Neitzsche and the Death of God

Here is the appropriate quotation:

 

‘The Madman. Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly, “I seek God! I seek God!” As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Has he got lost? asked one. Did he lose his way like a child? asked another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? Or emigrated? Thus they yelled and laughed.

 

The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. “Whither is God?” he cried. “I shall tell you. We have killed him – you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there any up or down left? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? … God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him…. What was holiest and most powerful of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us?...”

 

Here the madman fell silent again at his listeners: and they, too, were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke and went out. “I come too early,”  he said then; “my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way… - it has not yet reached the ears of man. Lightening and thunder require time, deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than the most distant stars –  and yet they have done it themselves.” It has been related that on the same day the madman forced his way into several churches and there struck up his requiem aeternam deo. Led out and called to account, he is said to have replied every time, “What after all are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchres of God?”’ [The Gay Science 125 (1882)– Walter Kaufmann’s translation.  See also Thus Spake Zarathustra V2.]