Los Angeles herald., 1906-12-17
DEFINES TRUE AND
FALSE PROPHETS
BISHOP C0NATY DELVES INTO
HISTORY
Shows How Coming of Messiah Was
Predicted Thousands of Years
In Advance of First
Christmas

Christ in Promise and Prophecy"
was the topic of Bishop Conaty yester-
day morning at the solemn high mass
at the cathedral of st. Vibiana. An
immense congregation crowded the ca
thedral church.
Bishop Conaty explained the meaning
of prophecy as the prediction Of a flu
turc event by Divine assistance and
showed the difference between true and
false prophets. He spoke of the Bible
as containing the prophecies relating
to Christ and said these prophecies
were written i'm the Old Testament
centuries before Christ came and were
accepted by the Jews as their richest
inheritance and preserved by them
carefully for mankind. Christ fulfilled
the promise and prophecies, as will be
seen i'm a subsequent sermon. The
bishop spoke of the religious traditions
of all nations as containing some shreds
of the Divine promise and even in the
deepest degradations of paganism myth
and fable tell of sin and a Redeemer.
He said i'm part:
In the Oriental thought we find the
Deity represented by principles, the sec
ond of which. called Nishnu. becomes
incarnate from time to time in order to
repair the evil wrought by the third
principle, silva, which is the principle
of destruction. In the ninth inCarna-
ton he appears in human form to do
the work of mediation. In this and
similar form we find this idea of sin
and its reparation among the Indians,
the Persians and the Egyptians. There
is a struggle between light and dark
ness. between good and evil. EVIL has
overrun the human race Mithras. the
supreme good, triumphs over Ahriman,
who is evil. In Egypt the active prin-
cipe of evil fills the world with calami-
ty, and the son of Isis and Jupiter
brings peace. We then see clearly two
great facts one of ruin and the other
Of PREPARATION. The Greeks look to a
demi-god or a hero who is the perfec-
ton of human strength and genius,
whose duty it is to release from punish
ment one who is condemned.
I'm the religion Of the Chinese, not
withstanding their hatred of the for
eigner. they looked to a deliverer out
side their own country. as did Socra-
ties among the Greeks. The Roman ma
tional idea was one of conquest and in
their religious myths they looked for
ruler who was to govern the universe.
and their scholars from Virgil and
Tacitus to Cicero told them that from
Judea would arise those who were to
govern the universe.
III all Jle ItllS luis, lIltIGlOIS, VI
pagan nations, no matter how far re-
moved from belief in the true God, we
see evidences of belief that in the ira
ditions of mankind there is belief in
a great loss, a crime against the great
God and the hope of redemption from it
through some mighty person. This re-
lgious principle, so marked in the hu-
man race, leads us to believe that God
must have made known to man in
some direct way the truths of religion
and the relations existing between crea-
ture and Creator. Hence we are not sur
prised to find writings which Jew and
Christian accept as the word of God
by his prophets, giving the story of re-
demptiOn as handed down from genera
ton to generation until they were final
ly gathered in the books in the days of
Moses by the great law-giver of the
Jews, forming the first part of that
great book which the world recognizes
as the word of God in the Holy Bible.
In those books is to be found the
story of man from his creation until the
day of the written law in the time of
Moses, and from Moses to Christ. From
Adam to Moses the natural law pre-
vailed, and from Moses to Christ the
written law determined mans actions.
In that story of the primitive revela-
ton we read of mans creation and in
nocence, his abuse OF his Tree WILL his
the punishment which fol-
lowed and the evil which came upon
the entire human race as a result of his
sin. We read also of the promise of
redemption and we can trace that
promise through the different ages, not
only in the primitive revelation, but
also under the written law and in the
days of the prophets.
In the book Of Genesis. following
the story of Adams punishment, we
hear the promise of redemption made
by God when speaking to the serpent
whom Eve was tempted to sin:
I will put enmity between thee and
the woman and thy seed and her seed.
She shall crush thy head and thou
shalt lie in wait for her heel In the
later years. about 1000 before Christ,
Abraham is chosen as the father of the
people whom God IS to make as His