Thus the " moralism " sometimes traced in Hermas is apparent rather than real, for he has a deep sense of the enabling grace of God.
It thus comes into conflict with the extreme moralism which has so often been prevalent in history.
Hence a new sort of legalism, known to recent writers as Moralism, underlies much of the piety of the Apostolic Fathers, though Ignatius is quite free from it, while Polycarp and "Barnabas" are less under its influence than are the Didache, Clement, the Homilist and Hermas.
The first might be called universal moralism to which I will come in a minute.
Spurr's emphasis is upon the survival of sacerdotal conceptions over the commonly accepted latitudinarian moralism.