Article July 2, 1910 Issue

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AND JUDAISM

ALBERT JACOBSON

The student of Christian Science who comes from the house of Israel, soon recognizes the removal of a great stumbling-block which for centuries had separated the Jew from his christian brother. Mrs. Eddy explains that "Jesus Christ is not God, as Jesus himself declared" (Science and Health, p. 361). She says further, "The word Christ is not properly a synonym for Jesus, though it is commonly so used. Jesus was a human name, which belonged to him in common with other Hebrew boys and men, for it is identical with the name Joshua, the renowned Hebrew leader. ... The proper name of our Master in the Greek was Jesus the Christ; but Christ Jesus better signifies the Godlike" (Ibid., p. 333). This statement alone will remove mountains of prejudice that have been accumulating for ages. The word Christian had been detestable in the minds of the Jewish people, because under the name of so-called Christianity much innocent blood has been spilled, and even today there are some countries in which hatred and prejudice against the Hebrew race go hand in hand, and in consequence thereof the gulf between the Jew and Christian had become almost impassable. The different sects and beliefs which have sprung up since the days of Jesus have added still more of confusion to this vexed problem, till at last Mrs. Eddy proclaimed a scientific Christianity to the world and reestablished the religion taught and lived by Jesus of Nazareth.

It is marvelous when one considers that in the short space of a little over forty years a multitude of Jewish people have learned through Christian Science to make practical use of the Bible, or the Sefer-hachajim (the book of Life), which our text-book tells us is "a sufficient guide to eternal Life" (p. 497). May it not be said of our Leader that in uniting mankind she is doing some of those "greater works" which Jesus said his followers should do. He also commanded his disciples, "God not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." It is significant that in the class in which the writer was privileged to take instruction, two of the students were children of a rabbi,—one of them, myself, the son of an orthodox rabbi whose sincerity was unquestionable, and having been a broad-minded man, he would soon have learned the immeasurable value of the Christian Science teaching, had it been presented to him. I rejoice to see a reversal of the record, "He came unto his own, and his own received him not;" and especially am I grateful to see a vast difference between the pure religion which Jesus taught and the prevailing rabbinical Judaism. Paul understood this well when he said, "For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision which is outward in flesh: but he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the latter; whose praise is not of men, but of God."

Finally, Christian Science accomplishes something that no other teaching can,—it brings mankind together and unites all in one Mind,—the Mind "Which was also in Christ Jesus;" while creeds would keep men estranged by petty religious differences. Christian Science is fulfilling the prophecy of Habakkuk, "For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea."

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