At the Diet of Worms in 1521, Martin Luther famously didn’t say: “Hier stehe ich. Ich kann nicht anders. Gott helfe mir! Amen.” (“Here I stand. I can do no other. So help me God! Amen.“)
Though he didn’t use precisely these words, they quickly came to be associated with him, and now everyone “knows” he said it.1
One person who “knew” it was Friedrich Nietzsche, who alludes to the saying in Ecce Homo: How to Become What You Are 3.2 (“Why I write such good books”). The allusion is–well, saucy, as Nietzsche well knew: note the extreme cross-purposes to Luther’s own to which Nietzsche puts the sentiment. Given that both Nietzsche and Luther were epoch-making figures, it is fitting that the connection–and the particular kind of connection it is–should be marked in this way.
“Deutsch denken, deutsch fühlen — ich kann Alles, aber das geht über meine Kräfte… Mein alter Lehrer Ritschl behauptete sogar, ich concipirte selbst noch meine philologischen Abhandlungen wie ein Pariser romancier — absurd spannend. In Paris selbst ist man erstaunt über „toutes mes audaces et finesses“ — der Ausdruck ist von Monsieur Taine —; ich fürchte, bis in die höchsten Formen des Dithyrambus findet man bei mir von jenem Salze beigemischt, das niemals dumm — „deutsch“ — wird, esprit… Ich kann nicht anders. Gott helfe mir! Amen. — Wir wissen Alle, Einige wissen es sogar aus Erfahrung, was ein Langohr ist. Wohlan, ich wage zu behaupten, dass ich die kleinsten Ohren habe. Dies interessirt gar nicht wenig die Weiblein —, es scheint mir, sie fühlen sich besser von mir verstanden?… Ich bin der Antiesel par excellence und damit ein welthistorisches Unthier, — ich bin, auf griechisch, und nicht nur auf griechisch, der Antichrist…”
“To think German, to feel German–I am capable of anything, but this is too much for me…My old teacher Ritschl once said that I drafted even my philology articles like a Parisian novelist–absurdly gripping. Even in Paris people are astonished over ‘toutes mes audaces et finesses‘–the expression comes from Monsieur Taine –; I am afraid that even in the highest forms of the dithyramb you will find that I have added a dose of esprit, the spice that can never be dull–‘German’–…I can do no other. So help me God! Amen. –We all know what long ears a jackass has, some of us even know from experience. Well then, I will bet that I have the shortest ears of all. This is of no little interest to women–, they seem to think that I understand them better?…I am the anti-jackass par excellence, which makes me a world-historical monster, –I am, in Greek, and not just Greek, the Anti-Christ…”2
In the paragraph’s concluding dig at Christians, in which he equates his status as “anti-jackass” with the “Anti-Christ,” Nietzsche seems to me to make an erudite reference to the Alexamenos graffito, which was probably an ancient mockery of Christians and which was discovered in Rome in 1857 (Ecce Homo was written in 1888). Nietzsche remains, perhaps, Christianity’s most formidable critic, even more than a century on.
- What he actually said: “Daher kann und will ich nichts widerrufen, weil wider das Gewissen etwas zu tun weder sicher noch heilsam ist. Gott helfe mir. Amen!”
- Translated by Judith Norman in Aaron Ridley and Judith Norman, eds., in Nietzsche: The Anti-Christ, Ecce Homo, Twilight of the Idols, and Other Writings (Cambridge University Press, 2005), 102.
