Kegeneration is not an exclusively NT idea, and those who regard NT ('hristianity as a kind of religious -syncretism have sought the key to some of its ideas, its terminology, and its rites, especi- ally where this doctrine and its sacramental con- nexions are concerned, in the Greek and Oriental mysteries which were so popular in the Eoman Empire during the first two or three centuries of our era. That powerful influences from these sources — especially, perhaps, from the religion of Mithras — did at a certain period tell upon popular Christianity, cannot be questioned; but the period was not the creative one for Christianity, and the channel of the.se influences was not Jewish Apostles who held every kind of pagan religion in horror. The writer is convinced that there is nothing in the NT, either about the new birth or about baptism, which cannot be explained from experi- ences specifically and exclusively Christian; and that to drag in the Tmiroholitim, and the renatus in ictermim of Mithraic monumental inscrii:)tions, to explain NT ideas, while ignoring the historical connexions which these ideas assert for themselves, is mere wantonness.
LiTEKATURE.— The works on NTTheolog-y (Iloltzmann, Weiss, Stevens), books ineiitioiied uiuler the article Holy Spihit; Geiinrich, Die I.ehre ron rler Wiederqehurt ; Kaftan, Dogmatik , §§ 54, S,") ; Kiihler, Die M'inxenxchdft Oer chriKtlichen I.elife, 493 tf.; Orr, God'n liixit/e in M(ni,'2liif.\ Eitschl, RecMfertiuung u. yersi/hiiiuiff, iii. § fil ; AV. N. Clarke, Outline of C/i)'. Theol. 80.5; Laidliiw, Bible Doct. vf Mati, cha. .\iii. xiv. ; Denney in Eirpoxitor, Oct. and Dec. istoi. For kindred ideas in other religions, see Anrich, Dax dtitike 3fi/Kterie)iwene!i in seiiieni KinJiuKu tiiif (liiit C/iristeii(iim; Dieterich. Eitie J/ii/iraiilitur- gie\ lieitzenstein, I'oiiiiundres (s.v. naKiyyeveciaxn Inde.x).
James Denney.
REHOBOAM. — Son of Solomon, mentioned as a link in our Lord's genealogy (JMt 1').
REJECTION.— The word 'rejection' does not
occur in the Gospels, but the idea of ' casting-off, despising, rejecting ' is familiar to the writers of the NT. Mt '2,1*'^, under the figure of the corner- stone, refers to the rejection of Jesus by the Jews ; and in Mk 121'' ^nd Lk 20^^ the same reference occurs. Jesus knew that He would be rejected, and anticipated the result to Himself (Mk 8''i, Lk 922 W^), to the Jewish nation (Lk 19-*''), and to the world (Jn VA-^^). Regarding Himself as a prophet, He expected a prophet's treatment (Lk i;-jw. 34^ Mt 23"). Jesus regarded Himself as the te.st applied to nations and individuals, and, ac- cording to their acceptance or rejection of Him, would be their progress or decay. When the Jews rejected Jesus, they wrote their own sentence of doom, while the Gentiles who have accepted Jesus have secured the leadership of the world. As the national rejection of Jesus was attended by national disaster, so the individual rejection is marked by loss of character. See also art. Despise.
Coll. A. Macdonald.
RELIGION. — The Lat. word religio did not come into Christian usage until in the 4th cent. Lactan- tius {Instit. iv. 28) wrote, ' Keligion is the link which unites man to God.' The reason was that the implications of the word were altogether external, and, in accordance with the Roman genius, almost administrative. But the Greeks were equally unable to supply a word which would correspond with the Christian faith and its fruits. Op-qaKeia, tr. ' religion ' in Ac 20'' and Ja l-''*-, was also spiritually threadbare, and suggested nothing more than the ceremonial side of public worship. With this history behind it, religion has come to be a very complex conception ; but for the present pur- pose it may perhaps be defined as the soul's response to the spiritual revelation by which it is illumined, kindled, and moved. With some the revelation does not pass beyond the mind, with others it calls for little more than an indulgence of feeling, with others, again, it brings out only a discipline of obedience. But in true religion all three elements are present. ' It includes the whole energy of man as reasonable spirit ' (Fairbairn, Phil, of Religion, p. 201). The key-words of religion then are : (1) revelation, (2) response.
1. Religion as revelation. — The quality of the response depends on the character of the revelation. Religion must always mean something different from what it was before the revelation of grace and truth which came by Jesus Christ. Of what that consisted will appear later. Meantime it might be noted that the factor of revelation has been minim- ized in the workings of thought during the last two centuries, in reaction, no doubt, from the em]ihasis on external authority, not only in the Catholic Church, but in older theology generally. On the one hand, in the 18th cent, there was, if one may say so, an artificial construction of ' natural ' religion, in which Clirist was put out of court. On the other hand, in the 10th cent, the rise of psychological and humanitarian interests has created a tendency to lose the revelation in the response. Thus Schleiermacher in his liedcn iiber (lie lleligion has nothing to say on religious authority, and in a chapter on the nature of re- ligion practically identities revelation with intuition and original feeling (p. 89). Ritschl, again, in his theory of value-judgments, throws the weight of authority on the soul's response ; while Sabatier, in his beautiful study of the genesis of religion, speaks of the spirit attaching itself to its principle, and seems also liable to the dangers of subjectivity ( Outlines of IViil. of Bel. p. 28). The alteration of standpoint is thus expressed by F. D. Maurice {Life, i. p. 340) :