Moses

He is played by Charlton Heston. Voltaire's library is preserved intact in the Russian National Library, St Petersburg. DeMille movie, The Ten Commandments. His Château is now a museum (L'Auberge de l'Europe). Moses appears as the central character in the 1956 Cecil B. The town of Ferney (France) where he lived his last 20 years of life, is now named Ferney-Voltaire. Many artists, including Michelangelo in a famed sculpture, depicted Moses with horns. But some of his critics, like Thomas Carlyle, do argue that while he was unsurpassed in literary form, not even the most elaborate of his works was of much value for matter, and that he has never uttered any significant idea of his own.

This tradition survived from the first centuries AD well into the Renaissance. Today, Voltaire is remembered and honoured in France as a courageous polemicist, who indefatigably fought for civil rights — the right to a fair trial and freedom of religion — and who denounced the hypocrisies and injustices of the ancien régime. The Septuagint properly translates the Hebrew word קרן as δεδοξασται, 'was glorified', but Jerome translated it as cornuta, 'horned', and it was the latter image that became the more popular. Voltaire read it through and said, "I do not think this poem will reach its destination.". If interpreted correctly those two words form an expression which means that he was enlightened, and many rabbinical studies explain that the knowledge that was revealed to him made his face metaphorically shine with enlightenment, and not that it suddenly sported a pair of horns. Jean-Baptiste Rousseau, not to be confused with the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, sent a copy of his "Ode to Posterity" to Voltaire. "Panav" פניו translates as "his face". Voltaire is also known for many memorable aphorisms, like Si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer ("If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him"), contained in a verse epistle from 1768, addressed to the anonymous author of a controversial work, The Three Impostors.

The root קרן may be read as either "horn" or "ray", as in "ray of light". Candide was subject to censorship and Voltaire did not openly claim it as his own work [1]. There is one longstanding early tradition that Moses grew horns, derived from a mistranslation of the Hebrew phrase "karnu panav" קרנו פניו. He is best known in this day and age for his novel, Candide ou l'Optimisme (1759), which satirizes the philosophy of Gottfried Leibniz. Jonathan Kirsch, in his book Moses: A Life, thought that, since Moses subsequently had to wear a veil to hide it, the disfigurement was a sort of "divine radiation burn". Voltaire essentially believed monarchy to be the key to progress and change. Due to a statement towards the end of the book of Exodus (at 34:29-35), in which Moses is depicted as having been disfigured due to his direct encounter with God, various traditions grew up as to what the disfigurement was. Voltaire is quoted as saying that he "would rather obey one lion, than 200 rats of (his own) species".

In this view, the situations described in the Bible do not necessarily represent divinely inspired truth but instead represent the views of the editors of the Bible. To Voltaire only an enlightened monarch, advised by philosophers like himself, could bring about change as it was in the king's rational interest to improve the power and wealth of France in the world. They hold that the texts of the Bible were edited together from a number of sources over a long period of time, and the authorship and timing of the Torah is debated. Voltaire distrusted democracy, which he saw as propagating the idiocy of the masses. Liberal Christian denominations and congregations reject this view. Voltaire perceived the French bourgeoisie to be too small and ineffective, the aristocracy to be parasitic and corrupt, the commoners as ignorant and superstitious, and the church as a static force only useful as a counterbalance since its "religious tax", or the tithe, helped to cement a powerbase against the monarchy. Traditional Christianity believes that one who honestly looks for God will find God, as this is stated in the Bible, and that honest, rational exploration yields the Bible as the most rational explanation for human experience. Its briefest equivalent may be given as "persecuting and privileged orthodoxy" in general, and, more particularly, it is the particular system which Voltaire saw around him, of which he had felt the effects in his own exiles and the confiscations of his books, and of which he saw the still worse effects in the hideous sufferings of Calas and La Barre.

In this view, only Jesus was a good man for what he did, the rest of mankind (including Moses and his contemporaries) can only become good by believing and trusting God. L'infâme is not God; it is not Christ; it is not Christianity; it is not even Catholicism. Moses, in the traditional Christian view, was considered a good man not because of his ethics, but because of his trust in God. No careful and competent student of his works has ever failed to correct this gross misapprehension. For an example of this process applied to the Midian war, see this exploration of Moses's writing from a traditional Christian point of view: Moses and the Midianites. This has been misunderstood in many ways - the mistake going so far as in some cases to suppose that Voltaire meant Christ by this opprobrious expression. When faced with an ethical dilemma in Moses's writings, a traditional Christian might employ critical examination of available historical context, critical examination of how the writing should be translated, and critical examination of his or her understanding of God's nature to determine what the passage means, all the while believing the Bible contains no falsehood. Voltaire's works, and especially his private letters, constantly contain the word l'infâme and the expression (in full or abbreviated) écrasez l'infâme.

The traditional Christian believes one arrives at this view by "answering the call of God," who speaks to all mankind through revelation, where revelation is never contradictory and consists of both the Bible and experience gained through life. His immense energy and versatility, his adroit and unhesitating flattery when he chose to flatter, his ruthless sarcasm when he chose to be sarcastic, his rather unscrupulous business faculty, his more than rather unscrupulous resolve to double and twist in any fashion so as to escape his enemies—all these things appear throughout the whole mass of letters. The traditional Christian view implies that the Bible is unique among texts in its truthful nature (lack of falsehood), while simultaneously implying that truth is meaningful only in living application through a personal relationship to God - attempting to adhere to a static set of moral laws is believed to lead to death (see, ie, Romans 7). In this great mass Voltaire's personality is of course best shown, and perhaps his literary qualities not worst. Thus, blind adherence to an organization's or one's own static interpretation is rejected in this view, as devotion to the "living" God prohibits devotion to a static ideology. There remains only the huge division of his correspondence, which is constantly being augmented by fresh discoveries, and which, according to Georges Bengesco, has never been fully or correctly printed, even in some of the parts longest known. The important characteristic of the traditional Christian view comes from the Bible itself--that scripture is useful in the context of personal applicability (2 Timothy 3:16-17). He was quite unacquainted with the history of his own language and literature, and more here than anywhere else he showed the extraordinarily limited and conventional spirit which accompanied the revolt of the French 18th century against limits and conventions in theological, ethical and political matters.

