Eberhard Arnold

Nietzsche’s Grappling with God

[Arnold, Eberhard and Emmy papers - P.M.S.]

[Draft Translation by Bruderhof Historical Archive]

EA 16/13

Nietzsche’s Grappling with God.ⁱ

Examining the Renewed Influence of Friedrich Nietzsche.

By Dr. Eberhard Arnold, Berlin-Wilmersdorf

I. Background

On October 15, 1844, Friedrich Nietzsche was born as the son of an old Saxon pastor's family at Röcken near Lützen. After the death of his father, he was raised in Naumburg by two pastor's wives, his mother and his grandmother. He was simply called “the little pastor” when at Bürgerschule¹ because he loved precocious pastoral phraseology and was very fond of reciting Bible passages and verses from the hymnal. Nietzsche later emphasized that the Christianity of his parents' parsonage felt smooth and soft on his inner being, like a healthy skin (Lou Salome, p. 48).² The religious air of his surroundings was part of his upbringing, though it was not able to satisfy the demands of his conscience.

When he donated some of his inferior toys for the non-Christian children during a missionary lesson, he answered the deaconess’s thanks with the claim that they had certainly offered their dearest and best. And when his sister asked him privately as to whether God really demanded the very best, he replied with a subdued voice, “Yes, Lisbeth, of course” (Biogr. I, 1, p. 57 [sic]).³

Nietzsche may have believed that he loved religion like a mother (Menschl. 292);⁴ but he never complied with the demand of his conscience to give his dearest and best.

There was a certain trust in God, a quiet devotion and solemn mood that filled the religious air of his childhood so that later he could still believe that “at the age of twelve he had seen God in his splendor” (Berno[ul]li 178).⁵

He even wrote to his friend Peter Gast at a later date: “Christianity is the best piece of ideal life that I have known. From childhood I have followed it into many corners, and I believe I have never been cruel toward it in my heart” (T. X. XXIII).⁶

In fact, as a thirteen-year-old boy he wrote a treatise on the “Origin of Evil” out of personal interest (Gen. Vorrede III).⁷ [p. 375] It hints at later problems without being hostile toward Christianity. But his conscience and his longing for resolution were never satisfied with a personal Christianity.

Even the deeply felt poem from the year 1862 did not lead him to the firmness he longed for:

You called out,
Lord, I hurry
And tarry
At the steps of your throne.
Kindled by love,
It radiates to me so affectionately,
Painfully,
Your gaze into my heart;
Lord I am coming!

I was lost,
In a drunken frenzy,
Sunken,
Chosen for hell and torment.
You stood from afar. –
Your gaze unspeakable,
Moving,
Met me so often:
Now I will gladly come.

I feel a horror
Of sin
Because of the night.
And I cannot look back.
I cannot leave you. –
In nights horrid,
Sorrowful,
I look upon you:
And must seize hold of you.

You are so mild,
True and tender –
Tender right to the heart.
Dear image of the sinner’s Savior!
Still my longing,
My musing and thinking,
To sink
Into your love:
To cling to you!⁸

The high school junior [Sekundaner] seems to be thinking of himself when he writes, “Whenever people speak aloud against religion, you audaciously assume that it is not their reason but a passion that has gained power over the faith they have been taught [Lehrglauben]. Sinful behavior and pure faith are incompatible, uneasy neighbors!” (Biogr. I, p. 130).⁹

Already as a high school senior [Primaner] he held lectures in his student club, claiming that Christianity is only based on assumptions that would always remain problems. With moving words, he portrays his own struggle between the doubt as to “whether 2000 years have not led to an illusion” and the feeling of his own presumptuousness and recklessness. He tried to deny everything but was unable to maintain a complete denial. As he later testified, “I have not been a Christian for one hour of my life” (Wille z. M. 164).¹⁰ And already as a senior, in his written work on “Christianity,” he unfurled the program of his later struggle. “The delusion of a supernatural [überirdisch] world has brought human beings into the wrong position with regard to the earthly [irdisch] world” (Biogr. I, p. 320 [sic]).¹¹

Yet the high school graduate proves his gripping desire for the highest in his farewell song to the unknown God:

