Christus Victor. An Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea of Atonement

191 Pages·1970·9.773 MB·English

by  Aulen, Gustaf

S.P. C.K. Large Paperbacks
1. J. Stevenson
A New Eusebius: Documents illustrative of the history of the Church
to A.D. 337
2. G. L. Prestige
Fathers and Heretics
3. J. R.H. Moorman
The Path to Glory: Studies in the Gospel according to St Luke
4. A. L. Maycock (out of print)
Nicholas Ferrar of Little Gidding
5. W. D. Davies
Paul and Rabbinic Judaism
6. Hubert Northcott
The Venture of Prayer
7. G. L. Prestige
God in Patristic Thought
8. Martin Thornton
Pastoral Theology: A Reorientation
9. Florence Higham
Catholic and Reformed: A Study of the Anglican Church, 1552-1662
10. Martin Thornton
English Spirituality
II. C. K. Barrett
The Holy Spirit and the Gospel Tradition
12. A. W. Wainwright
The Trinity in the New Testament
13. G. W. H. Lampe
The Seal of the Spirit
14. D. E. Nineham (ed.)
The Church's Use of the Bible: Past and Present (out ofp rint)
15. R. C. Moberly
Ministerial Priesthood
16. Gustaf Aulen
Christus Victor
17. Butler's Fifteen Sermons
Edited with an introduction by T. A. Roberts
18. Newman's University Sermons
With an introduction by D. M. MacKinnon and J. D. Holmes
19. Harvey McArthur (ed.)
In Search of the Historical Jesus
20. E. C. Hoskyns
Cambridge Sermons
21. Hans Werner Bartsch (ed.)
Kerygma and Myth
22. J. Stevenson (ed.)
Creeds, Councils, and Controversies
23. C. K. Barrett
New Testament Background: Selected Documents
Christus Victor
AN HISTORICAL STUDY OF
THE THREE MAIN TYPES OF THE
IDEA OF THE ATONEMENT
BY
GUSTAF AULE~ N
AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION BY
A. G. HEBERT
WITH A FOREWORD BY
JAROS LAV PELIKAN
LONDON
S·P·C·K
First published, 1931
Reprinted 1934, 1937, 1940, 1945, 1950, 1953, 1961
Reprinted from new setting 1965
Large Paperback edition, with new Foreword, 1970
Second Impression 1975
S.P.C.K.
Holy Trinity Church
Marylebone Road
London N.W.1.
Printed in Great Britain by
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ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
SBN 281 02486 3
TABLE OF CONTENTS AND SUMMARY
OF THE ARGUMENT
PAG•
PREFACE TO 1970 EDITION ix
FOREWORD TO 1970 EDITION xi
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE (1931) xxi
CHAPTER
1.-THE PROBLEM AND ITS ANSWERS I
1. The traditional account of the history of the idea of the
Atonement envisages only the 'objective,' or Anselmian, and the
'subjective' or humanistic views.
2. But there is another type of view, commonly left almost out
of sight; it may be summed up in two phrases-'Christus Victor,'
and "God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself." We
shall see that this is the typical view of the New Testament and
the Fathen, and was revived by Luther. We shall call this the
'classic' idea, and the Anselmian view the 'Latin.'
3. Four main reasons may be given why the classic idea has
been neglected by the historians of do~a.
4. Our thesis will require considerable modifications in the
commonly accepted historical perspective, with regard to the
early church and to Luther.
CHAPTER 11.-IRENA!:US 16
1. The purpose of the Incarnation, according to lrenzus, that
God in Christ might deliver man from the enemies that hold him
in bondage; sin, death, and the devil. The Recapitulation.
2. Sin and death are closely connected. Salvation is life; sin is
a state of spiritual death, guiltiness, and separation from God.
The devil represented as a usurper, and redemption as the resto·
ration of God's original creation.
8· The redemptive work is carried out through the Incarnation
of Christ, the Obedience of His human life, His Death and
Resurrection, and the coming of the Spirit. Thereby God who
reconciles is also reconciled, and Atonement is effected.
4. Conclwion.
v
vi CONTENTS
PA.OE
CHAPTER 111.-THE FATHERS IN EAST AND WEST - 36
1. Both in the Greek and in the Latin Fathers the classic idea
is altogether dominant, with the partial exception that in the
West at an early date the first hesitating beginnings of the Latin
doctrine appear. Notes on Augustine and Gregory the Great.
t. Incarnation and Atonement belong inseparably together;
Athanasius, Augustine, Gregory of Nyssa. ·
ll· The dealings of Christ with the devil: Had the devil just
rights over men? The idea of the ransom-price. The deception
of the devil. The religious conceptions underlying this realistic
imagery.
4. The double-sidedness of the drama of the Atonement is in
aeparable from the classic idea: God is at once the Reconciler
and the Reconciled.
CHAPTER IV.-THE NEW TESTAMENT 61
1. We should have a right to expect a priori that the view of
the Fathers would be also that of the New Testament. Actually
the New Testament has been claimed in support of each view of
the Atonement in tum. But recent years have seen a revolution
in New Testament exegesis; Wrede's Paulus shows that Paul's
theology is not separable from his religion, and that the centre
of his theology is the Redemptive work of Christ.
t. In fact we find in Paul all the characteristics of the classic
idea of the Atonement. But with sin and death he ranges also the
Law as an enemy from which Christ came to deliver man. Hence
the double-sidedness of the classic idea appears in Paul, too; and
his teaching is truly a doctrine of Atonement, not merely of
salvation.
3. In the rest of the New Testament we find the typical figures
of the classic idea. The Gospels are penetrated with the idea of
Christ's conflict with evil (Fridrichsen). Hebrews treats the
Sacrifice as offered both by God and to God.
4. Summary. The contrast between the New Testament and
the Old.
CHAPTER V.-THE MIDDLE AGES
