PROBABLY few writers since St. Paul have had such difficulties to overcome as had Mrs. Eddy in the preparation of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." To prepare a work that must of necessity contain terms expressive of things which it is the author's desire to avoid acknowledging as having real existence, and to express one's self so as to be understood by those who really believe in the actual existence of these things, is a most difficult undertaking from the mortal point of view.
The translation from one language into another so as to convey correctly the fine shades of meaning which are apparent in the original, but which often cannot be so well expressed in another tongue, is one of the most difficult of tasks. Of her own work Mrs. Eddy has said, "The great difficulty is to give the right impression, when translating material terms back into the original spiritual tongue" (Science and Health, p. 115). All students of her writings will readily perceive that the effective accomplishment of this task was no ordinary undertaking, and that the labor would have been unfruitful had it been performed by the usual methods, since these methods would necessarily be based on a belief in materiality.
The proofs of her distinct purpose to express spiritual truths by means of ordinary material terms are to be met with throughout the whole of her writings. In "Retrospection and Introspection," when recalling her early studies, she says (p. 10): "From my brother Albert I received lessons in the ancient tongues, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. . . . After my discovery of Christian Science, most of the knowledge I had gleaned from schoolbooks vanished like a dream." To the student of the Scriptures who is able to compare the Greek Testament with the translations in the Authorized and Revised versions of the New Testament, this is a statement full of interest and a clear indication of the spiritual intuition displayed by Mrs. Eddy in adopting terms used by her in Science and Health and her other writings, while at the same time clearly indicating the repudiation of the material sense of words, though compelled to use them as a means for the enlightenment of the reader regarding spiritual things.
