Article October 26, 1935 Issue

Christian Science—Primitive Christianity

[Original article in German]

PAUL GASSNER

Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, presents a short "Historical Sketch" of the founding of the Church of Christ, Scientist, on page 17 of the Manual of The Mother Church. There the purpose of the founding of this church is stated as follows: "It was voted,—To organize a church designed to commemorate the word and works of our Master, which should reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing."

Christians believe in the healings which our Master, Christ Jesus, performed, but by most Christians these healings have been considered miracles which Jesus and a few divinely endowed prophets and apostles could effect. Generally speaking, they believe, too, that the time of miracles has long since passed. When reading the Bible, many Christians have gone into ecstasies over the glorious deeds of our Master, but they may have been grieved by the belief that these days of healing have gone by. They may have completely overlooked the fact that Christ Jesus gave instructions to his followers to prove their faith by their works, to fulfill all the commandments, and to heal sin and sickness not only for a limited time or for a special group of people, but for all time and on behalf of all who believe on him. Near the end of the Gospel of Matthew are the words of our Saviour, "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, . . . teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you." This command states unmistakably that Christians shall follow not merely some, but all the instructions of their Master.

The New Testament shows that the early Christians were healers, and exemplified their faith through their works. The Master emphatically taught his followers that his kingdom was not of this world. The early Christians understood this utterance, for in the first three centuries of the Christian era primitive Christianity was preserved, with all its requirements. Gradually, however, Christ Jesus' teaching of the spiritual kingdom became obscured. The church strove for worldly power; it recognized its religious obligation only in the struggle against sin, while the healing of sickness, this concomitant of primitive Christianity, was taken out of the church and turned over to the physicians.

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