"Athanasius composed no tract or treatise upon the Atonement and we must consequently deduce his opinions upon this subject from his incidental statements while discussing other topics. In his discourses against Arians, there are frequent statements respecting the work of Christ, in connection with those respecting his person and dignity, and from these we select a few of the most distinct and conclusive: 'Christ as man endured death for us, inasmuch as he offered himself for that purpose to the Father.' Here, the substitutionary nature of his work is indicated. 'Christ takes our sufferings upon himself, and presents them to the Father, entreating for us that they be satisfied in him.' Here, the piacular[A] nature of his work is taught, together with his intercessory office. 'The death of the incarnate Logos is a ransom for the sins of men, and a death of death.' 'Desiring to annual our death, he took on himself a body from the Virgin Mary, that by offering this unto the Father a sacrifice for all, he might deliver us all, who by fear of death were all our life through subject to bondage.' 'Laden with guilt, the world was condemned of law, but Logos assumed the condemnation and suffering in the flesh gave salvation to all.' Here, the obligation of the guilty world is represented not as relating to Satan but to law; and the Redeemer assumes a condemnation, or in modern Protestant phraseology becomes a voluntary substitute for the guilty, for purposes of legal satisfaction."
[Footnote A: "Piacular"—expiatory.]
"If we examine the soteriology of the Greek church during the last half of the fourth and the first half of the fifth centuries, we meet with very clear conceptions of the atonement of Christ. The distinctiveness of the views of Athanasius upon this subject undoubtedly contributed to this; for this great mind exerted as powerful an influence upon the Eastern doctrinal system, generally, as Augustine exercised over the Western."
5. Soteriology of Augustine and Gregory the Great: "Augustine (430): Augustine's view of the work of the Christ is essentially that of the fathers who had preceded him, neither falling short nor making any marked advance in scientific respects. * * * 'All men,' he says, 'are separated from God by sin. Hence they can be reconciled with him, only through the remission of sin, and this only through the grace of a most merciful Savior, and this grace through the one only victim of the most true and only priest.' In another place, alluding to our Lord's comparison of his own crucifixion with the lifting up of the serpent by Moses, Augustine thus expresses himself: 'Our Lord did not, indeed, transfer sin itself into his flesh as if it were the poison of the serpent, but he did transfer death; so that there might be, in the likeness of human flesh, the punishment of sin without its personal guilt, whereby both the personal guilt and punishment of sin might be abolished from human flesh.'
"These passages, and many others like them, scattered all through his writings, prove indisputably that Augustine held the doctrine of vicarious satisfaction."
Gregory, the Great, Bishop of Rome (604): Gregory, in his writings, lays great stress upon the idea of a sacrifice offered in the death of Christ. He starts from the conception of guilt, and from this derives immediately the necessity of a theanthropic[A] sacrifice. "Guilt," he says, "can be extinguished only by a penal offering to justice. But it would contradict the idea of justice, if for the sin of a rational being like man, the death of an irrational animal should be accepted as a sufficient atonement. Hence, a man must be offered as the sacrifice for man; so that a rational victim may be slain for a rational criminal. But how could a man, himself stained with sin, be an offering for sin? Hence a sinless man must be offered. But what man descending in the ordinary course would be free from sin? Hence, the Son of God must be born of a virgin, and become man for us. He assumed our nature without corruption. He made himself a sacrifice for us, and set forth for sinners his own body, a victim without sin, and able both to die by virtue of its humanity, and to cleanse the guilty, upon grounds of justice."
[Footnote A: Theantropic—both divine and human; being or pertaining to the God-man.]
6. Anselm's Theory of Satisfaction: A. Anselm's views of the Atonement (1109 A. D.) are fundamentally those of Protestant Christendom, it is important that they be stated in sufficient detail to make the leading principle clear.
The fundamental position of Anselm is that "the Atonement of the Son of God is absolutely or metaphysically necessary in order to the remission of sin. Anselm concedes by implication, throughout his work, that if it cannot be made out that the vicarious satisfaction of divine justice by the theanthropic suffering of Jesus Christ is required by a necessary and immanent attribute of the Divine Nature, then a scientific character cannot be vindicated for the doctrine; for nothing that is not metaphysically necessary is scientific. Hence, in the very beginning of the tract, he affirms that a mere reference to the divine benevolence, without any regard to the divine justice, cannot satisfy the mind that is seeking a necessary basis in the doctrine of atonement. For benevolence is inclined to dispense with penal suffering, and of itself does not demand it.
"It is not the attribute of mercy, but the attribute of justice, which insists upon legal satisfaction, and opposes an obstacle to the salvation of a sinner. Setting aside, therefore, the divine justice, and taking into view merely the divine compassion, there does not appear to be any reason why God should not by an act of bare omnipotence deliver the sinner from suffering and make him happy. This conducts Anselm to that higher position from which the full-orbed nature and character of the Deity is beheld, and he proceeds to show that compassion cannot operate in an isolated and independent manner in the work of redemption, and that if anything is done for the recovery and weal of the transgressor, it cannot be at the expense of any necessary quality in the divine nature, through the mere exercise of an arbitrary volition, and unbridled omnipotence.