love, in that he {iK€?vos) for us (v-rrkp ■f)ixG)v) laid down his life.' The contrast such love implies is the ultimate of the apostoUc doctrine of the atonement — it is the perfect expression of what the writer means when he declares that 'God is love.'* 4. The sub-apostolic period. — In the age im- mediately succeeding,' the apostolic, the Church appears to have exhibited no desire to interpret the relation of the d^ath of Christ to the fors'ive- ness of sins either with greater fullness than, or by any divergence of view from, that found in the apostoUc writings ; the forms exhibited there were found suflScient. The early Fathers treated the atonement as a fact, without any attempt to ex- plain _ its grounds. They had no theory: they describe it mostly in the actual words of Scripture, with Uttle or no comment ; the types of interpreta- tion given were sufficient to satisfy their intelli- gence concerning the experience of forgiveness of sins which so richly satisfied their heart. Clement of Rome in his First Epistle exhorts the Corinthians to 'reverence the Lord Jesus Christ, whose blood was given for us' (xxi.), who 'on account of the love He bore us gave His blood for us by the will of God ; His flesh for our flesh and His soul for our souls' (xhx.). There is no clear statement as to the reasons that moved the will of God. The ethical appeal of the death of Christ is pre- dominant ; it is the supreme motive to gratitude, humihty, and self-sacrifice. The references in the writings of Ignatius are chiefly that the death of Christ on the cross reveals His love, and that through His death we become partakers of spiritual nourish- ment in His body and blood (cf. Trail, viii. and Rom. vi.). Polycarp reminds his readers that 'the earnest of their righteousness' is Jesus Christ, who ' bore our sins in His own body upon the tree ; who did not sin, neither was guile found in His mouth, but endured aU things for us, that we might Uve in Him' (Phil. yiii.). The Epistle ascribed to Barnabas deals with the subject in its relation to the sacrifices of the Jewish Temple, which are abohshed in order that ' the new law of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is without the yoke of neces- sity, might have a human oblation' (ii.). The Son of God is spoken of as One who 'suffered that His stroke might give us hfe ' ; ' let us therefore beUeve that the Son of God could not have suffered except for our sakes' (vi.). Our Lord's sufferings were necessary; why, it is not said. (For catena of quotations, consult R. W. Dale, The Atonement, 270 ff. ; Moberly, Atonement and Personality, 326 ff. ; Scott Lidgett, Spiritual Principle of Atone- ment, 420 ff.).
IV. Conclusion.— i. Is there an apostolic doctrine of the atonement? — Clearly the passage^ we have examined, which form the data for a. doctrine of atonement, are brief and fragmentary in character. It is frequently pointed out that the books from which they are taken are in no strict sense a unity, and were not written with the object of being related to each other to form a unified volume ; that they are only parts of a larger and richer whole which interpreted the faith of the Apostolic Age ; that their unity is factitious, f This view is plausible. It must be admitted that the doctrine of atonement found no uniformity of expression in the Apostohc Church ; but there is httle room for doubt that there existed a central unity around which varied statements consistently moved ; the latter were not a mere fortuitous grouping ; they were orderly, and their movements were organized in response to a central gravity. The fact that the death of Christ had a direct re- lation to the forgiveness of sins and to the restora- tion of fellowship between God and man is funda-
* Cf. Denney, Death of Christ, 276. t Jb. p. 2, for typical illustrations.
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mental to the most divergent interpretations of the fact. The occasion of the reference, the purpose of the writers, and especially their immediate conception of the character of God and His relation to the moral order of the world, largely account for the varying forms of expression and illustration. For, taken apart, the aspects in which the death of Christ is viewed in the apostohc writings give sufficient warrant for the main types — legal and ethical — which mark the history of the doctrine in the subsequent thought of the Church.
But the most critical survey of these aspects does not sanction the contention of some recent writers that an apostolic doctrine of the atonement can- not be constructed.* A perfect doctrine may be so deeply grounded and so many-sided that no personal or corporate thought can completely ex- pound it, and there may be many theories each having its value. The judgment expressed by R. F. Horton, 'The NT has no theory about the Atonement,'! is too easy a release from the in- tellectual necessity of seeking an interpretation of the profound fact which dominated the whole of the apostolic experience and teaching. The mate- rials are certainly present in the apostoUc Utera- ture for the construction of a theory — and more, a theory itself is potentially present and virtually expressed in the common experience and preaching of apostolic times where it is not formally defined . It is quite contrary to the spirit and attitude of the Apostolic Church to speak of the atonement, as Coleridge does, as 'the mysterious act, the operative cause transcendent. Factum est : and beyond the information contained in the enuncia- tion of the FACT, it can be characterized only by the consequences.' t The apostolic writers regard fact and theory as permanently inseparable ; ' re- concihation' involves its 'logos,' and they attempt an explanation of the great fact which had become the ground and appeal of their evangel ; a fact of such a kind as the death of Christ, so rich in ra- tional, ethical, and emotional content, and appealing to the whole ethical and spiritual being of man, could not be left without a ' meaning.' The simple connexion in any degree of causal relation between the fact of the death of Christ and the experience of forgiveness of sins is itself a profound theory as well as the mother of theories.