the old ideas of “true” and “untrue.” The most valuable insights are found last. But the most valuable insights are *methods*. *All* the methods, *all* the basic assumptions of our present scientific approach faced the deepest contempt for thousands of years. Because of them, you were shut out of the company of “respectable” people. You were considered an “enemy of God,” someone who despised truth, someone “possessed.” With a scientific cast of mind, you were a Chandala… We had the whole passionate attitude of humanity against us—its idea of what truth *should be*, of what serving truth *should be*. Until now, every “you must” has been directed *against* us… Our objects of study, our practices, our quiet, cautious, distrustful way—all of this seemed completely unworthy and contemptible to humanity.—In the end, it would be fair enough to ask whether an *aesthetic* taste was really what kept humanity blind for so long. It demanded a *visually striking* effect from truth. It likewise demanded that the person seeking knowledge make a strong impression on the senses. Our *modesty* offended its taste longest of all… Oh, how they sensed that, those turkeys of God——\n\n[14]\n\nWe have learned to think differently. We have become more modest in every respect. We no longer trace humanity back to “spirit,” to “divinity.” We have put humans back among the animals. We regard the human being as the strongest animal because it is the most cunning: its intellect is a result of this. On the other hand, we resist a vanity that wants to speak up here again, as though humanity had been the great hidden purpose of animal development. Humanity is certainly not the crown of creation. Every creature stands beside it at the same level of perfection… And in saying that, we still say too much. Relatively speaking, the human being is the animal that has turned out worst, the sickliest, the one that has strayed most dangerously from its instincts—though, for all that, also the *most interesting*!—As for animals, Descartes was the first to dare, with admirable boldness, to think of the animal as a *machine*. Our whole physiology works to prove this proposition. Logically, we do not set humans apart either, as Descartes still did. Today we understand human beings only to the extent that we understand them as machines. People once gave human beings “free will” as their endowment from a higher order. Today we have taken away even their will, in the sense that it must no longer be understood as a capacity. The old word “will” only serves to name a combined result, a kind of individual reaction that necessarily follows a mass of stimuli, some conflicting, some agreeing. The will no longer “acts,” no longer “moves” anything… People once saw human consciousness, “spirit,” as proof of humanity's higher origin, its divinity. To *perfect* a human being, they recommended drawing the senses inward like a turtle, stopping contact with earthly things, casting off the mortal shell. Then the essential part remained: “pure spirit.” Here too we have thought better of it. We see conscious awareness, “spirit,” as precisely a symptom of the organism's relative imperfection: an attempt, a fumbling search, a mistake, hard work that uses up an unnecessarily large amount of nervous energy. We deny that anything can be done perfectly as long as it is still done consciously. “Pure spirit” is pure stupidity. If we subtract the nervous system and the senses, the “mortal shell,” then *our calculation is wrong*—nothing more!…\n\n[15]\n\nIn Christianity, neither morality nor religion touches reality at any point. Nothing but imaginary *causes* (“God,” “soul,” “I,” “spirit,” “free will”—or “unfree will”); nothing but imaginary *effects* (“sin,” “redemption,” “grace,” “punishment,” “forgiveness of sin”). Dealings between imaginary *beings* (“God,” “spirits,” “souls”); an imaginary *natural science* (human-centered; completely lacking the concept of natural causes); an imaginary *psychology* (nothing but misunderstandings of oneself, interpretations of pleasant or unpleasant general feelings—for example, states of the *sympathetic nerve*—using the symbolic language of religious and moral peculiarities: “repentance,” “pangs of conscience,” “temptation by the devil,” “God's nearness”); an imaginary *theory of purposes* (“the kingdom of God,” “the Last Judgment,” “eternal life”).—This purely *fictional world* differs from the dream world greatly to its own disadvantage: dreams *reflect* reality, while this world falsifies, devalues, and denies reality. Once the concept “nature” had been invented as the opposite of “God,” “natural” had to become the word for “reprehensible.” This entire fictional world is rooted in *hatred* of the natural—of reality! It expresses a deep uneasiness with what is real… *But that explains everything*. Who alone has reasons to *lie their way out* of reality? Those who *suffer* from it. But to suffer from reality means being a reality that has *gone wrong*… The *cause* of a fictional morality and religion is an excess of unpleasant feelings over pleasant ones. But such an excess gives us the formula for *decadence*…\n\n[16]\n\nA critique of the *Christian idea of God* forces us to the same conclusion.—A people that still believes in itself still has its own god. In him it honors the conditions that keep it on top, its virtues. It projects its delight in itself, its feeling of power, into a being it can thank for them. Those who are rich want to give something away. A proud people needs a god so it can *sacrifice*… Under these conditions, religion is a form of gratitude. People are grateful for themselves: that is why they need a god.—Such a god must be able to help and to harm, to be a friend and an enemy. People admire him in good things as in bad. The *unnatural* castration of a god into a god of goodness alone would be completely undesirable here. The evil god is needed as much as the good one. After all, people do not exactly owe their own existence to tolerance, to goodwill toward humanity… What use would a god be who knew nothing of anger, revenge, envy, mockery, cunning, violence? Who perhaps did not even know the delightful *passions* of victory and destruction? People would not understand such a god. What would they want him for?—Of course, when a people is perishing, when it feels its faith in the future, its hope of freedom, fading away for good, when it becomes conscious of submission as the most useful thing and the virtues of the submissive as the conditions of survival, then its god *must* change too. He now becomes a cringing sneak, timid, modest. He recommends “peace of soul,” no more hatred, forbearance, “love” even for friend and enemy. He moralizes constantly. He crawls into the den of every private virtue, becomes a god for everyone, becomes a private citizen, becomes a cosmopolitan… Once he represented a people, a people's strength, everything aggressive and hungry for power in a people's soul. Now he is only the good god… In fact, gods have no other alternative: *either* they are the will to power—and as long as they are, they will be gods of a people—*or* they are an inability to attain power—and then they necessarily become *good*…\n\n[17]\n\nWherever the will to power declines in any form, there is always a physiological decline as well, a *decadence*. The deity of *decadence*, with its most masculine virtues and drives cut away, now necessarily becomes the god of the physically weakened, the weak. They do *not* call themselves the weak. They call themselves “the good”… You can understand, without another hint, at what moments in history the fiction of two opposing gods, a good god and an evil god first becomes possible. The same instinct that makes the conquered degrade their god to “goodness in itself” makes them erase the good qualities from their conquerors' god. They take revenge on their masters by *turning their god into a devil*.—The *good* god, just like the devil: both are offspring of *decadence*.—How can people today still give in so far to the simplemindedness of Christian theologians that they join them in declaring that the development of the idea of God from the “God of Israel,” from a people's god, to the Christian God, the embodiment of everything good, is *progress*?—But even Renan does it. As though Renan had a right to be simpleminded! The opposite is obvious. When the conditions of *rising* life, when everything strong, brave, commanding, proud is removed from the idea of God; when he sinks step by step into the symbol of a staff for the weary, a rescue anchor for all who are drowning; when he becomes the poor people's god, the sinners' god, the sick people's god *above all*, and “savior,” “redeemer” is, so to speak, the only divine attribute *left*: *what* does such a transformation tell us? Such a *reduction* of the divine?—Of course, “the kingdom of God” has grown larger as a result. Once he had only his own people, his “chosen” people. Since then, just like his people themselves, he went abroad, went wandering. After that he never stayed still anywhere, until at last he became at home everywhere, the great cosmopolitan—until he got “the great number” and half the earth on his side. But despite this, the god of “the great number,” the democrat among gods, did not become a proud pagan god. He remained a Jew, remained the god of nooks, the god of all the dark corners and places, of all the unhealthy quarters of the whole world!… His world empire is still an underworld empire, a hospital, a *basement* empire, a ghetto empire… And he himself, so pale, so weak, so *decadent*… Even the palest of the pale came to rule over him, the gentlemen metaphysicians, the albinos of concepts. They spun their webs around him until, hypnotized by their movements, he himself became a spider, a metaphysician himself. Now he spun the world out of himself again—*in Spinoza's guise*. Now he transformed himself into something thinner and paler all the time, became an “ideal,” became “pure spirit,” became “the *absolute*,” became “the thing in itself”… *The decline of a god*: God became “the thing in itself”…\n\n[18]\n\nThe Christian idea of God—God as god of the sick, God as spider, God as spirit—is one of the most corrupt ideas of God ever reached on earth. It may even mark the low point in the downward development of the type called god. God degenerated into the *opposite of life*, instead of being its glorification and eternal *Yes*! In God, war declared on life, on nature, on the will to life! God the formula for every slander of “this world,” for every lie about “the beyond”! In God, nothingness made divine, the will to nothingness declared holy!…\n\n[19]\n\nThe fact that the strong races of northern Europe have not cast off the Christian God certainly does no credit to their religious gifts—not to mention their taste. They *should* have finished off such a sickly, senile offspring of *decadence*. But a curse lies on them for not having finished him off. They have taken sickness, old age, contradiction into all their instincts. Since then they have *created* no more gods! Almost two thousand years and not one single new god! Instead, still standing as though by right, as though the *final word* and *utmost limit* of humanity's god-forming power, its *creative spirit*, this pitiful God of Christian monotonous monotheism! This hybrid product of decay, made of zero, concept, and contradiction, in which all instincts of *decadence*, all the soul's cowardice and weariness, are given approval!——\n\n[20]\n\nIn condemning Christianity, I would not want to have wronged a related religion that even surpasses it in number of followers: *Buddhism*. The two belong together as nihilistic religions—they are religions of *decadence*—yet they differ from each other in the most remarkable ways. The critic of Christianity is deeply grateful to the Indian scholars for making it possible to *compare* them now.—Buddhism is a hundred times more realistic than Christianity. It has inherited an objective, cool way of posing problems. It comes *after* a philosophical movement lasting hundreds of years. The concept “God” has already been disposed of when it arrives. Buddhism is the only truly *positivist* religion that history shows us, even in its theory of knowledge, a strict phenomenalism. It no longer says “struggle against *sin*,” but, fully granting reality its due, “struggle against *suffering*.” It has already left behind the self-deception of moral concepts—this deeply separates it from Christianity. In my language, it stands *beyond* good and evil.—The *two* physiological facts on which it rests and which it addresses are: *first*, an excessive sensitivity to stimuli, expressed as a finely developed capacity for pain; *second*, excessive intellectualization, a life spent too long among concepts and logical procedures, which has damaged the personal instinct to the benefit of the “impersonal.” (Both are conditions that at least some of my readers, the “objective” ones, will know from experience, as I do myself.) These physiological conditions have produced a *depression*. Buddha tackles it with measures for health. Against it he prescribes life outdoors, a wandering life; moderation and care in choosing food; caution toward all liquor; caution also toward all emotions that stir up bile or heat the blood; *no worries*, either for yourself or for others. He calls for thoughts that either calm or cheer us. He invents ways of breaking the habit of the others. He understands goodness, being kind, as promoting health. *Prayer* is ruled out, as is *asceticism*. No categorical imperative, no *compulsion* at all, not even within the monastic community—you can leave again. All these would be ways to heighten that excessive sensitivity. For the same reason, he does not call for a struggle against people who think differently. His teaching opposes nothing more than the feeling of revenge, aversion, *resentment*. (“Hostility does not end through hostility”: the moving refrain of all Buddhism…) And rightly so: these very emotions would be completely *unhealthy* in view of its chief aim of regulating how we live. He finds intellectual exhaustion, expressed in an excessive “objectivity”—that is, weakened individual interest, a loss of personal weight and importance, of “egoism.” He fights it by strictly bringing even the most intellectual interests back to the *person*. In Buddha's teaching, egoism becomes a duty. “One thing is needed,” “how do *you* get free of suffering?”—these regulate and limit the intellectual diet. (We may perhaps recall that Athenian who likewise made war on pure “scientific thinking”: Socrates, who made personal egoism a moral principle even in the realm of problems.)\n\n### Sections 21–30\n\n[21]\n\nBuddhism requires a very mild climate, great gentleness and tolerance in social customs, *no militarism*, and a movement rooted in the upper, even educated, classes. People seek cheerfulness, peace, and freedom from desire as their highest goal, and they *reach* it. Buddhism is not a religion in which people merely aspire to perfection: perfection is the normal state.—\n\nIn Christianity, the instincts of the subjugated and oppressed come to the front: it is the lowest classes that seek their salvation in it. Here, analyzing the finer points of sin, self-criticism, and interrogating one’s conscience serve as an *occupation*, as a remedy for boredom. Here, intense feeling toward a *powerful being* called “God” is constantly kept alive through prayer. Here, the highest state is considered unattainable, a gift, “grace.” Here, too, openness is absent; hiding places and dark rooms are Christian. Here, the body is despised and hygiene rejected as sensuality; the church even resists cleanliness itself. (The first Christian measure after the expulsion of the Moors was to close the public baths, of which Cordova alone had 270.) A certain taste for cruelty to oneself and others is Christian; so are hatred of those who think differently and the will to persecute. Gloomy and agitating ideas take the lead; the most sought-after states, given the most exalted names, are epileptic in character. The diet is chosen to encourage unhealthy symptoms and overstimulate the nerves. Deadly hostility toward the masters of the earth, toward the “noble,” is Christian—and so is a concealed, secret rivalry with them. (They are allowed to keep the “body”; Christians want *only* the “soul”…) Hatred of the *intellect*, of pride, courage, freedom, and intellectual *license* is Christian; hatred of the *senses*, of the pleasures of the *senses*, of pleasure in general, is Christian…\n\n[22]\n\nWhen Christianity left its original ground—the lowest classes, the *underworld* of the ancient world—and went looking for power among barbarian peoples, it no longer dealt with *tired* people. It dealt with people who were inwardly savage and tearing themselves apart—with strong people, but badly formed ones. Their dissatisfaction with themselves, their suffering from themselves, is *not*, as it is among Buddhists, excessive sensitivity and susceptibility to pain. On the contrary, it is an overpowering desire to hurt, to release inner tension in hostile acts and ideas. Christianity needed *barbaric* concepts and values to master barbarians: the sacrifice of the firstborn, drinking blood at communion, contempt for the intellect and culture; torture in every form, physical and nonphysical; the great pomp of worship. Buddhism is a religion for people at a *late* stage of development, for kind, gentle races that have become excessively intellectual and feel pain too easily. (Europe is still far from ready for it.) It leads them back to peace and cheerfulness, to a restricted intellectual diet, to a certain physical toughness. Christianity wants to master *predatory animals*; its method is to make them *sick*—weakening is the Christian prescription for *taming*, for “civilization.” Buddhism is a religion for civilization’s end and exhaustion; Christianity does not even find civilization already there—it establishes it under certain circumstances.