A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 07
⚠️ Content warning
- Language:
- English
- Translation:
- William F. Fleming
- Status:
- Selection or partial work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- No scanning noise detected (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand)
- Extent:
- ~77,700 words · 369 passages
Cite this work
- APAVoltaire. (n.d.). A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 07 (William F. Fleming, Trans.). Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/voltaire/a-philosophical-dictionary-volume-07
- MLAVoltaire. A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 07. Translated by William F. Fleming. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/voltaire/a-philosophical-dictionary-volume-07.
- ChicagoVoltaire. A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 07. Translated by William F. Fleming. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/voltaire/a-philosophical-dictionary-volume-07.
Reference to the edition that SigPhi reproduces: SigPhi is its digital reproduction, not its publisher. The edition's year is not in the metadata (hence "n.d."), and the translator appears only when recorded.
What it is about
Volume 7 of ten of the Philosophical Dictionary. Ignorance – Laws. The articles on laws and justice.
Context and history
The form is the argument: a dictionary is consulted rather than read through, which made it impossible to refute as a whole and easy to circulate underground. Voltaire published it anonymously in 1764 and it was burned in Geneva and in Paris. A note on the edition: the catalogue holds TWO editions of the Philosophical Dictionary — this one in ten volumes and a single-volume Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary. They are not a duplicate: they are different selections and translations, and the articles do not correspond one to one. The original is French.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
Perhaps, by attending a little to the progress of his life, and the nature of his character, we may discover what it was that inspired him with so strong an aversion to Christianity. The emperor Constantine, his great-uncle, who had placed the new religion on the throne, was stained by the murder of his wife, his son, his brother-inlaw, his nephew, and his father-in-law. The three children of Constantine began their bloody and baleful reign, with murdering their uncle and their cousins. From that time followed a series of civil wars and murders. The father, the brother, and all the relations of Julian, and even Julian himself, were marked down for destruction by Constantius, his uncle. He escaped this general massacre, but the first years of his life were passed in exile, and he at last owed the preservation of his life, his fortune, and the title of Cæsar, only to Eusebia, the wife of his uncle Constantius, who, after having had the cruelty to proscribe his infancy, had the imprudence to appoint him Cæsar, and the still further and greater imprudence of then persecuting him. He was, in the first instance, a witness of the insolence with which a certain bishop treated his benefactress Eusebia. He was called Leontius, and was bishop of Tripoli. He sent information to the empress, "that he would not visit her unless she would consent to receive him in a manner corresponding to his episcopal dignity--that is, that she should advance to receive him at the door, that she should receive his benediction in a bending attitude, and that she should remain standing until he granted her permission to be seated." The Pagan pontiffs were not in the habit of treating princesses precisely in this manner, and such brutal arrogance could not but make a deep impression on the mind of a young man attached at once to philosophy and simplicity.