[Footnote 235: See my article "Novatian" in Herzog's Real-Encyklopaedie, 2nd ed. One might be tempted to assume that the introduction of the practice of unlimited forgiveness of sins was an "evangelical reaction" against the merciless legalism which, in the case of the Gentile Church indeed, had established itself from the beginning. As a matter of fact the bishops and the laxer party appealed to the New Testament in justification of their practice. This had already been done by the followers of Calixtus and by himself. See Philos. IX. 12: [Greek: phaskontes Christon aphienai tois eudokousi]; Rom. XIV. 4 and Matt. XIII. 29 were also quoted. Before this Tertullian's opponents who favoured laxity had appealed exactly in the same way to numerous Bible texts, e.g., Matt. X. 23: XI. 19 etc., see de monog, de pudic., de ieiun. Cyprian is also able to quote many passages from the Gospels. However, as the bishops and their party did not modify their conception of baptism, but rather maintained in principle, as before, that baptism imposes only obligations for the future, the "evangelical reaction" must not be estimated very highly; (see below, p. 117, and my essay in the Zeitschrift fur Theologie und Kirche, Vol. I., "Die ehre von der Seligkeit allein durch den Glauben in der alten Kirche.")] [Footnote 236: The distinction of sins committed against God himself, as we find it in Tertullian, Cyprian, and other Fathers, remains involved in an obscurity that I cannot clear up.] [Footnote 237: Cyprian never expelled any one from the Church, unless he had attacked the authority of the bishops, and thus in the opinion of this Father placed himself outside her pale by his own act.]