CHAPTER XV - GENESIS Science and Health with KEY to THE SCRIPTURES | ||
CHAPTER XV - GENESIS
And I appeared unto Abraham,, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob by the name of God Almighty; but by My name Jehovah was I not known to them. - EXODUS.
All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life; and the life was the light of men. - JOHN.
Spiritual interpretation
SCIENTIFIC interpretation of the Scriptures prop- erly starts with the beginning of the Old Testa- ment, chiefly because the spiritual import of the Word, in its earliest articulations, often seems so smothered by the immediate context as to require explication; whereas the New Testament narra- tives are clearer and come nearer the heart. Jesus il- lumines them, showing the poverty of mortal existence, but richly recompensing human want and woe with spiritual gain. The incarnation of Truth, that amplifi- cation of wonder and glory which angels could only whisper and which God illustrated by light and har- mony, is consonant with ever-present Love. So-called mystery and miracle, which subserve the end of natural good, are explained by that Love for whose rest the weary ones sigh when needing something more native to their immortal cravings than the history of perpetual evil.
Spiritual overture
A second necessity for beginning with Genesis is that the living and real prelude of the older Scriptures is so brief that it would almost seem, from the preponderance of unreality in the entire nar- rative, as if reality did not predominate over unreality, the light over the dark, the straight line of Spirit over the mortal deviations and inverted images of the creator and His creation.
Deflection of being
Spiritually followed, the book of Genesis is the history of the untrue image of God, named a sinful mortal. This deflection of being, rightly viewed, serves to suggest the proper reflection of God and the spiritual actuality of man, as given in the first chapter of Genesis. Even thus the crude forms of human thought take on higher symbols and significations, when scien- tifically Christian views of the universe appear, illuminat- ing time with the glory of eternity.
In the following exegesis, each text is followed by its spiritual interpretation according to the teachings of Chris- tian Science.
EXEGESIS
Genesis i. 1. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
Ideas and identities
The infinite has no beginning. This word beginning is employed to signify the only, - that is, the eternal ver- ity and unity of God and man, including the universe. The creative Principle - Life, Truth, and Love - is God. The universe reflects God. There is but one creator and one creation. This crea-
Genesis i. 2. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
Spiritual harmony
The divine Principle and idea constitute spiritual har- mony, - heaven and eternity. In the universe of Truth, matter is unknown. No supposition of error enters there. Divine Science, the Word of God, saith to the darkness upon the face of error, "God is All-in-all," and the light of ever-present Love illumines the universe. Hence the eternal wonder, - that infinite space is peopled with God's ideas, reflecting Him in countless spiritual forms.
Genesis i. 3. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
Mind's idea faultless
Immortal and divine Mind presents the idea of God: first, in light; second, in reflection; third, in spiritual and immortal forms of beauty and goodness. But this Mind creates no element nor symbol of discord and decay. God creates neither erring thought, mortal life, mutable truth, nor variable love.
Genesis i. 4. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
God, Spirit, dwelling in infinite light and harmony
Genesis i. 5. And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And the evening and the morn- ing were the first day.
Light preceding the sun
All questions as to the divine creation being both spiritual and material are answered in this passage, for though solar beams are not yet included in the record of creation, still there is light. This light is not from the sun nor from volcanic flames, but it is the revelation of Truth and of spiritual ideas. This also shows that there is no place where God's light is not seen, since Truth, Life, and Love fill immensity and are ever-present. Was not this a revelation instead of a creation?
Evenings and mornings
The successive appearing of God's ideas is represented as taking place on so many evenings and mornings, words which indicate, in the absence of solar time, spiritually clearer views of Him, views which are not implied by material darkness and dawn. Here we have the explanation of another passage of Scripture, that "one day is with the Lord as a thousand years." The rays of infinite Truth, when gathered into the focus of ideas, bring light instantaneously, whereas a thousand years of human doctrines, hypotheses, and vague conjectures emit no such effulgence.
Spirit versus darkness
Did infinite Mind create matter, and call it light? Spirit is light, and the contradiction of Spirit is matter, darkness, and darkness obscures light. Ma- rial sense is nothing but a supposition of the absence of Spirit. No solar rays nor planetary revolutions
Genesis i. 6. And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
Spiritual firmament
Spiritual understanding, by which human conception, material sense, is separated from Truth, is the firmament. The divine Mind, not matter, creates all iden- tities, and they are forms of Mind, the ideas of Spirit apparent only as Mind, never as mindless matter nor the so-called material senses.
Genesis i. 7. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
Understanding imparted
Spirit imparts the understanding which uplifts con- sciousness and leads into all truth. The Psalmist saith: "The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea." Spiritual sense is the discernment of spiritual good. Understanding is the line of demarcation between the real and unreal. Spiritual understanding unfolds Mind, - Life, Truth, and Love, - and demonstrates the divine sense, giving the spiritual proof of the universe in Christian Science.
Original reflected
This understanding is not intellectual, is not the result of scholarly attainments; it is the reality of all things brought to light. God's ideas reflect the im- mortal, unerring, and infinite. The mortal, erring, and finite are human beliefs, which apportion to
Genesis i. 8. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
Exalted thought
Through divine Science, Spirit, God, unites under- standing to eternal harmony. The calm and exalted thought or spiritual apprehension is at peace. Thus the dawn of ideas goes on, forming each successive stage of progress.
Genesis i. 9. And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
Unfolding of thoughts
Spirit, God, gathers unformed thoughts into their proper channels, and unfolds these thoughts, even as He opens the petals of a holy purpose in order that the purpose may appear.
Genesis i. 10. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called He Seas: and God saw that it was good.
Spirit names and blesses
Here the human concept and divine idea seem con- fused by the translator, but they are not so in the scien- tifically Christian meaning of the text. Upon Adam devolved the pleasurable task of find- ing names for all material things, but Adam has not yet
Genesis i. 11. And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
Divine propagation
The universe of Spirit reflects the creative power of the divine Principle, or Life, which reproduces the multi- tudinous forms of Mind and governs the mul- tiplication of the compound idea man. The tree and herb do not yield fruit because of any propagat- ing power of their own, but because they reflect the Mind which includes all. A material world implies a mortal mind and man a creator. The scientific divine creation declares immortal Mind and the universe created by God.
Ever-appearing creation
Infinite Mind creates and governs all, from the men- tal molecule to infinity. This divine Principle of all expresses Science and art throughout His creation, and the immortality of man and the universe. Creation is ever appearing, and must ever con- tinue to appear from the nature of its inexhaustible source. Mortal sense inverts this appearing and calls ideas mate- rial. Thus misinterpreted, the divine idea seems to fall
Genesis i. 12. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
Mind's pure thought
God determines the gender of His own ideas. Gen- der is mental, not material. The seed within itself is the pure thought emanating from divine Mind. The feminine gender is not yet ex- pressed in the text. Gender means simply kind or sort, and does not necessarily refer either to masculinity or femininity. The word is not confined to sexuality, and grammars always recognize a neuter gender, neither male nor female. The Mind or intelligence of produc- tion names the female gender last in the ascending order of creation. The intelligent individual idea, be it male or female, rising from the lesser to the greater, unfolds the infinitude of Love.
