Another case of the chicken and
the egg. Who was first--- Luther seducing Northern Germany, or Northern Germany
producing Luther? Apparently, this question has something to do with
Nietzsche’s discussion of “talent for
religion” in Jenseits 48-50. Here
are the pertinent excerpts:
(48). It
seems that the Latin races are far more deeply attached to their Catholicism
than we Northerners are to Christianity in general, and that consequently
unbelief in Catholic countries means something altogether different from what
it means among the Protestants,--- namely, a sort of revolt against the spirit
of the race, whereas with us it is rather a return to the spirit (or
non-spirit) of the race.
We
Northerners undoubtedly derive our origin from barbarous races even as regards
our talents for religion — we have little
talent for it. One may make an exception in the case of the Celts, who have
therefore furnished also the best soil for Christian infection in the North:
the Christian ideal blossomed forth in France as much as the pale sun of the
north permitted it. How strangely pious for our taste are even the most recent French
skeptics, in so far as there is any Celtic blood in their origin! How Catholic,
how un-German does Auguste Comte’s Sociology
seem to us, with the Roman logic of its instincts! How Jesuitical, that amiable
and shrewd cicerone of Port Royal, Sainte-Beuve, in spite of all his hostility
to Jesuits! And especially Ernest Renan: how inaccessible to us Northerners
does the language of such a Renan sound, in whom every instant the merest touch
of religious thrill throws his refined voluptuous and comfortably couching soul
off its balance! Let us repeat after him these fine sentences—and what
wickedness and haughtiness is immediately aroused by way of answer in our
probably less beautiful, but harder souls, that is to say, in our more German
souls!—
“Disons
donc hardiment que la religion est un produit de l’homme normal, que l’homme
est le plus dans le vrai quand il est le plus religieux et le plus assuré d’une
destinée infinite… C’est quand il est bon qu’il veut que la vertu corresponde à
un ordre éternel, c’est quand il contemple les choses d’une manière désintéressée
qu’il trouve la morte révoltante et absurde. Comment ne pas supposer que c’est
dans ces moments-là, que l’homme voit le mieux?”
These
sentences are so extremely antipodal
to my ears and habits, that in my first impulse of rage on finding them, I
wrote on the margin, “la niaiserie
religieuse par excellence!” But my subsequent rage actually took a fancy to
them, these sentences with their truth absolutely inverted! It is so nice and
such a distinction to have one’s own antipodes!
(49). What
is amazing in the religious life of the ancient Greeks is the enormous
abundance of gratitude it exudes: it is a very noble type of man that confronts
nature and life in this way.
Later
on, when the rabble got the upper hand in Greece, fear became rampant also in religion, too; and the ground was
prepared for Christianity.---
(50).
The passion for God: there are peasant types, sincere and obtrusive, like
Luther — the whole of Protestantism lacks the southern delicatezza. There is an Oriental exaltation of the mind in it, worthy
of an undeservedly favored or elevated slave, as in the case of St. Augustine, for
instance, who lacks in an offensive manner all nobility in bearing and desires.
There is a feminine tenderness and sensuality in it, which modestly and
unconsciously longs for a unio mystica et
physica, as in the case of Madame de Guyon. In many cases it appears,
curiously enough, as the disguise of a girl’s or youth’s puberty; here and
there even as the hysteria of an old maid, also as her last ambition. The
Church has frequently canonized the woman in such a case.
Whenever I lay my hands on some
extra time in the future, I will be eager to write an extended and meaningful comment on this,
but, alas, the time is not now. Which is not a good excuse, however, to keep
this marvelous edificational piece under lock and key…
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