0.0 – Christian Science – 16 Books by Mary Baker Eddy – Bk 3 – No and Yes – Chpt 9 – Is There a personal Devil

15	                    IS THERE A PERSONAL DEVIL? 

  	    No man hath seen the person of good or of evil. Each
  	is greater than the corporeality we behold. 
18	    "He cast out devils." This record shows that the term
  	devil is generic, being used in the plural number. From
  	this it follows that there is more than one devil. That
21	Jesus cast several persons out of another person, is not
  	stated, and is impossible. Hence the passage must refer
  	to the evils which were cast out. 
24	    Jesus defined devil as a mortal who is full of evil. "Have
  	I not chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?" His
  	definition of evil indicated his ability to cast it out. An
 
   
No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                  23


 1	incorrect concept of the nature of evil hinders the destruc-
  	tion of evil. To conceive of God as resembling — in per-
 3	sonality, or form — the personality that Jesus condemned
  	as devilish, is fraught with spiritual danger. Evil can
  	neither grasp the prerogative of God nor make evil om-
 6	nipotent and omnipresent. 
  	    Jesus said to Peter, "Get thee behind me, Satan;" but
  	he to whom our Lord gave the keys of the kingdom could
 9	not have been wholly evil, and therefore was not a devil,
  	after the accepted definition. Out of the Magdalen, Jesus
  	cast seven devils; but not one person was named among
12	them. According to Crabtre, these devils were the dis-
  	eases Jesus cast out. 
  	    The most eminent divines, in Europe and America, con-
15	cede that the Scriptures have both a literal and a moral
  	meaning. Which of the two is the more important to gain,
  	 — the literal or the moral sense of the word devil, — in
18	order to cast out this devil? Evil is a quality, not an
  	individual. 
  	    As mortals, we need to discern the claims of evil, and to
21	fight these claims, not as realities, but as illusions; but
  	Deity can have no such warfare against Himself. Knowl-
  	edge of a man's physical personality is not sufficient to
24	inform us as to the amount of good or evil he possesses. 
  	Hence we cannot understand God or man, through the
  	person of either. God is All-in-all; but He is definite and
27	individual, the omnipresent and omniscient Mind; and
  	man's individuality is God's own image and likeness, — 
 
   
No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                 24


 1	even the immeasurable idea of divine Mind. In the
  	Science of good, evil loses all place, person, and power. 
 3	    According to Spinoza's philosophy God is amplification. 
  	He is in all things, and therefore He is in evil in human
  	thought. He is extension, of whatever character. Also,
 6	according to Spinoza, man is an animal vegetable, devel-
  	oped through the lower orders of matter and mortal mind. 
  	All these vagaries are at variance with my system of meta-
 9	physics, which rests on God as One and All, and denies
  	the actual existence of both matter and evil. According to
  	false philosophy and scholastic theology, God is three
12	persons in one person. By the same token, evil is not only
  	as real as good, but much more real, since evil subordi-
  	nates good in personality. 
15	    The claims of evil become both less and more in Chris-
  	tian Science, than in human philosophies or creeds: more,
  	because the evil that is hidden by dogma and human rea-
18	son is uncovered by Science; and less, because evil, being
  	thus uncovered, is found out, and exposure is nine points
  	of destruction. Then appears the grand verity of Chris-
21	tian Science:  namely, that evil has no claims and was
  	never a claimant; for behold evil (or devil) is, as Jesus
  	said, "a murderer from the beginning, and the truth abode
24	not in him." 
  	    There was never a moment in which evil was real. This
  	great fact concerning all error brings with it another and
27	more glorious truth, that good is supreme. As there is
  	none beside Him, and He is all good, there can be no evil. 
 
   
No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy                                                 25


 1	Simply uttering this great thought is not enough! We
  	must live it, until God becomes the All and Only of our
 3	being. Having won through great tribulation this cardinal
  	point of divine Science, St. Paul said, "But now we are
  	delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were
 6	held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not
  	in the oldness of the letter." SHOW ALL