Author | Mary Baker Glover (Eddy) |
---|---|
Language | English |
Publisher | Christian Science Publishing Co. |
Publication date | 1875 (first edition) |
Publication place | US |
Media type | |
Text | Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures at Wikisource |
Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy is, along with the Bible, one of two central texts of the Christian Science religion. Eddy described it as her "most important work." [1] She began writing it in February 1872, [2] and the first edition was published in 1875. She would continue editing it and adding to it for the rest of her life. [3]
The book was selected as one of the "75 Books By Women Whose Words Have Changed The World", by the Women's National Book Association. [4]
In 2001 the book had sold over nine million copies, and as of 2024, it eclipsed ten million copies. [5] [6]
Christian Science develops its theology and its healing method in Science and Health with statements such as defining God as All-in all, good, and infinite Mind. [7] [8] [ non-primary source needed ]
Science and Health encapsulates the teachings of Christian Science and adherents often call it their "textbook." At Sunday services, the sermon consists of passages from the Bible with "correlative passages" [9] from Science and Health. Eddy called the two books Christian Science's "dual and impersonal pastor". [10] [ non-primary source needed ]
The last edition of the book consists of a short preface, the main section, a "Key to the Scriptures" section, and a Fruitage section. Some editions include a word index.
There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all. Spirit is immortal Truth; matter is mortal error. Spirit is the real and eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness. Therefore man is not material; he is spiritual.
The main section is 500 pages long and comprises chapters titled as follows:
This section is 100 pages long, and comprises:
This section is 100 pages long and consists of 84 testimonies of the healing power derived from reading Science and Health. There are descriptions of healings of addiction, asthma, broken bones, cataracts, cancer, deafness, eczema, fibroid tumor, and rheumatism. Prior intervention by physicians is mentioned in 50 of these cases, and one relates a confirmatory X-ray image by a physician. [12]
Marietta T. Webb, who in 1911 became one of the first African Americans listed in the Christian Science Journal as a practitioner, became the only African American to have a healing testimony included in the Fruitage section of Science and Health. [13]
The first edition was copyrighted by Eddy in 1875, in part to help separate her work from the "sea of metaphysical writing" circulating at the time. [14] The copyright for Science and Health went through several renewals including a posthumous renewal in 1934 by the Christian Science Board of Directors.[ citation needed ] In December 1971, Congress passed a law extending the copyright on Science and Health by 75 years to the Christian Science Board of Directors. [15] [16] There was some opposition to the bill, as it would prevent dissident groups from publishing their own edited versions of the book. [17] [3]
In 1985 however, following a legal suit brought by United Christian Scientists, a group which wanted to publish their own version of the book, the copyright extension was found unconstitutional by Federal District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson. [3] In 1987 the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld the ruling of the district court. [18] [19] As a result, Science and Health has been in the public domain since 1987. [20]
The first edition was published in 1875 by Eddy, who was then in her mid-fifties and known as Mary Baker Glover. [21] It was printed by W.F. Brown & Co. Their invoice for 1,000 copies, dated October 30, 1875, was made out to George M. Barry and Edward Hitchins for US$2,285.35. The edition consisted of 456 pages, plus 2 pages of errata. However, there were hundreds of typographic errors, some because the printer, not understanding the author's meaning, had tried to correct the wording without consulting her. The second edition, printed by Rand, Avery & Co, appeared in 1878, with 167 pages of new material. It was called Science and Health Volume 2 to indicate that it was a supplement to the first edition, but it, too, was full of typographic errors. Finally, the third edition printed by John Wilson at the University Press in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was of a high standard. Twelve further two-volume editions followed, before the 16th edition appeared as a single volume in 1886. This edition of the book had 552 pages, plus an index of 38 pages, and "with Key to the Scriptures" had been added to the title. Eddy remained loyal to the University Press for the rest of her life, and in 1897 even made a substantial investment to save it from bankruptcy. [2]
Eddy closed her Massachusetts Metaphysical College and left Boston in 1889, in order to revise the text for the 50th edition (1891). This edition consisted of 578 pages plus a 73-page index, and for the first time included marginal headings. The 226th "thousand" edition appeared in 1902, and included the chapter "Fruitage," making up the page count of 700 pages which remains to this day. The last numbered edition was the 418th, which appeared in 1906, but further changes were made until 1910. [2] According to the Mary Baker Eddy Library, major editions include those printed in 1875, 1878, 1881, 1883, 1886, 1891, 1902, and 1907. [22]
Many sources overlook the importance of this book in its finalized form in 1910. It is well known as the foundational guidance for the Church of Christ, Scientist, but the book also managed to stir up questions about issues that so many male religious leaders and thinkers believed they had settled. In writing about the first edition of Science and Health, feminist scholar and biographer Gillian Gill homes in on this point: [23] "The real issue is the author's audacity, her daring to think that a woman like her, with her resources, could write, not the expected textbook on mental healing techniques, not the comfortable compendium of healing anecdotes, but a book that takes on the great questions of God and man, good and evil, and that rejects orthodox verities."
