Chapter 5
Christianity sprang from a soil so corrupt that on it everything natural, every natural value, every _reality_ was opposed by the deepest instincts of the ruling class--it grew up as a sort of war to the death upon reality, and as such it has never been surpassed. The "holy people," who had adopted priestly values and priestly names for all things, and who, with a terrible logical consistency, had rejected everything of the earth as "unholy," "worldly," "sinful"--this people put its instinct into a final formula that was logical to the point of self-annihilation: as _Christianity_ it actually denied even the last form of reality, the "holy people," the "chosen people," _Jewish_ reality itself. The phenomenon is of the first order of importance: the small insurrectionary movement which took the name of Jesus of Nazareth is simply the Jewish instinct _redivivus_--in other words, it is the priestly instinct come to such a pass that it can no longer endure the priest as a fact; it is the discovery of a state of existence even more fantastic than any before it, of a vision of life even more _unreal_ than that necessary to an ecclesiastical organization. Christianity actually _denies_ the church....
I am unable to determine what was the target of the insurrection said to have been led (whether rightly or _wrongly_) by Jesus, if it was not the Jewish church--"church" being here used in exactly the same sense that the word has today. It was an insurrection against the "good and just," against the "prophets of Israel," against the whole hierarchy of society--_not_ against corruption, but against caste, privilege, order, formalism. It was _unbelief_ in "superior men," a Nay flung at everything that priests and theologians stood for. But the hierarchy that was called into question, if only for an instant, by this movement was the structure of piles which, above everything, was necessary to the safety of the Jewish people in the midst of the "waters"--it represented their _last_ possibility of survival; it was the final _residuum_ of their independent political existence; an attack upon it was an attack upon the most profound national instinct, the most powerful national will to live, that has ever appeared on earth. This saintly anarchist, who aroused the people of the abyss, the outcasts and "sinners," the Chandala of Judaism, to rise in revolt against the established order of things--and in language which, if the Gospels are to be credited, would get him sent to Siberia today--this man was certainly a political criminal, at least in so far as it was possible to be one in so _absurdly unpolitical_ a community. This is what brought him to the cross: the proof thereof is to be found in the inscription that was put upon the cross. He died for his _own_ sins--there is not the slightest ground for believing, no matter how often it is asserted, that he died for the sins of others.--
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As to whether he himself was conscious of this contradiction--whether, in fact, this was the only contradiction he was cognizant of--that is quite another question. Here, for the first time, I touch upon the problem of the _psychology of the Saviour_.--I confess, to begin with, that there are very few books which offer me harder reading than the Gospels. My difficulties are quite different from those which enabled the learned curiosity of the German mind to achieve one of its most unforgettable triumphs. It is a long while since I, like all other young scholars, enjoyed with all the sapient laboriousness of a fastidious philologist the work of the incomparable Strauss.[5] At that time I was twenty years old: now I am too serious for that sort of thing. What do I care for the contradictions of "tradition"? How can any one call pious legends "traditions"? The histories of saints present the most dubious variety of literature in existence; to examine them by the scientific method, _in the entire absence of corroborative documents_, seems to me to condemn the whole inquiry from the start--it is simply learned idling....
[5] David Friedrich Strauss (1808-74), author of "Das Leben Jesu" (1835-6), a very famous work in its day. Nietzsche here refers to it.
