Pensées — Blaise Pascal

Pensées

Blaise Pascal · Лицензия: Public domain · Источник

• Nature seems to have done the same thing by her two infinities, natural and moral; for we shall always have the higher and the lower, the more clever and the less clever, the most exalted and the meanest, in order to humble our pride, and exalt our humility. SECTION VII · ¶1511
• _Comminutum cor_ (Saint Paul). This is the Christian character. _Alba has named you, I know you no more_ (Corneille).[198] That is the inhuman character. The human character is the opposite. SECTION VII · ¶1513
• There are only two kinds of men: the righteous who believe themselves sinners; the rest, sinners, who believe themselves righteous. SECTION VII · ¶1515
• We owe a great debt to those who point out faults. For they mortify us. They teach us that we have been despised. They do not prevent our being so in the future; for we have many other faults for which we may be despised. They prepare for us the exercise of correction and freedom from fault. SECTION VII · ¶1517
• Christianity is strange. It bids man recognise that he is vile, even abominable, and bids him desire to be like God. Without such a counterpoise, this dignity would make him horribly vain, or this humiliation would make him terribly abject. SECTION VII · ¶1521
• With how little pride does a Christian believe himself united to God! With how little humiliation does he place himself on a level with the worms of earth! SECTION VII · ¶1523
• A glorious manner to welcome life and death, good and evil! SECTION VII · ¶1524
• The hope which Christians have of possessing an infinite good is mingled with real enjoyment as well as with fear; for it is not as with those who should hope for a kingdom, of which they, being subjects, would have nothing; but they hope for holiness, for freedom from injustice, and they have something of this. SECTION VII · ¶1528
• None is so happy as a true Christian, nor so reasonable, virtuous, or amiable. SECTION VII · ¶1530
• The Christian religion alone makes man altogether _lovable and happy_. In honesty, we cannot perhaps be altogether lovable and happy. SECTION VII · ¶1532
• _Preface._--The metaphysical proofs of God are so remote from the reasoning of men, and so complicated, that they make little impression; and if they should be of service to some, it would be only during the moment that they see such demonstration; but an hour afterwards they fear they have been mistaken. SECTION VII · ¶1534
• _Quod curiositate cognoverunt superbia amiserunt._[200] SECTION VII · ¶1535
• This is the result of the knowledge of God obtained without Jesus Christ; it is communion without a mediator with the God whom they have known without a mediator. Whereas those who have known God by a mediator know their own wretchedness. SECTION VII · ¶1536
• Jesus Christ did nothing but teach men that they loved themselves, that they were slaves, blind, sick, wretched, and sinners; that He must deliver them, enlighten, bless, and heal them; that this would be effected by hating self, and by following Him through suffering and the death on the cross. SECTION VII · ¶1540
• Without Jesus Christ man must be in vice and misery; with Jesus Christ man is free from vice and misery; in Him is all our virtue and all our happiness. Apart from Him there is but vice, misery, darkness, death, despair. SECTION VII · ¶1542
• Not only do we know God by Jesus Christ alone, but we know ourselves only by Jesus Christ. We know life and death only through Jesus Christ. Apart from Jesus Christ, we do not know what is our life, nor our death, nor God, nor ourselves. SECTION VII · ¶1547
• Thus without the Scripture, which has Jesus Christ alone for its object, we know nothing, and see only darkness and confusion in the nature of God, and in our own nature. SECTION VII · ¶1548
• It is not only impossible but useless to know God without Jesus Christ. They have not departed from Him, but approached; they have not humbled themselves, but ... SECTION VII · ¶1550
• _Quo quisque optimus est, pessimus, si hoc ipsum, quod optimus est, adscribat sibi._ SECTION VII · ¶1551
• _Dignior plagis quam osculis non timeo quia amo._ SECTION VII · ¶1556
• _The Sepulchre of Jesus Christ._--Jesus Christ was dead, but seen on the Cross. He was dead, and hidden in the Sepulchre. SECTION VII · ¶1558
• Jesus Christ was buried by the saints alone. SECTION VII · ¶1559
• Jesus Christ wrought no miracle at the Sepulchre. SECTION VII · ¶1560
• It is there, not on the Cross, that Jesus Christ takes a new life. SECTION VII · ¶1562
• It is the last mystery of the Passion and the Redemption. SECTION VII · ¶1563
• Jesus Christ had nowhere to rest on earth but in the Sepulchre. SECTION VII · ¶1564
• His enemies only ceased to persecute Him at the Sepulchre. SECTION VII · ¶1565
• _The Mystery of Jesus._--Jesus suffers in His passions the torments which men inflict upon Him; but in His agony He suffers the torments which He inflicts on Himself; _turbare semetipsum_.[202] This is a suffering from no human, but an almighty hand, for He must be almighty to bear it. SECTION VII · ¶1567
• Jesus seeks some comfort at least in His three dearest friends, and they are asleep. He prays them to bear with Him for a little, and they leave Him with entire indifference, having so little compassion that it could not prevent their sleeping even for a moment. And thus Jesus was left alone to the wrath of God. SECTION VII · ¶1568
• Jesus is alone on the earth, without any one not only to feel and share His suffering, but even to know of it; He and Heaven were alone in that knowledge. SECTION VII · ¶1569
• Jesus is in a garden, not of delight as the first Adam, where he lost himself and the whole human race, but in one of agony, where He saved Himself and the whole human race. SECTION VII · ¶1570
• He suffers this affliction and this desertion in the horror of night. SECTION VII · ¶1571
• I believe that Jesus never complained but on this single occasion; but then He complained as if he could no longer bear His extreme suffering. "My soul is sorrowful, even unto death."[203] SECTION VII · ¶1572
• Jesus seeks companionship and comfort from men. This is the sole occasion in all His life, as it seems to me. But He receives it not, for His disciples are asleep. SECTION VII · ¶1573
• Jesus will be in agony even to the end of the world. We must not sleep during that time. SECTION VII · ¶1574
• Jesus, finding them still asleep, without being restrained by any consideration for themselves or for Him, has the kindness not to waken them, and leaves them in repose. SECTION VII · ¶1576
• Jesus prays, uncertain of the will of His Father, and fears death; but, when He knows it, He goes forward to offer Himself to death. _Eamus. Processit_[204] (John). SECTION VII · ¶1577
• Jesus asked of men and was not heard. SECTION VII · ¶1578
• Jesus, while His disciples slept, wrought their salvation. He has wrought that of each of the righteous while they slept, both in their nothingness before their birth, and in their sins after their birth. SECTION VII · ¶1579
• He prays only once that the cup pass away, and then with submission; and twice that it come if necessary. SECTION VII · ¶1580

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