Part 11

Christianity also means the _abolition of society,_ it prizes everything that society despises, its very growth takes place among the outcasts, the condemned, and the leprous of all kinds, as also among "publicans," "sinners," prostitutes, and the most foolish of men (the "fisher folk "); it despises the rich, the scholarly, the noble, the virtuous, and the "punctilious." ...

208.

The war against the noble and the powerful, as it is waged in the New Testament, is reminiscent of Reynard the Fox and his methods: but _plus_ the Christian unction and the more absolute refusal to recognise one's own craftiness.

209.

The Gospel is the announcement that the road to happiness lies open for the lowly and the poor--that all one has to do is to emancipate one's self from all institutions, traditions, and the tutelage of the higher classes. Thus Christianity is no more than the _typical teaching of Socialists._

Property, acquisitions, mother-country, status and rank, tribunals, the police, the State, the Church, Education, Art, militarism: all these are so many obstacles in the way of happiness, so many mistakes, snares, and devil's artifices, on which the Gospel passes sentence--all this is typical of socialistic doctrines.

Behind all this there is the outburst, the explosion, of a concentrated loathing of the "masters,"--the instinct which discerns the happiness of freedom after such long oppression.... (Mostly a symptom of the fact that the inferior classes have been treated too humanely, that their tongues already taste a joy which is forbidden them.... It is not hunger that provokes revolutions, but the fact that the mob have contracted an appetite _en mangeant...._)

210.

Let the _New Testament only be read as a book of seduction_: in it virtue is appropriated, with the idea that public opinion is best won with it,--and as a matter of fact it is a very modest kind of _virtue,_ which recognises only the ideal gregarious animal and nothing more (including, of course, the herdsmen): a puny, soft, benevolent, helpful, and gushingly-satisfied kind of virtue which to the outside world is quite devoid of pretensions,--and which separates the "world" entirely from itself. The _crassest arrogance_ which fancies that the destiny of man turns around it, and it alone, and that on the one side the community of believers represents what is right, and on the other the world represents what is false and eternally to be reproved and rejected. The most _imbecile hatred_ of all things in power, which, however, never goes so far as to touch these things. A kind of _inner detachment_ which, outwardly, leaves everything as it was (servitude and slavery; and knowing how to convert _everything_ into a means of serving God and virtue).

211.

Christianity is possible as the _most private_ form of life; it presupposes the existence of a narrow, isolated, and absolutely unpolitical society--it belongs to the conventicle. On the other hand, a "Christian _State_," "Christian politics," are pieces of downright impudence; they are lies, like, for instance, a Christian leadership of an army, which in the end regards "the God of hosts" as chief of the staff. Even the Papacy has never been able to carry on politics in a Christian way...; and when Reformers indulge in politics, as Luther did, it is well known that they are just as ardent followers of Machiavelli as any other immoralists or tyrants.

212.

Christianity is still possible at any moment. It is not bound to any one of the impudent dogmas that have adorned themselves with its name: it needs neither the teaching of the _personal God,_ nor of _sin,_ nor of _immortality,_ nor of _redemption,_ nor of _faith_; it has absolutely no need whatever of metaphysics, and it needs asceticism and Christian "natural science" still less. Christianity is a _method of life,_ not a system of belief. It tells us how we should behave, not what we should believe.

He who says to-day: "I refuse to be a soldier," "I care not for tribunals," "I lay no claim to the services of the police," "I will not do anything that disturbs the peace within me: and if I must suffer on that account, nothing can so well maintain my inward peace as suffering"--such a man would be a Christian.

213.

