Christianity - A Journey from Facts to Fiction — Page 13
The Sonship of Jesus Christ 13 Thus spoke Zarathustra and pierced with his glance the thoughts and reservations of the old pope. At last the latter began: ‘He who loved and possessed him most, he has now lost him the most also, behold, am I myself not the more Godless of us too now? But who could rejoice in that! You served him to the last’, asked Zarathustra thoughtfully, after a profound silence, ‘do you know how he died? Is it true what they say that pity choked him, that he saw how man hung on the Cross and could not endure it, that love for man became his Hell and at last his death?’ The old pope, however, did not answer, but looked away shyly and with a pained and gloomy expression. ‘Let me go’, said Zarathustra after prolonged reflection, during which he continued to gaze straight in the old man’s eye. ‘Let him go, he is finished. And although it honours you that you speak only good of this dead god, yet you know as well as I who he was; and that he followed strange paths. ’ ‘Between ourselves’, said the old pope, becoming cheerful, ‘or, as I may say, spoken beneath the eyes’ (for he was blind in one eye) ‘in divine matters I am more enlightened than Zarathustra himself—and may well be so. ’ ‘My love served him long years, my will obeyed all his will. A good servant, however, knows everything, and many things, too, that his master hides from himself. ’ ‘He was hidden god, full of secrecy. Truly, he even came by a son through no other than secret and indirect means. At the door of faith in him stands adultery. Whoever honours him as the god of love