Once more, before I move on
And send my gaze forward,
I, grown lonely, lift my hands
Up to you, to whom I flee, [p. 376]
To whom, in the deepest depths of my heart,
Altars are solemnly consecrated
So that always
your voice will call me again.
On it glows, deeply inscribed,
The words: To the unknown God!
I am his, even if I have remained
In the gang of the wicked right to this hour.
I am his, and I feel the snares
That drag me down in battle,
And I might flee,
But they force me into his service.
I want to know you, Unknown One,
You who reach deep into my soul,
Sweeping through my life like a storm;
You, Intangible One, my kin,
I want to know you, even serve you!¹²

He devoted the first semester of 1864–1865 not only to philology but also to theology. After four years he wrote about this (Biogr. I, p. 210): “My studies [. . .] were energetically directed to the philological side of Gospel criticism and New Testament source research. Back then I still imagined that history and the study of it were capable of giving a direct answer to certain religious and philosophical questions.”¹³ Biblical criticism was unable to heal the rift within him. As such, to the distress of his relatives, he gave up the study of theology. In a letter to his sister, he wrote, “If you want to strive for peace of mind and happiness, then believe; if you want to be a disciple of truth, then study.” In the same letter, he testifies to how infinitely difficult it has become for him “to walk new paths under frequent fluctuations in disposition, even conscience, often bleakly” (Biogr. I, p. 216).¹⁴

In a genuine student conversation with his friend Deußen, he answered the latter’s enthusiasm for David Friedrich Strauss with the thoughtful words: “The matter has a serious consequence; if you give up Christ, you will also have to give up God” (Deußen, p. 20).¹⁵

II. Elaboration

Deeper study led Nietzsche into the Greek world and to Schopenhauer. He spoke out of his own experience when he declared, “A serious inclination toward antiquity makes one unchristian” Hauptausgabe X, p. 307) (T. II, Wir Philologen 141).¹⁶ And even more significant is his second confession: “Atheism was what led me to Schopenhauer” (Ecce 71).¹⁷ How deeply he suffered under the gaping emptiness of a dechristianized and degodified [entgottet] worldview is proven by his own shattering words: “The Madman” (Fröhliche Wissenschaft 125): “Where is God? [. . .] We have killed him. All of us are his murderers. How did we manage to drink up the sea? [p. 377] Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the whole horizon? What did we do when we unchained the earth from its sun? Are we not perpetually falling? And backward, sideward, forward, to all sides? The most sacred and powerful thing the world has yet possessed, it has bled to death under our knives – who will wipe this blood off of us[?]”¹⁸ “Those who comprehend what was annihilated there may watch to see if they still have anything in their hands.”¹⁹ “Excelsior” [Ever Upward] (Fr. Wiss. 285): “You will never pray again, never worship again, never rest in endless trust again [. . .] – there is no more reason in what is happening, no love in what will happen to you [. . .] – man of renunciation, you want to continue renouncing amid all this!”²⁰

The attitude toward his third lucky star, Richard Wagner, becomes clear in his Geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geist der Musik [The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music]: “The whole book knows only an artist’s purpose and deeper purpose behind all events – a god, if you will, but certainly only the completely unscrupulous, immoral god of an artist” (Selbstkritik 1886, 5).²¹ Here we encounter Nietzsche’s characteristic drive to satisfy his religious longing in another way after having rejected God and Christ. For this reason, he repeatedly emphasizes the discovery of the Dionysian, which this book introduced, of Dionysius, the wild Bacchus god of the Greeks who revelled in life with wine and nature. Nietzsche openly labels the motive for this discovery as a [“]longing for tragic myth,[”] for [“]religion[”] (T. I, XXXIII, XXXV).²²

It was religious longing that drove him to Richard Wagner. “Deep people need friends, unless they still have their God” (Biogr. II, p. 612).²³ “Religion is love beyond ourselves. My religion lies in the work of begetting genius” (Wir Philologen 284).²⁴ Thus, in all his atheism, Friedrich Nietzsche “maintained the joy in the magic of religious sensations and sentiments, especially in music” (Menschl. 131).²⁵

Nietzsche himself notices that “his spirit constantly seeks to create a substitute, some kind of thing to fill the emptiness since his separation from religion” (Menschl. 472).²⁶ “The wealth of religious feeling, which has risen to become a torrent [Strom], throws itself on ever new fields, even on science” (Menschl. 150).²⁷

