Feuerbach and Wagner agree that, as opposed to the Christian, who hypocritically affirms in thought what his actions contradict, the heathen and the Jew adhere firmly to one conviction, because, according to both Feuerbach and Wagner, they, like the free-thinking scientist, affirm the real world rather than an illusory other world, and therefore are not divided against themselves, like Wotan. Here are some of Feuerbach’s observations on the philosophic consistency of the Jews and heathens, who according to Feuerbach have the courage of their convictions and act on them:
“The Israelitish religion is the religion of the most narrow-hearted egoism. Even the later Israelites, scattered throughout the world, persecuted and oppressed, adhered with immovable firmness to the egoistic faith of their forefathers.” [158F-EOC: p. 298]
“The heathens confirmed, the Christians contradicted their faith by their lives.” [166F-EOC: p. 314]
And Wagner, as so often, confirms the accuracy of Feuerbach’s assessment:
“To tell the truth, it will fall hard to prove by the aspect of the Christian world, and the character of the Culture shed upon it by a Church so soon decayed, the superiority of the revelation through Jesus Christ to that through Abraham and Moses: in spite of its dispersion, the Jewish stock has remained one whole with the Mosaic laws to this very day, whereas our culture and civilisation stand in the most crying contradiction to Christ’s teaching.” [1064W-{1-2/81} Know Thyself – 2nd Supplement to ‘Religion and Art’: PW Vol. VI, p. 266]
Wotan’s division against himself is actually the basis of his relationship with his daughter Bruennhilde, for Wotan stands to Bruennhilde as his conscious mind stands to his unconscious mind, as thought does to feeling, as power does to love. Alberich has no need of an unconscious mind, and is not of two minds, because he accepts the world as he finds it.
In some of the text Wagner wrote for Siegfried’s Death - which he later altered as he was transforming it into Twilight of the Gods - Wagner makes this contrast between Wotan’s Waelsung proxies, and Alberich’s son and proxy Hagen, more explicit, describing the Waelsungs as born of treason, while Hagen is the changeless one:
“Alberich:
Offspring of Gods I trusted ne’er
their blood is bred of treason:
thee, changeless one, begat I myself;
thou, Hagen, troth wilt cherish!” [383W-{10-11/48} Siegfried’s Death: PW Vol. VIII, p. 22]
Hagen, in contrast to the Waelsungs born for treason, is the “changeless one” because Alberich and Hagen affirm the world, which Wagner said (elsewhere) belongs to Alberich:
“… let us treat the world only with contempt; for it deserves no better: but let no hopes be placed in it, that our hearts be not deluded! It is evil, evil, fundamentally evil … . (…) It belongs to Alberich: no one else!! Away with it! (…) I hate all appearances with lethal fury: I’ll have no truck with hope, since it is a form of self-lying.” [627W-{10/7/54}Letter to Franz Liszt: SLRW, p. 319]
