A
Treatise on Toleration (1763)
Voltaire Chapter 22: On Universal Tolerance It
does not require great art, or magnificently trained eloquence, to prove that
Christians should tolerate each other. I, however, am going further: I say
that we should regard all men as our brothers. What? The Turk my brother? The
Chinaman my brother? The Jew? The But
these people despise us; they treat us as idolaters! Very well! I will tell
them that they are grievously wrong. It seems to me that I would at least
astonish the proud, dogmatic Islam imam or Buddhist priest, if I spoke to
them as follows: "This
little globe, which is but a point, rolls through space, as do many other
globes; we are lost in the immensity of the universe. Man, only five feet
high, is assuredly only a small thing in creation. One of these imperceptible
beings says to another one of his neighbors, in Arabia or South Africa:
'Listen to me, because God of all these worlds has enlightened me: there are
nine hundred million little ants like us on the earth, but my ant-hole is the
only one dear to God; all the other are cast off by Him for eternity; mine
alone will be happy, and all the others will be eternally damned." They
would then interrupt me, and ask which fool blabbed all this nonsense. I
would be obliged to answer, "You, yourselves." I would then endeavor
to calm them, which would be very difficult. I
would then speak with the Christians, and I would dare to say, for example,
to a Dominican
Inquisitor of the Faith: (9) "My brother, you know that each
province of Italy has their own dialect, and that people do not speak at
Venice or Bergamo the same way they speak at Florence. The The
inquisitor responds, "There is a difference between your example and our
practice. For us, it is a matter of the health of your soul. It is for your
good that the director of the Inquisition ordains that you be seized on the
testimony of a single person, however infamous or criminal that person might
be; that you will have no advocate to defend you; that the name of your
accuser will not even be known by you; that the inquisitor can promise you
mercy, and immediately condemn you; that five different tortures will be
applied to you, and then you will be flogged, or sent to the galleys, or
ceremoniously burned. Father Ivonet, Doctor Cuchalon, Zanchinus, Campegius, Roias, Felynus, Gomarus, Diabarus, Gemelinus, are explicit on this point, and this pious practice cannot
suffer any contradiction." I
would take the liberty to respond, "My brother, perhaps you are
reasonable; I am convinced that you wish to do me good; but could I not be
saved without all that?" It
is true that these absurd horrors do not stain the face of the earth every
day; but they are frequent, and they
could easily fill a volume much greater than the gospels which condemn them.
(10) Not only is it extremely cruel to persecute in this brief
life those who do not think the way we do, but I do not know if it might be
too presumptuous to declare their eternal damnation. It seems to me that it
does not pertain to the atoms of the moment, such as we are, to anticipate
the decrees of the Creator. 9) The Dominicans ran the
notorious Inquisition which tortured and condemned to death people who
departed from orthodox Catholicism. (10) Note how he slips in this
comment, arguing that the Inquisition itself is contrary to the teachings of
Christ. |