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What concerns _me_ is the psychological type of the Saviour. This type might be depicted in the Gospels, in however mutilated a form and however much overladen with extraneous characters--that is, in _spite_ of the Gospels; just as the figure of Francis of Assisi shows itself in his legends in spite of his legends. It is _not_ a question of mere truthful evidence as to what he did, what he said and how he actually died; the question is, whether his type is still conceivable, whether it has been handed down to us.--All the attempts that I know of to read the _history_ of a "soul" in the Gospels seem to me to reveal only a lamentable psychological levity. M. Renan, that mountebank _in psychologicus_, has contributed the two most _unseemly_ notions to this business of explaining the type of Jesus: the notion of the _genius_ and that of the _hero_ ("_héros_"). But if there is anything essentially unevangelical, it is surely the concept of the hero. What the Gospels make instinctive is precisely the reverse of all heroic struggle, of all taste for conflict: the very incapacity for resistance is here converted into something moral: ("resist not evil!"--the most profound sentence in the Gospels, perhaps the true key to them), to wit, the blessedness of peace, of gentleness, the _inability_ to be an enemy. What is the meaning of "glad tidings"?--The true life, the life eternal has been found--it is not merely promised, it is here, it is in _you_; it is the life that lies in love free from all retreats and exclusions, from all keeping of distances. Every one is the child of God--Jesus claims nothing for himself alone--as the child of God each man is the equal of every other man.... Imagine making Jesus a _hero_!--And what a tremendous misunderstanding appears in the word "genius"! Our whole conception of the "spiritual," the whole conception of our civilization, could have had no meaning in the world that Jesus lived in. In the strict sense of the physiologist, a quite different word ought to be used here.... We all know that there is a morbid sensibility of the tactile nerves which causes those suffering from it to recoil from every touch, and from every effort to grasp a solid object. Brought to its logical conclusion, such a physiological _habitus_ becomes an instinctive hatred of all reality, a flight into the "intangible," into the "incomprehensible"; a distaste for all formulae, for all conceptions of time and space, for everything established--customs, institutions, the church--; a feeling of being at home in a world in which no sort of reality survives, a merely "inner" world, a "true" world, an "eternal" world.... "The Kingdom of God is within _you_"....
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_The instinctive hatred of reality_: the consequence of an extreme susceptibility to pain and irritation--so great that merely to be "touched" becomes unendurable, for every sensation is too profound.
_The instinctive exclusion of all aversion, all hostility, all bounds and distances in feeling_: the consequence of an extreme susceptibility to pain and irritation--so great that it senses all resistance, all compulsion to resistance, as unbearable _anguish_ (--that is to say, as _harmful_, as _prohibited_ by the instinct of self-preservation), and regards blessedness (joy) as possible only when it is no longer necessary to offer resistance to anybody or anything, however evil or dangerous--love, as the only, as the _ultimate_ possibility of life....
These are the two _physiological realities_ upon and out of which the doctrine of salvation has sprung. I call them a sublime super-development of hedonism upon a thoroughly unsalubrious soil. What stands most closely related to them, though with a large admixture of Greek vitality and nerve-force, is epicureanism, the theory of salvation of paganism. Epicurus was a _typical décadent_: I was the first to recognize him.--The fear of pain, even of infinitely slight pain--the end of this _can_ be nothing save a _religion of love_....
