Anselm develops the traditional idea of redemption into that of atonement, or legal propitiation of God. He controverts the patristic treatment of the death of Christ as a ransom paid to the devil, inasmuch as neither he nor sinful humanity has any right outside of the power and will of God (i. 7, see above, p. 6). Now, while Gregory Nazianzen had already referred to God the payment of the ransom involved in Christ’s death, yet without either clearly explaining his idea, or vindicating its necessity, Anselm among the various possible references of the thought of redemption as from sin, from hell, from the power of the devil, from the wrath of God or His will to punish sinners, gives prominence to the last point of view as the decisive one (i. 6). Following this line of thought, he develops the idea that God is reconciled to sinful man, and that His will, which had declared itself for his punishment and condemnation, is changed into a purpose of grace, through the satisfaction rendered to Him by the God-man Christ.⁴ This thought is methodically unfolded, so that the necessity of such a satisfaction is shown to arise generally from the honour and glory of God, and specially from His justice,—the possibility of it is discerned in the peculiar Personality of the God-man, and the reality of it is traced to the relation between His death on the one hand, and the value of His Person and voluntary Passion on the other.

As an attribute, the glory of God expressly implies the unconditional subordination of every rational created will to the Divine will and sovereignty. The glory of God is our guarantee that the order of the universe shall issue in the destination of the rational creature to a state of blessedness in the love and contemplation of Him. The glory of God should thus come to be recognised by men as their absolute end, which it is their bounden duty to follow, by fulfilling all the commands and requirements of God. On the other hand, sin, as being the contrary of what we owe to God, involves an infringement of His honour. Accordingly, as in the path of duty blessedness would have been attained, so the honour of God makes it necessary that in consideration of its universal sin, the human race should be punished by the withdrawal of blessedness—by condemnation. For in suffering punishment men would, however unwillingly, be brought to acknowledge that they are completely subject to God’s will and purpose. Further, the honour of God does not permit Him to forgive sinners out of His pity; for thereby not only would the unrighteous be made equal to the righteous, and all order in His kingdom overthrown, but even unrighteousness itself would be put upon a level with God, if, like Him, exempted from the authority of the law. So that, the government of God being so conditioned in conformity with His honour, the fact of human sin would frustrate the completion of the Divine world-plan, unless by some other means the penal annihilation of men should be rendered unnecessary, and at the same time satisfaction on behalf of sinners given to the honour of God.

Such means must be devised in conformity with the rule of God’s justice, that ” man should or could receive from God absolutely nothing that he had resolved to give him, unless he previously restore to God all that of which he had deprived Him, so that just as God suffered loss by him, even so by him He may receive amends ” (i. 23). That is to say, men as sinners having offended the honour of God, their deliverance from the punishment of condemnation depends upon the restoration of that honour. But for such an end it does not suffice that sinners should cease to do despite to the honour of God, and that they henceforward should fulfil their duty towards God in its utmost extent. For the rendering of dutiful service is a matter of course as regards God’s honour, and can never therefore compensate Him for previous neglect of this service. To make amends to Him, there is needful rather some performance that shall be well pleasing to Him, and in excess of the requirements of mere duty—something which God could not constitutionally have demanded had the violation of His honour by sin not occurred. But the sinful human race is not able to give this satisfaction prescribed by Divine justice. For all the good works, by means of which it might perhaps be sought to make satisfaction for bygone sins, pertain to that service which is already due to the honour of God. But further, since it would be unlawful to commit even the smallest sin to preserve the whole world, since therefore the smallest sin, not to speak of the whole mass of sins, is of as great moment as the world; since, accordingly, the satisfaction given for sin must excel the whole world in value, man is plainly in no condition for such a task, even irrespective of his sins. But this inability is by no means a reason why God should waive his claim to satisfaction for the sins of men. When regard is had to the firmly maintained purpose of bringing sinful men to the state of blessedness, satisfaction to God is necessary—generally, on account of His honour: particularly, on account of His justice.

