that no conflict with actuality can dash it—so high, indeed, that no fulfilment can satisfy it: a hope reaching out beyond
this world. (Precisely because of this power that hope has of making the suffering hold out, the Greeks regarded it as the
evil of evils, as the most malign of evils; it remained behind at the source of all evil.)[ 3 ]
—In order that love may be
possible, God must become a person; in order that the lower instincts may take a hand in the matter God must be young.
To satisfy the ardor of the woman a beautiful saint must appear on the scene, and to satisfy that of the men there must
be a virgin. These things are necessary if Christianity is to assume lordship over a soil on which some aphrodisiacal or
Adonis cult has already established a notion as to what a cult ought to be. To insist upon chastity greatly strengthens the
vehemence and subjectivity of the religious instinct—it makes the cult warmer, more enthusiastic, more soulful.—Love is
the state in which man sees things most decidedly as they are not. The force of illusion reaches its highest here, and so
does the capacity for sweetening, for transfiguring. When a man is in love he endures more than at any other time; he
submits to anything. The problem was to devise a religion which would allow one to love: by this means the worst that life
has to offer is overcome—it is scarcely even noticed.—So much for the three Christian virtues: faith, hope and charity: I
call them the three Christian ingenuities.—Buddhism is in too late a stage of development, too full of positivism, to be
shrewd in any such way.—
24.
Here I barely touch upon the problem of the origin of Christianity. The first thing necessary to its solution is this: that
Christianity is to be understood only by examining the soil from which it sprung—it is not a reaction against Jewish
instincts; it is their inevitable product; it is simply one more step in the awe–inspiring logic of the Jews. In the words of the
Saviour, "salvation is of the Jews."[ 4 ]
—The second thing to remember is this: that the psychological type of the Galilean
is still to be recognized, but it was only in its most degenerate form (which is at once maimed and overladen with foreign
features) that it could serve in the manner in which it has been used: as a type of the Saviour of mankind.—
The Jews are the most remarkable people in the history of the world, for when they were confronted with the question,
to be or not to be, they chose, with perfectly unearthly deliberation, to be at any price: this price involved a radical
falsification of all nature, of all naturalness, of all reality, of the whole inner world, as well as of the outer. They put
themselves against all those conditions under which, hitherto, a people had been able to live, or had even been
permitted to live; out of themselves they evolved an idea which stood in direct opposition to natural conditions—one by
one they distorted religion, civilization, morality, history and psychology until each became a contradiction of its natural
significance. We meet with the same phenomenon later on, in an incalculably exaggerated form, but only as a copy: the
Christian church, put beside the "people of God," shows a complete lack of any claim to originality. Precisely for this
reason the Jews are the most fateful people in the history of the world: their influence has so falsified the reasoning of
mankind in this matter that today the Christian can cherish anti–Semitism without realizing that it is no more than the final
consequence of Judaism.
In my "Genealogy of Morals" I give the first psychological explanation of the concepts underlying those two antithetical
things, a noble morality and a ressentiment morality, the second of which is a mere product of the denial of the former.
The Judaeo–Christian moral system belongs to the second division, and in every detail. In order to be able to say Nay to
everything representing an ascending evolution of life—that is, to well–being, to power, to beauty, to self–approval—the
instincts of ressentiment, here become downright genius, had to invent an other world in which the acceptance of life
appeared as the most evil and abominable thing imaginable. Psychologically, the Jews are a people gifted with the very
strongest vitality, so much so that when they found themselves facing impossible conditions of life they chose voluntarily,
and with a profound talent for self–preservation, the side of all those instincts which make for décadence—not as if
mastered by them, but as if detecting in them a power by which "the world" could be defied. The Jews are the very
opposite of décadents: they have simply been forced into appearing in that guise, and with a degree of skill approaching
the non plus ultra of histrionic genius they have managed to put themselves at the head of all décadent movements (—
for example, the Christianity of Paul—), and so make of them something stronger than any party frankly saying Yes to
life. To the sort of men who reach out for power under Judaism and Christianity,—that is to say, to the priestly class
—décadence is no more than a means to an end. Men of this sort have a vital interest in making mankind sick, and in
confusing the values of "good" and "bad,""true" and "false" in a manner that is not only dangerous to life, but also
slanders it.
25.
