Pascal's Pensées
_Types._--If the law and the sacrifices are the truth, it must please
God, and must not displease Him. If they are types, they must be both
pleasing and displeasing.
Now in all the Scripture they are both pleasing and displeasing. It is
said that the law shall be changed; that the sacrifice shall be changed;
that they shall be without law, without a prince, and without a
sacrifice; that a new covenant shall be made; that the law shall be
renewed; that the precepts which they have received are not good; that
their sacrifices are abominable; that God has demanded none of them.
It is said, on the contrary, that the law shall abide for ever; that
this covenant shall be for ever; that sacrifice shall be eternal; that
the sceptre shall never depart from among them, because it shall not
depart from them till the eternal King comes.
Do all these passages indicate what is real? No. Do they then indicate
what is typical? No, but what is either real or typical. But the first
passages, excluding as they do reality, indicate that all this is only
typical.
All these passages together cannot be applied to reality; all can be
said to be typical; therefore they are not spoken of reality, but of the
type.
_Agnus occisus est ab origine mundi._[262] A sacrificing judge.
685
_Contradictions._--The sceptre till the Messiah--without king or prince.
The eternal law--changed.
The eternal covenant--a new covenant.
Good laws--bad precepts. Ezekiel.
686
_Types._--When the word of God, which is really true, is false
literally, it is true spiritually. _Sede a dextris meis:_[263] this is
false literally, therefore it is true spiritually.
In these expressions, God is spoken of after the manner of men; and
this means nothing else but that the intention which men have in giving
a seat at their right hand, God will have also. It is then an indication
of the intention of God, not of His manner of carrying it out.
Thus when it is said, "God has received the odour of your incense, and
will in recompense give you a rich land," that is equivalent to saying
that the same intention which a man would have, who, pleased with your
perfumes, should in recompense give you a rich land, God will have
towards you, because you have had the same intention as a man has
towards him to whom he presents perfumes. So _iratus est_, a "jealous
God,"[264] etc. For, the things of God being inexpressible, they cannot
be spoken of otherwise, and the Church makes use of them even to-day:
_Quia confortavil seras_,[265] etc.
It is not allowable to attribute to Scripture the meaning which is not
revealed to us that it has. Thus, to say that the closed _mem_[266] of
Isaiah signifies six hundred, has not been revealed. It might be said
that the final _tsade_ and _he deficientes_ may signify mysteries. But
it is not allowable to say so, and still less to say this is the way of
the philosopher's stone. But we say that the literal meaning is not the
true meaning, because the prophets have themselves said so.
687
I do not say that the _mem_ is mystical.
688
Moses (Deut. xxx) promises that God will circumcise their heart to
render them capable of loving Him.
689
One saying of David, or of Moses, as for instance that "God will
circumcise the heart," enables us to judge of their spirit. If all their
other expressions were ambiguous, and left us in doubt whether they were
philosophers or Christians, one saying of this kind would in fact
determine all the rest, as one sentence of Epictetus decides the meaning
of all the rest to be the opposite. So far ambiguity exists, but not
afterwards.
690
If one of two persons, who are telling silly stories, uses language with
a double meaning, understood in his own circle, while the other uses it
with only one meaning, any one not in the secret, who hears them both
talk in this manner, will pass upon them the same judgment. But if
afterwards, in the rest of their conversation one says angelic things,
and the other always dull commonplaces, he will judge that the one spoke
in mysteries, and not the other; the one having sufficiently shown that
he is incapable of such foolishness, and capable of being mysterious;
and the other that he is incapable of mystery, and capable of
foolishness.
The Old Testament is a cipher.
691
There are some that see clearly that man has no other enemy than lust,
which turns him from God, and not God; and that he has no other good
than God, and not a rich land. Let those who believe that the good of
man is in the flesh, and evil in what turns him away from sensual
pleasures, [_satiate_] themselves with them, and [_die_] in them. But
let those who seek God with all their heart, who are only troubled at
not seeing Him, who desire only to possess Him, and have as enemies only
those who turn them away from Him, who are grieved at seeing themselves
surrounded and overwhelmed with such enemies, take comfort. I proclaim
to them happy news. There exists a Redeemer for them. I shall show Him
to them. I shall show that there is a God for them. I shall not show Him
to others. I shall make them see that a Messiah has been promised, who
should deliver them from their enemies, and that One has come to free
them from their iniquities, but not from their enemies.
When David foretold that the Messiah would deliver His people from their
enemies, one can believe that in the flesh these would be the Egyptians;
and then I cannot show that the prophecy was fulfilled. But one can well
believe also that the enemies would be their sins; for indeed the
Egyptians were not their enemies, but their sins were so. This word,
enemies, is therefore ambiguous. But if he says elsewhere, as he does,
that He will deliver His people from their sins, as indeed do Isaiah and
others, the ambiguity is removed, and the double meaning of enemies is
reduced to the simple meaning of iniquities. For if he had sins in his
mind, he could well denote them as enemies; but if he thought of
enemies, he could not designate them as iniquities.
