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Voltaire's View of Confucius Voltaire’s View of Confucius Tae-Hyeon Song Abstract: For Voltaire, who was a representative Sinophile in France during the age of Enlightenment, Confucius was the core of his Sinophilia. Labeling religious fanaticism and intolerance as “the infamous,” he used the motto “Crush the infamous!” to fight against the French Catholic Church. Voltaire criticized both the Christian religion, which has supernatural elements, and atheism. His religious viewpoint was tolerant Deism, and he found Confucianism, as a philosophical system, to be its closest equivalent, free from superstition and fanaticism. Voltaire saw Confucius as the ideal Deist and representative of Deism, which he presented as a substitute for revealed religion. The encounter of Confucius provided Voltaire with an opportunity to fundamentally reflect on European civilization and Christianity. However, Voltaire can be criticized for excessively idealizing Confucianism and distorting other Chinese religions, such as Taoism and Buddhism, through the way he used Chinese religious ideology as a tool to criticize the situation in France and Europe at the time. Key words: Voltaire Confucius Deism Sinophilia Author: Tae-Hyeon Song, Ph. D., is professor at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, Korea. He has published articles on French literature and comparative study between Eastern and Western cultures, and three books, including Image and Symbol and Fantasy. He is editor-in-chief of The Journal of East-West Comparative Literature. This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2007-361-AL0015). Email: [email protected] 标题：伏尔泰眼中的孔子 内容摘要：伏尔泰是法国启蒙运动时期向往中国的代表人物之一，孔子是他亲华思想的核 心。他把宗教狂热和缺乏宽容视为“卑劣”，并且以“砸碎卑劣”为座右铭来反抗当时的 法国天主教会，既批评包含某种超自然因素的基督教，又反对无神论，表现出宽容的自然 神论宗教观。他发现作为一种哲学体系，儒教最接近自然神论，因为它既不迷信也不狂热。 伏尔泰认为孔子全然就是一个理想的自然神论者，是试图代替现有的天启宗教而提出自然 神论的代表。伏尔泰对孔子的发现为他从根本上反思欧洲文明与基督教提供了契机。然而， 伏尔泰在把中国的宗教思想作为一种工具来批判当时法国和欧洲现状的过程中过度美化儒 教而扭曲了道教、佛教等其他中国宗教，这一点是值得批判的。 关键词：伏尔泰 孔子 自然神论 亲华思想 作者简介：宋太贤，博士，韩国梨花女子大学教授，主要从事法国文学与东西文化比较研究， 出版《意象与象征》、《幻想》等三部著作。现任韩国学术期刊《东西比较文学》主编。 2� 外国文学研究 2014 年第 3 期 Confucius: The Patron Saint of Enlightenment Europeans started to become concretely aware of Confucius and Confucianism through reports and books on China by missionaries from the Society of Jesus, who were in China in the 16th and 17th centuries. The book that made the most significant contribution to the spread of Confucianism was Confucius, Philosopher of the Chinese (Confucius Sinarum Philosophus), published in Latin in Paris in 1687. In this book, which was widely read in Europe, Confucius was highly praised. In the “Introductory Exposition,” Confucius was described as follows: “One might say that the moral system of this philosopher is infinitely sublime, but that it is at the same time simple, sensible, and drawn from the purest sources of natural reason.... Never has Reason, deprived of Divine Revelation, appeared so well developed nor with so much power” (Hobson 194). Most priests of the Society of Jesus, who had been evangelizing China since the late 16th century, focused on the religious ideology of Confucianism. As a result of the positive evaluation of Confucius by the missionaries of the Society of Jesus and the translation of the Confucian scriptures, European Enlightenment thinkers generally had a positive attitude towards Confucius and Confucianism. As the trend of the European Enlightenment period was to promote rationality and intelligence, these thinkers were more interested in Confucian scriptures than either Buddhist scriptures, which contain supernatural elements, or Taoist literature, which is full of parables and aphorism. Those Enlightenment philosophers who tried to destroy the social structure and theology that supported absolute monarchy or metaphysical ethics were surprised to find that “Confucius had thought the same thoughts in the same manner, and fought the same battles”(Reichwein 77) 2000 years earlier in China. In addition, they judged that Confucius advocated the clear expression of language and clear logical reasoning. Given these facts, Confucius became “the patron saint of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment” (Reichwein 77). As a representative Sinophile in France during the Age of Enlightenment, Voltaire (1694– 1778) was very interested in China, to the extent that he claimed, “Although I have never been to China, I have met over 20 people who have travelled to China and think I have read all the literature mentioning the country” (Voltaire, Philosophical Dialogues 264). In various works of his, Voltaire introduced China as an ideal country. In Letters on the English, he described China as “the wisest and best governed country in the world” (50), and in Philosophical Dictionary, he described it as “the most extended and best governed kingdom of the world” (108). In “The Travels of Scarmentado,” one of his satires, Voltaire presented China as “a free and enjoyable country” (140). In Essay on the Manner and Spirit of Nations, he argued that it is impossible to imagine a better government than that of China at the beginning of the seventeenth century, and pointed out that all power lay in