Part 8

Thirdly: their domain of power must be very extensive, in order that its control may escape the notice of those they subject: they must know the penal code of the life beyond--of the life "after death,"--and, of course, the means whereby the road to blessedness may be discovered. They have to put the notion of a natural course of things out of sight, but as they are intelligent and thoughtful people, they are able to _promise_ a host of effects, which they naturally say are conditioned by prayer or by the strict observance of their law. They can, moreover, _prescribe_ a large number of things which are exceedingly reasonable --only they must not point to experience or empiricism as the source of this wisdom, but to revelation or to the fruits of the "most severe exercises of penance."

The _holy lie,_ therefore, applies principally to the _purpose_ of an action (the natural purpose, reason, is made to vanish: a moral purpose, the observance of some law, a service to God, seems to be the purpose): to the _consequence_ of an action (the natural consequence is interpreted as something supernatural, and, in order to be on surer ground, other incontrollable and supernatural consequences are foretold).

In this way the concepts _good_ and _evil_ are created, and seem quite divorced from the natural concepts: "useful," "harmful," "life-promoting," "life-retarding,"--indeed, inasmuch as _another_ life is imagined, the former concepts may even be _antagonistic_ to Nature's concepts of good and evil. In this way, the proverbial concept "conscience" is created: an inner voice, which, though it makes itself heard in regard to every action, does not measure the worth of that action according to its results, but according to its conformity or non-conformity to the "law."

The holy lie therefore invented: (1) a _god_ who _punishes_ and _rewards,_ who recognises and carefully observes the law-book of the priests, and who is particular about sending them into the world as his mouthpieces and plenipotentiaries; (2) an _After Life,_ in which, alone, the great penal machine is supposed to be active--to this end the _immortality of the soul_ was invented; (3) a _conscience in man,_ understood as the knowledge that good and evil are permanent values--that God himself speaks through it, whenever its counsels are in conformity with priestly precepts; (4) _Morality_ as the denial of all natural processes, as the subjection of all phenomena to a moral order, as the interpretation of all phenomena as the effects of a moral order of things (that is to say, the concept of punishment and reward), as the only power and only creator of all transformations; (5) _Truths_ given, revealed, and identical with the teaching of the priests: as the condition to all salvation and happiness in this and the next world.

_In short_: what is the price paid for the _improvement_ supposed to be due to morality?--The unhinging of _reason,_ the reduction of all motives to fear and hope (punishment and reward); _dependence_ upon the tutelage of priests, and upon a formulary exactitude which is supposed to express a divine will; the implantation of a "conscience" which establishes a false science in the place of experience and experiment: as though all one had to do or had not to do were predetermined--a kind of contraction of the seeking and striving spirit;--_in short_: the worst _mutilation_ of man that can be imagined, and it is pretended that "the good man" is the result.

Practically speaking, all reason, the whole heritage of intelligence, subtlety, and caution, the first condition of the priestly canon, is arbitrarily reduced, when it is too late, to a simple _mechanical_ process: conformity with the law becomes a purpose in itself, it is the highest purpose; _Life no longer contains any problems_;--the whole conception of the world is polluted by the notion of _punishment_; --Life itself, owing to the fact that the _priests life_ is upheld as the _non plus ultra_ of perfection, is transformed into a denial and pollution of life;--the concept "God" represents an aversion to Life, and even a criticism and a contemning of it. Truth is transformed in the mind, into _priestly_ prevarication; the striving after truth, into the _study of the Scriptures,_ into the way to _become a theologian._

142.

_A criticism of the Law-Book of Manu._--The whole book is founded upon the holy lie. Was it the well-being of humanity that inspired the whole of this system? Was this kind of man, who believes in the _interested_ nature of every action, interested or not interested in the success of this system? The desire to improve mankind--whence comes the inspiration to this feeling? Whence is the concept improvement taken?