Now Moses, David, and Isaiah used the same terms. Who will say then that
they have not the same meaning, and that David's meaning, which is
plainly iniquities when he spoke of enemies, was not the same as [_that
of_] Moses when speaking of enemies?
Daniel (ix) prays for the deliverance of the people from the captivity
of their enemies. But he was thinking of sins, and, to show this, he
says that Gabriel came to tell him that his prayer was heard, and that
there were only seventy weeks to wait, after which the people would be
freed from iniquity, sin would have an end, and the Redeemer, the Holy
of Holies, would bring _eternal_ justice, not legal, but eternal.
SECTION XI
THE PROPHECIES
692
When I see the blindness and the wretchedness of man, when I regard the
whole silent universe, and man without light, left to himself, and, as
it were, lost in this corner of the universe, without knowing who has
put him there, what he has come to do, what will become of him at death,
and incapable of all knowledge, I become terrified, like a man who
should be carried in his sleep to a dreadful desert island, and should
awake without knowing where he is, and without means of escape. And
thereupon I wonder how people in a condition so wretched do not fall
into despair. I see other persons around me of a like nature. I ask them
if they are better informed than I am. They tell me that they are not.
And thereupon these wretched and lost beings, having looked around them,
and seen some pleasing objects, have given and attached themselves to
them. For my own part, I have not been able to attach myself to them,
and, considering how strongly it appears that there is something else
than what I see, I have examined whether this God has not left some sign
of Himself.
I see many contradictory religions, and consequently all false save one.
Each wants to be believed on its own authority, and threatens
unbelievers. I do not therefore believe them. Every one can say this;
every one can call himself a prophet. But I see that Christian religion
wherein prophecies are fulfilled; and that is what every one cannot do.
693
And what crowns all this is prediction, so that it should not be said
that it is chance which has done it.
Whosoever, having only a week to live, will not find out that it is
expedient to believe that all this is not a stroke of chance ...
Now, if the passions had no hold on us, a week and a hundred years would
amount to the same thing.
694
_Prophecies._--Great Pan is dead.[267]
695
_Susceperunt verbum cum omni aviditate, scrutantes Scripturas, si ita se
haberent._[268]
696
_Prodita lege._--_Impleta cerne._--_Implenda collige._
697
We understand the prophecies only when we see the events happen. Thus
the proofs of retreat, discretion, silence, etc. are proofs only to
those who know and believe them.
Joseph so internal in a law so external.
Outward penances dispose to inward, as humiliations to humility. Thus
the ...
698
The synagogue has preceded the church; the Jews, the Christians. The
prophets have foretold the Christians; Saint John, Jesus Christ.
699
It is glorious to see with the eyes of faith the history of Herod and of
Cæsar.
700
The zeal of the Jews for their law and their temple (Josephus, and Philo
the Jew, _Ad Caïum_). What other people had such a zeal? It was
necessary they should have it.
Jesus Christ foretold as to the time and the state of the world. The
ruler taken from the thigh,[269] and the fourth monarchy. How lucky we
are to see this light amidst this darkness!
How fine it is to see, with the eyes of faith, Darius and Cyrus,
Alexander, the Romans, Pompey and Herod working, without knowing it, for
the glory of the Gospel!
701
Zeal of the Jewish people for the law, especially after there were no
more prophets.
702
While the prophets were for maintaining the law, the people were
indifferent. But since there have been no more prophets, zeal has
succeeded them.
703
The devil troubled the zeal of the Jews before Jesus Christ, because he
would have been their salvation, but not since.
The Jewish people scorned by the Gentiles; the Christian people
persecuted.
704
_Proof._--Prophecies with their fulfilment; what has preceded and what
has followed Jesus Christ.
705
The prophecies are the strongest proof of Jesus Christ. It is for them
also that God has made most provision; for the event which has fulfilled
them is a miracle existing since the birth of the Church to the end. So
God has raised up prophets during sixteen hundred years, and, during
four hundred years afterwards, He has scattered all these prophecies
among all the Jews, who carried them into all parts of the world. Such
was the preparation for the birth of Jesus Christ, and, as His Gospel
was to be believed by all the world, it was not only necessary that
there should be prophecies to make it believed, but that these
prophecies should exist throughout the whole world, in order to make it
embraced by the whole world.
706
But it was not enough that the prophecies should exist. It was necessary
that they should be distributed throughout all places, and preserved
throughout all times. And in order that this agreement might not be
taken for an effect of chance, it was necessary that this should be
foretold.
It is far more glorious for the Messiah that the Jews should be the
spectators, and even the instruments of His glory, besides that God had
reserved them.
707
_Prophecies._--The time foretold by the state of the Jewish people, by
the state of the heathen, by the state of the temple, by the number of
years.
708