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CROWN THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY 
 
 VOL. IX. 
 SABATIER'S THE ATONEMENT and 
 RELIGION AND MODERN CULTURE 
 
The 
 
 Doctrine of the Atonement 
 
 ^nd its Historical Evolution 
 
 AND 
 
 Religion and Modern Culture 
 
 BY THE LATE 
 
 AUGUSTE SABATIER 
 
 II 
 
 PROFESSOR IN THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS, AND DEAN OF 
 THE PROTESTANT THEOLOGICAL FACULTY 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY 
 
 VICTOR LEULIETTE, B.-6s-L. (Paris), A.K.C. 
 
 NEW YORK : G. P. PUTNAM S SONS 
 
 LONDON : WILLIAMS AND NORGATE 
 
 1904 
 
S3 
 
 ^mrti 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF THE 
 ATONEMENT 
 
 AND ITS HISTORICAL EVOLUTION 
 
 't; 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2007 with funding from 
 
 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/atoningsacrificeOOworcrich 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 The following treatise is an attempt at a 
 systematic application of the historical method 
 to the study of religious beliefs and doctrines, 
 in order to show, by a practical example, the 
 nature and fruitfulness of the method. The 
 author does not believe in spontaneous genera- 
 tion in the realm of thought any more than 
 in the domain of life. For the most recent 
 of harvests must yet have had a seed-time. 
 Men's ideas arise and are linked together just 
 like external events ; they advance now by 
 association and synthesis, now by contradic- 
 tion and analysis. This is especially true of 
 religious ideas. Nothing is more interesting 
 than to follow them through their meta- 
 morphoses ; nor could anything be more 
 
 7 
 
8 Foreword 
 
 useful ; for to investigate the inevitable trans- 
 formations they undergo is the safest way to 
 criticise them objectively and scientifically. 
 That the forms assumed by the ideas which 
 prevail at the present time are immutable 
 and final, is far from being the author's belief. 
 These forms themselves are temporary. In 
 this chain of evolution each generation has 
 its part to perform both in thinking and in 
 acting. The important matter is that it 
 should contribute to both, while remaining 
 faithful to the divine law, the consciousness 
 of which it has achieved. 
 
 Nor is this scepticism, any more than what 
 was in the mind of Paul when he said that, 
 having become a man, he had put away 
 childish things ; adding, further, that his pre- 
 sent knowledge was imperfect and would be 
 done away when the time came for him to 
 know even as he had been known of God. 
 Yea, and for us, just as for Paul, these three 
 even now abide: faith in the Spirit which 
 never ceases to work with the spirits of men, 
 
Foreword 9 
 
 hope in His Providence which overrules all 
 the changes of human history, and, above all, 
 love, which even in the things of time realizes 
 something of the eternal (1 Cor. xiii.). 
 
 Paris, January 13, 1901. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 fAOX 
 
 Foreword 7 
 
 FIRST PART 
 Biblical Conceptions — 
 
 I. The Narrative of the Fall of Adam, Genesis iii 
 II. The Conception of Sacrifice 
 
 III. The Ethical Doctrine of the Prophets 
 
 IV. The Gospel of Jesus .... 
 V. Pauline Theory of Redemption . 
 
 VI. The Doctrine of the Epistle to the Hebrews 
 VII. The Johannine Doctrine .... 
 
 16 
 21 
 
 29 
 35 
 42 
 48 
 54 
 
 SECOND PART 
 
 Ecclesiastical Doctrine — 
 
 I. The Ideas of the Fathers — Ransom paid to Satan 60 
 
 II. The Theory of Anselm 68 
 
 III. Socinian Criticism — Overthrow of the Judicial 
 
 Theory of Satisfaction 83 
 
 IV. Modem Theories of the Death of Jesus . . 94 
 
 Conclusion 110 
 
 Notes 138 
 
 11 
 
THE ATONEMENT 
 
 HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF THE 
 DOCTRINE 
 
 In the Christian consciousness, the forgive- 
 ness of sins and the death of Christ are in- 
 timately and absolutely related. But when it 
 comes to defining the nature of the connection, 
 explanations differ, theories are found to be 
 contradictory, and the discussion commenced 
 nineteen centuries ago still goes on. 
 
 There are two opposite ways of under- 
 standing this connection: either the death of 
 Christ may be looked upon as the cause of the 
 forgiveness of sins, or else, by inverting the 
 terms, as the means and the consequence. In 
 the first case, it will be argued that the death 
 of the Innocent One caused God to forgive 
 the guilty, because satisfaction was made 
 
 13 
 
14 The Atonement 
 
 to Divine justice. Here satisfaction is the 
 essential and all-important word. In the 
 second case, on the contrary, forgiveness is 
 the result of God's free and sovereign inter- 
 position. It is because God wills to forgive, 
 and because He is Love, that He sent His 
 Son into the world; thus Christ's coming, 
 work, and death are only the means devised 
 in the plan of His Providence to realize in 
 humanity His work of mercy and salvation. 
 In a word, two main conceptions of Chris- 
 tianity are here in presence and in conflict. 
 The one starts from the forensic premiss of 
 the penal law : culpam poena absolvit ; the 
 other, from the specifically Evangelical prin- 
 ciple of Love forgiving where there is repent- 
 ance and faith. The thought of Christians, 
 from the very first, has ever oscillated between 
 these two views. They have never succeeded 
 in reconciling them, because they are contra- 
 dictory, corresponding in fact to two stages in 
 the development of the religious and moral 
 consciousness. The first is to the second what 
 
The Atonement 15 
 
 the spirit of Rabbinical legalism is to the 
 inspiration of Christ. It is the antithesis 
 between external social law and inner deep 
 moral life. Vaguely conscious of this opposi- 
 tion, theological speculation has been unable 
 to settle on any definitive formula. No 
 theory of Atonement has become an article 
 of faith in any Church. The doctrine is 
 always uncertain, and discussion remains open 
 and free. 
 
 It is not our intention in these pages to give 
 a detailed history of the doctrine of Atone- 
 ment,^ but to inquire into the origin of the 
 conceptions which enter into it, to sketch the 
 important phases through which Christian 
 thought has passed, to set forth the tendency 
 of the evolution and the direction it is taking, 
 and to furnish at least a glimpse of the end it 
 must reach. 
 
 1 This history has been admirably written by C. Baur, Die 
 
 Christliche Lehre von der Versoehnung in ihrer geschichtlichen 
 Entwickelung, 1838 ; by A. Ritschl^ Die Lehre von der Reckt- 
 fertigung u. Versoehnung, 1870-74. Cf. also E. Menegoz, 
 The Theology of the Epistle to the Hebrews, ch. vii., 1894. 
 
FIRST PART 
 
 Biblical Conceptions 
 
 /. — The Narrative of the Fall of Adam, 
 Genesis Hi, 
 
 Since the Apostle Paul, in his famous 
 parallel between the two Adams, linked the 
 redemptive work of the second to the sin of 
 the first, the third chapter of Genesis has re- 
 mained the basis of the dogma of Redemption, 
 establishing its necessity and fixing its content. 
 Yet, the passage in Romans v. 12 stands 
 alone in the New Testament. There is noth- 
 ing in the preaching of Jesus and of the 
 ancient prophets to recall it, even in a slight 
 degree. Paul, a disciple of Gamaliel before 
 he became a follower of Christ, borrowed this 
 fine oratorical amplification from Rabbinical 
 
 16 
 
Biblical Conceptions 17 
 
 speculation,^ and whatever the authority 
 of the great Apostle, one may yet ask 
 whether it is possible for Christian thought to 
 remain eternally wedded to an idea the origin 
 of which is, after all, to be sought outside 
 the Bible, and which the author of the Epistle 
 to the Romans incidentally uses as an illus- 
 tration. Can the scheme which traditional 
 dogmatics has drawn from it, in order that 
 it might be made to include the dogma of 
 Redemption, still command the assent of our 
 mind and conscience ? For the Apostle Paul, 
 the Rabbis and their contemporaries, the old 
 narrative in Genesis stood for a positive histori- 
 cal fact ; is it the same for us ? It is well to 
 weigh the following considerations : — 
 
 1st. The discovery of the cuneiform tablets 
 which formed the palatine library at Nineveh 
 has revealed the fact that the cosmogony of 
 Genesis is not original, but points to a 
 Hebrew compilation and edition of a primi- 
 tive Chaldean mythology. It is therefore 
 
 1 Ferd. Weber, Judische Theologie, 2nd edit., 1897. 
 
1 8 The Atonement 
 
 impossible, unless one is willing to deceive 
 oneself, to ascribe the Biblical narratives as a 
 whole, up to the Deluge inclusively, to super- 
 natural revelation, and to see in them anything 
 but a succession of myths originating, like the 
 Hebrews themselves, in the valley of the 
 Tigris and Euphrates ; 
 
 2nd, The prolonged existence of prehistoric 
 man during the whole of the quaternary 
 period and perhaps beyond, the idea we 
 gather of his primitive condition here below 
 from the instruments, weapons, and meagre 
 industry, the remains of which he has almost 
 everywhere left behind him ; all that slow 
 and protracted development in a state of 
 infancy and barbarism is out of all proportion 
 and without any sort of connection with the 
 myth of Eden or of the Golden Age which 
 we find elsewhere. The positive view of the 
 actual appearance of humanity on our planet, 
 and of the humble and precarious existence 
 led by our ancestors for thousands and thou- 
 sands of years, has opened up horizons wholly 
 
Biblical Conceptions 19 
 
 unsuspected hitherto, and has thus completely 
 renewed our conception of the history of 
 origins ; 
 
 Srd, Comparative anatomy, embryology, 
 and the history of the forms of life on the 
 earth make it impossible for us to doubt that 
 the higher animal species were the ancestors of 
 the human species, and that a bond of organic 
 filiation links mankind to the chain formed by 
 living creatures ; 
 
 4ith, The idea of a primitive state of per- 
 fection, justice, knowledge, felicity, and im- 
 mortality, into which man is said to have been 
 created immediately by God, is a poetic dream 
 or a fiction of abstract logic. This notion is 
 contradicted not only by every historical 
 analogy, but even by the narrative of Genesis 
 itself ; 
 
 5th. The phenomena of generation and of 
 birth, of growth, decline, and finally death are 
 for physical organisms necessary phases of one 
 and the same vital development, and one is 
 not more accidental or supernatural than all 
 
20 The Atonement 
 
 the rest. It is no longer possible, nowadays, 
 for a man of culture to hold that physical 
 death was introduced into the world, super- 
 naturally, in order to punish the sin of Adam. 
 Moreover, the words of Genesis, far from 
 presenting primitive man to us as actually or 
 potentially immortal, describes him as, from 
 his very origin and not on account of his sin, 
 subject to the law according to which "dust 
 shall return to dust " ; 
 
 Qth, It may be argued that the myth 
 originally had a meaning and a purpose very 
 different from those discovered by the older 
 exegesis. The notion of a fall in the tra- 
 ditional sense and the doctrine of original 
 sin, transmitted with its guilt to the entire 
 race, are foreign to it. In eating of the 
 forbidden fruit, man was doubtless dis- 
 obedient ; but he none the less acquired 
 thereby the knowledge of good and evil, 
 which was an undoubted advance upon his 
 former state. Had he been able at the same 
 time to eat of the fruit of the tree of life. 
 
Biblical Conceptions 21 
 
 he would have become immortal and as one 
 of the elohim. But the latter prevented him. 
 Hence the intermediary state in which man 
 found himself arrested, capable of knowledge 
 like the elohim, but subject to death just as 
 the animals, and condemned to lead a pre- 
 carious life, full of misery, strife, and labour. 
 The mjrthological drama of Genesis seems to 
 indicate the first awakening of the moral 
 consciousness with the feeling of the painful 
 contradictions which ever accompany it. It 
 cannot serve as an historical foundation for 
 the corresponding drama of Redemption. 
 The dogma of the Fall henceforth remains 
 unsubstantiated ; it must of necessity be 
 radically transformed and liberated from the 
 old mythological form, if it is not to be 
 stifled beneath it. 
 
 //. — The Conception of Sacrifice 
 
 The second notion on which the dogma 
 rests, is the idea of a substitution of persons 
 in punishment, satisf actio vicariai the victim 
 
22 The Atonement 
 
 taking the place of the sinner, and representing 
 him in the endurance of the penalty for sin. 
 Such is, properly speaking, the doctrine of 
 expiation. It was thought possible to deduce 
 it from a kind of universal revelation, witnessed 
 to by the ritual of sacrifice, which everywhere 
 prevailed. But is that the real meaning of 
 primitive sacrifices and, in particular, of 
 Biblical sacrifices? 
 
 The pious Semite felt himself, before his 
 own particular Divinity, in the position of a 
 slave, ebed, before his master, and of a subject 
 before his king. That is why the word ebed 
 so frequently enters into the composition of 
 Semitic proper names.^ It is this feeling of 
 absolute dependence or belonging which 
 characterizes the religion of the entire race, 
 and more specially of Israel. The worshipper, 
 therefore, acted towards his god as towards an 
 earthly master. It was not lawful to come 
 before him with empty hands {cf. Mai. i. 
 7-9). The offering which a person brought 
 
 1 Ebed melekj Abdiel, Ohadiah, or in Arab., Abdallah, etc. 
 
Biblical Conceptions 23 
 
 to the altar was the acknowledgment of this 
 sovereignty, a tribute and rightful homage. 
 
 But this political conception of sacrifice is, 
 however, not the primitive one. Numerous 
 traces in the Bible reveal a far more ancient 
 view^ : the god eats like men, he requires food, 
 and the sacrifice is at first an offering of 
 food. The prophets still call the altar "the 
 table of Yahveh," and what is offered, the 
 so-called meat of Yahveh (Ezech. xli. 22 ; 
 Mai. i. 12-14 ; Mich. vi. 6 ; Ps. 1. 12 and 13, 
 etc.). Later on, as a result of relative 
 spiritualization, men came to think that the 
 god fed on the odour of the burnt offering, 
 and that this odour was pleasing to him 
 (1 Sam. xxvi. 19 ; Gen. viii. 20 ; Ex. xxix. 18, 
 etc.).' 
 
 The worshipper naturally chose for his 
 offering the choicest and best of his posses- 
 sions. Young fat animals with delicate and 
 
 1 From this old conception the Epistle to the Ephesians 
 (v. 2) draws a metaphor which it applies to the death of 
 Christy Ovcriav tw ^ew cts ocrfirjv evtoSt'as. 
 
24 The Atonement 
 
 tender flesh were worth far more than the 
 fruits of the earth, and, of the animal itself, 
 the more savoury parts were also the special 
 portions set apart for the god. See with 
 what severity Malachi reproaches the Jews 
 of his time with offering upon the altar of 
 Yahveh their sick animals (Mai. i. 7-14), a 
 thing they would not dare to do to an earthly 
 king. 
 
 There was yet another idea in primitive 
 sacrifices, that of communion, of a close bond, 
 and herein lay the significance of the blood. 
 When two individuals of a different race 
 wished to unite, each made a cut in the other 
 and sucked the other's blood. Henceforth 
 they were considered as of the same kin. 
 Every covenant had thus to be sealed in 
 blood. It was not otherwise with the 
 covenant made with the Divinity. It is the 
 blood that renders the covenant efficacious 
 and binding^ (Ex. xxiv. 6-8). 
 
 The ritual of sacrifice contained in the first 
 
 1 Mark xiv. 24. 
 
Biblical Conceptions 25 
 
 chapters of Leviticus was drawn up after 
 and during the period of the second Temple. 
 But the numerous developments dictated 
 by sacerdotal casuistry, and the carefully 
 regulated scale of compensation between the 
 gravity of the fault and the price of the 
 victim, can finally be traced down to the 
 primitive and quite simple ideas we have just 
 set forth. As to the notion of penal substi- 
 tution, of the exchange of the life and suffer- 
 ing of the victim for the life and suffering 
 of the guilty, it never once appears. 
 
 A few remarks will help to establish the 
 nature and significance of the rite of 
 propitiation : — 
 
 1^^. What propitiates God is the fact that 
 He receives something that is agreeable to Him. 
 One must flatter His tastes and please Him 
 by showing Him that, in order to obtain His 
 favour, one does not hesitate in bringing Him 
 of one's very best. The offering blots out the sin 
 because it covers it ; God's eyes resting on the 
 gift, no longer behold the fault. So it comes 
 
26 The Atonement 
 
 that each one offers what he has. If anyone 
 is too poor to bring even two young pigeons, 
 he shall bring foi^ that wherein he hath sinned 
 a small measure of fine flour for atonement 
 (Lev. V. 11). It is evident that what Leviticus 
 understands by atonement is something quite 
 other than what the theology of the Church 
 means to-day. Since, in this sacrifice for sin, 
 the blood may be replaced by fine flour, it is 
 not doubtful that the blood was at first offered 
 to God not on account of the penal suffering 
 which it represented, but because, being the 
 life itself, it belonged by right to God, the 
 author of life, and must ever be given up to 
 Him (Lev. xvii. 11). 
 
 2nd, Blood is the sacred element above all 
 others, and as such possesses, in an eminent 
 degree, the power of purifying and removing 
 uncleanness. So blood is sprinkled not only 
 upon the worshipper, but also upon all the 
 objects that are to be consecrated to God 
 and presented pure before Him — the altar, 
 the sacrificial instruments, the raiment, the 
 
Biblical Conceptions 27 
 
 polluted house, the leper who is cured, etc. 
 (Lev. iv. 7, 17 ; xiv. 51, etc.). All this should 
 be called purification, not atonement. There 
 is no more atonement, properly so called, in 
 all these acts than there is in the Catholic 
 sacrament of baptism, in which the consecrated 
 water is supposed, by its own inherent power, 
 to wash away the original stain. 
 
 ^rd. The act of laying the hand upon the 
 head of the intended victim is repeated in 
 every form of sacrifice (Lev. i. 4 ; iii. 2, 8, 
 13 ; iv. 4, 24, etc.). But this ritual act 
 symbolizes neither a substitution of persons, 
 nor the transfer of the sins of a man upon the 
 head of an animal. It merely signifies the act 
 of offering freely, the willing surrender of a 
 thing in one's possession, which one conse- 
 crates to God. The high-priest lays the sins 
 of the people upon the head of the goat for 
 Azazel, not only by a gesture of the hand, 
 but by a public confession and an express 
 declaration (Lev. xvi. 21). This goat is 
 henceforth unclean ; it can no longer be 
 
2 8 The Atonement 
 
 offered to God ; it is sent away into the 
 wilderness in order that it may bear the 
 iniquities of the people. Azazel, to whom 
 the goat is devoted, can only be an evil god, 
 the adversary of Yahveh, a demon who makes 
 his abode in solitary places. On the contrary, 
 the goat set apart for Yahveh has no sin laid 
 upon him ; he is sacrificed as a holy victim, 
 and the propitiatory offering influences God, 
 not because the sin has been punished in the 
 victim, but because the latter, being of a fine 
 quality, has produced an agreeable impression 
 upon the one to whom it was offered. 
 
 Mh, From the old ideas and customs the 
 sacrificial code has drawn a complete system 
 of casuistry in which is carefully set forth 
 the value of the oblation corresponding to 
 each fault. But this very tariff proves that 
 the Levitical sacrifice belongs to quite a 
 different circle of ideas from that of legal 
 atonement. 
 
 5th, Finally, it will be noticed that in the 
 Levitical ritual the question is not one of 
 
Biblical Conceptions 29 
 
 every sin, but solely of sins of ignorance and 
 of unintentional sins. As to high-handed 
 and deliberate crimes, their authors are to be 
 •exterminated ; no atonement or satisfaction 
 is possible (Num. xv. 27-30). 
 
 In a word, the ideas of substitution and of 
 penal satisfaction are entirely absent from the 
 Biblical sacrifices. To make propitiation for 
 sin, is to cause God to become propitious ; 
 that is to say, to obtain His favour, and this 
 one obtains by offering Him savoury food or 
 other things of value. The prophets rose up 
 against this puerile and barbarous conception 
 of worship, this superstitious belief in the 
 value of sacrifice, and proclaimed the voice of 
 conscience. 
 
 ///. — The Ethical Doctrine of the Prophets 
 
 This doctrine constitutes an enormous pro- 
 gress over the old sacerdotal theories. Two 
 elements compose and characterize it : a 
 moral element, justice founded on individual 
 responsibility and reduced to purity of heart 
 
30 The Atonement 
 
 and uprightness of will ; and a religious 
 element, divine mercy requiring, in order to 
 be exercised, nothing but the repentance and 
 conversion of the sinner. 
 
 These two ideas, the very foundation of 
 the religion of the prophets, are strongly 
 expressed by Ezekiel (xviii. 14-24). The 
 son shall not die for the iniquity of his father. 
 
 .... The soul that sinneth, it shall die 
 
 If the wicked turn from all his sins that he 
 hath committed, and keep all my statutes, 
 
 he shall live and not die Have I any 
 
 pleasure in the death of the wicked? saith 
 the Lord, and not rather that he should 
 return from his way and live? .... 
 
 Hence it is easy to see why the prophets 
 so strongly and ruthlessly attacked the super- 
 stitions and interested motives of those who 
 hoped to substitute offerings and sacrifices 
 for repentance, inward justice, purity of heart 
 and hand. " I am full, saith the Lord, of 
 the flesh of your rams and of the fat of your 
 bullocks ; I am weary of the blood of lambs 
 
Biblical Conceptions 31 
 
 and of goats ; your incense is an abomination 
 
 unto me To what purpose are your 
 
 sacrifices? .... Your hands are full of 
 blood. Wash you, make you clean. Put 
 away the evil of your doings from before my 
 
 eyes, cease to do evil Though your 
 
 sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as 
 snow . . . ." (Isaiah i. 10-20). All the 
 prophets gave expression to the same protest, 
 all denied the religious and moral value of 
 sacrifices, all absolutely rejected their objective 
 efficacy for atonement (Hosea v. 6, vi. 6 ; 
 Amos V. 21 ; Micah vi. 6-9 ; Jer. vi. 20 ; 
 Prov. XV. 8; Ps. xl. 6, 1. 8 and 21, etc.). 
 
 So pure and exalted is the prophets' idea 
 of righteousness that upon it they make 
 the entire destiny of individuals and nations 
 depend. Righteousness is the life of those 
 who practise it, just as sin is the death of 
 those who commit it. Yet this individualistic 
 conception of righteousness does not suffice 
 to account for the unmerited suffering of the 
 best and most righteous portion of the people. 
 
32 The Atonement 
 
 The second Isaiah seems to have specially 
 meditated upon this painful problem, and he 
 has solved it by the creation of that sublime 
 conception of "the Servant of Yahveh" 
 suffering for the sins of his people. Already 
 in Genesis Abraham intercedes for the guilty 
 cities, and God acknowledges that the presence 
 of a handful of righteous men in Sodom and 
 Gomorrah would have sufficed to save them. 
 
 The second Isaiah goes farther in the same 
 direction. He beholds "the Servant of the 
 Lord," the faithful of Israel, to whom belong 
 the promises of the future, humbled, stricken, 
 involved in the present ruin of the whole 
 nation, suffisring for crimes he has not com- 
 mitted, misfortunes he has not deserved, and 
 becoming by his patience and silent and con- 
 fident submission the cause of the entire 
 nation's return.' Will anyone talk, in this 
 connection, of expiation and of substitution 
 of the innocent for the guilty ? We will not 
 quarrel over words ; we will only draw atten- 
 
 1 Isaiah liii. Cf. Note I. p. 138. 
 
Biblical Conceptions 33 
 
 tion to the fact that all these expressions 
 are only imagery and metaphor, as when we 
 say that a mother is punished for the sins of 
 her son, and that she redeems them by her 
 self-sacrifice. This is very different from the 
 idea of judicial substitution. We are here 
 in the presence of one of the great moral laws 
 of history, and one which is also the most 
 fruitful cause of the progress of the con- 
 science. No one can escape from the solidarity 
 of the organic group to which he belongs, 
 and the whole body suffers through the faults 
 or benefits by the virtues of the members 
 who compose it. 
 
 It is easy to see how admirably this way 
 of looking upon the passion of the righteous 
 under the old covenant, in other words, of 
 " the Servant of the Lord," suits the passion 
 and death of Christ. The Apostles were right 
 in applying it to Him. There was no 
 supernatural prediction, as they imagined, 
 but there is a profound analogy, and we 
 do not think that it is possible, evenjin our 
 
34 The Atonement 
 
 day, better to appraise the life, sufferings, 
 and death of Jesus than by considering them 
 in this light. 
 
 If now we compare the axiom in Ezekiel, 
 establishing the principle of individual respon- 
 sibility, with the theory in Isaiah that the 
 righteous suffer for the guilty, we discover a 
 contradiction which will constitute, through- 
 out the ages, the chief difficulty of Christian 
 theodicy. But the problem cannot be solved 
 by the theory of judicial atonement ; it is one 
 which far transcends the sphere of law. We are 
 face to face with the mysterious ways of God. 
 The terms of the contradiction which even 
 now confronts us are furnished by the very 
 constitution of things. On the one hand, 
 individual responsibility is one of the inde- 
 feasible data of the moral conscience ; on the 
 other, the fact that some suffer for the faults 
 or benefit by the qualities and virtues of others, 
 is an undeniable datum furnished by our every- 
 day life. How to conciliate these two terms 
 is the task set before theology. 
 
Biblical Conceptions 35 
 
 IV, — The Gospel of Jesus 
 
 As regards the means of salvation, Jesus' 
 preaching is the revival and complete expan- 
 sion of that of the prophets. Two questions 
 must be considered : 1^^, The teaching of Jesus 
 and His good tidings (evangel) concerning 
 the remission of sins ; 2nd, How He looked 
 upon His sufferings and death, and what con- 
 nection He established between them and His 
 main work — the establishment of the Kingdom 
 of God. 
 
 Jesus demands but one condition for salva- 
 tion and the forgiveness of sins, the sinner's 
 return to God by an act of repentance and of 
 confidence. He takes up and develops the 
 theme of the second Isaiah (Matt. v. 3, sqq, ; 
 Luke iv. 17 ; Matt. xi. 28 ; cf, Isaiah Iv. 1-9, 
 Ivii. 15-16, Ixi. 1-2; Ps. ciii. 8-13). And 
 consistently enough with this act of grace, 
 with this free gift of the merciful Father, the 
 forgiveness of sins requires, in order to be 
 offered to sinners, neither sacrificial ordinance 
 
36 The Atonement 
 
 nor expiatory rite. So Jesus, as the Messiah, 
 extends forgiveness to all, without ever making 
 the slightest allusion to the Temple sacrifices, 
 or to the special value which will attach to 
 His suffering and death. Ecclesiastical ortho- 
 doxy looks upon the parables of the prodigal 
 son, of the publican and of the Pharisee 
 as doctrinally incomplete. Yet nothing is 
 historically more certain than that these 
 parables contain all that Jesus meant by 
 " His Gospel." 
 
