1 Corinthians 15:3 For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. Romans 5:8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines (Prince Press, 2003), p. 163.
Stephen J. Burnhope, “Beyond the kaleidoscope: towards a synthesis of views on the atonement”, Evangelical Quarterly, Vol. LXXXIV No. 4, October 2012, p. 345.
Richard Rohr, Eager to Love – The alternative Way of Francis of Assisi (Franciscan Media, 2014), p. 190.
In English, the expression normally used is atonement theories, but I have preferred to use salvation theories here.
See: A. J. Wallace, R. D. Rusk, Moral Transformation: The Original Christian Paradigm of Salvation (Bridgehead Publishing, 2011).
Stephen D. Morrison, “7 Theories of the Atonement Summarized” | www.sdmorrison.org
A. J. Wallace, R. D. Rusk, op. cit., from the synopsis of the book.
2 Corinthians 5:10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.
John 5:29 And come forth—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.
Galatians 5:14 For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” James 2:8 If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you do well.
Isaiah 1:17.
Psalms 82:3.
Galatians 2:9-10 And when James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that had been given to me, they gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. They desired only that we should remember the poor, the very thing which I also was eager to do.
Romans 15:25-26 For it pleased those from Macedonia and Achaia to make a certain contribution for the poor among the saints who are in Jerusalem.
Acts 2:45 And sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need.
Aurelius Augustine of Hippo, Doctor of the Church, philosopher and theologian, Bishop of Hippo (Tagaste, Algeria, 354 A.D. - Hippo, Algeria, 430 A.D.). He was one of the great Doctors of the western Church, known as the “Doctor of Grace”. His work marked the history of European religiosity and philosophy.
Adolf Harnack, Hystory of Dogma, by Neil Buchnan (Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2020. First publication 1894), Vol II, pp. 203-204.
Pelagius, latinized name of Morgan, (British Isles, c. 354 A.D. - Alexandria, c. 427 A.D.). He was a Christian monk, theologian and orator from Britany or Ireland who was condemned for heresy by the Church in 418 A.D.
Pelagius, Epistle To Demetrias, from The Letters of Pelagius, edited by Robert Van de Weyer (Little Giddings Books, 1997).
Ibid.
The origin of this idea can probably be traced back to Manichaeism. Manichaeism was an eastern religion founded by the Iranian prophet Mani (216-277 A.D.) that spread widely in Europe, the Middle East and Asia from the 3rd to the 5th century. According to the Manichees, to whom Augustine belonged from 373 to 384 A.D., the material world was completely corrupt, and matter was considered evil because it lacked divine light. Augustine was often accused by his detractors of Manichaeism because he maintained a catastrophic view of humanity, according to which sexual desire (concupiscence), which he considered sinful, constituted a demonic force. These assumptions gave rise to the idea of original sin, which for many centuries would be considered the sexual act.
Matthew 5:45 That you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. Luke 6:35 …He is kind to the unthankful and evil.
Stoicism is a philosophical and spiritual movement of a rationalist bent, founded around 300 B.C. in Athens by Zeno of Cetius. The Stoics advocated the virtues of self-control and detachment from worldly things, taken to the extreme, as a means of achieving moral and intellectual integrity. In the stoic ideal it is dominion over the passions or apathy that enables the spirit to attain wisdom. Achieving it is an individual task, and springs from the ability of the wise man to shed the ideas and conditioning that the society in which he lives has imprinted upon him.
James 2:26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.
Fatalism is a philosophy according to which the world is governed by an inescapable necessity that is completely alien to human will and effort.
Despite Augustine's victory in the dispute over Pelagius, with the consequent excommunication of the latter and his movement, the debate continued until the sixth century to seek a synthesis between the two opposing visions, giving rise to intermediate positions of cooperation in salvation between God and man, which came to be known as Semi-Pelagianism (also condemned as a heretical doctrine in 529 A.D.) and Semi-Augustinianism, which complete the picture of the four major visions of salvation. For more on this subject see David Duncombe, “The Four Major Views of Salvation” | https://daveduncombe.wordpress.com/
Fathers of the Church: this is the name adopted by Christianity around the 5th century to indicate the main Christian authors of the early centuries whose writings were considered fundamental to the doctrine of the Church.
