SOURCE: Pals, Daniel L. “The Earlier Tradition in Britain: Lives from the Reformation to the 1860s.” In The Victorian “Lives” of Jesus, pp. 19-58. San Antonio: Trinity University Press, 1982.

In the following excerpt, Pals describes the importance of The Life of Jesus, arguing that its immense popularity was due as much to Renan's imaginative literary style as the scandal his book's arguments provoked.

[Ernest Renan's celebrated Vie de Jesus] appeared in France in the middle of 1863, scored an astounding popular success, was translated immediately into the neighboring languages, and came out in Britain before the end of the year. The Vie was unquestionably a work of literary genius. Its sentimental charm and imaginative effects captivated the reading public, if not the scholarly community, of Europe. It passed swiftly through countless editions and new printings, earned its author celebrity status, and became beyond its age a literary classic, a...