Œuvres complètes de Voltaire (Complete Works of Voltaire) 49A

Voltaire’s most scathingly anti-Christian text, the "Sermon des cinquante", of which he consistently denied authorship, develops the arguments he was to use over the coming decades in a multitude of virulent texts. In the period 1758-1759, biblical questions remain prominent with the "Lettre sur le Messie" and, in a gentler tone, the "Précis de l’Ecclésiaste" and "Précis du Cantique des cantiques". These years also saw the culmination of a long-brewing quarrel over the reputation of the deceased minister Joseph Saurin, which brought Voltaire’s stay in Lausanne to a close. A series of philosophical dialogues and a conte round out his literary productions of this two-year span.