LXVI. Out of Service

Not long, however, after Zarathustra had freed himself from the magician, he again saw a person sitting beside the path which he followed, namely a tall, black man, with a haggard, pale countenance: THIS MAN grieved him…

Having just escaped the magician, Zarathustra sees a tall, black, pale man by the path and curses priests and sorcerers. He tries to slip past, but the man springs up and comes straight toward him.

“Whoever thou art, thou traveller,” said he, “help a strayed one, a seeker, an old man, who may here easily come to grief! The world here is strange to me, and remote; wild beasts also did I hear howling; and he who…

The old man asks for help and says he sought the saint in the forest, who has since died. He names himself the last pope, out of service and without a master. His heart sent him to seek Zarathustra.

Thus spake the hoary man, and gazed with keen eyes at him who stood before him. Zarathustra however seized the hand of the old pope and regarded it a long while with admiration. “Lo! thou venerable one,” said he then,…

Zarathustra admires the old man's long, blessing hand, which now holds the ungodly Zarathustra. He quotes his own saying and searches the pope's thoughts.

“He who most loved and possessed him hath now also lost him most—: —Lo, I myself am surely the most godless of us at present? But who could rejoice at that!”— —“Thou servedst him to the last?” asked Zarathustra…

Zarathustra asks whether sympathy choked God when he saw man on the cross, and the pope looks away. Then the pope says his God was hidden, once harsh and revengeful, then old and pitiful, and finally suffocated.

“Thou old pope,” said here Zarathustra interposing, “hast thou seen THAT with thine eyes? It could well have happened in that way: in that way, AND also otherwise. When Gods die they always die many kinds of death.…

Zarathustra says gods die many kinds of death. He charges this one with indistinctness and with revenge on his own botched creations, which he calls a sin against good taste.

—“What do I hear!” said then the old pope, with intent ears; “O Zarathustra, thou art more pious than thou believest, with such an unbelief! Some God in thee hath converted thee to thine ungodliness. Is it not thy piety…

The pope says some God converted Zarathustra to his ungodliness and that his honesty will lead him beyond good and evil. He senses blessing in Zarathustra's hands and asks to be his guest for a night.

“Amen! So shall it be!” said Zarathustra, with great astonishment; “up thither leadeth the way, there lieth the cave of Zarathustra. Gladly, forsooth, would I conduct thee thither myself, thou venerable one; for I love…

Zarathustra agrees and points the way to his cave, but the cry of distress calls him away. He says he cannot take the pope's melancholy from him, since the old God is dead.

For that old God liveth no more: he is indeed dead.”—

Zarathustra ends the exchange by saying the old God is dead.