Voltaire was mythicist

[Giuseppe]

Le grand ridicule de toutes ces chronologies fantastiques est d’arranger toutes les époques de la vie d’un homme, sans savoir si cet homme a existé.

Dict. philos., art. Chronologie, my bold

[Irish1975]

What a wonderful bit of Voltaire.

Perhaps it is useful, or merely enjoyable, to compare Gibbon:

He begins his infamous Chapter 15 with

The scanty and suspicious materials of ecclesiastical history seldom enable us to dispel the dark cloud that hangs over the first age of the church.

What is this dark cloud?

As he concludes the chapter:

But how shall we excuse the supine inattention of the Pagan and philosophic world, to those evidences which were presented by the hand of Omnipotence, not to their reason, but to their senses? During the age of Christ, of his apostles, and of their first disciples, the doctrine which they preached was confirmed by innumerable prodigies. The lame walked, the blind saw, the sick were healed, the dead were raised, daemons were expelled, and the laws of Nature were frequently suspended for the benefit of the church. But the sages of Greece and Rome turned aside from the awful spectacle, and pursuing the ordinary occupations of life and study, appeared unconscious of any alterations, in the moral or physical government of the world. Under the reign of Tiberius, the whole earth, or at least a celebrated province of the Roman empire, was involved in a praeternatural darkness of three hours. Even this miraculous event, which ought to have excited the wonder, the curiosity, and the devotion of mankind, passed without notice in an age of science and history. It happened during the lifetime of Seneca and the elder Pliny, who must have experienced the immediate effects, or received the earliest intelligence, of the prodigy. Each of these philosophers, in a laborious work, has recorded all the great phenomena of Nature, earthquakes, meteors, comets, and eclipses, which his indefatigable curiosity could collect. Both the one and the other have omitted to mention the greatest phenomenon to which the mortal eye has been witness since the creation of the globe. A distinct chapter of Pliny is designed for eclipses of an extraordinary nature and unusual duration; but he contents himself with describing the singular defect of light which followed the murder of Caesar, when, during the greatest part of the year, the orb of the sun appeared pale and without splendour. This season of obscurity, which cannot surely be compared with the praeternatural darkness of the Passion, had been already celebrated most of the poets and historians of that memorable age.

In "Memoirs of My Life," it becomes clear that Gibbon is not merely casting skepticism on the miraculous dimension of the story:

Among the books which I purchased [circa 1768], the Theodosian Code with the commentary of James Godefroy must be gratefully remembered. I used it (and much I used it) as a work of history, rather than of jurisprudence: but in every light it may be considered as a full and capacious repository of the political state of the Empire in the fourth and fifth centuries. As I believed, and as I still believe, that the propagation of the gospel and triumph of the Church are inseparably connected with the decline of the Roman monarchy, I weighed the causes and effects of the revolution, and contrasted the narratives and apologies of the Christians themselves with the glances of candour or enmity which the Pagans have cast on the rising sect. The Jewish and Heathen testimonies...directed without superseding my search of the originals; and in an ample dissertation on the miraculous darkness of the Passion, I privately drew my conclusions from the silence of an unbelieving age.

It is powerfully understated satire, in contrast to Voltaire's tendency towards ridicule. Gibbon presses hard on the NT's weakest point: not so much the tendency towards miraculous exaggeration, but rather the impossibility of any historical reading of the Gospels. I think that his "private conclusion" was that there was nothing historical there to begin with.

[John T]

Total garbage.

As if today, Voltaire is completely unknown to anyone who still have things called books.

Still, you gotta give the devil's minions their dues.

[Secret Alias]

I think David Lee Roth said of his former band members

I say to the guys in the band: “You know what Voltaire said?” They think Voltaire is an air conditioning company.

[maryhelena]

What a wonderful bit of Voltaire.

Perhaps it is useful, or merely enjoyable, to compare Gibbon:

He begins his infamous Chapter 15 with

The scanty and suspicious materials of ecclesiastical history seldom enable us to dispel the dark cloud that hangs over the first age of the church.

What is this dark cloud?

As he concludes the chapter:

