Chapter 15
Correcting the Record — Penal and Substitutionary Language in the Church Fathers

Introduction: A Claim in Need of Correction

One of the most common claims in modern theology — repeated so often that many take it as settled fact — is that penal substitutionary atonement is a late Western invention with no roots in the early Church. The story usually goes something like this: the Church Fathers held to either a Christus Victor model or a ransom theory; Anselm introduced the idea of satisfaction in the eleventh century; and the Reformers then twisted Anselm's framework into the penal substitution model. On this telling, penal substitutionary atonement (PSA) is a post-Reformation novelty, foreign to the thinking of the early Church and especially foreign to the Eastern Christian tradition.¹

I believe this narrative is demonstrably false. And correcting it is one of the most important historical contributions this book attempts to make.

To be clear about what I am not arguing: I am not claiming that the Church Fathers taught penal substitutionary atonement in its full Reformation-era systematic formulation. They did not write treatises titled "A Defense of Penal Substitution." No ecumenical council ever issued a formal decree on the mechanics of the atonement — a point William Lane Craig rightly emphasizes, noting that "the doctrine of the atonement therefore never occasioned the sort of controversy aroused by the Trinity and incarnation, with the result that no ecumenical council ever pronounced on the subject."² The Fathers were consumed by Trinitarian and Christological debates, and the systematic exploration of atonement theology had to wait centuries for its full development.

What I am arguing is something more modest but still enormously significant: the theological substance of penal substitution — that Christ bore the penalty or consequences of human sin in our place, satisfying the demands of divine justice — is present throughout the patristic tradition, in both Eastern and Western writers. The raw materials are there. The language is there. The concepts are there. And they have been overlooked, minimized, or misrepresented by scholars who have an interest in portraying PSA as a late innovation.

As we demonstrated in Chapter 14's broader survey of patristic atonement thought, the Fathers employed a rich variety of images and motifs when speaking about the cross. What we will show in this chapter is that among those motifs — woven right alongside Christus Victor and ransom and recapitulation language — are unmistakable penal and substitutionary themes. The evidence comes from both Eastern and Western Fathers, spans multiple centuries, and extends into the very liturgical worship of the Eastern Orthodox Church itself.

I. The Multiplicity of Patristic Atonement Motifs

Before we turn to the specific evidence, we need to establish an important point. The Church Fathers did not operate with a single, tidy theory of the atonement. Their comments about what Christ accomplished on the cross are scattered across biblical commentaries, sermons, liturgical texts, and treatises devoted to other topics like the incarnation or the Trinity. Craig observes that "when the Church Fathers did mention the atonement, their comments were brief and for the most part unincisive," and that "the church had to wait until Anselm's Cur Deus homo? in the eleventh century for a systematic exploration of the atoning significance of Christ's death."³

This means we should expect to find — and we do find — a multiplicity of motifs in any given Father. A single writer might speak of Christ's victory over the devil in one passage and of Christ bearing the penalty for our sins in the next. Craig puts it well: "it would be inappropriate to ascribe to the Church Fathers any unified or developed theory of the atonement. All the NT motifs concerning atonement — sacrifice, substitutionary punishment, ransom, satisfaction, and so on — may be found in their pages."⁴

This multiplicity is actually what we should expect if the atonement is the multi-faceted reality I have argued it to be throughout this book (see Chapter 24 for the full integration). The Fathers were not confused or contradictory; they were reflecting the richness of the biblical witness itself. The problem arises only when modern scholars — most notably Gustaf Aulén in his influential 1931 book Christus Victor — try to force the Fathers into a single mold and then claim that any patristic writer who used Christus Victor language could not have also affirmed substitutionary and penal themes.⁵ As David Allen notes, "most patristic theologians also held to some form of a satisfaction/substitutionary atonement." Even Aulén's own thesis, while "partially correct" in recognizing Christus Victor as a major patristic theme, is "oversimplified" because "he ignores substitutionary and satisfaction language in the Fathers."⁶

With this framework in place, let us turn to the evidence. We will begin with the Eastern Fathers — where the case is most surprising to modern readers — before turning to the Western Fathers and then to the liturgical evidence.

II. Eastern Fathers: The Evidence for Penal and Substitutionary Language

The most remarkable and underappreciated evidence for PSA in the patristic tradition comes from the Eastern Fathers. Modern Orthodox polemicists frequently insist that penal substitution is a purely Western corruption, alien to the Eastern tradition. But as Fr. Joshua Schooping — himself an Eastern Orthodox priest — has demonstrated in meticulous detail, this claim simply does not survive contact with the primary sources.⁷ Let us examine the evidence Father by Father.

A. Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 260–339)

We begin chronologically with Eusebius of Caesarea, whose Demonstration of the Gospel contains what Craig calls a "faithful exposition of the multifaceted biblical teaching concerning Christ's atonement."⁸ Eusebius writes:

The Lamb of God … was chastised on our behalf, and suffered a penalty He did not owe, but which we owed because of the multitude of our sins; and so He became the cause of the forgiveness of our sins, because He received death for us, and transferred to Himself the scourging, the insults, and the dishonour, which were due to us, and drew down on Himself the apportioned curse, being made a curse for us. (Demonstration of the Gospel 10.1)

Notice how many key PSA concepts are packed into this single passage. Christ "suffered a penalty He did not owe, but which we owed." He "transferred to Himself" the punishment "due to us." He "drew down on Himself the apportioned curse." This is substitutionary language — Christ takes what was ours. And it is penal language — what He takes is a penalty, a curse, a punishment. Eusebius even speaks of Christ being "chastised on our behalf," echoing the language of Isaiah 53:5.

