Chapter IV
Original French
Si la Tolérance est dangereuse; & chez quels Peuples elle est pratiquée.
QUelques-uns ont dit que si l'on usait d'une indulgence paternelle envers nos freres errants, qui prient Dieu en mauvais Français, ce serait leur mettre les armes à la main, qu'on verrait de nouvelles batailles de Jarnac, de Moncontour, de Coutras, de Dreux, de St. Denis, &c. C'est ce que j'ignore, parce que je ne suis pas Prophete; mais il me semble que ce n'est pas raisonner conséquemment, que de dire: «Ces hommes se sont soulevés quand je leur ai fait du mal, donc ils se souleveront quand je leur ferai du bien.
J'oserais prendre la liberté d'inviter ceux qui sont à la tête du Gouvernement, & ceux qui sont destinés aux grandes places, à vouloir bien examiner mûrement, si l'on doit craindre en effet que la douceur produise les mêmes révoltes que la cruauté a fait naître; si ce qui est arrivé dans certaines circonstances, doit arriver dans d'autres; si les temps, l'opinion, les mœurs sont toujours les mêmes?
Les Huguenots, sans doute, ont été enivrés de fanatisme, & souillés de sang comme nous: mais la génération présente est-elle aussi barbare que leurs peres? le temps, la raison qui fait tant de progrès, les bons Livres, la douceur de la Société, n'ont-ils point pénétré chez ceux qui conduisent l'esprit de ces Peuples? & ne nous appercevons-nous pas que presque toute l'Europe a changé de face depuis environ cinquante années?
Le Gouvernement s'est fortifié par-tout, tandis que les mœurs se sont adoucies. La Police générale, soutenue d'armées nombreuses toujours existantes, ne permet pas d'ailleurs de craindre le retour de ces temps anarchiques, où des Paysans Calvinistes combattaient des Paysans Catholiques, enrégimentés à la hâte entre les semailles & les moissons.
D'autres temps, d'autres soins. Il serait absurde de décimer aujourd'hui la Sorbonne, parce qu'elle présenta requête autrefois pour faire brûler la Pucelle d'Orléans; parce qu'elle déclara Henri III déchu du droit de régner, qu'elle l'excommunia, qu'elle proscrivit le grand Henri IV. On ne recherchera pas, sans doute, les autres Corps du Royaume qui commirent les mêmes excès dans ces temps de frénésie; cela serait non-seulement injuste, mais il y aurait autant de folie qu'à purger tous les Habitants de Marseille parce qu'ils ont eu la peste en 1720.
Irons-nous saccager Rome, comme firent les troupes de Charles-quint, parce que Sixte-quint, en 1585, accorda neuf ans d'indulgence à tous les Français qui prendraient les armes contre leur Souverain? & n'est-ce pas assez d'empêcher Rome de se porter jamais à des excès semblables?
La fureur qu'inspirent l'esprit dogmatique & l'abus de la Religion Chrétienne mal entendue, a répandu autant de sang, a produit autant de désastres en Allemagne, en Angleterre, & même en Hollande, qu'en France: cependant aujourd'hui la différence des Religions ne cause aucun trouble dans ces Etats; le Juif, le Catholique, le Grec, le Luthérien, le Calviniste, l'Anabatiste, le Socinien, le Memnoniste, le Morave & tant d'autres, vivent en freres dans ces Contrées, & contribuent également au bien de la Société.
On ne craint plus en Hollande que les disputes d'un Gomar9 sur la prédestination fassent trancher la tête au grand Pensionnaire. On ne craint plus à Londres que les querelles des Presbytériens & des Episcopaux pour une Lithurgie & pour un surplis, répandent le sang d'un Roi sur un échafaud.10 L'Irlande peuplée & enrichie, ne verra plus ses Citoyens Catholiques sacrifier à Dieu pendant deux mois ses Citoyens Protestants, les enterrer vivants, suspendre les meres à des gibets, attacher les filles au cou de leurs meres, & les voir expirer ensemble; ouvrir le ventre des femmes enceintes, en tirer les enfants à demi-formés, & les donner à manger aux porcs & aux chiens; mettre un poignard dans la main de leurs prisonniers garrotés, & conduire leurs bras dans le sein de leurs femmes, de leurs peres, de leurs meres, de leurs filles, s'imaginant en faire mutuellement des parricides, & les damner tous en les exterminant tous. C'est ce que rapporte Rapin-Toiras, Officier en Irlande, presque contemporain; c'est ce que rapportent toutes les Annales, toutes les Histoires d'Angleterre, & ce qui sans doute ne sera jamais imité. La Philosophie, la seule Philosophie, cette sœur de la Religion, a désarmé des mains que la superstition avait si long-temps ensanglantées; & l'esprit humain, au réveil de son ivresse, s'est étonné des excès où l'avait emporté le fanatisme.
