ial meritoriousness of certain performances in fasts and alms (see 2
Clem. 16. 4). Still the idea of the Christian moral life as a whole
occupied the foreground (see Didache cc. 1-5) and the exhortations to
love God and one's neighbour, which as exhortations to a moral life were
brought forward in every conceivable relation, supplemented the general
summons to renounce the world just as the official diaconate of the
churches originating in the cultus, prevented the decomposition of them
into a society of ascetics.]

[Footnote 276: For details, see below in the case of the Lord's Supper.
It is specially important that even charity, through its union with the
cultus, appeared as sacrificial worship (see e.g. Polyc. Ep. 4. 3).]

[Footnote 277: The idea of sacrifice adopted by the Gentile Christian
communities, was that which was expressed in individual prophetic
sayings and in the Psalms, a spiritualising of the Semitic Jewish
sacrificial ritual which, however, had not altogether lost its original
features. The entrance of Greek ideas of sacrifice cannot be traced
before Justin. Neither was there as yet any reflection as to the
connection of the sacrifice of the Church with the sacrifice of Christ
upon the cross.]

[Footnote 278: See my Texte und Unters. z Gesch. d. Altchristl. Lit. II.
1. 2, p. 88 ff., p. 137 ff.]

[Footnote 279: There neither was a "doctrine" of Baptism and the Lord's
Supper, nor was there any inner connection presupposed between these
holy actions. They were here and there placed together as actions by the
Lord.]

[Footnote 280: Melito, Fragm. XII. (Otto. Corp. Apol. IX. p. 418).
[Greek: Duo suneste ta aphesin hamartematon parechomena, pathos dia
Xriston kai baptisma].]

[Footnote 281: There is no sure trace of infant baptism in this epoch;
personal faith is a necessary condition (see Hermas, Vis. III. 7. 3;
Justin, Apol. 1. 61). "Prius est praedicare posterius tinguere" (Tertull.
"de bapt." 14).]

[Footnote 282: On the basis of repentance. See Praed. Petri in Clem.
Strom. VI. 5. 43, 48.]

[Footnote 283: See especially the second Epistle of Clement; Tertull.
"de bapt." 15: "Felix aqua quae semel abluit, quas ludibrio peccatoribus
non est."]

[Footnote 284: The sinking and rising in baptism, and the immersion,
were regarded as significant, but not indispensable symbols (see
Didache. 7). The most important passages for baptism are Didache 7;
Barn. 6. 11; 11. 1. 11 (the connection in which the