The traditional Christian view implies however that a "literal interpretation of the Bible" is an oxymoron. Nowhere, perhaps, except when he is dealing with religion, are Voltaire's defects felt more than here. A fundamentalist may believe there is one valid source (organization, person, etc.) for the interpretation of the "truths" of the Bible. In literary criticism pure and simple his principle work is the Commentaire sur Corneille, though he wrote a good deal more of the same kind—sometimes (as in his Life and notices of Molière) independently sometimes as part of his Siécles. Translation, historical context and assumptions, and the definition and applicability of terms used in the original text not only affect what the Bible "says," they define it. Almost all his more substantive works, whether in verse or prose, are preceded by prefaces of one sort or another, which are models of his own light pungent causerie; and in a vast variety of nondescript pamphlets and writings he shows himself a perfect journalist. This view does not exempt humans from a carefully reasoned examination of the scriptures, however, and in fact requires it. In general criticism and miscellaneous writing Voltaire is not inferior to himself in any of his other functions.

The Bible is believed to be divinely revealed truth, unique among historical texts. The book ranks perhaps second only to the novels as showing the character, literary and personal, of Voltaire; and despite its form it is nearly as readable. The fundamentalist term has evolved to reflect other meanings however, including that of "a person with an unthinking devotion to an agenda without regard to reason." The traditional approach assumes that Biblical characters, the situations described, and the words said took place as the Bible says. The various title-words of the several articles are often the merest stalking horses, under cover of which to shoot at the Bible or the church, the target being now and then shifted to the political institutions of the writer's country, his personal foes, etc., and the whole being largely seasoned with that acute, rather superficial, common-sense, but also commonplace ethical and social criticism which the 18th century called philosophy. One using the traditional approach was originally called a fundamentalist. None of Voltaire's works shows his anti-religious or at least anti-ecclesiastical animus more strongly. There are two basic positions that one can assume when approaching such texts, both of which offer a variety of responses. His largest philosophical work, at least so called, is the curious medley entitled Dictionnaire philosophique, comprising articles contributed by him to the great Encyclopédie and of several minor pieces.

As such, Jews and Christians have developed a number of responses to understanding such texts. To his own age Voltaire was pre-eminently a poet and a philosopher; the unkindness of succeeding ages has sometimes questioned whether he had any title to either name, and especially to the latter. Adherents of all these faiths understand the serious ethical dilemmas that arise when reading certain parts of the Bible. However, the defense of Christian apologetics of his time was usually not very convincing either. For Unitarian Universalists, and other liberal movements, it is regarded as a sacred text, but not as a divinely revealed work. On the other hand, he claimed that this very same community preserved the texts without making any change to adjust those discrepancies. For both Jews and Christians, the five books of Moses are holy books revealed by God, and the message within them is eternal. On one hand, he claimed that the Gospels were figmented and Jesus did not exist--that they were produced by those who wanted to create God in their own image and were full of discrepancies.

An apparent ethical contradiction should not be casually dismissed, but neither should it be casually assumed. Voltaire opposed Christian beliefs fiercely, but not consistently. In the above example some readers may infer an implied equality between slavery under Mosaic law and "slavery" as understood in the New World. But even in these books defects are present, which appear much more strongly in the singular olla podrida entitled Essai sur les moeurs, in the Annales de Vempire and in the minor historical works. But religion's opponents can also discourage further exploration by making debatable assumptions about a text, classifying the intent of the text as immoral, and thereby dismissing the text as unreliable. (the latter inferior to the former but still valuable) contain a great miscellany of interesting matter, treated by a man of great acuteness and unsurpassed power of writing, who had also had access to much important private information. In contrast, believers in the accuracy of the Bible can use assumptions to discourage exploration. The so-called Siècle de Louis XIV of France and Siecle de Louis XV.

It is important to note, however, that such ethical dilemmas can be cited without an adequate understanding of the historical context. The small treatises on Charles XII and Peter the Great are indeed models of clear narrative and ingenious if somewhat superficial grasp and arrangement. But all the little girls among the women, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves"). This division of Voltaire's work is the bulkiest of all except his correspondence, and some parts of it are or have been among the most read, but it is far from being even among the best. For instance, according to Numbers 31:15-18, he called for the massacre of boys and the enslavement of female children to Israelite veterans of the Midian war ("kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. See especially Micromegas. If the Bible gives an accurate description of Moses' views, then by "modern standards" some of his commands might amount to calls for murder, war crimes or slavery. Voltaire has, in common with Jonathan Swift, the distinction of paving the way for science fiction's philosophical irony.

Biblical purists chalk this up to the fact that Egypt eliminated any type of failures from their history and did not make records of such events, and surely the loss of a group of slaves would have been viewed as a failure. The famous "pour encourager les autres" (that the shooting of Byng did "encourage the others" very much is not to the point) is a typical example, and indeed the whole of Candide shows the style at its perfection. There is no archaeological evidence that any group of people, much less about 600,000 people, wandered a desert for 40 years. Voltaire never dwells too long on this point, stays to laugh at what he has said, elucidates or comments on his own jokes, guffaws over them or exaggerates their form. It is important to note that to date there is no historical mention outside the Bible and ancient historians of the enslavement of Jews by Egypt or of their rescue in any capacity by any person. If one especial peculiarity can be singled out, it is the extreme restraint and simplicity of the verbal treatment. Skeptics view most of these as inconclusive or otherwise consequential. It is in these works more than in any others that the peculiar quality of Voltaire—ironic style without exaggeration—appears.

Traditionalists point out that many of the details of the Pentateuch are consistent with the time period, such as the price of a slave (30 shekels as opposed to around 60 at the time of the Babylonian captivity), the practice of blood covenants and the discovery of what appear to be chariot wheels on the bottom of the Red Sea. But (as always happens in the case of literary work where the form exactly suits the author's genius) the purpose in all the best of them disappears almost entirely. Silberman and colleagues is The Bible Unearthed (Simon and Schuster, New York, 2001). Thus Candide attacks religious and philosophical optimism, L'Homme aux quarante ecus certain social and political ways of the time, Zadig and others the received forms of moral and metaphysical orthodoxy, while some are mere lampoons on the Bible, the unfailing source of Voltaire's wit. Another such book by Neil A. These productions—incomparably the most remarkable and most absolutely good fruit of his genius—were usually composed as pamphlets, with a purpose of polemic in religion, politics, or what not. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, MI, 2003). The minor poems are as much above the Pucelle as the Pucelle is above the Henriade.

