787

“I have reserved me seven thousand."[315] I love the worshippers unknown to the world and to the very prophets.

788

As Jesus Christ remained unknown among men, so His truth remains among common opinions without external difference.  Thus the Eucharist among ordinary bread.

789

Jesus would not be slain without the forms of justice; for it is far more ignominious to die by justice than by an unjust sedition.

790

The false justice of Pilate only serves to make Jesus Christ suffer; for he causes Him to be scourged by his false justice, and afterwards puts Him to death.  It would have been better to have put Him to death at once.  Thus it is with the falsely just.  They do good and evil works to please the world, and to show that they are not altogether of Jesus Christ; for they are ashamed of Him.  And at last, under great temptation and on great occasions, they kill Him.

791

What man ever had more renown?  The whole Jewish people foretell Him before His coming.  The Gentile people worship Him after His coming.  The two peoples, Gentile and Jewish, regard Him as their centre.

And yet what man enjoys this renown less?  Of thirty-three years, He lives thirty without appearing.  For three years He passes as an impostor; the priests and the chief people reject Him; His friends and His nearest relatives despise Him.  Finally, He dies, betrayed by one of His own disciples, denied by another, and abandoned by all.

What part, then, has He in this renown?  Never had man so much renown; never had man more ignominy.  All that renown has served only for us, to render us capable of recognising Him; and He had none of it for Himself.

792

The infinite distance between body and mind is a symbol of the infinitely more infinite distance between mind and charity; for charity is supernatural.

All the glory of greatness has no lustre for people who are in search of understanding.

The greatness of clever men is invisible to kings, to the rich, to chiefs, and to all the worldly great.

The greatness of wisdom, which is nothing if not of God, is invisible to the carnal-minded and to the clever.  These are three orders differing in kind.

Great geniuses have their power, their glory, their greatness, their victory, their lustre, and have no need of worldly greatness, with which they are not in keeping.  They are seen, not by the eye, but by the mind; this is sufficient.

The saints have their power, their glory, their victory, their lustre, and need no worldly or intellectual greatness, with which they have no affinity; for these neither add anything to them, nor take away anything from them.  They are seen of God and the angels, and not of the body, nor of the curious mind.  God is enough for them.

Archimedes,[316] apart from his rank, would have the same veneration.  He fought no battles for the eyes to feast upon; but he has given his discoveries to all men.  Oh! how brilliant he was to the mind!