Nietzsche’s Superman sees mankind falling into an abyss in which nothing has meaning. By a supreme act of will, he delivers man from nihilism. Zarathustra succeeds Jesus as the redeemer of the world.
Nihilism is the idea that human life must be redeemed from meaninglessness. Until Christianity came on the scene, there were no nihilists. In the Iliad, Homer sang of the gods provoking men to war so they could enjoy the spectacle of ruin:
… Athene and the lord of the silver bow, Apollo,
assuming the likeness of birds, of vultures, settled
aloft the great oak tree of their father, Zeus of the aegis,
taking their ease and watching these men whose ranks, dense-settled,
shuddering into a bristle of spears, of shields and of helmets.
As when the shudder of the west wind suddenly rising
scatters across the water, and the water darkens beneath it,
so darkening were settled the ranks of Achaians and Trojans
in the plain.
Where is nihilism here? Homer’s vultures do not redeem human life. There is nothing in it that needs redemption.