Nous-mêmes, nous avons en France une Province opulente, où le Luthéranisme l'emporte sur le Catholicisme. L'Université d'Alsace est entre les mains des Luthériens: ils occupent une partie des Charges municipales; jamais la moindre querelle religieuse n'a dérangé le repos de cette Province depuis qu'elle appartient à nos Rois. Pourquoi? c'est qu'on n'y a persécuté personne. Ne cherchez point à gêner les cœurs, & tous les cœurs seront à vous.
Je ne dis pas que tous ceux qui ne sont point de la Religion du Prince doivent partager les places & les honneurs de ceux qui sont de la Religion dominante. En Angleterre, les Catholiques, regardés comme attachés au Prétendant, ne peuvent parvenir aux emplois; ils payent même double taxe; mais ils jouissent d'ailleurs de tous les droits des Citoyens.
On a soupçonné quelques Evêques Français de penser qu'il n'est ni de leur honneur, ni de leur intérêt, d'avoir dans leur Diocese des Calvinistes; & que c'est là le plus grand obstacle à la Tolérance: je ne le puis croire. Le Corps des Evêques en France est composé de gens de qualité, qui pensent & qui agissent avec une noblesse digne de leur naissance; ils sont charitables & généreux, c'est une justice qu'on doit leur rendre: ils doivent penser que certainement leurs Diocésains fugitifs ne se convertiront pas dans les Pays étrangers, & que, retournés auprès de leurs Pasteurs, ils pourraient être éclairés par leurs instructions, & touchés par leurs exemples; il y aurait de l'honneur à les convertir: le temporel n'y perdrait pas; & plus il y aurait de Citoyens, plus les terres des Prélats rapporteraient.
Un Evêque de Varmie, en Pologne, avait un Anabatiste pour Fermier, & un Socinien pour Receveur; on lui proposa de chasser & de poursuivre l'un parce qu'il ne croyait pas la consubstantiabilité, & l'autre parce qu'il ne baptisait son fils qu'à quinze ans: il répondit qu'ils seraient éternellement damnés dans l'autre monde, mais que dans ce monde-ci ils lui étaient très-nécessaires.
Sortons de notre petite sphere, & examinons le reste de notre globe. Le grand Seigneur gouverne en paix vingt Peuples de différentes Religions; deux cents mille Grecs vivent avec sécurité dans Constantinople; le Muphti même nomme & présente à l'Empereur le Patriarche Grec; on y souffre un Patriarche Latin. Le Sultan nomme des Evêques Latins pour quelques Isles de la Grece,11 & voici la formule dont il se sert; Je lui commande d'aller résider Evêque dans l'Isle de Chio, selon leur ancienne coutume & leurs vaines cérémonies. Cet Empire est rempli de Jacobites, de Nestoriens, de Monotélites; il y a des Cophtes, des Chrétiens de St. Jean, des Juifs, des Guebres, des Banians. Les Annales Turques ne font mention d'aucune révolte excitée par aucune de ces Religions.
Allez dans l'Inde, dans la Perse, dans la Tartarie; vous y verrez la même tolérance & la même tranquillité. Pierre-le-Grand a favorisé tous les Cultes dans son vaste Empire: le Commerce & l'Agriculture y ont gagné, & le Corps politique n'en a jamais souffert.
Le Gouvernement de la Chine n'a jamais adopté, depuis plus de quatre mille ans qu'il est connu, que le Culte des Noachides, l'adoration simple d'un seul Dieu: cependant il tolere les superstitions de Fo, & une multitude de Bonzes qui serait dangereuse, si la sagesse des Tribunaux ne les avait pas toujours contenus.
Il est vrai que le grand Empereur Yont-Chin, le plus sage & le plus magnanime peut-être qu'ait eu la Chine, a chassé les Jésuites; mais ce n'était pas parce qu'il était intolérant, c'était au contraire parce que les Jésuites l'étaient. Ils rapportent eux-mêmes dans leurs Lettres curieuses, les paroles que leur dit ce bon Prince: Je sais que votre Religion est intolérante; je sais ce que vous avez fait aux Manilles & au Japon; vous avez trompé mon Pere, n'espérez pas me tromper de même. Qu'on lise tout le discours qu'il daigna leur tenir, on le trouvera le plus sage & le plus clément des hommes. Pouvait-il en effet retenir des Physiciens d'Europe, qui, sous prétexte de montrer des thermometres & des éolipiles à la Cour, avaient soulevé déja un Prince du sang? & qu'aurait dit cet Empereur, s'il avait lu nos Histoires, s'il avait connu nos temps de la ligue, & de la conspiration des poudres?
