already in existence, the Jewish form (once the gulf separating the Jews from the Christian-Jews was bridged, the Christian-Jews were compelled to employ those self-preservative measures afresh which were discovered by the Jewish instinct for their own self-preservation, after having accent uated them); and again through the fact that Greek moral philosophy had done everything that could be done to prepare the way for moral-fanaticism, even among Greeks and Romans, and to render it palatable. . . . Plato, the great importer of corruption, who was the first who refused to see Nature in morality, and who had already deprived the Greek gods of all their worth by his notion "good? was already tainted with Jewish bigotry (in Egypt? ).
203. These small virtues of gregarious animals do not by any means lead to eternal life ": to put them on the stage in such a way, and to use them for one s own purpose is perhaps very smart; but to him who keeps his eyes open, even here it remains, in spite of all, the most ludicrous performance. A man by no means deserves privileges, either on earth or in heaven, because he happens to have attained to perfection in the art of behaving like a good-natured little sheep; at best, he only remains a dear, absurd little ram with horns provided, of course, he does not burst with vanity or excite indignation by assuming the airs of a supreme judge. What a terrible glow of false coloring here floods the meanest virtues as though they were the reflection of divine qualities! The natural purpose and utility of every virtue is systematically hushed up it can only be valuable in the light of a divine command or model, or in the light of the good which belongs to a beyond or a spiritual world. (This is magnificent! As if it were a question of the salvation of the soul , but it was a means of making things bearable here with as many beautiful sentiments as possible.)
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