Trajectory (plain list)
The death of God
From the madman’s marketplace proclamation through Book V’s European shadow to the late claim of dynamite against millennial falsehood. The event is never finished; its meaning keeps widening.
1882 · Anticipates
The Joyful Science · §108 · New Struggles
The Joyful Science (Die fröhliche Wissenschaft, 1882/87)
God is already declared dead; what remains is the work of overcoming his shadow in culture.
_New Struggles._—After Buddha was dead people showed his shadow for centuries afterwards in a cave,—an immense frightful shadow. God is dead: but as the human race is constituted, there will perhaps be caves for millenniums yet, in which people will show his shadow,—And we—we have still to overcome his shadow!
Sources: gutenberg:52881
1882 · Introduces
The Joyful Science · §125 · The Madman
The Joyful Science (Die fröhliche Wissenschaft, 1882/87)
The madman announces the murder of God in the marketplace — an event too great for those who hear it.
_The Madman._—Have you ever heard of the madman who on a bright morning lighted a lantern and ran to the market-place calling out unceasingly: "I seek God! I seek God!"—As there were many people standing about who did not believe in God, he caused a great deal of amusement. Why! is he lost? said one. Has he strayed away like a child? said another. Or does he keep himself hidden? Is he afraid of us? Has he taken a sea-voyage? Has he emigrated?—the people cried out laughingly, …
Sources: gutenberg:52881
1882 · Anticipates
The Joyful Science · §124
The Joyful Science (Die fröhliche Wissenschaft, 1882/87)
Horizon of the infinite: land abandoned, no shore of old belief — the mood before the madman’s announcement.
_In the Horizon of the Infinite._—We have left the land and have gone aboard ship! We have broken down the bridge behind us,—nay, more, the land behind us! Well, little ship! look out! Beside thee is the ocean; it is true it does not always roar, and sometimes it spreads out like silk and gold and a gentle reverie. But times will come when thou wilt feel that it is infinite, and that there is nothing more frightful than infinity. Oh, the poor bird that felt itself free, and n…
Sources: gutenberg:52881
1882 · Develops
The Joyful Science · §109 · Let us be on our Guard
The Joyful Science (Die fröhliche Wissenschaft, 1882/87)
After the announcement: the work of undeifying nature — shadows of God still obscure.
_Let us be on our Guard._—Let us be on our guard against thinking that the world is a living being. Where could it extend itself? What could it nourish itself with? How could it grow and increase? We know tolerably well what the organic is; and we are to reinterpret the emphatically derivative, tardy, rare and accidental, which we only perceive on the crust of the earth, into the essential, universal and eternal, as those do who call the universe an organism? That disgusts me…
Sources: gutenberg:52881
1883 · Develops
Thus Spoke Zarathustra · Z-prologue-2
Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883–85)
Zarathustra’s forest news: God is dead — the event enters the narrative as already known.
Zarathustra went down the mountain alone, no one meeting him. When he entered the forest, however, there suddenly stood before him an old man, who had left his holy cot to seek roots. And thus spake the old man to Zarathustra: “No stranger to me is this wanderer: many years ago passed he by. Zarathustra he was called; but he hath altered. Then thou carriedst thine ashes into the mountains: wilt thou now carry thy fire into the valleys? Fearest thou not the incendiary’s doom…
Sources: gutenberg:1998
1887 · Develops
The Joyful Science · §343 · What our Cheerfulness Signifies
The Joyful Science (Die fröhliche Wissenschaft, 1882/87)
Book V reframes the death of God as the greatest recent event, casting its first shadows over Europe.
_What our Cheerfulness Signifies._—The most important of more recent events—that "God is dead," that the belief in the Christian God has become unworthy of belief—already begins to cast its first shadows over Europe. To the few at least whose eye, whose _suspecting_ glance, is strong enough and subtle enough for this drama, some sun seems to have set, some old, profound confidence seems to have changed into doubt: our old world must seem to them daily more darksome, distrustf…
Sources: gutenberg:52881
1887 · Develops
The Joyful Science · §346 · Our Note of Interrogation
The Joyful Science (Die fröhliche Wissenschaft, 1882/87)
The interrogation widens: if God and morality collapse together, what still answers to the need for belief?
_Our Note of Interrogation._—But you don't understand it? As a matter of fact, an effort will be necessary in order to understand us. We seek for words; we seek perhaps also for ears. Who are we after all? If we wanted simply to call ourselves in older phraseology, atheists, unbelievers, or even immoralists, we should still be far from thinking ourselves designated thereby: we are all three in too late a phase for people generally to conceive, for _you_, my inquisitive friend…
Sources: gutenberg:52881
1887 · Comments on
The Joyful Science · §343 · What our Cheerfulness Signifies → The Joyful Science · §125 · The Madman
The Joyful Science (Die fröhliche Wissenschaft, 1882/87)
Book V reopens the madman’s event as Europe’s greatest recent shadow.
_What our Cheerfulness Signifies._—The most important of more recent events—that "God is dead," that the belief in the Christian God has become unworthy of belief—already begins to cast its first shadows over Europe. To the few at least whose eye, whose _suspecting_ glance, is strong enough and subtle enough for this drama, some sun seems to have set, some old, profound confidence seems to have changed into doubt: our old world must seem to them daily more darksome, distrustf…
Sources: gutenberg:52881
1888 · Comments on
Ecce Homo · Why I Am a Fatality §1
Ecce Homo (1888)
Late autobiographical seal: Nietzsche names himself dynamite against the falsehood of millennia built on the old faith.
I know my destiny. There will come a day when my name will recall the memory of something formidable--a crisis the like of which has never been known on earth, the memory of the most profound clash of consciences, and the passing of a sentence upon all that which theretofore had been believed, exacted, and hallowed. I am not a man, I am dynamite. And with it all there is nought of the founder of a religion in me. Religions are matters for the mob; after coming in contact with…
Sources: gutenberg:52190