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Chapter IX.
THE CALL OF ABRAM.
[Gen. 1-9.]
AMONGST the wicked there was one just and upright man.
He was called Abram[2]. The Lord chose him in order that
through him and his posterity the true faith[3] and hope in the
promised Redeemer might be preserved and propagated on the
earth. He said to him: “Go forth out of thy country and from
- ↑ People of Israel. Hitherto we have been engaged in a brief study of the primitive history of man. In the last chapter we were told that the larger portion of mankind fell away from God into the grossest idolatry. Of those heathen nations whom God “gave up to the desires of their heart”, we hear no more in Sacred History, with the exception of chance accounts of those with whom the people of Israel came in contact. Henceforth Scripture relates only the history of the people of Israel, to whom God revealed Himself again and again. This history is divided into six sections: I. The time of the patriarchs, 2. the age of Moses, 3. Josue and the judges, 4. the kings, 5. the Babylonian captivity, 6. the time after the Babylonian captivity. The first section, therefore, treats of the patriarchs, or first parents of the children of Israel, and covers a period of 600 years, namely from 2100 to 1500 B. C. It begins with the narrative of the call of Abram which contains the account of how God chose him to be the father of the whole Israelite people (and of the Divine Redeemer).
- ↑ Abram. Living in the midst of idolaters, he had remained faithful to God. It was on account of his faithfulness that God favoured him, by revealing Himself to him, and by choosing him to be the father of the faithful.
- ↑ True faith, i. e. the faith in the true God which had been handed down ever since the days of Adam.
