Der Antichrist

Translation by H.L. Mencken, 1918. Published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.

Contents

• Introduction
• Preface
• 1: Let us look each other in the face. We are
• 2: What is good?—Whatever augments the feeling of power,
• 3: The problem that I set here is not what shall replace
• 4: Mankind surely does not represent an evolution toward a
• 5: We should not deck out and embellish Christianity: it has
• 6: It is a painful and tragic spectacle that rises before me:
• 7: Christianity is called the religion of pity.—Pity
• 8: It is necessary to say just whom we regard as our
• 9: Upon this theological instinct I make war: I find the
• 10: Among Germans I am immediately understood when I say that
• 11: A word now against Kant as a moralist. A virtue must be our
• 12: I put aside a few sceptics, the types of decency in the
• 13: Let us not under-estimate this fact: that we ourselves, we
• 14: We have unlearned something. We have be come more modest in
• 15: Under Christianity neither morality nor religion has any
• 16: A criticismof the Christian concept of God leads inevitably
• 17: Wherever the will to power begins to decline, in whatever
• 18: The Christian concept of a god—the god as the patron
• 19: The fact that the strong races of northern Europe did not
• 20: Inmy condemnation of Christianity I surely hope I do no
• 21: The things necessary to Buddhism are a very mild climate,
• 22: When Christianity departed from its native soil, that of
• 23: Buddhism, I repeat, is a hundred times more austere, more
• 24: Here I barely touch upon the problem of the origin of
• 25: The history of Israel is invaluable as a typical history of
• 26: The concept of god falsified; the concept of morality
• 27: Christianity sprang from a soil so corrupt that on it
• 28: As to whether he himself was conscious of this
• 29: What concerns me is the psychological type of the Saviour.
• 30: The instinctive hatred of reality: the consequence of an
• 31: I have already given my answer to the problem. The
• 32: I can only repeat that I set myself against all efforts to
• 33: In the whole psychology of the "Gospels" the concepts of
• 34: If I understand anything at all about this great symbolist,
• 35: This "bearer of glad tidings" died as he lived and
• 36: We free spirits—we are the first to have the
• 37: Our age is proud of its historical sense: how, then, could
• 38: I cannot, at this place, avoid a sigh. There are days when
• 39: I shall go back a bit, and tell you the authentic history
• 40: The fate of the Gospels was decided by death—it hung
• 41: And from that time onward an absurd problem offered itself:
• 42: One now begins to see just what itwas that came to an end
• 43: When the centre of gravity of life is placed, not in life
• 44: The gospels are invaluable as evidence of the corruption
• 45: I offer a few examples of the sort of thing these petty
• 46: What follows, then? That one had better put on gloves
• 47: The thing that sets us apart is not that we are unable to
• 48: Has any one ever clearly understood the celebrated story at
• 49: I have been understood. At the opening of the Bible there
• 50: In this place I can't permit myself to omit a psychology of
• 51: The fact that faith, under certain circumstances, may work
• 52: Christianity also stands in opposition to all intellectual
• 53: It is so little true that martyrs offer any support to the
• 54: Do not let yourself be deceived: great intellects are
• 55: One step further in the psychology of conviction, of
• 56: In the last analysis it comes to this: what is the end of
• 57: One catches the unholiness of Christian means in flagranti
• 58: In point of fact, the end for which one lies makes a great
• 59: The whole labour of the ancient world gone for naught: I
• 60: Christianity destroyed for us the whole harvest of ancient
• 61: Here it becomes necessary to call up a memory that must be
• 62: With this I come to a conclusion and pronounce my judgment.

Also available as a single page  (219.58 kb).