Not Wonder Woman, but spiritual womanhood triumphs over evil

THE HOLY BIBLE

Prov. 31:10-12, 18, 20, 25, 26, 30-31

Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life. She perceiveth that her merchandise is good: her candle goeth not out by night…. Strength and honour are her clothing; . .. She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness. Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised. Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gates.

Gen. 1:27-28, 31

God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, …And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.

Gen. 2:6, 7, 16, 17, 21, 22, 25

But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground . .. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, . . . “of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”

And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

Gen. 3:1, 5, 13, 17

Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, . .. ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. … And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.

And unto Adam he said,…. cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life.

Matt. 24:4-7, 10-12, 14

And Jesus . . . said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled . . . For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. … And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. Many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. . . . This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; . . .

Mark 12:29-30, 31

Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And . . . Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

Luke 10:19

Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.

Luke 9:1

Then he called his twelve disciples together, and gave them power and authority over all devils, and to cure diseases.

II Cor. 10:3-5

For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

Rev. 12:1-3, 4-5, 7-10

There appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars: And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered. And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. … and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born. And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne. And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ.

SCIENCE & HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES, by Mary Baker Eddy

SH 268:11

In this revolutionary period, like the shepherd-boy with his sling, woman goes forth to battle with Goliath.

SH 538:3-4, 7

Truth should, and does, drive error out of all selfhood. Truth is a two-edged sword, guarding and guiding. Radiant with mercy and justice, the sword of Truth gleams afar and indicates the infinite distance between Truth and error, between the material and spiritual, — the unreal and the real.

225:14

A few immortal sentences, breathing the omnipotence of divine justice, have been potent to break despotic fetters and abolish the whipping-post and slave market; but oppression neither went down in blood, nor did the breath of freedom come from the cannon’s mouth. Love is the liberator.

SH 517:10

The ideal woman corresponds to Life and to Love. In divine Science, we have not as much authority for considering God masculine, as we have for considering Him feminine, for Love imparts the clearest idea of Deity.

SH 514:18-19

Tenderness accompanies all the might imparted by Spirit.

SH 57:5-11

The masculine mind reaches a higher tone through certain elements of the feminine, while the feminine mind gains courage and strength through masculine qualities. These different elements conjoin naturally with each other, and their true harmony is in spiritual oneness. Both sexes should be loving, pure, tender, and strong.

SH 521: 21 (only); 522:5

Genesis ii. 6. But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.

The first record assigns all might and government to God, and endows man out of God’s perfection and power. The second record chronicles man as mutable and mortal, — as having broken away from Deity and as revolving in an orbit of his own.

SH 533:26

Truth, cross-questioning man as to his knowledge of error, finds woman the first to confess her fault. She says, “The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat;” as much as to say in meek penitence, “Neither man nor God shall father my fault.” She has already learned that corporeal sense is the serpent. Hence she is first to abandon the belief in the material origin of man and to discern spiritual creation. This hereafter enabled woman to be the mother of Jesus and to behold at the sepulchre the risen Saviour, who was soon to manifest the deathless man of God’s creating. This enabled woman to be first to interpret the Scriptures in their true sense, which reveals the spiritual origin of man.

SH 255:6-13

The mythical human theories of creation, anciently classified as the higher criticism, sprang from cultured scholars in Rome and in Greece, but they afforded no foundation for accurate views of creation by the divine Mind.

Mortal man has made a covenant with his eyes to belittle Deity with human conceptions.

SH 158:1-4, 6-8

It is recorded that the profession of medicine originated in idolatry with pagan priests, who besought the gods to heal the sick and designated Apollo as “the god of medicine.” . . . . It is here noticeable that Apollo was also regarded as the sender of disease, “the god of pestilence.”

SH 339:20-25

As the mythology of pagan Rome has yielded to a more spiritual idea of Deity, so will our material theories yield to spiritual ideas, until the finite gives place to the infinite, sickness to health, sin to holiness, and God’s kingdom comes “in earth, as it is in heaven.”

SH 29:14-16, 24-26, 30

Those instructed in Christian Science have reached the glorious perception that God is the only author of man.

The Holy Ghost, or divine Spirit, overshadowed the pure sense of the Virgin-mother with the full recognition that being is Spirit. . . . Man as the offspring of God, as the idea of Spirit, is the immortal evidence that Spirit is harmonious and man eternal. Jesus was the offspring of Mary’s self-conscious communion with God. Hence he could give a more spiritual idea of life than other men, and could demonstrate the Science of Love — his Father or divine Principle.

SH 560:6

Revelation xii. 1. And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.

SH 561:10-13, 22-27

Purity was the symbol of Life and Love. The Revelator saw also the spiritual ideal as a woman clothed in light, a bride coming down from heaven, wedded to the Lamb of Love. The woman in the Apocalypse symbolizes generic man, the spiritual idea of God; she illustrates the coincidence of God and man as the divine Principle and divine idea. The Revelator symbolizes Spirit by the sun. The spiritual idea is clad with the radiance of spiritual Truth, and matter is put under her feet.

SH 562:3-7, 29-30; 563:23

As Elias presented the idea of the fatherhood of God, which Jesus afterwards manifested, so the Revelator completed this figure with woman, typifying the spiritual idea of God’s motherhood. Revelation xii. 3. And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon . . .. Revelation xii. 4. . . . And the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.