 Towards the end of His career, about six 
 months before the catastrophe, Christ looked 
 upon His death as inevitable, and spoke of it 
 to His disciples as necessary (Mark viii. 31, 
 and paral. x. 38-45). But is He here alluding 
 to a metaphysical and, so to speak, intra-divine 
 necessity? Has Jesus the slightest idea that 
 He must die in order to give His Father's 
 justice that penal satisfaction without which 
 the Father would no longer be the Father ? 
 Nothing is more foreign from His Gospel than 
 such a thought. He considers death inevitable 
 
Biblical Conceptions 57 
 
 historically, on account of the course taken by 
 the drama of His hfe and work. At first He 
 had hoped to convert the people, and had seri- 
 ously attempted the task. He discovers, as He 
 proceeds, that the spirit of incredulity is ever 
 growing stronger and more hostile. He looks 
 upon the Baptist's end as a prophecy of His 
 own. He has already, in the fifty-third chapter 
 of Isaiah, read His own fate. His conscience 
 lays upon Him the holy obligation not to 
 abandon His work, and circumstances make 
 Him foresee His defeat and death. Is His 
 death then to precede the establishment of the 
 Kingdom of God ? Having consecrated His 
 life to it. He will now give His blood for it. 
 He bows before, the mystery of God's ways, 
 and morally sacrifices Himself as all God's 
 servants have done. That in this case there 
 should have been no metaphysical necessity 
 consciously in the mind of Jesus, is proved by 
 His prayer in Gethsemane. Jesus ever felt 
 Himself to be within the contingencies of 
 history, and to the very end He asked if it 
 
38 The Atonement 
 
 were not possible that such a cup of bitterness 
 should pass away from Him. 
 
 In another place Jesus alludes to His death 
 and gives the reason for it : " The Son of man 
 came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, 
 and to give His life a ransom for many, Bovvai 
 rrjv ^vx^^ avTov \vTpov avri iroXkcov " (Mark 
 X. 45 and paral.). These words must not be 
 separated from their context. AovvaL Tr)v 
 ^vxw is connected with hiaKovrjOrjvaL ; it is 
 the sequel, the consummation and ultimate 
 issue. To isolate the death from the rest of 
 the life, to distinguish between an active and a 
 passive obedience, is a Scholastic fiction, no less 
 anti-historical than anti-moral. Jesus began 
 to give His life when He entered upon His 
 ministry ; He ended giving it on the cross. 
 The external acts are different ; the cause which 
 produces them, namely, faith and love, is the 
 same from one end to the other. 
 
 As to the other words in the sentence, 
 XvTpov avrl ttoWcov, they constitute a figure, 
 a kind of shortened parable. Jesus could 
 
Biblical Conceptions 39 
 
 only establish the Kingdom of God by destroy- 
 ing that of Satan ; He could only save men 
 by delivering them from that slavery to Satan 
 into which they had fallen through their sin. 
 Now a ransom must be paid if a slave is to 
 be redeemed. If, therefore, one is desirous 
 of keeping this metaphor drawn from the 
 demoniacal mythology then universally be- 
 lieved in, one will say that Jesus looked 
 upon the gift of His life as a ransom paid 
 to the devil, in order that the latter might 
 be deprived of many slaves, of whom Christ 
 desired to make so many citizens of the 
 Heavenly Kingdom which He was about to 
 inaugurate on earth. Hence His death is 
 not the cause of the forgiveness of sins, but 
 the means whereby Satan is vanquished and 
 the Kingdom of God actually founded. The 
 idea of an atoning sacrifice, of a ransom paid 
 to God, is entirely foreign to this essentially 
 metaphorical passage.^ 
 
 1 Elsewhere^ instead of the figure of a contract and 
 of a ransom paid to the devil, Jesus uses that of a struggle 
 
40 The Atonement 
 
 Neither is the idea to be found in the 
 words by which Christ instituted the Last 
 Supper. Of the four accounts which have 
 come down to us, the shortest, that of ^lark 
 xiv. 23 and 24, which probably emanates 
 from the circle of Peter, is, if not the most 
 authentic, at least the nearest to the source. 
 What did Jesus mean by these words: to 
 aI§jLd yuov r^s (fcou^) Sio^m^? He was 
 clearly thinking of Ex. xxiv. 8-11, where 
 the same expression is found: damhaberith ; 
 the blood of the covenant was not in the 
 least intended to make atonement for sin, 
 but to seal, according to ancient custom, the 
 conclusion of a treaty or of a contract We 
 find this custom described in Gen. xv. 9 {cf. 
 Ex. xxiv. 8-11). The animal offered as a 
 sacrifice of communion was divided into two 
 
 with a giant or stnmg man who must be OTerocmie in 
 Older to be spoiled (Matt. xiL 29; Luke xL 22^ x. 18). 
 He will OYercome him, bat will fiist &U beneath his Mows. 
 The figure is diffeienl^ but the ethical itxX of love faithfiil 
 unto death is the ff*f»*i*, And that is the all-important 
 matter. 
 
Biblical Conceptions 41 
 
 equal parts. The two contracting parties 
 were made to pass between these parts and 
 were sprinkled with blood. And this blood, 
 with the flesh partaken of in common, gave 
 a religious value to the treaty concluded. 
 Hence the exfressionferirefoedus, which is 
 found in almost all languages. The sacrifice 
 ordained to solemnize the covenant on Sinai, 
 between Yahveh and Israel, has no other 
 meaning. We see Moses dividing the blood 
 of the victims slain into two parts, one being 
 placed upon the altar of Yahveh, the other 
 being used to sprinkle the people. The 
 Epistle to the Hebrews is well acquainted 
 with the origin and meaning of this ceremony 
 (Heb. ix. 18). As God is the initiator of 
 the covenant, the sacrifice offered by the 
 people upon this occasion is intended for a 
 sacrifice of thanksgiving and peace, by which 
 the people manifest their gratitude and joy 
 to God. That is why the ceremony ends 
 with a meal at which the fiesh of the sacrifice, 
 joyfully partaken of by all, finally seals the 
 
42 The Atonement 
 
 union of the contracting parties. Now, the 
 coming of the Kingdom of God was looked 
 upon by the prophets and Jesus as a new 
 covenant made between God and the Messianic 
 people. Is it strange, then, that the Lord, 
 when about to die, should have considered 
 Himself the victim whose blood was to seal 
 this covenant, and that, at the last meal. He 
 should have given His flesh as the aliment of 
 the Messianic feast, which was to unite God 
 and His new people for ever ? But let us be 
 careful ; in this order of ideas there is not 
 the smallest room for the notion of judicial 
 atonement.^ 
 
 V, — Pauline Theory of Redemption 
 We say " Pauline theory," because with 
 the author of the Epistles to the Galatians 
 and to the Romans we quit the realm of 
 metaphor and popular language and enter the 
 sphere of theology. 
 
 ^ We have not examined the words spoken on the cross 
 (Mark. xv. 34 and paral.), because they have no connection 
 whatever with the question we are here discussing. 
 
Biblical Conceptions 43 
 
 Paul had not been a disciple of the 
 Pharisees to no purpose ; from them he 
 learned the strict conception of penal law, 
 a judicial conception of the divine law. The 
 condemnation inflicted by the law upon sin 
 and the sinner must be borne. This con- 
 demnation has fallen upon Christ. He who 
 knew no sin was made to be sin, that we 
 might become the righteousness of God in 
 Him (2 Cor. v. 21 ; Gal. iii. 18 ; Rom. iii. 
 25). " If one died for all, therefore all died " 
 (2 Cor. V. 14). Thus Paul's theology 
 positively contains the idea of substitution 
 and exchange between Christ and the sinners 
 whom He saves by His death. He suffers 
 and dies for their sakes and in their stead. 
 
 And yet the Pauline theory is none the 
 less very different from the one which will 
 later on hold the field with Saint Anselm — 
 Paul does not endeavour to reconcile God's 
 justice and mercy. Nor has God any need 
 to be reconciled to man. God has of His own 
 good pleasure, evSoKia, taken the initiative 
 
44 The Atonement 
 
 in the work of reconciliation ; God was in 
 Christ and working through Christ to reconcile 
 the world unto Himself. What Paul calls 
 SLKaioavvrj Qeov is quite as much a manifesta- 
 tion of grace as of justice. It is justice realized 
 in love which forgives and sacrifices itself 
 (Rom. iii. 26, v. 8, viii. 37 and 39; Eph. i. 
 6-9, V. i., ii. 4; Gal. iv. 6, /c.r.X.). It is by 
 starting from this idea of the grace of God 
 always and everywhere active, and from the 
 Pharisaic notion of law, that Paul constructs 
 his theory of Redemption ; thus the latter 
 comes before us as the conciliation, at once 
 skilful and profound, of the two antinomical 
 premisses of his thought. 
 
 " The wages of sin is death " (Rom. vi. 23). 
 "For he that hath died is justified from sin, 
 having paid the penalty " (Rom. vi. 7 ; cf'. 
 Rom. vii. 1 and 2). Such is the twofold 
 judicial axiom whence the apostle's reasoning 
 starts. In the matter of punishment it cannot 
 be a mere question of the substitution of an 
 innocent one in the place of the guilty, which 
 
Biblical Conceptions 45 
 
 would be violating the law under pretence of 
 satisfying its demands. No, the sinner him- 
 self must undergo the penalty of his sin. But 
 how will he be able to undergo the penalty, 
 that is to say, die, and at the same time be 
 saved ? This is the miracle which divine 
 grace has successfully accomplished ; this it is 
 which rightly constitutes the essence of what 
 Paul terms " the gospel of the cross." 
 
 Christ in His love dies for us ; but this 
 will avail nothing and produce no result, 
 unless by faith we die in Him and with Him. 
 Atonement is made not only by the blood of 
 Christ, but also by the faith of the sinner: 
 OP TTpoidero 6 Geo? iKacTTripLov Sta Trtcrreo)? iv t(o 
 avTov alfiaTL, Rom. iii. 25. Faith is not only 
 the condition of the subjective efficacy of 
 atonement; it is also the essential means 
 whereby atonement is effected. If Christ by 
 love identifies Himself with guilty humanity, 
 the sinner by faith becomes united with 
 Christ by the likeness of His death ; he dies 
 with Him (Rom. vi. 1-10). The faith of 
 
46 The Atonement 
 
 the redeemed is the counterpart of the love of 
 the redeemer. This twofold identification is 
 more than a metaphor; it is the miracle of 
 grace and faith. Hence it follows that the 
 death on Calvary, caused by the sin of all, is 
 repeated in the soul of the sinner, by faith, on 
 account of his own sin. Such is the profound 
 manner in which Paul understood the re- 
 pentance to which the prophets and Jesus 
 promised the forgiveness of sins. Death with 
 Christ is, for the individual sinner, the way he 
 expiates his sin; that is to say, the way he 
 bears the penalty and consequently is absolved. 
 The great benefit of Christ to sinful men, who 
 repent and believe, is not therefore, as in the 
 theory of Anselm, that He exempts them by 
 dying in their stead, but, on the contrary, 
 that He enables them to die with Him and 
 personally to bear in Him the penalty of their 
 sin. The law which punishes sin by death 
 has therefore produced for them its full effect ; 
 the law has exercised its right to the very 
 utmost, but by so doing has become of none 
 
Biblical Conceptions 47 
 
 effect, and the sentence of condemnation 
 renders itself void, those who came under it 
 escaping through death, and the law itself 
 ceasing to have dominion over them. 
 
 But this is not all. Having died with 
 Christ by faith, the sinner, now a new creature 
 in Him, rises with Him, by faith, to a new 
 life, the life of the Spirit. He is a new 
 creature, in other words, a new creation of 
 that Spirit which raised Christ and raises the 
 dead : KaLvr) /crtcris, ip KaLvoTrjTL ^cu'^9, Tn^eu/xaro? 
 (2 Cor. V. 17 ; Rom. vi. 4, vii. 6, viii. 1-10). 
 Hence we see the value and importance of 
 the fact of the resurrection of Christ, in His 
 work of redemption. It was no less necessary 
 than the death itself, for the latter would 
 leave us in death ; it is the resurrection that 
 introduces us into life, and, by putting an 
 end to the period of the reign of the law, of 
 sin and of the flesh, inaugurates the period of 
 the Spirit and of eternal life : 09 wapeSoOr) Sta 
 TOL TTapaTTTcofiaTa rjixcoT/y kol rjyepdr) Sta ttjv 8t/cat- 
 (oo-Lv r)iJL(ov (Rom. iv. 25). It is this aspect 
 
48 The Atonement 
 
 of the redemptive value of the resurrection of 
 Christ that constitutes the originaUty of the 
 Pauhne theory and forbids its being con- 
 founded with any other. In reality, the right 
 expression to be used here is not substitution, 
 but mutual identification. 
 
 The historical drama of the death and 
 resurrection of Christ is an external drama 
 without value or incomplete, as you will, 
 except in so far as it is morally reproduced 
 by faith in the consciousness of the Christian. 
 Strictly speaking, it is not Christ who expiates 
 the sins of humanity; humanity expiates in 
 Him its own sins, by dying to satisfy the de- 
 mands of the law, and by rising again, a new 
 creation, at the call of Him who raises the dead.^ 
 
 VI, — The Doctrine of the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews 
 
 When we pass from the Epistles of Paul to 
 the Epistle to the Hebrews, we enter upon 
 
 ^ See Paul : Sketch of Development of his Doctrine, 3rd 
 edit., I896. Appendix. 
 
Biblical Conceptions 49 
 
 an entirely different order of thought. The 
 central idea of this Epistle is the idea of 
 sacrifice. The whole of Christ's work is 
 summed up in His sacerdotal functions, and 
 these functions are exactly the same as those 
 described in Leviticus. The ritual of 
 Leviticus is, in its view, a preordained and 
 divine code or pattern of man's relations with 
 God, to which the author's thought remains 
 religiously attached and beyond which it does 
 not dream of soaring.^ The authority of the 
 Mosaic law is beyond dispute, and is for ever 
 binding. The question is not to reform it, but 
 to understand it, and to discover, under the 
 outward forms of the ordinances and beneath 
 the letter, the types of the spiritual and 
 permanent reaUties of which they are the 
 faithful images. 
 
 The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews is 
 a disciple of Philo. He thinks and reasons in 
 the Alexandrian categories of the "world of 
 
 1 E. M^N^Goz, The Theologi) of the Epistle to the Hehreirs, 
 chapter on Sacrifice, 1894. 
 
 4 
 
50 The Atonement 
 
 sense " and the " world of intelligence," the 
 former being the shadow and reproduction 
 of the latter. Hence proceeds a complete 
 method of exegesis. Just as there are two 
 worlds, there are two covenants, two 
 sanctuaries, two altars, two priesthoods, two 
 sacrificial cults, opposed to each other as the 
 heavens to the earth, as eternal types to their 
 shadow or earthly and transient copies. Such 
 is the analogy between the two economies, the 
 Jewish and the Christian : they are absolutely 
 identical, with this difference, that one is only 
 the shadow of the good things of which the 
 other possesses the reality. All is symmetrical 
 and is repeated in both with perfect agree- 
 ment, with different degrees of efficacy and 
 glory. To the earthly sanctuary, made with 
 hands, corresponds the invisible and heavenly 
 temple ; to the high-priest of the family of 
 Aaron, who officiates in the first, the high- 
 priest after the order of Melchizedek, who 
 officiates for ever in the second. So, too, the 
 various kinds of sacrifices of the first covenant, 
 
Biblical Conceptions 51 
 
 from the simple offering to the sacrifice for 
 sin, reappear in the new worship, and are 
 offered by the eternal sacrificer in the highest 
 heavens. 
 
 The only difference strongly insisted upon 
 by the author of the Epistle is that in the new 
 sacrifice Christ is at once the sacrificer and 
 the victim. He offers His own blood on the 
 heavenly altar for the purification of the 
 people. The following very important fact 
 should be noted : the idea of a chastisement 
 falling by substitution upon Him, the idea of 
 the innocent enduring the sufferings merited by 
 the guilty, is wholly absent from the Epistle, 
 because it is entirely foreign to the Levitical 
 ritual, which the Christian writer adopts and 
 scrupulously follows. Undoubtedly he holds 
 it to be axiomatic that, apart from shedding 
 and sprinkling of blood, there is no remission 
 or valid treaty of alliance. But he does not 
 understand it otherwise than Leviticus itself. 
 Blood possesses this efficacy, not on account 
 of the death or sufferings it may represent, but 
 
52 The Atonement 
 
 because it is the divine means of purification, 
 and because God has ordained that it should 
 be employed for that purpose on the altar. 
 The blood of animals, being carnal, purifies 
 the body and all things from material stains ; 
 the blood of Christ, being spiritual, represent- 
 ing the life of the Spirit, purifies the con- 
 science from moral defilement and renders 
 God propitious (Heb. ix. 22, 13 and 14, etc.). 
 We see that the Levitical notion of sacrifice 
 is not, in this Epistle, simply a comparison 
 or literary illustration, but constitutes the 
 essence and defines the very nature of the 
 sacrifice which Christ offers to God, by pour- 
 ing out His blood in the heavenly temple upon 
 the eternal altar.^ 
 
 The newest feature in the conception of this 
 Epistle, and the most decisive factor for the 
 
 1 It is important to remark that if the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews alludes to the sufferings endured by Christ on 
 earth they are only considered as serving to perfect Him 
 in obedience and holiness^ and to make Him feel compas- 
 sion for our own trials ; but they are never taken into 
 account to explain the expiatory virtue of His sacrifice. 
 
Biblical Conceptions 53 
 
 future of the doctrine, is the fact that the 
 propitiation of sins is transferred from earth to 
 heaven — " Christ entered not into a holy place 
 made with hands, but into heaven itself, into 
 a greater and more perfect tabernacle," where, 
 as a divine liturge. He lays upon the heavenly 
 altar the holy offering of His body and of the 
 blood that cleanses from all sin (viii. 2 ; ix. 
 11, 24, etc.). It is a sort of ideal and divine 
 Mass, if we dare use the expression, which the 
 high-priest after the order of Melchizedek 
 perpetually offers up before God for men. 
 Thus the death of Christ passes out of history 
 and assumes the character of a metaphysical 
 act. At the same time Christ Himself passes 
 out of humanity and, as Philo had already 
 said of the Logos, becomes the supreme and 
 eternal sacrificer, ordained by God to offer up 
 for ever, according to an immutable ritual, the 
 worship which the whole creation owes to its 
 author. 
 
 We can easily understand how different 
 all this is from Paul's theory. Instead of a 
 
54 The Atonement 
 
 human drama, happening in the very midst 
 of human history and in the conscience of 
 each believer, in order that it may renew by 
 a moral crisis both the individual and humanity, 
 we have here a priestly function, a transcen- 
 dent act of ritual purification, accomplished 
 outside humanity, and devoid of all organic 
 bond either with its moral condition or with 
 the evolution of its destinies. The astonish- 
 ing thing is that it should have taken exegesis 
 so long to distinguish between two conceptions 
 which differ so radically. 
 
 VII, — The Johannine Doctrine 
 
 This doctrine is closely allied to the funda- 
 mental conception of the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews. And this is not surprising: it 
 starts from the same Jewish notion of sacrifice 
 and arrives at the same Logos doctrine ; finally 
 it is developed under the influence of the 
 same Alexandrian theology, with the same 
 antithesis between the world of sense which 
 only possesses the shadow of reahty, and the 
 
Biblical Conceptions 55 
 
 suprasensible world alone true (a\7}0Lv6<;) and 
 eternal. 
 
 In the same sense as the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews, the author of the First Epistle of 
 John writes that Christ is our propitiation 
 (IXao-fios) and that His blood cleanses from 
 all sin (1 John i. 7, ii. 2, iv. 10). In the 
 Revelation, likewise from the Jewish point 
 of view, mention is made of Him who washed 
 us in His blood, and again of the blood of 
 the Lamb that was slain, in which the elect 
 have washed their robes (Rev. i. 5, vii. 14, 
 etc. ). Here again we must reiterate : the 
 blood purifies and washes, not by the pain 
 and death caused by the fact of being poured 
 out, but by its own inherent virtue, and because 
 God has given it to purify men and things 
 before Him (Lev. xvii. 11, sqq, ; xiv. 25, 
 51 ; xvi. 18-20). 
 
 In the Johannine writings there is also a 
 heavenly sanctuary with altars and a sacerdotal 
 worship (Rev. iv.-v.). It is true the epithet 
 "great high-priest" is not given to Christ; 
 
56 The Atonement 
 
 but there can be no doubt as to the priestly 
 function He fulfils before God in the heavenly 
 places. The prayer in chapter xvii. of the 
 Fourth Gospel has been rightly termed " high- 
 priestly." These words, dyta^co ifiavTOT/, " 1 
 sanctify myself," are to be understood of a 
 sacrifice in which, as in the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews, Christ is both priest and victim. 
 His function of advocate with the Father is 
 only another aspect and a consequence of 
 His priestly activity (John xvii. 19 ; 1 John 
 
 ii. 1). 
 
 Needless to say that in all this there is not 
 the slightest trace of the idea of expiation 
 through the equivalency of a sentence endured, 
 nor of judicial substitution of an innocent one 
 for the guilty, nor again of satisfaction given 
 to God's justice. The death of Jesus remains 
 throughout the means, not the cause of re- 
 demption, the initiative for which resides 
 solely in the love of the Father. Far from 
 the death of Christ being the cause of the 
 love of God, it was God's love that gave to 
 
Biblical Conceptions 57 
 
 the world the gift of the Son. " God so loved 
 the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, 
 that whosoever believeth in him should not 
 perish, but have eternal life " (John iii. 16 ; 
 1 John iv. 10). 
 
 Neither is the idea of atonement in the 
 Scholastic and judicial sense to be found 
 in the assimilation of Christ to the paschal 
 lamb. This rite had no atoning character.^ 
 The blood of the lamb sprinkled on the doors 
 of the children of Israel was simply a sign 
 for the destroying angel of Yahveh. On the 
 other hand, its flesh served as food, which was 
 eaten by the pilgrims journeying towards the 
 promised land. So too the incarnate Logos, 
 after having given His blood as a propitiation, 
 further gives His flesh and blood as food which 
 is to nourish and substantially transform the 
 believer. Beginning with the remission of 
 sins, the redemptive work is crowned by 
 
 1 The following words in the Gospel, 6 afivosy o aipwv rr)v 
 afiapTLav tov Koa-fiovy should be translated ^' the Lamb which 
 taketh away (and not which heareth) the sin of the world " 
 (John i. sb). 
 
58 The Atonement 
 
 the indwelling of the Logos in those who 
 are joined with Him by faith. This union 
 of the Logos with the human soul is a new 
 feature which the Greek Fathers worked out 
 with marked favour, making it the essential 
 and positive factor in the work of Christ: 
 humanity benefits not by the death of Christ, 
 but by His Incarnation. 
 
 To sum up. We succeed in clearly dis- 
 tinguishing two currents of thought in the 
 Bible : the one, starting from the Levitical 
 notion of sacrifice and worked out in the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews and in the Johannine 
 writings ; the other, starting from the prophets' 
 idea of the just suffering on account of the 
 sins and for the sake of His people, and taken 
 up by Jesus and Paul. The first idea is purely 
 ritual ; the second is essentially ethical, and is 
 drawn from the lessons of history. Those who, 
 with the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
 still believe that the worship of God by means 
 of the ritual of material offerings and slain 
 victims is of eternal and divine institution, 
 
Biblical Conceptions 59 
 
 may see a like sacrifice in the death of Christ 
 upon the cross. As for those who see in the 
 gifts and victims offered to the Divinity, in 
 order to obtain His favour, nothing but a primi- 
 tive and rude method corresponding to the 
 infancy of rehgion, they may still go so far 
 as to say with the Apostle Paul : " Christ loved 
 us and gave himself up for us, an offering and a 
 sacrifice to God for an odour of a sweet smell " 
 (Eph. V. 2) ; they may still repeat with the 
 same Apostle : " Present your bodies a hving 
 sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God" (Rom. xii. 1). 
 In both cases they will feel that they are only 
 speaking metaphorically, and are boiTOwing 
 figures from a past order of things, just as 
 poets still occasionally borrow them from myth- 
 ology and speak of the Muses, of Apollo and 
 his lyre. 
 
SECOND PART 
 
 Ecclesiastical Doctrine 
 
 /. — The Ideas of the Fathers — Ransom paid 
 to Satan i 
 
 One thing fills us with astonishment in 
 the history of the first centuries of the 
 Christian Church: while transforming the 
 celebration of the Eucharist into the expiatory 
 sacrifice of the Mass, and thus making the 
 death of Christ the centre of her worship, the 
 Church does not appear to have felt the need 
 of defining the meaning of Atonement in an 
 authoritative doctrine.^ Every controversy 
 turned upon Christology, which comprised 
 the doctrine of salvation. Everything else 
 appeared of minor importance. The signi- 
 
 1 CJ\ Note II. p. UO. 
 60 
 
Ecclesiastical Doctrine 6i 
 
 ficance and value of the sufferings of Jesus 
 were among the doctrinal questions which 
 might be freely discussed/ In the Apostles' 
 Creed, the Lord's death and the forgiveness 
 of sins are mentioned in two separate places, 
 and the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed 
 connects man's salvation in a general way 
 with the Incarnation, passion, and resurrection 
 of the God-man.^ With the exception of a 
 few passages in the epistles of Barnabas, of 
 Clement of Rome, in the Epistle to Diognetus, 
 which suggest now the thoughts and expres- 
 sions of the Epistle to the Hebrews, now those 
 of Paul,^ the Apostolic Fathers, and the 
 majority of the Fathers after them, lay even 
 more stress, in the work of Christ, upon the 
 doctrine He revealed and the example He set 
 than upon His sufferings and death.* The 
 
 1 Cf. Note III. p. 141. 
 
 2 Nic. CoNSTANTlNOP., Toj/ (vtov) . . . . Sio, T^v rj/JLcripav 
 (ruirrjpiav KareXOovra kol crapKoj^cvTa, TraOovra kol avaa-ravra. 
 
 3 Barnabas, Epist. ii.-xiv. ; Clement Rom., Epist. vii., 
 xvi., xxi. ; Ad. Diogn., ix. 
 
 4 Cf. Note IV. p. 141. 
 
62 The Atonement 
 
 dominant point of view throughout Greek 
 theology is that of a theosophy at once rational 
 and mystical, based on the central doctrine of 
 the Incarnation of the Logos, The redemptive 
 work itself proceeds from the fact of the 
 Incarnation. " God became man, that we 
 might become divine like him." ^ Such is the 
 formula then re-echoed on all sides. This 
 divinization of humanity by the union of the 
 Logos with a human body carries with it 
 sanctification and the germ of eternal life, 
 both physical and spiritual, for mankind, 
 subject until then to corruption and death. 
 Those who are united to the Logos will escape 
 death and rise again. ^ This action of the 
 divine Logos on the nature of man is generally 
 compared to that of leaven on dough, in 
 accordance with a figure borrowed from Paul. 
 Through the organic union of Christ with the 
 Church, which is His body, the entire body 
 
 ^ Athanasius, De Incarnatione Verbi Dei, 54 : Avtos 
 ivavOptiiTTTjcreVy iva r]fi€L<s ^coTrotiy^w/xev. 
 2 Cf. Note V. p. 143. 
 
