Gregory the Great (+604), the most distinguished and influential representative of the Latin Church of his age, in his Moralia in Jobum,|| quoted by Shedd, says “Guilt can be extinguished only by a penal offering to justice. But it would contradict the idea of justice if for the sin of a rational being like man, the death of an irrational animal should be accepted as a sufficient atone- ment. Hence a man must be offered as the sacrifice for man; so that a rational victim may be slain for a rational criminal. But how could a man, himself stained with sin, be an offermg for sin? Hence a sinless man must be offered. But what man descending in the ordinary course would be free from sin? Hence the Son of God must be born of a virgin, and become a man for us. He
* Life and Light of Men, p. 445. | Enchirid. ad Lauren., e. xli, { Contra Faust. Manich., 14, 1, quoted by Hagenbach. ¢ Augustinus, De Pec. Mer., I. lvi. || xvii., 46,
CHAPTER XIX,
Gregory the Great,
CHAPTER XIX.
John of Damas- cus.
Testi- monies of witnesses during the Dark Ages.
Claude of Turin.
262 THE NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT.
assumed our nature without our corruption. He made himself a sacrifice for us, and set forth for sinners his own body—a victim without sin, and able both to die by virtue of its humanity, and to cleanse the guilty upon grounds of justice.”
John of Damascus (+750), the greatest representative of the Greek Church in his age, in his Hwpositio Fidei, quoted by Shedd, says: ‘He who assumed death for us, died, and offered himself a sacrifice to the Father ; for we had committed wrong towards him, and it was necessary for him to receive our ransom, and we thus be delivered from condemnation. For God forbid that the blood of the Lord should be offered to the tyrant.” *
[C.] The doctrine of Redemption by the expiatory sufferings of Christ was held im common by all the promment witnesses for pure Christianity during the Dark Ages, vacluding the Vallenses of Piedmont, and the wmmediate forerunners of the Reformers ; and it was positively rejected only by such open heretics as Scotus Hrigena and Abelard.
Claude, Bishop of Turin (A.D. 821-839), the faithful champion of the truth against the inroads of the ever- growing Papal superstitions and doctrinal and ritualistic corruptions, is a witness of special interest, because he is supposed to have been immediately associated with those heroic mountaineers (the Vallenses) who profess to have preserved their doctrine unchanged from the days of primitive Christianity. He says, in his Commentary upon the Epistle to the Galatians,f as quoted by Neander: “Christ underwent the penalty designed for those who failed to obey the law, that: he might liberate those believing upon him from all fear of such penalty.” “Gal. ii, 16: They are forced to confess that man is justified, not by the works of the law, but by faith.”
* Expositio Fidei, iii. 27. tT Fol. 151.
HISTORY OF OPINION. 263
“Gal. v. 4: Now, he [the apostle] comprehends the ee whole law generally, by saying that they will profit nothing by the work of Christ who believe themselves to be Fisted by any kind of legal observance whatso- ever.”
The Vallenses, whom this faithful Bishop of Turin in The val- his day nourished and encouraged, existed as a small but '°** precious body of evangelical witnesses long before, and they continue essentially unchanged to the present time, with their head-quarters in the same mountain city. In the year 1530 their teachers sent a deputation to Cico- lampadius, at Basle, making in their Confession, pre- sented on that occasion, the following declaration: ‘In all things we agree with you, and from the very time of the apostles our sentiments respecting the same have been the same as your own.” In 1544 they presented a Confession of their Faith to Francis I., King of France, through Cardinal Sadolet. Concerning it they affirm, “That this Confession is that which we have received from our ancestors, even from hand to hand, according as their predecessors in all times and in every age have taught and delivered.” As to the nature of the Atone- ment, they say: “ We believe and confess that there is a free remission of sins, proceeding from the mercy and mere goodness of our Lord Jesus Christ ; who died once for our sins, the just for the unjust ; who took away our sins in his own body on the cross ; who is our advocate with God, the price of our reconciliation ; whose blood cleanses our consciences from dead works, that we should serve the living God ; who alone made satisfaction for the faithful, so that their sins are not paputed to them, as to the unbelieving and to the reprobate.”
The first attempts to develop the doctrine of Redemp-. tion in a manner scientifically accurate and complete were made almost at the same time, yet in entire inde-
264 THE NATURE OF THE ATONEMENT.