DOCTORES ECCLESIAE

A GIFT EXCEEDING
EVERY DEBT:
An Eastern Orthodox Appreciation
of Anselm's Cur Deus Homo
D. Bentley Hart

The division between Eastern and Western Christianity — officially

almost a millennium old, effectively far older—has often enough been
characterized as the ineluctable effect of one or another irreconcilable
and irreducible difference: political (Caesars and Czars as opposed to
princes and Popes), cultural (Byzantine as opposed to Frankish, Greek
as opposed to Latin), theological (in regard to matters of nature and
grace, or definitions of original sin), doctrinal (the fMoque, the nature
of papal primacy), ritual (leavened bread as opposed to azymes, icons
as opposed to statuary), ecclesiological (patriarchal pentarchy as op-

David B. Hart, Religious Studies Dept., University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22901

PRO ECCLESIA Vol. VII, No. 3 333

 posed to papacy, sobornost as opposed to monarchia), even "ontological"
(to cite the somewhat hermetic language of the Oecumenical
Every serious Patriarch's recent address at Georgetown University). And because
theological these various characterizations have been only rarely proposed in a
engagement spirit of critical detachment — indeed have most typically appeared in
between the contexts of the most squalid kind of recrimination — it has usually
Orthodox and proved difficult to distinguish the real differences between the chur-
Catholic parties to ches from the simply perceived, to separate the genuinely important
the modern (and from the merely accidental, or efficiently to dismiss distinctions made
perhaps quite for purposes purely polemical or ultimately frivolous. Every serious
hopeless) theological engagement between the Orthodox and Catholic parties to
oecumenical the modern (and perhaps quite hopeless) oecumenical movement
movement reveals reveals depth upon depth of substantial agreement, and yet always
depth upon depth fades upon the midnight knell, as each side ruefully acknowledges the
of substantial perplexing refractoriness and stubborn persistence of differences that
agreement, and lie (apparently) deeper still. As if the task of dialogue were not rendered
yet always fades difficult enough by the sheer intractability of the concrete details of
upon the midnight doctrine and practice that divide the churches, an abiding sense of
knell, as each side some ever more determinative (and yet ever more indeterminate),
ruefully essential difference almost always overshadows every conversation
acknowledges the (however charitable) that attempts to span the divide. Simply said, a
perplexing profound sense that our grammars are fundamentally different (which,
refractoriness and to a large extent, they of course are) serves constantly to temper our
stubborn elation over what meager accords we strike, to imbue our continued
persistence of division with an almost mystical aura of inevitability, and to resign us
differences that lie fatalistically to our failures and to the failure of our love.
(apparently) No region of dogmatics seems to offer better proof of this difference in
deeper still grammar and sensibility, of course, than the question of atonement; it
is, at least, most certainly the case that many Orthodox theologians
have long believed (not entirely without warrant) that Western narra-
tives of salvation have all too often reduced the atonement worked by
Christ to the status of a simple transaction, enacted more or less entirely
on the cross, and intended solely as an appeasement of the Father's
wrath against sin. For many in the Eastern Church, it is simply a given
that Western soteriology exhibits no very profound sense of the salvific
significance of the resurrection, or of the ontological dimension of
salvation opened up in the incarnation, or of the superabundance of
God's mercy (which requires no tribute of blood to evoke it). Christ is,
after all, the conqueror of death and the devil, who joins us — in the
Spirit — to the new creation he has established in himself in order to
divinize us; and it is this, so the story goes, that has been lost to view
along the Western via crucis, with its unrelenting concentration on the
language of penal suffering and remission from debt. And no figure in
the Western tradition provides a more compelling illustration of this

334 D. Bentley Hart

supposed failing on the part of the Western Church than Anselm of
Canterbury: his Cur Deus Homo, written so soon after the schism, seems
to mark the divide between the two theological climates with an
exquisite historical precision; and in speaking of Christ's death in terms
of "satisfaction" he certainly appears to prove beyond any doubt how
far Western theology had strayed, by the time of the division, from the
high road of patristic orthodoxy.
Whether there is some broad general truth to the Orthodox view of
Western theologies of atonement (and, at a certain very vulgar level,
there certainly is) will not really concern me in what follows. I hope
only to modify the picture of Anselm's thought that has too often
prevailed among scholars Eastern and Western alike (with a few
notable exceptions). I do this, ultimately, with an oecumenical end in I wish to argue
view, but with no very extravagant expectations; I hope, rather, to free that there is a real
Anselm from some of the coarser characterizations of his critics, in continuity
order to cast the innovations of his method and language in a some- between the
what kindlier light (from the Eastern vantage, at least) and in order, thought of the
thereby, slightly to allay Orthodox suspicions regarding the fidelity of fathers and the
the Western tradition to its ancient sources. I write as an Orthodox thought of
Christian and share the Eastern prejudice for the patristic narratives of Anselm, that the
salvation; I even share the Eastern discomfort with many of the main Cur Deus Homo
currents of traditional Western soteriology; but I wish nevertheless to does not represent
argue that there is a real continuity between the thought of the fathers a catastrophic
and the thought of Anselm, that the Cur Deus Homo does not represent breach between
a catastrophic breach between the theologies of East and West, but only the theologies of
a change of accent, and that perhaps the concerns and beliefs that East and West,
motivate the atonement theories of either tradition emanate (to a but only a change
greater degree than is usually acknowledged) from the same story: the of accent.
story of Christ trampling down death by death, in the words of the
Byzantine paschal hymn, and of God acting decisively on our behalf, to
save us from the powers into which we have delivered ourselves. But to
argue this with any effect, I shall have to begin from the more customary
(and, I would presume to add, more misguided) readings of Anselm; nor
will I confine myself to Orthodox critiques of the Cur Deus Homo: misread-
ings of Anselm are legion, but many of the misinterpretations to which
his work has been subjected over the years are at least instructively false.
Perhaps in the light of the accounts provided by his Western critics,
Anselm might begin to appear more attractive to Eastern eyes.