Dever (William B. Nevertheless, with all the Pucelle 's faults, it is amusing. Such claims are detailed in Who Were the Early Israelites? by William G. The Pucelle, if morally inferior, is from a literary point of view of far more value, it is desultory to a degree; it is a base libel on religion and history; it differs from its model Lodovico Ariosto in being, not, as Ariosto is, a mixture of romance and burlesque, but a sometimes tedious tissue of burlesque pure and simple. Several professors of archaeology claim that many stories in the Old Testament, including important chronicles about Moses, Solomon, and others, were actually made up for the first time by scribes hired by King Josiah (7th century BC) in order to rationalize monotheistic belief in Yahweh; and that no surviving written records from Egypt, Assyria, etc., refer to the stories of the Bible or its main characters before 650 BC. Constructed and written in almost slavish imitation of Virgil, employing for medium a very unsuitable vehicle—the Alexandrine couplet (as reformed and rendered monotonous for dramatic purposes)—and animated neither by enthusiasm for the subject nor by real understanding thereof, it could not but be an unsatisfactory performance. Opponents of this view point to the fact that the religion of the Torah seems very different to Atenism in everything except the central feature of devotion to a single god. The Henriade has by wide consent been relegated to the position of a school reading book.

2002). As regards his poems proper, of which there are two long ones, the Henriade, and the Pucelle, besides smaller pieces, of which a bare catalogue fills fourteen royal octavo columns, their value is very unequal. A recent alternative suggestion resulting from interpreting Biblical and Egyptian history (by Egyptologist Ahmed Osman) proposes that Moses and Akhenaten are the same person (Moses and Akhenaten, Dec. Ironically, despite Voltaire's comic talent, he wrote only one good comedy, Nanine, but many good tragedies -- two of them, Zaire and Mérope, are ranked among the ten or twelve best plays of the whole French classical school. "Judaism had been a religion of the father, Christianity became a religion of the son," he wrote. He wrote between fifty and sixty plays (including a few unfinished ones). Freud also believed that Moses was murdered in the wilderness, producing a collective sense of patricidal guilt which has been at the heart of Judaism ever since. The divisions of it have long been recognized, and may be treated regularly.

Freud postulated that Moses was an Egyptian nobleman who adhered to the monotheism of Akhenaten. Vast and various as the work of Voltaire is, its vastness and variety are of the essence of its writer's peculiar quality. There is also a psychoanalytical interpretation of Moses' life, put forward by Sigmund Freud in his last book, Moses and Monotheism, in 1937. In 1791 his remains were moved to a resting place at The Panthéon in Paris. For example, some of the plagues strongly resemble exaggerated versions of actual pestilences common in the ancient world (see The Ten Plagues), the famous Red Sea crossing may have been a marsh (the "Reed Sea") through which the Egyptian chariots could not penetrate, the manna which God bestowed on the hungry Israelites may have been the secretion of the hammada shrub, and the swallowing of Korah (Numbers 16) could have been an earthquake. He was finally buried at an abbey in Champagne. Most of them are simply dismissed by scholars as legends, but some can be explained. Because of his criticism of the church Voltaire was denied burial in church ground.

Finally, there is the challenge of interpreting the many miracles in the Moses story. Stories about his death in a state of terror and despair are shown as false. Views include:. The excitement of the trip was too much for him and he died in Paris on May 30, 1778. Dating the Exodus has also proved challenging. Voltaire returned to a hero's welcome in Paris at age 83 in time to see his last play, Irene, produced. On the other hand, infants were sometimes abandoned by the lower classes in ancient times, and "Moshe" is a Hebrew word (meaning "one who draws water"). A much more solid gain to his happiness was the adoption, or practical adoption, in 1776 of Reine Philiberte de Varicourt, a young girl of noble but poor family, whom Voltaire rescued from the convent, installed in his house as an adopted daughter, and married to the marquis de Villette.

The Hebrews might have fabricated the "bulrushes" story along the lines of the tales of Sargon of Akkad (Mesopotamian) or Oedipus (Greek) to legitimize his position. The death of Louis XV and the accession of Louis XVI excited even in his aged breast the hope of re-entering Paris, but he did not at once receive any encouragement, despite the reforming ministry of Turgot. Moses is an Egyptian name meaning "son" and was often used in pharaohs' names (as in Tut-moses). In this way Voltaire, who had been an old man when he established himself at Ferney (now Ferney-Voltaire), became a very old one almost without noticing it. It has been suggested that he may have been an Egyptian nobleman or prince influenced by the religion of Aten (see Freud's theory below), or simply sympathetic to Hebrew culture. But the general events of this Ferney life are somewhat of that happy kind which are no events. Manetho's claim that Moses was an Egyptian is quite plausible. In 1768 he entered into controversy with the bishop of the diocese; he had differences with the superior landlord of part of his estate, the president De Brosses; and he engaged in a long and tedious return match with the republic of Geneva.

Even if Moses is accepted as a historical figure, various aspects of the Biblical tale can be re-interpreted. Volumes and almost libraries have been written on the Calas affair, and we can but refer here to the only less famous cases of Sirven (very similar to that of Calas, though no judicial murder was actually committed), Espinasse (who had been sentenced to the galleys for harbouring a Protestant minister), Lally (the son of the unjustly treated but not blameless Irish-French commander in India), D'Etalonde (the companion of La Barre), Montbailli and others. In the 3rd century BC, Manetho, a Hellenistic Egyptian chronicler and priest, alleged that Moses was not a Jew, but an Egyptian renegade priest, and portrayed the Exodus as the expulsion of a leper colony. Here, too, he began that series of interferences on behalf of the oppressed and the ill-treated which is an honour to his memory. See the article on The Bible and history. How he built a church and got into trouble in so doing at Ferney, how he put "Deo erexit Voltaire" on it (1760-1761) and obtained a relic from the pope for his new building, how he entertained a grand-niece of Corneille, and for her benefit wrote his well-known "commentary" on that poet, are matters of interest, indeed. Also, of course, there are the above-mentioned stories in the Mishna and Qur'an. Further lampoons were directed at Fréron, an excellent critic and a dangerous writer, who had attacked Voltaire from the conservative side, and at whom the patriarch of Ferney, as he now began to be called, levelled in return the very inferior farce-lampoon of L'Ecossaise, of the first night of which Fréron himself did an admirably humorous criticism.

