different); but this displacement was never considerable and therefore cannot be clearly traced. Even later on under altered circumstances, apologetic science adhered in every respect to its old method, as being the most suitable (monotheism, morality, proof from prophecy), a circumstance which is evident, for example, from the almost complete disregard of the New Testament canon of Scripture and from other considerations besides. 2. In so far as the possibility of virtue and righteousness has been implanted by God in men, and in so far as--apart from trifling exceptions--they can actually succeed in doing what is good only through prophetic, i.e., divine, revelations and exhortations, some Apologists, following the early Christian tradition, here and there designate the transformation of the sinner into a righteous man as a work of God, and speak of renewal and regeneration. The latter, however, as a real fact, is identical with the repentance which, as a turning from sin and turning to God, is a matter of free will. As in Justin, so also in Tatian, the idea of regeneration is exhausted in the divine call to repentance. The conception of the forgiveness of sins is also determined in accordance with this. Only those sins can be forgiven, i.e., overlooked, which are really none, i.e., which were committed in a state of error and bondage to the demons, and were well-nigh unavoidable. The blotting out of these sins is effected in baptism, "which is the bath of regeneration in so far as it is the voluntary consecration of one's own person. The cleansing which takes place is God's work in so far as baptism was instituted by him, but it is effected by the man who in his change of mind lays aside his sins. The name of God is pronounced above him who repents of his transgressions, that he may receive freedom, knowledge, and forgiveness of his previous sins, but this effects a change only denoting the new knowledge to which the baptised person has attained." If, as all this seems to show, the thought of a specific grace of God in Christ appears virtually neutralised, the adherence to the language of the cultus (Justin and Tatian) and Justin's conception of the Lord's Supper show that the Apologists strove to get beyond moralism, that is, they tried to supplement it through the mysteries. Augustine's assertion (de predest. sanct. 27) that the faith of the old Church in the efficacy of divine grace was not so much expressed in the _opuscula_ as in the _prayers_, shows correct insight.