Chapter 15: Between the Fall and the Redemption

1. Redemption in the Fullness of Time
   • The Disease of the Human Race: Puerility
     • As stated in the previous chapter, God knew from the beginning what He do about man’s fall from grace, but He would not do it until the proper time (208-1).
       • “He has made known to us in all wisdom and insight . . . a plan for the fullness of time, to re-establish all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Eph 1:9-10; see also Gal 4:4-5 quoted below).
     • Sin can be seen as a “disease” of the human race that was contracted through Adam. Just as diseases of the body need time to work themselves out, so did the disease of humanity (208-1).
     • For this reason, the redemption of man, which had been promised immediately after the Fall (Gen 3:15), would have to occur in the fullness of time, at a “due moment” (208-1).
     • God’s plan for the redemption of man, involved mankind’s “work[ing] out all the bleak logic of self-assertion to discover for itself all the unwholesome places into which self-assertion could take it” (208-1).
     • As an element in the divine pedagogy, we were given a chance to thoroughly try out the Devil’s counsel to see if, perhaps, we would become like gods; in every century man has tried out the Devil’s counsel in a thorough manner: we have not become gods (208-1).
       • It is worth noting that the story of man’s life after the Fall is like that of the prodigal son (Lk 15:11-32). The immature son asserted his will over his Father’s will, and his father let him go his own way, after having given him his inheritance. Eventually, the son realized the futility of his self-assertion, and resolved to beg his father to let him be his slave.
   • The Fullness of Time
     • An element of the “fullness of time” consists in the disease of Adam’s sin having run its course, whereby mankind had learned “beyond a doubt that the game was up” (209-1).
     • St Paul states this idea in a positive sense: we had become immature through sin; now we are to become mature through grace (209-1).
       • “His gifts were . . . for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain . . . to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph 4:11-13)
       • “Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ” (Eph 4:15).
     • In Adam, “[mankind] had gone after a childish dream [, had become childish in the process,] and must now go through all the pains of growing toward maturity” (209-1).
     • Mankind did grow up, in some way and to some degree, as we will see later in the chapter (209-2).
       • Notice that the maturing of mankind took place in two different ways, one way for the Jews and the other for the Gentiles. This will be discussed on page 226.
     • This growing up brought the human race to the point St Paul calls “the fullness of time” (209-2). This is a reference to the Annunciation at which time the Incarnation took place, as can be seen in the “Benedictus,” for salvation is spoken of there as an event that has, in effect, taken place.
       • “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children” (Gal 4:4-5 NRS).
       • “Lord, now you let your servant go in peace, your word has been fulfilled. My own eyes have seen the salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of every people. A light to reveal you to the nations, and the glory of your people Israel” (Lk 2:29-32 NAB).
       • The redemptive act would have to take place as a future event, but it was a certainty that it would take place now that the Incarnation has occurred:
         • “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel. He has come to His people and set them free. He has raised up for us a mighty savior, born of the house of his servant David” (Lk 1:68-69).
     • Paul references another “fullness of time” in his letter to the Ephesians. However, this is a reference to Redemption, which reconciled God and man:
       • “In him we have redemption through his blood . . . He has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of his will, according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Eph 1:7, 9-10).
   • Why Did the Fullness of Time Take so Long to Arrive
     • How long did it take for this maturation process? A long time, for the race was already incredibly old when our history begins to take hold on its doings” at the time of the call of Abraham around 2000 BC. (209-2).
     • This raises the question as to why it took so long. Perhaps the answer can be found in a particular loss that was due to Adam’s sin. Adam was created as a being who was perfectly situated to hear the Word of God before the Fall.
       • Recall that prior to the fall, Adam and Eve’s “supreme pleasure was prayer . . . talking to [God] and [especially] listening to Him,” for listening to what God has to say to us is the primary aspect of prayer (187-3).
       • After the fall “the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God” (Gen 3:8). Listening to God was no longer their supreme pleasure.
     • With the loss of sanctifying grace, and the loss of the four freedoms of integrity, man’s ability to hear the Word of God, individually and as a society, was lost to a great extent. The ability to hear the Word of God is the measure of man’s maturity; hence, man had become spiritually immature.
     • To some extent, this loss would have to be recovered before the Redeemer could come, for the Redeemer, who is the Word of God, could not help a race that was not mature enough to hear the Word of God.
     • It may also be that it was necessary for the development of written language so that some elements of divine revelation could be captured in a permanent form so as to provide interplay between the spoken and written Word of God, at the time the human race, or some part of it, was mature enough to receive the Word.
2. What Happened to Religion?
   • Ubiquity of Religion at the Dawn of History
     • “The astonishing fact is that at the time history takes hold, we find religion everywhere” (210-1).
     • The time that “history takes hold,” (i.e., the “dawn of history”) is considered to be approximately 3500 BC, for that is the time at which writing systems appear. Proto-writing forms appear as early as 5300 BC.
       • “The Sumerian archaic cuneiform script and the Egyptian hieroglyphs are generally considered the earliest writing systems, both emerging out of their ancestral proto-literate symbol systems from 3400–3200 BCE with earliest coherent texts from about 2600 BC” (Wikipedia, s.v. Recorded History).
   • Religion of the Absolute Primitives
     • It seems as though Sheed is conflating two different phenomena in this part of the chapter (i.e., pages 210-214). Rhonda Chervin and Eugene Kevane in “Love of Wisdom: An Introduction to Christian Philosophy,” write of anthropological studies that show a remarkable difference between the religion of the “absolute primitives” and that of the civilizations we find at the dawn of history.
       • The “absolute primitives” are those peoples who are chronologically the most ancient of the human race, as well as those peoples living today in remote regions of the earth whose lifestyle is essentially identical with the absolute primitives.
       • The people living at the dawn of history are those who are found “in each of the four centers of the higher culture, in all the agricultural villages from China to Western Europe, among all the hunting tribes and all the nomadic herdsmen” (Rhonda Chervin, Eugene Kevane, “Love of Wisdom: An Introduction to Christian Philosophy,” 26; hereafter, LOW).
     • Chervin/Kevane write: “The fact is clear: the more primitive the tribes [of the absolute primitives], the more their religion exhibits [the following characteristics]:
       • Faith in one God (LOW, 28).
       • God is the Father Almighty (LOW, 28).
       • God is the creator of heaven and earth (LOW, 28).
       • Human creatures owe worship to God, which is expressed by prayer and sacrifice (LOW, 28).
       • The moral way of life is sustained by their worship of God (LOW, 28).
         • Note that what Chervin/Kevane are saying can be verified today, for some of these primitives “are still to be found living in remote regions of the globe” (LOW, 28).
   • Religion at the Dawn of History: A General Apostasy
     • According to Chervin/Kevane, at the dawn of history we find something that is quite different from the religion of the absolute primitives. They note a general apostasy from the religion of the absolute primitives that terminated in paganism.