Polyhistor, Josephus, Philo, and Manetho refer to him, as do others. These were directed at literary victims such as Lefranc de Pompignan or Palissot. Whether or not they are reliant on Jewish tradition or also have access to additional sources is unknown. The suppression of the Encyclopédie, to which he had been a considerable contributor, and whose conductors were his intimate friends, drew from him a shower of lampoons directed now at l'infâme. Known extra-biblical references to Moses date from many centuries after his supposed lifetime. Above all, he now being comparatively secure in position, engaged much more strongly in public controversies, and resorted less to his old labyrinthine tricks of disavowal, garbled publication and private libel. For example, if the Exodus occurred during the end of the Hyksos era in Egypt as some scholars believe (16th century BC) then those Hyksos records of Moses would have been deliberately destroyed by victorious Egyptians as they drove the Hyksos out of Egypt. His new occupations by no means quenched his literary activity - he reserved much time for work and for his immense correspondence, which had for a long time once more included Frederick, the two getting on very well when they were not in contact.

On the other hand, historical records are so fragmentary that extra-biblical records of Moses may have been long lost. Many of the most celebrated men of Europe visited him there, and large parts of his usual biographies are composed of extracts from their accounts of Ferney. Skeptical historians, generally called "Biblical minimalists", suggest that Moses never actually existed as a historical figure, and that the Exodus is mythical. At Les Délices (which he sold in 1765) he had become a householder on no small scale; at Ferney (which he increased by other purchases and leases) he became a complete country gentleman, and was henceforward known to all Europe as squire of Ferney. It is, of course, uncertain objectively speaking which of these views is correct, but later verses in the Old Testament (Such as 2 Chronicles 25:4, Ezra 6:18, and Nehemiah 13:1) refer to the Torah as the "Book of Moses," and thus seem to support the latter of the two views over the former. At the end of 1758 he bought the considerable property of Ferney, about four miles from Geneva, and on French soil. Others, especially Biblical literalists, still hold the traditional viewpoint that it is authored by Moses. As for himself, he looked about for a place where he could combine the social liberty of France with the political liberty of Geneva, and he found one.

This idea is discussed in the entry on the documentary hypothesis. He undoubtedly instigated d'Alembert to include a censure of the prohibition in his Encyclopédie article on "Geneva," a proceeding which provoked Rousseau's celebrated Lettre à D'Alembert sur les spectacles. However, advances in textual criticism have convinced many Bible scholars and historians that this work, in the form we know it today, was edited together from several earlier sources. But he never was the man to take opposition to his wishes either quietly or without retaliation. It has been traditionally assumed that Moses received from God and subsequently transcribed all, or almost all, of the Torah, and this is still the view of much of Christianity and most of Orthodox Judaism. Voltaire obeyed this hint as far as Les Délices was concerned, and consoled himself by having the performances in his Lausanne house. See Musa (prophet). In July 1755 a very polite and, as far as Voltaire was concerned, indirect resolution of the Consistory declared that in consequence of these proceedings of the Sieur de Voltaire the pastors should notify their flocks to abstain, and that the chief syndic should be informed of the Consistory's perfect confidence that the edicts would be carried out.

In the Quran, Moses is known as Musa, the Arabic name for the Biblical character; a separate entry exists on the Islamic teachings about Musa. Voltaire had infringed this law already as far as private performances went, and he had thought of building a regular theatre, not indeed at Geneva but at Lausanne. Although the Qur'an reiterates what was available and currently present in Jewish scripture, slight differences can be found. Geneva had a law expressly forbidding theatrical performances in any circumstances whatever. In the Qur'an, the holy book of Islam, the life of Moses is narrated and recounted more than any other prophet recognized in Islam. All was, however, not yet quite smooth with him. Moses is also regarded as a symbol of the law, and so he is presented in all three Gospel accounts of the Transfiguration in Matthew 17, Mark 9, and Luke 9, respectively. The earthquake at Lisbon, which appalled other people, gave Voltaire an excellent opportunity for ridiculing the beliefs of the orthodox, first in verse (1756) and later in the unsurpassable tale of Candide (1759).

Calling himself the "bread of life", Jesus states that he is now provided to feed God's people. His Orphelin de Chine, performed at Paris in 1755, was very well received; the notorious La Pucelle appeared in the same year. In the sixth chapter, Jesus responds to the people's claim that Moses provided them manna in the wilderness by saying that it was not Moses, but God, who provided. His residence at Geneva brought him into correspondence (at first quite amicable) with the most famous of her citizens, Rousseau. When he met the Pharisee Nicodemus at night in the third chapter of John, he compares Moses' lifting up of the bronze serpent in the wilderness, which any Israelite could look upon and be healed, to his own lifting up (by his death and resurrection) for the people to look upon and be healed. He kept open house for visitors; he had printers close at hand in Geneva; he fitted up a private theatre in which he could enjoy what was perhaps the greatest pleasure of his whole life—acting in a play of his own, stage-managed by himself. Moses also figures into several of Jesus' messages. At Les Délices he set up a considerable establishment, which his great wealth made him able easily to afford.

In the book of Acts, for example, the rejection of Moses by the Jews when they worshipped the golden calf is likened to the rejection of Jesus, also by the Jews. He was here practically at the meeting-point of four distinct jurisdictions—Geneva, the canton Vaud, Sardinia, and France, while other cantons were within easy reach; and he bought other houses dotted about these territories, so as never to be without a refuge close at hand in case of sudden storms. New Testament writers often made comparison of Jesus' words and deeds with Moses' in order to explain Jesus' mission. Voltaire had no plans to remain in the city, and immediately bought a country house just outside the gates, which he named Les Délices. For Christians, Moses -- mentioned more often in the New Testament than any other Old Testament figure -- is often a symbol of the contrast between traditional Judaism and the teachings of Jesus. In the summer he went to Plombières, and after returning to Colmar for some time, journeyed in the beginning of winter to Lyons, and thence in the middle of December to Geneva. There is a wealth of stories and additional information about Moses in the Jewish genre of rabbinical exegesis known as Midrash, as well as in the primary works of the Jewish oral law, the Mishnah and the Talmud. His exclusion from France, however, was chiefly metaphorical, and really meant exclusion from Paris and its neighbourhood.

As a result of these the Tabernacle, according to the last chapters of Exodus, was constructed, the priestly law ordained, the plan of encampment arranged both for the Levites and the non-priestly tribes and the Tabernacle consecrated. Nor did an extremely offensive performance of Voltaire's—the solemn partaking of the Eucharist at Colmar after due confession—at all mollify his enemies. It took a while for the Pharaoh to let them do this but he pursued them not actually because he wanted them back due to a change of heart (as is widely believed) but because they violated the agreement to return to Egypt because they were lost. Permission to establish himself in France was now absolutely refused. It is probable that the Pharaoh did not have a change of heart because the Hebrews only asked to be allowed to worship their God on a religious pilgrimage in the desert. At Colmar he was not safe, especially when in January 1754 a pirated edition of the Essai sur les moeurs, written long before, appeared. When the Egyptians attempted to follow, God permitted the waters to return upon them and drown them. He had been, in the first blush of his Frankfort disaster, refused, or at least not granted, permission even to enter France proper.

