Person: from the Latin persona, a mask. Webster. Person, or personality, then, is that which hides. Hides what? Hides the real individuality, identity, character. Then in Christian Science, person or personality would be the physical, carnal, depraved, unreal; the mask that hides the Man of God. The personal characteristics or the characteristics of person are, "passions and appetites, fear, depraved will, pride, envy, deceit, hatred, revenge." It is person that offends and is offended, suspects and is suspected, hates and is hated, envies and is envied, deceives and is deceived; the sense of sin, and the sinful sense. Self-justification, self-defense, self-conceit, self-seeking, self-aggrandizement — all possible compounds of self — belong to, or rather are, person, the mask. Personality is simply the sum of all that pertains to person.
Impersonal: not personal, not masked; revealed, or revealing. The man Jesus became impersonal in proportion as the carnal, mortal mask was removed, and the real character, the Truth of Being, the Christ, was revealed. He stands before the world as the impersonal, unmasked, revealed Son of God; the Idea of divine Mind, Principle, Soul, Spirit.
A little study given to some of the characteristics of impersonality, will be of benefit to all who are following in the footsteps of the impersonal Jesus. Are they not just the opposite of the characteristics of personality? The mask, personality, is external; is outwardness. The real, impersonality, is inwardness. The impersonal cannot really offend, because offense is not in the heart and for the same reason it cannot be offended. But Jesus offended the world, it is said. Yes; he tore the mask from the world in tearing it from his human self, — and thus offended the mask by showing it up as a mask, so it could no longer parade as the true. The personal only can receive offense, and that was only the lie offended by Truth. "My kingdom is not of this world." It was not of this external, this outwardness; this sham, panorama, show of tinsel, glitter, change, parade, ignus fatuus. His kingdom was of heaven, Principle. It was the true inwardness, the true within, the Truth-governed, the real.
