No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy
page 22 of 42 (52%)
page 22 of 42 (52%)
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IS THERE A PERSONAL DEVIL? No man hath seen the person of good or of evil. Each is greater than the corporeality we behold. "He cast out _devils_." This record shows that the term devil is generic, being used in the plural number. From this it follows that there is more than one devil. That Jesus cast several persons out of another person, is not stated, and is impossible. Hence the passage must refer to the _evils_ which were cast out. Jesus defined devil as a mortal who is full of evil. "Have I not chosen you twelve, and one of you _is a devil_?" His definition of evil indicated his ability to cast it out. An incorrect concept of the nature of evil hinders the destruction of evil. To conceive of God as resembling--in personality, or form--the personality that Jesus condemned as devilish, is fraught with spiritual danger. Evil can neither grasp the prerogative of God nor make evil omnipotent and omnipresent. Jesus said to Peter, "Get thee behind me, Satan;" but he to whom our Lord gave the keys of the kingdom could not have been wholly evil, and therefore was not a _devil_, after the accepted definition. Out of the Magdalen, Jesus cast seven devils; but not one person was named among them. According to Crabtre, these devils were the diseases Jesus cast out. The most eminent divines, in Europe and America, concede that the |
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