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I have already given my answer to the problem. The prerequisite to it is the assumption that the type of the Saviour has reached us only in a greatly distorted form. This distortion is very probable: there are many reasons why a type of that sort should not be handed down in a pure form, complete and free of additions. The milieu in which this strange figure moved must have left marks upon him, and more must have been imprinted by the history, the _destiny_, of the early Christian communities; the latter indeed, must have embellished the type retrospectively with characters which can be understood only as serving the purposes of war and of propaganda. That strange and sickly world into which the Gospels lead us--a world apparently out of a Russian novel, in which the scum of society, nervous maladies and "childish" idiocy keep a tryst--must, in any case, have _coarsened_ the type: the first disciples, in particular, must have been forced to translate an existence visible only in symbols and incomprehensibilities into their own crudity, in order to understand it at all--in their sight the type could take on reality only after it had been recast in a familiar mould.... The prophet, the messiah, the future judge, the teacher of morals, the worker of wonders, John the Baptist--all these merely presented chances to misunderstand it.... Finally, let us not underrate the _proprium_ of all great, and especially all sectarian veneration: it tends to erase from the venerated objects all its original traits and idiosyncrasies, often so painfully strange--_it does not even see them_. It is greatly to be regretted that no Dostoyevsky lived in the neighbourhood of this most interesting _décadent_--I mean some one who would have felt the poignant charm of such a compound of the sublime, the morbid and the childish. In the last analysis, the type, as a type of the _décadence_, may actually have been peculiarly complex and contradictory: such a possibility is not to be lost sight of. Nevertheless, the probabilities seem to be against it, for in that case tradition would have been particularly accurate and objective, whereas we have reasons for assuming the contrary. Meanwhile, there is a contradiction between the peaceful preacher of the mount, the sea-shore and the fields, who appears like a new Buddha on a soil very unlike India's, and the aggressive fanatic, the mortal enemy of theologians and ecclesiastics, who stands glorified by Renan's malice as "_le grand maître en ironie_." I myself haven't any doubt that the greater part of this venom (and no less of _esprit_) got itself into the concept of the Master only as a result of the excited nature of Christian propaganda: we all know the unscrupulousness of sectarians when they set out to turn their leader into an _apologia_ for themselves. When the early Christians had need of an adroit, contentious, pugnacious and maliciously subtle theologian to tackle other theologians, they _created_ a "god" that met that need, just as they put into his mouth without hesitation certain ideas that were necessary to them but that were utterly at odds with the Gospels--"the second coming," "the last judgment," all sorts of expectations and promises, current at the time.--
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I can only repeat that I set myself against all efforts to intrude the fanatic into the figure of the Saviour: the very word _impérieux_, used by Renan, is alone enough to _annul_ the type. What the "glad tidings" tell us is simply that there are no more contradictions; the kingdom of heaven belongs to _children_; the faith that is voiced here is no more an embattled faith--it is at hand, it has been from the beginning, it is a sort of recrudescent childishness of the spirit. The physiologists, at all events, are familiar with such a delayed and incomplete puberty in the living organism, the result of degeneration. A faith of this sort is not furious, it does not denounce, it does not defend itself: it does not come with "the sword"--it does not realize how it will one day set man against man. It does not manifest itself either by miracles, or by rewards and promises, or by "scriptures": it is itself, first and last, its own miracle, its own reward, its own promise, its own "kingdom of God." This faith does not formulate itself--it simply _lives_, and so guards itself against formulae. To be sure, the accident of environment, of educational background gives prominence to concepts of a certain sort: in primitive Christianity one finds _only_ concepts of a Judaeo-Semitic character (--that of eating and drinking at the last supper belongs to this category--an idea which, like everything else Jewish, has been badly mauled by the church). But let us be careful not to see in all this anything more than symbolical language, semantics[6] an opportunity to speak in parables. It is only on the theory that no work is to be taken literally that this anti-realist is able to speak at all. Set down among Hindus he would have made use of the concepts of Sankhya,[7] and among Chinese he would have employed those of Lao-tse[8]--and in neither case would it have made any difference to him.--With a little freedom in the use of words, one might actually call Jesus a "free spirit"[9]--he cares nothing for what is established: the word _killeth_,[10] whatever is established _killeth_. The idea of "life" as an _experience_, as he alone conceives it, stands opposed to his mind to every sort of word, formula, law, belief and dogma. He speaks only of inner things: "life" or "truth" or "light" is his word for the innermost--in his sight everything else, the whole of reality, all nature, even language, has significance only as sign, as allegory.--Here it is of paramount importance to be led into no error by the temptations lying in Christian, or rather _ecclesiastical_ prejudices: such a symbolism _par excellence_ stands outside all religion, all notions of worship, all history, all natural science, all worldly experience, all knowledge, all politics, all psychology, all books, all art--his "wisdom" is precisely a _pure ignorance_[11] of all such things. He has never heard of _culture_; he doesn't have to make war on it--he doesn't even deny it.... The same thing may be said of the _state_, of the whole bourgeoise social order, of labour, of war--he has no ground for denying "the world," for he knows nothing of the ecclesiastical concept of "the world".... _Denial_ is precisely the thing that is impossible to him.--In the same way he lacks argumentative capacity, and has no belief that an article of faith, a "truth," may be established by proofs (--_his_ proofs are inner "lights," subjective sensations of happiness and self-approval, simple "proofs of power"--). Such a doctrine _cannot_ contradict: it doesn't know that other doctrines exist, or _can_ exist, and is wholly incapable of imagining anything opposed to it.... If anything of the sort is ever encountered, it laments the "blindness" with sincere sympathy--for it alone has "light"--but it does not offer objections....
