—That which separates us from other people is not the fact that we can discover no God, either in history, or in nature, or behind nature,—but that we regard what has been revered as “God,” not as “divine,” but as wretched, absurd, pernicious; not as an error, but as a _crime against life._ ... We deny God as God.... If the existence of this Christian God were _proved_ to us, we should feel even less able to believe in him.—In a formula: _deus qualem Paulus creavit, dei negatio._—A religion such as Christianity which never once comes in touch with reality, and which collapses the very moment reality asserts its rights even on one single point, must naturally be a mortal enemy of the “wisdom of this world”—that is to say, _science._ It will call all those means good with which mental discipline, lucidity and severity in intellectual matters, nobility and freedom of the intellect may be poisoned, calumniated and _decried_. “Faith” as an imperative is a _veto_ against science,—_in praxi,_ it means lies at any price. St Paul _understood_ that falsehood—that “faith” was necessary; subsequently the Church understood St Paul.—That “God” which St Paul invented for himself, a God who “confounds” the “wisdom of this world” (in a narrower sense, the two great opponents of all superstition, philology and medicine), means, in very truth, simply St Paul’s firm _resolve_ to do so: to call his own will “God”, _thora,_ that is arch-Jewish. St Paul insists upon confounding the “wisdom of this world”: his enemies are the _good old_ philologists and doctors of the Alexandrine schools; it is on them that he wages war. As a matter of fact 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.” 48 —Has anybody ever really understood the celebrated story which stands at the beginning of the Bible,—concerning God’s deadly panic over _science?_ ... Nobody has understood it This essentially sacerdotal book naturally begins with the great inner difficulty of the priest: _he_ knows only one great danger, _consequently_ “God” has only one great danger.—