The Life of Jesus: According to the Study and Criticism of the Bible. Ernest Renan
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an official worship, subject to the State, and persecutor in its turn.
I know not whether I shall have sufficient life and strength to complete a plan so vast. I shall be satisfied if, after having written the Life of Jesus, I am permitted to relate, as I understand it, the history of the apostles, the state of the Christian conscience during the weeks which followed the death of Jesus, the formation of the cycle of legends concerning the resurrection, the first acts of the Church of Jerusalem, the life of Saint Paul, the crisis of the time of Nero, the appearance of the Apocalypse, the fall of Jerusalem, the foundation of the Hebrew-Christian sects of Batanea, the compilation of the Gospels, and the rise of the great schools of Asia Minor originated by John. Everything pales by the side of that marvellous first century. By a peculiarity rare in history, we see much better what passed in the Christian world from the year 50 to the year 75, than from the year 100 to the year 150.
The plan followed in this history has prevented the introduction into the text of long critical dissertations upon controverted points. A continuous system of notes enables the reader to verify from the authorities all the statements of the text. These notes are strictly limited to quotations from the primary sources; that is to say, the original passages upon which each assertion or conjecture rests. I know that for persons little accustomed to studies of this kind many other explanations would have been necessary. But it is not my practice to do over again what has been already done well. To cite only books written in French, those who will consult the following excellent writings[1] will there find explained a number of points upon which I have been obliged to be very brief:
Études Critiques sur l'Évangile de saint Matthieu, par M. Albert Réville, pasteur de l'église Wallonne de Rotterdam.[2]
Histoire de la Théologie Chrétienne au Siècle Apostolique, par M. Reuss, professeur à la Faculté de Théologie et au Séminaire Protestant de Strasbourg.[3]
Des Doctrines Religieuses des Juifs pendant les Deux Siècles Antérieurs à l'Ère Chrétienne, par M. Michel Nicolas, professeur à la Faculté de Théologie Protestante de Montauban.[4]
Vie de Jésus, par le Dr. Strauss; traduite par M. Littré, Membre de l'Institut.[5]
Revue de Théologie et de Philosophie Chrétienne, publiée sous la direction de M. Colani, de 1850 à 1857.—Nouvelle Revue de Théologie, faisant suite à la précédente depuis 1858.[6]
[Footnote 1: While this work was in the press, a book has appeared which I do not hesitate to add to this list, although I have not read it with the attention it deserves—Les Évangiles, par M. Gustave d'Eichthal. Première Partie: Examen Critique et Comparatif des Trois Premiers Évangiles. Paris, Hachette, 1863.]
[Footnote 2: Leyde, Noothoven van Goor, 1862. Paris, Cherbuliez. A work crowned by the Society of The Hague for the defence of the Christian religion.]
[Footnote 3: Strasbourg, Treuttel and Wurtz. 2nd edition. 1860. Paris,
Cherbuliez.]
[Footnote 4: Paris, Michel Lévy frères, 1860.]
[Footnote 5: Paris, Ladrange. 2nd edition, 1856.]
[Footnote 6: Strasbourg, Treuttel and Wurtz. Paris, Cherbuliez.]
The criticism of the details of the Gospel texts especially, has been done by Strauss in a manner which leaves little to be desired. Although Strauss may be mistaken in his theory of the compilation of the Gospels;[1] and although his book has, in my opinion, the fault of taking up the theological ground too much, and the historical ground too little,[2] it will be necessary, in order to understand the motives which have guided me amidst a crowd of minutiæ, to study the always judicious, though sometimes rather subtle argument, of the book, so well translated by my learned friend, M. Littré.
[Footnote 1: The great results obtained on this point have only been acquired since the first edition of Strauss's work. The learned critic has, besides, done justice to them with much candor in his after editions.]