       • “The first aspect of the fact [of the general apostasy] is the remarkable sameness of the human condition in 4000 B. C. [i.e., near the dawn of history], in each of the four centers of the higher culture. . . . Everywhere man is religious, indeed, but the object of his worship has changed” (LOW, 26).
     • According to Chervin/Kavane, religion at the dawn of history includes these characteristics:
       • “[Man] has lost his spirit of prayer to the heavenly Father” (LOW, 26).
       • “The idea of creation is nowhere to be found” (Ibid.).
       • “The sense of moral responsibility to the Supreme Being in each human act has dissipated” (Ibid.).
       • “Pantheism and the idolatrous religiosity that expresses it, minister to human willfulness and desires” (Ibid.).
       • “Sex runs riot”
         • “One need only study the excavations at Herculaneum, where the vices of ancient Rome have been bared to the modern gaze. Pantheism . . . results in the liberation of each self to be his own god. The cultures of antiquity exhibit the documentation in their furnaces of Moloch and their systems of temple prostitution” (Ibid.).
     • Chervin/Kevane conclude: “The long times of prehistory have somehow ministered to this universal outcome of pantheism and idolatry. . . . As the times of mankind proceed across prehistory toward recorded history, this fall into a spiritual darkness becomes ever deeper” (LOW, 26).
     • Sheed, on the other hand, writes that religion at the dawn of history possesses an enormous variety of forms, but there is also a “solid core of common principle” (210-1).
       • There is a universal belief in:
         • A creator of the world (this is in opposition to Chervin/Kevane)
         • The existence of a moral law (this is in opposition to Chervin/Kevane)
         • Belief in some sort of survival after death
         • The need for prayer and sacrifice.
       • There is a near universal belief in an earlier state of happiness which mankind had lost.
     • There are varying degrees of obscurity in the evidence for these elements of religion, but the evidence is there and “its universality is remarkable” (210-1).
     • An ambiguous statement: “There is sufficient resemblance between what [religion] was in [Adam] and what we find it to be in those remote [from Adam] descendants of his, to enable us to get some notion of the main forces at work” (210-1).
       • Chervin/Kevane indicate that the religious beliefs of the absolute primitives (which should come closest to representing Adam’s religious beliefs) and those remote descendants of his are markedly different.
   • What Adam and Eve Took from Paradise
     • The human race brought out of Paradise two things that would help it to regain its maturity (210-2):
       • First: Adam and Eve had the religious knowledge that had been revealed to them in Paradise. They would, naturally, share it with their children, and in doing so, begin an oral tradition of divine revelation (210-2).
         • Hence, the religion of the absolute primitives.
       • Second: They had their human nature with its assets and liabilities:
         • Regarding the assets, they had a body and a soul with the faculties of intellect and will that were wounded but functioning (210-2). They also had the natural law.
           • “They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or perhaps excuse them” (Rom 2:15).
         • Regarding the liabilities, their bodies were “clamorous and hard to control, and [they had] no continuing will to control [them]” (210-2).
     • Left to their own devices, these factors would have determined the state of religion for the human race. But man was not left to his own devices. There were two other factors that would accompany his journey through human history (210-2):
       • First, Satan did not lose interest in man (211-1).
       • Second, God did not cease to care for man (211-1).
     • Over time, “there was an inevitable dilution and distortion of the original message” that had been entrusted to Adam and Eve (211-2).
       • If Chervin/Kevane are correct, this distortion was not inevitable, since the “absolute primitives” of today have preserved the beliefs of their chronologically remote ancestors. If we claim that God continued to care for man, then He would certainly work to help man maintain those ancient beliefs received from Adam and Eve, and this appears to be what happened, except where large cultural centers developed.
     • This is due to the fact that man cannot for long maintain a supernatural revelation in its entirety without supernatural assistance in the form of an infallible guide (211-2).
       • We see, in the relatively short history of Christianity, and in particular in the last five hundred years, that unless an institution has a charism of infallibility, it cannot maintain for long the teaching that it originally received (211-2).
         • From the Protestant “reformation” alone have come tens of thousands of Christian denominations, none of which teaches the full content of what was first revealed to the Apostles and all of them teaching some doctrines that are contrary to the revelation given to the Apostles (211-2).
   • Man’s Natural Ability to Know God
     • The mind of man, though weakened by sin, was not deranged. Thus, even if nothing of the original revelation survived, there are two factors within man that would work toward its recovery:
       • First, the [intellect] of man could establish the foundations of a religious interpretation of the universe” (211-2)
         • Recall that God made man such that he is able to know God by unaided reason alone (52-2).
       • Second, the will of man, despite its tendency toward self-assertion, ensured that the intellect would establish those foundations, for it “could not rid itself of an impulse to move toward God” (211-2).
         • This impulse can only be annihilated by final impenitence, a rejection of God at the moment of death; thus, it cannot be annihilated in this life (211-2).
         • The technical name for this inclination toward good is “synderesis.”
     • We do not know how man came to the degree of religiosity that existed at the dawn of history, but we know that man came to a nearly universal belief in three things:
       • “A God responsible for creating heaven and earth, a moral law that expressed the divine will, [and] prayer and sacrifice as a way to approach the divinity” (212-2).
         • Sheed also includes belief in an afterlife and belief in an earlier state of happiness as being universal or nearly so where he discusses this on page 210.
       • We don’t know how primitive man came to this knowledge of God. There are many possible ways, for example, the five ways of Thomas Aquinas. “[But] how could he have failed to arrive at it, since all ways lead to it?” (212-2).
     • One thing that we know for certain is that there is no record of atheism among primitive peoples:
       • “Atheism arrived later and was not widely popular then” (212-3).
         • “Philosophical atheist[ic] thought began to appear in Europe and Asia in the sixth or fifth century BC” (Wikipedia, s.v. History of Atheism).
         • “The first undoubted documents of philosophical atheism (following the narrower, modern definition) appear at the earliest in the mid to late seventeenth century” (InvestigatingAtheism web site:
           • http://web.archive.org/web/20130828093736/http://www.investigatingatheism.info:80/historyseventeenth.html
         • “In 1944, the Gallup Poll asked a national sample of Americans if they believed in God. Four percent said “no.” Since then the question has often been asked and the percent of atheists has held steady at about four percent and never exceeding six percent” (Sociologist Rodney Stark, quoted on StrangeNotions web site):
           • http://www.strangenotions.com/how-religion-benefits-everyone/
   • Man’s Response to God
     • Recognizing his dependence on God and the necessarily great power of God, the development of certain elements of religion was inevitable. (Note: One might ask why this development would be inevitable if we accept that the dissolution of the “original message” (211-2) was inevitable. The history of the Jews, seems to indicate that there was no upward movement apart from powerful interventions by God. Of course, it could be that such interventions took place among the Gentiles also, but the point is that it appears these interventions would be necessary, and without them an upward movement toward God would not seem to be inevitable.)
       • Prayer and sacrifice would have come naturally to man as he considered “his own helplessness” in the midst of a vast world that was often hostile (212-4).
