WHEN God commanded Moses in the words cited in Hebrews (8:5), "See . . . that thou make all things according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount," the divine standard of perfection was set forth. Since God alone is creator or Maker, and man reflects the creative power of God, but makes nothing of himself, the command was to acknowledge but one creator and one creation, namely, Spirit (see Christian Science versus Pantheism by Mary Baker Eddy, 9:3-4), and to refuse to accept as real the belief of matter, as either creator or creation.
It will be remembered that when Moses gave the children of Israel the Ten Commandments, three times he went up into the mount. The first time the glory of the vision was translated as the Ten Commandments, all of which are summed up and included in the first, namely, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" (Ex. 20:3). This commandment Mrs. Eddy renders in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (pp. 19, 20), "Thou shalt have no belief of Life as mortal; thou shalt not know evil, for there is one Life, —even God, good."
The second time was as though to verify and establish the vision. Forty days and forty nights Moses remained in the mount and came down with two tables of stone "written with the finger of God" (Ex. 31: 18). It had been proved to him that life is spiritual. But, behold, when error confronted him and he found that during his absence the children of Israel had made themselves a golden calf and had fallen down and worshiped it, Moses, in accepting the error as real, broke the tables of stone. Mesmerized by the belief of being a person charged with the responsibility of leading other persons into a far-off promised land, he temporarily lost sight of the spiritual fact of Mind's ever-present divine completeness, and he too became an idolater.