Since then satisfaction to the honour of God cannot originate with man, God from His side proceeds to render it possible in the person of the God-man. If the value of the satisfaction is to exceed in value the whole universe, that is to say, the whole of that which is not God, then the satisfaction must be given by One who Himself is greater than the universe. But only God Himself is greater than all that which is not God; wherefore God alone can give the satisfaction. But inasmuch as, properly speaking, man ought to give it, it can on that account only be achieved by God as Man, or by Him who is at once perfect God and perfect man, without mingling or changing of the two natures in the peculiarity of the person. Now this is realized in the incarnate Word of God.⁵

The act in which the God-man achieves satisfaction must, in the first place, be a voluntary one; in the second place, it must not come under the category of duty; and finally, it must be such as to embody the full value of the Personality that outweighs the whole universe. Now, that endurance of death for the honour of God, which Christ undertook, meets all these demands. For it was voluntary, and not imposed upon Him by way of duty. Christ, that is to say, as a rational being, was bound to all positive obedience towards God; but not to die, since as sinless man He was not liable to death. His endurance of death is, however, more than equivalent to that which sin had rendered due. For as it is a greater sin to take away the life of the God-man than are even all the sins that we can think of, so the complete surrender of this life unto death for God’s sake is an action which outweighs the sins of all men. So that in it is contained that satisfaction for the sins of men which was necessary to the honour of God. On account of that satisfaction God, out of His pity, forgives those sins, and permits men to attain their final blessedness in accordance with His honour.

The immediate effect of Christ’s endurance of death is thus confined to God alone. His satisfaction for the sins of the human race, in removing the obstacle which had hindered God in that work of perfecting mankind which was a necessity to Him (ii. 4), affords the condition by which the glory of God immediately becomes again operative towards the beatification of men. Nevertheless, the prospect of the attainment of this end does not disclose itself at this point without a further condition. This is made clear in a general way by the consideration that if men were to go on sinning, the satisfaction already made for them could not determine God to pardon them the injury done by them to His honour. Accordingly, the act of Christ which, looked at from the side of God, is satisfaction, must also exercise an influence on the side of man, apart from which the satisfaction avails him nothing. This is accomplished in that the suffering of Christ affords to men an example how, under all the ills that befall them, they should adhere to that righteous conduct which they owe to God; in particular, how they should give back to God their own life when occasion requires it. As now we must presuppose that all men do not take this example, it follows that the validity of the satisfaction which Christ made for the whole race of men restricts itself to those persons who seek conformity to Christ, or who, according to the similitude in Mark iii. 35, are his parents and brethren (ii. 19).

5. Intending to come back upon a peculiar line of thought which is involved in this concluding part of Anselm’s treatise, I now apply myself to the elucidation of the notion of satisfaction in relation to the two leading ideas of the glory and justice of God. The glory of God expresses the absolute chief end of man in such a way as to imply his destiny to blessedness, to the love and enjoyment of God. On this account the glory of God does not, as appears at first sight, stand in exactly the same relation to the beatification of the obedient as to the damnation of the disobedient. On the contrary, from that point of view it necessarily flows from the nature of God, that He should accomplish even in sinners that destiny of man which He began to work out at his original creation; and if this is not otherwise possible, it must be accomplished by means of the satisfaction to be devised by Himself. Of course God is free: in this sense, that He is not subject to any law, but that whatsoever He wills is right and proper. But this freedom is not independent of the notion of moral propriety, and nothing that is improper, if God were to will it, would on that account become right. Accordingly it lies entirely within Anselm’s range of vision, that the idea of God’s glory as the ultimate end guarantees the order of the moral world only in so far as the end proposed—blessedness in the enjoyment of God—is common to Him and to men. Furthermore, on the presupposition of human sin, it would be inconsistent with that which is proper or necessary in God, inconsistent therefore with the glory of God, if He were to exercise His pity in an arbitrary way in the forgiveness of sins; because thereby sin would be withdrawn from the law’s authority and put upon a level with God.