       • There would have been ritual, so as to include both body and soul in religious services (213-1)
       • The idea of sacrament (sign) and symbol would have come about so as to represent the deeper, inexpressible states of the soul (e.g., the use of water for spiritual cleansing) (213-1).
       • There would have been other elements attached to the worship of God, but their form would depend on the various attributes these people would have associated with their understanding of God (213-2)
     • “The root of all this has been the assumption that God can be known from what He has made, an assumption in itself reasonable, but likely to mislead those who argued back from the thing made to the maker without allowing for the difference between the Infinite and the finite” (213-2).
       • Recall Sheed’s example from an earlier lesson: A marble statue may be an excellent replica of a man, but we cannot argue that the man is a very rigid man because the statue is very rigid (94-3)
     • There have been many ways in which this sort of defective argument has taken place with respect to God, and there are two that are especially widespread and of special importance, both of which are due to elements in man, one with respect to the body, the other to the soul.
       • With respect to the body, there is the essential role that sexuality plays in human affairs. “It was inevitable that [pagans] should attribute some sort of sex-experience to the Divinity” (214-1).
         • “In religions, [the attitude of ‘eros’ being a ‘divine intoxication’] found expression in fertility cults, part of which was the ‘sacred’ prostitution which flourished in many temples. ‘Eros’ was thus celebrated as divine power, as fellowship with the Divine” (Deus Caritas Est, # 4).
       • With respect to the soul, there is the human experience of conscience that “[asserts] an obligation not imposed on us by ourselves to do right and avoid wrong” (214-2).
       • “It was inevitable that they should connect that inner voice with Him . . . [and] see Him as the source of morality . . . [and] holiness” (214-2).
     • In summary, we can say that man, by his very nature, is predisposed to belief in God, and he tends to build up religion accordingly. However, the wounds in his nature, that resulted from the Fall, tend to deform the religion he builds up (214-3).
3. The Prehistoric Corrupting Forces
   • Our Fallen Nature’s Impact on Religion
     • Only a human intellect operating at full strength would come to recognize that there could only be one true God, and the nature of that God must be spirit (214-4).
     • A human will operating at less than full strength would find the concept of one true God to be overwhelming, and the concept of a spiritual God to be too remote (214-4).
       • What Sheed says above regarding the intellect and the will applies to one who must “come to recognize.” However, the absolute primitives held those beliefs. Consequently, what Sheed is referring to can only be applied to pagans who had lost touch with the religion of their ancestors, the absolute primitives.
       • History seems to indicate that once a civilization has fallen into paganism there is essentially no way out apart from a direct intervention on God’s part. Paganism appears to be irreformable.
     • The resulting impact of our weakened intellects and wills on religion are seen in the following (214-4):
       • Widespread polytheism and idolatry are what we find at the dawn of history (214-4).
       • Pantheism (addresses the remoteness problem by bringing God “close” to us) (214-4).
       • “Worship” included sexual religious rites, which grew monstrous (214-2).
       • The blood rituals of animal sacrifice suggested human sacrifice (215-1).
         • Infants were offered to Moloch, even in Israel:
           • “You shall not give any of your children to devote them by fire to Molech, and so profane the name of your God: I am the LORD” (Lev 18:21; also see Lev 20:2-5; I Kg 11:7; II Kings 23:10; Is 57:9; Jer 32:35)
         • When the Spaniard Hernan Cortes arrived in Mexico in 1518, “the total number of [human] sacrifices was at least 50,000 a year, probably much more” (Warren Carroll, “History of Christendom,” vol. 4, 23).
       • There was the tendency to see religion as merely a means to placate the gods (215-1).
   • Satan’s Interest in Mankind
     • Scripture tells us that the Devil had a large part to play in these religious aberrations.
       • “You provoked Him who made you, by sacrificing to demons and not to God” (Bar 4:7).
         • In saying this, Baruch attributes the Babylonian Captivity to idolatry (215-2).
     • Even “in the very worst of religions, you can see what good thing they are travestying: somewhere below the travesty, there is a basis of reality. The Devil, indeed, prefers to work with reality gone astray” (215-2).
       • In other words, the natural religions of the heathen were not mere fictions. Rudiments of authentic worship lay beneath the surface of pagan rituals, but those rudiments were disfigured by corrupted ritual (see a description of this calamity in Wisdom 14:21-27, which is also quoted in 215-2).
     • Corrupted religious ritual became, in effect, worship of the Devil, as we see in Baruch 4:7, quoted above. The Devil asserted self over God in the beginning, thus, making himself, in his own mind, a pseudo divinity. Among the descendants of Adam who practiced these rituals, the Devil found himself as their object of worship.
       • “For the worship of idols not to be named is the beginning and cause and end of every evil” (Wis 14:27).
       • “I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be partners with demons” (1 Cor 10:20).
   • God’s Continuing Care for Man
     • The pagan religions were a carnival for the Devil. Despite that, religion did not perish.
     • In the history of religions there is both degeneration and revival but, on the whole, the movement of paganism is upward, if anything (216-2).
       • This is contrary to the aforementioned thoughts of Chervin and Kevane on the status of paganism at the dawn of history.
     • How do we account for any upward movement that may have occurred in paganism (216-2)?
       • Pagans were made in the image of God (216-2)
       • God loves all who are made in His image (216-2).
       • Just as all fell in Adam, so the promise of Redemption was intended for all of Adam’s children (216-2).
       • “Wherever we look in time or place, we see a calling upon God; it would be strange if God did not answer” (216-2).
       • Mankind is the beneficiary of a double illumination, one from the Son, and one from the Holy Spirit.
         • Regarding the Son, John writes: “There is one who enlightens every soul born into the world; he was the true Light” (Jn 1:9 Knox).
         • Regarding the Holy Spirit, recall that the supernatural illumination of the soul in sanctifying grace is appropriated to Him (120-2).
         • St. Irenaeus writes: “One and the same Divine Father and His eternal Word are from the beginning and in every age close to the human race and approach man by many ordinances and many operations of assisting grace” (216- 3).
     • The formula from the time of Adam till today has been man’s desire for God and God’s undying love for man (217-1).
       • Hence, we should expect to find, in the history of religion, just what we do find. Man’s need for God is a persistent force within him that outweighs the negative aspects of his fallen nature.
       • The result of this is that “[despite] all the fantastic perversions wrought by man’s weakness of mind and will, there are true values, that is to say, resemblances to the Christian revelation, to be found in every part of paganism” (217-1).
4. God’s Special Choice of the Jews
   • The Call of Abraham
     • The story of God’s plan for the re-establishment (at-one-ment) of the race is told in the forty-six books of the Old Testament, which is “a body of religious writing without parallel” (217-2).
     • God’s special relationship with the Jews begins approximately 2000 B.C. in Haran, which is about 250 miles northeast of Canaan, in the south-eastern part of present-day Turkey.
       • Page 218-1 wrongly states that Haran is in Canaan. Per Genesis: “Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran . . . and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan” (Gen 12:4-5).
