The Patristic Doctrine of Redemption

This work is based upon a series of lectures which were given at 'Scholae Cancellariae', Lincoln, during Passion Week, 1949, on the invitation of the Warden, the Reverend Canon C. K. Sansbury. It is a laudable custom of the College during Passion Week each year to invite an outside lecturer to lecture upon some subject connected with the Passion of our Lord. The doctrine of Redemption among the early Fathers has never received the attention by scholars which it deserves. The reasons for this neglect are many and various. Scholars primarily concerned with the doctrine of the Atonement normally tend to hurry over the early centuries and to begin a serious discussion with the teaching of St. Anselm and of Peter Abelard, at whose hands the doctrine first begins to take a definite shape. Others select from the patristic material the passages and allusions which fit best into their own preferred doctrinal mould, without paying adequate attention to complementary patterns of thought which possess equal significance. Others again, because of the number and complexity of the issues involved, tend to leave the subject on one side, on the ground that the thinking of the Fathers is not sufficiently clear-cut and precise for anyone except the expert. This little book is offered to the ordinary reader interested in theology in the hope that it may convince him that the early Christian centuries did think honestly and interestingly about the central experience of their religion; to the theological student as a guide to a dark place; and to the expert as a reminder of a serious gap in theological bibliography and as a challenge to go into the land and possess it. from the Preface by H. E. W. Turner