Believers are aware that they owe an infinite amount to Christianity, and therefore conclude that its Founder must have been a man of the first rank.... This conclusion is false, but it is typical of the reverents. Regarded objectively, it is, _in the first place,_ just possible that they are mistaken concerning the extent of their debt to Christianity: a man's convictions prove nothing concerning the thing he is convinced about, and in religions they are more likely to give rise to suspicions.... Secondly, it is possible that the debt owing to Christianity is not due to its Founder at all, but to the whole structure, the whole thing--to the Church, etc. The notion "Founder" is so very equivocal, that it may stand even for the accidental cause of a movement: the person of the Founder has been inflated in proportion as the Church has grown: but even this process of veneration allows of the conclusion that, at one time or other, this Founder was something exceedingly insecure and doubtful--in the beginning.... Let any one think of the _free and easy way_ in which Paul treats the problem of the personality of Jesus, how he almost juggles with it: some one who died, who was seen after His death,--some one whom the Jews delivered up to death--all this was only the theme--_Paul_ wrote the music to it. 178. The founder of a religion _may_ be quite insignificant--a wax vesta and no _more_! 179. _Concerning the psychological problem of Christianity.--The driving forces are_: resentment, popular insurrection, the revolt of the bungled and the botched. (In Buddhism it is different: it is not _born_ of _resentment._ It rather combats resentment because the latter leads to _action_!) This party, which stands for freedom, understands that the _abandonment of antagonism in thought and deed_ is a condition of distinction and preservation. Here lies the psychological difficulty which has stood in the way of Christianity being understood: the force which created it, urges to a struggle against itself. Only as a party standing _for peace_ and _innocence_ can this insurrectionary movement hope to be successful: it must conquer by means of excessive mildness, sweetness, softness, and its instincts are aware of this. The _feat_ was to deny and condemn the force, of which man is the expression, and to press the reverse of that force continually to the fore, by word and deed. 180.