Article February 8, 1947 Issue

Mythology: Ancient and Modern

[Of Special Interest to Young People]

LILLIAN G. WINTER

Perhaps the greatest influence in the lives of the ancient Greeks was their belief in mythology. Their gods and goddesses from the top of Mount Olympus, their dwelling place, were supposed to control the different phases of human life, such as wars, harvest, home, and so on. This belief was so real to the ancients that they built beautiful temples dedicated to the worship of these deities; they erected altars in their homes, and their literature and music are full of references to these celestial beings. In fact, their entire existence was woven around this concept. Yet there was never a god or a goddess on top of Mount Olympus. We do, however, read these myths in order to understand the history of the Greeks. With this background we are better able to understand their literature.

When the writer became interested in Christian Science she was told that because it accepted the teaching that there is but one God, good, it acknowledged but one power, that of God. She then saw why Christian Science is unique: it accords no power to evil or matter. Our revered Leader, Mary Baker Eddy writes in the Christian Science textbook. "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 264). "Spirit and its formations are the only realities of being." Then nothing else has ever been formed. To believe that something called matter with its conditions of sin, disease, death, has been formed, or that there is an evil power using matter as its tool, would be to believe a myth. Conditions of matter have no more control over man. God's image, than the gods and goddesses of Mount Olympus had over the ancients, for they are equally nonexistent.

The writer at one time was a teacher in the public schools. She had been healed in Christian Science and depended entirely upon it for the solution of all her problems. One day the principal announced that he had selected her to teach physiology. This assignment seemed a very difficult one, for she was devoting much time to the study of the Christian Science textbook in order to unlearn all that she had learned about material beliefs, medical and otherwise. She asked to have the subject changed, but the principal had made his decision.

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