Now Nietzsche seems to have given up. As previously with Christianity, now music will transfigure scientific thinking: “To feel sublimity, deep and warm light, and bliss of the highest consistency all at once” (Morg. 461).²⁸ Under this new religion, humanity will feel “more sublime and comforted [. . .] than under Christianity” (Morg. 429).²⁹ Indeed, they will be ready for the same sacrifices as in earlier religious epochs (Morg. 429). As such, Nietzsche found that “summoning the spirit of science” (Morg. 461, 244) in order to “cool the glowing stream of faith” on it was of no use.³⁰ The “sigh for the lost beloved” (Morg. 461, 153),³¹ as he called his longing for religion and metaphysics, kept breaking through more wildly [p. 378]. He cannot save himself. “The dangerous game” (Morg. 461, 121)³² must be played on and on. “Those who provide space again for religious sensation within themselves also need to let it grow” (Morg. 461, 121).³³ “The sensation is incapable of coming to a standstill. Therefore you need to be careful!” (S. 44. 7).³⁴

For him, all “being careful” was of no use. He only stopped one thing from happening up to the end: the conversion to Christ that threatened him so badly! To him, “carelessness or gloom to any degree” (Menschl. 109) (!) was “better than a romantic return to and desertion for Christianity in any form.”³⁵ Admittedly, he has to confess, “We are wavering” (Menschl. 109. 248).³⁶ “But that should not make us grow anxious and surrender what has just been achieved. Moreover, we cannot go back to the old, we have burned the ships; all that remains is to be brave, come this or that” (Menschl. 109. 248).³⁷ “You cannot become a leader and educator of humanity without pain” (Menschl. 109).³⁸

III. Culmination

Nietzsche’s “Zarathustra” is only to be understood from the religious point of view, Zarathustra the divine, Zarathustra the deification of Nietzsche. In him he has formed his own Übermensch, his higher ego, his God in himself. Bitter disappointments in friendship and relationships [Verwandtschaft] brought him to the paradoxical declaration of the most daring religious creation, namely: “One times one always makes two in the long run” (Zar. I. V, Freunde).³⁹

Now he could “live in the greatest style” (To Rohde, July 1882, sheet II, 2, 398).⁴⁰ Now he had “the inexpressibly important goal, without which he would not have stayed above the black floodwaters.” Now, “after the death of religion, invention could once again luxuriate in the divine” (T. V, Nachl. 1880/81, 13).⁴¹ There was “an atheistic religion,” “a new ideal to be created” (T. V, Nachl. 1880/81, 15).⁴² There was “eternity, which he loved, loved out of pleasure” (Zar. D. andere Tanzl. IV, D. z. Siegel). There was “a new human being” (T. V, Nachl. 1880/81, 15).⁴³

This “religion of the freest, most serene, and most sublime souls” (T. VI, Nachl. 1881, 43)⁴⁴ is able to serve the former worship of God in its entirety as “practice and prelude,” so that now “individual people can enjoy all the self-sufficiency of a god and all his power of self-redemption” (Fr. Wiss. 300).⁴⁵

It was in August of 1881 that the thought of return seized his inner being and awoke to life the Zarathustra that was slumbering there. “Religious faith is declining, and people are learning to understand themselves as fleeting.[”]⁴⁶ [“]Let us press the image of eternity onto our lives! This thought contains more than all religions, which despised this life for its fleeting character and taught people to look to another life” (T. VI, Nachl. 1881, 35, Bi. II, 2, 375, 376).⁴⁷ [p. 379]

But it was not until the winter of 1882/83 that the first part of this mighty poem “attacked” him so unexpectedly with all the features of a religious “inspiration” so that “the slightest residue of superstition” would have been enough to make him regard it as the “medium of superior forces.”⁴⁸ He even calls it “a revelation,” how “with inexpressible certainty and subtlety something becomes visible, audible, shaking and overturning him in the deepest.” This concerns “an ecstasy,” “a tremendous tension,” “being completely outside oneself, with the most distinct awareness of a number of fine shudders and tingles down to the tips of the feet.” “Everything that happens is, in the highest degree, involuntary but as if in a storm of a feeling of freedom, being unconditioned, of power, of divinity” (Ecce 87 90).⁴⁹

It was under these kinds of powerful, mystical experiences – which could not be more strikingly reminiscent of well-known accounts of possession and spiritualist mediumship – that each of the first three parts of Zarathustra was composed within three days. It is surprising how the tone and spirit of the book have continued to reflect this act of composition in a way completely consistent with this, so that Zarathustra could often be referred to “as a new Bible.”