Ecclesiastical Doctrine 63 
 
 enjoys the privileges of the chief of its 
 members. The sin of Adam had obhterated 
 the divine image which the Logos had stamped 
 in human nature ; the Logos, returning to 
 dwell in humanity, restores this marred image 
 and imparts to it even a greater lustre/ 
 
 The negative side of Christ's work was not 
 entirely neglected. Athanasius especially 
 recognized that the principal object of the 
 Incarnation of the Son of God was to be 
 found in the necessity of submitting to and 
 consequently of abolishing the sentence of 
 death incurred by all men. " The debt which 
 all owed, he says, must be paid off. All must 
 die 1 Therefore when He had by miracles 
 proved His divinity. He offered Himself up as 
 a victim on behalf of all, and, in the place of 
 all, gave up to death the temple of His body, 
 in order to set us right and to free us from 
 that old transgression, and also to show Him- 
 self stronger than death and to make His own 
 
 1 Gregory of N^yssa, Oral, calech., 32 ; Athanasius, De 
 Incamat. Verbi D., 13. 
 
64 The Atonement 
 
 body appear the first-fruits of the resurrection 
 of all." ^ 
 
 But if we inquire how the death of Christ 
 brought about the redemption of sinners, we 
 discover that almost all the Fathers looked 
 upon it as a semi-mythological and semi- 
 judicial drama of the strangest kind. The 
 theory of a ransom paid to the devil seems to 
 have been the continuation, within the Church, 
 of Gnostic speculations.^ This conception 
 pleased the popular fancy; but the more 
 theology pandered to it, the more it was 
 departing from the theory of a sacrifice offered 
 to God. Is it not strange to find that at 
 this time, in the primitive Catholic Church, 
 thought was going in one direction and wor- 
 ship in the other ? Had she been consistent, 
 the Church ought to have made of the Mass 
 a sacrifice offered to the devil. 
 
 Irenaeus seems to have been the first to 
 sketch the theory of a ransom understood in 
 
 ^ Athanasius, De Incamat. Verhi D., 20. 
 2 Cf. Note VI. p. 143. 
 
Ecclesiastical Doctrine 65 
 
 this sense. By its first sin humanity fell under 
 the lawful rule of Satan. This rule might 
 have been overcome by the all-powerful God, 
 who might have deprived Satan of his pro- 
 perty by an act of sovereign power. But 
 being essentially just, God meant to deal justly 
 even towards the prince of injustice. So He 
 proposed a contract in due form to the devil. 
 He offered him, as a ransom, the soul of His 
 Son in exchange for the souls of men. For 
 this the Son of God must be both man and 
 God : man, because He was to offer a ransom 
 for men ; God, in order, after His death, to 
 be able to triumph over Satan and hell. The 
 devil fell into the trap ; he accepted the bar- 
 gain, and released man in order to receive in 
 return the soul of the Son of God. But the 
 devil was not strong enough to keep His 
 soul. The Son of God left hell after having 
 demolished its portals. Nevertheless the con- 
 tract remained valid. God was not to blame. 
 The arch - deceiver had deceived himself.^ 
 
 1 Cf. Note VII. p. 144. 
 
66 The Atonement 
 
 Almost all the Fathers of the Church, from 
 Irenseus to Gregory the Great, took pleasure 
 in developing and preaching this theory, so 
 that it continued to grow richer in dramatic 
 details, to the confusion of the devil, who now 
 became the personage at once odious and 
 ridiculous of the mediaeval Mysteries.^ "Like 
 a skilful fisherman, God veiled the divine 
 nature of His Son beneath human flesh, in 
 order to catch Satan by the hook of His 
 divinity. The latter, like a greedy fish, 
 swallowed both bait and hook. Thus was ful- 
 filled the word spoken of old by God to Job 
 (xli. 1): Canst thou draw out leviathan with 
 a fish hook? But his greediness proved fatal 
 to himself As Saturn of yore, he was obliged 
 to give up those whom he had devoured."^ 
 
 Such a theory could not fail to scandalize 
 those of a more refined turn of mind and 
 
 1 Gregory of Nyssa, Or, cateck., 22-36. Leo the 
 Great, Sermo, xxii. 4. Ambrose, in Evang. Luke, iv : 
 Oportuit hanc fraudem diabolo fieri. Augustine, de liber, 
 arhitrio., iii. 10, etc. 
 
 2 Cf. Note VIII. p. 145, 
 
Ecclesiastical Doctrine 67 
 
 whose moral sense was more acute. Not only 
 did the comedy appear unworthy of God, but 
 people could with difficulty admit that God 
 owed anything else to the devil but the 
 punishment of his crimes. Gregory Nazianzus 
 inveighs most strongly against this idea of 
 a ransom paid to the devil. But he is just 
 as loath to admit that there can be any talk 
 of a ransom paid to God. Wherein, he asks, 
 could the blood of His only Son prove accept- 
 able to the Father? But then the theory 
 of a ransom is entirely overthrown by the 
 twofold protest of the Christian consciousness. 
 Gregory Nazianzus, however, still upholds it ; 
 but he deprives it of its character of necessity. 
 The ransom was offered to God, not because 
 God required it, but on account of the economy 
 of salvation.^ When the cause of Christ's 
 death was sought in God Himself, theologians 
 were far from thinking of His justice, as they 
 did later ; their sole aim was to safeguard His 
 veracity. In Genesis God had pronounced 
 
 1 Gregory Nazianzus, Orat, xlii. 
 
68 The Atonement 
 
 the sentence of death upon the sinner ; He 
 could not depart from His word.^ Augustine 
 thought that God must needs have both loved 
 and hated us, and that it was this feeUng of 
 hatred that had to be removed. On this score 
 God needed to be reconciled with us. Augus- 
 tine explained this paradox by saying that 
 what God loved in us was His work, and that 
 what He hated was our sin. But such was 
 still the inconsistency of Christian thought on 
 this point that the same Augustine denies any 
 metaphysical necessity to the death of Christ, 
 when he avers that although God chose this 
 method of Redemption, He was perfectly free 
 to have chosen another.^ 
 
 //. — The Theory of Anselm 
 
 " Theological thought takes a new direction 
 with Saint Anselm's Cur Deus homo, .... 
 as E. Menegoz very truly says.^ Stress will 
 
 1 Athanasius, De Incamat. Verhi D., v. 7 and 9. 
 
 2 Cf. Note IX. p. 145. 
 
 3 E. M^NifcGoz, The Theology of the Epistle to the Hebrews , 
 pp. 230 and 231. 
 
Ecclesiastical Doctrine 69 
 
 henceforth be laid on the redemptive value, 
 not of the Incarnation, but of the death of 
 Christ. This change marks a new epoch in 
 the history of dogma. From this time the 
 conception of redemption frees itself from that 
 of the Incarnation. Soteriology becomes a 
 distinct chapter, in dogmatics, next to that 
 of Christology. It was, at the same time, a 
 return to the Biblical conception, for, in the 
 thought of the authors of the New Testament, 
 it was not by His Incarnation but by His 
 death that Christ wrought the redemption of 
 humanity." 
 
 It should be added that Anselm's theory, 
 with differences of detail, although it has 
 never been sanctioned as an article of faith 
 by any Church, has none the less become in 
 reality the orthodox doctrine in the Catholic 
 Church as well as in the Protestant Churches. 
 Rejecting the idea of a ransom paid to the 
 devil, Anselm was the first to oppose, within 
 the Godhead, the attributes of justice and of 
 mercy. He constructed in theology a theorem 
 
yo The Atonement 
 
 similar to that of the parallelogram of forces 
 in mechanics, as Strauss ingeniously remarks : 
 divine mercy inclining towards forgiveness and 
 justice calling for inexorable punishment are 
 two equal forces, and the resulting force lies 
 in the diagonal of vicai^ious satisfaction. 
 
 The origin of the theory is to be found in the 
 principle of Germanic law, then in full vigour in 
 the feudal world : Necesse est ut omne peccatum 
 aut poena aut satisf actio sequatur} Add to 
 this the idea of honour derived from chivalry. 
 From these Anselm deduces the whole of his 
 doctrine by a concise and almost mathemati- 
 cal method of reasoning. Sin is nothing else 
 but the refusal to render His due to God, the 
 universal Suzerain. Every rational creature 
 owes it to God to bring his own will under 
 subjection to God's will. This is the honour 
 that belongs to God. Whoever rebels against 
 His law robs Him of His honour.^ 
 
 Now, to tolerate that a creature should 
 rob the Creator of the honour that belongs to 
 
 1 Cur Deus hmno, 1, 14. '^ Cf. Note X. {a), p. 146. 
 
Ecclesiastical Doctrine 7I 
 
 Him, would be the most intolerable of all 
 injustices ; for besides the fact that such 
 tolerance would imperil the very dignity of 
 God, it would introduce in His work a prin- 
 ciple of confusion and disorder which would 
 seriously disturb its harmony and mar its 
 beauty. Nothing then could be more just 
 than that God should save His own honour.^ 
 But there are only two ways in which God 
 can do this. Man must restore to God what 
 he has taken from Him, and even something 
 over and above, on account of the insult, or 
 else God must recover His honour by force : 
 willing reparation or necessary punishment.^ 
 Man's punishment for sin will consist in the 
 everlasting torments of hell, instead of happi- 
 ness and eternal life. 
 
 Man, on the other hand, when once he has 
 fallen into sin, can never again, however great 
 his willingness, give to God a sufficient satis- 
 faction, or indeed any satisfaction at all. For 
 
 1 Cf, Note X. {h), p. 146. 
 
 2 Cf. Note X. {c), p. 146. 
 
72 The Atonement 
 
 every moment of his life he owes it to God to 
 perform every good and meritorious action of 
 which he is capable ; he can never, therefore, 
 cancel the primitive debt.^ Nay, more : God's 
 honour is worth more than the whole world ; 
 if on one side of a balance we were to place 
 the value of the whole world and on the other 
 the smallest act of disobedience to the will of 
 God, the latter would be of even greater 
 weight.^ It is therefore quite evident that 
 the finite creature man will never be able 
 of himself to pay to God the infinite debt of 
 his sin.' 
 
 After having thus rigorously set forth the 
 requirements of God's justice, Anselm reverts 
 to what God's goodness wills. The one is 
 not more immutable than the other. God's 
 goodness cannot abandon the gracious design 
 it had in creating man; it must perfect it. 
 The question then is to reconcile in God these 
 
 1 Cf, Note X. (rf), p. 146. 
 
 2 Cf. Note X. Xe\ p. 147. 
 
 3 Cf. Note X. (/), p. 147. 
 
Ecclesiastical Doctrine 73 
 
 contrary requirements, and therefore to find a 
 being equal to this task.^ This being must be 
 greater than all save God. He must there- 
 fore be God. On the other hand, a man 
 must pay the debt of mankind. Thus man 
 owes the required satisfaction, and God alone ^.r— ^ 
 can supply it ; it is therefore necessary that/V ^V 
 God should become man. Such is the answer '/j?^ .5 
 to the question : Cur Deiis homo} ^ ^<p/ 
 
 If now we ask what must be the satisfaction^ ^ 
 furnished by the God-man, it is clear that it 
 cannot consist in his active obedience ; for, like 
 every creature, he personally and naturally 
 owes such obedience to the commandments of 
 God. But he does not owe it to suffer and to 
 die, seeing he is all-powerful and without sin.^ 
 If, then, he freely lays down his life, he gives 
 something of infinite value, which is more than 
 sufficient to balance man's debt. He thus 
 earns merit which God cannot fail to reward. 
 
 1 Cur Deus homo, ii. 4 and 5. 
 
 2 Cf. Note X. {g), p. 147. 
 
 3 Cur Deus homo, ii. 11. 
 
74 The Atonement 
 
 But the Son, who already possesses everything 
 by right of birth, cannot be personally re- 
 compensed. He therefore has over and above 
 a surplus of merit, and the benefit will be 
 carried forward to the account of sinners and 
 for their salvation. They are let off, because 
 their debt is now paid. It is the twofold 
 triumph of God's justice and mercy.^ 
 
 Anselm's theory did not obtain the im- 
 mediate success one might have expected. 
 The old traditions still ruled over men's minds 
 and governed popular preaching. This lofty 
 but purely rationalistic speculation, this fine 
 Platonic dialectics, elicited more admiration 
 than confidence, even from those who could 
 understand it. Scholasticism had just set in. 
 Abelard was at one with Anselm in denying 
 the rights of the devil and entirely excluding 
 him from the work of Redemption ; but he 
 was averse to a construction in which moral 
 realities seemed transformed into geometrical 
 quantities. According to Abelard, Christ by 
 
 1 Cf. Note X. Qi), p. 147. 
 
Ecclesiastical Doctrine 75 
 
 His death brought about our salvation, not by 
 satisfying God's justice, but by giving us an 
 example of infinite love, and awakening in 
 the souls of sinners a corresponding love which 
 leads them back to God.^ Saint Bernard 
 accused him of rationalism, and still continued 
 to maintain, in opposition to Abelard, Satan's 
 lasting claims upon his victims.* Peter Lom- 
 bard accumulated and tried to reconcile the 
 most widely divergent opinions.^ He expresses 
 the view that the death of Jesus was both a 
 ransom paid to the devil and a manifestation 
 of love. 
 
 It is only with Saint Thomas Aquinas that 
 the theory of satisfaction revives and once 
 more comes upon the scene, though not with- 
 out important modifications. Henceforth it 
 is no longer founded on Germanic law (com- 
 pensation for an offence by an offering equiva- 
 
 ^ Cf. Note XI. p. 148. 
 
 2 Epist. ad Innoc. II., de errorihus Ahcel., c. 5 : Discat 
 (Ahcelardus) diabolmn non solum potestatem sed etiam justam 
 hahuisse in homines. 
 
 3 Peter Lombard, Lib. iii. 19- 
 
76 The Atonement 
 
 lent to the wrong committed), but on Roman 
 law (satisfaction by the legal penalty merited 
 and duly borne). The idea of substitution is 
 more clearly set forth, and thus the doctrine of 
 Aquinas assumes a more pronounced expiatory 
 character than that of Anselm. It was 
 possible for Christ to be substituted for the 
 guilty in the execution of the sentence against 
 sin, because, being united with humanity. He 
 forms, together with men, a kind of unique 
 personality, a mystical body like the head and 
 the members. " In so far as two men through 
 love become one being, the one can offer satis- 
 faction in place of the other." ^ On the other 
 hand, Aquinas, who is full of poorly disguised 
 contradictions, leans anew in the direction of 
 Anselm's theory of compensation, by the way in 
 which he considers and applies Christ's merits. 
 The latter even exceed the requirements of the 
 divine law ; they therefore remain superero- 
 gatory, and for the benefit of the Church.^ 
 
 1 C/. Note XII. («), p. 148. 
 
 2 Cf. Note XII. Qi), p. 148. 
 
Ecclesiastical Doctrine 77 
 
 But while he was attempting to improve 
 upon Anselm's theory, he was weakening 
 its metaphysical foundation by reducing the 
 necessity of this means of salvation to a 
 purely relative necessity. Indeed, he took 
 up again Augustine's idea that God was 
 absolutely free to choose another plan of 
 Redemption. If the plan He preferred to 
 elect was the gift and death of His Son, it 
 was because of the fitness of this means for 
 the end He had in view.^ Aquinas was thus 
 affording matter for the criticism of Duns 
 Scotus, who, in the name of the divine pre- 
 rogative, soon set about depriving the theory 
 of satisfaction of all logical force, and, worse 
 still, of all moral reality. The Franciscan JlN:> tp 
 doctor loosens all the bonds, calls in question V^r^ 
 all the logical or moral necessities which bind ^^^-^ 
 up into a homogeneous whole the various 
 parts of Anselm's theory, so that the different 
 fragments only hold together by reason of 
 God's arbitrary will. He denies that it was 
 1 C/. Note XII. (c), p. 149. 
 
78 The Atonement 
 
 necessary that the human race should be 
 saved; he denies that salvation could only 
 have been brought about by satisfaction ; he 
 denies that, in order to furnish this satisfac- 
 tion, the death of a God-man was necessary ; 
 finally, he denies that Christ was able to offer 
 sufficient and superabundant satisfaction. If 
 the passion of Christ brought about salvation, 
 it was not because it possessed any inherent 
 value or virtue, but because it pleased God 
 to accept it as sufficient. Having only suffered 
 as a man and during a very short space of 
 time, Christ was only enabled to acquire a 
 human and finite merit. Besides, Duns Scotus 
 also denies the infinite gravity of man's sin. 
 It is through the martyrdom of the man 
 Jesus that God thought fit to save us, and 
 every man might even satisfy for himself, if 
 God were to give him the antecedent grace, 
 as He has already given us before any merit 
 on our part. Is it not strange to see the 
 supernaturalism of the Scholastic doctrine 
 crumbling merely because it is carried to the 
 
Ecclesiastical Doctrine 79 
 
 extreme, and in the ultimate conclusions of 
 Duns Scotus attaining what will later be 
 Socinian rationaUsm?^ 
 
 Notwithstanding the opposition of the 
 Franciscan doctors, Anselm's doctrine became 
 firmly implanted in the tradition of the Catholic 
 Church. This should not surprise us, for the 
 doctrine contained numerous elements which 
 were in profound harmony, and suited most 
 admirably the ascetic tendencies of Cathohc 
 ethics and the more popular religious practices : 
 1^^, the conception of the work of Christ as a 
 supererogatory work, that is to say, Christ, the 
 ideal of the monk and of the saint, doing more 
 than God required, and thus gaining merits 
 which may be transferred to others ; 2nd, sin 
 defined as a debt, and God as a human creditor 
 who pronounces Himself satisfied, however He 
 recovers His money ; 3r6?, divine grace trans- 
 ferred to one sinner or to another, as by a bill 
 of exchange endorsed by the Church ; did not 
 all this come as an authoritative and divine 
 
 1 C/. Note XIII. p. 150. 
 
8o The Atonement 
 
 example to justify the theory of the efficacy 
 of masses and the practice of indulgences ? It 
 is not astonishing, then, that the Church should 
 have retained a doctrine which procured her so 
 many and so precious advantages.^ 
 
 It is not so easy to understand the even 
 heartier welcome with which it was received 
 by all the Reformers. No doubt they were 
 favourably struck by the fact that Anselm 
 invested man's sin with infinite gravity, and 
 reduced the sinner to a state of absolute in- 
 solvency. They did not see that as this 
 seriousness of sin was solely due to the infinite 
 character of the person offended, namely God, 
 it remained external to the conscience of man ; 
 that the divine nature had perhaps been 
 offended by sin, but that human nature, while 
 remaining legally responsible, was not therefore 
 more wicked. The Reformers were content 
 to oppose the full sufficiency of the merits of 
 Christ to the ascetic satisfactions and human 
 merits preconized by the Church.^ They did 
 
 1 Cf. Note XIV. p. 151. 2 cf. Note XV. p. 152. 
 
Ecclesiastical Doctrine 8i 
 
 not perceive that these very ideas of merit and 
 satisfaction placed them, at the very outset, on 
 purely forensic ground, outside the gospel of 
 grace and free pardon which they were desirous 
 of restoring to the world. Luther,^ indeed, 
 was somewhat doubtful about the term and 
 the idea of satisfaction, and Calvin appears to 
 be considerably perplexed before the contra- 
 dictory ideas of grace and merit.^ But neither 
 of them was able, in this matter, to overthrow 
 the power of Catholic tradition. The theory 
 of Anselm, or rather that of Thomas Aquinas, 
 found its way into the Confessions of Faith of 
 the two Protestant Churches,* and was de- 
 veloped to its extreme and logical limits by 
 the Protestant Scholastics of the seventeenth 
 century. Without hesitation, they extended 
 
 1 Cf, Note XVI. p. 152. 
 
 2 Calvin, Inst. Ch., ii. c. 17. One should read the 
 whole of this curious chapter to see how Calvin finally 
 reduces even Christ's merit to the pure and sovereign 
 grace of God. See also iii. c. 15. 
 
 3 C.A., p. 10 ; F.C., pp. 684-696. Conf. Helv., ii. c. 15. 
 ConJ. Belg., art. 20. Calvin, Inst. Ch., ii. c. l6 and 17. 
 Form. Cons, Helv., 15, etc. 
 
 6 
 
82 The Atonement 
 
 this penal satisfaction furnished by Christ even 
 as far as the divine malediction and the tor- 
 ments of hell. Christ endured eternal punish- 
 ment non extensive, sed intensive. It was in 
 Gethsemane, when "the soul of Jesus was 
 exceeding sorrowful, even unto death," and on 
 the cross, when He uttered that cry of distress, 
 " My God, why hast thou forsaken me ? " that 
 these theologians thought the Son had suc- 
 cumbed beneath the weight of the sin of 
 humanity and of the curse of the Father. 
 Thus a so-called equivalence was established 
 between the punishment deserved by men and 
 the punishment suffered by the Redeemer.^ 
 When a doctrine reaches its extreme form, all 
 the internal contradictions it contains are ready 
 to become manifest. The conclusions of the 
 Protestant dogmatists were logical; but they 
 shocked both the moral consciousness and the 
 reason which they aspired to satisfy. This 
 revolt was immediately embodied in the 
 Socinian and Arminian criticism. 
 
 1 Cf. Note XVII. p. 152. 
 
Ecclesiastical Doctrine 83 
 
 ///. — Socinian Criticism — Overthrow of 
 the Judicial Theory of Satisfaction 
 
 A. Harnack justly remarks that the criticism 
 of Faustus Socinus is the revival and develop- 
 ment of that of Duns Scotus and of his school. 
 Only, being no longer cramped by respect for 
 the authority of the Church, but, on the con- 
 trary, finding in the awakening and tendency 
 of modern thought a powerful ally, it was now 
 more radical and soon became irresistible. It 
 has sometimes been said that this criticism 
 was purely negative. This is true ; but then 
 there is a time to pull down and a time to 
 build up. The Socinians admirably carried 
 out their work of demolition. They attacked 
 and ruined the theory of Anselm by the help 
 of the same abstract and formal dialectics 
 which had been used to found it. That with 
 such an instrument their work should have 
 remained even with the ground, and should 
 have left the whole problem unsolved, must 
 also be admitted. But they none the less 
 
84 The Atonement 
 
 rendered an invaluable service to the Christian 
 consciousness, not only by setting forth the 
 inner contradictions of the older doctrine, but 
 also by making all feel the inadequacy and 
 radical incompatibility of forensic notions to 
 express the nature of Christ's work. They 
 thus forced Christian thought to abandon once 
 and for all the regions of mythology and of 
 penal law, and to take its stand at last on the 
 firm ground of moral realities. Hence this 
 criticism marks an essential and decisive stage 
 in the evolution of the doctrine, the history of 
 which we are following. 
 
 F. Socinus first shows up the contradiction 
 between the idea of satisfactio and that of 
 remissio peccatorum. Where satisfaction has 
 been made, it is no longer necessary to pardon ; 
 where it is necessary to pardon, satisfaction 
 has not been given. A debt is either cancelled 
 or claimed. To say that another pays alters 
 nothing. The debtor is changed, but not 
 the transaction. Release is ensured by right 
 upon payment of the debt ; there can no 
 
Ecclesiastical Doctrine 85 
 
 more be question of a gift. Talk of right or 
 of grace; but do not dimly confuse the two 
 notions, you only succeed in destroying the 
 one by means of the other.^ 
 
 We speak of a debt. But is it the same 
 with moral debts as with sums of money? 
 Can the merit or the punishment of an 
 individual be transferred to another as by 
 a bill of exchange ? No ; the debt of money 
 is something material and external to man ; 
 merit and punishment are strictly personal 
 and inseparable from the subject himself.^ 
 An innocent man may indeed suffer through 
 an unjust condemnation, but he will never 
 suffer as a criminal. Besides the fact that 
 the transfer of the inner penalty for sin is 
 impossible, it would be sovereignly unjust 
 in God to order it. Strict justice is not 
 satisfied if the innocent suffer ; it requires the 
 punishment of the guilty (Deut. xxiv. 16 ; 
 Ezech. xviii. 20). So with the merits which 
 
 1 Cf. Note XVIII. {a), p. 153. 
 
 2 Cf. Note XVIII. (4 p. 153. 
 
86 The Atonement 
 
 Christ is said to have acquired by His active 
 and perfect obedience. Whence should come 
 that superabundance which might be carried 
 forward to another's account? Is there any 
 creature who is not required to obey the will 
 of God, and who, in obeying, does more than 
 his duty.^ 
 
 Finally, there is no real equivalence between 
 what Christ did or suffered and what we 
 deserved to suffer. We had incurred the 
 penalty of eternal death ; Christ did not 
 suffer it ; on the contrary. His sufferings and 
 death led Him to glory. It is a mistake to 
 hope to compensate what is lacking in the 
 quantity of the suffering by its quality, 
 alleging that Christ was God ; for He did 
 not suffer as God but as man ; besides, this 
 suffering was never other than personal and 
 finite, therefore far from equivalent to the 
 sum of all the torments deserved by the race. 
 If then it be maintained that God, in His 
 mercy, was content to accept this insufficient 
 
 1 Cf. Note XVIII. (c), p. 154. 
 
Ecclesiastical Doctrine 87 
 
 satisfaction, we may well ask why He did 
 not renounce all satisfaction.^ Granted even 
 that there was in Christ a divine nature 
 capable of investing His passion with infinite 
 value, even then we do not obtain actual 
 satisfaction. For the idea of satisfaction 
 implies not only that the one who furnishes 
 it is different from the one who receives it, 
 but that it is levied on a capital which is not 
 already in the possession of the latter. Now, 
 if God is satisfied with the sufferings and 
 merits of God, He is willingly deceiving 
 Himself, content with the vain satisfaction 
 of paying Himself.^ 
 
 Socinus is less successful in reconstructing 
 a new doctrine than in criticizing the old one. 
 In his opinion the value of Christ's death 
 consists in the power and beauty of the 
 example He gave, and in the confirmation 
 of the truth of His Gospel. It is especially 
 by His resurrection that Christ effects our 
 
 1 Cf, Note XVIII. {d), p. 154. 
 
 2 Cf. Note XVIII. (e), p. 154. 
 
88 The Atonement 
 
 salvation, by revealing immortality to us and 
 introducing us into His own joy and glory.^ 
 This purely logical criticism, conducted 
 from an ultra-individualistic point of view, 
 failed to go to the bottom of the problem ; 
 it had no grasp of the social mystery, of 
 physical and moral solidarity, of sympathy, 
 of all that renders human beings dependent 
 on each other, and, as it were, unifies them. 
 The moral life itself is not so individualistic 
 as the Socinians imagined, and it is indeed 
 true that we bear and ought to bear the 
 burdens and even the faults of others (Gal. 
 vi. 2). But where this criticism was most 
 certainly right, was in its overthrow of the 
 judicial fictions created by the older theory. 
 On this point it has not been refuted, nor 
 indeed could it have been, because it was 
 impossible to reinstate the axioms of the old 
 Germanic or Roman law, such as compensation 
 for an offence, or substitution of one victim for 
 another. Even the law of nations has become 
 
 1 Cf. Note XIX. p. 154. 
 
Ecclesiastical Doctrine 89 
 
 more moral ; to-day we see in these barbarous 
 customs the very opposite to the idea of 
 justice. We can, on this score, estimate the 
 progress made by the Defence of the Catholic 
 Faith which Hugh Grotius wrote in answer 
 to the attacks of the Socinians. He did not 
 deny that God had the right and the power 
 to forgive without^punishing. But, Uke a wise 
 monarch who, even while pardoning criminals, 
 owes it to his empire and to the safety of his 
 subjects to execute a few for the sake of 
 example, and in order that the laws may con- 
 tinue to be respected by all, God, while 
 freely forgiving guilty humanity, delivered 
 over to death His innocent Son for a 
 demonstration of justice. In this way there 
 was neither compensation, nor substitution, 
 nor satisfaction of any kind, but only a mani- 
 festation determined upon by divine wisdom. 
 But is not this giving up the substance of 
 the old doctrine, in order only to retain 
 the shadow? Besides, what manifestation of 
 justice can there be in the fact of condemning 
 
go The Atonement 
 
 an innocent one in place of the guilty ? In 
 order to uphold the moral government of 
 His creation, has God no other means than 
 the primitive and imperfect expedients resorted 
 to by human legislators in the rudest times ? ^ 
 The Arminians sought a solution midway 
 between the orthodox theory of atonement 
 and the moralism of the Socinians. But, as 
 they denied, with the latter, that God had any 
 need to be satisfied, and that the sufferings of 
 Christ were the equivalent of the total punish- 
 ment merited by humanity, they necessarily 
 reverted to the Scotist doctrine of acceptilatio ; 
 that is to say, of a purely arbitrary decision on 
 God's part, declaring Himself satisfied with 
 what is offered Him, simply because such is 
 His good pleasure. In the opinion of Limborch, 
 the death of Christ remained a sacrifice, not 
 indeed an expiatory sacrifice, but an offering 
 of great price freely given and graciously 
 accepted, in the sense of the Epistle to the 
 
 1 Hugh Grotius, Defensio Jidei Cathol. de satisf. Christi 
 adv. F. Socin, Lugd., Bat.^ l6l7. 
 
Ecclesiastical Doctrine 91 
 
 Hebrews/ But one may well inquire what 
 purpose was served by such a sacrifice, seeing 
 that its necessity and even its utility were 
 both destroyed. And yet it is under this 
 illogical and somewhat discreditable form that 
 the doctrine of the Middle Ages has, to this 
 day, held out in modern orthodoxy. Is it 
 not the proof that this view of the death 
 received from the Socinian criticism a mortal 
 blow from which it will never recover ? 
 
