56.
—In the last analysis it comes to this: what is the end of
lying? The fact that, in Christianity, “holy” ends are not
visible is my objection to the means it employs. Only bad ends
appear: the poisoning, the calumniation, the denial of life, the despising
of the body, the degradation and self-contamination of man by the concept
of sin—therefore, its means are also bad.—I have a contrary
feeling when I read the Code of Manu, an incomparably more intellectual
and superior work, which it would be a sin against the intelligence
to so much as name in the same breath with the Bible. It is
easy to see why: there is a genuine philosophy behind it, in it, not merely
an evil-smelling mess of Jewish rabbinism and superstition,—it
gives even the most fastidious psychologist something to sink his teeth
into. And, not to forget what is most important, it differs
fundamentally from every kind of Bible: by means of it the nobles,
the philosophers and the warriors keep the whip-hand over the majority; it
is full of noble valuations, it shows a feeling of perfection, an acceptance
of life, and triumphant feeling toward self and life—the sun
shines upon the whole book.—All the things on which Christianity vents
its fathomless vulgarity—for example, procreation, women and
marriage—are here handled earnestly, with reverence and with love and
confidence. How can any one really put into the hands of children and ladies
a book which contains such vile things as this: “to avoid fornication,
let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband;
. . . it is better to marry than to burn”.[1]
And is it possible to be a Christian so long as the origin of man
is Christianized, which is to say, befouled, by the doctrine of
the immaculata conceptio? . . . I know
of no book in which so many delicate and kindly things are said of women as
in the Code of Manu; these old grey-beards and saints have a way of being
gallant to women that it would be impossible, perhaps, to surpass.
“The mouth of a woman,” it says in one place, “the breasts
of a maiden, the prayer of a child and the smoke of sacrifice are always
pure.” In another place: “there is nothing purer than the light
of the sun, the shadow cast by a cow, air, water, fire and the breath of a
maiden.” Finally, in still another place—perhaps this is also a
holy lie—: “all the orifices of the body above the navel are pure,
and all below are impure. Only in the maiden is the whole body pure.”
Footnotes
[1]
. I Corinthians vii, 2, 9.