He knew that it was only by a way of life that one could feel one’s self “divine”, “blessed”, “evangelical”, a “child of God”. Not by “repentance”, not by “prayer and forgiveness” is the way to God: only the Gospel way leads to God—it is itself “God”!
History of Christianity
Opposite development
Nietzsche sees a world–historical irony in the way that the Christian Church developed in antithetical opposition to the Evangel and the Gospel of early Christianity.
A sickly barbarism finally lifts itself to power as the church—the church, that incarnation of deadly hostility to all honesty, to all loftiness of soul, to all discipline of the spirit, to all spontaneous and kindly humanity.—Christian values—noble values.
Paul and the promise of eternal life
The apostles claimed that Jesus’ death was a sacrifice of an innocent man for the sins of the guilty. But “Jesus him self had done away with the very concept of “guilt”, he denied that there was any gulf fixed between God and man; he lived this unity between God and man, and that was precisely his ‘glad tidings'”
To claim that there is life after death, the apostles ignored Jesus’ example of blessed living. Paul emphasizes the concept of immortality in First Corinthians 15:17, as Nietzsche explains:
St. Paul…gave a logical quality to that conception, that indecent conception, in this way: “If Christ did not rise from the dead, then all our faith is in vain!”—And at once there sprang from the Gospels the most contemptible of all unfulfillable promises, the shameless doctrine of personal immortality…. Paul even preached it as a reward….
Paul used the promise of life after death as a way to seize tyrannical power over the masses of lower-class people. This changed Christianity from a peace movement that achieves actual happiness into a religion whose final judgment offers possible resurrection and eternal life. Paul falsified the history of Christianity, the history of Israel, and the history of mankind by making them all seem to be a preparation for the crucifixion. “The vast lie of personal immortality destroys all reason, all natural instinct—henceforth, everything in the instincts that is beneficial, that fosters life and that safeguards the future is a cause of suspicion”.
Nietzsche claims that Paul’s pretense of holiness and his use of priestly concepts were typically Jewish. Christianity separated itself from Judaism as though it was the chosen religion, “just as if the Christian were the meaning, the salt, the standard and even the last judgment of all the rest”.
The Holy Lie and belief
Main article: Holy Lie
Lying, or not wanting to see as one sees, is a trait of those who are devoted to a party or faction. Lying is used by all priests, be they pagan, Jewish, or Christian:
The right to lie and the shrewd dodge of “revelation” belong to the general priestly type…. The “law”, the “will of God”, the “holy book”, and “inspiration”—all these things are merely words for the conditions under which the priest comes to power and with which he maintains his power…
Condemnation
Nietzsche concludes his work with the insistence that Christianity “turned every value into worthlessness, and every truth into a lie, and every integrity into baseness of soul…. It lives by distress; it creates distress to make itself immortal”.
“To breed out of humanitas a self-contradiction, an art of self-pollution, a will to lie at any price, an aversion and contempt for all good and honest instincts”, in Nietzsche’s view, is the spirit of Christianity. Nietzsche believes the “‘humanitarianism’ of Christianity” to be a conspiracy “against health, beauty, well-being, intellect, kindness of soul—against life itself”.
Nietzsche suggests that time be calculated from “today”, the date of this book, whereby “Year One” would begin on 30 September 1888—”The transvaluation of all values!”
Thoughts on Jesus
In his earlier works, Nietzsche did not distinguish the teachings of Jesus from historic Christianity. However, in late 1887 and early 1888, he analyzed Tolstoy’s essay What I Believe. Nietzsche’s view of Jesus in The Antichrist follows Tolstoy in separating Jesus from the Church and emphasizing the concept of “non-resistance”, but uses it as a basis for his own development of the “psychology of the Savior”.
Nietzsche does not demur of Jesus, conceding that he was the only one true Christian. He presents a Christ whose own inner life consisted of “wit, the blessedness of peace, of gentleness, the inability to be an enemy”.
Nietzsche heavily criticizes the organized institution of Christianity and its class of priests. Christ’s evangelism consisted of the good news that the “kingdom of God” is within you: “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”, whereby sin is abolished and away from “all keeping of distances” between man and God.
“What the ‘glad tidings’ tell us is simply that there are no more contradictions; the kingdom of heaven belongs to children”.