But now, in so far as satisfaction is thought of as the only method which adjusts man’s need of forgiveness with God’s glory, the idea of satisfaction is not regulated directly by the honour of God, but by His justice. But this conception denotes a narrower and even (as shall be shown) differently conditioned relation of God to men. When Anselm expresses the rule of this justice as implying that man can receive from God his purposed gift only after he has restored to God what he has taken away from Him, this principle belongs solely to the sphere of private right. It is the principle in accordance with which the creditor treats a doubtful debtor who applies for a new loan, in order to secure his individual right to the debt that remains unpaid. Now, private law regulates the exchange of things or of personal services in matters material, in so far as these serve as means towards the respective private ends of individuals; and the persons who have these private ends are quite on an equality in the form of contract which is regulated by private law. Thus, in Anselm’s theory we come upon features that are logically incompatible. The relation of men to God cannot be determined at once by the glory of God, in which God is the superior of the latter (as containing within Himself the absolute end of man), and, at the same time, by the justice of God implying a legal co-ordination between man and God. If from the glory of God there follows as consequence only this,—that the forgiveness of sins cannot be granted to men by God without further condition: if, again, the positive condition of satisfaction—as the only possible means towards that end—follows only from the altogether disparate idea of God’s justice, then it is conceivable that in relation to the idea of the honour of God there might be discovered yet another condition of the forgiveness of sins than that already mentioned. Thus, Anselm’s theory has already broken down.

Still, we must not consider our elucidation of the meaning of the theory which we have entered upon to be exhausted by this. For, though Anselm did not see the inconsistency which we have shown between his deductions from God’s justice and the conception of the honour of God, it is still worthy of notice how the relation of private right between God and man which he asserts is modified by the predominance given by him to the view-point of honour. For that rule of private right is applied not to decide a suit about a material claim or individual act of service, but in a question turning on the value of this personal attribute of honour. Thus reparation to the injured honour of God is analogically compared to a civil action for damages, or referred to the method whereby the compensation that might perhaps have been got by an action is fixed by mutual understanding of the parties, and given on that ground. But this only shows more clearly that, by this rule of justice which has been set up, and from which the necessity of satisfaction has been deduced, God is brought down to a co-ordination in point of law with man. For compensation—be it by money payment, be it by spontaneous apology and begging of pardon for the offence committed, be it by pledging one’s own life for it—is only conceivable as towards a private person who has been injured in his honour, but to whom one stands in no regular or definite relation of subordination. On the other hand, insult to the majesty of a sovereign, to whom universal obedience is due, cannot be wiped out by satisfaction, but, as a public crime, necessarily involves punishment. As then Anselm, at the outset, sets God over man as Him to whom the absolute end of man looks, and asserts man’s universal obligation to obedience, and his liability to punishment in the case of disobedience, he ought to have concluded not merely that sinners are not capable of giving any satisfaction to God, but also that the idea of satisfaction cannot be admitted at all in this relation. Still, while he establishes the necessity of satisfaction by means of the altogether different conception of God’s justice, Anselm is certainly quite self-consistent when he argues, that if men were not capable of giving satisfaction, it was in that case competent to another to undertake it. For when a compensation for injury to a private person is fixed by mutual agreement, it also depends upon the pleasure of the parties to determine what arrangement they shall make as to the nature and form of the satisfaction. In this way the injured party may allow that a third party should ask pardon in behalf of the aggressor, or should stake his life in single combat with him. If, then, satisfaction to God is altogether satisfactorily explained by the presupposed private relation between Him and mankind, then Christ’s undertaking of that satisfaction is also quite rational. If, on the other hand, the conception of the justice of God is not consistent with that of His honour, then the solution of the problem by the idea of satisfaction is altogether irrational.

