It is my intention to make a study of Nietzsche’s Der Antichrist on this forum. As you can see, I refer to it by its original German title. This is because it may mean two distinct things. The first is obviously “The Antichrist”:
“In Christian eschatology the Antichrist or Anti-christ (literally: anti, opposite; christ, messiah) has come to mean a person, image of a person, or other entity that is the embodiment of evil. The name Antichrist has come to represent the leader who, the Bible says, will rise to world dominance during the End Times just before the Second Coming.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antichrist
Of course, Nietzsche’s use of the term does imply this meaning. And yet it is not what Nietzsche meant. He did mean it to imply that meaning, but he did not mean it to have that meaning. Nietzsche did not consider himself the anti-Messiah, as he did not believe in Christian eschatology (or Christianity at all, for that matter).
The German word Christ may mean two things: in the first place, it means “Christ”. But in the second place, it means “Christian” (noun). So Antichrist may be translated as “Antichrist” or “Antichristian”. And as Nietzsche did not believe in Christianity, “Antichrist” is not an accurate translation. The translation should be “Antichristian” (though with the implied meaning of “Antichrist”). Thus I will refer to this book as “The Antichristian” from now on.
Nietzsche did call the first part of Also sprach Zarathustra, when he had just written it, “a fifth evangel [Gospel]”, and said that “it concern[ed] the long-awaited Antichrist”. The language of Also sprach Zarathustra mimics the language of the Lutherbibel, Luther’s translation (and censored version) of the Bible. This language is rendered best into English by Thomas Common’s translation, “Thus Spake Zarathustra” (as opposed to “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”).
That I treat of Thus Spake Zarathustra here is useful for a second reason. Already in the preface to The Antichristian, Nietzsche mentions Thus Spake Zarathustra. But I’m running ahead of myself.
A last consideration, for now, is that The Antichristian constitutes (the first part of) Nietzsche’s Revaluation of All Values. This is certainly not the least consideration to make here.
Between November 1887 and March 1888, Nietzsche planned a four-part work called The Revaluation of All Values. The first book would be called The Antichristian; the second, The Misosopher; the third, The Immoralist; and the last, Dionysus.
In September 1888, Nietzsche revised his plan. The first book would now be called The Antichristian: Attempt at a Critique of Christianity; the second, The Free Spirit: Critique of Philosophy as a Nihilistic Movement; the third, The Immoralist: Critique of the Most Fatal Kind of Ignorance, Morality; and the last, Dionysus: Philosophy of Eternal Recurrence.
Later in September, or in October, he revised his plan again: the second and third books swapped places, and The Free Spirit, which was formerly called The Misosopher, was now called We Yes-Sayers, though it retained the same sub-title as The Free Spirit.
Also in September or October, he revised it yet again, now sketching the index as follows:
He might have called the last book “The Artist”, for he also wrote:
“Art [is] the only superior counterforce to all will to denial of life, as that which is is anti-Christian, anti-Buddhist, antinihilist par excellence.”
[The Will to Power, section 853.]
But ultimately, Nietzsche conceived of The Antichristian not as constituting only part one of The Revaluation of All Values, but as the entire work! In any case, he never wrote any other parts. All the more reason to take The Antichristian seriously.
Hail Nietzsche!