 But the centerpiece of any discussion of Bayle and the problem of evil must be the Dictionnaire, particularly the articles “Manichéens” and “Pauliciens” of the first edition, and the “Eclaircissement sur les Manichéens” of the second. It is in these texts that Bayle attempts to refute every theodicy he had yet encountered, thereby demonstrating the incapacity of reason, especially within the confines of Christian dogma, to explain the origin of evil in a way that does not make God its sole author. The suggestion that reason leads us ineluctably to the conclusion that God is morally responsible for all evil was found so scandalous that Bayle was forced to spend the last decade of his life defending himself against charges of atheism and even sedition on account of it. The Rationalist theologians Jean Le Clerc and Isaac Jaquelot were Bayle’s principal adversaries, and their objections to Bayle, as well as their attempts at theodicy, prompted him to expand his skeptical reflections on evil in subsequent books, including the Réponses aux questions d’un provincial and the posthumous Entretiens de Maxime et de Thémiste. These final works were the occasional cause of Leibniz’s Theodicy, as well as the inspiration for (and source for many of the arguments of) Voltaire’s satirical novella, Candide, several chapters of Hume’s Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, and possibly Kant’s late essay, On the Miscarriage of All Philosophical Trials in Theodicy.