Meanwhile Pharaoh had a change of heart and was in pursuit of them with a large army.Shut in between this army and the Red Sea, the Israelites despaired, but God divided the waters of the sea so that they passed safely across on dry ground. Even now, however, in his sixtieth year, it required some more external pressure to induce him to make himself independent. The long procession moved slowly, and found it necessary to encamp three times before passing the Egyptian frontier, some believe at the Great Bitter Lake Lake while others propose as far south as the northern tip of the Red Sea (a common mistranslation of the Hebrew Yam Suf, meaning Sea of Reeds). Voltaire's second stage was now over. These plagues culminated in the slaying of the Egyptian first-born whereupon such terror seized the Egyptians that they ordered the Hebrews to leave. The last-named place he reached (after a leisurely journey and many honours at the little courts just mentioned) at the beginning of October, and here he proposed to stay the winter, finish his Annals of the Empire and look about him. This was not accomplished until God sent ten plagues upon the Egyptians. Voltaire left Frankfurt on the 7th of July, travelled safely to Mainz, and thence to Mannheim, Strasbourg and Colmar.

Moses was met on his arrival in Egypt by his elder brother, Aaron, and gained a hearing with his oppressed brethren.It was a more difficult matter, however, to persuade Pharaoh to let the Hebrews depart. This situation was at last put an end to by the city authorities, who probably felt that they were not playing a very creditable part. He then returned to Egypt. He was followed, arrested, his niece seized separately, and sent to join him in custody; and the two, with the secretary Collini, were kept close prisoners at an inn called the Goat. God also commissioned him to go to Egypt and deliver his brethren from their bondage. At last Voltaire tried to steal away. In the time of Emperor Constantine, Mount Horeb was identified with Mount Sinai but most scholars think it was located much farther north. The resident, Freytag, was not a very wise person (though he probably did not, as Voltaire would have it, spell "poésie" (poetry) "poéshie"); constant references to Frederick were necessary; and the affair was prolonged so that Madame Denis had time to join her uncle.

When he turned aside to look more closely at the marvel, God spoke to him from the bush revealing his name to Moses. An excuse was provided in the fact that the poet had a copy of some unpublished poems of Frederick's, which would have implicated Frederick's homosexuality were they to be published, and as soon as Voltaire arrived hands were laid on him, at first with courtesy enough. One day, as Moses led his flock to Mount Horeb, he saw a burning bush without being consumed. Frankfurt, nominally a free city, but with a Prussian resident who did very much what he pleased, was not like Gotha and Leipzig. There he sojourned forty years, following the occupation of a shepherd, during which time his son Gershom was born. Once more, on the 25th of May, he moved on to Frankfurt. Moses soon discovered from a higher source that the affair was known, and that Pharaoh was likely to put him to death for it; he therefore made his escape to the Sinai peninsula and settled with Hobab, or Jethro, priest of Midian, whose daughter Zipporah he in due time married. From Leipzig, after a month's stay, Voltaire moved to Gotha.

The next day, seeing two Hebrews quarreling, he endeavored to separate them, whereupon the Hebrew who was wronging his brother taunted Moses with slaying the Egyptian. In the second place, in direct disregard of a promise given to Frederick, a supplement to Akakia appeared, more offensive than the main text. Seeing an Egyptian maltreating a Hebrew, he killed the Egyptian and hid his body in the sand, supposing that no one who would be disposed to reveal the matter knew of it. In the first place, the poet chose to linger at Leipzig. When Moses grew to manhood, he went one day to see how his brethren, bondmen to the Egyptians, fared. There was a rather distinct excuse for Frederick's wrath. The daughter of Pharaoh discovered the baby and adopted him as her son, and named him "Moses". It was nearly three months afterwards that the famous, ludicrous and brutal arrest was made at Frankfurt, on the persons of himself and his niece, who had met him meanwhile.

When she could keep him hidden no longer, rather than deliver him to be killed she set him adrift on the Nile river in an ark of bulrushes. A kind of reconciliation occurred in March, and after some days of good-fellowship Voltaire at last obtained the long-sought leave of absence and left Potsdam on the 26th of the month (1753). Jochebed, the wife (and paternal aunt) of the Levite Amram, bore a son, and kept him concealed for three months. One day Voltaire sent his orders back; the next Frederick returned them, but Voltaire had quite made up his mind to fly. By chance the child's mother is called as nurse, and it grew and was brought to Pharaoh's daughter and became her son. Things were now drawing to a crisis. The daughter of Pharaoh comes to the water's edge and finds the child. It could not be proved that he had ordered the printing, and all Frederick could do was to have the pamphlet burnt by the hangman.

The Torah leaves the identity of this Pharaoh unstated, but he is widely believed to be Ramses II; other, earlier pharaohs have also been suggested including a Hyksos pharaoh or one shortly after the Hyksos had been expelled. Alas! Voltaire had sent copies away; others had been printed abroad; and the thing was irrecoverable. The birth of Moses occurred at a time when the Egyptian had commanded that all male children born to Hebrew captives should be killed. But again the affair blew over, the king believing that the edition of Akakia confiscated in Prussia was the only one. He is revered as a prophet in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Frederick did not like disobedience, but he still less liked being made a fool of, and he put Voltaire under arrest. Moses's greatest legacy was probably expounding the doctrine of monotheism, which was not widely accepted at the time, codifying it in Jewish religion with the 1st Commandment, and punishing polytheists. In a few days printed copies appeared.

Consequently, "may you live to 120" has become a common blessing among Jews. Of this Frederick was not aware; but he did get some wind of the diatribe itself, sent for the author, heard it read to his own great amusement, and either actually burned the manuscript or believed that it was burnt. The Torah contains the life story of Moses and his people until his death at the age of 120 years, according to some calculations in the year 2488, or 1272 BCE. Even Voltaire did not venture to publish this lampoon on a great official of a prince so touchy as the king of Prussia without some permission, and if all tales are true, he obtained this by another piece of something like forgery—getting the king to endorse a totally different pamphlet on its last leaf, and affixing that last leaf to Akakia. According to the Hebrew Bible, Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, and received the Torah of Judaism from God on Mount Sinai. But Maupertuis must needs write his Letters, and thereupon (1752) appeared one of Voltaire's most famous, though perhaps not one of his most read works, the Histoire du docteur Akakia et du natif de Saint-Malo. . The king took his president's part; Voltaire took Konig's.

