Let us not
underestimate
the privileges
of the mediocre.
of the mediocre.
Nietzsche - v16 - Twilight of the Idols
## p. 207 (#227) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF CHRISTIANITY
207
a
possess, a god who cured us in time of a cold in the
nose, or who arranged for us to enter a carriage
just at the moment when a cloud burst over our
heads, would be such an absurd God, that he would
have to be abolished, even if he existed. * God as a
domestic servant, as a postman, as a general provider,
-in short, merely a word for the most foolish kind of
accidents. “ Divine Providence,” as it is believed
in to-day by almost every third man in “cultured
Germany," would be an argument against God, in
fact it would be the strongest argument against God
that could be imagined. And in any case it is an
argument against the Germans.
53
- The notion that martyrs prove anything at all
in favour of a thing, is so exceedingly doubtful, that
I would fain deny that there has ever yet existed a
martyr who had anything to do with truth. In the
very manner in which a martyr flings his little parcel
of truth at the head of the world, such a low degree
of intellectual honesty and such obtuseness in regard
to the question “truth” makes itself felt, that one
never requires to refute a martyr. Truth is not a
thing which one might have and another be without:
* The following passage from Multatuli will throw light on
this passage :
“Father :- Behold, my son, how wisely Providence has
arranged everything! This bird lays its eggs in its nest and
the young will be hatched just about the time when there
will be worms and flies with which to feed them. Then they
will sing a song of praise in honour of the Creator who over-
whelms his creatures with blessings. '-
“Son :-'Will the worms join in the song, Dad ? '”, -Tæ,
## p. 208 (#228) ############################################
208
THE ANTICHRIST
only peasants or peasant-apostles, after the style of
Luther, can think like this about truth. You may
be quite sure, that the greater a man's degree of
conscientiousness may be in matters intellectual, ,
the more modest he will show himself on this point.
To know about five things, and with a subtle wave
of the hand to refuse to know others. “Truth'
as it is understood by every prophet, every sectarian,
every free thinker, every socialist and every church-
man, is an absolute proof of the fact that these people
haven't even begun that discipline of the mind and
that process of self-mastery, which is necessary for
the discovery of any small, even exceedingly small
truth. —Incidentally, the deaths of martyrs have been
a great misfortune in the history of the world: they
led people astray. The conclusion which all
idiots, women and common people come to, that
there must be something in a cause for which some-
one lays down his life (or which, as in the case of
primitive Christianity, provokes an epidemic of sacri-
fices),—this conclusion put a tremendous check upon
all investigation, upon the spirit of investigation and
of caution. Martyrs have harmed the cause of truth.
Even to this day it only requires the crude fact
of persecution, in order to create an honourable
name for any obscure sect who does not matter in
the least. What? is a cause actually changed in
any way by the fact that some one has laid down his
life for it? An error which becomes honourable, is
simply an error that possesses one seductive charm
the more: do you suppose, dear theologians, that
we shall give you the chance of acting the martyrs
for your lies ? -A thing is refuted by being laid
## p. 209 (#229) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF CHRISTIANITY
209
a
respectfully on ice, and theologians are refuted in
the same way. This was precisely the world-historic
foolishness of all persecutors; they lent the thing
they combated a semblance of honour by conferring
the fascination of martyrdom upon it. . . . Women
still lie prostrate before an error to-day, because
they have been told that some one died on the cross
for it. - Is the cross then an argument ? —But con-
cerning all these things, one person alone has said
what mankind has been in need of for thousands of
years,—Zarathustra.
“Letters of blood did they write on the way they
went, and their folly taught that truth is proved by
blood.
“But blood is the very worst testimony of truth;
blood poisoneth even the purest teaching, and
turneth it into delusion and into blood feuds.
“And when a man goeth through fire for his
teaching—what does that prove? Verily, it is more
when out of one's own burning springeth one's own
teaching. "
54
Do not allow yourselves to be deceivęd:
great
minds are "sceptical. " Zarathustra is a sceptic.
Strength and the freedom which proceeds from the
-power and excessive power of the mind, manifests
itself through scepticism. Men of conviction are
of no account whatever in regard to any principles
of value or of non-value. . Convictions are prisons.
They never see far enough, they do not look down
from a sufficient height: but in order to have any
*
*"Thus Spake Zarathustra. " The Priests. --TR.
