Ecce Homo, and the Antichrist: How One Becomes What One Is/A Curse on Christianity

182 Pages·2004·0.78 MB·English

by  Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Ecce Homo
&
The Antichrist

Ecce Homo
How One Becomes What One Is
&
The Antichrist
A Curse on Christianity
Friedrich Nietzsche
In a new Translation by
Thomas Wayne
Algora Publishing
New York
© 2004 by Algora Publishing.
All Rights Reserved
www.algora.com
No portion of this book (beyond what is permitted by
Sections 107 or 108 of the United States Copyright Act of 1976)
may be reproduced by any process, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in any form, or by any means, without the
express written permission of the publisher.
ISBN: 0-87586-281-0 (softcover)
ISBN: 0-87586-282-9 (hardcover)
ISBN: 0-87586-283-7 (ebook)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1844-1900.
[Ecce homo. English]
Ecce homo : how one becomes what one is ; and, The Antichrist : a curse on
Christianity / by Friedrich Nietzsche ; new translations by Thomas Wayne.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-87586-281-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 0-87586-282-9 (hard : alk. pa-
per) — ISBN 0-87586-283-7 (ebook)
1. Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1844-1900. 2. Philosophers—Germany—Bi-
ography. 3. Christianity—Controversial literature. I. Title: Ecce homo : how
one becomes what one is ; and, The Antichrist : a curse on Christianity. II.
Wayne, Thomas. III. Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1844-1900. Antichrist. En-
glish. IV. Title: Antichrist. V. Title.
B3316.N54A3413 2004
193—dc22
2004006789
Printed in the United States
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TRANSLATOR’S INTRODUCTION 1
ECCE HOMO. HOW ONE BECOMES WHAT ONE IS 5
PREFACE 7
WHY I AM SO WISE 11
WHY I AM SO CLEVER 22
WHY I WRITE SUCH GOOD BOOKS 39
THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY 48
THE UNTIMELY ESSAYS 53
HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN 57
DAYBREAK 63
THE GAY SCIENCE 66
THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA 67
BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL 79
GENEALOGY OF MORALS 81
TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS 82
THE CASE OF WAGNER 84
WHY I AM A DESTINY 90
THE ANTICHRIST. A CURSE ON CHRISTIANITY 99
PREFACE 101
1

TRANSLATOR’S INTRODUCTION
“Nietzsche is the most sarcastic son of a bitch ever to set foot on this
earth. Just say that; then write whatever else you want, like he would.” —
— So my friend Werner Timmermann tells me, with a gleam in his eye.
He helped with my translation of Thus Spake Zarathustra, a four-year-long
labor of love, so he knows what he is talking about. Zarathustra (1885)
was Nietzsche’s magnum opus; everything before it was preparation,
everything after it expatiation and elucidation.
But, for some, the question remains: Why Nietzsche? Friedrich
Nietzsche (1844-1900) was quite simply one of the most original and
influential philosophers who ever lived; in addition, his writing style was
brilliant, epigrammatic, idiosyncratic [“It is my ambition to say in ten
sentences what everyone else says in a book — what everyone else does
not say in a book.”] The language dances, prances, whirls and twirls; it
ranges from ghetto-verbalizations and vulgarizations to high art, from
lyricism to sardonicism, from satyr-play to passion play. No one really
writes like Nietzsche, though the number of his stylistic apes and
imitators is legion (especially in the ranks of academe). Nietzsche, by the
way, had nothing but contempt for academics; he considered them sterile
mediocrities, puffed-up frogs in need of a pinpricking. So much for
professional philosophers and their “definitive” translations of Nietzsche;
1
Ecce Homo
their footnotes are good and with one glaring exception (Zarathustra)
their translations are even pretty good.
But pretty good is often not good enough when it comes to
Nietzsche. In the new translations that comprise this volume, every
sentence, every sentiment is prized: every ellipsis, every parenthesis,
every italicized phrase and exclamation point is retained as a part and
parcel of his literary notation, his philosophical-musical score, if you
will. Rhythm and word choice are everything…
This brings us to a second question: Why The Antichrist and Ecce
Homo? Two of this great German’s most germane offerings, they were
among his last writings. Although he completed them both by the end
of 1888, they were considered to be so inflammatory that they were
published only years later, in 1895 and 1908, respectively. Both are
products of Nietzsche’s last creative year. Yet Ecce Homo is relatively
calm and tranquil, while The Antichrist is a jeremiad full of venom and
vitriol. The latter is in fact one of the most devastating condemnations
of Christianity ever; Nietzsche calls it “the one immortal blemish on
mankind,” the greatest sin possible against reality, against the spirit of
the earth. He goes on to say that “the first and last Christian died on
the Cross.” His analysis of Jesus and Paul as superlative Jewish types
and his portrait of Pontius Pilate as a superior Roman type are
thought-provoking, to say the least. One is reminded of Swift’s remark
from Gulliver’s Travels: “I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives
to be the most pernicious race of odious little vermin that nature ever
suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth.”
That being said, Swift’s satire influenced Nietzsche less than
Voltaire’s skepticism and Schopenhauer’s pessimism — Voltaire,
whose celebrated phrase with respect to Christianity was “Ecrasez
l’infame!” (invoked at the end of Ecce Homo); and Schopenhauer, whose
comment about religion served as the epigraph for H.L. Mencken’s
early study of Nietzsche: “I shall be told, I suppose, that my
philosophy is comfortless — because I speak the truth; and people
prefer to believe that everything the Lord made is good. If you are one
such, go to the priests, and leave philosophers in peace.”
2