Ernest Renan

“ Even in our times Nazareth is still a delightful abode, the only place, perhaps, in Palestine in which the mind feels itself relieved from the burden which oppresses it in this unequalled desolation. The people are amiable and cheerful ”

“ Through a depression between the mountains of Shunem and Tabor are seen the valley of the Jordan and the high plains of Peraea, which form a continuous line from the eastern side. On the north the mountains of Safed, in inclining towards the sea, conceal St. Jean d'Acre, but permit the Gulf of Khaifa to be distinguished, Such was the horizon of Jesus. ”

“ Jesus had brothers and sisters, of whom he seems to have been the eldest. All have remained obscure, for it appears that the four personages, who were named as his brothers, and among whom one, at least, James, had acquired great importance in the development of Christianity, were his cousins-german. Mary, in fact, had a sister also named Mary, who married a certain Alpheus or Cleophas (these two names appear to designate the same person) , and was the mother of several sons who played a considerable part among the first disciples of Jesus. ”

“ The houses, it seems, did not differ much from those cubes of stone, without exterior or interior elegance, which still cover the richest parts of the Lebanon, and which, surrounded with vines and fig-trees, are still very agreeable. The environs, moreover, are charming; and no place in the world was so well adapted for dreams of perfect happiness. ”

“ His sisters were married at Nazareth, and he spent the first years of his youth there. Nazareth was a small town in a hollow, opening broadly at the summit of the group of mountains which close the plain of Esdraelon on the north. The population is now from three to four thousand, and it can never have varied much. The cold there is sharp in winter, and the climate very healthy. The town, like all the small Jewish towns at this period, was a heap of huts built without style, and would exhibit that harsh and poor aspect which villages in Semitic countries now present. ”

“ He proceeded from the ranks of the people. His father Joseph and his mother Mary were people in humble circumstances, artisans living by their labor, in the state so common in the East, which is neither ease nor poverty. ”