The satisfaction of the God-man consists, according to Anselm, in an act which was free, and which went beyond His own proper obligation—the yielding up unto death of His life as a good which outweighs the evil of all sin, being superior to it in value. Here surely is denoted a moral personal act, and not a mere external material prestation.

On this account Anselm’s idea falls away from the analogy of the Wergeld, or “blood-money,” which, in the German criminal law of his time, is admitted as an expedient for the expiation of murder—an institution by means of which it has been occasionally thought that one might understand the theory in question. But now it becomes clear, that if the giving up of His life unto death is to be regarded as a performance on Christ’s part to which He was not in duty bound, then it cannot be conceived as a personal payment, but only as a material one; but, on the other hand, if it is conceived as personal, it must be regarded as a matter of duty. That is to say, we must not stop merely at the superficial impression of the equation—that all men by reason of their sins had become justly liable to death, but Christ as the Sinless One not; that on that account His voluntary dying was an equivalent for the death of sinners that was due, and therefore for the act of satisfaction that was needful. For death is in the case of sinners ad interitum, but in the case of Christ ad honorem Dei (ii. 11). Christ was not bound to die in the way that sinners are; i.e. He the Sinless One had of course no personal relation to death ad interitum, to death as the punishment of sin, in the way that sinners in the consciousness of their guilt have the assurance that to suffer death is for them a penal infliction personally due. If then death as penal has the value of a personal prestation, and if Christ was not bound to undergo it as such—if therefore, in particular, it was impossible that His purpose to die should be determined by this idea of death, then His death was no personal payment, but only a material one, and its equivalency to the sinner’s punishment is only of a material sort. Whereas if Christ’s death is, on the contrary, ad honorem Dei, and if it is this purpose that secures to His prestation the character of free will and personality, then it is not an opus supererogationis going beyond the sphere of His own obligation to God. For the God-man is constantly bound, even on Anselm’s own assumption, to the honour of God: and since He as the sinless one was exempt from death only so far as it is the punishment of sin, then nothing more is required in order to make out the necessity of His death as due to the honour of God, than a right definition of the duties of Christ flowing from His peculiar vocation. Not only, then, are the premisses which lead to the conception of satisfaction, namely, the honour and the justice of God, in contradiction to each other, but also the marks by which (according to Anselm) we are to recognise in Christ’s death the veritable act of satisfaction, namely, personal voluntariness and exemption from the idea of duty, are irreconcileable with each other.