C'en était assez pour lui d'être informé des querelles indécentes des Jésuites, des Dominicains, des Capucins, des Prêtres séculiers envoyés du bout du monde dans ses Etats: ils venaient prêcher la vérité, & ils s'anathématisaient les uns les autres. L'Empereur ne fit donc que renvoyer des perturbateurs étrangers: mais avec quelle bonté les renvoya-t-il? quels soins paternels n'eut-il pas d'eux pour leur voyage, & pour empêcher qu'on ne les insultât sur la route? Leur bannissement même fut un exemple de tolérance & d'humanité.
Les Japonois12 étaient les plus tolérants de tous les hommes, douze Religions paisibles étaient établies dans leur Empire: les Jésuites vinrent faire la treizieme; mais bientôt n'en voulant pas souffrir d'autre, on sait ce qui en résulta; une guerre civile, non moins affreuse que celles de la Ligue, désola ce Pays. La Religion Chrétienne fut noyée enfin dans des flots de sang. Les Japonois fermerent leur Empire au reste du monde, & ne nous regarderent que comme des bêtes farouches, semblables à celles dont les Anglais ont purgé leur Isle. C'est en vain que le Ministre Colbert, sentant le besoin que nous avions des Japonois, qui n'ont nul besoin de nous, tenta d'établir un commerce avec leur Empire; il les trouva inflexibles.
Ainsi donc notre Continent entier nous prouve qu'il ne faut ni annoncer ni exercer l'intolérance.
Jettez les yeux sur l'autre hémisphere, voyez la Caroline, dont le sage Loke fut le Législateur; tout pere de famille qui a sept personnes seulement dans sa maison, peut y établir une Religion à son choix, pourvu que ces sept personnes y concourent avec lui. Cette liberté n'a fait naître aucun désordre. Dieu nous préserve de citer cet exemple pour engager chaque maison à se faire un culte particulier: on ne le rapporte que pour faire voir que l'excès le plus grand où puisse aller la tolérance, n'a pas été suivi de la plus légere dissension.
Mais que dirons-nous de ces pacifiques Primitifs, que l'on a nommés Quakres par dérision, & qui, avec des usages peut-être ridicules, ont été si vertueux, & ont enseigné inutilement la paix au reste des hommes? Ils sont en Pensilvanie au nombre de cent mille; la discorde, la controverse sont ignorées dans l'heureuse Patrie qu'ils se sont faite: & le nom seul de leur Ville de Philadelphie, qui leur rappelle à tout moment que les hommes sont freres, est l'exemple & la honte des Peuples qui ne connaissent pas encore la tolérance.
Enfin cette tolérance n'a jamais excité de guerre civile; l'intolérance a couvert la terre de carnage. Qu'on juge maintenant entre ces deux rivales, entre la mere qui veut qu'on égorge son fils, & la mere qui le cede pourvu qu'il vive.
Je ne parle ici que de l'intérêt des Nations; & en respectant, comme je le dois, la Théologie, je n'envisage dans cet article que le bien physique & moral de la Société. Je supplie tout Lecteur impartial de peser ces vérités, de les rectifier & de les étendre. Des Lecteurs attentifs, qui se communiquent leurs pensées, vont toujours plus loin que l'Auteur.13
9 François Gomar était un Théologien Protestant; il soutint contre Arminius, son Collegue, que Dieu a destiné, de toute éternité, la plus grande partie des hommes à être brûlés éternellement: ce dogme infernal fut soutenu comme il devait l'être par la persécution. Le grand Pensionnaire Barneweldt, qui était du parti contraire à Gomar, eut la tête tranchée à l'âge de 72 ans, le 13 Mai 1619, pour avoir contristé au possible l'Eglise de Dieu.
10 Un Déclamateur, dans l'Apologie de la Révocation de l'Edit de Nantes, dit, en parlant de l'Angleterre: une fausse Religion devait produire nécessairement de tels fruits; il en restait un seul à mûrir, ces Insulaires le recueillent, c'est le mépris des Nations. Il faut avouer que l'Auteur prend mal son temps pour dire que les Anglais sont méprisables & méprisés de toute la terre. Ce n'est pas, ce me semble, lorsqu'une Nation signale sa bravoure & sa générosité, lorsqu'elle est victorieuse dans les quatre parties du Monde, qu'on est bien reçu à dire qu'elle est méprisable & méprisée. C'est dans un Chapitre sur l'Intolérance, qu'on trouve ce singulier passage. Ceux qui prêchent l'Intolérance, méritent d'écrire ainsi. Cet abominable Livre, qui semble fait par le fou de Verberies, est d'un homme sans mission: car quel Pasteur écrirait ainsi? La fureur est poussée dans ce Livre jusqu'à justifier la St. Barthelemi. On croirait qu'un tel Ouvrage, rempli de si affreux paradoxes, devrait être entre les mains de tout le monde, au moins par sa singularité; cependant à peine est-il connu.
