The Portable Nietzsche (72 page)

 

34

If I understand anything about this great symbolist, it is that he accepted only
inner
realities as realities, as “truths”—that he understood the rest, everything natural, temporal, spatial, historical, only as signs, as occasions for parables. The concept of “the son of man” is not a concrete person who belongs in history, something individual and unique, but an “eternal” factuality, a psychological symbol redeemed from the concept of time. The same applies once again, and in the highest sense, to the
God
of this typical symbolist, to the “kingdom of God,” to the “kingdom of heaven,” to the “filiation of God.” Nothing is more unchristian than the
ecclesiastical crudities
of a god as person, of a “kingdom of God” which is to come, of a “kingdom of heaven” beyond, of a “son of God” as the second person in the Trinity. All this is—forgive the expression—like a fist in the eye—oh, in what an eye!—of the evangel—a
world-historical cynicism
in the derision of symbols. But what the signs “father” and “son” refer to is obvious—not to everyone, I admit: the word “son” expresses the
entry
into the over-all feeling of the transfiguration of all things (blessedness); the word “father” expresses
this feeling itself
, the feeling of eternity, the feeling of perfection. I am ashamed to recall what the church has made of this symbolism: Has it not placed an Amphitryon story at the threshold of the Christian “faith”? And a dogma of “immaculate conception” on top of that?
But with that it has maculated conception.

The “kingdom of heaven” is a state of the heart—not something that is to come “above the earth” or “after death.” The whole concept of natural death is lacking in the evangel: death is no bridge, no transition; it is lacking because it belongs to a wholly different, merely apparent world, useful only insofar as it furnishes signs. The “hour of death” is
no
Christian concept—an “hour,” time, physical life and its crises do not even exist for the teacher of the “glad tidings.” The “kingdom of God” is nothing that one expects; it has no yesterday and no day after tomorrow, it will not come in “a thousand years”—it is an experience of the heart; it is everywhere, it is nowhere.

 

35

This “bringer of glad tidings” died as he had lived, as he had taught—
not
to “redeem men” but to show how one must live. This practice is his legacy to mankind: his behavior before the judges, before the catchpoles, before the accusers and all kinds of slander and scorn—his behavior on the
cross.
He does not resist, he does not defend his right, he takes no step which might ward off the worst; on the contrary, he
provokes
it. And he begs, he suffers, he loves
with
those,
in
those, who do him evil.
Not
to resist,
not
to be angry,
not
to hold responsible—but to resist not even the evil one—to
love
him.

 

36

Only we, we spirits who have
become free
, have the presuppositions for understanding something that nineteen centuries have misunderstood: that integrity which, having become instinct and passion, wages war against the “holy lie” even more than against any other lie. Previous readers were immeasurably far removed from our loving and cautious neutrality, from that discipline of the spirit which alone makes possible the unriddling of such foreign, such tender things: with impudent selfishness they always wanted only their own advantage; out of the opposite of the evangel the church was constructed.

If one were to look for signs that an ironical divinity has its fingers in the great play of the world, one would find no small support in the
tremendous question mark
called Christianity. Mankind lies on its knees before the opposite of that which was the origin, the meaning, the
right
of the evangel; in the concept of “church” it has pronounced holy precisely what the “bringer of the glad tidings” felt to be
beneath
and
behind
himself—one would look in vain for a greater example of
world-historical irony.

 

37

Our age is proud of its historical sense: How could it ever make itself believe the nonsense that at the beginning of Christianity there stands the
crude fable of the miracle worker and Redeemer—
and that everything spiritual and symbolical represents only a later development? On the contrary: the history of Christianity, beginning with the death on the cross, is the history of the misunderstanding, growing cruder with every step, of an
original
symbolism. With every diffusion of Christianity to still broader, still cruder masses of people, more and more lacking in the presuppositions to which it owed its birth, it became more necessary to
vulgarize,
to
barbarize
Christianity: it has swallowed doctrines and rites of all the
subterranean
cults of the
imperium Romanum
as well as the nonsense of all kinds of diseased reason. The destiny of Christianity lies in the necessity that its faith had to become as diseased, as base and vulgar, as the needs it was meant to satisfy were diseased, base, and vulgar. In the church, finally,
diseased barbarism
itself gains power—the church, this embodiment of mortal hostility against all integrity, against all
elevation
of the soul, against all discipline of the spirit, against all frank and gracious humanity.
Christian
values—
noble
values: only we, we spirits who have
become free,
have restored this contrast of values, the greatest that there is!

 

38

At this point I do not suppress a sigh. There are days when I am afflicted with a feeling blacker than the blackest melancholy—
contempt of man
. And to leave no doubt concerning what I despise, whom I despise: it is the man of today, the man with whom I am fatefully contemporaneous. The man of today—I suffocate from his unclean breath. My attitude to the past, like that of all lovers of knowledge, is one of great tolerance, that is,
magnanimous
self-mastery: with gloomy caution I go through the madhouse world of whole millennia, whether it be called “Christianity,” “Christian faith,” or “Christian church”—I am careful not to hold mankind responsible for its mental disorders. But my feeling changes, breaks out, as soon as I enter modern times, our time. Our time
knows better.

What was formerly just sick is today indecent—it is indecent to be a Christian today.
And here
begins my nausea.
I look around: not one word has remained of what was formerly called “truth”; we can no longer stand it if a priest as much as uses the word “truth.” If we have even the smallest claim to integrity, we must know today that a theologian, a priest, a pope, not merely is wrong in every sentence he speaks, but
lies—
that he is no longer at liberty to lie from “innocence” or “ignorance.” The priest too knows as well as anybody else that there is no longer any “God,” any “sinner,” any “Redeemer”—that “free will” and “moral world order” are
lies:
seriousness, the profound self-overcoming of the spirit, no longer permits anybody
not
to know about this.