SH 565:1

In the Apocalypse, when nearing its doom, this evil increases and becomes the great red dragon, swollen with sin, inflamed with war against spirituality, and ripe for destruction. It is full of lust and hate, loathing the brightness of divine glory.

SH 534:26-30

The serpent, material sense, will bite the heel of the woman, — will struggle to destroy the spiritual idea of Love; and the woman, this idea, will bruise the head of lust.

SH 563:4-9, 11-18

We may well be perplexed at human fear; and still more astounded at hatred, which lifts its hydra head, showing its horns in the many inventions of evil. But why should we stand aghast at nothingness? The great red dragon symbolizes a lie, — the belief that substance, life, and intelligence can be material. The ten horns of the dragon typify the belief that matter has power of its own, and that by means of an evil mind in matter the Ten Commandments can be broken. The Revelator lifts the veil from this embodiment of all evil, and beholds its awful character; but he also sees the nothingness of evil and the allness of God.

SH 565:6, 13-22

Revelation xii. 5. And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to His throne.

The impersonation of the spiritual idea had a brief history in the earthly life of our Master; but “of his kingdom there shall be no end,” for Christ, God’s idea, will eventually rule all nations and peoples — imperatively, absolutely, finally — with divine Science. This immaculate idea, represented first by man and, according to the Revelator, last by woman, will baptize with fire; and the fiery baptism will burn up the chaff of error with the fervent heat of Truth and Love, melting and purifying even the gold of human character.

SH 147:24-29

Our Master healed the sick, practised Christian healing, and taught the generalities of its divine Principle to his students; but he left no definite rule for demonstrating this Principle of healing and preventing disease. This rule remained to be discovered in Christian Science. A pure affection takes form in goodness, but Science alone reveals the divine Principle of goodness and demonstrates its rules.

SH 123:16

The term Christian Science was introduced by the author to designate the scientific system of divine healing.

SH 566:25;

Revelation xii. 7, 8. And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought, and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.

SH 566:29-8; 567:10; SH 568:13-15

The Old Testament assigns to the angels, God’s divine messages, different offices. Michael’s characteristic is spiritual strength. He leads the hosts of heaven against the power of sin, Satan, and fights the holy wars. Gabriel has the more quiet task of imparting a sense of the ever-presence of ministering Love. These angels deliver us from the depths. Truth and Love come nearer in the hour of woe, when strong faith or spiritual strength wrestles and prevails through the understanding of God. The Gabriel of His presence has no contests. To infinite, ever-present Love, all is Love, and there is no error, no sin, sickness, nor death. . . . Truth and Love prevail against the dragon because the dragon cannot war with them. Thus endeth the conflict between the flesh and Spirit.

Revelation xii. 10-12. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ.

SH 268:11-2

In this revolutionary period, like the shepherd-boy with his sling, woman goes forth to battle with Goliath. In this final struggle for supremacy, semi-metaphysical systems afford no substantial aid to scientific metaphysics, for their arguments are based on the false testimony of the material senses as well as on the facts of Mind. These semi-metaphysical systems are one and all pantheistic, and savor of Pandemonium, a house divided against itself.

SH 67:18

The notion that animal natures can possibly give force to character is too absurd for consideration, when we remember that through spiritual ascendency our Lord and Master healed the sick, raised the dead, and commanded even the winds and waves to obey him. Grace and Truth are potent beyond all other means and methods.

SH 195:23

It is the tangled barbarisms of learning which we deplore, — the mere dogma, the speculative theory, the nauseous fiction. Novels, remarkable only for their exaggerated pictures, impossible ideals, and specimens of depravity, fill our young readers with wrong tastes and sentiments. Literary commercialism is lowering the intellectual standard to accommodate the purse and to meet a frivolous demand for amusement instead of for improvement. Incorrect views lower the standard of truth.

SH 248:15-17, 26

What is the model before mortal mind? Is it imperfection, joy, sorrow, sin, suffering? Have you accepted the mortal model? …We must form perfect models in thought and look at them continually, or we shall never carve them out in grand and noble lives. Let unselfishness, goodness, mercy, justice, health, holiness, love — the kingdom of heaven — reign within us, and sin, disease, and death will diminish until they finally disappear.

SH 631:27-633:15

When Christian Science found me I was under the doctor’s sentence that if I lived the week through I would become entirely helpless, not able to move hand or foot. My husband . . . called on a practitioner, who recommended our getting Science and Health, . .. When I had read a few pages, I reached out and threw my medicine from the open window at the head of my bed. I then turned back to the book and began reading again, when, lo, the Christ-idea dawned upon me, and I was healed instantaneously….As year after year has gone by, till twenty years have passed and the healing has remained perfect, I have grown to thank God with deeper sincerity that one brave woman was found pure enough to bring forth this Christ-healing again, to remain forever among men and to save suffering humanity from all disease and sin.  — Mrs. P. L. H., Fairmont, Minn.

SH 249:1

Let us accept Science, relinquish all theories based on sense-testimony, give up imperfect models and illusive ideals; and so let us have one God, one Mind, and that one perfect, producing His own models of excellence. Let the “male and female” of God’s creating appear.