FORGIVENESS characterizes great men and women. Joseph, David, and others towered above their fellows because they forgave enemies willingly. Their code foreshadowed the great precept of the Master, who, when asked if one should forgive his brother seven times, replied (Matt. 18: 22), "I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven."
Christ Jesus had a spiritually scientific basis for this instruction, and Christian Science explains it to be the fact of man's absolute perfection as God's image, which all must come to discern and prove. The truth of man's likeness to his Maker shows the mortal self, swayed by offensive impulses of selfishness and sin, to be unreal— an illusion in a false, mortal consciousness, and not genuine identity.
Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer of the Science which interprets the teachings and works of Christ Jesus, forgave enemies with great humility, for she fathomed the spiritual depths of man's nature and knew that he was never contaminated by evil. She knew that sin and imperfection are not genuine, and that they are not qualities of man. Hence she met foe and friend on the basis of man's true existence in God as His faultless idea. In "Miscellaneous Writings" she says (p. 11), "We must love our enemies in all the manifestations wherein and whereby we love our friends; must even try not to expose their faults, but to do them good whenever opportunity occurs."
