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It will be observed, that the obedience of Christ is the point here chiefly dwelt upon; and to which the victory over the evil one and our redemption is ascribed. Elsewhere the writer says that He 'changed the sunset to the sunrise, and by His cross turned death into life;'* and again (Pæd. 2.): "The blood of the Lord is twofold, the fleshly by which we were redeemed from corruption, and the spiritual by which we were anointed;" and, lastly, Jesus is said to pray for men as the Great High Priest of God.

Some fragments only remain of Claudius Apollinaris, Bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia in the second century.

He calls our Lord, "the Great Sacrifice, the Son of God instead of the Paschal Lamb, who was bound and bound the strong one (Satan), who was judged being Judge of quick and dead, who was delivered into the hands of sinners to be crucified, who poured from His side the two things which cleanse, water and blood, mind and spirit” (λóyov TVEDμa). This accords, as far as it goes, with contemporary writers, but obviously the passage is rather rhetorical than dogmatic.

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There is nothing specially bearing on our subject in the writings of the apologists Tatian, Athenagoras, and Theophilus. And so we pass from the second to the third century, and from the Eastern to the Western Church. I have purposely passed over Irenæus, whose treatment of the question shall be examined with Origen's, to which it bears a close resemblance, at the end of this chapter.

We come thus to Tertullian, the great Latin writer

* οὗτος τὴν δύσιν εἰς ἀνατολὴν μετήγαγεν, καὶ τὸν θάνανον εἰς ζωὴν ἀνεσταύρωσεν.

of the early part of the third century. And it may be worth observing, that, from his having before his conversion been famous as a jurist, he, if any one, would be likely to put forward the juridical theory of satisfaction, which at a later period commended itself so strongly to the legal mind of Grotius. That he does not even allude to it, is a crucial evidence of its being as yet unknown. And this is made clearer by his frequently using, and being the first to use, the word satisfaction; but always, as has been already stated, in reference to the acts of the penitent, not the work of Christ. On the other hand, in disputing with the Jews, he is careful to explain Gal. iii. 13, like Justin Martyr, of the curses laid on Christ by His people, not by God. He insists, that those hung on a tree are said in Deuteronomy to be cursed only on account of the sins for which they are hung there, which cannot of course apply to Christ, 'who spoke no guile, and displayed all righteousness and humility.'* He says that Christ was made a sacrifice for all nations, being led as a sheep to the slaughter,' quoting also the types of Isaac, and the scape-goat, which latter he explains in the same sense as Barnabas and Justin had done before him. Moses, stretching out his arms during the battle against Amalek, is given as a type of Christ's triumphs over Satan, and also the brazen serpent. The Origenist notion of a ransom paid to Satan is perhaps hinted at when it is said, "The Lord

*Tertul. Contra Judæos 10. He elsewhere says (Contra Prax.) that the apostle would have 'blasphemed' had he called Christ cursed in any other sense. On the other hand, Luther remarks, with characteristic bluntness, "Every one hung on the tree is cursed of God: Christ was hung on the tree, therefore Christ is cursed of God."

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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 (vyxwphoɛɩ) 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 (ȧvanadaíoavra) 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

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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 ȧvrí) 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: ȧvтíλUтρov vπÈρ Cf. Matt. xx, 28. Mark x. 45.

πάντων.

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