\n\n[23]\n\nBuddhism, to repeat, is a hundred times cooler, more truthful, more objective. It no longer needs to make its suffering, its sensitivity to pain, *respectable* by interpreting it as sin—it simply says what it thinks: “I suffer.” To the barbarian, on the other hand, suffering is not respectable in itself: he first needs an interpretation before he can admit to himself *that* he suffers. His instinct points him instead toward denying suffering, toward silently enduring it. Here the word “devil” was a blessing: there was an overpowering and terrible enemy—you did not need to feel ashamed of suffering at the hands of such an enemy.—\n\nChristianity has some subtleties at its foundation that belong to the East. Above all, it knows that whether something is true is quite unimportant in itself, but of the greatest importance *insofar as* it is believed to be true. Truth and the *belief* that something is true: two worlds of interest far apart, almost *opposite* worlds—you reach them by fundamentally different routes. Knowing this almost *makes* someone a wise man in the East: this is how the Brahmins understand it, how Plato understands it, how every student of secret wisdom understands it. If, for example, there is *happiness* in believing yourself freed from sin, this does *not* require you to be sinful, but to *feel* sinful. But if *belief* is what is needed above all, reason, knowledge, and inquiry must be discredited: the road to truth becomes the *forbidden* road.—A strong *hope* is a far greater *stimulus* to life than any single happiness that actually comes about. Sufferers must be kept going by a hope that no reality can contradict—a hope that will not be *disposed of* by fulfillment: a hope for another world. (Precisely because it could keep the unhappy waiting, the Greeks considered hope the evil of evils, the truly *treacherous* evil: it remained behind in the jar of evils.)—For *love* to be possible, God must be a person; for the lowest instincts to have a say, God must be young. A handsome saint must be brought forward for women’s ardor, and a Mary for men’s. This assumes that Christianity wants to gain control in a place where cults of Aphrodite or Adonis have already shaped the *idea* of worship. The demand for *chastity* makes the religious instinct more intense and inward—it makes worship warmer, more ecstatic, more soulful.—Love is the state in which people see things most as they are *not*. The power of illusion is at its height here, as are the powers of sweetening and *glorifying*. In love, people bear more than usual; they put up with everything. What was needed was to invent a religion in which people could love: that takes them past the worst in life—they no longer even see it.—So much for the three Christian virtues, faith, love, and hope: I call them the three Christian *clever strategies*.—Buddhism comes too late, is too committed to facts, to be clever in this way anymore.—\n\n[24]\n\nHere I am only touching on the problem of Christianity’s *origin*. The *first* principle for solving it is this: Christianity can be understood only from the ground it grew from—it is *not* a movement against the Jewish instinct, but that instinct following its own consequences, one further conclusion in its terrifying logic. In the Redeemer’s formula: “Salvation comes from the Jews.”—The *second* principle is this: the psychological type of the Galilean is still recognizable, but only in its complete degeneration—which both mutilated it and overloaded it with foreign traits—could it serve the purpose it was used for: as the type of a *redeemer* of humanity.—\n\nThe Jews are the most remarkable people in world history because, faced with the question of existence or nonexistence, they chose existence *at any price*, with a perfectly uncanny awareness. That price was the radical *falsification* of all nature, everything natural, all reality, the whole inner world just as much as the outer. They set themselves apart *from* all the conditions under which a people had previously been able, been *allowed*, to live. They made themselves into the opposite of *natural* conditions—one after another, they turned religion, worship, morality, history, and psychology irreparably into the *opposites of their natural values*. We meet the same phenomenon once more, on an indescribably larger scale, though only as a copy: compared with the “people of saints,” the Christian church has no claim whatever to originality. This also makes the Jews the most *disastrous* people in world history: through their continuing influence, they have made humanity so false that even today a Christian can feel anti-Jewish without understanding himself as the *ultimate Jewish consequence*.\n\nIn my “On the Genealogy of Morality,” I gave the first psychological account of the opposition between a *noble* morality and a morality of *resentment*, the latter arising *from saying no* to the former: but that is Jewish-Christian morality through and through. In order to say no to everything that represents life’s *upward* movement, to flourishing, power, beauty, self-affirmation on earth, the instinct of *resentment*, raised here to genius, had to invent an *other* world. Viewed from there, that *affirmation of life* appeared as evil, as something inherently reprehensible. Considered psychologically, the Jewish people are a people of the toughest vitality. Put into impossible conditions, they voluntarily side with all the instincts of *decadence*, out of the deepest cunning of self-preservation—*not* because those instincts rule them, but because they sensed in them a power with which they could assert themselves *against* “the world.” The Jews are the opposite of all *decadents*: they had to *act the part* of decadents convincingly, and with an *unsurpassable degree* of acting genius they knew how to put themselves at the head of all movements of *decadence*—as the Christianity of *Paul*—in order to create from them something stronger than any party that *says yes* to life. For the kind of person seeking power in Judaism and Christianity, a *priestly* kind, *decadence* is only a *means*: this kind of person has a vital interest in making humanity *sick* and twisting the concepts “good” and “evil,” “true” and “false,” into meanings that endanger life and slander the world.—\n\n[25]\n\nThe history of Israel is priceless as a typical history of all the ways natural values are *stripped of their nature*: I will point out five facts from it. Originally, especially during the monarchy, Israel too stood in the *right* relationship to everything—that is, the natural one. Its Yahweh expressed its consciousness of power, its pleasure in itself, its hope in itself. From him people expected victory and well-being; with him they trusted nature to provide what the people needed—above all, rain. Yahweh is Israel’s God and *therefore* the God of justice: this is the logic of every people that has power and a good conscience about it. Festival worship expresses these two sides of a people’s self-affirmation: gratitude for the great turns of fate through which it rose to the top, and gratitude for the yearly cycle and every success in raising livestock and farming.—This state of affairs remained the ideal long after it had sadly come to an end: anarchy within, the Assyrians outside. But the people clung to that vision of a king who is a good soldier and a strict judge as the most desirable thing of all. Above all, the typical prophet—that is, critic and satirist of the present moment—Isaiah clung to it.—But every hope went unfulfilled. The old God *could* no longer do any of the things he once could. They should have let him go. What happened? They *changed* the idea of him—they *stripped it of its natural character*: this was the price of holding on to him.—Yahweh, the God of “justice”—*no longer* one with Israel, an expression of the people’s sense of itself: now only a God with conditions attached… The idea of him becomes a tool in the hands of priestly agitators, who now interpret every piece of good fortune as a reward, every misfortune as punishment for disobeying God, for “sin”: that most dishonest method of interpretation, an alleged “moral world order,” which turns the natural concepts of “cause” and “effect” upside down once and for all. Once reward and punishment have been used to remove natural causality from the world, an *unnatural* causality is needed: all the remaining unnaturalness then follows. A God who *demands*—in place of a God who helps, who finds solutions, who is basically the word for every happy inspiration of courage and self-confidence… Morality is no longer the expression of a people’s conditions for life and growth, no longer its deepest instinct for life. Instead it has become abstract, has become the opposite of life—morality as a systematic corruption of the imagination, as an “evil eye” for everything. *What* is Jewish morality, *what* is Christian morality? Chance robbed of its innocence; misfortune dirtied by the concept of “sin”; well-being treated as a danger, a “temptation”; physical distress poisoned by the gnawing worm of conscience…\n\n[26]\n\nThe concept of God falsified; the concept of morality falsified—the Jewish priesthood did not stop there. The whole *history* of Israel was unusable: away with it!—These priests accomplished that marvel of falsification whose documentary evidence makes up a good part of the Bible: with unmatched contempt for every tradition, every historical reality, they *translated their own people’s past into religious terms*. That is, they made it into a stupid mechanism of salvation, of guilt before Yahweh and punishment, of devotion to Yahweh and reward. We would feel this most shameful act of historical falsification much more painfully if thousands of years of *church* interpretations of history had not made us almost numb to the demands of honesty *in historical matters*. And the philosophers supported the church: the *lie* of the “moral world order” runs through the whole development even of modern philosophy. What does “moral world order” mean? That God’s will about what people should do and leave undone is fixed once and for all; that the value of a people or an individual is measured by how much or how little they obey God’s will; that in the fate of a people or an individual, God’s will proves itself to be *in command*—that is, punishing and rewarding according to the degree of obedience.—The *reality*, rather than this pitiful lie, is this: a parasitic kind of person who thrives only at the expense of all healthy forms of life, the *priest*, misuses God’s name. He calls a state of society in which the priest determines the value of things “the kingdom of God.” He calls the means by which such a state is achieved or maintained “the will of God.” With cold-blooded cynicism, he judges peoples, periods, and individuals by whether they helped or resisted the priest’s supremacy. Watch them at work: in the hands of the Jewish priests, the *great* period in Israel’s history became a period of decline. The exile, the long misfortune, turned into an *eternal punishment* for that great period—a time when the priest was still nothing. As needed, they made the powerful, *very free* figures of Israel’s history into miserable crawlers and hypocritical bigots, or into the “godless.” They reduced the psychology of every great event to the idiot’s formula, “obedience *or* disobedience to God.”—One step further: the “will of God”—that is, the conditions for maintaining the priest’s power—must be *known*. For this purpose a “revelation” is needed. In plain language: a great literary forgery becomes necessary; a “holy scripture” is discovered. It is made public with all the priestly pomp, with days of repentance and cries of grief over the long years of “sin.” The “will of God” had long been established: all the trouble comes from having become estranged from “holy scripture”… The “will of God” had already been revealed to Moses… What had happened? With strictness and pedantry, down to the taxes large and small that had to be paid to him—not forgetting the tastiest cuts of meat, since the priest is a beefsteak-gobbler—the priest had formulated once and for all *what he wants*, “what the will of God is”… From now on, everything in life is arranged so that the priest is *indispensable everywhere*. At every natural event in life—birth, marriage, sickness, death, not to mention “sacrifice” (the meal)—the holy parasite appears to *strip it of its natural character*: in his language, to “sanctify” it… For this must be understood: every *natural* custom, every natural institution—the state, the legal system, marriage, care for the sick and poor—every demand prompted by the instinct for life, in short, everything that has value *in itself*, is made fundamentally worthless, *opposed* to value, by the parasitism of the priest (or the “moral world order”). It then needs authorization—a power that *confers value* is needed, a power that denies the natural element in it and only by doing so *creates* a value… The priest devalues nature, *desecrates* it: this is the price of his very existence.—Disobedience to God—that is, to the priest, to “the law”—is now given the name “sin.” The means of becoming “reconciled with God” are, naturally enough, means that guarantee submission to the priest still more thoroughly: the priest alone “redeems”… Considered psychologically, “sins” become indispensable in every society organized by priests: they are the real levers of power. The priest *lives* on sins; he needs people to “sin”… Supreme principle: “God forgives whoever repents”—in plain language, *whoever submits to the priest*.—\n\n[27]\n\nOn ground so *false*, where everything natural, every natural value, every *reality* had the deepest instincts of the ruling class against it, *Christianity* grew up—a form of deadly hostility toward reality that has never been surpassed. The “holy people” had kept only priestly values, only priestly words, for everything. With a consistency of reasoning that can inspire fear, it had cut itself off from every other power that still existed on earth, labeling it “unholy,” “world,” “sin.” This people produced a final formula for its instinct, logical to the point of self-denial: as *Christianity*, it denied even the last form of reality, the “holy people,” the “chosen people,” *Jewish* reality itself. This is a case of the first importance: the little rebellious movement baptized in the name of Jesus of Nazareth is the Jewish instinct *once again*. In other words, it is the priestly instinct that can no longer tolerate the priest as a reality, the invention of a still more *abstract* form of existence, a still more *unreal* vision of the world than the organization of a church requires. Christianity *denies* the church…\n\nI cannot see what the uprising that Jesus was understood—or *misunderstood*—to have started was directed against, unless it was an uprising against the Jewish church—“church” taken in exactly the sense in which we use the word today. It was an uprising against “the good and the just,” against “the saints of Israel,” against the social hierarchy—*not* against its corruption, but against caste, privilege, order, formula. It was *disbelief* in “higher people,” a *no* spoken against everything priestly and theological. But the hierarchy that was called into question, even if only for a moment, was the structure on stilts that kept the Jewish people in existence at all, surrounded by “water”—the *last*, painfully won possibility of survival, the remnant of its separate political existence. An attack on it was an attack on the people’s deepest instinct, on the toughest national will to live that has ever existed on earth. This holy anarchist called the common people, the outcasts and “sinners,” the *Chandala* within Judaism, to oppose the established order—in language that, if the Gospels could be trusted, would send someone to Siberia even today. He was a political criminal, insofar as political criminals were possible in an *absurdly apolitical* community. This brought him to the cross: the inscription on the cross proves it. He died for *his own* guilt—there is no reason whatever to say, however often it has been claimed, that he died for the guilt of others.