Legendary Hebrew liberator, leader, lawgiver, prophet, and historian. Maupertuis got into a dispute with one Konig. Moses or Móshe (מֹשֶׁה, Standard Hebrew Móše, Tiberian Hebrew Mōšeh, Arabic موسى Musa), son of Amram and his wife, Jochebed, a Levite. In the early autumn of 1751 one of the king's parasites, and a man of much more talent than is generally allowed, horrified Voltaire by telling him that Frederick had in conversation applied to him (Voltaire) a proverb about "sucking the orange and flinging away its skin", and about the same time the dispute with Pierre de Maupertuis, which had more than anything else to do with his exclusion from Prussia, came to a head. 87-90, Harper & Row). However, he succeeded in finishing and printing the Siècle de Louis XIV, while the Dictionnaire philosophique is said to have been devised and begun at Potsdam. (Transformations of Myth Through Time, Joseph Campbell, p. The king's disgust at this affair (which came to an open scandal before the tribunals) was so great that he was on the point of ordering Voltaire out of Prussia, and Darget the secretary had trouble resolving the matter (February 1751).

The principal ideas behind this theory are: the monotheistic religion of Akhenaten being a possible predecessor to Moses' monotheism, and a contemporaneous collection of "Amarna Letters" written by nobles to Akhenaten (Amarna was Akhenaten's capital city) which describe raiding bands of "Habiru" attacking the Egyptian territories in Mesopotamia. He was accused of forgery -- of altering a paper signed by Hirsch after he had signed it. 1358 BC) when much of the pharaoh's monotheistic reforms were being violently reversed. Voltaire had not been in the country six months before he engaged in a discreditable piece of financial gambling with Hirsch, the Dresden Jew. Many scholars from Sigmund Freud to Joseph Campbell suggest that Moses may have fled Egypt after Akhenaten's death (ca. Frederick, though his love of teasing for teasing's sake has been exaggerated by Macaulay, was a martinet of the first water, had a sharp though one-sided idea of justice, and had not the slightest intention of allowing Voltaire to insult or to tyrannize over his other guests and servants. A more recent and controversial view places Moses as a noble in the court of the Pharaoh Akhenaten (See below). He was restless, and in a way Bohemian.

1208 BC), claiming that "Israel is wasted, bare of seed", as propaganda covering up his own loss of an army in the sea. Voltaire was not humble enough to be a mere butt, as many of Frederick's lead poets were; he was not enough of a gentleman to hold his own place with dignity and discretion; he was constantly jealous both of his equals in age and reputation, such as Maupertuis, and of his juniors and inferiors, such as Baculard D'Arnaud. or it occurred during the 13th century BC, as the pharaoh during most of that time, Rameses II, is commonly considered to be a pharaoh with whom Moses squabbled - either as the 'Pharaoh of the Exodus' himself, or the preceding 'Pharoah of the Oppression' who is said to have commissioned the Hebrews to "(build) for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses." These cities are known to have been built under both Seti I and Rameses II, possibly making his successor Merneptah 'Pharaoh of the Exodus.' This is considered plausible by those who view the famed stele of Merneptah's 5th year (ca. It was quite impossible that Voltaire and Frederick should get on together for long. it occurred about 1420 BC, since records exist of "Habiru" invasions of Canaan forty years later - this theory fits well the modern idea that the historical persona of Moses was the early 15th century BC Crown Prince of Egypt called Ramose, who also disappeared from Egyptian records around the time of Queen Hatshepsut's death;. But Frenchmen regarded Voltaire as something of a deserter; and it was not long before he bitterly repented his desertion, though his residence in Prussia lasted nearly three years. it occurred around the end of the Hyksos era, as expressed above;. Voltaire insisted for the consent of his own king, which was given without delay.

He pressed him to remain; he gave him (the words are Voltaire's own) one of his orders, twenty thousand francs a year, and four thousand additional for his niece, Madame Jenis, in case she would come and keep house for her uncle. At first the king behaved altogether like a king to his guest. In 1751, Voltaire accepted Frederick of Prussia's invitations and moved to Berlin. He went on writing satires like Zadig, and engaged in a literary rivalry with Crébillon père, a rival set up against him by Madame de Pompadour.

He was deeply disturbed for a time, and considered settling down in Paris. Madame du Chatelet's death is another turning-point in Voltaire's life. In September 1749 she died after the birth of a child. He once lay in hiding for two months with the duchesse du Maine at Sceaux, where were produced the comedietta of La Prude and the Tragedie de Rome sauvée, and afterwards for a time lived chiefly at Lunéville; here Madame du Chatelet had established herself at the court of King Stanislaus I of Poland, and carried on a liaison with the soldier-poet, Jean François de Saint-Lambert, an officer in the king's guard.

He had various proofs of the instability of his hold on the king during 1747 and in 1748. He did not indeed hold it very long, but was permitted to sell it for a large sum, retaining the rank and privileges. His favour at court had naturally exasperated his enemies; it had not secured him any real friends, and even a gentlemanship of the chamber was no solid benefit, except from the money point of view. Then the tide began to turn.

He, who had been for years admittedly the first writer in France, was at last elected to the Académie française in the spring of 1746. All this assentation had at least one effect. But he was not a thoroughly skilful courtier, and one of the best known of Voltairians is the contempt or at least silence with which Louis XV received the maladroit and almost insolent inquiry Trajan est-il content? addressed in his hearing to Richelieu at the close of a piece in which the emperor had appeared with a transparent reference to the king. In the same year he wrote a poem on Fontenoy, he received medals from the pope and dedicated Mahomet to him, and he wrote court divertissements and other things to admiration.

He was much employed, owing to Richelieu's influence, in the fetes of the dauphin (Louis, dauphin de France)'s marriage, and was rewarded through the influence of Madame de Pompadour on New Year's Day 1745 by the appointment to the post of historiographer-royal, temporarily achieving a secure social and financial position. He also returned, not too well advisedly, to the business of courtiership, which he had given up since the death of the regent. During these years much of the Essai sur les moeurs and the Siècle de Louis XIV was composed. It was in this same year that he received the singular diplomatic mission to Frederick which nobody seems to have taken seriously, and after his return the oscillation between Brussels, Cirey and Paris was resumed.

