319:15 The varied doctrines and theories which presuppose
life and intelligence to exist in matter are so many ancient
and modern mythologies. Mystery, miracle,
319:18 sin, and death will disappear when it becomes
fairly understood that the divine Mind controls man and
man has no Mind but God.
Scriptures misinterpreted
319:21 The divine Science taught in the original language
of the Bible came through inspiration, and needs inspi-
ration to be understood. Hence the misappre-
319:24 hension of the spiritual meaning of the Bible,
and the misinterpretation of the Word in
some instances by uninspired writers, who only wrote
319:27 down what an inspired teacher had said. A misplaced
word changes the sense and misstates the Science of
the Scriptures, as, for instance, to name Love as merely
319:30 an attribute of God; but we can by special and proper
capitalization speak of the love of Love, meaning by that
what the beloved disciple meant in one of his epistles,
320:1 when he said, "God is love." Likewise we can speak of
the truth of Truth and of the life of Life, for Christ plainly
320:3 declared, "I am the way, the truth, and the life."
Interior meaning
Metaphors abound in the Bible, and names are often
expressive of spiritual ideas. The most distinguished
320:6 theologians in Europe and America agree that
the Scriptures have both a spiritual and lit-
eral meaning. In Smith's Bible Dictionary it is said:
320:9 "The spiritual interpretation of Scripture must rest
upon both the literal and moral;" and in the learned
article on Noah in the same work, the familiar text,
320:12 Genesis vi. 3, "And the Lord said, My spirit shall not
always strive with man, for that he also is flesh," is quoted
as follows, from the original Hebrew: "And Jehovah
320:15 said, My spirit shall not forever rule [or be humbled] in
men, seeing that they are [or, in their error they are]
but flesh." Here the original text declares plainly the
320:18 spiritual fact of being, even man's eternal and harmo-
nious existence as image, idea, instead of matter (how-
ever transcendental such a thought appears), and avers
320:21 that this fact is not forever to be humbled by the belief
that man is flesh and matter, for according to that error
man is mortal.
Job, on the resurrection
320:24 The one important interpretation of Scripture is the
spiritual. For example, the text, "In my flesh shall I
see God," gives a profound idea of the di-
320:27 vine power to heal the ills of the flesh, and
encourages mortals to hope in Him who healeth all our
diseases; whereas this passage is continually quoted
320:30 as if Job intended to declare that even if disease and
worms destroyed his body, yet in the latter days he should
stand in celestial perfection before Elohim, still clad
321:1 in material flesh, - an interpretation which is just the op-
posite of the true, as may be seen by studying the book
321:3 of Job. As Paul says, in his first epistle to the Corin-
thians, "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of
God."
Fear of the serpent overcome
321:6 The Hebrew Lawgiver, slow of speech, despaired of
making the people understand what should be revealed
to him. When, led by wisdom to cast down his
321:9 rod, he saw it become a serpent, Moses fled be-
fore it; but wisdom bade him come back and
handle the serpent, and then Moses' fear departed. In
321:12 this incident was seen the actuality of Science. Matter
was shown to be a belief only. The serpent, evil, under
wisdom's bidding, was destroyed through understanding
321:15 divine Science, and this proof was a staff upon which to
lean. The illusion of Moses lost its power to alarm him,
when he discovered that what he apparently saw was really
321:18 but a phase of mortal belief.
Leprosy healed