We find a class of men, _the sacerdotal class,_ who consider themselves the standard pattern, the highest example and most perfect expression of the type man. The notion of "improving" mankind, to this class of men, means to make mankind like themselves. They believe in their own superiority, they _will_ be superior in practice: the cause of the holy lie is _The Will to Power...._

Establishment of the dominion: to this end, ideas which place a _non plus ultra_ of power with the priesthood are made to prevail. Power acquired by lying was the result of the recognition of the fact that it was not already possessed physically, in a military form.... Lying as a supplement to power--this is a new concept of "truth."

It is a mistake to presuppose _unconscious_ and _innocent_ development in this quarter--a sort of self-deception. Fanatics are not the discoverers of such exhaustive systems of oppression.... Cold-blooded reflection must have been at work here; the same sort of reflection which Plato showed when he worked out his "State"--"One must desire the means when one desires the end." Concerning this political maxim, all legislators have always been quite clear.

We possess the classical model, and it is specifically Arian: we can therefore hold the most gifted and most reflective type of man responsible for the most systematic lie that has ever been told.... Everywhere almost the lie was copied, and thus _Avian influence_ corrupted the world....

143.

Much is said to-day about the _Semitic_ spirit of the _New Testament_: but the thing referred to is merely priestcraft,--and in the purest example of an Arian law-book, in Manu, this kind of "Semitic spirit"--that is to say, _Sacerdotalism,_ is worse than anywhere else.

The development of the Jewish hierarchy is _not_ original: they learnt the scheme in Babylon--it is Arian. When, later on, the same thing became dominant in Europe, under the preponderance of Germanic blood, this was in conformity to the spirit of the _ruling race_: a striking case of atavism. The Germanic middle ages aimed at a revival of the _Arian order of castes_.

Mohammedanism in its turn learned from Christianity the use of a "Beyond" as an instrument of punishment.

The scheme of a _permanent community,_ with priests at its head--this oldest product of Asia's great culture in the domain of organisation--_naturally_ provoked reflection and imitation in every way.--Plato is an example of this, but above all, the Egyptians.

144.

_Moralities_ and _religions_ are the principal means by which one can modify men into whatever one likes; provided one is possessed of an overflow of creative power, and can cause one's will to prevail over long periods of time.

145.

If one wish to see an _affirmative_ Arian religion which is the product of a _ruling_ class, one should read the law-book of Manu. (The deification of the feeling of power in the Brahmin: it is interesting to note that it originated in the warrior-caste, and was later transferred to the priests.)

If one wish to see an _affirmative_ religion of the Semitic order, which is the product of the _ruling_ class, one should read the Koran or the earlier portions of the Old Testament. (_Mohammedanism,_ as a religion for men, has profound contempt for the sentimentality and prevarication of Christianity, ... which, according to Mohammedans, is a woman's religion.)

If one wish to see a _negative_ religion of the Semitic order, which is the product of the _oppressed_ class, one should read the New Testament (which, according to Indian and Arian points of view, is a religion for the Chandala).

If one wish to see a _negative_ Arian religion, which is the product of the _ruling_ classes, one should study Buddhism.

It is quite in the nature of things that we have no Arian religion which is the product of the _oppressed_ classes; for that would have been a contradiction: a race of masters is either paramount or else it goes to the dogs.

146.

Religion, _per se,_ has nothing to do with morality; yet both offshoots of the Jewish religion are _essentially_ moral religions--which prescribe the rules of living, and procure obedience to their principles by means of rewards and punishment.

147.

_Paganism--Christianity.--Paganism_ is that which says yea to all that is natural, it is innocence in being natural, "naturalness." _Christianity_ is that which says no to all that is natural, it is a certain lack of dignity in being natural; hostility to Nature.

"Innocent":--Petronius is innocent, for instance. Beside this happy man a Christian is absolutely devoid of innocence. But since even the _Christian_ status is ultimately only a natural condition, the term "Christian" soon begins to mean the _counterfeiting of the psychological interpretation._

148.