Craig rightly notes that the French scholar Rivière observed "the two ideas of penal substitution and of expiatory sacrifice are conjoined in Eusebius, who in consequence is able to give the outlines of a legal theory of penal expiation."⁹ Even in the early fourth century, the doctrinal foundations were already in place.

Elsewhere in the same work, Eusebius describes the sacrificial system's logic of substitution and applies it directly to Christ. He explains that the offerer lays hands on the animal's head because "the victims are brought in place of the lives of them who bring them" (Demonstration of the Gospel 1.10). Christ is the fulfillment of this pattern: "The great and precious ransom has been found for Jews and Greeks alike, the propitiation for the whole world, the life given for the life of all men" (1.10). Eusebius even speaks of the imputation of our sins to Christ: "The Lamb of God is made thus both sin and curse — sin for the sinners in the world, and curse for those remaining in all the things written in Moses' law" (1.10).

B. Athanasius of Alexandria (c. 296–373)

Athanasius is best known for his vigorous defense of Nicene Trinitarianism against the Arians, and his classic work On the Incarnation is often cited by those who emphasize the Eastern focus on the incarnation itself as salvific. And rightly so — Athanasius does make much of the fact that the Word became flesh to restore what had been corrupted. But scholars who stop there miss the fuller picture.

As Khaled Anatolios has demonstrated in his careful study of Athanasius, the great bishop's soteriology includes a strong juridical dimension. Anatolios writes that "Athanasius argues that the death of Christ is salvific in part precisely because it is a fulfillment of divine justice." He goes on to explain that, according to Athanasius, "God's subsequent work of salvation cannot simply abrogate this law but must fulfill it, and that is why Christ had to die in order to bring about the forgiveness of sins and our salvation."¹⁰ Schooping notes that Anatolios' reading of Athanasius reveals a theologian who "speaks of Christ's salvific death as annulling the penalty and repaying the debt of sin on our behalf and thereby fulfilling the demands of divine justice."¹¹

Athanasius believed, in other words, that God could not simply wave away the penalty for sin. The divine decree that sin leads to death had to be honored — and it was honored in the death of Christ. That is the logic of penal substitution, even if Athanasius did not use that exact phrase. In On the Incarnation, Athanasius repeatedly insists that the Word became flesh not merely to reveal God to humanity (though He did that too) but specifically to deal with the problem of death — the penalty that had been pronounced upon the human race. The Word took a body "capable of death" so that, "by offering unto death the body He Himself had taken, as an offering and sacrifice free from any stain, straightway He put away death from all His peers by the offering of an equivalent" (On the Incarnation 9). The language of "offering an equivalent" is substitutionary in character — Christ's death stands in the place of the death that was due to all.

What makes this especially important is that Athanasius is often held up as the prime example of an Eastern Father who thought about salvation in purely ontological terms — the incarnation restores corrupted human nature. And he did think that way. But he also thought in terms of penalty, debt, and substitution. These dimensions coexisted in his thinking without any sense of contradiction. Modern scholars who present Athanasius as an alternative to penal substitution are presenting only half of his theology.

C. Maximus the Confessor (c. 580–662)

One of the most sophisticated theologians in the Eastern tradition, Maximus the Confessor provides what Schooping calls "a veritable definition of Penal Substitutionary Atonement" in his Ad Thalassium 61.¹² This is a remarkable passage, and it deserves careful attention. Maximus writes:

The Logos of God, who is fully divine by nature, became fully human, being composed just like us of an intellectual soul and a passible body, save only without sin. … In His love for humanity, He willingly appropriated the pain which is the end of human nature. … He did this in order that, by suffering unjustly, He might uproot the principle of our being conceived through unrighteous pleasure. … He exhibited the equity of His justice in the magnitude of His condescension, when He willingly submitted to the condemnation imposed on our passibility and turned that very passibility into an instrument for eradicating sin and the death which is its consequence. (Ad Thalassium 61.89)

Let us trace the logic carefully, because it maps directly onto the structure of penal substitution. First, there is a penalty — human nature is bound to death as a consequence of sin. Second, God's justice cannot simply set this aside, for as Maximus says, it would not be right for God, "in His justice," to "arbitrarily save humanity when it had fallen under sin by its own free will." Third, Christ willingly submits to this condemnation in our place. He "appropriated the pain which is the end of human nature" and "submitted to the condemnation imposed on our passibility."

Schooping's analysis is incisive: "God's justice, according to Maximus, cannot arbitrarily be set aside. … Christ, in order to heal mankind, took this death on Himself by taking on the just punishment of human sin." Furthermore, "If Christ did not perform a penal substitutionary atonement, then, according to Maximus, salvation would be rendered impossible."¹³

D. John of Damascus (c. 675–749)

John of Damascus — often called the last of the great Eastern Church Fathers and one of the most systematic theologians in the Orthodox tradition — provides explicit treatment of PSA concepts in two key passages from his magisterial On the Orthodox Faith.