[6] The word _Semiotik_ is in the text, but it is probable that _Semantik_ is what Nietzsche had in mind.
[7] One of the six great systems of Hindu philosophy.
[8] The reputed founder of Taoism.
[9] Nietzsche's name for one accepting his own philosophy.
[10] That is, the strict letter of the law--the chief target of Jesus's early preaching.
[11] A reference to the "pure ignorance" (_reine Thorheit_) of Parsifal.
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In the whole psychology of the "Gospels" the concepts of guilt and punishment are lacking, and so is that of reward. "Sin," which means anything that puts a distance between God and man, is abolished--_this is precisely the "glad tidings."_ Eternal bliss is not merely promised, nor is it bound up with conditions: it is conceived as the _only_ reality--what remains consists merely of signs useful in speaking of it.
The _results_ of such a point of view project themselves into a new _way of life_, the special evangelical way of life. It is not a "belief" that marks off the Christian; he is distinguished by a different mode of action; he acts _differently_. He offers no resistance, either by word or in his heart, to those who stand against him. He draws no distinction between strangers and countrymen, Jews and Gentiles ("neighbour," of course, means fellow-believer, Jew). He is angry with no one, and he despises no one. He neither appeals to the courts of justice nor heeds their mandates ("Swear not at all").[12] He never under any circumstances divorces his wife, even when he has proofs of her infidelity.--And under all of this is one principle; all of it arises from one instinct.--
[12] Matthew v, 34.
The life of the Saviour was simply a carrying out of this way of life--and so was his death.... He no longer needed any formula or ritual in his relations with God--not even prayer. He had rejected the whole of the Jewish doctrine of repentance and atonement; he _knew_ that it was only by a _way_ of life that one could feel one's self "divine," "blessed," "evangelical," a "child of God." _Not_ by "repentance," _not_ by "prayer and forgiveness" is the way to God: _only the Gospel way_ leads to God--it is _itself_ "God!"--What the Gospels _abolished_ was the Judaism in the concepts of "sin," "forgiveness of sin," "faith," "salvation through faith"--the whole _ecclesiastical_ dogma of the Jews was denied by the "glad tidings."
The deep instinct which prompts the Christian how to _live_ so that he will feel that he is "in heaven" and is "immortal," despite many reasons for feeling that he is _not_ "in heaven": this is the only psychological reality in "salvation."--A new way of life, _not_ a new faith....
34.
If I understand anything at all about this great symbolist, it is this: that he regarded only _subjective_ realities as realities, as "truths"--that he saw everything else, everything natural, temporal, spatial and historical, merely as signs, as materials for parables. The concept of "the Son of God" does not connote a concrete person in history, an isolated and definite individual, but an "eternal" fact, a psychological symbol set free from the concept of time. The same thing is true, and in the highest sense, of the _God_ of this typical symbolist, of the "kingdom of God," and of the "sonship of God." Nothing could be more un-Christian than the _crude ecclesiastical_ notions of God as a _person_, of a "kingdom of God" that is to come, of a "kingdom of heaven" beyond, and of a "son of God" as the _second person_ of the Trinity. All this--if I may be forgiven the phrase--is like thrusting one's fist into the eye (and what an eye!) of the Gospels: a disrespect for symbols amounting to _world-historical cynicism_.... But it is nevertheless obvious enough what is meant by the symbols "Father" and "Son"--not, of course, to every one--: the word "Son" expresses _entrance_ into the feeling that there is a general transformation of all things (beatitude), and "Father" expresses _that feeling itself_--the sensation of eternity and of perfection.--I am ashamed to remind you of what the church has made of this symbolism: has it not set an Amphitryon story[13] at the threshold of the Christian "faith"? And a dogma of "immaculate conception" for good measure?... _And thereby it has robbed conception of its immaculateness_--
[13] Amphitryon was the son of Alcaeus, King of Tiryns. His wife was Alcmene. During his absence she was visited by Zeus, and bore Heracles.
