3-052-562 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

M. Ernest Renan, member of the French Institute (Hibbert Lecturer), 1880. 'The first of a course of lectures, being the annual lectures of the Hibbert foundation, upon the Comparative History of Religions, was delivered on Tuesday at St. George's Hall, by Joseph Ernest Renan...in 1851, M. Renan was appointed to the charge of the Collection of Manuscripts in the Bibliothèque Nationale...Towards the end of 1860, when the French troops were sent to occupy the Lebanon districts of Syria, in consequence of the massacres and conflicts between the Druses and the Maronites, Ernest Renan received from the Government of Napoleon III. a commission to visit that country, and to report on the native races and their religions. He remained some months in Syria and Palestine, and soon after his return published his celebrated "Life of Jesus". This is a sort of biographical romance, founded upon the incidents of the New Testament narrative, rejecting or explaining away the miracles and all supernatural events...[The] four lectures he is now giving in London are "On the influence of the institutions, thoughts, and culture of Rome upon Christianity and the development of the Catholic Church." They are read by him in the French language'. From "Illustrated London News", 1880.