Researched by the Ignaria Editorial Team · Published 2026-04-19
Anselm of Canterbury's Cur Deus Homo (1097 AD) is one of the most consequential doctrinal treatises in Western theology. For the first millennium, the Church's dominant atonement framework was Christus Victor — Christ's death as the defeat of sin, death, and the devil. Anselm replaced this cosmic drama with feudal legal logic: sin is an offense against God's honor, a debt so vast that only the infinite merit of the God-man could satisfy it. This shifted the grammar of atonement from victory and healing to obligation and payment. The Reformers then converted Anselm's satisfaction theory into penal substitution: Christ not merely satisfying honor but bearing the punishment owed by sinners. Tracing this three-stage development — patristic Christus Victor, Anselm's satisfaction, Reformation penal substitution — is exactly what Ignaria is built to do.
What the primary sources show
"He, then, who does not pay God what he owes can never be happy... Therefore consider it settled that, without satisfaction, God can neither pass by the sin unpunished, nor can the sinner attain that happiness which he had before he sinned" — Anselm's foundational argument that sin creates an unpayable debt requiring the God-man's voluntary satisfaction.
Calvin extends Anselm's framework into penal substitution: the Mediator must satisfy divine justice by bearing the punishment due to sinners. Calvin's treatment shows how Reformation soteriology built on and transformed Anselm's satisfaction model.