Compare And Contrast Paulician And Candide

The Agents of Good and Evil

There is this belief that the Christian God is good and all-powerful. He has the power to create worlds and beings, yet there is still evil in the world. Both Pierre Bayle and Voltaire address these questions in their works “Paulicians” and Candide (respectively). They both believe the Manichean philosophy as a more rational thought process than the contemporaneous Christian view. This belief is that there is not one, but two gods in the world; a god of good and a god of evil. I myself believe in a world of balance and like the two authors listed above, accept this as more rational thought than a single omnipotent god. My reasoning is that without evil, there is no concept of good, and vice versa. I will briefly

He was ensconced into the Bulgar army after a time of wandering the world. After being nearly beaten to death by the Bulgar army for supposedly deserting, he travels to Holland and meets Jacques. Jacques was a kind and gentle Anabaptist that took Candide in. During his time with Jacques the Anabaptist, Candide met a beggar who happened to be Pangloss who was ridden at the time with syphilis. In his reunion with Pangloss, he learned that the Bulgars had murdered the baron’s family, including Cunégonde and her brother. They leave for Lisbon on business trip by ship. However, a storm hit and Jacques, one of the kindest people in Candide’s life, falls overboard and loses his life while trying to save a mean-spirited sailor. When they arrived, a massive earthquake hit, and “thirty thousand inhabitants, randomly selected without regard to age or sex, were crushed in the ruins” (Candide, Voltaire). Candide himself falls to a moment of negativity and says “This is the end of the world”. How could an all-loving and powerful God destroy so mercilessly? Voltaire is possibly indicating that there is another agent at work here other than a God of Good. Even after what seems an already tragic event, Pangloss is hung for heresy and Candide is thrashed for unconcernedly listening and not protesting. Voltaire postulates and subtly asks the reader, what kind of world do we live in where a God who is so full

They had reunited many times throughout their adventures after being separated. But it was some malcontent deity’s will that changed the story from a happy ending to a tragedy. One of the recurring missions that Candide undertakes is to find Cunegonde and marry her. One time he found her in Lisbon, and even though he heard of the terrible trials she had been through (which included rape, slavery, and torture), he still wanted to be with her. After freeing her from her two captors and fleeing across the Atlantic to Buenos Aires, she left him. Candide, her savior and steadfast lover, was left for the Governor of Buenos Aires because he has stability and money. Later, he finds she’s been sold into slavery in Turkey. After going there to buy her freedom, he discovers that she has grown ugly and that her brother still protests their union after all that he’s done and all that time. In order to marry Cunégonde, he has to send her brother the baron into slavery. However, if that wasn’t enough, marriage to Cunégonde is not what he expected and is rather unhappy. Voltaire had even described her as “shrewish and unbearable”. (Candide Voltaire) After all the trouble and struggle he endured, and it was for