11 Voyez Ricaut.
12 Voyez Kempfer, & toutes les Relations du Japon.
13 Mr. de la Bourdonnaie, Intendant de Rouen, dit que la Manufacture de chapeaux est tombée à Caudebec & à Neufchâtel par la fuite des Réfugiés. Mr. Foucaut, Intendant de Caen, dit que le Commerce est tombé de moitié dans la Généralité. Mr. De Maupeou, Intendant de Poitiers, dit que la Manufacture de droguet est anéantie. Mr. de Bezons, Intendant de Bordeaux, se plaint que le Commerce de Clérac & de Nérac ne subsiste presque plus. Mr. de Miroménil, Intendant de Touraine, dit que le Commerce de Tours est diminué de dix millions par année; & tout cela par la persécution. Voyez les Mémoires des Intendants, en 1698. Comptez sur-tout le nombre des Officiers de terre & de mer, & de Matelots, qui ont été obligés d'aller servir contre la France, & souvent avec un funeste avantage: & voyez si l'Intolérance n'a pas causé quelque mal à l'Etat.
On n'a pas ici la témérité de proposer des vues à des Ministres dont on connaît le génie & les grands sentiments, & dont le cœur est aussi noble que la naissance: ils verront assez que le rétablissement de la Marine demande quelque indulgence pour les Habitants de nos Côtes.
Musean translation
Complete machine-assisted Musean translation directly from French, reviewed against it. Includes all 25 chapters, Voltaire’s notes and the added Article with six edition references. Article transcription: French Wikisource, Garnier 1879, revision 15479820. Translation and Article: creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/.
Whether tolerance is dangerous, and among which peoples it is practiced.
Some have said that to show fatherly forbearance toward our erring brothers, who pray to God in bad French, would be to put weapons in their hands; that we would see new battles of Jarnac, Moncontour, Coutras, Dreux, Saint-Denis, &c. I do not know, for I am no prophet. But it seems to me poor reasoning to say: “These men rose up when I harmed them; therefore they will rise up when I do them good.”
I would venture to take the liberty of inviting those at the head of government, and those destined for high office, to consider carefully whether there is really reason to fear that gentleness will produce the same rebellions that cruelty brought about; whether what happened in one set of circumstances must happen in another; whether times, opinions, and ways of life are always the same.
The Huguenots were undoubtedly intoxicated with fanaticism and stained with blood, as we were. But is the present generation as barbarous as their fathers? Have time, reason—which is making such progress—good books, and the gentleness of social life made no impression on those who guide these people's minds? And do we not see that almost all Europe has changed its face over the past fifty years or so?
Government has grown stronger everywhere, while manners have grown gentler. Public order, sustained by large standing armies, moreover leaves no reason to fear a return to those anarchic times when Calvinist peasants fought Catholic peasants, hastily formed into regiments between sowing and harvest.
Other times, other concerns. It would be absurd today to put a tenth of the Sorbonne to death because it once petitioned to have the Maid of Orléans burned; because it declared that Henry III had forfeited his right to reign, excommunicated him, and outlawed the great Henry IV. Surely no one will call to account the kingdom's other corporate bodies that committed the same excesses in those frenzied times. It would be not only unjust, but as mad as purging all the inhabitants of Marseille because they had the plague in 1720.
Shall we sack Rome, as the troops of Charles V did, because Sixtus V, in 1585, granted nine years of indulgence to every Frenchman who took up arms against his sovereign? Is it not enough to prevent Rome from ever committing such excesses again?
The fury inspired by dogmatism and the abuse of a misunderstood Christianity has shed as much blood and caused as many disasters in Germany, England, and even Holland as in France. Yet today differences of religion cause no disturbance in those states. Jews, Catholics, Greek Christians, Lutherans, Calvinists, Anabaptists, Socinians, Mennonites, Moravians, and so many others live as brothers in those lands, and contribute equally to society's welfare.
In Holland there is no longer any fear that the disputes of a Gomarus9 over predestination will cause the grand pensionary to be beheaded. In London there is no longer any fear that quarrels between Presbyterians and Episcopalians over a liturgy and a surplice will spill a king's blood on a scaffold.10 Ireland, populous and prosperous, will no longer see its Catholic citizens spend two months sacrificing their Protestant fellow citizens to God: burying them alive; hanging mothers from gibbets, tying daughters around their mothers' necks, and watching them die together; cutting open pregnant women, tearing out their half-formed children, and feeding them to pigs and dogs; putting a dagger into the hands of their bound prisoners and guiding their arms into the breasts of their wives, fathers, mothers, and daughters, imagining that they were making them murder their own families and damning them all by exterminating them all. This is what Rapin-Thoyras, an officer in Ireland and nearly a contemporary, relates; what all the annals and all the histories of England relate; and what surely will never be imitated. Philosophy, philosophy alone, that sister of religion, has disarmed hands so long bloodied by superstition; and the human mind, awakening from its intoxication, has marveled at the excesses into which fanaticism carried it.
