Papin
The Life of Christ, by Giovanni Papini, was published in Italy in the second year of "the peace"—1921. It rapidly ran through six large editions. The sixth edition is an English translation recently published.— In 1911 Papini shocked even the ultra radical thinkers of Europe by his The Memoirs of God, a book of such extreme atheism that it was considered the last word in blasphemy. The author was the son of an atheist and confessed that he had an extreme dislike for the church from earliest childhood. His mother had him baptized secretly. He became one of the leading literary men of Italy because of his brilliant attacks on even such philosophical systems as Haeckel or Nietzsche could construct. He was known as an atheist, an anarchist, a nihilist. Then financial troubles drove him to leave his native Florence and live within the confines of a poor little mountain village. Here he became acquainted with the lowly, the humble and those that labor and are heavy laden. Here he opened the four gospels, and with these and the help of a few modern books as his only sources he wrote his Life of Christ. Papini's aim is "a book specially written for those who are outside the Church of Christ; the others, those who have remained within, united to the heirs of the apostles, do not need my words." He declares his absolute acceptance of all four gospels as authentic and of equal value, despising the words and theology of the higher criticism. He wishes to write of the Christ whom he sees in the gospels, without let or hindrance. His style is somewhat wordy, but of unsurpassed brilliance in some parts, as, for example, where he describes the utter lowliness of the manger. Another characteristic of the book is its succession of keen historical settings. In three short pages he traces the history of Israel from the days of the slavery in Egypt to the later slavery under Rome. And he does it with such vividness that the reader really lives in the time of Christ. Renan, Stalker, Edersheim and any number of others have written the life of Christ. Renan's opening sentence is: "Jesus, the son of Joseph and Mary, was born in Nazareth." In some theological seminaries it is almost an aphorism that every man must write his own life of Christ. Papini lived a life apart from Christ for many years. His interpretation is thus all the more fresh and appealing, and will have a tremendous effect on all men who, like him, have lived, doubting, in an unChristlike generation. Many men, both inside and outside the church, will see in this book of the ex-atheist a living gospel, wrought out of a fiery experience.
—The Life of Christ—Giovanni Papini— Horcourt ($3.50).