II

Among his critics, Anselm has long been the victim of his own clarity:
he cuts a conveniently epochal figure because he is identifiably a

PRO ECCLESIA Vol. VII, No. 3 335

 peculiar product of the early Western Middle Ages, because in arguing
The argument of for the "necessity" of a certain picture of redemption he appears to
Cur Deus Homo adumbrate the distinctively Western, Catholic theological method of
is easily read as an following centuries, and because his is so recognizably a theory of
uncomplicated atonement and hence so easy to abstract, simplify, formulate, and
series of logical assess. The argument of Cur Deus Homo is easily read as an uncompli-
steps that lead to a cated series of logical steps that lead to a rigidly rational conclusion
rigidly rational regarding the "juridical" necessity of Christ's sacrificial death: an
conclusion argument that, far from resisting summary, invites it. To wit:
regarding the 1) Every rational creature is created to partake of beatitude in God, so
"juridical" Anselm asserts, in return for which the creature owes God perfect
necessity of obedience, by withholding which humanity offends infinitely against
Christ's sacrificial the divine honor and merits death.
death: an
argument that, far 2) Inasmuch as humanity has sinned against God, to God's "dishonor,"
from resisting God's honor requires that humanity restore what it has taken away,
summary, and indeed give still more, in order to make satisfaction for its offense;
invites it. otherwise humanity must suffer its condign penalty and be handed
over to death.
3) Nor can God merely remit the penalty, as it would contradict his
own righteousness and sovereignty over creation were he to allow sin
to pass with impunity, and thereby raise injustice (sin) to his own level
(transcendent of any higher law), erase the distinction between good
and evil (in the latter's favor), and create division within his own
immutably righteous will; and so, through restitution or punishment,
satisfaction or damnation, humanity shall restore the divine honor and
the beauty of the created universe.
4) But humanity possesses nothing by which it might satisfy divine
justice; as it is God himself against whom the gravity of every trans-
gression is measured, the slightest sin is an infinite offense, calling for
an infinite and "more than infinite" restitution.
5) But it is also contrary to God's goodness and honor that his gracious
purpose in creation should come to nothing and that he should aban-
don his creature to destruction.
6) One is called for, then, who can of his own render to God a payment
that surpasses in worth all things under God; but this is possible for
God alone; and yet satisfaction must be made by one of the race of
Adam. And so, that divine righteousness remain inviolate, the beauty
of creation be preserved, and the divine purpose be fulfilled, the
God-man must come among his own, in order to make satisfaction on
humanity's behalf: a high Chalcedonian Christology is a "necessity"
for understanding how God has resolved this apparent impasse be-
tween his justice and mercy.

336 D. Bentley Hart

7) Christ, as a man, owes God his perfect obedience, which he gladly
proffers, but as he is a sinless man, he does not owe God his death; Anselm's
when Christ voluntarily surrenders his infinitely precious life for God's argument, thus
honor, and the Father accepts it, the superabundance of its worth calls denuded of every
forth some gracious recompense from God's justice. nuance and
8) But Christ, being also God, wants for nothing; and so, lest God's ambiguity that
righteousness be defeated by the injustice of no recompense being enriches the text
given, the benefits of Christ's death pass on to those on whom Christ from which it is
would bestow them. God's infinite honor being more than infinitely drawn, is
satisfied, humanity's debt before God is remitted and salvation is susceptible of
accomplished in such measure as persons approach God in Christ's every casual
name and live righteously. misconstrual the
theological mind
This is more or less Harnack's cursory summary of Anselm's argu- can devise.
ment, in a largely dismissive passage in the Dogmengeschichte; and
perhaps Anselm would have regarded it as a fair précis of his position.
Certainly there are elements of Anselm's theology that allow reduction
to a simple economic model of atonement, which attempts the impos-
sible task of calculating the exchange value of counterposed infinities,
and thus threatens to obscure the fact that the only infinity at issue is For Harnack, as
that of God (who cannot be divided against himself). But Anselm's for Albrecht
argument, thus denuded of every nuance and ambiguity that enriches Ritschl before him,
the text from which it is drawn, is susceptible of every casual mis- Anselm's
construal the theological mind can devise; it becomes indeed a significance
theological "theory," removed from any larger theological narrative, resided in
unable to defend itself by reference to the specific concerns that precisely this
prompted it or the historical context in which it was situated. perceived bare
For Harnack, as for Albrecht Ritschl before him, Anselm's significance linearity of his
resided in precisely this perceived bare linearity of his thought; for thought; for both,
both, Anselm was something genuinely new, a theologian who formu- Anselm was
lated a "theory of atonement," as distinct from the simple "schemes of something
salvation" characteristic of Greek patristic thought. In Die christliche genuinely neza, a
Lehre von der Rechtfertigung und Versöhnung, Ritschl reserved the exalted theologian who
words of his book's title for the period commencing with Anselm and formulated a
Abaelard; patristic theology is concerned, at most, with Erlösung. "theory of
"Atonement language," one might summarize, is an improvement atonement," as
over patristic speculation insofar as the former depicts redemption as distinct from the
an objective transaction between the Father and the Son, rather than as simple "schemes
the grossly mythic drama of divine descent and rescue, and insofar as of salvation"
it concerns itself with "moral," rather than "physical," reconciliation characteristic of
between humanity and God. Imperfect, indeed in places deplorable Greek patristic
(especially where it seems to suggest an essential opposition between thought.
God's mercy and God's justice), Anselm's soteriology is still the impor-
1. In English: Adolph Von Harnack, History of Dogma, trans. Neil Buchanan, 7 vols., bound as
4 (Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1976) VI: pp. 54-67.

