Aphoristic Writings, Notebook, and Letters to a Friend, by Otto ...

And whoever should still not know even now what is un-Jewish and what is
Jewish, let him immerse himself in the even-to-life awakening Adam of Michelangelo
(in, from the altar wall, the fourth painting of the middle row in the Sistine Chapel), in
that person in whom all lies still as possibility, but also in whom all possibilities truly
lie – with the exception of one: Jewishness!
The Jew is from the beginning: and yet he cannot also signify an end. He is
between beginning and end. Beginning and end, however, mean “action”. For that
reason the Jew knows trade, not action.
*
*
The Jew is obtrusive toward Christ. Christ did not ride on a donkey for nothing.
Donkey-cult among the Jews. The Jew is the castigation of the donkey: he is not
stupid at all. That the Jews are now emerging in Germany is concomitant with the
German “Michael” 41 . The Jew posseses all evil attributes, yet in a particular form: he
smiles like the stupidity whose ethical correlate he is. Stupidity smiles at wisdom; the
Jew smiles at Good. With this he places himself beside Good. He shows how even
smiling can also be immoral.
It is immoral to ask, to beseech.
Howling gale in Macbeth: fate conquers and devours man.
The man who fails in suicide? He is the complete criminal, because he wants life
in order to revenge himself. All evil is revenge!
41
From a German play called “Das Kalte Herz”. “The deutsche Michel” is the plain, honest, muchenduring,
but slow, German. [Trans]
*
*
*
69