In this manner the book has been composed almost entirely near the very places where Jesus was born, and where his character was developed.

Since my return, I have labored unceasingly to verify and check in detail the rough sketch which I had written in haste in a Maronite cabin, with five or six volumes around me.
[Footnote 1: The work which will contain the results of this mission is in the press.] Many will regret, perhaps, the biographical form which my work has thus taken.

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; I should have endeavored to show how the ideas which have grown under his name took root and covered the world.

But I have learned since that history is not a simple game of abstractions; that men are more than doctrines.