PRO ECCLESIA Vol. VII, No. 3 337

 tant first step towards more considered theories of atonement (includ-
From the ing Ritschl's own, oddly etiolated account of justification). The mixed
perspective of verdict of liberal Protestant scholarship on Anselm's argument is best
Eastern theology, expressed, though, by Harnack: according to him, Anselm's language
it is more what is little more than the logical extension of Western Catholicism's
Ritschl and penitential system, and so concerns itself principally with the placation
Harnackfind of God's wrath against humanity; the limits of this system confine his
commendable theory to the model of a legal transaction, enacted between Father and
in the Son, rather than to a model of genuine reconciliation; nowhere does he
Cur Deus Homo, show how the opposition of wills between God and humanity is
than what they overcome. Harnack sees that Anselm's is not a theory of salvation
censure, that is through penal suffering, but this he does not lay to the latter's credit.
the source He does commend Anselm for seeing guilt, rather than death,-as that
of grief. which estranges creation from God, as well as for disabusing theology
of other "primitive" elements inherited from patristic thought — such
as the notion that Christ's death is a ransom paid to the devil, or the
idea of a "physical" salvation accomplished primarily in the Incarna-
tion — but he finds Anselm's theory both unbalanced, limiting the
work of atonement to Christ's humanity, and uncomforting, offering
Among Western no final assurance of justification to the individual (who must still
theologians, it is strive after righteousness to attain beatitude). And Harnack chides
not only liberal Anselm for failing to enunciate a clear theory of penal suffering, for
Protestant indeed subverting such a theory, and for failing to see the necessity not
scholarship that only of Christ's obedience, but of his death.
has taken Anselm Of course, few of these criticisms would be likely to impress Orthodox
to task for the scholars, except perhaps in a somewhat inverted form: from the
deficiencies (real perspective of Eastern theology, it is more what Ritschl and Harnack
or perceived) in find commendable in the Cur Deus Homo, than what they censure, that
his argument; is the source of grief. And, to the Orthodox, Anselm's failure to speak
many have been of Christ's death in terms of penal suffering would be no cause of alarm
quite content to (though it might, given the usual Eastern reading of the Cur Deus Homo,
confirm the come as a considerable surprise). Within the terms of the "liberal
picture of Anselm Protestant" critique of Anselm (whether or not those terms are ac-
provided by such curate), no issue of import is raised for Orthodox reflection: the spec-
texts as the tacle of a conflict within Western theology, between two different ages
Dogmengeschichte, within the West's apostasy from and misconstrual of patristic theology,
in order to might go some way towards fortifying Orthodox theologians in their
condemn him in prejudices, but can offer to their reflection nothing either more edifying
the name of or more challenging. But even among Western theologians, it is not
patristic only liberal Protestant scholarship that has taken Anselm to task for
orthodoxy. the deficiencies (real or perceived) in his argument; many have been

2. Ibid., p. 68.
3. Ibid., p. 69.
4. Ibid., pp. 67-73.

338 D. Bentley Hart

quite content to confirm the picture of Anselm provided by such texts
as the Dogmengeschichte, in order to condemn him in the name of It is perhaps
patristic orthodoxy. Perhaps the most pronounced reservations somewhat peculiar
regarding the Cur Deus Homo, within Protestant theology at least, were that Aulén, who
expressed by the theologically conservative Lutheran Gustaf Aulén, in rebelled with such
his best known work, Christus Victor. It is here that Aulén's famous (if vehemence against
not always particularly subtle) distinction between the "classic" and liberal Protestant
"Latin" theories of atonement is laid out in bright primary colors, with scholarship, and
Anselm's "theory" serving as the chief example of the latter, and who rejected
Anselm himself serving (in consequence) as the exemplar of everything its silly
decadent and legalistic in mediaeval Catholic theology. It is perhaps characterization
somewhat peculiar that Aulén, who rebelled with such vehemence ofpatristic
against liberal Protestant scholarship, and who rejected its silly char- soteriology
acterization of patristic soteriology as merely "physical," should have as merely
accepted the interpretation of Anselm offered him by that same "physical," should
scholarship. Nevertheless, in Christus Victor, he dismisses Anselm's have accepted the
project without qualm, as a radical break from patristic thought, a interpretation of
narrative of salvation that makes Christ's humanity be the sole agency Anselm offered
of atonement and so stands at odds with the Pauline, patristic, and him by that same
(genuine) Lutheran view of Christ's saving work as a unified divine scholarship.
campaign against sin, death, wrath, and the devil. And he, like Har-
nack, deplores Anselm's apparent opposition of justice to mercy; he
too takes Anselm's language to be little more than a monstrous exag-
geration of penitential discourse. For Aulén it is only the rejection of
any " Anselmian" contour in its language of atonement that will allow
Western Christianity to recover the "correct" or "classic" view of
salvation, according to which redemption is a single continuous divine One enters
action, God's descent into the deepest abyss of human estrangement entirely into the
in order to vanquish death, worldly powers, sin, and condemnation, atmosphere of the
and to raise humanity up to everlasting life. In the classic view, con- Orthodox
tends Aulén, talk of sacrifice is intentionally ambiguous; as Gregory suspicion of
the Theologian says, Christ's death is not a ransom paid to the devil, Anselm (and, by
but a sacrifice the Father receives from the Son "by economy," for extension, of all
sanctification and because divine justice requires that Christ alone Western theology)
should overcome the tyrants that hold humanity captive. Thus in Vladimir
Christ's sacrifice is an internal relation of the divine will, not an Lossky's
extrinsic exchange of expiatory death and forensic merit. altogether
damning portrait
One enters entirely into the atmosphere of the Orthodox suspicion of
of his theory of
Anselm (and, by extension, of all Western theology) in Vladimir
atonement.
Lossky's altogether damning portrait of his theory of atonement.
5. Aulén, Christus Victor: An Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea of the Atonement,
trans. A.G. Herbert (London: SPCK, 1953).
6. Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 45.22.
7. See "Redemption and Deification" in Lossky, In the Image and Likeness of God, ed. John H.
Erickson and Thomas E. Bird (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1974), pp. 97-110.

