Ah, ye brethren, that God whom I created was human work and human
madness, like all the gods!

  A man was he, and only a poor fragment of a man and ego. Out of mine
own ashes and glow it came unto me, that phantom. And verily, it
came not unto me from the beyond!

  What happened, my brethren? I surpassed myself, the suffering one; I
carried mine own ashes to the mountain; a brighter flame I contrived
for myself. And lo! Thereupon the phantom withdrew from me!

  To me the convalescent would it now be suffering and torment to
believe in such phantoms: suffering would it now be to me, and
humiliation. Thus speak I to backworldsmen.

  Suffering was it, and impotence- that created all backworlds; and
the short madness of happiness, which only the greatest sufferer
experienceth.

  Weariness, which seeketh to get to the ultimate with one leap,
with a death-leap; a poor ignorant weariness, unwilling even to will
any longer: that created all gods and backworlds.

  Believe me, my brethren! It was the body which despaired of the
body- it groped with the fingers of the infatuated spirit at the
ultimate walls.

  Believe me, my brethren! It was the body which despaired of the
earth- it heard the bowels of existence speaking unto it.

  And then it sought to get through the ultimate walls with its
head- and not with its head only- into "the other world."

  But that "other world" is well concealed from man, that dehumanised,
inhuman world, which is a celestial naught; and the bowels of
existence do not speak unto man, except as man.

  Verily, it is difficult to prove all being, and hard to make it
speak. Tell me, ye brethren, is not the strangest of all things best
proved?

  Yea, this ego, with its contradiction and perplexity, speaketh
most uprightly of its being- this creating, willing, evaluing ego,
which is the measure and value of things.

  And this most upright existence, the ego- it speaketh of the body,
and still implieth the body, even when it museth and raveth and
fluttereth with broken wings.

  Always more uprightly learneth it to speak, the ego; and the more it
learneth, the more doth it find titles, and honours for the body and
the earth.

  A new pride taught me mine ego, and that teach I unto men: no longer
to thrust one's head into the sand of celestial things, but to carry
it freely, a terrestrial head, which giveth meaning to the earth!

  A new will teach I unto men: to choose that path which man hath
followed blindly, and to approve of it- and no longer to slink aside
from it, like the sick and perishing!

  The sick and perishing- it was they who despised the body and the
earth, and invented the heavenly world, and the redeeming blood-drops;
but even those sweet and sad poisons they borrowed from the body and
the earth!

  From their misery they sought escape, and the stars were too
remote for them. Then they sighed: "O that there were heavenly paths
by which to steal into another existence and into happiness!" Then
they contrived for themselves their bypaths and bloody draughts!

  Beyond the sphere of their body and this earth they now fancied
themselves transported, these ungrateful ones. But to what did they
owe the convulsion and rapture of their transport? To their body and
this earth.

  Gentle is Zarathustra to the sickly. Verily, he is not indignant
at their modes of consolation and ingratitude. May they become
convalescents and overcomers, and create higher bodies for themselves!

  Neither is Zarathustra indignant at a convalescent who looketh
tenderly on his delusions, and at midnight stealeth round the grave of
his God; but sickness and a sick frame remain even in his tears.

  Many sickly ones have there always been among those who muse, and
languish for God; violently they hate the discerning ones, and the
latest of virtues, which is uprightness.

  Backward they always gaze toward dark ages: then, indeed, were
delusion and faith something different. Raving of the reason was
likeness to God, and doubt was sin.

  Too well do I know those godlike ones: they insist on being believed
in, and that doubt is sin. Too well, also, do I know what they
themselves most believe in.

  Verily, not in backworlds and redeeming blood-drops: but in the body
do they also believe most; and their own body is for them the
thing-in-itself.