From Friedrich Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil (translated by Helen Zimmern):
The Christian faith from the beginning, is sacrifice: the sacrifice of all freedom, all pride, all self-confidence of spirit.... Modern men, with their obtuseness as regards all Christian nomenclature, have no longer the sense for the terribly superlative conception which was implied to an antique taste by the paradox of the formula, "God on the Cross." Hitherto there had never and nowhere been such boldness in inversion, nor anything at once so dreadful, questioning, and questionable as this formula: it promised the transvaluation of all ancient values. (pg. 34 Dover Thrift Edition)
2 comments:
Ken, as a post graduate student who is necessarily used to reading large amounts of the most opaque prose, perhaps you can translate the following:
"...the terribly superlative conception which was implied to an antique taste by the paradox of the formula, "God on the Cross."
Thanks,
SF
You know, I kept reading that over and over again and I think I get it now. But the phrase "implied to an antique taste by the paradox of the formula" still makes me sneeze. ;)
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