—\n\n[28]\n\nIt is an entirely different question whether he was conscious of any such opposition at all—whether he was not simply *perceived* as that opposition. And only here do I touch on the problem of the *psychology of the Redeemer*.—I admit that I find few books as difficult to read as the Gospels. These difficulties are different from those whose demonstration gave the scholarly curiosity of the German mind one of its most unforgettable triumphs. The time is long past when I too, like every young scholar, savored the work of the incomparable Strauss with the shrewd slowness of a highly trained philologist. I was twenty then; now I am too serious for that. What do the contradictions of “tradition” matter to me? How can legends of saints be called “tradition” at all! Stories about saints are the most dubious literature there is. Applying the scientific method to them, *when no other documents exist*, seems doomed from the start to me—mere scholarly idleness…\n\n[29]\n\nWhat concerns *me* is the psychological type of the Redeemer. It *could* be contained in the Gospels despite the Gospels, however mutilated or overloaded with foreign traits—just as the type of Francis of Assisi is preserved in his legends despite his legends. *Not* the truth about what he did, what he said, how he actually died, but the question: *can* his type still be imagined at all; has it been “passed down”?—The attempts I know to read even the *history* of a “soul” out of the Gospels seem to me evidence of a disgusting psychological carelessness. Mr. Renan, this buffoon *in psychology*, introduced the two most *inappropriate* concepts possible into his explanation of the type of Jesus: *genius* and *hero* (“*hero*”). But if anything is contrary to the Gospels, it is the concept of the hero. Here, it is precisely the opposite of all struggle, of any sense of being in combat, that has become instinct. Here, the inability to resist becomes morality (“Do not resist evil!”—the deepest saying in the Gospels, their key in a certain sense); bliss is found in peace, in gentleness, in *not being able* to be an enemy. What does “good news” mean? True life, eternal life, has been found—it is not promised, it is here, it is *within you*: as life in love, in love without restriction or exclusion, without distance. Everyone is a child of God—Jesus claims absolutely nothing for himself alone—and as a child of God everyone is equal to everyone else… To make a *hero* out of Jesus!—And what a misunderstanding the word “genius” is! Our whole concept, our cultural concept of “intellect,” has no meaning at all in the world Jesus lives in. Speaking with a physiologist’s precision, an entirely different word would be more appropriate here: the word idiot. We know of a condition in which the *sense of touch* is morbidly sensitive, recoiling from every touch, every contact with a solid object. Follow this physiological *disposition* through to its ultimate logic: an instinctive hatred of *every* reality, a flight into the “intangible,” the “incomprehensible”; an aversion to every formula, every concept of time and space, to everything fixed, to custom, institution, church; being at home in a world no kind of reality touches anymore, a merely “inner” world, a “true” world, an “eternal” world… “The kingdom of God *is within you*”…\n\n[30]\n\n*The instinctive hatred of reality*: the result of an extreme sensitivity to suffering and stimulation that no longer wants to be “touched” at all, because it feels every touch too deeply.\n\n*The instinctive exclusion of all aversion, all hostility, all emotional boundaries and distances*: the result of an extreme sensitivity to suffering and stimulation that already feels every resistance, every need to resist, as unbearable *discomfort*—that is, as *harmful*, as something the instinct of self-preservation *warns against*. It knows bliss (pleasure) only in no longer resisting anything or anyone, neither misfortune nor evil—love as the only, the *last*, possibility of life…\n\nThese are the two *physiological realities* on which, and out of which, the doctrine of redemption grew. I call it a sublime further development of hedonism on a thoroughly morbid foundation. Its closest relative remains Epicureanism, the pagan doctrine of redemption, though with a large addition of Greek vitality and nervous energy. Epicurus, a *typical decadent*: I was the first to recognize him as such.—The fear of pain, even of the tiniest trace of pain—it *cannot* end in anything but a *religion of love*…\n\n### Sections 31–40\n\n[31]\n\nI have given my answer to the problem in advance. It rests on the assumption that the type of the Redeemer has survived for us only in a badly distorted form. This distortion is very likely in itself: for several reasons, such a type could not remain pure, whole, free of additions. Both the surroundings in which this strange figure moved and, still more, the history, the *fate*, of the first Christian community must have left their marks on him. That history retroactively added traits to the type that become understandable only in terms of war and the purposes of propaganda. That strange and sick world into which the Gospels introduce us—a world like something out of a Russian novel, where society’s refuse, nervous disorders, and “childlike” idiocy seem to gather—must in any case have *coarsened* the type. The first disciples in particular had to translate a being floating entirely in symbols and intangibilities into their own crudity before they could understand anything of it at all. For them, the type only *existed* after it had been fitted into more familiar forms… The prophet, the Messiah, the future judge, the moral teacher, the miracle worker, John the Baptist—so many opportunities to misunderstand the type… Finally, we must not underestimate the *distinctive feature* of all great veneration, especially sectarian veneration: it erases the original, often painfully strange traits and peculiarities of the being it venerates—*it does not even see them*. It is regrettable that no Dostoevsky lived near this most interesting *decadent*: I mean someone who knew how to feel the moving attraction of such a mixture of the sublime, the sick, and the childlike.\n\nOne final point of view: as a type of *decadence*, this type *could* actually have been peculiarly complex and contradictory. Such a possibility cannot be ruled out altogether. Still, everything argues against it: in that case, the tradition itself would have to be remarkably faithful and objective—whereas we have reasons to assume the opposite. As things stand, there is a glaring contradiction between the preacher on mountains, lakes, and meadows, who seems like a Buddha on very un-Indian ground, and that fanatical attacker, that deadly enemy of theologians and priests, whom Renan’s malice glorified as “*the great master of irony*.” I myself have no doubt that the ample measure of bile—and even of *wit*—spilled over onto the type of the master only from the agitated state of Christian propaganda. We know well enough how readily all sectarians reshape their master into their own *defense*. When the first community needed a judging, quarrelsome, wrathful theologian with a malicious talent for splitting hairs, to use *against* theologians, it *created* its “God” to suit its needs. In the same way, it put into his mouth without hesitation those entirely unevangelical concepts that it could no longer do without: the “Second Coming,” the “Last Judgment,” every kind of expectation and promise tied to a future time.—\n\n[32]\n\nTo repeat, I resist reading a fanatic into the type of the Redeemer: the word *domineering*, which Renan uses, by itself *cancels out* the type. The “good news” is precisely that there are no more oppositions; the kingdom of heaven belongs to *children*. The faith speaking here is not a faith won through struggle—it is there, it is there from the beginning, it is something like a childlikeness that has retreated into the spiritual realm. The case of puberty delayed and left undeveloped in the organism as a result of degeneration is familiar at least to physiologists.—Such a faith does not rage, does not blame, does not defend itself: it does not bring “the sword”—it has no idea how it could ever divide people. It does not prove itself through miracles, through reward and promise, still less “through scripture”: at every moment it is its own miracle, its own reward, its own proof, its own “kingdom of God.” This faith does not formulate itself either—it *lives*, it resists formulas. Of course, the accidents of surroundings, language, and previous education determine a certain range of concepts: early Christianity uses *only* Jewish-Semitic concepts. (The eating and drinking at communion belongs here, that concept which the church has so badly misused, as it has everything Jewish.)\n\nBut we must take care not to see more in this than a language of signs, a system of symbols, an opportunity for parables. For this anti-realist, the condition for being able to speak at all is precisely that no word be taken literally. Among Indians he would have used the concepts of Sankhya, among Chinese those of Lao-tzu—and would have felt no difference.—With some flexibility in the expression, Jesus could be called a “free spirit”—he cares nothing for anything fixed: the word *kills*, everything fixed *kills*. His concept, his *experience* of “life,” as he alone knows it, resists every kind of word, formula, law, faith, dogma. He speaks only of what is innermost: “life” or “truth” or “light” is his word for what is innermost. Everything else, all reality, all nature, language itself, has for him only the value of a sign, a parable.—There must be no mistake on this point, however great the temptation created by Christian—that is, *church*—prejudice: such a symbolist *in the fullest sense* stands outside all religion, all concepts of worship, all history, all natural science, all experience of the world, all knowledge, all politics, all psychology, all books, all art. His “knowledge” is precisely *pure ignorance* of the fact *that* anything of the kind exists. He has not even heard of *culture*; he has no need to fight it—he does not deny it… The same applies to the *state*, to the whole civil order and society, to *work*, to war—he has never had any reason to deny “the world”; he has never had an inkling of the church’s concept of “world”… *Denying* is precisely what is completely impossible for him.—Likewise, there is no dialectical argument, no idea that a faith, a “truth,” could be proved by reasons. (*His* proofs are inner “lights,” inner feelings of pleasure and self-affirmations, nothing but “proofs of power.”) Such a teaching also *cannot* contradict: it does not understand at all that other teachings exist, *can* exist; it cannot even imagine an opposing judgment… Where it encounters one, it will grieve over “blindness” with the deepest fellow feeling—for it sees the “light”—but it will raise no objection…\n\n[33]\n\nThe concepts of guilt and punishment are absent from the whole psychology of the “Gospel”; so is the concept of reward. “Sin,” every relationship of distance between God and humanity, is abolished—*that is precisely the “good news.”* Bliss is not promised, it is not tied to conditions: it is the *only* reality—the rest consists of signs for speaking about it…\n\nThe *consequence* of such a state expresses itself in a new *practice*, the truly evangelical practice. It is not a “faith” that distinguishes the Christian: the Christian acts, distinguishes himself by acting *differently*. He does not resist someone who treats him badly, either in words or in his heart. He makes no distinction between foreigners and natives, between Jews and non-Jews (“neighbor” actually means a fellow believer, a Jew). He gets angry with no one, looks down on no one. He neither appears in courts of law nor allows himself to be called on there (“do not swear an oath”). Under no circumstances does he divorce his wife, not even if her infidelity is proved.—At bottom, all this is *one* principle, all the consequences of *one* instinct.—\n\nThe Redeemer’s life was nothing other than *this* practice—his death was nothing else either… He no longer needed formulas or rituals for dealing with God—not even prayer. He had done away with the whole Jewish doctrine of repentance and reconciliation; he knew that only the *practice* of life makes people feel “divine,” “blessed,” “evangelical,” at every moment a “child of God.” *Neither* “repentance” *nor* “prayer for forgiveness” is a path to God: *evangelical practice alone* leads to God; it actually *is* “God”!—What the Gospel *did away with* was the Judaism of the concepts “sin,” “forgiveness of sin,” “faith,” “redemption through faith”—the whole Jewish *church* doctrine was denied in the “good news.”\n\nThe deep instinct for how one must *live* to feel “in heaven,” to feel “eternal,” while with every other way of behaving one feels decidedly *not* “in heaven”: this alone is the psychological reality of “redemption.”—A new way of living, *not* a new faith…\n\n[34]\n\nIf I understand anything about this great symbolist, it is that he took only *inner* realities as realities, as “truths”—that he understood the rest, everything natural, temporal, spatial, historical, only as signs, as occasions for parables. The concept “Son of Man” is not a concrete person belonging to history, something individual and unique, but an “eternal” actuality, a psychological symbol freed from the concept of time. The same applies again, and in the highest sense, to the *God* of this typical symbolist, to the “kingdom of God,” the “kingdom of heaven,” to being “children of God.” Nothing is more un-Christian than the *church’s crude notions* of a God as a *person*, of a “kingdom of God” that is *coming*, of a “kingdom of heaven” *in the beyond*, of a “Son of God,” the *second person* of the Trinity. All this is—forgive the expression—a *fist* in the eye of the Gospel—and what an eye! It is *cynicism on the scale of world history* in its mockery of the symbol… But it is obvious what is touched on by the signs “Father” and “Son”—not obvious to everyone, I admit: the word “Son” expresses *entry* into the feeling that all things are transfigured as a whole (bliss); the word “Father” expresses *this feeling itself*, the feeling of eternity, of perfection.—I am ashamed to recall what the church has made of this symbolism: hasn’t it placed an Amphitryon story at the threshold of Christian “faith”? And a dogma of the “immaculate conception” on top of it?