Second Part · XXVI. The Priests

Pass the priests with sleeping swords

And one day Zarathustra made a sign to his disciples, and spake these words unto them:

“Here are priests: but although they are mine enemies, pass them quietly and with sleeping swords!

Even among them there are heroes; many of them have suffered too much—: so they want to make others suffer.

Bad enemies are they: nothing is more revengeful than their meekness. And readily doth he soil himself who toucheth them.

But my blood is related to theirs; and I want withal to see my blood honoured in theirs.”—

Zarathustra signals to his disciples to pass the priests quietly. He calls them enemies who have suffered too much and so make others suffer, yet says his blood is related to theirs.

Revenge and ressentimentZarathustra warns that the priests' meekness is the most revengeful thing, born of their own suffering.
Christianity, priests and the need to worshipIntroduces the priests as Zarathustra's enemies, kin to him by blood, whose meekness hides revenge.

Commentary on this chapter

What the critics said

Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, Introduction to Thus Spake Zarathustra (1905) — Partisan source: the author shaped Nietzsche's posthumous reputation and is not a reliable interpreter.

The Superman as an early ideal of great individualsElisabeth Förster-Nietzsche · Introduction to Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1905interpretation

Förster-Nietzsche argues that the Superman ideal was already present in Nietzsche's writings of 1873–75 as the hope of rearing great individuals, the youthful view that mankind's object lies in its highest specimens; in Zarathustra this ideal is placed in the future and veiled in becoming, beyond even the Saviour, since 'never yet hath there been a Superman'.