[20] If they had been content to preach and write, they would probably have been left in peace; but the refusal to take the oaths, in a constitution in which much use was made of oaths, exposed them to suspicion. The refusal to take part publicly in the feasts in honour of the emperors was a sort of crime at a time when the empire was constantly stirred by revolutions. The insults they offered to the established cult were punished with severity and barbarism, and it was an age of rough and violent ways.
[21] The Deaths of the Persecutors, ch. iii.—a very untrustworthy work. It is doubtful if Lactantius wrote it. There was no general persecution under Domitian, but certain high officials suffered, like the rest of Rome, from his excessive suspicion.—J. M.
[22] Voltaire, who knew only the late history of Egypt, gives a lengthy note to explain his disdain. Archæological research has altered all that.—J. M.
[23] Not wholly unknown. We know that the mother of Galerius, an ignorant peasant, was stung by the insults of Christian officers in the palace, and inflamed her son, who persuaded Diocletian to take action. The action was mild at first; but Christians tore down the imperial edict, and the palace was twice set on fire. Then Diocletian yielded.—J. M.
[24] The persecution under Diocletian began in 303.—J. M.
[25] The Jesuit Busenbaum, edited by the Jesuit La Croix, says that “it is lawful to kill a prince excommunicated by the Pope, in whatever country he may be found, because the universe belongs to the Pope, and he who accepts this commission does a charitable deed.” This proposition, drawn up in the antechambers of hell, has done more than anything to raise France against the Jesuits. [They were expelled from France in 1767.—J. M.]. They endeavoured to justify themselves by pointing out that the same conclusions are found in St. Thomas and other Dominicans. As a matter of fact, St. Thomas of Aquin, the “angelic doctor” and “interpreter of the divine will”—such are his titles,—says that an apostate prince loses his right to the crown, and should no longer be obeyed (Bk. II., Part II., quest. xii.); that the Church may punish him with death; that the Emperor Julian was tolerated only because the Christians were weak (same passage); that it is right to kill any heretic (same place, questions xi. and xii.); that those are laudable who free a people from a tyrannical prince, etc. We must admit that Gerson, Chancellor of the University, went farther than St. Thomas, and the Franciscan Jean Petit much farther than Gerson.
[26] It was not defined by the Church until 1854.—J. M.
[27] This section is somewhat abridged, as much of it is better developed in preceding works.—J. M.
[28] Voltaire’s eagerness to show the tolerance of the Jews is purely paradoxical and ironical. His sole object in this section is to expose the crudities of the Old Testament, under the cloak of orthodox theological reasoning. Hence he omits the savage laws of Deuteronomy against foreign cults.—J. M.
[29] It may be useful to recall that, as earlier pages show, Voltaire did not believe in the “next world.” Much of the phrasing of this part is, when it is not ironical, merely an argumentum ad hominem.—J. M.