In the chapter The Ones who are Sublime, Zarathustra appears to present an example of a ‘sublime one’, describing the figure as a solemn, ascetic “penitent of the spirit” adorned with “ugly truths” and burdened by unmastered inner conflicts. 

By calling him a “penitent of the spirit”, Zarathustra frames him as a parody of Christian virtue—perhaps someone who has pursued knowledge and truth with such severity and single-mindedness that it has become a form of self-punishment or asceticism.

Zarathustra then goes on to address “friends”, to whom he ascribes the notion that in matters of taste, there can be no dispute. Zarathustra refutes this notion, by claiming that everything about life is itself a dispute over taste.

The title “On Those Who Are Sublime”, along with the description of an unnamed ‘Sublime One’ and the reference to matters of taste, may hint towards figures in philosophy such as Edmund Burke, Immanuel Kant, David Hume, Friedrich Schiller, Arthur Schopenhauer, or G.W.F. Hegel. These individuals all engaged with the concept of the sublime, as well as with the principle of taste in aesthetics. Whether or not Zarathustra’s description of the Sublime One singles out a particular individual is not clear, as his description could possibly fit any of them, and could simply be a representation of a type which corresponds to some or all of the individuals within this select group.

In any case, this figure represents a particular stage of development. While Zarathustra acknowledges the value of this ascetic pursuit of knowledge (he “loves the neck of the bull” in this figure), he also sees it as incomplete. While the Sublime One has “conquered monsters” and “solved riddles,” he has not yet “redeemed” them or turned them into “heavenly children”.

Zarathustra suggests that this figure needs to transform further – to learn to laugh, to embrace beauty, to “leap over his own shadow” and into “his sun”. Only then will his beauty be fully apparent.