The Christian priest is from the root a mortal enemy of sensuality: one cannot imagine a greater contrast to his attitude than the guileless, slightly awed, and solemn attitude, which the religious rites of the most honourable women in Athens maintained in the presence of the symbol of sex. In all non-ascetic religions the procreative act is _the_ secret _per se_: a sort of symbol of perfection and of the designs of the future: re-birth, immortality.

149.

Our belief in ourselves is the greatest fetter, the most telling spur, and the _strongest pinion._ Christianity ought to have elevated the innocence of man to the position of an article of belief--men would then have become gods: in those days believing was still possible.

150.

The egregious _lie_ of history: as if it were the _corruption_ of Paganism that opened the road to Christianity. As a matter of fact, it was the enfeeblement and _moralisation_ of the man of antiquity. The new interpretation of natural functions, which made them appear like _vices,_ had already gone before!

151.

Religions are ultimately wrecked by the belief in morality. The idea of the Christian moral God becomes untenable,--hence "Atheism,"--as though there could be no other god.

_Culture_ is likewise wrecked by the belief in morality. For when the necessary and only possible conditions of its growth are revealed, nobody _will_ any longer countenance it (Buddhism).

152.

_The physiology of Nihilistic religions._--All in all, the _Nihilistic_ religions are _systematised histories of sickness_ described in religious and moral terminology.

In pagan cultures it is around the interpretation of the great annual cycles that the religious cult turns; in Christianity it is around a cycle of _paralytic phenomena._

153.

This _Nihilistic_ religion gathers together all the _decadent elements_ and things of like order which it can find in antiquity, viz.:--

_(a)_ The _weak_ and the _botched_ (the refuse of the ancient world, and that of which it rid itself with most violence).

_(b)_ Those who are _morally obsessed_ and _anti-pagan._

_(c)_ Those who are _weary of politics_ and indifferent (the _blasé_ Romans), the _denationalised,_ who know not what they are.

_(d)_ Those who are tired of themselves--who are happy to be party to a subterranean conspiracy.

154.

_Buddha_ versus _Christ._--Among the Nihilistic religions, Christianity and _Buddhism_ may always be sharply distinguished. _Buddhism_ is the expression of a _fine evening,_ perfectly sweet and mild--it is a sort of gratitude towards all that lies hidden, including that which it entirely lacks, viz., bitterness, disillusionment, and resentment. Finally it possesses lofty intellectual love; it has got over all the subtlety of philosophical contradictions, and is even resting after it, though it is precisely from that source that it derives its intellectual glory and its glow as of a sunset (it originated in the higher classes).

_Christianity_ is a degenerative movement, consisting of all kinds of decaying and excremental elements: it is _not_ the expression of the downfall of a race, it is, from the root, an agglomeration of all the morbid elements which are mutually attractive and which gravitate to one another.... It is therefore _not_ a national religion, _not_ determined by race: it appeals to the disinherited everywhere; it consists of a foundation of resentment against all that is successful and dominant: it is in need of a symbol which represents the damnation of everything successful and dominant. It is opposed to every form of _intellectual_ movement, to all philosophy: it takes up the cudgels for idiots, and utters a curse upon all intellect. Resentment against those who are gifted, learned, intellectually independent: in all these it suspects the element of success and domination.

155.

