This is one of Voltaire's most important works and, according to Fernando Savater, together with the Philosophical Letters and Candide, it is the most unequivocally Voltairean of all. It originally had seventy-three entries or articles, which were increased in successive editions. It was as widely printed, distributed and read as it was persecuted and condemned. The work was soon burned in intransigent Geneva, on 16 September 1764, and a year later it was condemned by the Parliament of Paris and by the Church of Rome. The Philosophical Dictionary is animated by an inextinguishable thirst for logical clairvoyance, it reproves all metaphysical and dogmatic intemperances, and severely attacks anyone suspected of wanting to exploit ignorance for their own benefit, maintaining obscurantism for this purpose. Many of its articles are dedicated to biblical episodes or characters, such as the case of Abraham or Joseph, with whom the author makes a sharp ironic comment on the Holy Book. At other times, the irony is focused on positive laws, which, very different from those inspired by “Natural Law,” are frequently dictated by the arbitrary and violent rule of the leaders and are susceptible to ambiguous interpretations. This work does not require continuous reading, since in any part that is opened, there will be some topic for reflection, because as Voltaire warns in the Prologue: “The most useful books are those in which readers put half their part, understand the thoughts by only presenting them with the germ of them, correct what seems defective, and give strength, with their reflections, to those that seem useful to them.” This is a fundamentally theoretical book, useful not only for historians and philosophers but for everyone, given that many of the author's arguments are still valid.