In 313 A.D. the Edict of Milan, signed by Emperors Constantine and Licinius, sanctioned freedom of worship for Christians and put an end to persecution. Because of this there was a mass conversion of pagans to Christianity, whose beliefs very often contaminated the original Christian thought.
Irenaeus of Lyon (Smyrna, c. 135-140 A.D. - Lyon, c. 200 A.D.) was a bishop and theologian. He is considered one of the Fathers of the Church and had a decisive influence on the selection of texts that would go on to make up the New Testament. His book Against Heresies of 180 A.D. contains the oldest and clearest evidence that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were the only legitimate Gospels, as well as numerous references to Paul's letters. He was a pupil of Polycarp of Smyrna, who in turn was a disciple of the Apostle John.
Gnosticism: in the history of religions, the complex of doctrines and spiritual movements developed in the Hellenistic-Roman period, contemporary with early Christianity and sometimes in close contact with it, which considers spiritual salvation and bliss to depend on gnosis, understood not as knowledge deduced from experience or susceptible to rational demonstration, but as revealed knowledge of the divine mysteries and the ineffable greatness of God (Treccani Online Vocabulary, 2021| https://www.treccani.it). My translation, from now on [mt].
Recapitulation in Evangelical Dictionary of Theology (Baker Academic, 2001), pp. 241 and 616.
Mathew T. Hollen “Irenaeus Of Lyons: A Defence of Recapitulation” (2015). Seminary Masters Theses, p. 18.
Darrel, “What is the eastern orthodox view of the atonement?” (Tough Questions Answered, A Christian Apologetics Blog, 2021) | www.toughquestionsanswered.org
Irenaeus, Against Heresies, in the Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 1 (Edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, 1885), Book III, 18, 1.
Ibid., Preface to Book V.
Docetism is part of the broader context of Gnosticism, for which Jesus was not a real man. According to the Docetists, it was inconceivable that in Jesus Christ human and divine natures could coexist at the same time, these being representations of Evil and Good respectively. The doctrine of the Docetists denied the human and bodily nature of Christ; for them the body of Christ would have existed only as a “phántasma”, that is, as an apparent form, without the substance of the flesh.
Christology: part of dogmatic theology dealing with the person of Jesus Christ as the incarnate Son of God. Historically, the best-known Christological controversies are the discussions on the two natures of Christ (human and divine) which began in the 4th century and continued after the Council of Chalcedon (451 A.D.).
Dario Culot, quoting Josè Maria Castillo in: “Gnosticismo - Il giornale di Rodafà”, 2019, pp. 3-4. [mt]
“With him [Irenaeus], not a few ancient Fathers say: ‘The knot of Eve's disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary. For what the virgin Eve had bound fast through unbelief, this did the virgin Mary set free through faith’, and made the comparison with Eve, they call Mary ‘the Mother of the living’ and often say: ‘Death through Eve, life through Mary’”. Catechism of the Catholic Church Part 1, Sect. 2, Ch. 2, Art. 3, Par. 2, 494.
Irenaeus, op. cit., III, 22, 4.
For more on this subject see: Rankin Wilbourne, Union With Christ: The way to Know and Enjoy God, (David C Cook, 2016).
John 15:4.
John 17:21.
John 14:20.
Colossians 1:26-27; Romans 6:3; Romans 8:1-2; 1 Corinthians 1:30; Galatians 2:20; Colossians 2:20; Colossians 3:1 and 3:3.
Irenaeus, op. cit., III, 19, 1.
Athanasius of Alexandria, called the Great (Alexandria, c. 295 A.D. - 373 A.D.), was an ancient Greek Bishop and theologian, eighth Pope of the Coptic Church.
Athanasius, On the Incarnation, translated by Archibald Robertson, 1885, Chapter LIV, 3.
