Chapter IV: Book I (3)

THE THEOLOGICAL ATTACK.—“You must arrange that with yourself; for your life is at stake!”—Luther it is who suddenly springs upon us with these words and imagines that we feel the knife at our throats. But we throw him off with the words of one higher and more considerate than he: “We need form no opinion in regard to this or that matter, and thus save our souls from trouble. For, by their very nature, the things themselves cannot compel us to express an opinion.”

83.

POOR HUMANITY!—A single drop of blood too much or too little in the brain may render our life unspeakably miserable and difficult, and we may suffer more from this single drop of blood than Prometheus from his vulture. But the worst is when we do not know that this drop is causing our sufferings—and we think it is “the devil!” Or “sin!”

84.

THE PHILOLOGY OF CHRISTIANITY.—How little Christianity cultivates the sense of honesty can be inferred from the character of the writings of its learned men. They set out their conjectures as audaciously as if they were dogmas, and are but seldom at a disadvantage in regard to the interpretation of Scripture. Their continual cry is: “I am right, for it is written”—and then follows an explanation so shameless and capricious that a philologist, when he hears it, must stand stock-still between anger and laughter, asking himself again and again: Is it possible? Is it honest? Is it even decent?

It is only those who never—or always—attend church that underestimate the dishonesty with which this subject is still dealt in Protestant pulpits; in what a clumsy fashion the preacher takes advantage of his security from interruption; how the Bible is pinched and squeezed; and how the people are made acquainted with every form of _the art of false reading_.

When all is said and done, however, what can be expected from the effects of a religion which, during the centuries when it was being firmly established, enacted that huge philological farce concerning the Old Testament? I refer to that attempt to tear the Old Testament from the hands of the Jews under the pretext that it contained only Christian doctrines and _belonged_ to the Christians as the true people of Israel, while the Jews had merely arrogated it to themselves without authority. This was followed by a mania of would-be interpretation and falsification, which could not under any circumstances have been allied with a good conscience. However strongly Jewish savants protested, it was everywhere sedulously asserted that the Old Testament alluded everywhere to Christ, and nothing but Christ, more especially His Cross, and thus, wherever reference was made to wood, a rod, a ladder, a twig, a tree, a willow, or a staff, such a reference could not but be a prophecy relating to the wood of the Cross: even the setting-up of the Unicorn and the Brazen Serpent, even Moses stretching forth his hands in prayer—yea, the very spits on which the Easter lambs were roasted: all these were allusions to the Cross, and, as it were, preludes to it! Did any one who kept on asserting these things ever _believe_ in them? Let it not be forgotten that the Church did not shrink from putting interpolations in the text of the Septuagint (_e.g._ Ps. xcvi. 10), in order that she might later on make use of these interpolated passages as Christian prophecies. They were engaged in a struggle, and thought of their foes rather than of honesty.

85.

SUBTLETY IN PENURY.—Take care not to laugh at the mythology of the Greeks merely because it so little resembles your own profound metaphysics! You should admire a people who checked their quick intellect at this point, and for a long time afterwards had tact enough to avoid the danger of scholasticism and hair-splitting superstition.

86.

THE CHRISTIAN INTERPRETERS OF THE BODY.—Whatever originates in the stomach, the intestines, the beating of the heart, the nerves, the bile, the seed—all those indispositions, debilities, irritations, and the whole contingency of that machine about which we know so little—a Christian like Pascal considers it all as a moral and religious phenomenon, asking himself whether God or the devil, good or evil, salvation or damnation, is the cause. Alas for the unfortunate interpreter! How he must distort and worry his system! How he must distort and worry himself in order to gain his point!

87.

THE MORAL MIRACLE.—In the domain of morality, Christianity knows of nothing but the miracle; the sudden change in all valuations, the sudden renouncement of all habits, the sudden and irresistible predilection for new things and persons. Christianity looks upon this phenomenon as the work of God, and calls it the act of regeneration, thus giving it a unique and incomparable value. Everything else which is called morality, and which bears no relation to this miracle, becomes in consequence a matter of indifference to the Christian, and indeed, so far as it is a feeling of well-being and pride, an object of fear. The canon of virtue, of the fulfilled law, is established in the New Testament, but in such a way as to be the canon of _impossible virtue_: men who still aspire to moral perfections must come to understand, in the face of this canon, that they are further and further _removed_ from their aim; they must _despair_ of virtue, and end by throwing themselves at the feet of the Merciful One.

