A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 06

by Voltaire

They had some temples more privileged than others. The great Diana of Ephesus had more reputation than a village Diana. There were more miracles performed in the temple of Æsculapius at Epidaurus, than in any other of his temples. The statue of the Olympian Jupiter attracted more offerings than that of the Paphlagonian Jupiter. But to oppose the customs of a true religion to those of a false one, have we not for several ages had more devotion to certain altars than to others?

Has not Our Lady of Loretto been preferred to Our Lady of Neiges, to that of Ardens, of Hall, etc.? That is not saying there is more virtue in a statue at Loretto than in a statue of the village of Hall, but we have felt more devotion to the one than to the other; we have believed that she whom we invoked, at the feet of her statues, would condescend, from the height of heaven, to diffuse more favors and to work more miracles in Loretto than in Hall. This multiplicity of images of the same person also proves that it is the images that we revere, and that the worship relates to the person who is represented; for it is not possible that every image can be the same thing. There are a thousand images of St. Francis, which have no resemblance to him, and which do not resemble one another; and all indicate a single Saint Francis, invoked, on the day of his feast, by those who are devoted to this saint.

It was precisely the same with the pagans, who supposed the existence only of a single divinity, a single Apollo, and not as many Apollos and Dianas as they had temples and statues. It is therefore proved, as much as history can prove anything, that the ancients believed not the statue to be a divinity; that worship was not paid to this statue or image, and consequently that they were not idolaters. It is for us to ascertain how far the imputation has been a mere pretext to accuse them of idolatry.

A gross and superstitious populace who reason not, and who know neither how to doubt, deny, or believe; who visit the temples out of idleness, and because the lowly are there equal to the great; who make their contributions because it is the custom; who speak continually of miracles without examining any of them; and who are very little in point of intellect beyond the brutes whom they sacrifice—such a people, I repeat, in the sight of the great Diana, or of Jupiter the Thunderer, may well be seized with a religious horror, and adore, without consciousness, the statue itself. This is what happens now and then, in our own churches, to our ignorant peasantry, who, however, are informed that it is the blessed mortals received into heaven whose intercession they solicit, and not that of images of wood and stone.

The Greeks and Romans augment the number of their gods by their apotheoses. The Greeks deified conquerors like Bacchus, Hercules, and Perseus. Rome devoted altars to her emperors. Our apotheoses are of a different kind; we have infinitely more saints than they have secondary gods, but we pay respect neither to rank nor to conquest. We consecrate temples to the simply virtuous, who would have been unknown on earth if they had not been placed in heaven. The apotheoses of the ancients were the effect of flattery, ours are produced by a respect for virtue.

Cicero, in his philosophical works, only allows of a suspicion that the people may mistake the statues of the gods and confound them with the gods themselves. His interlocutors attack the established religion, but none of them think of accusing the Romans of taking marble and brass for divinities. Lucretius accuses no person of this stupidity, although he reproaches the superstitious of every class. This opinion, therefore, has never existed; there never have been idolaters.

Horace causes an image of Priapus to speak, and makes him say: "I was once the trunk of a fig tree, and a carpenter being doubtful whether he should make of me a god or a bench, at length determined to make me a divinity." What are we to gather from this pleasantry? Priapus was one of the subaltern divinities, and a subject of raillery for the wits, and this pleasantry is a tolerable proof that a figure placed in the garden to frighten away the birds could not be very profoundly worshipped.

Dacier, giving way to the spirit of a commentator, observes that Baruch predicted this adventure. "They became what the workmen chose to make them:" but might not this be observed of all statues? Had Baruch a visionary anticipation of the "Satires of Horace"?

A block of marble may as well be hewn into a cistern, as into a figure of Alexander, Jupiter, or any being still more respectable. The matter which composed the cherubim of the Holy of Holies might have been equally appropriated to the vilest functions. Is a throne or altar the less revered because it might have been formed into a kitchen table?

Dacier, instead of concluding that the Romans adored the statue of Priapus, and that Baruch predicted it, should have perceived that the Romans laughed at it. Consult all the authors who speak of the statues of the gods, you will not find one of them allude to idolatry; their testimony amounts to the express contrary. "It is not the workman," says Martial, "who makes the gods, but he who prays to them."