Renan's Life of Jesus

Extract

An English translation of Renan’s Vie de Jesus has just been published in ‘Everyman’s Library,’ and Dr. Gore has written a short introduction to it. Both of these facts are, of course, regrettable in themselves. But since, as far as we know, the publishers do not profess the Catholic Faith, and in view of the present state of religious belief in England, we should hardly be justified in protesting against the publication; and as regards the introduction it would be unfair to Dr. Gore to judge him as if he were really a Catholic. ‘If,’ writes Dr. Gore (p. x), I have been chosen by the publishers of this translation to write a very brief Introduction to a work which has been more than sixty years in circulation, it is certainly not because I could be expected to write a panegyric, nor because I was wanted to write a denunciation, but because what was desired was a critical estimate, from a present-day point of view— a very different day from Renan’s own.’ We cannot pretend to Dr. Gore’s extensive acquaintance with present-day criticism of the New Testament. In the few lines that follow we can only offer an estimate of the book (and of the introduction) formed in the light of the ordinary principles of common sense— which, however, have this advantage that they were valid long before Renan’s day and will be long after Dr. Gore’s.