THE ANTICHRIST
By
Friedrich Nietzsche
Translation: H.L. Mencken
62.
--With this I come to a conclusion and pronounce my judgment. I condemn
Christianity; I bring against the
Christian church the most terrible of all the accusations that an accuser has ever had in his mouth. It is, to me, the greatest of all imaginable
corruptions; it seeks to work the ultimate
corruption, the worst possible
corruption. The
Christian church has left nothing untouched by its depravity; it has turned every value into worthlessness, and every truth into a lie, and every integrity into baseness of
soul. Let any one dare to speak to me of its "humanitarian" blessings! Its deepest necessities range it against any effort to abolish distress; it lives by distress; it creates distress to make it
self immortal. . . . For example, the worm of sin: it was the church that first enriched
mankind with this misery!--The "equality of
souls before
God"--this fraud, this pretext for the rancunes of all the base-minded--this explosive concept, ending in r
evolution, the modern idea, and the notion of overthrowing the whole social order--this is
Christian dynamite. . . . The "humanitarian" blessings of
Christianity forsooth! 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! All this, to me, is the "humanitarianism" of
Christianity!--Parasitism as the only practice of the church; with its anaemic and "holy" ideals, sucking all the blood, all the love, all the hope out of life; the beyond as the will to deny all reality; the cross as the distinguishing mark of the most subterranean conspiracy ever heard of,--against health, beauty, well-being, intellect, kindness of
soul--against life it
self. . . .
This eternal accusation against
Christianity I shall write upon all walls, wherever walls are to be found--I have letters that even the blind will be able to see. . . . I call
Christianity the one great curse, the one great intrinsic depravity, the one great instinct of revenge, for which no means are venomous enough, or secret, subterranean and small enough,--I call it the one immortal blemish upon the human race. . . .
And
mankind reckons time from the dies nefastus when this fatality befell--from the first day of
Christianity!--Why not rather from its last?--From today?--The transvaluation of all values! . . .
THE END