The Genealogy of Morals The Complete Works, Volume Thirteen, edited by Dr. Oscar Levy. · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
23.
Let this suffice once for all concerning the origin of the "holy God." The fact that _in itself_ the conception of gods is not bound to lead necessarily to this degradation of the imagination (a temporary representation of whose vagaries we felt bound give), the fact that there exist nobler methods of utilising the invention of gods than in this self-crucifixion and self-degradation of man, in which the last two thousand years of Europe have been past masters--these facts can fortunately be still perceived from every glance that we cast at the Grecian gods, these mirrors of noble and grandiose men, in which the _animal_ in man felt itself deified, and did _not_ devour itself in subjective frenzy. These Greeks long utilised their gods as simple buffers against the "bad conscience"--so that they could continue to enjoy their freedom of soul: this, of course, is diametrically opposed to Christianity's theory of its god. They went _very far_ on this principle, did these splendid and lion-hearted children; and there is no lesser authority than that of the Homeric Zeus for making them realise occasionally that they are taking life too casually. "Wonderful," says he on one occasion--it has to do with the case of Ægistheus, a _very_ bad case indeed-- "Wonderful how they grumble, the mortals against the immortals, _Only from us_, they presume, _comes evil_, but in their folly, Fashion they, spite of fate, the doom of their own disaster."
Yet the reader will note and observe that this Olympian spectator and judge is far from being angry with them and thinking evil of them on this score. "How _foolish_ they are," so thinks he of the misdeeds of mortals--and "folly," "imprudence," "a little brain disturbance," and nothing more, are what the Greeks, even of the strongest, bravest period, have admitted to be the ground of much that is evil and fatal.--Folly, _not_ sin, do you understand?... But even this brain disturbance was a problem--"Come, how is it even possible? How could it have really got in brains like ours, the brains of men of aristocratic ancestry, of men of fortune, of men of good natural endowments, of men of the best society, of men of nobility and virtue?" This was the question that for century on century the aristocratic Greek put to himself when confronted with every (to him incomprehensible) outrage and sacrilege with which one of his peers had polluted himself. "It must be that a god had infatuated him," he would say at last, nodding his head.--This solution is _typical_ of the Greeks, ... accordingly the gods in those times subserved the functions of justifying man to a certain extent even in evil--in those days they took upon themselves not the punishment, but, what is more noble, the guilt.
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