Faith, fiction, and the historical Jesus: theological revisionism and its influence on fictional representations of

18 D. F. Strauss, A New Life of Jesus, p. xviii.

19 Edinburgh Review, 119 (April 1864), 574-604, p. 575.

20 In the opening paragraph of The Quest, Schweitzer states: ‘German theology will stand out as a great, a unique phenomenon in the mental and spiritual life of our time’ (p. 3). In a later chapter devoted to Renan, Schweitzer accuses the Frenchman of sacrificing scholarship for the sake of popular appeal (Ch. 13).

21 Ernest Renan, Studies of Religious History, trans. by Henry F. Gibbon (London: William Heinemann, 1893), p. 119.

22 Ernest Renan, Life of Jesus, pp. 31, 32. In harmonizing the Gospels, Renan was practising an art which went back as far as the second century when the Syriac Diatessaron, compiled by Tatian, incorporated the four accounts of Christ’s life into one. For a discussion of Bible harmonies, see R. M. Grant, The Earliest Lives of Jesus (London: S.P.C.K., 1961).

23 D. F. Strauss, A New Life of Jesus, p. 3.

24 Indeed, Renan’s work is still regarded as one of the finest of its genre. The theologian and cleric, Stephen Neill, describes Renan’s work as ‘by far the greatest of all the imaginative lives of Jesus’. See The Interpretation of the New Testament 1861-1986, ed. by Stephen Neill and Tom Wright, Second Edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), p. 207.

25 Matthew Arnold, Literature and Dogma, Collected Prose Works, ed. by R. H. Super, 11 vols (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1960-77), VI, p. 158.

26 For a discussion of the responses to Renan’s Life of Jesus in Britain, see Daniel L. Pals, The Victorian “Lives” of Jesus (Texas: Trinity University Press, San Antonio, 1982), pp. 31-9.

27 Albert Guérard pointed out that Renan’s picture of Jesus seemed ‘a sacrilege to the believer, an impossibility to the historian, and an error of taste to the artist.’ See French Prophets of Yesterday (London: T. Fisher Unwin, London 1913), p. 240.

28 One of Renan’s detractors, the artist William Holman Hunt, whose representation of Christ in his painting ‘The Light of the World’ was one of the best known of the Victorian age, regarded Renan’s Life of Jesus as revealing a ‘lack of imagination concerning the profundity and sublimity of the mind and purpose of Jesus’. See Pre-Raphaelitism and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, 2 vols (London: Macmillan and Co., 1905), II, p. 409.

29 Ernest Renan, The Hibbert Lectures, trans. by Charles Beard, Third Edition (London: Williams and Norgate, 1885), p. 210.

30 M. J. Lagrange, Christ and Renan, trans. by Maisie Ward (London: Sheed & Ward, 1928), p. 1.

31 Edward W. Said, Beginnings: Intention and Method (London: Granta Books, 1997), p. 215.

32 Ben Pimlott, ‘Brushstrokes’, published in Lives for Sale: Biographers’ Tales, ed. by Mark Bostridge (London: Continuum, 2004), p. 165.

33 Hans W. Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1974), p. 16.

34 As the popularity of Renan’s Life grew, so such critical apparatus tended to be removed from the text, either to enhance its appeal to the general reader, or to fit within the limits set down by the publisher. For example, the translator of the Scott Edition of the work, William G. Hutchison, explains in his Preface how the original appendix and notes had been omitted to conform to the limits of the series. See the Translator’s Preface in Renan’s Life of Jesus, trans. by William G. Hutchison (London: Walter Scott, 1897).

35 Ernest Renan, Life of Jesus, p. 53.

36 Ibid., p. 266.

37 Ibid., p. 291.

38 Madame James Darmesteter (Mary F. Robinson), The Life of Ernest Renan (London: Methuen & Co., 1897), p. 165.

39 Bakhtin coined the term ‘heteroglossia’ to define the interplay in the novel of the narrative voice with the various voices of its characters. He suggests that ‘when heteroglossia enters the novel it becomes subject to an artistic reworking. The social and historical voices populating language, all its words and all its forms…are organized…into a structured stylistic system that expresses the differentiated socio-ideological position of the author amid the heteroglossia of his epoch.’ See Mikhail M. Bakhtin, ‘Discourse in the Novel’, The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, ed. by Michael Holquist, trans. by Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist (Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1981), p. 300.

40 For a detailed survey of evangelical accounts and interpretations of the Holy Land, see John Pemble’s The Mediterranean Passion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), pp. 182-196.

