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The Treatise on Tolerance on the Occasion of the Death of Jean Calas from the Judgment Rendered in Toulouse (Pieces Originales Concernant la Mort des Sieurs Calas det le Jugement rendu a Toulouse) is a work by French philosopher Voltaire, published in 1763, in which he calls for tolerance between religions, and targets religious fanaticism, especially that of the Jesuits (as a child, Voltaire was a brilliant student educated by Jesuits, who tried in vain to break his freethinking spirit), indicting all superstitions surrounding religions. ==Background== Voltaire's work follows the trial of Jean Calas (1698-1762), a Protestant accused of murdering his son Marc-Antoine to prevent his conversion to the Church and executed in Toulouse on March 10, 1762 despite enduring torture after the prosecution uses perjured witnesses, when it was really suicide because of gambling debts, outraging him because of Catholic prejudice and fanaticism. In 1765 after the king fired the chief magistrate and the railroad trial was redone properly by another court, Calas was posthumously exonerated and his family paid 36 thousand francs. Voltaire's argument is summarized in the following passages: "There are about forty millions of inhabitants in Europe who are not members of the Church of Rome; should we say to every one of them, 'Sir, since you are infallibly damned, I shall neither eat, converse, nor have any connections with you?'"; "O different worshippers of a peaceful God! If you have a cruel heart, if, while you adore he whose whole law consists of these few words, "Love God and your neighbor'..." "I see all the dead of past ages and of our own appearing in His presence. Are you very sure that our Creator and Father will say to the wise and virtuous Confucius, to the legislator Solon, to Pythagoras, Zaleucus, Socrates, Plato, the divine Antonins, the good Trajan, to Titus, the delights of mankind, to Epictetus, and to many others, models of men: 'Go, monsters, go and suffer torments that are infinite in intensity and duration. Let your punishment be eternal as I am. But you, my beloved ones, John Châtel, Ravaillac, Damiens, Cartouche, etc. who have died according to the prescribed rules, sit forever at my right hand and share my empire and my felicity.' You draw back with horror at these words; and after they have escaped me, I have nothing more to say to you." 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Treatise on Tolerance」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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