39.
—I shall go back a bit, and tell you the authentic history
of Christianity.—The very word “Christianity” is a
misunderstanding—at bottom there was only one Christian, and he died
on the cross. The “Gospels” died on the cross. What,
from that moment onward, was called the “Gospels” was the very
reverse of what he had lived: “bad tidings,” a
Dysangelium.[1] It is an error amounting to
nonsensicality to see in “faith,” and particularly in faith in
salvation through Christ, the distinguishing mark of the Christian: only the
Christian way of life, the life lived by him who died on the
cross, is Christian. . . To this day such a life is still possible,
and for certain men even necessary: genuine, primitive Christianity
will remain possible in all ages. . . . Not faith, but acts; above
all, an avoidance of acts, a different state of being. . . .
States of consciousness, faith of a sort, the acceptance, for example, of
anything as true—as every psychologist knows, the value of these things
is perfectly indifferent and fifth-rate compared to that of the instincts:
strictly speaking, the whole concept of intellectual causality is false. To
reduce being a Christian, the state of Christianity, to an acceptance of truth,
to a mere phenomenon of consciousness, is to formulate the negation of Christianity.
In fact, there are no Christians. The ”Christian”mdash;he who
for two thousand years has passed as a Christian—is simply a psychological
self-delusion. Closely examined, it appears that, despite all his
“faith,” he has been ruled only by his instincts—and
what instincts!— In all ages—for example, in the case of
Luther—”.aith” has been no more than a cloak, a pretense, a
curtain behind which the instincts have played their game—a shrewd
blindness to the domination of certain of the instincts . . .
I have already called “faith” the specially Christian form of
shrewdness—people always talk of their
“faith” and act according to their instincts. . . In the
world of ideas of the Christian there is nothing that so much as touches reality:
on the contrary, one recognizes an instinctive hatred of reality as the
motive power, the only motive power at the bottom of Christianity. What follows
therefrom? That even here, in psychologicis,
there is a radical error, which is to say one conditioning fundamentals, which is
to say, one in substance. Take away one idea and put a genuine reality in
its place—and the whole of Christianity crumbles to nothingness!—Viewed
calmly, this strangest of all phenomena, a religion not only depending on errors,
but inventive and ingenious only in devising injurious errors, poisonous
to life and to the heart—this remains a spectacle for the gods—for
those gods who are also philosophers, and whom I have encountered, for example, in
the celebrated dialogues at Naxos. At the moment when their disgust leaves
them (—and us!) they will be thankful for the spectacle afforded by the
Christians: perhaps because of this curious exhibition alone the wretched
little planet called the earth deserves a glance from omnipotence, a show of divine
interest. . . . Therefore, let us not underestimate the Christians: the Christian,
false to the point of innocence, is far above the ape—in its
application to the Christians a well-known theory of descent becomes a mere piece
of politeness. . . .
Footnotes
[1]
. So in the text. One of Nietzsche's numerous
coinages, obviously suggested by Evangelium, the German for gospel.