Palingenesia

Palingenesia (Gr. πάλιν, again, and γένεσις birth) is a term that appears to have originated among .the Stoics, who employed it to denote the act of the Demiurgus, or Creator, by which, having absorbed all being into himself, he reproduced it in a new creation. The occurrence of the word in the New Testament (Mt 19:28, where it is used in allusion to the judgment of this world, and. the αἰῶν μέλλων; and Tit 3:5, where it is used in reference to baptismal regeneration, λουτρὸν παλιγγενεσαίς) has given it a place in Christian theology, and divines have variously used it to express the resurrection of men, the new birth of the individual soul, and the restoration of the world to that perfect state that it lost by the Fall the new heavens and the new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness." The term is also applied to designate both the great geological changes which the earth has undergone and the transformations in the insect kingdom, such as of caterpillars into butterflies, etc. SEE NEW BIRTH; SEE RESURRECTION.