discovered whence he drew this purely fictitious description of the Sultan.
not Martial's. It is found in _Epigrammatum Delectus_, published by Port Royal in 1659.
_Lumine Acon dextro, capta est Leonilla sinistro, Et potis est forma vincere uterque Deos.
Blande puer, lumen quod habes concede parenti; Si tu cæcus Amor, sic erit illa Venus._ Poetica_, v. 447.
P. 83, l. 22. _Spongia solis._ The spots on the sun. Du Cange explains _spongia_ by _macula_. Pascal seems to mean that the spots on the sun prepare us for its total extinction; that the sun will eventually expire, so that, contrary as it seems to the course of nature, there will come a day when there will be no sun.
P. 89. The title given to this second part is furnished by Pascal. In the first part he has wished to prove the fallen state of man, and his weakness; he now maintains that man may be restored by faith in Jesus Christ, and the practice of religion.
Pater: neque Patrem quis novit, nisi Filius, et cui voluerit Filius revelare._ recollection of Saint Augustine, but the passage is not verbally to be found.
_Porrum et cæpe nefas violare et frangere morsu O sanctas gentes, quibus hæc nascuntur in hortis See also Montaigne, _Essais_, l. i. ch. xlii.
P. 101, l. 12. _the opinion of Copernicus._ Pascal no doubt refers to a passage in Montaigne, _Essais_, l. ii. ch. xii., in which he abstains from deciding between the rival systems of astronomy.
Pascal, however, had no doubt on the matter himself, as is plain from the passage on Galileo in the Eighteenth _Provincial_.
_Fascinatio enim nugacitatis obscurat bona._ See note on p. 165.
d'Arras_, says, "_Toutes les difficultés s'evanouissent sans peine des qu'on a l'esprit gueri de la présomption. Alors suivant le règle de Saint Augustin_, Epist. ad Hier., _on passe sur tout ce que l'on n'entend pas, et on s'edifie de tout ce qu'on entend_."
P. 104, l. 4. _Harum sententiarum. Harum sententiarum quæ vera sit P. 104, l. 14. _The Preacher shows._ The precise thought as Pascal has it here is not easy to find in Ecclesiastes. It is probably a reminiscence of Eccles. viii. 17.
P. 105. _The Philosophers._ The title of this chapter is that given by Molinier to the collection of fragments contained in it.
A few expressions and thoughts are from Montaigne, many more from Descartes, _Discours de la Méthode_.
reading is _Quemadmodum--omnium rerum_.
ii. ch. xii. "_Si l'âme est mortelle, il est absurde de craindre la mort, si elle est immortelle elle ne peut aller qu'en s'ameliorant._" passage is, _Nil admirari prope res est una, Numici, Solaque, quæ possit facere et servare beatum_.
poet born at Paris in 1602, died in 1673, who in his poems paraded his unbelief. Curiously enough, his only extant verses were written when he lay ill, and are addressed to God.
sentiendi_ to the Epicureans, the _libido dominandi_ to the Stoics, and the _libido sciendi_ to the dogmatic schools of Plato and Aristotle, of which Cicero always speaks as though they taught one and the same philosophy.
P. 114, l. 3. _two inches under water_, are equally drowned with those who are at the bottom.
P. 115. The fragments collected in this chapter are here placed by Molinier according to the plan which Pascal had traced out for his work, in which after he had laid the various philosophical systems before his supposed unbeliever, he brought forward for examination the other religions.
P. 115, l. 20. _forbade men to read it._ It is not known whence Pascal obtained this statement, which is a complete mistake.
P. 116, l. 15. _Jesus Christ wills that his testimony to himself should be of no avail._ John v. 31. "If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true."
P. 116, l. 30. _The Koran says that Saint Matthew._ The Koran does not name Saint Matthew, but says in general terms that Mahomet regarded the apostles of Jesus as holy.
After this Pascal had written, but erased the words "which of the two is most to be blamed, Moses or China?" and these aid us in the explanation of this enigmatic passage. The Jesuits had established themselves in China at the end of the sixteenth century, and when Pascal wrote their missions were in a flourishing state. They had studied the language, history, and literature of China. But the difficulty presented itself of reconciling the cosmogony and chronology of the Bible with those of the Chinese sages. It is probable that this passage was inspired by a private conversation with some one who had read letters from a missionary, for no book on the subject appears to have existed in Pascal's day.
