The Divine Within: Selected Writings on Enlightenment

by Aldous Huxley

In the earliest period of Christianity, Christ’s death was regarded either as a covenant-sacrifice, comparable to the sacrifice of the paschal lamb in the Jewish religion (there is some gospel authority for this), or was regarded as a ransom, comparable to a price paid by a slave for his freedom or the price paid by a war prisoner to be released. Both these ideas are hinted at in the gospels. Later on, there came the notion that Christ’s death was the bloody expiation for original sin. This was based on a very ancient idea that any wrong-doing required expiation by suffering on the part of the sinner himself, or on the part of a substitute for the sinner. For example, in the Old Testament we read that David sinned in making a census of his people, and was punished by a plague which killed seventy thousand of his subjects, but did not kill David. The expiation was by a substitute, and this idea was taken over in the later, post-gospel theology. In patristic times we find a profound difference between the Greek theologians and the Latin theologians. The Greek theologians were not primarily concerned with the death of Christ; they were concerned with the life. The death was thought to be a mere incident in the life. Their view of the atonement was that it existed, not to save man from guilt, but to save him from the corruption into which he had fallen after the fall of Adam and Eve. And the consequence was that the life was therefore more important than the death. Irenaeus sa...