ETHICS insatiate, and the godless ones You will be forever unblessed, accursed, and damned.’ (GM 19) The revolt of the slaves, begun by the Jews, achieved its triumph with the rise of Christianity In Rome itself, once the fatherland of aristocratic virtue, men now bow down to four Jews: Jesus, Mary, Peter, and Paul (GM 36) Christianity puts itself forward as a religion of love, but in fact, according to Nietzsche, it is rooted in weakness, fear, and malice Its dominant motive is what he calls ressentiment, the desire of the weak for revenge on the strong, which disguises itself as a wish to punish the sinner Christians pose as the executors of divine commands, but this is only to cloak their own bad conscience Christians exalt compassion as a virtue, but when they assist the afflicted it is commonly because they enjoy exercising power over them Even when philanthropy is not hypocritical it does more harm than good, by humiliating the sufferer Pity is a poison that infects a compassionate person with the sufferings of others (Z 112) The success of Christianity has led to the degeneration of the human race Systematic tenderness for the weak lowers the general health and strength of mankind Modern man, as a result, is a mere dwarf, who has lost the will to be truly human Vulgarity and mediocrity become the norm; only rarely there still flashes out an embodiment of the noble ideal The herd-man in Europe nowadays puts on airs as if he were the only acceptable type of human being He glorifies the qualities that make him tame, docile, and useful to the herd as if they were the true human virtues: public spirit, benevolence, considerateness, industriousness, moderation, modesty, tolerance, compassion But there are cases where a leader or bell-wether is felt to be indispensable; in such cases people keep trying to set up an aggregation of clever herd-men in place of real commanders: that is the origin, for instance, of all parliamentary constitutions But what a blessing, in spite of everything, what a release from an increasingly unbearable burden is the appearance of an absolute commander for these herd-Europeans! This was demonstrated most recently by the effect of Napoleon when he appeared on the scene The history of the impact of Napoleon can be said to be the history of the highest happiness this entire century has achieved in its most valuable men and moments (BGE 86) If the human race is to be saved from decadence, the first step must be to reverse the values of Christianity, introducing a second transvaluation of values ‘The weak and the failures shall perish: that is the first principle of our love of mankind,’ Nietzsche wrote on the first page of his Antichrist 238