     • At that time, God makes a general promise to Abraham:
       • “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you. All the communities of the earth shall find blessing in you” (Gen 12:2-3).
   • The Covenant with Abram (Abraham)
     • The promise was repeated multiple times over the next twenty-five years, after which came the definitive promise, when Abraham was ninety-nine years old:
       • “‘My covenant with you is this: you are to become the father of a host of nations. No longer shall you be called Abram; your name shall be Abraham, for I am making you the father of a host of nations. I will render you exceedingly fertile; I will make nations of you; kings shall stem from you. I will maintain my covenant with you and your descendants after you throughout the ages as an everlasting pact, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. I will give to you and to your descendants after you the land in which you are now staying, the whole land of Canaan, as a permanent possession; and I will be their God.’  God also said to Abraham: ‘On your part, you and your descendants after you must keep my covenant throughout the ages. This is my covenant with you and your descendants after you that you must keep: every male among you shall be circumcised . . . and that shall be the sign of the covenant between you and me’” (Gen 17:4-11).
     • The relationship thus established was not as a favor to Abraham, but for the sake of a function that would be carried out through the descendants of Abraham for the sake of the entire race (218-2):
       • The function was the bringing forth of the Redeemer (219-4).
     • The promise was repeated to Isaac, Abraham’s second son (first son by the marriage covenant), and Isaac’s second son, Jacob.
       • “Then [the angel] said, ‘Your name shall no more be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed” (Gen 32:28).
         • Israel (per RSV) – “He who strives with God”
     • We see the hint of a future Redemption immediately following God’s test of Abraham, in which he was to offer Isaac as a sacrifice:
       • “Because you . . . have not withheld your son . . . all the nations of the earth shall find blessing” (Gen 22:18).
     • Later, we see the hint of the Redeemer and the mode of Redemption when Abraham’s grandson, Jacob (Israel), prophesies in his last words to his sons (218-3):
       • “The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs; and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples. Binding his foal to the vine and his ass’s colt to the choice vine, he washes his garments in wine and his vesture in the blood of grapes” (Gen 49:10-11).
5. Jacob (Israel) in Egypt and the Exodus
   • Joseph Sold into Slavery
     • Jacob’s favorite son, Joseph, was sold into slavery by his brothers (Gen 37:12ff).
       • Joseph becomes governor of Egypt (Gen 41:40) and is given responsibility for distributing portions of grain during a severe famine (Gen 41:55).
       • Jacob’s family moves to Egypt (Gen 46:6)
       • The king of Egypt enslaves Israel (Exodus 1:8ff).
       • The slavery lasts approximately 400 years (430, Ex 12:40; 400, Acts 7:6; 450, Acts13:20).
     • Israelites Freed from Slavery in Spectacular Fashion (219-2)
       • The call of Moses on Mount Horeb: “I AM who AM” (Ex 3:1, 14)
         • Original request of Moses: “The elders of Israel shall go to the king of Egypt and say to him, ‘The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us; and now, we pray you, let us go a three days’ journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the LORD our God’” (Ex 3:18).
         • However, the intent of God was to lead them to the “land flowing with milk and honey” (Ex 3:17).
     • The ten plagues on Egypt
       • The first nine of the ten plagues: (Ex 7:14 – 10:29)
       • Sacrifice of the Paschal Lamb (Ex 12:1-28)
         • The Hebrew “pasch” means “passing over” (219-2).
         • “In this manner you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it in haste. It is the LORD’s passover. For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will smite all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the LORD. The blood shall be a sign for you, upon the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall fall upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt. This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the LORD; throughout your generations you shall observe it as an ordinance forever” (Ex 12:11-14).
         • The importance of the annual Passover celebration is shown in the fact that John’s Gospel is structured around the three Passovers that occurred during Jesus’ public ministry. His crucifixion took place at the time of the third of these three Passovers.
       • The Ninth Plague: Three days of darkness (Ex 10:22).
       • The Tenth Plague: Death of the first-born of Egypt (Ex 12:29-30).
     • Expulsion/Flight from Egypt
       • “And he summoned Moses and Aaron by night, and said, ‘Rise up, go forth from among my people, both you and the people of Israel; and go, serve the LORD, as you have said. Take your flocks and your herds, as you have said, and be gone; and bless me also!’” (Ex 12:31-32).
       • Crossing of the Red Sea (Ex 14)
   • Renewal of the Covenant
     • The Law given on Mount Sinai (Ex 20; 219-3)
       • “God gave the Jews through Moses the ten commandments and a great deal of moral, ritual, and legal precepts covering every detail of their lives” (219-3).
         • It is important to recognize that the Mosaic Law dominated the lives of the Jews; it helps to explain the many comments about the Law in the New Testament (219-3).
         • “Moses’ religion appears to be a renewal of that original religion, which earlier mankind practiced before gradual deviation set in, hardened, and became a generalized condition in the long prehistoric ages of mankind” (LOW, 54).
       • “The Decalogue contains a privileged expression of the natural law” (CCC 2070).
         • “From the beginning, God had implanted in the heart of man the precepts of the natural law. Then he was content to remind him of them. This was the Decalogue. The commandments of the Decalogue, although accessible to reason alone, have been revealed. To attain a complete and certain understanding of the requirements of the natural law, sinful humanity needed this revelation” (CCC 2071).
         • “When Gentiles who have not the law do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or perhaps excuse them” (Rom 2:14).
     • The Covenant with Abraham was renewed and expanded on Mount Sinai (Ex 24:8).
       • “And Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he threw against the altar. Then he took the book of the covenant, and read it in the hearing of the people; and they said, ‘All that the LORD has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.’ And Moses took the blood and threw it upon the people, and said, ‘Behold the blood of the covenant which the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words’” (Ex 24:6-8).
     • Sheed does not discuss the serial aspect of God’s covenants with man, but one can understand His covenant with Abraham as being one of a series of covenants, as Scott Hahn has shown in his book, “A Father Who Keeps His Promises.” The mediator, form and sign of these covenants are listed below.
       • Adam – marriage – Sabbath
       • Noah – family – rainbow
       • Abraham – tribe – circumcision
       • Moses – nation – Passover
       • David – national kingdom – Throne
       • Jesus – Catholic Church – Eucharist
       • Holy Trinity – The Church Triumphant – Beatific Vision
6. Established in Palestine to Bear Witness to the World
   • The Jews: Chosen for a Particular Function
     • “The Jews were chosen because of something God meant to accomplish through them for the whole world. The essence of their function lay in this – that from them was to come the Redeemer, who should redeem all mankind” (219-4).
       • “They were to bear witness to truths which were in danger of perishing, which indeed seemed to have perished utterly” (220-1). In particular, they were to bear witness to two truths:
         • First, there is but one God (Both Satan and Adam had tried to set themselves up as gods.)
         • Second, God will send a Redeemer
     • They had no special aptitude for their mission: Monotheism had no greater appeal to them than it did to all the polytheists who lived around them (220-2).