»
14
## p. 210 (#230) ############################################
210
THE ANTICHRIST
say in questions of value and non-value, a man must
see five hundred convictions beneath him,-behind
him. . . A spirit who desires great things, and
who also desires the means thereto, is necessarily
a sceptic. Freedom from every kind of conviction
belongs to strength, to the ability to open one's eyes
freely. . . . The great passion of a sceptic, the basis
and
power of his being, which is more enlightened
and more despotic than he is himself, enlists all his
intellect into its service; it makes him unscrupulous;
it even gives him the courage to employ unholy
means; in certain circumstances it even allows
him convictions. Conviction as a means : much is
achieved merely by means of a conviction. Great
passion makes use of and consumes convictions, it
does not submit to them it knows that it is a
sovereign power. Conversely; the need of faith, of
anything either absolutely affirmative or negative,
Carlylism (if I may be allowed this expression), is
the need of weakness. The man of beliefs, the “be-
liever" of every sort and condition, is necessarily a
dependent man ;—he is one who cannot regard him-
self as an aim, who cannot postulate aims from the
promptings of his own heart. The “ believer" does
not belong to himself, he can be only a means, he
must be used up, he is in need of someone who uses
him up. His instinct accords the highest honour to
a morality of self-abnegation : everything in him,
his prudence, his experience, his vanity, persuade
him to adopt this morality. Every sort of belief is
in itself an expression of self-denial, of self-estrange-
ment. . . . Ifone considers how necessary a regulat-
ing code of conduct is to the majority of people, a
.
## p. 211 (#231) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF CHRISTIANITY
211
code of conduct which constrains them and fixes
them from outside ; and how control, or in a higher
sense, slavery, is the only and ultimate condition
under which the weak-willed man, and especially
woman, flourish; one also understands conviction,
faith. ” The man of conviction finds in the latter
his backbone. To be blind to many things, to be
impartial about nothing, to belong always to a par-
ticular side, to hold a strict and necessary point of
view in all matters of values—these are the only <
conditions under which such a man can survive at
all. But all this is the reverse of, the antagonist
of, the truthful man,-of truth. . . . The believer is
not at liberty to have a conscience for the question
“true" and “untrue": to be upright on this point
would mean his immediate downfall. The patho-
logical limitations of his standpoint convert the con-
vinced man into the fanatic—Savonarola, Luther
Rousseau, Robespierre, Saint-Simon,—these are the
reverse type of the strong spirit that has become free.
But the grandiose poses of these morbid spirits, of
these epileptics of ideas, exercise an influence over
the masses,-fanatics are picturesque, man
mankind pre-
fers to look at poses than to listen to reason.
55
One step further in the psychology of conviction
of “faith. ” It is already some time since I first
thought of considering whether convictions were not
perhaps more dangerous enemies of truth than lies
(“Human All-too-Human,” Part I, Aphs. 54 and
483). Now I would fain put the decisive question :
## p. 212 (#232) ############################################
212
THE ANTICHRIST
is there any difference at all between a lie and a
conviction ? -All the world believes that there is,
but what in Heaven's name does not all the world
believe! Every conviction has its history, its pre-
liminary stages, its period of groping and of mis-
takes : it becomes a conviction only after it has not
been one for a long time, only after it has scarcely
been one for a long time. What? might not false-
hood be the embryonic form of conviction ? -At
times all that is required is a change of personality :
very often what was a lie in the father becomes a
conviction in the son. —I call a lie, to refuse to
see something that one sees, to refuse to see it
exactly as one sees it: whether a lie is perpetrated
before witnesses or not is beside the point. —The
most common sort of lie is the one uttered to one's
self; to lie to others is relatively exceptional. Now
this refusal to see what one sees, this refusal to see
a thing exactly as one sees it, is almost the first
condition for all those who belong to a party in
any sense whatsoever : the man who belongs to a
party perforce becomes a liar. German historians,
for instance, are convinced that Rome stood for
despotism, whereas the Teutons introduced the
spirit of freedom into the world : what difference
is there between this conviction and a lie? After
a
this is it to be wondered at, that all parties,
including German historians, instinctively adopt
the grandiloquent phraseology of morality,—that
morality almost owes its survival to the fact that
the man who belongs to a party, no matter what it
may be, is in need of morality every moment ? -
“This is our conviction : we confess it to the whole
## p. 213 (#233) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF CHRISTIANITY
213
-
.