But how shall we excuse the supine inattention of the Pagan and philosophic world, to those evidences which were presented by the hand of Omnipotence, not to their reason, but to their senses? During the age of Christ, of his apostles, and of their first disciples, the doctrine which they preached was confirmed by innumerable prodigies. The lame walked, the blind saw, the sick were healed, the dead were raised, daemons were expelled, and the laws of Nature were frequently suspended for the benefit of the church. But the sages of Greece and Rome turned aside from the awful spectacle, and pursuing the ordinary occupations of life and study, appeared unconscious of any alterations, in the moral or physical government of the world. Under the reign of Tiberius, the whole earth, or at least a celebrated province of the Roman empire, was involved in a praeternatural darkness of three hours. Even this miraculous event, which ought to have excited the wonder, the curiosity, and the devotion of mankind, passed without notice in an age of science and history. It happened during the lifetime of Seneca and the elder Pliny, who must have experienced the immediate effects, or received the earliest intelligence, of the prodigy. Each of these philosophers, in a laborious work, has recorded all the great phenomena of Nature, earthquakes, meteors, comets, and eclipses, which his indefatigable curiosity could collect. Both the one and the other have omitted to mention the greatest phenomenon to which the mortal eye has been witness since the creation of the globe. A distinct chapter of Pliny is designed for eclipses of an extraordinary nature and unusual duration; but he contents himself with describing the singular defect of light which followed the murder of Caesar, when, during the greatest part of the year, the orb of the sun appeared pale and without splendour. This season of obscurity, which cannot surely be compared with the praeternatural darkness of the Passion, had been already celebrated most of the poets and historians of that memorable age.

In "Memoirs of My Life," it becomes clear that Gibbon is not merely casting skepticism on the miraculous dimension of the story:

Among the books which I purchased [circa 1768], the Theodosian Code with the commentary of James Godefroy must be gratefully remembered. I used it (and much I used it) as a work of history, rather than of jurisprudence: but in every light it may be considered as a full and capacious repository of the political state of the Empire in the fourth and fifth centuries. As I believed, and as I still believe, that the propagation of the gospel and triumph of the Church are inseparably connected with the decline of the Roman monarchy, I weighed the causes and effects of the revolution, and contrasted the narratives and apologies of the Christians themselves with the glances of candour or enmity which the Pagans have cast on the rising sect. The Jewish and Heathen testimonies...directed without superseding my search of the originals; and in an ample dissertation on the miraculous darkness of the Passion, I privately drew my conclusions from the silence of an unbelieving age.

It is powerfully understated satire, in contrast to Voltaire's tendency towards ridicule. Gibbon presses hard on the NT's weakest point: not so much the tendency towards miraculous exaggeration, but rather the impossibility of any historical reading of the Gospels. I think that his "private conclusion" was that there was nothing historical there to begin with.

That I would suggest is not the end but the beginning of a search for an understanding of the gospel story. There is no history for the man from Nazareth. That is the first step. But history does have a role to play in the birth or genesis of the story. History is always relevant to how we relate to or seek to better our place in the world. Marx saw expliotation of the workers and strove for a better political deal. The French Revolution sought to dethrone monarchy and the church. Liberty, Fraternity and Equality became the clarion call for social change. And NT Paul.? A philosophy of neither Jew nor Greek. A philosophy that sought to find meaning within a Jewish historical tragedy. Yes, one can run with 70 ce or 132/135.... but that is only to deal with the finale. If understanding the gospel story is our aim. ______ we need to go back to when Rome first entered the scene. Emphasis on the end history is in danger of becoming a Christian story when what is needed is the Jewish story....the beginning story, the Jewish history story.

The gospel story is what it is, a story. No amount of debates over Greek words is going to further research into the motivation behind that story. Why was it created, what purpose did it serve ? Roman propaganda or Jewish heritage under Roman occupation? Pauline philosophy can't answer these questions without the political context which gave it birth.

To grapple with the political context is to grapple with Josephus. Church fathers? Too late and already mesmerized by the mythology within the gospel story. Its Josephus or the dry Sahara desert of NT research.

[Leucius Charinus]

What a wonderful bit of Voltaire.

Perhaps it is useful, or merely enjoyable, to compare Gibbon:

He begins his infamous Chapter 15 with

The scanty and suspicious materials of ecclesiastical history seldom enable us to dispel the dark cloud that hangs over the first age of the church.

What is this dark cloud?

Forgery?

As he concludes the chapter:

But how shall we excuse the supine inattention of the Pagan and philosophic world, to those evidences which were presented by the hand of Omnipotence, not to their reason, but to their senses? During the age of Christ, of his apostles, and of their first disciples, the doctrine which they preached was confirmed by innumerable prodigies. The lame walked, the blind saw, the sick were healed, the dead were raised, daemons were expelled, and the laws of Nature were frequently suspended for the benefit of the church. But the sages of Greece and Rome turned aside from the awful spectacle, and pursuing the ordinary occupations of life and study, appeared unconscious of any alterations, in the moral or physical government of the world. Under the reign of Tiberius, the whole earth, or at least a celebrated province of the Roman empire, was involved in a praeternatural darkness of three hours. Even this miraculous event, which ought to have excited the wonder, the curiosity, and the devotion of mankind, passed without notice in an age of science and history. It happened during the lifetime of Seneca and the elder Pliny, who must have experienced the immediate effects, or received the earliest intelligence, of the prodigy. Each of these philosophers, in a laborious work, has recorded all the great phenomena of Nature, earthquakes, meteors, comets, and eclipses, which his indefatigable curiosity could collect. Both the one and the other have omitted to mention the greatest phenomenon to which the mortal eye has been witness since the creation of the globe. A distinct chapter of Pliny is designed for eclipses of an extraordinary nature and unusual duration; but he contents himself with describing the singular defect of light which followed the murder of Caesar, when, during the greatest part of the year, the orb of the sun appeared pale and without splendour. This season of obscurity, which cannot surely be compared with the praeternatural darkness of the Passion, had been already celebrated most of the poets and historians of that memorable age.

