Second Part · XXVI. The Priests

Blood is the worst witness to truth

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Eagerly and with shouts drove they their flock over their foot-bridge; as if there were but one foot-bridge to the future! Verily, those shepherds also were still of the flock!

Small spirits and spacious souls had those shepherds: but, my brethren, what small domains have even the most spacious souls hitherto been!

Characters of blood did they write on the way they went, and their folly taught that truth is proved by blood.

But blood is the very worst witness to truth; blood tainteth the purest teaching, and turneth it into delusion and hatred of heart.

And when a person goeth through fire for his teaching—what doth that prove! It is more, verily, when out of one’s own burning cometh one’s own teaching!

The shepherds drive their flock over one bridge to the future and write in blood, teaching that blood proves truth. Zarathustra answers that blood taints a teaching into delusion and hatred.

The herd, the rabble, the many-too-manyThe shepherds drive their flock over a single foot-bridge and are themselves still of the flock.
Creation and the creatorA teaching that comes out of one's own burning counts for more than going through fire for a teaching.
Christianity, priests and the need to worshipCriticises the priestly shepherds who drove their flock over one foot-bridge and taught that blood and martyrdom prove truth.

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'.