Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None

Zarathustra proclaims that “God is dead.” Nietzsche references this phrase in other works, specifically the Gay Science. For Nietzsche, “God is dead” proclaims not that the Christian God has suffered a literal death but that the customs and traditions associated with Christianity no longer guide humankind. Zarathustra preaches this movement away from morals in his sermons on the overman, wherein he teaches his disciples how to become annihilators of the good and the noble. By arguing for the death of God, Zarathustra dethrones God as the creator of value and despises the contempt these values have fostered in mankind. The old hermit Zarathustra encounters on his journey down the mountain has yet to hear the news that God is dead. He warns Zarathustra against helping mankind, saying that they would much rather have their burdens relieved instead of receiving knowledge. The old hermit says, “Now I love God: human beings I do not love. Human beings are too imperfect a thing for me. Love for human beings would kill me” (4). The old hermit is only able to stay in isolation and praise God because he remains ignorant that God is dead. Contrastingly, Zarathustra has acquired a love of mankind and the earth while living in the mountains. This knowledge fills him much like the cup which overflows or like a bee that has too much honey. Zarathustra welcomes this loss of ignorance and embraces the task of helping mankind.

There are also various references to Jesus, both explicit and implicit. In the opening chapters, Nietzsche alludes to different biblical scenes, such as the Garden of Gethsemane, the crucifixion, and the temptation in the desert. Towards the end, he refers to the creation scene in Genesis. One could also argue that Zarathustra’s statement that without man the sun would have nothing to rise for, critiques God’s first proclamation: Let there be light! Zarathustra functions as a foil for Jesus while also commenting on his ministry. Zarathustra’s teachings center around the body and a love of the earth, whereas Jesus’s teachings center around the innate sin of man, the overcoming of corporeal life, and the assertion of death as the meaning of life. Jesus was, in this sense, the first preacher of death. Zarathustra argues, “Truly, too early did that Hebrew die, the one who is honored by the preachers of slow death; and for many it has become their doom that he died too early” (54). It is a misfortune that Jesus died too early because, according to Zarathustra, he would have renounced his teachings in his old age. He continues, “He died too early; he himself would have recanted his teaching if he had reached my age! He was noble enough for recanting!” (55). Had Jesus remained in the desert, or accepted the overflowing cup with enthusiasm, he would have learned to live and love the earth.

Further, his recanting of the spirit would have left the present-day preachers of death with no reason to praise death as the aim of life. Zarathustra’s first critique of Jesus’s ministry is that he posits life as something to be overcome. Zarathustra argues that Jesus’s death was done out of pity for mankind, a pity that the overman does not endorse. Zarathustra elaborates, “What matters my pity? Is pity not the cross on which he is nailed who loves humans? But my pity is no crucifixion” (7). Jesus’s life is predicated on the fact that he will one day die to cleanse humanity of its sins. Zarathustra’s second major critique of Jesus’s ministry is the pity he showed toward mankind. Modern-day religion teaches people to despise their bodies and the corporeal world in favor of an afterlife. As such, believers fail to ever truly live.