German philosopher-king Arthur Schopenhauer on metaphysical anti-
Judaism and the fundamental irreconcilable difference between
Judaism and Aryan-Christian religion:
"Brahma is supposed to have created the world by a kind of fall into
sin, or by an error, and has to atone for this sin or error by
remaining in it himself until he he has redeemed out of it. Very
good! In Buddhism the world arises as a consequence of an
inexplicable clouding of the heavenly clarity of the blessed state
of Nirvana after a long period of quietude. Its origin is thus a
kind of fatality which is fundamentally to be understood in a moral
sense, notwithstanding the case has an exact analogy in the physical
world in the origin of the sun in an inexplicable primeval streak of
mist. Subsequently, however, as a consequence of moral misdeeds it
gradually deteriorates physically too, until it has assumed its
present sad condition. Excellent! To the Greeks the world and the
gods were the work of an unfathomable necessity: that will do as a
provisional explanation. Ormuzd is continually at war with Ahriman:
that is worth considering. But that a god like Jehovah should create
this world out of want and misery anima causa [capriciously] and de
gaiete de coeur and then go so far as to applaud himself for it,
saying it is all very good: that is quite unacceptable."
[Schopenhauer. Parerga and Paralipomena. On the Suffering of the
World, Section 9]
"Old and New Testaments. The basic character of Judaism is realism
and optimism, which are closely related and the preconditions of
actual theism, since they consider the material world absolutely
real and life as a pleasing gift made expressly for us. The basic
character of Brahmanism and Buddhism, on the contrary, is idealism
and pessimism, since they allow the world only a dream-like
existence and regard life as the consequence of our 'sins'. In the
doctrine of Zend-Avesta, from which Judaism is known to have
derived, the pessimistic element is still present and represented by
Ahriman. In Judaism, however, he is accorded ony a subordinate
position as Satan, who is nonetheless still, like Ahriman, the
author of snakes, scorpions, and vermin. Judaism employs him
straightaway to repair its fundamental error of optimism, namely to
produce the Fall, which then introduces into that religion the
pessimistic element required for the sake of fidelity to the most
obvious of truths. This element is the most correct basic idea in
the religion, although it transfers to the course of existence what
ought to be represented as its ground and as preceding it.
The New Testament must be of Indian origin: witness of that is
its altogether Indian ethic, in which morality leads to asceticism,
its pessimism and its avatar. But it is for precisely this reason
that it stands in decided intrinsic opposition to the Old Testament,
so that the only thing in the Old Testament which could provide a
connecting link with it was the story of the Fall. For when this
Indian doctrine entered into the 'Promised Land' there arose the
task of uniting the knowledge of the corruption and misery of the
world, of its need for redemption and of salvation through an
avatar, together with the morality of self-denial and atonement,
with Jewish monotheism and its 'Behold, it was very good'. And this
union was achieved, as far as it could be; as far, that is, as two
so completely heterogeneous, indeed antithetical doctrines can be
united.
...For this is how the world appears here as much as it does in
Buddhism -- and no longer in the light of the Jewish optimism which
had found everything 'very good': the Devil himself is now
styled "Prince of this world" (John xii 31). The world is no longer
an end, but a means: the kingdom of joy lies beyond it and beyond
death. ...
...Everything true in Christianity is also to be discovered in
Brahmanism and Buddhism. But the Jewish notion of an animated
nothingess, a temporal product which can never be too humbly
thankful for an ephemeral existence full of misery, fear and want,
nor praise Jehovah too highly for it -- this you will look for in
vain in Hinduism and Buddhism."
[Schopenhauer. Parerga and Paralipomena. On Religion, Section 5]