P. 118, l. 4. _The five suns_, etc. Montaigne, from whom this is taken, _Essais_, l. iii. ch. iv., probably borrowed it from some Spanish book now forgotten.
P. 119. _Of the Jewish People._ This position in his intended treatise, before the sections on the Sacred Books and on Prophecy, is that which Pascal himself designed for his remarks on the Jews.
P. 123, l. 5. _The Masorah._ The unwritten tradition of the Jews.
P. 126, l. 9. _Quis mihi det._ Num. xi. 29. The true reading is, _Quis tribuat ut omnis populus prophetet_.
P. 126, l. 17. _If the story in Esdras is credible._ In the 14th Chapter of the Second Book of Esdras God appears to Esdras in a bush, and orders him to assemble the people and deliver the message. Esdras replies, "I will go as thou hast commanded me, and reprove the people which are present, but they that shall be born afterward who shall admonish them?..._For thy law is burnt_, therefore no man knoweth the things that are done of thee, or the works that shall begin.
But if I have found grace before thee, send the Holy Ghost into me, and I shall write all that hath been done in the world since the beginning."...Then God ordered him to take five scribes, to whom for forty days he dictated the ancient law.
The authenticity of this story, coming into conflict as it does with many passages of the prophets, and specially with Jeremiah, appeared open to such grave doubts, that at the Council of Trent the last book of Esdras, called in the Catholic Church, Esdras IV., by Protestants Esdras II., was then rejected from the Canon.
P. 126, l. 27. _Jeremiah gave them the law._ See 2 Maccabees, ch. xi.
P. 129, l. 18. _a thousand and twenty-two._ This was the number of stars comprised in the Catalogue of Ptolemy, according to the system of Hipparchus.
Deut. xxviii. 29.
Is. xliv. 22. _Delevi ut nubem iniquitates tuas._ iii. 5.
P. 140, l. 15. _Grotius._ The allusion is no doubt to his work, _De Veritate Religionis Christianæ_, which appeared in 1662.
P. 143, l. 6. _the king of the Medes and Persians_ is Darius Codomanus; the King of the Greeks, Alexander. The four kings are, Seleucus, King of Syria; Ptolemy, King of Egypt; Lysimachus, King of Thrace, and Cassander, King of Macedonia, after the battle of Ipsus, 301 B.C.
P. 143, l. 12. This paragraph refers to Antiochus Epiphanes, King of Syria, who died 164 B.C. See the account of his death, 1 Macc. c. 6.
P. 145, l. 1. _And in the end of years._ The marriage of Antiochus Theos with Berenice took place about 247 B.C. Berenice was assassinated by Seleucus Ceraunos soon afterwards, and the war between Ptolemy Euergetes and the King of Syria lasted during almost all the reign of the latter. Syria regained the ascendancy only after the death of Ptolemy Euergetes in 222 B.C.
P. 145, l. 26. _Raphia._ The Battle of Raphia was gained by Ptolemy Philopator over Antiochus the Great, 217 B.C.
translation of Gen. xlix. 10. _Non auferetur sceptrum de Juda, et dux de femore ejus._ P. 152, l. 26. _Pugio Fidei._ The work so called, which Pascal first specifies in this place, is one of which he made great use in all his speculations on the fulfilment of Prophecy, and on the meaning of the Hebrew letters, etc. The book, of which the full title is _Pugio Fidei adversus Mauros et Judæos_, was written in 1278 by Raymond Martin, a Catalonian monk. It remained almost unknown for four hundred years, and was first printed in 1651. It was, therefore, as it were, a new book when Pascal became acquainted with it. Under the name Mauri the author assails not the Koran nor Mahomet, but Arabic philosophy.
words of Jesus to the paralytic.
P. 164, l. 16. _Signa legem in electis meis._ Is. viii. 16, where the Vulgate has _discipulis_.
see p. 101, l. 16. The blindness produced by the love of temporal possessions, or as the A. V. translates it, "the bewitching of naughtiness."
insipientes corde. Dormierunt somnum suum: et nihil invenerunt omnes viri divitiarum in manibus suis._ utuntur hoc mundo, tanquam non utantur: præterit enim figura hujus mundi._ Luc. xi. 3.
is of Solomon, _Inimici ejus terram lingent_.
has _cum lactucis agrestibus_.
reading is "_singulariter_."