.
world, we live and die for it, let us respect every-
thing that has a conviction ! ”—I have actually
heard antisemites speak in this way. On the
contrary, my dear sirs! An antisemite does not
become the least bit more respectable because he
lies on principle. . . . Priests, who in such matters
are more subtle, and who perfectly understand the
objection to which the idea of a conviction lies
open—that is to say of a falsehood which is per-
petrated on principle because it serves a purpose,
borrowed from the Jews the prudent measure of
setting the concept “God,” “Will of God,” “Revela-
tion of God," at this place. Kant, too, with his
categorical imperative, was on the same road : this
was his practical reason. —There are some questions
in which it is not given to man to decide between
true and false; all the principal questions, all the
principal problems of value, stand beyond human
reason. . . . To comprehend the limits of reason-
this alone is genuine philosophy. For what purpose
did God give man revelation ? Would God have
done anything superfluous ? Man cannot of his
own accord know what is good and what is evil,
that is why God taught man his will. . . . Moral :
the priest does not lie, such questions as “truth” or
"falseness” have nothing to do with the things
concerning which the priest speaks; such things
do not allow of lying. For, in order to lie, it
would be necessary to know what is true in this
respect. But that is precisely what man cannot
know : hence the priest is only the mouthpiece of
God. —This sort of sacerdotal syllogism is by no
means exclusively Judaic or Christian ; the right
## p. 214 (#234) ############################################
214
THE ANTICHRIST
1
>
to lie and the prudent measure of “revelation"
belongs to the priestly type, whether of decadent
periods or of Pagan times (Pagans are all those
who say yea to life, and to whom “God” is
the word for the great yea to all things). The
“law," the “will of God," the “holy book," and
inspiration. All these things are merely words for
the conditions under which the priest attains to
power, and with which he maintains his power,-
these concepts are to be found at the base of all
sacerdotal organisations, of all priestly or philo-
sophical and ecclesiastical governments. The “holy
lie," which is common to Confucius, to the law-
book of Manu, to Muhamed, and to the Christian
church, is not even absent in Plato. “Truth is
here"; this phrase means, wherever it is uttered :
the priest lies. . .
56
After all, the question is, to what end are false-
hoods perpetrated? The fact that, in Christianity,
"holy” ends are entirely absent, constitutes my
objection to the means it employs. Its ends are only
bad ends: the poisoning, the calumniation and the
denial of life, the contempt of the body, the degra-
dation and self-pollution of man by virtue of the
concept sin,-consequently its means are bad as
well. —My feelings are quite the reverse when I read
the law-book of Manu, an incomparably superior and
more intellectualwork,which it would be a sin against
the spirit even to mention in the same breath with
the Bible. You will guess immediately why: it has
a genuine philosophy behind it, in it, not merely an
evil-smelling Jewish distillation of Rabbinism and
)
a
## p. 215 (#235) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF CHRISTIANITY
215
superstition,-it gives something to chew even to the
most fastidious psychologist. And, not to forget
the most important point of all, it is fundamentally
different from every kind of Bible: by means of it
the noble classes, the philosophers and the warriors
guard and guide the masses; it is replete with noble
values, it is filled with a feeling of perfection, with a
saying of yea to life, and a triumphant sense of well-
being in regard to itself and to life,—the sun shines
upon the whole book. — All those things which
Christianity smothers with its bottomless vulgarity:
procreation, woman, marriage, are here treated with
earnestness, with reverence, with love and confidence.
