31 May 2024

Nietzsche's Poisonous Snakes

Nietzsche in 1868
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) in 1888 wrote Der Antichrist, of which only parts were published in 1895. A specific part, written on September 30, Gesetz wider das Christenthum ('Law or Decree against Christianity'), was not published until 1961.

Three elements of it remind of Oera Linda, one of them in particular. Together they raise the quenstion if Nietzsche may have been inspired by the 1875 German edition of Historische Skizzen auf Grundlage von Thet Oera Linda Bok (original Dutch published anonymously in 1874 by A.J. Vitringa, translated by Hermann Otto).

  1. The 'decree' is dated by Nietzsche: am 30. September 1888 der falschen Zeitrechnung ('according to the false timeline').
  2. It is very much anti-priesthood, e.g. The priest is the most vicious type of person: he teaches anti-nature. Priests are not to be reasoned with, they are to be locked up. (...) [they] should be ostracised, starved, driven into every type of desert.
  3. Most striking is the third article: The execrable location where Christianity brooded over its basilisk eggs should be razed to the ground (...) Poisonous snakes should be bred on top of it. ('Man soll giftige Schlangen auf ihr züchten.')

The third article in Nietzsche's handwriting (source)

That toxic plants (or animals) would grow on places where something bad happened (or was buried) is reminiscent of the following fragments:

D4. Frya’s Tex

Anyone who robs another of his freedom, even if the other were in debt to him, I would parade with collar and leash like a slave girl — though I advise you to burn his corpse and that of his mother in a barren place. Thereafter, bury their ashes fifty feet deep, so not a single blade of grass might grow upon them. For such grass would kill your most precious animals. (Otto: denn solches Gras würde euer bestes Vieh tödten)

G. Evildoers

The navigators should take his mother and all his relatives to a distant island and there scatter his ashes, so that no poisonous herbs (FENINIGE KRÛDON) may sprout from them here.

N2. Frana's Prophecy

Then shall the blood of the wicked flow over thy body, O Earth, but you must not drink of it. In the end, the toxic vermin (FENINIGE KWIK) shall feast upon it and perish.

Fragments 5d and 11b don't seem to have been part of Otto's (and Vitringa's) publication, but the Dutch or English translation may have been accessible as well in Germany.

2 comments:

  1. I've read every article, I wanted to comment on this one because of how interesting the idea is, that Nietszche may have read the OLB. That means all but three of his written works could have been partly inspired by the OLB, as most of what he wrote was after 1874.

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  2. Indeed! Thanks for this addition. Unfortunately, I do not know enough about Nietzsche's work to be able to say more about any similarities.

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