Nietzsche may attack Christianity
as much as he likes but there is still a certain cultural and spiritual affinity
between them, which I have already pointed out, for instance, in the
appreciation of childlike souls. Here is an excerpt from Nietzsche’s Ecce
Homo: Why I am so clever, Section 10, which gives an additional
proof to my observation:
“All the
problems of politics, social organization, and of education have been falsified
through and through, because one mistook the most harmful men for great men;
because one learned to despise the little things, which means the basic
concerns of life itself. When I now compare myself with the men who have, so
far, been honored as the first, the difference is palpable. I do
not even count these so called “first” men among men in general: for me they
are the refuse of humanity, monsters of sickness and vengeful instincts; they
are inhuman, disastrous, at bottom incurable, and revenge themselves on life.”
I suspect that Nietzsche’s
allusion to these words of Jesus, “but many that are
first shall be last; and the last shall be first” (Matthew 19:30),
is as intentional as the structure of his Zarathustra is made to
resemble the Euangelion. Indeed, his whole attitude to Christianity can
be all summed up in these awesomely profound, stunningly beautiful, and
enormously powerful words, which I am quoting yet again, because of their great
importance:
“The
word Christianity is already a misunderstanding: in reality there has
been only one Christian, and he died on the Cross.”
Here is a truly brilliant
interpretation of what it means to be ‘the last,’ who is going to be ‘the
first,’ which, I believe, provides a significant clarification in-principle
of the Gospel’s purport.
In other words, in Nietzsche’s
treatment, Jesus was the first and the last Christian, the alpha and omega of Christianity. He came into the world and the
world understood him not…
Meanwhile, the following
follow-up (in Nietzsche’s Ecce Homo: Why I am so clever, Section 10),
speaks to my own interpretation of being the last with uncanny
precision. (Summarizing my interpretation I see being the first and the last
not necessarily in terms of superior or inferior wealth, status and
importance, but in the dichotomy of a popularity contest, the last being
the least successful and hopelessly unpopular. Now wasn’t Jesus himself
unsuccessful and unpopular both in life and in death, followed for the wrong
reasons and then abandoned for the wrong reasons to die virtually alone?) Here
it is: I want to be their opposite (the
opposite of the firsts): it is my privilege to
have the subtlest sensitivity for all signs of healthy instincts. There is not
a moment in my life to convict me of a presumptuous and pathetic posture; the
pathos of poses belongs not to greatness; whoever needs poses at all is false.
Beware of all picturesque men!”
In other words, the
pretentiousness of poses is a manifestation of the nature of hypocrisy. It is
the littleness of the first and the greatness of the last which
allows their positions to be reversed in a better world that has no
masks to hide behind.
Another case in point is the
curious affinity between Nietzsche and the teachings of Christ, on the question
of loving your enemy.
In this vein, there is a
remarkably interesting thought, in Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals, 1st
Essay #10, where he virtually contradicts everything he has said elsewhere
about the “slave nature” of Christianity:
“How
much reverence has a noble man for his enemies! And such reverence is a bridge
to love. (!) For
he desires his enemy for himself, as his mark of distinction; he can endure no
other enemy than one in whom there is nothing to despise and very much to
honor! In contrast to this, picture “the enemy” as the man of ressentiment
conceives him: he has conceived “the evil enemy, the Evil One,” and this, in
fact, is his basic concept, from which he then evolves, as an afterthought and
pendant, a “good one” -- himself!”
The signature Christian precept
of loving your enemy gains immensely from Nietzsche’s insight, no matter what
his personal attitude toward Christianity may have been. The stunning
distinction made here between the noble character and the slave, shows their
different attitudes toward their enemy. The noble man loves his enemy, the
slave hates him. When Christ says, “Love your enemy!” what else but the
nobility of this virtue comes to mind? However, how is it possible to
appreciate nobility for someone who lacks this quality himself? Mind you, we
are not talking about some specific enemies whom we are commanded to love, monsters
who objectively do not deserve love, but only hatred and contempt. Jesus talks
about the subject, not about the object. He is talking about an outward projection
of love, rather than hatred, by a human soul, which is the only sense in which
we can accept the words of Jesus about loving your enemy unconditionally, as an overwhelming proclivity of the soul.
I would recommend to all Christians
who are confounded by Christ’s Commandment to study this particular passage in
Nietzsche. Maybe those Christians are having a difficulty with the lack of
nobility in their own character, which causes such a difficulty in understanding,
but by the same token it is wrong for Nietzsche to issue a wholesale condemnation
of Christian morality in principle just on the basis of a historical analysis
of its origin-in-time and of its practical manifestations. (Incidentally I am
not singling out Christian morality as the superior morality, which must be
wrong, considering that each great world culture has its own historical
religion, and its own “homegrown” morality, and these cultural peculiarities
ought to be treated as equals, just like all great world cultures ought to be treated as equals.)
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