in the second half of the century with such writings as those of
P. Larroque (Examen Critique des doctrines de la religion chrétienne,
1860); Gustave d'Eichthal (Les Évangiles, ptie. i, 1863); and Alphonse
Peyrat (Histoire élémentaire et critique de Jésus, 1864); whereafter
the rationalistic view was applied with singular literary charm, if
with imperfect consistency, by Renan in his series of seven volumes
on the origins of Christianity, and with more scientific breadth
of view by Ernest Havet in his Christianisme et ses Origines (1872,
etc.). Renan's Vie de Jésus (1863) especially has been read throughout
the civilized world. It has been quite justly pronounced, by German
and other critics, a romance; but no other "life" properly so called
has been anything else, Strauss's first Life being an analysis rather
than a construction; and the epithet was but an unwitting avowal
that to accept the gospels, barring miracles, as biography--which
is what Renan did--is to be committed to the unhistorical. He began
by accepting the fourth as equipollent with the synoptics; and upon
this Strauss in his second Life confidently called for a recantation,
which came in due course. But Renan, in his fitful way, had critical
glimpses which were denied to Strauss--for instance, as to the material
of the Sermon on the Mount. The whole series of the Origines, which
wound up with Marc Aurèle (1882), has a similar fluctuating value,
showing on the whole a progressive critical sense. The Saint Paul,
for example, at the close suddenly discards the traditional view
previously accepted in Les Apôtres, and recognizes that the ministry
of Paul can have been no more than a propaganda of small conventicles,
whose total membership throughout the Empire could not have been above
a thousand. But Renan's total service consisted rather in a highly
artistic and winning application of rational historical methods to
early Christian history, with the effect of displacing the traditionist
method, than in any lasting or comprehensive solution of the problem
of the origins. Havet's survey is both corrective and complementary
to his. Renan's influence on opinion throughout the world, however,
was enormous, were it only because he was one of the most finished
literary artists of his time.
Section 3.--Poetry and General Literature