… *But in doing so it has stained conception*——\n\nThe “kingdom of heaven” is a state of the heart—not something that comes “above the earth” or “after death.” The whole concept of natural death is *absent* from the Gospel: death is not a bridge, not a transition; it is absent because it belongs to an entirely different world, a merely apparent world useful only for signs. The “hour of death” is *not* a Christian concept—the “hour,” time, physical life and its crises do not exist at all for the teacher of the “good news”… The “kingdom of God” is not something to wait for; it has no yesterday and no day after tomorrow, it is not coming in “a thousand years”—it is an experience in a heart; it is everywhere, it is nowhere…\n\n[35]\n\nThis “bringer of good news” died as he lived, as he *taught*—*not* to “redeem humanity,” but to show how to live. What he left humanity was his *practice*: his conduct before the judges, before those who arrested him, before his accusers and every kind of slander and mockery—his conduct on the *cross*. He does not resist, he does not defend his rights, he takes no step to ward off the worst; more than that, *he invites it*… And he pleads, he suffers, he loves *with* those, *in* those, who do him harm. The words to the *criminal* on the cross contain the whole Gospel. “This truly was a *divine* man, a child of God!” says the criminal. “If you feel this,” answers the Redeemer, “*then you are in paradise*, then you are a child of God.” *Do not* defend yourself, *do not* grow angry, *do not* hold anyone responsible… But do not resist the evil person either—*love* him…\n\n[36]\n\n—Only we, we spirits who have *become free*, have what is needed to understand something that nineteen centuries have misunderstood—that honesty, become instinct and passion, which wages war on the “holy lie” even more than on any other lie… People were indescribably far from our loving and careful neutrality, from that discipline of the intellect that alone makes it possible to grasp such strange, such delicate things. With shameless selfishness, they always wanted only *their own* advantage from it; they built the *church* out of the opposite of the Gospel…\n\nAnyone looking for signs that an ironic divinity has a hand in the great game of the world would find substantial support in the *enormous question mark* called Christianity. Humanity kneels before the opposite of what was the Gospel’s origin, meaning, and *justification*; in the concept of “church,” it has declared holy precisely what the “bringer of good news” felt was *beneath* him, *behind* him—one looks in vain for a greater form of *irony in world history*——\n\n[37]\n\n—Our age is proud of its historical sense: how could it convince itself of the nonsense that Christianity began with the *crude fable of a miracle worker and redeemer*, and that everything spiritual and symbolic developed only later? The reverse is true: the history of Christianity—from the death on the cross onward—is the history of an ever coarser, step-by-step misunderstanding of an *original* symbolism. Every time Christianity spread to still broader, still cruder masses, who increasingly lacked the conditions from which it was born, it became more necessary to *vulgarize* Christianity, to *barbarize* it. It swallowed the teachings and rites of all the *underground* cults of the *Roman Empire*, the nonsense of every kind of sick reason. Christianity’s fate lies in the necessity that its faith itself had to become as sick, as low and vulgar, as the needs it was meant to satisfy were sick, low, and vulgar. In the church, *sick barbarism* itself finally gathers into a power—the church, this form of deadly hostility toward all honesty, all *greatness* of soul, all discipline of the intellect, all openhearted and kindly humanity.—*Christian* values—*noble* values: only we, we spirits who have *become free*, have restored this greatest opposition of values there is!—\n\n[38]\n\n—I will not suppress a sigh here. There are days when a feeling visits me, blacker than the blackest melancholy—*contempt for humanity*. And to leave no doubt about *what* I despise, *whom* I despise: it is the person of today, the person whom fate has made my contemporary. The person of today—I choke on his foul breath… Toward the past, like everyone who seeks knowledge, I have great tolerance—that is, *generous* self-restraint. I move through the madhouse world of entire millennia, whether called “Christianity,” “Christian faith,” or “Christian church,” with a gloomy caution—I take care not to hold humanity responsible for its mental illnesses. But my feeling changes, bursts out, as soon as I enter modern times, *our* time. Our time *knows*… What was once merely sick has now become indecent—it is indecent to be a Christian today. *And here my disgust begins*.—I look around: not one word remains of what used to be called “truth”; we can no longer bear it when a priest so much as says the word “truth.” With even the most modest claim to honesty, one *must* know today that a theologian, a priest, a pope not only makes a mistake with every sentence he speaks, but *lies*—that he no longer has the option of lying out of “innocence,” out of “ignorance.” The priest too knows, as well as everyone knows, that there is no longer any “God,” any “sinner,” any “redeemer”—that “free will” and “moral world order” are *lies*. The seriousness of the intellect, its deep effort to overcome itself, no longer *allows* anyone *not* to know about this… *All* the church’s concepts have been recognized for what they are: the most malicious counterfeiting there is, intended to *devalue* nature and natural values. The priest himself has been recognized for what he is: the most dangerous kind of parasite, life’s true poisonous spider… We know, our *conscience* knows today, *what* those sinister inventions of the priests and the church are worth, *what they were for*. They brought humanity to a state of self-defilement that can make one sick at the sight of it—the concepts “beyond,” “Last Judgment,” “immortality of the soul,” the “soul” itself: they are instruments of torture, systems of cruelty through which the priest became master and remained master… Everyone knows this: *and yet everything stays as it was*. Where has the last feeling of decency, of self-respect, gone, when even our statesmen—otherwise a very uninhibited kind of person and thoroughly anti-Christian in their actions—still call themselves Christians today and take communion?… A young prince at the head of his regiments, magnificent as an expression of his people’s selfishness and arrogance—but professing himself a Christian *without* the slightest shame!… *Whom*, then, does *this* Christianity deny? *What* does it call “the world”? Being a soldier, being a judge, being a patriot; defending yourself; caring about your honor; seeking your own advantage; being *proud*… Every practice at every moment, every instinct, every value judgment that becomes an *act*, is anti-Christian today: what a *misshapen offspring of falsehood* modern people must be, that despite this they are *not ashamed* still to call themselves Christians!\n\n[39]\n\n—I return; I am telling the *real* history of Christianity.—The very word “Christianity” is a misunderstanding—at bottom there was only one Christian, and he *died* on the cross. The “Gospel” died on the cross. What has been called “Gospel” from that moment onward was already the opposite of what *he* had lived: “*bad* news,” a *gospel of bad news*. It is wrong to the point of absurdity to see the mark of a Christian in a “faith,” for example in faith in redemption through Christ. Only Christian *practice*, a life such as the one who died on the cross *lived*, is Christian… Even today, *such* a life is possible, and for *certain* people even necessary: genuine, original Christianity will be possible at all times… *Not* a matter of believing, but of acting, above all of *not* doing many things, of *being* different… States of consciousness, any belief, for example taking something to be true—as every psychologist knows—are completely unimportant and of fifth-rate significance compared with the value of the instincts. To speak more strictly, the whole concept of mental causation is false. To reduce being a Christian, being Christian in character, to taking something to be true, to mere phenomena of consciousness, is to negate that Christian character. *In fact, there were no Christians at all.* The “Christian,” what has been called Christian for two thousand years, is merely a psychological misunderstanding of oneself. Look more closely: *despite* all his “faith,” *only* the instincts ruled in him—and *what instincts!*—“Faith” has always been, for example in Luther, merely a cloak, a pretext, a *curtain* behind which the instincts played their game—a clever *blindness* to the rule of *certain* instincts… “Faith”—I have already called it the specifically Christian *clever strategy*—people always *spoke* of “faith,” but always *acted* only from instinct… The Christian’s world of ideas contains nothing that even touches reality. On the other hand, we have recognized instinctive hatred *of* every reality as the driving element, the only driving element, at Christianity’s root. What follows? That here too, *in psychological matters*, error is radical—that is, it defines the essence, it is the *substance*. Remove *one* concept here, put a single reality in its place—and the whole of Christianity collapses into nothing!—Seen from above, this strangest of all facts—a religion not merely conditioned by errors, but inventive and even ingenious *only* in harmful errors, *only* in errors that poison life and the heart—remains a *spectacle for gods*: for those divinities who are also philosophers and whom I encountered, for example, in those famous dialogues on Naxos. The moment their *disgust* leaves them (*and* us!), they become grateful for the spectacle of the Christian. Perhaps *this* one curious case is enough to make the miserable little celestial body called earth deserve a divine glance, a divine interest… For we must not underestimate the Christian: the Christian, false *to the point of innocence*, is far above the ape—where Christians are concerned, a well-known theory of descent becomes mere politeness…\n\n[40]\n\n—The Gospel’s fate was decided by death—it hung on the “cross”… Only the death, this unexpected, shameful death, only the cross, generally reserved for the rabble—only this most horrifying paradox confronted the disciples with the real riddle: “*Who was that? What was that?*”—Their shattered and deeply wounded feelings, the suspicion that such a death might *refute* their cause, the terrible question mark “Why this way, of all ways?”—this state is all too understandable. Everything here *had* to be necessary, to have meaning, reason, the highest reason; a disciple’s love recognizes no accident. Only now did the gulf open up: “*Who* killed him? *Who* was his natural enemy?”—this question flashed out like lightning. Answer: *ruling* Judaism, its highest class. From that moment they felt themselves in revolt *against* the established order; afterward they understood Jesus as *in revolt against the established order*. Until then, this warlike trait of saying no and putting that no into action, had been *absent* from his image; more than that, it had contradicted his whole image. Clearly the little community had *not* understood the main thing: the example set by this way of dying, the freedom, the superiority *over* every feeling of *resentment*—a sign of how little it understood him at all! In itself, Jesus could have intended nothing with his death except to give the strongest public demonstration, the *proof*, of his teaching… But his disciples were far from *forgiving* this death—which would have been evangelical in the highest sense—let alone *offering themselves* for a similar death with gentle and loving peace of heart… Precisely the most unevangelical feeling, *revenge*, came to the top again. The matter *could not possibly* end with this death: “retribution,” “judgment” were needed. (And yet, what could be more unevangelical than “retribution,” “punishment,” “sitting in judgment”!) Once again the popular expectation of a Messiah came to the front; a historical moment was envisaged: the “kingdom of God” is coming to judge his enemies… But this misunderstands everything: the “kingdom of God” as a final act, as a promise! The Gospel had been precisely the presence, the fulfillment, the *reality* of this “kingdom.” Precisely such a death *was* this “kingdom of God.” Only now was all the contempt and bitterness toward Pharisees and theologians read into the type of the master—in doing so, they *made* him into a Pharisee and theologian! On the other hand, the veneration gone wild in these completely unhinged souls could no longer bear that evangelical equality of everyone’s right to be a child of God, which Jesus had taught. Their revenge was to *raise Jesus up* extravagantly, to separate him from themselves—just as the Jews had once separated their God from themselves and raised him on high out of revenge against their enemies. The *one* God and the *one* Son of God: both products of *resentment*…\n\n### Sections 41–50\n\n[41]\n\n—And from then on an absurd problem came up: “How could God allow this!” The little community’s disturbed reason found an answer that was downright horribly absurd: God gave his son as a *sacrifice* to forgive sins. How suddenly the gospel was over! The *sacrifice to atone for guilt*, and in its most disgusting, most barbaric form: the sacrifice of the *innocent* for the sins of the guilty! What horrifying paganism!—Jesus had abolished the very idea of “guilt”—he denied any gulf between God and humanity; he *lived* this unity of God and humanity as *his* “good news”… And *not* as a privilege!—From then on, new things gradually enter the figure of the redeemer: the teaching about judgment and the second coming, the teaching about death as a sacrificial death, the teaching about the *resurrection*, which makes the whole idea of “blessedness,” the gospel’s entire and only reality, disappear by a sleight of hand—in favor of a state *after* death!… With the rabbinical insolence that marks him in everything, Paul pushed this view, this *obscene perversion* of a view, to its logical conclusion: “*If* Christ has not risen from the dead, then our faith is empty.”—And suddenly the gospel became the most contemptible of all promises that cannot be fulfilled, the *shameless* teaching that the individual lives forever… Paul himself still taught it as a *reward*!…\n\n[42]\n\nWe can see *what* ended with the death on the cross: a new, wholly original start toward a Buddhist peace movement, toward actual *happiness on earth*, *not* just a promise of it. For this remains—as I have already stressed—the basic difference between the two religions of *decadence*: Buddhism does not promise, but delivers; Christianity promises everything, but *delivers nothing*.—The “good news” was followed immediately by the *worst news of all*: Paul’s. Paul embodies the opposite type to the “bringer of good news”: a genius in hatred, in the vision of hatred, in the relentless logic of hatred. *What didn’t* this bringer of bad news sacrifice to hatred! Above all, the redeemer: he nailed him to *his own* cross. The life, the example, the teaching, the death, the meaning and justification of the entire gospel—nothing was left once this counterfeiter, driven by hatred, understood the only thing he could use. *Not* reality, *not* historical truth!… And once again the Jew’s priestly instinct committed the same great crime against history—he simply crossed out Christianity’s yesterday and day before yesterday; he *invented a history of early Christianity for himself*. More than that: he falsified Israel’s history once again, to make it appear as the prehistory of *his* deed: all the prophets had spoken of *his* “redeemer”… Later the church even falsified the history of humanity into the prehistory of Christianity… The figure of the redeemer, the teaching, the practice, the death, the meaning of the death, even what came after the death—nothing was left untouched, nothing was left even resembling reality. Paul simply shifted the center of gravity of that whole life to a point *beyond* that life—into the *lie* about the “risen” Jesus. At bottom, he had no use at all for the redeemer’s life—he needed the death on the cross *and* something more… To consider Paul honest—a man whose home was in the main center of Stoic enlightenment—when he turns a hallucination into *proof* that the redeemer is *still* alive, or even to believe his story *that* he had this hallucination, would be truly *naive* on a psychologist’s part: Paul wanted the end, *so* he also wanted the means… What he himself did not believe, the idiots he threw his teaching to did believe.—*His* need was for *power*; with Paul, the priest once again wanted power—he could only use ideas, teachings, symbols with which to tyrannize over masses and form herds. *What* was the one thing Muhammad later borrowed from Christianity? Paul’s invention, his means of establishing priestly tyranny and forming herds: belief in immortality—*that is, the teaching about “judgment”*…\n\n[43]\n\nIf you place life’s center of gravity *not* in life but in the “beyond”—in *nothingness*—you have taken its center of gravity away altogether. The great lie that the individual lives forever destroys all reason, everything natural in instinct—everything in the instincts that is beneficial, that supports life, that guarantees a future now becomes suspect. To live *in a way* that leaves no *point* in living—*that* now becomes the “point” of life… Why have any public spirit, why still be grateful for your origins and ancestors, why work with others, trust others, promote or keep any common good in view?