Fourth and Last Part · LXVI. Out of Service

Zarathustra sends him to the cave

“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 all pious men. But now a cry of distress calleth me hastily away from thee.

In my domain shall no one come to grief; my cave is a good haven. And best of all would I like to put every sorrowful one again on firm land and firm legs.

Who, however, could take THY melancholy off thy shoulders? For that I am too weak. Long, verily, should we have to wait until some one re-awoke thy God for thee.

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

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.

PityZarathustra offers a haven to the sorrowful but admits he cannot lift this man's melancholy.
The higher menHe sends another despairing seeker to his cave, where the higher men will gather.

Commentary on this chapter

What the critics said

Anthony M. Ludovici, Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra (1909)

How God died of pityAnthony M. Ludovici · Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1909interpretation

Ludovici explains the last pope's story as Nietzsche's history of Judaism and Christianity: the jealous, revengeful God of a strong warlike race degenerates with his people into a soft, pitiful God of love who sacrifices his Son for us, and this process ends in his being suffocated by his own pity.