The "kingdom of heaven" is a state of the heart--not something to come "beyond the world" or "after death." The whole idea of natural death is _absent_ from the Gospels: death is not a bridge, not a passing; it is absent because it belongs to a quite different, a merely apparent world, useful only as a symbol. The "hour of death" is _not_ a Christian idea--"hours," time, the physical life and its crises have no existence for the bearer of "glad tidings."... The "kingdom of God" is not something that men wait for: it had no yesterday and no day after tomorrow, it is not going to come at a "millennium"--it is an experience of the heart, it is everywhere and it is nowhere....
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This "bearer of glad tidings" died as he lived and _taught_--_not_ to "save mankind," but to show mankind how to live. It was a _way of life_ that he bequeathed to man: his demeanour before the judges, before the officers, before his accusers--his demeanour on the _cross_. He does not resist; he does not defend his rights; he makes no effort to ward off the most extreme penalty--more, _he invites it_.... And he prays, suffers and loves _with_ those, _in_ those, who do him evil.... _Not_ to defend one's self, _not_ to show anger, _not_ to lay blames.... On the contrary, to submit even to the Evil One--to _love_ him....
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--We free spirits--we are the first to have the necessary prerequisite to understanding what nineteen centuries have misunderstood--that instinct and passion for integrity which makes war upon the "holy lie" even more than upon all other lies.... Mankind was unspeakably far from our benevolent and cautious neutrality, from that discipline of the spirit which alone makes possible the solution of such strange and subtle things: what men always sought, with shameless egoism, was their _own_ advantage therein; they created the _church_ out of denial of the Gospels....
Whoever sought for signs of an ironical divinity's hand in the great drama of existence would find no small indication thereof in the _stupendous question-mark_ that is called Christianity. That mankind should be on its knees before the very antithesis of what was the origin, the meaning and the _law_ of the Gospels--that in the concept of the "church" the very things should be pronounced holy that the "bearer of glad tidings" regards as _beneath_ him and _behind_ him--it would be impossible to surpass this as a grand example of _world-historical irony_--
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--Our age is proud of its historical sense: how, then, could it delude itself into believing that the _crude fable of the wonder-worker and Saviour_ constituted the beginnings of Christianity--and that everything spiritual and symbolical in it only came later? Quite to the contrary, the whole history of Christianity--from the death on the cross onward--is the history of a progressively clumsier misunderstanding of an _original_ symbolism. With every extension of Christianity among larger and ruder masses, even less capable of grasping the principles that gave birth to it, the need arose to make it more and more _vulgar_ and _barbarous_--it absorbed the teachings and rites of all the _subterranean_ cults of the _imperium Romanum_, and the absurdities engendered by all sorts of sickly reasoning. It was the fate of Christianity that its faith had to become as sickly, as low and as vulgar as the needs were sickly, low and vulgar to which it had to administer. A _sickly barbarism_ finally lifts itself to power as the church--the church, that incarnation of deadly hostility to all honesty, to all loftiness of soul, to all discipline of the spirit, to all spontaneous and kindly humanity.--_Christian_ values--_noble_ values: it is only we, we _free_ spirits, who have re-established this greatest of all antitheses in values!...
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