So far as Judaism is concerned, it has always been recognized that early Christianity formed
• Reitzenstein's comparison of the NT with these ia, however, uitrnifioant : ' the treniendous seriousness with which guilt and atonement are preached is, so far as I can discover, lacking in Uellemsni ' (PoimandreB, p. 180, n. 1).
itself against the background of the great faith that had come from the OT, and it has latterly been quite generally recognized that the back- ground of NT llieoiogy is also that apocalyptic Mi'ssianism that had come to such elaborate de- vcloi)ment at the time. The continuity of revela- tion which has been thought of between the OT and the NT has made it easy for us to think of Christianity as accepting the language, the meta- phors, and many of the externals of Judaism, giving to them a larger significance. But it is necessary also to realize that Christianity Wiis able to take over the >\hole scliema of apocalypticism by simply putting Jesus as the expected Messiah. The conditions for a doctrine of regeneration were then complete. Current Judaism made sharp distinction between the present age under the dominion of Satan and the coming age when the Messiah would be in power. Among the most glorious expectancies regarding the Messiah were the supernatural endowments that He would bestow upon His peojile. And there was not wanting the ethical expectation that sin would be pardoned, and a great era of righteousness would ensue. If, then, Jesus were the Messiah already manifested, crucified for sin, raised from the dead, coming again in glory, empowered to bestow an earnest of the gifts of the coming age, a super- natural new life would, of course, be possible. The believer in those redemjitive facts would be trans- lated from the Kingdom of Satan to that of Messiah. He would receive salvation, he would become a child of God, he would be miraculously re-born (a phrase already probably used of proselytes), and lie would olitain the gift of the Spirit with its miraculous effects. It is evident that there is here a possibility either of the highest ethical motive or of confidence in a mere magical salvation. The whole spiritual quality of the new faith depended upon the degree in which the acceptance of Jesus became a moral power in human lives. If regenera- tion gave men a sure status, guaranteeing that they would be pardoned in the coming Judgment, so that they might live secure in having made comfortable provision for the future, then the whole supernaturalism would be in vain. If, on the other hand, it inspired them to be worthy to reign with Christ, it would have the highest moral quality. The great NT passages are concerned not with a definition of regeneration, but with en- treaties and exhortations to live the new life which had been so Divinely bestowed.
But not only in Judaism was there a background for the doctrine of regeneration. The researches of recent years compel us to recognize th.at there were widespread hopes and expectancies of new life among the people who had felt the influence of the great mystery-religions.* And these were not national and racial, as were those of the Jews, but personal. The individual could be saved through a purification, this sometimes seeming to be ethical, perhaps more often ceremonial. There was intense interest in personal immortality, and a belief that the way to this salvation and immor- tality was that of initiation into the mysteries, involving mystic communion with the god. The very metaphor of the new birth was in all proba- bility employed, indicating the attainment of a new status and the possibility of miraculous charis- mata. Indeed, it is not without significance that the word ' regeneration ' is not used in the great NT passages. Its only occurrence as applied to the individual is Tit 3', a passage of very doubtful Pauline authenticity, where the most obvious interpretation is that salvation is efi'ected by bap- tism. Is it possible tliat the word had so sacra- mental a significance that it was better avoided by * See art. Mystery, Mysteries.
KEGENERATION
REGENERATION
311
those who were insisting upon an actual ethical renewal V With the triumph of sacraiiuuilalisni ill the Cliurch the word attained its technical value.* Of course the documents tliat present (hose ideas so fully helonj; for the most part to a period not earher than the end of the '2nd cent. A.D., and it is pcssihle to maintain that they have heen coloured hy Christianity. But tlie essential doctrines of the mystery-religions could not have heen so soon completely metamorphosed. Clemen (Primitive Christianiti/ and its Nun-Jewixh Soiirres, p. 231), in a very careful examination of the material, recog- nizes the priority in the mystery-religions of many of the redemptive doctrines, and these not without ethical character. So far as regeneration is con- cerned, he believes that even the ■yfwriBiii'a.i dvudtf (Jn 3') might be so derived. He thinks also that the mention in the Naassenic sermon of a irKfu- ^aTtK^, ^TrovpdvtoSf dvu yiyeais, in which the reference is to the Eleusinian mysteries, may well indicate a general influence, at least upon the Christian phraseology. This is not to say that Christianity borrowed its ideas from paganism at the same time that it felt the most intense revulsion against the idolatries, but only that certain common religious thought-forms concerning miraculous purifications and transformations were current, and Christianity inevitably expressed its own new-born faith in the language of the day. If, then, in the non-Jewish Morld Jesus was proclaimed as the Son of God, who had become incarnate, had died the sacrificial death, bad risen from the dead and ascended into heaven, was coming again to give immortality to His followers, it would be quite in accord with the religious ideas of the time to believe that an acceptance of these redemptive facts would con- stitute one a child of God, and would avail to secure the gifts of the Spirit, which would be the attestation of having passed from death unto life. And, again, as among the Jews, it would be possible to accept such a doctrine in a wholly ex- ternal way, making the salvation process merely miraculous. There was, of course, the other glorious possibility that those who believed them- selves saved from sin and translated into eternal life by the loving acceptance of the grace of God in Jesus Christ would be actually impelled by new ethical motive, and would manifest the moral, as well as the miraculous, fruits of the Spirit. This was the experience of the NT writers themselves, and it is to this new life of love and moral en- deavour that they exhort their readers.