The Quest of the Historical Jesus: A Critical Study of Its Progress from Reimarus to Wrede

“The demands of Jesus are difficult because they require us to do something extraordinary. At the same time He asks us to regard these [acts of goodness] as something usual, ordinary.””

— Albert Schweitzer

“He comes to us as One unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lakeside,He came to those men who knew Him not. He speaks to us the same words: "Follow thou me!" and sets us to the tasks which He has to fulfill for our time. He commands. And to those who obey Him, whether they be wise or simple, He will reveal himself in the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings which they shall pass through in His fellowship, and, as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience Who He is.””

— Albert Schweitzer

“'s 'Criticism of the Gospel History' is worth a good dozen Lives of Jesus, because his work, as we are only now coming to recognise, after half a century, is the ablest and most complete collection of the difficulties of the Life of Jesus which is anywhere to be found.””

— Albert Schweitzer

“In order to make the Kingdom of God a practical reality, it was necessary for Him to dissociate it from all the forces of this world, and to bring morality and religion into the closest connexion. “The law of love was the indissoluble bond by which Jesus for ever united morality with religion.” “Moral instruction was the principal content and the very essence of all His discourses.” His efforts “were directed to the establishment of a purely ethical organisation.””

— Albert Schweitzer

“There was need, in addition to those earlier, purely historical Gospels, of a Gospel at once theological and historical, like that of John,” in which Jesus should be presented, not as the Jewish Messiah, “but as the Saviour of the World.””

— Albert Schweitzer

“the miracles were not intended to authenticate the teaching of Jesus, but to surround His life with a guard of honour.”20””

— Albert Schweitzer

“was important, therefore, to overthrow superstition and to bring religion within the domain of reason. First of all the priesthood must be deprived for ever of its influence. Then an improvement of the social condition of mankind must be introduced, since the level of morality depends upon social conditions. Jesus was a social reformer. Through the attainment of “the highest perfection of which Society is capable, universal peace” was “gradually to be brought about.””

— Albert Schweitzer