Article September 21, 1907 Issue

The paper contributed to your July number by the Rev. Herbert W. Horwill...

Frederick Dixon—London, England.

Expository Times

[The following clipping from the Expository Times is of special interest, as this review is edited by Dr. Hastings, one of the foremost Bible critics in Europe, and is an organ of advanced criticism. Dr. Hastings printed a criticism of Mrs. Eddy's exegesis, but he has with equal readiness printed Mr. Dixon's reply.—Editor Sentinel.]

The paper contributed to your July number by the Rev. Herbert W. Horwill, under the title of "The Exegesis of Christian Science," was conceived, I am certain, in the wish to place the teaching of Christian Science fairly and clearly before your readers. Whether this could have been done within the limits of the space at his disposal, I will not presume to say, but I will venture to affirm that his attempt has not demonstrated that it can. It is obvious that any attempt to present an unfamiliar phase of truth intelligently demands an elaboration and a precision which can largely be dispensed with in considering one which is familiar. When, therefore, an examination of the exegesis of Christian Science is reduced in a large degree to sentences torn from their context and presented as antitheses to a preconceived view, it is obvious that many of the principal requirements of criticism have been neglected.

This being so, I should be all the more grateful if you would allow me to review one or two of the more defined of Mr. Horwill's objections. He seems to reject Mrs. Eddy's contention that the spiritual interpretation of the Bible text is the most important one, and he selects for comment, amongst other passages, the account in Genesis of Jacob's struggle with the angel. Now, as a matter of fact, Mrs. Eddy's contention is not a new one. It is perfectly certain that the Jews interpreted these stories allegorically, and that the early Christian Church followed their example. In the second century, Celsus, disturbed by the growth of Christianity, composed his and though this treatise has disappeared, the reply of Origen remains, and with its help it is possible to reframe much of the attack. From this it is perfectly clear that the Roman philosopher charges the Church of the second century with doing exactly what Mr. Horwill objects to Mrs. Eddy doing. The Jews and the Christians, Celsus evidently said, explain all these legends allegorically, and they well may, for they are all illusionary. Eighty years later Origen found this attack still so damaging to the Christian cause that he deemed it necessary to reply, and his reply insists strongly on the very points to which Celsus had taken exception. "Adam," he said (I am quoting Mr. Froude's paraphrase), "was Adam, but he was also human nature. He and the story of Paradise constituted an allegory. The canaanites represented the Israelites' own evil dispositions; the children of Babylon who were to be dashed against the stones, were their own wicked thoughts and inclinations, which they were ordered to tear out and fling from them." If, therefore, Mr. Horwill is prepared to condemn Mrs. Eddy in this respect, he must logically be prepared to condemn the Church of the second and third centuries.

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