Again it is the “very deep-seated” need for faith, for enthusiasm, “for a redemption from the perpetual dominion of reason,” which he had just cited as the greatest power (Briefe Dr. P.s 5 II, 1884, Bi. II, 2, Dr. Paneth),⁵⁰ and which produced this mighty work of poetry. The basic mood becomes clear most notably in the doctrine of the Übermensch, which comes to the fore here like never before. In this, the goal of humankind to go beyond itself; Zarathustra sees a real substitute for God. Again and again he exclaims, “All the gods are dead! Now we want the Übermensch to live!” (Zar. I, v. d. schenk. Tag. IV, v. höh. Mensch).⁵¹ “The Übermensch is the meaning of the earth” (I. Vorr. 3).⁵² “Once you said ‘God’ when you looked at distant seas, but now I will teach you to say ‘Übermensch’ [. . . .] Can you create a god? Then do not speak about gods to me. But you can indeed create the Übermensch [. . . .] But I am revealing my heart to you completely, you friends: if there were gods, how could I endure not being a god? Therefore there are no gods. It was me who drew the conclusion; but now it draws me itself” (II, A. d. glücks. Ins.).⁵³

Zarathustra proudly exclaims, “Who is more godless than I?” “Where can I find my equal?” (III, V. d. verkl. Tag).⁵⁴ He receives the right answer from the “pope retired from service”: “O Zarathustra, you are more pious than you think. Some god within you converted you to your godlessness” (IV, außer Dienst).⁵⁵ The form this god of Nietzsche’s is supposed to take is something that Zarathustra makes felt again and again: “I would only believe in a god who knew how to dance [. . . ;] now I see myself beneath myself, now a god dances through me” (I, V. Lesen und Schreiben).⁵⁶ Deeper than anything, however, is that which lets us look at “the ugly man” who became the murderer of God because he could not [p. 380] bear “to be constantly and thoroughly seen by him.” “The man could not tolerate the fact that a witness like this lived.”⁵⁷

In this regard, consider harrowing scene of the sorcerer, whose prayer is so strangely reminiscent of the senior student’s verse that it must reflect his own experience: “Thus I lie, struck with all torments, before you, the cruellest hunter, you, unknown God! Strike deeper! – Strike me again! Pierce, break this heart! – Speak at last! What do you want, highwayman, from me? You who are veiled with lightning! Unknown One! Speak! What do you want, unknown – God? – Haha! It’s me – you want? Me? Me – all of me? – Come back with all your torments! To the last of all solitary ones, oh, come back! – All the streams of my tears run their course to you! And the last flame of my heart, it glows for you! – Oh come back, my unknown God, my pain, – my last happiness.”⁵⁸ The shadow has reason enough to admonish Zarathustra: “Be on your guard so that a narrow faith does not still ensnare you in the end, a harsh, severe delusion!” (IV, Zar.).⁵⁹

IV. Result

Even Nietzsche’s friend Rhode had feared that all of Nietzsche’s Übermensch pretensions would end in the latter eating his own words (Bern. 128).⁶⁰ And his friend Lou Andreas-Salomé tells us about a conversation in which Nietzsche half-jokingly remarked, “Yes, so now the course begins; and it is carried forward, how far? When everything has had its run, where do you go then? When all possible combinations have been exhausted, what follows this? How? Would you not have to arrive at faith again? Perhaps the Catholic faith?” After the quip, he came out of his lair with another thought, spoken seriously: “In any case, the circle might be more probable than the standstill” (Lou Salome, p. 49).⁶¹