P. 165, l. 34. _We have no right._ The following is the explanation of this and the next two paragraphs: In Is. ix. 6, a prophecy which the Rabbis apply to Messiah, and Christian interpreters to Jesus, are the words: _Parvulus enim natus est nobis...multiplicabatur ejus imperium._ In the Hebrew words representing this latter clause, the _closed mem_, a letter ordinarily employed only at the end of a word, occurs where an _open mem_ should be used. From this orthographic mistake the Rabbis have concluded that Messiah would be born of a virgin, _ex virgine clausa_. Moreover, as the _closed mem_ in Hebrew writing means six hundred, the Rabbis supposed that Messiah was to come six hundred years after Isaiah. The _final tsadé_ has the same value as the _closed mem_.
P. 166, l. 8. _the way of the philosopher's stone_, no doubt the way of _finding_ the philosopher's stone. The dreams of the alchemists on this subject were early mingled with those of the Rabbis on the Messiah. Nor had the Cabbala lost all credit in Pascal's days. In 1629 Robert Fludd, in Latin De Fluctibus, an Englishman, educated at Oxford, and a Fellow of the College of Physicians, published at Frankfort his _Medicina Catholica_. In this, sect 1. pt. ii. b. 1.
ch. i. he speaks of sicknesses and healing as both sent from God by angelic intermediaries, and that all angelic natures are summed up in the great angel Mittatron, whom the Scriptures call Wisdom. In a further passage he says that in him whom the Cabalists call Mittatron others recognise Messiah, and quotes the passage of Isaiah in which occurs the _closed mem_.
In Reuchlin's book _De Arte Cabalistica_ the _open mem_ is said to represent the sphere of Jupiter, and the _closed mem_ the sphere of Mars.
P. 166, l. 13. _Preadamites._ Those who hold that Adam was the progenitor of the Jews only, and not of the whole human race.
P. 166, l. 13. _Millenarians._ The believers in the reign of Christ on earth for a thousand years.
fecit eos esse in urbibus quadrigarum, et cum rege in Jerusalem._ does not appear in the Vulgate.
P. 170, l. 23. _the breasts of the Spouse._ Song of Songs, iv. 5.
Aug. _De Genesi contra Manichæos_, i. 23. Pascal probably intending to write _les six orients_, dawns or mornings, his amanuensis has written _les six arians_, a source of much misunderstanding. The six mornings are, the creation; the deliverance from the Ark; the call of Abraham; the carrying away into Babylon; the preaching of Jesus.
Vulgate has _monstratum_.
i. 29.
evacuetur crux Christi._ P. 187, l. 12. _says that he came neither with wisdom nor with signs._ See however 2 Cor. xii. 12. "Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience, _in signs_ and wonders and mighty deeds."
comparatus est._ Ps. xlix. 20. _Dixi in corde._ Eccles. iii. 18.
P. 192, l. 3. _Marton._ Probably a mistake of the amanuensis for The passage runs:-- _Dicique beatus Ante obitum nemo supremaque funera debet._ P. 194, l. 19. The citations from the Rabbis are taken from the _Pugio Fidei_.
is in many points at variance with modern scholarship.
P. 200, l. 12. _Miserere._ The first word of Ps. li., "_Miserere mei Deus_." _Expectavi._ The first word of Ps. xl., "_Expectans expectavi Dominum_."
P. 200, l. 29. _Dixit Dominus._ The first words of Ps. cx.
meaning, but not the words, of Heb. i. 6.
quotation of Isaiah, viii. 14.
P. 217, l. 3. _Ænigmatis._ The word nowhere appears, but the allusion is no doubt to 1 ad Cor. xiii. 12. _Videmus nunc per speculum in ænigmate, tunc autem facie ad faciem._ femur tuum, potentissime._ claimed to be the Messiah, A.D. 135.
P. 222, l. 3. _Curse of the Greeks_, no doubt against those Heretics who tried to discover the exact date of the end of the world.
P. 225, l. 19. _Quia non cognovit._ The quotation is modified from 1 ad Cor. i. 21, and with the important omission of the final word "_credentes_."
