in the coming of a messiah appeared in the foreground;
attention was rivetted upon an historical moment: the "kingdom of God"
is to come, with judgment upon his enemies.... But in all this there was
a wholesale misunderstanding: imagine the "kingdom of God" as a last
act, as a mere promise! The Gospels had been, in fact, the incarnation,
the fulfilment, the _realization_ of this "kingdom of God." It was only
now that all the familiar contempt for and bitterness against Pharisees
and theologians began to appear in the character of the Master--he was
thereby _turned_ into a Pharisee and theologian himself! On the other
hand, the savage veneration of these completely unbalanced souls could
no longer endure the Gospel doctrine, taught by Jesus, of the equal
right of all men to be children of God: their revenge took the form of
_elevating_ Jesus in an extravagant fashion, and thus separating him
from themselves: just as, in earlier times, the Jews, to revenge
themselves upon their enemies, separated themselves from their God, and
placed him on a great height. The One God and the Only Son of God: both
were products of _ressentiment_....

41.

--And from that time onward an absurd problem offered itself: "how
_could_ God allow it!" To which the deranged reason of the little
community formulated an answer that was terrifying in its absurdity: God
gave his son as a _sacrifice_ for the forgiveness of sins. At once there
was an end of the gospels! Sacrifice for sin, and in its most obnoxious
and barbarous form: sacrifice of the _innocent_ for the sins of the
guilty! What appalling paganism!--Jesus himself had done away with the
very concept of "guilt," he denied that there was any gulf fixed between
God and man; he _lived_ this unity between God and man, and that was
precisely _his_ "glad tidings".... And _not_ as a mere privilege!--From
this time forward the type of the Saviour was corrupted, bit by bit, by
the doctrine of judgment and of the second coming, the doctrine of death
as a sacrifice, the doctrine of the _resurrection_, by means of which
the entire concept of "blessedness," the whole and only reality of the
gospels, is juggled away--in favour of a state of existence _after_
death!... St. Paul, with that rabbinical impudence which shows itself in
all his doings, gave a logical quality to that conception, that
_indecent_ conception, in this way: "_If_ Christ did not rise from the
dead, then all our faith is in vain!"-