Genesis i. 13. And the evening and the morning were the third day.
Rising to the light
The third stage in the order of Christian Science is an important one to the human thought, letting in the light
Genesis i. 14. And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven, to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years.
Rarefaction of thought
Spirit creates no other than heavenly or celestial bodies, but the stellar universe is no more celestial than our earth. This text gives the idea of the rarefaction of thought as it ascends higher. God forms and peoples the universe. The light of spiritual understand- ing gives gleams of the infinite only, even as nebulae indi- cate the immensity of space.
Divine nature appearing
So-called mineral, vegetable, and animal substances are no more contingent now on time or material struc- ture than they were when "the morning stars sang together." Mind made the "plant of the field before it was in the earth." The periods of spiritual ascension are the days and seasons of Mind's creation, in which beauty, sublimity, purity, and holiness - yea, the divine nature - appear in man and the uni- verse never to disappear.
Spiritual ideas apprehended
Knowing the Science of creation, in which all is Mind and its ideas, Jesus rebuked the material thought of his fellow-countrymen: "Ye can discern the face of the
Genesis i. 15. And let them be for lights in the firma- ment of the heaven, to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
Truth and Love enlighten the understanding, in whose "light shall we see light;" and this illumination is re- flected spiritually by all who walk in the light and turn away from a false material sense.
Genesis i. 16. And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: He made the stars also.
Geology a failure
The sun is a metaphorical representation of Soul out- side the body, giving existence and intelligence to the universe. Love alone can impart the limit- less idea of infinite Mind. Geology has never explained the earth's formations; it cannot explain them. There is no Scriptural allusion to solar light until time has been already divided into evening and morning; and the allusion to fluids (Genesis i. 2) indicates a supposed for- mation of matter by the resolving of fluids into solids, analogous to the suppositional resolving of thoughts into material things.
Spiritual subdivision
Light is a symbol of Mind, of Life, Truth, and Love, and not a vitalizing property of matter. Sci- ence reveals only one Mind, and this one shin- ing by its own light and governing the universe, including
Genesis i. 17, 18. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven, to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
Darkness scattered
In divine Science, which is the seal of Deity and has the impress of heaven, God is revealed as in- finite light. In the eternal Mind, no night is there.
Genesis i. 19. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
The changing glow and full effulgence of God's infi- nite ideas, images, mark the periods of progress.
Genesis i. 20. And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
Soaring aspirations
To mortal mind, the universe is liquid, solid, and aeri- form. Spiritually interpreted, rocks and mountains stand for solid and grand ideas. Animals and mor- tals metaphorically present the gradation of mortal thought, rising in the scale of intelligence, taking form in masculine, feminine, or neuter gender. The fowls, which fly above the earth in the open firmament
Genesis i. 21. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
Seraphic symbols
Spirit is symbolized by strength, presence, and power, and also by holy thoughts, winged with Love. These an- gels of His presence, which have the holiest charge, abound in the spiritual atmosphere of Mind, and consequently reproduce their own character- istics. Their individual forms we know not, but we do know that their natures are allied to God's nature; and spiritual blessings, thus typified, are the externalized, yet subjective, states of faith and spiritual understanding.
Genesis i. 22. And God blessed them, saying, Be fruit- ful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas; and let fowl multiply in the earth.
Multiplication of pure ideas
Spirit blesses the multiplication of its own pure and perfect ideas. From the infinite elements of the one Mind emanate all form, color, quality, and quantity, and these are mental, both primarily and secondarily. Their spiritual nature is discerned only through the spiritual senses. Mortal mind inverts the true likeness, and confers animal names and natures upon its own misconceptions. Ignorant of the origin and opera- tions of mortal mind, - that is, ignorant of itself, - this so-called mind puts forth its own qualities, and claims God as their author; albeit God is ignorant of the ex-
Genesis i. 23. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
Spiritual spheres
Advancing spiritual steps in the teeming universe of Mind lead on to spiritual spheres and exalted beings. To material sense, this divine universe is dim and distant, gray in the sombre hues of twilight; but anon the veil is lifted, and the scene shifts into light. In the record, time is not yet measured by solar revolutions, and the motions and reflections of deific power cannot be apprehended until divine Science becomes the interpreter.
Genesis i. 24. And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
Continuity of thoughts
Spirit diversifies, classifies, and individualizes all thoughts, which are as eternal as the Mind conceiving them; but the intelligence, exist- ence, and continuity of all individuality remain in God, who is the divinely creative Principle thereof.
Genesis i. 25. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and everything that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
God's thoughts are spiritual realities
God creates all forms of reality. His thoughts are spiritual realities. So-called mortal mind - being non- existent and consequently not within the range of im-
Qualities of thought
Moral courage is "the lion of the tribe of Juda," the king of the mental realm. Free and fearless it roams in the forest. Undisturbed it lies in the open field, or rests in "green pastures, . . . beside the still waters." In the figurative transmission from the divine thought to the human, diligence, promptness, and perseverance are likened to "the cattle upon a thousand hills." They carry the baggage of stern resolve, and keep pace with highest purpose. Tenderness accompa- nies all the might imparted by Spirit. The individ- uality created by God is not carnivorous, as witness the millennial estate pictured by Isaiah: -
And the leopard shall lie down with the kid;
And the calf and the young lion, and the fatling together;
And a little child shall lead them.
Creatures of God useful
Understanding the control which Love held over all, Daniel felt safe in the lions' den, and Paul proved the viper to be harmless. All of God's creatures moving in the harmony of Science, are harm- less, useful, indestructible. A realization of this grand verity was a source of strength to the ancient worthies.
The serpent harmless
Patience is symbolized by the tireless worm, creeping over lofty summits, persevering in its intent. The ser- pent of God's creating is neither subtle nor poisonous, but is a wise idea, charming in its adroitness, for Love's ideas are subject to the Mind which forms them, - the power which changeth the serpent into a staff.
Genesis i. 26. And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
Elohistic plurality
The eternal Elohim includes the forever universe. The name Elohim is in the plural, but this plurality of Spirit does not imply more than one God, nor does it imply three persons in one. It relates to the oneness, the triunity of Life, Truth, and Love. "Let them have dominion." Man is the family name for all ideas, - the sons and daughters of God. All that God imparts moves in accord with Him, reflecting good- ness and power.
Reflected likeness
Your mirrored reflection is your own image or like- ness. If you lift a weight, your reflection does this also. If you speak, the lips of this likeness move in accord with yours. Now compare man before the mirror to his divine Principle, God. Call the mirror divine Science, and call man the reflection. Then note
Love imparts beauty
God fashions all things, after His own likeness. Life is reflected in existence, Truth in truthfulness, God in goodness, which impart their own peace and permanence. Love, redolent with unselfish- ness, bathes all in beauty and light. The grass beneath our feet silently exclaims, "The meek shall inherit the earth." The modest arbutus sends her sweet breath to heaven. The great rock gives shadow and shelter. The sunlight glints from the church-dome, glances into the prison-cell, glides into the sick-chamber, brightens the flower, beautifies the landscape, blesses the earth. Man, made in His likeness, possesses and reflects God's domin- ion over all the earth. Man and woman as coexistent and eternal with God forever reflect, in glorified quality, the infinite Father-Mother God.
