Himmelfarb, Gertrude. "The Secularization of the European Mind in the Nineteenth Century, by Owen Chadwick." Commentary Magazine. 1976.

Abstract:

At the height of his campaign against Christianity, Voltaire took to concluding his letters with the motto, “Ecrasez l’infâme,” often abbreviated as “Ecr. linf.” Sometimes this salutation stood in place of a signature, which led one censor to observe (so it is reported) that “M. Ecrlinf doesn’t write badly.” Historians debate whether the infamy to be destroyed was Christianity in particular or religion in general. But there is little doubt that much of the passion of the Enlightenment was directed against the one or the other—and against both, to the extent to which they were identified with each other.

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