I Have Achieved Enlightenment

After the Charlie Hebdo attacks in January, I corresponded with friends here in France, decrying the violence and offering moral support.  In return, when I saw one of them recently she gave me a copy of Voltaire’s “Treatise on Intolerance.”

Voltaire was one of the masters of the Enlightenment and in 1762 he wrote this book, arguing in favor of greater religious tolerance in France.  The French Wars of Religion of the 16^th century had been a series of bloody massacres between Catholics and Protestants and their echoes continued into Voltaire’s time.  The recent torture and murder of Jean Calas of Toulouse, due to his religion, prompted Voltaire to take pen to paper.

I expected the book to be hard to read, and it certainly wasn’t easy, but Voltaire wrote it for the general public rather than the elite.  So it is a series of short chapters, each making a clear point, and is surprisingly accessible.  It is easy to see why Voltaire is so highly regarded – he presents his arguments so reasonably that you find it the easiest and most natural thing in the world to agree with him.

Voltaire finished his book with “A Prayer to God”, which I found especially beautiful.  I’ve tried my weak hand at translating it below.

KVS

A Prayer to God

It is therefore no longer men that I address, but rather You, God of all beings, of all worlds and of all time.  If it is permitted to these weak creatures lost in the immensity, and imperceptible to the rest of the universe, to dare to ask something of You who has given all, to You whose decrees are immutable and eternal, who deigns to look with pity upon the errors attached to our nature, we ask that these errors of ours do not create calamities.

You have not given us a heart to make us hate, or hands to murder each other; rather, help us that we aid one another to bear the burdens of a painful and transient life; help us that the small differences between the clothing that covers our feeble bodies, between our insufficient languages, between our ridiculous customs, between our imperfect laws, between our foolish opinions, between all of our conditions so disproportionate in our eyes but so equal before You, that all these tiny nuances that distinguish these atoms called men be not the signals for hatred and persecution; help us that those who light candles at noon to worship You accept those who are content with the light of Your sun, that those who cover themselves with a white robe to say that one must love You do not detest those who say the same under a cloak of black wool, that it be equal to adore You in the words of an ancient language or in a more recent tongue, that those whose clothing is lined with red or violet and who have dominion over a little parcel of the mud of this earth, and who possess a few round pieces of a certain metal, enjoy without pride what they call greatness or wealth and that others see them without envy, because You know that there is nothing in these vanities to envy or to be proud of.

Would that all men remember that they are brothers!  May they hold in horror the tyranny exercised over souls, just as they loath the thief who robs by force the peaceful fruit of another’s labor.  If the scourge of war is inevitable, let us not hate our fellow citizen, let us not destroy one another in the midst of peace, let us instead use these brief moments of our existence to give thanks equally, in a thousand languages, from Siam to California, for Your grace in giving us this instant.