prophets were for maintaining the law, the people were
indifferent. But, since there have been no more prophets, zeal has succeeded
them.

704. The devil troubled the zeal of the Jews before Jesus Christ, because he
would have been their salvation, but not since.

The Jewish people scorned by the Gentiles; the Christian people persecuted.

705. Proof.--Prophecies with their fulfilment; what has preceded and what
has followed Jesus Christ.

706. The prophecies are the strongest proof of Jesus Christ. It is for them
also that God has made most provision; for the event which has fulfilled
them is a miracle existing since the birth of the Church to the end. So God
has raised up prophets during sixteen hundred years, and, during four
hundred years afterwards, He has scattered all these prophecies among all
the Jews, who carried them into all parts of the world. Such was the
preparation for the birth of Jesus Christ, and, as His Gospel was to be
believed by all the world, it was not only necessary that there should be
prophecies to make it believed, but that these prophecies should exist
throughout the whole world, in order to make it embraced by the whole world.

707. But it was not enough that the prophecies should exist. It was
necessary that they should be distributed throughout all places and
preserved throughout all times. And, in order that this agreement might not
be taken for an effect of chance, it was necessary that this should be
foretold.

It is far more glorious for the Messiah that the Jews should be the
specators and even the instruments of His glory, besides that God had
reserved them.

708. Prophecies.--The time foretold by the state of the Jewish people, by
the state of the heathen, by the state of the temple, by the number of
years.

709. One must be bold to predict the same thing in so many ways. It was
necessary that the four idolatrous or pagan monarchies, the end of the
kingdom of Judah, and the seventy weeks, sh

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