Pascal's Pensées
call those their enemies who hinder them, etc. God has then shown the
power which He has of giving invisible blessings, by that which He has
shown Himself to have over things visible.
643
_Types._--God, wishing to form for Himself an holy people, whom He
should separate from all other nations, whom He should deliver from
their enemies, and should put into a place of rest, has promised to do
so, and has foretold by His prophets the time and the manner of His
coming. And yet, to confirm the hope of His elect, He has made them see
in it an image through all time, without leaving them devoid of
assurances of His power and of His will to save them. For, at the
creation of man, Adam was the witness, and guardian of the promise of a
Saviour, who should be born of woman, when men were still so near the
creation that they could not have forgotten their creation and their
fall. When those who had seen Adam were no longer in the world, God sent
Noah whom He saved, and drowned the whole earth by a miracle which
sufficiently indicated the power which He had to save the world, and the
will which He had to do so, and to raise up from the seed of woman Him
whom He had promised. This miracle was enough to confirm the hope of
men.
The memory of the deluge being so fresh among men, while Noah was still
alive, God made promises to Abraham, and, while Shem was still living,
sent Moses, etc....
644
_Types._--God, willing to deprive His own of perishable blessings,
created the Jewish people in order to show that this was not owing to
lack of power.
645
The Synagogue did not perish, because it was a type. But because it was
only a type, it fell into servitude. The type existed till the truth
came, in order that the Church should be always visible, either in the
sign which promised it, or in substance.
646
That the law was figurative.
647
Two errors: 1. To take everything literally. 2. To take everything
spiritually.
648
To speak against too greatly figurative language.
649
There are some types clear and demonstrative, but others which seem
somewhat far-fetched, and which convince only those who are already
persuaded. These are like the Apocalyptics. But the difference is that
they have none which are certain, so that nothing is so unjust as to
claim that theirs are as well founded as some of ours; for they have
none so demonstrative as some of ours. The comparison is unfair. We must
not put on the same level, and confound things, because they seem to
agree in one point, while they are so different in another. The
clearness in divine things requires us to revere the obscurities in
them.
[It is like men, who employ a certain obscure language among themselves.
Those who should not understand it, would understand only a foolish
meaning.]
650
_Extravagances of the Apocalyptics, Preadamites, Millenarians, etc._--He
who would base extravagant opinions on Scripture, will, for example,
base them on this. It is said that "this generation shall not pass till
all these things be fulfilled."[236] Upon that I will say that after
that generation will come another generation, and so on ever in
succession.
Solomon and the King are spoken of in the second book of Chronicles, as
if they were two different persons. I will say that they were two.
651
_Particular Types._--A double law, double tables of the law, a double
temple, a double captivity.
652
_Types._--The prophets prophesied by symbols of a girdle, a beard and
burnt hair, etc.
653
Difference between dinner and supper.[237]
In God the word does not differ from the intention, for He is true; nor
the word from the effect, for He is powerful; nor the means from the
effect, for He is wise. Bern., _Ult. Sermo in Missam_.
Augustine, _De Civit. Dei_, v, 10. This rule is general. God can do
everything, except those things, which if He could do, He would not be
almighty, as dying, being deceived, lying, etc.
Several Evangelists for the confirmation of the truth; their difference
useful.
The Eucharist after the Lord's Supper. Truth after the type.
The ruin of Jerusalem, a type of the ruin of the world, forty years
after the death of Jesus. "I know not," as a man, or as an ambassador
(Mark xiii, 32). (Matthew xxiv, 36.)
Jesus condemned by the Jews and the Gentiles.
The Jews and the Gentiles typified by the two sons. Aug., _De Civ._, xx,
29.
654
The six ages, the six Fathers of the six ages, the six wonders at the
beginning of the six ages, the six mornings at the beginning of the six
ages.[238]
655
Adam _forma futuri_.[239] The six days to form the one, the six ages to
form the other. The six days, which Moses represents for the formation
of Adam, are only the picture of the six ages to form Jesus Christ and
the Church. If Adam had not sinned, and Jesus Christ had not come, there
had been only one covenant, only one age of men, and the creation would
have been represented as accomplished at one single time.
656
_Types._--The Jewish and Egyptian peoples were plainly foretold by the
two individuals whom Moses met; the Egyptian beating the Jew, Moses
avenging him and killing the Egyptian, and the Jew being ungrateful.
657
The symbols of the Gospel for the state of the sick soul are sick
bodies; but because one body cannot be sick enough to express it well,
several have been needed. Thus there are the deaf, the dumb, the blind,
the paralytic, the dead Lazarus, the possessed. All this crowd is in the
sick soul.
658
_Types._--To show that the Old Testament is only figurative, and that
the prophets understood by temporal blessings other blessings, this is
the proof:
First, that this would be unworthy of God.
