Friedrich_Nietzsche - Untimely_Meditations_(Cambridge_Texts_in_the_History_of_Philosophy__1997)

Untimely Meditationsevoke them. Such a historiography would, however, b e altogethercontrary to the analytical and inartistic tendencies of our time, whichwould indeed declare it false. But a history which, lacking the directionof an inner drive to construct, does nothing but destroy, in the longrun denaturizes its instruments: for such men destroy illusions and'he who destroys the illusions in himself and others is punished bynature, the cruellest tyrant'. For a good length of time, it is true, onecan occupy oneself with history in a perfectly innocent and harmlessway, as though it were merely an occupation like any other; recenttheology especially seems to have entered into partnership with historyout of pure innocence, and even now it almost refuses to seethat, probably much against its will, it has thereby placed itself in theservice of the Voltairean ecrasez. * No one should suppose that thisdevelopment conceals a powerful new constructive instinct- unless,that is, one is to regard the so-called Protestant Uriiont as the work ofa new religion, and perhaps the jurist Holtzendorf (the editor andprefacer of the even more problematical Protestant Bible) as Johnthe Baptist at the river Jordan. For som,e time yet the Hegelianphilosophy still smouldering in older heads may assist in propagatingthis innocence, perhaps by teaching one how to distinguish the ' ideaof Christianity' from its manifold imperfect 'phenomenal forms'and even to convince oneself that it is the 'preferred tendency of theidea' to reveal itself in ever purer forms, and at last in its purest, mosttransparent, indeed hardly visible form, in the brains of the contemporarytheologus liberalis vulgaris. But when he hears these purestof-the-pureChristians speaking of earlier impure Christians theimpartial auditor often has the impression that what is being spokenof is not Christianity at all but - well, what are we to think? When wefind the greatest theologian of the century':!: characterizing Christianityas the religion which can 'discover itself in all existing and inseveral other barely possible religions', and when the 'true church' issupposed to be that which 'becomes a flowing mass, where there areno contours, where every part is now here, now there, and everythingblends peacefully together' - again, what are we to think?What one can learn in the case of Christianitythat under theinfluence of a historical treatment it has become denaturized, until a'*'Voltairean ecrasez.': alludes to Voltaire's motto 'ecrasez l'i nfame!' - destroy theinfamous thing (i.e. the Church).tProtestant Union: the military alliance formed between 1608 and 1621 by theProtestant princes of Germany.:j:'greatest theologian of the century': Schleiermacher (see glossary).96