rhetorical Fathers of the 4th and 5th centuries.[3] It is in them that
the atmosphere of mystery attains a maximum of intensity. They clearly felt
themselves called upon to out-trump the pagan _Mystae_. Yet it is
inconceivable that men and women should spend years, even whole lives, as
catechumens within the pale of the church, and really remain ignorant all
the time of the Trinitarian Epiclesis used in baptism, of the Creed, and
above all of the Lord's Prayer. Wherever the _Disciplina arcani_, _i.e._
the obligation to keep secret the formula of the threefold name, the creed
based on it and the Lord's Prayer, was taken seriously, it was akin to the
scruple which exists everywhere among primitive religionists against
revealing to the profane the knowledge of a powerful name or magic formula.
The name of a deity was often kept secret and not allowed to be written
down, as among the Jews.

9. _Regeneration._--The idea of regeneration seldom occurs in the New
Testament, and perhaps not at all in connexion with baptism; for in the
conversation with Nicodemus, John iii. 3-8, the words "of water and" in v.
5 offend the context, spiritual re-birth alone being insisted upon in vv.
3, 6, 7 and 8; moreover, Justin Martyr, who cites v. 5, seems to omit them.
Nor is there any mention of water in ch. i. 13, where, according to the
oldest text, Christ is represented as having been born or begotten not of
blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

In 1 Pet. i. 3, it is said of the saints that God the Father begat them
anew unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus, and in v. 23 that
they have been begotten again, not of corruptible seed, but of
incorruptible through the word of God. But here again it is not clear that
the writer has in view water baptism or any rite at all as the means and
occasion of regeneration. In the conversation with Nicodemus we seem to
overhear a protest against the growing tendency of the last years of the
1st century to substitute formal sacraments for the free afflatus of the
spirit, and to "crib, cabin and confine" the gift of prophecy.

The passage where re-birth is best put forward in connexion with baptism is
Luke iii. 22, where ancient texts, including the _Gospel of the Hebrews_,
read, "Thou art my beloved Son, this day have I begotten Thee." These words
were taken in the sense that Jesus was then re-born of the Spirit an
adoptive Son of God and Messiah; and with th