before he entered the seminary, he had devoted himself most earnestly to the study of Hebrew and the Semitic languages, and he was now obliged, during the lectures on biblical literature at St. Sulpice, to hear the reverend professor make frequent comments upon the Scriptures, based on the Vulgate, but absolutely disproved by Kenan's own knowledge of Hebrew. On Renan's questioning any interpretation of the lecturer, the latter was wont to rejoin: "Monsieur, do you presume to deny the authority of the Vulgate, the translation by St. Jerome, sanctioned by the Holy Ghost and the Church? You will at once go into the chapel and say 'Hail Mary' for an hour before the image of the Blessed Virgin." "But," said Renan to Jules Simon, "this has now become very serious; it happens nearly every day, and, mon Dieu! monsieur, I can not spend all my time in saying 'Hail Mary' before the statue of the Virgin." The result was a warm personal attachment between Simon and Renan; both were Bretons, educated in the midst of the most orthodox influences, and both had unwillingly broken away from them.
Renan was now emancipated and pursued his studies with such effect that he was made professor at the Collége de France. His Life of Jesus, and other books showing the same spirit, brought a tempest upon him which drove him from his professorship and brought great hardships upon him for many years. But his genius carried the day, and, to the honor of the French Republic, he was restored to the position from which the Empire had driven him. From his pen finally appeared the Histoire du Peuple Israel, in which scholarship broad, though at times inaccurate in minor details, was supplemented by an exquisite acutenes and a poetic insight which far more than made good any of those lesser errors which a German student would have avoided. At his death, in October, 1892, this monumental work had been finished; in clearness and beauty of style it has never been approached by any other treatise on this or any kindred subject. It is a work of genius, and its profound insight into all that is of importance in the great subjects which he treated will doubtless cause it to hold a permanent place in the literature not only of the Latin nations but of the world.
The anathemas lavished upon him by Church authorities during his life, their denial to him of Christian burial, and their refusal to allow him a grave in the place he had chosen, only increased popular affection for him during his last years and deepened the general mourning at his death.[1]
- ↑ The facts as to the early relations between Renan and Jules Simon were told in 1878 by the latter to the present writer at considerable length and with many interesting details not here given. The writer was also present at the public funeral of the great scholar, and can
