Pascal's Pensées
fact that this religion, which has always endured, has always been
attacked. It has been a thousand times on the eve of universal
destruction, and every time it has been in that state, God has restored
it by extraordinary acts of His power. This is astonishing, as also that
it has preserved itself without yielding to the will of tyrants. For it
is not strange that a State endures, when its laws are sometimes made
to give way to necessity, but that.... (See the passage indicated in
Montaigne.)
613
States would perish if they did not often make their laws give way to
necessity. But religion has never suffered this, or practised it.
Indeed, there must be these compromises, or miracles. It is not strange
to be saved by yieldings, and this is not strictly self-preservation;
besides, in the end they perish entirely. None has endured a thousand
years. But the fact that this religion has always maintained itself,
inflexible as it is, proves its divinity.
614
Whatever may be said, it must be admitted that the Christian religion
has something astonishing in it. Some will say, "This is because you
were born in it." Far from it; I stiffen myself against it for this very
reason, for fear this prejudice bias me. But although I am born in it, I
cannot help finding it so.
615
_Perpetuity._--The Messiah has always been believed in. The tradition
from Adam was fresh in Noah and in Moses. Since then the prophets have
foretold him, while at the same time foretelling other things, which,
being from time to time fulfilled in the sight of men, showed the truth
of their mission, and consequently that of their promises touching the
Messiah. Jesus Christ performed miracles, and the Apostles also, who
converted all the heathen; and all the prophecies being thereby
fulfilled, the Messiah is for ever proved.
616
_Perpetuity._--Let us consider that since the beginning of the world the
expectation of worship of the Messiah has existed uninterruptedly; that
there have been found men, who said that God had revealed to them that a
Redeemer was to be born, who should save His people; that Abraham came
afterwards, saying that he had had a revelation that the Messiah was to
spring from him by a son, whom he should have; that Jacob declared that,
of his twelve sons, the Messiah would spring from Judah; that Moses and
the prophets then came to declare the time and the manner of His coming;
that they said their law was only temporary till that of the Messiah,
that it should endure till then, but that the other should last for
ever; that thus either their law, or that of the Messiah, of which it
was the promise, would be always upon the earth; that, in fact, it has
always endured; that at last Jesus Christ came with all the
circumstances foretold. This is wonderful.
617
This is positive fact. While all philosophers separate into different
sects, there is found in one corner of the world the most ancient people
in it, declaring that all the world is in error, that God has revealed
to them the truth, that they will always exist on the earth. In fact,
all other sects come to an end, this one still endures, and has done so
for four thousand years.
They declare that they hold from their ancestors that man has fallen
from communion with God, and is entirely estranged from God, but that He
has promised to redeem them; that this doctrine shall always exist on
the earth; that their law has a double signification; that during
sixteen hundred years they have had people, whom they believed prophets,
foretelling both the time and the manner; that four hundred years after
they were scattered everywhere, because Jesus Christ was to be
everywhere announced; that Jesus Christ came in the manner, and at the
time foretold; that the Jews have since been scattered abroad under a
curse, and nevertheless still exist.
618
I see the Christian religion founded upon a preceding religion, and this
is what I find as a fact.
I do not here speak of the miracles of Moses, of Jesus Christ, and of
the Apostles, because they do not at first seem convincing, and because
I only wish here to put in evidence all those foundations of the
Christian religion which are beyond doubt, and which cannot be called in
question by any person whatsoever. It is certain that we see in many
places of the world a peculiar people, separated from all other peoples
of the world, and called the Jewish people.
I see then a crowd of religions in many parts of the world and in all
times; but their morality cannot please me, nor can their proofs
convince me. Thus I should equally have rejected the religion of Mahomet
and of China, of the ancient Romans and of the Egyptians, for the sole
reason, that none having more marks of truth than another, nor anything
which should necessarily persuade me, reason cannot incline to one
rather than the other.
But, in thus considering this changeable and singular variety of morals
and beliefs at different times, I find in one corner of the world a
peculiar people, separated from all other peoples on earth, the most
ancient of all, and whose histories are earlier by many generations than
the most ancient which we possess.
I find, then, this great and numerous people, sprung from a single man,
who worship one God, and guide themselves by a law which they say that
they obtained from His own hand. They maintain that they are the only
people in the world to whom God has revealed His mysteries; that all men
are corrupt and in disgrace with God; that they are all abandoned to
their senses and their own imagination, whence come the strange errors
and continual changes which happen among them, both of religions and of
morals, whereas they themselves remain firm in their conduct; but that
God will not leave other nations in this darkness for ever; that there
will come a Saviour for all; that they are in the world to announce Him
to men; that they are expressly formed to be forerunners and heralds of
this great event, and to summon all nations to join with them in the
expectation of this Saviour.
