A PHILOSOPHICAL DICTIONARY
VOLUME VII
By
VOLTAIRE
EDITION DE LA PACIFICATION
THE WORKS OF VOLTAIRE
A CONTEMPORARY VERSION
With Notes by Tobias Smollett, Revised and Modernized
New Translations by William F. Fleming, and an
Introduction by Oliver H.G. Leigh
A CRITIQUE AND BIOGRAPHY
BY
THE RT. HON. JOHN MORLEY
FORTY-THREE VOLUMES
One hundred and sixty-eight designs, comprising reproductions
of rare old engravings, steel plates, photogravures,
and curious fac-similes
VOLUME XI
E.R. DuMONT
PARIS—LONDON—NEW YORK—CHICAGO
1901
The WORKS of VOLTAIRE
"Between two servants of Humanity, who appeared eighteen hundredyears apart, there is a mysterious relation. * * * * Let us say itwith a sentiment of profound respect: JESUS WEPT: VOLTAIRE SMILED.Of that divine tear and of that human smile is composed thesweetness of the present civilization."
VICTOR HUGO.
OLD ROUEN—frontispiece
MONTESQUIEU
THE DREAM OF HUMAN LIFE
ANCIENT ROME
VOLTAIRE
A PHILOSOPHICAL DICTIONARY.
IN TEN VOLUMES
VOL. VII
JOSEPH—MISSION
JOSEPH.
The history of Joseph, considering it merely as an object of curiosityand literature, is one of the most precious monuments of antiquity whichhas reached us. It appears to be the model of all the Oriental writers;it is more affecting than the "Odyssey"; for a hero who pardons is moretouching than one who avenges.
We regard the Arabs as the first authors of these ingenious fictions,which have passed into all languages; but I see among them no adventurescomparable to those of Joseph. Almost all in it is wonderful, and thetermination exacts tears of tenderness. He was a young man of sixteenyears of age, of whom his brothers were jealous; he is sold by them to acaravan of Ishmaelite merchants, conducted into Egypt, and bought by aeunuch of the king. This eunuch had a wife, which is not at allextraordinary; the kislar aga, a perfect eunuch, has a seraglio at thisday at Constantinople; they left him some of his senses, and nature inconsequence is not altogether extinguished. No matter; the wife ofPotiphar falls in love with the young Joseph, who, faithful to hismaster and benefactor, rejects the advances of this woman. She isirritated at it, and accuses Joseph of attempting to seduce her. Such isthe history of Hippolytus and Phædra, of Bellerophon and Zenobia, ofHebrus and Damasippa, of Myrtilus and Hippodamia, etc.
It is difficult to know which is the original of all these histories;but among the ancient Arabian authors there is a tract relating to theadventure of Joseph and Potiphar's wife, which is very ingenious. Theauthor supposes that Potiphar, uncertain between th