One does well to put on one's gloves when reading the New Testament. The proximity of so much pitch almost defiles one. We should feel just as little inclined to hobnob with "the first Christians" as with Polish Jews: not that we need explain our objections.... They simply smell bad.--In vain have I sought for a single sympathetic feature in the New Testament; there is not a trace of freedom, kindliness, openheartedness and honesty to be found in it. Humaneness has not even made a start in this book, while _cleanly_ instincts are entirely absent from it.... Only evil instincts are to be found in the New Testament, it shows no sign of courage, these people lack even the courage of these evil instincts. All is cowardice, all is a closing of one's eyes and self-deception. Every book becomes clean, after one has just read the New Testament. 193-194 In the whole of the New Testament only _one_ figure appears which we cannot help respecting. Pilate, the Roman Governor. To take a Jewish quarrel _seriously_ was a thing he could not get himself to do. One Jew more or less--what did it matter?... The noble scorn of a Roman, in whose presence the word "truth" had been shamelessly abused, has enriched the New Testament with the only saying which _is of value,_--and this saying is not only the criticism, but actually the shattering of that Testament: "What is truth!" 195-196 No one is either a philologist or a doctor, who is not also an _Antichrist._ As a philologist, for instance, a man sees _behind_ the "holy books" as a doctor he sees _behind_ the physiological rottenness of the typical Christian. The Doctor says "incurable," the philologist says "forgery." 197 The priest knows only one great danger, and that is science,--the healthy concept of cause and effect. But, on the whole, science flourishes only in happy conditions,--a man must have time, he must also have superfluous mental energy in order to "pursue knowledge." ... _"Consequently_ man must be made unhappy,"--this has been the argument of the priest of all ages.--You have already divined what, in accordance with such a manner of arguing, must first have come into the world:--"sin."... The notion of guilt and punishment, the whole "moral order of the universe," was invented against science. 199 The notion of guilt and punishment, including the doctrine of "grace," of "salvation" and of "forgiveness"--all lies through and through without a shred of psychological reality--were invented in order to destroy man's _sense of causality:_ they are an attack with the fist, with the knife, with honesty in hate and love! But one actuated by the most cowardly, most crafty, and most ignoble instincts! A _priest's_ attack! A _parasite's_ attack! A vampyrism of pale subterranean leeches! 200