_Concerning the history of Christianity._--Continual change of environment: Christian teaching is thus continually changing its _centre of gravity._ The favouring of _low_ and _paltry_ people.... The development of _Caritas...._ The type "Christian" gradually adopts everything that it originally rejected (_and in the rejection of which it asserted its right to exist_). The Christian becomes a citizen, a soldier, a judge, a workman, a merchant, a scholar, a theologian, a priest, a philosopher, a farmer, an artist, a patriot, a politician, a prince ... he re-enters all those _departments of active life_ which he had forsworn (he defends himself, he establishes tribunals, he punishes, he swears, he differentiates between people and people, he contemns, and he shows anger). The whole life of the Christian is ultimately exactly that life _from which Christ preached deliverance...._ The Church is just as much a factor in the _triumph_ of the Antichrist, as the modern State and modern Nationalism.... The Church is the barbarisation of Christianity.

214.

Among the powers that have mastered _Christianity_ are: Judaism (_Paul_); Platonism (Augustine); The cult of mystery (the teaching of salvation, the emblem of the "cross"); Asceticism (hostility towards "Nature," "Reason," the "senses,"--the Orient ...).

215.

Christianity is a denaturalisation of gregarious morality: under the power of the most complete misapprehensions and self-deceptions. Democracy is a more natural form of it, and less sown with falsehood. It is a fact that the oppressed, the low, and whole mob of slaves and half-castes, _will prevail._

First step: they make themselves free--they detach themselves, at first in fancy only; they recognise each other; they make themselves paramount.

Second step: they enter the lists, they demand acknowledgment, equal rights, "Justice."

Third step: they demand privileges (they draw the representatives of power over to their side).

Fourth step: they _alone_ want all power, and they _have_ it.

There are _three elements_ in Christianity which must be distinguished: _(a)_ the oppressed of all kinds, _(b)_ the mediocre of all kinds, _(c)_ the dissatisfied and diseased of all kinds. The _first_ struggle against the politically noble and their ideal; the second contend with the exceptions and those who are in any way privileged (mentally or physically); the third oppose the _natural instinct_ of the happy and the sound.

Whenever a triumph is achieved, the second element steps to the fore; for then Christianity has won over the sound and happy to its side (as warriors in its cause), likewise the powerful (interested to this extent in the conquest of the crowd)--and now it is the _gregarious instinct,_ that _mediocre nature_ which is valuable in every respect, that now gets its highest sanction through Christianity. This mediocre nature ultimately becomes so conscious of itself (gains such courage in regard to its own opinions), that it arrogates to itself even _political power_....

Democracy is Christianity _made natural_: a sort of "return to Nature," once Christianity, owing to extreme anti-naturalness, might have been overcome by the opposite valuation. Result: the aristocratic ideal begins to _lose its natural character_ ("the higher man," "noble," "artist," "passion," "knowledge"; Romanticism as the cult of the exceptional, genius, etc. etc.).

216.

_When the "masters" may also become Christians._--It is of the nature of a _community_ (race, family, herd, tribe) to regard all those conditions and aspirations which favour its survival, as in themselves _valuable_; for instance: obedience, mutual assistance, respect, moderation, pity--as also, to _suppress_ everything that happens to stand in the way of the above.

It is likewise of the nature of the _rulers_ (whether they are individuals or classes) to patronise and applaud those virtues which make their subjects _amenable_ and _submissive_--conditions and passions which may be utterly different from their own.

The _gregarious instinct_ and the _instinct of the rulers_ sometimes _agree_ in approving of a certain number of qualities and conditions,--but for different reasons: the first do so out of direct egoism, the second out of indirect egoism.

_The submission to Christianity on the part of master races_ is essentially the result of the conviction that Christianity is a _religion for the herd,_ that it teaches obedience: in short, that Christians are more easily ruled than non-Christians. With a hint of this nature, the Pope, even nowadays, recommends Christian propaganda to the ruling Sovereign of China.

It should also be added that the seductive power of the Christian ideal works most strongly upon natures that love danger, adventure, and contrasts; that love everything _that entails a risk,_ and wherewith a _non plus ultra_ of powerful feeling may be attained. In this respect, one has only to think of Saint Theresa, surrounded by the heroic instincts of her brothers:--Christianity appears in those circumstances as a dissipation of the will, as strength of will, as a will that is Quixotic.

