St. Paul declares that the mystery of divine Providence respecting both the Jews and the Gentiles, made known in the full Christian revelation, was to “establish all things in Christ, in the dispensation of the fulness of times” (Eph. i. 10). We infer from this statement, that all the ages preceding the birth of Christ were a preparation for the foundation of the Catholic Church, which was completed at the epoch of his coming. The work of Judaism was done and its mission completed. Henceforth it was only an obstacle in the way of the universal religion which it had been created to serve. The oracles of God which it preserved and transmitted, the faith which it inherited from Abraham, its genuine spirit, the essence of religion which had been embodied in its outward organization, were transmitted to Christianity. The lifeless mass which was left behind was only fit to be buried as a putrescent carcass. The mission of the Roman Empire was also completed, its destruction decreed, and dimly foretold by the apostles. The entire Greco-Roman civilization, with its philosophy, its literature, its religious superstitions, had run its course, and its ultimate result was an intellectual and moral abyss of vacancy and unfulfilled longing for the truth and the good which alone can fill the frightful void in the human soul and in universal humanity caused by the absence of God. St. Paul says that Christ, having first descended to the lowest depth, ascended to the highest celestial summit, “_ut impleret omnia_”—that he might fill all things. The Emmanuel, the God in humanity, the very sovereign truth and sovereign good impersonated in a twofold nature, divine and human, is the only fulfilment of universal history, of human destiny, as the term and expression of the thoughts and purposes of God. His kingdom on the earth, the Catholic Church, is the instrument and medium by which he extends his action through time and upon universal humanity during the period of universal history which is now in the process of fulfilment. The material part of the substantial essence of this new Messianic empire was furnished by the commingling of the elements of Judaism and Greco-Roman civilization. The vital and informing principle was supernatural and divine, inspired into the now organic structure by a new out-breathing of the creative and life-giving Spirit.