The Jews honored the emperor, but allowed themselves to be torn to pieces rather than admit by the lips that the emperor was a God. They would have let themselves be given to pieces if they had to say that about Moses himself. And the first Christian of which we hear the voice, a Jew son of Jews, he would associate a man with Yahweh with the greater ease in the world! Here is the miracle to which I am rebel. Those of the Gospels would not be difficult. They could be a hundred times more numerous, so little would not be enough to make me doubt about the historical existence of Jesus. The invincible obstacle is the cult of Jesus, the Christian religion.
(Paul-Louis Couchoud, Le mystère de Jésus, p. 84, my translation and my bold)