52 pages • 1 hour read
Friedrich Nietzsche, Transl. H.L. MenckenThe Antichrist
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1895A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Sections 53-62Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Section 53 Summary
Nietzsche attacks the Christian practice of championing martyrdom, arguing that dying for a cause does not validate its truth—that glorifying martyrdom only cheapens life by making a seduction of death.
Section 54 Summary
As a counterpoint to the martyr (who is killed for their conviction) and the convicted (who forsakes their will to power), Nietzsche offers the skeptic, unbound by conviction and empowered to argue any point.
He argues that those with convictions make slaves of themselves and glorify slavery by closing their eyes in willful ignorance until they become fanatics.
He calls out historical figures “Savonarola, Luther, Rousseau, Saint-Simon” as such fanatics lost to the slavery of conviction (64).
Section 55 Summary
Nietzsche asks: “Is there any actual difference between a lie and a conviction?” (65). He recalls the contemporary German belief that Rome was despotic, and the Germans brought freedom by overthrowing it. Instead, Nietzsche argues that the notion of “we respect all convictions” did not bring freedom but more faces to slavery (65).
He describes the priests’ intentions as coercing others into faith by erasing notions of truth and lies via convictions, claiming that facts do not apply to God and thus whatever they say is to be followed without question.
Section 56 Summary
Nietzsche praises the Manusmriti (the Code of Manu, a collection of ancient Hindu legal texts), calling it “an incomparably more intellectual and superior work” to the Bible as it does not lead to solely “bad” ends (66).
The Manusmriti displays a genuine love for life and does not disdain women, with Nietzsche directly quoting passages that venerate them and the feminine body.
Section 57 Summary
In the longest section of the book, Nietzsche critiques the Manusmriti as a legal code, arguing that all sufficient legal codes serve to subconsciously divide society into three castes: the intellectuals, the warriors, and the mediocrity.
He describes the intellectuals as mentally—naturally—superior to others, seeing great challenges as recreation; the warriors boast physical prowess and support the intellectuals; and the mediocrity are those who excel at neither.
Nietzsche argues that “rights” are not meant to be distributed equally among the castes (the intellectuals, he claims, are meant to have the most) but neither are life’s difficulties (the mediocrity have the least).
He believes the mediocrity are meant to form the base of a strong societal pyramid, and begrudges socialists and anarchists for preaching equal rights.
Section 58 Summary
Nietzsche believes the Manusmriti sought to organize its people under a code that would help life—a life connected to reality—flourish, while Christianity organized people under doctrines hostile to life.
He frames Epicurus as the first “anti-Christian,” as the latter fought against notions of reward and punishment beyond reality.
Christianity—and in particular, Saint Paul—concocted rewards and consequences to elevate the mediocrity. Nietzsche claims that “the notion of a ‘beyond’ is the death of life” and only leads to nihilism (71).
Section 59 Summary
Nietzsche laments ancient Greece and Rome’s “true” progress being brought low by the rise of Christianity.
He claims the Greeks and Romans had a thirst and respect for life, while Christian theologians—Saint Augustine in particular—lacked this love. He even goes so far as to call them less human.
Nietzsche believes Islam has every right to hate Christianity, for Islam “at least assumes that it is dealing with men” (73).
Section 60 Summary
Nietzsche scorns Christianity for depriving the Hyperboreans of the ancient world’s accomplishments.
He praises the Moors of Spain, deducing that the Church’s ultimate goal in pushing for the Crusades was nothing more than loot—a Viking endeavor.
Section 61 Summary
Nietzsche praises the Renaissance as a noble war against Christianity, attacking the religion at its very heart and infusing it with life—only to be defeated by the coming of Martin Luther.
He chides Luther’s German heritage and blames the Germans themselves for destroying the Renaissance and introducing Protestantism—which he sees as far more damaging than Catholicism.
He calls out historical Germans—including Immanuel Kant and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz—for having given Christianity greater dominion by empowering it to bring greater evil.
Section 62 Summary
Nietzsche condemns Christianity for introducing the ideas of sin, equal rights, and the “beyond”—calling it a parasite and vampire. He declares that he will shout his condemnation as boldly as possible, saying “I have letters that even the blind will be able to see” (75).
Nietzsche ends The Antichrist by recalling that time has been counted since the beginning of Christianity and suggests it will be restarted and counted anew with Christianity’s end.
Sections 53-62 Analysis
As The Antichrist reaches its end, Nietzsche pulls together his previous arguments and dialectic forms to better focus his final condemnation. He returns to his comparative analyses by exploring the Hindu Manusmriti and judging it to be a superior legal text to the Bible—though he comes short of offering a full comparative critique between Christianity and Hinduism as a whole.
Epicurus makes one last appearance in Section 58, with Nietzsche lauding him as the first “anti-Christian.” This serves to absolve Epicurus of any misunderstandings that may have arisen from earlier comparisons between Christianity and Epicureanism (Section 30).
Nietzsche also returns to his ideas of racial and national philology in his assessment of the Crusades in Section 60. He believes that the coercion of Germans to look for loot—which he believes is a natural instinct in them—as a virtuous affair was a stroke of genius on the part of Christian theologians. This further indicts the theologians by implying that they were conscious of their actions. Yet, Nietzsche is not satisfied with simply accusing them of being common deceivers: In Section 59, he goes so far as to accuse them of being less human—less than the Muslims the theologians sent the Germans to fight during the Crusades.
Nietzsche’s elitism also returns in earnest with his praise of the Renaissance in Section 61. During this transformative moment for Europe and Roman Catholicism, Nietzsche believes the Hyperborean spirit began to overtake the Church and turn it towards a greater philosophy from within—riding on the backs of the great artists, scientists, and patrons of the time. He fantasizes about Caesar Borgia—one of the most powerful patrons of the Renaissance—being Pope, a situation that would have seen an elite Hyperborean sitting on the highest throne in the Christian world. Yet this fantasy was undone by the coming of Martin Luther, a German, whose attitude and actions are used by Nietzsche to indict all Germans for their part in ending the dream of the Renaissance.
Sections 54-55 offer a final antidote to the problems highlighted throughout The Antichrist. Nietzsche reduces his antagonists to two overlapping types: the martyr and the convicted. The martyr hearkens back to Saint Paul’s sanctification of death over life, which is detestable to Nietzsche’s life-positive morality. Like the martyr, the convicted is an individual who forsakes their own will to power for the sake of comfortable false “truths” that drive them to commit denaturization. To counter these two types, Nietzsche offers the skeptic, who is life-positive and refuses conviction unless it can be proven by science, as they wish to avoid that which would lead them to sanctify death.
Section 57 is one of The Antichrist’s most problematic passages considering the world events that occurred since its publication. Nietzsche outlines an updated class structure for the world, placing the intellectuals (perhaps including himself) at the top of the hierarchy while suggesting that the vast majority of humanity belongs to the lowest rung, the mediocrity, with the warriors between them. While Nietzsche hints that this hierarchy is not meant to be read as a concept to be mandated by governments but rather utilized in the (theoretical) making of laws, it was used to excuse the atrocities of numerous tyrannical regimes—including that of Nazi Germany.
Nietzsche ends The Antichrist with a final suggestion that the calendar be redrawn to mark the end of Christianity. While this appears to be a fantastical, mocking suggestion, it also highlights his final argument: that society will need to be drastically realigned in order to fully rid itself of the influence of Christianity.
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