3. CHRISTIAN IDEALS.

217.

War against the _Christian ideal,_ against the doctrine of "blessedness" and "salvation" as the aims of life, against the supremacy of the fools, of the pure in heart, of the suffering and of the botched!

When and where has any man, _of any note at all,_ resembled the Christian ideal?--at least in the eyes of those who are psychologists and triers of the heart and reins. Look at all Plutarch's heroes!

218.

_Our claim to superiority_: we live in an age of _Comparisons_; we are able to calculate as men have never yet calculated; in every way we are history become self-conscious. We enjoy things in a different way; we suffer in a different way: our instinctive activity is the comparison of an enormous variety of things. We understand everything; we experience everything, we no longer have a hostile feeling left within us. However disastrous the results may be to ourselves, our plunging and almost lustful inquisitiveness, attacks, unabashed, the most dangerous of subjects....

"Everything is good"--it gives us pain to say "nay" to anything. We suffer when we feel that we are sufficiently foolish to make a definite stand against anything.... At bottom, it is we scholars who to-day are fulfilling Christ's teaching most thoroughly.

219.

We cannot suppress a certain irony when we contemplate those who think they have overcome Christianity by means of modern natural science. Christian values are by no means overcome by such people. "Christ on the cross" is still the most sublime symbol--even now....

220.

The two great Nihilistic movements are: _(a)_ Buddhism, _(b)_ Christianity. The latter has only just about reached a state of culture in which it can fulfil its original object,--it has found its _level,_--and now it can manifest itself _without disguise_.....

221.

We have _re-established_ the Christian ideal, it now only remains _to determine_ its value.

(1) Which values does it _deny_? What does _the ideal that opposes it_ stand for?--Pride, pathos of distance, great responsibility, exuberant spirits, splendid animalism, the instincts of war and of conquest; the deification of passion, revenge, cunning, anger, voluptuousness, adventure, knowledge--the _noble ideal_ is denied: the beauty, wisdom, power, pomp, and awfulness of the type man: the man who postulates aims, the "future" man (here Christianity presents itself as the _logical result_ of _Judaism_).

(2) _Can it be realised?_--Yes, of course, when the climatic conditions are favourable--as in the case of the Indian ideal. Both neglect the factor _work._--It separates a creature from a people, a state, a civilised community, and jurisdiction; it rejects education, wisdom, the cultivation of good manners, acquisition and commerce; it cuts adrift everything which is of use and value to men--by means of an idiosyncrasy of sentiment it _isolates_ a man. It is non-political, anti-national, neither aggressive nor defensive,--and only possible within a strictly-ordered State or state of society, which allows these _holy parasites_ to flourish at the cost of their neighbours.....

(3) It has now become the will to be _happy_--and nothing else! "Blessedness" stands for something self-evident, that no longer requires any justification--everything else (the way to live and let live) is only a means to an end....

But what follows is the result of a _low order of thought,_ the fear of pain, of defilement, of corruption, is great enough to provide ample grounds for allowing everything to go to the dogs.... This is a _poor_ way of thinking, and is the sign of an exhausted race; we _must_ not allow ourselves to be deceived. ("Become as little children." Natures _of the same order_: Francis of Assisi, neurotic, epileptic, visionary, like Jesus.)

222.

The _higher_ man distinguishes himself from the _lower_ by his fearlessness and his readiness to challenge misfortune: it is a sign of _degeneration_ when eudemonistic values begin to prevail (physiological fatigue and enfeeblement of will-power). Christianity, with its prospect of "blessedness," is the typical attitude of mind of a suffering and impoverished species of man. Abundant strength will be active, will suffer, and will go under: to it the bigotry of Christian salvation is bad music and hieratic posing and vexation.

223.

_Poverty, humility, and chastity_ are dangerous and slanderous ideals; but like poisons, which are useful cures in the case of certain diseases, they were also necessary in the time of the Roman Empire.

All ideals are dangerous: because they lower and brand realities; they are all poisons, but occasionally indispensable as cures.

