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“The position which he [Jesus] attributed to himself was that of a superhuman being, and he wished to be regarded as sustaining a higher relationship to God than other men. But it must be remarked that these words, “superhuman” and “supernatural,” borrowed from our petty theology, had no meaning in the exalted religious consciousness of Jesus. To him nature and the development of humanity were not limited kingdoms apart from God–paltry realities subject to the laws of a hopeless empiricism. There was no supernatural for him, because there was no nature.”

“All the social revolutions of humanity will be grafted on this phrase [‘kingdom of God’]. But, tainted by a coarse materialism, and aspiring to the impossible — that is to say, to found universal happiness upon political and economical measures — the ‘socialist’ attempts of our time will remain unfruitful, until they take as their rule the true spirit of Jesus, I mean absolute idealism — the principle that, in order to possess the world, we must renounce it.”

“The ‘party of order’ (I use this term in its mean and narrow sense) has ever been the same. Deeming the highest duty of government to be the prevention of popular disturbances, it believes it performs an act of patriotism in preventing, by judicial murder, the tumultuous effusion of blood. Little thoughtful of the future, it does not dream that, in declaring war against all innovations, it incurs the risk of crushing ideas destined one day to triumph.”

Link to book: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Life_of_Jesus_(Renan)

“The Life of Jesus” is a book based on the idea that the life of Jesus should be written like the life of any historic person, and that the Bible could and should be subject to the same critical scrutiny as other historical document. Renan attributed the idea of the book to his sister, Henriette, with whom he was traveling in Ottoman Syria and Palestine when, struck with a fever, she died suddenly. With only a New Testament and copy of Josephus as references, he began writing. The book was based largely on the Gospel of John, and was a scholarly work. It depicted Jesus as a man but not God, and rejected the miracles of the Gospel. Renan believed by humanizing Jesus he was restoring to him a greater dignity. “The Life of Jesus” promoted racial ideas and infused race into theology and the person of Jesus; the author depicted Jesus as a Galilean who was transformed from a Jew into a Christian, and that Christianity emerged purified of any Jewish influences.

(books.google.com)