Pensées — Blaise Pascal

Pensées

Blaise Pascal · Лицензия: Public domain · Источник

• Jesus Christ, whom the two Testaments regard, the Old as its hope, the New as its model, and both as their centre. SECTION XII · ¶2385
• The Gospel only speaks of the virginity of the Virgin up to the time of the birth of Jesus Christ. All with reference to Jesus Christ. SECTION XII · ¶2389
• Why was the book of Ruth preserved? SECTION XII · ¶2392
• "Pray that ye enter not into temptation."[279] It is dangerous to be tempted; and people are tempted because they do not pray. SECTION XII · ¶2395
• _Et tu conversus confirma fratres tuos._ But before, _conversus Jesus respexit Petrum_. SECTION XII · ¶2396
• Saint Peter asks permission to strike Malchus, and strikes before hearing the answer. Jesus Christ replies afterwards. SECTION XII · ¶2397
• The Jews were accustomed to great and striking miracles, and so, having had the great miracles of the Red Sea and of the land of Canaan as an epitome of the great deeds of their Messiah, they therefore looked for more striking miracles, of which those of Moses were only the patterns. SECTION XII · ¶2402
• The carnal Jews and the heathen have their calamities, and Christians also. There is no Redeemer for the heathen, for they do not so much as hope for one. There is no Redeemer for the Jews; they hope for Him in vain. There is a Redeemer only for Christians. (See _Perpetuity_.) SECTION XII · ¶2404
• In the time of the Messiah the people divided themselves. The spiritual embraced the Messiah, and the coarser-minded remained to serve as witnesses of Him. SECTION XII · ¶2406
• "If this was clearly foretold to the Jews, how did they not believe it, or why were they not destroyed for resisting a fact so clear?" SECTION XII · ¶2408
• I reply: in the first place, it was foretold both that they would not believe a thing so clear, and that they would not be destroyed. And nothing is more to the glory of the Messiah; for it was not enough that there should be prophets; their prophets must be kept above suspicion. Now, etc. SECTION XII · ¶2409
• If the Jews had all been converted by Jesus Christ, we should have none but questionable witnesses. And if they had been entirely destroyed, we should have no witnesses at all. SECTION XII · ¶2411
• But, it is said, there are obscurities.--And without that, no one would have stumbled over Jesus Christ, and this is one of the formal pronouncements of the prophets: _Excæca_[280] ... SECTION XII · ¶2414
• Moses first teaches the Trinity, original sin, the Messiah. SECTION XII · ¶2416
• David: a great witness; a king, good, merciful, a beautiful soul, a sound mind, powerful. He prophesies, and his wonder comes to pass. This is infinite. SECTION XII · ¶2417
• He had only to say that he was the Messiah, if he had been vain; for the prophecies are clearer about him than about Jesus Christ. And the same with Saint John. SECTION XII · ¶2418
• Herod was believed to be the Messiah. He had taken away the sceptre from Judah, but he was not of Judah. This gave rise to a considerable sect. SECTION XII · ¶2420
• Curse of the Greeks upon those who count three periods of time. SECTION XII · ¶2421
• In what way should the Messiah come, seeing that through Him the sceptre was to be eternally in Judah, and at His coming the sceptre was to be taken away from Judah? SECTION XII · ¶2422
• In order to effect that seeing they should not see, and hearing they should not understand, nothing could be better done. SECTION XII · ¶2423
• Scriptum est, Dii estis, et non potest solvi Scriptura. SECTION XII · ¶2426
• Hæc infirmitas non est ad vitam et est ad mortem. SECTION XII · ¶2427
• Lazarus dormit, et deinde dixit: Lazarus mortuus est._[281] SECTION XII · ¶2428
• The apparent discrepancy of the Gospels.[282] SECTION XII · ¶2430
• What can we have but reverence for a man who foretells plainly things which come to pass, and who declares his intention both to blind and to enlighten, and who intersperses obscurities among the clear things which come to pass? SECTION XII · ¶2432
• The time of the first advent was foretold; the time of the second is not so; because the first was to be obscure, and the second is to be brilliant, and so manifest that even His enemies will recognise it. But, as He was first to come only in obscurity, and to be known only of those who searched the Scriptures ... SECTION XII · ¶2434
• The Jews, in slaying Him in order not to receive Him as the Messiah, have given Him the final proof of being the Messiah. SECTION XII · ¶2444
• And in continuing not to recognise Him, they made themselves irreproachable witnesses. Both in slaying Him, and in continuing to deny Him, they have fulfilled the prophecies (Isa. lx; Ps. lxxi). SECTION XII · ¶2445
• What could the Jews, His enemies, do? If they receive Him, they give proof of Him by their reception; for then the guardians of the expectation of the Messiah receive Him. If they reject Him, they give proof of Him by their rejection. SECTION XII · ¶2447
• The Jews, in testing if He were God, have shown that He was man. SECTION XII · ¶2449
• The Church has had as much difficulty in showing that Jesus Christ was man, against those who denied it, as in showing that he was God; and the probabilities were equally great. SECTION XII · ¶2451
• _Source of contradictions._--A God humiliated, even to the death on the cross; a Messiah triumphing over death by his own death. Two natures in Jesus Christ, two advents, two states of man's nature. SECTION XII · ¶2453
• _Types._--Saviour, father, sacrificer, offering, food, king, wise, law-giver, afflicted, poor, having to create a people whom He must lead and nourish, and bring into His land.... SECTION XII · ¶2455
• What preceded and what followed. All the Jews exist still, and are wanderers. SECTION XII · ¶2459
• Of all that is on earth, He partakes only of the sorrows, not of the joys. He loves His neighbours, but His love does not confine itself within these bounds, and overflows to His own enemies, and then to those of God. SECTION XII · ¶2461
• The conversion of the heathen was only reserved for the grace of the Messiah. The Jews have been so long in opposition to them without success; all that Solomon and the prophets said has been useless. Sages, like Plato and Socrates, have not been able to persuade them. SECTION XII · ¶2466
• Then the apostles said to the Jews: "You shall be accursed," (_Celsus laughed at it_); and to the heathen, "You shall enter into the knowledge of God." And this then came to pass. SECTION XII · ¶2469
• Jesus Christ came to blind those who saw clearly, and to give sight to the blind; to heal the sick, and leave the healthy to die; to call to repentance, and to justify sinners, and to leave the righteous in their sins; to fill the needy, and leave the rich empty. SECTION XII · ¶2471
• _Holiness._--_Effundam spiritum meum._[287] All nations were in unbelief and lust. The whole world now became fervent with love. Princes abandoned their pomp; maidens suffered martyrdom. Whence came this influence? The Messiah was come. These were the effect and sign of His coming. SECTION XII · ¶2473
• Destruction of the Jews and heathen by Jesus Christ: _Omnes gentes venient et adorabunt eum.[288] Parum est ut_,[289] etc. _Postula a me.[290] Adorabunt eum omnes reges.[291] Testes iniqui.[292] Dabit maxillam percutienti.[293] Dederunt fel in escam._[294] SECTION XII · ¶2475

НазадДальше →Книги изречений