The Church of Christ, Scientist was founded in 1879 in Boston, Massachusetts, by Mary Baker Eddy, author of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, and founder of Christian Science. The church was founded "to commemorate the word and works of Christ Jesus" and "reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing".
Mary Baker Eddy was an American religious leader, Christian healer, and author, who in 1879 founded The Church of Christ, Scientist, the Mother Church of the Christian Science movement. She also founded The Christian Science Monitor in 1908, and three religious magazines: the Christian Science Sentinel, The Christian Science Journal, and The Herald of Christian Science.
Christian Science is a set of beliefs and practices which are associated with members of the Church of Christ, Scientist. Adherents are commonly known as Christian Scientists or students of Christian Science, and the church is sometimes informally known as the Christian Science church. It was founded in 1879 in New England by Mary Baker Eddy, who wrote the 1875 book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, which outlined the theology of Christian Science. The book was originally called Science and Health; the subtitle with a Key to the Scriptures was added in 1883 and later amended to with Key to the Scriptures.
The Christian Science Publishing Society was established in 1898 by Mary Baker Eddy and is the publishing arm of The First Church of Christ, Scientist in Boston, Massachusetts.
Prose Works other than Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, sometimes called Prose Works other than Science and Health or simply Prose Works, is a single-volume compendium of the major works of Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, outside of her main work, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. Also not included are Eddy's Church Manual, Poems, and Christ and Christmas. The books included in Prose Works were never published together as a single volume during her lifetime but were assembled as a convenience around 1925. When published it became the most popular book printed by the Christian Science Publishing Society besides Science and Health and the Church Manual. The constituent books have historically been published individually in parallel also. It has been issued in both hardcover and paperback.
The First Church of Christ, Scientist is the administrative headquarters and mother church of the Church of Christ, Scientist, also known as the Christian Science church. Christian Science was founded in the 19th century in Lynn, Massachusetts, by Mary Baker Eddy with the publication of her book Science and Health (1875).
Eschatology is a New Thought movement founded by American writer and former practitioner William W. Walter. Walter was formally a member of the Catholic Church and then The First Church of Christ, Scientist until 1912 when he rejected organized religion in order to found his own metaphysical system. Although it is generally classified as a new religious movement, Walter did not see it as a religious movement, and his followers reject the association with religion. He originally named his organization "The Walter Method of Christian Science"; and the term Eschatology as a trademark for Walter's teaching was not used until the 1920s.
The Christian Science Quarterly is a publication of the Christian Science Publishing Society that sets out the Bible lessons for all students of Christian Science. Each lesson serves as the Sunday sermon in church and is studied for the week preceding the Sunday on which it is read as the sermon.
