THE CATECHISM OF PERSEVERANCE; ов, AN HISTORICAL, DOGMATICAL, MORAL, LITURGICAL, FROM THR BEGINNING OF THE WORLD DOWN TO OUR OWN DAYS. BY MONSIGNOR GAUME, APOSTOLIC PROTHONOTARY, DOCTOR IN THEOLOGY, VICAR-GENERAL OF MONTAUBAN Jesus Christ, yesterday, and to-day; and the same for ever.-Heb. xiii. 8, Translated from the Tenth French Edition. IN FOUR VOLUMES. VOL. II. Second Editton. DUBLIN M. II. GILL & SON, 50 UPPER SACKVILLE STREET 1883 1414.2 CATECHISM OF PERSEVERANCE. Part Second. LESSON I. STATE OF THE WORLD AT THE COMING OF THE MESSIAS. Political and Religious state of the Gentiles. Roman Domination. Idolatry. Political and Religious state of the Jews: Division of their Territory; Dependence on the Romans. Sects: Pharisees, Essenes, Sadducees, Herodians. We have left the old world: to-day we set foot on the new, in which are to be accomplished, verified, and completed the promises, the figures, the prophecies, the teachings, whose history has for so long a time occupied our minds and made our hearts throb. Before going further, let us pause a moment to learn a little of this new world, the scene of so many wonders. The Roman Empire, which, according to the prophecy of Daniel, should overthrow and absorb all other empires, was come to its highest degree of glory: it embraced in its vast bosom nearly all the known nations of the world. After a long and bloody warfare against his numerous rivals, Augustus, victorious by land and sea, was tranquilly seated on the throne of the Caesars. The whole earth rested in peace: if we may be allowed to speak of peace in reference to the momentary calm of a brutalised and manacled slave. In effect, all the nations, having become tributaries of the Romans, were groaning under the most cruel despotism that ever weighed upon the world. Three-fourths of the human race were slaves, that is, little more than beasts. With the exception of the Jewish people, all mankind were plunged in the darkness of VOL. II. 2 idolatry. The universe was only an immense dungeon, a vast temple of idols; never was corruption deeper or more general. To say everything in a word, it was the reign of the devil, present under a thousand obscene and senseless forms. Here, the wicked spirit was adored in the elements, the sun, the moon, the earth, water, fire; there, in animals; and man prostrated himself before oxen, cats, crocodiles, serpents, and even before the vegetables of the kitchen-garden. It was not enough to change beasts into gods, but gods should also be changed into beasts, since the most beastly passions were attributed to them. Olympus was peopled with inhabitants so detestable that among us they would be treated as the vilest ruffians. Their example, far from leading to virtue, only offered, as the sum of human happiness, crimes to be committed and inclinations to be indulged. By what ceremonies the different peoples were accustomed to honour the immortal gods, we shall not say every modest soul knows the reason... Roman gravity did not treat religion more seriously. On the one hand, it consecrated to the honour of the gods the impurities of the theatre and the bloody combats of the gladiators, that is, whatever can be imagined most corrupt and barbarous; on the other, it adopted all the divinities of the nations that its generals had chained to their chariots. No idol so infamous, no worship so absurd, as not to find an asylum with the queen of the world; so that she ended by counting eighty colleges of priests and priestesses, and thirty thousand gods. Sages and philosophers were powerless to withdraw the peoples from this profound abyss; they were more frequently the accomplices in their errors and disorders. Not one of those men, so highly lauded, that did not profess maxims which it would be impossible to repeat without a blush! The human race, says Bossuet, was come to that point when it could no longer endure the least idea of the true God. If any one dared to teach that statues were not gods, as the common people understood it, he was obliged to make a recantation of his doctrine; then, after so much amends, he was banished as an impious wretch. The whole earth was possessed by the same error; truth durst not appear. The Creator of the world had no temple or worship but in Jerusalem. Such was the state of the nations at the moment when God was about to accomplish the oft-repeated promise of a Restorer, appointed to deliver men from their darkness and their vices. As for the Jewish people, the only one that had preserved the knowledge and worship of the true God, it also had great need of the Messias. For a long time it had begun, not to forget the God |