52 pages • 1 hour read
Friedrich Nietzsche, Transl. H.L. MenckenA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Nietzsche accuses Christianity of enhancing its followers’ sensitivities to suffering, producing instincts to hate reality and anything that might cause negative feelings. He labels these instincts the twin “psychological realities” of Christianity and likens them to the philosophy of Epicureanism—an ancient Greek school of philosophy that focused on the enhancement of pleasure (38).
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.
By these authors
Beyond Good And Evil
Friedrich Nietzsche
On The Advantage And Disadvantage Of History For Life
Friedrich Nietzsche
On the Genealogy of Morals
Friedrich Nietzsche
The Birth of Tragedy
Friedrich Nietzsche
The Gay Science
Friedrich Nietzsche
The Will to Power
Friedrich Nietzsche, Ed. Walter Kaufmann, Transl. R.J. Hollingdale
Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None
Friedrich Nietzsche