The Cross as Ransom

It is widely known that the early church interpreted the cross as an event in which human kind was ransomed from captivity to the devil. It is almost as widely assumed that this line of interpretation was logically absurd, morally repugnant, and psychologically childish. This paper attempts to rehabilitate the ransom motif, tracing three variant expressions in patristic literature, then probing the meanings which this “mythic” pattern might suggest to our own age.

When patristic writers treat the cross as a ransoming of sinful humanity from captivity to Satan, it suggests that the chief problem concerning sin is not the wrath of God but bondage to evil. The two problems are not totally isolated—it is separation from God, after all, that leads to bondage to evil. But the ransom model assumes that the latter has a power of its own even when the former is being overcome.

Modern commentators have sensed that this “mythic” pattern probes the depths of evil and suggests how it might be resisted or overcome; but they have not completely articulated it. I shall argue that the patristic discussion brought out the distinctive “logic” of the myth, seeing it as a transaction among several distinct factors, in the course of which a moral victory is achieved and made lasting by bringing evil to limit itself. This logic is not limited to the one case of the cross (we shall explore a number of parallels), but it seems to be expressed with special clarity in this particular doctrinal image.

Variant 1: The Metaphor of Ransom

The fundamental image is, indeed, that of a ransom paid to one who holds a slave or a captive as the precondition for being freed. ¹ The owner or captor in this case is the devil, or collectively the demons or the “powers” (especially as referred to in Col 2.13–15 or I Cor 2.8). Origen states the logic of the situation in a way that came to be regarded as authoritative:

If therefore we were “bought with a price,” as Paul agrees [I Cor 6.20, 7.23], then without a doubt we were bought from someone whose slaves we were, and who demanded whatever price he wished in order to release from his power those whom he held. Now it was the devil, to whom we had been sold by our sins, who held us. He demanded therefore as our price the blood of Christ. ²

The idea of ransom suggests, then, that the problem in salvation, or the obstacle to salvation, is not the wrath of God but the claim of the devil: the human race, by yielding to the devil’s tempting, has “justly” fallen under the power or claim of the devil, for although the devil acted “unjustly” in rebelling against God and tempting Adam and Eve, once they have consented to sin they are linked to him as the one to whom they have “sold themselves.” ³ Furthermore, the notion of ransom suggests that God effects the liberation of human kind not by violence, not by power, but in a manner that expresses goodness, justice, and wisdom. ⁴

Variant 2: Abuse of Power

The image of ransom, when it is taken literally, suggests too much of an equality between God and the devil, or too amicable a relationship, ⁵ and the general patristic view involves a more complex scenario, one which Rivière differentiated by calling it not “ransom” but “abuse of power,” or Kelly characterized as not a “satisfaction of the Devil’s supposed rights” but “his proper punishment for going beyond them.” ⁶ It is still acknowledged that the devil has a claim over sinful humanity. But the devil has no rights over Christ, the Second Adam, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, was not overcome by sin, and never yielded to the devil’s temptations. ⁷ In the case of Christ, therefore, the devil overstepped his prerogatives and misused his power in condemning and executing someone who was sinless. On the widespread assumption that death is the just penalty or natural consequence of sin, the accusation...