Joseph Roth - The Antichrist

‘You see, all other haters have at least to make some effort to light in the hearts of other men the same fire than burns in their own hearts.

‘But you put a flame to a common one that is already smouldering in most people’s hearts.

‘You are therefore unlike the average arsonist who takes the trouble to lay the match in the barn or the village and seek out and prepare the kindling.

‘You are a lazy arsonist. You light fire where a spark already glows.

‘You aren’t an arsonist because of your own human love of a fire. You are a helper of the Antichrist.

‘It is he who fans the spark. And you are with him, in his service as an incendiary. You don’t work because of your own wickedness; you work by order of the mighty evil of the Antichrist.

‘I have seen many evil men, but in each of them there was still a certain degree of chivalry, that human characteristic from which, even when love and goodness have died, there is always the possibility that justice may grow. With you that is impossible.

‘There are, however, weak, evil men who hate the evil men who are strong and all other evil men as well as good men and weak men.

‘He who hates only those at whom the spark of hatred is directed, the spark that already glimmers in everyone’s heart, is worse than an ordinary hater — he is a hater without chivalry.

‘For the Jews are hated by the faithful and the godless, the oppressors and the oppressed, the healthy and the sick, the rich and the poor and, as they say these days, the capitalists and the proletariat, by those who say all men are equal and others who say that all men are not equal, by white people and by coloured people.

‘But if it happened that I was inspired by a desire to hate, I would find people to hate other than the Jews. Furthermore, you must acknowledge the remarkable fact that all, without distinction, don’t like the Jews — even if they don’t hate them — and this should make people realize that it is God himself who has struck the Jews with the hatred of mankind.

‘God alone has the right to punish the Jews. He, God Himself, hates people who hate the Jews.

‘Certainly the Antichrist lives and works among the Jews as well. However, he who hates them alone causes everything else, everything else of which the Antichrist has taken possession, not to be hated.

‘By this I also recognize that it is the Antichrist who drives the anti-Semites. He chose them so that all the other evils that he has instigated remain undetected.

‘The Antichrist works like an illusionist. While he waves his magic wand with his right hand he is already holding in his left hand the magic surprise that he said he would conjure using his wand.

‘You, anti-Semite, are the right hand and the magic wand of the Antichrist. You make all the wickedness of the Antichrist invisible while his left hand is conjuring up the Jews.

‘You are the disguising magic cloth and the lying handkerchief of the Antichrist.’

The anti-Semite then left me. He resented me. Alas, I was proud that he resented me.

Then came another righteous man whom the Antichrist had corrupted and persuaded to visit me to convince me to believe that he understood the anti-Semite.

This and that evil — said he — had the Jews committed. One must understand.

At this, I told him that it isn’t the concern of men to understand wickedness when a wicked man explains it. One cannot understand the anti-Semite when an evil man calling himself an anti-Semite argues that the Jews are wicked.

‘Overall, it seems to me,’ I said to the righteous man, ‘that these supposedly noble words “to know all is to forgive all” had been coined by the Antichrist himself.

‘It is the privilege of God,’ I said, ‘to know all and forgive all. But just as the Antichrist has convinced man that he possesses other divine qualities, so has he convinced him that he can know all and forgive all.

‘So, for example, a man can fly. But one day he might fall headfirst.

‘He isn’t an angel; angels don’t fall. Even birds don’t fall.

‘A man may also believe that he knows everything. Still, he can suddenly fall headfirst from the heights of his reason.

‘His reason is fragile, like an aeroplane. He cannot know or forgive anything.

‘That is the privilege of God and of the thirty-six true righteous men.

‘Their identities, however, we don’t know.

‘And if we do happen to recognize one of them, who knows whether he isn’t then removed from the thirty-six as though he had died?’

This false righteous man also resented me and left.

Thereupon the Antichrist sent another man, who came and said: ‘I love my country. Allow me to introduce myself. I am a patriot.

‘In my fatherland any evil may be perpetrated, perhaps even committed against me. I love it anyway.’

‘If evil is committed in your fatherland,’ I replied, ‘and you still love it, then you don’t love your country but, rather, evil itself.

‘If good is done anywhere, I love the country in which good is done.

‘Where it is good, there is my fatherland. That isn’t to say that wherever things go well for me is therefore my country.

‘Rather that is to say that wherever there is good, there is my home. And a home where good isn’t done is no home at all.

‘Above all, we are Children of God, and God alone is our home. He has given us legs and feet not only so that we may be at home in all His countries but also that we may leave a home where evil is perpetrated. Where evil is practised is not our home.

‘That is why God has given us feet, so that we can leave a home where evil is perpetrated.

‘Whoever stays in a home where the people sin against God doesn’t deserve to have feet. He doesn’t deserve to call God his home. God is our only home. In His sublime presence there can be no evil but only love and justice.

‘Outside of His sublime presence He has given us no home other than paradise and after that the entire earth.

‘The whole earth is temporarily our home. Our real home, however, is the eternal presence of God.’

At that the patriot also left me resentfully.

Then a pious man was sent to me, a man of the Holy Church, who wore a brown robe, a cord around the waist and a large cross.

‘Praised be Jesus Christ!’ he said.

‘In all eternity, Amen!’ I replied.

‘I see,’ he began, ‘how you are fighting against the Antichrist. I will bring you help. I come from Rome, the holy city. I am one of the most humble servants of the Holy Father. But I have the honour to stay often in his hallowed environs.

‘I once saw another sitting in the place of the Holy Father on the throne of Peter.’

The monk was silent for some time. Then he reiterated: ‘Someone quite other!’

I, too, was silent for some time. Then I said: ‘It is written that a time will come when the Antichrist will sit upon the throne of Peter adorned with all the insignia of the office of the Holy Father. Tell me, is this time already come?’

‘I don’t know,’ replied the monk. ‘I am but one of the lowliest servants in the palace of the Holy Father. One day, however, I saw that the Holy Father had fallen asleep.

‘He was asleep for just a few hours.

‘But in this time another sat himself upon the exalted throne.

‘And it happened that precisely during these hours ambassadors from a number of heathen counties came to make their peace with the Holy Church.

‘There were three countries, three different countries. But the ambassadors of each of these lands said nearly the same thing, and the first ones said: “We render unto God the things that are God’s and unto the emperor those that are the emperor’s. You, Holy Father, have only to say yes. And we shall have prayers said in the churches and praise the name of the Saviour. In return, however, we beg you, Holy Father, to bless our emperor.”