“This body which called itself and which still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was in no way holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.”

—  Voltaire

Ce corps qui s'appelait et qui s'appelle encore le saint empire romain n'était en aucune manière ni saint, ni romain, ni empire.
Essai sur l'histoire générale et sur les mœurs et l'esprit des nations, Chapter 70 (1756)
Citas

Original

Ce corps qui s'appelait et qui s'appelle encore le saint empire romain n'était en aucune manière ni saint, ni romain, ni empire.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 27, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "This body which called itself and which still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was in no way holy, nor Roman, nor an …" by Voltaire?
Voltaire photo
Voltaire 167
French writer, historian, and philosopher 1694–1778

Related quotes

José Ortega Y Gasset photo

“That Marxism should triumph in Russia, where there is no industry, would be the greatest contradiction that Marxism could undergo. But there is no such contradiction, for there is no such triumph. Russia is Marxist more or less as the Germans of the Holy Roman Empire were Romans.”

José Ortega Y Gasset book The Revolt of the Masses

Source: The Revolt of the Masses (1929), Chapter XIV: Who Rules The World?

Isaac Newton photo

“The fourth Beast was the empire which succeeded that of the Greeks, and this was the Roman.”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics

Vol. I, Ch. 4: Of the vision of the four Beasts
Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733)
Context: The fourth Beast was the empire which succeeded that of the Greeks, and this was the Roman. This beast was exceeding dreadful and terrible, and had great iron teeth, and devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with its feet; and such was the Roman empire. It was larger, stronger, and more formidable and lasting than any of the former.... it became greater and more terrible than any of the three former Beasts. This Empire continued in its greatness till the reign of Theodosius the great; and then brake into ten kingdoms, represented by the ten horns of this Beast; and continued in a broken form, till the Ancient of days sat in a throne like fiery flame, and the judgment was set, and the books were opened, and the Beast was slain and his body destroyed, and given to the burning flames; and one like the son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and received dominion over all nations, and judgment was given to the saints of the most high, and the time came that they possessed the kingdom.

Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor photo

“In view of Our special love for and inclination to the German Nation and the Holy Roman Empire…as Roman emperor and supreme steward of Christendom, it pertains to Our Imperial office to confess Our obligation to guard, protect, and maintain the holy Christian faith as it has been preserved until now.”

Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (1500–1558) Holy Roman Emperor

Diet of Augsburg (1530)
Source: Ruth Kastner, ed., Quellen zur Reformation 1517-1555. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1994, pp. 501-20.

“What we call the Fall of the Western Roman Empire was an imaginative experiment that got a little out of hand.”

Walter Goffart (1934) American historian

Source: Quotaes, Barbarians and Romans, A.D. 418-584(1980), p. 35

Stanley Baldwin photo

“Why did the [Roman] Empire come into existence at all, and why, having come into existence, did it perish?… Surely the character of the Roman played as great a part in the rise of the Empire as his character played in the fall?… to me the outstanding and peculiar strength of the Roman character lies in the words pietas and gravitas. These were the foundations of a patriotism which alone could carry the burden of Empire, a patriotism innate, a motive force of incalculable power, yet something at its best so holy that it was never paraded, sought no reward, was taken for granted, and had no single word to express it.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the Classical Association (8 January 1926), quoted in On England, and Other Addresses (1926), pp. 103-104.
1926

Lewis H. Lapham photo

“But the line of thought that I'd been chasing for several days was implicit in the ruins of the old Roman Empire, which gradually destroyed itself by substituting the faith in a legion of miraculous words for the strength of armies and the weight of walls.”

Lewis H. Lapham (1935) American journalist

Abracadabra, p. 186
Waiting For The Barbarians (1997)

John Napier photo

“28 Proposition. The image of the Beast, is these degenerate Princes, that in name onely were called Roman Emporours, and were neither Romans of blood, nor Emperours of Magnanimitie.”

John Napier (1550–1617) Scottish mathematician

A Plaine Discovery of the Whole Revelation of St. John (1593), The First and Introductory Treatise

Jacques Ellul photo

“The church … is always at the service of the political power that is either in place or in course of being installed. It goes on to serve the Holy Roman Empire but also the kings of France who split off from it. It will bless all the monarchs who seize power in ways that are tragic, tempestuous, and often bloody and unjust.. It legitimizes everything. This is logical once it associates itself with the existing power.”

Jacques Ellul (1912–1994) French sociologist, technology critic, and Christian anarchist

Source: The Subversion of Christianity (1984), p. 125

“Authorities … are where they are only because God is allowing them to be there. They exist only at his sufferance. And if God is willing to put up with…the Roman Empire, you ought to be willing to put up with it, too. There is no indication God has called you to clear it out of the way or get it converted for him. You can't fight an Empire without becoming like the Roman Empire; so you had better leave such matters in God's hands where they belong.”

Vernard Eller (1927–2007) Church of the Brethren pastor and academic, coiner of the term "Christian anarchy"

Christian Anarchy: Jesus’ Primacy Over the Powers (1987)

“In the Napoleonic Museum in Arenenberg I was rather impressed just how richly clad in the costume of Antiquity the First Empire in fact was - dressed up even comically with its laurels and eagles and togas. Return to Rome wherever you look, though of course not to the Holy Roman Empire - to Caesar's Rome. But the French Revolution itself had fallen back on more or less genuine or imaginary classical models: Brutus and Tiberius Gracchus and Gaius Gracchus, the Gracchi, consuls and Roman virtues - even these revolutionaries couldn't resolve to start from scratch with something really new.”

Ida Friederike Görres (1901–1971) Austrian writer and noble

Broken Lights Diaries 1957-59.

Related topics