[Footnote 2: It is scarcely necessary to repeat that not a word in Strauss's work justifies the strange and absurd calumny by which it has been attempted to bring into disrepute with superficial persons, a work so agreeable, accurate, thoughtful, and conscientious, though spoiled in its general parts by an exclusive system. Not only has Strauss never denied the existence of Jesus, but each page of his book implies this existence. The truth is, Strauss supposes the individual character of Jesus less distinct for us than it perhaps is in reality.]
I do not believe I have neglected any source of information as to ancient evidences. Without speaking of a crowd of other scattered data, there remain, respecting Jesus, and the time in which he lived, five great collections of writings—1st, The Gospels, and the writings of the New Testament in general; 2d, The compositions called the "Apocrypha of the Old Testament;" 3d, The works of Philo; 4th, Those of Josephus; 5th, The Talmud. The writings of Philo have the priceless advantage of showing us the thoughts which, in the time of Jesus, fermented in minds occupied with great religious questions. Philo lived, it is true, in quite a different province of Judaism to Jesus, but, like him, he was very free from the littlenesses which reigned at Jerusalem; Philo is truly the elder brother of Jesus. He was sixty-two years old when the Prophet of Nazareth was at the height of his activity, and he survived him at least ten years. What a pity that the chances of life did not conduct him into Galilee! What would he not have taught us!
Josephus, writing specially for pagans, is not so candid. His short notices of Jesus, of John the Baptist, of Judas the Gaulonite, are dry and colorless. We feel that he seeks to present these movements, so profoundly Jewish in character and spirit, under a form which would be intelligible to Greeks and Romans. I believe the passage respecting Jesus[1] to be authentic. It is perfectly in the style of Josephus, and if this historian has made mention of Jesus, it is thus that he must have spoken of him. We feel only that a Christian hand has retouched the passage, has added a few words—without which it would almost have been blasphemous[2]—has perhaps retrenched or modified some expressions.[3] It must be recollected that the literary fortune of Josephus was made by the Christians, who adopted his writings as essential documents of their sacred history. They made, probably in the second century, an edition corrected according to Christian ideas.[4] At all events, that which constitutes the immense interest of Josephus on the subject which occupies us, is the clear light which he throws upon the period. Thanks to him, Herod, Herodias, Antipas, Philip, Annas, Caiaphas, and Pilate are personages whom we can touch with the finger, and whom we see living before us with a striking reality.
[Footnote 1: Ant., XVIII. iii. 3.]
[Footnote 2: "If it be lawful to call him a man."]
[Footnote 3: In place of [Greek: christos outos ên], he certainly had these [Greek: christos outos elegeto].—Cf. Ant., XX. ix. 1.]
[Footnote 4: Eusebius (Hist. Eccl., i. 11, and Demonstr. Evang., iii. 5) cites the passage respecting Jesus as we now read it in Josephus. Origen (Contra Celsus, i. 47; ii. 13) and Eusebius (Hist. Eccl., ii. 23) cite another Christian interpolation, which is not found in any of the manuscripts of Josephus which have come down to us.]
The Apocryphal books of the Old Testament, especially the Jewish part of the Sibylline verses, and the Book of Enoch, together with the Book of Daniel, which is also really an Apocrypha, have a primary importance in the history of the development of the Messianic theories, and for the understanding of the conceptions of Jesus respecting the kingdom of God. The Book of Enoch especially, which was much read at the time of Jesus,[1] gives us the key to the expression "Son of Man," and to the ideas attached to it. The ages of these different books, thanks to the labors of Alexander, Ewald, Dillmann, and Reuss, is now beyond doubt. Every one is agreed in placing the compilation of the most important of them in the second and first centuries before Jesus Christ. The date of the Book of Daniel is still more certain. The character of the two languages in which it is written, the use of Greek words, the clear, precise, dated announcement of events, which reach even to the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, the incorrect descriptions of Ancient Babylonia, there given, the general tone of the book, which in no respect recalls the writings of the captivity, but, on the contrary,