… All just “temptations,” all distractions from the “right path”—“*one thing* is needed”… The idea that everyone, as an “immortal soul,” ranks equally with everyone else; that among all beings the “salvation” of *each* individual may claim eternal importance; that petty religious hypocrites and people who are three-quarters crazy may imagine that the laws of nature are constantly being *broken* for their sake—such an increase of every kind of selfishness to infinity, to the point of *shamelessness*, cannot be condemned with enough contempt. And yet Christianity owes its *victory* to *this* pitiful flattery of personal vanity—with it Christianity won over precisely everything that was a failure, inclined to rebellion, or badly treated, all the refuse and scum of humanity. The “salvation of the soul”—in plain language: “the world revolves around *me*”… The poison of the teaching of “*equal* rights for all”—Christianity sowed it most systematically; from the most secret corners of bad instincts, Christianity has waged a war to the death against every feeling of respect and distance between one person and another, that is, against the *precondition* for any rise, any growth in culture—from the masses’ *resentment* it forged its *main weapon* against *us*, against everything noble, cheerful, generous on earth, against our happiness on earth… Granting “immortality” to every Peter and Paul has been the greatest, most malicious attack so far on *noble* humanity.—*And* let’s not underestimate the disaster that has crept from Christianity even into politics! Today no one has the courage for special rights, for the right to rule, for a feeling of respect toward themselves and their equals—for a *deep sense of distance*… Our politics is *sick* from this lack of courage!—The lie that souls are equal has undermined an aristocratic outlook in the most underhanded way; and if belief in the “privilege of the majority” makes revolutions and *will make them*—it is Christianity, make no mistake, it is *Christian* value judgments that every revolution simply translates into blood and crime! Christianity is a rebellion of everything that crawls on the ground against whatever has *height*: the gospel of the “lowly” *makes people* low…\n\n[44]\n\n—The Gospels are priceless evidence of the corruption that was already unstoppable *within* the first community. Even so, what Paul later completed with a rabbi’s cynical logic was simply the process of decay that began with the redeemer’s death.—You cannot read these Gospels too carefully; difficulties hide behind every word. I admit—and I hope this will count in my favor—that this very thing makes them a first-rate pleasure for a psychologist—as the *opposite* of all naive corruption, as the *ultimate* in sophistication, as artistry in psychological corruption. The Gospels stand alone. The Bible as a whole is beyond comparison. We are among Jews: the *first* point to keep in mind if we are not to lose the thread completely here. The disguise of oneself as “holy,” which here reaches the level of genius and is never even approached elsewhere among books and people, this counterfeiting of words and gestures as an *art*, is not the accident of some individual talent, some exceptional nature. It takes *race* for this. In Christianity, as the art of lying in a holy way, the whole of Judaism reaches its final mastery, along with several hundred years of the most serious Jewish training and technique. The Christian, this *last resort* of the lie, is the Jew all over again—*three times* over, in fact… The fundamental will to use only ideas, symbols, attitudes that have proved themselves in the priest’s practice, the instinctive rejection of every *other* practice, every *other* way of looking at value and usefulness—this is not just tradition, it is *inheritance*: only as an inheritance does it act like nature. All humanity, even the best minds of the best ages (except one, who may simply be a monster—), has let itself be deceived. People have read the gospel as a *book of innocence*… no small indication of the masterful acting that has gone on here.—Of course, if we got to *see* them, even just in passing, all these strange religious hypocrites and manufactured saints, it would all be over—and precisely because *I* never read words without seeing gestures, *I put an end to them*… I cannot stand a certain way they have of lifting their eyes.—Luckily, for the vast majority, books are only *literature*——We must not be misled: “Do not judge!” they say, but they send everything that stands in their way to hell. By letting God judge, they themselves judge; by glorifying God, they glorify themselves; by *demanding* the very virtues they are capable of—more than that, the virtues they need to stay on top at all—they make an impressive show of struggling for virtue, of fighting for virtue’s rule. “We live, we die, we sacrifice ourselves *for the good*” (—“truth,” “light,” the “kingdom of God”): in reality they do what they cannot help doing. By pushing their way through like sneaking hypocrites, sitting in corners, living shadowy lives in the shadows, they make it a *duty*: their life of humility appears as a duty, and as humility it is one more proof of piety… Ah, this humble, chaste, merciful kind of dishonesty! “Let virtue itself testify for us”… Read the Gospels as books that seduce through *morality*: these little people take possession of morality—they know what morality can do! Morality is the best way to *lead humanity by the nose*!—The reality is that the most deliberate *conceit of being chosen* is playing modest here: they have placed *themselves*, the “community,” the “good and just,” once and for all on one side, the side of “truth”—and the rest, “the world,” on the other… *That* was the most disastrous kind of megalomania that has ever existed on earth: little deformed hypocrites and liars began claiming the ideas of “God,” “truth,” “light,” “spirit,” “love,” “wisdom,” “life” for themselves, almost as synonyms for themselves, to use them to draw a dividing line between themselves and the “world”; little superlative Jews, ready for any kind of madhouse, turned all values around to point toward *themselves*, as though only the “Christian” were the meaning, the salt, the measure, even the *last judgment* of all the rest… The whole disaster was made possible only because a related, racially related kind of megalomania already existed in the world: the *Jewish* kind. Once the gulf between Jews and Jewish Christians opened up, the latter had no choice but to use *against* the Jews themselves the same procedures for self-preservation that Jewish instinct advised, while until then the Jews had used them only against everything *non*-Jewish. The Christian is simply a Jew of a “*freer*” faith.—\n\n[45]\n\n—Here are a few samples of what these little people got into their heads, what they *put into their master’s mouth*: all confessions of “beautiful souls.”—\n\n“And wherever people do not welcome you or listen to you, leave that place and shake the dust from your feet as testimony against them. I tell you: truly, Sodom and Gomorrah will have an easier time at the Last Judgment than that town” (Markus 6, 11).—How *evangelical*!…\n\n“And whoever leads one of the little ones who believe in me into wrongdoing would be better off if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea” (Markus 9, 42).—How *evangelical*!…\n\n“If your eye leads you into wrongdoing, throw it away. You are better off going into the kingdom of God with one eye than having two eyes and being thrown into hellfire, where their worm does not die and their fire does not go out” (Markus 9, 47).—It is not exactly the eye that is meant…\n\n“Truly, I tell you, some people standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God coming with power” (Markus 9, 1).—A fine *lie*, lion…\n\n“Anyone who wants to follow me must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. Because…” (*A psychologist’s note*. Christian morality is refuted by its *becauses*: its “reasons” refute it—that is the Christian way.) Markus 8, 34.—\n\n“Do not judge, *so that* you will not be judged. Whatever measure you use will be used to measure *you*” (Matthäus 7, 1).—What an idea of justice, of a “just” judge!…\n\n“For if you love those who love you, *what reward will you get*? Don’t the tax collectors do the same? And if you are friendly only to your brothers, *what are you doing that is special*? Don’t the tax collectors do that too?” (Matthäus 5, 46.)—The principle of “Christian love”: in the end it wants to be well *paid*…\n\n“But if *you* do not forgive people their faults, your father will not forgive your faults either” (Matthäus 6, 15),—Very compromising for the “father” in question…\n\n“Seek first the kingdom of God and his justice, and all these things will come to you” (Matthäus 6, 33).—All these things: namely food, clothing, everything needed for life. An *error*, to put it mildly… Shortly before this, God appears as a tailor, at least in certain cases…\n\n“Then be happy and jump for joy: *for* look, your reward in heaven is great. Their fathers treated the prophets the same way” (Lukas 6, 23).—*Shameless* rabble! They are already comparing themselves with the prophets…\n\n“Don’t you know that you are God’s temple and that God’s spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, *God will destroy him*: for God’s temple is holy, *and that is what you are*” (Paulus I. Korinther 3, 16).—It is impossible to have enough contempt for such things…\n\n“Don’t you know that the saints will judge the world? Now if the world is to be judged by *you*, aren’t you good enough to judge lesser matters?” (Paulus I. Korinther 6, 2.)—Unfortunately, this is not just the talk of a madhouse inmate… This *terrible fraud* goes on, word for word: “Don’t you know that *we* will judge the angels? How much more, then, earthly possessions!”…\n\n“Hasn’t God turned this world’s wisdom into foolishness? For since the world, through its wisdom, did not recognize God in his wisdom, God was pleased to save, through foolish preaching, those who believe in it…; not many who are wise by worldly standards, not many powerful people, not many of noble birth are called. Instead, *God chose* what the world considers foolish, to put the wise to shame; and God chose what the world considers weak, to put what is strong to shame; and God chose what the world considers low-born and what it despises, and what is nothing, to reduce what is something to nothing. So that no flesh may boast before him” (Paulus I. Korinther 1, 20 ff.).—To *understand* this passage, a piece of first-rate evidence for the psychology of every Chandala morality, read the first essay of my *On the Genealogy of Morality*: there, for the first time, the opposition was brought to light between a *noble* morality and a Chandala morality born of *resentment* and powerless revenge. Paul was the greatest of all apostles of revenge…\n\n[46]\n\n—*What follows from this?* That you do well to put on gloves when reading the New Testament. Being so close to so much filth almost forces you to. We would no more choose “early Christians” for company than Polish Jews: not that we would need even a single objection to them… Neither smells good.—I have looked in vain for even one likable trait in the New Testament; there is nothing in it that is free, kind, openhearted, honest. Humanity has not yet made its first beginning here—the instincts of *cleanliness* are missing… There are only *bad* instincts in the New Testament, and no courage even for these bad instincts. Everything in it is cowardice, closing one’s eyes, and self-deception. Every book becomes clean once you have just read the New Testament: to give an example, immediately after Paul I read with delight that most charming, most high-spirited mocker Petronius, of whom one could say what Domenico Boccaccio wrote about Cesare Borgia to the Duke of Parma: “*he is full of festive cheer*”—eternally healthy, eternally cheerful and sound… These little religious hypocrites miscalculate on the main point. They attack, but everything they attack is thereby *honored*. Anyone an “early Christian” attacks is *not* soiled by him… On the contrary: it is an honor to have “early Christians” against you. You cannot read the New Testament without a liking for what is mistreated in it—not to mention the “wisdom of this world,” which an insolent windbag tries in vain to put to shame “through foolish preaching”… But even the Pharisees and scribes benefit from such opposition: they must have been worth something to be hated in such an indecent way. Hypocrisy—now there is an accusation that “early Christians” would be *entitled* to make!—In the end, they were the *privileged*: that is enough; Chandala hatred needs no further reasons. The “early Christian”—I fear also the “last Christian,” *whom I may yet live to see*—is a rebel against everything privileged, from the lowest instinct—he always lives and fights for “*equal rights*”… Look more closely, and he has no choice. If you want to be one of “God’s chosen” yourself—or a “temple of God,” or a “judge of angels”—then every *other* principle of selection, for example by honesty, intellect, manliness and pride, by beauty and freedom of heart, is simply “world”—*evil itself*… The moral: every word in an “early Christian’s” mouth is a lie, every action he takes an instinctive falsehood—all his values, all his aims are harmful, but *whom* he hates, *what* he hates, *that has value*… The Christian, and especially the Christian priest, is a *test of values*——Do I still have to say that in the entire New Testament there is only *one* figure we have to respect? Pilate, the Roman governor. Taking a Jewish dispute *seriously*—he cannot talk himself into that. One Jew more or less—what does it matter?… The noble scorn of a Roman, in whose presence the word “truth” is shamelessly abused, has enriched the New Testament with the only saying in it *that has value*—which is its criticism, its very *annihilation*: “What is truth!”…\n\n[47]\n\n—What sets *us* apart is not that we find no God in history, or in nature, or *behind* nature—but that we feel what has been worshiped as God to be not “divine” but pitiful, absurd, harmful, not just an error but a *crime against life*… We deny God as God… If this God of the Christians were *proved* to us, we would be even less able to believe in him.—In a formula: *God, as Paul created him, is the negation of God*.—A religion like Christianity, which has no contact with reality at any point, which collapses as soon as reality is allowed its due at even one point, must reasonably be the mortal enemy of the “wisdom of the world,” that is, *science*—it will approve of every means by which the discipline of the mind, honesty and rigor in matters of intellectual conscience, the mind’s noble coolness and freedom can be poisoned, slandered, *discredited*. “Faith” as a command is the *veto* against science—*in practice*, the lie at any cost… Paul *understood* that the lie—that “faith”—was needed; later the church, in turn, understood Paul.—That “God” Paul invented for himself, a God who “puts to shame” the “wisdom of the world” (in the narrower sense, the two great opponents of all superstition, philology and medicine), is really just Paul’s own firm *decision* to do so: calling one’s own will “God,” *Torah*—that is Jewish to the core. Paul *wants* to put the “wisdom of the world” to shame: his enemies are the *good* philologists and doctors trained in Alexandria—he wages war on them. In fact, as a philologist or a doctor, you cannot help also being an *Antichrist*. For as a philologist you look *behind* the “holy books,” as a doctor *behind* the physiological degeneration of the typical Christian. The doctor says “incurable,” the philologist “fraud”…\n\n[48]\n\n—Has anyone really understood the famous story at the beginning of the Bible—about God’s hellish terror of *science*?… No one has understood it. This *supreme* priestly book begins, fittingly, with the priest’s great inner difficulty: *he* has only one great danger, *so* “God” has only one great danger.—\n\nThe old God, all “spirit,” all high priest, all perfection, strolls for pleasure in his gardens: except that he is bored. Even gods struggle in vain against boredom. What does he do? He invents the human being—human beings are entertaining…\n\nBut look, the human being is bored too. God’s pity for the only trouble that all paradises have knows no bounds: he promptly created other animals as well. God’s *first* mistake: the human being did not find the animals entertaining—he ruled over them; he did not even want to be an “animal.”