Publication
Title
The German title, Der Antichrist, is ambiguous and open to two interpretations: the Antichrist, or the Anti-Christian. However, its use within the work generally admits only an “Anti-Christian” meaning. H. L. Mencken’s 1918 translation and R. J. Hollingdale’s 1968 translation both title their editions as “The Anti-Christ”; and Walter Kaufmann uses “The Antichrist”, while no major translation uses “The Anti-Christian”. Kaufmann considers The Antichrist the more appropriate way to render the German: “a translation of the title as ‘The Antichristian’ […] overlooks that Nietzsche plainly means to be as provocative as possible”.
Sanity
This book was written shortly before Nietzsche’s infamous nervous breakdown in 1889. However, as one scholar notes, “the Antichrist is unrelievedly vituperative, and would indeed sound insane were it not informed in its polemic by a structure of analysis and a theory of morality and religion worked out elsewhere”.
Suppressed passages
“The word idiot”
Section 29 originally contains three words that were suppressed by Nietzsche’s sister in 1895: “das Wort Idiot” or, “the word idiot”. H. L. Mencken’s English translation does not contain these words. However, in 1931, the words were reinstated by Josef Hofmiller. Likewise, English translations by Walter Kaufmann and R.J. Hollingdale also contain them. According to Kaufmann, Nietzsche was referring to Dostoevsky’s book The Idiot and its naïve protagonist. The passage reads:
Unser ganzer Begriff, unser Cultur-Begriff “Geist” hat in der Welt, in der Jesus lebt, gar keinen Sinn. Mit der Strenge des Physiologen gesprochen, wäre hier ein ganz andres Wort eher noch am Platz: das Wort Idiot
Our whole concept, our cultural concept “spirit” had no meaning whatever in the world Jesus lived in. To speak with the precision of the physiologist a quite different word would rather be in place here: the word idiot
KSA 6, pp. 200 translated by R. J. Hollingdale, 1968
Christ’s words to the thief on the cross
In § 35, Nietzsche wanted to convey the idea that, to Christ, Heaven is a subjective state of mind. To accomplish this goal, Nietzsche parodied a passage from the New Testament, which the Nietzsche Archive, headed by Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, decided to suppress so that there would be no doubt as to the strict correctness of Nietzsche’s use of the Bible.
According to Nietzsche, one of the thieves, who was also being crucified, said, “This was truly a divine man, a child of God!” Nietzsche had Christ reply, “If you feel this, you are in Paradise, you are a child of God”. In the Bible, only Luke related a dialogue between Christ and the thief in which the thief said, “This man has done nothing wrong” to which, Christ replies, “Today I tell you, you will be with me in Paradise”. Nietzsche had the thief speaking the words that the centurion later spoke in Luke 23:47, Matthew 27:54, and Mark 15:39. In these passages, Christ was called the ‘Son of God’ by the soldier. The Nietzsche Archives’ suppression was lifted in later editions and now appears exactly as Nietzsche wrote.
The full passage reads:
Die Worte zum Schächer am Kreuz enthalten das ganze Evangelium. ‘Das ist wahrlich ein göttlicher Mensch gewesen, ein “Kind Gottes” sagt der Schächer. “Wenn du dies fühlst – antwortet der Erlöser — so bist du im Paradiese, so bist auch du ein Kind Gottes…
His words to the thief on the cross contain the whole Evangel. “That was verily a divine man, a child of God!” — says the thief. “If thou feelst this” — answers the redeemer — thou art in Paradise, thou art a child of God.
KSA 6, pp. 207–08 translated by R. J. Hollingdale, 1968
A young prince
In § 38, there is a reference to a young prince who professes to be a Christian but acts in a very worldly manner. The passage about this was suppressed to avoid comparison to Wilhelm II. According to Mazzino Montinari, this passage was never printed in any edition prepared by the Nietzsche Archive. However, it did appear in the pocketbook edition of 1906.
The full passage reads:
Ein junger Fürst, an der Spitze seiner Regimenter, prachtvoll als Ausdruck der Selbstsucht und Selbstüberhebung seines Volks, — aber, ohne jede Scham, sich als Christen bekennend!
A young prince at the head of his regiments, splendid as the expression of his people’s egoism and presumption – but without any shame professing himself a Christian!
KSA 6, pp. 211 translated by R. J. Hollingdale, 1968
Anno Domini
Nietzsche, in § 62, criticizes the reckoning of
