Part 27

If one wish to see an affirmative religion of the Semitic order, which is the product of the ruling class, one should read the Koran or the earlier portions of the Old Testament. (Mohammedanism, as a religion for men, has profound contempt for the sentimentality and prevarication of Christianity, ... which, according to Mohammedans, is a woman's religion.)

If one wish to see a negative religion of the Semitic order, which is the product of the oppressed class, one should read the New Testament (which, according to Indian and Arian points of view, is a religion for the Chandala).

If one wish to see a negative Arian religion, which is the product of the ruling classes, one should study Buddhism.

It is quite in the nature of things that we have no Arian religion which is the product of the oppressed classes; for that would have been a contradiction: a race of masters is either paramount or else it goes to the dogs.

146.

Religion, per se, has nothing to do with morality; yet both offshoots of the Jewish religion are essentially moral religions--which prescribe the rules of living, and procure obedience to their principles by means of rewards and punishment.

147.

Paganism--Christianity.--Paganism is that which says yea to all that is natural, it is innocence in being natural, "naturalness." Christianity is that which says no to all that is natural, it is a certain lack of dignity in being natural; hostility to Nature.

"Innocent":--Petronius is innocent, for instance. Beside this happy man a Christian is absolutely devoid of innocence. But since even the Christian status is ultimately only a natural condition, the term "Christian" soon begins to mean the counterfeiting of the psychological interpretation.

148.

The Christian priest is from the root a mortal enemy of sensuality: one cannot imagine a greater contrast to his attitude than the guileless, slightly awed, and solemn attitude, which the religious rites of the most honourable women in Athens maintained in the presence of the symbol of sex. In all non-ascetic religions the procreative act is the secret per se: a sort of symbol of perfection and of the designs of the future: re-birth, immortality.

149.

Our belief in ourselves is the greatest fetter, the most telling spur, and the strongest pinion. Christianity ought to have elevated the innocence of man to the position of an article of belief--men would then have become gods: in those days believing was still possible.

150.

The egregious lie of history: as if it were the corruption of Paganism that opened the road to Christianity. As a matter of fact, it was the enfeeblement and moralisation of the man of antiquity. The new interpretation of natural functions, which made them appear like vices, had already gone before!

151.

Religions are ultimately wrecked by the belief in morality. The idea of the Christian moral God becomes untenable,--hence "Atheism,"--as though there could be no other god.

Culture is likewise wrecked by the belief in morality. For when the necessary and only possible conditions of its growth are revealed, nobody will any longer countenance it (Buddhism).

152.

The physiology of Nihilistic religions.--All in all, the Nihilistic religions are systematised histories of sickness described in religious and moral terminology.

In pagan cultures it is around the interpretation of the great annual cycles that the religious cult turns; in Christianity it is around a cycle of paralytic phenomena.

153.

This Nihilistic religion gathers together all the decadent elements and things of like order which it can find in antiquity, viz.:--

(a) The weak and the botched (the refuse of the ancient world, and that of which it rid itself with most violence).

(b) Those who are morally obsessed and anti-pagan.

(c) Those who are weary of politics and indifferent (the blasé Romans), the denationalised, who know not what they are.

(d) Those who are tired of themselves--who are happy to be party to a subterranean conspiracy.

154.