Abstract
This Epilogue considers what appears to be an isolated but nonetheless significant refutation of the thesis, central to this book, that Voltaire did not recognize the possibility of being both a Jew and a philosopher. This refutation is found in the fifth book of the Histoire de Charles XII, published by Voltaire in 1731, where Voltaire describes having met the physician and diplomat Daniel de Fonseca, a Jew of Spanish origin whom he refers to as a “Jewish philosopher”. This recognition of the existence of a Jewish philosopher goes hand in hand with the voicing of repugnant opinions on the Jews in general, a strategy that is aimed at conveying Voltaire’s self-image as a noble and tolerant philosopher. As this book has shown, Voltaire would no longer be able to maintain this strategy when the philosophical problem of the existence of even a (single) Jewish philosopher later became clear to him.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
“Un des ceux qui secondèrent plus adroitement ses dessins fut le médecin Fonseca Portugais, juif établi à Constantinople, homme savant et délié, capble d’affaires, et le seul philosophe peut-être de sa nation: sa profession lui procurait des entrées à la Porte ottomane, et souvent la confiance des vizirs. Je l’ai fort connu à Paris; il m’a confirmé toutes les particularités que je vais raconter.”
- 2.
De Fonseca to Jean Le Clerc, 1 March 1724, cited in Pippidi 2016: 183–185 (here: 183–184).
- 3.
See: Pippidi 2016: 187; Gasper 2013: 41; de Boyer d’Argens 1807: 224: “Having learned that the Holy Office was in his house, he left the city and fled to France and from there to Constantinople, where he publicly returned to Judaism” (“Ayant appris que le saint-office était dans sa maison, il sortit de la ville et se sauva en France et de là à Constantinople, où il retoruna publiquement au judaïsme”).
- 4.
- 5.
D106. Voltaire to Cardinal Guillaume Dubois, 28 May 1722: “Si votre éminence juge la chose importante oserai-je vous représenter qu’un Juif n’étant d’aucun pays que de celui où il gagne de l’argent, peut aussi bien trahir le roy pour l’empereur que l’empereur pour le roy?”. Voltaire is here referring to “the Jew” (le Juif), that is, Salomon Lévi, with whom he had recently had rather ungentlemanly and tangled dealings; attached to the letter is a “Mémoire touchant Salomon Lévi” (“a memorandum about Salomon Lévi”), which Voltaire sent to Cardinal Dubois to clarify his position in the affair (Voltaire 1968: 119–121). The encounter with Lévi is one of the three “negative” experiences with Jews that Voltaire had during his lifetime, episodes on which I have decided not to dwell for reasons explained in Chap. 1.
- 6.
D106. Voltaire to Cardinal Guillaume Dubois, 28 May 1722: “facilité […] d’être admis et d’être chassés partout”.
References
Banderier, Gilles. 2013. Voltaire et la naissance de l’antisémitisme moderne. Sedes Sapientiae 123: 19–54.
[de Boyer d’Argens, Jean Baptiste]. 1807. Mémoires du Marquis d’Argens. Nouvelle edition. Paris: Buisson.
Gasper, Julia. 2013. The Marquis d’Argens. A Philosophical Life. Lanham (MD): Lexington Books.
Haim, Abraham. 2007. Fonseca, Daniel de. In Encyclopedia Judaica. Second Edition. vol. 7: 115.
Pippidi, Andrei. 2016. Mysticisme et rationalisme au Phanar: le cas de Daniel de Fonseca. The Gleaner 11: 175–196.
Pomeau, René. 1985. D’Arouet à Voltaire (1694–1734). Oxford: Oxford Voltaire Foundation.
Roth, Cecil. 1941. History of the Marranos. Rev. ed. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America.
Schuchard, Marsha Keith. 2012. Emanuel Swedenborg, Secret Agent on Earth and in Heaven. Jacobites, Jews and Freemasons in Early Modern Sweden. Leiden: Brill.
Schwarzbach, Bertrand Eugene. 1997. Voltaire et les Juifs: bilan et playdoyer. Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 358: 27–91.
Voltaire. 1968. Correspondence and related documents, I, December 1704–December 1729, letters D1–D369. Definitive edition by T. Besterman. OCV, vol. 85.
Voltaire. 1996. Histoire de Charles XII. Édition critique par G. von Proschwitz. OCV, vol. 4.
Waldman, Felicia. 2020. I sefarditi nei principati romeni. Ricognizioni 7(13): 39–47.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Piazza, M. (2022). Epilogue: Did Voltaire Make an Exception for a Certain Jewish “Philosopher”?. In: Voltaire Against the Jews, or The Limits of Toleration. Palgrave Critical Studies of Antisemitism and Racism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18712-4_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-18712-4_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-18711-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-18712-4
eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)