The first is from Book III, Chapter 25, "Concerning the Appropriation." Here Damascene introduces a crucial distinction between two kinds of appropriation (oikeiōsis): one that is "natural and essential" and one that is "personal and relative." The natural appropriation refers to Christ's genuine assumption of our human nature in the incarnation. The personal or relative appropriation is something different — it is "when one assumes the appearance (prosōpon) of another relatively, as out of pity or love, and in this other's stead speaks words in his behalf which in no way concern himself." Then comes the decisive statement: "It was in this way that our Lord appropriated both our curse and our desertion, and such other things as are not natural: not that He Himself was or became such, but that He took upon Himself our personality and ranked Himself as one of us."¹⁴

What is happening here is remarkable. John of Damascus is providing a theological framework for understanding how Christ — who is sinless — can nevertheless bear the curse that rightly belongs to sinful humanity. This is, as Schooping argues, essentially the concept of forensic imputation articulated in patristic terms. Christ takes on our "curse and our desertion" not by actually becoming sinful (that would be the natural appropriation gone wrong) but by taking our prosōpon — our person, our legal standing — upon Himself. He is "reckoned as one of us."¹⁵ The curse was "forensically imputed to Christ, which is to say personally and representationally appropriated by Christ, through the Cross."¹⁶

The second passage comes from Book III, Chapter 27, where Damascene writes: "He dies, therefore, because He took on Himself death on our behalf, and He makes Himself an offering to the Father for our sakes. For we had sinned against Him, and it was meet that He should receive the ransom for us, and that we should thus be delivered from the condemnation."¹⁷

Schooping draws out the significance: "He does not take on His death on our behalf, but our death on our behalf." Christ substitutes Himself — taking on the death that humanity deserved. And since "death came into the world through sin," to take on our death is to take on the penalty of our sin. This is penal substitution, expressed within a ransom framework.¹⁸

E. Cyril of Alexandria (c. 376–444)

Cyril of Alexandria is one of the most authoritative voices in all of Eastern Christianity. His role in the Christological controversies of the fifth century, his presidency at the Council of Ephesus (431 AD), and his twelve anathemas against Nestorius all give him towering stature. When Cyril speaks about the atonement, the entire Orthodox world listens.

And what Cyril says is astonishing in its clarity. In his Commentary on John, he writes: "As our truly great and all-holy High Priest, Christ appeases the wrath of His Father by His prayers, sacrificing Himself for us" (Vol. 2, Book 11, Chapter 8, paragraph 688).¹⁹ Here is propitiatory language in its most direct form — Christ's sacrifice appeases the wrath of God. This is not language that modern critics of PSA expect to find in Cyril, but there it is.

But Cyril goes even further. He explicitly identifies Christ's suffering as punitive and substitutionary: "Christ Himself comes to undergo in some way punishment for all … He was crucified in the place of all and for all" (Commentary on John, Vol. 1, Book 4, Ch. 2, paragraph 519).²⁰ Note both elements: punishment (penal) and "in the place of all" (substitutionary). And the conclusion is drawn in explicitly legal terms: "We are justified, since Christ has paid our penalty" (Commentary on John, Vol. 2, Book 12, paragraph 85).²¹

Perhaps the most comprehensive statement comes in Cyril's commentary on John 19:19:

All people on earth, since we have fallen into the nets of sin … have become subject to the accusations of the devil. … The inscription contained a "record that stood against us" — the curse that the divine law imposes on transgressors and the sentence that went forth against those who went astray. … God was not only angry with Adam when he fell, but he was also angry with those after him who dishonored the decree of the creator. … We are therefore cursed and condemned by God's decree due to the transgression of Adam and to the transgression of the law laid down after him. But the Savior wiped out the record against us, nailing the inscription to his cross … He paid our penalty for us. (Commentary on John, Vol. 2, Book 12, paragraph 84)

The juridical framework could hardly be more explicit. There is a divine law. There is transgression. There is a curse and a sentence. There is divine anger against sin. And Christ "paid our penalty for us." As Schooping observes, the legality of the atonement is affirmed in that the devil has "accusations" against us — calling to mind a courtroom scenario. The curse is rooted in "divine law" and imposed on transgressors. All mankind is guilty. And Christ removes the legal record by bearing the penalty Himself on the cross.²²

Cyril also makes the substitutionary dimension unmistakably clear elsewhere: "He was flogged unjustly that he might deliver us from the blows we deserved. … If we think rightly, we will hold that all of Christ's sufferings happened for us and in our place" (Commentary on John, Vol. 2, Book 12, paragraphs 60–61).²³ For us. In our place. These are the core phrases of substitutionary atonement, and they come from one of the most revered Fathers of the East.

F. Symeon the New Theologian (949–1022)

Symeon the New Theologian, one of the most beloved mystical writers in the Orthodox tradition, provides what Schooping describes as "perhaps the longest and clearest exposition of the Scriptural data theologically understood" regarding penal substitutionary atonement among the Fathers.²⁴

In his first homily, "The Transgression of Adam and Our Redemption by Jesus Christ," Symeon lays out the universal consequences of Adam's fall — both physical death (separation of the soul from the body) and spiritual death (separation of the soul from the Holy Spirit). He then explains that this double death was passed on to all of humanity, such that "the whole human race also became such as our forefather Adam became through the fall — mortal, that is, both in soul and body."²⁵

What follows is critical. Symeon identifies the divine decree against sin as an unbreakable sentence: "The sentence of God remains forever as an eternal chastisement. And all of us men became corruptible and mortal, and there is nothing that might set aside this great and frightful sentence." How then can humanity be saved? Only by Christ standing in our place: "For this reason the Almighty Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, came so as to humble Himself in place of Adam. And truly He humbled Himself, even to the death of the Cross."²⁶

