In 1875 Mrs. Eddy first published Science and Health, the authorized presentation of Christian Science, nine years after Quimby's death. Doubtless she obtained the radical and distinctive feature of her system-the cure of disease by the power of mind-from Quimby. But Mrs. Eddy and her followers disavow this with indignation. Inspiration is claimed for Science and Health. Mrs. Eddy writes: "No person can take the individual place of the Virgin Mary. No person can compass or fulfill the individual mission of Jesus of Nazareth. No person can take the place of the author of Science and Health, the discoverer and founder of Christian Science The second appearing of Jesus is unquestionably the spiritual advent of the advancing idea of God as in Christian Science" (R. & I., pp. 95, 96).
"In the year 1866, I discovered the Science of Metaphysical Healing, and named it Christian Science. God had been graciously fitting me, during many years, for the reception of the absolute Principle of Scientific Mind-healing.... No human tongue or pen taught me the Science contained in this book and neither tongue nor pen can overthrow it" (S. & H., 1898) pp. 1 & 4).
"In 1895 I ordained the BIBLE AND "SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES," the Christian Science Text-book, as the Pastor, on this planet, of all the churches of the Christian Science Denomination ... whenever and wherever a church of Christian Science is established, its Pastor is the Bible and my Book" (Miscellaneous Writings, 1897, pp. 382, 383).
Indeed, in a subtle way Science and Health is put before the Bible in importance, even as the teaching of Christian Science negatives the Bible in toto. Under the heading The Precious Volume, Mrs. Eddy writes; "Even the Scriptures gave no direct interpretation of the scientific basis for demonstrating the spiritual Principle of healing, until our Heavenly Father saw fit, through the Key of the Scriptures in SCIENCE AND HEALTH, to unlock this 'mystery of godliness.'
Could anything be more blasphemous? "The spiritual Principle of Healing," according to Mrs. Eddy, is God. For the direct unfolding of the scientific basis of God, whatever such an expression may mean, we have to wait till a neurotic woman in 1870 reveals Him. She it is who unlocks this "mystery of godliness." Yet the Scripture tells us Christ incarnate-"God manifest in the flesh"-in His wonderful life and death and ascension-is "the mystery of godliness." But this is not so with Mrs. Eddy.
Mrs. Eddy believed Christian Science was foretold in the Book of Revelation.
"John the Baptist prophesies the coming of the Immaculate Jesus, and declared that this spiritual idea was the Messiah who would baptize with the Holy Ghost-Divine Science. The Son of the Blessed represents the Fatherhood of God; and the Revelator completes this figure with the Woman, or type of God's motherhood" (S. & H., 1888, p. 513).
In this subtle way does Mrs. Eddy clearly indicate herself. Referring to Rev. 10 she writes: "Did this same book contain the revelation of divine Science whose 'right foot' or dominant power was upon the sea—upon elementary, latent error, the source of all error's visible forms...Then will a voice from harmony cry: `Go and take this little book. Take it and eat it up, and it shall make thy belly bitter; but it shall be in thy mouth as sweet as honey.' Mortal, obey the heavenly evangel. Take up Divine Science. Study it, ponder it. It will be indeed sweet at its first taste, when it heals you; but murmur not over Truth, if you find its digestion bitter.... Christ, God's idea, will eventually rule all nations and peoples—imperatively, absolutely, finally—with Divine Science. This immaculate idea, represented first by man [Jesus] and last by woman [evidently meaning herself], will baptize with fire" ( S. & H., 1898, pp. 550, 551, 552, 557).
Never was a book, claimed to be divine, inspired, immaculate, so rewritten, altered, taken from and added to, as Science and Health. For thirty years Mrs. Eddy was at it. Edition after edition was printed, altered in arrangement and matter, until at length the recent volumes differ very materially from the former.
As to Mrs. Eddy's ability to write a book fit for publication from a grammatical point of view, Mrs. Eddy tells us her favorite studies as a child were Natural Philosophy, Logic and Moral Science, and that her brother gave her lessons in Hebrew, Greek and Latin. Then she makes the astounding statement: "After my discovery of Christian Science most of the knowledge I had gleaned from schoolbooks vanished like a dream. Learning was so illumined, that grammar was eclipsed" (R. & I., p. 20). But Mary Baker's schoolmates testified that her education was finished when she completed Smith's grammar and had mastered long division sums.
Evidently as "Christian Science" advanced, Mrs. Eddy keenly felt her ignorance of grammar and ordinary rules of writing. So in 1885 she employed the Rev. James Henry Wiggin, a retired Unitarian minister, to edit her book. It is interesting, if sad, to note he was a Unitarian, an unbeliever in the deity of the Lord Jesus and the atoning efficacy of His blood, but that would form no hindrance to the task to which Mrs. Eddy called him, for her system, likewise, was blankly Unitarian in its teaching. An account of his work is given: "Besides granting subjects to participles, antecedents to pronouns, introducing the subjunctive mood in conditions contrary to fact, and giving consistency to the tenses of the verbs, Mr. Wiggin largely rearanged the matter in each Chapter, and gave the book its first comprehensible paragraphing... He prevailed on Mrs. Eddy to omit a very libelous Chapter on 'mesmerists,' and here and there throughout the book expurgated some amusing absurdities....It became with him a genuine concern, as he often said, 'to keep Mrs. Eddy from making herself ridiculous.'...He used to tell with enormous glee, how Mrs. Eddy would sometimes receive his suggestions by slyly remarking, 'Mr. Wiggin, do you know I sometimes believe God speaks to me through you' " (M., pp. 320, 324).
How pitiful and blasphemous, apart from the shocking teaching of the book, is this claim to inspiration and even superiority to the Bible in the light of all this literary juggling and deceit.