—*So* God created woman. And in fact boredom now came to an end—but so did other things! Woman was God’s *second* mistake.—“Woman is by nature a serpent, Eve”—every priest knows that; “*every* disaster in the world comes from woman”—every priest knows that too. “*So* *science* comes from her too”… Only through woman did the human being learn to taste from the tree of knowledge.—What had happened? A hellish terror seized the old God. The human being himself had become his *greatest* mistake; he had created a rival for himself; science makes people *equal to God*—it is all over for priests and gods when human beings become scientific!—*The moral:* Science is the forbidden thing itself—it alone is forbidden. Science is the *first* sin, the seed of all sin, *inherited* sin. *This alone is morality.*—“You must *not* know”—the rest follows from that.—God’s hellish terror did not stop him from being clever. How do you *defend* yourself against science? That became his main problem for a long time. Answer: get the human being out of paradise! Happiness, idleness give people ideas—all ideas are bad ideas… The human being *must* not think.—And the “priest as such” invents hardship, death, the danger to life in pregnancy, every kind of misery, old age, toil, and above all *sickness*—all means of fighting science! Hardship does not *allow* people to think… And yet! Horrible! The work of knowledge keeps piling up, storming heaven, bringing on the twilight of the gods—what to do!—The old God invents *war*, he separates the peoples, he makes human beings destroy one another (—priests have always needed war…). War—among other things a great disruptor of science!—Unbelievable! Knowledge, *emancipation from the priest*, increases even despite wars.—And the old God reaches one last decision: “Human beings have become scientific—*there’s no help for it, they must be drowned*!”…\n\n[49]\n\n—You have understood me. The beginning of the Bible contains the *whole* psychology of the priest.—The priest knows only *one* great danger: science—the sound understanding of cause and effect. But on the whole, science thrives only under happy conditions—you must have time, you must have mental energy *to spare*, in order to “know”… “*So* people must be made unhappy”—this has always been the priest’s logic.—You can already guess *what*, according to this logic, first came into the world as a result—“*sin*”… The ideas of guilt and punishment, the whole “moral world order,” were invented *against* science—against the human being’s break with the priest… People must *not* look outward; they must look into themselves; they must *not* look at things intelligently and carefully, as learners; they must not look at all: they must *suffer*… And they must *suffer* in a way that makes them need the priest at all times.—Away with doctors! *A savior is needed.*—The ideas of guilt and punishment, including the teachings about “grace,” “redemption,” “forgiveness”—*lies* through and through, without any psychological reality—were invented to destroy the human *sense of causation*: they are the attack on the idea of cause and effect!—And *not* an attack with a fist, with a knife, with honesty in hatred and love! Instead, an attack coming from the most cowardly, cunning, low instincts! A priest’s attack! A parasite’s attack! The vampirism of pale, underground bloodsuckers!… When the natural consequences of an act are no longer considered “natural,” but brought about by the ghostly ideas of superstition, by “God,” by “spirits,” by “souls,” as merely “moral” consequences, as reward, punishment, sign, a means of education, then the precondition for knowledge is destroyed—then *the greatest crime against humanity has been committed*.—Sin, to say it again, this *ultimate* form of human self-defilement, was invented to make science, culture, any elevation or nobility of human beings impossible; the priest *rules* through the invention of sin.—\n\n[50]\n\n—I will not spare myself a psychology of “faith,” of “believers,” at this point—for the benefit, as is only right, of the “believers” themselves. If there are still people today who do not know in what sense it is *indecent* to be a “believer”—*or* a mark of *decadence*, of a broken will to live—by tomorrow they will know. My voice reaches even the hard of hearing.—It seems, unless I have misheard, that among Christians there is a kind of test of truth called the “proof of power.” “Faith brings blessedness: *therefore* it is true.”—The first objection might be that this very bringing of blessedness has not been proved, only *promised*: blessedness is tied to the condition of “faith”—you are supposed to become blessed *because* you believe… But *does* what the priest promises the believer for the “beyond,” which is beyond all checking, actually happen—and what could prove *that*?—At bottom, then, the supposed “proof of power” is once again just a belief that the effect expected from faith will not fail to happen. In a formula: “I believe that faith brings blessedness—*therefore* it is true.”—But that is already the end of it. This “*therefore*” would be *absurdity* itself as a test of truth.—But let us generously assume that faith has been proved to bring blessedness (—*not* just wished for, *not* just promised by the somewhat suspicious mouth of a priest): would blessedness—in technical terms, *pleasure*—ever be proof of truth? So far from it that when feelings of pleasure have a say in the question “what is true?” they almost provide proof of the opposite, and in any case the strongest grounds for suspicion against “truth.” The proof of “pleasure” is proof *of* “pleasure”—nothing more; how on earth could it be established that *true* judgments give more pleasure than false ones and necessarily bring pleasant feelings after them, in accordance with a harmony established in advance?—The experience of all rigorous minds, all minds with depth to their nature, teaches *the opposite*. We have had to fight ourselves for every inch of truth; in return we have had to give up almost everything our heart, our love, our trust in life otherwise depend on. That takes greatness of soul: serving truth is the hardest service.—What does being *honest* in intellectual matters mean? Being strict with your heart, despising “beautiful feelings,” making every yes and no a matter of conscience!———Faith brings blessedness: *therefore* it lies…\n\n### Sections 51–62\n\n[51]\n\nFaith can make people feel blessed in some circumstances. But the happiness a fixed idea brings does not make it a *true* idea. And faith does not move mountains: it *puts* mountains where there are none. A quick walk through a *mental hospital* makes all this clear enough. *Not* to a priest, of course: his instinct is to deny that sickness is sickness and a mental hospital is a mental hospital. Christianity *needs* sickness, much as Greek culture needs an excess of health—*making* people sick is the real hidden purpose behind the Church’s whole system of procedures for salvation. And the Church itself—isn’t its ultimate ideal the Catholic mental hospital?—The whole earth as a mental hospital?—The religious person as the Church *wants* him is a typical *decadent*. Whenever a religious crisis takes control of a people, epidemics of nervous illness mark the occasion. The religious person’s “inner world” is indistinguishably like the “inner world” of the overstimulated and exhausted. The “highest” states that Christianity has held up over humanity as the value of all values are epilepsy-like states—the Church has canonized only madmen *or* great frauds *for the greater glory of God*… I once took the liberty of describing the whole Christian *training* in repentance and redemption—which is best studied in England today—as a methodically induced *cyclical insanity*, naturally on ground already prepared for it, that is, thoroughly diseased ground. No one is free to become a Christian: people are not “converted” to Christianity—they have to be sick enough for it… We others, who have the *courage* to be healthy *and* to despise, how fully *we* are entitled to despise a religion that taught people to misunderstand the body! That refuses to give up the superstition of the soul! That makes inadequate nutrition a “merit”! That fights health as a kind of enemy, devil, temptation! That persuaded itself one could carry a “perfect soul” around in a corpse of a body, and for that purpose had to invent a new idea of “perfection”: a pale, sickly, idiotically rapturous condition, so-called “holiness”—holiness that is itself merely a set of symptoms of an impoverished, enervated, incurably ruined body!… The Christian movement, as a European movement, is from the start a collective movement of every kind of reject and waste product (—they want to use Christianity to gain power). It does *not* express the decline of a race; it is a mass formed from kinds of *decadence* everywhere, crowding together and seeking one another out. It is *not*, as people believe, the corruption of the ancient world itself, the *noble* ancient world, that made Christianity possible. We cannot contradict forcefully enough the scholarly idiocy that still upholds such a claim today. At the time when the sick, corrupted Chandala classes throughout the *empire* were becoming Christian, the very *opposite type*, nobility, existed in its most beautiful and mature form. The great majority took control; the democratic tendency of Christian instincts *won*… Christianity was not “national,” not determined by race—it appealed to every kind of person disinherited by life; it had allies everywhere. At Christianity’s root lies the rancor of the sick, an instinct directed *against* the healthy, *against* health. Everything that has turned out well, everything proud and high-spirited, and beauty above all, hurts its ears and eyes. Let me recall once again Paul’s priceless words: “What is *weak* in the world’s eyes, what is *foolish* in the world’s eyes, the *lowborn* and *despised* in the world’s eyes, God has chosen.” *That* was the formula; *under this sign* *decadence* won.—*God on the cross*—do people still not understand the terrible hidden thought behind this symbol?—Everything that suffers, everything that hangs on the cross, is *divine*… We all hang on the cross, so *we* are divine… We alone are divine… Christianity was a victory; a *nobler* way of thinking was destroyed by it—Christianity has been humanity’s greatest misfortune so far.— —\n\n[52]\n\nChristianity also opposes every healthy development of the *mind*—the only reason it *can* use as Christian reason is sick reason. It sides with everything idiotic; it curses “the intellect,” the *pride* of a healthy mind. Since sickness belongs to Christianity’s nature, the typically Christian state, “faith,” *must* also be a form of sickness. The Church *must* reject all straight, honest, scientific paths to knowledge as *forbidden* paths. Even doubt is a sin… The priest’s complete lack of psychological cleanliness—which gives itself away in his eyes—is a *consequence* of *decadence*. We need only observe hysterical women and children prone to rickets to see how regularly instinctive dishonesty, pleasure in lying for its own sake, and an inability to look or walk straight express *decadence*. “Faith” means not *wanting* to know what is true. The Pietist, the priest of either sex, is dishonest *because* he is sick: his instinct *demands* that truth should never get its due. “Whatever makes people sick is *good*; whatever comes from fullness, abundance, power, is *evil*”: that is how the believer feels. The *compulsion to lie*—that is how I recognize every born theologian.—Another mark of the theologian is his *inability to practice philology*. Here, in a very general sense, philology means the art of reading *well*—being able to read the facts *without* falsifying them through interpretation, *without* losing caution, patience, and subtlety in the desire to understand. Philology as *restraint* in interpretation: whether we are dealing with books, newspaper reports, destinies, or facts about the weather—not to mention the “salvation of the soul”… The way a theologian, in Berlin or Rome alike, interprets a “passage of scripture” or an experience—for instance, a victory by his country’s army in the higher light of the Psalms of David—is always so *bold* that it drives a philologist up the wall. And what is the philologist supposed to do when Pietists and other cows from Swabia use the “finger of God” to turn the miserable daily routine and smoky rooms of their existence into a miracle of “grace,” “providence,” and “experiences of salvation”! The smallest effort of intelligence, not to say *decency*, should make these interpreters recognize how completely childish and unworthy it is to misuse divine dexterity like this. With even the slightest amount of piety in us, a God who cures a cold at the right moment, or tells us to get into a carriage just as heavy rain starts, should strike us as so absurd that we would have to abolish him even if he existed. A God as servant, mail carrier, almanac maker—basically a word for the stupidest kind of coincidence… “Divine providence,” as roughly one person in three still believes in it in “educated Germany,” would be the strongest imaginable argument against God. And in any case it is an argument against the Germans!…\n\n[53]\n\n—It is so far from true that *martyrs* prove a cause is true that I would deny any martyr has ever had anything at all to do with truth. The very tone in which a martyr flings his belief in something at the world’s head reveals such a low level of intellectual honesty, such *insensitivity* to the question of “truth,” that there is never any need to refute a martyr. Truth is not something one person has and another does not: only peasants, or apostles to peasants like Luther, could think of truth that way. We can be sure that the more conscientious people are in matters of the mind, the greater their modesty, their *self-restraint*, on this point becomes. To *know* about five things, and gently refuse to know about *anything else*… “Truth,” as every prophet, every sectarian, every freethinker, every socialist, and every churchman understands the word, is complete proof that they have not even begun the mental discipline and self-overcoming needed to find any small truth, however small.—The deaths of martyrs, incidentally, have been a great misfortune in history: they *led people astray*… All idiots, women and the common people included, conclude that there must be something to a cause someone dies for—or that, like early Christianity, actually produces epidemics of a craving for death. That conclusion has been an unspeakable obstacle to examination, to the spirit of examination and caution. Martyrs *harmed* truth…\n\nEven today, a single crude act of persecution is enough to give the most insignificant sectarian movement an *honorable* name.—What? Does someone’s giving up his life for a cause change its value?—An error that becomes honorable is an error with one more seductive attraction: do you think, gentlemen of theology, that we would give you a chance to play the martyr for your lie?—You refute a cause by respectfully putting it on ice—and that is also how you refute theologians… This was precisely the world-historical stupidity of all persecutors: they gave their opponents’ cause the appearance of honor—they made it a gift of the fascination of martyrdom… Woman still kneels before error today because she has been told that someone died on the cross for it. *Is the cross an argument, then?*— —But on all these matters, one man alone has said the words people have needed for thousands of years—*Zarathustra*.\n\nThey wrote signs of blood on the path they walked, and their  \nfoolishness taught that blood proves truth.  \nBut blood is the worst witness to truth; blood poisons  \neven the purest teaching, turning it into delusion and hatred in people’s hearts.  \nAnd if someone went through fire for his teaching—what does that prove! It means more, truly, when his own  \nteaching comes from his own burning.