Essay On Religious Toleration

Since the beginning of European history, religion has been a heavy topic. Even starting wars and being the reasons that individuals were enemies, it seemed to be the most important aspect of society to everyone. Overtime as the centuries progressed and scholars and humanists were more interested in becoming secular and bettering oneself, religion was put on the back burner, even for monarchs. For example, Elizabeth I wanted to focus more on political and economic matters rather than religious, As European history progressed into the Enlightenment, these same ideas began to grow people took substantial thought into how the world “ought” to be, which meant beginning to accept the religions of others and become tolerant. Among the philosophes of the Enlightenment era, many believed that religious toleration was the right way, as Moses Mendelssohn puts it, “Sometimes, however, the opinions of my fellow men, which in my belief are errors (Mendelssohn)...” Although most were for religious toleration, heir ways of thinking on the topic differed. Comparing the views of European philosophes, Moses Mendelssohn and Voltaire both advocated for religious tolerance for the good of humanity, while Bernard Picart was more focused on

Unlike Voltaire, who advocated toleration, Picart wish for toleration of all religions, but mostly focused the most on jewish toleration. This is obvious as he showed his feelings through art. Picart engraved a piece titled Meal of the Jews During the Festival of the Tents, which illustrates a jewish family sitting down for a meal. Besides showing his religious toleration through art, Picart’s goal was to “...emphasize those of their customs that seemed most familiar, and least in accord with those stereotypes (Miller).” To summarize, it is easy to see the contrast between Picart and Voltaire, specifically how Picart had a large focus of Judaism, while Voltaire did