Christus Victor

Christus Victor is a book by Gustaf Aulén published in English in 1931, presenting a study of theories of atonement in Christianity. The original Swedish title is Den kristna försoningstanken ("The Christian Idea of the Atonement") published in 1930. Aulén reinterpreted the classic ransom theory of atonement, which says that Christ's death is a ransom to the powers of evil, which had held humankind in their dominion. It is a model of the atonement that is dated to the Church Fathers, and it was the dominant theory of atonement for a thousand years, until Anselm of Canterbury supplanted it in the West with his satisfaction theory of atonement.

Aulén interpreted the ransom theory as a "victory over the powers which hold mankind in bondage: sin, death, and the devil." According to Pugh, "Ever since [Aulén's] time, we call these patristic ideas the Christus Victor way of seeing the cross." It is sometimes known as the fishhook theory of atonement, since Church Fathers such as Cyril of Alexandria and Gregory of Nyssa envisioned Christ as bait on a fishhook, luring Satan to take the bait and destroy himself.

Aulen's book, Christus Victor

Atonement theories

In his book, Aulén identifies three main types of atonement theories:

The earliest was what Aulén called the "classic" view of the atonement, more commonly known as the ransom theory, or since Aulén's work, it is known sometimes as the "Christus Victor" theory: this is the theory that Adam and Eve made humanity subject to the Devil during the fall, and that God, in order to redeem humanity, sent Christ as a "ransom" or "bait" so that the Devil, not knowing Christ could not die permanently, would kill him, and thus lose all right to humanity following the resurrection.

A second theory is the "Latin" or "objective" view, more commonly known as satisfaction theory, beginning with Anselmian satisfaction (that Christ suffered as a substitute on behalf of humankind, satisfying the demands of God's honor) and later developed by Protestants as penal substitution (that Christ is punished instead of humanity, thus satisfying the demands of justice so that God can justly forgive).

A third is the "subjective" theory, commonly known as the moral influence view, that Christ's passion was an act of exemplary obedience which affects the intentions of those who come to know about it. This view was put forward in opposition to Anselm's view by Peter Abelard.

Aulén argues that the "classic view" was the predominant view of the early church for the first thousand years of church history, and was supported by nearly every Church Father including Irenaeus, Origen of Alexandria, and Augustine of Hippo, to name a few.