1. Tertullian begins to collect the materials for the Latin doc
trine; Cyprian begins to put them together. Gregory the Great.
CONTENTS vii
PAGI!:
a. Anselm of Canterbury starts from the idea of Penance. God's
justice must be satisfied. True, the Atonement ia in a sense God's
work, for He is the original author of the plan of Atonement;
but the actual offering of the satisfaction is made by Christ, as
man, from man's side. Therefore the connection of Incarnation
and Atonement is by no means so plain as in the Fathers; on the
other hand, the order of justice is rigidly maintained. This doc
trine really is 'juridical.'
3. The later Middle Ages; Aquinas. Nominalism dissolved
away the stringent necessity which dominated Anselm's doctrine.
4. Abelard.
5. The medireval devotion to the passion.
6. The degree in which the classic idea still survived.
CHAPTER VI.-LUTHER IOI
i. Luther's teaching can only rightly be regarded as a mighty
revival of the classic idea.
2. For it is precisely the classic idea of the Atonement that
comes again and again in Luther as the central expression of the
meaning of the Christian Gospel. At the same time he is per
fectly clear as to the difference between the idea itself and the
imagery in which it is set forth.
5. 'Law' and 'the Wrath of God' are both included among
the 'tyrants.' The former idea is Pauline, as we have seen; the
idea of the Divine Wrath introduces some of Luther's deepest
teaching. Both these thoughts exhibit very clearly the double
sidedness of the classic idea.
4. Luther uses certain typical phrases of the Latin type, espe
cially Merit and Satisfaction, in quite new senses; but the fact
that he uses these terms has led to confusion; it has been as
sumed that his teaching belongs to the Latin type. But this is a
complete misapprehension.
CHAPTER VIl.-SINCE THE REFORMATION
1. Luther's contemporaries and successors went right back to
the Latin type of doctrine. Melanchthon's failure to understand
his great teacher. The controversy with Osiander fixed the lines
of the accepted Lutheran doctrine; it marks the returns to a
thoroughly legalistic outlook.
2. The doctrine of the Atonement ia Protestant 'Orthodoxy'
viii
CONTENTS
PAGE
is dominated by the Satisfaction of God's justice. Differences
from Anselm; Christ's obredientia activa.
.3· The arrival of the 'subjective' or humanistic view. The way
for it was prepared by the Pietists; it was worked out by the
Enlightenment.
4. The nineteenth century brought no change in principle
from the view of the Enlightenment. Characteristics of the hu
manistic view, as seen in Schleiermacher, in Ritschl, and in
Rashdall, and in popular compromises-e.g.,_ A_rch~isho~ Ekman
of Uppsala. The character of the humamsuc view 1s deter
mined by its opposition to the Latin type.
CHAPTER VIII.-THE THREE TYPES
1. Results: If our thesis stands, the accepted view of the
development of Christian doctrine will require modifications.
The modern situation.
st. Comparison of the three types, in regard to-
(1.) Structure. (ii.) The Idea of Sin. (iii.) The Idea of
Salvation. (iv.) Christ and the Incarnation. (v.) The
Underlying Conception of God .
. S· A further comparison: The classic type involves a double
iidedn~s wh!ch cannot be fully rationalised; but both the other
types aim pr~marily at rational explanations.
4· c.onclus1on. This book has sought to give an historical
analysis, not to make an apologia for the classic idea; yet it has
~n compelled to appear almost as a vindication of the classic
idea. The future.
INDEX
161
PREFACE TO THE 1970 EDITION
THE CENTRAL idea of Christus Victor is the view of God
and the Kingdom of God as fighting against evil powers
ravaging in mankind. In this drama Christ has the key role,
and the title Christus Victor says the decisive word about his
role. In the situation of theology today it may be, perhaps,
even more needful to emphasize this perspective-the per
spective of victory-than it was when my book first appeared.
Some critics have felt that the book underemphasized the
importance of the humanity of Christ. I had no such inten
tions. His work cannot-as scholastic theology thought-be
split into two parts, a divine and a human. It is a single unit,
but a unit to be seen from two aspects: it is altogether a human
work, and at the same time this human work is a divine work
of creation and salvation.
Other critics, especially in continental Europe, thought
that my treatment of what I called the "Latin" doctrine of
the Atonement was too severe. My exposition, however, be
ing a very short sketch, did not allow me to take into con
sideration the existence of modifications and variations which
m~y be more valuable than the doctrine as a whole. Yet the
decisive matter is obviously that the structure of this doctrine
has a rationalizing character; in fact, it gives a rational ex
planation of the Atonement. This interpretation leads to
fateful consequences as regards the image of God, and, in
deed, the image of God is a main concern of my book. In
this connection its aim is to expose three caricatures: the God
of fatalism, where even the evil proceeds from God; the God
1X
X PREFACE TO THE PAPERBACK EDITION
. fGodis
f
o moralism, where the spontaneity of the Love 0 L e
· kill · f God's ov '
b emg ed; and finally the shallow view 0 fore
where Love is considered self-evident, and where, ~ere em~
w
every sense of the Love's hard work has been lost. 00 do
. d f d d h logy" cou
mg go s o these types a "god-is- ea -t · eo fficacioUS·
us a service-especially if its death sentences we~e.e God of
Then it would be a work in the service of the livmg
the Gospel.
Lund
September, 1968