This last was, and deserved to be, the most successful of its author's whole theatre. Mahomet was first performed at Lille in that year; it did not appear in Paris till August next year, and Mérope not till 1743. Brussels was again the headquarters in 1741, by which time Voltaire had finished two of his best plays, Mérope and Mahomet. At last, in September 1740, master and pupil met for the first time at Cleves, an interview followed three months later by a longer visit.

Frederick, now king of Prussia, made not a few efforts to get Voltaire away from Madame du Chatelet, but unsuccessfully, and the king earned the lady's cordial hatred by persistently refusing or omitting to invite her. In April 1739 a journey was made to Brussels, to Paris, and then again to Brussels, which was the headquarters for a considerable time, owing to some law affairs, of the Du Chatelets. The best-known accounts of Cirey life, those of Madame de Graffigny, date from the winter of 1738-39; they are very amusing, depicting the frequent quarrels between Madame du Châtelet and Voltaire, his intense suffering under criticism, his constant dread of the surreptitious publication of the Pucelle (which Émilie actually hid from him to prevent him from publishing it and losing his life, but which he kept reciting to visitors), and so forth. He spent about three months in the Low Countries, but in March 1737 returned to Cirey and continued writing, making experiments in physics (he had at this time a large laboratory), and busying himself with iron-founding, the chief industry of the district.

He was soon in trouble again, this time for the poem, Le Mondain, and he at once crossed the frontier and made for Brussels. In March 1736 he received his first letter from Frederick II of Prussia, then crown prince. In the very first days at Cirey Voltaire had written a pamphlet with the title of Treatise on Metaphysics. The principal literary results of his early years here were the Discours en vers sur l'Homme, the play of Aizire and L'Enfant prodigue (1736), and a long treatise on the Newtonian system which he and Madame du Châtelet wrote together.

At Cirey he wrote indefatigably and did not neglect business. In March 1735 the hat was formally taken off him, and he was at liberty to return to Paris, a liberty of which he availed himself sparingly. Cirey provided him with a safe and comfortable retreat, and with every opportunity for literary work. Émilie's temper was violent, and after more than a decade she began affairs with lovers other than Voltaire, though he stayed with her.

It was not till the summer of 1734 that Cirey, a half-dismantled country house on the borders of Champagne, France and Lorraine, was fitted up with Voltaire's money and became the headquarters of himself, of his hostess, and now and then of her accommodating husband. He now obtained a settled home for many years and, taught by his numerous brushes with the authorities, he began his future habit of keeping out of personal harm's way, and of at once denying any awkward responsibility, which made him for nearly half a century at once the leader of European heretics in regard to all established ideas. He had written important and characteristic work before, but had not decided a direction. If the English visit may be regarded as having finished Voltaire's education, the Cirey residence was the first stage of his literary manhood.

He himself was safe in the independent duchy of Lorraine with Émilie de Breteuil, marquise du Châtelet, with whom he began to be intimate in 1733; he had now taken up his abode with her at the château of Cirey. The book was condemned (June 10, 1734), the copies seized and burned, a warrant issued against the author, and his dwelling searched. It was published with certain "remarks" on Blaise Pascal, more offensive to orthodoxy than itself, and no mercy was shown to it. Both were likely to make bad blood, for the latter was, under the mask of easy verse, a satire on contemporary French literature, especially on Jean-Baptiste Rousseau, and the former was, in the guise of a criticism or rather panegyric of English ways, an attack on everything established in the church and state of France.

In the middle of this period, in 1733, two important books, the Lettres philosophiques sur les Anglais and the Temple du gout appeared. He then took lodgings with an agent of his, one Demoulin, in an out-of-the-way part of Paris, and was, for some time at least, as much occupied with contracts, speculation and all sorts of means of gaining money as with literature. In the following winter the death of the comtesse de Fontaine-Martel, whose guest and supposed lover he had been, turned him out of a comfortable abode. In 1732 two more tragedies appeared with great success: Eriphile and Zaire.

In the spring of the next year, Voltaire went to Rouen to get Charles XII surreptitiously printed. At the end of 1730 Brutus was actually staged. With both he took all imaginable pains to avoid offending the censorship. But he had great difficulties with two of his chief works which were ready to appear, Charles XII and the Lettres sur les Anglais.

The Henriade was at last licensed in France; Brutus, a play which he had printed in England, was accepted for performance, but kept back for a time by the author; and he began the celebrated poem of the Pucelle, the amusement and the torment of a great part of his life. He was full of literary projects, and immediately after his return is said to have increased his fortune immensely by a lucky lottery speculation. He saw England as a useful model for what he considered to be a backward France. Voltaire also greatly admired English religious toleration and freedom of speech, and saw these as necessary prerequisites for social and political progress.

He studied England's constitutional monarchy, its religious tolerance, its philosophical rationalism and most importantly the "natural sciences". While in England Voltaire was attracted to the philosophy of John Locke and ideas of Sir Isaac Newton. The new king was not fond of poetry, but Queen Caroline was, and the kingdom's prestige was enhanced through welcoming a distinguished exile from French illiberality. Soon after his arrival, George I died and George II succeeded.

He was kept in confinement a fortnight, and was then packed off to England in accordance with his own request. On the morning appointed for the duel Voltaire was arrested and sent for the second time to the Bastille. He was insulted by the chevalier de Rohan, replied with his usual sharpness of tongue, and shortly afterwards, when dining with the duke of Sully, was called out and beaten by the chevalier's hirelings, while Rohan watched. The end of 1725 brought a disastrous close to this period of his life.

Voltaire had made, however, a useful friend in another grand seigneur, as profligate and nearly as intelligent, the duke of Richelieu, and with him he passed 1724 and the next year chiefly recasting the now successful Marianne, but also writing the comedy of L'Indiscret and courting the queen. The regent had died shortly before, not to Voltaire's advantage; for he had been a generous patron. Almost at the same time, on the 4th of March, his third tragedy, Marianne, appeared and was well received at first but underwent complete damnation before the curtain fell. In November he caught smallpox and was seriously ill, so that the book was not given to the world till the spring of 1724 (and then of course, as it had no privilege, appeared privately).