Genesis i. 27. So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them.
Ideal man and woman
To emphasize this momentous thought, it is repeated that God made man in His own image, to reflect the divine Spirit. It follows that man is a generic term. Masculine, feminine, and neuter gen- ders are human concepts. In one of the ancient lan-
Divine personality
The world believes in many persons; but if God is per- sonal, there is but one person, because there is but one God. His personality can only be reflected, not transmitted. God has countless ideas, and they all have one Principle and parentage. The only proper symbol of God as person is Mind's infinite ideal. What is this ideal? Who shall behold it? This ideal is God's own image, spiritual and infinite. Even eternity can never reveal the whole of God, since there is no limit to infinitude or to its reflections.
Genesis i. 28. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
Birthright of man
Divine Love blesses its own ideas, and causes them to multiply, - to manifest His power. Man is not made
Genesis i. 29, 30. And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.
Assistance in brotherhood
God gives the lesser idea of Himself for a link to the greater, and in return, the higher always protects the lower. The rich in spirit help the poor in one grand brotherhood, all leaving the same Principle, or Father; and blessed is that man who seeth his brother's need and supplieth it, seeking his own in another's good. Love giveth to the least spiritual idea might, immortality, and goodness, which shine through all as the blossom shines through the bud. All the varied expressions of God reflect health, holiness, immortality infinite Life, Truth, and Love.
Genesis i. 31. And God saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
Perfection of creation
The divine Principle, or Spirit, comprehends and ex- presses all, and all must therefore be as perfect is the divine Principle is perfect. Nothing is new to Spirit. Nothing can be novel to eternal Mind, the author of all things, who from all eternity knoweth His own ideas. Deity was satisfied with His work. How could He be otherwise, since the spiritual creation was the outgrowth, the emanation, of His infinite self- containment and immortal wisdom?
Genesis ii. 1. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.
Infinity measureless
Thus the ideas of God in universal being are complete and forever expressed, for Science reveals infinity and the fatherhood and motherhood of Love. Hu- man capacity is slow to discern and to grasp God's creation and the divine power and presence which go with it, demonstrating its spiritual origin. Mortals can never know the infinite, until they throw off the old man and reach the spiritual image and likeness. What can fathom infinity! How shall we declare Him, till, in the language of the apostle, "we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the ful- ness of Christ"?
Genesis ii. 2. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made.
Resting in holy work
God rests in action. Imparting has not impoverished, can never impoverish, the divine Mind. No exhaustion follows the action of this Mind, according to the apprehension of divine Science. The
Love and man coexistent
Unfathomable Mind is expressed. The depth, breadth, height, might, majesty, and glory of infinite Love fill all space. That is enough! Human language can repeat only an infinitesimal part of what exists. The absolute ideal, man, is no more seen nor comprehended by mortals, than is His infinite Principle, Love. Principle and its idea, man, are coexistent and eternal. The numerals of infinity, called seven days, can never be reckoned according to the calendar of time. These days will appear as mortality disappears, and they will reveal eternity, newness of Life, in which all sense of error forever disappears and thought accepts the divine infinite calculus.
Genesis ii. 4, 5. These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God [Jehovah] made the earth and the heavens, and every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the Lord God [Jehovah] had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.
Growth is from Mind
Here is the emphatic declaration that God creates all through Mind, not through matter, - that the plant grows, not because of seed or soil, but because growth is the eternal mandate of Mind. Mor- tal thought drops into the ground, but the immortal creat- ing thought is from above, not from beneath. Because Mind makes all, there is nothing left to be made by a lower power. Spirit acts through the Science of Mind, never causing man to till the ground, but making him
Spiritual narrative
Here the inspired record closes its narrative of being that is without beginning or end. All that is made is the work of God, and all is good. We leave this brief, glorious history of spiritual creation (as stated in the first chapter of Genesis) in the hands of God, not of man, in the keeping of Spirit, not matter, joyfully acknowledging now and forever God's supremacy, omnipotence, and omnipresence.
The harmony and immortality of man are intact. We should look away from the opposite supposition that man is created materially, and turn our gaze to the spiritual record of creation, to that which should be engraved on the understanding and heart "with the point of a diamond" and the pen of an angel.
The reader will naturally ask if there is nothing more about creation in the book of Genesis. Indeed there is, but the continued account is mortal and material.
Genesis ii. 6. But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.
The story of error
The Science and truth of the divine creation have been presented in the verses already considered, and now the opposite error, a material view of creation, is to be set forth. The second chapter of Gene- sis contains a statement of this material view of God and the universe, a statement which is the exact opposite of scientific truth as before recorded. The history of error or matter, if veritable, would set aside the omnipotence
The two records
The Science of the first record proves the falsity of the second. If one is true, the other is false, for they are antagonistic. The first record assigns all might and government to God, and endows man out of God's perfection and power. The second record chronicles man as mutable and mortal, - as hav- ing broken away from Deity and as revolving in an orbit of his own. Existence, separate from divinity, Science explains as impossible.
This second record unmistakably gives the history of error in its externalized forms, called life and intelli- gence in matter. It records pantheism, opposed to the supremacy of divine Spirit; but this state of things is declared to be temporary and this man to be mortal, dust returning to dust.
Erroneous representation
In this erroneous theory, matter takes the place of Spirit. Matter is represented as the life-giving principle of the earth. Spirit is represented as entering mat- ter in order to create man. God's glowing denunciations of man when not found in His image, the likeness of Spirit, convince reason and coincide with revelation in declaring this material creation false.
Hypothetical reversal
This latter part of the second chapter of Genesis, which portrays Spirit as supposedly cooperating with matter in constructing the universe, is based on some hypothesis of error, for the Scripture just pre- ceding declares God's work to be finished. Does Life, Truth, and Love produce death, error, and hatred? Does the creator condemn His own creation? Does the un- erring Principle of divine law change or repent? It can-
Mist, or false claim
Because of its false basis, the mist of obscurity evolved by error deepens the false claim, and finally declares that God knows error and that error can improve His creation. Although presenting the exact opposite of Truth, the lie claims to be truth. The crea- tions of matter arise from a mist or false claim, or from mystification, and not from the firmament, or under- standing, which God erects between the true and false. In error everything comes from beneath, not from above. All is material myth, instead of the reflection of Spirit.
Distinct documents
It may be worth while here to remark that, according to the best scholars, there are clear evidences of two dis- tinct documents in the early part of the book of Genesis. One is called the Elohistic, because the Supreme Being is therein called Elohim. The other document is called the Jehovistic, because Deity therein is always called Jehovah, - or Lord God, as our common version translates it.