In Buddhism this thought prevails: "All passions, everything which creates emotions and leads to blood, is a call to action"--to this extent alone are its believers _warned_ against evil. For action has no sense, it merely binds one to existence. All existence, however, has no sense. Evil is interpreted as that which leads to irrationalism: to the affirmation of means whose end is denied. A road to nonentity is the desideratum, _hence all_ emotional impulses are regarded with horror. For instance: "On no account seek after revenge! Be the enemy of no one!"--The Hedonism of the weary finds its highest expression here. Nothing is more utterly foreign to Buddhism than the Jewish fanaticism of St. Paul: nothing could be more contrary to its instinct than the tension, fire, and unrest of the religious man, and, above all, that form of sensuality which sanctifies Christianity with the name "Love." Moreover, it is the cultured and very intellectual classes who find blessedness in Buddhism: a race wearied and besotted by centuries of philosophical quarrels, but not _beneath all culture_ as those classes were from which Christianity sprang.... In the Buddhistic ideal, there is essentially an emancipation from good and evil: a very subtle suggestion of a Beyond to all morality is thought out in its teaching, and this Beyond is supposed to be compatible with perfection,--the condition being, that even good actions are only needed _pro tem.,_ merely as a means,--that is to say, in order to be free from _all_ action.

156.

_How very curious_ it is to see a _Nihilistic_ religion such as Christianity, sprung from, and in keeping with, a decrepit and worn-out people, who have outlived all strong instincts, being transferred step by step to another environment--that is to say, to a land of young people, _who have not yet lived at all._ The joy of the final chapter, of the fold and of the evening, preached to barbarians and Germans! How thoroughly all of it must first have been barbarised, Germanised! To those who had dreamed of a _Walhalla_: who found happiness only in war!--A _super_national religion preached in the midst of chaos, where _no nations yet existed even._

157.

The only way to refute priests and religions is this: to show that their errors are no longer _beneficent_--that they are rather harmful; in short, that their own "proof of power" no longer holds good....

2. CONCERNING THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY.

158.

Christianity as an _historical reality_ should not be confounded with that one root which its name recalls. The _other_ roots, from which it has sprung, are by far the more important. It is an unprecedented abuse of names to identify such manifestations of decay and such abortions as the "Christian Church," "Christian belief," and "Christian life," with that Holy Name. What did Christ _deny_?--Everything which to-day is called Christian.

159.

The whole of the Christian _creed_--all Christian "truth," is idle falsehood and deception, and is precisely the reverse of that which was at the bottom of the first Christian movement.

All that which in the _ecclesiastical_ sense is Christian, is just exactly what is most radically _anti-Christian_: crowds of things and people appear instead of symbols, history takes the place of eternal facts, it is all forms, rites, and dogmas instead of a "practice" of life. To be really Christian would mean to be absolutely indifferent to dogmas, cults, priests, church, and theology.

The practice of Christianity is no more an impossible phantasy than the practice of Buddhism is: it is merely a means to happiness.

160.

Jesus goes straight to the point, the "Kingdom of Heaven" in the heart, and He does _not_ find the means in duty to the Jewish Church; He even regards the reality of Judaism (its need to maintain itself) as nothing; He is concerned purely with the _inner_ man.

Neither does He make anything of all the coarse forms relating to man's intercourse with God: He is opposed to the whole of the teaching of repentance and atonement; He points out how man ought to live in order to feel himself "deified," and how futile it is on his part to hope to live properly by showing repentance and contrition for his sins. "Sin is of no account" is practically his chief standpoint.

Sin, repentance, forgiveness,--all this does not belong to Christianity ... it is Judaism or Paganism which has become mixed up with Christ's teaching.

161.

The _Kingdom of Heaven_ is a state of the heart (of children it is written, "for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven"): it has nothing to do with superterrestrial things. The Kingdom of God "cometh," not chronologically or historically, not on a certain day in the calendar; it is not something which one day appears and was not previously there; it is a "change of feeling in the individual," it is something which may come at any time and which may be absent at any time....

162.

_The thief on the cross_;--When the criminal himself, who endures a painful death, declares: "the way this Jesus suffers and dies, without a murmur of revolt or enmity, graciously and resignedly, is the only right way," he assents to the gospel; and by this very fact _he is in Paradise...._

163.

