The Twilight of the Idols · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
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As to whether he was conscious of this contrast, or whether he was merely _regarded_ as such, is quite another question. And here, alone, do I touch upon the problem of the psychology of the Saviour.—I confess there are few books which I have as much difficulty in reading as the gospels. These difficulties are quite different from those which allowed the learned curiosity of the German, mind to celebrate one of its most memorable triumphs. Many years have now elapsed since I, like every young scholar, with the sage conscientiousness of a refined philologist, relished the work of the incomparable Strauss. I was then twenty years of age; now I am too serious for that sort of thing. What do I care about the contradictions of “tradition”? How can saintly legends be called “tradition” at all! The stories of saints constitute the most ambiguous literature on earth: to apply the scientific method to them, _when there are no other documents to hand,_ seems to me to be a fatal procedure from the start—simply learned fooling.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.