I Would like to call the attention of the readers of the Journal, to this Greek word the keynote, as it were, of the Gospel, or joyful Message. Young, in his admirable translation, being averse to giving it the old and wrong meaning of penitence, or repentance, uses reform or reformation. "Reform come nigh hath the reign of the heavens;" but even this, although an improvement on our revised version, is far from adequate to the full and comprehensive Greek word, with the ring of the herald's call, Metanoia! Rotherham in his version, strange to say, leaves this word untouched.
As its bearing on Divine Science is most important and throws wonderful light on its high demands, let us therefore briefly dissect it and try to grasp its deep significance.
Nous is the body of the word and means Mind. Meta, the prefix means after. Literally the whole word means the After, or beyond Mind. The English "change of mind" but feebly expresses this because of its common and hackneyed use; often too, meaning repentance or penitence, which is correctly represented by the Greek Metameleia; which the translators of our English version seem to have confounded with Metanoia, often using them as one and the same word, whereas they are as far apart as earth and heaven. The one, Metameleia, is sorrow for sin, penitence; the other Metanoia, is complete change of thought, new powers and higher consciousness. Suppose we read this in the light of Divine Science. The call—" Repent, for the reign of the heavens is at hand"— no longer means, humble yourselves to the dust for past transgressions, do penance, mourn for your sins; but it embraces the new Principle, the putting on of the beyond Mind. It calls upon us to enlarge our borders, to come into the consciousness of our spiritual environment, of man made in the "image and likeness of God." As a Greek scholar has aptly said "It conceals a profound meaning, a meaning of prodigious compass, which bears no allusion to any ideas of repentance." It conveys to us spiritual transfiguration through this understanding of Divine Principle.