To meet with this people is astonishing to me, and seems to me worthy of
attention. I look at the law which they boast of having obtained from
God, and I find it admirable. It is the first law of all, and is of such
a kind that, even before the term _law_ was in currency among the
Greeks, it had, for nearly a thousand years earlier, been
uninterruptedly accepted and observed by the Jews. I likewise think it
strange that the first law of the world happens to be the most perfect;
so that the greatest legislators have borrowed their laws from it, as is
apparent from the law of the Twelve Tables at Athens,[221] afterwards
taken by the Romans, and as it would be easy to prove, if Josephus[222]
and others had not sufficiently dealt with this subject.
619
_Advantages of the Jewish people._--In this search the Jewish people at
once attracts my attention by the number of wonderful and singular facts
which appear about them.
I first see that they are a people wholly composed of brethren, and
whereas all others are formed by the assemblage of an infinity of
families, this, though so wonderfully fruitful, has all sprung from one
man alone, and, being thus all one flesh, and members one of another,
they constitute a powerful state of one family. This is unique.
This family, or people, is the most ancient within human knowledge, a
fact which seems to me to inspire a peculiar veneration for it,
especially in view of our present inquiry; since if God had from all
time revealed Himself to men, it is to these we must turn for knowledge
of the tradition.
This people is not eminent solely by their antiquity, but is also
singular by their duration, which has always continued from their origin
till now. For whereas the nations of Greece and of Italy, of Lacedæmon,
of Athens and of Rome, and others who came long after, have long since
perished, these ever remain, and in spite of the endeavours of many
powerful kings who have a hundred times tried to destroy them, as their
historians testify, and as it is easy to conjecture from the natural
order of things during so long a space of years, they have nevertheless
been preserved (and this preservation has been foretold); and extending
from the earliest times to the latest, their history comprehends in its
duration all our histories [which it preceded by a long time].
The law by which this people is governed is at once the most ancient law
in the world, the most perfect, and the only one which has been always
observed without a break in a state. This is what Josephus admirably
proves, _against Apion_,[223] and also Philo[224] the Jew, in different
places, where they point out that it is so ancient that the very name of
_law_ was only known by the oldest nation more than a thousand years
afterwards; so that Homer, who has written the history of so many
states, has never used the term. And it is easy to judge of its
perfection by simply reading it; for we see that it has provided for all
things with so great wisdom, equity, and judgment, that the most ancient
legislators, Greek and Roman, having had some knowledge of it, have
borrowed from it their principal laws; this is evident from what are
called the Twelve Tables, and from the other proofs which Josephus
gives.
But this law is at the same time the severest and strictest of all in
respect to their religious worship, imposing on this people, in order to
keep them to their duty, a thousand peculiar and painful observances, on
pain of death. Whence it is very astonishing that it has been
constantly preserved during many centuries by a people, rebellious and
impatient as this one was; while all other states have changed their
laws from time to time, although these were far more lenient.
The book which contains this law, the first of all, is itself the most
ancient book in the world, those of Homer, Hesiod, and others, being six
or seven hundred years later.
620
The creation and the deluge being past, and God no longer requiring to
destroy the world, nor to create it anew, nor to give such great signs
of Himself, He began to establish a people on the earth, purposely
formed, who were to last until the coming of the people whom the Messiah
should fashion by His spirit.
621
The creation of the world beginning to be distant, God provided a single
contemporary historian, and appointed a whole people as guardians of
this book, in order that this history might be the most authentic in the
world, and that all men might thereby learn a fact so necessary to know,
and which could only be known through that means.
622
[Japhet begins the genealogy.]
Joseph folds his arms, and prefers the younger.[225]
623
Why should Moses make the lives of men so long, and their generations so
few?
Because it is not the length of years, but the multitude of generations,
which renders things obscure. For truth is perverted only by the change
of men. And yet he puts two things, the most memorable that were ever
imagined, namely, the creation and the deluge, so near that we reach
from one to the other.
624
Shem, who saw Lamech, who saw Adam, saw also Jacob, who saw those who
saw Moses; therefore the deluge and the creation are true. This is
conclusive among certain people who understand it rightly.
625
The longevity of the patriarchs, instead of causing the loss of past
history, conduced, on the contrary, to its preservation. For the reason
why we are sometimes insufficiently instructed in the history of our
ancestors, is that we have never lived long with them, and that they are
often dead before we have attained the age of reason. Now, when men
lived so long, children lived long with their parents. They conversed