In The Historie of the Holy Warre, written by the priest Thomas Fuller in 1639, it was said: the Crusades served as the sewers of Christendom, draining away all its discord.
To plunge headfirst into the desert knowing nothing about logistics, strategy, or geography was simply wishful thinking, yet people still went. Some went for material gain and the desire for glory, some for revenge against heretics, some for the thrill of bloodlust and merciless cruelty, and some truly answered the Pope's call, going to atone for their sins.
Nietzsche believed that good and evil were not absolute, but relative and interchangeable. He took the strengthening and weakening of human power as the measure of happiness, understanding it as a kind of impulse and creativity.
"Look at the walls of Jerusalem, princes. Open your withered eyes. Do you see that ruined temple? Now that holy place, where God once appeared, is occupied by heretics. Oh, who could see such a sight and not weep?"
The Ten Commandments decreed that murder was a sin. If those who went east began to question whether killing heretics was a crime, it would shake their faith. They would doubt whether what they were doing was truly for atonement, or merely creating more sins.
The seven deadly sins were pride, envy, wrath, sloth, greed, gluttony, and lust.
Suppose someone needed strength to challenge what he believed to be evil, and another person told him, "Don't be foolish. You can't possibly win." He would first lose heart, and then that person would tell him what the "wise course of action" was.
The Fable of the Bees said that the most irritating people in the world were fools, and fools were also the least easily controlled by "pride." If one became a reckless brute and an acknowledged