Pensées — Blaise Pascal

Pensées

Blaise Pascal · Licença: Public domain · Fonte

• _History of China._[213]-I believe only the histories, whose witnesses got themselves killed. SECTION IX · ¶1736
• It is not a question of seeing this summarily. I tell you there is in it something to blind, and something to enlighten. SECTION IX · ¶1738
• By this one word I destroy all your reasoning. "But China obscures," say you; and I answer, "China obscures, but there is clearness to be found; seek it." SECTION IX · ¶1739
• Thus all that you say makes for one of the views, and not at all against the other. So this serves, and does no harm. SECTION IX · ¶1740
• We must then see this in detail; we must put the papers on the table. SECTION IX · ¶1741
• _Against the history of China._ The historians of Mexico, the five suns,[214] of which the last is only eight hundred years old. SECTION IX · ¶1743
• The difference between a book accepted by a nation, and one which makes a nation. SECTION IX · ¶1744
• Mahomet was without authority. His reasons then should have been very strong, having only their own force. What does he say then, that we must believe him? SECTION IX · ¶1746
• The Psalms are chanted throughout the whole world. SECTION IX · ¶1748
• Who renders testimony to Mahomet? Himself. Jesus Christ[215] desires His own testimony to be as nothing. SECTION IX · ¶1749
• The quality of witnesses necessitates their existence always and everywhere; and he, miserable creature, is alone. SECTION IX · ¶1750
• _Against Mahomet._--The Koran is not more of Mahomet than the Gospel is of Saint Matthew, for it is cited by many authors from age to age. Even its very enemies, Celsus and Porphyry, never denied it. SECTION IX · ¶1752
• The Koran says Saint Matthew was an honest man.[216] Therefore Mahomet was a false prophet for calling honest men wicked, or for not agreeing with what they have said of Jesus Christ. SECTION IX · ¶1753
• It is not by that which is obscure in Mahomet, and which may be interpreted in a mysterious sense, that I would have him judged, but by what is clear, as his paradise and the rest. In that he is ridiculous. And since what is clear is ridiculous, it is not right to take his obscurities for mysteries. SECTION IX · ¶1755
• _The difference between Jesus Christ and Mahomet._--Mahomet was not foretold; Jesus Christ was foretold. SECTION IX · ¶1758
• Mahomet slew; Jesus Christ caused His own to be slain. SECTION IX · ¶1759
• Mahomet forbade reading; the Apostles ordered reading. SECTION IX · ¶1760
• Any man can do what Mahomet has done; for he performed no miracles, he was not foretold. No man can do what Christ has done. SECTION IX · ¶1763
• Our religion is so divine that another divine religion has only been the foundation of it. SECTION IX · ¶1768
• _Order._--To see what is clear and indisputable in the whole state of the Jews. SECTION IX · ¶1770
• The Jewish religion is wholly divine in its authority, its duration, its perpetuity, its morality, its doctrine, and its effects. SECTION IX · ¶1772
• The only science contrary to common sense and human nature is that alone which has always existed among men. SECTION IX · ¶1774
• The only religion contrary to nature, to common sense, and to our pleasure, is that alone which has always existed. SECTION IX · ¶1776
• No religion but our own has taught that man is born in sin. No sect of philosophers has said this. Therefore none have declared the truth. SECTION IX · ¶1778
• No sect or religion has always existed on earth, but the Christian religion. SECTION IX · ¶1779
• The carnal Jews hold a midway place between Christians and heathens. The heathens know not God, and love the world only. The Jews know the true God, and love the world only. The Christians know the true God, and love not the world. Jews and heathens love the same good. Jews and Christians know the same God. SECTION IX · ¶1784
• The Jews were of two kinds; the first had only heathen affections, the other had Christian affections. SECTION IX · ¶1785
• _To show that the true Jews and the true Christians have but the same religion._--The religion of the Jews seemed to consist essentially in the fatherhood of Abraham, in circumcision, in sacrifices, in ceremonies, in the Ark, in the temple, in Jerusalem, and, finally, in the law, and in the covenant with Moses. SECTION IX · ¶1789
• I say that it consisted in none of those things, but only in the love of God, and that God disregarded all the other things. SECTION IX · ¶1790
• That God did not accept the posterity of Abraham. SECTION IX · ¶1791
• That the Jews were to be punished like strangers, if they transgressed. _Deut._ viii, 19; "If thou do at all forget the Lord thy God, and walk after other gods, I testify against you this day that ye shall surely perish, as the nations which the Lord destroyeth before your face." SECTION IX · ¶1792
• That the true Jews considered their merit to be from God only, and not from Abraham. _Isaiah_ lxiii, 16; "Doubtless thou art our Father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not. Thou art our Father and our Redeemer." SECTION IX · ¶1794
• Moses himself told them that God would not accept persons. _Deut._ x, 17: "God," said he, "regardeth neither persons nor sacrifices." SECTION IX · ¶1795
• The Sabbath was only a sign, _Exod._ xxxi, 13; and in memory of the escape from Egypt, _Deut._ v, 19. Therefore it is no longer necessary, since Egypt must be forgotten. SECTION IX · ¶1796
• Circumcision was only a sign, _Gen._ xvii, 11. And thence it came to pass that, being in the desert, they were not circumcised because they could not be confounded with other peoples; and after Jesus Christ came, it was no longer necessary. SECTION IX · ¶1797
• That the circumcision of the heart is commanded. _Deut._ x, 16; _Jeremiah_ iv, 4: "Be ye circumcised in heart; take away the superfluities of your heart, and harden yourselves not. For your God is a mighty God, strong and terrible, who accepteth not persons." SECTION IX · ¶1798
• That God said He would one day do it. _Deut._ xxx, 6; "God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, that thou mayest love Him with all thine heart." SECTION IX · ¶1799
• That the uncircumcised in heart shall be judged. _Jeremiah_ ix, 26: For God will judge the uncircumcised peoples, and all the people of Israel, because he is "uncircumcised in heart." SECTION IX · ¶1800
• That the external is of no avail apart from the internal. _Joel_ ii, 13: _Scindite corda vestra_, etc.; _Isaiah_ lviii, 3, 4, etc. SECTION IX · ¶1801
• The love of God is enjoined in the whole of Deuteronomy. _Deut._ xxx, 19: "I call heaven and earth to record that I have set before you life and death, that you should choose life, and love God, and obey Him, for God is your life." SECTION IX · ¶1802

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