The Antichrist

Nietzsche claims that Christ’s psychological type was distorted by followers’ need for propaganda and some form of apologia during Christianity’s early days.

He points out contradictions between the peaceful Christ who gave the Sermon on the Mount and the one who acted as a political protestor. He postulates that Christians shaped him as an especially truthful theologian whose purpose was to attack and destroy all other theologians.

Nietzsche postulates that early Christianity’s psychological typing of Christ constructed a faith “childish” in its innocence, practicing a “pure ignorance” of reality—including life, history, and science (41). It does not deny the existence of these things, but denaturizes them by placing itself beyond them.

Nietzsche argues that the Gospels abolished “sin” by creating a state in which salvation is the “only reality,” leaving behind nothing but ways of reinforcing its own evangelization (41).

In this state, Christians do not seek justice nor repentance to place themselves back in God’s good graces. Christianity did not so much create a new faith as it did a “new (psychological) way of life” (42).

Nietzsche contrasts the Gospels’ message—that only subjective reality is real and all else is simply fodder for explaining this reality—with the ideas of the Second Coming and the Kingdom of Heaven among others. He argues that the latter—concocted by priests—are anathema to the Gospels, attempting to paint a new outer world when the Gospels were only meant to alter the inner one.

Nietzsche states that Christ ultimately died as a teacher of a new way of life, in which the pains of objective reality are not fought but passively accepted, and those who trespass against themselves are loved.

Nietzsche believes he and the Hyperboreans are the first to understand the instinct that drove Christians to create their Church: the fight for “advantage” (44).

He labels the fact Christianity exists at all—a religion at odds with its own message—a “world-historical irony” (44).

Nietzsche explains that the Church turning against Christ was inevitable as Christians grew in number; the Church itself was determined to subsume more and more subcultures.

He believes only the Hyperboreans—or at least those capable of their individualism—could possibly grasp Christ’s original message.

Nietzsche bemoans his “contempt of man,” particularly the “man of today” (44-45).

In the past, ignorance somewhat excused humanity’s failure to see through the lies of priests—but this ignorance no longer exists with science.

Yet, Western views of morality remain unchanged, with leaders still proudly calling themselves Christians despite the revelation of theological deception.

Nietzsche reiterates the shrewdness of Christian ecclesiastics in creating a religion out of a false idea (first mentioned in Section 23). He argues that there was only ever one Christian—Jesus himself—who died on the Cross along with the Gospels. 

Nietzsche analyzes the mentality of Christ’s disciples upon watching their teacher die on the Cross.

He argues that the brutality and existential crisis of Christ’s death were so great that the disciples were driven to create some kind of meaning out of the ordeal, and so created an enemy—the Jewish rabbis.

Nietzsche argues that the spirit of the Gospels died in this moment: The equality of all turned into the elevation of Christ, all other priesthoods were defiled in favor of a false priesthood in Christ, and Christian pacifism turned into a scriptural form of antisemitic revenge.

According to Nietzsche, the psychological need to sanctify the crucifixion defiled Christ’s message that anyone could live in perfect “oneness” with God on Earth by instead claiming that Christ had to die for the sins of the world.

By doing this—combined with Saint Paul the Apostle’s promise of living Christ’s “oneness” in the afterlife—early Christians condoned all wrongness and did away with the Gospels entirely.