Page:Completecatechis00deharich.djvu/34

 corruption of morals had gained ground. Most of them honored God only with their lips, but their conduct was according to the sinful desires of their heart. All other nations, even the most enlightened among them, the Greeks and Romans, were devoted to the most shameful idolatry. Innumerable were the gods and goddesses to whom they built temples and altars, and offered sacrifices, even of human beings; and whom they believed they particularly honored when they extolled their infamous vices and imitated them without shame or fear. Such were the heathens, as St. Paul testifies (Rom. i. 29-31): "Filled with all iniquity, malice, fornication, avarice, wickedness; full of envy, murder, contention, deceit, malignity; whisperers, detractors, hateful to God, contumelious, proud, haughty, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, foolish, dissolute, without affection, without fidelity, without mercy." Who was then able to help and save mankind? God alone; and He did help and did save them. As He had promised to our first parents in Paradise, and foretold by the prophets. He now showed mercy to mankind, when in their utmost degeneracy, and sent them a Redeemer and Saviour; for 'God so loved the world as to give His Only-Begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him may not perish, but may have, life everlasting ' (John iii. 16).

21. The world was at peace; Augustus was Emperor of Rome, and Herod, the Idumean, King of Judea