religion commences by attaching himself to the moral aphorisms already in circulation in his time, and to the practices which are in vogue; that, when riper, and in full possession of his idea, he delights in a kind of calm and poetical eloquence, remote from all controversy, sweet and free as pure feeling; that he warms by degrees, becomes animated by opposition, and finishes by polemics and strong invectives.  Such are the periods which may plainly be distinguished in the Koran.  The order adopted with an extremely fine tact by the synoptics, supposes an analogous progress.  If Matthew be attentively read, we shall find in the distribution of the discourses, a gradation perfectly analogous to that which we have just indicated.  The reserved turns of expression of which we make use in unfolding the progress of the ideas of Jesus will also be observed.  The reader may, if he likes, see in the divisions adopted in doing this, only the indispensable breaks for the methodical exposition of a profound, complicated thought.

[Footnote 1:  Loc. cit.]

If the love of a subject can help one to understand it, it will also, I hope, be recognized that I have not been wanting in this condition.  To write the history of a religion, it is necessary, firstly, to have believed it (otherwise we should not be able to understand how it has charmed and satisfied the human conscience); in the second place, to believe it no longer in an absolute manner, for absolute faith is incompatible with sincere history.  But love is possible without faith.  To abstain from attaching one’s self to any of the forms which captivate the adoration of men, is not to deprive ourselves of the enjoyment of that which is good and beautiful in them.  No transitory appearance exhausts the Divinity; God was revealed before Jesus—­God will reveal Himself after him.  Profoundly unequal, and so much the more Divine, as they are grander and more spontaneous, the manifestations of God hidden in the depths of the human conscience are all of the same order.  Jesus cannot belong solely to those who call themselves his disciples.  He is the common honor of all who share a common humanity.  His glory does not consist in being relegated out of history; we render him a truer worship in showing that all history is incomprehensible without him.

LIFE OF JESUS

CHAPTER I.

PLACE OF JESUS IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD.

The great event of the History of the world is the revolution by which the noblest portions of humanity have passed from the ancient religions, comprised under the vague name of Paganism, to a religion founded on the Divine Unity, the Trinity, and the Incarnation of the Son of God.  It has taken nearly a thousand years to accomplish this conversion.  The new religion had itself taken at least three hundred years in its formation.  But the origin of the revolution in question with which we have to do is a fact which took place under the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius.  At that time there lived a superior personage, who, by his bold originality, and by the love which he was able to inspire, became the object and fixed the starting-point of the future faith of humanity.