The Prophetic Paradox
Blaise Pascal
Pensees

The author discusses how God used the Jewish people as faithful guardians of prophecies regarding the Messiah, even though they ultimately rejected Him because He did not meet their carnal expectations of a temporal ruler.

...o make you believe? No, it is to keep you from believing. 568 Canonical.--The heretical books in the beginning of the Church serve to prove the canonical. 569 To the chapter on the Fundamentals must be added that on Typology touching the reason of types: why Jesus Christ was prophesied as to His first coming; why prophesied obscurely as to the manner. 570 The reason why. Types.--[They had to deal with a carnal people and to render them the depositary of the spiritual covenant.]
To give faith to the Messiah, it was necessary there should have been precedent prophecies, and that these should be conveyed by persons above suspicion, diligent, faithful, unusually zealous, and known to all the world. To accomplish all this, God chose this carnal people, to whom He entrusted the prophecies which foretell the Messiah as a deliverer, and as a dispenser of those carnal goods which this people loved. And thus they have had an extraordinary passion for their prophets, and, in sight of the whole world, have had charge of these books which foretell their Messiah, assuring all nations that He should come, and in the way foretold…
So that they, the people least open to suspicion in the world of favouring us, the most strict and most zealous that can be named for their law and their prophets, have kept the books incorrupt. Hence those who have rejected and crucified Jesus Christ, who has been to them an offence, are those who have charge of the books which testify of Him, and state that He will be an offence and rejected. Therefore they have shown it was He by rejecting Him, and He has been alike proved both by the righte...
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God's Unshared Glory
Blaise Pascal
Pensees

A visionary declaration of divine sovereignty and the power of prophecy. It emphasizes God's unique glory and his ability to declare both past and future events to the world.

...een at the beginning, and declare us things for to come. "By this we shall know that ye are gods. Yea, do good or do evil, if you can. Let us then behold it and reason together. Behold, ye are of nothing, and only an abomination, etc. Who," (among contemporary writers), "hath declared from the beginning that we may know of the things done from the beginning and origin? that we may say, You are righteous. There is none that teacheth us, yea, there is none that declareth the future." Is. xlii:
"I am the Lord, and my glory will I not give to another. I have foretold the things which have come to pass, and things that are to come do I declare. Sing unto God a new song in all the earth.
"Bring forth the blind people that have eyes and see not, and the deaf that have ears and hear not. Let all the nations be gathered together. Who among them can declare this, and shew us former things, and things to come? Let them bring forth their witnesses, that they may be justified; or let them hear, and say, It is truth. "Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen; that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am He. "I have declared, and have saved,...
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Obscurity vs Manifestation
Blaise Pascal
Pensees

The author contrasts the two advents of Christ, noting that the first was intentionally obscure to be found only by those seeking truth, while the second will be undeniably manifest to all.

...753 Homo existens te Deum facit. Scriptum est, Dii estis, et non potest solvi Scriptura. Hæc infirmitas non est ad vitam et est ad mortem. Lazarus dormit, et deinde dixit: Lazarus mortuus est.[281] 754 The apparent discrepancy of the Gospels.[282] 755 What can we have but reverence for a man who foretells plainly things which come to pass, and who declares his intention both to blind and to enlighten, and who intersperses obscurities among the clear things which come to pass? 756
The time of the first advent was foretold; the time of the second is not so; because the first was to be obscure, and the second is to be brilliant, and so manifest that even His enemies will recognise it. But, as He was first to come only in obscurity, and to be known only of those who searched the Scriptures ...
757 God, in order to cause the Messiah to be known by the good and not to be known by the wicked, made Him to be foretold in this manner. If the manner of the Messiah had been clearly foretold, there would have been no obscurity, even for the wicked. If the time had been obscurely foretold, there would have been obscurity, even for the good. For their [goodness of heart] would not have made them understand, for instance, that the closed mem signifies six hundred years. But the time has bee...
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Divine Inner Knowing
Blaise Pascal
Pensees

The author defines prophecy as an immediate, internal feeling of God and argues that no teacher has ever approached the divinity of Christ's message.

...ch; and also the worship of idols in Rome, the centre of it, where He made His chief Church. 730 Prophecies.--That Jesus Christ will sit on the right hand, till God has subdued His enemies. Therefore He will not subdue them Himself. 731 "... Then they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, saying, Here is the Lord, for God shall make Himself known to all."[273] "... Your sons shall prophesy."[274] "I will put my spirit and my fear in your heart." All that is the same thing.
To prophesy is to speak of God, not from outward proofs, but from an inward and immediate feeling. 732 That He would teach men the perfect way. And there has never come, before Him nor after Him, any man who has taught anything divine approaching to this.
733 ... That Jesus Christ would be small in His beginning, and would then increase. The little stone of Daniel. If I had in no wise heard of the Messiah, nevertheless, after such wonderful predictions of the course of the world which I see fulfilled, I see that He is divine. And if I knew that these same books foretold a Messiah, I should be sure that He would come; and seeing that they place His time before the destruction of the second temple, I should say that He had come. 734 _Prophe...
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The Heart's Deception
Blaise Pascal
Pensees

Pascal argues that God used types and shadows in prophecy to ensure that the Messiah would be recognized by the righteous through the heart, while remaining hidden from the wicked who seek only material blessings.

...nly things which come to pass, and who declares his intention both to blind and to enlighten, and who intersperses obscurities among the clear things which come to pass? 756 The time of the first advent was foretold; the time of the second is not so; because the first was to be obscure, and the second is to be brilliant, and so manifest that even His enemies will recognise it. But, as He was first to come only in obscurity, and to be known only of those who searched the Scriptures ... 757
God, in order to cause the Messiah to be known by the good and not to be known by the wicked, made Him to be foretold in this manner. If the manner of the Messiah had been clearly foretold, there would have been no obscurity, even for the wicked. If the time had been obscurely foretold, there would have been obscurity, even for the good. For their [goodness of heart] would not have made them understand, for instance, that the closed mem signifies six hundred years. But the time has been clearly foretold, and the manner in types. By this means, the wicked, taking the promised blessings for material blessings, have fallen into error, in spite…
758 [Either the Jews or the Christians must be wicked.] 759 The Jews reject Him, but not all. The saints receive Him, and not the carnal-minded. And so far is this from being against His glory, that it is the last touch which crowns it. For their argument, the only one found in all their writings, in the Talmud and in the Rabbinical writings, amounts only to this, that Jesus Christ has not subdued the nations with sword in hand, gladiumt uum, potentissime.[283] (Is this all they have to...
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