41 London Quarterly Review, ‘The Exploration of Palestine’, 45 (January 1876), 277-322, p. 277.

42 For a discussion of the term ‘the fifth Gospel’ and its usage, see Chapter Three of this thesis.

43 Surveying the first nine years of the PEF’s work, its Honorary Secretary, Sir George Grove, wrote that the Fund’s purpose was to throw light on Biblical history so that ‘faith is strengthened and reverence increased.’ See the Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund, Our Work in Palestine, (London: Bentley & Son, 1873), p. 13.

44 Images such as that found in William Holman Hunt’s painting The Scapegoat (1854-5), which features the rocks of Usdum on the Red Sea, thought to be the site of God’s destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, are bleak representations of the wages of sin, and are typical of the evangelical practice of fusing geographical realities with Biblical typology. Protestant travel writers often interpreted their observations of the Holy Land in terms of crime and punishment; John Aiton, a Presbyterian minister described Jerusalem as ‘drear and forsaken, blighted and cursed by the Almighty, for the enormous wickedness of which it had been the scene’. See John Aiton, The Lands of the Messiah, Mahomet, and the Pope, (Edinburgh: A. Fullarton and Co., 1852), p. 173.

45 Ernest Renan, The Life of Jesus, pp. 74-5.

46 Ibid., p. 122.

47 Edmond de Pressensé was himself a contributor to the Lives of Jesus genre. In his orthodox Jesus Christ: His Times, Life, and Work, trans. by Annie Harwood (London: 1866), de Pressensé eschews Renanian methods, making little reference to the Eastern landscapes he had himself researched.

48 Edmond de Pressensé, The Critical School and Jesus Christ: A Reply to M. Renan’s Life of Jesus, trans. by L. Corkran (London: Elliot Stock, 1865), p. 32.

49 Ernest Renan, Life of Jesus, pp. 136-7.

50 Ibid., p. 137.

51 Studies of Religious History, pp. 118-9.

52 J. S. Mill, ‘On Theism’, Three Essays on Religion (London: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, 1874), p. 253.

53 Ernest Renan, Life of Jesus, p. 84.

54 Ibid., p. 262.

55 Ibid., p. 168.

56 Ibid., p. 249.

57 Ibid., p. 226.

58 Ibid., p. 262.

59 In Emil Ludwig’s The Son of Man, trans. by Eden & Cedar Paul (London: Ernest Benn, 1928), Christ’s thoughts in the Garden of Gethsemane are conveyed by way of free indirect speech: ‘Had it all been a mistake? The refuge of women’s tender affection, gentle hands to stroke his hair, soft lips to kiss his feet, loving-kindness to cherish him in his daily doings…He would have spent his life in the quiet Galilean township, one man among many, and yet different from the rest, for he would have been privileged to hold converse with the Father, on the hillside behind the houses; he could have kept his own counsel about the matter!’ (p. 282).

60 Ernest Renan, Life of Jesus, pp. 137, 221.

61 In her biography of Renan, Mme Darmesteter pronounced Renan’s Jesus to be ‘too Celtic … too much like Ernest Renan’ (The Life of Ernest Renan, p. 164); William G. Hutchison, the translator of Vie, considered the figure of Jesus to have been ‘Renanized’: see the Life of Jesus, trans. by William G. Hutchison (London: Walter Scott, 1897), p. xxx. A more recent critic, H. W. Wardman, has described the Life as ‘an idealised portrait of Renan himself.’ See Ernest Renan: A Critical Biography (London: University of London, The Athlone Press, 1964), p. 86.

62 Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus, p. 6.

63 Ernest Renan, The Gospels, trans. unknown (London: Mathieson & Company, n. d.), p. 53.

64 De Quincey expounds this definition of literature in his essay on Alexander Pope. He explains that ‘There is, first, the literature of knowledge; and, secondly, the literature of power. The function of the first is - to teach; the function of the second is - to move: the first is a rudder; the second, an oar or a sail’. See Thomas De Quincey, ‘Alexander Pope’, reprinted in De Quincey as Critic, ed. by John E. Jordan (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1973), p. 269.

65 In a retrospective study of the Life of Jesus genre, Maurice Goguel comments somewhat scathingly that the attractive style of Renan’s Life caused it to be read by ‘hosts of people who were neither initiated into nor even prepared for exegetical research’. See The Life of Jesus, trans. by Olive Wyon (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1933), p. 50.

66 The first edition of the work was published anonymously by Macmillan, the author fearing the displeasure of his evangelical family at his treatment of a sacred subject.

67 Seeley was elected in 1869 to the post of regius professor of history at Cambridge on Gladstone’s recommendation.

68 The British Quarterly Review is typical in opening its discussion of Ecce Homo by asking if it ‘does not compete in fame with Renan’s “Vie de Jésus”’; see the British Quarterly Review, 43 (January 1866), 229-232, p. 229. The writer, John Addington Symonds, is also typical in his drawing of a comparison between the two works: ‘I read Seeley’s “Ecce Homo”. The enthusiasm of humanity in that essay took no hold upon me; just as… Renan’s seductive portrait of “le doux Galiléen” was somewhat contemptuously laid aside.’ See The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds, ed. by Phyllis Grosskurth (London: Hutchinson, 1984), p. 245.

