Nature, Whistler was wont to say, in his humorous way, comparing it to art, was creeping up. It might be said to-day that orthodox exegesis has become so unorthodox that it is creeping up into line with Christian Science. It has very largely accepted the Christian Science view of eternal punishment, it has to a considerable extent come to agree to its view of the atonement, and now one of the greatest scholars in the Church of England, throwing overboard the orthodox views of the last supper, goes far toward accepting, all unconsciously apparently, the view taken by Mrs. Eddy half a century ago.
The pagan religions of the past were a mystery. And in no phase was this more the case than in the ceremonies at Eleusis, so strangely akin to the sacramental rites of the Christian Church as described by Dionysius. But, as the Regius Professor points out, there is nothing whatever mystical about Christianity. So far from being mystical, it is a revelation. Indeed, to proclaim it mystical is, he insists, to proclaim it non-Christian. And here is his first point of agreement with Mrs. Eddy, who, in a paragraph on page 80 of Science and Health, with the marginal heading, "Mysticism unscientific," has written, "Science dispels mystery and explains extraordinary phenomena; but Science never removes phenomena from the domain of reason into the realm of mysticism."
From this the Regius Professor goes on to examine the question of the conflict between the Synoptists and the writer of the Fourth Gospel as to the night of the last supper. He declares unhesitatingly in favor of the Fourth Gospel. The decision is not vital, but it is important as giving to him the jumping-off ground for the vital argument. The words of Luke, "With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer," have been generally held to settle the matter in favor of the Synoptists, he insists, only because a wrong translation has led to a wrong deduction. What the words really mean is this: I had hoped to have eaten this coming passover with you, but, as that is to be rendered impossible, I must make a passover of this supper. And just as the first passover, in Egypt, was the expression of a covenant between God and Israel, so shall this supper represent a New Covenant between God and men.