\n\n[54]\n\nDo not be misled: great minds are skeptics. Zarathustra is a skeptic. The strength, the *freedom* that comes from the mind’s power and surplus of power, *proves* itself through skepticism. People with convictions do not count at all when it comes to fundamental questions of value and worthlessness. Convictions are prisons. Their vision does not reach far enough; they cannot see *below* themselves. But to have a say about value and worthlessness, you must see five hundred convictions *below* you—*behind* you… A mind that wants great things, and also wants the means to achieve them, is necessarily skeptical. *Freedom* from every kind of conviction *belongs* to strength: being *able* to look freely… The great passion, the foundation and power of such a mind’s existence, is even more enlightened, even more despotic, than that mind itself. It puts the whole intellect to work; it removes scruples; it gives the mind courage to use even unholy means; *under* certain circumstances it *allows* the mind convictions. Conviction as a *means*: many things can be achieved only through a conviction. The great passion uses convictions, uses them up; it does not submit to them—it knows it is sovereign.—Conversely, the need for faith, for some unconditional Yes or No—Carlylism, if I may be forgiven the word—is a need born of *weakness*. The person of faith, the “believer” of every kind, is necessarily a dependent person—someone who cannot set himself up as an end, who cannot set any ends at all on his own. The “believer” does not belong to *himself*. He can only be a means; he must be *used up*; he needs someone to use him up. His instinct gives the highest honor to a morality of self-renunciation. Everything persuades him toward it: his cleverness, his experience, his vanity. Every kind of faith is itself an expression of self-renunciation, of self-alienation… Consider how much most people need a regulating force that binds and steadies them from outside; how compulsion, *slavery* in a higher sense, is the only and ultimate condition under which a person with a weaker will, especially a woman, can thrive. Then you also understand conviction, “faith.” The person with convictions has his backbone in them. *Not* seeing many things, being impartial about nothing, being partisan through and through, having a rigid and compulsory perspective on all values—this alone makes it possible for that kind of person to exist at all. But that makes him the opposite, the *antagonist*, of the truthful person—of truth… The believer is not free to have any conscience at all about the question of “true” and “untrue”: being honest on *this* point would immediately destroy him. The diseased conditioning of his perspective turns the man of conviction into a fanatic—Savonarola, Luther, Rousseau, Robespierre, Saint-Simon—the opposite type to the strong mind, the mind that has *become free*. But the grand pose of these *sick* minds, these epileptics of the concept, affects the great mass of people—fanatics are picturesque; humanity would rather watch gestures than listen to *reasons*…\n\n[55]\n\n—One step further in the psychology of conviction, of “faith.” Long ago I suggested considering whether convictions might be more dangerous enemies of truth than lies (Menschliches, Allzumenschliches I, Aphorismus 54 und 483). This time I want to ask the decisive question: is there any opposition at all between a lie and a conviction?—Everyone believes there is; but what doesn’t everyone believe!—Every conviction has its history, its preliminary forms, its experiments and mistakes. It *becomes* a conviction after a long time of *not* being one, and an even longer time of *barely* being one. What? Couldn’t a lie be among these embryonic forms of conviction?—Sometimes all it takes is a change of person: what was still a lie in the father becomes a conviction in the son.—By lying I mean *not* wanting to see something you see, not wanting to see it as you see it. Whether the lie takes place with or without witnesses makes no difference. The most common lie is the one you tell yourself; lying to other people is relatively exceptional.—Now this desire *not* to see what you see, not to see it as you see it, is almost the first requirement for everyone who is *partisan* in any sense. The partisan necessarily becomes a liar. German history writing, for example, is convinced that Rome was despotism and that the Germanic peoples brought the spirit of freedom into the world. What is the difference between that conviction and a lie? Can we still be surprised that all parties, including German historians, instinctively have morality’s grand words on their lips—that morality almost *survives* because every kind of partisan needs it at every moment?—“This is *our* conviction: we profess it before the whole world; we live and die for it—respect for everyone with convictions!”—I have even heard things like that from antisemites. Quite the contrary, gentlemen! An antisemite does not become any more decent by lying on principle… Priests are more subtle in these matters. They understand very well the objection contained in the concept of a conviction—that is, dishonesty adopted as a principle *because* it serves a purpose. From the Jews they inherited the cleverness to insert the concepts “God,” “God’s will,” and “God’s revelation” at this point. Kant, too, with his categorical imperative, was on the same path: his reason became *practical* here.—There are questions where deciding between truth and falsehood is *not* for human beings. All the highest questions, all the highest problems of value, lie beyond human reason… To grasp the *limits* of reason—only *that* is truly philosophy… Why did God give humanity revelation? Would God have done something unnecessary? Human beings *cannot* know on their own what is good and evil, so God taught them his will… The moral: the priest does *not* lie—the question “true” or “untrue” does not *exist* in the things priests talk about. These things do not even allow lying. To lie, you would have to be able to decide *what* is true here. But that is just what human beings *cannot* do; the priest is therefore merely God’s mouthpiece.—This priestly syllogism is by no means merely Jewish and Christian. The right to lie and the *cleverness* of “revelation” belong to the priestly type, to priests of decadence just as much as to pagan priests (—pagans are all those who say Yes to life, for whom “God” is the word for the great Yes to all things).—The “law,” the “will of God,” the “holy book,” “inspiration”—all just words for the conditions *under* which the priest gains power, *with* which he maintains his power. These concepts lie at the foundation of all priestly organizations, all systems of priestly or philosophical-priestly rule. The “holy lie”—shared by Confucius, Manu’s law code, Muhammad, and the Christian Church—is not absent from Plato. “The truth is here”: wherever that is proclaimed, it means *the priest is lying*…\n\n[56]\n\n—In the end, what matters is the *purpose* of the lie. That Christianity lacks “holy” purposes is *my* objection to its methods. Its purposes are only *bad*: poisoning, slandering, denying life, despising the body, degrading human beings and making them defile themselves through the concept of sin—*therefore* its methods are bad too.—I read the law code of *Manu* with the opposite feeling. It is an incomparably intellectual and superior work; even to *mention* it in the same breath as the Bible would be a sin against the *intellect*. You can tell at once: it has a real philosophy behind it, *within* it, not just a foul-smelling Jewish brew of rabbinism and superstition—it gives even the most spoiled psychologist something to chew on. *Not* to forget the main point, *the* fundamental difference from every kind of Bible: the *noble* classes, the philosophers and warriors, use it to watch over the masses. Noble values everywhere, a feeling of perfection, a Yes to life, a triumphant satisfaction in oneself and in life—the *sun* shines over the whole book.—All the things on which Christianity vents its bottomless vulgarity—procreation, for example, women, marriage—are treated here seriously, with reverence, love, and trust. How can anyone actually put a book into the hands of children and women that contains these base words: “Because of fornication, let every man have his own wife and every woman her own husband… it is better to marry than to burn with lust”? And *may* anyone be a Christian as long as the concept of the *Immaculate Conception* Christianizes the origin of human beings—that is, *dirties* it?… I know no book that says so many tender and kind things to women as Manu’s law code. These old graybeards and saints have a way of being courteous to women that may never have been surpassed. “A woman’s mouth,” it says in one place, “a girl’s breast, a child’s prayer, the smoke of a sacrifice are always pure.” Another passage: “There is nothing purer than sunlight, a cow’s shadow, the air, water, fire, and a girl’s breath.” One last passage—perhaps a holy lie as well—“All the body’s openings above the navel are pure; all those below are impure. Only in a girl is the whole body pure.”\n\n[57]\n\nYou catch the *unholiness* of Christian methods *in the act* when you compare the *Christian* purpose with the purpose of Manu’s law code—when you put this greatest opposition of purposes in a strong light. A critic of Christianity cannot avoid making Christianity *contemptible*.—A law code like Manu’s comes into being as every good law code does: it sums up the experience, practical wisdom, and morality developed through trial over long centuries; it brings that process to a close; it creates nothing more. A codification of this kind presupposes an insight: the means of giving authority to a *truth* acquired slowly and at great cost are fundamentally different from the means of proving it. A law code never tells the benefits, reasons, and particular cases in a law’s prehistory. Doing so would cost it its commanding tone, its “you shall,” the precondition for obedience. That is precisely where the problem lies.—At a certain point in a people’s development, its most insightful class—that is, the one that looks furthest backward and ahead—declares that the experience by which people are to live—that is, *can* live—is complete. Its aim is to bring in the richest and most complete harvest possible from the ages of experiment and *bad* experience. So what must now be prevented above all is continued experimentation, the continued fluidity of values, the testing, choosing, and criticizing of values *without end*. A double wall is set against this. First, *revelation*: the claim that the reason behind these laws is *not* human in origin, *not* something sought and found slowly and through mistakes. Instead, it is divine in origin, whole, perfect, without a history, a gift, a miracle, merely communicated… Then, *tradition*: the claim that the law has existed since the most ancient times, that to question it is irreverent, a crime against the ancestors. The law’s authority rests on these propositions: God *gave* it; the ancestors *lived* it.—The higher reason for such a procedure lies in the intention to push consciousness back, step by step, out of the life recognized as right—that is, *proved* by an enormous and rigorously sifted body of experience. In this way, the perfect automatic functioning of instinct is achieved—the precondition for every kind of mastery, every kind of perfection in the art of living. To establish a law code like Manu’s means giving a people the chance from then on to achieve mastery, to become perfect—to aspire to the highest art of living. *For this, it must be made unconscious*: that is the purpose of every holy lie.—The *caste system*, the supreme, dominant law, only sanctions an *order of nature*, a natural law of the first rank over which no arbitrary will, no “modern idea,” has power. In every healthy society, three types with different physiological centers of gravity separate out, each depending on the others. Each has its own rules of health, its own field of work, its own kind of feeling of perfection and mastery. Nature, *not* Manu, separates those who are mainly intellectual, those who are mainly strong in muscle and temperament, and a third group distinguished in neither way, the mediocre—the last as the great majority, the first as the select few. The highest caste—I call them *the very few*—as the perfect caste also has the privileges of the fewest: these include embodying happiness, beauty, and goodness on earth. Only the most intellectual people are permitted beauty, *beautiful things*: only in them is goodness not weakness. *Beauty belongs to few people*: goodness is a privilege. On the other hand, nothing is less permissible for them than ugly manners or a pessimistic outlook, an eye that *makes things ugly*—or even indignation at the overall appearance of things. Indignation is the privilege of the Chandala; pessimism likewise. “*The world is perfect*”—so speaks the instinct of the most intellectual, the instinct that says Yes—“imperfection, everything *below* us, distance, the feeling of distance, even the Chandala belongs to this perfection.” The most intellectual people, as the *strongest*, find happiness where others would find their ruin: in the labyrinth, in harshness toward themselves and others, in experiment. Their pleasure is in conquering themselves: asceticism becomes their nature, their need, their instinct. They see a difficult task as a privilege; playing with burdens that crush others is *recreation*… Knowledge—a form of asceticism.—They are the most worthy of respect of all human types: that does not rule out their being the most cheerful and lovable. They rule not because they want to, but because they *are*; they are not free to take second place.—Those in *second place*: they are the guardians of justice, the keepers of order and security, the noble warriors, and above all the *king* as the highest embodiment of warrior, judge, and upholder of the law. Those in second place are the executive arm of the most intellectual, their closest associates, those who take all the *coarse* work of ruling off their hands—their followers, their right hand, their best pupils.—In all of this, to repeat, there is nothing arbitrary, nothing “made up”; anything *different* is made up—in that case nature has been ruined… The caste system, the *order of rank*, merely formulates the supreme law of life itself. Separating the three types is necessary to preserve society, to make higher and highest types possible—the *inequality* of rights is the very condition for any rights to exist at all.—A right is a privilege. Each person also has his privilege in his own way of being. Let us not underestimate the privileges of the *mediocre*. Life gets harder the *higher* you go—the cold increases, the responsibility increases. A high culture is a pyramid: it can stand only on a broad base; its very first requirement is a firmly and healthily consolidated mediocrity. Crafts, trade, agriculture, *science*, most art—in a word, the whole range of *professional* activity—are entirely compatible only with a middling level of ability and desire. Such things would be out of place among exceptional people; the instinct involved would contradict an aristocratic outlook as much as an anarchist one. Being publicly useful, a cog, a function, is a natural calling: it is *not* society that turns them into intelligent machines, but the only kind of *happiness* the vast majority are capable of. For the mediocre person, being mediocre is happiness; mastery in one field, specialization, is a natural instinct. It would be completely unworthy of a deeper mind to see mediocrity itself as an objection. It is itself the *first* necessity if exceptions are to be possible: a high culture depends on it. When an exceptional person handles the mediocre with gentler fingers than he uses on himself and his equals, this is not just courtesy of the heart—it is simply his *duty*… Whom among today’s rabble do I hate most? The socialist rabble, the Chandala apostles who undermine the worker’s instinct, his pleasure, his sense of satisfaction with his small existence—who make him envious, who teach him revenge… Injustice never lies in un*equal* rights; it lies in the demand for “equal” rights… What is *bad*? But I have said it already: everything that comes from weakness, from envy, from *revenge*.