the same as to the human creditor. As in lieu of the unpaid debt, the latter could exact a certain amount of pain and humiliation, so with the God. To him also suffering is an equivalent (Ausgleichung) for loss—he too is satisfied when he can inflict or witness it; he has pleasure in suffering, i.e., cruel instincts, just as man has—only as his debtor presents him the spectacle of suffering, is he reconciled. The religions of antiquity, the so-called "ethical religions" included (except atheistic Buddhism), do not get beyond this circle of conceptions. For all wrongdoing pain must follow—it is the satisfaction or compensation par excellence. Even Christianity is no exception—I mean of course the historical movement going by that name, not modern rationalizations or emasculations. It perpetuates the Israelitish view that sin is debt and must be paid, atoned for,[1] and sometimes the guilt is so great that it cannot be atoned for, i.e., suffering must continue without end. It is true that Christianity is a redemptive religion, but this does not mean that satisfaction is not exacted, but only that it is rendered by other than the guilty parties—one next to God paid with his sufferings the debt due from men (or, shall we say? from some men, since the rest have still to suffer and to suffer forever) b
"Sorrow follows wrong"—this Sophoelean refrain contains the gist of the idea of a moral order. It is accordingly an easy inference that wherever we find sorrow (suffering or ill-fortune), wrong must have preceded it.[2] c So the prophets of ancient Israel interpreted the calamities which befell that people; and it was with such a view that later priestly hands rewrote and more or less falsified the early history of the nation, attributing successes to obedience and reverses to disobedience to the nation's God.[3] Sometimes the view is carried to such lengths—for example by Schopenhauer—that life itself, in which so much suffering is involved, is regarded in the light of a punishment, the result of a fall (Abfall) in metaphysical regions; and if all earthly things pass away, it is thought to show that they ought to pass away, eternal justice demanding the penalty.[4]
