themselves even more; the circum stances actually favour their doing so. Nature is expelled from morality when it is said, " Love ye your enemies ": for Nature s injunction, " Ye shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy," has now become senseless in the law (in instinct); now, even the love a man feels for his neighbour must first be based upon something (a sort of love 1 68 of God}. God is introduced everywhere, and utility is withdrawn; the natural origin of morality is denied everywhere: the veneration of Nature which lies in acknowledging a natural morality, is destroyed to the roots...Whence comes the seductive charm of this emasculate ideal of man? Why are we not disgusted by it, just as we are disgusted at the thought of a eunuch?...The answer is obvious: it is not the voice of the eunuch that revolts us, despite the cruel mutilation of which it is the result; for, as a matter of fact, it has grown sweeter...And owing to the very fact that the " male organ " has been amputated from virtue, its voice now has a feminine ring, which, formerly, was not to be discerned. On the other hand, we have only to think of the terrible hardness, dangers, and accidents to which a life of manly virtues leads the life of a Corsican, even at the present day, or that of a heathen Arab (which resembles the Corsican s life even to the smallest detail: the Arab s songs might have been written by Corsicans) in order to perceive how the most robust type of man was fascinated and moved by the voluptuous ring of this "goodness" and "purity."...A pastoral melody...an idyll...the " good man ": such things have most effect in ages when tragedy is abroad. With this, we have realized to what extent the idealist " (the ideal eunuch) also proceeds from a 169 definite reality and is not merely a visionary...He has perceived precisely that, for his kind of reality, a brutal injunction of the sort which pro hibits certain actions has no sense (because the instinct which would urge him to these actions is weakened, thanks to a long need of practice, and of compulsion to practise). The castrator formu lates a host of new self-preservative measures for a perfectly definite species of men: in this sense he is a realist. The means to which he has recourse for establishing his legislation, are the same as those of ancient legislators: he appeals to all authorities, to " God," and he exploits the notions " guilt and punishment " that is to say, he avails himself of the whole of the older ideal, but interprets it differently; for instance: punish ment is given a place in the inner self (it is called the pang of conscience). In practice this kind of man meets with his end the moment the exceptional conditions favouring his existence cease to prevail a sort of insular happiness, like that of Tahiti, and of the little Jews in the Roman provinces. Their only natural foe is the soil from which they spring: they must wage war against that, and once more give their offensive and defensive passions rope in order to be equal to it: their opponents are the adherents of the old ideal (this kind of hostility is shown on a grand scale by Paul in relation to Judaism, and by Luther in relation to the priestly ascetic ideal). The mildest form of this antagonism is certainly that of the first Buddhists; perhaps nothing has given rise to so much work, as the enfeeblement and IO discouragement of the feeling of antagonism,. The struggle against resentment almost seems the Buddhist s first duty; thus only is his peace of soul secured. To isolate oneself without bitterness, this presupposes the existence of a surprisingly mild and sweet order of men, saints...* The Astuteness of moral castration. How is war waged against the virile passions and valuations? No violent physical means are available; the war must therefore be one of ruses, spells, and lies in short, a " spiritual war." First recipe: One appropriates virtue in general, and makes it the main feature of one s ideal; the older ideal is denied and declared to be the reverse of all ideals. Slander has to be carried to a fine art for this purpose. Second recipe: A type of man is set up as a general standard; and this is projected into all things, behind all things, and behind the destiny of all things as God. Third recipe: The opponents of one s ideal are declared to be the opponents of God; one arro gates to oneself a right to great pathos, to power, and a right to curse and to bless. Fourth recipe: All suffering, all gruesome, terrible, and fatal things are declared to be the results of opposition to one s ideal all suffering is punishment even in the case of one s adherents (except it be a trial, etc.). Fifth recipe: One goes so far as to regard Nature as the reverse of one s ideal, and the lengthy 171 sojourn amid natural conditions is considered a great trial of patience a sort of martyrdom; one studies contempt, both in one s attitudes and one s looks towards all " natural things," Sixth recipe: The triumph of anti-naturalism and ideal castration, the triumph of the world of the pure, good, sinless, and blessed, is projected into the future as the consummation, the finale, the great hope, and the " Coming of the Kingdom of God." I hope that one may still be allowed to laugh at this artificial hoisting up of a small species of man to the position of an absolute standard of all things?
205. What I do not at all like in Jesus of Nazareth and His Apostle Paul, is that they stuffed so much into the heads of paltry people, as if their modest virtues were worth so much ado. We have had to pay dearly for it all; for they brought the most valuable qualities of both virtue and man into ill repute; they set the guilty conscience and the self-respect of noble souls at loggerheads, and they led the braver, more magnanimous, more daring, and more excessive tendencies of strong souls astray even to self-destruction.
206. In the New Testament, and especially in the Gospels, I discern absolutely no sign of a " Divine " voice: but rather an indirect form of the most subterranean fury, both in slander and destructive- ness one of the most dishonest forms of hatred. It lacks all knowledge of the qualities of a higher nature. It makes an impudent abuse of all kinds of plausibilities, and the whole stock of proverbs is used up and foisted upon one in its pages. Was it necessary to make a God come in order to appeal to those publicans and to say to them, etc. etc.? Nothing could be more vulgar than this struggle with the Pharisees, carried on with a host of absurd and unpractical moral pretences; the mob, of course, has always been entertained by such feats. Fancy the reproach of " hypocrisy! " coming from those lips! Nothing could be more vulgar than this treatment of one s opponents a most insidious sign of nobility or its reverse...
207. Primitive Christianity is the abolition of the State: it prohibits oaths, military service, courts of justice, self-defence or the defence of a community, and denies the difference between fellow-country men and strangers, as also the order of castes. Christ s example: He does not withstand those who ill-treat Him; He does not defend Himself; He does more, He " offers the left cheek " (to the demand: " Tell us whether thou be the Christ? " He replies: " Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven "). He forbids His disciples to defend Him; He calls attention to the fact that He could get help if He wished to, but will not. Christianity also means the abolition of society it prizes everything that society despises, its very growth takes place among the outcasts, the con demned, 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 reminis cent 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 ex- 14 plosion, 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 revolu tions, 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, how ever, 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). 175 X 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. Christi- x anity 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 today: " 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. Con tinual 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 " Chris tian " 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 Chris tianity are: Judaism (Paul]; Platonism (Augustine); The cult of mystery (the teaching of salvation, 177 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. Demo cracy 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, () the mediocre of all kinds, (c) the dis satisfied 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. M 178 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 (inter ested 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 Chris tianity. This mediocre nature ultimately becomes so conscious of itself (gains such courage in regard to its own opinions), that it arrogates to tsttevQrpoliticalpower...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 them selves 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 179 their subjects amenable and submissive condi tions 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 con viction 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 nonplus 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. How ever 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 today 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, (#) 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, know ledge; 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 realized? 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 man ners, acquisition and commerce; it cuts adrift 1 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 cor ruption, 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 (physio logical 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 183 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 un believers 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, conse quently, 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 any thing 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 con sidered 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 revalue the natural value, until, at last, a pale, sickly, idiotically exalted creature, some thing angelic, some extreme perfection and trans figuration 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 vork 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 1 86 of health (Pascal s idea); under certain circum stances, 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 pre ponderates; but the nervousness and the in spirations it engenders are interpreted differently. The taste of this kind of creature tends either (i) 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 con dition 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 dis sipation of the feelings, whether prayers, move ments, 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 physio logical 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 higlier 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 ex haustion 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 exhaus tion; 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 190 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...