Christ in Art. Ernest Renan
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twenty-ninth chapter of Ecclesiastes, in which his rank was indicated; many other evidences which have been deduced a hundred times and leave no doubt that the Book of Daniel was the fruit of the great exaltation produced among the Jews by the persecution of Antiochus. This book must not be classed in old prophetic literature, but rather at the head of the apocalyptic literature as the first model of a style of composition and the various sibylline poems, the Book of Enoch, the Apocalypse of John, the Ascension of Isaiah, and the fourth book of Esdras.
In the history of the origins of Christianity, the Talmud has been far too neglected. I think that the true idea of the circumstances amid which Jesus was brought forth must be sought in this strange compilation, where so much precious information is mingled with the most insignificant scholasticism. Christian theology and Jewish theology indeed followed two parallel paths; the history of either cannot be understood without the history of the other. Countless materials detail the gospels’ finds, moreover, their commentary in the Talmud. The vast Latin collections of Lightfoot, Schoettgen, Buxtorf, and Otho contain a mass of such information. I have made it a rule to verify the original quotations which I have made without a single exception. The aid which has been rendered to me in this portion of my labour, by a learned Israelite, M. Neubauer, who is exceedingly well versed in Talmudic literature, has enabled me to go further, and to clear up the most delicate portions of my subject by some new comparisons. The distinction of epochs is very important, the compilation of the Talmud extending from the year 200 to the year 500 specifically. We have brought as much discrimination as is possible in the present condition of these studies. Such recent dates will cause some worries to those who are accustomed to accord value to a document only for the period in which it was written. But such scruples would be out of place. The teaching of the Jews from the Asmonean epoch to the second century was principally oral. We must not judge such intellectual conditions after the habitudes of a time in which much is written. The Vedas and the ancient Arab poems were preserved by memory for centuries, and yet these compositions present a very definite and very delicate form. In the Talmud, on the contrary, the form is of no account. We must add, that before the Mischna of Judah the Holy, which superseded all the rest, there were attempts at the compilation – the first of which dates back perhaps further than is commonly supposed. The style of the Talmud is that of running notes. The style of the Talmud is like that of course notes – the drafters probably filed all the entries that had accumulated in the various schools over generations under certain titles.
We have yet to speak of the documents which, being presented as biographies of the founder of Christianity, must of course hold first place in the life of Jesus. A complete treatise on the compilation of the gospels would be a volume of itself. Thanks to the thorough studies of which this question has been the subject for thirty years, a problem that would formerly have been deemed impossible, has reached a solution which leaves room for much uncertainty, but which is amply sufficient for the demands of history. We shall have occasion to return to this in our second book, the composition of the gospels having been one of the most important events to the future of Christianity which occurred during the second half of the first century. We shall here touch but a single phase of the subject, that which is indispensable to the substantiation of our narrative. Leaving aside all that belongs to the description of the apostolic times, we shall inquire only to what extent the data furnished by the gospels may be employed in a history projected upon rational principles.
The Good Shepherd, 4th century.
Marble, height: 43 cm, including base.
Museo Nazionale Romano, Rome.
The Good Shepherd (detail), c. 450.
Mosaic. Galla Placidia Mausoleum, Ravenna.
Let the gospels be in part legendary, that is evident since they are full of miracles and the supernatural; but there are a different species of legends. Nobody doubts the principal traits of the life of Francis of Assisi, though, in it, the supernatural is met at every step. Nobody, on the contrary, gives credence to the “Life of Apollonius of Tyana,” because it was written long after its hero, and under the conditions of a pure romance. At what period, by what hands, and under what conditions were the gospels compiled? This is the capital question upon which the opinion that we must form to their credibility depends.
We know that each of the four gospels bears at its head the name of a person known either in the apostolic history or in the gospel history itself. These four persons are not presented to us strictly as authors. The formulae “according to Matthew,” “according to Mark,” “according to Luke,” and “according to John,” do not imply that in the oldest opinion, these narratives had been written from one end to the other by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They signify only that those were the traditions coming from each of these apostles, and covered by their authority. It is clear that if these titles are exact, the gospels, without ceasing to be in part legendary, assume a high value since they carry us back to the half century following the death of Jesus, and even, in two cases, to eyewitness accounts of his acts.
As for Luke, doubt is hardly possible. Luke’s gospel is a regular composition founded on anterior documents. It is the work of a man who selects, prunes, and combines. The author of this gospel is certainly the same as the author of the Acts of the Apostles. Now, the author of the Book of Acts is a companion of St Paul, a title perfectly fitting to Luke. I know that more than one objection may be interposed to this, but one thing at least is beyond doubt: that the author of the third gospel and of the Acts is a man of the second apostolic generation and that is enough for our purpose. The date of this gospel may, moreover, be determined with much precision by considerations drawn from the book itself. Chapter Twenty One, inseparable from the rest of the work, was certainly written after the siege of Jerusalem, and soon after. We are here, therefore, on firm ground; for we have a work written entirely by the same hand, and of the most perfect unity.
The gospels of Matthew and Mark are far from having the same individual seal. They are impersonal compositions, in which the author totally disappears. A proper name written at the head of such works does not mean much. But if the gospel of Luke is dated, those of Matthew and Mark are as well. It is certain that the third gospel is posterior to the first and presents the character of a much more advanced compilation. We have besides, in this respect, a most important testimonial of the first half of the second century. It is by Papias, bishop of Hierapolis, a man of weight, a man of tradition, who was all his life attentive to the collection of whatever could be learned of the person of Jesus. After declaring that in such a matter he prefers oral tradition to books, Papias mentions two written works on the words and deeds of Christ: first, a work of Mark, the interpreter of the apostle Peter, brief, incomplete, not arranged in chronological order, and comprising of narratives and sayings (lecqentahpracqenta) composed from the accounts and reminiscences of the apostle Peter; secondly, a collection of sayings (logia) written in Hebrew by Matthew, “and which he has translated as best he could.” Certain it is that these two descriptions correspond very well to the general physiognomy of the two books now called “The Gospel according to Matthew,” and “The Gospel according to Mark,” the first characterized by its long discourses; the second, full of anecdote, much more exact than the first in regard to minute acts, brief to dryness, poor in discourses and badly composed.
Leo VI Prostrate before Christ in Majesty, 9th-10th century.
Mosaic. Hagia Sophia, Istanbul.
These two works as we read them are absolutely similar to those which Papias read, and cannot be maintained in the first place, because the work of Matthew to Papias was composed exclusively of discourses in Hebrew, with translations that were varying considerably in circulation, and in the second place, because the work of Mark and that of Matthew were to him quite distinct, compiled without any concord, and, it seems, written in different languages. Now, in the present condition of the texts, the Gospel according to Matthew and the Gospel according to Mark present parallel passages so long and so perfectly identical that we must suppose that either the final compiler of the first had the second before him, or that both have copied the same prototype. What appears most probable is that neither that of Matthew nor that of Mark have the original compilations; that