       • “They were forever going after the gods of the heathen, and God was forever restoring them to right ways” (220-2).
     • The Divine Pedagogy with Respect to the Jews
       • “[God] allowed the enemies of the Jews to do as they please with them, so as to remind the Jews that “they were in the hand of God and could achieve nothing without Him” (220-2).
       • “[God] sent them the Prophets to bear glowing and glorious witness to the same truth” (220-2).
     • They found the doctrine of the true nature of the Messiah just as difficult as that of monotheism (220-2).
7. Messianic Prophecy in General
   • Witness of the Prophets
     • With the prophets as their instructors, down through the centuries the picture of the Messiah grows in clarity (220-2).
     • Nevertheless, “much of [the prophecy] is obscure even to us who have seen its fulfillment” (220-3).
       • Consequently, we must not allow hindsight to exaggerate the degree of clarity available to those who first heard this prophesy (220-3).
     • Many of these prophesies are buried in their context, as is true with prophesy in general (220-3).
       • An example of the obscurity of some prophesies: Ps 109:6-10“Find a lying witness, an accuser to stand by his right hand,
         That he may be judged and found guilty, that his plea may be in vain.
         May his days be few; may another take his office.
         May his children be fatherless, his wife, a widow.
         May his children be vagrant beggars, driven from their hovels.”
       • Fulfillment of Ps 109:8 in Acts 1:20“For it is written in the Book of Psalms: ‘Let his encampment become desolate, and may no one dwell in it.’ And: ‘May another take his office.’”
       • The same is true of Ps 69:25
   • Foretelling of the Messiah
     • Note that prophesy means “to speak out” rather than “to foretell.” Their “speaking out” was typically in response to the immorality of the Israelites, for they found morality to be even more difficult than monotheism (220-3).
     • The prophets “thundered against this faithlessness [i.e., their failure to observe the Law] as against strange gods” (221-1).
     • Occasionally, the words of the prophets would foretell future events because, in addition to calling the Israelites to faithfulness, they were also to speak of the One who was to come, the Redeemer (221-2).
     • Prophecies referred to by Sheed (221-2, 3, 4): The Messiah would:
       • Come from the tribe of Judah (Gen 49:10-11).
       • Be a descendant of David (e.g., Ps 131:11; Is 11:1, 10 quoted by Paul in Rom 15:12)
       • Be born of a virgin (Is 7:14 quoted in Mt 1:23)
       • Come from Galilee (Is 8:23 – 9:5)
       • Be born in Bethlehem (Mi 5:2)
       • Be from ancient times (eternity) (Mi 5:2)
       • Be a king, triumphant and victorious:
         • “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on an ass, on a colt the foal of an ass” (Zech 9:9)
       • See “Forty-One Messianic Prophecies” at:
         • https://dicklandkamer.wordpress.com/forty-one-messianic-prophesies/
     • These details are not the most important of the messianic prophecies. There are two groups of prophecies that are of the greatest importance; both sets are fuller and clearer. These groups speak of the nature and the role of the Messiah (222-3).
8. Prophecy Regarding the Nature of the Messiah
   • Three Streams of Messianic Prophecy
     • There are three streams of teaching regarding the nature of the Messiah. They are listed here in order of increasing clearness (222-4):
       • First, there is a central stream showing that he is a man triumphant.
       • Second, there is a stream showing him to be more than a man.
       • Third, there is a stream showing him to be a man who is less than triumphant.
     • The first stream: The Messiah is a man triumphant
       • The Jews seemed to concentrate on the first, and “made little of the other two,” but without the other two, “one hardly sees Him at all (222-4).
     • The second stream (more than a man) shows up over and over again in Scripture, though these could only be hints to a people who knew nothing of the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity (222-4).
       • “But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah . . . from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days” (Mi 5:2).
       • “From the womb before the day star [i.e., before the creation of the dawn] I begot thee” (Ps 109:3 DR).
     • The third stream (a man less than triumphant) is even clearer than the second, especially in Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53.
   • Prophecy of a Messiah Less Than Triumphant: Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53
     • Psalm 22
       • “Yea, dogs are round about me; a company of evildoers encircle me; they have pierced my hands and feet – I can count all my bones – they stare and gloat over me” (Ps 22:16-17).
       • Some additional prophecies from Psalm 22, not mentioned by Sheed
         • “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?” (Ps 22:1).
         • “O my God, I cry by day, but thou dost not answer; and by night, but find no rest” (Ps 22:2).
         • “But I am a worm, and no man; scorned by men, and despised by the people. All who see me mock at me, they make mouths at me, they wag their heads” (Ps 22:6-7).
         • “Many bulls encompass me, strong bulls of Bashan surround me; they open wide their mouths at me, like a ravening and roaring lion. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax, it is melted within my breast; my strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue cleaves to my jaws; thou dost lay me in the dust of death” (Ps 22:12-15).
         • “Deliver my soul from the sword, my life from the power of the dog! Save me from the mouth of the lion, my afflicted soul from the horns of the wild oxen!” (Ps 22:20-21).
     • Isaiah 53
       • “Despised, and the most abject of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with infirmity” (Is 53:3).
       • “He was offered because it was his own will, and he opened not his mouth: he shall be led as a sheep to the slaughter, and shall be dumb as a lamb before his shearer, and he shall not open his mouth” (Is 53:7).
       • “And the Lord was pleased to bruise him in infirmity: if he shall lay down his life for sin, he shall see a long-lived seed” (Is 53:10).
       • Some additional prophetic details from Isaiah 53, not mentioned by Sheed
         • “Surely he hath borne our infirmities and carried our sorrows: and we have thought him as it were a leper, and as one struck by God and afflicted” (Is 53:4).
           • “A hanged man is accursed by God” (Dt 21:23).
         • “But he was wounded for our iniquities, he was bruised for our sins: the chastisement of our peace was upon him” (Is 53:5).
         • “All we like sheep have gone astray, everyone hath turned aside into his own way: and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Is 53:6).
         • “He was taken away from distress, and from judgment: who shall declare his generation? because he is cut off out of the land of the living: for the wickedness of my people have I struck him” (Is 53:8).
9. Jewish “Reconciliation” of the Three Streams of Prophecy
   • Mystery and the Reconciliation of Messianic Prophecy
     • In these three streams of prophecy, we find a classic example of how people tend to approach mystery.
       • “To say the Jews ignored a great deal of all this is not to accuse them of any startling malignity,” for some of the prophecy they received could only be understood after the fact of what had been prophesied (223-5).
     • The Jews were certain that the Messiah would be the son of David:
       • God speaking to David through the prophet Samuel about the Davidic “dynasty”: “Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure for ever before me; your throne shall be established forever” (2 Samuel 7:14–16).
       • A psalm of David: “The LORD [i.e., God] says to my lord [i.e., my superior]: ‘Sit at my right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool.’ The LORD sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your foes!” (Ps 110:1-2).