It is only in reaching a conclusion like this that moral efforts on the part of the Christian can still be regarded as possessing any value: the condition that these efforts shall always remain sterile, painful, and melancholy is therefore indispensable; and it is in this way that those efforts could still avail to bring about that moment of ecstasy when man experiences the “overflow of grace” and the moral miracle. This struggle for morality is, however, not _necessary_; for it is by no means uncommon for this miracle to happen to the sinner at the very moment when he is, so to speak, wallowing in the mire of sin: yea, the leap from the deepest and most abandoned sinfulness into its contrary seems easier, and, as a clear proof of the miracle, even more desirable.

What, for the rest, may be the signification of such a sudden, unreasonable, and irresistible revolution, such a change from the depths of misery into the heights of happiness? (might it be a disguised epilepsy?) This should at all events be considered by alienists, who have frequent opportunities of observing similar “miracles”—for example, the mania of murder or suicide. The relatively “more pleasant consequences” in the case of the Christian make no important difference.

88.

LUTHER, THE GREAT BENEFACTOR.—Luther’s most important result is the suspicion which he awakened against the saints and the entire Christian _vita contemplativa_; only since his day has an un-Christian _vita contemplativa_ again become possible in Europe, only since then has contempt for laymen and worldly activity ceased. Luther continued to be an honest miner’s son even after he had been shut up in a monastery, and there, for lack of other depths and “borings,” he descended into himself, and bored terrifying and dark passages through his own depths—finally coming to recognise that an introspective and saintly life was impossible to him, and that his innate “activity” in body and soul would end by being his ruin. For a long time, too long, indeed, he endeavoured to find the way to holiness through castigations; but at length he made up his mind, and said to himself: “There is no real _vita contemplativa_! We have been deceived. The saints were no better than the rest of us.” This was truly a rustic way of gaining one’s case; but for the Germans of that period it was the only proper way. How edified they felt when they could read in their Lutheran catechism: “Apart from the Ten Commandments there is no work which could find favour in the eyes of God—these much-boasted spiritual works of the saints are purely imaginary!”

89.

DOUBT AS SIN.—Christianity has done all it possibly could to draw a circle round itself, and has even gone so far as to declare doubt itself to be a sin. We are to be precipitated into faith by a miracle, without the help of reason, after which we are to float in it as the clearest and least equivocal of elements—a mere glance at some solid ground, the thought that we exist for some purpose other than floating, the least movement of our amphibious nature: all this is a sin! Let it be noted that, following this decision, the proofs and demonstration of the faith, and all meditations upon its origin, are prohibited as sinful. Christianity wants blindness and frenzy and an eternal swan-song above the waves under which reason has been drowned!

90.

EGOISM _VERSUS_ EGOISM.—How many are there who still come to the conclusion: “Life would be intolerable were there no God!” Or, as is said in idealistic circles: “Life would be intolerable if its ethical signification were lacking.” Hence there must be a God—or an ethical signification of existence! In reality the case stands thus: He who is accustomed to conceptions of this sort does not desire a life without them, hence these conceptions are necessary for him and his preservation—but what a presumption it is to assert that everything necessary for my preservation must exist _in reality_! As if my preservation were really necessary! What if others held the contrary opinion? if they did not care to live under the conditions of these two articles of faith, and did not regard life as worth living if they were realised!—And that is the present position of affairs.

91.

THE HONESTY OF GOD.—An omniscient and omnipotent God who does not even take care that His intentions shall be understood by His creatures—could He be a God of goodness? A God, who, for thousands of years, has permitted innumerable doubts and scruples to continue unchecked as if they were of no importance in the salvation of mankind, and who, nevertheless, announces the most dreadful consequences for any one who mistakes his truth? Would he not be a cruel god if, being himself in possession of the truth, he could calmly contemplate mankind, in a state of miserable torment, worrying its mind as to what was truth?

Perhaps, however, he really is a God of goodness, and was unable to express Himself more clearly? Perhaps he lacked intelligence enough for this? Or eloquence? All the worse! For in such a case he may have been deceived himself in regard to what he calls his “truth,” and may not be far from being another “poor, deceived devil!” Must he not therefore experience all the torments of hell at seeing His creatures suffering so much here below—and even more, suffering through all eternity—when he himself can neither advise nor help them, except as a deaf and dumb person, who makes all kinds of equivocal signs when his child or his dog is threatened with the most fearful danger? A distressed believer who argues thus might be pardoned if his pity for the suffering God were greater than his pity for his “neighbours”; for they are his neighbours no longer if that most solitary and primeval being is also the greatest sufferer and stands most in need of consolation.

