The Fidelity of Voltaire to His Biblical and Patristic Sources As Shown by the First (1764) Edition of the Dictionnaire Philoæp
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THE FIDELITY OF VOLTAIRE TO HIS BIBLICAL AND PATRISTIC SOURCES AS SHOWN BY THE FIRST (1764) EDITION OF THE DICTIONNAIRE PHILOæPHIQUE. PORTATIF DISSERTATION Presented in Pazrtial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By GILBERT EMORY MILLS, B. A., A. M. ***** The Ohio State University 1955 Approved by: Department dF Romance Languages FQREWDBD The author of the following study wishes to take this opportunity to express his appreciation of the inspiration and help he has received from many sources: to Professor George R. Havens, whose example has pointed out the path to be taken and whose kindly assistance and criticism have added immensely to the quality of the work; to Professor Robert E. Rockwood, from nAiom the author received his first inspiration for historical research; to all members of the Romance Language staff, whose sympathetic interest has ever been an encouragement; to the librarians, who with ever-ready and willing cooperation have done much to smooth the way; and to those in the Graduate School Office who have gone beyond the call of duty in order to be helpful. Of all these friends there remains a very pleasant memory. Thanks are also due to Benziger Brothers, Inc., New York City, publishers and copyright owners of the Swma, Theologica of Thomas Aquinas in English translation, for their kind pemission to use quotations from this work. 1 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Foreword. .................. ü Introduction. ................. 1 Chapter I— Historical Setting ........... 12 Chapter II— Survey of Biblical Sources. ....... 27 Chapter III— Survey of Patristic Sources. ...... lU6 Chapter IV— Analysis of Data. ............ 2$h Chapter V— Conclusions. .............. 283 Appendices: Table I— A con^arison of certain portions of the Dictionnaire philoso phique of 176k with the corre sponding readings of the Naves and Beuchot editions. ....... 286 Table II-A study of Voltaire * s uses of a hynn of Orpheus.............. 293 Bibliography. .................... 30U iii INTRODUCTION As In the case of any man who catches the attention of the public over a period of years, there have grown up around Voltaire maigr traditions, sane to his credit and some not so much in his favor. Among the latter is the belief that he was quite ready to misstate the real facts of a situation if it furthered his ends. As Professor Wade puts its The first rule of Voltaire criticism has been: always regard Voltaire as a prevaricator and dissembler..Thus there was a tendency even in hla day to regard all his statements as false, and we who have inherited that tendency have persisted in believing that there is no truth in M m . Not all critics, however, have held to t M s thesis. Charrot, commenting on a note ty Beuchot to one of Voltaire's letters, writes: Voltaire invente donc beaucoup moins que ne dit Beuchot. En lisant de suite toute la Cor respondance, j'ai constaté que Voltaire était bien plus souvent véridique qu'on ne le pré tend d'ordinaire....J'ai vérifié notamment que lorsqu'il cite â l'un de ses correspondants les paroles d'un autre correspondant ou leur sens, il est en général très exact.^ Although many students of Voltaire have been free to ejqpress their * * * 1. Ira 0. Wade, Voltaire and Madame du Ch&telet^ p. 138. 2. Ch. Charrot, "Quelques Notes sur la 'Correspondance' de Voltaire," Revue d'Mstoire littéraire de la France. t a (1912), 671. opinions, there is all too little exact information available as to how closely he actually held to the facts. There is no doubt that at times he resorted to untrue assertions in order to escape the persecutions of the state censor. His own correspondence convicts him of this.^ Yet the question remains— and it is the vital point— To what extent did he use falsehood to further the arguments of his polemics and to carry on his attack on 1*infâme, as he characterized the established religion of his day? His writings in these fields abound in quo tations, both direct and indirect,^ taken principally from the Bible and from the Church Fathers in order to attack or ridicule them. Is he fair in his treatment of their statements? Is he justified, by the works of the authors themselves, in his manner of presenting quotations from their works? To what extent does he accurately reproduce their thought? One answer is suggested by Voltaire's secretary, Wagniere, in his statement; La mémoire de M. de Voltaire était prodigieuse. Il m'a dit cent fois: Voyez dans tel ouvrage, dans tel volume, à peu près â telle page, s'il n'y a pas telle chose? et il arriyait rarement qu'il se trompât, quoiqu'il n'eût pas ouvert 3. Clifford M. Crist, The Dictionnaire philosophique portatif and the Early French Deists, p p . 