       • “[Jesus said to them], ‘What is your opinion about the Messiah? Whose son is he?’ They replied, ‘David’s.’ He said to them, ‘How, then, does David, inspired by the Spirit, call him “lord,” saying: “The Lord said to my lord, ‘Sit at my right hand until I place your enemies under your feet’”? If David calls him “lord,” how can he be his son?’ No one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day on did anyone dare to ask him any more questions” (Mt 22:42-46).
     • However, they couldn’t reconcile the prophecy of Jesus being the Son of David, with the prophecy of Jesus pre-existing David (e.g., Mi 5:2) and being superior to David (e.g., Ps 110:1).
     • Rather than accepting both elements at white heat without concern about being able to reconcile the apparent contradiction, they emphasize one element (Son of David), and ignore the other (pre-existence of the Messiah) (39-2,3; 40-2), thus, taking what seems to be the intellectual line of least resistance (223-5).
   • Prophecy Regarding the Kingdom of the Messiah
     • Having taken what seems to be the intellectual line of least resistance regarding the nature of the Messiah, “their will seems to have followed the line of greatest complacency in the picture they formed of the Kingdom He was to found,” that is, in the matter of the role of the Messiah (223-6).
     • The Jews understood the Kingdom of the Messiah as having two principle components:
       • The Gentiles were either excluded or included but only in a mode that was entirely subordinate to that of the Israelites (223-6).
       • They understood the kingdom as an earthly kingdom only, and not as a spiritual kingdom (223-6).
       • The prophets, properly read, supply correctives for both [misconceptions]” (223-6).
     • God’s promise of a covenant to Abram, and the establishment of the covenant, which took place twenty-five years later, both included the Gentiles. Thus, from the beginning, the restoration of the relationship between God and man, brought about through the descendants of Abraham, was inclusive of both Jew and Gentile (224-1).
       • Initial promise: “I will make of you a great nation [note the singular], and I will bless you . . . All the communities of the earth shall find blessing in you” (Gen 12:2-3).
       • Promise acknowledged in Psalm 72 a millennia later: “May his name endure forever, his fame continue as long as the sun! May men bless themselves by him, all nations call him blessed!” (Ps 72:17).
     • Isaiah (c. 700 BC) prophesies the inclusion of the Gentiles, and the possibility of exclusion of some Israelites (see Rom 10:20 for Paul’s interpretation of Isaiah’s prophecy) (224-1):
       • Regarding the Gentiles: “I was ready to be sought by those who did not ask for me; I was ready to be found by those who did not seek me. I said, ‘Here am I, here am I,’ to a nation that did not call on my name” (Is 65:1).
       • Regarding the Jews: “I spread out my hands all the day to a rebellious people, who walk in a way that is not good, following their own devices” (Is 65:1-2).
     • Hence, prophecy spoke of the kingdom including both Jew and Gentile, and we see the fulfillment of this in the Gospels, acted out by Jesus but not explicitly stated by Him:
       • Healing of the centurion’s servant (Mt 8)
       • Healing of the Canaanite woman’s daughter (Mt 15)
       • Exorcism of the Gerasene demoniac (Mk 5)
       • Though the mission of Jesus was primarily to the House of Israel, the mission given to the Apostles concerned all the nations:
         • “Jesus answered, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel’” (Mt 15:24).
         • “And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’” (Mt 28:18-19).
     • It was left to St. Paul to write definitively of the total equality of Jew and Gentile that comes about through Baptism (224-2)
       • “The mystery was made known to me by revelation . . . which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit; that is, how the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel” (Eph 3:3-6).
   • The Nature of the Messianic Kingdom
     • “Thus all who belong to Christ are of the seed of Abraham, and the promises of the Kingdom are to us” (224-3).
       • In regard to descent from Abraham (i.e., being of his seed) and everlasting life, it is spiritual descent that matters:
       • Biological descent provides no assurance of salvation: “‘Our father is Abraham.’ Jesus said to them, ‘If you were Abraham’s children, you would be doing the works of Abraham. But now you are trying to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God; Abraham did not do this. You are doing the works of your father [i.e., Satan]!’” (Jn 8:39-41).
       • Spiritual descent, on the other hand, does provide us with the means of salvation: “That is why it [the promise to Abraham] depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants — not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who follow the faith of Abraham, who is the father of all of us, as it is written, ‘I have made you father of many nations.’ He is our father in the sight of God” (Rom 4:16-17).
     • There was a legitimate question about the nature of the prophesied kingdom. The Jews understood it as an earthly kingdom, and the prophets do not explicitly contradict that notion (224-3).
     • However, “the prophets give a mass of teaching which should have made the notion of a merely earthly Kingdom untenable and not even desirable” (224-3).
       • Sheed supports this statement with quotes from Ez 36:24-26 and Zech 9:10, 16-17. These verses certainly hint at spiritual elements, but it not clear why he thinks these verses make the notion of a “merely earthly Kingdom untenable and not even desirable.”
       • Rather, it seems, as Sheed says, that it is plain enough “only for us who read the Prophets now, that there was to be a spiritualization [of the Law] at every point” (225-2).
   • Aspects of the Spiritualization of the Law
     • The priesthood of the Old Law was “spiritualized” with a priesthood according to the order of Melchizedek, who was a Gentile, and who offered a sacrifice of bread and wine (225-2).
       • “Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; he was priest of God Most High. And he blessed him and said, ‘Blessed be Abram by God Most High, maker of heaven and earth’” (Gen 14:18-19).
       • “Accept [these offerings] as once you were pleased to accept the gifts of your servant Abel the just, the sacrifice of Abraham, our father in faith, and the offering of you high priest Melchizedek” (Eucharistic Prayer I, the Roman Canon).
       • “The LORD has sworn and will not change his mind, ‘You [i.e., the Messiah] are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek’” (Ps 110:4).
         • Spiritualized in that no man can be a priest forever. Rather, the priesthood of Jesus is exercised through men.
     • Circumcision was “spiritualized” in the sacrament of Baptism (this is not mentioned by Sheed).
       • “We must say, therefore, that grace was bestowed in circumcision as to all the effects of grace, but not as in Baptism” Summa III, q., 70., a. 4).
     • The sacrifices of the Old Law were “spiritualized” in the Eucharist.
       • “The law has but a shadow of the good things to come. . . . For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, ‘Sacrifices and offerings thou hast not desired, but a body hast thou prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings thou hast taken no pleasure. Then I said, “Lo, I have come to do thy will, O God,” as it is written of me in the roll of the book.’ When he said above, ‘Thou hast neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings’ (these are offered according to the law), then he added, ‘Lo, I have come to do thy will.’ He abolishes [for Christians] the first in order to establish the second. And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Heb 10:1, 4-8)
       • “For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is great among the nations, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure offering; for my name is great among the nations, says the LORD of hosts” (Mal 1:11).
         • Spiritualized in that a pure offering, Jesus Himself in the Eucharist, will be offered in place of the bulls and goats of the Old Law.
