04 — The Sacrificial Language
Scripture calls the Cross a sacrifice, a ransom, and a propitiation, and the Fathers use all three freely. This section reports that vocabulary without embarrassment, identifies the two constraints under which the Fathers use it, and then puts the question the imagery forces: if the death is a ransom, to whom was it paid?
Tradition: Pan-Orthodox
This is the most delicate section in the collection, and its method is the one the repository learned in a different domain: precision about what one’s own sources actually say strengthens an objection rather than softening it. An Orthodox account that begins by quarantining sacrificial language has staked itself on a claim refutable in five minutes with St John Chrysostom, St Nicholas Cabasilas, and a service book. The Church prays this vocabulary weekly. The real objection is not about vocabulary at all, and it survives every text quoted here.
The second file is the argumentative centre of the collection. St Gregory the Theologian, preaching at Pascha, asks to whom the ransom was paid and refuses both available answers — not to the Evil One, “fie upon the outrage,” and not to the Father, who “neither asked for Him nor demanded Him.” Set beside it is St Gregory of Nyssa’s Catechetical Oration 22–26, where the answer “the devil” is given in the boldest form the Greek tradition ever produced, complete with the hook and the bait; the criticism that imagery drew in antiquity is conceded rather than smoothed over. St John of Damascus then shows how the tension was absorbed: the image is kept, the answer is changed, and the fish is death.
Navigation
| File | Contents |
|---|---|
| Sacrifice, Ransom, and Propitiation in the Fathers | The scriptural and liturgical vocabulary; Athanasius, Chrysostom, Cyril, Cabasilas; the two constraints — no image made the mechanism, and God not the party placated; the councils of 1156–1157; the ἱλαστήριον dispute, unadjudicated |
| To Whom Was the Ransom Paid? | Oration 45.22 quoted at length; Nyssa’s Catechetical Oration 22–26 and the honest concession about the fishhook; Anselm’s demolition of the devil’s rights; John of Damascus III.27; what the refusal of both answers establishes |
See Also
- Christus Victor — the victory register, in the same authors
- The Western Trajectory — what the West made of the same vocabulary
- What the Church Confesses — the dogmatic conclusion
- Soterichos and the Councils of 1156–1157 — the conciliar settlement on to whom the sacrifice is offered