Editorial December 8, 1945 Issue

The True Blood of Man

Paul Stark Seeley

Blood has an important part in the make-up of the material body. The circulation of the blood is essential to the normal functioning of the body. But Jesus never taught that man's life is in material blood, or in any form of matter. He taught that the Life of man is Spirit, God and that to understand God is to possess eternal life. Certainly man's life cannot be both in God, Mind, and also something in blood or mindless matter. Mind and matter are opposites and never commingle.

When the Master said. "Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life" (John 6:54), he of course used "flesh" and "blood" figuratively . Mary Baker Eddy comments on his words thus:  "His true flesh and blood were his Life; and they truly eat his flesh and drink his blood, who partake of that divine Life" (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 25). We partake of his Life, partake of God, in the degree we understand that man is the reflection, or idea, of God, and lives by, in, and for this Mind, to evidence its presence, activity, and power. God, Mind, is man's only substance and vitality, and nothing else is. Can the idea of Mind have any vitality apart from the Mind that is its source and substance?

Man's life, as God's son and image, is no more dependent on liquid matter, called blood, circulating through a bulk of matter called body, than it is dependent on more solid matter called flesh, or gaseous matter called air for its origin or continuance. Man is, by reason of his spirituality and Mind-likeness, as superior to blood and all erroneous beliefs about it, as is God.

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