224.

God created man, happy, idle, innocent, and immortal: our actual life is a false, decadent, and sinful existence, a punishment.... Suffering, struggle, work, and death are raised as objections against life, they make life questionable, unnatural--something that must cease, and for which one not only requires but also _has_--remedies!

Since the time of Adam, man has been in an abnormal state: God Himself delivered up His Son for Adam's sin, in order to put an end to the abnormal condition of things: the natural character of life is a _curse_; to those who believe in Him, Christ restores normal life: He makes them happy, idle, and innocent. But the world did not become fruitful without labour; women do not bear children without pain; illness has not ceased: believers are served just as badly as unbelievers in this respect. All that has happened is, that man is delivered from _death_ and _sin--_two assertions which allow of no verification, and which are therefore emphasised by the Church with more than usual heartiness. "He is free from sin,"--not owing to his own efforts, not owing to a vigorous struggle on his part, but _redeemed by the death of the Saviour,_--consequently, perfectly innocent and paradisaical.

_Actual_ life is nothing more than an illusion (that is to say, a deception, an insanity). The whole of struggling, fighting, and real existence--so full of light and shade, is only bad and false: everybody's duty is to be _delivered_ from it.

"Man, innocent, idle, immortal, and happy"--this concept, which is the object of the "most supreme desires," must be criticised before anything else. Why should guilt, work, death, and pain (_and,_ from the Christian point of view, also _knowledge_ ...) be _contrary_ to all supreme desires?--The lazy Christian notions: "blessedness," "innocence," "immortality."

225.

The eccentric concept "holiness" does not exist--"God" and "man" have not been divorced from each other. "Miracles" do not exist--such spheres do not exist: the only one to be considered is the "intellectual" (that is to say, the symbolically-psychological). As decadence: a counterpart to "Epicureanism." ... Paradise according to Greek notions was only "Epicurus' Garden."

A life of this sort lacks a purpose: it _strives after_ nothing;--a form of the "Epicurean gods"--there is no longer any reason to aim at anything,--not even at having children:--everything has been done.

226.

They despised the body: they did not reckon with it: nay, more--they treated it as an enemy. It was their delirium to think that a man could carry a "beautiful soul" about in a body that was a cadaverous abortion.... In order to inoculate others with this insanity they had to present the concept "beautiful soul" in a different way, and to transvalue the natural value, until, at last, a pale, sickly, idiotically exalted creature, something angelic, some extreme perfection and transfiguration was declared to be the higher man.

227.

Ignorance in matters psychological.--The Christian has no nervous system;--contempt for, and deliberate and wilful turning away from, the demands of the body, and the _naked_ body; it is assumed that all this is in keeping with man's nature, and _must perforce work the ultimate good of the soul_;--all functions of the body are systematically reduced to moral values; illness itself is regarded as determined by morality, it is held to be the result of sin, or it is a trial or a state of salvation, through which man becomes more perfect than he could become in a state of health (Pascal's idea); under certain circumstances, there are wilful attempts at inducing illness.

228.

What in sooth is this struggle "against Nature" on the part of the Christian? We shall not, of course, let ourselves be deceived by his words and explanations. It is Nature against something which is also Nature. With many, it is fear; with others, it is loathing; with yet others, it is the sign of a certain intellectuality, the love of a bloodless and passionless ideal; and in the case of the most superior men, it is love of an abstract Nature--these try to live up to their ideal. It is easily understood that humiliation in the place of self-esteem, anxious cautiousness towards the passions, emancipation from the usual duties (whereby, a higher notion of rank is created), the incitement to constant war on behalf of enormous issues, habituation to effusiveness of feelings--all this goes to constitute a type: in such a type the _hypersensitiveness_ of a perishing body preponderates; but the nervousness and the inspirations it engenders are _interpreted_ differently. The _taste_ of this kind of creature tends either (1) to subtilise, (2) to indulge in bombastic eloquence, or (3) to go in for extreme feelings. The natural inclinations _do_ get satisfied, but they are interpreted in a new way; for instance, as "justification before God," "the feeling of redemption through grace," every undeniable _feeling of pleasure_ becomes (interpreted in this way!) pride, voluptuousness, etc. General problem: what will become of the man who slanders and practically denies and belittles what is natural? As a matter of fact, the Christian is an example of exaggerated self-control: in order to tame his passions, he seems to find it necessary to extirpate or crucify them.

