The "_Christian Ideal_" put on the stage with Jewish astuteness--these are the fundamental _psychological forces_ of its "nature":-- Revolt against the ruling spiritual powers; The attempt to make those virtues which facilitate the _happiness of the lowly,_ a standard of all values--in fact, to call _God_ that which is no more than the self-preservative instinct of that class of man possessed of least vitality; Obedience and absolute _abstention_ from war and resistance, justified by this ideal; The love of one another as a result of the love of God. _The trick_: The _denial_ of all _natural mobilia,_ and their transference to the spiritual world beyond ... the exploitation of _virtue_ and its _veneration_ for wholly interested motives, gradual _denial_ of virtue in everything that is not Christian. 186. The _profound contempt_ with which the Christian was treated by the noble people of antiquity, is of the same order as the present instinctive aversion to Jews: it is the hatred which free and self-respecting classes feel towards those _who wish to creep in secretly,_ and who combine an awkward bearing with foolish self-sufficiency. The New Testament is the gospel of a completely _ignoble_ species of man; its pretensions to highest values--_yea, to all_ values, is, as a matter of fact, revolting--even nowadays. 187. How little the subject matters! It is the spirit which gives the thing life! What a quantity of stuffy and sick-room air there is in all that chatter about "redemption," "love," "blessedness," "faith," "truth," "eternal life"! Let any one look into a really pagan book and compare the two; for instance, in Petronius, nothing at all is done, said, desired, and valued, which, according to a bigoted Christian estimate, is not sin, or even deadly sin. And yet how happy one feels with the purer air, the superior intellectuality, the quicker pace, and the free overflowing strength which is certain of the future! In the whole of the New Testament there is not one _bouffonnerie_: but that fact alone would suffice to refute any book.... 188. The _profound lack of dignity_ with which all life, which is not Christian, is condemned: it does not suffice them to think meanly of their actual opponents, they cannot do with less than a general slander of everything that is not _themselves...._ An abject and crafty soul is in the most perfect harmony with the arrogance of piety, as witness the early Christians. The _future_: they see that _they are heavily paid for it.... Theirs is the muddiest kind of spirit that exists._ The whole of Christ's life is so arranged as to confirm the prophecies of the Scriptures: He behaves in such wise _in order that_ they may be right.... 189. The deceptive interpretation of the words, the doings, and the condition of _dying people_; the natural fear of death, for instance, is systematically confounded with the supposed fear of what is to happen "after death." ... 190.