Secondly, that their discourses express very clearly the promise of
temporal blessings, and that they say nevertheless that their discourses
are obscure, and that their meaning will not be understood. Whence it
appears that this secret meaning was not that which they openly
expressed, and that consequently they meant to speak of other
sacrifices, of another deliverer, etc. They say that they will be
understood only in the fullness of time (Jer. xxx, _ult._).
The third proof is that their discourses are contradictory, and
neutralise each other; so that if we think that they did not mean by the
words "law" and "sacrifice" anything else than that of Moses, there is a
plain and gross contradiction. Therefore they meant something else,
sometimes contradicting themselves in the same chapter. Now, to
understand the meaning of an author ...
659
Lust has become natural to us, and has made our second nature. Thus
there are two natures in us--the one good, the other bad. Where is God?
Where you are not, and the kingdom of God is within you. The Rabbis.
660
Penitence, alone of all these mysteries, has been manifestly declared to
the Jews, and by Saint John, the Forerunner; and then the other
mysteries; to indicate that in each man, as in the entire world, this
order must be observed.
661
The carnal Jews understood neither the greatness nor the humiliation of
the Messiah foretold in their prophecies. They misunderstood Him in His
foretold greatness, as when He said that the Messiah should be lord of
David, though his son, and that He was before Abraham, who had seen Him.
They did not believe Him so great as to be eternal, and they likewise
misunderstood Him in His humiliation and in His death. "The Messiah,"
said they, "abideth for ever, and this man says that he shall die."[240]
Therefore they believed Him neither mortal nor eternal; they only sought
in Him for a carnal greatness.
662
_Typical._--Nothing is so like charity as covetousness, and nothing is
so opposed to it. Thus the Jews, full of possessions which flattered
their covetousness, were very like Christians, and very contrary. And by
this means they had the two qualities which it was necessary they should
have, to be very like the Messiah to typify Him, and very contrary not
to be suspected witnesses.
663
_Typical._--God made use of the lust of the Jews to make them minister
to Jesus Christ, [who brought the remedy for their lust].
664
Charity is not a figurative precept. It is dreadful to say that Jesus
Christ, who came to take away types in order to establish the truth,
came only to establish the type of charity, in order to take away the
existing reality which was there before.
"If the light be darkness, how great is that darkness!"[241]
665
Fascination. _Somnum suum.[242] Figura hujus mundi._[243]
The Eucharist. _Comedes panem_ tuum.[244] _Panem_ nostrum.
_Inimici Dei terram lingent._[245] Sinners lick the dust, that is to
say, love earthly pleasures.
The Old Testament contained the types of future joy, and the New
contains the means of arriving at it. The types were of joy; the means
of penitence; and nevertheless the Paschal Lamb was eaten with bitter
herbs, _cum amaritudinibus_.[246]
_Singularis sum ego donec transeam._[247]--Jesus Christ before His death
was almost the only martyr.
666
_Typical._--The expressions, sword, shield. _Potentissime._
667
We are estranged, only by departing from charity. Our prayers and our
virtues are abominable before God, if they are not the prayers and the
virtues of Jesus Christ. And our sins will never be the object of
[_mercy_], but of the justice of God, if they are not [_those of_] Jesus
Christ. He has adopted our sins, and has [_admitted_] us into union
[_with Him_], for virtues are [_His own, and_] sins are foreign to Him;
while virtues _[are]_ foreign to us, and our sins are our own.
Let us change the rule which we have hitherto chosen for judging what is
good. We had our own will as our rule. Let us now take the will of
[_God_]; all that He wills is good and right to us, all that He does not
will is [_bad_].
All that God does not permit is forbidden. Sins are forbidden by the
general declaration that God has made, that He did not allow them. Other
things which He has left without general prohibition, and which for that
reason are said to be permitted, are nevertheless not always permitted.
For when God removed some one of them from us, and when, by the event,
which is a manifestation of the will of God, it appears that God does
not will that we should have a thing, that is then forbidden to us as
sin; since the will of God is that we should not have one more than
another. There is this sole difference between these two things, that it
is certain that God will never allow sin, while it is not certain that
He will never allow the other. But so long as God does not permit it, we
ought to regard it as sin; so long as the absence of God's will, which
alone is all goodness and all justice, renders it unjust and wrong.
668
To change the type, because of our weakness.
669
_Types._--The Jews had grown old in these earthly thoughts, that God
loved their father Abraham, his flesh and what sprung from it; that on
account of this He had multiplied them, and distinguished them from all
other nations, without allowing them to intermingle; that when they were
languishing in Egypt, He brought them out with all these great signs in
their favour; that He fed them with manna in the desert, and led them
into a very rich land; that He gave them kings and a well-built temple,
in order to offer up beasts before Him, by the shedding of whose blood
they should be purified; and that at last He was to send them the
Messiah to make them masters of all the world, and foretold the time of
His coming.
The world having grown old in these carnal errors, Jesus Christ came at
the time foretold, but not with the expected glory; and thus men did not