How can one possibly place in the hands of children
and women, a book that contains those vile words:
“to avoid fornication, let every man have his own
wife, and let every woman have her own husband
. . . it is better to marry than to burn. ”* And is
it decent to be a Christian so long as the very origint
of man is Christianised,—that is to say, befouled, by
the idea of the immaculata conceptio ? . . . I know of
no book in which so many delicate and kindly things
are said to woman, as in the Law-Book of Manu;
these old grey-beards and saints have a manner of
being gallant to women which, perhaps, cannot be
surpassed. “The mouth of a woman,” says Manu
on one occasion, “the breast of a maiden, the
prayer
of a child, and the smoke of the sacrifice, are always
pure. " Elsewhere he says: “there is nothing purer
than the light of the sun, the shadow cast by a cow,
air, water, fire and the breath of a maiden. " And
finally-perhaps this is also a holy lie :-“all the
1 Corinthians vịi. 2, 9. -TR,
O
## p. 216 (#236) ############################################
216
THE ANTICHRIST
openings of the body above the navel are pure, all
those below the navel are impure. Only in a maiden is
the whole body pure. ”
57
The unholiness of Christian means is caught in
flagranti, if only the end aspired to by Christianity
be compared with that of the Law-Book of Manu;
if only these two utterly opposed aims be put under
a strong light. The critic of Christianity simply can-
not avoid making Christianity contemptible. —A Law-
Book like that of Manu comes into being like every
good law-book : it epitomises the experience, the
precautionary measures, and the experimental mor-
ality of long ages, it settles things definitely, it no
longer creates. The prerequisite for a codification
of this kind, is the recognition of the fact that the
means which procure authority for a truth to which
it has cost both time and great pains to attain, are
fundamentally different from those with which that
same truth would be proved. A law-book never
relates the utility, the reasons, the preliminary casu-
istry, of a law: for it would be precisely in this way
that it would forfeit its imperative tone, the “thou
shalt,” the first condition of its being obeyed. The
problem lies exactly in this. —At a certain stage in
the development of a people, the most far-seeing
class within it (that is to say, the class that sees
farthest backwards and forwards), declares the ex-
perience of how its fellow-creatures ought to live-
i. e. , can live—to be finally settled. Its object is, to
reap as rich and as complete a harvest as possible,
in return for the ages of experiment and terrible ex-
perience it has traversed. Consequently, that which
## p. 217 (#237) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF CHRISTIANITY
217
.
has to be avoided, above all, is any further experi-
mentation, the continuation of the state when values
are still fluid, the testing, choosing, and criticising
of values in infinitum. Against all this a double
wall is built up: in the first place, Revelation, which
is the assumption that the rationale of every law is
not human in its origin, that it was not sought and
found after ages of error, but that it is divine in its
origin, completely and utterly without a history, a
gift, a miracle, a mere communication. . . . And
secondly, tradition, which is the assumption that the
law has obtained since the most primeval times, that
it is impious and a crime against one's ancestors to
attempt to doubt it. The authority of law is estab-
lished on the principles: God gave it, the ancestors
lived it. —The superior reason of such a procedure
lies in the intention to draw consciousness off step
by step from that mode of life which has been re-
cognised as correct (i. e. , proved after enormous and
carefully examined experience), so that perfect auto-
matism of the instincts may be attained,—this being
the only possible basis of all mastery of every kind
of perfection in the Art of Life. To draw up a law-
book like Manu's, is tantamount to granting a people
mastership for the future, perfection for the future,
the right to aspire to the highest Art of Life. To
that end it must be made unconscious: this is the
object of every holy lie. —The order of castes, the
highest, the dominating law, is only the sanction
of a natural order, of a natural legislation of the
first rank, over which no arbitrary innovation, no
“modern idea" has any power. Every healthy
society falls into three distinct types, which recipro-
## p. 218 (#238) ############################################
218
THE ANTICHRIST
cally condition one another and which gravitate
differently in the physiological sense; and each of
these has its own hygiene, its own sphere of work,
its own special feeling of perfection, and its own
mastership. It. is Nature, not Manu, that separates
from the rest, those individuals preponderating in
intellectual power, those excelling in muscular
strength and temperament, and the third class which
is distinguished neither in one way nor the other,
the mediocre,—the latter as the greatest number,
the former as the élite. The superior caste—I call
them the fewest,—has, as the perfect caste, the privi-
leges of the fewest : it devolves upon them to repre-
sent happiness, beauty and goodness on earth. Only
the most intellectual men have the right to beauty,
to the beautiful : only in them is goodness not weak-
Pulchrum est paucorum hominum : goodness
is a privilege. On the other hand there is nothing
which they should be more strictly forbidden than
repulsive manners or a pessimistic look, a look that
makes everything seem ugly,—or even indignation
at the general aspect of things. Indignation is
the privilege of the Chandala, and so is pessimism.
“ The world is perfect”—that is what the instinct of
the most intellectual says, the yea-saying instinct;
"imperfection, every kind of inferiority to us, dis-
tance, the pathos of distance, even the Chandala
belongs to this perfection. “ The most intellectual
men, as the strongest find their happiness where
others meet with their ruin: in the labyrinth, in
hardness towards themselves and others, in en-
deavour; their delight is self-mastery: with them
asceticism becomes a second nature, a need, an in-
ness.
