worshippers shall follow Thee, by the highway which thou hast opened up."
The bell rings; the curtain begins to fall; the swing-seats tilt. The epilogue is scarcely heard: "Jesus will never have a rival. His religion will again and again renew itself; His story will call forth endless tears; His sufferings will soften the hearts of the best; every successive century will proclaim that among the sons of men there hath not arisen a greater than Jesus."
The book passed through eight editions in three months. The writings of those who opposed it had an equal vogue. That of Freppel had reached its twelfth edition in 1864.[1] Their name was legion. Whatever wore a soutane and could wield a pen charged against Renan, the bishops leading the van. The tone of these attacks was not always very elevated, nor their logic very profound. In most cases the writers were only concerned to defend the Deity of Christ,[2] and the miracles, and are satisfied that they have done so when they have pointed out some of the glaring inconsistencies in Renan's work. Here and there, however among these refutations we catch the tone of a loftier ethical spirit which has recognised the fundamental weakness of the work, the lack of any definite ethical principles in the writer's outlook upon life.[3] There were some indeed who were not content with a refutation; they would gladly have seen active measures taken against Renan. One of his most embittered adversaries, Amadee Nicolas,[4] reckons up in an appendix to his work the maximum penalties authorised by the existing enactments against free-thought, and would welcome the application of the law of the 25th of March 1822, according to which five years' imprisonment could be imposed for the crime of "insulting or making ridiculous a religion recognised by the state."
Renan was defended by the Siecle, the Debats, at that time the leading French newspaper, and the Temps, in which Scherer published five articles upon the book. Even the Revue des deux mondes, which had formerly raised a warning voice against Strauss, allowed itself to go with the stream, and published in its August
- ↑ Charles Emile Freppel (Abbe), Professeur d'eloquence sacree a la Sorbonne. Examen critique de la vie de Jesus de M. Renan. Paris, 1864. 148 pp. Henri Lasserre's pamphlet, L'Evangile selon Renan (The Gospel according to Renan), reached its four-and-twentieth edition in the course of the same year.
- ↑ Lettre pastorale de Monseigneur I'Archeveque de Paris (Georges Darboy) sur w divinite de Jesus-Christ, et mandement pour le careme de 1864.
- ↑ See, for example, Felix Antoine Philibert Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans, Avertissement a la jeunesse et aux peres de famille sur les attaques dirigees centre religion par quelques ecrivains de nos jours. (Warning to the Young, and to Fathers of Families, concerning some Attacks directed against Religion by some Writers of our Time.) Paris, 1864. 141 pp.
- ↑ Amadee Nicolas, Renan et sa vie de Jesus sous les rapports moral, legal, et litteraire. Appel a la raison et la conscience du monde civilise. Paris-Marseille, 1864.
