Pensées — Blaise Pascal

Pensées

Blaise Pascal · Licença: Public domain · Fonte

• Faith embraces many truths which seem to contradict each other. _There is a time to laugh, and a time to weep_,[360] etc. _Responde. Ne respondeas_,[361] etc. SECTION XIV · ¶2823
• 1st example: Jesus Christ is God and man. The Arians, unable to reconcile these things, which they believe incompatible, say that He is man; in this they are Catholics. But they deny that He is God; in this they are heretics. They allege that we deny His humanity; in this they are ignorant. SECTION XIV · ¶2826
• The heresy of to-day, not conceiving that this Sacrament contains at the same time both the presence of Jesus Christ and a type of Him, and that it is a sacrifice and a commemoration of a sacrifice, believes that neither of these truths can be admitted without excluding the other for this reason. SECTION XIV · ¶2828
• They fasten to this point alone, that this Sacrament is typical; and in this they are not heretics. They think that we exclude this truth; hence it comes that they raise so many objections to us out of the passages of the Fathers which assert it. Finally, they deny the presence; and in this they are heretics. SECTION XIV · ¶2829
• The shortest way, therefore, to prevent heresies is to instruct in all truths; and the surest way to refute them is to declare them all. For what will the heretics say? SECTION XIV · ¶2831
• In order to know whether an opinion is a Father's ... SECTION XIV · ¶2832
• All err the more dangerously, as they each follow a truth. Their fault is not in following a falsehood, but in not following another truth. SECTION XIV · ¶2834
• Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that unless we love the truth, we cannot know it. SECTION XIV · ¶2836
• If there is ever a time in which we must make profession of two opposite truths, it is when we are reproached for omitting one. Therefore the Jesuits and Jansenists are wrong in concealing them, but the Jansenists more so, for the Jesuits have better made profession of the two. SECTION XIV · ¶2838
• Two kinds of people make things equal to one another, as feasts to working days, Christians to priests, all things among them, etc. And hence the one party conclude that what is then bad for priests is also so for Christians, and the other that what is not bad for Christians is lawful for priests. SECTION XIV · ¶2840
• Zeal, light. Four kinds of persons: zeal without knowledge; knowledge without zeal; neither knowledge nor zeal; both zeal and knowledge. The first three condemned him. The last acquitted him, were excommunicated by the Church, and yet saved the Church. SECTION XIV · ¶2845
• If Saint Augustine came at the present time, and was as little authorised as his defenders, he would accomplish nothing. God directs His Church well, by having sent him before with authority. SECTION XIV · ¶2847
• The Pope hates and fears the learned, who do not submit to him at will. SECTION XIV · ¶2855
• We must not judge of what the Pope is by some words of the Fathers--as the Greeks said in a council, important rules--but by the acts of the Church and the Fathers, and by the canons. SECTION XIV · ¶2857
• _Duo aut tres in unum._[364] Unity and plurality. It is an error to exclude one of the two, as the papists do who exclude plurality, or the Huguenots who exclude unity. SECTION XIV · ¶2858
• Would the Pope be dishonoured by having his knowledge from God and tradition; and is it not dishonouring him to separate him from this holy union? SECTION XIV · ¶2860
• God does not perform miracles in the ordinary conduct of His Church. It would be a strange miracle if infallibility existed in one man. But it appears so natural for it to reside in a multitude, since the conduct of God is hidden under nature, as in all His other works. SECTION XIV · ¶2862
• Kings dispose of their own power; but the Popes cannot dispose of theirs. SECTION XIV · ¶2864
• The majority is the best way, because it is visible, and has strength to make itself obeyed. Yet it is the opinion of the least able. SECTION XIV · ¶2867
• _Injustice._--Jurisdiction is not given for the sake of the judge, but for that of the litigant. It is dangerous to tell this to the people. But the people have too much faith in you; it will not harm them, and may serve you. It should therefore be made known. _Pasce oves meas_,[366] non _tuas_. You owe me pasturage. SECTION XIV · ¶2871
• Men like certainty. They like the Pope to be infallible in faith, and grave doctors to be infallible in morals, so as to have certainty. SECTION XIV · ¶2873
• The Church teaches, and God inspires, both infallibly. The work of the Church is of use only as a preparation for grace or condemnation. What it does is enough for condemnation, not for inspiration. SECTION XIV · ¶2875
• Every time the Jesuits may impose upon the Pope, they will make all Christendom perjured. SECTION XIV · ¶2877
• The Pope is very easily imposed upon, because of his occupations, and the confidence which he has in the Jesuits; and the Jesuits are very capable of imposing upon him by means of calumny. SECTION XIV · ¶2878
• The wretches who have obliged me to speak of the basis of religion. SECTION XIV · ¶2880
• Sinners purified without penitence; the righteous justified without love; all Christians without the grace of Jesus Christ; God without power over the will of men; a predestination without mystery; a redemption without certitude! SECTION XIV · ¶2882
• Any one is made a priest, who wants to be so, as under Jeroboam.[367] SECTION XIV · ¶2884
• _Heretics._--Ezekiel. All the heathen, and also the Prophet, spoke evil of Israel. But the Israelites were so far from having the right to say to him, "You speak like the heathen," that he is most forcible upon this, that the heathen say the same as he. SECTION XIV · ¶2887
• The Jansenists are like the heretics in the reformation of morality; but you are like them in evil. SECTION XIV · ¶2889
• You are ignorant of the prophecies, if you do not know that all this must happen; princes, prophets, Pope, and even the priests. And yet the Church is to abide. By the grace of God we have not come to that. Woe to these priests! But we hope that God will bestow His mercy upon us that we shall not be of them. SECTION XIV · ¶2891
• Saint Peter, ii: false prophets in the past, the image of future ones. SECTION XIV · ¶2892
• Tertullian: _Nunquam Ecclesia reformabitur._ SECTION XIV · ¶2898
• Heretics, who take advantage of the doctrine of the Jesuits, must be made to know that it is not that of the Church [_the doctrine of the Church_], and that our divisions do not separate us from the altar. SECTION XIV · ¶2900
• If in differing we condemned, you would be right. Uniformity without diversity is useless to others; diversity without uniformity is ruinous for us. The one is harmful outwardly; the other inwardly. SECTION XIV · ¶2902
• By showing the truth, we cause it to be believed; but by showing the injustice of ministers, we do not correct it. Our mind is assured by a proof of falsehood; our purse is not made secure by proof of injustice. SECTION XIV · ¶2904
• Those who love the Church lament to see the corruption of morals; but laws at least exist. But these corrupt the laws. The model is damaged. SECTION XIV · ¶2906
• Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. SECTION XIV · ¶2908
• It is in vain that the Church has established these words, anathemas, heresies, etc. They are used against her. SECTION XIV · ¶2910
• The servant knoweth not what his lord doeth, for the master tells him only the act and not the intention.[368] And this is why he often obeys slavishly, and defeats the intention. But Jesus Christ has told us the object. And you defeat that object. SECTION XIV · ¶2912
• They cannot have perpetuity, and they seek universality; and therefore they make the whole Church corrupt, that they may be saints. SECTION XIV · ¶2914

VoltarSeguinte →Livros de sentenças