A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 02 — Voltaire — John Shaqi
A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 02
Voltaire · en
The remains of this sect in Poland, Germany, and Holland keep quiet and
concealed; but in England the sect has reappeared with greater strength
and éclat. The great Newton and Locke embraced it. Samuel Clarke, the
celebrated rector of St. James, and author of an excellent book on the
existence of God, openly declared himself an Arian, and his disciples
are very numerous. He would never attend his parish church on the day
when the Athanasian Creed was recited. In the course of this work will
be seen the subtleties which all these obstinate persons, who were not
so much Christians as philosophers, opposed to the purity of the
Catholic faith.
Although among the theologians of London there was a large flock of
Arians, the public mind there has been more occupied by the great
mathematical truths discovered by Newton, and the metaphysical wisdom of
Locke. Disputes on consubstantiality appear very dull to philosophers.
The same thing happened to Newton in England as to Corneille in France,
whose _"Pertharite,"_ "_Théodore,_" and _"Recueil de Vers"_ were
forgotten, while _"Cinna"_ was alone thought of. Newton was looked upon
as God's interpreter, in the calculation of fluxions, the laws of
gravitation, and the nature of light. On his death, his pall was borne
by the peers and the chancellor of the realm, and his remains were laid
near the tombs of the kings--than whom he is more revered. Servetus, who
is said to have discovered the circulation of the blood, was roasted by
a slow fire, in a little town of the Allobroges, ruled by a theologian
of Picardy.
ARISTEAS.
Shall men forever be deceived in the most indifferent as well as the
most serious things? A pretended Aristeas would make us believe that he
had the Old Testament translated into Greek for the use of Ptolemy
Philadelphus--just as the Duke de Montausier had commentaries written on
the best Latin authors for the dauphin, who made no use of them.
According to this Aristeas, Ptolemy, burning with desire to be
acquainted with the Jewish books, and to know those laws which the
meanest Jew in Alexandria could have translated for fifty crowns,
determined to send a solemn embassy to the high-priest of the Jews of
Jerusalem; to deliver a hundred and twenty thousand Jewish slaves, whom
his father, Ptolemy Soter, had made prisoners in Judæa, and in order to
assist them in performing the journey agreeably, to give them about
forty crowns each of our money--amounting in the whole to fourteen
millions four hundred thousand of our livres, or about five hundred and
seventy-six thousand pounds.