Abstract
The long Histoire des origines du christianisme is a strange book, which certainly exerted a great influence on people's minds, but despite its willingness to parallel the history of Judaism and Christianity with that of Rome, it was almost never cited by historians of ancient Rome, no doubt because Renan was not sufficiently technical in Roman history and did not consult the most important sources. Relying heavily on the less-than-credible biographies of theHistoire Auguste, Renan's assessment of Roman religion is based on the typology and periodization of the great religions as reconstructed in 19th-century Germany. As a result, Renan misunderstands both the nature of Roman religion and the way Romans reasoned, philosophical or otherwise.