This criticism on Anselm’s theory receives important confirmation from Anselm himself. For towards the close of his book (ii. 19), where he undertakes to exhibit the efficacy of the death of Christ towards the salvation of man, he exchanges the idea of satisfaction for the altogether different idea of merit. In the doctrine of satisfaction by Christ, there is implicitly contained as a consequence the thought, that, after this previous condition of the forgiveness of sins was fulfilled, God for His own glory’s sake would lead, in the way of blessedness, those men who follow the example of Christ in His self-surrender to God. But yet, instead of this, Anselm gives expression to the idea that it was proper for God to meet by a reward the great and spontaneous gift of Christ; but that Christ, in His Godhead, not having need of anything, applied this fruit and reward of His death to men, for whose salvation He had become man, but who could not possibly be His followers unless at the outset they had a share in His merit. This representation is not understood in Anselm’s sense, if his meaning is assumed to be that Christ’s death as satisfactory has taken away sin in general, but as meritorious determines God to impute to individuals the wiping-out of sin that has been accomplished.⁶ For we are now speaking of the whole number of followers or kinsmen of Christ, who only, as partakers of His merit, could follow His example: and in this connexion we are not now any longer treating of satisfaction and the Divine honour. Now, by the idea of merit, the importance of Christ towards the end of rendering mankind blessed is enhanced, and a more intimate relation between Him and mankind is indicated than would follow from the doctrine of satisfaction. For in the latter it is laid down that the death of Christ, as an act of satisfaction, relates to God only, and on the other side concerns men merely as an exemplary act. That the satisfaction made to God should be valid for men, it was not necessary that they should be aware of this meaning of the death of Christ: all that was necessary was their imitation of that self-surrender to God which was perfectly realized in Him. The forgiveness of sins on the part of God, which follows upon the satisfaction made, does not come through the very person who made the satisfaction, but it comes, so to speak, alongside of him. On the other hand, when Christ’s action is considered as merit, He is then also shown to be the direct procurer of the forgiveness of sins for men. That is to say, the many individual men who take example by Him are taken together as a whole, under the collective appellation of His spiritual kinsmen, just in so far as by their recognition of Christ’s merit towards God they become partakers of the same. It would be impossible for them to pass as His followers, except they previously had from Him the forgiveness of sins which He has merited for them. The divergence of these two lines of thought lies here then: that the satisfaction of Christ only denotes the condition under which the original motive of the beatification of men—God’s honour—again takes effect even in sinners: while, on the contrary, in the merit of Christ, the condition of the forgiveness of sins is itself regarded as God’s motive thereto. Thus, if the latter line of thought means that the purpose of the forgiveness of sins is called forth only by Christ’s action, then it follows that this purpose can also take effect on men only according as the motive that prevails with God is recognised by them as such. This is not the place for a thorough review of the conception of merit in this application; but it does not admit of doubt that in the foregoing train of Anselm’s thought it serves to transfer the question from the forensic to the ethical manner of treatment, and at the same time to bring into greater prominence the value of Christ’s death for the Church than was otherwise possible. And in the feeling of this lies no doubt the reason why Anselm took the point off his doctrine of Christ’s satisfaction; and thereby himself indirectly characterized it as unsatisfactory. Although then Boso, Anselm’s interlocutor, should be quite correct in saying that Anselm’s proof satisfies the demands of Jews and Pagans for a rational explanation of the necessity of God’s incarnation, we may still venture as an offset to this opinion to say, that his explanation of Christ’s death as an act of satisfaction that was necessary for God, does not satisfy the Christian reason any better than it satisfies Anselm’s own perception of the value of Christ’s death for the Church.

6. As even Anselm advances from the thought of the reconciliation of God to the beatification of men in such a way as to substitute the ethical for the juridical manner of treatment, it will therefore be the less surprising that Abelard,⁷ who directs his attention principally to the subject of justification and reconciliation of men, confines himself entirely to ethical ideas. He does not, in the first instance, inquire how God’s honour and justice can be satisfied with reference at once to the purpose of beatification of mankind, and also to the fact of human sin: his problem is to find how it is that the God-man by His perfect life and by His death has accomplished the justification and reconciliation of believers, who, as sinners, could not have attained this result by previous merits. For he is led to take up this subject by the text, Rom. iii. 22-26. Moreover, since Abelard does not, like Anselm, first go in search of the auxiliary notion of the incarnation, but already possesses it in the recognition of Christ; since, accordingly, he expresses the distinctly Christian view, and does not set himself to find a merely rational concatenation, it follows that the limits of the problem are otherwise defined by him than by the older theologian. Instead of the honour of God and His legal conservation of His rights in relation to man, Abelard holds fast by the love and ethical righteousness of God; and instead of taking into view the whole human race that misses its blessed destiny by reason of sin, he, from the beginning, limits his consideration to “us” who are chosen of God unto blessedness and sooner or later believe in the atonement through the God-man. Thus estimating God’s leading purpose of grace by the conditional result of His work of salvation, he gains a balance in the intermediate connexion, the want of which in the theory of Anselm avenges itself by the harsh alternation between the two points of view—the satisfaction and the merit of Christ.