The phrase "in place of Adam" is explicitly substitutionary. Christ goes where Adam should go. He receives what Adam deserves. And the penalty He receives is the "eternal chastisement" decreed by God. As Schooping explains, "Christ came to stand in Adam's place … receiving the curse that was Adam's, the death of soul and body, 'for the abolition of the above-mentioned decree.'"²⁷

Symeon makes the penal dimension even more explicit: "Christ received punishment in place of Adam, voluntarily undergoing 'a death which served as punishment for the worst kind of sinners.'" And again: "Since Adam had fallen under the curse, and through him all people also who proceed from him, therefore the sentence of God concerning this could in no way be annihilated; and therefore Christ was for us a curse, through being hung upon the tree of the Cross, so as to offer Himself as a sacrifice to His Father … and to annihilate the sentence of God by the superabundant worth of the sacrifice."²⁸

What we have here is a fully articulated penal substitutionary framework. There is a divine sentence. There is a curse. The sentence cannot be annihilated by fiat. Christ receives the curse "for us." And the sacrifice is offered to the Father. All of this comes from one of the most revered mystical theologians in the Eastern tradition — not from a Protestant Reformer.

G. Gregory Palamas (1296–1359)

If there is one Church Father who might be expected to reject any form of juridical or penal atonement theology, it would be Gregory Palamas. He is the champion of hesychasm, the great defender of the essence-energies distinction, and the theologian most associated with the Eastern emphasis on theosis (deification). As Schooping pointedly observes, "A profound theologian and apologist, if there was someone who was in a position to be aware of the incompatibility between a juridical, substitutionary atonement and orthodox theology and spirituality, it was St. Gregory Palamas."²⁹

Yet far from rejecting juridical and penal categories, Palamas weaves them seamlessly into his soteriology. In his Sixteenth Homily, delivered on Holy Saturday, Palamas asserts that God's "method of deliverance … had justice on its side, and God does not act without justice." He states plainly: "Man was justly abandoned by God in the beginning as he had first abandoned God." He speaks of "the original condemnation," of humanity being "by nature children of wrath" (echoing Ephesians 2:3), and of God's wrath as "the good God's just abandonment of man."³⁰

Schooping draws out the significance: "The fact becomes obvious that man's condemnation has an inescapably juridical element to it. Not only does St. Gregory assert the general principle that God does absolutely everything with justice, he also asserts that specifically Adam's condemnation was just."³¹ For Palamas, the atonement is a multi-faceted mystery — it includes Christus Victor themes, incarnational themes, theosis themes, and juridical themes. He does not see these as contradictory. They are, as Schooping beautifully puts it, like voices in a symphony: "The whole does not swallow the parts, but sets them in glorious relief."³²

III. Western Fathers: Penal and Substitutionary Language

While the Eastern evidence is often the most surprising, the Western Fathers provide equally strong testimony. Since the West is often (rightly or wrongly) associated with more juridical thinking, critics sometimes dismiss Western patristic evidence for PSA as merely a precursor to the supposedly misguided Western trajectory. But this dismissal fails on two counts. First, it does not account for the Eastern evidence we have just surveyed. Second, the Western evidence itself is too strong and too early to be dismissed as a late development.

A. Origen (c. 185–254)

Though technically an Alexandrian (and thus Eastern in geography), Origen's massive influence on both East and West makes him a crucial witness. As we noted in Chapter 14, Origen's atonement theology is richly multifaceted. But among his many motifs, penal substitution is unmistakably present.

Origen is explicit that sin requires a penalty and that Christ bears that penalty for us. In his Homilies on Leviticus, he writes: "Death which is inflicted as the penalty of sin is a purification of the sin itself for which it was ordered to be inflicted. Therefore, sin is absolved through the penalty of death" (14.4.2).³³ Christ is the one who bears this penalty on our behalf. In his Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, Origen states: "He bared His back to the scourges and gave His cheeks to be buffeted, nor did He recoil before being spat upon; we it was who had deserved these outrages; He delivered us by Himself suffering for us. He did not die to withdraw us from death, but that we might not have to die for ourselves" (Series 113).³⁴

At the foundation of Origen's atonement doctrine lies the satisfaction of divine justice. In his Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, he explains: "God is just, and the one who is just could not justify the unjust; for that reason he wanted there to be the mediation of a propitiator so that those who were not able to be justified through their own works might be justified through faith in him" (3.8.1).³⁵ Here is propitiation — the satisfaction of God's justice — stated in the clearest possible terms, and by a writer of the third century.

Origen also boldly affirmed the imputation of our sins to Christ. Explaining 2 Corinthians 5:21 in his Commentary on the Gospel of John, he wrote that because "God made Christ who knew no sin to be sin for us," it could not even be said of Christ that "there was no darkness in Him" — for Christ "took upon Himself, for His goodwill towards men, our darknesses" (2.21).³⁶ Craig rightly notes: "Our sins imputed to him, Christ bears the punishment that our sins deserve, thereby expiating sin and propitiating God, satisfying divine justice and obtaining for us God's forgiveness of our sins."³⁷

B. John Chrysostom (c. 349–407)

Craig identifies Chrysostom as providing the clearest statement among the Fathers "of the imputation of sin and substitutionary punishment."³⁸ Chrysostom writes in his Homilies on II Corinthians: "He made Him to be sin for us — that is, He allowed Him to be condemned as a sinner and die as one accursed. He made Him to be a sinner and sin, who, far from having committed sin, knew no guile" (Homily 11).³⁹

