THE ANTICHRIST
By
Friedrich Nietzsche
Translation: H.L. Mencken
56.
--In the last analysis it comes to this: what is the end of lying? The fact that, in
Christianity, "holy" ends are not visible is my objection to the means it employs. Only bad ends appear: the poisoning, the calumniation, the denial of life, the despising of the body, the degradation and
self-contamination of man by the concept of sin--therefore, its means are also bad.--I have a contrary feeling when I read the Code of Manu, an incomparably more intellectual and
superior work, which it would be a sin against the intelligence to so much as name in the same breath with the Bible. It is easy to see why: there is a genuine
philosophy behind it, in it, not merely an
evil-smelling mess of Jewish rabbinism and superstition,--it gives even the most fastidious psychologist something to sink his teeth into. And, not to forget what is most important, it differs fundamentally from every kind of Bible: by means of it the nobles, the philosophers and the warriors keep the whip-hand over the majority; it is full of noble valuations, it shows a feeling of perfection, an acceptance of life, and triumphant feeling toward
self and life--the sun shines upon the whole
book.--All the things on which
Christianity vents its fathomless vulgarity--for example, procreation, women and marriage--are here handled earnestly, with
reverence and with love and confidence. How can any one really put into the hands of children and ladies a
book which contains such vile things as this: "to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband; . . . it is better to marry than to burn"?29 And is it possible to be a
Christian so long as the origin of man is
Christianized, which is to say, befouled, by the doctrine of the immaculata conceptio? . . . I know of no
book in which so many delicate and kindly things are said of women as in the Code of Manu; these old grey-beards and saints have a way of being gallant to women that it would be impossible, perhaps, to surpass. "The mouth of a woman," it says in one place, "the breasts of a maiden, the prayer of a child and the smoke of sacrifice are always pure." In another place: "there is nothing purer than the light of the sun, the shadow cast by a cow, air, water, fire and the breath of a maiden." Finally, in still another place--perhaps this is also a holy lie--: "all the orifices of the body above the navel are pure, and all below are impure. Only in the maiden is the whole body pure."