Eugen Dühring: Elimination of All Judaic Elements, Chapter Four, Second Point
Ausscheidung alles Judäerthums, Kapitel Vier, Zweiter Punkt
Source Material: German Scan | German Corrected
Editor’s Note: This work is part of a series; refer to Table of Contents.
Second Point:
Emergence of the Monopoly God. Racial Sense of the Idea of the Old and New covenants. Thoroughly Jewish Elements in the New Testament.
Upon closer examination, the Jewish essence reveals a base selfishness woven into every feature of their religious stories and conceptions. I’ve already addressed the “monopoly god” and related themes exhaustively in my work The Jewish Question, particularly in the chapter exploring how the Jewish race’s character reflects in their religion and morality. Here, I won’t repeat those arguments.
Instead, I’ll highlight a fresh angle: even in their pre-monotheistic days, the Jews infused their servile selfishness into their divine conceptions. Back then, they had a national god—Jehovah—without yet denying the existence of other nations’ gods, as they would later.
This national god wasn’t entirely solitary either. The so-called angels started as a kind of lesser gods, but from the beginning, they were relegated to servile roles under Jehovah. Compare this to the Greeks, where Zeus presides over other gods who, though obedient, retain noble independence.
The Jews, by contrast, showed their servile nature early on—even in their divine mythologies—casting angels as mere household servants of Jehovah, as Goethe aptly put it.
The Jewish spirit is so unfree that even in the realm of the gods, it could only produce an absolute lord surrounded by servile figures. Yet this servile disposition evolved over time. That absolute, all-consuming lord god—unique and sovereign—emerged from a prolonged exercise of Jewish selfishness and intolerance.
“The Jewish spirit is so unfree that even in the realm of the gods, it could only produce an absolute lord surrounded by servile figures.”
Originally, Jehovah played a national role, but this role never faded. Instead, it grew into a mission of subjugating all other peoples under Jewish dominion. This god mirrors the Jewish people themselves, reflecting the stages of their essence’s activity.
With a certain “enlightenment,” Jehovah takes a form most harmful to others: the national god expands into God-in-general, lord over all peoples. This lordship is modeled on the dominion the Jewish people claim over others—a claim always latent, but increasingly shameless through the millennia.
This colossal narrow-mindedness, a megalomania from a small, intellectually confined people, found apparent support in the religious fates of modern nations. It drew false sustenance from Christianity—a Jewish production—transmitted to culturally raw peoples. The submissive tone of this conception shines through in the Psalms, where emotional expression fits only the Jewish people.
Other ancient peoples faced their gods with greater freedom, and modern peoples, especially the Nordic ones, expressed an upright, independent nature in their ancestral divine conceptions—everywhere but in the servile spirit imported from Israel via Christianity. Selfishness, incompatible with freedom, allows no independence, producing only enslavement.
This tension between Nordic freedom and Jewish tradition will come up later. First, let’s uncover more traits of the Jewish and Christian religious character.
The very term “Old Testament” or “Old Covenant” reveals a Jewish racial trait: a contractual relationship with Jehovah.
He promises his people all advantages—especially dominion over others—in exchange for prescribed devotion. The Mosaic books explicitly state that the Jews will lend to all peoples but never borrow, embedding financial dominion as a religious statute.
This reflects a racial character bent on subjugating others through money. Most striking is the transactional nature of this covenant: obedience for reward.
The Jewish race, which turns everything into trade, negotiates even its devotion to Jehovah for prosperity and power over others. Where among the better ancient or modern nations do we find a people framing their bond with the gods as a business deal?
“The Jewish race, which turns everything into trade, negotiates even its devotion to Jehovah for prosperity and power over others.”
Only the Jews invented both a monopoly god—tolerating no rivals—and a religious system ensuring their role as the rich, dominant lender. This character permeates their stories.
The fourth commandment ties obedience to parents with promises of well-being. Jacob secures his father’s blessing—a prize won through deceit and cheating his brother, whose birthright he buys for a dish of lentils.
Esther, too, shows this crude selfishness: unmoved by her uncle Mordecai’s pleas to save the Jews from Haman, she acts only when threatened with death by her own people. When greed fails, terror—toward Jews and in religion—takes over. Jehovah’s covenant pairs blessings with curses, ensuring compliance through fear.
The “New Testament” or “New Covenant” follows the same Jewish pattern. Calling it the “Christian Testament” might clarify this continuity. The Jewish racial essence persists here, diluted and occasionally contradictory, but unmistakable.
The old prophets hinted at a new covenant, though its meaning remains obscure even in the text. What matters is the underlying notion of service and reward—unchanged from the old.
Whether Christ’s sacrifice atones for Jewish sins is less relevant than the racial sense breaking through. Take the parable of the talents: a master entrusts servants with money, rewarding those who multiply it and punishing the one who doesn’t.
The unprofitable servant, returning the talent intact, is told he should’ve at least earned interest.
“To him who has, more will be given; from him who has not, even what he has will be taken” encapsulates the Jewish heart—spoken, notably, by Christ himself.
This isn’t just a parable about profit; it assumes profit-making’s excellence as self-evident. It uses Jewish economic idols to model how servants must multiply what’s entrusted to them for the kingdom of heaven.
Success means overseer status; failure means punishment. The New Covenant, then, mirrors the old—promising heavenly dominion in the likeness of financial power.
“‘To him who has, more will be given; from him who has not, even what he has will be taken’ encapsulates the Jewish heart—spoken, notably, by Christ himself.”
This clashes with Christ’s condemnation of the rich or his expulsion of money changers from the temple. For the critical mind, it suggests a better core to his teachings was wrapped in Jewish notions by New Testament authors.
Yet even that core, from a Jewish reformer, bore Jewish traits—contradicting itself through self-rejection. Thus, Christianity emerges in the New Testament as thoroughly racial-Jewish.