fuller analysis of the character of the nous will be found in the chapter on Psychology. The fact that Mrs. Eddy in identifying Christ and mind is repeating the metaphysics of the Neoplatonists is what concerns us here.
Synesius, who said that in becoming a Christian bishop he would give up neither his wife nor his philosophy, found himself facing the mystery of the incarnation. How could he explain Christ according to his philosophy? He did so by saying that he was the nous.[1] Plotinus in designating the nous as the creator's son had prepared the way most excellently for Synesius. Plotinus says: “As he who diligently surveys the heavens, and contemplates the splendor of the stars, should immediately think upon and search after their artificer, so it is requisite that he who beholds and admires the intelligible world, should diligently inquire after its author, investigating who he is, where he resides, and how he produces such an offspring as intellect, a son beautiful and pure, and full of his ineffable fire.”[2] Proclus refers to the “paradigmatic cause,” or the nous, as the “only-begotten.”[3] And these philosophers “made the way straight” for Spinoza, whose Neoplatonic explanation of Christ Mrs. Eddy has failed to improve upon. He says: “By this it will at once become clear, what we in the First Part have said, namely, that the infinite intellect, which we