We ourselves have a wealthy province in France where Lutheranism predominates over Catholicism. The university in Alsace is in Lutheran hands; Lutherans hold some of the municipal offices. Not the slightest religious quarrel has disturbed this province's peace since it came under our kings. Why? Because no one there has been persecuted. Do not try to constrain people's hearts, and every heart will be yours.
I do not say that everyone who does not share the prince's religion should share the offices and honors of those who belong to the dominant faith. In England, Catholics, regarded as adherents of the Pretender, cannot hold public office; they even pay double taxes. But otherwise they enjoy all the rights of citizens.
Some French bishops have been suspected of thinking that having Calvinists in their dioceses serves neither their honor nor their interest; this has been called the greatest obstacle to tolerance. I cannot believe it. The body of French bishops consists of men of high birth who think and act with a nobility worthy of their origins. They are charitable and generous; justice requires us to acknowledge it. They must realize that the fugitives from their dioceses will certainly not convert in foreign lands, whereas, returned to their pastors, they might be enlightened by their teaching and moved by their example. There would be honor in converting them; their temporal revenues would not suffer; and the more citizens there were, the greater the yield of the prelates' lands.
A bishop of Warmia, in Poland, had an Anabaptist as a tenant farmer and a Socinian as a revenue collector. He was urged to dismiss and prosecute one because he did not believe in consubstantiality, and the other because he did not baptize his son until the age of fifteen. He replied that they would be eternally damned in the next world, but that in this one they were very necessary to him.
Let us leave our little sphere and examine the rest of our globe. The Grand Signor governs twenty peoples of different religions in peace. Two hundred thousand Greek Christians live safely in Constantinople; the mufti himself names the Greek patriarch and presents him to the emperor; a Latin patriarch is tolerated there. The sultan appoints Latin bishops for certain Greek islands,11 using this formula: “I command him to go and reside as bishop on the island of Chios, according to their ancient custom and their vain ceremonies.” This empire is full of Jacobites, Nestorians, and Monothelites; there are Copts, Christians of Saint John, Jews, Guebres, and Banians. The Turkish annals mention no rebellion stirred up by any of these religions.
Go to India, Persia, Tartary: you will find the same tolerance and the same peace. Peter the Great favored every form of worship in his vast empire. Commerce and agriculture benefited, and the body politic never suffered.
In the more than four thousand years for which it has been known, the government of China has never adopted any worship but that of the Noahides, the simple adoration of one God. Yet it tolerates the superstitions of Fo and a multitude of bonzes who would be dangerous if the wisdom of the courts had not always kept them in check.
It is true that the great Emperor Yongzheng, perhaps the wisest and most magnanimous China has ever had, expelled the Jesuits. But this was not because he was intolerant; on the contrary, it was because the Jesuits were. They themselves report in their Lettres curieuses what this good prince told them: “I know that your religion is intolerant; I know what you have done in Manila and Japan. You deceived my father; do not expect to deceive me as well.” Read the whole speech he deigned to address to them, and you will find him the wisest and most merciful of men. Could he really keep European natural philosophers who, under the pretext of showing thermometers and aeolipiles at court, had already stirred a prince of the blood to rebellion? And what would this emperor have said if he had read our histories, if he had known the days of our League and the Gunpowder Plot?
It was enough for him to be informed of the unseemly quarrels among Jesuits, Dominicans, Capuchins, and secular priests sent into his states from the ends of the earth. They came to preach the truth, and they anathematized one another. The emperor merely sent away foreign troublemakers. But with what kindness he sent them away! What fatherly care he took of them on their journey, and to prevent their being insulted along the road! Their very banishment was an example of tolerance and humanity.
The Japanese12 were the most tolerant of all people: twelve peaceful religions were established in their empire. The Jesuits came to make a thirteenth; but soon they would tolerate no other, and we know the result. A civil war as dreadful as those of the League ravaged the country. The Christian religion was at last drowned in torrents of blood. The Japanese closed their empire to the rest of the world, and regarded us only as savage beasts, like those the English have purged from their island. In vain the minister Colbert, aware of our need for the Japanese, who have no need of us, tried to establish trade with their empire. He found them unyielding.
Thus our entire continent proves that we must neither preach nor practice intolerance.
Look to the other hemisphere; consider Carolina, whose lawgiver was the wise Locke. Any head of a family with only seven people in his household may establish a religion of his choice, provided those seven people agree with him. This liberty has produced no disorder. God forbid that we should cite this example to encourage every household to devise a worship of its own. We give it only to show that the furthest extreme to which tolerance can go has not been followed by the slightest dissension.
But what shall we say of those peaceful Primitives, mockingly called Quakers, who, with customs perhaps ridiculous, have been so virtuous, and have taught peace to the rest of humanity in vain? They number a hundred thousand in Pennsylvania. Discord and controversy are unknown in the happy homeland they have made for themselves; and the very name of their city, Philadelphia, constantly reminding them that human beings are brothers, is an example and a reproach to peoples who do not yet know tolerance.
