Pascal's Pensées
long with them. But what else could be the subject of their talk save
the history of their ancestors, since to that all history was reduced,
and men did not study science or art, which now form a large part of
daily conversation? We see also that in these days tribes took
particular care to preserve their genealogies.
626
I believe that Joshua was the first of God's people to have this name,
as Jesus Christ was the last of God's people.
627
_Antiquity of the Jews._--What a difference there is between one book
and another! I am not astonished that the Greeks made the Iliad, nor the
Egyptians and the Chinese their histories.
We have only to see how this originates. These fabulous historians are
not contemporaneous with the facts about which they write. Homer
composes a romance, which he gives out as such, and which is received as
such; for nobody doubted that Troy and Agamemnon no more existed than
did the golden apple. Accordingly he did not think of making a history,
but solely a book to amuse; he is the only writer of his time; the
beauty of the work has made it last, every one learns it and talks of
it, it is necessary to know it, and each one knows it by heart. Four
hundred years afterwards the witnesses of these facts are no longer
alive, no one knows of his own knowledge if it be a fable or a history;
one has only learnt it from his ancestors, and this can pass for truth.
Every history which is not contemporaneous, as the books of the Sibyls
and Trismegistus,[226] and so many others which have been believed by
the world, are false, and found to be false in the course of time. It is
not so with contemporaneous writers.
There is a great difference between a book which an individual writes,
and publishes to a nation, and a book which itself creates a nation. We
cannot doubt that the book is as old as the people.
628
Josephus hides the shame of his nation.
Moses does not hide his own shame.
_Quis mihi det ut omnes prophetent?_[227]
He was weary of the multitude.
629
_The sincerity of the Jews._--Maccabees,[228] after they had no more
prophets; the Masorah, since Jesus Christ.
This book will be a testimony for you.[229]
Defective and final letters.
Sincere against their honour, and dying for it; this has no example in
the world, and no root in nature.
630
_Sincerity of the Jews._--They preserve lovingly and carefully the book
in which Moses declares that they have been all their life ungrateful to
God, and that he knows they will be still more so after his death; but
that he calls heaven and earth to witness against them, and that he has
[_taught_] them enough.
He declares that God, being angry with them, shall at last scatter them
among all the nations of the earth; that as they have offended Him by
worshipping gods who were not their God, so He will provoke them by
calling a people who are not His people; that He desires that all His
words be preserved for ever, and that His book be placed in the Ark of
the Covenant to serve for ever as a witness against them.
Isaiah says the same thing, xxx.
631
_On Esdras._--The story that the books were burnt with the temple proved
false by Maccabees: "Jeremiah gave them the law."
The story that he recited the whole by heart. Josephus and Esdras point
out _that he read the book_. Baronius, _Ann._, p. 180: _Nullus penitus
Hebræorum antiquorum reperitur qui tradiderit libros periisse et per
Esdram esse restitutos, nisi in IV Esdræ._
The story that he changed the letters.
Philo, _in Vita Moysis: Illa lingua ac character quo antiquitus scripta
est lex sic permansit usque ad LXX._
Josephus says that the Law was in Hebrew when it was translated by the
Seventy.
Under Antiochus and Vespasian, when they wanted to abolish the books,
and when there was no prophet, they could not do so. And under the
Babylonians, when no persecution had been made, and when there were so
many prophets, would they have let them be burnt?
Josephus laughs at the Greeks who would not bear ...
Tertullian.[230]--_Perinde potuit abolefactam eam violentia cataclysmi
in spiritu rursus reformare, quemadmodum et Hierosolymis Babylonia
expugnatione deletis, omne instrumentum Judaicæ literaturæ per Esdram
constat restauratum._
He says that Noah could as easily have restored in spirit the book of
Enoch, destroyed by the Deluge, as Esdras could have restored the
Scriptures lost during the Captivity.
+(Theos) hen tê hepi Nabouchodonosor aichmalôsia tou laou,
diaphthareisôn tôn graphôn ... henepneuse Esdra tô ierei hek tês phylês
Leui tous tôn progegonotôn prophêtôn pantas hanataxasthai logous, kai
hapokatastêsai tô laô tên dia Môyseôs nomothesian.+[231] He alleges this
to prove that it is not incredible that the Seventy may have explained
the holy Scriptures with that uniformity which we admire in them. And he
took that from Saint Irenæus.[232]
Saint Hilary, in his preface to the Psalms, says that Esdras arranged
the Psalms in order.
The origin of this tradition comes from the 14th chapter of the fourth
book of Esdras. _Deus glorificatus est, et Scripturæ vere divinæ creditæ
sunt, omnibus eandem et eisdem verbis et eisdem nominibus recitantibus
ab initio usque ad finem, uti et præsentes gentes cognoscerent quoniam
per inspirationem Dei interpretatæ sunt Scripturæ, et non esset mirabile
Deum hoc in eis operatum: quando in ea captivitate populi quæ facta est
a Nabuchodonosor, corruptis scripturis et post 70 annos Judæis
descendentibus in regionem suam, et post deinde temporibus Artaxerxis
Persarum regis, inspiravit Esdræ sacerdoti tribus Levi præteritorum
prophetarum omnes rememorare sermones, et restituere populo eam legem
quæ data est per Moysen._
632
_Against the story in Esdras, 2 Maccab._ ii;--Josephus, _Antiquities_,
II, i--Cyrus took occasion from the prophecy of Isaiah to release the
people. The Jews held their property in peace under Cyrus in Babylon;
hence they could well have the Law.