 The philosophical rationaUsm of the eigh- 
 teenth century, by carrying on the analysis 
 of the moral act commenced by the Socinians, 
 brought out still more clearly the insufficiency 
 of the forensic point of view and of judicial 
 terminology in this connection. The So- 
 cinians had destroyed the idea of penal 
 satisfaction ; the rationalist theologians 
 fastened upon the very idea of the remission 
 of sins and transformed it. From the legal 
 
 1 LiMBORCH, Theol. Christ., iii. 20-22. This theologian 
 speaks of his own doctrine as the mean between two 
 extremes : quas inter duas hasce extremas {doctiinai) media est. 
 
92 The Atonement 
 
 point of view, by this expression was under- 
 stood exemption from the sufferings which 
 constitute the punishment for sin. When 
 the idea of this divine punishment is analyzed, 
 one is able to distinguish between the natural 
 consequences of sin and its supernatural 
 retribution. The first were the disorder of 
 the moral life, uneasiness and inner shame, 
 remorse, and also, in the physical organism, 
 disease, poverty, social scorn, etc. The 
 second consisted in extraordinary misfortunes, 
 without any connection with the fault itself, 
 by which, through supernatural agencies, God 
 smote certain criminals, many examples of 
 which we see in the Old Testament and in 
 the histories of early times, or again in the 
 threatened torments of hell after the final 
 judgment. But the closer one looked into 
 this distinction the more it appeared arbitrary 
 and meaningless. To what purpose such 
 supplementary and supernatural torments ? 
 Is God like those earthly princes who, to 
 maintain order within their states, on account 
 
Ecclesiastical Doctrine 93 
 
 of the inadequacy of the ordinary laws, are 
 constantly obliged to intervene personally in 
 order to re-establish their authority ? Ancient 
 legends vanish away before the stern criticism 
 of the documents, and, as for the torments of 
 hell, those who did not deny them looked 
 upon them as the natural result and continua- 
 tion after death of the organic consequences 
 of sin, so that hell became more and more 
 identified with the state of sin itself, 
 beginning and ending with it. It is clear 
 that from this point of view the forgiveness 
 of sins could only come through the destruc- 
 tion of sin itself, for, otherwise, it would 
 remain a pure fiction.^ 
 
 Here, again, the old forensic point of view 
 was retreating before the moral point of 
 view, and supernatural arbitrariness before the 
 autonomy of the spiritual life. The moral 
 philosophy of Kant completed the emancipa- 
 
 1 For a fuller discussion see Baur, Die christliche 
 Lehre von der Versoehnungy p. 508 et seq. Wegscheider, 
 Jnst., § 140 d sec^. 
 
94 The Atonement 
 
 tion of the modern consciousness in this matter. 
 Henceforward we must give up seeking in any 
 magical and supernatural virtue, the cause of 
 the saving efficacy of the death of Jesus in 
 securing our pardon ; it can only ensure the 
 forgiveness of sins in proportion as it con- 
 tributes to the destruction of sin itself. It 
 saves us from hell only in so far as it puts an 
 end to the state of sin and makes us enter 
 upon a new hfe. 
 
 IV, — Modern Theories of the Death of Jesus 
 
 All the theories which, since then, have 
 been constructed to justify the redemptive 
 efficacy of the Saviour's death have proceeded 
 in the same direction, beginning with that 
 of Schleiermacher. In the opinion of this 
 great theologian we cannot talk either of 
 the expiatory suffering of Christ, causing God 
 to forgive us, or of an active righteousness, the 
 superabundance of which might fill up what 
 is lacking in ours. The redemptive element 
 
Ecclesiastical Doctrine 95 
 
 is to be found, not in the death of Christ, but 
 in the power and briUiancy of His reUgious 
 consciousness, to the benefits of which we are 
 admitted through faith, and in which we find 
 peace, joy, and salvation. Christ suffered for 
 us only after the manner in which every man 
 who is involved in an historical drama is called 
 upon to suffer, as a result of human solidarity, 
 from the painful consequences of sins in which 
 he has no personal part. Perfect man, Christ 
 represents and sums up in Himself humanity 
 as a whole, so that, as a matter of fact, if He 
 suffers on account of us and in our place, it is 
 in reality humanity that expiates its sin by 
 and in Him. His death is not the cause of 
 an objective atonement made before God for 
 sin, but the historical means of a subjective 
 atonement which is effected in the human 
 consciousness through faith, by the death of 
 the old man and the birth of the new.^ 
 
 1 ScHLEiERMACHERj Dev ckristHcke Glauhe, ii. §§ 100- 
 105. F. BoNiFAS, La doctrine de la Redemption de 
 Sckleiermacher, 1862. 
 
96 The Atonement 
 
 The same effort towards a moral conception 
 of the work of Christ is seen in Lutheran 
 theology in Hofmann, the professor of 
 Erlangen. The judicial idea of substitutive 
 punishment is replaced by the idea of devotion 
 unto death for our salvation. We may still 
 speak of sacrifice, but only in a metaphorical 
 sense, as in the case of a mother exposing 
 herself to death in order to save her son's 
 life. What Jesus suffered is no more the 
 equivalent compensation of the punishment 
 deserved by us, than His righteousness 
 and goodness are a supplement to what 
 we lack in righteousness. His death cannot 
 be considered apart from His life-work, 
 and from His special mission, which was to 
 manifest both the holiness and the love of 
 God.^ 
 
 Finally, Rothe is not afraid to decide in 
 favour of the moral objections of the Socinians 
 against the old theory. Only, seeking the 
 
 ^ Hofmann, Schutzschriften, eine neue Weise alte Wahreit 
 zu lehren (4 pamph.j 1856-59). 
 
Ecclesiastical Doctrine 97 
 
 reason why the piety of the Church still 
 adheres to the latter, notwithstanding its 
 irremediable defects, he shows that it resides 
 in the perplexities of the Christian conscious- 
 ness in face of the holiness and the love of 
 God ; he points out that both are strenuously 
 upheld, although they are not successfully 
 reconciled. Christ's death is justified not in 
 that it is the cause, but rather the necessary 
 means of Redemption. By it sin is forgiven 
 because it is virtually destroyed.^ 
 
 In England, during the last century, the 
 same evolution was accomplished, inde- 
 pendently and with an original turn, starting 
 from the impulse given by Coleridge to re- 
 ligious and moral ideas. The effort and desire 
 to pass from the judicial to the ethical concep- 
 tion of the work of salvation have, since then, 
 been powerfully manifested in the most active 
 and living section of English theologians. It 
 will suffice to recall here the works and the 
 tendencies represented by the names of Thomas 
 
 ^ RoTHE, Dogmatik, ii. §§ 36-55. 
 
98 The Atonement 
 
 Arnold and Maurice,^ by the Scotch theologians 
 Erskine ^ and Campbell,^ and especially by the 
 new and solid preaching of F. Robertson,* who, 
 in some respects, may be termed the Vinet of 
 England. Since then it has become a matter 
 of common practice to teach that *' eternal 
 life " and " eternal death " are not temporary 
 states and future modes of what will happen 
 after death, but moral and spiritual states, 
 already existing here below and characterised 
 by union with or separation from God ; that 
 the content of the Gospel is not the fear of 
 the torments of hell, but the love of God for 
 all men ; and that the divine chastisements are 
 essentially educative — that is to say, designed 
 for the destruction of sin and the salvation 
 
 1 F. D. Maurice, Theological Essays ; Doctrine of Sacri- 
 Jice, 1854. 
 
 2 Th. Erskine, The Unconditional Freeness of the Gospel, 
 1828; The Brazen Serpent, or Life coming through Death, 
 1831 ; The Doctrine of Election, etc., 1837. 
 
 8 J. M. Campbell, The Nature of Atonement, etc., 5th 
 edit., 1878. See, too, the works of A. Bruce, Kingsley, 
 Stanley, etc. 
 
 4 Cf Note XX. p. 155. 
 
Ecclesiastical Doctrine 99 
 
 of the sinner. The judicial idea of atonement 
 was immediately overthrown. Christ was not, 
 by a legal and supernatural decision on God's 
 part, laden with our sins and substituted as an 
 expiatory victim in the place of humanity; 
 but He united Himself with sinners, and, 
 taking their burden by the power of sympathy 
 and love, He raised them out of the state of 
 condemnation, teaching them to believe in the 
 love of the Father. It is by faith and in faith 
 that redemption is realized, for it is in faith 
 that the alienation or antagonism between 
 man and God ceases and disappears. It 
 matters little that in the case of the majority 
 of English theologians this new tendency is 
 associated with many surviving fragments of 
 the older conception, and that almost all of 
 them endeavour to sew this new cloth 
 on the old coat which is falling to pieces; 
 it is none the less a fact that the old theology 
 is dead, and remains in the tradition of the 
 Church as a survival of an epoch now van- 
 ished, whereas the new view — the ethical 
 
lOO The Atonement 
 
 conception — alone shows itself to be living 
 and fruitful/ 
 
 In France and in Switzerland Vinet was, 
 without either knowing or wishing it, but by 
 the irresistible power of his moral conception 
 of Christianity, the potent initiator of a quite 
 similar movement. He did not attack old 
 ideas ; but, going deeper, in order to penetrate 
 to the centre of the Christian life and to the 
 marrow of the Gospel, he found that his deep 
 and sincere psychology, and the analysis of the 
 moral accompaniments of salvation, led him 
 far beyond the legal constructions of traditional 
 dogmatics. Towards the end of his life, look- 
 ing back upon the beliefs of his youth, he was 
 
 1 The Christian World published from Nov. 1899 to 
 Feb. 1900 a long series of interviews with theologians 
 of different schools, on the doctrine of Atonement and 
 modem thought. It is a faithful picture of the present 
 attitude of Christian thought in England on this subject. 
 The ethical tendency is there manifested with remarkable 
 force. Christian Conference Essays, edited by A. Atkin- 
 son, with an Introduction by the Rt. Rev. the Bishop of 
 Hereford, 1900 ; especially the essay on Atonement, by 
 Prof. G. Henslow. 
 
Ecclesiastical Doctrine loi 
 
 no longer able to recognize them : " I cannot 
 believe in substitution,'' he writes in 1844, three 
 years before his death. " The transfer of guilt 
 upon the innocent is absolutely contradicted 
 by our ideas of morality." ^ And elsewhere : 
 " It is not merely by the sufferings endured 
 between Gethsemane and Calvary, or by the 
 Passion properly so called, that Jesus saves us, 
 but rather by all the sufferings of His life, 
 
 which was one long passion It is not only 
 
 by the sufferings of His life, but by His life 
 
 as a whole Christ did not suffer all that 
 
 a son of man can suffer ; hatred, envy, con- 
 fusion, remorse were absent from His pure 
 soul. The death of the cross was not a punish- 
 ment endured as such ; it was 2i self -sacrifice,'' ^ 
 At the time of his death Vinet felt himself 
 on the threshold of a revolution, or rather of 
 a reformation in theology, which he felt him- 
 self incapable of undertaking, but which he 
 welcomed and justified beforehand as both 
 
 1 A. Vinet, Letters, ii. 25. 
 
 2 Espnt de Vinet, pp. 45-46, and also 131, 144, 152. 
 
I02 The Atonement 
 
 legitimate and necessary : " The Reformation 
 — and this he laid down as a principle — is ever 
 permanent in the Church, even as Christianity. 
 .... It is Christianity itself restoring itself by 
 its own inherent strength. So that even to- 
 day, whatever the importance of the sixteenth 
 century, the Reformation is still a thing to be 
 done, a thing ever to be recommenced, and for 
 which Luther and Calvin only prepared a 
 smoother and broader way."^ 
 
 Men of a bolder stamp and better equipped 
 with historical and critical knowledge now 
 came forward to undertake this revolution. 
 In the Strasbourg Revue de theologie, 
 Colani, Scherer, Trottet, Reville, and many 
 others showed how the results of Vinet's 
 psychology exploded the old bulwarks of 
 dogmatics. The character of the needed re- 
 form became more and more clear : Christian 
 thought must be brought over from the point 
 
 1 AsTiE, art. "Vinet/' in L' encyclopedie des sciences 
 religieuses, xii., supplement, p. 1122. Wilfred Monod, 
 Vinet douteur, 1900. 
 
Ecclesiastical Doctrine 103 
 
 of view of law to that of the conscience, it 
 must be raised from legahty to moraUty.^ 
 
 Those even who wished to adhere as far as 
 possible to the tradition of the past, tried to 
 find a new foundation for the doctrine of 
 substitution in the moral fact of solidarity. 
 They gave up justifying the expiatory con- 
 demnation of Christ on the plea that divine 
 justice must be satisfied ; they were content 
 to insist upon the organic bond which united 
 the Son of man with the whole race. This 
 method of argumentation, the first sketch of 
 which was given by Ch. Secretan, and which 
 was powerfully developed by so many orators, 
 among whom should be mentioned E. Bersier, 
 Ed. de Pressense, and Ch. Bois, has the ad- 
 vantage of being modern ; but it remains to 
 be seen whether, from a logical point of view, 
 the argument does not ruin the ancient edifice 
 it was destined to support. 
 
 1 Revue de theologie de Strasbourg, vols, iv., v., vi., 
 xiv., etc. AsTiE, The Religion of Redemption. Revue 
 Ckretienne, vol. xiv. Contemporary German Theology, 1875. 
 Miscellaneous Studies in Theology and Philosophy, 1878. 
 
i04 The Atonement 
 
 It is true that those who have laid the 
 greatest stress upon it have never developed 
 with the slightest consistency its most obvious 
 consequences. From the purely historical and 
 psychological point of view of solidarity, they 
 unconsciously pass on to embrace the essentially 
 supernaturalistic and metaphysical formula of 
 legal expiation. The very opposite conclusion 
 would be reached if theologians were content 
 to apply themselves to the order and analysis 
 of the moral facts of salvation ; they would 
 see that sin finds its natural punishment 
 in its guilt and consequences, without the 
 intervention of any further and supernatural 
 judicial sentence on the part of God ; and that 
 eternal hfe proceeds naturally and organically 
 from justification and regeneration, even as 
 a beautiful flower rises organically out of 
 an obscure germ, without any special decision 
 on God's part being required. The law of 
 solidarity well explains how and why Jesus 
 suffers in consequence of sins He Himself 
 has not committed; but, then, the con- 
 
Ecclesiastical Doctrine 105 
 
 sequences are historical and natural. Jesus 
 suffers more and better, but he does not suffer 
 differently from Socrates, martyrs, sages, and, 
 in a word, all good people involved by cir- 
 cumstances in the dramas caused here below 
 by the crimes of the wicked. There is no 
 more need to talk about a special and super- 
 natural condemnation inflicted on the cross 
 upon Jesus. In other words, unless we are 
 willing to remain content with mere phrases, 
 the explanation of the sufferings of Christ by 
 means of solidarity does not carry us beyond 
 Schleiermacher's theory of Redemption.^ 
 
 On the right and on the left of this central 
 theological evolution, two currents of thought 
 could, as usual, be felt, which branched off into 
 the opposite extremes. Pietist sects gave the 
 old doctrine a sensual and mystical character 
 
 ^ Ch. Secretan, Philosophy of Liberty, vol. ii., 3rd edit., 
 1879. Search after a Method, 1857, passim. Ed. de 
 Pressense, The Redeemer, 1859. F. Monnier, Essay on 
 Redemption, 1857. E. Bersier^ Solidarity, 1869. Ch. 
 Bois, Revue de theologie de Strasbourg, Du peche, 1857. 
 Revue theologique de Monlauban. 
 
io6 The Atonement 
 
 which it did not at first possess. Protestantism 
 thus offered a sorry counterpart to the cultus 
 of the Sacred-Heart invented by Marie 
 Alacoque. In these conventicles, and in the 
 hterature which proceeded from them, people 
 talked of nothing but blood, wounds, prints 
 of nails, lamb slain, and cadaverous odours. 
 This kind of preaching and theology of 
 blood, indulged in nowadays by the Salva- 
 tion Army, is nothing but a morbid super- 
 stition. Protestantism should leave it to the 
 Church of Rome, which cannot now do 
 without Lourdes and the Sacred- Heart. The 
 Socinians and the older Rationalists have also 
 their descendants. They reduce salvation to 
 moral improvement, and it is impossible to 
 see wherein they differ from an ordinary 
 School of Philosophy. At all events they 
 serve to state the problem clearly and to point 
 out exactly where the difficulty lies. Doubt- 
 less, the destruction of sin within us by means 
 of perfect sanctification would bring about 
 complete freedom and salvation. But alas ! 
 
Ecclesiastical Doctrine 107 
 
 this progressive sanctification is condemned 
 to certain failure unless our old consciousness 
 of sin is first destroyed before God. Remorse, 
 that moral disease, is what makes us irre- 
 mediably weak and sinful. We are therefore 
 in a circle : in order to enjoy full communion 
 with God, or to be saved, we must attain full 
 justice ; but in order to attain justice, nay, 
 even to walk in it, we must already be in 
 peaceful communion with God and know 
 that we are pardoned and saved. But this is 
 not all. In arguing thus we were still on legal 
 ground. Now, it is impossible for man to be 
 saved and to reach the full and free expansion 
 of his being under the rule of the religion of 
 the law, even of the moral law. The Gospel 
 is not a mere supplement to the law ; it is a 
 religion of a different order. It begins by the 
 preaching of the forgiveness of sins, in order 
 to raise the conscience of man to the religion 
 of grace, which not only sets it free, but also 
 becomes the inner principle of a superior 
 morality created by love, in opposition to a 
 
io8 The Atonement 
 
 morality produced by law. Christ gave His 
 blood to seal this new covenant between man 
 and the Almighty, and it is from this point of 
 view that His death can and must be under- 
 stood in intimate connection with the preach- 
 ing of the forgiveness of sins. 
 
 It is easy to sum up this long historical 
 sketch ; it is divided into three successive 
 periods, which represent three different con- 
 ceptions of the work of salvation. The first, 
 that of the Fathers of the Church, is ruled 
 by the mythological notion of a ransom paid 
 by God to Satan. Although this idea is con- 
 nected with the Biblical metaphor of redemp- 
 tion and ransom, it is none the less the product 
 of mythological habits of thought, which still 
 survived under the new dispensation, enslaving 
 the imagination of the early Christians. The 
 second period, which extends from the first 
 beginnings of Scholasticism to the end of the 
 seventeenth century, is ruled by the judicial 
 conception of an objective satisfaction made 
 to God, after the likeness of a debt paid to 
 
Ecclesiastical Doctrine 109 
 
 a creditor or of a substitutive punishment 
 approved by the judge. This conception has 
 its root in the BibHcal metaphor of a debt or 
 a chastisement owed by the sinner. But it 
 none the less appears as the consequence, in 
 mediaeval theology, of the legal ideas of 
 Pharisaism and of its code of justice based 
 upon retaliation. Finally, the third or modern 
 period is characterized by the effort of 
 Christian thought to grasp and interpret 
 religious salvation as an essentially moral fact, 
 which takes place, not in Heaven, but in the 
 conscience. To rise from Pagan to Jewish 
 conceptions, and from the legalism of the 
 latter to the religion of love, to pass from 
 the judicial to the purely moral point of view, 
 such is its significance and the direction in 
 which it bids us proceed. 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
 In order to accomplish the task which de- 
 volves to-day upon Christian thinkers, it is 
 necessary once and for all to free the old 
 dogma from the absolute notions which con- 
 stituted its first environment, and in which 
 it has ever since remained enveloped. These 
 notions, corresponding to a lower stage of 
 religious consciousness, are no longer suited 
 to explain and translate the experiences and 
 revelations of the Christian consciousness. 
 They are rude mirrors in which superior 
 realities become distorted. The death of 
 Christ is an essentially moral act, the signifi- 
 cance and value of which proceed solely from 
 
 the spiritual life and the feeUng of love which 
 
 no 
 
Conclusion 1 1 1 
 
 it reveals. It has long enough been enclosed 
 in the old and primitive categories of ritual 
 sacrifice and penal satisfaction. The time has 
 come to cast off these time-worn trappings and 
 to consider the death of Christ in itself, starting 
 from the moral sentiment which inspired it. 
 
 For example, do the ideas of merit and 
 of satisfaction suit the essentially different 
 principle of the religion of grace and of re- 
 demption by love? Are we not at once 
 guilty of the grossest error when we speak of 
 the merits which Christ obtained before God, 
 and which can be transferred to us from with- 
 out ? Is not this very idea of merit in reality 
 contrary to the Gospel ? Would it not have 
 wounded the filial consciousness of Jesus ? If 
 we attempt to construct a Christian doctrine 
 out of it, does it not fatally bring us back 
 to the religion of the law? (Rom. iv. 1-4). 
 And is it not a very remarkable thing that 
 the words ** the merits of Christ " were never 
 uttered or written by the authors of the New 
 Testament ? 
 
112 The Atonement 
 
 The same may be said of the idea of satis- 
 faction. The word is found for the first time 
 in Tertulhan, and is applied to works of 
 penance, not to the work of Christ. It has 
 no equivalent in Greek, nor do we meet with 
 the idea which it expresses in the Ante- 
 Nicene Fathers. Still less is it to be found 
 in the New Testament, and we have but to 
 compare it with the piety manifested by Jesus 
 towards the Father in order to perceive at 
 once how opposed the one is to the other. 
 " You must punish " in any and every case : 
 such is the tenor of the Jewish and Roman 
 law. Forgiveness for the sinner who repents 
 from the bottom of his heart: such is the 
 message of the Gospel. What constitutes 
 the superiority of the Christian conception 
 of the Father is precisely that it rises above 
 the feeling of retaliation and vengeance, and 
 that it wills not the death of the sinner, but 
 his conversion and life. What satisfaction does 
 the Father in the parable require in order to 
 forgive his repentant son who returns to him ? 
 
Conclusion 113 
 
 The notions of sacrifice, oblation, propitia- 
 tion, and expiation come from creeds anterior 
 to Christianity ; and unless we admit, with 
 the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
 that these elementary and somewhat anthro- 
 pomorphic forms of worship were of divine 
 institution, we cannot possibly compare, other- 
 wise than metaphorically, the death of Christ 
 on the cross with the rite of the victim 
 sacrificed and burnt on the altar. 
 
 In order to realize on Calvary the idea of 
 
 primitive sacrifice, we must turn the cross 
 
 into an altar, Christ's murderers into sacrificing 
 
 priests, or else we must say that Jesus was 
 
 both the priest and the victim; even then 
 
 the harmony and similarity remain imperfect, 
 
 for Jesus does not nail Himself to the cross. 
 
 Doubtless, we may, from a literary point of 
 
 view, take pleasure in an ingenious parallel 
 
 of this kind ; but, in working it out, we shall 
 
 never, like the author of the Epistle to the 
 
 Hebrews, be constructing anything but an 
 
 allegory, in which words will remain on one 
 
 8 
 
114 The Atonement 
 
 side and the true reality of things on the 
 other. 
 
 But we must notice a further and essential 
 difference between the death of Christ and the 
 sacrifice of the altar. In the latter the consent 
 of the victim was not asked ; it resisted under 
 the sacrificial knife. It was the odour of its 
 blood and the smoke from its flesh burning 
 upon the altar which, rising up to the nostrils 
 of Yahveh, appeased his anger, by reason of the 
 agreeable sensation it procured him. What 
 constitutes the moral and religious value of 
 Christ's death? Is it not much rather the 
 love that filled His soul, His perfect submission 
 to the will of the Father, the gift of His life 
 to the cause of the Gospel He had preached 
 and of the Kingdom of God or new alliance 
 He had founded ? If you deprive the death 
 of Jesus of this moral element, of this personal 
 self-devotion which was absent from the old 
 sacrifices, wherein, I ask, does the suffering 
 of the Holy and Righteous One differ from 
 prdinary suffering ? The assimilation, then, of 
 
Conclusion 115 
 
 His death to the ritual sacrifices of ancient 
 religions, far from enhancing, actually lowers 
 it, and indeed overlooks its one element of 
 importance, the very one which invests it 
 with so pathetic and touching a character. 
 
 Being an act of absolute self-sacrifice, Christ's 
 death does not belong to the order of ritual 
 sacrifices, but to an infinitely higher order, 
 namely, the moral order. Socrates refuses to 
 quit his prison and to make his escape, out 
 of respect to the laws of his country. Winkel- 
 ried sacrifices himself at Sempach and seizes 
 with open arms the lances of the Austrians, 
 in order to open a way for his companions. 
 By his death the Knight of Assas gives victory 
 to his country. And history speaks of the 
 sacrifice of these heroes. But who fails to 
 see that the word has taken on a moral 
 sense, and that it has become a metaphor 
 which all employ, but which misleads none? 
 Nor must we be misled by the word when 
 we speak of Christ's sacrifice. We deceive 
 ourselves in the most naive manner if we 
 
ii6 The Atonement 
 
 reduce the word to its primitive sense of a 
 religious rite, and if, from this old notion, we 
 draw, by purely formal logical deduction, a 
 metaphysical doctrine of the Saviour's death. 
 The languages we use are such that they 
 are full of traditional expressions, the early 
 meaning of which has disappeared, and which 
 only live on as poetic and popular images ; 
 as for example: the arch of Heaven, the 
 race of Phoebus through the stars. Every- 
 one knows what natural phenomenon is thus 
 designated by poets. So, too, when we cele- 
 brate the holy oblation of an agreeable savour 
 offered to God on the cross, we should be 
 faithless Christians indeed if we failed to 
 apprehend at once the moral act which con- 
 stitutes the value of Jesus' death, forgetting 
 or misunderstanding its nature. 
 