## p. 219 (#239) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF CHRISTIANITY
219
stinct. They regard a difficult task as their privi-
lege; to play with burdens which crush their fellows
is to them a recreation. . . . Knowledge, a form of
asceticism. —They are the most honourable kind of
men: but that does not prevent them from being
the most cheerful and most gracious. They rule,
not because they will, but because they are; they
are not at liberty to take a second place. —The
second in rank are the guardians of the law, the
custodians of order and of security, the noble war-
riors, the king, above all, as the highest formula of
the warrior, the judge, and keeper of the law. The
second in rank are the executive of the most in-
tellectual, the nearest to them in duty, relieving them
of all that is coarse in the work of ruling,—their
retinue, their right hand, their best disciples. In
all this, I repeat, there is nothing arbitrary, nothing
artificial,” that which is otherwise is artificial,—by
that which is otherwise, nature is put to shame.
The order of castes, and the order of rank merely
formulates the supreme law of life itself; the differ-
entiation of the three types is necessary for the
maintenance of society, and for enabling higher and
highest types to be reared,—the inequality of rights
is the only condition of there being rights at all. —A
right is a privilege. And in his way, each has his
privilege.
Let us not underestimate the privileges
of the mediocre. Life always gets harder towards the
summit,—the cold increases, responsibility increases.
A high civilisation is a pyramid: it can stand only
upon a broad base, its first prerequisite is a strongly
and soundly consolidated mediocrity. Handicraft,
commerce, agriculture, science, the greater part of
-
## p. 220 (#240) ############################################
220
THE ANTICHRIST
art,—in a word, the whole range of professional and
business callings, is compatible only with mediocre
ability and ambition ; such pursuits would be out
of place among exceptions, the instinct pertaining
thereto would oppose not only aristocracy but an-
archy as well. The fact that one is publicly useful,
a wheel, a function, presupposes a certain natural
destiny: it is not society, but the only kind of happiness
of which the great majority are capable, that makes
them intelligent machines. For the mediocre it is a
joy to be mediocre; in them mastery in one thing,
a speciality, is a natural instinct. It would be abso-
lutely unworthy of a profound thinker to see any
objection in mediocrity per se. For in itself it is the
first essential condition under which exceptions are
possible ; a high culture is determined by it. When
the exceptional man treats the mediocre with more
tender care than he does himself or his equals, this
is not mere courtesy of heart on his part—but
simply his duty. Whom do I hate most among
the rabble of the present day? The socialistic
rabble, the Chandala apostles, who undermine the
working man's instinct, his happiness and his feeling
of contentedness with his insignificant existence,-
who make him envious, and who teach him revenge.
The wrong never lies in unequal rights; it lies
in the claim to equal rights. What is bad? But I
have already replied to this: Everything that pro-
ceeds from weakness, envy and revenge. —The anar-
chist and the Christian are offspring of the same
womb.
58
In point of fact, it matters greatly to what end
## p. 221 (#241) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF CHRISTIANITY.
221
one lies : whether one preserves or destroys by means
of falsehood. It is quite justifiable to bracket the
Christian and the Anarchist together : their object,
their instinct, is concerned only with destruction.
The proof of this proposition can be read quite
plainly from history : history spells it with appal-
ling distinctness. Whereas we have just seen a
religious legislation, whose object was to render the
highest possible means of making life flourish,
and of making a grand organisation of society,
eternal,—Christianity found its mission in putting
an end to such an organisation, precisely because
life flourishes through it. In the one case, the net
profit to the credit of reason, acquired through long
ages of experiment and of insecurity, is applied use-
fully to the most remote ends, and the harvest,
which is as large, as rich and as complete as pos-
sible, is reaped and garnered: in the other case, on
the contrary, the harvest is blighted in a single night.
That which stood there, ære perennius, the im-
perium Romanum, the most magnificent form of
organisation, under difficult conditions, that has
ver been achieved, and compared with which every-
thing that preceded, and everything which followed
it, is mere patchwork, gimcrackery, and dilettantism,
—those holy anarchists made it their “piety," to
destroy “the world”—that is to say, the imperium
Romanum, until no two stones were left standing
one on the other, until even the Teutons and other
clodhoppers were able to become master of it. The
Christian and the anarchist are both decadents;
they are both incapable of acting in any other way
than disintegratingly, poisonously and witheringly,
## p. 222 (#242) ############################################
222
THE ANTICHRIST
)
like blood-suckers; they are both actuated by an
instinct of mortal hatred of everything that stands
erect, that is great, that is lasting, and that is a
guarantee of the future. . . . Christianity was the
vampire of the imperium Romanum,-in a night
it_shattered the stupendous achievement of the
Romans, which was to acquire the territory for a
vast civilisation which could bide its time. Does no
one understand this yet? The imperium Romanum
that we know, and which the history of the Roman
province teaches us to know ever more thoroughly,
this most admirable work of art on a grand scale,
was the beginning, its construction was calculated
to prove its worth by millenniums,—unto this day
nothing has ever again been built in this fashion,
nor have men even dreamt since of building on this
scale sub specie æterni ! This organisation was
sufficiently firm to withstand bad emperors : the
accident of personalities must have nothing to do
with such matters — the first principle of all great
architecture. But it was not sufficiently firm to
resist the corruptest form of corruption, to resist the
Christians.