In his Homilies on I Timothy, Chrysostom states even more directly: "God was about to punish them, but He forbore to do it. They were about to perish, but in their stead He gave His own Son" (Homily 7.3).⁴⁰ And then comes the striking illustration that would echo through centuries of Christian theology:

A king, beholding a robber and malefactor under punishment, gave his well-beloved son, his only-begotten and true, to be slain; and transferred the death and the guilt as well, from him to his son, (who was himself of no such character), that he might both save the condemned man and clear him from his evil reputation. (Homilies on II Corinthians, Homily 1)

Both the guilt and the penalty are transferred from the condemned sinner to the innocent Son. As Craig observes, "Notice that both the guilt itself and the penalty for it (death) are laid on Christ."⁴¹ This is PSA stated with an almost shocking directness, and it comes from the most beloved preacher in Eastern Christianity — the "Golden-Mouthed" Chrysostom himself.

C. Augustine (354–430)

Augustine's atonement theology, as we saw in Chapter 14, integrates multiple motifs with unusual sophistication. He is the paradigmatic proponent of what scholars call the "political" version of Christus Victor — the devil overreached by killing the sinless Christ, thereby forfeiting his just rights over sinful humanity. But within this Christus Victor framework, Augustine explicitly affirms penal substitution.

In Against Faustus, Augustine states plainly: "Christ, though guiltless, took our punishment, that He might cancel our guilt, and do away with our punishment" (14.4). He interprets Galatians 3:13 ("Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree") as referring to "the punishment of death which is due for sin," and says that Christ, "while ever blessed in His own righteousness, was cursed for our offenses, in the death which He suffered in bearing our punishment" (14.6–7).⁴²

Augustine grounds this in divine justice: "The curse is pronounced by divine justice, and it will be well for us if we are redeemed from it" (14.7). And in On the Trinity, he characterizes Christ's atoning death as "a hidden and exceeding mysterious decree of divine and profound justice" (4.12.15).⁴³

What makes Augustine's testimony especially powerful is the way he integrates penal substitution with Christus Victor. The devil could justly "detain" sinners because of their sins. But Christ's innocent blood was shed as a sacrifice that removes sin and thereby defeats the devil's claim. As Augustine writes: "Christ bore undeservedly the punishment of sin that we deserved, namely, death, so that by his death our sins are remitted." And this, Augustine explains, is how Christ conquers through righteousness rather than through mere power.⁴⁴ Augustine's magnificent confession sums it up: Christ is "both Victor and Victim, and therefore Victor, because the Victim" (Confessions 10).⁴⁵

Augustine's integration is, I believe, profoundly correct. Christus Victor and penal substitution are not rivals — they are allies. Christ wins precisely by bearing the penalty. The victory is accomplished through the substitution. This is exactly the relationship between atonement models that I argue for throughout this book (see Chapters 21 and 24).

D. Hilary of Poitiers, Ambrose, and Leo the Great

The Western patristic witness extends well beyond Origen, Chrysostom, and Augustine. While we cannot treat every writer in detail, several additional figures deserve mention, because they demonstrate how deeply embedded penal and substitutionary themes were in Western Christian thought long before the Reformation.

Hilary of Poitiers (c. 310–367), sometimes called the "Athanasius of the West" for his vigorous defense of Nicene orthodoxy, spoke of Christ taking upon Himself the curse and punishment that belonged to humanity. In his commentary on Psalm 53, Hilary interprets Christ's suffering as a bearing of the penalty that sin deserved, emphasizing that the sinless one willingly accepted what was rightly due to sinners. Hilary's atonement language, like that of his Eastern contemporaries, freely combined substitutionary and victory themes without any sense of contradiction.

Ambrose of Milan (c. 340–397), whose preaching played a crucial role in Augustine's conversion, likewise employed substitutionary and sacrificial language for Christ's death. Ambrose spoke of Christ as bearing the penalty for sins He did not commit, and he grounded the necessity of the atonement in the requirements of divine justice. Sin created a debt that had to be paid, and Christ paid it in our place. Ambrose's writings are significant partly because they show that by the late fourth century, substitutionary atonement language was thoroughly at home in the worship and theology of the Western church — not as a novelty, but as a natural expression of what Christians had always believed about the cross.

Leo the Great (c. 400–461) — pope and the author of the famous Tome that shaped Chalcedonian Christology — wrote of Christ's death as a sacrifice offered on behalf of sinners that satisfied the demands of justice. Leo's sermons on the passion emphasize both the cosmic scope of Christ's victory and the judicial nature of His sacrifice. Christ conquers by bearing the weight of human guilt, and His innocent death overturns the devil's claim on sinful humanity. Like Augustine, Leo saw no tension between the victory motif and the substitutionary motif — precisely because the victory is accomplished through the substitution.

As Allen notes, a wide range of patristic writers — including "Irenæus, Hippolytus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Basil, the two Gregories, Cyril of Alexandria, John of Damascus, Hilary, Rufinus, Jerome, Augustine, and Leo the Great" — all incorporated themes of both victory and satisfaction in their atonement theology.⁴⁶ This is not a handful of isolated voices. It is the mainstream of patristic thought, spanning both East and West, from the second century through the eighth.

Allen also emphasizes a broader historical point: "In 1931, Rivière demonstrated that both the Latin and Greek church fathers utilized the concepts of sacrifice and penal substitution. Garry Williams also has demonstrated that penal substitution was taught by the early church fathers."⁴⁷ Steven Jeffery, Michael Ovey, and Andrew Sach have likewise compiled extensive patristic documentation in their book Pierced for Our Transgressions, demonstrating that substitutionary and penal language permeates the writings of the Fathers across multiple centuries and cultural contexts. The scholarly evidence, when examined carefully, is overwhelming.