P. 226, l. 24. _Quod ergo ignorantes quæritis._ Adapted from Act. Ap.
xvii. 23. _Quod ergo ignorantes colitis ego annuncio vobis._ P. 227, l. 12. _Jaddus to Alexander._ Jaddus was the Jewish High Priest, who on Alexander's invasion of Syria refused to aid him.
Thereupon Alexander marched on Jerusalem. Jaddus came out to meet him in processional pomp, when the conqueror prostrated himself at his feet, saying he had seen such a man in a dream, who had promised him the Empire of Asia.
that Archimedes was of a family allied to that of Hiero, King of Syracuse.
P. 229, l. 11. _I will bless those that bless thee._ Gen. xii. 3.
servus ad suscitandas tribus Jacob et faeces Israel convertendas.
Ecce dedi te in lucem gentium._ omnium_" is the first verse of the Christmas Vesper Hymn.
P. 230, l. 21. _Lord, when saw we thee an hungered?_ Matt. xxv. 34.
P. 231. _The Mystery of Jesus._ This fragment has only been included by more recent editors. But it exists in the autograph MS., and unquestionably forms a part of the intended work.
_turbavit seipsum_.
but the word _eamus_ does not occur in the verse, being borrowed from the account in Matt. xxvi. 46.
misquotation of 2 Pet. ii. 22. _Sus lota in volutabro luti._ _ib._ 61. _before_ should be "after."
Domino unus spiritus est._ Catechism. _Qu'entendez vous par la Communion des Saints? J'entends principalement la participation qu'ont tous les fidèles au fruit des bonnes œuvres les uns des autres._ P. 240, l. 28. _Book of Wisdom._ Ch. ii. 6. But the sense only, and not the words, is given.
P. 241, l. 20. _Let us do penance._ Jonah, iii. 9. But the sense only, not the words, is quoted.
lapsæ_, ii. 8.
P. 243, l. 5. _Woe to the accursed land._ This and the following paragraphs are taken from Saint Augustine's commentary on Ps.
cxxxvii., _Super flumina Babylonis_.
_cor contritum et humiliatum, Deus, non despicies_.
3.
19, but the true reading is "_cuncta subjacent vanitati_."
P. 253. _The Arrangement._ Scattered here and there in Pascal's MS.
were a number of notes concerning the plan, form, and matter of his intended treatise, many of them marked with the word "_Ordre_." These are gathered together by recent editors, and some others which seem to cohere with them added, but Molinier's arrangement, as well as that of Faugère, is necessarily somewhat arbitrary.
P. 254, l. 14. _divide my moral qualities into four._ The classical division of ancient philosophy was into four: prudence, temperance, justice, magnanimity.
P. 257. _The Miracle of the Holy Thorn._ Marguerite Perier, Pascal's niece, aged ten, was cured of lachrymal fistula on March 24, 1656, after touching the diseased part with a reliquary containing a thorn from the Saviour's crown. This was at the time that Port Royal was suffering deeply from persecution, and was considered by many a signal mark of the favour of heaven. The Jesuits did not deny the miracle, but the conclusions drawn from it.
P. 257, l. 20. _those who heal by invocation of the devil._ Pascal, when a child, was supposed both to have been made ill and restored to health by a witch. He desires to show that this was no miracle.
P. 258, l. 25. _Sed plenum signis._ This and the following one are not to be found. Pascal is probably citing Saint Paul from memory.
P. 261, l. 5. _Saint Augustine._ Pascal does not appear to refer to any single passage, but to the general teaching of Saint Augustine.
But see especially _De Civit. Dei_, xxii. 9.
vineæ meæ et non feci ei._ l. 28.
the Summa of Saint Thomas Aquinas here quoted, and mean _Parte 1, quæstione 113, articulo 10, ad objectionem 2_.
a Jesuit preacher. His sermons were published in 1666.
P. 268, l. 22. _do not believe that the five propositions are in Jansenius._ To explain this fully would need a far longer note than can here be given. It may be said shortly that the allusion is to the "Augustinus" of Cornelius Jansen, Bishop of Ypres. Two questions arose: first, whether the propositions condemned were heretical, and second, whether if heretical they were in Jansen's book. The second assertion was that which the nuns of Port Royal refused to make. They had not read the book, and could not affirm that of which they were ignorant. The five propositions were on the Doctrines of Grace and Free Will.