Every religion shows some traits of the fact that it owes its origin to a state of human intellectuality which was as yet too young and immature: they all make light of the necessity for speaking the truth: as yet they know nothing of the _duty of God_, the duty of being clear and truthful in His communications with men. No one was more eloquent than Pascal in speaking of the “hidden God” and the reasons why He had to keep Himself hidden, all of which indicates clearly enough that Pascal himself could never make his mind easy on this point: but he speaks with such confidence that one is led to imagine that he must have been let into the secret at some time or other. He seemed to have some idea that the _deus absconditus_ bore a few slight traces of immorality; and he felt too much ashamed and afraid of acknowledging this to himself: consequently, like a man who is afraid, he spoke as loudly as he could.

92.

AT THE DEATH-BED OF CHRISTIANITY.—All truly active men now do without inward Christianity, and the most moderate and thoughtful men of the intellectual middle classes possess only a kind of modified Christianity; that is, a peculiarly simplified Christianity. A God who, in his love, ordains everything so that it may be best for us, a God who gives us our virtue and our happiness and then takes them away from us, so that everything at length goes on smoothly and there is no reason left why we should take life ill or grumble about it: in short, resignation and modesty raised to the rank of divinities—that is the best and most lifelike remnant of Christianity now left to us. It must be remembered, however, that in this way Christianity has developed into a soft _moralism_: instead of “God, freedom, and immortality,” we have now a kind of benevolence and honest sentiments, and the belief that, in the entire universe, benevolence and honest sentiments will finally prevail: this is the euthanasia of Christianity.

93.

WHAT IS TRUTH?—Who will not be pleased with the conclusions which the faithful take such delight in coming to?—“Science cannot be true; for it denies God. Hence it does not come from God; and consequently it cannot be true—for God is truth.” It is not the deduction but the premise which is fallacious. What if God were not exactly truth, and if this were proved? And if he were instead the vanity, the desire for power, the ambitions, the fear, and the enraptured and terrified folly of mankind?

94.

REMEDY FOR THE DISPLEASED.—Even Paul already believed that some sacrifice was necessary to take away the deep displeasure which God experienced concerning sin: and ever since then Christians have never ceased to vent the ill-humour which they felt with themselves upon some victim or another—whether it was “the world,” or “history,” or “reason,” or joy, or the tranquillity of other men—something good, no matter what, had to die for _their_ sins (even if only _in effigie_)!

95.

THE HISTORICAL REFUTATION AS THE DECISIVE ONE.—Formerly it was sought to prove that there was no God—now it is shown how the belief that a God existed could have _originated_, and by what means this belief gained authority and importance: in this way the counterproof that there is no God becomes unnecessary and superfluous.—In former times, when the “evidences of the existence of God” which had been brought forward were refuted, a doubt still remained, viz. whether better proofs could not be found than those which had just been refuted: at that time the atheists did not understand the art of making a _tabula rasa_.

96.

“IN HOC SIGNO VINCES.”—To whatever degree of progress Europe may have attained in other respects, where religious affairs are concerned it has not yet reached the liberal naïveté of the ancient Brahmins, which proves that, in India, four thousand years ago, people meditated more profoundly and transmitted to their descendants more pleasure in meditating than is the case in our own days. For those Brahmins believed in the first place that the priests were more powerful than the gods, and in the second place that it was observances which constituted the power of the priests: as a result of which their poets were never tired of glorifying those observances (prayers, ceremonies, sacrifices, chants, improvised melodies) as the real dispensers of all benefits. Although a certain amount of superstition and poetry was mingled with all this, the principles were _true_! A step further, and the gods were cast aside—which Europe likewise will have to do before very long! One more step further, and priests and intermediaries could also be dispensed with—and then Buddha, the teacher of the religion of self-redemption, appeared. How far Europe is still removed from this degree of culture! When at length all the customs and observances, upon which rests the power of gods, priests, and saviours, shall have been destroyed, when as a consequence morality, in the old sense, will be dead, then there will come ... yea, what will come then? But let us refrain from speculating; let us rather make certain that Europe will retrieve that which, in India, amidst this people of thinkers, was carried out thousands of years ago as a commandment of thought!

Scattered among the different nations of Europe there are now from ten to twenty millions of men who no longer “believe in God”—is it too much to ask that they should give each other some indication or password? As soon as they recognise each other in this way, they will also make themselves known to each other; and they will immediately become a power in Europe, and, happily, a power _among_ the nations! among the classes! between rich and poor! between those who command, and those who obey! between the most restless and the most tranquil, tranquillising people!