Josephus, in the whole history of Esdras, does not say one word about
this restoration.--2 Kings xvii, 27.
633
If the story in Esdras[233] is credible, then it must be believed that
the Scripture is Holy Scripture; for this story is based only on the
authority of those who assert that of the Seventy, which shows that the
Scripture is holy.
Therefore if this account be true, we have what we want therein; if not,
we have it elsewhere. And thus those who would ruin the truth of our
religion, founded on Moses, establish it by the same authority by which
they attack it. So by this providence it still exists.
634
_Chronology of Rabbinism._ (The citations of pages are from the book
_Pugio_.)
Page 27. R. Hakadosch (_anno_ 200), author of the _Mischna_, or vocal
law, or second law.
Commentaries on the _Mischna (anno_ 340): {The one _Siphra_.
_Barajetot_. _Talmud Hierosol_. _Tosiphtot_.}
_Bereschit Rabah_, by R. Osaiah Rabah, commentary on the _Mischna_.
_Bereschit Rabah, Bar Naconi_, are subtle and pleasant discourses,
historical and theological. This same author wrote the books called
_Rabot_.
A hundred years after the _Talmud Hierosol_ was composed the _Babylonian
Talmud_, by R. Ase, A.D. 440, by the universal consent of all the Jews,
who are necessarily obliged to observe all that is contained therein.
The addition of R. Ase is called the _Gemara_, that is to say, the
"commentary" on the _Mischna_.
And the Talmud includes together the _Mischna_ and the _Gemara_.
635
_If_ does not indicate indifference: Malachi, Isaiah.
Is., _Si volumus_, etc.
_In quacumque die._
636
_Prophecies._--The sceptre was not interrupted by the captivity in
Babylon, because the return was promised and foretold.
637
_Proofs of Jesus Christ._--Captivity, with the assurance of deliverance
within seventy years, was not real captivity. But now they are captives
without any hope.
God has promised them that even though He should scatter them to the
ends of the earth, nevertheless if they were faithful to His law, He
would assemble them together again. They are very faithful to it, and
remain oppressed.
638
When Nebuchadnezzar carried away the people, for fear they should
believe that the sceptre had departed from Judah, they were told
beforehand that they would be there for a short time, and that they
would be restored. They were always consoled by the prophets; and their
kings continued. But the second destruction is without promise of
restoration, without prophets, without kings, without consolation,
without hope, because the sceptre is taken away for ever.
639
It is a wonderful thing, and worthy of particular attention, to see this
Jewish people existing so many years in perpetual misery, it being
necessary as a proof of Jesus Christ, both that they should exist to
prove Him, and that they should be miserable because they crucified Him;
and though to be miserable and to exist are contradictory, they
nevertheless still exist in spite of their misery.
640
They are visibly a people expressly created to serve as a witness to the
Messiah (Isaiah, xliii, 9; xliv, 8). They keep the books, and love them,
and do not understand them. And all this was foretold; that God's
judgments are entrusted to them, but as a sealed book.
SECTION X
TYPOLOGY
641
_Proof of the two Testaments at once._--To prove the two at one stroke,
we need only see if the prophecies in one are fulfilled in the other. To
examine the prophecies, we must understand them. For if we believe they
have only one meaning, it is certain that the Messiah has not come; but
if they have two meanings, it is certain that He has come in Jesus
Christ.
The whole problem then is to know if they have two meanings.
That the Scripture has two meanings, which Jesus Christ and the Apostles
have given, is shown by the following proofs:
1. Proof by Scripture itself.
2. Proof by the Rabbis. Moses Maimonides says that it has two aspects,
and that the prophets have prophesied Jesus Christ only.
3. Proof by the Kabbala.[234]
4. Proof by the mystical interpretation which the Rabbis themselves give
to Scripture.
5. Proof by the principles of the Rabbis, that there are two meanings;
that there are two advents of the Messiah, a glorious and an humiliating
one, according to their desert; that the prophets have prophesied of the
Messiah only--the Law is not eternal, but must change at the coming of
the Messiah--that then they shall no more remember the Red Sea; that the
Jews and the Gentiles shall be mingled.
[6. Proof by the key which Jesus Christ and the Apostles give us.]
642
Isaiah, li. The Red Sea an image of the Redemption. _Ut sciatis quod
filius hominis habet potestatem remittendi peccata, tibi dico:
Surge._[235] God, wishing to show that He could form a people holy with
an invisible holiness, and fill them with an eternal glory, made visible
things. As nature is an image of grace, He has done in the bounties of
nature what He would do in those of grace, in order that we might judge
that He could make the invisible, since He made the visible excellently.
Therefore He saved this people from the deluge; He has raised them up
from Abraham, redeemed them from their enemies, and set them at rest.
The object of God was not to save them from the deluge, and raise up a
whole people from Abraham, only in order to bring them into a rich land.
And even grace is only the type of glory, for it is not the ultimate
end. It has been symbolised by the law, and itself symbolises [_glory_].
But it is the type of it, and the origin or cause.
The ordinary life of men is like that of the saints. They all seek their
satisfaction, and differ only in the object in which they place it; they