ans. . . . These stealthy canker-worms, which
under the shadow of night, mist and duplicity,
insinuated themselves into the company of every
individual, and proceeded to drain him of all serious-
ness for real things, of all his instinct for realities;
this cowardly, effeminate and sugary gang have step
by step alienated all “souls” from this colossal
edifice,—those valuable, virile and noble natures
who felt that the cause of Rome was their own
personal cause, their own personal seriousness, their
own personal pride. The stealth of the bigot, the
-
## p. 223 (#243) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF CHRISTIANITY
223
secrecy of the conventicle, concepts as black as hell
such as the sacrifice of the innocent, the unio
mystica in the drinking of blood, above all the
slowly kindled fire of revenge, of Chandala revenge
—such things became master of Rome, the same
kind of religion on the pre-existent form of which
Epicurus had waged war. One has only to read
Lucretius in order to understand what Epicurus
combated, not Paganism, but“ Christianity,” that is
to say the corruption of souls through the concept
of guilt, through the concept of punishment and
immortality. He combated the subterranean cults,
the whole of latent Christianity—to deny immor-
tality was at that time a genuine deliverance. And
Epicurus had triumphed, every respectable thinker
in the Roman Empire was an Epicurean : then St
Paul appeared . . . St Paul, the Chandala hatred
against Rome, against “the world,” the Jew, the
eternal Jew par excellence, become flesh and genius.
What he divined was, how, by the help of the
small sectarian Christian movement, independent of
Judaism, a universal conflagration could be kindled ;
how, with the symbol of the “God on the Cross,”
everything submerged, everything secretly insurrec-
tionary, the whole offspring of anàrchical intrigues
could be gathered together to constitute an enor-
mous power. “For salvation is of the Jews. ”—
“
Christianity is the formula for the supersession, and
epitomising of all kinds of subterranean cults, that
of Osiris, of the Great Mother, of Mithras for
example: St Paul's genius consisted in his discovery
of this. In this matter his instinct was so certain,
that, regardless of doing violence to truth, he laid the
.
## p. 224 (#244) ############################################
224
THE ANTICHRIST
ideas by means of which those Chandala religions
fascinated, upon the very lips of the “ Saviour” he
had invented, and not only upon his lips,—that he
made out of him something which even a Mithras
priest could understand. . .
. . . This was his moment
of Damascus : he saw that he had need of the belief
in immortality in order to depreciate “the world,”
that the notion of “hell ” would become master of
Rome, that with a "Beyond” this life can be killed.
Nihilist and Christian,—they rhyme in German,
and they do not only rhyme.
59
The whole labour of the ancient world in vain :
I am at a loss for a word which could express my
feelings at something so atrocious. —And in view
of the fact that its labour was only preparatory,
that with adamantine self-consciousness it laid the
substructure, alone, to a work which was to last
millenniums, the whole significance of the ancient
world was certainly in vain! . . . What was the use
of the Greeks? what was the use of the Romans ?
-All the prerequisites of a learned culture, all the
scientific methods already existed, the great and
peerless art of reading well had already been
established—that indispensable condition to tradi-
tion, to culture and to scientific unity; natural
science hand in hand with mathematics and
mechanics was on the best possible road,--the
sense for facts, the last and most valuable of all
senses, had its schools, and its tradition was already
centuries old! Is this understood ? Everything
essential had been discovered to make it possible
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A CRITICISM OF CHRISTIANITY
225
for work to be begun :-methods, and this cannot
be said too often, are the essential thing, also the
most difficult thing, while they moreover have to
wage the longest war against custom and indo-
lence. That which to-day we have successfully
reconquered for ourselves, by dint of unspeakable
self-discipline—for in some way or other all of us
still have the bad instincts, the Christian instincts,
in our body,—the impartial eye for reality, the
cautious hand, patience and seriousness in the
smallest details, complete uprightness in know-
ledge,—all this was already there; it had been
there over two thousand years before! And in
addition to this there was also that excellent and
subtle tact and taste! Not in the form of brain
drilling! Not in the form of “German” culture
with the manners of a boor! But incarnate, mani-
festing itself in men's bearing and in their instinct,
-in short constituting reality. . . . All this in
vain! In one night it became merely a memory!
