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Subject Area: Philosophy
Subject Area: Religion

MASSACRES. - Voltaire, The Works of Voltaire, Vol. 6 (Philosophical Dictionary Part 4) [1764]

Edition used:

The Works of Voltaire. A Contemporary Version. A Critique and Biography by John Morley, notes by Tobias Smollett, trans. William F. Fleming (New York: E.R. DuMont, 1901). In 21 vols. Vol. 6.

Part of: The Works of Voltaire. A Contemporary Version, in 21 vols.

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MASSACRES.

It is perhaps as difficult as it is useless to ascertain whether “mazzacrium,” a word of the low Latin, is the root of “massacre,” or whether “massacre” is the root of “mazzacrium.”

A massacre signifies a number of men killed. There was yesterday a great massacre near Warsaw—near Cracow. We never say: “There has been a massacre of a man”; yet we do say: “A man has been massacred”: in that case it is understood that he has been killed barbarously by many blows.

Poetry makes use of the word “massacred” for killed, assassinated: “Que par ses propres mains son père massacré.”—Cinna.

An Englishman has made a compilation of all the massacres perpetrated on account of religion since the first centuries of our vulgar era. I have been very much tempted to write against the English author; but his memoir not appearing to be exaggerated, I have restrained myself. For the future I hope there will be no more such calculations to make. But to whom shall we be indebted for that?