Page:The Origin of Christian Science.djvu/144

136 in her doctrines of Christ. Few maneuvers of Mrs. Eddy are more curious and circuitous than this one.

She says: “They (metaphysical works) never crown the power of Mind as the Messiah.” But she does. Here we have two more synonyms, mind and Messiah. And Mrs. Eddy understands rightly that Messiah and Christ are also synonyms, the former being the Hebrew word and the latter the Greek word for the promised Redeemer of Israel and both meaning the Anointed One.

Now will the reader please notice distinctly that we have here an identification of Christ or the Son of God with mind? We have from quotations already given anticipated this, but now we have before us her direct statement. We could trace her in her Neoplatonic meanderings without this “index finger,” for her tracks are unmistakable; but this sentence makes the task easier.

What we mean is this, that Mrs. Eddy conceives of Christ as the Neoplatonists do of the infinite and eternal intellect, or what they called the nous. The properties or qualities of this hypostasis or nature were such as those Mrs. Eddy ascribes to Christ. It is free from the limitations of matter. It is ever conscious. Its ideas are eternal. It is without error. It does not suffer. A