Jehovah or Elohim
Throughout the first chapter of Genesis and in three verses of the second, - in what we understand to be the spiritually scientific account of creation, - it is Elohim (God) who creates. From the fourth verse of chapter two to chapter five, the creator is called Jehovah, or the Lord. The different accounts become more and more closely intertwined to the end of chapter twelve, after which the distinction is not definitely trace- able. In the historic parts of the Old Testament, it is usually Jehovah, peculiarly the divine sovereign of the Hebrew people, who is referred to.
Gods of the heathen
The idolatry which followed this material mythology is seen in the Phoenician worship of Baal, in the Moabitish god Chemosh, in the Moloch of the Amorites, in the Hindoo Vishnu, in the Greek Aphro- dite, and in a thousand other so-called deities.
Jehovah a tribal deity
It was also found among the Israelites, who constantly went after "strange gods." They called the Supreme Being by the national name of Jehovah. In that name of Jehovah, the true idea of God seems almost lost. God becomes "a man of war," a tribal god to be worshipped, rather than Love, the divine Principle to be lived and loved.
Genesis ii. 7. And the Lord God [Jehovah] formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
Creation reversed
Did the divine and infinite Principle become a finite deity, that he should now be called Jehovah? With l8 a single command, Mind had made man, both male and female. How then could a material organization become the basis of man? How could the non-intelligent become the medium of Mind, and error be the enunciator of Truth? Matter is not the reflection of Spirit, yet God is reflected in all His creation. Is this addition to His creation real or un- real? Is it the truth, or is it a lie concerning man and God?
It must be a lie, for God presently curses the ground. Could Spirit evolve its opposite, matter, and give matter ability to sin and suffer? Is Spirit, God, injected into dust, and eventually ejected at the demand of matter? Does Spirit enter dust, and lose therein the divine nature
Definitions of man
The following are some of the equivalents of the term man in different languages. In the Saxon, mankind, a woman, any one; in the Welsh, that which rises up, - the primary sense being image, form; in the Hebrew, image, similitude; in the Icelandic, mind. The following translation is from the Icelandic:
And God said, Let us make man after our mind and our likeness; and God shaped man after His mind; after God's mind shaped He Him; and He shaped them male and female.
No baneful creation
In the Gospel of John, it is declared that all things were made through the Word of God, "and without Him [the logos, or word] was not anything made that was made." Everything good or worthy, God made. Whatever is valueless or baneful, He did not make, - hence its unreality. In the Science of Genesis we read that He saw everything which He had made, "and, behold, it was very good." The corporeal senses declare otherwise; and if we give the same heed to the history of error as to the records of truth, the Scriptural record of sin and death favors the false conclusion of the material senses. Sin, sickness, and death must be deemed as devoid of reality as they are of good, God.
Genesis ii. 9. And out of the ground made the Lord God [Jehovah] to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight,
Contradicting first creation
The previous and more scientific record of creation declares that God made "every plant of the field be- fore it was in the earth." This opposite declaration, this statement that life issues from matter, contradicts the teaching of the first chap- ter, - namely, that all Life is God. Belief is less than understanding. Belief involves theories of material hear- ing, sight, touch, taste, and smell, termed the five senses. The appetites and passions, sin, sickness, and death, follow in the train of this error of a belief in intelligent matter.
Record of error
The first mention of evil is in the legendary Scriptural text in the second chapter of Genesis. God pronounced good all that He created, and the Scriptures declare that He created all. The "tree of life" stands for the idea of Truth, and the sword which guards it is the type of divine Science. The "tree of knowledge" stands for the erroneous doctrine that the knowledge of evil is as real, hence as God-bestowed, as the knowledge of good. Was evil instituted through God, Love? Did He create this fruit-bearer of sin in contra- diction of the first creation? This second biblical account is a picture of error throughout.
Genesis ii. 15. And the Lord God [Jehovah] took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden, to dress it and to keep it.
Garden of Eden
The name Eden, according to Cruden, means pleasure, delight. In this text Eden stands for the mortal, mate-
Genesis ii. 16, 17. And the Lord God [Jehovah] com- manded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
No temptation from God
Here the metaphor represents God, Love, as tempting man, but the Apostle James says: "God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man." It is true that a knowledge of evil would make man mortal. It is plain also that mate- rial perception, gathered from the corporeal senses, consti- tutes evil and mortal knowledge. But is it true that God, good, made "the tree of life" to be the tree of death to His own creation? Has evil the reality of good? Evil is un- real because it is a lie, - false in every statement.
Genesis ii. 19. And out of the ground the Lord God [Jehovah] formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.
Creation's counterfeit
Here the lie represents God as repeating creation, but doing so materially, not spiritually, and ask- ing a prospective sinner to help Him. Is the Supreme Being retrograding, and is man giving up his dignity? Was it requisite for the formation of man
Genesis ii. 21, 22. And the Lord God [Jehovah, Yawah] caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib, which the Lord God [Jehovah] had taken from man, made He a woman, and brought her unto the man.
Hypnotic surgery
Here falsity, error, credits Truth, God, with inducing a sleep or hypnotic state in Adam in order to perform a surgical operation on him and thereby create woman. This is the first record of magnet- ism. Beginning creation with darkness instead of light, - materially rather than spiritually, - error now simu- lates the work of Truth, mocking Love and declar- ing what great things error has done. Beholding the creations of his own dream and calling them real and God-given, Adam - alias error - gives them names. Afterwards he is supposed to become the basis of the creation of woman and of his own kind, calling them mankind, - that is, a kind of man.
Mental midwifery
But according to this narrative, surgery was first per- formed mentally and without instruments; and this may be a useful hint to the medical faculty. Later in human history, when the forbidden
Genesis iii. 1-3. Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God [Jehovah] had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
Mythical serpent
Whence comes a talking, lying serpent to tempt the children of divine Love? The serpent enters into the metaphor only as evil. We have nothing in the animal kingdom which represents the species described, - a talking serpent, - and should rejoice that evil, by whatever figure presented, contradicts itself and has neither origin nor support in Truth and good. Seeing this, we should have faith to fight all claims of evil, be- cause we know that they are worthless and unreal.
Error or Adam
Adam, the synonym for error, stands for a belief of material mind. He begins his reign over man some-
Divine providence
In divine Science, man is sustained by God, the divine Principle of being. The earth, at God's command, brings forth food for man's use. Knowing this, Jesus once said, "Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink," - presuming not on the prerogative of his creator, but recognizing God, the Father and Mother of all, as able to feed and clothe man as He doth the lilies.
Genesis iii. 4, 5. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened; and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
Error's assumption
This myth represents error as always asserting its su- periority over truth, giving the lie to divine Science and saying, through the material senses: "I can open your eyes. I can do what God has not done for you. Bow down to me and have another god. Only admit that I am real, that sin and sense are more pleasant to the eyes than spiritual Life, more to be de- sired than Truth, and I shall know you, and you will be mine." Thus Spirit and flesh war.