 We are no longer in the lower order of 
 sacerdotal ritual ; we are in the holiest realities 
 of the moral life. 
 
 The same must be said of the idea of a 
 ransom, and of the metaphor which it still 
 
Conclusion 117 
 
 furnishes in religious phraseology. Of course 
 it will always be possible to say that Leonidas 
 or Winkelried by their death paid the " ransom" 
 for the independence of Greece or of the Swiss 
 Cantons. It is likewise lawful to say that 
 Jesus paid the " ransom " for the sinner who, 
 through communion with Him, in His life 
 and in His death, has found the assurance 
 of the pardon of his sins, and of his recon- 
 ciliation to God. But to stop at this idea of 
 a ransom, at the contract it implies, and at the 
 anthropomorphism from which it cannot free 
 itself, and then, starting from this thought, to 
 speculate, with the aid of innumerable purely 
 verbal syllogisms, with a view to deciding 
 whether the ransom was paid to God, who 
 had no need of it, or to the devil, who had 
 no right to it, is to doom ourselves to an 
 absurd position, and, in addition, to deal a 
 mortal blow at the very principle of the 
 Christian consciousness. And to say that 
 traditional dogmatics have been built up 
 almost entirely by this method, working 
 
1 1 8 The Atonement 
 
 upon antique and rudimentary notions, 
 and transforming metaphors into dogmatic 
 formulas, in order to translate the purest 
 experiences of Christian piety ! After having 
 thus expressed for centuries the Christian 
 faith in a mythological or catholic manner, 
 has not the time now at last arrived to ex- 
 press the Evangelical realities in an Evangelical 
 way? 
 
 II 
 
 The gravest consequence of the old judicial 
 and legal point of view was that it introduced 
 an irreducible dualism into the Christian 
 conception of God ; that is to say, that it 
 destroyed the conception of the Father re- 
 vealed by Jesus. In fact, men have imagined 
 an internal conflict between His justice and 
 His mercy, so that He was not able to exercise 
 the one without offending the other. Christ, 
 instead of being the Saviour of men, became 
 an intra-divine mediator whose essential office 
 it was to reconcile the hostile attributes 
 within the Godhead, and to ensure peace and 
 
Conclusion 1 1 g 
 
 unity within God Himself. This was termed 
 high metaphysics ; it was pure mythology. 
 
 Hence our work of dogmatic restoration 
 must commence with the reinstatement of 
 the idea of God the Father. God has no 
 need to be reconciled with Himself; He has 
 no need of a mediator within Himself, for 
 He is one ; He is one in the punishment of 
 sin and in the salvation of sinners. Paul 
 expressly says, Gal. iii. 20 : 6 8e fiea-LTr)^ ei^os 
 ovK eoTTLv, 6 8e Geo? els ecrTiv. This comes 
 out even more clearly in the teaching of 
 Jesus Christ. The Father is perfect, and 
 His perfection lies in the fact that His good- 
 ness is just and His justice good (Matt. 
 V. 44-48). That conception of justice is an 
 inferior one which demands punishment for 
 the sake of punishment and merely to inflict 
 pain. True and divine justice seeks the 
 triumph of good over evil, and hence identifies 
 itself of necessity with love, which also gives 
 and imparts itself, pursuing the same end. 
 Love is also holy, for its ultimate desire is 
 
I20 The Atonement 
 
 to deliver us from evil. In the religious 
 consciousness of Jesus, the forgiveness of sins 
 and the destruction of sin are inseparable and 
 morally determine each other, the one remain- 
 ing illusory or vain without the other. Hence 
 the will to redeem is one in the Father, His 
 love for sinners working for the universal 
 triumph of His justice, and His justice only 
 manifesting itself in order to realize His pur- 
 pose of love. And that is why God needs 
 neither mediation nor satisfaction. The 
 Father is satisfied if the prodigal son, con- 
 fessing his sins and condemning his errors, 
 earnestly repents and returns to his Father's 
 house. From one end of the Gospel to the 
 other, forgiveness of sins is promised simply 
 to repentance and faith, because, in the inner 
 life of the soul, repentance and faith are 
 in reahty the beginning of the defeat and 
 destruction of sin. 
 
 The Apostle Paul, starting from the legalism 
 of the Pharisees, seems to dwell upon the 
 antithesis between the wrath of God, opyr) 
 
Conclusion 1 2 1 
 
 0eov, and the grace of God, x^P^? ©eov. But 
 it is only a starting-point. The two notions 
 are reconciled in the higher conception of the 
 SiKaLoo-vvrj Qeov, which was manifested in 
 Jesus Christ, and is imparted, through faith, 
 to all beUevers ; the righteousness of God 
 which is not only punitive, but also justifying, 
 not only negative by the punishment inflicted, 
 but also positive by the justification wrought, 
 and alone really worthy of Him who wills to 
 manifest His righteousness by justifying and 
 saving the sinner : els to elvai avrov hiKaiov koI 
 hiKaiovvra tov e/c Tricrrew?, (Rom. iii. 21—27). 
 We know, further, that Paul reduces the 
 whole plan of salvation to the good pleasure 
 of God, evSoKLa, which is determined by 
 nothing but itself, and which determines all 
 things (Eph. i. 5 ; Phil. ii. 13 ; Rom. viii. 28). 
 In this connection it would be absurd to 
 speak of internal mediation within the God- 
 head, or of external satisfaction which must 
 be given Him before His free good pleasure 
 can be brought to act. For Paul, as for 
 
122 The Atonement 
 
 John, the coming of Jesus into the world and 
 His death are not the cause but the result 
 and manifestation of divine mercy (John 
 iii. 16). Any other view would be contrary 
 to the very nature of the Apostolic Gospel. 
 With this Christian idea of the God-Father, 
 with this union or moral penetration of justice 
 and love, of saving justice and sanctifying 
 love, the preaching of the prophets, of Christ, 
 and the Apostles is in entire harmony, for they 
 preach the good news of the forgiveness of sins 
 proceeding solely from the mercy of God, and 
 offered unconditionally in answer to the re- 
 pentance and return of the sinner. They are 
 unanimous in their preaching. The prophets 
 deny that sins can be forgiven and blotted out 
 by means of sacrifices, fastings, and ritual 
 observances ; on the other hand, they promise 
 it to the contrite heart, to the converted will, 
 to repentance and trust in the sovereign grace 
 of God (Hosea v. 15-vi. 6 ; Amos v. 21-24 ; 
 Isaiah i. 10-19, Iv. 6-13, lix. 20; Jer. 
 iii. 12-14; Ezech. xviii. 21-24). "I have 
 
Conclusion 123 
 
 no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but 
 that he should return, be converted, and 
 live" (Micah vi. 6-7; Ps. li., xxxii. 3-6). 
 " When I kept silence, my bones waxed old. 
 .... I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and 
 
 mine iniquity have I not hid And thou 
 
 forgavest the iniquity of my sin." But what 
 is the use of accumulating texts ? Is it not 
 the very essence of the preaching of the 
 prophets and the foundation of the piety and 
 hope of the devout Israelite ? John the 
 Baptist takes up the message of the prophets, 
 and to repentance and conversion adds the 
 forgiveness of sins (Mark i. 4 ; Matt. iii. 2). 
 To the preaching of repentance Jesus adds the 
 Gospel, the content of which He sums up in 
 the parables of the prodigal son and of the 
 publican. Did He ever connect the forgive- 
 ness of sins with anything but the infinite 
 mercy of the Father ? Nor did the Apostles 
 teach otherwise (Acts ii. 37-39, and especially 
 iii. 19, V. 31, xvii. 30, xxvi. 20 ; 1 John 
 i. 9; James iv. 6-11). "Draw nigh to God, 
 
124 The Atonement 
 
 and he will draw nigh to you," etc. Of course, 
 repentance is not the cause of the forgiveness 
 of sins ; this cause is none other than the love 
 of the Father for His children; but repent- 
 ance is the necessary and sufficient condition. 
 Without repentance the forgiveness of sins is 
 an empty declaration, a flatus vocis ; with it 
 pardon is realized in the heart through con- 
 fidence in God, for it is impossible to conceive 
 God the Father rejecting one of His children 
 who returns to Him, condemning himself, 
 deploring his sins, and craving forgiveness. 
 
 But one must not allege in this connection 
 the necessity of any expiation other than that 
 of the repentance of the heart. One would 
 thus be asking for something lower, not higher. 
 Earthly judges and laws may rest content with 
 a sterile expiation by means of the punishment 
 which secures the death of the guilty without 
 his heart being softened or his will brought into 
 subjection. In fact, it is the law that is thus 
 defeated by the evil it would punish ; it is jus- 
 tice that is foiled through the resistance of 
 
Conclusion 125 
 
 the criminal. God's justice aims higher and 
 further ; it aims at overcoming evil by good ; 
 and how far more truly satisfied is it not when 
 the heart of the wicked man is softened, when 
 he condemns himself, when he weeps over his 
 own sins, and, falling on his knees, cries : 
 " Father, be merciful to me a sinner " ? Shall 
 we be so blind as not to see how morally higher 
 and more precious the Biblical doctrine of the 
 forgiveness of sins is than powerless ritual 
 expiations and vain judicial satisfactions ? 
 
 In order to accomplish the work of the 
 salvation of sinners, Jesus then had no need 
 to influence God, whose love had taken and 
 for ever retained the initiative of forgiveness. 
 God has no need to be brought back to man 
 and reconciled with him ; but it is man who 
 needs to be reconciled to God. And in this 
 respect the work to be accomplished remains 
 none the less an immense and necessary one. 
 
 Since the forgiveness of sins can only be 
 obtained by those who have wandered far 
 from God, repenting and turning towards 
 
126 The Atonement 
 
 Him, Christ's work will consist in bringing 
 about in the individual and in humanity this 
 state of repentance in which alone the forgive- 
 ness of the Father can become effective. To 
 all His renouncements and to all the efforts of 
 His holy life Jesus added His sufferings and 
 death, in order to manifest still further His 
 love and devotion, and by His self-sacrificing 
 love to reach at last those hearts which still 
 remained untouched by His kindness, and in 
 order to conquer those whose minds had not 
 yet been won over to His teaching. His 
 death was not an incident differing from the 
 rest of His life; it was the consummation. 
 Picture to yourself a mother whose son goes 
 astray and loses himself in every form of 
 disorder and disease. She goes in search of 
 him, watches by his bedside in the hospital, 
 endures the insults and jeers of insolent 
 servants, and runs the greatest dangers ; but 
 she loves and means to save her child. In 
 truth, I tell you that the time will come 
 when her son, whom no exhortation could 
 
Conclusion 127 
 
 restrain and no reproaches bring back to his 
 home, will feel his heart melt at the sight of 
 the sufferings, humiliation, and love of his 
 mother ; his eyes will fill with tears, and he 
 will crave and obtain his pardon ; he will 
 be saved. What has his mother's devotion 
 accomplished? it has called forth repentance 
 in the heart of her son. And who does not 
 see that this repentance is salvation itself ? 
 
 Thus it is that the passion and death of 
 Christ act upon the hearts of sinners. His 
 was the most powerful call to repentance 
 that humanity has ever heard, and also the 
 most operative and fruitful in marvellous 
 results. The cross is the expiation for sins 
 only because it is the cause of repentance to 
 which remission is promised. The more I 
 have considered the matter, the more strongly 
 the following conviction has become anchored 
 within me : in the moral world, and before 
 the God presented to us in the Gospel, there 
 is no atonement other than repentance — that 
 is^ the inner drama of the conscience in which 
 
128 The Atonement 
 
 man dies to sin and rises again to the life of 
 righteousness. There is nothing grander or 
 better, for repentance is the destruction of sin 
 and the salvation of the sinner ; it is the actual 
 realization of the divine purpose within us.^ 
 
 But it is quite evident that Jesus can only 
 be the mediator of our repentance if His 
 sufferings and death touch our hearts, and if 
 we do not consider them as far-off and in- 
 different events. We were speaking above of 
 the influence of a mother's sufferings upon 
 the heart of her son. If the latter is touched, 
 it is because the woman who is suffering for 
 him is his mother. So, too, between Christ 
 and us a bond must be established, a moral 
 relationship must be formed, which shall bring 
 Him near to us and make Him our brother. 
 This relationship establishes itself on both 
 sides : on the side of Jesus, by His love for 
 His unhappy and lost brethren, for all those 
 who sin, suffer, and degrade themselves here 
 below, but whom He so loves that He is 
 1 Cf, Note XXL p. 156. 
 
Conclusion 129 
 
 willing to partake of their lot and share in 
 
 their shame, misery, and death. On man's 
 
 side the relationship is established by trust, 
 
 and the sovereign attraction of the person 
 
 and message of Jesus. The energy of His 
 
 religious and moral consciousness awakens our 
 
 own. Near Him we feel happy and troubled. 
 
 As He reveals to us the love of the Father, He 
 
 makes us more conscious of the heinousness 
 
 of our faults. Then, when we follow Him 
 
 with the affection of disciples won over but 
 
 trembling, when we see Him affronting the 
 
 last struggle of life, in order that He may not 
 
 betray the Gospel of grace which He was 
 
 bringing us from the Father, sealing with 
 
 His blood the Kingdom of God which He 
 
 intended to found, accepting everything, even 
 
 till the last moment of the agony on the 
 
 cross, in filial obedience to God, in devotion 
 
 and infinite love for humanity: in that hour 
 
 we fully participate in His sufferings, by the 
 
 faith that unites us with Him ; we pronounce 
 
 upon ourselves the sentence of death which 
 
 9 
 
130 The Atonement 
 
 fell upon Him. We perceive the love of the 
 Father in all its power, and the sin of man, 
 our own sin, in all its horror. Morally we 
 die with Him, says the Apostle ; and if death 
 is the expiation of our sins, this expiation is 
 completed within us at the foot of the cross. 
 But what is this mystical death, save full 
 and perfect repentance ? 
 
 Ill 
 
 As soon as the drama of Calvary is thus 
 reduced to its true proportions, it becomes 
 what it really was, a human historic drama, 
 the grandest and most tragic in history. All 
 the magic of a sacerdotal rite, all judicial 
 fictions, vanish away ; we are once more among 
 the realities of the moral life. 
 
 Whatever the grandeur and sublimity of this 
 drama, it was not an isolated one. Although 
 it remains incomparable, and unique by reason 
 of the elevation of the soul that suffered, of 
 the religious consciousness that struggled, and 
 of the absolute self-denial and self-sacrifice, it 
 
Conclusion 131 
 
 is none the less a human one ; it takes its place 
 among all the successive acts of abnegation 
 and all the martyrdoms inspired by the same 
 feeling and tending towards the same object. 
 An act of free love, the death of Jesus follows 
 the law which, in the moral realm, demands 
 the sacrifice of love as the condition of salva- 
 tion and moral restoration. In fact, it is a 
 universal law that ordains that we should bear 
 one another's burdens, that the strong should 
 carry the heaviest burden, in order that the 
 weak should not be weighed down beneath 
 theirs ; it is a law of the universe of spirits in 
 their earthly probation that those who love 
 suffer on account of their love ; that to devote 
 oneself to the wretched means perforce taking 
 a part of their load upon one's own shoulders. 
 There is not a single victory of good but 
 demands its victims, nor a single progress but 
 the ransom must be paid for it. The work of 
 Christ ceases, then, to be isolated and incom- 
 prehensible ; it falls within the law which, 
 more than anything else in the world, it con- 
 
132 The Atonement 
 
 tributed to reveal and to stamp deep down in 
 the consciousness of mankind. His was the 
 most fruitful of all sacrifices, because His love 
 was the most intense and His self-renunciation 
 the most complete, whereas, even in the best 
 of men, this brotherly love and devotion are 
 but partial and full of limitations. In death 
 as in life, the Son of man remains the Incom- 
 parable One among the children of men. 
 
 But He is no longer alone, and, above all, 
 He did not wish to remain alone. The first 
 thing He would have His disciples do, is to 
 learn of Him to love, serve, and give their life 
 as He did. " If any man would come after 
 me," He said, " let him deny himself, and take 
 up his cross and follow me " ^ (Mark viii. 34, 
 X. 35-45). In the mind of Jesus, the cross is 
 not a particular misfortune, but the measure 
 of suffering implied in every act of love and 
 self-denial ; this is the sense in which it is the 
 very instrument of redemption ; Jesus carried 
 
 1 '* He that doth not take his cross and follow after me, 
 is not worthy of me " (Matt. x. 38). 
 
Conclusion 133 
 
 His cross, and those who follow Him must 
 imitate Him, and in like manner carry a cross 
 for the salvation of the world. The Apostle 
 Paul did not hesitate to take up the same 
 thought and to express it in such a way as to 
 scandalize all future orthodoxies : " I rejoice 
 in my sufferings for your sake, vnep vfxojv ; and 
 Jill up on my part that which is lacking of the 
 afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's 
 sake, which is the church " (Col. i. 24). Thus 
 Paul looks upon his own suflferings, because 
 they are of the same nature, as continuing and 
 filling up the atoning sufferings of Cl-rist. 
 
 The sufferings and death of the righteous 
 and of the good operate in the same way as 
 the passion of Christ upon the consciences of 
 the wicked; by them they are troubled and 
 inclined towards repentance ; which signifies 
 that they help to produce that state of re- 
 pentance in which the forgiveness of sins and 
 the work of salvation devised by the divine 
 mercy may be realized. The plan of this 
 work which has been proceeding since the 
 
134 The Atonement 
 
 beginning of the world, and which has its 
 centre and culmination in the death on 
 Calvary, is as simple as it is wonderful. God 
 calls all His children to collaborate in this 
 work of mercy and restoration by exercising 
 compassion ; self-sacrifice is the unique but 
 all-powerful lever which, renewing the human 
 soul, draws it out of its selfishness and makes 
 it know and taste a higher life. 
 
 And do we not, from this point of view, at 
 once truly human and divine, gain a juster, 
 more living, and luminous idea of Christianity, 
 as the religion of universal redemption by 
 love? Christ did not come to perform a 
 particular sacrificial rite. His is no super- 
 natural worship, no abstruse dogmatics, not 
 even the preaching of good tidings, and 
 nothing further. His religion is not a religion 
 of formulas, words, and pious talk. 
 
 Merely to repeat His words is not to con- 
 tinue His work ; we must reproduce His life, 
 passion, and death. He desires to live again 
 in each one of His disciples in order that He 
 
Conclusion 135 
 
 may continue to suffer, to bestow Himself, 
 and to labour in and through them towards 
 the redemption of humanity, until all prodigal 
 and lost children be found and brought back 
 to their Father's house. Thus it is that, 
 instead of being removed far from human 
 history, the life and death of Christ once more 
 take their place in history, setting forth the 
 law that governs it, and, by ceaselessly in- 
 creasing the power of redemptive sacrifice, 
 transform and govern it, and direct it towards 
 its divine end. 
 
 Such are the authentic data of the Christian 
 consciousness ; they are sufficient for the in- 
 struction and building up of practical piety. 
 But if the philosophic mind would go farther 
 still and ask whence proceeds this supreme 
 law of the moral world which has made self- 
 denial, disinterested self-sacrifice, and brotherly 
 love the ransom of sin and the means of its 
 progressive destruction, we may well be led 
 to confess our inabihty to answer. The 
 origins of all things are shrouded in mystery. 
 
136 The Atonement 
 
 Why does life develop by slow evolution, in 
 obedience to the laws which science is little 
 by little ascertaining? Why does anything 
 exist at all? Ignoramus, For my part, I 
 stop at the point where the solid ground of 
 experience slips from under my feet, and I 
 re-echo the words of Jesus Himself, "Yea, 
 Father, for so it was well-pleasing in thy 
 sight." It is good, indeed, because love is 
 not only the bond that unites souls, but is 
 also their very Ufe, and because self-sacrifice 
 is not less profitable to those who exercise 
 it than to those whom it is designed to 
 benefit ; for by self-sacrifice both rise in the 
 scale of the eternal life of the soul. 
 
 But I wiUingly admit that this answer of 
 piety is an act of adoration and not a solution. 
 It is doubtless rash to attempt to infer the 
 constitutive laws of the universe from our 
 purely subjective moral experience, still so 
 imperfect and rudimentary. A sober critical 
 theory of religious knowledge bids us be 
 humble, moderate, and distrustful of ourselves, 
 
Conclusion 137 
 
 because it makes us feel and touch the im- 
 passable limits within which our thoughts 
 move. Our ideas of God, of His creative 
 activity and of His purposes, are miserably 
 anthropomorphic ; as soon as we press them 
 closely and logically they become contra- 
 dictory. God's ways are not our ways, nor 
 are His thoughts our thoughts. In the 
 presence of the mystery of His essence and 
 of His creation, the speculations of the wise 
 are as quickly and entirely confounded as the 
 imaginings of the lowly. To both the 
 privilege of faith alone remains: to contem- 
 plate and follow His revelation in the history 
 of His works, and to listen with piety to 
 His voice in our hearts. 
 
NOTES 
 
 I. Isaiah liii. In order to understand the 
 meaning and to see the exact bearing of this 
 famous passage, one must throw off dogmatic 
 preconceptions. Historical exegesis estab- 
 lishes the following facts : — 
 
 1st. We are here dealing with a poetical 
 passage, the metaphors of which must be 
 interpreted in accordance with the mind of 
 the author and the spirit of the time, like 
 those of Oriental poetry in general ; 
 
 2nd. The "Servant of the Lord" is no 
 future and mysterious personality. The 
 author has himself defined and introduced 
 him in the preceding chapters as the poetical 
 personification, now of the nation of Israel 
 as a whole, now of the faithful remnant of 
 
 138 
 
Notes 139 
 
 the people (xli. 8 and 9 ; xlii. 1 ; xliv. 1 and 
 2, 21 ; xlv. 4 ; xlviii. 20 ; xlix. 3 and 5 ; lii. 
 13); 
 
 3rrf. The writer is not thinking of a drama 
 to come, but of a past drama. The only 
 thing the prophet sees in the future is the 
 glorification of his hero ; but his humiliation, 
 defeat, and suiFerings are in the past. 
 
 By the light of these literary considerations, 
 the entire allegory — for it is nothing more — 
 explains itself. What is thought of is the 
 miserable state of the faithful, of the " Lord's 
 poor," who have been involved in the cata- 
 strophe in which the whole nation has 
 perished. They, indeed, had done nothing 
 to call down this terrible disaster which had 
 cast them captive and dying on the banks 
 of the Euphrates. Upon them has weighed 
 the iniquity of the people ; upon them the 
 judgment of God has fallen. They have died 
 ill the land of the wicked, and their death 
 has been as a holy oblation to God for their 
 people. But this is only a metaphor. 
 
140 The Atonement 
 
 Divine grace will restore this defeated and 
 destroyed people ; and they shall be the cause 
 of this restoration, because their faithfulness 
 has caused Jahveh to be mindful of the 
 promises of the early covenant made with 
 the entire nation. It is in this sense that 
 the Servant of the Lord shall see his seed, 
 shall justify many by bringing them to 
 repentance, and shall become the nucleus of 
 a glorious national restoration. We do not 
 for a moment go beyond the history of Israel, 
 as the prophets saw it. 
 
 We are far beyond and above the priestly 
 ceremonies. In Leviticus we find real sacrifices, 
 but no idea of substitutive atonement. In the 
 second Isaiah we read of a metaphorical and 
 poetical substitution, but the idea of sacrifice 
 is absent. When we bring these books 
 together, in our attempt to explain the one 
 by the other, we perforce disfigure them. 
 
 11. A curious fact, and one which, in our 
 mind, has not yet received a satisfactory 
 
Notes 141 
 
 explanation, is the absence of any allusion to 
 the death of Christ, and of any connection 
 between His death and the Eucharist, in the 
 oldest Christian liturgy which we possess — the 
 Didache of the Twelve Apostles, chs. ix. and x. 
 At all events, it shows that at first the Eucharist 
 was really a meal, the feast of the Lord, SeLiri/ov 
 Tov Kvpiovy with thanksgiving for the material 
 and spiritual food given to men by the Heavenly 
 Father, and not in the least a sacrificial rite. 
 It was only later and by slow degrees that the 
 family table was changed into an altar, and the 
 broken bread into a host or victim. 
 
 III. Gregory Nazianzus, Orat., 43, 
 par. 27 : <l>tXocrd<^et /Ltot trepl Koafxov koI /cdcr/icoi/, 
 irepl vXrjs, Trepl yjjvxrjs ; . . . . nepl avao-rdcrecos, 
 KpCcreco'S, dirrairoSocrecos, xpidTOv TraOrjfJidrcjv €u 
 TOVTOL^ yap Koi to iTnrvp\dv€iv ovk dxprjCTTOv kol 
 TO hiapLapTaveLV olklvSwop. Cf, Iren^US, Adv. 
 Hcer,, i. 10, 3 ; Origen, De Princ, praef, C. 1. 
 
 IV. Irenjeus, Adv. Hcer., ii. 14, 7: 
 
 Utrum ne hi omnes (Philosophi) cognoverunt 
 
142 The Atonement 
 
 veritatem aut non cognoverunt 1 Et si quidem 
 cognoverunt, superflua est Salvatoris in hunc 
 mundum descensio. Lactantius, Instit. Z>iv,y 
 iv. 26 : Deus cuvi statuisset hominem liberare, 
 magistrum virtutis legavit in terram, qui et 
 prceceptis salutaribus formaret homines ad 
 innocentiam et operibus factisque prcesentibus 
 justitice viam panderet, qua gradiens homo et 
 doctorem suum sequens ad vitam ceternam 
 perveniret. Is igitur corporatus est et veste 
 carnis indutus ut, homini, ad quern docendum 
 venerat, virtutis et exempla et incitamenta 
 prceberet. Sed cum in omnibus vitce qfficiis 
 justitice specimen prcebuisset, ut doloris quoque 
 patientiam mortisque contemptum, quibus 
 perfecta et consuvimata fit virtus, traderet 
 homini, venit in manus impice nationis .... 
 mortem suscipere non recusavit, ut homo, illo 
 duce, subactum et catenatam mortem cum suis 
 terroribus triumpharet. Such passages, more 
 numerous in the Fathers than one would 
 think, show what rationaUsm could then be 
 found beneath the most supra-naturalistic 
 
Notes 143 
 
 form of metaphysics. The supernaturahsm 
 of the Fathers is only a reUc of their essen- 
 tially mythological way of thinking, as will 
 appear from their theory of a ransom paid to 
 Satan by God Himself. 
 
