Smart ass Hee-hovah

Noch einmal ein Eselsfest*

All these higher men lay on their knees like children or faithful old women, and worshipped the ass.

 Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus spake Zarathustra

It is the same with the mule, which is bred from a horse and an ass, for it is neither a horse nor an ass, nor it is so called, but it is something else besides them. Our Lord Jesus Christ being both of divine and human nature, is of divinity and of humanity, and is called perfect God and perfect man and fully God and fully man, which in a composite nature can not be found - because the whole body is neither fire, nor it is air, nor earth or water, and the mule is neither fully a horse nor fully an ass, not a perfect horse or a perfect ass, and Christ, as I said, is perfect God and perfect man and fully God and fully man.

 St. John of Damascus, Against the Acephali

In the beginning of years, there was an ass, and his name was Hee-hovah. Once, while wandering through a desert, he saw a comely mare and went towards her with the aim to breed. The mare chose to try her would-be mate for speed and burst into that swift gallop we honor Arabian horses for. Hee-hovah on his short bandy legs trailed far behind. The mare he was after was the fastest in the desert. She was even faster than her brothers. Thanks to that, she was a virgin. Behold, Virgin Mare was a perfect horse. On his part, Hee-hovah was a perfect ass. Perfectly stubborn. And, though severely lacking in speed, he was not short of chutzpah. The next day he came to Virgin Mare and said:

I may seem slow and gray, but I am God. I created this World in six days. Now I took upon me this humble form to look around my Creation.

Virgin Mare was in awe of Hee-hovah. They had a son. He was not a perfect horse or a perfect ass, but something else besides them. He was a mule.

Mikhail Simkin

November 9, 2015

Updated on November 29, 2015

The German original is in the book Also sprach Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche which I quote in the epigraph. See the chapter Das Eselsfest. Albeit note that the actual Eselsfest happens in the preceding chapter Die Erweckung. In the chapter Das Eselsfest Zarathustra suggests to repeat it again in the future. In this essay I answer this call which Zarathustra put to higher men.

In the German original Nietzcshe used phonetic similarity between I-A and Ja, which is untranslatable into English. In English donkey speaks Hee-haw, which opens a possibility for another wordplay, even more revealing.