Scriptural allegory
The history of error is a dream-narrative. The dream has no reality, no intelligence, no mind; therefore the dreamer and dream are one, for neither is true nor real. First, this narrative supposes that something springs from nothing, that matter pre- cedes mind. Second, it supposes that mind enters matter,
Higher hope
It is well that the upper portions of the brain represent the higher moral sentiments, as if hope were ever prophe- sying thus: The human mind will sometime rise above all material and physical sense, ex- changing it for spiritual perception, and exchanging hu- man concepts for the divine consciousness. Then man will recognize his God-given dominion and being.
Biological inventions
If, in the beginning, man's body originated in non- intelligent dust, and mind was afterwards put into body by the creator, why is not this divine order still maintained by God in perpetuating the species? Who will say that minerals, vegetables, and animals have a propagating property of their own? Who dares to say either that God is in matter or that matter exists without God? Has man sought out other creative inventions, and so changed the method of his Maker?
Which institutes Life, - matter or Mind? Does Life begin with Mind or with matter? Is Life sustained by matter or by Spirit? Certainly not by both, since flesh wars against Spirit and the corporeal senses can take no cognizance of Spirit. The mythologic theory of mate- rial life at no point resembles the scientifically Christian record of man as created by Mind in the image and like- ness of God and having dominion over all the earth. Did
Progeny cursed
All human knowledge and material sense must be gained from the five corporeal senses. Is this knowledge safe, when eating its first fruits brought death? "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die," was the prediction in the story under consid- eration. Adam and his progeny were cursed, not blessed; and this indicates that the divine Spirit, or Father, con- demns material man and remands him to dust.
Genesis iii. 9, 10. And the Lord God [Jehovah] called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard Thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.
Shame the effect of sin
Knowledge and pleasure, evolved through material sense, produced the immediate fruits of fear and shame. Ashamed before Truth, error shrank abashed from the divine voice calling out to the cor- poreal senses. Its summons may be thus paraphrased: "Where art thou, man? Is Mind in matter? Is Mind capable of error as well as of truth, of evil as well as of good, when God is All and He is Mind and there is but one God, hence one Mind?"
Fear comes of error
Fear was the first manifestation of the error of mate- rial sense. Thus error began and will end the dream of matter, In the allegory the body had been naked, and Adam knew it not; but now error demands that mind shall see and feel through matter, the five senses. The first impression material man had of
Genesis iii. 11, 12. And He said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat? And the man said, The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.
The beguiling first lie
Here there is an attempt to trace all human errors directly or indirectly to God, or good, as if He were the creator of evil. The allegory shows that the snake-talker utters the first voluble lie, which beguiles the woman and demoralizes the man. Adam, alias mortal error, charges God and woman with his own dereliction, saying, "The woman, whom Thou gavest me, is responsible." According to this belief, the rib taken from Adam's side has grown into an evil mind, named woman, who aids man to make sinners more rapidly than he can alone. Is this an help meet for man?
Materiality, so obnoxious to God, is already found in the rapid deterioration of the bone and flesh which came from Adam to form Eve. The belief in material life and in- telligence is growing worse at every step, but error has its suppositional day and multiplies until the end thereof.
False womanhood
Truth, cross-questioning man as to His knowledge of error, finds woman the first to confess her fault. She says, " The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat;" as much as to say in meek penitence, "Neither man nor God shall father my fault." She has already learned that corporeal sense is the serpent. Hence
Genesis iii. 14, 15. And the Lord God [Jehovah] said unto the serpent, . . . I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
Spirit and flesh
This prophecy has been fulfilled. The Son of the Virgin- mother unfolded the remedy for Adam, or error; and the Apostle Paul explains this warfare between the idea of divine power, which Jesus presented, and mythological material intelligence called energy and opposed to Spirit.
Paul says in his epistle to the Romans: "The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the spirit of God dwell in you."
Bruising sin's head
There will be greater mental opposition to the spirit- ual, scientific meaning of the Scriptures than there has ever been since the Christian era began. The serpent, material sense, will bite the heel of the woman, - will struggle to destroy the spiritual idea of Love; and the woman, this idea, will bruise the head of lust. The spiritual idea has given the understanding
Genesis iii. 16. Unto the woman He said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception: in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
Judgment on error
Divine Science deals its chief blow at the supposed ma- terial foundations of life and intelligence. It dooms idol- atry. A belief in other gods, other creators, and other creations must go down before Chris- tian Science. It unveils the results of sin as shown in sickness and death. When will man pass through the open gate of Christian Science into the heaven of Soul, into the heritage of the first born among men? Truth is indeed " the way."
Genesis iii. 17-19. And unto Adam He said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life: thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field: in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
New earth and no more sea
In the first chapter of Genesis we read: "And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together
The fall of error
The way of error is awful to contemplate. The illu- sion of sin is without hope or God. If man's spiritual gravitation and attraction to one Father, in whom we " live, and move, and have our be- ing," should be lost, and if man should be governed by corporeality instead of divine Principle, by body instead of by Soul, man would be annihilated. Created by flesh instead of by Spirit, starting from matter instead of from God, mortal man would be governed by himself. The blind leading the blind, both would fall.
True attainment
Passions and appetites must end in pain. They are "of few days, and full of trouble." Their supposed joys are cheats. Their narrow limits belittle their gratifica- tions, and hedge about their achievements with thorns. Mortal mind accepts the erroneous, material concep- tion of life and joy, but the true idea is gained from the immortal side. Through toil, struggle, and sor- row, what do mortals attain? They give up their belief in perishable life and happiness; the mortal and material return to dust, and the immortal is reached.
Genesis iii. 22-24. And the Lord God [Jehovah] said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good
Justice and recompense
A knowledge of evil was never the essence of divin- ity or manhood. In the first chapter of Genesis, evil has no local habitation nor name. Crea- tion is there represented as spiritual, entire, and good. "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Error excludes itself from harmony. Sin is its own punishment. Truth guards the gateway to harmony. Error tills its own barren soil and buries itself in the ground, since ground and dust stand for nothingness.
Inspired interpretation
No one can reasonably doubt that the purpose of this allegory - this second account in Genesis - is to depict the falsity of error and the effects of error. Subsequent Bible revelation is coordinate with the Science of creation recorded in the first chapter of Genesis. Inspired writers interpret the Word spiritually, while the ordinary historian interprets it literally. Literally taken, the text is made to appear contradictory in some places, and divine Love, which blessed the earth and gave it to man for a possession, is represented as changeable. The literal meaning would imply that God withheld from man the opportunity to reform, lest man should improve it and become better; but this is not the nature of God, who is Love always,
Spiritual gateway
Truth should, and does, drive error out of all selfhood. Truth is a two-edged sword, guarding and guiding. Truth places the cherub wisdom at the gate of understanding to note the proper guests. Radiant with mercy and justice, the sword of Truth gleams afar and indicates the infinite distance between Truth and error, between the material and spiritual, the unreal and the real.
