always unsteady and prone to evil, into a multitude of sins and vices. They, indeed, still worshipped the true God [1]; but it was only with their lips, and their hearts were far from Him.
Their chief care consisted in the outward observance of the law; the inward disposition and purity of heart[2] they neglected. Whatever good there might be among the Jews was stifled by the sect of the hypocritical Pharisees, or of the unbelieving Sadducees [3]; and these two sects, although mortal enemies of each other, exercised a great power over the people. Throughout the rest of the world [4] idolatry reigned supreme, and all the nations of the earth were sunk in misery and corruption.
The few just men who were scattered[5] here and there among the different races sighed for the coming of the promised
- ↑ The true God. They had done so ever since their return from the captivity, and had been further confirmed in the true worship since the days of Judas Machabeus.
- ↑ Purity of heart. They had no fear or love of God in their hearts. In consequence, immorality gained such ground, that a Jewish writer, Flavius Josephus, has called Jerusalem a second Sodom.
- ↑ Pharisees and Sadducees. The Pharisees introduced many human doctrines and precepts, and attached almost more importance to these than to the law of God. They sought justice in such outward observances as the washing of hands and of vessels, and the repetition of prayers, and they neglected purity of heart. They were, for the most part, full of pride, avarice, envy and hypocrisy. The Sadducees were freethinkers and materialists. They did not believe in the immortality of the soul or in the resurrection of the body, so that they had no thought of eternal life, but sought their heaven in this world. They led a bad and dissolute life, having no fear of God. This sect found most of its adherents among the rich (see “The rich man” New Test. XLVI).
- ↑ The rest of the world. Pagan Rome had by degrees subjected to her rule nearly all the then known world, so that the nations of the world formed one vast empire, of which Rome was the capital, and the Roman emperor the sovereign. At the time of our Lord’s Incarnation all manner of idolatry, unbelief, superstition, and an unbounded immorality reigned throughout this pagan empire. Rome alone possessed 30,000 deities, many of whom were honoured solely on account of their immorality. The largest portion of the population groaned in a miserable state of slavery. Corruption was so universal that all thinking men felt there was no deliverance from it possible, unless help were sent from heaven.
- ↑ Scattered. By means of the captivity of Babylon many Jewish colonies had been formed in the midst of the pagans, which continued to exist in the Christian era. After the division of the empire of Alexander the Great these colonies spread themselves into Egypt, Asia Minor and Greece, and by force of the Jewish spirit of commercial enterprise gradually extended themselves over the whole Roman empire, as far as Spain and the south of France. There was a very large colony of Jews at Rome at the time of the Incarnation, for we hear of the emperor Augustus receiving a deputation of eight thousand of them. Wherever they settled down, these Jews built synagogues and houses of prayer, and through them the pagans got to know the Unseen and Living God, and the prophecies about the Messias; and many of them even adopted the Jewish religion.
