redeemed him from the angelic powers who hold the world, the spiritual things of wickedness, the darkness of this world, from eternal judgment and perpetual death;" but it may be merely a reference to Eph. vi. 12. The bestowal of a new life and restoration of the lost image of God, through the crucifixion, is clearly laid down: "What plainer than the sacrament of this wood......that what had perished in Adam might be restored by the tree (cross) of Christ." His obedience, persevering to the last moment of life, is dwelt upon, and His being 'the Pontiff of the uncircumcised priesthood, after the order of Melchisedec.'*

There is not much of special importance for our subject in the writings of Hippolytus. He speaks of Christ's priesthood, and sacrifice of Himself as a sweetsmelling savour to God; of His perfect obedience and fulfilling all the righteousness of the law; of His enduring the cross by the consent (σvyxwphσe) of God; of His priesthood and royalty. Two passages may be given here. The first seems to point to Irenæus' theory: "For this cause the God of all things became man, that by suffering in passible flesh He might ransom our whole race, which was sold to death; and, working marvels through the instrumentality of the flesh, by His impassible Godhead, might bring it back to His pure and blessed life, from which it had fallen by obeying the Devil." The other passage is a comment on Prov. ix. 1: "He has given us His divine flesh and precious blood to eat and drink, for the remission of sins."

St. Cyprian's treatment of the question follows Ter

* Ib. 13, 14, 10. De Fuga, 12. Contr. Jud. 13. Contr. Marcion. iv. 42, v. 9. † Hippol. De Theol. et Incarn. II.

tullian's more closely than that of any other writer. There is no attempt to theorize; the word satisfaction is used, as by Tertullian, of the penitent, not of Christ. The following passage expresses the writer's general view of the work of redemption: "This grace Christ imparts, this gift of His mercy He bestows by subduing death through the triumph of the cross, redeeming the believer by the price of His blood, reconciling men to God the Father, giving life to the mortal by heavenly regeneration." He speaks elsewhere of our sins being 'cleansed by the blood and the sanctification of Christ;' of His eternal priesthood after the order of Melchisedec, and of His earthly priests representing Him, and offering a true and full sacrifice in the Church to God the Father,' in allusion to Prov. ix.* He quotes Moses prevailing over Amalek as a type of our Lord's victory over Satan, and repeatedly speaks of our being redeemed and vivified by His blood.

One passage shall be quoted here from the Homily on the Cross, by Methodius, bishop of Tyre, who was martyred in the Diocletian persecution. It speaks of the victory over Satan as achieved through Christ's obedience unto death, and His arming us to overcome him in our own persons. "For this cause chiefly was the cross introduced, being set up as a trophy and terror against iniquity, that from henceforth man might be no more subject to wrath, having conquered back (ȧvaraλaíoavra) what he had lost by disobedience, and having lawfully overcome the powers below, and been made free of all debt by the gifts of God. For

Cypr, Ad Demetrium. Ib. Epist. 63.

this the first-born Word of the righteous God, having armed man, in whose nature He tabernacled, put down the powers which had enslaved us, through the form of the cross, as has been said, and with outstretched hands set free man who was in the bondage of corruption."*

Before proceeding to notice the special theories of Irenæus and Origen, the only writers of this early period who can strictly be said to have constructed any theory on the subject, we may pause to sum up briefly the main points of teaching on Christ's work of redemption to be gathered from the patristic literature of the first three centuries as a whole. And first, as to what it does not contain. There is no trace, as we have seen, of the notion of vicarious satisfaction, in the sense of our sins being imputed to Christ and His obedience imputed to us, which some of the Reformers made the very essence of Christianity; or, again, of the kindred notion that God was angry with His Son for our sakes, and inflicted on Him the punishment due to us; nor is Isaiah's prophecy interpreted in this sense, as afterwards by Luther; on the contrary there is much which expressly negatives any such views. There is no mention of the justice of God, in the forensic sense of the word; the Incarnation is invariably and exclusively ascribed to His love; the term satisfaction does not occur in this connection at all, and where Christ is said to suffer for us, rèp (not årrí) is the word always used.† It is not the payment of a

*Hom. de Cruce Fragm. 1.

We shall find the two, however, used interchangeably in one passage of Irenæus, as they are also by St. Paul in 1 Timothy ii. 6: ȧvтíλνтρоv vπÈρ Cf. Matt. xx. 28. Mark x. 45.

πάντων.

debt, as in the Cur Deus Homo, but the restoration of our fallen nature that is prominent in the minds of the writers, as the main object of the Incarnation. They always speak, with Scripture, of our being reconciled to God, not of God being reconciled to us. On the other hand, they are far removed from the modern Socinian or Rationalistic view, which sees in the death of Christ only an attestation of His teaching, or an exalted model of heroic virtue, or a practical evidence of the love of God. They ascribe, with one voice, a real and most vital efficacy to the 'sacrifice' of Calvary in restoring us to life and immortality, but without attempting any precise explanation of how the result is brought about. The obedience of Christ is emphatically dwelt upon, as an integral part of His redeeming work, but a special virtue is assigned to His 'death,' and His 'blood,' the latter being occasionally, as by Hippolytus and Irenæus, mentioned in connection with the Eucharistic chalice. His abiding priesthood in heaven is continually dwelt on, while some, as Cyprian, insist also on its earthly realization, through the ministry of His appointed representatives. Barnabas and Ignatius are the first to speak of His conquest over Satan, which assumes an increasing prominence in subsequent writers. In the hands of two it becomes the basis of a distinct theory of satisfaction, and to these we must now turn our attention.

St. Irenæus treats the question mainly in connection with two passages of the New Testament: Rom. v. 19, "As by one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the obedience of One shall the many be made righteous," and Hebrews ii. 14, where 'destroying him that hath the power over death, that is the

Devil' is set forth as the object of the Incarnation. And he accordingly makes the work of redemption consist principally in two points: the restoration of our corrupted nature through the gift of a new principle of divine life, and the triumph over Satan. It is in the exposition of the second point that his teaching goes beyond that of his contemporaries, and contains the first explicit statement of an opinion which continued for a thousand years to influence Christian theology, till it was finally sifted and discarded by Anselm (who has been followed by later writers, with a few exceptions) on the obvious ground, that, though we had justly incurred punishment at the hands of the Evil One, he could have no right over us but by the permission of God.* The original suggestion of this theory came from the Gnostic heresy. Irenæus ascribed to the Evil Spirit that power over men, as their seducer, which Gnosticism gave him as their Demiurgus or Creator. They had voluntarily placed themselves under the Devil's power; and, though God might have delivered them by force, it was more accordant with justice to compensate, by a perfect obedience, that original disobedience from which all his rights over them were derived. I will extract, at length, the passage in which Irenæus introduces his

view.

"The powerful Word and true Man reasonably redeeming us by His blood, gave Himself a ransom for those who had been led into captivity. And since the apostacy (i. e. Satan) unjustly ruled us, and when we belonged by nature to Almighty God, alienated us

* Quamvis enim homo juste a diabolo torqueretur, ipse tamen illum injuste torquebat, Anselm. Cur Deus Homo, i. 7.