This book is the first English translation of a number of Voltaire’s pamphlets which argued for the freeing of law-making from religion. Voltaire criticized what he saw in the Catholic Church as an “oppressive orthodoxy” and its effect on laws. The result, in his opinion, resulted in a lack of freedom of conscience and expression. His writings in support of religious tolerance and separation of church and state had a significant effect on Western laws, especially on many of the founders of the American state.
Schedule for a July 2015 release, the book will be a worthwhile resource for those interested in religion and law who do not read French. Here is the blurb from the trade paperback version:
…Included are “The Sermon of Rabbi Akib” (a searing attack on anti-Semitism), “Prayer to God” (from the famous Treatise on Tolerance), the hugely popular “Catechism of the Honest Man,” “The Dinner at Count Boulainvillier’s,” and other witty, sometimes acerbic pieces that point out the errors in the Bible, the corruption of the clergy, and the religiously-inspired persecutions, both of his day and across the ages. Many of these pamphlets were burned in a losing battle by the authorities.
With a lengthy introduction and copious notes by the editor and translator, plus an appendix including first-hand accounts of the battle by noted mathematician and French revolutionary Condorcet, Frederick the Great, Irish writer Oliver Goldsmith, and others, this excellent compilation will be a welcome addition to the libraries of anyone with an interest in human rights and freedom of thought.