69 All Biblical quotations are taken from the Revised Standard Version.

70 Ecce Homo: A Survey of the Life and Work of Jesus (London and Cambridge: Macmillan and Co., 1866), pp. 164, 162. What Seeley termed ‘the enthusiasm of humanity’ became one of the work’s most repeated phrases. Walter Pater, for example, quotes it in the final paragraph of Studies In the History of the Renaissance (London: Macmillan and Co., 1873): ‘High passions give one this quickened sense of life, ecstasy and sorrow of love, political or religious enthusiasm, or “the enthusiasm of humanity”’ (p. 212).

71 One of Seeley’s students, the writer, Joseph Jacobs, remarked ‘I attended one of his [Seeley’s] professorial courses…His lectures were clear; but cold.’ See Joseph Jacobs, Literary Studies (London: David Nutt, 1895), p. 193.

72 Ecce Homo: A Survey of the Life and Work of Jesus, p. 89.

73 Fortnightly Review, 5 (June 1866), 129-142, p. 136.

74 Edinburgh Review, ‘Strauss, Renan, and “Ecce Homo”’, 124 (October 1866), 450-475, p. 468.

75 Fortnightly Review, 5 (June 1866), 129-142, p. 129.

76 Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus, p. 515.

77 Ecce Homo, p. vi.

78 Ecce Homo: a denial of the peculiar doctrines of Christianity; A Review by the Rev. Jas. K. Glazebrook, Reprinted from the Blackburn Times (Blackburn, 1866), p. 9.

79 “Ecce Homo” by the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone (London: Strahan & Co., 1868). Gladstone’s review was a staunch defence of Seeley’s work and proved extremely influential. The politician’s admiration for the book perhaps reflects his own ambivalence towards theological revisionism. Additionally, Seeley’s frequent references to the classical world and classical literature may well have appealed to Gladstone who was engaged in his own study of the classics during the 1860s. See H. C. G. Matthew’s Gladstone 1808-1874 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), pp. 152-5.

80 ‘Ecce Homo’, Month: A Catholic Review, 4 (June 1866), 551-573, p. 564.

81 One reviewer of Seeley’s work remarked: ‘There are few, probably, of our readers who are not already acquainted with the book. For not only has it passed through five or six editions, but it has been reviewed in every periodical, been canvassed in every social circle, and been carried by the angry waves of controversy into unnumbered books’. See the Edinburgh Review, 124 (October 1866), 450-475, p. 467. In The Victorian “Lives” of Jesus, Daniel Pals states that Ecce Homo ‘was reviewed extensively not only by the religious press but by nearly every one of the major literary magazines and in essays by several of religious Britain’s most distinguished spokesmen’ (p. 48).

82 Joseph Parker, Ecce Deus (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clarke, 1867); Sylva (pseud.), Ecce Veritas: an Ultra-Unitarian Review (London: Trübner & Co., 1874); D. Melville Stewart, Ecce Vir (London: James Clarke & Co., 1911).

83 One reviewer, severely underestimating the impact that Renan would have in Britain, wrote that ‘The shelves that once groaned under his various-sized octavos have now forgotten Rénan [sic]’. See Blackwood’s Magazine, 96 (October 1864), 417-431, p. 418.

84 Thomas Scott, The English Life of Jesus (Ramsgate: Thomas Scott, 1872), p. 320.

85 Scott promises early in his Life that ‘The witness of John (so called) will be shown to be nothing more than the unsupported assertions of some unknown writer living, perhaps late, in the second century, and desirous of blending the Alexandrine philosophy of the Logos with a modified Paulinism’ (The English Life of Jesus, pp. 16-17).

86 Ibid., p. 336.

87 William Hanna, 6 vols, Our Lord’s Life on Earth (Edinburgh: Edmonston & Douglas, 1869), I, pp. v-vi.

88 Ibid., I, p. vi.

89 Ibid., V, p. 157.

90 Ibid., V, p. 158.

91 Ibid., V, p. 230-1.

92 Ibid., V, p. 328.

93 British Quarterly Review, ‘The English Life of Jesus by Thomas Scott’, 56 (July 1872), 269-271, p. 269.

94 Frederic W. Farrar, The Life of Christ, 2 vols (London: Cassell, Petter and Galpin, 1874), I, p. v.

95 When teaching at Harrow, Farrar wrote Eric, or, Little by Little (1858) which achieved great success. In the same period he published two other school stories: Julian Home; a tale of College Life (1859) and St Winifred’s, or the world of school (1862).

