tion: perfection is actually normal.--

Under Christianity the instincts of the subjugated and the oppressed
come to the fore: it is only those who are at the bottom who seek their
salvation in it. Here the prevailing pastime, the favourite remedy for
boredom is the discussion of sin, self-criticism, the inquisition of
conscience; here the emotion produced by _power_ (called "God") is
pumped up (by prayer); here the highest good is regarded as
unattainable, as a gift, as "grace." Here, too, open dealing is lacking;
concealment and the darkened room are Christian. Here body is despised
and hygiene is denounced as sensual; the church even ranges itself
against cleanliness (--the first Christian order after the banishment of
the Moors closed the public baths, of which there were 270 in Cordova
alone). Christian, too, is a certain cruelty toward one's self and
toward others; hatred of unbelievers; the will to persecute. Sombre and
disquieting ideas are in the foreground; the most esteemed states of
mind, bearing the most respectable names, are epileptoid; the diet is so
regulated as to engender morbid symptoms and over-stimulate the nerves.
Christian, again, is all deadly enmity to the rulers of the earth, to
the "aristocratic"--along with a sort of secret rivalry with them (--one
resigns one's "body" to them; one wants _only_ one's "soul"...). And
Christian is all hatred of the intellect, of pride, of courage, of
freedom, of intellectual _libertinage_; Christian is all hatred of the
senses, of joy in the senses, of joy in general....

22.

When Christianity departed from its native soil, that of the lowest
orders, the _underworld_ of the ancient world, and began seeking power
among barbarian peoples, it no longer had to deal with _exhausted_ men,
but with men still inwardly savage and capable of self-torture--in
brief, strong men, but bungled men. Here, unlike in the case of the
Buddhists, the cause of discontent with self, suffering through self, is
_not_ merely a general sensitiveness and susceptibility to pain, but, on
the contrary, an inordinate thirst for inflicting pain on others, a
tendency to obtain subjective satisfaction in hostile deeds and ideas.
Christianity had to embrace _barbaric_ concepts and valuations in order
to obtain mastery over barbarians: of such sort, for example, are the
sacrifices of the first-born, the drinking of blood as a sacrament, the
disdain of the intellect and of culture; torture in