The Anti-Christ and the Anti-Moses: Nietzsche, Spinoza, and the Possibility of Sacrilegious Beatitude

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper explores similarities between the sacrilegious revaluations Nietzsche and Spinoza undertook with regards to Christianity and Judaism respectively. In both cases, these revaluations involve a devaluation of an ancestral religious tradition, followed by the infusion of alternative values posited through forms of secular salvation linked to immanent conceptions of eternity. Given the importance of the structural and phenomenological similarities the paper analyses, it is argued that if Nietzsche thought of himself as the Anti-Christ, there is a convincing case to think of Spinoza as the Anti-Moses. And because both the Anti-Christ and the Anti-Moses not only devaluated their respective religious traditions, but also suggested forms of beatitude based on a valorizing notion of eternity, their efforts are profoundly religious. Accordingly, Nietzsche and Spinoza are not only arguably the greatest Christian and Jewish heretics, but also the prophets of innovative forms of secular and immanent religiosity.