Sections 31–40
Original German
31 Ich 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.
Ein 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. —
32 Ich 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).
Aber 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 …
33 In 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…
Die 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. —
Das 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.
Der 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…
34 Wenn 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 — —
Das »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…
35 Dieser »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…
36 — 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…
Wer 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 — —
37 — 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! —
38 — 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!
39 — 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…
40 — 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 …
Musean translation
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.
31 I 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.
One 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.—
32 I 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).
But 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…
33 In 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…
The 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.—
The 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.”
The 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…
34 If 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——
The “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…
35 This “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…
36 —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…
Anyone 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——
37 —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!—
38 —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!
39 —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…
40 —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…
Plain English translation
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.
31 I 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.
One 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.—
32 To 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.)
But 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…
33 The 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…
The 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.—
The 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.”
The 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…
34 If 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——
The “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…
35 This “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…
36 —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…
Anyone 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——
37 —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!—
38 —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!
39 —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…
40 —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…
About this section
Sections 31–40 is part of The Antichrist by Friedrich Nietzsche. This page sets the German original beside 2 direct-source translations, so any line can be checked against the source. It is section 5 of 8 in the work, which is kept in the European tradition.
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