 V. Athanasius, De Incarnat, Verhi Z>., 
 9 : *H kv Tco Oavdrcp (j)dopa Kara tcov apOpcoTrcjv 
 ovK€TL ^(xipav ej(€t 8ta rov ivoLici](TavTa \6yov €v 
 TovTOLs 8ta Tov eVo9 (TcofiaTos* Hilary, T)e 
 Trinit., ii. 24 : Humani generis causa Dei 
 
 Jilius natus ex virgine et Spiritu sancto, ut homo 
 
 f actus ex virgine, naturam in se carnis acciperet, 
 
 per que hujus admixtionis societatem sanctificatum 
 
 in eo universi generis humani corpus existeret. 
 
 Origen, Contra Celsum, iii. 28, etc. 
 
 VI. Numerous Biblical metaphors have 
 contributed to form and to justify this strange 
 conception, and this fact should warn us of 
 the danger there is in drawing a dogma from 
 a popular metaphor, for every metaphor con- 
 tains a germ or a relic of mythology. First 
 the terms "ransom" and "redeem," XvTpov, 
 
144 The Atonement 
 
 ayopdCetv (Matt. xx. 28; 1 Tim. ii. 6; Titus 
 ii. 14, etc.). It could not enter the mind of 
 the first Christians that a ransom could or 
 ought to be paid to God. The souls of sinners 
 belonged exclusively to Satan ; from him, then, 
 they must be bought back. In the second 
 place, all the passages in which mention is 
 made of the struggle or victory of Christ 
 against Satan — Luke x. 18 ; John xii. 31 ; 
 1 John iii. 8 ; Col. ii. 15, etc. 
 
 VII. Irenjeus, Adv, Hcer., v. 1, 1 : Ferbum 
 potens et verus homo suo sanguine nos redimens, 
 redemptionem semetipsum dedit pro his qui in 
 captivitatem ducti sunt. Et, quoniam injuste 
 dominabatur nobis Apostasia (diabolus), potens 
 in omnibus Dei verbum et non dejiciens in sua 
 justitia, juste etiam adversus ipsum conversus 
 est apostasiam, ea quce sunt sua redimens ab eo, 
 non cum vi, sed secondum suadelam quem- 
 admodum decebat JDeum 
 
 Origen, in Matt. xx. 28 : TtVt eS<u/ce rqv 
 xpy^rju avTov XvTpov avri TroXXcoy; ov yap St) tS 
 
Notes 145 
 
 I, fj/jj TL ovv Tw TTOvqpco \ ovro<; yap e/c/xxret 
 rjfio)]/, i(os So07) TO vnep vfio^p avT(o \vTpov, rj 
 Tov *l7)crov ylfv)(7]f airaTrjdePTL <us hvvajxei/o) avrrj? 
 KvpLev(raL koI ovx opcovri, ore ov <f>4p€.i rrji/ eVl 
 ToJ Kari^eiv avrffv ^aoravov, 
 
 VIII. Gregory the Great, Homil in 
 JEvangelia, ii. 25, 8 : Per Leviathan — cetus 
 ille devorator humani generis designatur, — 
 Hunc pater omnipotens homo cepit quia ad 
 mortem illius unigenitum jilium incarnatum 
 misit, in quo et caro passibilis videri posset 
 et divinitas impassibilis videri non posset, 
 Cumque in eo serpens iste, per manus perse- 
 quentium, escam corporis momordit, divinitatis 
 aculeus ilium perforavit Gregory of Nyssa, 
 Or, catech,, 24 : Ta5 Trpo/caXv/xftart ttJs (jyvo-eco^ 
 rjfJLOJv €ueKpij(l)d7) to Oeiov, Iva /cara tov<s Xlx^ovs 
 T(ov i)(9vcov T(o SeXiaTL tyj^ aapKos crvuaiTOcnracrdrj 
 to ayKLCTTpov TTJs deoTrjTos* 
 
 IX. Augustine, Z)^ ^^OTz^, 11: Sunt stulti 
 
 qui dicunt: non poterat aliter sapientia Dei 
 
 homines liberare, nisi susciperet hominem et 
 
 10 
 
146 The Atonement 
 
 nasceretur de femina et a peccatoribus omnia 
 pateretur, — Poterat omnino, sed si aliter 
 faceret, similiter vestrce stultitice displiceret, 
 
 X. {a). Cur Deus homo, i. 11 : Non est 
 aliud peccare quam Deo non redder e debitum. — 
 Omnis voluntas rationalis creaturcz subjecta 
 debet esse voluntati Dei, Hoc est debitum, quod 
 debet angelus et homo Deo, Hie est solus et totus 
 honor quem a nobis exigit Deus, Hunc honor em 
 debitum qui Deo non reddit, aufert Deo quod 
 suum est et Deum eoohonorat : et hoc est peccare. 
 
 X. (6). Ibid,, i. 13 : N^ihil ergo Deus servat 
 justius quam suae dignitatis honorem, 
 
 X. (c). Ibid,, i. 13 ; Necesse est ergo, aut 
 ablatus honor solvatur aut poena sequatur, — 
 14 : Aut enim peccator sponte solvit quod debet, 
 aut Deus ab invito accipit. 
 
 X. (d). Ibid,, i. 20 : Si me ipsum et quid- 
 quid possum etiam quando non pecco, illi debeo 
 ne peccem, nihil habeo quod pro peccato illi 
 reddam. 
 
Notes 147 
 
 X. (e). Ibid,, i. 21 : Quid, si necesse esset, 
 aut totum mundum et quidquid Deus non est, 
 perire et in nihilum redigi aut te facere rem 
 parvam contra voluntatem Dei? secundum 
 quantitatem peccati exigit Deus satisfactionem, 
 
 X. (/). Ibid,, i. 21 : Quid ergo erit de te ? 
 
 Quomodo poteris salvus esse Sirationes 
 
 tuas considero, non video quomodo, 
 
 X. {g). Ibid,, ii. 6 : Ilium quoque qui de 
 suo pot erit Deo dare aliquid quod super et omne 
 quod sub Deo est, major em necesse est esse quam 
 omne quod Deus non est. Nihil autem est 
 super omne quod Deus non est nisi Deus, 
 Non ergo potest hanc satisfactionem facere nisi 
 Deus, Sed nee facere illam debet nisi homo, 
 .... Necesse est ut eam faciat Deus-Homo, 
 
 X. {h). Ibid,, ii. 19 and 20 : Misericordiam 
 vero Dei quce perire videbatur, cum justitiam 
 Dei et peccatum hominis consider abamus, tarn 
 magnam, tamque concordem invenimus justitice, 
 ut nee major nee justitior cogitari possit, etc. 
 
148 The Atonement 
 
 XI. Abelard, Epitome, c. 23: Ego vero 
 dico et ratione irrefragabili probo, quod 
 diabolus in hominem nullum jus habuerit 
 Neque enim qui eum decipiendo a subjectione, 
 Domini sui alienavit, aliquam potestatem super 
 eum debuit accipere, potius, si quam prius 
 haberet, debuit amittere, TheoL christ., iv. 
 13: Moriendo quidem docuit quantum nos 
 dilexerity atque in hoc ipso nobis usque ad 
 mor^tem pro ipso certandi exemplum proposuit, 
 
 XII. (a) Thomas Aquinas, Summa, P. 
 iii., quaest. 48, art. 2: Caput et membrum 
 sunt quasi una persona mystica, et ideo satis- 
 f actio Christi ad omnes fideles pertinet sicut 
 
 ad sua membra. In quantum enim duo 
 homines sunt unum in caritate, unus pro alio 
 satisjacere potest. 
 
 XII. (b) Ibid., P. iii., qusest. 48, art. 2: 
 Christus autem, ex caritate et obedientia 
 patiendo, majus Deo aliquid exhibuit quam 
 exigeret recompensatio totius offenses generis 
 humani Et ideo passio Christi non 
 
Notes 149 
 
 solum sufficiem, sed etiam superaboiidans satis- 
 f actio fuit, 
 
 XII. (c). Ibid., P. iii., 1, 2: Ad finem 
 aliquem didtur aliquid necessarium esse dupli- 
 citer, Uno modo, sine quo aliquid esse non 
 potest: sicut cibu^ est necessarius ad con- 
 servationem Mimance vitce. Alio modo per 
 quod melius et convenientius pervenitur ad 
 finem: sicut equus necessarius est ad iter. 
 Primo modo, Deum incarnari non fuit 
 necessarium ad reparationem humunce natures. 
 Deus enim per suam omnipotentiam poterat 
 humxinam natui'am multis aliis modis reparare. 
 Secundo autem modo, necessarium fuit Deum 
 incarnari ad humance naturce reparationem. 
 This necessitas convenientice is explained 
 elsewhere: Quest. 46, art. 2 and 3, 
 etc. Aquinas rather enumerates than har- 
 monizes every possible point of view. The 
 sufferings of Christ save us now per modum 
 satis factionis, now per modum meriti, per 
 modum sacrificii aut per modum redemptionis. 
 
150 The Atonement 
 
 Harnack therefore concludes thus, History of 
 Dogma, vi. p. 196 (1899): " Mult a, non 
 multum. When we review the exposition 
 given by Thomas, we cannot escape the 
 impression created by confusion. The waver- 
 ing between the hypothetical and the 
 necessary modes of view, between objective 
 and subjective redemption, further, between 
 a satisfactio superabundans and the assertion 
 that for the sins after baptism we have to 
 supplement the work of Christ, prevents any 
 distinct impression arising. It was only a 
 natural course of development when Duns 
 Scotus went on to reduce everything entirely 
 to the relative." 
 
 XIII. Duns Scotus, in Sentent., lib. iii., 
 Dist. 19 and 20 : Sicut omne aliud a Deo ideo 
 est bonum quia a Deo volitum et non e 
 converso, sic meritum illud {Chiisti) tantum 
 bonum erat pro quanto acceptabatur et ideo 
 meritum quia acceptatum, non autem e converso 
 .... Quantum vero attinet ad meriti suffi- 
 
Notes 151 
 
 cientiam,fuit profecto illudjinitum quia causa 
 ejus jinita .... non enim Christum quatenus 
 meruit sed in quantum homo, Proinde si 
 exquirOjS quantum valuerit Christi meritum, 
 valuit procul dubio quantum fuit a Deo 
 acceptatum, JDivina acceptatio est potissima 
 causa et ratio omnis meriti, etc. Duns Scotus 
 does not hesitate to say that an angel or a 
 righteous man, who had received the grace of 
 a perfect Ufe, could just as well have obtained 
 salvation for us, if God had only willed 
 it so. 
 
 XIV. Council of Trent, sess. vi. can. 7 ; 
 sess. xiv. can. 8. Catechismus Rom., ii. 6 : 
 Est integra atque omnibus numeris perfecta 
 satisf actio quam Christus Patri per solvit » 
 Neque vero pretium debitis nostris par solum 
 et cequale fuit, verum ea longe superavit. This 
 does not hinder the merits of the saints and 
 even those of each Christian from being added 
 to those of Christ Himself, and thus increasing 
 the value of the treasure of the Church. 
 
152 The Atonement 
 
 XV. Conf, Helvet,, ii. c. 14 : Improbamus 
 illos qui suis satisfactionibus eooistimant se pro 
 commissis satisfacere peccatis. Nam docemus 
 Christum unum, morte et passione sua esse 
 omnium peccatorum satisfactionem, propitia- 
 tionem et eocpiationem, 
 
 XVI. Luther, Kirchenpostille, Ausg. von 
 Francke, i. p. 621 : Darum soil auch dies 
 Wort, " Genugthuung," in unsern Kirchen und 
 Theologia fiirder nichts und todt sein und dem 
 Richteramt und Juristenschulen, dahin es 
 gehoert und daher es auch die Papisten 
 genommen, befohlen sein, etc. 
 
 XVII. Gerhard, Loc, theoL, xvii. 2, 54 : 
 
 Quom,odo enim peccata nostra vere in se sus- 
 
 cepisset ac perjectam satisfactionem prcestitisset, 
 
 nisi iram Dei individuo neoou cum peccatis con- 
 
 junctam vere sensisset? Quomodo a male- 
 
 dictione legis redemisset, f actus pro nobis male- 
 dictio, nisi judicium Dei irati persensisset ? 
 QuENSTEDT, P. iii. p. 346 : Sensit mortem 
 ceternam sed non in ceternum, Sterna ergo 
 
Notes 153 
 
 mors fait, si species essentiam et intensionem 
 pcenarum ; sin respicias injinitam personce 
 patientis sublimitatern, non tantum cequipollens, 
 sed et omnes omnium damnatorum ceternas 
 mortes infinities super egrediens fuit, Hanc 
 ipsam vero mortem ceternam cruciatusque in- 
 females non post, sed ante mortem temporalem, 
 in horto oliveti et in cruce su^tinuit salvator, 
 Cf, HoLLAZ, p. 731, etc. 
 
 XVIII. (a). SociNus, Prcelect theoL, c. 
 16-18: Remitter e peccata et sibi pro ipsis vere 
 satisjieri plane contraria sunt nee ulla ratione 
 
 simul consistere queunt Dum enim debitum 
 
 remittitur, condonatur ; dum vero pro eo 
 satisjit, eocigitur. 
 
 XVIII. (6). Christ relig, brev, inst., p. 
 661 : Aliu^ pro alio poenas istas dare nequa- 
 quam potest, Non enim sicut unius pecunia 
 alterius fieri potest, sic unius poence aterius 
 fieri possunt. Est pecunia ut jurisconsulti 
 loquuntur, reale quoddam; poence vero . . . . 
 sunt quoddam personate, et propterea ejus mx)di 
 
154 "^^^ Atonement 
 
 quce illi ipsi qui eas dot, perpetuo adhcereaiit, 
 nee in alium queant transferrin Cf, Limborch, 
 TheoL Christ., vi. 4, 25. 
 
 XVIII. (c). SociNus, PrceL theoL, c. 18: 
 
 Ubi innocentia, ibi fiulla poena .... Quid 
 
 iniquius quam insontem, pro sontibus punire, 
 
 prcesertim cum sontes ipsi adsint qui puniri 
 
 possunt ! etc. 
 
 XVIII. {d). PrceL theoL, c. 18 : Dictum 
 est poenam quam nos propter peccata nostra 
 debebamus, mortem ceternam Juisse, Atqui 
 Christus ceternam mortem non est expertus, et 
 vce nobis si eam expertus esset ! Cf, Limborch, 
 Theol Christ, iii. 21, 6. 
 
 XVIII. {e). PrceL theoL, c. 19 : Satisfactio, 
 satisfacientem, non mode ab eo cui satisfit 
 alium esse omnino requirit sed etiam eo satis- 
 
 f actionem perficere quod ipse habeat, nee ejus 
 cui satisfit jam esse did possit .... etc. 
 
 XIX. Catech. of Racow,, quaest. 380 and 
 384 : Morte et resurrectione Christi certi sumus 
 
Notes 155 
 
 facti de nostra resurrectione ad eum modum in 
 exemplo Christi propositum id nobis spectemus, 
 eos qui Deo obtemperent e quovis mortis genere 
 liberari, Deinde quod jam nobis constet Chris- 
 tum eam consecutum esse qua posset suis, id est, 
 qui ipsi parent vitam ceternam donare. — Hinc 
 perspicio longe plus in resurrectione, quam 
 in Christi morte situm esse in nostras salutis 
 n£gotio, 
 
 XX. F. Robertson. See especially the 
 sermon on "The Sacrifice of Christ" {Sermons, 
 3rd series, vii.). "The value of the death 
 of Christ consisted in the surrender of self- 
 will. . . . The influence of that sacrifice on 
 man is the introduction of the principle of 
 self-sacrifice into his nature — 'then were all 
 dead.' Observe again, not He died that we 
 might not die, but that in His death we 
 might be dead, and that in His sacrifice we 
 might become each a sacrifice to God. More- 
 over, this death is identical with life .... 
 death, therefore — that is the sacrifice of self 
 
156 The Atonement 
 
 — is equivalent to life. . . . Love is sacri- 
 fice. . . . Redemption, too, is sacrifice, else 
 it could not be love. ..." 
 
 XXI. Perhaps some will blame us for 
 having omitted, beside repentance, faith, to 
 which the forgiveness of sins is even more 
 expressly promised. And they will be right, 
 but only at first sight. For we have here 
 understood the word repentance in its 
 Scriptural sense as "the conversion of the 
 sinner to God." The Hebrew word schoub, 
 which the prophets use to express repent- 
 ance, means "to turn round," Le,, to turn 
 away from evil and to turn towards God; 
 the same meaning attaches to the words 
 €Tn(TTpi(^eiv and ^jLeravoeiv, The other, or 
 positive side of repentance, the return of the 
 child to his father, is faith. In order to 
 simplify our statement, we have spoken of 
 the two aspects of conversion as of an organic 
 unity. 
 
RELIGION AND MODERN 
 CULTURE 
 
 A Lecture delivered in Stockholm at the Religious 
 Science Congress j September 2, 1897 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. The Problem l63 
 
 II. The Principle of Modern Culture . l68 
 
 III. Opposite Principle in Traditional Religion 174 
 
 IV. The Relations between Religion and 
 
 ^ Modern Culture in Catholicism . . 181 
 
 V. The Relations between Religion and 
 
 Modern Culture in Protestantism . 192 
 
 VI. The Problem Transferred from the Objec- 
 tive Order of History to the Subjective 
 Order of Consciousness .... 203 
 
 VII. Piety and Morality 207 
 
 VIII. Mutual Penetration of Religion and 
 
 Culture . . . . . .211 
 
 IX. The Influence of Culture upon the Forms 
 
 OF Religion , .... 217 
 
 159 
 
RELIGION AND MODERN 
 CULTURE 
 
 My Lord President/ Ladies and Gentle- 
 men, — By asking me to discuss before you the 
 question of " the relations between religion and 
 modern culture," you have conferred a great 
 honour upon me, but you have also given me 
 a perilous task to accomplish. I would ask 
 you to excuse me if, in the expression of my 
 profound gratitude, I am hampered at the 
 present moment by a feeling of distrust pro- 
 duced by the insufficiency of my own powers 
 and the difficulty of the subject. This ques- 
 tion, which on either side brings into open 
 
 1 The Religious Science Congress, held in Stockholm 
 from August 31 to September 4, 1897, was presided over 
 by M. V. Scheele, Lutheran Bishop of Wisby. 
 
 161 11 
 
1 62 Religion and Modern Culture 
 
 conflict the deepest and noblest aspirations of 
 our time, is the burning topic which is ever 
 giving rise to the gi^avest and most heated 
 controversies. In it are involved the primordial 
 interests of the social and individual life, the 
 destiny of peoples, the future of churches, and 
 the moral welfare of souls. It is to our credit 
 that such discussions ever awaken our passion- 
 ate enthusiasm ; but it is also our weakness 
 that they often make us intolerant. I enter 
 upon this discussion having resolved to tell 
 you the whole of my thought — it would not 
 have been worth while to undertake so long a 
 journey in order to conceal a part of my mind; 
 but I have none the less the keenest desire 
 and the firmest intention to wound the feelings 
 of none, and to utter no word capable of injur- 
 ing or causing pain to anyone. Those who 
 may differ from me upon this delicate and 
 complex subject will, I hope, have a chance 
 of being heard, and of correcting the errors or 
 filling in the gaps in my speech. Our Congress 
 is not a council ; it is a school for mutual 
 
Religion and Modern Culture 163 
 
 improvement, where we bring our knowledge 
 and experience for the benefit of all, and where 
 we should learn to profit by our very errors. 
 It is by the benefit of this consideration that 
 I am speaking in this place, asking you kindly 
 to grant me your indulgent attention. 
 
 L—The Problem 
 
 The relations which exist to-day between 
 religion, viewed as a traditional institution, 
 and modern culture, considered in its principle 
 and general aspirations, are not difficult to 
 define. One word suffices to sum up and 
 translate them ; it is the word conflict. On 
 one hand, independent science, which is the 
 free search for truth in every order, liberal 
 politics aiming at the emancipation of demo- 
 cracy and the self-government of human society, 
 rational pedagogics, the aim of which is to 
 bring the individual out of the state of tutelage 
 and to endow him with his rights as a citizen 
 who is free and of age, in a word, the modem 
 spirit, which is the link and common expression 
 
164 Religion and Modern Culture 
 
 of all these tendencies, is everywhere suspicious, 
 guarding itself against the claims of the domi- 
 nant religion established in the form of a 
 church. It looks upon religious institutions 
 as the incarnation of the spirit of the past, 
 and as the great obstacle to the bringing in of 
 a better state of things. On the other hand, 
 the official representatives of religion, whose 
 mission it is to propagate and defend it, per- 
 ceive nothing but menace and danger to 
 religion in the discoveries of modern science, 
 in the development of its methods, in the 
 victories of democracy, and in the daily pro- 
 gress of the human mind in the direction of 
 ever-increasing emancipation. 
 
 In the eyes of many savants and to many 
 churchmen, the conflict seems therefore irre- 
 ducible, and the two powers appear to be 
 irreconcilable. Ceci, it is said, tuera cela. 
 Hence the unbridling of opposing passions 
 in the arena of social life. Modern culture 
 becomes irreligious, because it can see no 
 other possibility of triumph save in the 
 
Religion and Modern Culture 165 
 
 extirpation of religion itself. Religion, on the 
 other hand, often becomes anti-scientific and 
 illiberal ; at times it even aims at bringing 
 once more into subjection the emancipated 
 intelligence of man, because it does not deem 
 itself capable of flourishing or even living, if 
 science is allowed to go uncontrolled, and if 
 man succeeds in rendering himself wholly 
 independent. The destruction of religion or 
 the domestication of science, the triumph of 
 irreligious culture or the triumph of supersti- 
 tion — such are the two extreme solutions 
 which attract the too great number of men 
 who only discern the surface of things, and 
 have only studied the problem from afar. 
 The very fact that you have included this 
 problem in your programme proves sufficiently 
 that you do not resign yourselves to such an 
 alternative. You are too devoted to modern 
 science, you are too much imbued with its 
 spirit and its law, not to feel that science 
 cannot renounce its independence without 
 committing suicide and compromising the 
 
1 66 Religion and Modern Culture 
 
 dignity of the mind itself. Further, you 
 have made too deep a study of the history and 
 of the psychology of religion to doubt for a 
 single moment that it has in the soul of man 
 an indestructible root. Even if the sacrifice 
 of the one or of the other of these great 
 manifestations of the spiritual life were 
 possible, it would mean a fatal impoverish- 
 ment. Science is inadequate as a guide to 
 life, it cannot give it a meaning and a purpose. 
 Science will never tell us, outside an act of 
 faith, why life is to be lived well. Even in 
 the midst of nature, explained in all its 
 mysteries and mastered in all its forces, man 
 would remain troubled like a conqueror van- 
 quished by his own conquests, and resourceless 
 in face of a silent and menacing universe. 
 The triumph of his genius would again end in 
 a prayer and an act of adoration. 
 
 Nor, on the other hand, can religion, which 
 is the total life of the soul — that is to say, light 
 and thought as well as feeling and will — stand 
 apart from the general culture of man, for it 
 
Religion and Modern Culture 167 
 
 is this very cultured man that religion really 
 desires and is destined to inspire, console, and 
 unite to God. A religion which should have 
 become divorced from our culture would be 
 without influence upon our conscience. The 
 proscription of one of these powers by the 
 other cannot therefore be the solution of the 
 problem ; much rather do we all, in varying 
 degrees, dream of mutual interpenetration 
 and progressive reconciliation. By what 
 means and under what conditions can this 
 interpenetration and reconciliation, so eagerly 
 desired, be brought about? How are we to 
 bring any improvement and mitigation into 
 the fatal war now being waged between 
 religion and culture, in our society and even 
 in the conscience of every individual ? Such 
 is the manner in which the question you sub- 
 mitted to me, and which I am to try and 
 answer, presented itself before my mind. The 
 following study will be divided into two parts : 
 in the first I shall consider the conflict 
 between religion and modern culture in its 
 
1 68 Religion and Modern Culture 
 
 objective bearing and in its historical aspect ; 
 in the second I shall determine its psycho- 
 logical bearing, and exhibit the problem to be 
 solved in its subjective or individual aspect. 
 Indeed, on reflection one is not long in per- 
 ceiving that it is vain to seek or to expect 
 any uniform and universal external solution. 
 To conciliate our science and our faith is the 
 inner and sacred task which imposes itself 
 upon the conscience of every man who thinks 
 freely and wishes at the same time to be a 
 man of profound morality. 
 
 //. — The Principle of Modern Culture 
 
 The high-sounding expressions " modern 
 culture," "modern spirit," "modern science" 
 only present an abstract and vague meaning 
 which needs, before all else, to be defined and 
 clearly determined. They stand for and sum 
 up very many different tendencies or mani- 
 festations, some of which may be good, but 
 others of which are certainly detestable. To 
 forestall any misunderstanding, and not to 
 
Religion and Modern Culture 169 
 
 appear to be defending what ought to be 
 censured, or condemning what is legitimate, 
 it is important, at the outset, to reduce the 
 different activities and spiritual manifestations 
 which make up modern culture to the unity 
 of the principle which constitutes its essence 
 and distinctive character. It is the only way 
 to judge culture rightly and from within, by 
 putting on one side the errors of application 
 or the particular excesses which may need to 
 be reproved. Now, this unity of principle 
 which covers all the general manifestations 
 and tendencies of the modern spirit in every 
 department is not difficult to discover. A 
 single word expresses it : the word autonomy ; 
 by which I mean the unconquerable assurance 
 of the human mind, in its present advanced state 
 of development, that it possesses within itself 
 the norm of its life and of its thought, with the 
 deep-seated desire to realize itself by obeying 
 its own law. A few examples will suffice to 
 bring into full light this principle of unity. 
 It is the custom to date the origin of modern 
 
lyo Religion and Modern Culture 
 
 philosophy from Descartes and his Discourse 
 on Method (1637). But modern philosophy 
 only begins in reality with the effort made 
 by the mind to look into itself and to take 
 immediate cognizance of itself in the initial 
 phenomena of consciousness. Now, what is 
 methodical doubt — I mean that preliminary 
 resolution to put all in question — but the 
 rejection of external or traditional authorities 
 and of the ideas based solely upon custom or 
 the words of a master? And, on the other 
 hand, what is the Cartesian principle of holding 
 as true only what appears evidently so to be, 
 except the effective recognition that the 
 reason has its own law within itself — in other 
 words, the triumphant claim to the autonomy 
 of the mind ? Since Descartes this autonomy 
 of philosophy has continuously gained in 
 credit, extent, and depth with Leibnitz, 
 Locke, Hume, and Kant; so much so that 
 to-day, when the method of authority ventures 
 to assert itself in this domain, it appears 
 nothing more than a puerile anachronism. 
 
Religion and Modern Culture 171 
 
 With Kant the autonomy of ethics followed 
 that of philosophy. Conscience is no less 
 independent and sovereign to-day than reason. 
 Duty, in order to be recognized as such, 
 must proceed from the inner imperative law. 
 External authority, elevated to the utmost 
 extreme, is inadequate to create the feeling 
 of obligation. Its prescriptions, however strict 
 and solemn they may be, if they merely come 
 from without, are held to be arbitrary, and 
 remain for the modern man outside the moral 
 sphere properly so-called. 
 