A Reader in a Christian Science church is a member of the congregation who has been elected to serve in one of two positions responsible for church services. Each week's sermon in Christian Science churches is outlined in the Christian Science Quarterly, prepared months in advance, and is the same in all Christian Science churches, worldwide. As a lay church, the congregation elects readers from the congregation and they serve as readers for a set period of time. The sermons consist of passages from the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, and are studied as lessons during the week and read aloud to the congregation on the Sunday following. The readers are referred to as the First Reader and Second Reader, according to the order in which they initially speak during the Sunday services. First Readers also conduct the Wednesday evening testimony meetings.
The Salem witchcraft trial of 1878, also known as the Ipswich witchcraft trial and the second Salem witch trial, was an American civil case held in May 1878 in Salem, Massachusetts, in which Lucretia L. S. Brown, an adherent of the Christian Science religion, accused fellow Christian Scientist Daniel H. Spofford of attempting to harm her through his "mesmeric" mental powers. By 1918, it was considered the last witchcraft trial held in the United States. The case garnered significant attention for its startling claims and the fact that it took place in Salem, the scene of the 1692 Salem witch trials. The judge dismissed the case.
The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy and the History of Christian Science (1909) is a highly critical account of the life of Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, and the early history of the Christian Science church in 19th-century New England. It was published as a book in November 1909 in New York by Doubleday, Page & Company. The original byline was that of a journalist, Georgine Milmine, but a 1993 printing of the book declared that novelist Willa Cather was the principal author; however, this assessment has been questioned by more recent scholarship which again identifies Milmine as the primary author, although Cather and others did significant editing. Cather herself usually wrote that she did nothing more than standard copy-editing, but sometimes that she was the primary author.
Georgine Milmine Welles Adams best known as Georgine Milmine, was a Canadian-American journalist most known for writing about Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science. Milmine, along with Willa Cather and others, worked on 14 investigative articles about Eddy that were published by McClure's in 1907–1908. One of the only major investigative works on Eddy to be published in her lifetime, besides Sibyl Wilbur's Human Life articles, the articles were instigated by Milmine: S. S. McClure purchased her freelance research before assigning a group of reporters to verify, expand and write it up.
John Valentine Dittemore was director of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, the Christian Science church, in Boston from 1909 until 1919. Before that he was head of the church's Committee on Publication in New York, and a trustee for ten years of the estate of Mary Baker Eddy (1821–1910), the founder of the church. Dittemore is best known as the co-author, with Ernest Sutherland Bates, of Mary Baker Eddy: The Truth and the Tradition (1932).
James Henry Wiggin was a Unitarian minister. He also worked as an editor and proofreader.
Samuel Putnam Bancroft, also known as Samuel P. Bancroft, was an American Christian Scientist and an early student of Mary Baker Eddy.
Adam Herbert Dickey, was an author, member of the Board of Directors of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and a secretary to Mary Baker Eddy.
The Mary Baker Eddy House is a historic house museum at 8 Broad Street in Lynn, Massachusetts. Built in 1870–71, it was the home of Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910), founder of the Church of Christ, Scientist, from 1875 to 1882. The house is now owned by the church, which operates it as a historic site devoted to Eddy's life and early church history. The house was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2021, and was included in the Diamond Historic District in 1996.
The Christian Science movement is a religious movement within Christianity founded by Mary Baker Eddy that arose in the mid to late 19th century and that led to the founding of The First Church of Christ, Scientist.
Mary Baker Eddy (1998) by Gillian Gill is a biography of Mary Baker Eddy, a religious leader and founder of the Church of Christ, Scientist.
Marietta Thomas Webb (1864–1951) was a Christian healer. She was one of the first Black Americans listed in The Christian Science Journal as a practitioner of healing through prayer, and the only Black American to have a personal healing testimony selected to appear in Mary Baker Eddy's seminal book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.
The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said the law giving the church a copyright to all editions of 'Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures' was unconstitutional because it 'offends the fundamental principles of separation of church and state.'