Arizona republican., 1920-01-15
THE CHRIST


 Cwritten for the Christian Science
 Monitor)
 Every reader of the Bible remembers the famous occasion. at Caesarea Philippi when Christ Jesus put the disciples the question. staggering in its implication. Whom do men say that | the Son of man am?" and every one remembers. equally we'll the indeter- minate nature of the reply, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others. Jeremias, or one of the prophets. The answer in any case. made it perfectly clear that the common people" had failed utterly to grasp the teaching of the Christ, and were accounting for the mighty works of the carpenter of Nazareth on a purely superstitious or necromantic basis, in accordance with much of the popular thought of the day. Then it was that Jesus turned suddenly to the disciples themselves. with the same question. But whom say ye that am?" a demand which brought, from Peter. the instantaneous answer, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God"
 The Christ. then, it is quite certain, is the Son of God. is the infinite idea of divine Mind, and thus is the reality of everything which seems to exist in a material form, from blade of grass to q star. It is generic man, for as Mrs. Eddy has written. on page 475 of Science and Health, Man is idea, the image, of Love: he is not physique. He is the compound idea of God, including all right ideas: the generic term for all that reflects Gods image and like ness; the conscious identity of being found in Science, in which man is the reflection of God, or Mind, and therefore is eternal: that which has no separate mind from God. that which a Sin Xp6 from Deity; that which possesses no life, intelligence, nor creative power of his own, but reflects spiritually all that belongs to his Maker" Thus it is that the woman in Revelation equally with Christ Jesus, symboliZes the divine idea, as Mrs. Eddy. in turn. explains. on page 56l of Science and Health, ..The woman in the Apocalypse sym bolizes generic man, the spiritual idea of God; she illustrates the coincidence of God and man as the divine Princi- pie and divine idea.
 It argued no slight spiritual insight to gain this vision of the Christ in the first century. before the resurrection had finally demonstrated the nothing ness of matter, and the eternity of Life; and there is little to be wondered at, therefore, that Christ Jesus should have answered Peter with the words, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar iona; for flesh and blood hath not revealed IL unto thee. but my Father which is in heaven" It was not in other words, human intellect, much less the sensu- ous intelligence of flesh and blood; Christ Jesus quite obviously was in- sisting. that had torn the veil off the face of matter and exposed it's noth- ingness. it was, on the contrary. the fact that Peter had so far di--orced these things from his consciousness as to have gained. to the extent Jesus realized that he had, the vision of the Christ.
 For the Christ, it must be obvious is the truth about and the reality of everything. though the beginner in Christian Science. always limiting him. self, unconsciously. to verbal defini- tions, does not readily comprehend this As he goes on, however, from demonstration to demonstration, as he must if he is to make Christianity living Science, and not an intellectual or a dogmatic theory. the marvellous simplicity Of the unity of good begins to dawn upon him. and he sees how every lesser idea is contained. of ne- cessity, in the infinite idea. so that the Christ is the reality not only of gen eric man but of individual mal. just as