De-Sacralization, French Style

Diderot explains the difference between a priest and a philosophe in his “Observations sur le Nakaz” ( Political Writings , 85):

“The philosophe says much against the priest; the priest says muchagainst the philosophe . But the philosophe has never killed priests, andthe priest has killed many philosophes ; the philosophe has never killedkings, and the priest has killed many kings. It was said of the Jesuitsthat every one of them was a dagger whose handle was in the hand ofthe general. It could be said with at least as much truth that eachpriest is a dagger whose handle is in the hand of God; or rather, thatGod is a dagger whose handle is in the hand of each priest. But let usbe truthful: why is it that the philosophes have not killed priests andkings? It is because they have neither confessionals nor public pulpits;it is because they do not secretly seduce, nor preach to the assembledpeople. Sometimes they are fanatical. But their fanaticism does nothave a sacred character; they speak not in the name of God, but in thename of Reason, which does not always speak coldly, but is alwayslistened to coldly. And the philosophes do not promise paradise, northreaten hell.”

Diderot could not know, but philosophes would be killing priests soon enough, and in the name of a sacred entity – the French nations. Priests and philosophes can both be gripped with “sacred fanaticism,” and what the latter offer is less de-sacralization than a redistribution of the sacred.