Jesus bids us:--not to resist, either by deeds or in our heart, him who ill-treats us;

He bids us admit of no grounds for separating ourselves from our wives;

He bids us make no distinction between foreigners and fellow-countrymen, strangers and familiars;

He bids us show anger to no one, and treat no one with contempt;--give alms secretly; not to desire to become rich;--not to swear;--not to stand in judgment;--become reconciled with our enemies and forgive offences;--not to worship in public.

"Blessedness" is nothing promised: it is here, with us, if we only wish to live and act in a particular way.

164.

_Subsequent Additions_;--The whole of the prophet- and thaumaturgist-attitudes and the bad temper; while the conjuring-up of a supreme tribunal of justice is an abominable corruption (see Mark vi. 11: "And whosoever shall not receive you.... Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrha," etc.). The "fig tree" (Matt. xxi. 18, 19): "Now in the morning as he returned into the city, he hungered. And when he saw a fig tree in the way, he came to it, and found nothing thereon, but leaves only, and said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever. And presently the fig tree withered away."

165.

The teaching of rewards and punishments has become mixed up with Christianity in a way which is quite absurd; everything is thereby spoilt. In the same way, the practice of the first _ecclesia militans,_ of the Apostle Paul and his attitude, is put forward as if it had been _commanded_ or predetermined.

The subsequent glorification of the actual _life_ and _teaching_ of the first Christians: as if everything had been _prescribed beforehand_ and had been only a matter of _following_ directions----And as for the _fulfilment of scriptural prophecies_: how much of all that is more than forgery and cooking?

166.

Jesus opposed a real life, a life in truth, to ordinary life: nothing could have been more foreign to His mind than the somewhat heavy nonsense of an "eternal Peter,"--of the eternal duration of a single person. Precisely what He combats is the exaggerated importance of the "person": how can He wish to immortalise it?

He likewise combats the hierarchy within the community; He never promises a certain proportion of reward for a certain proportion of deserts: how can He have meant to teach the doctrine of punishment and reward in a Beyond?

167.

Christianity is an ingenuous attempt at bringing about a _Buddhistic movement in favour of peace,_ sprung from the very heart of the resenting masses ... but transformed by _Paul_ into a mysterious pagan cult, which was ultimately able to accord with the whole of _State organisation_ ... and which carries on war, condemns, tortures, conjures, and hates.

Paul bases his teaching upon the need of mystery felt by the great masses capable of religious emotions: he seeks a _victim,_ a bloody phantasmagoria, which may be equal to a contest with the images of a secret cult: God on the cross, the drinking of blood, the _unio mystica_ with the "victim."

He seeks the prolongation of life after death (the blessed and atoned after-life of the individual soul) which he puts in causal relation with the _victim_ already referred to (according to the type of Dionysos, Mithras, Osiris).

He feels the necessity of bringing notions of _guilt_ and _sin_ into the foreground, _not_ a new practice of life (as Jesus Himself demonstrated and taught), but a new cult, a new belief, a belief in a miraculous metamorphosis ("Salvation" through belief).

He understood the _great needs of the pagan worlds_ and he gave quite an absolutely arbitrary picture of those two plain facts, Christ's life and death. He gave the whole a new accent, altering the equilibrium everywhere ... he was one of the most active destroyers of primitive Christianity.

The attempt made on the life of _priests and theologians_ culminated, thanks to Paul, in a new priesthood and theology--a _ruling_ caste and a _Church._

The attempt made to suppress the fussy importance of the "person," culminated in the belief in the eternal "personality" (and in the anxiety concerning "eternal salvation" ...), and in the most paradoxical exaggeration of individual egoism.

This is the humorous side of the question--tragic humour: Paul again set up on a large scale precisely what Jesus had overthrown by His life. At last, when the Church edifice was complete, it even sanctioned the _existence_ of the _State._

168.

The Church is precisely that against which Jesus inveighed--and against which He taught His disciples to fight.

169.

A God who died for our sins, salvation through faith, resurrection after death--all these things are the counterfeit coins of real Christianity, for which that pernicious blockhead Paul must be held responsible.