Studies of Religious History Author:Ernest Renan Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE CRITICAL HISTORIANS OF JESUS. It is said that Angelico of Fiesole only painted the heads of the Virgin and of Christ when upon his knees: it would have be... more »en well if the critics had done the same, and modified the rays of certain figures before which the ages bow, after having adored them. The first duty of the philosopher is to unite the great band of humanity for the worship of goodness and moral beauty, as manifested in all noble characters and elevated symbols. The second is to search indefatigably for truth, with the firm conviction that if the sacrifice of our egotistical instincts can be agreeable to the Deity, it ought not to be so with regard to our scientific instincts. The timid credulity which, for fear of seeing the object of its faith vanish altogether, embodies every fancy, is as contrary to the harmony and sound discipline of the human faculties as the purely negative criticism which renounces the adoration of the ideal type because it has discovered that the ideal does not always conform to the actual. It is as well to understand that criticism, so far from excluding respect, and inferring, as timid people suppose it, a crime of divine and human treason, includes, on the contrary, acts of the purest worship. May be it fears to be taken as irreverent when it seeks to withdraw the veil from the true physiognomy of the sublime Master, who has said, " I am the truth." An instinct so profound induces man to search for truth at the cost of his dearest beliefs. This instinct constitutes, with elevated natures, a duty so imperative that thecriticism of the origins of a religion is never the work of freethinkers, but of the most enlightened sectaries of that religion. The branch of Christianity which leans most essentially upon the Bible is precisely that which ha...« less