ruthlessly invaded, as to force, as it were, others on that holy ground. In truth, advantage has been taken of that very secluding reverence to dismiss the whole Life of Christ from the domain of history; to make that reverence the source and parent of the whole, either supposing the religion, even Jesus himself, to be no more than the spontaneous growth of the opinions, thoughts, passions, ideal aspirations of the time; or a pure myth, the creation of the excited imagination of the believers; humanity, as it were, self superhumanised and deified; not what St. Paul asserts, "God in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself." At the time of the publication of the History of Christianity these views had culminated in the famous work of Strauss,-a work, it must be acknowledged, of vast learning and unparalleled ingenuity. To the theory of Strauss, as far as I could understand it (for Strauss himself, as if appalled by his own conclusions, varied much in the successive editions of his book as to the result of his inquiries), I ventured to raise some objections, which seemed to me and to some others of weight and importance. I leave them as they stood. Another work has now appeared, since the present edition was printed off, more brilliant and popular, in a language of universal currency, and in a style in which that language displays itself in all its captivating' force, life, and distinctness. Yet I cannot but think this very perfection of style in some degree fatal to its pretensions. There are passages in which the vivid transparency betrays at once the perplexity of the writer and the inconceivable feebleness of his argu PREFACE. ments. I cannot apprehend more lasting effect from the light, quick, and bright-flashing artillery of the Frenchman than from the more ponderous, and steadilyaimed culverins of the German. In one respect I had expected more from the wide and copious erudition of M. Renan. But I find no illustration, no allusion from the Jewish writers which was not familiar to me from Lightfoot, Schoetgen, Meuschen, and the great Talmudic scholars of the two last centuries. I suspect that they have exhausted the subject. As little new can be found or could be expected from the scenery and topography of Palestine, in like manner drained to the utmost by so many travellers before M. Renan. Even as to the style-may an Englishman venture to contrast it (by no means in its favour) not only with the dignity and solemnity of Pascal, but with the passionate earnestness of Rousseau: its "thin sentimentality" (this is not my own expression) reminds me more of 'Paul et Virginie' than, I will not say of the 'Pensées,' but even of the Vicaire Savoyard.' I cannot think that eventually the book will add to the high fame of M. Renan. To those who see in Christianity no more than a social revolution, a natural step in human progress, the beautiful passages on the transcendant humanity of Jesus (unhappily, not unleavened) may give satisfaction and delight; to those to whom Christianity is a religion, Jesus the author and giver of eternal life, it will fall dead, or be a grief and an offence. As to the apostolic and immediate post-apostolic times, I have not neglected or closed my eyes against the labours of what are called the Tübingen School. I trust that it is from no blind, stubborn, or presumptuous prejudice that I read Baur and his disciples with wonder and admiration at their industry, sagacity, ingenuity; but without conviction. It seems to me that with them instead of the theory being the result of diligent and acute investigation, the theory is first made, and then the inferences or arguments sought out, discerned, or imagined, and wrought up with infinite skill to establish the foregone conclusion; at the same time with a contemptuous disregard or utter obtuseness to the difficulties of their own system. Their criticism will rarely bear criticism. On one special point, discussed by writers of another character-the second imprisonment of St. Paul-I have added a note. I have read a very able paper (in the Home and Foreign Review '), impugning my views (which are acknowledged to be those of most learned men of the day) on the connection of Christianity and what I have called Orientalism. Possibly some of my statements may have been somewhat too broad; but I have the satisfaction of finding that very recently that most distinguished Orientalist, M. Lassen, has given his sanction to the same views. The great difficulty seems to be as regards Buddhism. But of the ascetic and monastic institutions of Buddhism, so undeniably analogous to those of Christianity, the antiquity as well as the existence is incontestable. Yet their principle of estrangement from the world seems almost irreconcilable with the theory of Buddhism which has been wrought out by the later Orientalists, and the sum of which has been so well and so clearly expounded in the volume of M. Barthélemy St. Hilaire. |