 If from philosophy and ethics we pass to 
 the physical sciences, we see clearly that the 
 method of observation, which reigns supreme 
 in this domain, is likewise reducible to the 
 same Cartesian principle. To wish to ascertain 
 the facts for oneself, and to place experience 
 above all authority, is also to constitute the 
 mind the supreme judge in the realm of 
 natural knowledge. The revolution effected 
 in this order by Galileo and his successors 
 completes and confirms that of Descartes 
 
172 Religion and Modern Culture 
 
 and the philosophers. The authoritative deci- 
 sions of the Church or of the old Schools have 
 been overcome by the experimental method ; 
 for the latter, when rightly considered, is 
 only an application in the domain of the 
 laws and phenomena of nature, and a practical 
 demonstration of the autonomy of the mind. 
 
 The same must be said of the similarly 
 irresistible development taken during the 
 last two centuries by scientific philology, 
 grammatical exegesis, and historical criticism. 
 The discoveries made concerning the past 
 history of humanity, the patient study of 
 monuments and texts, the strict re-examina- 
 tion of all traditions have brought about in 
 our way of looking upon the history of the 
 human race, and of religions in particular, 
 a revolution no less profound than the experi- 
 mental method in our way of looking on the 
 universe. As a matter of fact, the historical 
 and critical method is also a form and a 
 continuation of the experimental method 
 itself — that is to say, it is still the triumph 
 
Religion and Modern Culture 173 
 
 of the principle of autonomy. No external 
 witness can prevail to-day against the inner 
 and peculiar law of reason, for this sovereign 
 law ever judges both the testimony and the 
 witness. Even when we yield to the testi- 
 mony of another, it is to our own mind that 
 we are yielding, for we esteem that, after 
 all, the thing is reasonable ; so much so that 
 the assent of ourselves to ourselves appears 
 more and more as the sole foundation of all 
 human rationality^ as well as of all morality. 
 
 Finally, this principle of autonomy stands 
 out still more clearly in the political and 
 social sphere. Starting from the moral axiom 
 that man is not a slave, that he has a right 
 to belong to himself, the evolution of modern 
 society tends more and more towards self- 
 government. The days of tutelage and 
 serfage are ended ; the age of civic majority 
 has begun. Whatever the prevailing con- 
 stitutional forms — whether the movement 
 takes a peaceful course or provokes violent 
 crises — everywhere in civilized mankind, in 
 
174 Religion and Modern Culture 
 
 the south and in the north of Europe, in 
 the old and in the new world, we observe 
 the same phenomenon — I mean the advent 
 of democracy, which is overcoming every 
 barrier, overflowing and spreading like a great 
 ocean wave. 
 
 Such is the modern man. In all the mani- 
 festations of his life he obeys one and the 
 same aspiration ; by an irresistible effort he 
 tends towards the final conquest and realiza- 
 tion of his autonomy. And it is in this 
 very effort and expansion of his inner being 
 that he fatally comes into collision with 
 religion, as it has been established and main- 
 tained by the tradition of the past. 
 
 ///. — Opposite Principle in Traditional 
 Religion 
 
 If religion could consist merely in the 
 inner feeling and life of the individual soul, 
 it would doubtless be above or at least outside 
 modern science and politics, and the conflict 
 would not arise. But, as a matter of fact, 
 
Religion and Modern Culture 175 
 
 it is never so. The faith of the Churches has 
 expressed itself in dogmas and institutions. 
 Now, dogma is no longer reUgion in its state 
 of purity : the reUgious sentiment is associated 
 with countless clearly defined philosophical 
 or historical ideas, which were in the past 
 consciously or unconsciously borrowed from 
 a particular historical period of human culture 
 in order to explain the faith. The dogmas 
 of the Church, for instance, are associated 
 with a collection of books, the origin and 
 formation of which are investigated by modern 
 criticism. With regard to the origin of 
 humanity and of the world, the cause of evil 
 and of death, heaven, purgatory and hell, 
 ethics and the relations between the finite 
 and the infinite, they embody and express 
 notions which may and often do contradict 
 the results and discoveries of modern science. 
 How, then, can the conflict be avoided, if 
 traditional religion, in the name of divine 
 authority, attempts to force upon the science 
 of the present day the views taught by the 
 
176 Religion and Modern Culture 
 
 science of the Middle Ages, and even of 
 antiquity ? Let the Churches do what they 
 will, there is not a single movement of the 
 modem mind but interests and disquiets them. 
 Columbus cannot land in America, Copernicus 
 cannot change the laws of the world, Galileo 
 cannot discover the movement of the earth, 
 Richard Simon cannot found Biblical criticism, 
 Kant cannot write the Critique of pure reason, 
 ChampoUion cannot read the hieroglyphs of 
 ancient Egypt, Darwin cannot publish his 
 hypothesis on the origin of species, no savant 
 or thinker can make a discovery of general 
 interest, or open out a new vista into the 
 universe, without the edifice of ancient theo- 
 logy being shaken, and traditional religion, 
 in order to defend itself and avert the danger, 
 being tempted to condemn, by its decisions 
 if not by its anathemas, what it is no longer 
 able either to refute or to prevent. 
 
 In order to maintain their venerable dogmas, 
 the Churches are attempting to superpose and 
 impose them upon modern thought, in the 
 
Religion and Modern Culture 1 7 7 
 
 name of an external authority held to be 
 divine. Thus, in orthodox manuals of dog- 
 matics, a history of human origins and a 
 cosmology, reputed to be supernatural, are 
 superposed and imposed upon a rationally 
 established cosmology and history. In like 
 manner, reUgious institutions, claiming to be 
 of anterior and divine right, are superposed 
 and imposed upon civil laws and institutions. 
 Such being the case, how is it possible for the 
 conflict not to arise in every department ? 
 On one side, it is a case of autonomy ; on the 
 other, a case of heteronomy. Without doubt 
 the champions of religion maintain that the 
 principle of this heteronomy is the authority 
 of God Himself, to which every reasonable 
 creature is in duty bound to submit. They 
 are right in principle ; but, in fact, God never 
 speaks or governs in person ; it is always men 
 who, in His name, formulate dogmas and 
 create institutions. So it comes that we are 
 not in reahty simply face to face with God 
 
 alone, who, doubtless, would be able to 
 
 12 
 
178 Religion and Modern Culture 
 
 reconcile His own actions with ours and render 
 us obedient by inner persuasion, but we are 
 face to face with a clergy and historical social 
 forms which, from without, would fain sub- 
 jugate the human mind, but whose divine 
 prerogatives and supernatural authority are 
 discussed or even denied by the human mind. 
 The expressions " autonomy " and " heter- 
 onomy," to which we have just reduced the 
 tendencies of modern thought and of religious 
 tradition, translate only too faithfully the 
 nature and gravity of the conflict which is 
 being waged on all sides. 
 
 The forms and manifestations of this conflict 
 necessarily vary with the epoch and the sur- 
 roundings. In the East, for instance, where 
 religion pervades the whole of life, and where 
 what we term "modern culture" scarcely 
 exists at all, the conflict is hardly perceptible. 
 It is otherwise in the Christian West. Here 
 the religious problem towers above and com- 
 plicates all the problems of social and political 
 life. The way the first is stated naturally 
 
Religion and Modern Culture 179 
 
 carries with it the solution of all the others. 
 In philosophy, what all thinkers are seeking 
 with a kind of intellectual anguish is the con- 
 ciliation of pure reason with practical reason, 
 and of the harshness of facts with the gener- 
 osity of the heart ; in politics, it is clearly felt 
 that Uberal progress can only be insured by 
 endowing the citizens with the inner and 
 moral power to govern themselves. Finally, 
 sociologists are more and more coming to the 
 conclusion that the social question is dependent 
 upon the moral question, and that, in order to 
 secure the reign of justice and to bring about 
 universal happiness, men must be taught to 
 conquer selfishness and to love each other. 
 But each of these problems is only another 
 aspect of the religious problem. 
 
 The conflict, the elements of which we have 
 just sketched and defined, everywhere rages in 
 the Christian world, which is also the modern 
 world. It is visible in all countries and in all 
 the Churches. But it does not everywhere 
 assume the same forms, nor has it everywhere 
 
i8o Religion and Modern Culture 
 
 the same chances of being pacified. It takes 
 on one aspect where the claims of modern 
 thought are in open conflict with the tradition 
 of a Church, which, proclaiming itself infal- 
 Hble, declares its dogmas to be immutable and 
 its institutions divine, and which could not, 
 without betraying its very principle, accept 
 even so much as the idea of reformation ; it 
 takes on another aspect in the midst of a 
 reUgious society which, although it may 
 sometimes put forward similar claims, has not 
 within itself a guiding power capable of en- 
 forcing them, but necessarily obeys a tradi- 
 tion which its past variations and its present 
 diversities render essentially pliant and elastic, 
 and whose very principle of freedom of inquiry 
 and of personal faith leaves open to all the 
 influences of modern times and to all the 
 transformations of the future. It is right, 
 then, that we should distinguish here between 
 Catholicism and Protestantism, defining more 
 clearly the relations which exist in both 
 between religious faith and modern culture. 
 
Religion and Modern Culture i8i 
 
 IV. — The Relations between Religion and 
 Modern Culture in Catholicism 
 
 There is a country in Central Europe where 
 Roman CathoUcism is accepted and practised 
 with the greatest sincerity and fervour, where 
 it is represented by the worthiest clergy, 
 proclaimed and defended during the present 
 century by the most eloquent preachers and 
 writers, but where, at the same time, under 
 the inspiration of the philosophy of the eigh- 
 teenth century, and thanks to the shock of the 
 Revolution, modern culture has developed 
 with the greatest intensity and brilliancy in 
 open hostility with religious tradition. That 
 country is my own ; it is France — that is to 
 say, the country I know best and the one in 
 which the nature of the conflict between the 
 Catholic religious system and the general 
 tendencies of the modern spirit may best be 
 studied. Nowhere also does the opposition 
 appear more flagrant and irreducible between 
 the reign of autonomy, to which secular reason 
 
1 82 Religion and Moc^ern Culture 
 
 aspires, and that of heteronomy, which is the 
 very principle of the religions of authority. 
 
 It is far from being the case that between 
 Catholicism and modern reason no attempts 
 at reconciliation and union have been made 
 by men as broad-minded as they were distin- 
 guished. There existed, until 1870, a liberal 
 Catholicism rendered illustrious by the names 
 of Lacordaire, Montalembert, the Duke de 
 Broglie, Bishop Dupanloup, and many others. 
 But already struck by the Syllabus of 1864, 
 beaten back and violently denounced by Louis 
 Veuillot and the Univers, attacked still more 
 efficaciously, although with more apparent 
 moderation, by the Jesuits, this liberal Catholi- 
 cism was definitely vanquished and destroyed 
 by the decrees of the Vatican Council in 1870. 
 Its most illustrious representatives were con- 
 demned, either to humiliating retractations or 
 to subterfuges more humiliating still, as in the 
 case of Father Gratry and Bishop Dupanloup, 
 or else to open rupture, as in the case of 
 Father Hyacinthe in France and of Canon 
 
Religion and Modern Culture 183 
 
 DoUinger in Germany. But for every victory 
 a ransom must be made. The victory which 
 was then gained, in CathoUcism, by the 
 principle of absolute authority proclaiming the 
 personal and separate infallibility of the Pope, 
 was one of those the fatal consequences of which 
 ruin a system even more surely than defeat. 
 At the Vatican Council the Pope was not only 
 set up as the divine oracle of doctrinal truth ; 
 he was also proclaimed the universal Bishop, 
 having an absolute right and undeniable power 
 to govern all dioceses and consciences without 
 check or counterpoise. Hence it is the duty 
 of every man to subordinate his thoughts and 
 his will to this supreme jurisdiction, with the 
 result that the only alternative which remains 
 to him is this obedience implying abdication, or 
 resistance which immediately becomes revolt. 
 Founded upon the principle of the authority of 
 the tradition of the Church, of which the Pope 
 remains the infallible interpreter. Catholic the- 
 ology necessarily dates from the Middle Ages, 
 which witnessed its completion, remaining 
 
184 Religion and Modern Culture 
 
 practically alien to the tendencies and principles 
 of modern thought. The philosophy and the 
 theology of Saint Thomas Aquinas are ex- 
 clusively taught in the seminaries as if Bacon, 
 Descartes, and Kant had never come. The 
 decrees of the Council of Trent and the deci- 
 sions of the Holy Office establish what is to 
 be thought of the books of the Bible, of the 
 Canon, of the form of the text, and of the value 
 of the translations, as if all the labour of 
 modern criticism and exegesis were null and 
 void. In the Cathohc Institute of Paris there 
 was a young and very distinguished professor, 
 Abbe Loisy, who introduced there, with much 
 knowledge and tact, the historical and gram- 
 matical study of Holy Scripture, and tried, in 
 order to make room for the conclusions to 
 which this study led him, to broaden somewhat 
 the Patristic theory of verbal inspiration. He 
 was denounced in Rome by the Jesuits, 
 condemned by the papal Encyclical Providen- 
 tissimus Deus, and dismissed by Monsignor 
 d'Hulst, Rector of the Institute, who, to make 
 
Religion and Modern Culture 185 
 
 assurance doubly sure and in order to prevent 
 any possible return of heresy, did away with 
 the chair of Holy Scripture together with the 
 professor, and established in its place a harmless 
 lectureship of Oriental philology. Abbe Loisy 
 remained silent rather than rebel. More 
 recently still the Congregation of the Holy 
 Office assembled ; the question debated was 
 whether one could with a clear conscience deny 
 or even simply cast a doubt upon the Johan- 
 nine authorship of the famous passage in 
 1 John V. 8 concerning " the three witnesses 
 in Heaven, who, albeit three, agree in one." 
 The Congregation clearly made answer in the 
 negative, and the Pope rendered the decision 
 binding. So that now Catholic theologians are 
 guilty of a sin against faith if they continue 
 to discuss a problem of verbal criticism, the 
 solution of which might have been thought to 
 depend mainly on an attentive study of the 
 manuscripts. 
 
 Hence two very important consequences 
 have followed : on the one hand, the official 
 
i86 Religion and Modern Culture 
 
 theology of the Church and the education of the 
 clergy have assumed a character of growing 
 opposition to modern methods and ideas. So 
 great is the cleavage that all controversy in 
 matters of dogma has ceased between church- 
 men and secular philosophers or men of science. 
 Among the latter, not one thinks it his duty 
 to take the trouble to refute or even to discuss 
 a dogma or a conception of Catholic theology. 
 On the other hand, scientifically pursued in 
 opposition and open war against the Church 
 for the last two centuries, modern culture has 
 nearly always taken up an anti-religious atti- 
 tude. Between the sacred and the profane, the 
 laity and the clergy, an impassable gulf has been 
 formed. All communication from one side to 
 the other is cut off; rational arguments are no 
 longer used ; contempt alone is poured forth, 
 and this is answered by anathemas from the 
 other side. If the two parties still fight and 
 try to make each other capitulate, it is by 
 pressure of material interests, and by means of 
 poUtical manoeuvres or negotiations. 
 
Religion and Modern Culture 187 
 
 Nothing could have caused more harm to 
 the rehgious sentiment. From the conflict of 
 which I have just spoken, there arose, during 
 the eighteenth century, what has been termed 
 " the Voltairean spirit." It has perhaps grown 
 heavier since the death of its creator, but it 
 rages none the less throughout the French 
 Press, like a withering sirocco. During the 
 nineteenth century the positive philosophy 
 of Auguste Comte and Littre, the science of 
 Renan, the historical method of Taine and 
 Michelet, the criticism of Sainte-Beuve, and 
 the novels of Zola have almost fatally assumed 
 a character of hostility to Catholic tradition. 
 In social life the battle has been waged with 
 even greater violence. Gambetta's cry, 
 "Le clericalisme, c'est I'ennemi," has become 
 the motto of the Republic. And, unhappily, 
 by clericalism the masses understand religion 
 itself In the opinion of the greater number, 
 you are a clerical if you believe in God and 
 pray to Him. The neutral attitude is not 
 permitted. Whoever is not against the 
 
1 88 Religion and Modern Culture 
 
 Church is for her. In certain circles it is the 
 mark of a good repubUcan to inveigh against 
 the priests and against God. 
 
 On the other side, the Church, in order 
 more effectively to defend herself, has in 
 turn taken the offensive ; the clergy have 
 placed themselves at the head of a political 
 party which they lead into the electoral arena 
 with a view to controlling the powers of the 
 State. They no longer fight for truth, but 
 for the exercise of government. The triumph 
 or the overthrow of religion is dependent, not 
 on the awakening of the conscience, but on 
 the result of a ballot or the success of a 
 diplomatic manoeuvre. Civil society has 
 secularized the schools, and calculated all 
 their organization in order better to resist 
 the influence of the Catholic faith. But the 
 Church starts confessional schools in opposi- 
 tion to the others, and in turn organizes 
 them in the way best suited to destroy or 
 counterbalance all the action of the lay 
 educational establishments. Such is the 
 
Religion and Modern Culture 189 
 
 dilemma in which modern society is now 
 struggHng. 
 
 In such a strife what termination can be 
 hoped for? After the excesses of fruitless 
 violence, wearied with their mutual power- 
 lessness, the combatants long for a little rest, 
 but are unable to attain peace by means of 
 an intimate and lasting reconciliation. A 
 Pope, endowed with a great genius and 
 surrounded with prestige, has arisen, and, 
 for a while, has succeeded in reconciling 
 the Church both with heretical monarchies 
 such as Russia, Germany, and England, and 
 with republican democracies such as those 
 of the United States, France, and Switzerland. 
 So we witness the conclusion of conventions 
 or concordats, tracing conventional frontiers, 
 stipulating mutual concession and considera- 
 tion, but always accompanied on either side 
 by tacit or explicit reservations. External 
 and impenetrable the one to the other, the 
 two rival powers suspend hostilities without 
 disarming, but remain ever ready to resume 
 
I go Religion and Modern Culture 
 
 their warfare as soon as they beheve their 
 own interest constrains them so to act. 
 
 In truth, no sincere reconciUation seems 
 to be possible between a Church immovable 
 in her dogmas and institutions, and modern 
 culture which only develops in obedience to 
 a constantly progressive evolution. Principles, 
 methods, aims, everything is contrary. On 
 the one side, we find an intellectual and moral 
 system in which everything rests upon^ the 
 authority of the past and tends to a denial 
 of the autonomy of the mind. On the other, 
 we have a system of free inquiry and of 
 perpetual discussion, where everything in the 
 scientific order rests upon evidence alone, 
 in the moral order upon inner conviction, and 
 in the social order upon the government of 
 oneself by oneself. The two powers contend 
 for the complete possession of society and 
 the individual soul, and, by setting up one 
 part of them against the other, even causes 
 them to be internally divided. We then 
 witness within society — and this is true of the 
 
Religion and Modern Culture 191 
 
 whole of Europe — the formation of an elite or 
 aristocracy of the intellect, devoting itself 
 to criticism, to science, and to independent 
 philosophy, and, casting off all religious and 
 even moral faith, in its desire for greater 
 freedom, ending in a barren dilettantism, 
 content to leave to the ignorant and super- 
 stitious multitude the care of fulfilling the 
 duties of life, of submitting to the yoke of 
 religion, and of obeying the constituted 
 authorities. We see the same divorce within 
 the individual soul of those who would retain 
 the privileges both of culture and of religion. 
 A sort of water-tight partition is formed 
 within them, between their heart and their 
 reason, the domain of science and the practical 
 sphere ; free and bold in the one, these souls 
 are blindly obedient in the other. Thus they 
 live in a kind of artificial peace, provided they 
 never examine what they do and believe, in 
 the light of what they know. But, besides 
 its being doubtful whether these safety walls 
 can remain for ever, it is plain that, being thus 
 
192 Religion and Modern Culture 
 
 internally divided, both nations and individuals 
 consume their best energies in a fruitless 
 struggle, and are destined sooner or later to 
 end in the throes of a violent revolt, or in the 
 debihty of a general paralysis. 
 
 V, — The Relations between Religion and 
 Modern Culture in Protestantism 
 
 The conflict, in Protestant communities, 
 is perhaps not less keen and real ; but here 
 the relations between rehgion and modern 
 culture are of a different nature. From ex- 
 ternal they now become internal. Instead of 
 remaining absolute, the opposition is relative 
 and changing ; finally, the two societies, the 
 religious and the civil, instead of being 
 strangers the one to the other, or simply in 
 juxtaposition, are, so to speak, bound up with 
 each other, and are necessarily borne along in 
 the same historical evolution. 
 
 From the very outset, the solidarity between 
 the Protestant and the scientific spirit is 
 patent. Both were born at the same time. 
 
Religion and Modern Culture 193 
 
 The Reformation was, in history, a parallel 
 movement to that of the Renaissance, pro- 
 ceeding in the same direction. The emancipa- 
 tion pm*sued by the latter in the intellectual 
 and esthetic activity of the mind was brought 
 about by the former in the religious Ufe and 
 in the moral conscience. If the Humanists 
 became intellectually free through reading and 
 careful study of the works of classical antiquity, 
 liUther, Zwingli, and Calvin became still more 
 so in religion through cHnging to the text of 
 Holy Scripture, the authority of which set 
 them free from the tyranny of tradition. 
 When Calvin was asked how, without tradi- 
 tion, he could receive the assurance that the 
 Biblical revelation proceeded from God, he 
 answered triumphantly : *' The Scripture 
 showeth in itself no less apparent sense of 
 her truth, than white and black things do 
 of their colour or sweet and sour things of 
 taste." ^ This is the argument of inner con- 
 viction ; it is the proof from immediate 
 
 1 Christ Inst, i. 7, 2. 
 
 13 
 
194 Religion and Modern Culture 
 
 evidence taking the place of the method of 
 external authority ; it is the substitution of 
 explicit and personal faith for iinplicit and 
 general faith. 
 
 The Reformation, it is true, produced new 
 churches, and within these churches a dogmatic 
 tradition has established itself, with liturgies 
 and confessions of faith. As in Catholicism, 
 this tradition aspires to become immutable, 
 and likewise stands out as a barrier across the 
 path of modern thought. But such tyranny 
 cannot last for long, because it lacks founda- 
 tion and an organ with sufficient authority. 
 Doubtless the Reformers had not proclaimed 
 the principle of freedom of inquiry ; they had 
 only desired to substitute true but no less 
 absolute dogmas for false ones. Yet their 
 example was to be mightier than their doctrine. 
 No one has been able to close the door which 
 they opened. In reality, they were showing 
 how the Christian consciousness, by studying 
 and interpreting the Scriptures, could always 
 succeed in overthrowing the empire of tradi- 
 
Religion and Modern Culture 195 
 
 tion. The centre of gravity of religion was 
 thus removed from without to within, from 
 a hierarchy to the sanctuary of the con- 
 science. Faith now rested solely on the free 
 consent of the individual. But, since, as a 
 direct result of his culture, the individual 
 religious unit continued to change, how could 
 you expect him not to modify the expression 
 of his faith in an exactly corresponding 
 measure? Thus it comes that, during the 
 last three centuries, whilst Catholic theology 
 has more and more been hardening down in 
 its old formulas, we have witnessed the cease- 
 less evolution of Protestant theology and its 
 efforts to bring itself into harmony with the 
 progress of civic life and the advance in 
 scientific knowledge. 
 
 Thus religion and culture no longer stand 
 over against each other like two motionless 
 and impenetrable masses. On the contrary, 
 the one ceaselessly influences the other, and 
 both are transformed by this mutual action. 
 Theology is taught in the same universities by 
 
196 Religion and Modern Culture 
 
 virtue of the same right and with the same 
 freedom as all other branches of study. Inter- 
 communication may be more or less broad, 
 but it exists of necessity. As in the case of 
 vessels which communicate with each other, 
 we see the liquid ever tending to put itself on 
 a level, so likewise theology and the modern 
 sciences tend to become harmonized. Scientific 
 methods force themselves little by little upon 
 theologians; sometimes, indeed, it is through 
 the theologians that they reach the philoso- 
 phers. The greatest and finest works in 
 philology and historical criticism have been 
 achieved in the cells of Benedictine monks or 
 in schools of theology and by theologians. 
 The right to read the Bible and the duty of 
 interpreting it and of assimilating its intrinsic 
 truths have necessarily given rise to an 
 historical and critical study of the sacred text. 
 But, at the same time, the results arrived at 
 from this study have in turn modified the 
 traditional notions entertained respecting the 
 Scriptures. The old dogmatic conception of 
 
Religion and Modern Culture 197 
 
 an infallible oracle, equally valuable in all its 
 parts and in its letter, has been succeeded 
 by a more living and more human historical 
 conception. The inherent originality of the 
 sacred writers, the influence of the external 
 circumstances and of the surroundings in which 
 they wrote, and the environment in which 
 their general education was carried on, have 
 enabled us to see clearly the limits of their 
 thought, the element of contingency in their 
 works, and, at the same time, have forced their 
 interpreters to translate their old language, to 
 transpose their ideas, to distinguish the spirit 
 from the letter, leaving the letter at its date 
 and in its setting and retaining only the spirit 
 to answer the needs and questionings of our 
 age and society. The same change has been 
 going on with regard to the Canon of Scrip- 
 ture ; it became impossible to maintain its 
 absolute character as soon as its history had 
 been discovered and set forth. How was it 
 possible henceforth to refuse to acknowledge 
 the laborious progress and the uncertain or 
 
198 Religion and Modern Culture 
 
 arbitrary nature of the ecclesiastical decisions 
 — often slow in being given — by which the 
 Canon was at last settled ? 
 
 The method of authority which had at first 
 prevailed in Protestant theology was ruined 
 at the same time. It insensibly gave place to 
 the method of historical observation and of 
 internal evidence. Widely open to the in- 
 fluence of modern philosophy, Protestant 
 dogmatics changed with each succeeding cen- 
 tury. It could no longer find anywhere else 
 but in Christian experience the 809 jlloi ttov 
 (TTco, the basis on which it might reconstruct 
 its edifice in a new style. 
 
 The history of dogma no less radically 
 destroyed the naive dream of its immutability. 
 No sooner were dogmas looked into closely 
 than it was seen that they were undergoing 
 a process of evolution exactly parallel to that 
 of the history of general philosophy. Each 
 bears upon its forehead the ineffaceable date 
 of its birth and the stamp of its origin. After 
 a slow process of formation, dogma enters 
 
Religion and Modern Culture 199 
 
 upon a crisis which transforms it. We said, 
 a moment ago, that it is ever the product of a 
 blending of Christian feehng with conceptions 
 and phrases borrowed from the atmosphere of 
 contemporary culture; now, however deeply 
 blended it may be, this mixture necessarily 
 forms an unstable compound, constantly dis- 
 aggregated by historical criticism. Whereas 
 the element of Christian experience remains 
 throughout, its theological expression or ex- 
 planation is not long in growing old, but 
 ends by giving way before conceptions which 
 are more consistent with the knowledge of the 
 day and the new modes of thought. 
 
