VOLTAIRERELIGION · Religion in selected writings of Voltaire

Religion in selected writings of Voltaire

Religion In Selected Writings Of Voltaire Final summary report The main objective of this project was to contribute to the definitive publication and diffusion of the work of Voltaire (1694-1778), recognised as the most important and influential philosophe in the French and European Enlightenment. His vast output has only been partially edited according to strict philological and critical principles, and often only the most famous works have been studied in any depth. A number of key texts concern Voltaire's thinking about religion, in the last twenty years of his life (1758-1778). Unaccountably, critical editions of those important works still remained to be published. The focus of the postdoctoral fellowship was therefore the completion and publication of these texts, as a key contribution to the overall aim of publishing the complete works of Voltaire. Six of Voltaire's works are fundamental to our understanding of his thinking on religion: Sermon du Rabbin Akib (1761), Cat?chisme de l'honn?te home (1763), Les derni?res paroles d'Epict?te (1766), Note sur les juifs (1760s), Fragment sur les juifs (1760s) and Lettre sur le Messie (1760s). Choosing the particular versions of the texts with which to work was fundamental. Voltaire's works usually exist in many different editions, some of them purged of the more inconvenient aspects (while others had the opposite destiny, paradoxically becoming more violent than the author's original intentions). In order to fully understand Voltaire's thought, it is necessary to return to and listen to his voice, not always accurately reflected in some editions calling themselves "complete works", which are neither complete nor accurate. Our aim was to choose, following strict philological criteria, the base text upon which to work, and then to supply it with a critical apparatus revealing the history of its editorial changes. It is also important to note how Voltaire often came back and worked on texts both published and unpublished, multiplying the available versions and, of course, the interpretations one could furnish about his thought. Voltaire revises his own works even years after first publishing them: this leads to a sort of stratification in which, for instance, the primitive Essai sur les Moeurs is different from the 1761 or the 1769 edition. The task will be to show all of these variants, both published and manuscript, and to interpret these changes, on the basis of textual evidence. The further task was to annotate the texts in a full and clear way, so at to explain the often difficult allusions in the writing, and to identify Voltaire's eclectic sources. An overall study of these works furnishes a clear and complete picture of the development of Voltaire's ideas about religion, particularly with regard to the Jewish religion. The reason that Voltaire devotes particular attention to the Jewish religion is to be found in the idea that it is the basis of Christianity, in the same way that the Old Testament is the presupposition and the grounding for the New Testament. For Voltaire, thinking about Hebraism meant making an implicit judgment about the position of religion in eighteenth-century France, and (to some extent) establishing a uniform standard by which to judge other religions. This work further highlights the links between these texts and the rest of Voltaire's work, using the Jewish religion as a connecting thread. If some works like the Sermon du Rabbin Akib are absolutely apologetical towards Hebraism (and particularly towards the freedom of worship for Jews), other works such as the Sermon des cinquante are definitely violent in their opinions of both the Jewish religion and individual Jews. How did this radical change in perspective arise? Did Voltaire's acrimony have a basis purely in religion or was it influenced by a racial prejudice, prevalent in this period? Voltaire studied the Bible over many decades: what is the importance of his unusually profound biblical knowledge, in the more general context of his opinions about religion? Are there concrete political consequences resulting from the existence of a'chosen nation'? All these questions have been addressed in depth in the critical studies of the six texts cited. The critical editions have been completed, to the highest possible standards, and are all now published on paper. Scholars can now study these texts in the'Oxford'edition of Voltaire's work, as a part of the 200 or so volumes of the overall edition. The Complete works of Voltaire will be published in two phases. The Voltaire Foundation aims to complete the paper edition by 2018, so that libraries across the world will possess a definitive edition of Voltaire on paper, something which does not currently exist. After that, the Voltaire Foundation will produce an electronic edition, which will be able to be revised and extended as further scholarship makes new discoveries, and ensuring that this seminal research on Voltaire's religious thinking remains available and updated, a vital and essential research tool for scholars and researchers in future generations.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз