Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Religious Studies – Anthology
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t his lit erat ure t here is also, as a sub-plot reminisc ent of fairy-story themes, the
idea t hat in t his bargain God out wit t ed t he devil, transforming a situation in whic h
he had a just c laim over humanity into one in whic h he had put himself in the
wrong by taking a greater ransom, namely God the Son, than was his due. Thus
Gregory of Nyssa said that ‘in order to sec ure 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 the flesh’ (Gregory of Nyssa 1892b, 494). St Augustine
even more pic turesquely suggested in one of his sermons that ‘As our pric e he
[Christ] held out his c ross to him like a mouse trap, and as a bait set on it his own
blood’ (Grensted 1962, 44). Suc h imagery is only embarrassing t oday. But whilst
the ransom theory was never elated to creedal authority, it was very widely used,
oc c urring in the writings of Irenaeus, Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose, Rufinus,
Gregory the Great, Augustine and Chrysostom. Nevert heless it is impossible t oday
to make any good sense or use of it. As Anselm later asked, Why should we accept
t hat t he Devil has any valid legal right s over against t he infinit e Creat or? (Anselm
1962, 187-9). The wonder is that suc h a notion lasted so long. As Grensted says,
‘That suc h a theory c ould stand for nine hundred years as the ordinary exposition of
the fac t of the Atonement is itself a suffic ient proof that the need for serious
disc ussion of the doc trine had not yet been felt.’^1
When the need for serious disc ussion did begin to be felt, the theories that
were produc ed were premised on t he belief in original sin as an inherit ed guilt
affec ting the entire human rac e and requiring an adequate atonement to expunge
it. To attack this idea is today, for most of us, to do battle with an extinct monst er.
Nevert heless t he ec c lesiast ic al reluc t anc e t o abandon t radit ional language is so
strong that even today there is point in being c lear why we should c ease to think
and speak in t erms of original sin – exc ept as a myt hologic al way of referring t o t he
fac t of universal human imperfec tion. For t he original sin idea presupposes t he
wilful fall from grac e of the first humans and the genetic inheritanc e by the whole
spec ies of a guilty and sinful nature. T his is somet hing t hat only doc t rinal
fundamentalists can accept today. But prior to the Enlightenment of the eighteenth
century it was a seriously entertained idea. Thus the Catholic Counc il of Trent
(1545-63) pronounc ed that ‘If anyone does not profess that the first man Adam
immed iat ely lost t he just ic e and holiness in whic h he was c onstituted when he
disobeyed the c ommand of God in the Garden of Paradise; and that, through the
offenc e of this sin, he inc urred the wrath and the indignation of God, and
c onsequently inc urred the death with whic h God had previously threatened
him...And if anyone asserts that Adam’s sin was injurious only to Adam and not to
his desc endants...or that...he transmitted to the whole human rac e only death and
punishment of the body but not sin itself whic h is the death of the soul: let him b e
anathema’ (Abbott 1966, 158-9: Denzinger 788-9); whilst t he Presbyt erian
Westminster Confession (1647) declared that ‘Our first parents being seduced by
(^1) L.W. Grensted 1962, 33. What Gustav Aulen called the ‘classic’ theory of atonement,
according to w hich Christ w as victor over the devil, seems to me to be a variation on the
ra ns o m mo de l – a variation in which the ransomer is attacked and defeated instead of being
paid off – rather than a radically alternative theory. ‘Its central theme,’ says Aulen, ‘is the
idea of the Atonement as a Divine conflict and victory; Christ – Christus Victor – fights
against and triumphs over the evil powers of the world, the “tyrants” under which mankind is
in bondage and suffering...’ (Aulen 1953, 20).