The Book of the Holy Rosary: Part II, Chapter X. Jesus Dies on the Cross
For He desired to bear the curse of sin, which we had incurred, by taking upon Himself the accursed death of the Cross. As it is written, ‘Cursed is he that hangeth upon a tree.’ He dies also upon the Cross with outstretched hands, that with one He may draw to Himself the ancient people, and with the other the Gentiles, thus making both one in Himself. Dying also upon the Cross, He purges the air of evil spirits, and prepares for us the ascent to heaven” (St Athanasius, Treatise of the Incarnation).
2. That the death of Jesus Christ has satisfied, and alone could satisfy, for the sin of Adam.
We shall not be able to do better here than attentively to listen to the words of Christian wisdom, in exposition of the above truth, which are uttered by St Anselm, the great Doctor of the medieval Church. They occur in his treatise on the question, “Why God became Man?” which is written in the form of a dialogue between Anselm and his disciple.
“Disciple. Infidels,” says the disciple, “object to us, in derision of our simplicity, that we offer an injury and an insult to God by saying that He has come down into the womb of a female, was born of a woman, and grew up from being fed with milk and other articles of human diet; not to mention other things which appear not at all becoming in God, viz., that He should have to endure weariness, hunger, thirst, scourging, crucifixion between thieves, and lastly, death.
“Anselm. We offer neither injury nor insult to God, but, with hearts full of the warmest gratitude, we praise and magnify Him for the unspeakable depths of His mercies. For the more marvellous and unexpected is the way in which He delivered us from the great and justly due evil plight into which we had fallen, restoring us to all the glorious and wonderful good things to which we had forfeited every claim, so much the more in this has He shown His love and tenderness towards us. For if these unhappy unbelievers would only give their minds to consider in how suitable a manner the restoration of man has been thus procured, so far from deriding our simplicity, they would join with us in praising the wisdom and the goodness of God. For it was most fitting that as death entered into the world through the disobedience of one man, so life should be restored through the obedience of one Man; and as the transgression which was the cause of our condemnation had its beginning from a woman, so the Author of our justice and salvation should be born of a woman; and seeing that the devil overcame man by his tasting of the fruit of a tree, to which act he persuaded him, it was in the highest degree fitting that he should be overcome by a Man through the very suffering on a tree which the devil inflicted upon him. And there are besides innumerable other things which, carefully considered, show the unspeakable beauty of the salvation that has been in this way procured for us.” St Anselm, proceeding in due order, gives us the following clear definition of sin: “If angels and men were always to render to God what is due to Him, there would be no sin. To sin, therefore, is nothing else than not to render to God that which is His due. And the debt which is due to God is that the will of every reasonable creature should be subject to His will. This is the debt which angels and men both owe to God; which if it be paid there can be no sin, and which every one who does not pay, sins. This is the justice or rectitude of will, which makes men just and upright of heart, that is of will, and this is the whole and sole honour which we owe to God, and which God exacts from us. He, therefore, who does not give to God the honour that is His due, takes away from God that which belongs to Him, and robs God of His honour, to do which is to sin;
and as long as he does not repay what he The Book of the Holy Rosary. has taken away, he remains in guilt. Nor does it suffice merely to restore what he has taken away, but, on account of the insult which has been offered, he is bound to restore more than he has taken away.”
The Doctor then proceeds to show that God cannot from mercy alone forego to exact the repayment of what is due to Him on the score of injury done to His honour. For that thus to remit sin would be merely to suffer sin to go unpunished; and on these terms both the man who sins and the man who keeps himself from sin would stand upon an equality before God, and if mere mercy brought about remission of sin, injustice would then possess greater freedom than justice, and there would be no law to which injustice would be amenable. “All of which,” he says, “are repugnant to the nature and subversive of the sovereignty of God.” He then leads his disciple through a train of reasoning to show that Adam by his transgression had incurred a debt to the justice of God which it was wholly out of his power to discharge.
“Man,” reasons St Anselm, “created without sin, was placed in Paradise as it were for God, between God and the devil, that he should overcome the devil by not consenting to his solicitations to sin, for the double motive of the honour of God and the confusion of the devil, who, although the stronger of the two, nevertheless himself sinned in heaven, no one thereto persuading him. And man, when he could easily have resisted, by the mere persuasion of the devil, without the least compulsion, and entirely of his own free will, suffered himself to be overcome so as that he followed the will of the devil, greatly to the dishonour of God and to the despite of His sovereign will. Judge, therefore, if it be not wholly contrary to the honour of God, that man should be reconciled to God with the guilt of this injury to God resting upon him, except he were first to honour God by conquering the devil in the same manner as he dishonoured Him by letting the devil gain the upper-hand. And, moreover, the victory is bound to be such, that, in like manner as he easily consented to the devil when he was in his strength and the heir of immortality (from which act of consent to the devil he has justly incurred the penalty of death), so in his weakness and subjection to death (into which condition he brought himself by his own act), he should, through the hardship of death, overcome the devil in such a manner as to be free from sin; a thing which it is impossible for him to do, so long as he is conceived subject to the wound of original sin, and is born in sins.
“And further, consider what it was that man took away from God when he suffered himself to be overcome by the devil. Did he not take away from God all that He proposed to do with His human creature? Man therefore lies under the guilt of injustice, because he does not render to God what he owes Him; and he is not excused by reason of his inability, for it was solely his own doing by which he came into his inability; his inability therefore does but add to his fault.
“How, then,” asks the disciple, “can man be saved, if he cannot possibly pay the debt that he owes, and still ought not to be saved except he does pay it?
“Anselm. Ask those to explain how, who think that man can be saved without Christ; and if they are unable in any sort of way to explain how, let them then cease to laugh at what they call our simplicity, and come over to our side, who do not in the least doubt but that man can be saved by Christ.
“God must either have fruitlessly made so sublime a nature for so great a good, or He will certainly perfect His own work; and yet this cannot be except such a full and entire satisfaction is offered for the sin of man as it is out of the power of any sinner to offer. Who therefore is to offer this satisfaction? It cannot be offered except there be some one found who will offer for satisfaction of the sin of man something which is greater than everything which exists external to God Himself. But he who is able to give of his own something which is greater than everything which is under God must himself be greater than everything which is not God, and this can be true of nothing besides God Himself. No one, therefore, has the power to offer this satisfaction except God alone. And no one ought to offer it except man, for otherwise man does not satisfy.
“Disciple. Nothing can be more just.
“Anselm. Since, therefore, it is clear, as we have said, that the vacancies in the celestial city must be filled up from the ranks of men,* and this cannot be except the satisfaction be offered which none but God has the power to offer, and none but man is under debt to offer, it becomes necessary that it be done by one who is God and Man.
“Disciple. Blessed be God! we have lighted upon an immense truth in our investigation. Only proceed as you have begun, and may God come to our aid!”
St Anselm then proceeds to show that liability to death appertains to the nature of man not necessarily, but only as corrupted by sin, and that God, by becoming Man, incurred no necessity of dying, but retained the power, either not to die, if such were His will, or, if He willed, to die and to rise again; and that whether He laid down His life directly by an act of His own, or whether another took away His life by His permission, this would make no difference as regards His power.