The Life of Jesus Part 1

The Life of Jesus.

by Ernest Renan.

PREFACE

In presenting an English version of the celebrated work of M. Renan, the translator is aware of the difficulty of adequately rendering a work so admirable for its style and beauty of composition. It is not an easy task to reproduce the terseness and eloquence which characterize the original. Whatever its success in these respects may be, no pains have been spared to give the author's meaning. The translation has been revised by highly competent persons; but although great care has been taken in this respect, it is possible that a few errors may still have escaped notice.

The great problem of the present age is to preserve the religious spirit, whilst getting rid of the superst.i.tions and absurdities that deform it, and which are alike opposed to science and common sense.

The works of Mr. F.W. Newman and of Bishop Colenso, and the "Essays and Reviews," are rendering great service in this direction. The work of M. Renan will contribute to this object; and, if its utility may be measured by the storm which it has created amongst the _obscurantists_ in France, and the heartiness with which they have condemned it, its merits in this respect must be very great. It needs only to be added, that whilst warmly sympathizing with the earnest spirit which pervades the book, the translator by no means wishes to be identified with all the opinions therein expressed.

_December 8, 1863._

AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION,

In Which the Sources of This History Are Princ.i.p.ally Treated

A history of the "Origin of Christianity" ought to embrace all the obscure, and, if one might so speak, subterranean periods which extend from the first beginnings of this religion up to the moment when its existence became a public fact, notorious and evident to the eyes of all. Such a history would consist of four books. The first, which I now present to the public, treats of the particular fact which has served as the starting-point of the new religion, and is entirely filled by the sublime person of the Founder. The second would treat of the apostles and their immediate disciples, or rather, of the revolutions which religious thought underwent in the first two generations of Christianity. I would close this about the year 100, at the time when the last friends of Jesus were dead, and when all the books of the New Testament were fixed almost in the forms in which we now read them. The third would exhibit the state of Christianity under the Antonines. We should see it develop itself slowly, and sustain an almost permanent war against the empire, which had just reached the highest degree of administrative perfection, and, governed by philosophers, combated in the new-born sect a secret and theocratic society which obstinately denied and incessantly undermined it. This book would cover the entire period of the second century. Lastly, the fourth book would show the decisive progress which Christianity made from the time of the Syrian emperors. We should see the learned system of the Antonines crumble, the decadence of the ancient civilization become irrevocable, Christianity profit from its ruin, Syria conquer the whole West, and Jesus, in company with the G.o.ds and the deified sages of Asia, take possession of a society for which philosophy and a purely civil government no longer sufficed. It was then that the religious ideas of the races grouped around the Mediterranean became profoundly modified; that the Eastern religions everywhere took precedence; that the Christian Church, having become very numerous, totally forgot its dreams of a millennium, broke its last ties with Judaism, and entered completely into the Greek and Roman world. The contests and the literary labors of the third century, which were carried on without concealment, would be described only in their general features. I would relate still more briefly the persecutions at the commencement of the fourth century, the last effort of the empire to return to its former principles, which denied to religious a.s.sociation any place in the State. Lastly, I would only foreshadow the change of policy which, under Constantine, reversed the position, and made of the most free and spontaneous religious movement an official wors.h.i.+p, 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sages upon which each a.s.sertion 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:

_etudes Critiques sur l'evangile de saint Matthieu_, par M.

Albert Reville, pasteur de l'eglise Wallonne de Rotterdam.[2]

_Histoire de la Theologie Chretienne au Siecle Apostolique_, par M. Reuss, professeur a la Faculte de Theologie et au Seminaire Protestant de Strasbourg.[3]

_Des Doctrines Religieuses des Juifs pendant les Deux Siecles Anterieurs a l'ere Chretienne_, par M. Michel Nicolas, professeur a la Faculte de Theologie Protestante de Montauban.[4]

_Vie de Jesus_, par le Dr. Strauss; traduite par M. Littre, Membre de l'Inst.i.tut.[5]

_Revue de Theologie et de Philosophie Chretienne_, publiee sous la direction de M. Colani, de 1850 a 1857.--_Nouvelle Revue de Theologie_, faisant suite a la precedente 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 evangiles_, par M. Gustave d'Eichthal. Premiere Partie: _Examen Critique et Comparatif des Trois Premiers evangiles_. 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 Levy freres, 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 minutiae, to study the always judicious, though sometimes rather subtle argument, of the book, so well translated by my learned friend, M. Littre.

[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 pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sage, 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 doc.u.ments of their sacred history. They made, probably in the second century, an edition corrected according to Christian ideas.[4] At all events, that which const.i.tutes 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 en], 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 pa.s.sage 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 ma.n.u.scripts 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 G.o.d. 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, responds, by a crowd of a.n.a.logies, to the beliefs, the manners, the turn of imagination of the time of the Seleucidae; the Apocalyptic form of the visions, the place of the book in the Hebrew canon, out of the series of the prophets, the omission of Daniel in the panegyrics of Chapter xlix. of Ecclesiasticus, in which his position is all but indicated, and many other proofs which have been deduced a hundred times, do not permit of a doubt that the Book of Daniel was but the fruit of the great excitement produced among the Jews by the persecution of Antiochus. It is not in the old prophetical literature that we must cla.s.s this book, but rather at the head of Apocalyptic literature, as the first model of a kind of composition, after which come the various Sibylline poems, the Book of Enoch, the Apocalypse of John, the Ascension of Isaiah, and the Fourth Book of Esdras.