PRO ECCLESIA Vol. VII, No. 3 339

 Lossky takes Lossky's brushstokes are not so broad as Aulén's, but their effect is
special offense at undoubtedly more compelling: everything that Eastern theologians
the scandal of a imagine to be constitutive of Western soteriology — the legalism of its
book putatively "juridical" categories, the ruthlessness of the God it depicts, the
explaining the mechanical simplicity of its model of atonement — Lossky finds ex-
Incarnation, but emplarily expressed in the Cur Deus Homo. While aware that Anselm's
attempting to do language is not without precedent in patristic theology, he still sees it
so without as an incalculable impoverishment of that theology, a decortication of
reference to all the richness of the traditional narrative, leaving behind only the
divinization, single unadorned theme of "redemption." Lossky takes special offense
victory over hell, at the scandal of a book putatively explaining the Incarnation, but
or the rôle of the attempting to do so without reference to divinization, victory over hell,
Holy Spirit; and or the rôle of the Holy Spirit; and at Anselm's apparent reduction of
at Anselm's the resurrection and ascension to a simple happy ending and of salva-
apparent tion to a change not in human nature, but only in the divine attitude
reduction of the towards humanity. Salvation, so conceived, is little more than a drama
resurrection and enacted between an infinitely offended God and a humanity unable to
ascension to a satisfy the demands of his vindictive wrath. Much to be preferred is
simple happy the ambiguity, richness, and narrative complexity of a text like
ending. Athanasius' De Incarnatione Verbi Da, which allows the story of salvation
a greater range of colors, of soteriological models, all narrative in charac-
ter, and all preventing one another from assuming the shape of a single,
definitive, and exhaustively rational account of atonement.

Ill
A question that
might be asked A question that might be asked here, however, is whether the actual
here, however, is text of Cur Deus Homo has not been lost to view, behind the welter of
whether the actual adverse judgments brought to bear upon it. To begin with, it is not at
text of Cur Deus all clear that Anselm's language simply reflects the logic of sacramental
Homo has not penance, the logic of attempting to make reparation to God for par-
been lost to view, ticular sins. Penitential discipline provides Anselm a certain grammar,
behind the welter obviously, but his argument is also one that oddly subverts that
of adverse discipline's logic and would seem to reorient it entirely. If every sin is
judgments intrinsically an infinite offense, as Anselm claims, and all penance then
brought to bear technically "unsatisfactory," and if the superabundant benefit of
upon it. Christ's sacrifice alone remits guilt, penitential practice is both con-
tained in and overcome by the motion of Christ's redeeming act; if
grace, then, allows for a penitential return of the sinner, it does so solely
because prayerful humility is the fitting form of a redeemed life, and
because this way of return is the very promise and substance of
salvation for one concerning whom the entire question of satisfaction

8. Anselm, Cur Deus Homo I, p. xi.

340 D. Bentley Hart

(in the sense of this impossible "restitution" for sin) has been infinitely
deferred, through superabounding mercy. In one stroke, Anselm has It is not Anselm,
done away with the notion that penance is a punitive discipline in- after all, who
tended to satisfy God's wrath, and shown it to be simply a thankful makes an artificial
piety that responds to (and is the result of) an unmerited and trans- distinction
forming grace. A different story is being told about divine justice: one, between his
frankly, that would be unintelligible if Anselm were, as Harnack "theory of
claims, unconcerned with actual reconciliation. atonement"
It is not Anselm, after all, who makes an artificial distinction between proper and such
his "theory of atonement" proper and such remarks as he also makes remarks as he also
concerning the appropriation of salvation by those who approach God makes concerning
humbly, contritely, placing their faith in Christ. For Harnack, the need the appropriation
Anselm sees for acts of contrition and righteousness on the believer's of salvation by
part merely means that Anselm's theory can provide the believer with those who
approach God
no certitude of salvation; whether this is simply the reductio ad absurdum
humbly,
of Lutheran qualms concerning works-righteousness, or merely an
example of Harnack's chronic inability to imagine the church as a place contritely, placing
where the real experience of salvation is lived out, Harnack has quite their faith in
simply failed to see the link that Anselm has explicitly drawn between Christ.
the vocation of humankind to a prayerful and penitent faith and the
overcoming of the sinful human will in Christ's human life of
obedience to the Father. In rendering God the love humanity owes him,
but withholds, and by bearing the weight of sin's consequences and
showing on the cross that the triumph of justice over sin is also the
triumph of humility over pride, Christ provides humanity with both a
model of obedience and the assurance that it can always return to God,
despite its inability to satisfy divine justice, because it is sustained by Harnack has quite
the grace of Christ's gift. To cling to Christ in faith, the turn to prayer simply failed to
is required; as one asks for forgiveness, so must one forgive; and one's see the link that
prayer comes to participate in the satisfaction Christ has made on one's Anselm has
behalf. Because the rule of God's justice is forgiveness, the charitable explicitly drawn
practice of the Church that Christ has redeemed is necessary for a between the
humanity recreated after its original nature. vocation of
humankind to a
Of course, the claim that such a scheme is immeasurably remote from prayerful and
patristic soteriology has as its premise — for Ritschl and Harnack — penitent faith and
the peculiar belief that, in the Greek "physical" view of salvation, it is the overcoming of
the Incarnation in itself that saves, wondrously imparting divine ener- the sinful human
gy to human nature as a whole; but this is, of course, to ignore a fairly zoili in Christ's
vital feature of patristic thought: insofar as the Word's Incarnation human life of
restores human nature, it is as a new creation to which humanity is obedience to
admitted by way of Christ's conquest of sin and death and through the the Father.
corporate solidarity of the Church, with all its necessary practices. For
Aulén and Lossky, on the other hand, the discontinuity with patristic
9.CDH,I,p.xix.