The history of Israel is invaluable as a typical history of an attempt to denaturize all natural values: I point to five facts
which bear this out. Originally, and above all in the time of the monarchy, Israel maintained the right attitude of things,
which is to say, the natural attitude. Its Jahveh was an expression of its consciousness of power, its joy in itself, its hopes
for itself: to him the Jews looked for victory and salvation and through him they expected nature to give them whatever
was necessary to their existence—above all, rain. Jahveh is the god of Israel, and consequently the god of justice: this is
the logic of every race that has power in its hands and a good conscience in the use of it. In the religious ceremonial of
the Jews both aspects of this self–approval stand revealed. The nation is grateful for the high destiny that has enabled it
to obtain dominion; it is grateful for the benign procession of the seasons, and for the good fortune attending its herds
and its crops.—This view of things remained an ideal for a long while, even after it had been robbed of validity by tragic
blows: anarchy within and the Assyrian without. But the people still retained, as a projection of their highest yearnings,
that vision of a king who was at once a gallant warrior and an upright judge—a vision best visualized in the typical
prophet (i. e., critic and satirist of the moment), Isaiah.—But every hope remained unfulfilled. The old god no longer
could do what he used to do. He ought to have been abandoned. But what actually happened? Simply this: the
conception of him was changed—the conception of him was denaturized; this was the price that had to be paid for
keeping him.—Jahveh, the god of "justice"—he is in accord with Israel no more, he no longer vizualizes the national
egoism; he is now a god only conditionally… The public notion of this god now becomes merely a weapon in the hands
of clerical agitators, who interpret all happiness as a reward and all unhappiness as a punishment for obedience or
disobedience to him, for "sin": that most fraudulent of all imaginable interpretations, whereby a "moral order of the world"
is set up, and the fundamental concepts, "cause" and "effect," are stood on their heads. Once natural causation has
been swept out of the world by doctrines of reward and punishment some sort of un–natural causation becomes
necessary: and all other varieties of the denial of nature follow it. A god who demands—in place of a god who helps, who
gives counsel, who is at bottom merely a name for every happy inspiration of courage and self–reliance… Morality is no
longer a reflection of the conditions which make for the sound life and development of the people; it is no longer the
primary life–instinct; instead it has become abstract and in opposition to life—a fundamental perversion of the fancy, an
"evil eye" on all things. What is Jewish, what is Christian morality? Chance robbed of its innocence; unhappiness
polluted with the idea of "sin"; well–being represented as a danger, as a "temptation"; a physiological disorder produced
by the canker worm of conscience…
26.
The concept of god falsified; the concept of morality falsified;—but even here Jewish priest–craft did not stop. The whole
history of Israel ceased to be of any value: out with it!—These priests accomplished that miracle of falsification of which
a great part of the Bible is the documentary evidence; with a degree of contempt unparalleled, and in the face of all
tradition and all historical reality, they translated the past of their people into religious terms, which is to say, they
converted it into an idiotic mechanism of salvation, whereby all offences against Jahveh were punished and all devotion
to him was rewarded. We would regard this act of historical falsification as something far more shameful if familiarity with
the ecclesiastical interpretation of history for thousands of years had not blunted our inclinations for uprightness in
historicis. And the philosophers support the church: the lie about a "moral order of the world" runs through the whole of
philosophy, even the newest. What is the meaning of a "moral order of the world"? That there is a thing called the will of
God which, once and for all time, determines what man ought to do and what he ought not to do; that the worth of a
people, or of an individual thereof, is to be measured by the extent to which they or he obey this will of God; that the
destinies of a people or of an individual are controlled by this will of God, which rewards or punishes according to the
degree of obedience manifested.—In place of all that pitiable lie reality has this to say: the priest, a parasitical variety of
man who can exist only at the cost of every sound view of life, takes the name of God in vain: he calls that state of
human society in which he himself determines the value of all things "the kingdom of God"; he calls the means whereby
that state of affairs is attained "the will of God"; with cold–blooded cynicism he estimates all peoples, all ages and all
individuals by the extent of their subservience or opposition to the power of the priestly order. One observes him at work:
under the hand of the Jewish priesthood the great age of Israel became an age of decline; the Exile, with its long series
of misfortunes, was transformed into a punishment for that great age—during which priests had not yet come into
existence. Out of the powerful and wholly free heroes of Israel’s history they fashioned, according to their changing
needs, either wretched bigots and hypocrites or men entirely "godless." They reduced every great event to the idiotic
formula: "obedient or disobedient to God."—They went a step further: the "will of God" (in other words some means
necessary for preserving the power of the priests) had to be determined—and to this end they had to have a "revelation."
In plain English, a gigantic literary fraud had to be perpetrated, and "holy scriptures" had to be concocted—and so, with
the utmost hierarchical pomp, and days of penance and much lamentation over the long days of "sin" now ended, they
were duly published. The "will of God," it appears, had long stood like a rock; the trouble was that mankind had
neglected the "holy scriptures"… But the "will of God" had already been revealed to Moses… What happened? Simply
this: the priest had formulated, once and for all time and with the strictest meticulousness, what tithes were to be paid to
him, from the largest to the smallest (—not forgetting the most appetizing cuts of meat, for the priest is a great consumer
of beefsteaks); in brief, he let it be known just what he wanted, what "the will of God" was… From this time forward things
were so arranged that the priest became indispensable everywhere; at all the great natural events of life, at birth, at
marriage, in sickness, at death, not to say at the "sacrifice" (that is, at meal–times), the holy parasite put in his
appearance, and proceeded to denaturize it—in his own phrase, to "sanctify" it… For this should be noted: that every
natural habit, every natural institution (the state, the administration of justice, marriage, the care of the sick and of the
poor), everything demanded by the life–instinct, in short, everything that has any value in itself, is reduced to absolute
worthlessness and even made the reverse of valuable by the parasitism of priests (or, if you chose, by the "moral order
of the world"). The fact requires a sanction—a power to grant values becomes necessary, and the only way it can create
such values is by denying nature… The priest depreciates and desecrates nature: it is only at this price that he can exist
at all.—Disobedience to God, which actually means to the priest, to "the law," now gets the name of "sin"; the means
prescribed for "reconciliation with God" are, of course, precisely the means which bring one most effectively under the
thumb of the priest; he alone can "save"… Psychologically considered, "sins" are indispensable to every society
organized on an ecclesiastical basis; they are the only reliable weapons of power; the priest lives upon sins; it is
necessary to him that there be "sinning"… Prime axiom: "God forgiveth him that repenteth"—in plain English, him that
submitteth to the priest.
27.
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.—
28.
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…
29.
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"…
30.
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…
31.
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.—
32.
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