The Antichrist

susceptibility to pain, and _secondly_, an extraordinary spirituality, a
too protracted concern with concepts and logical procedures, under the
influence of which the instinct of personality has yielded to a notion
of the "impersonal." (--Both of these states will be familiar to a few
of my readers, the objectivists, by experience, as they are to me).
These physiological states produced a _depression_, and Buddha tried to
combat it by hygienic measures. Against it he prescribed a life in the
open, a life of travel; moderation in eating and a careful selection of
foods; caution in the use of intoxicants; the same caution in arousing
any of the passions that foster a bilious habit and heat the blood;
finally, no _worry_, either on one's own account or on account of
others. He encourages ideas that make for either quiet contentment or
good cheer--he finds means to combat ideas of other sorts. He
understands good, the state of goodness, as something which promotes
health. _Prayer_ is not included, and neither is _asceticism_. There is
no categorical imperative nor any disciplines, even within the walls of
a monastery (--it is always possible to leave--). These things would
have been simply means of increasing the excessive sensitiveness above
mentioned. For the same reason he does not advocate any conflict with
unbelievers; his teaching is antagonistic to nothing so much as to
revenge, aversion, _ressentiment_ (--"enmity never brings an end to
enmity": the moving refrain of all Buddhism....) And in all this he was
right, for it is precisely these passions which, in view of his main
regiminal purpose, are _unhealthful_. The mental fatigue that he
observes, already plainly displayed in too much "objectivity" (that is,
in the individual's loss of interest in himself, in loss of balance and
of "egoism"), he combats by strong efforts to lead even the spiritual
interests back to the _ego_. In Buddha's teaching egoism is a duty. The
"one thing needful," the question "how can you be delivered from
suffering," regulates and determines the whole spiritual diet.
(--Perhaps one will here recall that Athenian who also declared war upon
pure "scientificality," to wit, Socrates, who also elevated egoism to
the estate of a morality).


21.

The things necessary to Buddhism are a very mild climate, customs of
great gentleness and liberality, and _no_ militarism; moreover, it must
get its start among the higher and better educated classes.
Cheerfulness, quiet and the absence of desire are the chief desiderata,
and they are _attained_. Buddhism is not a religion in which perfection
is merely an object of aspiration: perfection is actually normal.--

Under Christianity the instincts of the subjugated and the oppressed
come to the fore: it is only those who are at the bottom who seek their
salvation in it. Here the prevailing pastime, the favourite remedy for
boredom is the discussion of sin, self-criticism, the inquisition of
conscience; here the emotion produced by _power_ (called "God") is
pumped up (by prayer); here the highest good is regarded as
unattainable, as a gift, as "grace." Here, too, open dealing is lacking;
concealment and the darkened room are Christian. Here body is despised
and hygiene is denounced as sensual; the church even ranges itself
against cleanliness (--the first Christian order after the banishment of
the Moors closed the public baths, of which there were 270 in Cordova
alone). Christian, too, is a certain cruelty toward one's self and
toward others; hatred of unbelievers; the will to persecute. Sombre and
disquieting ideas are in the foreground; the most esteemed states of
mind, bearing the most respectable names, are epileptoid; the diet is so
regulated as to engender morbid symptoms and over-stimulate the nerves.
Christian, again, is all deadly enmity to the rulers of the earth, to
the "aristocratic"--along with a sort of secret rivalry with them (--one
resigns one's "body" to them; one wants _only_ one's "soul"...). And
Christian is all hatred of the intellect, of pride, of courage, of
freedom, of intellectual _libertinage_; Christian is all hatred of the
senses, of joy in the senses, of joy in general....


22.

When Christianity departed from its native soil, that of the lowest
orders, the _underworld_ of the ancient world, and began seeking power
among barbarian peoples, it no longer had to deal with _exhausted_ men,
but with men still inwardly savage and capable of self-torture--in
brief, strong men, but bungled men. Here, unlike in the case of the
Buddhists, the cause of discontent with self, suffering through self, is
_not_ merely a general sensitiveness and susceptibility to pain, but, on
the contrary, an inordinate thirst for inflicting pain on others, a
tendency to obtain subjective satisfaction in hostile deeds and ideas.
Christianity had to embrace _barbaric_ concepts and valuations in order
to obtain mastery over barbarians: of such sort, for example, are the
sacrifices of the first-born, the drinking of blood as a sacrament, the
disdain of the intellect and of culture; torture in all its forms,
whether bodily or not; the whole pomp of the cult. Buddhism is a
religion for peoples in a further state of development, for races that
have become kind, gentle and over-spiritualized (--Europe is not yet
ripe for it--): it is a summons that takes them back to peace and
cheerfulness, to a careful rationing of the spirit, to a certain
hardening of the body. Christianity aims at mastering _beasts of prey_;
its modus operandi is to make them _ill_--to make feeble is the
Christian recipe for taming, for "_civilizing_." Buddhism is a religion
for the closing, over-wearied stages of civilization. Christianity
appears before civilization has so much as begun--under certain
circumstances it lays the very foundations thereof.


23.

Buddhism, I repeat, is a hundred times more austere, more honest, more
objective. It no longer has to _justify_ its pains, its susceptibility