Abelard explains the above-mentioned text of Paul by paraphrasing it in the following way (pp. 548, 549):—Inasmuch as no one can be justified before God by fulfilment of the ceremonial law, God has accordingly by His alliance with human nature in Christ, and by the surrender of Him to suffering and death, given proof of the highest love towards us, and awakens in those who by faith discern, or have in former times waited for this deed of reconciliation, such a degree of love to God and their fellow-men as forms an indissoluble bond of union with God, and constitutes the ground of forgiveness of sins formerly committed.⁸ Now Abelard certainly starts the question by what necessity it was that God took this way—the incarnation and death of Christ—for our reconciliation; why it is that He has showed towards us this greater degree of grace, when, as it would appear, He might have been able to forgive us our sins with a less degree of grace without such means (pp. 550, 552). But the solution of this question, and others connected with it, which naturally could not be accomplished in the Commentary, is not to be met with in any of his writings that have come down to us. Only this may be further adverted to, that he incidentally controverts the idea of redemption out of the power of the devil by the death of Christ, not only on the ground that Satan has not acquired any right over mankind which had to be provided for by an equivalent, but also on the ground that redemption by Christ is valid only for the elect, who as such could never in any way have been in the devil’s power. Since, accordingly, in justification and reconciliation through Christ, it is only this class of men that is treated of, Abelard allows the said operation of the highest love of God to be conditioned by the free reciprocal love of individual believers. Had Abelard set himself to show that the process of reconciliation of men, actually adopted, possesses a necessary character, even for God, then perhaps we might be able to detect a weakness in the chain of thought, in so far as the operation of the love of God remains dependent on a voluntary and contingent requital by the love of men.

Yet, even in this respect, Abelard’s view is at no disadvantage when compared with that of Anselm. For, inasmuch as the satisfaction made by Christ to God avails only for those who take example to themselves from Christ’s free self-surrender to God, Anselm, too, counts upon the free contingent decision of men, in order to the realization of their re-established happiness. The appearance of dissimilarity between the two in this respect arises merely from the circumstance, that the point referred to falls, with Anselm, into the background in comparison with his elaborate theory of satisfaction, which has reference to God alone; while the same point immediately comes into notice in connexion with Abelard’s simple declaration of the love of God. But Abelard himself suggests to us, by his own view of the matter, that we should regard the free choice which is necessary for personal appropriation of the reconciling act, under the same point of view which he has taken in controverting the combination of redemption with a pretended right of the devil, namely, that Christ has freed only the elect. Herein we have at least a hint of the religious view, that the men who are to be reconciled, although their resolution to love God be free, are yet from the very first the objects of the Divine decree of salvation.