In this he was disappointed but he had the work printed at Rouen nevertheless and spent the summer of 1723 revising it. de Berniêres, a nobleman of Rouen and endeavouring to procure a "privilege" for his poem. During the late autumn and winter of 1722-1723 he lived chiefly in Paris, taking a kind of lodging in the town house of M. The Henriade had got on considerably during the journey and, according to his lifelong habit, the poet, with the help of his friend Thiériot and others, had been "working the oracle" of puffery.

He stayed at Cambrai for some time, where European diplomatists were still in full session, journeyed to Brussels, where he met and quarrelled with Jean-Baptiste Rousseau, went on to the Hague and then returned. His visiting espionage, or secret diplomatic mission, began in the summer of 1722 and he set out for it in company with a certain Madame de Rupelmonde, to whom he, as usual, made love, taught deism and served as an amusing travelling companion. In return for this, or in hopes of more, he offered himself as a spy — or at any rate as a secret diplomatist — to Dubois, but meeting his old enemy Beauregard in one of the minister's rooms and making an offensive remark, he was waylaid by Beauregard some time after in a less privileged place and soundly beaten. In December 1721 his father died leaving him property, rather more than four thousand livres a year, which was soon increased by a pension of half the amount from the regent.

He again spent much of his time with Villars, listening to the marshal's stories and making harmless love to the duchess. It was a failure, and though it was recast with some success, Voltaire never published it as a whole and used parts of it in other work. He returned to Paris in the winter and his second play, Artemire, was produced in February 1720. He was informally exiled, and spent much time with Marshal Villars, again increasing his store of "reminiscences".

In the spring of the next year the production of Lagrange-Chancel's libels, entitled the Philippiques, again brought suspicion on Voltaire. It had a run of forty-five nights and brought the author not a little profit, with which Voltaire seems to have begun his long series of successful financial speculations. Oedipe was performed at the Théâtre Français on November 18 and was well received, though a rivalry grew between parties assisting its success. A further "exile" at Châtenay and elsewhere followed the imprisonment however, though Voltaire was admitted to an audience by the regent and treated graciously, he was not trusted.

The balance of opinion has, however, always inclined to the hypothesis of an anagram on the name "Arouet le jeune" or "Arouet l.j.", 'u' being changed to 'v' and 'j' to 'i' according to the ordinary convention. Some maintain that it was an abbreviation of a childish nickname, "le petit volontaire". The origin of the name has been much debated and attempts have been made to show that it existed in the Daumart pedigree or in some territorial designation. Ever after his exit from the Bastille in April 1718 he was known as Arouet de Voltaire, or simply Voltaire, though legally he never abandoned his patronymic.

Inveigled by a spy named Beauregard into a real or burlesque confession he was sent to the Bastille on May 16, 1717, here he recast Oedipe, began the Henriade and decided to change his name. In May 1716 he was exiled, first to Tulle, then to Sully, later, having been allowed to return, he was suspected of having been concerned in the composition of two violent libels. It seems that Voltaire lent himself to the duchess' frantic hatred of the regent, Philippe II of Orléans, and helped compose lampoons on him. He was introduced to the famous "court of Sceaux", the circle of the beautiful and ambitious duchesse du Maine.

Almost exactly at the time of the death of Louis XIV he returned to Paris where he once more became involved in high society and showed Oedipe among his acquaintances. Here he was still supposed to study law but instead devoted himself in part to literary essays and in part to historical gossip. As a result, his father sent him to stay for nearly a year (1714-15) with Louis de Caumartin, marquis de Saint-Ange, in the country. Voltaire was sent home and, for a time, pretended to work in a Parisian lawyer's office but he began writing libelous poems.

Here he met Olympe Dunoyer, a Protestant girl from a poor family, but his father stopped the affair by procuring a lettre de cachet, though he never used it. Voltaire's father tried to remove him from such society by sending him first to Caen and then, in the suite of the marquis de Châteauneuf, the abbé's brother, to The Hague. The Abbé de Châteauneuf died before his godson left school, but he had already introduced him to the famous and dissipated coterie of the Temple. So Voltaire studied law, at least nominally.

In August 1711, at the age of seventeen, he came home and decided on a writing career, which his father objected to. When she died in 1705, she left him money so he could buy books. In his earliest school years the abbé presented him to the famous author Ninon de Lenclos. Though he derided the education he had received, it formed the basis of his considerable knowledge, and probably kindled his lifelong devotion to the stage.

At the age of ten, he was sent to the Jesuit Collège Louis-le-Grand, and remained there till 1711. The Abbé de Châteauneuf, a friend of François' mother, instructed him in les belles lettres and deism, and the child showed a faculty for facile verse-making. Marguerite Arouet, of whom her younger brother was very fond, married early; the elder brother, Armand, was a strong Jansenist and had a poor relationship with François. Voltaire's mother died when he was seven years old.

He was his parent's fifth child, preceded by twin boys (one of whom survived), a girl, Marguerite-Catherine, and another boy who died in childhood. Nonetheless, throughout his life, Voltaire sometimes implied that he came from a noble background. Both parents were of Poitevin extraction, but the Arouets were long established in Paris, the grandfather being a prosperous tradesman. Voltaire was born in Paris to François Arouet and Marie-Marguerite Daumart or D'Aumard.

. François-Marie Arouet (November 21, 1694 – May 30, 1778), better known by the pen name Voltaire, was a French Enlightenment writer, deist and philosopher. "One hundred years from my day there will not be a Bible in the earth except one that is looked upon by an antiquarian curiosity seeker." (1776). "I shall finally have to renounce your Optimism? I'm afraid to say that it's a mania for insisting that all is well when things are going badly." (Candide, renouncing the Leibnizian Optimism).

But there are thirty, and they live in peace and happiness.". "If there were only one religion in England there would be danger of despotism; if there were two they would cut each other’s throats. "God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.". "In this country, from time to time, we like to kill an admiral, to encourage the others" (Referencing the execution of Admiral Byng)(Candide).

"You know that these two nations are at war over a few acres of snow near Canada, and that they are spending on this little war more than all of Canada is worth.". Zaire (1732). Nanine. Mérope.

Mahomet. Eriphile (1732). Ecossaise. Épître à l'Auteur du Livre des Trois Imposteurs (Letter to the author of The Three Impostors) (1770).

Dictionnaire philosophique (1764). Candide (1759). Micromegas (1752). Zadig (1747).

Sept Discours en Vers sur l'Homme (1738). Le Mondain (1736). 1778). Lettres philosophiques sur les Anglais (1733), revised as Letters on the English (c.

Zaire (1732). Oedipe (1718).