All the concepts of the church have been recognized for what they are, the most malignant counterfeits that exist, the aim of which is to devalue nature and natural values; the priest himself has been recognized for what he is, the most dangerous kind of parasite, the real poison-spider of life. We know, today our
conscience
knows, what these uncanny inventions of the priests and the church are really worth,
what ends they served
in reducing mankind to such a state of self-violation that its sight can arouse nausea: the concepts “beyond,” “Last Judgment,” “immortality of the soul,” and “soul” itself are instruments of torture, systems of cruelties by virtue of which the priest became master, remained master.

Everybody knows this,
and yet everything continues as before
. Where has the last feeling of decency and self-respect gone when even our statesmen, an otherwise quite unembarrassed type of man, anti-Christians through and through in their deeds, still call themselves Christians today and attend communion? A young prince at the head of his regiments, magnificent as an expression of the selfishness and conceit of his people—but,
without
any shame, confessing himself a Christian!
Whom
then does Christianity negate?
What
does it call “world”? That one is a soldier, that one is a judge, that one is a patriot; that one resists; that one sees to one's honor; that one seeks one's advantage; that one is proud. Every practice of every moment, every instinct, every valuation that is translated into
action
is today anti-Christian: what a
miscarriage of falseness
must modern man be, that he is
not ashamed
to be called a Christian in spite of all this!

 

39

I go back, I tell the
genuine
history of Christianity. The very word “Christianity” is a misunderstanding: in truth, there was only
one
Christian, and he died on the cross. The “evangel”
died
on the cross. What has been called “evangel” from that moment was actually the opposite of that which
he
had lived: “
ill
tidings,” a
dysangel.
It is false to the point of nonsense to find the mark of the Christian in a “faith,” for instance, in the faith in redemption through Christ: only Christian
practice
, a life such as he
lived
who died on the cross, is Christian.

Such a life is still possible today, for certain people even necessary: genuine, original Christianity will be possible at all times.

Not a faith, but a doing; above all, a
not
doing of many things, another state of
being
. States of consciousness, any faith, considering something true, for example —every psychologist knows this—are fifth-rank matters of complete indifference compared to the value of the instincts: speaking more strictly, the whole concept of spiritual causality is false. To reduce being a Christian, Christianism, to a matter of considering something true, to a mere phenomenon of consciousness, is to negate Christianism.
In fact, there have been no Christians at all
. The “Christian,” that which for the last two thousand years has been called a Christian, is merely a psychological self-misunderstanding. If one looks more closely, it was, in spite of all “faith,” only the instincts that ruled in him—and
what instincts!

“Faith” was at all times, for example, in Luther, only a cloak, a pretext, a
screen
behind which the instincts played their game—a shrewd
blindness
about the dominance of
certain
instincts. “Faith”—I have already called it the characteristic Christian
shrewdness—
one
always spoke
of faith, but one always
acted
from instinct alone.

In the Christian world of ideas there is nothing that has the least contact with reality—and it is in the instinctive hatred of reality that we have recognized the only motivating force at the root of Christianity. What follows from this? That
in psychologicis
too, the error here is radical, that it is that which determines the very essence, that it is the
substance
. One concept less, one single reality in its place—and the whole of Christianity hurtles down into nothing.

Viewed from high above, this strangest of all facts— a religion which is not only dependent on errors but which has its inventiveness and even its genius
only
in harmful errors,
only
in errors which poison life and the heart—is really a
spectacle for gods
, for those gods who are at the same time philosophers and whom I have encountered, for example, at those famous dialogues on Naxos. The moment
nausea
leaves them (
and
us!), they become grateful for the spectacle of the Christian: perhaps the miserable little star that is called earth deserves a divine glance, a divine sympathy, just because of
this
curious case. For let us not underestimate the Christian: the Christian, false
to the point of innocence,
is far above the ape—regarding Christians, a well-known theory of descent becomes a mere compliment.

 

40

The catastrophe of the evangel was decided with the death—it was attached to the “cross.” Only the death, this unexpected, disgraceful death, only the cross which was generally reserved for the rabble—only this horrible paradox confronted the disciples with the real riddle:
“Who was this? What was this?”
Their profoundly upset and insulted feelings, and their suspicion that such a death might represent the
refutation
of their cause, the terrible question mark, “Why in this manner?”—this state is only too easy to understand. Here everything
had
to be necessary, had to have meaning, reason, the highest reason; a disciple's love knows no accident. Only now the cleft opened up:
“Who
killed him?
Who
was his natural enemy?” This question leaped forth like lightning. Answer:
ruling
Jewry, its highest class. From this moment one felt oneself in rebellion against the existing order, and in retrospect one understood Jesus to have been
in rebellion against the existing order.
Until then this warlike, this No-saying, No-doing trait had been
lacking
in his image; even more, he had been its opposite.

Evidently the small community did
not
understand the main point, the exemplary character of this kind of death, the freedom, the superiority over any feeling of
ressentiment:
a token of how little they understood him altogether! After all, Jesus could not intend anything with his death except to give publicly the strongest exhibition, the
proof
of his doctrine. But his disciples were far from
forgiving
this death—which would have been evangelic in the highest sense—or even from offering themselves for a like death in gentle and lovely repose of the heart. Precisely the most unevangelical feeling,
revenge
, came to the fore again. The matter could not possibly be finished with this death: “retribution” was needed, “judgment” (and yet, what could possibly be more unevangelical than “retribution,” “punishment,” “sitting in judgment”!). Once more the popular expectation of a Messiah came to the foreground; a historic moment was envisaged: the “kingdom of God” comes as a judgment over his enemies.