     • “Everything in Israel was preparatory, looked forward to something which should complete it. The Law given by God to Moses was not a consummation. It was a preparation: a hard and heavy preparation: not maturity, but a superb training for maturity” (225-3)
10. The Fullness of Time: The Moment of the Incarnation
    • Preparation of the Jews
      • “When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Gal 4:4-5).
      • The phrase, “fullness of time,” could be understood, without context, as referring to either an era or a moment.
        • If it is seen as an era, then it would have to be unending, for once the era of the fullness of time had begun, there could never be a moment that was less than the fullness of time.
        • On the other hand, St. Paul speaks of the fullness of time in the past tense, which indicates a completed event that has not continued into the future.
        • Hence, the phrase must refer to a moment rather than an era. Consequently, the moment is that of the Incarnation, which is what St. Paul is referring to in Galatians 4:4-5).
      • “The Law appears to have done for the Jews all that it had in it to do. Trained by the Law and hammered by their enemies, they had come to a splendid point of development . . . magnificent in comparison with what was to be found elsewhere” (226-1).
        • They had conquered their centuries-old temptation to idolatry and polytheism. They seemed to be free of it for the 500 years that followed their return from the Babylonian exile (226-1).
        • They had been ruled by the Romans for sixty years and had “stood gloriously against the introduction of idols” (226-1).
        • They had become scrupulous observers of the Mosaic Law, but they tended to place a disproportionate emphasis on the external aspects of the Law, thus overshadowing the decisive role of the will in moral actions.
        • In regard to the moral law, even if they failed in its observance, they recognized the failures as such, and repented for their sins against it (226-1).
      • “The Jewish religion at the time of Christ’s birth was a thing of grandeur [and evidenced] . . . by the holiness it produced in the best of the Jews how fit it was for the completion that Christ was to bring to it and [for] the use He made of it” (226-1).
      • St. Paul writes, in Galatians 3:24, that the law was a pedagogue (i.e., a servant who escorted children to school; a disciplinarian, a monitor). The school was Christ, and the Law effectively escorted the Jews to Him (226-1).
    • Preparation of the Gentiles
      • “The history of the race, says St. Augustine, is the story of one man. It was the race that fell in Adam, it was the race that was to be redeemed: in between, the race had to be made ready” (227-1).
        • “The whole human race is in Adam ‘as one body of one man’” (CCC 404).
        • “[God] made from one [man] every nation of men to live on all the face of the earth” (Acts 17:26).
      • We cannot presume to know the mind of God regarding His preparation of the Gentiles but we do see “at least a suggestion of a pedagogic action of God upon [the Gentiles that parallels] His pedagogic action upon the Jews” (227-1).
    • The Gentiles and God’s Providence
      • We know from Scripture that God’s continuing providence over the Gentiles is a fact (227-1, 227-2):
        • In His Gospel, John tells us that the Son of God enlightens every soul; this must include Gentiles:
          • “There is one [i.e., the Son of God] who enlightens every soul born into the world; he was the true Light” (Jn 1:9 Knox).
          • “The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world” (Jn 1:9 RSV).
      • St Paul speaks of the two principal ways in which the Son enlightened the Gentiles:
        • First, with respect to the knowledge of God from the observation of the created world (227-2):
          • “For what can be known about God is plain to [the Gentiles], because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made” (Rom 1:19-20; Wis 13:5).
        • Second, with respect to the natural law (228-1):
          • “When Gentiles who have not the law do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or perhaps excuse them” (Rom 2:14-15).
          • Note that the Catechism refers to the Decalogue as “a privileged expression of the natural law” (CCC 2080). Thus, the Gentiles also had the Decalogue to guide them by way of the natural law.
      • The Gentiles also “had powerful religious teachers and great religious revivals” (227-1), though they were not prophets inspired by God, and their teaching was not protected from error (227-1).
        • Note the difference between these Gentile teachers and the Jewish prophets. The prophets were inspired by God and they were protected from error in their teaching.
      • Consequently, there were countless movements upward that seem to have more than balanced the countless movements downward (227-1).
        • If this were not the case, it is hard to see how religion could have survived at all in the Gentile world, under the pressure of man’s weakness and the Devil’s destructive skill (227-1).
      • As a result of all this religious activity in the Gentile world, “the general religious standard of the heathen world was almost certainly higher at the coming of Christ than it had been two thousand years earlier when God made His covenant with Abraham” (227-1).
        • Chervin/Kevane appear to see this differently, but that could be a matter of emphasis, as will be noted later in this section.
    • Religious Movements in the Pagan World
      • About the same time the Jews returned from the Babylonian Captivity, there was a series of religious movements throughout the pagan world (228-2).
        • “Zoroaster in Persia got closer to monotheism perhaps than any religious founder ever got outside the mainstream of God’s revelation to man” (228-2).
        • “Gautama Buddha in India and Confucius and Lai [Lao] Tse in China founded systems based upon great truths” through which men’s souls certainly gained more than they lost (228-2).
      • About 200 years after the Jews returned from the Babylonian Captivity (c. 539 BC), “the Greek philosophers – Socrates, Plato, Aristotle (470 – 322) – did a marvelous intellectual work upon the nature of things” (228-2).
        • St. Justin Martyr (d. 165) referred to them as “Pedagogues to bring men to Christ” (228-2), which is reminiscent of St. Paul’s reference to the Law as being a pedagogue for the Jews. (Gal 3:24, 226-1).
        • Socrates: 470-399 BC
        • Plato: 427-347 BC
        • Aristotle: 384-322 BC
      • Later movements, such as Stoicism and Neo-Pythagoreanism, also contributed in some way to the general upward movement, despite the errors of these philosophies (228-2).
      • “Roman Law spread a greater measure of better discipline over a wider area of the world than any secular law before it (229-1).
      • Some of the truth of Judaism had become an influence on Gentile religious beliefs during this period of time due to the Jews being widely dispersed inside and outside the Roman Empire (229-1).
      • “All these [elements of the upward movement of paganism] are true, yet a glance at the state of the pagan world might lead us to feel that they bear too tiny a proportion to a whole ocean of iniquity” (229-2).
        • St. Paul speaks of the Gentile world as a “crooked and perverse generation” (Phil 2:15). In Romans 1:18-32, he describes, and denounces, the Gentiles’ moral state of affairs in stark detail (this passage is quoted in its entirety on pages 229-230). Something similar is found in Wisdom 14:21-27, which was quoted on page 215-16.
      • Chervin/Kevane’s alternate view of the state of paganism at the time leading up to the birth of Christ may be a matter of emphasis with Chervin/Kevane speaking in terms of the practices of pagans in general and Sheed speaking of the specific instances of the aforementioned pagan teachers and their disciples.
    • The Fullness of Time Had Come
      • Considering the preparation of the Jews and the Gentiles, in what sense can we say that the fullness of time had come?
        • Regarding the Gentiles (230-2)
          • Among the best of the Gentiles, there was contempt for the puerilities of mythology (230-2).