PRO ECCLESIA Vol. VII, No. 3 341

 tradition lies in Anselm's failure to give an adequate account of God's
As Anselm says, action in Christ to overthrow death and the devil and to restore human
humanity was nature through Christ's resurrection. The truth is, of course (contrary
placed between to Aulén's contention), that there never was one "classic" view of
God and the devil atonement, though there was certainly a shared narrative atmosphere
to vanquish the in which patristic thought moved; Aulén is correct that, in general, the
latter for the patristic language of redemption most typically conveys a radical sense
honor of the that it is God alone who acts to save his creatures from death, but the
former; and as the same is true of the language of the Cur Deus Homo. Granting that the
fall was a victory inflection of Anselm's language is scarcely "Greek," the closer the
for the devil to the attention one pays Anselm's argument, the harder it becomes to locate
dishonor of God, a point at which he actually breaks from patristic orthodoxy. The divine
so the satisfaction action follows the same course as in the "classic" model: sin having
effected by Christ disrupted the order of God's good creation, and humanity having been
is a victory over handed over to death and the devil, God enters into a condition of
the devil to God's estrangement and slavery to set humanity free. As Anselm says,
honor. This is, humanity was placed between God and the devil to vanquish the latter
surely, a variant for the honor of the former; and as the fall was a victory for the devil
of a Christus to the dishonor of God, so the satisfaction effected by Christ is a victory
victor soteriology, over the devil to God's honor. This is, surely, a variant of a Christus
and one victor soteriology, and one that makes questionable every hasty as-
that makes sumption regarding what precisely Anselm means by "satisfaction."
questionable every Formidable linguistic shifts aside, Anselm's is not a new narrative of
hasty assumption salvation. In truth, this facile distinction between a patristic soteriology
regarding what concerned exclusively with the rescue of humanity from death and a
precisely Anselm later theory of atonement concerned just as exclusively with remission
means by from guilt — a distinction, i.e., between "physical" and "moral"
"satisfaction." theories — is perhaps supportable, but only in regard to emphasis and
imagery; Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, and John of Damascus (to
name a few) were no less conscious than Anselm that the guilt which
places humanity in bondage to death is overcome on the cross, nor he
any less concerned than they with the Son's campaign against death's
dominion over those who have turned from God in disobedience.
Indeed, in Cur Deus Homo, the matter of guilt is somewhat recused: it
is guilt that is set aside, made of no account by Christ's grace, so that
death should be overcome without violence to divine justice. From
very early in the text,11 Anselm is dealing with a single question (posed
by Boso): If the rights of the devil (who is himself already infinitely
indebted to God) over humanity are not really "rights" (a position of
purest patristic pedigree), why must death's overthrow proceed as it
does? For God could have reclaimed his creation by force, if all that
12
were at issue were the devil's prerogatives; but, for Anselm, the true
10. CDH I, pp. xxii-xxiii.
ll.CDH,I,pp.vi-vii.
12. CDH, I, p. vii.

342 D.Bentley Hart

issue is God's own righteousness. From which unfolds Anselm's story
of the "necessity" (the inner coherence) of the action of the God-man.
And it is explicitly not a story about a substitutionary sacrifice offered
as simple restitution for human guilt,13 but concerns rather the triumph
over death, the devil, and sin accomplished in Christ's voluntary
self-donation to the Father, which the Father receives (as Gregory the
Theologian would say) "by economy," so that its benefits might
redound to those with whom Christ has assumed solidarity. What is all too
On this reading, it is hard to sustain the claim that Anselm makes often overlooked is
Christ's humanity the sole reconciling agency in salvation, reducing how trinitarian
the rôle of Christ's divinity to that of a commodity, the infinite value the structure of
bartered for sin's remission. This strangely Nestorian construal of Anselm's story is.
Anselm's Christology is closely bound to the complaint that Anselm
has posed divine justice over against divine mercy, making out the
latter to be unobtainable until the demands of the former have been
satisfied. But, in such criticisms, it is as if the project (indeed the title)
of Anselm's work has been willfully ignored; because in Anselm's
scheme it is the Word who at every juncture fulfills divine justice and
offers himself up. What is all too often overlooked is how trinitarian
the structure of Anselm's story is. As it can be shown remoto Christo that
sinful humanity cannot make satisfaction to God, that the God who is
always maius than whatever can be thought can be reached or sufficed God is already
only by God, and that God's goodness cannot suffer defeat, there must
always an infinite
be a saving initiative from God's side, and there must already be within
venturing forth
the terms of God's changeless righteousness that dynamism that over-
comes any apparent incommensurability of mercy and justice. The and return, an
appearance of such an opposition is the result not only of finite human action of
reason, but of sin: only in the rejection of God's creative mercy is his reconciliation,
justice experienced as wrath and dereliction. But the idea of a triune response, and
God in whom there exists the "highest concord of justice and mercy" accord, in which
forbids so simple an opposition; and it is because this concord is the any opposition of
truth of a dynamic and living God, in whom the motion of donation goods is already
and re-donation, obedience and love, is already one, that a way of overcome by the
return can be opened for humanity; a return unimaginable in terms of motion of an
a "monadic" God, whose justice could be known only in the awful infinite love.
sublimity of damnation. God is already always an infinite venturing
forth and return, an action of reconciliation, response, and accord, in
which any opposition of goods is already overcome by the motion of
an infinite love. And while Christ's suffering and humiliation do not
belong to his divinity, and the violence that befalls him belongs in no
way to the motion of the divine life, it is necessary (fitting) that it is the
divine Son who becomes a man and lives out a life of obedience to God,
as it reflects the Word's eternal motion of love towards the Father,