Ibid., IX, 2.
Augustine of Hippo, On the Holy Trinity, from Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 3. Edited by Philip Schaff, (Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1887), Book I, 6, 10.
Bernard de Fontaine, or Bernard of Clairvaux (Fontaine-lès-Dijon, 1090 - Ville-sous-la-Ferté, 1153), was a French Christian monk, abbot and theologian of the Cistercian order.
Bernard of Clairvaux, Commentary on the Song of Songs (Jazzybee Verlag, 2012), Sermon 2,3.
Mysticism: is the term for union with God achieved through the renunciation of an abstract understanding of the Divinity and the search for an experiential way.
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Vol. 1, Book III, Ch. XI, Point X, p. 660.
Thomas Goodwin, Christ the Mediator (1692), mentioned in: The Works of Thomas Goodwin, Vol. V, (James Nichol, 1863), p. 350.
Jonathan Edwards, Sermons and Discourses (1720-1723), mentioned in: The works of Jonathan Edwards Vol. II, (William Ball, 1839), p. 28.
Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest (1927), (Discovery House, Oswald Chambers Publications Association, Ltd. 1992), p. 102.
Ibid., p. 218.
J. I. Packer, A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life (Crossway Books, 1990), p. 202.
John Murray, Redemption Accomplished and Applied (Eerdmans, 1955), p. 171.
A. J. Wallace, R. D. Rusk, Moral Transformation, op. cit., p. 94.
Romans 8:9 But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.
McDonald, The Atonement of the Death of Christ, p. 138, mentioned in: Pugh, Ben, Atonement Theories: A Way through the Maze, (James Clarke & Co, 2015), p. 3.
Origen, also known as Origen of Alexandria (Alexandria, 185 A.D. - Tyre, 254 A.D.), was an ancient Greek theologian and philosopher. He is considered one of the leading Christian writers and theologians of the first three centuries. From a Greek family, he was director of the School of Alexandria. He interpreted the transition from pagan philosophy to Christianity and was the creator of the first major system of Christian philosophy.
Origen, Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, (CUA Press, 2009), Book II, Ch. 13, p. 161.
Origen, Commentary on Matthew, 16.8, in: H.E.W. Turner, The Patristic Doctrine of Redemption: A Study of the Development of Doctrine during the First Five Centuries (Wipf & Stock Publishers, 1952), p. 55.
John Damascene, (Damascus, after 650 A.D. - Mar Saba, 750 A.D.) was an Arab theologian.
“Wherefore, then, death approaches, gulps down the bait of the body, and is pierced by the hook of the divinity. Then, having tasted of the sinless and lifegiving body, it is destroyed and gives up all those whom it had swallowed down of old”. John Damascene in La Fede Ortodossa, edited by Vittorio Fazzo (Città Nuova Editrice, 1998) pp. 265-266. Similarly, Augustine affirms: “Therefore, in order to secure that the ransom in our behalf might be easily accepted by him who required it, the Deity was hidden under the veil of our nature, that so, as with ravenous fish, the hook of the Deity might be gulped down along with the bait of flesh, and thus, life being introduced into the house of death, and light shining in darkness”. Augustine, Discorso 130.2. [mt].
Gregory of Nyssa (Caesarea in Cappadocia, c. 335 A.D. - Nyssa, c. 394 A.D.), Church Father, one of the great Cappadocian Fathers. A good connoisseur of Plato and profoundly influenced by Origen, he was the most speculative of the Greek Fathers of the 4th century; an ardent enemy of Arianism, he wrote important theological works.
Gregory of Nyssa, “The Great Catechism”, Chapter XXIV, from Philip Schaff, Gregory of Nyssa: Dogmatic Treatises, Etc. (Christian Classics Ethereal Library, 1892), p. 678.
1 Corinthians 2:7-8 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
Basil of Caesarea, called the Great (Caesarea of Cappadocia, c. 330 A.D. - 379 A.D.), was a theologian and Doctor of the Church.
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