



Produced by Andrea Ball, Christine Bell & Marc D'Hooghe
at http://www.freeliterature.org (From images generously
made available by the Internet Archive.)





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 hundred
     years apart, there is a mysterious relation. * * * * Let us say it
     with a sentiment of profound respect: JESUS WEPT: VOLTAIRE SMILED.
     Of that divine tear and of that human smile is composed the
     sweetness of the present civilization."_

                                                    _VICTOR HUGO_.


LIST OF PLATES--Vol. VII

  OLD ROUEN--frontispiece
  MONTESQUIEU
  THE DREAM OF HUMAN LIFE
  ANCIENT ROME


[Illustration: Old Rouen.]


       *       *       *       *       *


VOLTAIRE

A PHILOSOPHICAL DICTIONARY.

IN TEN VOLUMES

VOL. VII

JOSEPH-MISSION


       *       *       *       *       *


JOSEPH.


The history of Joseph, considering it merely as an object of curiosity
and literature, is one of the most precious monuments of antiquity which
has 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 more
touching 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 adventures
comparable to those of Joseph. Almost all in it is wonderful, and the
termination exacts tears of tenderness. He was a young man of sixteen
years of age, of whom his brothers were jealous; he is sold by them to a
caravan of Ishmaelite merchants, conducted into Egypt, and bought by a
eunuch of the king. This eunuch had a wife, which is not at all
extraordinary; the kislar aga, a perfect eunuch, has a seraglio at this
day at Constantinople; they left him some of his senses, and nature in
consequence is not altogether extinguished. No matter; the wife of
Potiphar falls in love with the young Joseph, who, faithful to his
master and benefactor, rejects the advances of this woman. She is
irritated at it, and accuses Joseph of attempting to seduce her. Such is
the history of Hippolytus and Phaedra, of Bellerophon and Zenobia, of
Hebrus 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 the
adventure of Joseph and Potiphar's wife, which is very ingenious. The
author supposes that Potiphar, uncertain between the assertions of his
wife and Joseph, regarded not Joseph's tunic, which his wife had torn as
a proof of the young man's outrage. There was a child in a cradle in his
wife's chamber; and Joseph said that she seized and tore his tunic in
the presence of this infant. Potiphar consulted the child, whose mind
was very advanced for its age. The child said to Potiphar: "See if the
tunic