SOURCE: Wardman, Harold W. “1860-1863: The Middle East and the ‘Vie de Jésus.’” In Ernest Renan: A Critical Biography, pp. 72-90. London: The Athlone Press, 1964.

In the following excerpt, Wardman places The Life of Jesus in a tradition of nineteenth-century romantic humanism and focuses on Renan's depiction of Jesus as a historical figure on whom the myth of Christianity was constructed.

Though not his best historical work, the Vie de Jésus is too important a landmark in his life and in nineteenth century French literature to merit merely a passing attention. There can be no denying the importance of a work, whatever its actual worth, which spoke to the condition of so many Frenchmen and Europeans. Its place lies in that part of the romantic movement stemming from Chateaubriand and Madame de Staël which laid stress on the aesthetic and emotional aspect of Christianity. The...