[Footnote 1: Jude Epist. 14.]

In the history of the origin of Christianity, the Talmud has. .h.i.therto been too much neglected. I think with M. Geiger, that the true notion of the circ.u.mstances which surrounded the development of Jesus must be sought in this strange compilation, in which so much precious information is mixed with the most insignificant scholasticism. The Christian and the Jewish theology having in the main followed two parallel ways, the history of the one cannot well be understood without the history of the other. Innumerable important details in the Gospels find, moreover, their commentary in the Talmud. The vast Latin collections of Lightfoot, Schoettgen, Buxtorf, and Otho contained already a ma.s.s of information on this point. I have imposed on myself the task of verifying in the original all the citations which I have admitted, without a single exception. The a.s.sistance which has been given me for this part of my task by a learned Israelite, M. Neubauer, well versed in Talmudic literature, has enabled me to go further, and to clear up the most intricate parts of my subject by new researches.

The distinction of epochs is here most important, the compilation of the Talmud extending from the year 200 to about the year 500. We have brought to it as much discernment as is possible in the actual state of these studies. Dates so recent will excite some fears among persons habituated to accord value to a doc.u.ment only for the period in which it was written. But such scruples would here be out of place. The teaching of the Jews from the Asmonean epoch down to the second century was princ.i.p.ally oral. We must not judge of this state of intelligence by the habits of an age of much writing. The Vedas, and the ancient Arabian poems, have been preserved for ages from memory, and yet these compositions present a very distinct and delicate form.

In the Talmud, on the contrary, the form has no value. Let us add that before the _Mishnah_ of Judas the Saint, which has caused all others to be forgotten, there were attempts at compilation, the commencement of which is probably much earlier than is commonly supposed. The style of the Talmud is that of loose notes; the collectors did no more probably than cla.s.sify under certain t.i.tles the enormous ma.s.s of writings which had been acc.u.mulating in the different schools for generations.

It remains for us to speak of the doc.u.ments which, presenting themselves as biographies of the Founder of Christianity, must naturally hold the first place in a _Life of Jesus_. A complete treatise upon the compilation of the Gospels would be a work of itself. Thanks to the excellent researches of which this question has been the object during thirty years, a problem which was formerly judged insurmountable has obtained a solution which, though it leaves room for many uncertainties, fully suffices for the necessities 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 facts for the future of Christianity in the second half of the first century. We will touch here only a single aspect of the subject, that which is indispensable to the completeness of our narrative. Leaving aside all which belongs to the portraiture of the apostolic times, we will inquire only in what degree the data furnished by the Gospels may be employed in a history formed according to rational principles.[1]

[Footnote 1: Persons who wish to read more ample explanations, may consult, in addition to the work of M. Reville, previously cited, the writings of Reuss and Scherer in the _Revue de Theologie_, vol. x., xi., xv.; new series, ii., iii., iv.; and that of Nicolas in the _Revue Germanique_, Sept. and Dec., 1862; April and June, 1863.]

That the Gospels are in part legendary, is evident, since they are full of miracles and of the supernatural; but legends have not all the same value. No one doubts the princ.i.p.al features of the life of Francis d'a.s.sisi, although we meet the supernatural at every step. No one, on the other hand, accords credit to the _Life of Apollonius of Tyana_, because it was written long after the time of the hero, and purely as a romance. At what time, by what hands, under what circ.u.mstances, have the Gospels been compiled? This is the primary question upon which depends the opinion to be formed of their credibility.

Each of the four Gospels bears at its head the name of a personage, known either in the apostolic history, or in the Gospel history itself. These four personages are not strictly given us as the authors. The formulae "according to Matthew," "according to Mark,"

"according to Luke," "according to John," do not imply that, in the most ancient opinion, these recitals were written from beginning to end by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,[1] they merely signify that these were the traditions proceeding from each of these apostles, and claiming their authority. It is clear that, if these t.i.tles are exact, the Gospels, without ceasing to be in part legendary, are of great value, since they enable us to go back to the half century which followed the death of Jesus, and in two instances, even to the eye-witnesses of his actions.

[Footnote 1: In the same manner we say, "The Gospel according to the Hebrews," "The Gospel according to the Egyptians."]

Firstly, as to Luke, doubt is scarcely possible. The Gospel of Luke is a regular composition, founded on anterior doc.u.ments.[1] It is the work of a man who selects, prunes, and combines. The author of this Gospel is certainly the same as that of the Acts of the Apostles.[2]

Now, the author of the Acts is a companion of St. Paul,[3] a t.i.tle which applies to Luke exactly.[4] I know that more than one objection may be raised against this reasoning; but one thing, at least, is beyond doubt, namely, that the author of the third Gospel and of the Acts was a man of the second apostolic generation, and that is sufficient for our object. The date of this Gospel can moreover be determined with much precision by considerations drawn from the book itself. The twenty-first chapter of Luke, inseparable from the rest of the work, was certainly written after the siege of Jerusalem, and but a short time after.[5] We are here, then, upon solid ground; for we are concerned with a work written entirely by the same hand, and of the most perfect unity.

[Footnote 1: Luke i. 1-4.]

[Footnote 2: _Acts_ i. 1. Compare Luke i. 1-4.]

[Footnote 3: From xvi. 10, the author represents himself as eye-witness.]