# Renan's divided portrait, and Chesterton's sharpened paraphrase

Commentary on Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton.

On [CH03.P027](https://glosses.org/orthodoxy/pg16769-r1/CH03.P027/#char=3721,3847): "Renan even represented the righteous anger at Jerusalem as a mere nervous breakdown after the idyllic expectations of Galilee."

'Nervous breakdown' is Chesterton's characterization, not a verified quotation. Renan's *Vie de Jésus* first appeared in 1863; the inspected English witness is the later Modern Library text with a translator's preface dated December 1863 and a title-page notice for a 1927 introduction. In chapter XIII, Renan explains the temple confrontation through Jesus's religious sensibility, hostility to commerce, and anger. Chapter XIX more broadly contrasts the earlier cheerful moralist with a later, increasingly otherworldly figure whose demands strain ordinary human attachments. These passages support Chesterton's identification of a divided psychological portrait, but do not themselves call the temple incident a clinical collapse. His rejoinder changes the issue: pity and combativeness need not indicate successive, incompatible personalities if anger answers the injuries compassion perceives.

This is an interpretive dispute about the unity of Jesus's character; Chesterton's compressed wording should not substitute for Renan's actual account.

## Sources

- [Ernest Renan, The Life of Jesus, Modern Library English witness](https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/16581/pg16581.html), Title page and translator's preface; chapter XIII, temple confrontation; chapter XIX, paragraphs beginning 'In these fits of severity' and 'The harsh and gloomy feeling'

Revision 1 · 2026-11-07 · https://glosses.org/a/a_gckkngdr/