206.
In the New Testament, and especially in the Gospels, I discern absolutely no sign of a "Divine" voice: but rather an indirect form of the most subterranean fury, both in slander and destructiveness—one of the most dishonest forms of hatred. It lacks all knowledge of the qualities of a higher nature. It makes an impudent abuse of all kinds of plausibilities, and the whole stock of proverbs is used up and foisted upon one in its pages. Was it necessary to make a God come in order to appeal to those publicans and to say to them, etc. etc.?
Nothing could be more vulgar than this struggle with the Pharisees, carried on with a host of absurd and unpractical moral pretences; the mob, of course, has always been entertained by such feats. Fancy the reproach of "hypocrisy!" coming from those lips! Nothing could be more vulgar than this treatment of one's opponents—a most insidious sign of nobility or its reverse....
207.
Primitive Christianity is the abolition of the State: it prohibits oaths, military service, courts of justice, self-defence or the defence of a community, and denies the difference between fellow-countrymen and strangers, as also the order of castes.
Christs example; He does not withstand those who ill-treat Him; He does not defend Himself; He does more, He "offers the left cheek" (to the demand: "Tell us whether thou be the Christ?" He replies: "Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven"). He forbids His disciples to defend Him; He calls attention to the fact that He could get help if He wished to, but will not.
Christianity also means the abolition of society, it prizes everything that society despises, its very growth takes place among the outcasts, the condemned, and the leprous of all kinds, as also among "publicans," "sinners," prostitutes, and the most foolish of men (the "fisher folk "); it despises the rich, the scholarly, the noble, the virtuous, and the "punctilious." ...
208.
The war against the noble and the powerful, as it is waged in the New Testament, is reminiscent of Reynard the Fox and his methods: but plus the Christian unction and the more absolute refusal to recognise one's own craftiness.
209.