13. CDH, I, pp. viii-ix.

14 CDH, I, p. vih.
15. CDH, II, p. ix.

PRO ECCLESIA Vol. VII, No. 3

 returning to him the superabundance of the "initial" gift of himself —
a motion in whose beauty humanity is allowed to partake through the
In the God-man, condescension of the Incarnation. Christ's laying-down of all he is
within human belongs already to the divine love, as its Filial intonation. And so Christ
history, God's does not effect a mere posterior reconciliation of justice and mercy: they
justice and mercy do not constitute a dialectical opposition sublated in the atonement.
are shown to be Nor do they possess only a mysterious and transcendent unity in God's
one thing, one unsearchable depths, leaving to the human vantage merely a sense of
action, life,
one relenting before the pressure of the other. In the God-man, within
human history, God's justice and mercy are shown to be one thing, one
and being.
action, life, and being. When humanity fails to take up the creature's
side of the divine covenant, the righteousness that condemns is also
the love that restores by surmounting even human disobedience and
creation's lawful subjection to death, to take up the human side on
humanity's behalf. The divine address and human response are both
present in the Word made flesh, just as God's honor and God's conde-
scension are revealed in a single life handed over to the Father. It is the
human understanding of justice and honor that proves inadequate,
while the unbroken trinitarian action of God in every aspect of salva-
tion testifies to a divine justice whose inner mystery is infinite mercy.
In the end, Lossky's critique of Cur Deus Homo, by virtue of its frank
brevity, is the most telling. He oversimplifies Anselm's position fright-
Anselm is already fully, he is concerned more with Anselm's exaggerated emphasis of
situated in the one soteriological motif than with the actual structure of Anselm's
Christian argument, and his objections reflect many of the suspicions that pass
theological back and forth between Eastern and Western theology (in particular,
tradition, he the Orthodox distrust of "juridical" categories of thought); but he is
already knows also quite correct to be suspicious of a narrative that, for instance, says
that Christ has so little about the Resurrection and its place in the 'necessity' of the
recapitulated Incarnation. But while one may prefer the richer narrative complexity
human nature in of Athanasius's De Incarnatione Verbi Dei, one should also acknowledge
himself and that, for Anselm, it is just this complexity that is not desirable. Anselm
conquered evil on is already situated in the Christian theological tradition, he already
our behalf; it is knows that Christ has recapitulated human nature in himself and
from this conquered evil on our behalf; it is from this narrative that Anselm has
narrative that undertaken a (by no means final or exclusive) reduction of the tale, in
Anselm has order better to grasp the inner necessity of its sacrificial logic. He pauses
undertaken a (by for one critical moment, to contemplate the cross as the grave inner
no means final or meaning (or inevitability) of God's condescension. If Anselm's account
exclusive) appears to leave the resurrection and ascension as a mere coda (which
reduction of the indeed is a failing), it also corrects a certain occasional aporia in
tale, in order patristic thought, insofar as the latter often fails to say how the resur-
better to grasp the rection vindicates — rather than merely reverses — Christ's self-obla-
inner necessity of tion. Easter is the triumph not of an indestructible otherworldly savior,
its sacrificial logic. but of the entire motion of Christ's sacrificial life of devotion to the

344 D. Bentley Hart

Father; the overthrow of death and the devil is accomplished by the
peaceful self-donation of one whose life fulfills entirely the vocation of
humanity to offer itself in love to the God who gives all things in love.
While one might legitimately ask for some fuller account of Easter than
Anselm provides, two considerations should be kept in mind: first, it
is in keeping with the critical concentration of Anselm's method that
he should limit himself to seeking out that tragic condition that makes
the cross the necessary way of reconciliation; and, second, Anselm's
reading of the cross would be impossible but in the light of the Resur-
rection, inasmuch as he understands the sacrifice of the cross to be, at Anselm already
the last, essentially aneconomic (Christ's death purchases nothing, but writesfrom
his obedience to the Father calls forth a blessing), and so his is a reading within the
obviously governed by the knowledge that the Father does not retain precincts of the
the price of Christ's blood, as a ransom (in the human sense of a tribute church's
given in exchange for mercy), but rather raises Christ up freely, accord- pneumatological
ing to the non-retributive nature of his justice. life; and certainly
none of the fathers
As for the absence of a clear ontological dimension in Anselm's account
suggests that the
of the atonement, of any talk of the change wrought in human nature
transformation of
by salvation that might balance out its "forensic" and "fiduciary"
human nature
grammar, it might be observed that Anselm already writes from within
occurs anywhere
the precincts of the church's pneumatological life; and certainly none
else: the newly
of the fathers suggests that the transformation of human nature occurs
refashioned
anywhere else: the newly refashioned human nature established in the
human nature
Incarnation is found nowhere (this side of the eschaton) but in the social
established in the
reality of the church, whose practices of love and disciplines of forgive-
Incarnation is
ness already constitute the new life of the sanctified. This may not, in found nowhere
itself, prove a sufficient retort to the criticism offered, but again, given (this side of the
the very specific limits Anselm has set to his inquiry, it should at least eschaton) but in
render that criticism somewhat less devastating. the social reality
Of course, Lossky's great complaint against Cur Deus Homo (and some- of the church,
thing similar, in all likelihood, underlies most of the complaints whose practices of
brought against it) is simply that it paints an inappropriate and distas- love and
teful picture of God, by attributing to him an ability to take infinite disciplines of
offense at an insult to his honor, a vindictive desire for a correspond- forgiveness
ingly infinite restitution, and a need for a juridical recompense to already constitute
appease his wrath; he objects to the idea of a God who requires the the new life of the
violence of sacrifice to restore his order. But this impression of sanctified.
Anselm's argument—ultimately so unbalanced as simply to be wrong
— can arise from only the most cavalier inattention to a wealth of
details. One, for instance, that perhaps all too often escapes notice is
the ambiguity present in the very word "honor": what it means in the
context of Anselm's age is susceptible of debate, but it should not,
certainly, be taken as referring to an infinite reserve of divine pride that
prevents God from forgiving unreservedly. If Anselm's usage in any