96 F. W. Farrar, The Life of Christ, I, pp. vii, viii.

97 Ibid., I, p. ix.

98 Reginald Farrar, The Life of Frederic William Farrar (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1904), p. 196.

99 Month: A Catholic Review, 22 (September 1874), 98-101, p. 98. That the Month had anything complimentary to say about The Life of Christ is surprising, given that Farrar’s work contains frequent snipes at the Roman Catholic Church.

100 F. W. Farrar, The Life of Christ, I, p. ix.

101 Athenaeum, June 1874, 856-8, p. 857.

102 The Life of Frederic William Farrar, p. 194.

103 Saturday Review, ‘An Adelphi Romance’, 82, 12 December 1896, 629-630, p. 629.

104 F. W. Farrar, ‘A Few Words on the Life of Christ’, Macmillan’s Magazine, 31 (March 1875), 463-471, p. 470.

105 F. W. Farrar, The Life of Christ, I, p. 58.

106 Ibid., I, p. 313.

107 Ibid., I, p. 315.

108 Ibid., I, p. 317.

109 In The Critical School and Christ, Edmond de Pressensé writes that Renan ‘calls Jesus adorable in the same sense that we apply the word in society to a pretty woman’ (p. 5).

110 F. W. Farrar, The Life of Christ, II, p. 400. In The Manliness of Christ, Thomas Hughes considers the life of Jesus from the point of view of his subject’s masculinity. He concludes that ‘there must be no flaw or spot on Christ’s courage, any more than on His wisdom, and tenderness and sympathy.’ See Thomas Hughes, The Manliness of Christ (London: Macmillan and Co., 1879), p. 151.

111 Ibid., II, p. 169.

112 Ibid., II, p. 412.

113 Ibid., II, p. 7.

114 F. W. Farrar, ‘A Few Words on the Life of Christ’, p. 466.

115 F. W. Farrar, The Life of Christ, II, p. 72.

116 Ibid., II, pp. 381-382.

117 In The Crucifixion from the York pageant, for example, the focus throughout is on the physically violent act of Christ’s hands and feet being nailed to the cross by four brutal soldiers who mock him as they carry out their task. See The Crucifixion, printed in Everyman and Medieval Miracle Plays, ed. by A. C. Cawley (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1974).

118 F. W. Farrar, The Life of Christ, II, p. 401. The violence of this description was moderated in later editions of the work.

119 Ibid., II, p. 401, n2. Farrar’s reasoning here has been echoed recently by the actor and director, Mel Gibson, in his defence of the extreme violence depicted in his film, The Passion of the Christ, released in Britain in March 2004. In an interview given during ABC’s Primetime programme on 16 February 2004, Gibson justified the graphic nature of his film, stating that it was necessary to ‘push [viewers] over the edge so that they see the enormity…of that sacrifice’. Quoted in the news section of The Guardian, 17 February, 2004, p. 16.

120 John’s Gospel was the subject of fierce critical debate, having been rejected by Strauss as historically invalid. Farrar makes clear in his Preface to The Life of Christ that he takes an entirely orthodox line on the authorship and authenticity of the Fourth Gospel, and considers it a valid source for his work.

121 The Life of Christ, II, pp. 403-4.

122 In The Bible; Its Meaning and Supremacy (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1897), Farrar estimates the significance of the Bible’s influence on the nation’s great writers: ‘All the best and brightest English verse, from the poems of Chaucer to the plays of Shakespeare…are echoes of its lessons; and from Cowper to Wordsworth, from Coleridge to Tennyson, the greatest of our poets have drawn from its pages their loftiest wisdom’ (p. 244).

123 At times, Farrar’s grasp of the plays is somewhat insecure. In his discussion of Christ’s Temptation, he quotes approvingly Angelo’s lines from Measure for Measure “Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus,/ Another thing to fall”, seemingly unaware of the irony of the words, spoken as they are by a man who goes on to attempt to coerce a novitiate into sleeping with him (The Life of Christ, I, p. 126).

124 Cunningham Geikie, The Life and Words of Christ, 2 vols (London: Henry S. King and Co., 1877), I, p. 1.

125 Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, 2 vols (London: Longmans, Green and Co. 1883). Edersheim was of Jewish parentage, but embraced Christianity in 1846. In the Preface to the work he states that since Jesus of Nazareth was a Jew, spoke to and moved among Jews…it was absolutely necessary to view that Life and Teaching in all its surrounding of place, society, popular life, and intellectual or religious development’ (I, p. viii).

126 Ibid., I, p. vii.

127 Ibid., I, p. 566.

128 Ibid., I, p. 279, n4.

129 See the Introduction to this thesis for a more detailed discussion of Foote’s transfigurations of the Bible.