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Christ’s death, Origen declares, [7],

“not only has been set forth as an example of dying for religion, but has effected a beginning and an advance in the overthrow of the evil one, the Devil, who dominated the whole earth”.

From the moment of His birth, Christ’s life was a conflict with the powers of darkness. [8] His passion and resurrection signified their final defeat. Origen appeals to Col. 2.15

(“He [Christ] disarmed the principalities and powers and made a public example of them, triumping over them in it [the cross].”)

as proving that the Savior’s death has a twofold aspect, being both an example, and also the trophy of His victory over the Devil, who in effect was nailed to the cross with his principalities and powers. Kelley says that Origen’s

“underlying idea seems to be that the Devil, with whom death is identified, deluded himself into imagining that he had triumphed over Christ, but his seeming triumph was turned to defeat when the Savior rose from the grave.” [9]

Origen speaks of Jesus as delivering up His soul, or life, not indeed to God, but to the Devil in exchange for the souls of men which the Devil had claimed as his due because of their sinfulness. The Devil accepted the exchange, but he could not hold in his clutches Jesus, Who proved to be stronger than death, and the Devil was thus cheated of his victim. But it should be noted here that Origen, while he uses to the fullest the idea of ransom, he thinks much more in terms of Christ’s victory over the Devil than of any actual transaction with him. [10] Culpepper says,

“To Origen it was Christ’s resurrection on the third day that turned Christ’s death into victory over death and him who has the power of death, the devil.” [11]

Origen’s severe critic, Methodius of Olympius (d. c.311), following Irenaeus, viewed Christ as the new Adam because Christ assumed human nature and, just as all died in the first Adam, so they are made alive in the second. It was fitting that the Devil should be defeated and that the judgment of death which the Devil had brought on the human race was annulled through the very man he had originally deceived. Methodius virtually identified Christ with Adam. He actually says that it was appropriate that the only-begotten Logos would unite Himself with the first-born of men, Adam. In Methodius’ view the Lord’s humanity is the instrument by means of which He disclosed the resurrection of the flesh. More important in his view than the conquest of sin and death on the cross is the fact that the Logos “took to Himself this suffering body in order that … what was mortal might be transformed into immortality and what was passible into impassibility”. [12] It is clear that Methodius saw that salvation was primarily from death to life, resurrection of the dead. The Ransom Theory seems to be almost totally absent from his theory of Christ’s death.

The Ransom Theory seems also to be totally absent in soteriology of Athanasius (c.296-373 A.D.). In his early treatise On the Incarnation of the Word, Athanasius argues that through the transgression of Adam the race of men became subject death’s power, and on this account death has legal rights over all men. But God’s purpose for creating man cannot come to naught; for His love for the fallen race persists in spite of the judgment of death upon them. Therefore the Word becomes man, that he may restore to life that which had been lost; for this was the one possible way, that Life, the Life of God, should enter into the world of men and prevail over death. In one place in his treatise [13], Athanasius asks whether God could have adopted some other way than that of the Incarnation, and he replies that for the gaining of salvation it might well have been sufficient that man should repent. Athanasius writes:

“So here, once more, what possible course was God to take? To demand repentance of men for their transgression? For this one might pronounce worthy of God; as though, just as from transgression men have become set toward corruption, so from repentance they may once more be set in the way of incorruption. But repentance would, firstly, fail to guard the just claim of God. For he would still be none the more true, if men did not remain in the grasp of death; nor, secondly, does repentance call men back from what is their nature – it merely stays them from acts of sin. Now, if there were merely a misdemeanor in question, and not a consequent corruption, repentance were well enough. But if, when transgression had once gained a start, men became involved in that corruption which was their nature, and were deprived of the grace which they had, being in the image of God, what further step was needed? or what was required for such grace and such recall, but the Word of God, which also at the beginning made everything out of nought? For his it was once more both to bring the corruptible to incorruption, and to maintain intact the just claim of the Father upon all. For being Word of the Father, and above all, he alone of natural fitness was both able to re-create everything, and worthy to suffer on behalf of all and to be ambassador for all with the Father.” [14]

If the only problem had been that of sin and not of corruption and death as the consequence of the sin of man, repentance would be sufficient; but since through sin men had lost the Divine image, and become subject to death, on this account the Word must come and deliver them from the power of corruption.

“And thus taking from our bodies one of like nature, because all were under penalty of the corruption of death he gave it over to death in the stead of all, and offered it to the Father — doing this, moreover, of his loving-kindess, to the end that, firstly, all being held to have died in him, the law involving the ruin of men might be undone (inasmuch as its power was fully spent in the Lord’s body, and had no longer holding ground against men, his peers), and that, secondly, whereas men had turned toward corruption, he might turn them again to incorruption, and quicken them from death by the appropriation of his body and by the grace of the resurrection, banishing death from them like straw from the fire.” [15]

In Athanasius’ discussion of the reason for the incarnation, the ransom theory that Christ’s death was a ransom paid to the Devil plays no part.  It was Gregory of Nyssa (330-c.395 A.D.) who affirmed that the Devil had a just claim over man, since through the fall man had voluntarily placed himself under the Devil’s power. Like Irenaeus, Gregory of Nyssa asserts that God would not use violence in redeeming man from the Devil; for if He had done so, then man would not have been justly redeemed. So then to redeem man, God paid the Devil, who was man’s owner, all that he asked as the redemption price for his property. The Devil was dazzled by Christ’s miracles.

“When the enemy saw the power, he recognized in Christ a bargain which offered him more than he held. For this reason he chose him as the ransom for those whom he had shut up in death’s prison.” [16]

But the Devil was deceived because the deity of Christ was veiled in flesh. Using a crude metaphor, Gregory compares the Devil to a hungry fish who is caught on the hook of Christ’s deity when he is enticed to swallow it by the bait of Christ’s flesh. [17] Gregory raises the question [18] as to whether God was justified to deceive the Devil. Gregory concludes that it was both just and good. It was just because the deceiver reaped what he had sowed, being himself deceived. It also was good because in it God had a good purpose, which was the redemption of the Devil as well as man.

“By the principle of justice the deceiver reaps the harvest of the seeds he sowed with his own free will. For he who first deceived man by the bait of pleasure is himself deceived by the camouflage of human nature. But the purpose of the action changes it into something good. For the one practiced deceit to ruin our nature; but the other, being at once just and good and wise, made use of a deceitful device to save the one who had been ruined. And by so doing he benefited, not only the one who had perished, but also the very one who brought us to ruin. For when death came into contact with life, darkness with light, corruption with incorruption, the worse of these things disappeared into a state of nonexistence, to the profit of him who was freed from these evils.” [19]