Judaism

Judaism, with its ¿±Ωƒ± ∫±ª± ªπ±Ω, is not related to Christianity as regards its spirit and ethical tendency, but Brah- manism and Buddhism are. But the spirit and ethical tendency are what is essential in a religion, not the myths in which these are clothed.

I therefore cannot give up the belief that the doctrines of Christianity can in some way be derived from these primitive religions. I have pointed out some traces of this in the second[446] volume of the Parerga, § 179 (second edition, § 180). I have to add to these that Epiphanias (Hæretic. xviii.) relates that the first Jewish Christians of Jerusalem, who called themselves Nazarenes, refrained from all animal food. On account of this origin (or, at least, this agreement) Christianity belongs to the ancient, true and sublime faith of mankind, which is opposed to the false, shallow, and injurious optimism which exhibits itself in Greek paganism, Judaism, and Islamism. The Zend religion holds to a certain extent the mean, because it has opposed to Ormuzd a pessimistic counterpoise in Ahriman. From this Zend religion the Jewish religion proceeded, as J.G. Rhode has thoroughly proved in his book, “Die heilige Sage des Zendvolks;” from Ormuzd has come Jehovah, and from Ahriman, Satan, who, however, plays only a very subordinate rôle in Judaism, indeed almost entirely disappears, whereby then optimism gains the upper hand, and there only remains the myth of the fall as a pessimistic element, which certainly (as the fable of Meschia and Meschiane) is derived from the Zend-Avesta. Yet even this falls into oblivion, till it is again taken up by Christianity along with Satan. Ormuzd himself, however, is derived from Brahmanism, although from a lower region of it; he is no other than Indra, that subordinate god of the firmament and the atmosphere, who is represented as frequently in rivalry with men. This has been very clearly shown by J.J. Schmidt in his work on the relation of the Gnostic-theosophic doctrines to the religions of the East. This Indra-Ormuzd-Jehovah had afterwards to pass over into Christianity, because this religion arose in Judæa.

But on account of the cosmopolitan character of Christianity he laid aside his own name to be denoted in the language of each converted nation by the appellation of the superhuman beings he supplanted, as, îμø¬, Deus, which comes from the Sanscrit Deva (from which also devil comes), or among the Gothico-Germanic peoples by the word God, Gott, which comes from Odin, Wodan, Guodan, Godan. In the same way he assumed in Islamism, which also [447] sprang from Judaism, the name of Allah, which also existed earlier in Arabia. Analogous to this, the gods of the Greek Olym- pus, when in prehistoric times they were transplanted to Italy, also assumed the names of the previously reigning gods: hence among the Romans Zeus is called Jupiter, Hera Juno, Hermes Mercury, &c. In China the first difficulty of the missionaries arose from the fact that the Chinese language has no appellation of the kind and also no word for creating; for the three religions of China know no gods either in the plural or in the singular.

However the rest may be, that ¿±Ωƒ± ∫±ª± ªπ±Ω of the Old Testament is really foreign to true Christianity; for in the New Testament the world is always spoken of as something to which one does not belong, which one does not love, nay, whose lord is the devil.53 This agrees with the ascetic spirit of the denial of one’s self and the overcoming of the world which, just like the boundless love of one’s neighbour, even of one’s enemy, is 52 Cf. “Ueber den Willen in der Natur,” second edition, p. 124; third edition, p. 135.

On this opportunity one may see how certain Protestant theologians, in their efforts to misinterpret the text of the New Testament in conformity with their rationalistic, optimistic, and unutterably shallow view of life, go so far that they actually falsify this text in their translations.

Thus H. A. Schott, in his new version given with the Griesbach text of 1805, has translated the word ∫ø√ºø¬, John xv. 18, 19, by Judœi, 1 John iv. 4, by profani homines; and Col. ii. 20, √ƒøπ«μπ± ƒø≈ ∫ø√ºøΩ by elementa Judaica; while Luther everywhere renders the word honestly and correctly by “Welt” (world).

the fundamental characteristic which Christianity has in com- mon with Brahmanism and Buddhism, and which proves their relationship. There is nothing in which one has to distinguish the kernel so carefully from the shell as in Christianity. Just because I prize this kernel highly I sometimes treat the shell with little ceremony; it is, however, thicker than is generally supposed. Protestantism, since it has eliminated asceticism and its central[448] point, the meritoriousness of celibacy, has already given up the inmost kernel of Christianity, and so far is to be regarded as a falling away from it. This has become apparent in our own day by the gradual transition of Protestantism into shallow rationalism, this modern Pelagianism, which ultimately degenerates into the doctrine of a loving father, who has made the world, in order that things may go on very pleasantly in it (in which case, then, he must certainly have failed), and who, if one only conforms to his will in certain respects, will also afterwards provide a still more beautiful world (with regard to which it is only a pity that it has such a fatal entrance). That may be a good religion for comfortable, married, and enlightened Protestant pastors; but it is no Christianity. Christianity is the doctrine of the deep guilt of the human race through its existence alone, and the longing of the heart for deliverance from it, which, however, can only be attained by the greatest sacrifices and by the denial of one’s own self, thus by an entire reversal of human nature. Luther may have been perfectly right from the practical point of view, i.e., with reference to the Church scandal of his time, which he wished to remove, but not so from the theoretical point of view. The more sublime a doctrine is, the more it is exposed to abuse at the hands of human nature, which, on the whole, is of a low and evil disposition: hence the abuses of Catholicism are so much more numerous and so much greater than those of Protestantism. Thus, for example, monasticism, that methodical denial of the will practised in common for the sake of mutual encouragement, is an institution of a sublime description, which, however, for this very reason is for the most part untrue to its spirit.

The shocking abuses of the Church excited in the honest mind of Luther a lofty indignation. But in consequence of this he was led to desire to limit as much as possible the claims of Christianity itself, and for this end he first confined it to the words of the Bible; but then, in his well-meant zeal, he went too far, for he attacked the very heart of Christianity in the ascetic principle.

For after the withdrawal of the ascetic principle, the optimistic principle soon necessarily took its place. But in religions, as in philosophy, optimism is a fundamental error which obstructs the path of all truth. From all this it seems to me that Catholicism is a shamefully abused, but Protestantism a degenerate Christianity; thus, that Christianity in general has met the fate which befalls all that is noble, sublime, and great whenever it has to dwell among men.

However, even in the very lap of Protestantism, the essentially ascetic and encratistic spirit of Christianity has made way for itself; and in this case it has appeared in a phenomenon which perhaps has never before been equalled in magnitude and def- initeness, the highly remarkable sect of the Shakers, in North America, founded by an Englishwoman, Anne Lee, in 1774.

The adherents of this sect have already increased to 6000, who are divided into fifteen communities, and inhabit a number of villages in the states of New York and Kentucky, especially in the district of New Lebanon, near Nassau village. The funda- mental characteristic of their religious rule of life is celibacy and entire abstention from all sexual satisfaction. It is unanimously admitted, even by the English and Americans who visit them, and who laugh and jeer at them in every other respect, that this rule is strictly and with perfect honesty observed; although brothers and sisters sometimes even occupy the same house, eat at the same table, nay, dance together in the religious services in church. For whoever has made that hardest of all sacrifices may dance before the Lord; he is a victor, he has overcome. Their singing in church consists in general of cheerful, and partly even of merry, songs.