11 ff. U. This is true in spite of the fact that he says, "Je n'aime point à citer; c'est d'ordinaire une besogne épineuse; on néglige ce qui précède & ce qui suit l'endroit qu'on cite, & on s'expose à mille querelles (Pict. nhil.. p. 54; Naves, I, 77).” le livre depuis douze ou quinze ans.^ If one were to rely on this testimony alone, he could easily conclude that Voltaire was careful in making his quotations. But this is a very incomplete answer to the questions raised by the problem. It was to attempt a fuller answer that this study was undertaken. It is, from a practical standpoint, impossible to consider every factor, not only because of the great volume of Voltaire's writings but also because his references are, much of the time, vague, perhaps intentionally so. As often as not, he merely gives the author's name without mentioning even the book. Rare it is indeed for him to give a page number, especially in his earlier works. Editors sometimes supply such information but it is not always reliable. This study is limited to the material contained in the original, 1764, edition of the Dictionnaire philosophique. Al though this is neither the first nor the last of Voltaire's polemic publications, it represents a milestone in the development of his method, in that it was his first attempt at expressing his ideas in the dictionary form; a form which he continued to use for several years latey. The book is short enough to come * * * 5, S,G. Longchamp and Wagnière, Mémoires sur Voltaire, et sur ses ouvrages. I, 53. within practical limits of study, yet contains the essential elements of his fuller works. The method we shall use in attacking the problem will be to contrast, in parallel columns where possible, the source material and Voltaire's quotation from it, followed by whatever comment is necessary for clarification and evaluation. The citations from the Bible will be taken from the Saci version of 1724 unless another work is indicated. This translation from the Vulgate first appeared in 1667-71 and had frequent revisions and reprints. By 1720, it had come to be the best known Bible in Catholic France and Voltaire had in his library an exemplar of the 1730 edition,^ That he used it in the prepara tion of the Portatif, as the first printing of the Dictionnaire philosophique was called, and that the text of the 1724 copy does not differ materially from it, are both shown by the word for word, comma for comma, similarity of a few of his quotations and by the general phraseology of the majority of them. The Bible which was in general use among the Protestant minority in France was the Ostervald version, a revision of the Geneva Bible of 1588, Only on very rare occasions is there even any suggestion that Voltaire may have had in mind either this * * * 6, George R, Havens and Norman L, Torrey, "Voltaire’s Books: A Se lected List," Modern Philology. XXVII (August, 1929), 4, 7, See Chapter II, Section I of this study, particularly pages 31 and 32, woric, published in 172k, or a previous recension of the Geneva Bible in 1707 by David Martin, Several citations from the Vulgate are scattered through the Dictionnaire. It is not known, however, what edition the author may have been using. Whenever the situation is not complicated, the quotations from the Church Fathers will be given in an En^ish translation. If a fuller treatment is demanded, the author's original, taken from a standard edition, will also be shown. All quotations from the Dictionnaire in this study will, un less it is otherwise indicated, be in the text of the première édition of I76U, as described by Bengesco.® In each case, reference will also be made to the modem edition of Julien Benda and Raymond Naves, since it is more readily available than that of 176k# The text, estab lished by Naves, will not, however, always be that of the Portatif.^ The spelling, as well as the punctuation, accent marks, etc., of each quotation will be that of the edition from lAiich it is taken. This will be true regardless of whether it is set in one of the parallel columns or in the body of the paragraph. In connection with his source material, the question arises as to Voltaire's knowledge of the language in which it was written. In regard to Latin, there is no doubt. According * * * 8. Georges Bengesco, Bibliographe, I, 1|12. 9» See pages 25 ff# of ibis study. to the testimony of Pierron, Voltaire maintained from early in life to his last days a personal, extra-professional interest in this language: La lecture d ’Horace est.,,le passetemps favo ri de Voltaire, sa plus efficace consolation.^® Many of his published works contain frequent quotations from Roman authors, as well as from the Vulgate, while in his correspond ence there are not only occasional letters in Latin,but often verses quoted from classical writers with comments in the same language,both of which show an ease in its use.