PRO ECCLESIA Vol. VII, No. 3 345

 sense reflects the jurisprudence and ethos of mediaeval feudalism, it is
One need not look as well to observe that in that context, "honor" most certainly signified
beyond the text to more than a sense either of one's personal dignity or of one's social
see that, for position, but referred also to a principle undergirding the rather fragile
Anselm, God's governance of an entire social and economic order, sustained through
honor is an exchange of various benefits and pledged loyalties; one's honor lay
inseparable from not only in the obeisance one received, but in the social covenant one
his goodness, upheld and to which one was obliged (ideally, at any rate). In any
which imparts life event, one need not look beyond the text to see that, for Anselm, God's
and harmony to honor is inseparable from his goodness, which imparts life and har-
creation, the mony to creation, the rejection of which is necessarily death; as the
rejection of which source of all creation's beauty and order, it is the righteousness that
is necessarily cannot contradict itself or will anything amiss; it is justice, not wrath,
death. and its manifestation is the rectitudo of God's universal government, its
Tightness and moral beauty. One might also note how little there is in
Anselm's thought concerning expiation or reparation, except in the sense
of the reparation of a nature deprived of its original beauty and dignity.
Nor indeed is there any suggestion made in the Cur Deus Homo that
God is appeased by the "penal" death of Christ (Harnack is quite right
about this, though disturbingly wrong about its implications). Anselm
certainly depicts Christ's sacrifice as an offering that, in the end,
"secures" forgiveness by satisfying the demands of divine righteous-
Nor indeed is ness, on our behalf; but, then, how far does his version of the story of
there any salvation actually differ on this matter from its more remote precur-
suggestion made sors? When Lossky uses Athanasius to call attention to the divergence
in the Cur Deus of Anselm's model from its patristic predecessors, even though he
Homo that God knows that many of the themes of the Cur Deus Homo are already to be
is appeased by the found in De Incarnatione, there is some slight irony, it must be said. At
"penal" death of one juncture in De Incarnatione, Athanasius, lamenting the loss of
Christ (Harnack humanity's original beauty in the fall, argues that redemption was
is quite right necessitated by God's agathotes (consistency, righteousness, honor,
about this, though glory), which requires the maintenance and execution of his twin
disturbingly decrees that, on the one hand, humanity will share in the divine life
wrong about its and that, on the other, death must fall upon the transgressors of holy
implications). law; to prevent the second decree from defeating the first, guilt must
be removed from humanity through the exhaustion of the power of
death in Christ's sacrifice. The hold death had upon us was just, says
Athanasius, and it would be monstrous were God's decree that sin
•I Q

shall merit death to prove false; but it would be unworthy of God's

goodness were he to let his handiwork come to nothing. Nor could
16. For a treatment of Anselm's theory that brings this point out with particular clarity and beauty,
see Michel Corbin, Prière et Raison de la Foi (Paris: Les Editions du Cerf, 1992), pp. 207-328.
17. Athanasius, De Incarnatione Verbi Dei, Vll.i-iv.
18. Ibid., Vl.ii-iii.
19. Ibid., Vl.iv-x.

346 D. Bentley Hart

God simply accept our repentance as just recompense for our offense,
as repentance would neither suffice to guard God's integrity nor serve
to restore our wounded nature. In his body, then, Christ exhausts the
wrath of the law, and offers satisfaction for our debt. Already
present in Athanasius's account is the very story whose inner shape
Anselm will, in a moment of intense critical reflection, attempt to grasp
as necessity. Already, in Athanasius's theology, one finds the language
of punishment used, but subordinate to the narrative of complete and The atonement as
unmerited forgiveness, and the language of law employed to describe Cur Deus Homo
the depths of an infinite mercy. As it is with Athanasius, so it is with depicts it is an
Anselm. Far from an arbitrary arrangement of jurisprudential transac- assumption of
tions calculated to effect a forensic reconciliation between humanity solidarity with us
and God, the atonement as Cur Deus Homo depicts it is an assumption by an infinitely
of solidarity with us by an infinitely merciful God in order to fulfill in merciful God in
us that beatitude intended in our creation, by accomplishing on our order to fulfill in
behalf what, in our impotence to do good and in his unwillingness to us that beatitude
employ unjust means, could never otherwise have been brought to pass. intended in our
creation, by
accomplishing on
IV our behalf what,
in our impotence
The rigidity, the dryness, that even Anselm's Western critics feel to do good and in
moved to deplore in the Cur Deus Homo is no aspect of the text itself, I his unwillingness
would contend; rather it is an impression only, one bred by a largely to employ unjust
illusory familiarity with Anselm's argument. If, as has been said, means, could
Anselm has often been the victim of his own clarity of thought, it is never otherwise
nevertheless the case that it is a clarity frequently concealing an essen- have been brought
tial paradoxicality: God's order is preserved through his own assump- to pass.
tion of the conditions of estrangement; his mercy is imparted in the
acceptance of Christ's voluntary death; the highest law of God's inviol-
able justice is boundless mercy; God's sovereignty necessitates his
condescension; the goodness that condemns the sinner requires that
sin be forgiven. This is not because Anselm sees God as divided against
himself: rather, he has come to see that Christ's sacrifice is ultimately
not an economic gesture (meant to insure the stability of a universe
founded upon unyielding laws of equity and retribution), but belongs
instead to the infinite motion of God's love, in which justice and mercy
are one and can never be divided one from the other; he has recognized
Christ's act as an infinite motion towards the Father, belonging to the
mystery of the Trinity, simply surpassing all the arrangements of debt