—The anarchist and the Christian have the same origin…\n\n[58]\n\nIn fact, the purpose of a lie makes a difference: whether you use it to preserve or to *destroy*. You can put a perfect equals sign between *Christian* and *anarchist*: their purpose, their instinct, aims only at destruction. To prove this statement, you need only read history: it contains the proof with terrifying clarity. We have just come to know a religious system of law whose purpose was to make the supreme condition for life to *thrive* “last forever”: a great organization of society. Christianity found its mission in putting an end to just such an organization, *because life thrived in it*. In the one case, the rational gains of long periods of experiment and uncertainty were to be invested for benefit in the most distant future, and the harvest brought in as fully, richly, and completely as possible. In the other, the reverse happened: overnight the harvest was *poisoned*… What stood there *more enduring than bronze*, the *Roman Empire*, the grandest form of organization under difficult conditions ever achieved—compared with which everything before and after is patchwork, bungling, amateurism—those holy anarchists made it an act of “piety” to destroy “the world,” *that is*, the *Roman Empire*, until not one stone remained on another—until even Germanic peoples and other louts could take control of it… The Christian and the anarchist: both *decadents*, both incapable of doing anything but dissolving, poisoning, stunting, *sucking blood*, both the instinct of *deadly hatred* against everything that stands, that stands great, that endures, that promises life a future… Christianity was the vampire of the *Roman Empire*—overnight it undid the Romans’ enormous achievement of gaining the ground for a great culture *that has time*.—Do people still not understand? The *Roman Empire* we know, which the history of the Roman provinces teaches us to know better and better, this most admirable work of art in the grand style, was a beginning. Its structure was designed to *prove* itself over thousands of years—to this day, no one has ever built like that, or even dreamed of building to the same extent *from the standpoint of eternity*!—This organization was strong enough to withstand bad emperors: the accident of who holds office must have no effect in such matters—the *first* principle of all great architecture. But it was not strong enough to withstand the *most corrupt* kind of corruption, the *Christian*… These secret vermin, creeping up to each individual in night, fog, and ambiguity, sucking out of each individual his seriousness about *true* things, his instinct for *realities* at all—this cowardly, effeminate, sickly-sweet gang gradually alienated “souls” from that enormous structure. Those valuable souls, those manly and noble natures, had felt their own cause, their own seriousness, their own pride in Rome’s cause. This sanctimonious sneaking, this secrecy of little religious gatherings, gloomy concepts like hell, like the sacrifice of the innocent, like *mystical union* in drinking blood, and above all the slowly stoked fire of revenge, of Chandala revenge—*that* gained control over Rome: the same kind of religion on which Epicurus had already made war in its earlier form. Read Lucretius to understand *what* Epicurus fought: *not* paganism, but “Christianity,” meaning the corruption of souls through the concepts of guilt, punishment, and immortality.—He fought the *underground* cults, the whole of latent Christianity—denying immortality was already a real *redemption* then.—And Epicurus would have won; every respectable mind in the Roman Empire was Epicurean: *then Paul appeared*… Paul, Chandala hatred of Rome, of “the world,” made flesh, made genius; the Jew, the *eternal* Jew *above all others*… What he figured out was how to use the little sectarian Christian movement on the margins of Judaism to ignite a “world fire”; how to use the symbol “God on the cross” to add up everything downtrodden, everything secretly rebellious, the whole inheritance of anarchist agitation in the empire, into an enormous power. “Salvation comes from the Jews.”—Christianity as a formula for outdoing—*and* adding together—underground cults of every kind, those of Osiris, the Great Mother, Mithras, for example: Paul’s genius consists in this insight. His instinct was so sure in this that he put the ideas with which those Chandala religions fascinated people into the mouth of the “Savior” he invented, doing ruthless violence to the truth—and not only into his mouth: he *made* him into something even a priest of Mithras could understand… This was his moment at Damascus: he understood that he *needed* the belief in immortality to devalue “the world,” that the concept of “hell” would yet gain control over Rome—that with the “beyond” you *kill life*… Nihilist and Christian: they rhyme, and not just in sound…\n\n[59]\n\nAll the work of the ancient world *for nothing*: I have no words to express what I feel about something so enormous.—And considering that its work was preparation, that the foundation for thousands of years of work had only just been laid with granite-hard self-confidence, the whole *meaning* of the ancient world was for nothing!… What were the Greeks for? What were the Romans for?—All the requirements for a learned culture, all the scientific *methods*, were already there. People had already established the great, incomparable art of reading well—the precondition for passing culture down, for the unity of science. Natural science, allied with mathematics and mechanics, was on the best possible course—the *sense for facts*, the last and most valuable of all the senses, had its schools, its tradition already hundreds of years old! Do people understand this? Everything *essential* had been found so work could begin—the methods, it must be said ten times, *are* what is essential, also what is hardest, also what habits and laziness resist the longest. What we have won back for ourselves today through unspeakable self-conquest—for we all still carry the bad instincts, the Christian ones, in our bodies somehow—the unobstructed view of reality, the cautious hand, patience and seriousness in the smallest things, the whole *honesty* of knowledge—all of it was already there! Already more than two thousand years ago! *And*, on top of that, good and refined tact and taste! *Not* as brain training! *Not* as “German” education with loutish manners! But as body, gesture, instinct—in a word, as reality… *All for nothing!* Overnight, nothing but a memory!—Greeks! Romans! Nobility of instinct, taste, methodical research, genius for organization and administration, faith, the *will* for humanity’s future, the great Yes to all things made visible as the *Roman Empire*, visible to all the senses, the grand style no longer just art but now reality, truth, *life*…—And not buried overnight by a natural event! Not trampled down by Germanic peoples and other heavy-footed creatures! But ruined by cunning, secret, invisible, anemic vampires! Not defeated—only sucked dry!… Hidden vindictiveness, petty envy had become *master*! Everything wretched, suffering from itself, haunted by bad feelings, the whole *ghetto world* of the soul suddenly *on top*!— —Just read any Christian agitator, Saint Augustine for example, to grasp, to *smell*, what unclean fellows rose to the top in this way. It would be a complete mistake to suppose the leaders of the Christian movement lacked intelligence in any way—oh, they are clever, clever to the point of holiness, these gentlemen Church Fathers! What they lack is something quite different. Nature neglected them—it forgot to give them a modest endowment of respectable, decent, *clean* instincts… Between ourselves, they are not even men… If Islam despises Christianity, it has a thousandfold right to do so: Islam presupposes *men*…\n\n[60]\n\nChristianity robbed us of the harvest of ancient culture; later it robbed us again of the harvest of *Islamic* culture. Spain’s wonderful Moorish cultural world, fundamentally more closely related to *us*, speaking more to our senses and taste than Rome and Greece, was *trampled down* (—I will not say by what kind of feet—). Why? Because it owed its origin to noble instincts, to men’s instincts; because it said Yes to life even through the rare and refined treasures of Moorish life!… Later the Crusaders fought something before which it would have suited them better to lie in the dust—a culture compared with which even our nineteenth century might well feel very poor, very “late.”—Of course, they wanted loot: the East was rich… Let’s be impartial! Crusades—piracy on a higher level, nothing more! The German nobility, essentially Viking nobility, was in its element here: the Church knew only too well how to get *hold* of the German nobility… The German nobility, always the Church’s “Swiss mercenaries,” always serving all the Church’s bad instincts—but *well paid*… To think that the Church waged its war of deadly hatred against everything noble on earth with the very help of German swords, German blood, and German courage! There are many painful questions here. The German nobility is almost *absent* from the history of higher culture: you can guess why… Christianity, alcohol—the two *great* means of corruption… In itself, there ought to be no choice between Islam and Christianity, any more than between an Arab and a Jew. The decision is given; no one is free to choose here anymore. Either you *are* a Chandala, or you are *not*… “War to the knife against Rome! Peace, friendship with Islam”: that was how that great free spirit, the genius among German emperors, Frederick the Second, felt; that was how he *acted*. What? Must a German first be a genius, a free spirit, in order to feel *decently*? I cannot understand how a German could ever feel *Christian*…\n\n[61]\n\nHere we need to touch on a memory a hundred times more embarrassing for Germans. The Germans robbed Europe of the last great cultural harvest there was to bring home for Europe—the harvest of the *Renaissance*. Do people finally understand, do they *want* to understand, *what* the Renaissance was? The *revaluation of Christian values*, the attempt undertaken with every means, every instinct, every bit of genius, to bring the *opposite* values, the *noble* values, to victory… So far there has been only *this* great war; so far no question has been posed more decisively than the Renaissance’s question—*my* question is its question. Nor has there ever been a more fundamental, more direct form of *attack*, more rigorously conducted along the whole front and against the center! To attack at the decisive point, at the very seat of Christianity; to put *noble* values on the throne here, meaning to bring them *into* the instincts, into the deepest needs and desires of those sitting there… I see a *possibility* before me of utterly unearthly enchantment and richness of color—it seems to me to shine with all the shivers of refined beauty, with an art at work in it so divine, so devilishly divine, that you could search thousands of years in vain for another such possibility. I see a spectacle so meaningful and at the same time so wonderfully paradoxical that all the gods of Olympus would have had reason for immortal laughter—*Cesare Borgia as pope*… Do you understand me?… Well, that would have been the victory that *I* alone demand today—with that, Christianity would have been *abolished*!—What happened? A German monk, Luther, came to Rome. This monk, carrying all the vengeful instincts of a failed priest in his body, rebelled in Rome *against* the Renaissance… Instead of understanding with the deepest gratitude the enormous thing that had happened—the overcoming of Christianity at its *seat*—his hatred understood only how to feed on this spectacle. A religious person thinks only of himself.—Luther saw the *corruption* of the papacy, when precisely the opposite was obvious enough to touch: the old corruption, *original sin*, Christianity, was *no longer* sitting on the papal throne! But life was! The triumph of life was! The great Yes to all high, beautiful, daring things was!… And Luther *restored the Church*: he attacked it… The Renaissance—an event without meaning, a great *waste*!—Ah, these Germans, what they have already cost us! For nothing—that has always been the Germans’ *work*.—The Reformation; Leibniz; Kant and so-called German philosophy; the Wars of “Liberation”; the German Empire—each time something already there, something *irretrievable*, was made to have been for nothing… They are *my* enemies, I admit it, these Germans: in them I despise every kind of uncleanliness in concepts and values, every kind of *cowardice* before any honest Yes and No. For almost a thousand years, they have tangled and confused everything their fingers touched; they have all the half measures—three-eighths measures!—that make Europe sick on their conscience. They also have on their conscience the most unclean kind of Christianity there is, the most incurable, the most impossible to refute: Protestantism… If we cannot finish off Christianity, the *Germans* will be to blame…\n\n[62]\n\n—With this I come to the end and deliver my verdict. I *condemn* Christianity; I bring against the Christian Church the most terrible of all charges any accuser has ever spoken. To me it is the highest of all imaginable corruptions; it has willed the utmost corruption that is even possible. The Christian Church left nothing untouched by its corruption. It made every value worthless, every truth a lie, every kind of honesty a baseness of soul. Just let anyone dare talk to me again about its “humanitarian” blessings! To *abolish* any distress went against its deepest self-interest: it lived on distress; it *created* distress to make *itself* eternal… The worm of sin, for example: it was the Church that first enriched humanity with this distress!—The “equality of souls before God,” this falsehood, this *pretext* for the *rancor* of all the base-minded, this explosive concept that finally became revolution, modern idea, and the principle of decline of the whole social order—is *Christian* dynamite… The “humanitarian” blessings of Christianity! To breed into *humanity* a contradiction of itself, an art of self-defilement, a will to lie at any price, an aversion to and contempt for all good and honest instincts! Those, to my mind, are Christianity’s blessings!—Parasitism as the Church’s *only* practice; with its ideal of anemia, its ideal of “holiness,” draining away all blood, all love, all hope for life; the beyond as the will to deny every reality; the cross as the identifying mark of the deepest underground conspiracy there has ever been—against health, beauty, successful growth, courage, intellect, *goodness* of soul, *against life itself*…\n\nI want to write this eternal indictment of Christianity on every wall, wherever there are walls—I have letters that can make even the blind see… I call Christianity the *one* great curse, the *one* great innermost corruption, the *one* great instinct for revenge for which no means is poisonous, secret, underground, or *petty* enough—I call it the *one* immortal stain of shame on humanity…\n\nAnd people count time from the *ill-fated day* when this disaster began—from the *first* day of Christianity!—*Why not from its last day instead?*—*From today?*—Revaluation of all values!\n\n### Law Against Christianity\n\nIssued on the day of salvation, on the first day of Year One (—on September 30, 1888, by the false reckoning of time)\n\n*War to the death against vice: vice is Christianity.*\n\n[1]\n\n*First proposition.*—Every kind of violation of nature is vicious. The most vicious kind of human being is the priest: he *teaches* the violation of nature. Against the priest we have no arguments; we have prison.\n\n[2]\n\n*Second proposition.*—Any participation in a religious service is an attack on public morality. We should be harder on Protestants than on Catholics, harder on liberal Protestants than on strict believers. The criminality of being a Christian increases the closer one comes to science. The criminal of criminals is therefore the *philologist*.\n\n[3]\n\n*Third proposition.*—The places fit to be cursed where Christianity has hatched its basilisk eggs should be leveled to the ground and, as *accursed* places on earth, terrify all future generations. Poisonous snakes should be bred there.\n\n[4]\n\n*Fourth proposition.*—Preaching chastity is a public incitement to violate nature. Every expression of contempt for sexual life, every defilement of it through the concept “impure,” is the true sin against the holy spirit of life.\n\n[5]\n\n*Fifth proposition.*—Eating at the same table as a priest excludes you: by doing so you excommunicate yourself from honest society. The priest is *our* Chandala—we should ostracize him, starve him out, drive him into every kind of wilderness.\n\n[6]\n\n*Sixth proposition.*—We should call “holy” history by the name it deserves: *accursed* history. We should turn the words “God,” “Savior,” “Redeemer,” “Saint” into insults and use them as badges identifying criminals.\n\n[7]\n\n*Seventh proposition.*—The rest follows from this.\n\n*The Antichrist*","download_url":"https://mouseia.org/api/works/antichrist/translations/trn_antichrist_plain.txt"}],"retex_markdown_url":"https://mouseia.org/api/works/antichrist/retex.md"}}