Chapter 10

--With this I come to a conclusion and pronounce my judgment. I _condemn_ Christianity; I bring against the Christian church the most terrible of all the accusations that an accuser has ever had in his mouth. It is, to me, the greatest of all imaginable corruptions; it seeks to work the ultimate corruption, the worst possible corruption. The Christian church has left nothing untouched by its depravity; it has turned every value into worthlessness, and every truth into a lie, and every integrity into baseness of soul. Let any one dare to speak to me of its "humanitarian" blessings! Its deepest necessities range it against any effort to abolish distress; it lives by distress; it _creates_ distress to make _itself_ immortal.... For example, the worm of sin: it was the church that first enriched mankind with this misery!--The "equality of souls before God"--this fraud, this _pretext_ for the _rancunes_ of all the base-minded--this explosive concept, ending in revolution, the modern idea, and the notion of overthrowing the whole social order--this is _Christian_ dynamite.... The "humanitarian" blessings of Christianity forsooth! To breed out of _humanitas_ a self-contradiction, an art of self-pollution, a will to lie at any price, an aversion and contempt for all good and honest instincts! All this, to me, is the "humanitarianism" of Christianity!--Parasitism as the _only_ practice of the church; with its anæmic and "holy" ideals, sucking all the blood, all the love, all the hope out of life; the beyond as the will to deny all reality; the cross as the distinguishing mark of the most subterranean conspiracy ever heard of,--against health, beauty, well-being, intellect, _kindness_ of soul--_against life itself_....

This eternal accusation against Christianity I shall write upon all walls, wherever walls are to be found--I have letters that even the blind will be able to see.... I call Christianity the one great curse, the one great intrinsic depravity, the one great instinct of revenge, for which no means are venomous enough, or secret, subterranean and _small_ enough,--I call it the one immortal blemish upon the human race....

And mankind reckons _time_ from the _dies nefastus_ when this fatality befell--from the _first_ day of Christianity!--_Why not rather from its last?_--_From today?_--The transvaluation of all values!...

THE END