Jesus of Nazareth was the most scientific man that ever trod the globe. He plunged beneath the material surface of things, and found the spiritual cause.

Mary Baker Eddy (1821–1910), founder of Christian Science, frequently argued that Jesus’ healings were not supernatural exceptions but demonstrations of divine law—what she called “Science.” The quoted sentence reflects her late‑19th‑century effort to present Christianity as compatible with (and superior to) materialist science by redefining “scientific” as the disciplined understanding of spiritual causation. In her major work, she contrasts the “material surface of things” with underlying spiritual reality, urging readers to look beyond physical symptoms and matter-based explanations to the divine Principle she believed Jesus understood and proved through healing.

Eddy’s claim hinges on a distinctive definition of “science”: not laboratory method or empirical materialism, but knowledge of immutable spiritual law. Calling Jesus “the most scientific” elevates him as the supreme exemplar of perceiving true causes—spiritual rather than material—and of applying that insight practically through healing and moral transformation. The second sentence frames reality as layered: matter is a deceptive surface, while Spirit is the real causal order. The quote thus functions both apologetically (defending Christian healing as lawful) and polemically (challenging materialist accounts of mind, body, and disease).