In his article, “Penal Substitution in Church History,” Vlach aims to show that, along with other views of the atonement in the early church, theologians in the first millennium held to a form of penal substitution atonement (PSA).[1] To argue this, he offers citations from various works in the early church, one of which is taken from Augustine’s The Trinity: “For then the blood, since it was His who had no sin at all, was poured out for the remission of our sins.”[2] By itself, this sentence may seem to fit nicely within a twenty-first-century formulation of PSA; however, when placed within its literary context, one will see that Augustine's teaching of the atonement is unique from what most contemporary theologians would hold. Placing nomenclatures anachronistically onto authors like Augustine will overly simplify their views and subsequently limit our own understanding of them. To remedy this, this article will look to present the context for this quote of Augustine's and show that his view of the atonement as presented in The Trinity is best understood when not defined by contemporary systematic terms but is left to speak for itself.
The historical context for the writing of The Trinity is not certain. Some have argued that Augustine is offering a defence of the Nicene definition of the Trinity.[3] Others, however, do not see this as primarily a polemical work. Hill, one of the many translators of this work, argues that it is more of a task undertaken for Augustine’s own interest. He claims that it was something that took him many years to write[4] and it concerned an interest that “lay nearest the author’s heart;” that is, primarily, the quest for God.[5]
In true Augustinian fashion, Augustine addresses several different topics throughout the work, highlighting how different topics are connected to the doctrine of the Trinity. Concerning redemption, he reflects on the wonder of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit working all things together and yet at the same time, acknowledging that it is by the blood of Christ, through the death of the Son, that humans are reconciled to God.[6] Aware of the different roles within redemption, Augustine looks to expand on his view of how the atonement is brought about and he does so most notably in books four and thirteen.
To begin his explanation, Augustine argues that it is by “divine justice” that the human race was handed over to the power of Satan on account of the first sin of Adam. This original sin is subsequently passed down to all who are born “of the intercourse of the two sexes.”[7] Augustine claims that all humans are, by origin, "under the prince of the power of the air who works in the sons of unbelief (Eph 2:2).”[8] Subsequently, it is on account of original sin that all are citizens of the kingdom of Satan.[9]
Yet this handing over did not come about through an order given by God, nor was it done as a transaction between God and the devil. Rather, God “permitted it, albeit justly. When he withdrew from the sinner, the author of sin marched in.”[10] Despite this handing over, all of humanity continues to be under the law of the Lord, even though they are under “the devil’s jurisdiction.”[11] So Augustine concludes that it is through original sin that man is subjected to the devil, “through the just wrath of God.”[12] It is by God’s wrath that people are subjected to Satan’s rule. To be freed from Satan's kingdom, then, one must also be reconciled to God.
As subjects of Satan’s kingdom, Satan has the right over death. In holding on to the sins of humanity, the devil could use these sins to keep humanity “deservedly fixed in death.”[13] The devil had the “right to hold us bound to payment of the penalty.”[14] Death came as a punishment for sin and it was carried out by Satan, as the ability to kill was handed over to him by God.[15]
In order to defeat Satan, Augustine argues that it would have to be done by God’s justice rather than his power. Satan’s very downfall was his love for power and his desertion of justice,[16] and Satan leads people to follow him in likewise deserting justice and seeking after power. For God subsequently to use power to defeat Satan would be problematic. So instead, Augustine presents God as beating Satan “at the justice game, not the power game, so that men too might imitate Christ by seeking to beat the devil at the justice game, not the power game.”[17]
The justice that overpowered the devil came from Christ, and Christ overpowered Satan by dying even though he was not deserving of death. The devil has been handed the rights of those deserving death; those, according to Augustine, who are born in sin. But Jesus was not born as a product of intercourse, and therefore, was born free from original sin. When the devil killed Christ, then, he did so without warrant. Christ was not guilty of sin and therefore was not in Satan’s kingdom, “yet he killed him.”[18]
By killing Christ, the man without sin, Satan went beyond the rights that he was given. In consequence, the devil “was deservedly obliged to give us up through him he had most undeservedly condemned to death, though guilty of no sin.”[19] In taking the life of Christ when it did not rightly belong to him, he lost the hold on all those who belong to Christ. This is the transaction Augustine has in mind when he talks about the shedding of blood. Jesus’ blood was shed as a kind of price, “when the devil took it he was not enriched by it but caught and bound by it, so that we might be disentangled from his toils.”[20]
In review, it is by the wrath of God that humanity is subjected to Satan, and it is by Satan’s pride that he claimed that which was not his. By taking the life of one who did not belong to him, he had to give up those who are found in him. By having Christ die at the hands of Satan even though he was without sin, Christ not only won those found in him back from Satan, but he also satisfied God’s wrath on those people. For it is by God’s wrath that any are in Satan’s grasp, and in dying at the hands of Satan, Jesus, in a way, dies as a result of God’s wrath. By saving people from Satan, Jesus saves people from the penalty of their sin. As Aulén writes, “The deliverance of man from the power of death and the devil is at the same time his deliverance from God’s judgment.”[21] In all of this, Jesus did not defeat Satan by power, but by justice; in response, his followers are called to do the same.
What Augustine here presents in The Trinity involves many motifs that are best not confined by modern systematic definitions. In placing Augustine into late atonement frameworks, the fullness of his thought can be easily lost. But by letting him speak on his own terms, his view can help offer new insight into how the atonement can be best articulated today.
About the Author:
Jonathan N. Cleland
Jonathan N. Cleland is a Ph.D. student at Knox College, Toronto School of Theology, University of Toronto. He is a teaching assistant at Knox College, as well as at Heritage College in Cambridge, Ontario. His research focus is on the historical development of the doctrine of atonement.
References
Augustine. The City of God Against the Pagans. Edited and translated by R. W. Dyson. Cambridge, UK: University Press, 1998.
———. The Trinity. Translated by Edmund Hill. Brooklyn, NY: New City Press, 1991.
Aulén, Gustaf. Christus Victor: An Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea of the Atonement. Translated by A. G. Hebert. London, UK: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1931.
Clark, Mary T. “De Trinitate” in Cambridge Companion to Augustine. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Hill, Edmund. “The place of the De Trinitate in Augustine’s work” in The Trinity, 2nd ed., translated by Edmund Hill, 18–21. Brooklyn, NY: New City Press, 1991.
Rivière, Jean. “Le Dogme de la Rédemption chez saint Augustin.” Revue des Sciences Religieuses 7, fa. 3 (1927): 429–51.
Vlach, Michael J. “Penal Substitution in Church History.” Master’s Seminary Journal 20 (Fall 2009): 199–214.
Notes
1. See Michael J. Vlach, “Penal Substitution in Church History,” Master’s Seminary Journal 20 (Fall 2009): 199–201. ↩