The underlying significance of the Diogenes symbolism [in Nietzsche’s aphorism 125 from Die fröhliche Wissenschaft] is now clear. The new Diogenes does seek God, but not the God who is dead: he seeks the new god in the men who have murdered the old one — he seeks the superman. The madman is therefore looking for man, but not the man of the philosopher: he is looking for the being that springs from the magic of the murder of God. It is necessary to elucidate this symbolism, for, in the conscientious efforts in behalf of Nietzsche’s “philosophical” intentions, it is all too often forgotten that the interpreter of a magic opus need not, to put it bluntly, be taken in by the magic. It is not enough to examine the symbol of the superman on the basis of the texts and determine the meaning Nietzsche intended; for the symbol occurs in a context of magic. What really takes place in the order of being when this magic is practiced must also be determined. The nature of a thing cannot be changed; whoever tries to “alter” its nature destroys the thing. Man cannot transform himself into a superman; the attempt to create a superman is an attempt to murder man. Historically, the murder of God is not followed by the superman, but by the murder of man: the deicide of the gnostic theoreticians is followed by the homicide of the revolutionary practitioners.
– Science, Politics, and Gnosticism (2004), p. 43