In short, tolerance has never stirred up a civil war; intolerance has covered the earth with carnage. Now judge between these two rivals: between the mother who wants her son slaughtered and the mother who gives him up, provided he lives.
I speak here only of the interest of nations; respecting theology, as I must, I consider in this discussion only society's physical and moral welfare. I beg every impartial reader to weigh these truths, correct them, and carry them further. Attentive readers who share their thoughts with one another always go further than the author.13
9 Franciscus Gomarus was a Protestant theologian. Against his colleague Arminius, he maintained that God had destined the greater part of humanity, from all eternity, to be burned eternally. This infernal doctrine was upheld, as it deserved to be, by persecution. The grand pensionary Barneveldt, who belonged to the party opposed to Gomarus, was beheaded at the age of 72, on May 13, 1619, “for having grieved the Church of God to the utmost.”
10 A declaimer, in the Apologie de la Révocation de l'Edit de Nantes, says of England: “A false religion was bound to produce such fruits; only one remained to ripen, and these islanders are harvesting it: the contempt of nations.” We must admit that the author chooses his moment badly for saying that the English are contemptible and despised by the whole earth. Surely it is not when a nation distinguishes itself by its courage and generosity, when it is victorious in all four parts of the world, that one can expect a welcome for saying it is contemptible and despised. This singular passage appears in a chapter on intolerance. Those who preach intolerance deserve to write like this. This abominable book, which seems the work of the madman of Verberies, is by a man with no religious commission—for what pastor would write like this? The fury in this book goes so far as to justify the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre. One would think a work filled with such dreadful paradoxes would be in everyone's hands, if only for its singularity; yet it is scarcely known.
11 See Ricaut.
12 See Kempfer, and all the accounts of Japan.
13 Mr. de la Bourdonnaie, intendant of Rouen, says that hatmaking has collapsed in Caudebec and Neufchâtel because the refugees fled. Mr. Foucaut, intendant of Caen, says that trade in his administrative district has fallen by half. Mr. de Maupeou, intendant of Poitiers, says that the manufacture of drugget has been destroyed. Mr. de Bezons, intendant of Bordeaux, complains that trade in Clérac and Nérac scarcely survives. Mr. de Miroménil, intendant of Touraine, says that trade in Tours has fallen by ten million a year—and all this through persecution. See the Mémoires des Intendants, 1698. Above all, count the army and naval officers and sailors who have been obliged to serve against France, often with disastrous success; and consider whether intolerance has done the state any harm.
We do not presume here to propose policies to ministers whose genius and high principles are well known, and whose hearts are as noble as their birth. They will readily see that rebuilding the navy requires some forbearance toward the inhabitants of our coasts.
Plain English translation
Independent, complete machine-assisted Plain English translation directly from French, reviewed against it. All 25 chapters, author’s notes and added Article with six edition references are retained. Article transcription: French Wikisource, Garnier 1879, revision 15479820. Translation and Article: creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/.
Whether tolerance is dangerous, and which peoples practice it.
Some have said that showing fatherly kindness to our misguided brothers, who pray to God in bad French, would put weapons in their hands. We would see new battles of Jarnac, Moncontour, Coutras, Dreux, Saint-Denis, &c. I do not know, because I am not a prophet. But it seems to me that it is not consistent reasoning to say: “These men rebelled when I treated them badly, so they will rebel when I treat them well.”
I would venture to invite those at the head of government, and those destined for high office, to consider carefully whether there is really reason to fear that kindness will produce the same rebellions that cruelty brought about. Must what happened in one set of circumstances happen in another? Are the times, opinions, and habits always the same?
The Huguenots were undoubtedly drunk with fanaticism and stained with blood, just as we were. But is the present generation as barbarous as their fathers? Have time, reason with its great advances, good books, and the gentler ways of society had no influence on those who guide these people's thinking? And do we not see that almost all Europe has changed its appearance over the last fifty years or so?
Everywhere government has grown stronger while people's behavior has become gentler. Moreover, the general system of public order, supported by large standing armies, leaves no reason to fear a return to those lawless times when Calvinist peasants fought Catholic peasants, hastily formed into regiments between sowing and harvest.
Different times call for different concerns. It would be absurd today to put a tenth of the Sorbonne to death because it once petitioned to have the Maid of Orléans burned, or because it declared that Henry III had lost his right to rule, excommunicated him, and outlawed the great Henry IV. Surely no one will call to account the kingdom's other corporate bodies that committed the same excesses in those times of frenzy. That would not only be unjust. It would be as mad as giving purgatives to all the inhabitants of Marseille because they had the plague in 1720.
