Page:Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.djvu/528

516 Jesus of Nazareth, and even his crucifixion, were instigated by the criminal power here described — namely, animal magnetism. The Revelator speaks of Jesus as the Lamb of God, and of the Dragon warring against innocence. Since Jesus must be tempted in all points, he, the immaculate, must meet and conquer sin in every form. The brutal barbarity of his foes could emanate from no other source except the highest degree of human depravity, which is to be found in this propulsive will-power, or animal magnetism.

Jesus “opened not his mouth.” Justice had no appeal from the tribunal of mortal mind, let loose to secretly meet the Immortal Mind with open defiance, — until the majesty of His all-creative power should be illustrated in the nothingness of sin.

From Genesis to the Apocalypse, sin, sickness, and death, envy, hatred, and revenge, — all evil, — are typified by the Serpent, existing without a cause.

Jesus said, quoting from the Psalms, “They have hated me without cause.” The Serpent is close upon the heel of harmony. He pursues the Woman, the spiritual ideal, from the beginning to the end.

In Genesis mortal belief is the common Serpent “more subtle than any other beast of the field.” In the Apocalypse, when nearing its doom, the evil power becomes the great red Dragon, swollen with sin, hoary, ripe for destruction. He is inflamed with war against Spirit. He is full of lust and hate, loathing the brightness of divine glory.

Led on by the grossest clement of mortal mind, Herod decreed the death of every male child, that the man Jesus