The Philosophy of Voltaire - Collected Works: Treatise On Tolerance, Philosophical Dictionary, Candide, Letters on England, Plato's Dream, Dialogues, The Study of Nature, Ancient Faith and Fable…. Вольтер
Читать онлайн книгу.
reformers, the reign of Charles IX., and the regency of Catherine de Medici, and they are all equally right. Bossuet and Newton have both commented on the Apocalypse, yet, after all, the eloquent declamations of the one, and the sublime discoveries of the other, have done them greater honor than their commentaries.
SECTION II.
Two great men, but very different in their greatness, have commented on the Apocalypse in the seventeenth century: Newton, to whom such a study was very ill suited, and Bossuet, who was better fitted for the undertaking. Both gave additional weapons to their enemies, by their commentaries, and, as has elsewhere been said, the former consoled mankind for his superiority over them, while the latter made his enemies rejoice.
The Catholics and the Protestants have both explained the Apocalypse in their favor, and have each found in it exactly what has accorded with their interests. They have made wonderful commentaries on the great beast with seven heads and ten horns, with the hair of a leopard, the feet of a bear, the throat of a lion, the strength of a dragon, and to buy and sell it was necessary to have the character and number of the beast, which number was 666.
Bossuet finds that this beast was evidently the Emperor Diocletian, by making an acrostic of his name. Grotius believed that it was Trajan. A curate of St. Sulpice, named La Chétardie, known from some strange adventures, proves that the beast was Julian. Jurieu proves that the beast is the pope. One preacher has demonstrated that it was Louis XIV. A good Catholic has demonstrated that it was William, king of England. It is not easy to make them all agree.
There have been warm disputes concerning the stars which fell from heaven to earth, and the sun and moon, which were struck with darkness in their third parts.
There are several opinions respecting the book that the angel made the author of the Apocalypse eat, which book was sweet to the mouth and bitter to the stomach. Jurieu asserted that the books of his adversary were designated thereby, and his argument was retorted upon himself.
There have been disputes about this verse: "And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder; and I heard the voice of harpers harping on their harps."
It is quite clear that it would have been better to have respected the Apocalypse than to have commented upon it.
Camus, bishop of Bellay, printed in the last century a large book against the monks, which an unfrocked monk abridged. It was entitled "Apocalypse," because in it he exposed the dangers and defects of the monastic life; and "Melito's Apocalypse" ("Apocalypse de Méliton?"), because Melito, bishop of Sardis, in the second century, had passed for a prophet. This bishop's work has none of the obscurities of St. John's Apocalypse. Nothing was ever clearer. The bishop is like a magistrate saying to an attorney, "You are a forger and a cheat—do you comprehend me?"
The bishop of Bellay computes, in his Apocalypse or Revelations, that there were in his time ninety-eight orders of monks endowed or mendicant, living at the expense of the people, without employing themselves in the smallest labor. He reckoned six hundred thousand monks in Europe. The calculation was a little strained; but it is certain that the real number of the monks was rather too large.
He assures us that the monks are enemies to the bishops, curates, and magistrates; that, among the privileges granted to the Cordeliers, the sixth privilege is the certainty of being saved, whatever horrible crime you may have committed, provided you belong to the Order of St. Francis; that the monks are like apes; the higher they climb, the plainer you see their posteriors; that the name of monk has become so infamous and execrable that it is regarded by the monks themselves as a foul reproach and the most violent insult that can be offered them.
My dear reader, whoever you are, minister or magistrate, consider attentively the following short extract from our bishop's book:
"Figure to yourself the convent of the Escorial or of Monte Cassino, where the cœnobites have everything necessary, useful, delightful, superfluous and superabundant—since they have their yearly revenue of a hundred and fifty thousand, four hundred thousand, or five hundred thousand crowns; and judge whether Monsieur l'Abbé has wherewithal to allow himself and those under him to sleep after dinner.
"Then imagine an artisan or laborer, with no dependence except on the work of his hands, and burdened with a large family, toiling like a slave every day and at all seasons, to feed them with the bread of sorrow and the water of tears; and say, which of the two conditions is pre-eminent in poverty."
This is a passage from the "Episcopal Apocalypse" which needs no commentary. All that is wanted is an angel to come and fill his cup with the wine of the monks, to slake the thirst of the laborers who plow, sow, and reap, for the monasteries.
But this prelate, instead of writing a useful book, only composed a satire. Consistently with his dignity, he should have stated the good as well as evil. He should have acknowledged that the Benedictines have produced many good works, and that the Jesuits have rendered great services to literature. He might have blessed the brethren of La Charité, and those of the Redemption of the Captives. Our first duty is to be just. Camus gave too much scope to his imagination. St. François de Sales advised him to write moral romances; but he abused the advice.
ANTI-TRINITARIANS.
These are heretics who might pass for other than Christians. However, they acknowledge Jesus as Saviour and Mediator; but they dare to maintain that nothing is more contrary to right reason than what is taught among Christians concerning the Trinity of persons in one only divine essence, of whom the second is begotten by the first, and the third proceeds from the other two; that this unintelligible doctrine is not to be found in any part of Scripture; that no passage can be produced which authorizes it; or to which, without in any wise departing from the spirit of the text, a sense cannot be given more clear, more natural, or more conformable to common notions, and to primitive and immutable truths; that to maintain, as the orthodox do, that in the divine essence there are several distinct persons, and that the Eternal is not the only true God, but that the Son and the Holy Ghost must be joined with Him, is to introduce into the Church of Christ an error the most gross and dangerous, since it is openly to favor polytheism; that it implies a contradiction, to say that there is but one God, and that, nevertheless, there are three persons, each of which is truly God; that this distinction, of one in essence, and three in person, was never in Scripture; that it is manifestly false, since it is certain that there are no fewer essences than persons, nor persons than essences; that the three persons of the Trinity are either three different substances, or accidents of the divine essence, or that essence itself without distinction; that, in the first place, you make three Gods; that, in the second, God is composed of accidents; you adore accidents, and metamorphose accidents into persons; that, in the third, you unfoundedly and to no purpose divide an indivisible subject, and distinguish into three that which within itself has no distinction; that if it be said that the three personalities are neither different substances in the divine essence, nor accidents of that essence, it will be difficult to persuade ourselves that they are anything at all; that it must not be believed that the most rigid and decided Trinitarians have themselves any clear idea of the way in which the three hypostases subsist in God, without dividing His substance, and consequently without multiplying it; that St. Augustine himself, after advancing on this subject a thousand reasonings alike dark and false, was forced to confess that nothing intelligible could be said about the matter; they then repeat the passage by this father, which is, indeed, a very singular one: "When," says he, "it is asked what are the three, the language of man fails and terms are wanting to express them." "Three persons, has, however, been said—not for the purpose of expressing anything, but in order to say something and not remain mute." "Dictum est tres personæ, non ut aliquid diceretur, sed ne taceretur".—De Trinit. lib. v. cap. 9; that modern theologians have cleared up this matter no better; that, when they are asked what they understand by the word person, they explain themselves only by