-The Greeks! The Romans! Instinctive nobility,
instinctive taste, methodic research, the genius of
organisation and administration, faith, the w to
the future of mankind, the great yea to all things
materialised in the imperium Romanum, become
visible to all the senses, grand style no longer
manifested in mere art, but in reality, in truth, in
life. —And buried in a night, not by a natural
catastrophe! Not stamped to death by Teutons
and other heavy-footed vandals! But destroyed
by crafty, stealthy, invisible anæmic vampires !
Not conquered, -- but only drained of blood! . . .
The concealed lust of revenge, miserable envy
.
.
-
15
## p. 226 (#246) ############################################
226
THE ANTICHRIST
1
become master! Everything wretched, inwardly
ailing, and full of ignoble feelings, the whole
Ghetto-world of souls, was in a trice uppermost !
-One only needs to read any one of the Christian
agitators-St Augustine, for instance,-in order to
realise, in order to sinell, what filthy fellows came
to the top in this movement. You would deceive
yourselves utterly if you supposed that the leaders
of the Christian agitation showed any lack of under-
standing :-Ah! they were shrewd, shrewd to the
point of holiness were these dear old Fathers of
the Church! What they lack is something quite
different. Nature neglected them,-it forgot to
give them a modest dowry of decent, of respectable
and of cleanly instincts. Between ourselves,
they are not even men. If Islam despises Christi-
anity, it is justified a thousand times over; for
Islam presupposes men.
-
60
Christianity destroyed the harvest we might
have reaped from the culture of antiquity, later it
also destroyed our harvest of the culture of Islam.
The wonderful Moorish world of Spanish culture,
which in its essence is more closely related to us,
and which appeals more to our sense and taste
than Rome and Greece, was trampled to death (-I
do not say by what kind of feet), why? —because it
owed its origin to noble, to manly instincts, because
it said yea to life, even that life so full of the rare
and refined luxuries of the Moors! . . . Later on
the Crusaders waged war upon something before
which it would have been more seemly in them to
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A CRITICISM OF CHRISTIANITY
227
grovel in the dust,-a culture, beside which even
our Nineteenth Century would seem very poor and
very “senile. ”—OL. course they wanted booty: the
Orient was rich. For goodness' sake let us
forget our prejudices ! Crusades—superior piracy,
that is all ! German nobility—that is to say, a
Viking nobility at bottom, was in its element in
such wars: the Church was only too well aware of
how German nobility is to be won.
German
nobility was always the “Swiss Guard” of the
Church, always at the service of all the bad instincts
of the Church ; but it was well paid for it all. . . .
Fancy the Church having waged its deadly war
upon everything noble on earth, precisely with the
help of German swords, German blood and courage !
A host of painful questions might be raised on this
point. German nobility scarcely takes a place in
the history of higher culture: the reason of this
is obvious Christianity, alcohol—the two great
means of corruption. As a matter of fact, choice
ought to be just as much out of the question between
Islam and Christianity, as between an Arab and a
Jew. The decision is already self-evident; nobody
is at liberty to exercise a choice in this matter. A
man is either of the Chandala or he is not.
“War with Rome to the knife! Peace and friend-
ship with Islam”: this is what that great free
spirit, that genius among German emperors,-
Frederick the Second, not only felt but also did.
What? Must a German in the first place be a
?
genius, a free-spirit, in order to have decent feelings?
I cannot understand how a German was ever able
to have Christian feelings.
## p. 228 (#248) ############################################
228
THE ANTICHRIST
61
.
Here it is necessary to revive a memory which
will be a hundred times more painful to Germans.
