It is however a shame to pray! Not for all, but for thee, and me, and whoever hath his conscience in his head. For THEE it is a shame to pray!
Zarathustra tells the apostates to their faces that they pray again. He says that for those with an intellectual conscience, prayer is shameful, urged on by a faint-hearted devil within.
- The death of GodReturning to prayer is condemned as cowardice, a retreat from the intellectual conscience that has outgrown God.
What the critics said
Brandes summarises Zarathustra's disgust with the petty virtues that make men smaller, his being called godless, the apostasy of his former companions, and his loathing of the great city and of the State.