the hands of a bureaucracy “whose members were admitted only after several severe examination” (221). Voltaire was aware that positive aspects of Chinese politics, ethics, and religion were closely related to the teachings of Confucius. For the French writer, Confucius is a “sage” who “deemed too highly of his character as a legislator for mankind, to stoop to deceive them” (Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary 343). After this estimation of the Chinese sage, Voltaire adds, “What finer rule of conduct has ever been given since his time, Tae-Hyeon Song: Research on Voltaire’s View of Confucius 2 throughout the earth?” (Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary 343) Confucius was at the core of Voltaire’s Sinophilia. Voltaire’s Deism and Confucius Like other Enlightenment thinkers, such as Rousseau, Diderot, and d’Alembert, Voltaire also struggled with issues connected to reality. As an intellectual engaged in the process of constructing reality, his key interests were political and religious freedom and the protection of religious tolerance. He labeled fanaticism and intolerance “the infamous,” and used the motto “Crush the infamous! (Ecrasez l’infâme!)” in his fight against the French Catholic Church. Although his criticism of the Catholics was related to corrupted and immoral Catholic priests, its fundamental origin was the Bible itself, the foundation of the Catholic Church. The Bible is seen as a revelation of God, and it contains reports of miracles that occur through divine intervention. However, Voltaire claimed that it should be understood in the light of rationality. As the idea of its being a divine revelation could not be explained rationally, he rejected it. He saw the miracle (of the water turned into wine) at Cana in Galilee as a shameful trick. He claimed that the miracles attributed to Jesus, such as the healing of the sick or the raising of the dead, and notably Christ’s own resurrection, were even more suspicious (Cronk 201). Voltaire fought the Bible, attacking and ridiculing it (Cronk 202). For Voltaire, Christianity, which had gone beyond the limits of reason, was not a religion but was a “superstition.” Before Kant’s work, Voltaire had already presented an idea of “religion within the limit of reason alone.” Voltaire did not believe in “Orthodox” Christianity, but this does not mean that he advocated Atheism. In “Atheism,” an article in the Philosophical Dictionary, Voltaire stated, “It cannot be doubted that, in an organized society, it is better to have even a bad religion than no religion at all” (42). In A Treatise on Toleration, he pointed out the importance of having a religion: “Religion is necessary wherever there is a settled society. The laws take care of known crimes; religion watches secret crime” (179). In the seventeenth century, Pierre Bayle questioned whether a society of atheists can exist. Voltaire deemed it impossible. He argued that humans needed an idea of the “existence of a Supreme Being” in order for society to maintain ethics, because people’s faith in God makes them refrain from sin (Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary 43). Voltaire even said, “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him” (Voltaire, “Letter to the author” 402). Because Voltaire advocated Theism to the exclusion of Atheism, he was criticized by French Atheist materialists who had once been his followers. In response to d’Holbach, an Atheist who claimed that religion has caused countless misfortunes, he said it is not a religion that reigns on our unhappy globe, but superstition (Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary 167). The religious viewpoint of Voltaire, at the same time criticizing Christianity for its supernatural elements on the one hand and Atheism on the other, is known as “Deism.” Alongside the development of modern science, Deism raised doubts about various Christian beliefs. It is an ideology that believes in the existence of a God based on the evidence of reason, and it rejects God’s intervention in the functioning of the natural world. The historical background of Deism can be traced to Bacon, Galileo, and Descartes and continued to Hobbes. 22 外国文学研究 2014 年第 3 期 Deism had reached its peak by the time of Locke and Newton, who were founding fathers of modern philosophy. According to modern philosophy, faith in reason, rather than faith in God’s revelation, is the foundation of all knowledge. Accordingly, the basic tenets of Christianity, such as revelation, miracles, and the Bible, were questioned. Deism was a religious belief that sought to maintain Christianity while excluding these doubtful elements (Gay 19-20). Although most Western researchers of Deism think that it emerged from the West, some claim that Confucianism is the foundation of Deism in Europe. According to them, Deism was formed as a result of the translation of Confucian scriptures by the priests of the Society of Jesus. An in-depth study is needed to examine these claims. However, what is clear is that some European Deists considered Chinese people to be Deists and assumed that their own Deism was consistent with Chinese ideology.
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