 Thus a continuous evolution in beliefs and 
 religious institutions has arisen and continued 
 in the bosom of Protestantism, thanks to the 
 inner pressure of modern science. Resistance 
 on the part of the representatives of tradition 
 may be more or less protracted in different 
 countries ; it ever ends by being conquered or 
 by slowly giving way, because it lacks a dog- 
 matic foundation. For Protestantism pos- 
 
200 Religion and Modern Culture 
 
 sesses no tribunal, no magistery able, in the 
 name of God, to declare the dogmas of the 
 past intangible. The ecclesiastical authorities 
 who administer them are themselves caught 
 in the current of the stream and unconsciously 
 carried along by the power that impels the 
 ship and all the passengers. Under penalty of 
 condemning themselves, the Churches which 
 have sprung from the Reformation cannot 
 exclude reform from their order of the day. 
 Besides, even if they wished to attempt such 
 a thing, at the risk of a mortal contradiction, 
 they would yet lack the means and the power 
 to succeed. For here religious and lay society 
 do not form two circles closed to each other. 
 The civil power everywhere predominates 
 over the Protestant Churches : whether the 
 clergy are appointed from above by the head 
 of the State, or whether they owe their 
 existence to the suffrage of their own 
 particular community. Hence the conflict 
 is never irremediable ; it is always within 
 the power of the faithful to settle it when 
 
Religion and Modern Culture 201 
 
 they wish and how they will. Thus the 
 government of the Protestant Churches, like 
 that of civil society, reduces itself finally to 
 the same principle of inner autonomy and 
 self-government. 
 
 We may sum up, in three propositions, the 
 main results of the action of modern culture 
 upon the religious consciousness of Protes- 
 tantism. 
 
 1^^. Dogma is seen to consist of two 
 elements of unequal value : of a content of 
 permanent Christian experience and of a 
 necessarily imperfect and changeable intel- 
 lectual form. 
 
 2nd, This intellectual form, which is re- 
 newed with each succeeding century, will 
 not allow of our granting to the traditional 
 dogmatic formulas any but a relative and 
 symbolic value. 
 
 3r6?. On the basis of Christian experience, 
 there has been up to the present, and there 
 will go on in the future, a ceaseless evolution, 
 which not only justifies, but also renders in- 
 
202 Religion and Modern Culture 
 
 dispensable, the efforts of religious thought, 
 seeking ever to express itself in a manner 
 more agreeable both to its object and to the 
 general culture of modern times. 
 
 Far from being alarmed at such an out- 
 look, religious men ought to find in it an 
 additional source of confidence and joy. In 
 the order of living beings and for all organ- 
 isms this power of eliminating the worn-out 
 elements and of assimilating new ones is the 
 characteristic sign of life. When this power 
 disappears the organism ceases to sustain and 
 renew itself; death is at hand. Nothing, in 
 our eyes, could better establish the divine 
 origin of Christianity, or guarantee its future 
 destiny, than the marvellous power with which 
 it seems to be endowed of freeing itself from 
 worn-out forms and old ideas, in order to 
 assimilate new truths and to adapt itself 
 to every degree of culture, answering the 
 calls and moral needs of every race and of 
 every age. 
 
Religion and Modern Culture 203 
 
 VI, — The Problem Transferred from the 
 Objective Order of History to the Sub- 
 jective Order of Consciousness 
 
 The outcome of the religious evolution of 
 Protestant thought has been to cause the 
 problem which we are studying to pass from 
 the objective order of social life into the 
 subjective order of consciousness. It thus 
 becomes immediately transformed, and we see 
 the chances of a progressive solution appearing 
 and gaining precision. 
 
 The problem is transformed in two ways. 
 First, the terms themselves are changed. 
 Instead of appearing to be two external and 
 fundamentally incompatible forces, religion and 
 culture are reduced to their psychological 
 roots, and are seen to correspond to the exercise 
 of two inner activities of the mind, equally 
 legitimate and constitutive of the moral life. 
 We are led to cast aside the primitive and 
 rude conception of religion which imagines its 
 essence to lie in the institution of an external 
 
204 Religion and Modern Culture 
 
 authority and sees in it an instrument for 
 the governing of souls. Everything that 
 is external in religion — dogmas, rites, social 
 organization, hierarchy — grew up in the course 
 of history and is constantly modified by 
 history ; all these things fall under the juris- 
 diction of criticism which, once started, can 
 never more abdicate. But all this is only the 
 body of religion. Its soul is elsewhere ; it lies 
 in the consciousness of the religious man, in 
 the inner experience of piety. Now, piety 
 is the sensitiveness of the heart for God, The 
 permanent Christian consciousness will there- 
 fore be the religious consciousness of man, 
 induced by the experience of filial piety 
 wrought in the soul of Christ. This experi- 
 ence fully answers man's need of being at 
 peace with God, and of knowing himself to be 
 forgiven in his state of sin, consoled in his con- 
 dition of physical and moral distress, in a word, 
 of hoping against hope in the triumph of 
 justice and life, in a world apparently given 
 over to evil and death. Such a feeling is 
 
Religion and Modern Culture 205 
 
 fostered by prayer ; it is born of the faith of 
 the heart, that is, of an act of trust in Him 
 on whom the human creature feels itself to 
 depend, in common with the whole world. 
 Who fails to see that religion, thus regarded 
 as a feeling and an experience of the soul, not 
 only eludes the contradictions of science, but 
 even forces itself upon science as a normal 
 phenomenon which the scientist would be 
 guilty in neglecting. The opposition of science 
 and religion is therefore no longer absolute ; 
 it reduces itself to the natural diversity 
 between the mystical and the theoretical or 
 rational faculties. And have not these 
 faculties an equal right to receive in every 
 man a real and healthy satisfaction ? 
 
 In the second place, the problem is trans- 
 formed by the manner in which it appeals to 
 each man's conscience. It is no longer a 
 question of seeking an objective and general 
 solution, but rather a subjective and individual 
 one. The scientist, for example, is mistaken, 
 and fails to see the difficulty in its proper light. 
 
2o6 Religion and Modern Culture 
 
 if he imagines that he has only to vindicate 
 his freedom of research and the independence 
 of his own thought against the tyranny of a 
 rehgious dogma or of an ecclesiastical institu- 
 tion ; he must turn his gaze within, and 
 examine how he will regulate for himself the 
 inmost relations of his scientific thought with 
 the religious aspirations of his heart and the 
 requirements of his own moral life. Then 
 only will he see the problem whole and the 
 conditions of a loyal solution. So, likewise, the 
 religious man, the man of a particular church, 
 the defender of an established tradition, is 
 mistaken and fails to see the difficulty in its 
 proper light if he thinks that he has only to 
 defend the religious institution and the theo- 
 logical dogma against the attacks of a foreign 
 and hostile science. It is impossible, provided 
 he also is a cultured man seriously examining 
 himself, that he should not recognize, in his 
 own culture and in the activity of his own 
 mind, the tendencies which alarm him in 
 others — I mean some inklings of doubt and of 
 
Religion and Modern Culture 207 
 
 anxiety as to the absolute value of the theses 
 he is himself defending with such energy. In 
 each one of us there is a philosopher asking the 
 believer to give a reason for the faith that is 
 in him. It behoves us, then, not to confine 
 ourselves to the struggle which is going on 
 within society; we must, if we are wholly 
 sincere, listen with calm attention to the inner 
 dialogue which, in each one of us, constantly 
 arises and continues between our heart and our 
 reason, our science and our conscience. How 
 can we despair of a pacification which shall be 
 at least relative, seeing each one of us possesses 
 within himself a secret accomplice and an ever- 
 eloquent defender of the opposite side to the 
 one which he is bound by duty or impelled by 
 passion to represent and uphold ? 
 
 VII, — Piety and Morality 
 
 Going a step farther, let us pursue at once 
 this analysis and this S5nithesis. Religion, 
 being our relationship and personal com- 
 munion with God, reduces itself to piety. 
 
2o8 Religion and Modern Culture 
 
 Culture, on the other hand, standing for our 
 relationships with our fellowmen and with 
 the world, constitutes morality. The prob- 
 lem will therefore be, in the last resort, to 
 establish an organic link between these two 
 elements which together make up the pleni- 
 tude of our spiritual life. 
 
 To speak of morality, as we have already 
 seen, is to stipulate autonomy. The moral 
 subject is conscious of a law inherent within 
 himself He is moral only on this condition. 
 By obeying this inner law, he is obeying his 
 true nature, so that the realization of this 
 guiding law in all the activities of his life 
 is itself the guarantee of his independence. 
 Duty accomplished is the only true foundation 
 of liberty. 
 
 On the other hand, piety is the gift or 
 consecration of our being to God. We 
 desire, as religious people, to do His will and 
 to subordinate our own to His : " Thy will 
 be done in earth as it is in Heaven ; Thy 
 kingdom come." Moral autonomy in religion 
 
Religion and Modern Culture 209 
 
 thus becomes theonomy. Do we not find 
 ourselves face to face with the same contra- 
 diction from whence we started and which 
 seemed to us irreducible? 
 
 Truly there would be a contradiction were 
 theonomy to equal heteronomy^ if God were 
 a stranger and external to our being, if He 
 imposed His will upon us from without, like 
 a law differing from that of our true nature. 
 But the really pious man, even less than the 
 philosopher or the scientist, cannot become 
 resigned to a conception of religion so primi- 
 tive and low, which places man and God in 
 front of each other as though concluding 
 I know not what legal alliance. It is 
 too puerile an anthropomorphism, which, if 
 it were transformed into a doctrinal thesis, 
 would empty the religious consciousness of 
 its most precious content, namely, the inner 
 presence of God in man, and its mysterious 
 and ceaseless working within all the mani- 
 festations of his personal life. God lives in 
 
 us, and we live in Him. In Deo vivimus, 
 
 14 
 
2io Religion and Modern Culture 
 
 movemur et swnus. His spirit makes us 
 what we are, when we are such as He wishes 
 us to be. He grants us both to will and to 
 do, the intention and the strength, accord- 
 ing to His mysterious will, so that we hear 
 and recognize His voice in the innermost 
 voice of our conscience. Hence, to obey the 
 will of God is, according to the Gospel of 
 Christ, to obey our own law, and the theo- 
 nomy of piety becomes a truly moral 
 autonomy. These are the two essential 
 aspects, the practical and the ideal aspects, 
 the visible and the hidden elements, of our 
 total consciousness. 
 
 Thus it is that the morality of modern 
 culture and the piety of eternal religion 
 are reduced to an organic and living unity. It 
 is precisely this deep unification of religion 
 and ethics which constitutes the most striking 
 feature of the Gospel. For the Preacher of 
 the Sermon on the Mount, there is nothing 
 in the will of God that is not human and 
 moral, and nothing in human morality that 
 
Religion and Modern Culture 2 1 1 
 
 is not religious. In other words, religion 
 becomes the soul of morality, while morality- 
 remains the body of religion; or, again, 
 morality is religion expressed in conduct, as 
 religion is morality epitomized in its ideal 
 and eternal principle. Peace is restored with 
 unity. There are no longer two laws : a 
 divine law over against the law of conscience ; 
 nor two truths : a supernatural truth over 
 against natural science ; nor two powers ; nor 
 two societies : a divine society and authority 
 over against civil society and temporal 
 authorities ; there is but one life, one society, 
 one general culture, permeated within, sus- 
 tained and purified by the divine leaven 
 which has been introduced into humanity in 
 order to transform it and save it from decay. 
 
 VIII. — Mutual Penetration of Religion 
 and Culture 
 
 Let us here offer ourselves the comforting 
 spectacle of this organic action of an inner 
 religion upon all the manifestations of indi- 
 
212 Religion and Modern Culture 
 
 vidual and social life. To the violent and 
 sterile conflict which we have just described 
 there succeeds the closest and most active 
 solidarity. Being an inner inspiration, a deep- 
 seated life, kindled within the soul itself by 
 the spirit of God, piety will not act from 
 without upon science in order to curb it be- 
 neath a strange law ; it will not impose its 
 methods or assign its limits to science, still 
 less will it dictate its conclusions. But it 
 will call forth and maintain, within the heart 
 of the scientist, the sacred flame of the 
 religious, that is to say, absolute love of truth. 
 Moreover, is not this pure love of truth the 
 very principle and mainspring of modern 
 science, the sacred sign of the scientific spirit ? 
 For mark well: in order to be quite honest 
 and absolutely without reproach, the man of 
 science must be able to free himself from all 
 interested calculations, from all considerations 
 of glory and of lucre, from favouritism and 
 spite; he, too, must practise daily, in all his 
 experiments and researches, self-denial, abso- 
 
Religion and Modern Culture 213 
 
 lute devotion to his work; he must have 
 what has been rightly termed "the religion 
 of science," which, doubtless, is not perfect 
 religion, although it is at least one of its 
 phases or applications in the domain of the 
 intelligence. "The first of Christian truths," 
 as Pascal said, " is that truth must be loved 
 before all else." 
 
 Are we dealing with politics and the 
 amelioration of the condition of man as a 
 social being, the same rehgion will cause the 
 same inner and beneficent action to be felt. 
 It will impose upon politicians neither a con- 
 stitution of divine right, nor a particular 
 system of taxation, nor laws dictated by an 
 alien authority. Full liberty will be granted 
 to civil society to manage and ensure its 
 own government. But it will inculcate a 
 higher motive power in the heart of political 
 men ; it will inspire them with a disinterested 
 love of justice and feeling for the people, and, 
 in so doing, will fecundate all their ideas 
 and enhance all their undertakings. You 
 
214 Religion and Modern Culture 
 
 esteem nothing more despicable than the race 
 of poUticians who make a trade of poUtics 
 and a means of satisfying their ambition or 
 their fortune, and you are right ; but, in these 
 inferior souls, let piety once awake ; let it 
 cause the religion of justice and of self-sacri- 
 fice to take root and flourish ; this holy in- 
 spiration will forthwith transform these men 
 and turn them into benefactors and heroes, 
 to the advantage of the whole social body. 
 
 We find the same elevating and purifying 
 influence upon art and literature. Here, again, 
 it is not the mission of religion to create a 
 particular kind of literature, to be called sacred 
 in opposition to profane literature, an ecclesi- 
 astical art over against a merely human art ; 
 no, it is a question at once of more and of 
 less ; its mission is to kindle, in the hearts of 
 those who have devoted themselves to art, the 
 worship of ideal beauty. How numerous are 
 the temptations, at the present time, which 
 assail the artist and the poet ? How are they 
 to escape them ? How are they to resist the 
 
Religion and Modern Culture 215 
 
 promptings of the mercantile muses which 
 promise them an easy and rapid success ? If 
 their soul is void of faith, if the presence of an 
 inner and incorruptible witness does not sus- 
 tain their courage and vigour, is it not to 
 be expected that they will lower their ideal 
 and profane their genius ? When in art and 
 poetry the religion of art becomes extinct, 
 what constituted the glory of a civilization 
 becomes its shame and the most potent agent 
 of corruption and death. 
 
 Finally, shall we speak of social morality 
 and its duties ? How far more necessary inner 
 religion is in this question than in all the 
 others ! It will not create a code of morals 
 different in kind and higher than ordinary 
 morals. On the contrary, it will do away with 
 casuistry, and will efface the distinction be- 
 tween precept and mere counsel. It will teach 
 men to renounce themselves and find their 
 pleasure in the happiness of their brethren. 
 Its task, a truly supernatural one, is to make 
 us triumph over our selfishness. It does not 
 
2 1 6 Religion and Modern Culture 
 
 establish special duties towards God, but it 
 turns all our natural duties into religious 
 duties, by the religious spirit in which it bids 
 us accompHsh them. Christ summed up His 
 Gospel in two great commandments : " Thou 
 shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy 
 heart and thy neighbour as thyself." But we 
 fail to understand them aright if we separate 
 them, and imagine we can fulfil the one while 
 we neglect the other. In reality the two form 
 one single commandment. Religious men, 
 you do not love God as He wishes to be 
 loved, if you do not love and serve Him in 
 the person of your neighbour. Remember 
 the words : " Whatsoever ye do unto the 
 poor, the sick, the prisoner, the child, ye do 
 it unto me." Zealous philanthropists, you do 
 not love your neighbour as he is to be loved, 
 if you do not love him in God, if you do not 
 see and respect God in him. Yes, in order 
 to raise the poor you must see in him, as 
 Kant said, what makes every moral being an 
 eternal end in himself. We only really love 
 
Religion and Modern Culture 217 
 
 souls when we respectfully adore the divine 
 guest which they enshrine. It is the feeling 
 of this common presence of God which is 
 the true foundation of a living and practical 
 solidarity among men. 
 
 Science, politics, art, social ethics, when 
 religion has once become an inner influence 
 acting from within outwards, it dominates 
 nothing, but penetrates and regenerates every- 
 thing. Human culture needs this divine 
 inspiration. When it is weakened or disap- 
 pears, civilization as a whole is bowed beneath 
 its own weight ; decadence sets in, ruin is 
 nigh at hand. Religion is truly that vivify- 
 ing salt of which Jesus spoke, and which, 
 when once it has lost its savour, nothing can 
 replace. 
 
 IX, — The Influence of Culture upon 
 the Forms of Religion 
 
 If human culture has need of religion in 
 order to remain elevated and healthy, religion, 
 if it is to be a hving thing, needs in like 
 
2 1 8 Religion and Modern Culture 
 
 manner to remain in communication and close 
 touch with human culture. This does not 
 mean that religion borrows from culture that 
 which constitutes the efficacy of its own action. 
 But, owing to the ceaseless criticism which this 
 culture obliges religion to exercise, religion step 
 by step shakes itself free from all that does 
 not really belong to it, throwing off antiquated 
 forms and returning to its exclusively religious 
 and moral principle, whence alone it draws all its 
 efficacy. It is the same with religion as with 
 those elixirs which, when they are diluted in 
 too much neutral liquid, remain inactive. 
 Only concentrate them in essential drops and 
 they will regain all their virtue. Criticism, 
 when practised with faith and piety, does not 
 kill religion; on the contrary, it makes religion 
 appear younger and stronger in each succeed- 
 ing age. If it transforms the old ideas, it is 
 not in order to destroy them, but, on the 
 contrary, to render them more truly religious ; 
 for, with Christ, it can say : " I am not come 
 to destroy, but to fulfil." 
 
Religion and Modern Culture 219 
 
 Shall we furnish some examples of this? 
 " God is a spirit," said Jesus. How far are 
 we still from conceiving and adoring God in 
 His full and perfect spirituality ! Under what 
 anthropomorphic forms do we not represent 
 Him in His relations with the world and 
 men? We are ever confining Him within 
 the limits of physical sensibility. We invest 
 Him, more or less vaguely, with I know not 
 what circumscribed existence, or rather we 
 clothe Him in a body which localizes Him in 
 space and time. It seems infinitely difficult 
 for us to believe in a pure and free Spirit, 
 everywhere present, ever determined, doubt- 
 less, because He is conscious ; but always 
 superior to all these determinations, present 
 in every place and at all times, ceaselessly 
 acting, because His very essence is to act. 
 The absolute Spirit does not dwell as a body 
 among other bodies ; He dwells in spirits 
 and reveals Himself immediately in them by 
 the profound feeling which He gives to them 
 of His presence. He is ever at work, acting 
 
2 20 Religion and Modern Culture 
 
 from within outwards, and not from without ; 
 He is an inner God. When piety adores 
 such a God, it at once witnesses the disappear- 
 ance of the autonomy between the natural and 
 the supernatural. The question of miracles is 
 settled in the eyes of the pious. They every- 
 where adore the acts of their Heavenly Father, 
 and at each step they discover fresh reasons to 
 thank Him. The world of phenomena does 
 not trouble them ; they willingly surrender it 
 to the investigations of science. What matters 
 to them is the presence of their God, the 
 feeling of which depends solely upon the 
 energy of their faith. Alas ! we are still so 
 far from this purely religious energy of faith 
 that we hear many excellent Christians say 
 that to beUeve thus in the pure and inner 
 action of the Spirit is to them an impossibility. 
 At all events, let it not be said that such 
 adoration is of an inferior nature, for it re- 
 quires on the part of the believer a more 
 thorough self-surrender, a more disinterested 
 love of truth, a more perfect submission 
 
Religion and Modern Culture 221 
 
 to the will of the Father, and a greater con- 
 formity of our piety to that of Jesus. Is it 
 not worship in spirit and in truth that God 
 requires ? 
 
 If religious criticism brings God nearer and 
 renders Him more living to us, it has had 
 the same effect with regard to the person 
 of Christ. You know what the figure of 
 the Messiah of Nazareth had become in 
 the theology of the Fathers, the definitions 
 of the Councils, and the subtle theories of 
 Scholasticism. A metaphysical entity, a 
 verbal abstraction, the person of Christ had 
 so far receded from men, by being absorbed 
 into the Trinity, that there was no longer any 
 connection between Him and us, and that, in 
 order to restore communion, a just and neces- 
 sary compensation had compelled resort to all 
 that hierarchy of angels and saints which the 
 Church was at the same time setting up 
 between earth and Heaven. Then, when the 
 whole of this Christian mythology broke down 
 beneath the blows of the rationalism of the 
 
22 2 Religion and Modern Culture 
 
 eighteenth century, the figure of Christ 
 seemed not only to vanish from the heaven of 
 metaphysics together with the notions of 
 the Middle Ages, but it even disappeared 
 from the reality of history. Now, is it not 
 the pious labour of historical exegesis and 
 criticism, at work during the last century and 
 a half, that has recovered it and rendered it 
 more living and attractive than ever to us ? 
 Jesus Christ has truly risen again in our midst. 
 We have recognized His voice, touched the 
 hem of His garment, and, for our century, 
 sick, losing its strength and led astray by too 
 many physicians, now, as in the case of the 
 woman in the Gospel, a health-giving virtue 
 has proceeded from this hallowed touch. Jesus 
 has thus taken His place once more in the 
 human family. History has restored to us 
 the benefits of His Incarnation. He has once 
 more become our brother by flesh and blood, 
 by experience and speech. And in this con- 
 crete humanity the true character of His 
 Divinity has shone forth with added lustre. 
 
Religion and Modern Culture 223 
 
 We have at last renounced our carnal ideas 
 of greatness and glory, and we have learned 
 to recognize the dignity of the Son of man in 
 His abasement, His glory in His humiliation, 
 and His Divine character in His perfect and 
 sinless humanity. Forced, by the very 
 results of historical criticism, to go back to 
 the principle of His filial piety, to recognize 
 in His religious consciousness the very essence 
 of the revelation He brought to men, we have 
 understood that the supreme law of the 
 Kingdom of God consists in saving one's life 
 by surrendering it. Finally, in the person 
 and life of Christ, in whom this law was fully 
 exemplified, we have hailed and clung to the 
 highest manifestation of the life of the spirit, 
 that is to say, of eternal life. 
 
 The conception of the Church is likewise 
 transformed at the same time and for the same 
 reasons. Doubtless there is here something 
 which disappears and which must disappear: 
 the sacerdotal order, the divine right of the 
 clergy, all supernatural monopoly in the preach- 
 
2 24 Religion and Modern Culture 
 
 ing of the Gospel and the dispensation of 
 Divine grace, the magic value of the sacra- 
 mental act, everything that Catholic tradition 
 places in the front rank and that Protestant 
 tradition tries to maintain in part, in order to 
 facilitate the external government of souls ; all 
 these things become daily more indifferent or 
 more repugnant to the religious and moral 
 consciences of the cultured men of our time. 
 The revolution, begun in the sixteenth cen- 
 tury by Luther, will be completed. Many are 
 frightened or scandalized, deeming that this 
 crisis in ecclesiastical institutions means the ruin 
 of religion itself. Men of little faith, you ask 
 what will remain when the present ecclesiastical 
 order will have ceased to exist. There will 
 remain what was in the primitive Gospel of 
 Christ and in the Apostolical communities in 
 days when this ecclesiastical polity, which 
 seems to you so necessary, was not yet in 
 existence. There will remain a religious com- 
 munion and an active association of brothers : 
 there will remain the family of God spreading 
 
Religion and Modern Culture 225 
 
 by the natural expansion of the Christian 
 life through every generation and race. Is 
 it not the property of faith to create the 
 society of believers, that is to say, to unite 
 them in the same act of adoration and in a 
 common enterprise of missionary activity ? Did 
 Jesus wish to accomplish anything else when 
 He called together His first workers and 
 organized His first disciples ? Be reassured ; 
 no society will ever lack form and organization. 
 But everything must be restored to its proper 
 place. Institutions, while ministering to social 
 life, do not create it ; it is the social life which, 
 by a natural law, gives birth to rites and insti- 
 tutions. This is why the latter, however 
 necessary they may be, are yet not absolute. 
 They change and become renewed in the course 
 of the ages. When a nation passes out of the 
 feudal into the democratic state, it likewise 
 passes through periods of storm which are at 
 times so violent that those timid conservatives, 
 who believe that the very existence of the nation 
 
 is bound up with the old regime, are filled 
 
 15 
 
2 26 Religion and Modern Culture 
 
 with terror. The crisis passes, liberty triumphs ; 
 order is restored upon new bases, and fresh 
 generations, now hberated, cleave to the land 
 of their fathers with a love all the greater as 
 they find there for the first time, together with 
 freedom, a sweet and real fatherland. 
 
 Thus modern culture acts upon the forms of 
 religion by its criticism, and religion elevates 
 and purifies criticism by its spirit. Through 
 this twofold operation the very conception of 
 faith is at the same time deepened and broad- 
 ened. Faith separates itself from the forms of 
 religion, only to turn to what constitutes its 
 essence and to lay hold on religion in its 
 perfect spirituality. Losing its external and 
 material supports, it is forced to become more 
 and more an inner and exclusively moral act. 
 Throwing off all superstition, it lays aside 
 all intolerance. It does not wrap itself up in 
 aristocratic individualism or disdainful eso- 
 tericism. On the contrary, if each one, in the 
 compass of his own particular church, makes 
 this same effort to go from the circumference 
 
Religion and Modern Culture 227 
 
 to the centre of his Christianity, all will finally 
 meet and find themselves united there. The 
 more truly Christian we become, the greater 
 grows the number of brethren we discover. 
 The diversity of forms and ceremonies is no 
 longer a bar to the communion of souls. God 
 is a discerner of hearts. Let us imitate Him. 
 We shall reach each other in the depths of the 
 soul long before we think the same thoughts 
 and speak the same tongue. From the central 
 point of view which we reach through the 
 consciousness of the one thing necessary, I 
 do not say that the barriers of creed disappear, 
 still less that they ought to disappear any 
 more than the ideas of the family or the 
 country. I say that they become lowered, 
 that they henceforth possess no greater value 
 than that which really belongs to them, that 
 is, a relative value, allowing us to discern even 
 now the eternal Kingdom of God extending 
 like an azure sky above all mountains and 
 beyond all valleys. The time is at hand. 
 Already religious communion is being estab- 
 
2 2 8 Religion and Modern Culture 
 
 lished, from one compartment to the other, 
 between all truly religious souls as among 
 all men of genuine good will. Hence the 
 success and popularity of meetings such as 
 the present. Yours was a grand initiative in 
 summoning this Religious Science Congress, 
 which by the very nature of things has become 
 a festival for the Christian consciousness. 
 This initiative will be a fruitful one ; it 
 answers to the deepest and most concordant 
 aspirations of reUgion which is unwilling to 
 stand aloof from scientific culture, and of 
 culture itself, which cannot dispense with 
 religion. 
 
 PBINTED BY NEILL AND CO., LTD., BDINBUBGH. 
 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 BERKELEY 
 
 Return to desk from which borrowed. 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
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