My ethics stands in the same relation to that of all other European philosophers as the New Testament does to the Old, taking this relationship in the ecclesiastical sense. For the Old Testament places man under the dominion of the Law, which Law, however, does not lead to redemption. The New Testament, on the other hand, declares that the Law is insufficient and, indeed, absolves man from obedience to it. [Romans, c. 7, Galatians c. 2 and 3] and In its place it preaches the kingdom of grace, which one can enter through faith, charity and total denial of self: this, it says, is the road to redemption from evil and from the world: for - every Protestant and Rationalist misrepresentation notwithstanding - the true soul of the New Testament is undoubtedly the spirit of asceticism. The spirit of asceticism is precisely denial of the will to live, and the transition from the Old Testament to the New, from the dominion of the Law to the dominion of faith, from justification by works to redemption through the Intercessor, from the dominion of sin and death to eternal life in Christ, signifies sensus propio, the transition from merely moral virtues to denial of the will to live. All philosophical ethics before me cleaves to the spirit of the Old Testament: it posits an absolute moral law (i.e. one which has no foundation and no goal) and consists of moral commandments and prohibitions behind which a dictatorial Jehovah is silently introduced; and this is true however different the forms may be in which this ethical philosophy appears. My ethics, on the contrary, possesses foundation, aim and goal: first and foremost, it demonstrates theoretically the metaphysical foundation of justice and charity, and then indicates the goal to which these, if practiced to perfection, must ultimately lead. At the same time it candidly confesses the reprehensible nature of the world and points to the denial of the will as the road to redemption from it. My ethics is thus actually in the spirit of the New Testament, while all the others are in that of the Old and consequently amount, even theoretically, to nothing more than Judaism, which is to say naked despotic theism. In this sense my doctrine could be called the true Christian philosophy, however paradoxical this may seem to those who refuse to penetrate the heart of the matter but prefer its superficialities.
From:
Nachträge zur Lehre von der Bejahung und Verneinung des Willens zum Leben (On the Affirmation and Denial of the Will to Live) originally published in Parerga und Paralipomena: Kleine philosophische Schriften (1855)