Pensées — Blaise Pascal

Pensées

Blaise Pascal · Licença: Public domain · Fonte

• And Christians take even the Eucharist as a type of the glory at which they aim. SECTION X · ¶2035
• The Jews, who have been called to subdue nations and kings, have been the slaves of sin; and the Christians, whose calling has been to be servants and subjects, are free children.[252] SECTION X · ¶2037
• _A formal point._--When Saint Peter and the Apostles deliberated about abolishing circumcision, where it was a question of acting against the law of God, they did not heed the prophets, but simply the reception of the Holy Spirit in the persons uncircumcised.[253] SECTION X · ¶2039
• They thought it more certain that God approved of those whom He filled with His Spirit, than it was that the law must be obeyed. They knew that the end of the law was only the Holy Spirit; and that thus, as men certainly had this without circumcision, it was not necessary. SECTION X · ¶2040
• _Fac secundum exemplar quod tibi ostensum est in monte._[254]--The Jewish religion then has been formed on its likeness to the truth of the Messiah; and the truth of the Messiah has been recognised by the Jewish religion, which was the type of it. SECTION X · ¶2042
• Among the Jews the truth was only typified; in heaven it is revealed. SECTION X · ¶2043
• In the Church it is hidden, and recognised by its resemblance to the type. SECTION X · ¶2044
• The type has been made according to the truth, and the truth has been recognised according to the type. SECTION X · ¶2045
• Saint Paul[255] says himself that people will forbid to marry, and he himself speaks of it to the Corinthians in a way which is a snare. For if a prophet had said the one, and Saint Paul had then said the other, he would have been accused. SECTION X · ¶2046
• _Typical._--"Do all things according to the pattern which has been shown thee on the mount." On which Saint Paul says that the Jews have shadowed forth heavenly things.[256] SECTION X · ¶2048
• For nature is an image of Grace, and visible miracles are images of the invisible. _Ut sciatis ... tibi dico: Surge._ SECTION X · ¶2051
• Isaiah says that Redemption will be as the passage of the Red Sea. SECTION X · ¶2052
• God has then shown by the deliverance from Egypt, and from the sea, by the defeat of kings, by the manna, by the whole genealogy of Abraham, that He was able to save, to send down bread from heaven, etc.; so that the people hostile to Him are the type and the representation of the very Messiah whom they know not, etc. SECTION X · ¶2053
• He has then taught us at last that all these things were only types, and what is "true freedom," a "true Israelite," "true circumcision," "true bread from heaven," etc. SECTION X · ¶2054
• The veil, which is upon these books for the Jews, is there also for evil Christians, and for all who do not hate themselves. SECTION X · ¶2058
• But how well disposed men are to understand them and to know Jesus Christ, when they truly hate themselves! SECTION X · ¶2059
• A type conveys absence and presence, pleasure and pain. SECTION X · ¶2061
• A cipher has a double meaning, one clear, and one in which it is said that the meaning is hidden. SECTION X · ¶2062
• _Types._--A portrait conveys absence and presence, pleasure and pain. The reality excludes absence and pain. SECTION X · ¶2064
• When they say that it will be eternal, do they mean to speak of that covenant which they say will be changed; and so of the sacrifices, etc.? SECTION X · ¶2066
• _Types._--Jesus Christ opened their mind to understand the Scriptures. SECTION X · ¶2070
• Two great revelations are these. (1) All things happened to them in types: _vere Israëlitæ, vere liberi_, true bread from Heaven. (2) A God humbled to the Cross. It was necessary that Christ should suffer in order to enter into glory, "that He should destroy death through death."[257] Two advents. SECTION X · ¶2071
• All these sacrifices and ceremonies were then either types or nonsense. Now these are things too clear, and too lofty, to be thought nonsense. SECTION X · ¶2074
• To know if the prophets confined their view in the Old Testament, or saw therein other things. SECTION X · ¶2075
• _Typical._--The key of the cipher. _Veri adoratores._[258]--_Ecce agnus Dei qui tollit peccata mundi._[259] SECTION X · ¶2077
• Is. i, 21. Change of good into evil, and the vengeance of God. Is. x, I; xxvi, 20; xxviii, I. Miracles: Is. xxxiii, 9; xl, 17; xli, 26; xliii, 13. SECTION X · ¶2079
• Is. xliv, 20-24; liv, 8; lxiii, 12-17; lxvi, 17. Jer. ii, 35; iv, 22-24; v, 4, 29-31; vi, 16; xxiii, 15-17. SECTION X · ¶2081
• _Types_,--The letter kills. All happened in types. Here is the cipher which Saint Paul gives us. Christ must suffer. An humiliated God. Circumcision of the heart, true fasting, true sacrifice, a true temple. The prophets have shown that all these must be spiritual. SECTION X · ¶2083
• Not the meat which perishes, but that which does not perish. SECTION X · ¶2084
• "Ye shall be free indeed."[260] Then the other freedom was only a type of freedom. SECTION X · ¶2085
• "I am the true bread from Heaven."[261] SECTION X · ¶2086
• _Contradiction._--We can only describe a good character by reconciling all contrary qualities, and it is not enough to keep up a series of harmonious qualities, without reconciling contradictory ones. To understand the meaning of an author, we must make all the contrary passages agree. SECTION X · ¶2088
• Thus, to understand Scripture, we must have a meaning in which all the contrary passages are reconciled. It is not enough to have one which suits many concurring passages; but it is necessary to have one which reconciles even contradictory passages. SECTION X · ¶2089
• Every author has a meaning in which all the contradictory passages agree, or he has no meaning at all. We cannot affirm the latter of Scripture and the prophets; they undoubtedly are full of good sense. We must then seek for a meaning which reconciles all discrepancies. SECTION X · ¶2090
• The true meaning then is not that of the Jews; but in Jesus Christ all the contradictions are reconciled. SECTION X · ¶2091
• The Jews could not reconcile the cessation of the royalty and principality, foretold by Hosea, with the prophecy of Jacob. SECTION X · ¶2092
• _Types._--If the law and the sacrifices are the truth, it must please God, and must not displease Him. If they are types, they must be both pleasing and displeasing. SECTION X · ¶2095
• It is said, on the contrary, that the law shall abide for ever; that this covenant shall be for ever; that sacrifice shall be eternal; that the sceptre shall never depart from among them, because it shall not depart from them till the eternal King comes. SECTION X · ¶2097
• Do all these passages indicate what is real? No. Do they then indicate what is typical? No, but what is either real or typical. But the first passages, excluding as they do reality, indicate that all this is only typical. SECTION X · ¶2098
• All these passages together cannot be applied to reality; all can be said to be typical; therefore they are not spoken of reality, but of the type. SECTION X · ¶2099

VoltarSeguinte →Livros de sentenças