Pascal's Pensees Part 42

588

_On the fact that the Christian religion is not the only religion._--So far is this from being a reason for believing that it is not the true one, that, on the contrary, it makes us see that it is so.

589

Men must be sincere in all religions; true heathens, true Jews, true Christians.

590

J. C.

Heathens __|__ Mahomet / Ignorance of G.o.d.

591

_The falseness of other religions._--They have no witnesses. Jews have.

G.o.d defies other religions to produce such signs: Isaiah xliii, 9; xliv, 8.

592

_History of China._[213]-I believe only the histories, whose witnesses got themselves killed.

[Which is the more credible of the two, Moses or China?]

It is not a question of seeing this summarily. I tell you there is in it something to blind, and something to enlighten.

By this one word I destroy all your reasoning. "But China obscures," say you; and I answer, "China obscures, but there is clearness to be found; seek it."

Thus all that you say makes for one of the views, and not at all against the other. So this serves, and does no harm.

We must then see this in detail; we must put the papers on the table.

593

_Against the history of China._ The historians of Mexico, the five suns,[214] of which the last is only eight hundred years old.

The difference between a book accepted by a nation, and one which makes a nation.

594

Mahomet was without authority. His reasons then should have been very strong, having only their own force. What does he say then, that we must believe him?

595

The Psalms are chanted throughout the whole world.

Who renders testimony to Mahomet? Himself. Jesus Christ[215] desires His own testimony to be as nothing.

The quality of witnesses necessitates their existence always and everywhere; and he, miserable creature, is alone.

596

_Against Mahomet._--The Koran is not more of Mahomet than the Gospel is of Saint Matthew, for it is cited by many authors from age to age. Even its very enemies, Celsus and Porphyry, never denied it.

The Koran says Saint Matthew was an honest man.[216] Therefore Mahomet was a false prophet for calling honest men wicked, or for not agreeing with what they have said of Jesus Christ.

597

It is not by that which is obscure in Mahomet, and which may be interpreted in a mysterious sense, that I would have him judged, but by what is clear, as his paradise and the rest. In that he is ridiculous.

And since what is clear is ridiculous, it is not right to take his obscurities for mysteries.

It is not the same with the Scripture. I agree that there are in it obscurities as strange as those of Mahomet; but there are admirably clear pa.s.sages, and the prophecies are manifestly fulfilled. The cases are therefore not on a par. We must not confound, and put on one level things which only resemble each other in their obscurity, and not in the clearness, which requires us to reverence the obscurities.

598

_The difference between Jesus Christ and Mahomet._--Mahomet was not foretold; Jesus Christ was foretold.

Mahomet slew; Jesus Christ caused His own to be slain.

Mahomet forbade reading; the Apostles ordered reading.

In fact the two are so opposed, that if Mahomet took the way to succeed from a worldly point of view, Jesus Christ, from the same point of view, took the way to perish. And instead of concluding that, since Mahomet succeeded, Jesus Christ might well have succeeded, we ought to say that since Mahomet succeeded, Jesus Christ should have failed.

599

Any man can do what Mahomet has done; for he performed no miracles, he was not foretold. No man can do what Christ has done.

600

The heathen religion has no foundation [at the present day. It is said once to have had a foundation by the oracles which spoke. But what are the books which a.s.sure us of this? Are they so worthy of belief on account of the virtue of their authors? Have they been preserved with such care that we can be sure that they have not been meddled with?]

The Mahometan religion has for a foundation the Koran and Mahomet. But has this prophet, who was to be the last hope of the world, been foretold? What sign has he that every other man has not, who chooses to call himself a prophet? What miracles does he himself say that he has done? What mysteries has he taught, even according to his own tradition?

What was the morality, what the happiness held out by him?

The Jewish religion must be differently regarded in the tradition of the Holy Bible, and in the tradition of the people. Its morality and happiness are absurd in the tradition of the people, but are admirable in that of the Holy Bible. (And all religion is the same; for the Christian religion is very different in the Holy Bible and in the casuists.) The foundation is admirable; it is the most ancient book in the world, and the most authentic; and whereas Mahomet, in order to make his own book continue in existence, forbade men to read it, Moses,[217]

for the same reason, ordered every one to read his.