P. 268, l. 27. _Tu quid dicis._ These are partial quotations from Joh. iv. 19, etc.
The true reading is _Nemo est enim qui faciat_.
P. 269, l. 35. _Vatable_, who died in 1517, was professor of Hebrew at the Collége Royal established by Francis I. In 1539 Robert Etienne published an edition of the Latin Bible of Leo of Modena--Rabbi Jehuda--to which he added under Vatable's name, notes which were not really Vatable's, but borrowed from various writers of the Reformation. These notes were condemned by the Sorbonne. The Bible known as that of Vatable contains the Hebrew, the Vulgate Version, and that of Rabbi Jehuda.
P. 273. _Jesuits and Jansenists._ A collection of fragments on these subjects, which perhaps might be considered rather as an appendix to, or notes for the _Provincial Letters_, than a part of the _Thoughts_, properly so called. But they form part of the autograph MS.
ne respondeas._ Prov. xxvi. 4.
P. 275, l. 9. _Elias was a man like ourselves._ Quoted by memory as from Saint Peter, but really from Saint James, v. 17.
P. 275, l. 14. _accused of many crimes._ Athanasius was accused of rape, of murder, and of sacrilege. He was condemned by the Councils of Tyre, A.D. 335, of Arles, A.D. 353, and of Milan A.D. 355. Pope Liberius, after having long refused to ratify the condemnation, was said to have finally done so A.D. 357. But this is disputed by recent authorities. For Athanasius we are of course here to read Jansenius and Arnauld; for Saint Theresa, la mère Angélique or la mère Agnès; for Liberius, Clement IX.
system of morals was so severely handled by Pascal in the _Provincial Letters_. He is among those whose names have given rise to a word: "_escobarderie_" is a synonym for equivocation.
1601. The Jansenists accused his Commentary on the Summa of Saint Thomas Aquinas of favouring a lax morality.
P. 277, l. 4. _Mohatra._ "The contract Mohatra, by which a man buys cloth at a dear rate and on credit, to re-sell it at once to the same person cheaply for ready money." Eighth _Provincial_.
Vulgate reads _Væ qui condunt_.
P. 279, l. 22. _M. de Condran._ No doubt Charles de Condren, 1588-1641, doctor of the Sorbonne, and second General of the French Oratory, a society of priests founded by Cardinal de Bérulle at Paris in 1611.
the Vulgate has "_sibi_."
years after this Fathers La Chaise and Le Tellier, as Confessors to the King, had this power in their hands.
opponent of Jansenism. He wrote _Le Jansénisme confondu_, and several minor works. He is constantly quoted in the _Provincial Letters_.
P. 283, l. 1. _Venice._ The Jesuits had just returned to Venice in 1657, having been expelled thence in 1606.
Probabilism teaches that it is permissible to act on an opinion which is less probable than the opinion opposed to it so long as there is a solid ground for regarding it as probable _in itself_. Thus, if out of three moral theologians of recognised authority, two give it as their opinion that a certain course of conduct is unlawful, while the third asserts it to be lawful, probabilism permits the adoption in practice of the third opinion in opposition to the other two. A confessor would therefore have no right to forbid it under pain of sin.
Letters_ were condemned at Rome, Sept. 6, 1657.
P. 285, l. 22. _imago._ An allusion to the famous panegyric on the Jesuits called, "_Imago primi sæculi_." See Fifth _Provincial_.
P. 285, l. 36. _Si non fecissem quæ alius non fecit._ Jon. xv. 24.
P. 286, l. 31. _These nuns._ The nuns of Port Royal were called upon to sign the Formula which declared that the Five Propositions were _in Jansenius_.
P. 287, l. 4. _Vide si via iniquitatis in me est._ Ps. cxxxix. 24.
the Order, and Confessor to Louis XIV., 1654-1670. He wrote the well-known book, _Le Rabat-joie des Jansénistes_, 1666, and to him were addressed Pascal's Seventeenth and Eighteenth _Provincials_.
P. 290, l. 9. _Montalte._ Louis de Montalte was the pseudonym adopted by Pascal as the writer of the _Provincial Letters_.
