The Antichrist
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text
- Extent:
- ~29,900 words · 142 passages
Cite this work
- APANietzsche. (n.d.). The Antichrist. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/nietzsche/the-antichrist
- MLANietzsche. "The Antichrist." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/nietzsche/the-antichrist.
- ChicagoNietzsche. The Antichrist. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/nietzsche/the-antichrist.
What it is about
The Antichrist (1888): the frontal attack on Christianity, and the most violent text he wrote.
Context and history
Two things are needed to read it. First, that he distinguishes Jesus — of whom he speaks with a surprising respect — from the Church and above all from Paul, who is the real defendant. Second, the date: he wrote it weeks before the collapse in Turin, and the tone shows it. **Note:** this work is also inside the volume Twilight of the Idols … The Antichrist, which appears separately; they are not a duplicate. English translation from the complete edition edited by Oscar Levy (1909-1913), the one in the public domain. It is over a century old and it shows. The original is GERMAN, and citation should follow the original: the catalogue holds two of them, Also sprach Zarathustra and Der Wille zur Macht; for the rest, only the translation is here.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
This book belongs to the most rare of men. Perhaps not one of them is yet alive. It is possible that they may be among those who understand my "Zarathustra": how _could_ I confound myself with those who are now sprouting ears?--First the day after tomorrow must come for me. Some men are born posthumously. The conditions under which any one understands me, and _necessarily_ understands me--I know them only too well. Even to endure my seriousness, my passion, he must carry intellectual integrity to the verge of hardness. He must be accustomed to living on mountain tops--and to looking upon the wretched gabble of politics and nationalism as _beneath_ him. He must have become indifferent; he must never ask of the truth whether it brings profit to him or a fatality to him.... He must have an inclination, born of strength, for questions that no one has the courage for; the courage for the _forbidden_; predestination for the labyrinth. The experience of seven solitudes. New ears for new music. New eyes for what is most distant. A new conscience for truths that have hitherto remained unheard. _And_ the will to economize in the grand manner--to hold together his strength, his enthusiasm.... Reverence for self; love of self; absolute freedom of self.... Very well, then! of that sort only are my readers, my true readers, my readers foreordained: of what account are the _rest_?--The rest are merely humanity.--One must make one's self superior to humanity, in power, in _loftiness_ of soul,--in contempt. FRIEDRICH W. NIETZSCHE. THE ANTICHRIST 1. --Let us look each other in the face. We are Hyperboreans--we know well enough how remote our place is. "Neither by land nor by water will you find the road to the Hyperboreans": even Pindar,[1] in his day, knew _that_ much about us. Beyond the North, beyond the ice, beyond _death_--_our_ life, _our_ happiness.... We have discovered that happiness; we know the way; we got our