“Not into the remotest contact is he [the Jew] brought with the religion of any of the civilised nations; for in truth he has no religion at all - merely the belief in certain promises of his god which in nowise extend to a life beyond this temporal life of his, as in every true religion, but simply to this present life on earth, whereon his race is certainly ensured dominion over all that lives and lives not. … .” [1068W-{1-2/81} Know Thyself – 2nd Supplement to ‘Religion and Art’: PW Vol. VI, p. 271]
In Wagner’s remark that Jews do not believe in eternal life but only in the promise of their god (egoism, according to Wagner) that they will have power to dominate life here on earth, we find the basis for Fafner’s choice of the gold over Freia in paraphrase. For Fafner’s alleged Judaism is nothing more nor less than the egoism which lies behind all human behavior, whether Gentile or Jew, just as, in our present interpretation, Fafner represents (greatly to our advantage in understanding the Ring) mankind’s self-preservation instinct, the root of our existential “Fear.”
Having convinced Fasolt of the propriety of their intent to exchange Freia for the Rhinegold, Fafner, accompanied by #27, tells Wotan they’ll be content with the Nibelung’s gold instead. Wotan is shocked at the implications for him as an alleged god, i.e., that if he aids the lowly and despised Giant Fafner in this scheme he’ll be troubling himself for the sake of a very low motive indeed, one Wotan clearly would not wish to own. Wotan is embarrassed at this evidence that loathsome egoism is at the bottom of his intent to win the Ring from Alberich, since Fafner and Fasolt represent nothing more than the gods’ (that is to say, man’s) motivating animal impulses, a constant reminder that the gods are not, after all, gods, but merely mortal man to whom imagination - a gift of the mind (the power of the Ring) - grants the dubious virtue of being able to think and feel himself beyond his natural station. If Wotan is reluctant to admit that lowly, physical instincts motivate gods at all, it is because he can ill afford to do so, lest the very concept of godhead itself be called into question.
Both Feuerbach and Wagner tell us the reason why. Feuerbach says, on the one hand, that for those men who believe in a transcendent realm of being, the body and the natural processes are repugnant:
[P. 136] “The more man alienates himself from Nature, the more subjective, i.e., supranatural or antinatural, is his view of things, the greater the horror he has of Nature, or at least of those natural objects and processes which displease his imagination, which affect him disagreeably. The free, [P. 137] objective man doubtless finds things repugnant and distasteful in Nature, but he regards them as natural, inevitable results, and under this conviction he subdues his feeling as a merely subjective and untrue one. On the contrary, the subjective man, who lives only in the feelings and imagination, regards these things with a quite peculiar aversion.” [99F-EOC: p. 136-137]
On the other hand, Feuerbach notes that the free and objective man (we can read Alberich here) subdues this repugnance as subjective. In other words, Alberich has the courage of his convictions and can openly proclaim himself egoistic and animalistic without guilt, since he acknowledges and accepts his status as a mortal living in a natural body and within a world circumscribed and bounded with natural limits.
