ings of the Jewish kings, as represented in
the Old Testament, he has unsparingly ridiculed in the drama of "Saul."
The quiet irony of the following will be easily appreciated:--

Divinity of Jesus.--The Socinians, who are regarded as blasphemers, do
not recognize the divinity of Jesus Christ. They dare to pretend, with
the philosophers of antiquity, with the Jews, the Mahometans, and
most other nations, that the idea of a god-man is monstrous; that the
distance from God to man is infinite; and that it is impossible for
a perishable body to be infinite, immense, or eternal. They have the
confidence to quote Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea, in their favor, who,
in his "Ecclesiastical History," book i., chap. 9, declares that it is
absurd to imagine the uncreated and unchangeable nature of Almighty God
taking the form of a man. They cite the fathers of the church, Justin
and Tertullian, who have said the same thing: Justin in his "Dialogue
with Triphonius;" and Tertullian, in his "Discourse against Praxeas."
They quote St. Paul, who never calls Jesus Christ, God, and who calls
him man very often. They carry their audacity so far as to affirm,
that the Christians passed three entire ages in forming by degrees the
apotheosis of Jesus; and that they only raised this astonishing edifice
by the example of the Pagans, who had deified mortals. At first,
according to them, Jesus was only regarded as a man inspired by God,
and then as a creature more perfect than others. They gave him some time
after, a place above the angels, as St. Paul tells us. Every day added
to his greatness. He in time became an emanation, proceeding from God.
This was not enough; he was even born before time. At last he was God
consubstantial with God. Crellius, Voquelsius, Natalis, Alexander,
and Hornbeck, have supported all these blasphemies by arguments, which
astonish the wise and mislead the weak. Above all, Faustus Socinus
spread the seeds of this doctrine in Europe; and at the end of the
sixteenth century, a new species of Christianity was established. There
were already more than three hundred.--[Philosophical Dictionary, vol.
i. p. 405.]

Though a firm and consistent believer in the being of a God, Voltaire
was no bigot. The calm reasoning of the following passage does honor to
its author:--

Faith.--Divine faith, about which so much has been written, is evidently
nothing more than incredulity brought under subjection; for we certainly
have no oth