          • Greek philosophy, over a period of four hundred years, had come to a “sort of barrenness” and could do no more for the Gentiles than it had already done (230-2).
          • Despair lay over everything in the Gentile world; but note that despair can be a last stage on the road to maturity (230-2).
        • Regarding the Jews (230-2)
          • The Law had brought the Jews to a high state of religion, but it was powerless to take them any further (230-2).
        • What we see here is that Jews and Gentiles were prepared for the coming of the Messiah in two different ways, but those two different ways correspond to two different purposes (230-2), both having the same ultimate goal.
      • In order to close the breach between God and man, Israel was prepared by God to bring forth the Messiah and to hear the Word of God from Him. The Gentiles, on the other hand, were prepared by God to receive the Word of God from Israel (230-2).
        • “The Law had brought Israel as far as it could, but it had brought it there trained in mind and will and filled with hope” (230-2).
        • Israel’s vitality was in contrast to the devitalization and despair of the Gentile world (230-2).
        • The Jew had learned the glory of God, the Gentile had learned the worthlessness of everything else (230-2).
        • “The spiritual energy [bound up in] . . . Israel needed this new relation with God: they had to do something with their energy” (230-2).
          • Sheed does not clearly state what this “new relation” with God is. The context indicates he is referring to the special relationship by which the Son of God was sent to the Jews as a descendant of Abraham, so as to make Israel a light to the nations as prophesied by Isaiah:
            • “Behold my servant [i.e., the Messiah], whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him, he will bring forth justice to the nations. . . . I am the LORD, I have called you [i.e., Israel] in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you [i.e., Israel] as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations” (Is 42:1, 6).
            • “He answered, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel’” (Mt 15:24).
        • “The spiritual destitution of paganism needed this new inpouring of life” (230-2).
      • For Jew and Gentile, it was the fullness of time (230-2).
11. Excursus: Political, Social, Geographical Signs of the Fullness of Time
    • The Disease Had Run Its Course
      • Adam’s sin eventually resulted in the world being overrun by paganism steeped in debauchery; that was the state of the world at the time of the birth of Christ.
        • “Pagan worship, no matter what form took, did not make for morality; quite the reverse. . . . [Thus we find that] Roman society, from the lowest to the highest, [was] rotten to the core, that sin and unnatural vices prevailed on all sides (see Rom 1:18-32). . . . Never before in the world’s history had man become so fully conscious of his needs and of his helplessness. The longing for a Divine Liberator from sin and suffering and despair grew more and more intense. Virgil’s writings bear witness to the longing. He speaks of the ‘sighing’ of the Sibyls, the priestesses of Apollo, for a Savior, and of their prophecy that when He comes He shall dispel all darkness from the minds and hearts of men” (Fr. John Laux, “Church History,” p. 3-4).
    • The Pax Romana (Peace of Rome)
      • At the time of the birth of Christ, the vast Roman world was at peace:
        • “After several hundred years of almost constant warfare the Romans had succeeded in bringing under the sway all the lands that bordered on the Mediterranean Sea. . . . Most of them were governed directly by Rome as provinces; the rest were subject to the Roman authority as allies” (Fr. John Laux, “Church History,” p. 2).
      • Travel and communication over great distances had become common. Hence, there were no serious obstacles to the spread of common ideas and beliefs.
        • “Owing to excellent roads, abundance of ships, and the prevalence of peace and orderliness, travel was easy and usual throughout the Roman world” (Fr. John Laux, “Church History,” p. 2)
        • “The language difficulty had also to a great extent been overcome. Since the days of Alexander the Great, Greek was the common language of the East, and Latin was becoming the universal speech of the West” (Fr. John Laux, “Church History,” p. 2)
    • Providence and the Center of the World
      • “Rarely are the reasons for a Divine decision so clear, in a material sense, to our finite minds. Studying map or globe with these criteria in mind, we can see at once why God chose Palestine for His Incarnation. For Palestine is ‘the center of the earth’” (Warren Carroll, “History of Christondom,” vol. 1, p. 24).
        • All of the major civilizations of the world fall within a circle having a 3000 mile radius centered at Jerusalem (Ibid., p. 25).
      • The characteristics that make Palestine geographically ideal also make it most unsuitable from the perspective of the long preparation necessary for the Incarnation, for continuity in culture is normally not found at the world’s crossroads (Ibid., p. 25).
      • Nevertheless, “through those same four thousand years [from the time of Abraham till today] something has been in that small land which not all the pomp and power and ferocity of men could expel, which has lasted through every storm, marking it out so unmistakably from all the rest of the world that even the unbeliever admits the uniqueness of its story” (Ibid., p. 25).
12. Excursus: The Absolute Primitives
    • Notes from Love of Wisdom
      • The following notes are taken from “Love of Wisdom: An Introduction to Christian Philosophy,” by Rhonda Chervin and Eugene Kevane. These notes have been used in parts of the outline for this chapter, but have not been presented continuously. They are maintained here in a single block.
    • Primary Beliefs of the Absolute Primitives
      • “The fact is clear: the more primitive the tribes, the more their religion exhibits a faith in one God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, to whom his human creatures owe worship by prayer and sacrifice in order to express and sustain the moral way of life.” Some of these primitives “are still to be found living in remote regions of the globe” (p. 28).
    • The Great Apostasy
      • “The first aspect of the fact [i.e., the apostasy] is the remarkable sameness of the human condition in 4000 B. C., in each of the four centers of the higher culture, in all the agricultural villages from China to Western Europe, among all the hunting tribes and all the nomadic herdsmen. Everywhere man is religious, indeed, but the object of his worship has changed (p. 26).
      • “The long times of prehistory have somehow ministered to this universal outcome of pantheism and idolatry. . . . As the times of mankind proceed across prehistory toward recorded history, this fall into a spiritual darkness becomes ever deeper. . . . [Man] has lost his spirit of prayer to the heavenly Father. The idea of creation is nowhere to be found. And the sense of moral responsibility to the Supreme Being in each human act has dissipated. Pantheism and the idolatrous religiosity that expresses it minister to human willfulness and desires. The falling away from the transcendent Supreme Being is simultaneously a descent into degrading practices of every imaginable sort. Sex runs riot. One need only study the excavations at Herculaneum, where the vices of ancient Rome have been bared to the modern gaze. Pantheism . . . results in the liberation of each self to be his own god. The cultures of antiquity exhibit the documentation in their furnaces of Moloch and their systems of temple prostitution” (p. 26).
    • Restoration of the Original Religion
      • “Moses’ religion appears to be a renewal of that original religion, which earlier mankind practiced before gradual deviation set in, hardened, and became a generalized condition in the long prehistoric ages of mankind” (p. 54).
      • “It is obvious that this new [Apostolic] teaching is remarkably like the religions of the absolute primitives. Living in the mainstream of culture descending through historic times since about 4000 B.C. the peoples of the Roman Empire had no idea that these primitives existed. The Romans had no contact with them, for they lived in remote margins of the continental land masses utterly beyond the reach of the Romans” (p. 75).