“The woman was his second mistake”: Rereading "The Anti-Christ" through "The Death of God"

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Introduction

“The woman was God’s second mistake” (The Anti-Christ, §48). Few lines from Nietzsche’s writings have attracted such indignation. Frequently cited as evidence of Nietzsche’s disdain for women, this statement has fueled accusations of misogyny and been mobilized to dismiss his philosophy as poisoned by personal prejudice. Yet to read it only at the surface level is to miss its deeper resonance. What if the remark is not a crude insult, but part of Nietzsche’s broader critique of Christianity, priestly morality, and the collapse of divine authority? In the arc of his thought, especially the proclamation that “God is dead” (The Gay Science, §125), the figure of woman takes on a symbolic dimension. She becomes the mythical embodiment of knowledge, disruption, and rebellion—the very forces through which humanity undermined the God that created it. Read this way, Nietzsche’s scandalous phrase dramatizes not misogyny but the tragic irony of a deity undone by his own handiwork, echoing ancient myths in which children overthrow their parents.

The Scandal of The Anti-Christ §48

In The Anti-Christ, Nietzsche declares bluntly: “The woman was God’s second mistake” (§48). Taken literally, the remark seems to reduce woman to a cosmic blunder, a divine lapse in judgment following the earlier “error” of creating man. Elsewhere in the same section, Nietzsche intensifies the provocation: “Woman is by nature a serpent, Heva; every priest knows this.” Such statements have long been read as evidence of contempt for women, proof of his alleged misogyny.

Yet Nietzsche’s concern is rarely with women in themselves but with the symbolic role ascribed to them in religious traditions. The image of Eve as serpent, temptress, or bringer of ruin does not arise from empirical observation of women but from a clerical mythology designed to preserve ecclesiastical power. In this sense, the “mistake” is not the creation of woman as such but the construction of her image within Christian doctrine. The biblical Eve, curious enough to approach the tree of knowledge, becomes the archetype of disobedience—an act that inadvertently opens the path toward science, skepticism, and the eventual undoing of divine authority.

Priests and Slave Morality

To grasp Nietzsche’s strategy, we must situate §48 within his larger critique of priestly power. In On the Genealogy of Morals, he explains how priests invented “slave morality”: a system grounded in ressentiment, which glorifies weakness and vilifies vitality. Within this framework, the priestly caricature of woman serves a functional role. By labeling her serpent, seductress, or corrupter, priests reinforce patriarchal dominance and justify the suppression of natural impulses.

The formula “every priest knows this” is telling. Nietzsche is not presenting a personal truth but exposing a clerical cliché. The myth of Eve allows priests to shift responsibility for the human thirst for knowledge onto women, while simultaneously portraying curiosity as sinful. The irony is sharp: by blaming woman for the entry of knowledge into the world, priests inadvertently mark her as the mythical source of the very forces that would undo God. This reversal hints at the twist Nietzsche exploits—woman, demonized by religion, emerges as the symbolic agent of divine downfall.

Woman, Science, and the Death of God

Nietzsche pushes this irony further: “Consequently she brings science as well” (The Anti-Christ, §48). In Genesis, it is Eve who tastes the fruit of the tree of knowledge and persuades Adam to do the same. From this moment, humanity becomes aware of good and evil, of its own nakedness, and of the possibility of questioning divine command. Nietzsche reads this episode as a dramatization of how knowledge destabilizes religious authority.

Although Nietzsche often criticizes sterile rationalism, he recognizes that science plays a destructive role against illusions upheld by priests. The “second mistake” is not that woman exists but that God, in creating beings capable of curiosity, opened the door to his own demise. In The Gay Science, Nietzsche famously announces: “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him” (§125). Humanity, endowed with intelligence, has dismantled the metaphysical scaffolding upon which God’s authority rested.

Here, “woman” functions as metaphor. She stands for the disruptive, ambiguous, destabilizing forces that resist categorization. Far from a literal condemnation of women, Nietzsche’s usage dramatizes how religious narratives weaponize gendered myths. By placing science at woman’s feet, Nietzsche underscores the irony that the supposed “temptress” embodies the very drive toward knowledge that reveals the obsolescence of divine belief. God’s true mistake was not Eve but the creation of rational beings who would no longer need him.

Mythological Resonances

The theme of children overthrowing their progenitors resonates with Greek mythology, which Nietzsche knew intimately. In Hesiod’s Theogony, Kronos devours his offspring to prevent the prophecy that one would dethrone him. Yet fate triumphs: Zeus escapes, later compels Kronos to disgorge his siblings, and ultimately defeats him. The very children Kronos tried to suppress bring about his downfall.

This cycle mirrors the biblical story. God fashions man and woman, but by granting them reason, he unwittingly seeds the conditions for his own death. Adam and Eve, the so-called “mistakes,” become the agents of divine undoing. Just as Kronos’ children overthrow their father, humanity declares the demise of the deity who created them. Nietzsche, steeped in the dialectic of Apollo and Dionysus, Silenus’ wisdom, and the tragedy of Oedipus, frames the myth of woman in this same register: as archetypal disruptor.

In both Kronos and the Christian God, attempts to control offspring fail. Suppression begets rebellion; power breeds its own dissolution. Nietzsche transforms this mythological motif into a diagnosis of Western culture: God’s fate was sealed the moment he made creatures capable of questioning.

Conclusion

Read superficially, the claim that “the woman was God’s second mistake” seems a petty insult. Yet when placed within the architecture of Nietzsche’s thought, the remark acquires a deeper, ironic force. Woman symbolizes the origin of knowledge, the mythical figure through whom humanity steps beyond obedience and begins to undermine divine authority. The creation of rational beings—first man, then woman—was the deity’s fatal misstep. For in producing creatures capable of curiosity and science, God paved the way for his own death.

Nietzsche’s infamous quip, far from being a simple act of misogyny, aligns with his proclamation: “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him” (The Gay Science, §125). It is a mythic diagnosis of self-destruction: a God undone by those he fashioned. Rather than condemning women, Nietzsche uses the symbol of Eve to reveal how religion authored its own demise, echoing ancient tales where children overthrow their divine parents. The so-called “second mistake” is thus not woman herself but the creation of knowledge that made belief in God redundant.

Bibliography

• Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Anti-Christ. Trans. R.J. Hollingdale. London: Penguin Classics, 1990.
• Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Gay Science. Trans. Walter Kaufmann. New York: Vintage, 1974.
• Nietzsche, Friedrich. Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Trans. R.J. Hollingdale. London: Penguin, 1961.
• Kaufmann, Walter. Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974.
• Ansell-Pearson, Keith. An Introduction to Nietzsche as Political Thinker. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.