Prosper Alfaric

Prosper Alfaric (born Livinhac-le-Haut on May 21 1876 and died in Paris 28 March 1955 ) was a historian specializing in Christianity.

Born into a family farmer from the Aveyron , Prosper Alfaric, raised in the Catholic faith was ordained priest in April 1899. He teaches first philosophy to major seminaries of Bordeaux and Bayeux before teaching the dogma at the seminar of Albi.

After graduation, inter alia, on the exegesis German Alfaric Prosper, then priest promised a great future, gradually loses faith and intellectual reasons for opposing positions to anti-modernists of Pope Pius X , then it belongs itself to a left wing of modernism . Alfaric abandons his religious condition in 1909 and resumed studying history and specialized in the history of religions , he prepared his thesis in Germany and supports the Sorbonne . In 1910, despite having already lost faith, he feels sympathy for the bishop of Albi Eudoxus Irenaeus Mignot - one of the prelates and for which supporting Loisy Alfaric had written several commandments - makes it accept the writing of an apology for Furrow undermined by the current curator of the Catholic Church and will be dissolved shortly thereafter.

It deepens the study of philosophy under the tutelage of thinkers such as Lucien Levy-Bruhl , Brunschvicg or Victor Delbos , and graduated in 1919 , the chair of history of religions from the University of Strasbourg that was create, and the Institute of History of Religions in the undisguised intention of "establishing a weight-cons secular education of the two Faculties of Theology, held in the University of Strasbourg by exceptional status "and that becomes - after Paris - the most important center for the study of history of religions. Upon his arrival, he created the Institute's library which has thousands of books quickly and remains in office until 1939 .

During the war, he accompanied University of Strasbourg in its decline in Clermont-Ferrand until 1945 before being replaced after his retirement to the release by Marcel Simon . He was militant in the League of Education and the Rationalist Union , he will chair in 1955. He founded with Georges Ory Cercle Ernest Renan in 1949 , devoted to the history of religions, the biblical criticism and the search for origins of Christianity.

Theories mythistes

It will be struck with excommunication major , said vitandus , and punishable by order of degradation of the Holy Office dated 29 July 1933 . This excommunication was pronounced upon the publication, in collaboration with Paul-Louis Couchoud and Albert Bayet , his book The Problem of Jesus and the origins of Christianity for his thesis on the lack of historical Jesus of Nazareth and Mary of Nazareth. The work of this scholar, the source of most theories mythistes contemporary, however, remained confined to circles of specialists for fifty years, until the philosopher Michel Onfray preface in 2005 the publication of a collection of articles under the title Alfaric Jesus Christ did exist? .

Henry Desroche close some elements of his theories of the concept of messianose of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon . The essence of his argument is based on the lack of mention of Jesus in the ^first century historians, especially in Just Tiberias. In the articles that talk about it, Alfaric reported that work was just lost. He noted that Photius of Constantinople which, in the ninth ^century, has read , was surprised to find nothing there about Jesus.

However, scholars may have been for his work on Jesus of Nazareth and the origins of Christianity, scientific journals with validation of peer review never published theses of mythistes Alfaric. They will be only in the Bulletin of the Circle Ernest Renan , circle co-founded by Alfaric himself in 1949 and Rationalists Papers, a journal of the Rationalist Union.

He fell out with his colleague Charles Guignebert who fought in his Jesus in 1933 , the six theses of mythistes Couchoud, B. Smith, Robertson, Jensen, Kalthoff, and Drews, never mention those of Bayet or those of his colleague Alfaric, he had pushed to obtain the chair of Strasbourg.

Theories mythistes defended Alfaric are now obsolescent , refuted by the subsequent progress of research, like his work defending the idea of an Essene Christianity to the origins .

Indeed, the thesis of the lack of historical Jesus, which appeared in the late ^eighteenth century and remained marginal in the academic historical research , has been completely dismissed by academic scholars in the early Christianity since the late 1930's . It is now outdated although it continued to be repeated regularly by writers outside the academy, "to some press marked by ideology and not enough scientific knowledge" , diffusing including Internet .

Works

• Did Jesus exist?, Preface by Michel Onfray, ed. Coda, 2005. contains Did Jesus exist? 1932, How was formed the myth of Christ? 1947, and the problem of Jesus. 1954.
• A school of reason: studies on the origins of Christianity, ed. New editions Rationalists, 1988 ^(1st ed. 1959 )
• From faith to reason, ed. New editions Rationalists, repr. 1984 (1 ^st ed. 1932)
• Social origins of Christianity, Rationalist Union Publications, 1959
• Jean Mace , Founder of the French League for Education, ed. Cercle Parisien, 1955
• The manuscripts of the "Life of Jesus" by Ernest Renan, ed. Les Belles Lettres, Publications of the Faculty of Arts, University of Strasbourg, 1939
• To understand the life of Jesus, A Critical Review of `Gospel of Mark, ed. Rieder, Paris, 1929
• Laromiguiere and School, ed. Les Belles Lettres, 1929
• Entries Manichan, 2 volumes: I. General View and II. Analytic Study, ed. Emile Noury, 1918
• The intellectual development of St. Augustine. Editor Emile Noury, Paris, 1918.

Collective

• P. Alfaric, Paul-Louis and Albert Couchoud Bayet, The Problem of Jesus and the origins of Christianity, ed. Library Rationalist, The Representative Works, Paris, 1932

Posterity

You can find an avenue to Prosper-Alfaric Decazeville , and a street-Prosper Alfaric to Igny and Venissieux , there is also a primary school-Alfaric Prosper in his hometown of Livinhac it up.

Chevalier of the Legion of Honour (class 1934).

References

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