THE belief that man is separated or alienated from God is the source of all human discord. The attempt to account for this unnatural situation gave rise to the story of the fall of man, as found in the Hebrew Scriptures and in various mythological accounts in the literature of other ancient peoples. Viewing the question from the standpoint of material sense testimony, and so accepting the conclusion that man had become sinful and mortal, the religious leaders of the Jews, as well as of other ancient and modern races, were confronted with the problem of securing man's reinstatement in the divine favor.
In primitive times, when religious concepts were comparatively crude, mortals sought to win divine approbation by means of ceremonial observances and the offering of material sacrifices, these being in some instances human sacrifices. Later, as religious instincts and sensibilities grew more refined, and higher ideals obtained, there dawned on the consciousness of the Hebrew prophets the ideal of a Messiah, or divinely appointed Saviour, who by reason of his purity of character and superior moral endowment should be able to satisfy the requirements of divine justice and redeem Israel from the curse. But the gross misconceptions of the Messiah's mission entertained by the most enlightened seers show how imperfectly the actual needs of mankind were grasped even then. Not until the prophet of Galilee proved by actual demonstration man's true relation to God, was the way open by which mankind should be absolved from the penalty of false belief. So illumined were the lives of the followers of the Nazarene by his demonstration of the truth, that they were able in some degree to rise to the consciousness of man's unity with his divine Principle.
In time, however, the living faith which had been exemplified by Christ Jesus, and which had found spontaneous expression in practical works of healing, began to wane. Dogmatic theology usurped the place of practical religion, and salvation came to be regarded as attainable through the acceptance of doctrinal theories about God, rather than through demonstration of His power. Atonement was viewed as a mystical process by which God's attitude toward man was to be changed, instead of a proposition concerning man's relation to God which must be proved in the experience of each individual.
