"Condemn the fault, and not the actor of it?" Apparently this came as a new and impractical interpretation of law to Angelo, the deputy, in Shakespeare's "Measure for Measure." Yet centuries before the play was written Christ Jesus taught and demonstrated the divine law of Love, the rule of universal harmony, based on the Science of being—perfect God and perfect man. And for about three hundred years after Christ Jesus left the earth, his faithful followers had carried on his work throughout Asia, in Rome, and in other cities and countries. He judged not according to the testimony of the physical senses, nor according to the false concept of justice, that "whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed;" but he reformed the sinner, healed the sick, and raised the dead in obedience to God's law.
Understanding that God is good, as the Scripture declares, and that man, created in His image and likeness, is exempt from all evil, Christ Jesus, the greatest expounder and demonstrator of divine law the world has ever known, was not deceived by the false claim of an evil mind in matter, the seeming opposite of the one infinite Mind, or God. Knowing that the real man is as perfect and blameless as his creator, the Master reformed the sinner, healed the sick, and raised the dead. Thus he overthrew the belief that matter is substance and has power within itself to do good or to do evil, to sin, to be sick, or to die. Throughout the Scriptures, from Genesis to Revelation, evil, the supposed opposite of good, or God, is called accuser, alias serpent, Satan, dragon, devil, murderer, a lie, and the father of lies, "which deceiveth the whole world." But the dragon and his angels "prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven." The accuser never existed in the realm of reality.
Jesus' method of destroying the false belief in evil was both scientific and practical. In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (pp. 476, 477), describing the method Jesus employed, Mary Baker Eddy writes: "Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick. Thus Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is intact, universal, and that man is pure and holy."
