Nicodemus sought a private interview with Jesus, evidently for the sincere purpose of information as to the Great Teacher's doctrine. Waiving all compli- mentary prefaces, Jesus at once propounds the one es- sential condition of discipleship — namely, the new birth. Nicodemus finds two difficulties in this — first, in his age, and, secondly, in the physical paradox itself. The latter perplexity evidently arose from his understanding the requirement in a literal sense. It is not so clear wheth- er the former difficulty is but the same expressed in another form or an entirely different one — namely, the hardship of demanding a religious change in a person
of such a confirmed standing as himself. In favor of the latter view are adduced the traditionary allusions to the baptism of proselytes to Judaism (which, how- ever, do not very certainly establish that custom, or, at least, its special significance), and especially the bap- tism by John (which excited no surprise, showing that its significance was readily understood); but there is little or no evidence that these or any similar Judaic lustrations were currently designated by the peculiar terms here employed, ytvvriSjjvai avwbev, born from _ above, or born again. See Proselyte. But, however this may have been, it is plain that Nicodemus was chiefly stumbled by the apparent necessity of under- standing the words of Jesus in a strictly literal or phys- ical sense. Hence our Lord explains that not ajl<*li!ii. but a spiritual, birth is meant, and he repeats this dis- tinction in varied form (the "water" and "Spirit" of ver. 5 respectively corresponding to and being further interpreted by "flesh" and "Spirit" in ver. G). This serves to show that the expression " born of water" (ytvvnSrivai eg I'Oaroc) has reference, not to a spirit- ual purification, but to a physical ablution ; that is, to personal baptism, such as Nicodemus was already fa- miliar with, and such as was to be instituted by Christ himself. (We discard as precarious and offensive an interpretation which we have heard propounded of this expression as referring to the semen virile, based upon the alleged use of D^ in that sense in Isa. xlviii, 1 ; for that signification is not well established any- where, even in Hebrew, much less in the Aramaic, which it is assumed that Christ here spoke, and certain- ly not in the Greek by which the conversation is rep- resented.) The only real difficulty to us in the pas- sage arises from the conjunction of baptism and regen- eration as being both requisite in the case ; thus giving apparent countenance to the dogma of baptismal regen- eration, or, at least, to the doctrine that baptism is es- sential to a Christian's acceptance with God. This difficulty is relieved by the following considerations drawn from the passage itself and from others parallel with it :
1. The principal stress is laid by Christ upon the sec- ond part of the requirement — namely, the spiritual birth. This is evident from the omission of all reference to baptism in vers. 6 and 8.
2. The language of ver. 5 can, at most, only mean that baptism and regeneration are both essential, but not necessarily in the same sense or to the same degree; certainly not that they are identical, nor that one im- plies the other. The phraseology positively forbids such a confusion of the two.
3. The association here of baptism with a spiritual change is no more emphatic than in several other pas- sages similarly laying down the conditions of Christian- ity— e. g. "Teach all nations, baptizing them" (Matt, xxviii, 19); "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved" (Mark xvi, 16; but note the omission in the clause following, " He that believeth not shall be damn- ed") ; " Repent and be baptized everyone of you" (Acts ii, 38); "Arise and be baptized, and wash away thy sins" (xxii, 16).
4. Our Lord himself dispensed with baptism in the admission of at least one member into bis kingdom, namely, the dying thief (Luke xxiii, 42,43).
ft. Christ certainly does mean to attach importance to water-baptism as an initiative rite into his Church or kingdom. The body of believers exists under two aspects, the visible and the invisible — the outward or nominal, and the inward or real. Baptism is as imper- ative a mark of admission to the former as spiritual new birth is to entrance into the latter. In order to full recognition as a member of both, the two acts are truly essential. This doctrine, which orthodox ecclesi- astics have always maintained, is thus strictly in ac- cordance with the tenor of the text in question.
On the dogma of baptismal regeneration, see the Bi-
KEGENSBUKG
101$
REGIUM DONUM
bliotheca Sacra, April. 1876 ; Prot. Episc. Quar. Rev. Oct. I860; Meth. Quar. Rev. Oct 1854.
Regensburg. See Ratisbon.
Reggio, Isaac Sami el, a Jewish writer, was born Aug. 15, 1784, mi Gorz, in Illyria. As the son of a rabbi, he received a thorough Jewish education, and \\\\\\ liis brillianl powers he soon became master of Jewish litera- ture, and acquired an extraordinary knowledge of He- brew. His talents and fame secured for him the ap- pointment to the professorship of mathematics at the when Illyria became a French province. He i bis father in the rabbinate of his native place. and died Aug. 29, 1855. < »f his many writings, we men- tion, :"':rn *(~ fl-lin "IX*;, a treatise on the in- spiration of the Mosaic law. incorporated in the intro- duction i" the Pentateuch (Vienna, 1818):- r~T 0 ETibx. .,</// Traduaione Jtaliana edun Comento Ebreo, an Italian translation of the Pentateuch, with a He- brew commentary and a mosl elaborate introduction, in which he gives an account of 148 Hebrew exposi- tions of the Pentateuch of various ages (ibid. 1821, .r. vols. 8vo): On th Necessity of having <> Theological Seminary in //(////.written in Italian (Venice, 1822); in consequence of which the Collegium Rabbinicum was opened at Padua in 1829, for which he had drawn up the <■on-titnti.ni: — r,Hmt'Z'h"tr,' H" nn, Religion and Philosophy (Vienna, 1827 | : -a disquisition, Win th r Philosophy is in Opposition to Tradition, iTllfift ~X nbsprrbx l;:nn (Leipsic,1840):— II Libro <r Isaia, Versioni Poeticafatta suU' Original Testo Ebraico (Vi- enna, L831): — a historico- critical introduction to the hook of Esther, entitled TCX rbrrs-bx rrz'z i ibid. 1841 i. Besides these, Reggio wrote numerous treatises on various points connected with the Hebrew Script- ures and literature in the different Jewish periodicals. Set I trst, Bibl. Jud. iii, 139 142: Steinschneider, Cata- logs Libr. ll.hr. in Biblioth. Bodl. col. 2135-2137; Gei- ger, Leo da Modena (Breslau, 1856), p. 57 •'>:'.: id. Nach- gelassi »- Schriflt » (Berlin, 1*7.". I, ii. 272; dost. Gt sch. ,/. Judentk. u.s. Secten, iii, 346; Dessauer, Gesch.d. Israeli- ten, p. 534; /on/. ///. Monatstagi des Kalenderjahres (Berlin, 1872; English transl. by the Rev. B. Tick in Messenger, N. Y. 1874 7."". .1'.. P.)