As such, the Chorus gives form to the Dionysian impulse. Apollo, as god of plastic powers and soothsaying, gives rise to the visual, objectifying aspect of the drama. Platonism, as high idealism, led to a denial of the tragic tenor of life, and so to a denial of the need for an intoxicating element. While philosophy has become life-denying in the sphere of knowledge, Christianity is so in the sphere of morality. Here Nietzsche relentlessly homes in on the role of Christian guilt.
Christian morality proposes a fundamental principle of equality between human individuals.
Within the Nietzschean schema, guilt is the mark of reactive thought - the thought of the weak, not necessarily the weak in a strictly physical sense, but in the sense of those who cannot accept life as it is, who are governed by ressentiment, and who have to invent ideals in order to cover up their weakness. Guilt, in sum, is the weapon the less endowed use against free and original spirits who often reach new heights. Rather than attempting to raise themselves up to new heights in order to maintain equality, they deny that these heights exist. No herdsman and one herd. As inexorably reactive, the herd cannot think of any other end than to be happy.