Nietzsche's Chiristian Christology

Just finished reading Nietzsche's The Antichrist, the first of the four-part collection of essays, Revaluation of All Values, which was never completed.

Along with Twilight of the Idols and Ecce Homo, this is where Nietzsche gets out of control, driving toward his final breakdown in 1889. Some scholars suspect Nietzsche was in fact insane when writing this work, and consequently call intellectual worth of it in question.

To be sure, the language here is very explicit and its contents are outrageous. But I do consider the work to be that of a rational person. Moreover, if anything, it offers some new aspects of Nietzsche's thoughts that have not been discussed in earlier works.

I'm thinking particularly of his Christology, account of the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Despite what the title of the essay might imply, Nietzsche is not exactly anti-Christ, although Jesus is far from exemplary.

The real culprit, according to Nietzsche, of the greatest crime against humanity, against life, is Paul. Well I think that's understandable and well implied from his other works. What's interesting is Nietzsche's characterization of Jesus as the great "symbolist."

Of course Nietzsche's account of Jesus must be considered with that of Buddhism. The principle of no resistance, of love, of complete riddance of ressentiment...

It seems to me that Nietzsche's account of Jesus contains much "truths" from which Chritians can learn valuable lessons. A Christian cannot accept Nietzsche's account of Paul; nevertheless, she might concede, and rightly, that Nietzsche has a good grasp of what Jesus taught as love.

Admittedly, this doctrine of love, of no resistance, is quite incomprehensible philosophically. Buddhistic asceticism of resignation makes sense, but how Jesus turns the other cheek in love really doesn't. Hence my general thesis about Nietzsche that he can't really fully be handled within the discipline of philosophy. I wonder how much commentary is out there on Nietzsche's Christology offered in The Antichrist.

Nietzsche is no doubt among the greatest atheists one can find in history, but he is by no means without God. On the contrary, he is haunted by it. I am interested in him very much for that. I mean he saw very acutely the "truth" of what he so completely rejected, but just couldn't make sense of it, for the life of his.

What am I thinking? Well, this: Where am I?