Contrasted testimony
The sun, giving light and heat to the earth, is a figure of divine Life and Love, enlightening and sustaining the universe. The "tree of life" is significant of eternal reality or being. The "tree of knowl- edge" typifies unreality. The testimony of the serpent is significant of the illusion of error, of the false claims that misrepresent God, good. Sin, sickness, and death have no record in the Elohistic introduction of Genesis, in which God creates the heavens, earth, and man. Until that which contradicts the truth of being enters into the arena, evil has no history, and evil is brought into view only as the unreal in contradistinction to the real and eternal.
Genesis iv. 1. And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord [Jehovah].
Erroneous conception
This account is given, not of immortal man, but of mor- tal man, and of sin which is temporal. As both mortal man and sin have a beginning, they must consequently have an end, while the sinless, real man is eternal. Eve's declaration, "I have gotten a man from the Lord," supposes God to be the author
Only one standard
What can be the standard of good, of Spirit, of Life, or of Truth, if they produce their opposites, such as evil, matter, error, and death? God could never impart an element of evil, and man possesses nothing which he has not derived from God. How then has man a basis for wrong-doing? Whence does he obtain the propensity or power to do evil? Has Spirit resigned to matter the government of the universe?
A type of falsehood
The Scriptures declare that God condemned this lie as to man's origin and character by condemning its symbol, the serpent, to grovel beneath all the beasts of the field. It is false to say that Truth and error commingle in creation. In parable and argument, this falsity is exposed by our Master as self-evidently wrong. Disputing these points with the Pharisees and arguing for the Science of creation, Jesus said: "Do men gather grapes of thorns?" Paul asked: "What com- munion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial?"
Scientific offspring
The divine origin of Jesus gave him more than human power to expound the facts of creation, and demonstrate the one Mind which makes and governs man and the universe. The Science of creation, so conspicuous in the birth of Jesus inspired his wisest and least-understood sayings, and was the basis of his
Cleansing upheaval
In Isaiah we read: "I make peace, and create evil. I the Lord do all these things;" but the prophet referred to divine law as stirring up the belief in evil to its utmost, when bringing it to the surface and re- ducing it to its common denominator, nothingness. The muddy river-bed must be stirred in order to purify the stream. In moral chemicalization, when the symptoms of evil, illusion, are aggravated, we may think in our igno- rance that the Lord hath wrought an evil; but we ought to know that God's law uncovers so-called sin and its effects, only that Truth may annihilate all sense of evil and all power to sin.
Allegiance to Spirit
Science renders "unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's." It saith to the human sense of sin, sickness, and death, "God never made you, and you are a false sense which hath no knowledge of God." The pur- pose of the Hebrew allegory, representing error as assum- ing a divine character, is to teach mortals never to believe a lie.
Genesis iv. 3, 4. Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord [Jehovah]. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock, and of the fat thereof.
Spiritual and material
Cain is the type of mortal and material man, conceived in sin and "shapen in iniquity;" he is not the type of Truth and Love. Material in origin and sense, he brings a material offering to God. Abel
Genesis iv. 4, 5. And the Lord [Jehovah] had respect unto Abel, and to his offering: but unto Cain, and to his offering, He had not respect. Had God more respect for the homage bestowed through a gentle animal than for the worship expressed by Cain's fruit? No; but the lamb was a more spiritual type of even the human concept of Love than the herbs of the ground could be.
Genesis iv. 8. Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him. The erroneous belief that life, substance, and intelli- gence can be material ruptures the life and brotherhood of man at the very outset.
Genesis iv. 9. And the Lord [Jehovah] said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?
Brotherhood repudiated
Here the serpentine lie invents new forms. At first it usurps divine power. It is supposed to say in the first instance, "Ye shall be as gods." Now it repudiates even the human duty of man towards his brother.
Genesis iv. 10, 11. And He [Jehovah] said, . . . The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto Me from the ground. And now art thou cursed from the earth.
Murder brings its curse
The belief of life in matter sins at every step. It in- curs divine displeasure, and it would kill Jesus that it might be rid of troublesome Truth. Material beliefs would slay the spiritual idea when- ever and wherever it appears. Though error hides behind a lie and excuses guilt, error cannot forever be concealed. Truth, through her eternal laws, unveils error. Truth causes sin to betray itself, and sets upon error the mark of the beast. Even the disposition to excuse guilt or to conceal it is punished. The avoidance of justice and the denial of truth tend to perpetuate sin, invoke crime, jeopardize self-control, and mock divine mercy.
Genesis iv. 15. And the Lord [Jehovah] said unto him Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord [Jehovah] set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.
Retribution and remorse
"They that take the sword shall perish with the sword." Let Truth uncover and destroy error in God's own way, and let human justice pattern the divine. Sin will receive its full penalty, both for what it is and for what it does. Justice marks the sinner, and teaches mortals not to remove the waymarks of God. To envy's own hell, justice con- signs the lie which, to advance itself, breaks God's commandments.
Genesis iv. 16. And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord [Jehovah], and dwelt in the land of Nod.
Climax of suffering
The sinful misconception of Life as something less
Dwelling in dreamland
In divine Science, the material man is shut out from the presence of God. The five corporeal senses cannot take cognizance of Spirit. They cannot come into His presence, and must dwell in dream- land, until mortals arrive at the understanding that ma- terial life, with all its sin, sickness, and death, is an illu- sion, against which divine Science is engaged in a warfare of extermination. The great verities of existence are never excluded by falsity.
Man springs from Mind
All error proceeds from the evidence before the mate- rial senses. If man is material and originates in an egg, who shall say that he is not primarily dust? May not Darwin be right in think- ing that apehood preceded mortal manhood? Minerals and vegetables are found, according to divine Science, to be the creations of erroneous thought, not of matter. Did man, whom God created with a word, originate in an egg? When Spirit made all, did it leave aught for matter to create? Ideas of Truth alone are reflected in the myriad manifestations of Life, and thus it is seen that man springs solely from Mind. The belief that matter supports life would make Life, or God, mortal.
Material inception
The text, "In the day that the Lord God [Jehovah God] made the earth and the heavens," introduces the
First evil suggestion
In Science, Mind neither produces matter nor does matter produce mind. No mortal mind has the might or right or wisdom to create or to destroy. All is under the control of the one Mind, even God. The first statement about evil, - the first suggestion of more than the one Mind, - is in the fable of the serpent. The facts of creation, as previously re- corded, include nothing of the kind.
Material personality
The serpent is supposed to say, "Ye shall be as gods," but these gods must be evolved from materiality and be the very antipodes of immortal and spiritual being. Man is the likeness of Spirit, but a material personality is not this likeness. Therefore man, in this allegory, is neither a lesser god nor the image and likeness of the one God.
Material, erroneous belief reverses understanding and truth. It declares mind to be in and of matter, so-called mortal life to be Life, infinity to enter man's nostrils so that matter becomes spiritual. Error begins with corporeality as the producer instead of divine Prin-
"Behold, the man is become as one of us." This could not be the utterance of Truth or Science, for according to the record, material man was fast degenerating and never had been divinely conceived.
