Day 295: The Serpent is here

593:9-595:6

How fitting that today I’m studying the serpent. A lie has crept into my life and squirmed into my thought. It was subtly proposed by someone else. Now I’m considering it, sort of. Only because I love this someone.

The serpent is:

• subtlety
• a lie
• the opposite of Truth, named error
• the first myth and idol
• belief in more than 1 God
• animal magnetism
• 1st lie of limitation
• finity
• 1st claim of opposite of Spirit, good, termed matter or evil
• 1st delusion that error exists as fact
• 1st claim that sin, sickness, death are real
• 1st audible claim that God is not omnipotent, that there is another power, named evil, which was as real and eternal as God, good

Day 269: Moral Chemicalization

538:23-540:24

I think it is an interesting point that this section becomes a comparison of Cain to Jesus. Mary Baker Eddy doesn’t do it out right, she just ignores Cain, now born, altogether. And only discusses Jesus. That’s really her whole point is to not give the material one second of thought, but only the spiritual.

Point #1

In moral chemicalization, when the symptoms of evil, illusion, are aggravated, we may think in our ignorance 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.

This is a good point to remember in Christian Science because while I am in the chemicalization, I may not know what sin is being uncovered. I need to remember I am passing through a chemicalization when the worst of it is upon me and not in an endless mortal situation.

Point #2

The purpose of the Hebrew allegory, representing error as assuming a divine character, is to teach mortals never to believe a lie.

I think, for me, the issue is to remember what the lie is. The little lies are easy to see through. But the one big lie is not.

Day 267: Sorrow, Desire, & Rule

535:6-536:29

Well, now. Adam and Eve get a talking to – don’t they. The 2nd Story God lays down the punishment.

The woman will multiply her sorrow, her only desire to serve her husband, and he (her husband) shall rule over her. God just made man the god of woman. So now there are many gods.

Mary Baker Eddy’s response is right on:

Divine Science deals its chief blow at the supposed material foundations of life and intelligence.

The material foundation are not only how man is created but how man and woman are to live, which in Science is in harmony, with only one god – God.

Then God turns to man and says he can’t eat of that tree anymore, man can eat herb of the field, bread. Ok. so why isn’t this passage (Genesis 3:17-19) taken literally if so many religions want to take Genesis 3:16 literally? Just bread for man. 

Then Mary Baker Eddy sums up what this 2nd Story God did:

The illusion of sin is without hope or God.