Shall we sack Rome, as Charles V's troops did, because Sixtus V, in 1585, granted nine years of indulgence to every Frenchman who took up arms against his sovereign? Is it not enough to prevent Rome from ever going to such extremes again?
The fury inspired by dogmatism and the abuse of a misunderstood Christian religion has shed as much blood and caused as many disasters in Germany, England, and even Holland as in France. Yet today religious differences cause no unrest in those states. Jews, Catholics, Greek Christians, Lutherans, Calvinists, Anabaptists, Socinians, Mennonites, Moravians, and so many others live as brothers in those countries and contribute equally to society's welfare.
In Holland there is no longer any fear that the disputes of a Gomarus9 over predestination will lead to the grand pensionary being beheaded. In London there is no longer any fear that Presbyterian and Episcopalian quarrels over a liturgy and a surplice will spill a king's blood on a scaffold.10 Ireland, now populous and prosperous, will no longer see its Catholic citizens spend two months sacrificing its Protestant citizens to God: burying them alive; hanging mothers from gallows, tying daughters to their mothers' necks, and watching them die together; cutting open pregnant women, pulling out their half-formed children, and feeding them to pigs and dogs; putting daggers into the hands of bound prisoners and guiding their arms into the breasts of their wives, fathers, mothers, and daughters. They imagined they were making the prisoners murder their own relatives and damning them all by exterminating them all. This is what Rapin-Thoyras, an officer in Ireland and almost a contemporary, reports. It is what all the annals and all the histories of England report, and surely it will never be repeated. Philosophy, philosophy alone, the sister of religion, has disarmed hands that superstition had so long stained with blood. The human mind, waking from its drunkenness, has been astonished at the extremes to which fanaticism carried it.
We ourselves have a wealthy province in France where Lutheranism predominates over Catholicism. The university of Alsace is in Lutheran hands. Lutherans hold some of the municipal offices. Not the slightest religious quarrel has disturbed this province's peace since it came under our kings. Why? Because no one there has been persecuted. Do not try to constrain people's hearts, and all their hearts will be yours.
I am not saying that everyone outside the prince's religion should share the offices and honors of those who belong to the dominant religion. In England, Catholics, regarded as supporters of the Pretender, cannot hold public office. They even pay double taxes. Otherwise, however, they enjoy all the rights of citizens.
Some French bishops have been suspected of thinking it is neither to their honor nor in their interest to have Calvinists in their dioceses, and this has been called the greatest obstacle to tolerance. I cannot believe it. The body of bishops in France consists of people of high birth who think and act with a nobility worthy of their origins. They are charitable and generous; we owe them that recognition. They must realize that members of their dioceses who have fled abroad certainly will not convert there. If they returned to their pastors, they might be enlightened by their teaching and moved by their examples. Converting them would be an honor. The bishops' material interests would not suffer, and the more citizens there were, the more income the prelates' lands would yield.
A bishop of Warmia, in Poland, had an Anabaptist as his tenant farmer and a Socinian as his revenue collector. Someone proposed dismissing and prosecuting one because he did not believe in consubstantiality and the other because he did not baptize his son until the age of fifteen. The bishop replied that they would be damned for all eternity in the next world, but in this one they were very necessary to him.
Let us step outside our little circle and examine the rest of the globe. The Ottoman sultan peacefully governs twenty peoples of different religions. Two hundred thousand Greek Christians live safely in Constantinople. The mufti himself appoints the Greek patriarch and presents him to the emperor. A Latin patriarch is also allowed there. The sultan appoints Latin bishops to some Greek islands,11 using this formula: “I command him to go and reside as bishop on the island of Chios, according to their ancient custom and their empty ceremonies.” This empire is full of Jacobites, Nestorians, and Monothelites. There are Copts, Christians of Saint John, Jews, Guebres, and Banians. Turkish annals mention no rebellion stirred up by any of these religions.
Go to India, Persia, or Tartary. You will find the same tolerance and the same peace. Peter the Great encouraged every form of worship in his vast empire. Trade and farming benefited, and the state never suffered from it.
In the more than four thousand years for which it has been known, the government of China has never adopted anything but the worship of the Noahides, the simple adoration of one God. Yet it tolerates the superstitions of Fo and a multitude of Buddhist monks who would be dangerous if the wisdom of the courts had not always kept them in check.
It is true that the great emperor Yongzheng, perhaps the wisest and most generous-minded ruler China has ever had, expelled the Jesuits. But this was not because he was intolerant. On the contrary, it was because the Jesuits were intolerant. In their Lettres curieuses, they themselves report what this good prince said to them: “I know that your religion is intolerant. I know what you have done in Manila and Japan. You deceived my father; do not expect to deceive me in the same way.” Read the whole speech he was good enough to give them, and you will find him the wisest and most merciful of men. Could he really have kept European natural scientists who, under the pretext of showing thermometers and steam devices at court, had already stirred up a prince of the royal family? And what would this emperor have said if he had read our histories and known about the times of the League and the Gunpowder Plot?