Mental tillage
The condemnation of mortals to till the ground means this, - that mortals should so improve material belief by thought tending spiritually upward as to destroy materiality. Man, created by God, was given dominion over the whole earth. The notion of a material universe is utterly opposed to the theory of man as evolved from Mind. Such fundamental errors send falsity into all human doctrines and conclusions, and do not accord infinity to Deity. Error tills the whole ground in this material theory, which is entirely a false view, destructive to existence and happiness. Out- side of Christian Science all is vague and hypothetical, the opposite of Truth; yet this opposite, in its false view of God and man, impudently demands a blessing.
Erroneous standpoint
The translators of this record of scientific creation entertained a false sense of being. They believed in the existence of matter, its propagation and power. From that standpoint of error, they could not apprehend the nature and operation of Spirit. Hence the seeming contradiction in that Scripture, which is so glorious in its spiritual signification. Truth has but one reply to all error, - to sin, sickness, and death: "Dust [nothingness] thou art, and unto dust [nothingness] shalt thou return."
Mortality mythical
"As in Adam [error] all die, even so in Christ [Truth] shall all be made alive." The mortality of man is a
No truth from a material basis
Is Christian Science contradictory? Is the divine Principle of creation misstated? Has God no Science to declare Mind, while matter is governed by un- erring intelligence? "There went up a mist from the earth." This represents error as starting from an idea of good on a material basis. It supposes God and man to be manifested only through the corporeal senses, although the material senses can take no cognizance of Spirit or the spiritual idea.
Genesis and the Apocalypse seem more obscure than other portions of the Scripture, because they cannot possibly be interpreted from a material standpoint. To the author, they are transparent, for they contain the deep divinity of the Bible.
Dawning of spiritual facts
Christian Science is dawning upon a material age. The great spiritual facts of being, like rays of light, shine in the darkness, though the darkness, com- prehending them not, may deny their reality. The proof that the system stated in this book is Chris- tianly scientific resides in the good this system accom- plishes, for it cures on a divine demonstrable Principle which all may understand.
Proof given in healing
If mathematics should present a thousand different examples of one rule, the proving of one example would
Embryonic evolution
The late Louis Agassiz, by his microscopic examination of a vulture's ovum, strengthens the thinker's conclusions as to the scientific theory of creation. Agassiz was able to see in the egg the earth's atmos- phere, the gathering clouds, the moon and stars, while the germinating speck of so-called embryonic life seemed a small sun. In its history of mortality, Darwin's theory of evolution from a material basis is more consistent than most theories. Briefly, this is Darwin's theory, - that Mind produces its opposite, matter, and endues matter with power to recreate the universe, including man. Ma- terial evolution implies that the great First Cause must become material, and afterwards must either return to Mind or go down into dust and nothingness.
True theory of the universe
The Scriptures are very sacred. Our aim must be to have them understood spiritually, for only by this under- standing can truth be gained. The true the- ory of the universe, including man, is not in material history but in spiritual development. Inspired thought relinquishes a material, sensual, and mortal theory of the universe, and adopts the spiritual and immortal.
Scriptural perception
It is this spiritual perception of Scripture, which lifts humanity out of disease and death and inspires faith.
The clouds dissolving
How little light or heat reach our earth when clouds cover the sun's face! So Christian Science can be seen only as the clouds of corporeal sense roll away. Earth has little light or joy for mortals before Life is spiritually learned. Every agony of mortal error helps error to destroy error, and so aids the apprehension of immortal Truth. This is the new birth going on hourly, by which men may entertain angels, the true ideas of God, the spiritual sense of being.
Prediction of a naturalist
Speaking of the origin of mortals, a famous naturalist says: "It is very possible that many general statements now current, about birth and generation, will be changed with the progress of information." Had the naturalist, through his tireless researches, gained the diviner side in Christian Science, - so far apart from his material sense of animal growth and organization, he would have blessed the human race more abundantly.
Methods of reproduction
Natural history is richly endowed by the labors and genius of great men. Modern discoveries have brought to light important facts in regard to so-called embryonic life. Agassiz declares ("Methods of Study in Natural History,") "Certain ani- mals, besides the ordinary process of generation, also increase their numbers naturally and constantly by self-
The three processes
Creatures of lower forms of organism are supposed to have, as classes, three different methods of reproduc- tion and to multiply their species sometimes through eggs, sometimes through buds, and sometimes through self-division. According to recent lore, successive generations do not begin with the birth of new individuals, or personalities, but with the formation of the nucleus, or egg, from which one or more individu- alities subsequently emerge; and we must therefore look upon the simple ovum as the germ, the starting-point, of the most complicated corporeal structures, including those which we call human. Here these material researches culminate in such vague hypotheses as must necessarily attend false systems, which rely upon physics and are de- void of metaphysics.
Deference to material law
In one instance a celebrated naturalist, Agassiz, dis- covers the pathway leading to divine Science, and beards the lion of materialism in its den. At that point, however, even this great observer mis- takes nature, forsakes Spirit as the divine origin of creative Truth, and allows matter and material law to usurp the prerogatives of omnipotence. He absolutely drops from his summit, coming down to a belief in the material origin of man, for he virtually affirms that
Deep-reaching interrogations
If this be so, whence cometh Life, or Mind, to the human race? Matter surely does not possess Mind. God is the Life, or intelligence, which forms and preserves the individuality and identity of animals as well as of men. God cannot become finite, and be limited within material bounds. Spirit cannot become matter, nor can Spirit be developed through its opposite. Of what avail is it to investigate what is miscalled material life, which ends, even as it be- gins, in nameless nothingness? The true sense of being and its eternal perfection should appear now, even as it will hereafter.
Stages of existence
Error of thought is reflected in error of action. The continual contemplation of existence as material and cor- poreal - as beginning and ending, and with birth, decay, and dissolution as its component stages - hides the true and spiritual Life, and causes our standard to trail in the dust. If Life has any starting- point whatsoever, then the great I AM is a myth. If Life is God, as the Scriptures imply, then Life is not embry- onic, it is infinite. An egg is an impossible enclosure for Deity.
Embryology supplies no instance of one species pro- ducing its opposite. A serpent never begets a bird, nor does a lion bring forth a lamb. Amalgamation is deemed monstrous and is seldom fruitful, but it is not so hideous and absurd as the supposition that Spirit - the pure and holy, the immutable and immortal - can originate the impure and mortal and dwell in it. As Christian Science repudiates self-evident impossibilities, the material senses
The real producer
Either Mind produces, or it is produced. If Mind is first, it cannot produce its opposite in quality and quantity, called matter. If matter is first, it cannot pro- duce Mind. Like produces like. In natural history, the bird is not the product of a beast. In spiritual history, matter is not the progenitor of Mind.
