The Antichrist

Nietzsche accuses Christianity of enhancing its followers’ sensitivities to suffering, producing instincts to hate reality and anything that might cause negative feelings. He labels these instincts the twin “psychological realities” of Christianity and likens them to the philosophy of Epicureanism—an ancient Greek school of philosophy that focused on the enhancement of pleasure (38).

Nietzsche claims that Christ’s psychological type was distorted by followers’ need for propaganda and some form of apologia during Christianity’s early days.

He points out contradictions between the peaceful Christ who gave the Sermon on the Mount and the one who acted as a political protestor. He postulates that Christians shaped him as an especially truthful theologian whose purpose was to attack and destroy all other theologians.

Nietzsche postulates that early Christianity’s psychological typing of Christ constructed a faith “childish” in its innocence, practicing a “pure ignorance” of reality—including life, history, and science (41). It does not deny the existence of these things, but denaturizes them by placing itself beyond them.