inherently skeptical of the consolation of faith which it instinctively suspects is predicated on illusion, not real, substantial, physical satisfaction. Fafner is a realist like Alberich, for both seek an earthly utopia which will sate their egoistic desires and assuage their fears within the practical limits of the real world. Fafner, content with an earthly heaven, circumscribed by natural and bodily limits, is a good student of Feuerbach:
“Culture has no other object than to realize an earthly heaven … .” [127F-EOC: p. 217]
Wagner identified this acknowledgment of the earthly origin of man’s purportedly spiritual aspirations, and Judaism’s alleged rejection of the notion of a supernatural immortality for more abundant life on earth, with Christianity’s debt to Judaism, a notion he borrowed, as so often, from Feuerbach, who described Jewish morality as love of the temporal and earthly life:
“ … to say that morality is based, or must be based, on religion is merely to say that morality must be based on egoism, self-love, and the striving for happiness, that otherwise it has no foundation. The only difference between Judaism and Christianity is that in Judaism morality is based on the love of temporal, earthly life, and in Christianity on the love of eternal, heavenly life. If it is not generally recognized that egoism alone is the secret of faith as distinct from love, the secret of religion as distinct from ethics, it is only because religious egoism does not have the appearance of egoism; in religion man affirms his self in the form of self-abnegation … .” [324F-LER: p. 300]
When Fafner renounces Wotan’s original proffered payment of Freia in favor of the power he hopes to obtain from Alberich’s Rhinegold, he does so, as Feuerbach suggests above, for reasons as fully motivated by pure egoism as his original intent to take Freia from the gods, for he tells Fasolt they can expect to win the very same eternal life by possessing the gold as they would have obtained by possessing Freia and her golden apples. When Feuerbach adds here that egoism is the secret of religious faith, not love, he reminds us again of Valhalla’s origin in Alberich’s forging of his Ring of power, which could be taken, if one wished, as Wagner’s metaphor for Christianity’s debt to Judaism, given his assumptions. But if we carry this metaphor so far, we must nonetheless always remember that for Wagner the materialism and egoism he projects onto Judaism has its basis in universal human nature per se, a point which Wagner’s Ring dramatizes in such detail that we can have no doubt that Wagner’s more universal outlook is behind it.
In our extract from Wagner below, clearly written in the spirit of the two passages from Feuerbach which precede it, Wagner provides us the conceptual basis for Fafner’s willingness to forego the illusory immortality offered by religious faith, in favor of the more abundant earthly life provided by earthly power:
“Christianity has … changed the desire for earthly happiness [say, Alberich’s worldly Ring power], the goal of the Israelitish religion, into the longing for heavenly bliss [say, the sorrowless youth eternal conferred upon the gods of Valhalla by Freia], which is the goal of Christianity.” [91F-EOC: p. 121]
“The Jews did not believe in immortality, but only in the survival of the race through reproduction; they wished only for long life and progeny … .” [304F-LER: p. 268]
