ivine origin
of Christianity can frame.

In examining that theory, at the first, a suspicious thing strikes a
calm observer. It is the reckless way in which M. Renan deals with his
authorities. For, be it remarked that, with only one or two outside
hints in Josephus and Tacitus, the Four Gospels contain _all_ that we
know of the 'Life of Jesus.' They are formally and professedly His
biographies. They were expressly written to present the outlines of His
life and teaching in connected form. All that we know of Him, His birth,
life, and death, is contained in these four narrations. The utmost
learning and the utmost simplicity here stand side by side. The most
unlearned reader of THE CONTINENTAL is just as well informed,
with the Four Gospels in his hand, as any 'member' of any 'Academy'
under the sun. Out of these Four Gospels, M. Renan has to construct his
'Life of Jesus.' But he has _a theory_, and that theory does not seem to
be the one set forth in the Four Gospels; so he just rejects whatever
goes against his theory, garbles, clips, denies, assents, and colors,
with an assurance, amusing for its impudence, if it were not so criminal
for its recklessness.

On the very threshold he asserts, in the teeth of his sole authorities,
that Jesus was born in _Nazareth_! He refers his startled reader to a
footnote. That footnote informs him that the 'assessment under Quirinus,
by which He is sought to be connected with Bethlehem,' took place ten
years after. We are to take this on M. Renan's sole authority. We are to
fling the Gospels over on the strength of a footnote! Now it is simply
impossible that M. Renan can be ignorant that there are very
satisfactory ways of explaining this difficulty, otherwise than by
charging a _forgery_. Josephus, whom he cites to prove the _assessment_
to be ten years after, would have informed him that the preliminary
_enrolment_ took place at the time mentioned, and that it _did_ extend
over Herod's dominions. Moreover, the authorities for this last fact are
_not_ Christian _only_, as he says. They are Josephus, a Jew, and
Suetonius, a pagan.

This is only an instance, on the threshold, of what occurs, a hundred
times, in the book. Any statement which stands in the way of the
writer's hypothesis, is swept out of existence at one pen-stroke. Calm
historical relations, evidently most essential portions of the writings,
are treated as forgeries, or deceptions, without a condescending why or
wh