229.

Man did not know himself physiologically throughout the ages his history covers; he does not even know himself now. The knowledge, for instance, that man has a nervous system (but no "soul") is still the privilege of the most educated people. But man is not satisfied, in this respect, to say he does not know. A man must be very superior to be able to say: "I do not know this,"--that is to say, to be able to admit his ignorance.

Suppose he is in pain or in a good mood, he never questions that he can find the reason of either condition if only he seeks.... In truth, he cannot find the reason; for he does not even suspect where it lies.... What happens?... He takes the _result_ of his condition for its _cause_; for instance, if he should undertake some work (really undertaken because his good mood gave him the courage to do so) and carry it through successfully: behold, the work itself is the _reason_ of his good mood.... As a matter of fact, his success was determined by the same cause as that which brought about his good mood--that is to say, the happy co-ordination of physiological powers and functions.

He feels bad: _consequently_ he cannot overcome a care, a scruple, or an attitude of self-criticism.... He really fancies that his disagreeable condition is the result of his scruple, of his "sin," or of his "self-criticism."

But after profound exhaustion and prostration, a state of recovery sets in. "How is it possible that I can feel so free, so happy? It is a miracle; only a God could have effected this change."--Conclusion: "He has forgiven my sin." ...

From this follow certain practices: in order to provoke feelings of sinfulness and to prepare the way for crushed spirits it is necessary to induce a condition of morbidity and nervousness in the body. The methods of doing this are well known. Of course, nobody suspects the causal logic of the fact: the _maceration_ of the _flesh_ is interpreted religiously, it seems like an end in itself, whereas it is no more than a _means_ of bringing about that morbid state of indigestion which is known as repentance (the "fixed idea" of sin, the hypnotising of the hen by-means of the chalk-line "sin").

The mishandling of the body prepares the ground for the required range of "guilty feelings"--that is to say, for that general state of pain which _demands an explanation...._

On the other hand, the _method_ of "salvation" may also develop from the above: every dissipation of the feelings, whether prayers, movements, attitudes, or oaths, has been provoked, and exhaustion follows; very often it is acute, or it appears in the form of epilepsy. And behind this condition of deep somnolence there come signs of recovery--or, in religious parlance, "Salvation."

230.

Formerly, the conditions and results of _physiological exhaustion_ were considered more important than healthy conditions and their results, and this was owing to the suddenness, fearfulness, and mysteriousness of the former. Men were terrified by themselves, and postulated the existence of a _higher_ world. People have ascribed the origin of the idea of two worlds--one this side of the grave and the other beyond it--to sleep and dreams, to shadows, to night, and to the fear of Nature: but the symptoms of physiological exhaustion should, above all, have been considered.

Ancient religions have quite special methods of disciplining the pious into states of exhaustion, in which they _must_ experience such things.... The idea was, that one entered into a new order of things, where everything ceases to be known.--The _semblance_ of a higher power....

231.

Sleep is the result of every kind of exhaustion; exhaustion follows upon all excessive excitement....

In all pessimistic religions and philosophies there is a yearning for sleep; the very notion "sleep" is deified and worshipped.

In this case the exhaustion is racial; sleep regarded psychologically is only a symbol of a much deeper and longer _compulsion to rest.... In praxi_ it is death which rules here in the seductive image of its brother sleep....

232.

The whole of the Christian training in repentance and redemption may be regarded as a _folie circulaire_ arbitrarily produced; though, of course, it can be produced only in people who are predisposed to it--that is to say, who have morbid tendencies in their constitutions.

233.