20. Ibid., Vll.iii

21. Ibid., Vlll.iv; X.v.
22.Ibid.,\X.iAi.
23. CDH II, p. i.
24. CDH I, p. xii.

PRO ECCLESIA Vol. VII, No. 3 347

 and violence by which a sinful humanity seeks to calculate its "justice."
Consequently, the only "necessity" Anselm demonstrates in the drama
It must not be of salvation is an inward intelligibility to the mind grasped by faith.
overlooked that for And indeed, in the end, Anselm merely restates the oldest patristic
Anselm it is not model of atonement of all: that of recapitulation. Granted, he rejects
Christ's suffering simple typological or aesthetic recapitulation, the correspondence of
as such that is motifs shared between the narratives of the first and last Adam, but
redemptive (the he is still concerned with recapitulation in essentially the same sense
suffering merely as is Irenaeus: Christ takes up the human story and tells it correctly, by
repeats sin's giving the correct answer to God's summons; in his life and death he
endlessly repeated renarrates humanity according to its true pattern of loving obedience,
and essential humility, and charity, thus showing all human stories of righteousness,
gesture), but honor, and justice to be tales of violence, falsehood, and death; and in
rather his allowing all of humanity to be resitua ted through his death within the
innocence. retelling of their story, Christ restores them to communion with the
God of infinite love who created them for his pleasure. And when
Christ recapitulates humanity, he shows the gravity and terror in-
herent in posing his form over against the violence of the world of sin;
he "satisfies" all the requirements of that form by living out his
obedience to the Father under the conditions imposed by a sinful order
of power, which conditions bring about his death. It must not be
overlooked that for Anselm it is not Christ's suffering as such that is
redemptive (the suffering merely repeats sin's endlessly repeated and
essential gesture), but rather his innocence; he recapitulates humanity
by passing through all the violences of sin and death, rendering to God
the obedience that is his due, and so transforms the event of his death
The idea of into an occasion of infinite blessings for those to whom death is
sacrificial penance condign. Christ's death does not even effect a change in God's attitude
is subverted from towards humanity; God's attitude never alters: he desires the salvation
within: as Christ's of his creatures, and will not abandon them even to their own cruelties.
sacrifice belongs Even here, then, in the text that most notoriously expounds a penal
not to an economy logic of atonement, the idea of sacrificial penance is subverted from
of credit and within: as Christ's sacrifice belongs not to an economy of credit and
exchange, but to exchange, but to the trinitarian motion of love, it is given entirely as
the trinitarian gift, and must be seen as such: a gift given when it should not have
motion of love. needed to be given again, by God, and at a price that we, in our sin,
imposed upon him. As an entirely divine action, Christ's sacrifice
merely draws creation back into the eternal motion of divine love for
which it was fashioned. The violence that befalls Christ belongs to our
order of justice, an order overcome by his sacrifice, which is one of
peace. And simply by continuing to be the God he is, and through the
sheer "redundancy" of the good that flows from the infinite gesture of
his love — which is a generosity in excess of all calculable economy —
25. CDH, I, pp. iii-iv, II, p. viii.

348 D.Bentley Hart

God undoes the sacrificial logic of our bondage; his gift remains a gift
to the end, despite all our efforts to convert it into debt. This is the
unanticipated grace of Easter. Whether one chooses, of course, to
follow Nietzsche in the Genealogy of Morals and see the redundancy of
Christ's merit, inasmuch as it avails for salvation, as an infinite multi-
plication of debt depends upon one's prejudices. As for Anselm,
though, the primordiality of the gift is the truth of Christ's paschal
donation: the gift God gives in creation continues to be given again,
ever more fully, in defiance of all rejection, disobedience, injustice,
violence, and indifference; there is no division between justice and
mercy in God, on Anselm's account, because both belong already to
the giving of this gift:
The mercy of God, which seemed to you to be lost when we were The gift exceeds,
considering God's justice and humanity's sin, we find now to be so great and annuls every
and so in accord with justice, that neither a greater nor a more just can debt. Inasmuch as
be thought. For what possibly could be understood to be more merciful this is the story
than that God the Father should say to the sinner — damned to eternal that Anselm
torment and having no means whereby to redeem himself—"Take my repeats,
Only-begotten and offer him for yourself"; and that the Son himself elaborates, probes,
should say, "Take me and redeem yourself"? For thus they speak, when and proclaims, he
they call us and lead us to Christian faith. What indeed were more just, certainly has
than that he—to whom is given a price exceeding every debt, if only given his place among
with the love which he is truly owed — should put aside every debt?26
thefathers.
The gift, which is the very language of love, precedes, exceeds, and annuls
every debt. Inasmuch as this is the story that Anselm repeats, elaborates,
probes, and proclaims, he certainly has his place among the fathers. D

26. CDH, II, p. xx. Trans, mine. [Misericordiam vero dei quae tibi perire videbatur, cum
iustitiam dei et peccatum hominis considerabamus, tarn magnam tamque concordem iustitiae
invenimus, ut nec maior nec iustior cogitari possit. Nempe quid misericordius intelligi valet,
quam cum peccatori tormentis aeternis damnato et unde se redimat non habenti deus pater
dicit: accipe unigenitum meum et da pro te; et ipse filius: toile me et redime te? Quasi enim
hoc dicunt, quando nos ad Christianam fidem vocant et trahunt. Quid etiam iustius, quam ut
ille cui datur pretium maius omni debito, si debito datur affectu, dimittat omne debitum?]

PRO ECCLESIA Voi. VII, No. 3 349

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