Abstract

The ambivalent status of Nietzsche as both genius and madman is the greatest myth of modern philosophy. In The Gay Science of 1882, he presented the parable of the madman seeking God and attesting his death (GS 125), and less than seven years later, only a few days before he was admitted to the Basel mental asylum, he wrote to Meta von Salis that “[t]he world is transfigured, for God is on Earth” and signed the letter “The Crucified” (KGB III:5, 1239). It is not surprising that scholars consider notes like this, penned by the harshest critic of Christianity, as symptoms of Nietzsche’s insanity or pathological megalomania.However, with this excellent study, Der Antichrist und der Gekreuzigte: Friedrich Nietzsches ..