Guignebert, Charles-Albert-Honoré

GUIGNEBERT, CHARLES-ALBERT-HONORÉ. - Historian, b. at Villeneuve-St-Georges in 1867, d. at Paris on 27 Aug. 1939. A professor of history in the lycées of Evreux, Pau, Toulouse, and Voltaire; then, from 1906, lecturer and, from 1919, full professor at the Sorbonne, he treated the history of Christianity, especially in its origins and the first centuries of its development, following the preconceived theories of rationalist criticism, at times moderately and with signs of objective understanding of the Christian fact, more often sectarianly to the point of nihilism. His work Jésus (Paris 1933) was defined as "a conspiracy against the truth," so much are the fables of symbolisms, collective hallucinations, and myths rehashed there with self-importance, fables that would have gradually ennobled the figure of Jesus and given rise to Christianity.

He wrote: Tertullien (Paris 1902); Modernisme et tradition catholique en France (ibid. 1908); La primauté de Pierre et la venue de Pierre à Rome (ibid. 1909); L'évolution des dogmes (ibid. 1910); Le problème de Jésus (ibid. 1914); La vie cachée de Jésus (ibid. 1922); Dieux et religion (ibid. 1927); in collaboration with G. Bellot, M. Hollebecque, J. Toutain and A. Lods); Comme on fabrique des reliques des saintes et saints (ibid. 1927); in collaboration with A. Loroulor). These and all his other works were placed on the Index by decree of 12 July 1933.

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