In the hands of moralistic theologians, like Lactantius, they certainly assume a somewhat grotesque form, but the fact that these men clung to them is the clearest evidence that in the West millennarianism was still a point of "orthodoxy" in the 4th century.
Simple souls found their spiritual pasture in little mincing "devotions"; while robuster minds built up for themselves a natural moralistic religion, quite as close to Epictetus as to Christianity.
The moralistic conception of the gospel as a "law of liberty," the very phrase recalling the expression of Barn.
1, where there is reason to think the words 1 7 µ)v '17 7 aov Xpr.crov interpolated) has even led to the theory, ably but unconvincingly maintained by Spitta, that the writing is a mere recast of a Jewish moralistic writing like the Two Ways.
