The Redeemer type
Nietzsche criticized Ernest Renan's attribution of the concepts genius and hero to Jesus. Nietzsche thought that the word idiot best described Jesus. According to Walter Kaufmann, he might have been referring to the naïve protagonist of Dostoyevsky's book The Idiot. With an antipathy toward the material world, Jesus was "...at home in a world undisturbed by reality of any kind, a merely 'inner' world, a 'real' world, an 'eternal' world... . 'The kingdom of God is within you'... ."The Antichrist, § 29 According to Nietzsche, the redeemer type is determined by a morbid intolerance of pain. Extreme sensitivity results in avoidance of the world. Also, any feeling of resistance to the world is experienced as pain. Even evil is therefore not resisted. "The fear of pain, even of the infinitely small in pain, — cannot end otherwise than in a religion of love... ." Jesus was a distorted version of the redeemer type. The first disciples, in their Gospels, described him as having Old Testament characteristics such as prophet, Messiah, miracle–worker, moral preacher, etc. Dostoyevsky could have revealed his sickliness and childishness. According to Jesus, "...the kingdom of heaven belongs to 'children'... ."The Antichrist, § 32 Everyone has an equal right to become a child of God. His spirituality is infantile, a result of delayed puberty.
Jesus does not resist or contend with the world because he doesn't recognize the importance of the world. His life is its own kingdom of God at every moment. Early Christians used Semitic concepts to express his teaching, but his anti–realism could just as easily have been a characteristic of Taoism or Hinduism.
Nietzsche asserted that the psychological reality of redemption was "...[a] new way of life, not a new faith."The Antichrist, § 33 It is "...[t]he deep instinct for how one must live, in order to feel oneself 'in heaven'... ." The Christian is known by his acts. He offers no resistance to evil, He has no anger and wants no revenge. Blessedness is not promised on conditions, as in Judaism. The Gospel's glad tidings are that there is no distinction between God and man. There is no Judaic concern for sin, prayers, rituals, forgiveness, repentance, guilt, punishment, or faith. "[E]vangelic practice alone leads to God, it is God!" "[I]t is only in the practice of life that one feels 'divine,' 'blessed,' 'evangelical,' at all times a 'child of God.'" There were two worlds for the teacher of the Gospel's glad tidings. The real, true world is an inner experience of the heart in which all things are blessedly transfigured (Verklärung), eternalized, and perfected. The apparent world, however, is only a collection of psychological symbols, signs, and metaphors. These symbols are expressed in terms of space, time, history, and nature. Examples of these mere symbols are the concepts of "God as a person", "the son of man", "the hour of death", and "the kingdom of heaven". Jesus did not want to redeem anyone. He wanted to show how to live. His legacy was his bearing and behavior. He did not resist evildoers. He loved evildoers. Nietzsche has Jesus tell the thief on the cross that he is in Paradise now if he recognizes the divinity of Jesus' comportment.