Meanwhile, Friedrich Nietzsche became increasingly bold and audacious in the output of his final years. “The ego wants to give birth to its god and to see all people at its feet” (T. IX, Wille z. M. 768).⁶² “This god is to be nothing but the culmination of power (T. IX, Wille z. M. 712), conceived of as having become free from morality.”⁶³ “God as the greatest immoralist of deed,” as will to power without goodness or wisdom (T. IX, Wille z. M. 304, 639, 1036, 1037).⁶⁴ The antichrist thinks he is strong enough to play the “advocatus diaboli” [devil’s advocate] (“Götz”: Die vier gr. Irrt. 3, T. Wille z. M. 1019).⁶⁵ He believes in “the superiority of the immoral” and thus becomes the “honorary savior of the devil” (1034, 1015).⁶⁶ With regard to this unbridled will, which affirms the evil more than the good, the question comes to his own lips: “Does it not have a name in popular terms: God is refuted but the devil is not?” (Jens. 36).⁶⁷ He himself calls his “honesty” “his God or his devilry” (Jens. 37).⁶⁸

He called his last book “Ecce homo.”⁶⁹ This desperate attack on the crucified was supposed to elevate Nietzsche’s own greatness to the highest level: [p. 381] “Behold the man!” It sounds like he foresaw his fate when he wrote to Peter Gast on December 16, 1886: “I do not see the point of hastening the tragic catastrophe of my life that begins with Ecce.”⁷⁰

At the end of December [1888] he collapsed on the street in Turin. He was taken to his apartment and lay almost motionless on the sofa for two days. With talking and playing too loudly, losing the concept of money, and rolling grinning on the floor, the ruin of this great mind comes into view. But there is still a telegram and a note that we have from January 2, 1889: “Forward with Ecce” (Ecce 144).⁷¹

With awkwardly large signs of his illness, he still writes on a number of pages. In them, he thinks of himself as a god, as Dionysus, who walks around the Po⁷² torn apart by friends and newly risen (Bi. II, 2, p. 921).⁷³ For the sake of the professorship at Basel, he might not be so selfish as to refrain from creating the world (Bern. p. 230).⁷⁴ In [“]frenzies at the piano,[”] he spouts [“]unspeakably horrific things about himself as the successor of the dead God[”] (Bern. p. 234).⁷⁵ To King Umberto and a prince of the church, he presents the prospect of his arrival as “the Crucified” (Bern. S. 294, 295).⁷⁶ In this period, he signs his name alternately as: “Dionysus,” “Dionysus Zagreus,” or “the Crucified” (Bi. II, p. 921).⁷⁷

With regard to his note on January 4 to the same Brandes who had first called attention to his greatness, the crushing awareness of his inner defeat must be assumed: “After you discovered me, it was no feat to find me; the difficulty now is losing me. The Crucified” (Bern. 229).⁷⁸

It is quite remarkable that he told his mother that he studied the whole Bible and wrote down hundreds of things while in Turin, where he stayed only during 1888 (Bern. 326).⁷⁹ The fact that he also often asked, as a sick person, for a certain psalm or a relevant chapter to be read to him, may be mentioned as well, though we cannot conclude from this that the cycle was complete in him. His illness, however, adopted an increasingly quiet course. After the death of his mother, who attempted to go out with the sick man daily in Naumburg, his sister relocated with her beloved brother to Weimar in 1897. He died there in her excellent care on August 25, 1900.

Who cannot be shocked in the deepest way that the period of life coinciding with the most tremendous self-exaltation of the modern antichrist, the day of the putative annihilation of Christianity, which was supposed to make time and humanity begin anew, the moment in which he felt himself to be God, would mean his ruin and madness!

Original Notes

i. Further details in Urchristliches und Antichristliches im Werdegang Friedrich Nietzsches [Early-Christian and Anti-Christian Elements in Friedrich Nietzsche's Development (EA 10/01)] by Dr. Eberhard Arnold. Eilenburg 1910. (Second expanded edition in process.)

Editor’s note: “Many German warriors who set out with Nietzsche’s Zarathustra will return home with the New Testament.” We hope that this word proves to be true. But even then, the debate with Nietzsche will remain an important task in our German intellectual life. The following essay is intended as a preparation for this.

Editorial Notes

1. A historical form of school for children from bourgeois families.

2. Lou Andreas-Salomé, Friedrich Nietzsche in seinen Werken (Vienna: Konegen, 1894). Arnold’s statement is a near-quote from this work.

3. Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, Das Leben Friedrich Nietzsche's, vol. 1 (Leipzig: Naumann, 1895), 54.