It was enough for him to learn of the disgraceful quarrels among the Jesuits, Dominicans, Capuchins, and secular priests sent from the far side of the world into his states. They came to preach the truth and were cursing one another. So the emperor merely sent foreign troublemakers away. But how kindly he sent them away! What fatherly care he took over their journey and over preventing anyone from insulting them on the road! Even their banishment was an example of tolerance and humanity.
The Japanese12 were the most tolerant of all people. Twelve peaceful religions were established in their empire. The Jesuits came to make a thirteenth. But soon they would tolerate no other, and we know the result. A civil war as terrible as those of the League devastated the country. Christianity was finally drowned in floods of blood. The Japanese closed their empire to the rest of the world and regarded us only as wild beasts, like those the English had cleared from their island. The minister Colbert understood how much we needed the Japanese, who have no need of us, and tried in vain to establish trade with their empire. He found them unbending.
Our entire continent therefore proves that we should neither preach nor practice intolerance.
Look at the other hemisphere. Consider Carolina, whose lawgiver was the wise Locke. There, any head of a household with just seven people in his home can establish a religion of his choice, provided those seven people agree with him. This freedom has caused no disorder. God forbid that we should cite this example to encourage each household to make up its own form of worship. We mention it only to show that tolerance taken to the greatest possible extreme has not been followed by the slightest discord.
And what shall we say of those peaceful Primitives, mockingly called Quakers? Their customs may be ridiculous, but they have been so virtuous and have taught peace to the rest of humanity in vain. There are a hundred thousand of them in Pennsylvania. Discord and religious controversy are unknown in the happy homeland they have made for themselves. The very name of their city, Philadelphia, constantly reminds them that human beings are brothers. It is an example and a reproach to peoples who still do not know tolerance.
In short, tolerance has never stirred up a civil war; intolerance has covered the earth with slaughter. Now let us judge between these two rivals: between the mother who wants her son killed and the mother who gives him up so long as he lives.
I am speaking here only of the interests of nations. While respecting theology, as I must, I consider in this section only society's physical and moral welfare. I ask every impartial reader to weigh these truths, correct them, and develop them further. Attentive readers who share their thoughts always go further than the author.13
9 Franciscus Gomarus was a Protestant theologian. Against his colleague Arminius, he maintained that God had destined most human beings from all eternity to be burned eternally. This infernal doctrine was supported, appropriately enough, by persecution. The grand pensionary Barneveldt, who belonged to the party opposed to Gomarus, was beheaded at the age of 72 on May 13, 1619, “for having distressed the Church of God as much as possible”.
10 A writer of tirades, speaking of England in the Apologie de la Révocation de l'Edit de Nantes, says: “A false religion was bound to produce such fruits. Only one remained to ripen, and these islanders are harvesting it: the contempt of nations.” We must admit that the author has chosen his moment badly to say the English are contemptible and despised by the whole earth. It seems to me that when a nation distinguishes itself by courage and generosity, and is victorious in all four parts of the world, a claim that it is contemptible and despised will not be well received. This strange passage appears in a chapter on intolerance. Those who preach intolerance deserve to write like this. This abominable book, which seems to have been written by the madman of Verberies, comes from a man with no pastoral commission—for what pastor would write like this? The book carries rage so far as to justify the Saint Bartholomew's Day massacre. You might think a work full of such dreadful paradoxes would be in everyone's hands, if only for its strangeness. Yet it is scarcely known.
11 See Ricaut.
12 See Kempfer and all the accounts of Japan.
13 Mr. de la Bourdonnaie, intendant of Rouen, says that hat manufacturing has collapsed in Caudebec and Neufchâtel because of the refugees' departure. Mr. Foucaut, intendant of Caen, says trade in the administrative district has fallen by half. Mr. de Maupeou, intendant of Poitiers, says the manufacture of drugget cloth has been destroyed. Mr. de Bezons, intendant of Bordeaux, complains that trade in Clérac and Nérac scarcely exists anymore. Mr. de Miroménil, intendant of Touraine, says that trade in Tours has declined by ten million a year. And all this is due to persecution. See the Mémoires des Intendants, 1698. Above all, count the army and naval officers and the sailors who were forced to go and serve against France, often with a disastrous advantage over it. Then see whether intolerance has done the state any harm.
We do not presume here to offer plans to ministers whose ability and high principles are well known, and whose hearts are as noble as their birth. They will see well enough that rebuilding the navy calls for some forbearance toward the inhabitants of our coasts.
About this section
Chapter IV is part of Treatise on Tolerance by Voltaire. This page sets the French original beside 2 direct-source translations, so any line can be checked against the source. It is chapter 4 of 26 in the work, which is kept in the European tradition.
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