To this, however, we must add the following further line of thought (p. 590) which Abelard links on to the antithesis between Adam and Christ:—“ God, by the incarnation of His Son, has brought it to pass that not only His pity but also His justice should through Him come to the aid of sinners, and that what is impossible by reason of our transgression, should be supplied by His righteousness. That is to say, when God caused His Son to become man, He made Him subject to that law which is common to all men. He thus was bound by Divine command to love His neighbour as Himself, and to exercise towards us His loving grace, whether by instruction or by intercession for us. Thus by God’s command He was constrained to pray for us (sinners), and especially for those who cling to Him in love. But the highest justice of God demanded that in nothing should His prayer meet with a repulse, since His Godhead did not permit anything in Him, except what it was His duty to will or to do.⁹ What was wanting in our merits he supplied from His own. And as He was alone in holiness, so was He also alone in procuring the salvation of others.” This argument chiefly proves that though the love of God, by awakening counter love in men, is the ground of their justification, yet the justice of God is not without influence on the objects of His grace. For so far as their displays of love arising out of the love of God are imperfect, and therefore unsatisfactory to the justice of God, they are supplemented in the judgment of God by Christ’s merit: that is, the value of the atoning work of Christ does not limit itself to the fact that it is the occasion of meritorious works wrought by the elect in return; but it shows its supereminent power herein—that it accompanies the counter works throughout their whole duration, and, by supplementing them, makes their value with God to be possible. That is much more than what Anselm has expressed in the idea of satisfaction to God. The idea of God’s justice, which is the dominant one in this connexion, is now also of an ethical and not legal sort—does not stand in opposition to grace, but is subordinated to it; on which account, too, it does not need to be reconciled with the grace (honour) of God as Anselm reconciles it by means of the idea of Christ’s satisfaction. But this thought lies beyond Abelard’s sphere of vision, because he does not conjecture any obstacle in the way of God’s exercise of reconciling love towards His own elect. And not less weighty is the thought which gives a wider import to the work of Christ in accomplishing the reconciliation of believers, than is implied merely in His having by His incarnation and death been the representative of the love of God towards us. By His never fruitless intercession for us, who required reconciliation with God and who by means of love are united to Christ, He has at the same time been our representative before God. As the mediator of our reconciliation He assumes a double function that operates on both parties. Anselm, indeed, also indicates such a function, inasmuch as he recognises in Christ’s surrender of life for the honour of God, at once the value of satisfaction to God and that of example for men. But the relation of the two parts of the double function to each other is expressed by the two theologians in opposite ways. The part of Christ’s work that relates to God is ranked by Anselm above that which relates to men. But, in Abelard’s view, God’s love towards men as displayed in Christ—in His incarnation, in His teaching, in His passion—is the leading thought upon which depends the effect of the intercession directed to God by the incarnate God. Further, these momenta have in Abelard’s thoughts a more harmonious relation to each other than is the case with Anselm. In the twofold function of Christ towards the two parties, Abelard brings together ethical effects: Anselm, if we consider simply his proper intention of working out the idea of satisfaction, and not his divergence into the idea of merit, brings together a legal effect upon God and an ethical one upon men. Further, while, according to Anselm, the satisfaction to God is valid for the whole sinful race, whereas the example of Christ is only efficacious upon his “kinsfolk,” Abelard’s view of Christ’s twofold work fixes our attention exclusively upon the number of the elect. Lastly, the following advantage of Abelard’s view over that of Anselm is also worthy of notice: the former in establishing the idea of reconciliation gives value to the whole life, doing and suffering, of Christ, just in so far as all these are comprehended in His duty to God; while the latter, on the other hand, takes into account, towards the satisfaction and example of Christ, only the opus supererogationis of His death, which was not a matter of duty.

To be sure, all Abelard’s positions, as they lie before us, are merely assertions, supported but slightly on exegetical grounds, not at all made good by necessary presuppositions concerning God’s nature and will, and concerning the nature, destiny, and actual condition of man. In point of form his theses come far behind the theory of Anselm, although Abelard also had the ability to give an artistic dialectical exposition to his apprehension of the matter. But as Anselm diverged from his elaborated conception of Christ’s satisfaction into the idea of Christ’s merit, without defining or establishing that more accurately, it seems to me impossible to avoid the opinion that he himself characterized his skilfully wrought work as unsatisfying, even before it was completed. And in that case his suggestions about the merit of Christ and its results, the meaning of which I have ascertained above (p. 33), are at most on a level with Abelard’s lucubrations; for Anselm, too, by them places the saving work of Christ in the sphere of moral relations. But we do not need a complete definition of the idea of merit in order to see clearly that the love of God gives a much richer moral motive towards the beatification of men, than does the merit of Christ. In like manner, that intercession, the prevalence of which with God is founded upon the Divine Nature of Christ, is a guarantee that raises the salvation of men to a far higher degree of security than does a merit which God is pleased to accept as such. In fine, if we for the present leave out of account the circumstance that both determine the appropriation of the saving work of Christ in the Catholic way, by making practical love or imitation of Christ’s righteousness serve to that end, it appears that the advantage in respect of typical character is to be ascribed to Abelard’s view, and not to that of Anselm.