The ascent of species
One distinguished naturalist argues that mortals spring from eggs and in races. Mr. Darwin admits this, but he adds that mankind has ascended through all the lower grades of existence. Evolution de- scribes the gradations of human belief, but it does not acknowledge the method of divine Mind, nor see that ma- terial methods are impossible in divine Science and that all Science is of God, not of man.
Transmitted peculiarities
Naturalists ask: "What can there be, of a material nature, transmitted through these bodies called eggs, themselves composed of the simplest material elements, - by which all peculiarities of an- cestry, belonging to either sex, are brought down from generation to generation?" The question of the natu- ralist amounts to this: How can matter originate or trans- mit mind? We answer that it cannot. Darkness and doubt encompass thought, so long as it bases creation on materiality. From a material standpoint, "Canst thou by searching find out God?" All must be Mind, or else all must be matter. Neither can produce the other. Mind is immortal; but error declares that the material seed must decay in order to propagate its species, and the resulting germ is doomed to the same routine.
Causation not in matter
The ancient and hypothetical question, Which is first,
Emergence of mortals
Human experience in mortal life, which starts from an egg, corresponds with that of Job, when he says, "Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble." Mortals must emerge from this notion of material life as all-in-all. They must peck open their shells with Christian Science, and look outward and upward. But thought, loosened from a material basis but not yet instructed by Science, may become wild with freedom and so be self-contradictory.
Persistence of species
From a material source flows no remedy for sorrow, sin, and death, for the redeeming power, from the ills they occasion, is not in egg nor in dust. The blending tints of leaf and flower show the order of matter to be the order of mortal mind. The intermixture of different species, urged to its utmost limits, results in a return to the original species. Thus it is learned that matter is a manifestation of mortal mind, and that matter always surrenders its claims when the perfect and eternal Mind is understood.
Better basis than embryology
Naturalists describe the origin of mortal and material
One of our ablest naturalists has said: "We have no right to assume that individuals have grown or been formed under circumstances which made material con- ditions essential to their maintenance and reproduction, or important to their origin and first introduction." Why, then, is the naturalist's basis so materialistic, and why are his deductions generally material?
All nativity in thought
Adam was created before Eve. In this instance, it is seen that the maternal egg never brought forth Adam. Eve was formed from Adam's rib, not from a foetal ovum. Whatever theory may be adopted by general mortal thought to account for human origin, that theory is sure to become the signal for the appear- ance of its method in finite forms and operations. If con- sentaneous human belief agrees upon an ovum as the point of emergence for the human race, this potent belief will immediately supersede the more ancient supersti- tion about the creation from dust or from the rib of our primeval father.
Being is immortal
You may say that mortals are formed before they think or know aught of their origin, and you may also ask how belief can affect a result which precedes the development of that belief. It can
Our conscious development
Error is always error. It is no thing. Any statement of life, following from a misconception of life, is errone- ous, because it is destitute of any knowledge of the so-called selfhood of life, destitute of any knowledge of its origin or existence. The mortal is unconscious of his foetal and infantile existence; but as he grows up into another false claim, that of self-con- scious matter, he learns to say, "I am somebody; but who made me?" Error replies, "God made you." The first effort of error has been and is to impute to God the creation of whatever is sinful and mortal; but infinite Mind sets at naught such a mistaken belief.
Mendacity of error
Jesus defined this opposite of God and His creation better than we can, when he said, "He is a liar, and the father of it." Jesus also said, "Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?" This he said of Judas, one of Adam's race. Jesus never intimated that God made a devil, but he did say, "Ye are of your father, the devil." All these sayings were to show that mind in matter is the author of itself, and is simply a falsity and illusion.
Ailments of animals
It is the general belief that the lower animals are less sickly than those possessing higher organiza- tions, especially those of the human form. This would indicate that there is less disease in propor-
Ignorance the sign of error
An inquirer once said to the discoverer of Christian Science: "I like your explanations of truth, but I do not comprehend what you say about error." This is the nature of error. The mark of igno- rance is on its forehead, for it neither understands nor can be understood. Error would have itself received as mind, as if it were as real and God-created as truth; but Christian Science attributes to error neither entity nor power, because error is neither mind nor the outcome of Mind.
The origin of divinity
Searching for the origin of man, who is the reflection of God, is like inquiring into the origin of God, the self- existent and eternal. Only impotent error would seek to unite Spirit with matter, good with evil, immortality with mortality, and call this sham unity man, as if man were the offspring of both Mind and matter, of both Deity and humanity. Crea- tion rests on a spiritual basis. We lose our standard of perfection and set aside the proper conception of Deity, when we admit that the perfect is the author of aught that can become imperfect, that God bestows the power to sin, or that Truth confers the ability to err. Our great example, Jesus, could restore the individualized manifestation of existence, which seemed to vanish in death. Knowing that God was the Life of man, Jesus was able to present himself unchanged after the cruci- fixion. Truth fosters the idea of Truth, and not the be-
Genera classified
Vertebrata, articulata, mollusca, and radiata are mor- tal and material concepts classified, and are supposed to possess life and mind. These false beliefs will disappear, when the radiation of Spirit destroys forever all belief in intelligent matter. Then will the new heaven and new earth appear, for the for- mer things will have passed away.
The Christian's privilege
Mortal belief infolds the conditions of sin. Mortal belief dies to live again in renewed forms, only to go out at last forever; for life everlasting is not to be gained by dying. Christian Science may ab- sorb the attention of sage and philosopher, but the Christian alone can fathom it. It is made known most fully to him who understands best the divine Life. Did the origin and the enlightenment of the race come from the deep sleep which fell upon Adam? Sleep is darkness, but God's creative mandate was, "Let there be light." In sleep, cause and effect are mere illusions. They seem to be something, but are not. Oblivion and dreams, not realities, come with sleep. Even so goes on the Adam-belief, of which mortal and material life is the dream.
Ontology versus physiology
Ontology receives less attention than physiology. Why? Because mortal mind must waken to spiritual life before it cares to solve the problem of being, hence the author's experience; but when that awakening comes, existence will be on a new stand- point.
It is related that a father plunged his infant babe, only a few hours old, into the water for several minutes, and
The curse removed
Mind controls the birth-throes in the lower realms of nature, where parturition is without suffering. Vege- tables, minerals, and many animals suffer no pain in multiplying; but human propagation has its suffering because it is a false belief. Christian Sci- ence reveals harmony as proportionately increasing as the line of creation rises towards spiritual man, - towards enlarged understanding and intelligence; but in the line of the corporeal senses, the less a mortal knows of sin, disease, and mortality, the better for him, - the less pain and sorrow are his. When the mist of mortal mind evap- orates, the curse will be removed which says to woman, "In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children." Divine Science rolls back the clouds of error with the light of Truth, and lifts the curtain on man as never born and as never dying, but as coexistent with his creator.
Popular theology takes up the history of man as if he began materially right, but immediately fell into mental sin; whereas revealed religion proclaims the Science of Mind and its formations as being in accordance with the first chapter of the Old Testament, when God, Mind, spake and it was done.
CHAPTER XV - GENESIS Science and Health with KEY to THE SCRIPTURES | ||