The Germans have destroyed the last great harvest
of culture which was to be garnered for Europe,
it destroyed the Renaissance. Does anybody at
last understand, will anybody understand what the
Renaissance was? The transvaluation of Christian
values, the attempt undertaken with all means, an
instincts and all genius to make the opposite values,
the noble values triumph. . Hitherto there has
been only this great war : there has never yet been
a more decisive question than the Renaissance,-my
question is the question of the Renaissance :—there
has never been a more fundamental, a more direct
and a more severe attack, delivered with a whole
front upon the centre of the foe. To attack at the
decisive quarter, at the very seat of Christianity,
and there to place noble values on the throne,—that
is to say, to introduce them into the instincts, into
the most fundamental needs and desires of those
sitting there. . . . I see before me a possibility
perfectly magic in its charm and glorious colouring
-it seems to me to scintillate with all the quiver-
ing grandeur of refined beauty, that there is an art
at work within it which is so divine, so infernally
divine, that one might seek through millenniums in
vain for another such possibility; I see a spectacle
so rich in meaning and so wonderfully paradoxical
to boot, that it would be enough to make all the
gods of Olympus rock with immortal laughter,
Cæsar Borgia as Pope. . . . Do you understand me?
O
## p. 229 (#249) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF CHRISTIANITY
229
Very well then, this would have been the
triumph which I alone am longing for to-day :
this would have swept Christianity away! —What
happened? A German monk, Luther, came to
Rome. This monk, with all the vindictive instincts
of an abortive priest in his body, foamed with rage
over the Renaissance in Rome. . . . Instead of, with
the profoundest gratitude, understanding the vast
miracle that had taken place, the overcoming of
Christianity at its headquarters,—the fire of his hate
knew only how to draw fresh fuel from this spectacle.
A religious man thinks only of himself. —Luther
saw the corruption of the Papacy when the very
reverse stared him in the face: the old corruption,
the peccatum originale, Christianity no longer sat
upon the Papal chair! But Life! The triumph
of Life! The great yea to all lofty, beautiful and
daring things! And Luther reinstated the
Church; he attacked it. The Renaissance thus
became an event without meaning, a great in vain
-Ah these Germans, what have they not cost us
already! In vain—this has always been the achieve-
ment of the Germans. —The Reformation, Leibniz,
Kant and so-called German philosophy, the Wars
of Liberation, the Empire—in each case are in vain
for something which had already existed, for some-
thing which cannot be recovered. . . . I confess it,
these Germans are my enemies : I. despise every
sort of uncleanliness in concepts and valuations in
them, every kind of cowardice in the face of every
honest yea or nay. For almost one thousand years,
now, they have tangled and confused everything
they have laid their hands on; they have on their
.
.
## p. 230 (#250) ############################################
230
THE ANTICHRIST
conscience all the half-measures, all the three-eighth
measures of which Europe is sick ; they also have
the most unclean, the most incurable, and the most
irrefutable kind of Christianity-Protestantism--on
their conscience. . . . If we shall never be able to
get rid of Christianity, the Germans will be to blame.
62
-With this I will now conclude and pronounce
my judgment. I condemn Christianity and confront
it with the most terrible accusation that an accuser
has ever had in his mouth. To my mind it is the
greatest of all conceivable corruptions, it has had
the will to the last imaginable corruption. The
Christian Church allowed nothing to escape from
its corruption; it converted every value into its
opposite, every truth into a lie, and every honest
impulse into an ignominy of the soul. Let anyone
dare to speak to me of its humanitarian blessings !
To abolish any sort of distress was opposed to its
profoundest interests; its very existence depended
on states of distress; it created states of distress in
order to make itself immortal. . . . The cancer germ
of sin, for instance: the Church was the first to en-
rich mankind with this misery! —The “equality of
souls before God,” this falsehood, this pretext for the
rancunes of all the base-minded, this anarchist bomb
of a concept, which has ultimately become the re-
volution, the modern idea, the principle of decay of
the whole of social order,—this is Christian dyna-
mite. . . . The “humanitarian" blessings of Chris-
tianity! To breed a self-contradiction, an art of
self-profanation, a will to lie at any price, an aversion,
-
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A CRITICISM OF CHRISTIANITY
231
1
a contempt of all good and honest instincts out of
humanitas! Is this what you call the blessings of
Christianity ? —Parasitism as the only method of the
Church; sucking all the blood, all the love, all the
hope of life out of mankind with anæmic and sacred
ideals. A “Beyond” as the will to deny all reality;
the cross as the trade-mark of the most subterranean
form of conspiracy that has ever existed,-against
health, beauty, well-constitutedness, bravery, intel-
lect, kindliness of soul, against Life itself. .
