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
Caesar.

700

The zeal of the Jews for their law and their temple (Josephus, and Philo the Jew, Ad Caium).  What other people had such a zeal?  It was necessary they should have it.