retained their authority in the Church as important means of solving perplexities.] [Footnote 225: Tertullian, adv. Marc. IV. 9, enumerates "septem maculas capitalium delictorum," namely, "idololatria," "blasphemia," "homicidium," "adulterium," "stuprum," "falsum testimonium," "fraus." The stricter treatment probably applied to all these seven offences. So far as I know, the lapse into heresy was not placed in the same category in the first centuries; see Iren. III. 4. 2: Tertull., de praescr. 30 and, above all, de pudic. 19 init.; the anonymous writer in Euseb., H. E. V. 28. 12, from which passages it is evident that repentant heretics were readmitted.] [Footnote 226: Hermas based the admissibility of a second atonement on a definite divine revelation to this effect, and did not expressly discuss the admission of gross sinners into the Church generally, but treated of their reception into that of the last days, which he believed had already arrived. See particulars on this point in my article "Lapsi," in Herzog's Real-Encyklopaedie, 2 ed. Cf. Preuschen, Tertullian's Schriften de paenit. et de pudic. mit Ruecksicht auf die Bussdisciplin, 1890; Rolffs, Indulgenz-Edict des Kallistus, 1893.] [Footnote 227: In the work de paenit. (7 ff.) Tertullian treats this as a fixed Church regulation. K. Mueller, Kirchengeschichte I. 1892, p. 114, rightly remarks: "He who desired this expiation continued in the wider circle of the Church, in her 'antechamber' indeed, but as her member in the wider sense. This, however, did not exclude the possibility of his being received again, even in this world, into the ranks of those possessing full Christian privileges,--after the performance of penance or _exhomologesis_. But there was no kind of certainty as to that taking place. Meanwhile this _exhomologesis_ itself underwent a transformation which in Tertullian includes a whole series of basal religious ideas. It is no longer a mere expression of inward feeling, confession to God and the brethren, but is essentially performance. It is the actual attestation of heartfelt sorrow, the undertaking to satisfy God by works of self-humiliation and abnegation, which he can accept as a voluntarily endured punishment and therefore as a substitute for the penalty that naturally awaits the sinner. It is thus the means of pacifying God, appeasing his anger, and gaining his favour again--with the consequent possibility of readmission into the Church. I say the _possibility_, for readmission does not always follow. Participation in the future kingdom may be hoped for even by him who in this world is shut out from full citizenship and merely remains in the ranks of the penitent. In all probability then it still continued the rule for a person to remain till death in a state of penance or _exhomologesis_. For readmission continued to involve the assumption that the Church had in some way or other become _certain_ that God had forgiven the sinner, or in other