Introduction
Jesus Christ is Lord of History. Despite the fact that the vast majority of
contemporary historians ignore His life and work, no other figure can claim
to have altered the course of history more than the humble carpenter from
Nazareth.
The moment of Christ’s entry into the world was no simple accident or
coincidence, but ordained by God in His good time: “But when the fullness
of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law,
in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive
adoption as children.” The reading from the Roman Martyrology for the
25th of December wonderfully places the birth of Christ in the context of
human history:
In the year, from the creation of the world, when in the beginning
God created heaven and earth, five thousand one hundred and
ninety-nine; from the flood, two thousand nine hundred and fifty-
seven; from the birth of Abraham, two thousand and fifteen; from
Moses and the coming of the Israelites out of Egypt, one thousand
five hundred and ten; from the anointing of King David, one
thousand and thirty-two; in the sixty-fifth week, according to the
prophecy of Daniel; in the one hundred and ninety-fourth
Olympiad; in the year seven hundred and fifty-two from the
founding of the city of Rome; in the forty-second year of the
empire of Octavian Augustus, when the whole world was at
peace, in the sixth age of the world, Jesus Christ, eternal God, and
Son of the eternal Father, desirous to sanctify the world by His
most merciful coming, having been conceived by the Holy Spirit,
and nine months having elapsed since His conception, is born in
Bethlehem of Juda, having become Man of the Virgin Mary.
At the time of Christ’s coming, most of the known world was dominated by
Rome under her first Emperor, Augustus Caesar. Before the rise of Rome
there had been Sumer, Egypt, the Hittites, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece
and Alexander the Great. Rome was the empire of iron, greater in extent
than all the others, making the Mediterranean her “mare nostrum.” What
would come after Rome? The kingdom that “is not of this world” The Babe
from Bethlehem would determine that, but not before 248 years of deadly
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