Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy (universal ebook reader .TXT) 📖

Adam, and he slept: and

He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead 528:12 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

528:15 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 528:18 woman. This is the first record of magnetism. Beginning creation with darkness instead of light,

- materially rather than spiritually, - error now simu-528:21 lates the work of Truth, mocking Love and declaring what great things error has done. Beholding the

creations of his own dream and calling them real and 528:24 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 528:27 mankind, - that is, a kind of man.

 

Mental midwifery

 

But according to this narrative, surgery was first performed mentally and without instruments; 528:30 and this may be a useful hint to the medical

faculty. Later in human history, when the forbidden 529:1 fruit was bringing forth fruit of its own kind, there

came a suggestion of change in the modus operandi, - 529:3 that man should be born of woman, not woman again

taken from man. It came about, also, that instruments

were needed to assist the birth of mortals. The first 529:6 system of suggestive obstetrics has changed. Another

change will come as to the nature and origin of man,

and this revelation will destroy the dream of existence, 529:9 reinstate reality, usher in Science and the glorious fact

of creation, that both man and woman proceed from

God and are His eternal children, belonging to no lesser 529:12 parent.

 

Genesis iii. 1-3. Now the serpent was more subtle than

any beast of the field which the Lord God [Jehovah] had 529:15 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 529:18 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

529:21 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 529:24 animal kingdom which represents the species

described, - a talking serpent, - and should rejoice that

evil, by whatever figure presented, contradicts itself and 529:27 has neither origin nor support in Truth and good. Seeing

this, we should have faith to fight all claims of evil, because we know that they are worthless and unreal.

 

Error or Adam

529:30 Adam, the synonym for error, stands for a belief of

material mind. He begins his reign over man some-530:1 what mildly, but he increases in falsehood and his days

become shorter. In this development, the im-530:3 mortal, spiritual law of Truth is made manifest

as forever opposed to mortal, material sense.

 

Divine providence

 

In divine Science, man is sustained by God, the divine 530:6 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, 530:9 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 530:12 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 530:15 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-530:18 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 530:21 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-530:24 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 530:27 has no reality, no intelligence, no mind; therefore the

dreamer and dream are one, for neither is

true nor real. First, this narrative supposes 530:30 that something springs from nothing, that matter precedes mind. Second, it supposes that mind enters matter, 531:1 and matter becomes living, substantial, and intelligent.

The order of this allegory - the belief that everything 531:3 springs from dust instead of from Deity - has been maintained in all the subsequent forms of belief. This is the

error, - that mortal man starts materially, that non-531:6 intelligence becomes intelligence, that mind and soul are

both right and wrong.

 

Higher hope

 

It is well that the upper portions of the brain represent 531:9 the higher moral sentiments, as if hope were ever prophesying thus: The human mind will sometime

rise above all material and physical sense, ex-531:12 changing it for spiritual perception, and exchanging human concepts for the divine consciousness. Then man

will recognize his God-given dominion and being.

 

Biological inventions

531:15 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 531:18 still maintained by God in perpetuating the

species? Who will say that minerals, vegetables, and

animals have a propagating property of their own? 531:21 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 531:24 Maker?

 

Which institutes Life, - matter or Mind? Does Life

begin with Mind or with matter? Is Life sustained by 531:27 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-531:30 rial life at no point resembles the scientifically Christian

record of man as created by Mind in the image and likeness of God and having dominion over all the earth. Did 532:1 God at first create one man unaided, - that is, Adam, -

but afterwards require the union of the two sexes in order 532:3 to create the rest of the human family? No! God makes

and governs all.

 

Progeny cursed

 

All human knowledge and material sense must be 532:6 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 532:9 surely die,” was the prediction in the story under consideration. Adam and his progeny were cursed, not blessed;

and this indicates that the divine Spirit, or Father, con-532:12 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 532:15 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 532:18 sense, produced the immediate fruits of fear and shame.

Ashamed before Truth, error shrank abashed

from the divine voice calling out to the cor-532:21 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 532:24 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-532:27 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 532:30 demands that mind shall see and feel through matter, the

five senses. The first impression material man had of 533:1 himself was one of nakedness and shame. Had he lost

man’s rich inheritance and God’s behest, dominion over 533:3 all the earth? No! This had never been bestowed on

Adam.

 

Genesis iii. 11, 12. And He said, Who told thee that 533:6 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 533:9 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 533:12 creator of evil. The allegory shows that the

snake-talker utters the first voluble lie, which

beguiles the woman and demoralizes the man. Adam, 533:15 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 533:18 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?

533:21 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-533:24 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 533:27 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, 533:30 “Neither man nor God shall father my fault.” She has

already learned that corporeal sense is the serpent. Hence 534:1 she is first to abandon the belief in the material origin of

man and to discern spiritual creation. This hereafter 534:3 enabled woman to be the mother of Jesus and to behold

at the sepulchre the risen Saviour, who was soon to manifest the deathless man of God’s creating. This enabled 534:6 woman to be first to interpret the Scriptures in their true

sense, which reveals the spiritual origin of man.

 

Genesis iii. 14, 15. And the Lord God [Jehovah] said 534:9 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

534:12 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 534:15 idea of divine power, which Jesus presented,

and mythological material intelligence called energy and

opposed to Spirit.

534:18 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 534:21 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

534:24 There will be greater mental opposition to the spiritual, scientific meaning of the Scriptures than there has

ever been since