The Finale in Turin 307"Dionysus versus the Crucified" (6,374; EH"Why I Am a Destiny"
§ 9) was his signature closing for his final letters. However, it was not
only these "crazy notes," as they were later called, that concluded with
this phrase. Ecce Homo, his ultimate grandiose self-interpretation, which
was certainly intended for public scrutiny, ended with these words:
"Have I been understood?—Dionysus versus the Crucified!" (6,374).
As we know, Nietzsche's announcement that God is dead was no
longer a unique revelation in the late nineteenth century. Particularly
among the intellectuals who were his intended audience, religion had
generally been cast aside, and the natural sciences were on the advance.
The wodd was explained in terms of "laws" of mechanics and energy.
Man's quest was no longer for significance and meaning, but to discover
how everything functioned and how it would be possible to intervene in
this process of functioning so as to utilize it to best advantage. The tri-
umphant advance of Darwin had familiarized the public with the
notion of biological evolution. People had learned that there was no
purposeful development of life. The happenstance of mutation and the
law of the jungle that determined selection steered the process of natu-
ral history. Man continued to speculate beyond issues specific to human
beings, but instead of looking up to the divine, man was gazing down to
the animal kingdom. The ape had replaced God as an object of inquiry.
God had lost his jurisdiction over nature as well as over society, history,
and the individual. In the second half of the nineteenth century, society
and history were also viewed as something that could be understood
and explained on their own terms. Any theological hypothesis had
become superfluous.
Nietzsche was hardly alone in declaring that God was far too over-
whelming a hypothesis. Faith in God had become nothing more than a
hazy background assumption. The workers' movement had helped
popularize the natural and social sciences. Modern atheism as a style of
thought and life was not restricted to the educated class, but had filtered
to the "wretched of the earth" (Frantz Fanon) as well. The "wretched"
ought to have been highly receptive to the consolations of religion, but