In "Memoirs of My Life," it becomes clear that Gibbon is not merely casting skepticism on the miraculous dimension of the story:

Among the books which I purchased [circa 1768], the Theodosian Code with the commentary of James Godefroy must be gratefully remembered. I used it (and much I used it) as a work of history, rather than of jurisprudence: but in every light it may be considered as a full and capacious repository of the political state of the Empire in the fourth and fifth centuries. As I believed, and as I still believe, that the propagation of the gospel and triumph of the Church are inseparably connected with the decline of the Roman monarchy, I weighed the causes and effects of the revolution, and contrasted the narratives and apologies of the Christians themselves with the glances of candour or enmity which the Pagans have cast on the rising sect. The Jewish and Heathen testimonies...directed without superseding my search of the originals; and in an ample dissertation on the miraculous darkness of the Passion, I privately drew my conclusions from the silence of an unbelieving age.

It is powerfully understated satire, in contrast to Voltaire's tendency towards ridicule. Gibbon presses hard on the NT's weakest point: not so much the tendency towards miraculous exaggeration, but rather the impossibility of any historical reading of the Gospels. I think that his "private conclusion" was that there was nothing historical there to begin with.

Yes it is both satire and irony. Gibbon used heavy irony like Arnaldo Momigliano.\

Here is another quote from Voltaire, cited by Charles Freeman

"We must not see the fact of usurpation;
law was once introduced without reason, and has become reasonable.
We must make it regarded as authoritative, eternal, and conceal its origin,
if we do not wish that it should soon come to an end."

~ Blaise Pascal, "Pensees"

I think Voltaire was referring to the laws supporting Christianity by the Christian emperors.


Finally there is Voltaire's entry about Julian:

Justice is often done at last. Two or three authors, either venal or fanatical, eulogize the cruel and effeminate Constantine as if he had been a god, and treat as an absolute miscreant the just, the wise, and the great Julian. All other authors, copying from these, repeat both the flattery and the calumny. They become almost an article of faith. At length the age of sound criticism arrives; and at the end of fourteen hundred years, enlightened men revise the cause which had been decided by ignorance. In Constantine we see a man of successful ambition, internally scoffing at things divine as well as human. He has the insolence to pretend that God sent him a standard in the air to assure him of victory. He imbrues himself in the blood of all his relations, and is lulled to sleep in all the effeminacy of luxury; but he is a Christian — he is canonized.

Philosophical Dictionary, by Voltaire

https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/v/voltai ... er291.html

[Kunigunde Kreuzerin]

Voltaire was mythicist

Anyone here interested in facts?

[Giuseppe]

Voltaire was mythicist

Anyone here interested in facts?

only you have noted that Voltaire is referring, in that quote, to Numa Pompilius's life. Even so, my point yet stands: the allusion is to Jesus, also, insofar also about Jesus we have different chronologies.

[Chrissy Hansen]

Voltaire was not a mythicist.

Voltaire specifically has a passage where he talks about the followers of Lord Bolingbroke and calls them "more ingenious than learned" when he describes their argument that Jesus never existed. Voltaire thinks Jesus existed and does not find mythicists of his own day convincing.

Voltaire explicitly writes of them:

I saw some disciples of Bolingbroke, more ingenious than educated, who denied the existence of Jesus because the story of the three wise men and the star and the massacre of the innocents are, they said, the height of eccentricity; the contradiction of the two genealogies that Matthew and Luke gave is especially a reason that these young men allege to persuade themselves that there was no Jesus. But they drew a very false conclusion.

Voltaire thinks Jesus existed, but goes on to mock the likely low-status and uneducated nature that Jesus had, comparing him to an illiterate villager called "Fox" who started a Quaker sect. His contention was that Jesus, an ignorant carpenter, probably did the same.

[Giuseppe]

Voltaire was not a mythicist.

Voltaire specifically has a passage where he talks about the followers of Lord Bolingbroke and calls them "more ingenious than learned" when he describes their argument that Jesus never existed. Voltaire thinks Jesus existed and does not find mythicists of his own day convincing.

How do you explain the fact that that quote above fits so well with Jesus (even if Voltaire was talking about Numa Pompilius's different chronologies) ?
It would be an offence to his intelligence denying that Voltaire didn't allude also to Jesus, I think.

In addition, his kind comment about Bolingbroke seems to be not quite a distancing.