# The Dictionnaire philosophique prints anti-Jewish articles under Voltaire’s name

Date: 1764

## The fact

In 1764 the Dictionnaire philosophique appeared with articles that repeatedly defame Jews as a people, not only biblical criticism of the Old Testament. It is not a later racial law.

## Context

Voltaire’s anti-clericalism used Jews as a battering ram against Scripture. That tactic still published group contempt. SEP and Gallica independently make the text public. Do not upgrade to Nuremberg; do not delete the articles because he also wrote on Calas.

Voltaire is not the sole author of every later object, law, or museum label that uses the name. Shared work with courts, excavators, printers, spouses, officials, and later states does not erase a documented role, and it does not make an ancient person the signer of a twentieth-century statute.

## Evidence and sources

Gallica holds digitised Dictionnaire printings. SEP’s [Voltaire](/people/voltaire) entry treats the anti-Judaism as a real limit on his tolerance reputation. Different publishers.

Official or archival record: Gallica — Voltaire printed works (https://gallica.bnf.fr/; Bibliothèque nationale de France).

## Significance

Minority-rights harm path. High confidence on the printed words.

Tolerance for Calas and contempt for Jews can sit in one career. Split the rows; do not average them.

## What is established and what is not

Established: the 1764 dictionary contains those articles. Not established: that every later antisemite is his pupil by a unique coefficient.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit.
Later competitions, monuments, translations, UNESCO listings, and museums are not converted into extra lifetime acts. The attached driver is [protection-of-minority-rights](/drivers/protection-of-minority-rights). The welfare reading used in this dossier is worsening. That reading is an impact-path choice, not a property stored on the Fact itself. Confidence is stated on the impact path. A later English edition is not a recovered autograph. If a number is not in the two records named above, it is not supplied here.

## People

- Voltaire: https://factrail.ai/people/voltaire

## Drivers

- Protection of Minority Rights: https://factrail.ai/drivers/protection-of-minority-rights

## Sources

- https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/voltaire/
- https://gallica.bnf.fr/

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/vo-dictionnaire-1764