The Antichrist

The Antichrist by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche The Antichrist (German: Der Antichrist) is a book by the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, originally published in 1895. Although it was written in 1888, its content made Franz Overbeck and Heinrich Köselitz delay its publication, along with Ecce Homo.

The German title can be translated into English as either The Anti-Christ or The Anti-Christian, depending on how the German word Christ is translated.

Nietzsche claims in the preface to have written the book for a very limited readership. To understand the book, he asserts that the reader "must be honest in intellectual matters to the point of hardness to so much as endure my seriousness, my passion."

The reader should be above politics and nationalism. Also, the usefulness or harmfulness of truth should not be a concern. Characteristics such as "[s]trength which prefers questions for which no one today is sufficiently daring; courage for the forbidden" are also needed.