Pensées — Blaise Pascal

Pensées

Blaise Pascal · Licence: Public domain · Source

• Jesus Christ for all, Moses for a nation. SECTION XII · ¶2477
• The Jews blessed in Abraham: "I will bless those that bless thee."[295] But: "All nations blessed in his seed."[296] _Parum est ut_, etc. SECTION XII · ¶2478
• _Lumen ad revelationem gentium._[297] SECTION XII · ¶2479
• _Ne timeas pusillus grex.[301] Timore et tremore.--Quid ergo? Ne timeas [modo] timeas._ Fear not, provided you fear; but if you fear not, then fear. SECTION XII · ¶2484
• _Qui me recipit, non me recipit, sed eum qui me misit._[302] SECTION XII · ¶2485
• Saint John[303] was to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and Jesus Christ[304] to plant division. There is not contradiction. SECTION XII · ¶2488
• The effects _in communi_ and _in particulari_. The semi-Pelagians err in saying of _in communi_ what is true only _in particulari_; and the Calvinists in saying _in particulari_ what is true _in communi_. (Such is my opinion.) SECTION XII · ¶2490
• _Omnis Judæa regio, et Jerosolomymi universi, et baptizabantur._[305] Because of all the conditions of men who came there. From these stones there _can_ come children unto Abraham.[306] SECTION XII · ¶2492
• If men knew themselves, God would heal and pardon them. _Ne convertantur et sanem eos, et dimittantur eis peccata._[307] SECTION XII · ¶2494
• Jesus Christ never condemned without hearing. To Judas: _Amice, ad quid venisti?_[308] To him that had not on the wedding garment, the same. SECTION XII · ¶2496
• The types of the completeness of the Redemption, as that the sun gives light to all, indicate only completeness; but [_the types_] of exclusions, as of the Jews elected to the exclusion of the Gentiles, indicate exclusion. SECTION XII · ¶2498
• When it is said that Jesus Christ did not die for all, you take undue advantage of a fault in men who at once apply this exception to themselves; and this is to favour despair, instead of turning them from it to favour hope. For men thus accustom themselves in inward virtues by outward customs. SECTION XII · ¶2500
• The victory over death. "What is a man advantaged if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?[309] Whosoever will save his soul, shall lose it."[310] SECTION XII · ¶2502
• "I am not come to destroy the law, but to fulfil."[311] SECTION XII · ¶2503
• "Lambs took not away the sins of the world, but I am the lamb which taketh away the sins."[312] SECTION XII · ¶2504
• "Moses[313] hath not led you out of captivity, and made you truly free." SECTION XII · ¶2505
• Jesus Christ would not have the testimony of devils, nor of those who were not called, but of God and John the Baptist. SECTION XII · ¶2510
• Jesus Christ is an obscurity (according to what the world calls obscurity), such that historians, writing only of important matters of states, have hardly noticed Him. SECTION XII · ¶2514
• "I have reserved me seven thousand."[315] I love the worshippers unknown to the world and to the very prophets. SECTION XII · ¶2518
• As Jesus Christ remained unknown among men, so His truth remains among common opinions without external difference. Thus the Eucharist among ordinary bread. SECTION XII · ¶2520
• Jesus would not be slain without the forms of justice; for it is far more ignominious to die by justice than by an unjust sedition. SECTION XII · ¶2522
• What man ever had more renown? The whole Jewish people foretell Him before His coming. The Gentile people worship Him after His coming. The two peoples, Gentile and Jewish, regard Him as their centre. SECTION XII · ¶2526
• What part, then, has He in this renown? Never had man so much renown; never had man more ignominy. All that renown has served only for us, to render us capable of recognising Him; and He had none of it for Himself. SECTION XII · ¶2528
• The infinite distance between body and mind is a symbol of the infinitely more infinite distance between mind and charity; for charity is supernatural. SECTION XII · ¶2530
• All the glory of greatness has no lustre for people who are in search of understanding. SECTION XII · ¶2531
• The greatness of clever men is invisible to kings, to the rich, to chiefs, and to all the worldly great. SECTION XII · ¶2532
• The greatness of wisdom, which is nothing if not of God, is invisible to the carnal-minded and to the clever. These are three orders differing in kind. SECTION XII · ¶2533
• Great geniuses have their power, their glory, their greatness, their victory, their lustre, and have no need of worldly greatness, with which they are not in keeping. They are seen, not by the eye, but by the mind; this is sufficient. SECTION XII · ¶2534
• Archimedes,[316] apart from his rank, would have the same veneration. He fought no battles for the eyes to feast upon; but he has given his discoveries to all men. Oh! how brilliant he was to the mind! SECTION XII · ¶2536
• It would have been useless for Archimedes to have acted the prince in his books on geometry, although he was a prince. SECTION XII · ¶2538
• It would have been useless for our Lord Jesus Christ to come like a king, in order to shine forth in His kingdom of holiness. But He came there appropriately in the glory of His own order. SECTION XII · ¶2539
• But there are some who can only admire worldly greatness, as though there were no intellectual greatness; and others who only admire intellectual greatness, as though there were not infinitely higher things in wisdom. SECTION XII · ¶2541
• All bodies, the firmament, the stars, the earth and its kingdoms, are not equal to the lowest mind; for mind knows all these and itself; and these bodies nothing. SECTION XII · ¶2542
• All bodies together, and all minds together, and all their products, are not equal to the least feeling of charity. This is of an order infinitely more exalted. SECTION XII · ¶2543
• From all bodies together, we cannot obtain one little thought; this is impossible, and of another order. From all bodies and minds, we cannot produce a feeling of true charity; this is impossible, and of another and supernatural order. SECTION XII · ¶2544
• Why did Jesus Christ not come in a visible manner, instead of obtaining testimony of Himself from preceding prophecies? Why did He cause Himself to be foretold in types? SECTION XII · ¶2546
• Jesus Christ does not say that He is not of Nazareth, in order to leave the wicked in their blindness; nor that He is not Joseph's son. SECTION XII · ¶2550
• _Proofs of Jesus Christ._--Jesus Christ said great things so simply, that it seems as though He had not thought them great; and yet so clearly that we easily see what He thought of them. This clearness, joined to this simplicity, is wonderful. SECTION XII · ¶2552
• The style of the gospel is admirable in so many ways, and among the rest in hurling no invectives against the persecutors and enemies of Jesus Christ. For there is no such invective in any of the historians against Judas, Pilate, or any of the Jews. SECTION XII · ¶2554
• An artisan who speaks of wealth, a lawyer who speaks of war, of royalty, etc.; but the rich man rightly speaks of wealth, a king speaks indifferently of a great gift he has just made, and God rightly speaks of God. SECTION XII · ¶2557

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