55

There is a large ladder of religious atrocities, with many rungs. But three of them are the most important. First people sacrificed human beings to their gods, perhaps the very ones whom they loved best. Here belong the sacrifices of the first born in all prehistoric religions, also the sacrifice of Emperor Tiberius in the grotto to Mithras on the island of Capri, that most terrible of all Roman anachronisms.9 Then, in the moral ages of humanity, people sacrificed to their gods the strongest instincts which man possessed, his "nature." This celebratory joy sparkles in the cruel glance of the ascetic, of the enthusiastic "anti-natural man." Finally, what was still left to sacrifice? Didn't people finally have to sacrifice everything comforting, holy, healing, all hope, all belief in a hidden harmony, in future blessedness and justice? Didn't people have to sacrifice God himself and, out of cruelty against themselves, worship stone, stupidity, gravity, fate, and nothingness? To sacrifice God for nothingness - this paradoxical mystery of the last act of cruelty is saved for the generation which is coming along right now. We all already know something about this.

9. . . . Emperor Tiberius : the Roman emperor after Augustus (from 14 AD to 37 AD). The worship of Mithras involved pagan sun worship.
Friedrich Nietzsche - Beyond Good and Evil
Part III - Aphorism # 55

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