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← Introduction · Contents · Chapter II. The Ideas of Christ’s Satisfaction and Merit According to Thomas →

Footnotes

1. The first who to my knowledge, without any qualification, identified the Protestant view of satisfaction with that of Anselm, is Steinbart [System der reinen Philosophie oder Glückseligkeitslehre des Christenthums, 2d Ed. 1780, p. 144], a man who does not in other respects rank among the authorities of “believing” theology, and whose learning, also, is by no means exemplary. ↩

2. Anselm born 1033, died 1109. Abelard born 1079, died 1142. ↩

3. Cur Deus homo, ii. 22: sic probas Deum fieri hominem ex necessitate ut etiam si removeantur pauca, quæ de nostris libris posuisti (ut quod de tribus personis Dei et de Adam tetigisti) non solum Judæis sed etiam paganis sola ratione satisfacias. ↩

4. Simply in order that the admirers of Anselm may not complain of any omission, I here mention his assertion (which is quite unimportant to the theory of satisfaction), that mankind was created in room of the angels that had fallen, and that, when man also fell into sin, not merely was a number corresponding to the fallen angels elected and redeemed through the satisfaction of Christ, but also a few more (ii. 16-18). This supposition is essentially taken from Augustine (De Civ. Dei, xxii. 1, Enchiridion, cap. 29); only the last clause does not belong to him. ↩

5. The question, cur Deus homo, properly speaking, had been already thrown out by Augustine: it was not however answered from the Divine demand for a satisfaction in order to the sinner’s restoration to blessedness, but directly from this purpose of making the sinner blessed. Compare De Civitate Dei, ix. 15. Si omnes homines, quamdiu mortales sunt, etiam miseri sint necesse est, quaerendus est medius, qui non solum homo, verum etiam Deus sit, ut homines ex mortali miseria ad beatam immortalitatem hujus medii beata mortalitas interveniendo perducat.—In the writings of Augustine the elements of most diverse theories of atonement are to be found; but these are, for the most part, so entangled one with another, and marked off from each other with so little precision, that they can be compared with the theological questions that have been under discussion since the beginning of the middle ages, merely in respect of their subject-matter, but not in respect of their form. On that account I have purposely abstained from undertaking an exposition of them in my work. Were it not that in every way a treatment of Augustine’s theology as a whole is an urgent necessity, I might call attention in particular to the fact that the notice taken by Baur of Augustine’s ideas respecting the atonement is as unsatisfactory as could well be imagined. ↩

6. Hasse: Anselm von Canterbury, ii. p. 606. ↩

7. Commentariorum super S. Pauli Epistolam ad Romanos libri V. (Petri Abaelardi et Heloisae opera. Paris, 1616.) ↩

8. Compare Augustinus de catechizandis rudibus, cap. 4: Quæ major causa est adventus Domini, nisi ut ostenderet Deus dilectionem suam in nobis, quia cum adhuc inimici essemus, Christus pro nobis mortuus est. Hoc autem ideo, ut et nos invicem diligamus, et, quemadmodum ille pro nobis animam posuit, sic et nos pro fratribus animam ponamus, et ipsum Deum, quoniam prior dilexit nos et filio suo unico non pepercit, sed pro nobis omnibus tradidit eum, si amare pigebat, saltem nunc redamare non pigeat. Nulla est enim major ad amorem invitatio, quam prævenire amando.” For subsequent sins Abelard lays down the usual church-rule, that they are covered by pœnitentia and satisfactio, inasmuch as the eventual consequence, punishment in hell, is averted by the former, while the purifying pains of purgatory are averted by the latter. Abelard’s expression with regard to this (p. 558) has been utterly misunderstood by Baur (as above, pp. 195, 196), because he thinks that this disciplinary sense of satisfactio is similar to the use of the idea by Anselm. ↩

9. The same thought occurs in another application in Tertullian (De Pœnit: 10), to explain that the intercession of the Church united to Christ is sufficient to restore an excommunicated person. ↩