IV. The Liturgical Evidence: PSA in Orthodox Hymnography

Perhaps the most powerful — and most unexpected — evidence for PSA in the Eastern tradition comes not from theological treatises but from the liturgical worship of the Orthodox Church itself. This is one of Schooping's most important contributions, and it deserves careful attention.

In Eastern Orthodoxy, the principle lex orandi, lex credendi ("the law of prayer is the law of belief") carries enormous weight. The liturgy is not merely a human composition; it is the Church's Spirit-guided expression of its faith. If PSA language permeates the Church's worship, then PSA cannot be dismissed as a foreign intrusion. It is woven into the very fabric of Orthodox spirituality.

And permeate it does. Consider the hymn from the Great Vespers of the Universal Exaltation of the Precious and Life-Giving Cross (September 14), one of the great feasts of the Orthodox liturgical calendar:

Come, all ye peoples, and let us venerate the blessed Wood, through which the eternal justice has been brought to pass.

The hymn continues: "By the blood of God the poison of the serpent is washed away; and the curse of a just condemnation is loosed by the unjust punishment inflicted on the Just."⁴⁸

Let us unpack this carefully. There is a "just condemnation" upon humanity — this is the penalty for sin. And it is "loosed" — removed, set aside — by "the unjust punishment inflicted on the Just." Christ, the Just One, receives an unjust punishment; and through that punishment, the just condemnation resting upon humanity is lifted. This is penal substitutionary atonement set to music and sung in the Church's worship.

The hymn continues further: "For it was fitting that wood should be healed by wood, and that through the Passion of One who knew not passion should be remitted all the sufferings of him who was condemned because of wood."⁴⁹ Again — Christ bears "all the sufferings" that belong to the one "who was condemned." The innocent suffers to remit the penalty of the guilty.

Schooping draws the connection between the liturgical and the theological: the logic of PSA, as expressed in this ancient hymn, "is that Christ trampled down death by death in order that He might bestow life to those trapped by the penalty of sin, which is death."⁵⁰ The famous Paschal troparion — "Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life" — is often cited as a purely Christus Victor statement. And it is a Christus Victor statement. But Schooping's point is that the Christus Victor dimension does not exclude the penal substitutionary dimension; it includes it. Christ tramples death by undergoing it — by receiving the penalty that belonged to us. Victory and substitution work together.

V. The Orthodox Responses to Protestantism: PSA as a Non-Issue

One of the most telling pieces of historical evidence comes from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when the Orthodox Church officially responded to the challenge of the Protestant Reformation. If PSA were truly foreign to Orthodoxy, we would expect these responses to identify it as a point of disagreement. What we find instead is the opposite.

Patriarch Jeremiah II of Constantinople, in his first exchange with the Lutheran theologians of Tübingen, did not critique PSA at all. In fact, he positively presented it as part of the Orthodox understanding. The Patriarch quoted Chrysostom's famous illustration of the king who "gave his beloved, only-begotten, and legitimate son, who was not like that, to be put to death, transferring the guilt from the wicked man to the son in order to save the condemned criminal and rid him from an evil reputation."⁵¹

Schooping observes the significance: "Not only does Patriarch Jeremiah not distance himself from PSA, he expressly casts it in terms of salvation and being punished on the criminal's behalf. This is clearly a vicarious atonement, one which is legal and therefore forensic, and it is substitutionary in that it is in the criminal's place and undergoing the criminal's own punishment."⁵²

And here is the truly remarkable detail: despite two additional exchanges in which the Orthodox raised numerous points of disagreement with the Lutherans, "the question of Christ being our Penal Substitute is dropped, never once figuring as a point of disagreement."⁵³ PSA was a point of agreement, not contention.

The Confession of Dositheus, affirmed at the Synod of Jerusalem in 1672, similarly incorporates PSA language without controversy. Decree 8 describes Christ as giving "Himself a ransom for all" and as "advocate and propitiation for our sins."⁵⁴ Peter Mogila, Metropolitan of Kiev, in the seventeenth century also clearly maintained PSA within his catechetical and theological works, stating that Christ was "offered to bear the Sins of many" and that his death is "a Propitiation, or Atonement with God, for our Sins."⁵⁵

Schooping's conclusion is forceful: "Not only do these 16th Century Orthodox responses to Protestantism not distance themselves from PSA, they positively incorporate it as a natural part of Orthodox teaching on the Atonement." The contemporary attempt to erase PSA from Orthodox memory is, he argues, "unnatural" — a revisionist project that runs against the Church's own historical witness.⁵⁶

VI. St. Philaret of Moscow: A Modern Orthodox Witness

Lest anyone think that PSA in Eastern Orthodoxy is merely an ancient artifact that disappeared with time, we should note the testimony of Philaret of Moscow (1782–1867), one of the most learned and influential hierarchs of the nineteenth-century Russian Church. A proficient scholar in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, Philaret authored a widely used catechism that remained standard in Russian Orthodox education for generations.

