Ernest Renan, answered from the texts and cited to the page.
The origins of Christianity cannot be found in a set of doctrines that evolved of their own momentum, as though ideas were capable of generating a world-historical movement without the mediation of extraordinary persons. I had originally conceived my history of Christian origins as precisely such a history of doctrines — one in which men and their actions would have hardly had a place, and Jesus would scarcely have been named.1
But the study itself corrected me. It was not a certain theory on justification and redemption which brought about the Reformation; it was Luther and Calvin. Parseeism, Hellenism, Judaism might have combined under every form; the doctrines of the Resurrection and of the Word might have developed themselves during ages without producing the grand, unique, and fruitful fact called Christianity.2
That fact is the work of Jesus, of St. Paul, of St. John — and to write their history is to write the history of the origin of Christianity.3 The movement begins in Galilee, in a particular landscape and among a particular people, and the mark of that origin is never entirely effaced. The taste for poverty which Jesus instilled — that Utopian element which always mingles in the origin of great movements — passed away quickly in institutional form, yet left a leaven in the whole history of Christian institutions which has not been lost.4
Francis of Assisi, the man who more than any other resembled Jesus by his exquisite goodness and his delicate, pure, and tender intercourse with universal life, was a poor man; and the mendicant orders, the innumerable communistic sects of the middle ages, all pretended to be, and in fact were, the true disciples of Jesus.5 The seed planted in Galilee flowered again and again, each time in the name of that original poverty.
But the origins do not end with Jesus. The compilation of the Gospels is, next to the life of Jesus, the cardinal chapter of the history of Christian origins — a fact almost equal in importance to his personal action.6 Around the last disciples, legend began its work even before the grave received them. In the circle gathered about the aged John at Ephesus, traditions were elaborated, stories told, and doctrines that would later be called Johannine began perhaps to be discussed between the old man and the young spirits who surrounded him — spirits seeking perhaps to persuade him that he had always held the ideas they themselves suggested.7
There was, in the bosom of that church, a disposition toward dissimulation and pious fraud which has made the task of the critic singularly difficult.8 What emerges, then, is not a simple origin but a layered one: a man of the first moral rank, a landscape that shaped him, a circle of disciples who remembered and inevitably transformed what they remembered, and a second generation that fixed those memories in writing — each layer bearing the marks of those who made it.
When I first conceived the idea of a history of the origin of Christianity, what I wished to write was, in fact, a history of doctrines, in which men and their actions would have hardly had a place. Jesus would scarcely have been named.The Life of Jesus
Parseeism, Hellenism, Judaism might have been able to have combined under every form; the doctrines of the Resurrection and of the Word might have developed themselves during ages without producing this grand, unique, and fruitful fact, called Christianity.The Life of Jesus
This fact is the work of Jesus, of St. Paul, of St. John. To write the history of Jesus, of St. Paul, of St. John is to write the history of the origin of Christianity.The Life of Jesus
It was one of those Utopian elements which always mingle in the origin of great movements, and which time rectifies... Ebionism left a leaven in the whole history of Christian institutions which has not been lost.The Life of Jesus
Francis d'Assisi, the man who, more than any other, by his exquisite goodness, by his delicate, pure, and tender intercourse with universal life, most resembled Jesus, was a poor man. The mendicant orders, the innumerable communistic sects of the middle ages... pretended to be, and in fact were, the true disciples of Jesus.The Life of Jesus
The compilation of the Gospels is, next to the life of Jesus, the cardinal chapter of the history of Christian origins.The Gospels and the Second Christian Generation
What traditions were elaborated there? What stories did the old man tell?... Did some of the doctrines which were described later as Johannian begin already to be discussed between the aged and weary master and the young and bright spirits in search of novelties?The Gospels and the Second Christian Generation
There was probably in the bosom of that delusive Church of Ephesus a disposition towards dissimulation and pious frauds which has made the task of the critic who is called upon to disentangle such confusion, singularly difficult.The Gospels and the Second Christian Generation