4. Friedrich Nietzsche, Menschliches, Allzumenschliches: Ein Buch für freie Geister, vol. 1 (Leipzig: Fritzsch, 1886), §292: “Man muss Religion und Kunst wie Mutter und Amme geliebt haben, – sonst kann man nicht weise werden.” That is, “You need to have loved religion and art like mother and nurse – otherwise you cannot become wise.”

5. Carl Albrecht Bernoulli, Franz Overbeck und Friedrich Nietzsche: Eine Freundschaft, vol. 2 (Jena: Diederichs, 1908), 179.

6. Briefe von Nietzsche, 1881, 132, An Heinrich Köselitz in Venedig (Postkarte).

7. Nietzsche, Zur Genealogie der Moral: Eine Streitschrift (Leipzig: Neumann, 1887), Vorrede, §3.

8. Briefe von Nietzsche, 1862, 324, An Raimund Granier in Fraustadt. Arnold’s punctuation differs from the original in places. Moreover, some further changes have been made to punctuation here for the sake of the translation.

9. Förster-Nietzsche, Das Leben 1, 130.

10. Nietzsche, Nachgelassene Fragmente (NF) 1887, group 11, 251.

11. Förster-Nietzsche, Das Leben 1, 321. The original has die Menschengeister (human spirits) for Arnold’s den Menschen (here: human beings).

12. We have been unable to locate this text in the Nietzsche Digitale Kritische Gesamtausgabe. But see e.g. Friedrich Nietzsche, Gedichte und Sprüche (Leipzig: Naumann, 1901), 44.

13. Förster-Nietzsche, Das Leben 1, 209–10.

14. Förster-Nietzsche, Das Leben 1, 216. Arnold omits: “but always with the aim of the true, the beautiful, and the good.” Because of the English word order, however, there is no mid-sentence ellipsis here, as there is in German.

15. Paul Deussen, Erinnerungen an Friedrich Nietzsche (Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1901), 20.

16. Nietzsche, NF 1875, group 5, 107.

17. Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, “Die Unzeitgemässen,” §2.

18. Nietzsche, Die fröhliche Wissenschaft (Leipzig: Fritzsch, 1887), book 3, §125. The original final question mark is omitted by Arnold.

19. Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, “Warum ich ein Schicksal bin,” §8.

20. Nietzsche, Die fröhliche Wissenschaft, book 4, §285. The original ends with a question mark instead.

21. Nietzsche, Die Geburt der Tragödie; Oder: Griechenthum und Pessimismus (Leipzig: Fritzsch, 1878), “Versuch einer Selbstkritik,” §5.

22. Nietzsche, NF 1885, group 2, 110.

23. Förster-Nietzsche, Das Leben 2, 612.

24. Nietzsche, NF 1875, group 5, 22.

25. The clause has some verbal commonalities with the cited text, but we have been unable to find the precise quote there: Nietzsche, Menschliches, “Das religiose Leben,” §131.

26. Nietzsche, Menschliches, “Ein Blick auf den Staat,” §472. Quote adjusted by Arnold. In the original, Nietzsche is talking about people who try to fill their religionless void with devotion to the state.

27. Nietzsche, Menschliches, “Aus der Seele der Künstler und Schriftsteller,” §150. Quote adjusted by Arnold.

28. Nietzsche, Morgenröthe: Gedanken über die moralischen Vorurtheile (Leipzig: Fritzsch, 1887), book 5, §461.

29. Nietzsche, Morgenröthe, book 5, §429. Quote adjusted by Arnold.

30. Both clauses come, adjusted by Arnold, from: Nietzsche, Menschliches, “Anzeichen höherer und niederer Cultur,” §244.

31. Nietzsche, Menschliches, “Aus der Seele der Künstler und Schriftsteller,” §153. Quote adjusted by Arnold.

32. Nietzsche, Menschliches, “Das religiöse Leben,” §121.

33. Nietzsche, Menschliches, “Das religiöse Leben,” §121. In the German, Arnold’s citation appears within the quote. This is may be an error, alongside the tautologous references to Morgenröthe §461 in this paragraph.