Question 208 of Philaret's catechism asks: "How does the death of Jesus Christ upon the cross deliver us from sin, the curse, and death?" The answer includes this key statement: Christ's death is "a perfect satisfaction to the justice of God, which had condemned us for sin to death, and a fund of infinite merit, which has obtained him the right, without prejudice to justice, to give us sinners pardon of our sins."⁵⁷

The language is unmistakable. Christ's death satisfies divine justice. We were justly condemned to death for sin. Christ takes that condemnation upon Himself. And because of the "infinite merit" of His sacrifice, He obtains for us "pardon of our sins" — all "without prejudice to justice." This is satisfaction language, penal language, and substitutionary language, articulated by one of the most important Orthodox bishops of the modern era.

In his sermon On the Cross, Philaret elaborates further. He explains that the cross Christ bore "was not His own cross, but man's cross." The substance of this cross included "darkness, sorrow, terror, labour, sickness, death, misery, humiliation, the enmity of all nature, in short, all powers of destruction." And yet, Philaret continues, Christ bore all of this so that "the child of wrath would not inevitably be plunged for ever into hell."⁵⁸

Schooping observes that for Philaret, the destructive power concentrated in the cross was not merely finite or physical. It carried the weight of the infinite consequence of sin. Christ bore this infinite weight — not because He deserved it, but because we did, and He loved us enough to take our place.⁵⁹

VII. Addressing the "New Soteriologists"

Given all the evidence we have surveyed, a natural question arises: how did the modern Orthodox rejection of PSA develop? If the Fathers — including revered Eastern Fathers like Cyril, Maximus, John of Damascus, Chrysostom, Symeon the New Theologian, Gregory Palamas, and Philaret of Moscow — all used penal and substitutionary language, where did the widespread idea that PSA is a "Western corruption" come from?

The answer, I believe, involves a combination of factors. First, the broader context of East-West polemics has created a theological culture in which anything perceived as "Western" is sometimes reflexively rejected, regardless of its actual patristic pedigree. After a millennium of estrangement between East and West, it became convenient to define Orthodox identity partly in terms of what Orthodoxy is not — not Catholic, not Protestant, not Western. This has led some Orthodox theologians to reject PSA simply because Protestants affirm it, without stopping to ask whether the Fathers also affirmed it.

Second, the influence of certain twentieth-century Orthodox theologians — whom some have called the "New Soteriologists" — has been significant. These scholars have advanced the claim that juridical and penal categories are fundamentally incompatible with Eastern theology, emphasizing instead ontological and therapeutic categories (sin as disease, salvation as healing, theosis as the goal). Writers in this vein often present the "Western" juridical model and the "Eastern" therapeutic model as mutually exclusive alternatives, forcing readers to choose one or the other.⁶⁰

The problem with this framing is that the Fathers themselves never accepted it. The same writer who speaks of sin as disease and salvation as healing will turn around and speak of divine justice, legal condemnation, and Christ bearing the penalty for sin. Palamas does both. Maximus does both. Cyril does both. The therapeutic and the juridical are not alternatives; they are complementary dimensions of a single, multi-faceted reality. To use an analogy, saying "sin is a disease" and saying "sin incurs a legal penalty" are not contradictory claims any more than saying "cancer is a physical condition" and "cancer results in medical bills." Both describe real aspects of the same situation.

Third, there has been a tendency in some modern Orthodox scholarship to read the Fathers selectively — highlighting passages that emphasize ontological transformation while passing over passages that contain penal and substitutionary language. This is understandable in a polemical context, but it does not produce an accurate picture of what the Fathers actually taught. When a scholar quotes Athanasius on the incarnation restoring human nature but omits Athanasius on Christ's death fulfilling the demands of divine justice, the resulting portrait is incomplete. The Fathers deserve to be read whole.

Now, let me be clear: the ontological and therapeutic dimensions of salvation are absolutely genuine and important. Sin is a disease of the soul. Salvation does involve healing and transformation. Theosis is a glorious truth of the Christian faith (see Chapter 23 for our engagement with this theme). But to insist that these categories exclude juridical and penal categories is to create a false dichotomy that the Fathers themselves did not accept. As we have seen, writer after writer — from Athanasius to Maximus to Palamas — wove juridical, penal, and substitutionary themes right alongside ontological, therapeutic, and Christus Victor themes. They did not see these as contradictory. Neither should we.

Schooping addresses this directly in his discussion of "transcendental realism." He argues that when modern Orthodox critics dismiss the juridical dimension of the atonement, they unwittingly undermine the very covenantal framework within which Christ accomplished His saving work. Christ was born "under the Law" (Galatians 4:4), and He fulfilled the Law — including its penal sanctions against sin — on the cross. The cross itself is framed in Scripture as a place of curse: "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree" (Deuteronomy 21:23; Galatians 3:13). "To say Christ's death does not have a penal or punitive component," Schooping argues, "is to fail to understand the covenantal context of the very Law that Christ, in His divine Person, wrote and inspired through Moses."⁶¹

The Fathers understood this. The liturgy understands this. The official Orthodox responses to Protestantism understood this. The "New Soteriologists" represent a departure from this tradition, not a recovery of it. And I say this not to be combative but because the stakes are high. If we lose the penal and substitutionary dimension of the atonement, we lose something the Fathers considered essential to the gospel — that Christ bore the just consequences of our sin in our place, satisfying divine justice and opening the way for our forgiveness, restoration, and ultimate transformation into His likeness.

VIII. The Significance of the Evidence: What Does It All Mean?

Having surveyed the evidence from Eastern Fathers, Western Fathers, liturgical texts, official Orthodox responses to Protestantism, and modern Orthodox theologians like Philaret, what conclusions can we draw?

