n,
a great yes to everything entering into the _imperium Romanum_ and
palpable to all the senses, a grand style that was beyond mere art, but
had become reality, truth, _life_....--All overwhelmed in a night, but
not by a convulsion of nature! Not trampled to death by Teutons and
others of heavy hoof! But brought to shame by crafty, sneaking,
invisible, anaemic vampires! Not conquered,--only sucked dry!... Hidden
vengefulness, petty envy, became _master_! Everything wretched,
intrinsically ailing, and invaded by bad feelings, the whole
_ghetto-world_ of the soul, was at once _on top_!--One needs but read
any of the Christian agitators, for example, St. Augustine, in order to
realize, in order to smell, what filthy fellows came to the top. It
would be an error, however, to assume that there was any lack of
understanding in the leaders of the Christian movement:--ah, but they
were clever, clever to the point of holiness, these fathers of the
church! What they lacked was something quite different. Nature
neglected--perhaps forgot--to give them even the most modest endowment
of respectable, of upright, of _cleanly_ instincts.... Between
ourselves, they are not even men.... If Islam despises Christianity, it
has a thousandfold right to do so: Islam at least assumes that it is
dealing with _men_....

60.

Christianity destroyed for us the whole harvest of ancient civilization,
and later it also destroyed for us the whole harvest of _Mohammedan_
civilization. The wonderful culture of the Moors in Spain, which was
fundamentally nearer to _us_ and appealed more to our senses and tastes
than that of Rome and Greece, was _trampled down_ (--I do not say by
what sort of feet--) Why? Because it had to thank noble and manly
instincts for its origin--because it said yes to life, even to the rare
and refined luxuriousness of Moorish life!... The crusaders later made
war on something before which it would have been more fitting for them
to have grovelled in the dust--a civilization beside which even that of
our nineteenth century seems very poor and very "senile."--What they
wanted, of course, was booty: the orient was rich.... Let us put aside
our prejudices! The crusades were a higher form of piracy, nothing more!
The German nobility, which is fundamentally a Viking nobility, was in
its element there: the church knew only too well how the German nobility
was to be _won_.... The German noble, always the "Swiss guard" of the
church,