The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Life of Jesus, by Ernest Renan

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: The Life of Jesus

Author: Ernest Renan

Release Date: August 22, 2005 [EBook #16581]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIFE OF JESUS ***

Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Linda Cantoni, and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

THE

LIFE

OF

JESUS

BY

ERNEST RENAN

INTRODUCTION BY

JOHN HAYNES HOLMES

[Transcriber's note: Introduction by John Haynes Holmes not included
in this etext due to copyright restrictions.]

MODERN LIBRARY
NEW YORK

INTRODUCTION COPYRIGHT, 1927, BY THE MODERN LIBRARY, INC.

_Random House_ IS THE PUBLISHER OF

THE MODERN LIBRARY

BENNETT A. CERF * DONALD S. KLOPPER * ROBERT K. HAAS

Manufactured in the United States of America

Printed by Parkway Printing Company * Bound by H. Wolff

TO THE PURE SOUL OF

MY SISTER HENRIETTE

_Who Died at Byblus on the 24th of September, 1861_

Dost thou recall, from the bosom of God where thou reposest, those
long days at Ghazir, in which, alone with thee, I wrote these pages,
inspired by the places we had visited together? Silent at my side,
thou didst read and copy each sheet as soon as I had written it,
whilst the sea, the villages, the ravines, and the mountains, were
spread at our feet. When the overwhelming light had given place to the
innumerable army of stars, thy shrewd and subtle questions, thy
discreet doubts, led me back to the sublime object of our common
thoughts. One day thou didst tell me that thou wouldst love this
book--first, because it had been composed with thee, and also because
it pleased thee. Though at times thou didst fear for it the narrow
judgments of the frivolous, yet wert thou ever persuaded that all
truly religious souls would ultimately take pleasure in it. In the
midst of these sweet meditations, the Angel of Death struck us both
with his wing: the sleep of fever seized us at the same time--I awoke
alone!... Thou sleepest now in the land of Adonis, near the holy
Byblus and the sacred stream where the women of the ancient mysteries
came to mi