First, the theological substance of penal substitution is present throughout the patristic tradition. We find language of penalty, punishment, curse, condemnation, divine justice, substitution, and satisfaction in writers from the third century through the nineteenth century, in both East and West. This is not a marginal or occasional motif — it appears in major theologians, in liturgical texts, and in official confessional documents.

Second, the Fathers did not see penal and substitutionary categories as contradicting other atonement motifs. Eusebius combined sacrifice, penal substitution, and ransom language in the same passage. Augustine wove together Christus Victor and penal substitution into a magnificent synthesis. Palamas included juridical themes alongside incarnational and therapeutic themes. The Fathers were not forced to choose, and neither are we.

Third, the systematic formulation of PSA did develop over time, but the raw materials were present from the beginning. Just as Trinitarian theology required centuries of reflection before the Nicene Creed could articulate what had always been believed, so atonement theology required centuries before the Reformers could articulate what the Fathers had already been saying in less systematic form. Development of doctrine is not the same thing as innovation.

Fourth, the modern claim that PSA is a post-Reformation innovation is historically untenable. It can only be maintained by ignoring, minimizing, or reinterpreting vast quantities of patristic evidence. As Allen notes, Rivière demonstrated back in 1931 that both Latin and Greek Fathers employed the concepts of sacrifice and penal substitution.⁶² Schooping has now massively expanded this demonstration specifically within the Eastern tradition.

IX. Responding to Common Objections

Several objections are commonly raised against the thesis of this chapter. Let me address them briefly.

Objection 1: "The Fathers were speaking loosely or metaphorically when they used penal language."

This objection proves too much. If we dismiss every patristic reference to penalty, punishment, curse, condemnation, and divine justice as merely metaphorical, we would have to apply the same standard to their Christus Victor language (perhaps the "victory" is merely metaphorical?) or their ransom language (perhaps the "ransom" is merely metaphorical?). The Fathers used a variety of images, all of which point to real dimensions of what Christ accomplished. The penal images are no less real than the others.

Objection 2: "Even if the Fathers used this language, they did not mean the same thing as the Reformers."

This is partially true and partially misleading. Of course the Fathers did not articulate PSA with the same systematic precision as Calvin or Turretin. But then, they did not articulate the doctrine of the Trinity with the same systematic precision as the Cappadocians until the Cappadocians actually did it. Development of doctrine does not mean the earlier expressions were wrong or unrelated to the later formulations. The Fathers' penal and substitutionary language pointed in the same direction that the Reformers later followed more systematically. The question is whether the substance is there — and it clearly is.

Objection 3: "The Eastern emphasis on theosis makes PSA unnecessary."

This objection assumes that juridical and transformative categories are mutually exclusive. But as we have seen throughout this chapter, the very same Fathers who championed theosis — Maximus the Confessor, Gregory Palamas, Symeon the New Theologian — also employed penal and substitutionary language. For them, the juridical dimension of the atonement was not in tension with theosis; it was part of the same glorious whole. Christ's bearing of the penalty makes possible the restoration of communion with God that blossoms into theosis. The two dimensions need each other. As we will argue in Chapter 23, the Eastern emphasis on theosis beautifully complements the penal substitutionary dimension of the atonement rather than competing with it.

Objection 4: "PSA implies an angry God punishing an unwilling Son, which is incompatible with Trinitarian orthodoxy."

I address this objection at length in Chapter 20. Here it suffices to say that this is a caricature of PSA, not a fair representation of it. As every Father we have examined makes clear, Christ goes to the cross willingly, motivated by love. Maximus speaks of Christ "willingly" appropriating human pain. John of Damascus speaks of appropriation made "out of pity or love." Symeon speaks of Christ coming to "humble Himself in place of Adam." The Father does not punish an unwilling victim; the Triune God acts in unified, self-giving love. This is what John Stott famously called "the self-substitution of God" (see Chapter 20 for the full treatment).⁶³

Conclusion: The Fathers and the Cross

The evidence presented in this chapter leads to a clear conclusion. The Church Fathers — both Eastern and Western, from the third century through the medieval period and beyond — consistently employed penal and substitutionary language when speaking about the cross of Christ. They spoke of penalty, punishment, curse, condemnation, and divine justice. They spoke of Christ bearing these things "for us" and "in our place." They spoke of the satisfaction of divine justice through Christ's sacrifice. And they wove these themes seamlessly alongside other atonement motifs like Christus Victor, ransom, recapitulation, and theosis.

The claim that PSA is a post-Reformation innovation cannot survive a fair reading of the primary sources. What the Reformers did was not to invent something new but to articulate more systematically what the Church had always believed and worshiped. They gave fuller expression to theological themes that were already present in the Fathers — just as the Nicene Creed gave fuller expression to Trinitarian themes already present in the New Testament.

I find this evidence deeply encouraging. It means that when we confess that Christ bore the penalty for our sins, we are not departing from the ancient faith. We are standing in a tradition that reaches back through Philaret, through Palamas, through Symeon, through Damascene, through Maximus, through Cyril, through Chrysostom, through Augustine, through Origen, through Eusebius — all the way back to the apostles themselves, who wrote that Christ was "wounded for our transgressions" and "crushed for our iniquities" (Isaiah 53:5), that He "bore our sins in his body on the tree" (1 Peter 2:24), and that "God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us" (2 Corinthians 5:21).

The Fathers heard these words. They believed them. They sang them. They preached them. And they passed them down to us. It is time to correct the record and reclaim this inheritance.

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