Friedrich Nietzsche understood the Gospel better than many Christians in his day. And because he understood it he hated it all the more. This Jesus of Nazareth, as the embodiment of the gospel of love, this ‘redeemer’ bringing salvation and victory to the poor, the sick, to sinners – was he not seduction in its most sinister and irresistible form, seduction and the circuitous route to just those very Jewish values and innovative ideals? Did Israel not reach the pinnacle of her sublime vengefulness via this very ‘redeemer’, this apparent opponent of and disperser of Israel? Is it not part of a secret black art of a truly grand politics of revenge, a far-sighted, subterranean revenge, slow to grip and calculating, that Israel had to denounce her actual instrument of revenge before all the world as a mortal enemy and nail him to the cross so that ‘all the world’, namely all Israel’s enemies, could safely nibble at this bait? And could anyone, on the other hand, using all the ingenuity of his intellect, think up a more dangerous bait? Something to equal the enticing, intoxicating, benumbing, corrupting power of that symbol of the ‘holy cross’, to equal that horrible paradox of a ‘God on the Cross’, to equal that mystery of an unthinkable final act of extreme cruelty and self-crucifixion of God for the salvation of mankind?... At least it is certain that sub hoc signo Israel, with its revenge and revaluation of all former values, has triumphed repeatedly over all other ideals, all nobler ideals.
Posted on: Fri, 16 May 2014 07:43:09 +0000
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