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IV

A word upon a question of authorship. Not that quite; but, rather, a question of emendation and revision. We know that the Bible-Annex was not written by Mrs. Eddy, but was handed down to her eighteen hundred years ago by the Angel of the Apocalypse; but did she translate it alone, or did she have help? There seems to be evidence that she had help. For there are four several copyrights on it–1875, 1885, 1890, 1894. It did not come down in English, for in that language it could not have acquired copyright–there were no copyright laws eighteen centuries ago, and in my opinion no English language–at least up there. This makes it substantially certain that the Annex is a translation. Then, was not the first translation complete? If it was, on what grounds were the later copyrights granted?

I surmise that the first translation was poor; and that a friend or friends of Mrs. Eddy mended its English three times, and finally got it into its present shape, where the grammar is plenty good enough, and the sentences are smooth and plausible though they do not mean anything. I think I am right in this surmise, for Mrs. Eddy cannot write English to-day, and this is argument that she never could. I am not able to guess who did the mending, but I think it was not done by any member of the Eddy Trust, nor by the editors of the ‘Christian Science Journal,’ for their English is not much better than Mrs. Eddy’s.

However, as to the main point: it is certain that Mrs. Eddy did not doctor the Annex’s English herself. Her original, spontaneous, undoctored English furnishes ample proof of this. Here are samples from recent articles from her unappeasable pen; double columned with them are a couple of passages from the Annex. It will be seen that they throw light. The italics are mine:

 
 1. 'What plague spot,________'Therefore the efficient 
 or bacilli were (sic) gnawing__remedy is to destroy the 
 (sic) at the heart of this_____patient's unfortunate belief, 
 metropolis... and bringing_____by both silently and audibly 
 it on bended knee?___________arguing the opposite facts in 
 Why, it was an institute that__regard to harmonious being 
 had entered its vitals (sic)___representing man as 
 that, among other things,______healthful instead of diseased, 
 taught games,' et cetera. (P.__and showing that it is 
 670, 'C.S.Journal,' article____impossible for matter to suffer, 
 entitled 'A Narrative--by______to feel pain or heat, to be 
 Mary Baker G. Eddy.')__________thirsty or sick.' (P. 375, Annex.) 

2. ‘Parks sprang up (sic)…
electric street cars run____’Man is never sick; for
(sic) merrily through several__Mind is not sick, and matter
streets, concrete sidewalks____cannot be. A false belief
and macadamised roads dotted___is both the tempter and the
(sic) the place,’ et cetera.___tempted, the sin and the
(Ibid.)________________________sinner, the disease and its
3. ‘Shorn (sic) of its ______cause. It is well to be calm
suburbs it had indeed little___in sickness; to be hopeful is
left to admire, save to (sic)__still better; but to
such as fancy a skeleton_______understand that sickness is not
above ground breathing (sic)___eal, and that Truth can
slowly through a barren (sic)__destroy it, is best of all, for
breast.’ (Ibid.)_______________it is the universal and perfect
_____________________________remedy.’ (Chapter xii., Annex.)

You notice the contrast between the smooth, plausible, elegant, addled English of the doctored Annex and the lumbering, ragged, ignorant output of the translator’s natural, spontaneous, and unmedicated penwork. The English of the Annex has been slicked up by a very industrious and painstaking hand–but it was not Mrs. Eddy’s.