ce (Tertull. de bapt. I.: delicta pristinae caecitatis),
on account of which it seemed worthy of God to forgive them, that is, to
accept the repentance which followed on the ground of the new knowledge.
So considered, everything, in point of fact, amounts to the gracious
gift of knowledge, and the memory of the saying, "Jesus receiveth
sinners", is completely obscured. But the tradition of this saying and
many like it, and above all, the religious instinct, where it was more
powerfully stirred, did not permit a consistent development of that
moralistic conception. See for this, Hermas, Sim. V. 7. 3: [Greek: peri
ton proteron agnoematon toi theoi monoi dunaton iasin dounai; autou gar
esti pasa exousia]. Praed. Petri ap. Clem. Strom. VI. 6. 48: [Greek: hosa
en agnoia tis humon epoiesen me eidos saphos ton theon, ean epignous
metanoesei, panta autoi aphethesetai ta hamartemata]. Aristides, Apol.
17: "The Christians offer prayers (for the unconverted Greeks) that they
may be converted from their error. But when one of them is converted he
is ashamed before the Christians of the works which he has done. And he
confesses to God, saying: 'I have done these things in ignorance.' And
he cleanses his heart, and his sins are forgiven him, because he had
done them in ignorance, in the earlier period when he mocked and jeered
at the true knowledge of the Christians." Exactly the same in Tertull.
de pudic. so. init. The statement of this same writer (1. c. fin),
"Cessatio delicti radix est veniae, ut venia sit paenitentiae fructus", is
a pregnant expression of the conviction of the earliest Gentile
Christians.]

[Footnote 204: This idea appears with special prominence in the Epistle
of Barnabas (see 6. 11. 14); the new formation ([Greek: anaplassein])
results through the forgiveness of sin. In the moralistic view the
forgiveness of sin is the result of the renewal that is spontaneously
brought about on the ground of knowledge shewing itself in penitent
feeling.]

[Footnote 205: Barn. 2. 6, and my notes on the passage.]

[Footnote 206: James I. 25.]

[Footnote 207: Hermas. Sim. VIII. 3. 2; Justin Dial. II. 43; Praed. Petri
in Clem., Strom. I. 29. 182; II. 15. 68.]

[Footnote 208: Didache, c. 1., and my notes on the passage (Prolegg. p.
45 f.).]

[Footnote 209: The concepts, [Greek: epangelia, gnosis, nomos], form the
Triad on which the later catholic conception of Christianity is based,
though it can be proved to have been in e