-- Has any one ever clearly understood the celebrated story at the beginning of the Bible -- of God's mortal terror of science? . . . No one, in fact, has understood it. This priest-book par excellence opens, as is fitting, with the great inner difficulty of the priest: he faces only one great danger; ergo, "God" faces only one great danger. --

   The old God, wholly "spirit," wholly the high-priest, wholly perfect, is promenading his garden: he is bored and trying to kill time. Against boredom even gods struggle in vain.²¹ What does he do? He creates man -- man is entertaining. . . But then he notices that man is also bored. God's pity for the only form of distress that invades all paradises knows no bounds: so he forthwith creates other animals. God's first mistake: to man these other animals were not entertaining -- he sought dominion over them; he did not want to be an "animal" himself. -- So God created woman. In the act he brought boredom to an end -- and also many other things! Woman was the second mistake of God. -- "Woman, at bottom, is a serpent, Heva" -- every priest knows that; "from woman comes every evil in the world" -- every priest knows that, too. Ergo, she is also to blame for science. . . . . It was through woman that man learned to taste of the tree of knowledge. -- What happened? The old God was seized by mortal terror. Man himself had been his greatest blunder; he had created a rival to himself; science makes men godlike -- it is all up with priests and gods when man becomes scientific! -- Moral: science is the forbidden per se; it alone is forbidden. Science is the first of sins, the germ of all sins, the original sin. This is all there is of morality. -- "Thou shalt not know" -- :the rest follows from that. -- God's mortal terror, however, did not hinder him from being shrewd. How is one to protect one's self against science? For a long while this was the capital problem. Answer: Out of paradise with man! Happiness, leisure, foster thought -- and all thoughts are bad thoughts! -- Man must not think. -- And so the priest invents distress, death, the mortal dangers of childbirth, all sorts of misery, old age, decrepitude, above all, sickness -- nothing but devices for making war on science! The troubles of man don't allow him to think. . . Nevertheless -- how terrible! -- , the edifice of knowledge begins to tower aloft, invading heaven, shadowing the gods -- what is to be done? -- The old God invents war; he separates the peoples; he makes men destroy one another ( -- the priests have always had need of war. . . . ).War -- among other things, a great disturber of science ! -- Incredible! Knowledge, deliverance from the priests, prospers in spite of war. -- So the old God comes to his final resolution: "Man has become scientific -- there is no help for it: he must be drowned!". . . .