religions, this course is now raised to a system. On that account it is exceedingly instructive to see how religion takes pains to further these symbolic transferences.[31] The New Testament furnishes us with an excellent example in regard to this. Nicodemus, in the speech regarding rebirth, cannot forbear understanding the matter very realistically.
John iii:4:
(4) "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb, and be born?"
But Jesus endeavors to raise into purity the sensuous
view of Nicodemus's mind moulded in materialistic
heaviness, and announces to him—really the same—and
yet not the same:
(5) "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of
water and of the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of
God.
(6) "That which is born of the flesh is flesh: and that which is born of the spirit is spirit.
(7) "Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.
(8) "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth; so is everyone that is born of the spirit."
To be born of water means simply to be born from the
mother's womb. To be born of the spirit means to be
born from the fructifying breath of the wind; this we
learn from the Greek text (where spirit and wind are expressed
by the same word, [Greek: pneu~ma]) [Greek: to\ gegennême/non
e)k tê~s sarkos sa/rx e)stin, kai\ to\ gegennême/non e)k tou~ P2: Greek not proofed]
