Pensées — Blaise Pascal

Pensées

Blaise Pascal · License: Public domain · Source

• The memory of the deluge being so fresh among men, while Noah was still alive, God made promises to Abraham, and, while Shem was still living, sent Moses, etc.... SECTION X · ¶1955
• _Types._--God, willing to deprive His own of perishable blessings, created the Jewish people in order to show that this was not owing to lack of power. SECTION X · ¶1957
• The Synagogue did not perish, because it was a type. But because it was only a type, it fell into servitude. The type existed till the truth came, in order that the Church should be always visible, either in the sign which promised it, or in substance. SECTION X · ¶1959
• Two errors: 1. To take everything literally. 2. To take everything spiritually. SECTION X · ¶1963
• To speak against too greatly figurative language. SECTION X · ¶1965
• Solomon and the King are spoken of in the second book of Chronicles, as if they were two different persons. I will say that they were two. SECTION X · ¶1971
• _Particular Types._--A double law, double tables of the law, a double temple, a double captivity. SECTION X · ¶1973
• _Types._--The prophets prophesied by symbols of a girdle, a beard and burnt hair, etc. SECTION X · ¶1975
• Difference between dinner and supper.[237] SECTION X · ¶1977
• In God the word does not differ from the intention, for He is true; nor the word from the effect, for He is powerful; nor the means from the effect, for He is wise. Bern., _Ult. Sermo in Missam_. SECTION X · ¶1978
• Augustine, _De Civit. Dei_, v, 10. This rule is general. God can do everything, except those things, which if He could do, He would not be almighty, as dying, being deceived, lying, etc. SECTION X · ¶1979
• Several Evangelists for the confirmation of the truth; their difference useful. SECTION X · ¶1980
• The Eucharist after the Lord's Supper. Truth after the type. SECTION X · ¶1981
• The ruin of Jerusalem, a type of the ruin of the world, forty years after the death of Jesus. "I know not," as a man, or as an ambassador (Mark xiii, 32). (Matthew xxiv, 36.) SECTION X · ¶1982
• Jesus condemned by the Jews and the Gentiles. SECTION X · ¶1983
• The Jews and the Gentiles typified by the two sons. Aug., _De Civ._, xx, 29. SECTION X · ¶1984
• The six ages, the six Fathers of the six ages, the six wonders at the beginning of the six ages, the six mornings at the beginning of the six ages.[238] SECTION X · ¶1986
• _Types._--The Jewish and Egyptian peoples were plainly foretold by the two individuals whom Moses met; the Egyptian beating the Jew, Moses avenging him and killing the Egyptian, and the Jew being ungrateful. SECTION X · ¶1990
• The symbols of the Gospel for the state of the sick soul are sick bodies; but because one body cannot be sick enough to express it well, several have been needed. Thus there are the deaf, the dumb, the blind, the paralytic, the dead Lazarus, the possessed. All this crowd is in the sick soul. SECTION X · ¶1992
• _Types._--To show that the Old Testament is only figurative, and that the prophets understood by temporal blessings other blessings, this is the proof: SECTION X · ¶1994
• First, that this would be unworthy of God. SECTION X · ¶1995
• Lust has become natural to us, and has made our second nature. Thus there are two natures in us--the one good, the other bad. Where is God? Where you are not, and the kingdom of God is within you. The Rabbis. SECTION X · ¶1999
• Penitence, alone of all these mysteries, has been manifestly declared to the Jews, and by Saint John, the Forerunner; and then the other mysteries; to indicate that in each man, as in the entire world, this order must be observed. SECTION X · ¶2001
• _Typical._--God made use of the lust of the Jews to make them minister to Jesus Christ, [who brought the remedy for their lust]. SECTION X · ¶2007
• Charity is not a figurative precept. It is dreadful to say that Jesus Christ, who came to take away types in order to establish the truth, came only to establish the type of charity, in order to take away the existing reality which was there before. SECTION X · ¶2009
• "If the light be darkness, how great is that darkness!"[241] SECTION X · ¶2010
• Fascination. _Somnum suum.[242] Figura hujus mundi._[243] SECTION X · ¶2012
• The Eucharist. _Comedes panem_ tuum.[244] _Panem_ nostrum. SECTION X · ¶2013
• _Inimici Dei terram lingent._[245] Sinners lick the dust, that is to say, love earthly pleasures. SECTION X · ¶2014
• The Old Testament contained the types of future joy, and the New contains the means of arriving at it. The types were of joy; the means of penitence; and nevertheless the Paschal Lamb was eaten with bitter herbs, _cum amaritudinibus_.[246] SECTION X · ¶2015
• _Singularis sum ego donec transeam._[247]--Jesus Christ before His death was almost the only martyr. SECTION X · ¶2016
• _Typical._--The expressions, sword, shield. _Potentissime._ SECTION X · ¶2018
• Let us change the rule which we have hitherto chosen for judging what is good. We had our own will as our rule. Let us now take the will of [_God_]; all that He wills is good and right to us, all that He does not will is [_bad_]. SECTION X · ¶2021
• To change the type, because of our weakness. SECTION X · ¶2024
• All that tends not to charity is figurative. SECTION X · ¶2029
• The sole aim of the Scripture is charity. SECTION X · ¶2030
• All which tends not to the sole end is the type of it. For since there is only one end, all which does not lead to it in express terms is figurative. SECTION X · ¶2031
• God thus varies that sole precept of charity to satisfy our curiosity, which seeks for variety, by that variety which still leads us to the one thing needful. For one thing alone is needful,[250] and we love variety; and God satisfies both by these varieties, which lead to the one thing needful. SECTION X · ¶2032
• The Jews have so much loved the shadows, and have so strictly expected them, that they have misunderstood the reality, when it came in the time and manner foretold. SECTION X · ¶2033
• The Rabbis take the breasts of the Spouse[251] for types, and all that does not express the only end they have, namely, temporal good. SECTION X · ¶2034

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