P. 291, l. 6. _Lessius_, Leonard, a Jesuit born at Brecht, near Antwerp, 1554, died 1623, a pupil of Suarez. He was censured by the Faculty of Louvain in 1584. He wrote, among others, a treatise, _De licito usu æquivocationum et mentalium restrictionum_.
P. 291, l. 9. _Bauny._ Pascal in his Eighth _Provincial_ quotes an opinion of Father Bauny on the question of restitution to be made by one who has caused the burning of his neighbour's barn.
priest personally disqualified from saying Mass on account of any mortal sin is yet obliged to do so for the sake of his parishioners, it is sufficient that he make an act of contrition, and as soon as possible "_quam primum_" seek the Sacrament of Penance.
16.
90, where the words have not the turn that Pascal here gives them.
P. 304, l. 2. _The part that I take in your sorrow._ The Chevalier de Méré, in his _Discours de la Conversation_, says, that he had been witness to a bet, that on opening a letter of condolence the set phrase condemned above would occur, and that the lady to whom the letter was addressed could not help laughing in spite of her distress. Pascal's note is against writing mere formal phrases which can thus be easily guessed. The Cardinal is Mazarin.
is to _Les Plaidoyers et Harangues_ de M. le Maistre, Paris, 1657. On the first page of Plaidoyer VI., _Pour un fils mis en religion par force_, we find "_Dieu qui répand des aveuglements et des ténèbres sur les passions illégitimes_," and Pascal probably refers to this passage as one in which the word _répandre_ could not be replaced by _verser_.
P. 305, l. 23. _I judge by my watch._ Mlle. Perier says, that Pascal always wore a watch attached to his left wrist-band.
P. 309, l. 27. _An example may be taken from the circulation of the blood._ Apparently taken from Descartes, _Discours de la Méthode_, pt. v., in which Descartes speaks of Harvey's discovery.
friend of Pascal, some seven or eight years younger than he. He was a devoted adherent of Port Royal, and died unmarried.
P. 313, l. 11. _The story of the pike and frog._ This story has hitherto escaped research.
_INDEX._ _INDEX._ Abel and Cain, 267 Abraham, 197 ---- stones can become the children of, 137 ---- promises made to, 169 ---- foretold the coming of the Messiah, 213 ---- above revelation, 261 Absolutions without signs of regret, 294, 295 Action, we must look beyond the, at our past, 315 Actions, virtuous, all crimes have found place among, 61 Acuteness, loss of, 100 Adam, 126 ---- witness of the Messiah, 169, 174 ---- his glorious state, 193 ---- tradition from, 201 ---- the first and the second, 231 Admiration spoils everything, 58 Advent of Jesus Christ, 133 Advents, the two, characters of each of them, 132 Agamemnon, 173 Age, its influence on judgment, 27 Agitation, in seeking repose we are only seeking, 34 Agony of Jesus Christ, 231 ---- ---- lasts even to the end of the world, 231 Alexander, compared to Cæsar, 41 ---- his chastity, 74 ---- and his successors, foretold by Daniel, 144 ---- working unconsciously for the Gospel, 147 ---- Jaddus and, 227 Amos, translation of a passage in, 155 Ananias, 271 Animals, mind and instinct of, 313 Annat, Father, 289 Antichrist, his miracles foretold by Jesus Christ, 259 ---- he will speak openly against God, 263 ---- conclusions we may draw from his miracles, 267 Apocalyptics, the, 166 Apostles, their miracles, 119 ---- foresaw heresies, 128 ---- gave us the key to interpretation of the Old Testament, 159 ---- hypotheses that they were deceived or deceivers, 223 ---- and Exorcists, 267 Apple, the golden, 173 Archesilas, the sceptic, 63 Archimedes, his greatness, 228 Arians, their doctrine, 274 Aristotle, 78 Arius, the miracles of his time, 267 Artisan, an, who dreams, 109 Astrology, folly of, 75 Atheism, often produced by a false knowledge of the world's judgment, 7 ---- mark of force of mind only to a certain degree, 111 Atheists, carelessness of, monstrous, 4 ---- two kinds of, 4 ---- their reasoning, 5 ---- are despicable, 8 ---- feelings they should inspire in true Christians, 8, 12 ---- ought to say things perfectly clear, 111 ---- their objections against the Resurrection, 223 ---- to pity and revile, 253 Athens, 120