The Prohibitions on Theft and Killing

The Prohibitions on Theft and Killing are presented as once-sacred commands that Zarathustra challenges as part of his attack on inherited moral law. He recalls the reverence they received, then turns their authority into a question: if life itself includes taking and killing, can prohibitions against them claim to stand above life without contradiction? His appeal to shatter the old Law-tables marks the commands as values to be reconsidered, not unquestioned truths.

Former Sacred Authority

Zarathustra describes the words against stealing and killing as having been treated as holy. People bowed before them and removed their shoes, gestures that make the commands’ former authority visible as ritual as well as doctrine. The emphasis is not merely on what the rules forbid, but on the reverence that has made them difficult to question.

The Challenge from Life

Zarathustra tests the prohibitions against life itself, asking whether life does not involve stealing and killing. He also asks whether truth was itself killed when commands opposing life were declared holy. The questions expose a tension between moral rules and the realities they claim to govern; they do not simply offer a new rule in place of the old ones.

Revaluation of the Law-Tables

The passage ends with an urgent call to shatter the old Law-tables. In this context, the command directs attention to the inherited authority of moral values and the need to challenge it. The prohibitions matter as an example of how a sacred formulation can, in Zarathustra’s argument, turn opposition to life into a virtue and place truth under suspicion.