34. Nietzsche, Menschliches, “Das religiöse Leben,” §121.

35. Nietzsche, Menschliches, “Das religiöse Leben,” §109.

36. Nietzsche, Menschliches, “Anzeichen höherer und niederer Cultur,” §248.

37. Nietzsche, Menschliches, “Anzeichen höherer und niederer Cultur,” §248.

38. Nietzsche, Menschliches, “Das religiöse Leben,” §109.

39. Nietzsche, Also sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen, part 1 (Chemnitz: Schmeitzner, 1883), “Vom Freunde.”

40. Briefe von Nietzsche, 1882, 267, An Erwin Rohde in Tübingen. The original reads, “Es ist mir zu schwer zu leben, wenn ich es nicht im größten Stile thue.” That is, “It is too difficult for me to live unless I do it in the greatest style.”

41. Nietzsche, NF 1880, group 6, 359.

42. Nietzsche, NF 1880, group 7, 111. The original reads, “Zeichen des nächsten Jahrhunderts [. . . .] 3) die religiösen Kräfte könnten immer noch stark genug sein zu einer atheistischen Religion à la Buddha, welche über die Unterschiede der Confession hinweg striche, und die Wissenschaft hätte nichts gegen ein neues Ideal.” That is, “Signs of the next century [. . . .] 3) The religious forces could still be strong enough for an atheistic religion à la Buddha that brushed away confessional differences, and science would have nothing against a new ideal.”

43. Source unknown. The phrase in Arnold’s citation, “das andere Tanzlied,” appears in a few of Nietzsche’s unpublished fragments.

44. Nietzsche, NF 1881, group 11, 339.

45. Nietzsche, Die fröhliche Wissenschaft, book 4, §300.

46. Nietzsche, NF 1881, group 11, 172.

47. Nietzsche, NF 1881, group 11, 159.

48. Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, “Also sprach Zarathustra,” §§1, 3.

49. Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, “Also sprach Zarathustra,” §3.

50. Förster-Nietzsche, Das Leben 2, 490.

51. Nietzsche, Zarathustra, part 1, “Von der schenkenden Tugend,” §3.

52. Nietzsche, Zarathustra, part 1, “Zarathustra’s Vorrede,” §3.

53. Nietzsche, Zarathustra, part 2, “Auf den glückseligen Inseln.”

54. Nietzsche, Zarathustra, part 3, “Von der verkleinernden Tugend,” §3.

55. Nietzsche, Zarathustra, part 4, “Ausser Dienst.”

56. Nietzsche, Zarathustra, part 1, “Vom Lesen und Schreiben.”

57. Nietzsche, Zarathustra, part 4, “Der hässlichste Mensch.” Quotes adjusted by Arnold.

58. Nietzsche, Zarathustra, part 4, “Der Zauberer,” §1. Quote adjusted by Arnold, especially with regard to added dashes.

59. Nietzsche, Zarathustra, part 4, “Der Schatten.”

60. Bernoulli, Overbeck und Nietzsche, 164. The German idiom used here by Bernoulli, zu Kreuze kriechen, has a double significance in Arnold’s argument. It translates literally as “crawling to the cross.”

61. Andreas-Salomé, Nietzsche, 49.

62. Nietzsche, NF 1882, group 1, 20.

63. Probably Nietzsche, NF 1887, group 9, 8.

64. Nietzsche, NF 1887, group 11, 54.

65. The Latin phrase appears in four fragments from 1873 to 1887.

66. Nietzsche, NF 1887, group 10, 105.

67. Nietzsche, NF 1885, group 39, 14.

68. Nietzsche, Jenseits von Gut und Böse: Vorspiel einer Philosophie der Zukunft (Leipzig: Naumann, 1886), §227.

69. From the Latin Vulgate, Pilate’s words to the crowd when presenting Jesus to them: “Behold the man!” See John 19:5.

70. Briefe von Nietzsche, 1888, 1192, An Heinrich Köselitz in Berlin.

71. Briefe von Nietzsche, 1889, 1237, An Constantin Georg Naumann in Leipzig.

72. A river in Turin.

73. Förster-Nietzsche, Das Leben 2, 921.

74. Bernoulli, Overbeck und Nietzsche, 230 [?].

75. Bernoulli, Overbeck und Nietzsche, 234.

76. Bernoulli, Overbeck und Nietzsche, 294–95.

77. Förster-Nietzsche, Das Leben 2, 921.

78. Bernoulli, Overbeck und Nietzsche, 229.

79. Bernoulli, Overbeck und Nietzsche, 326.