They had been occupied in applying a peculiar set of principles to all combinations in which the circumstances of life are capable of being arranged.  No foreign pursuit or taste called off their attention from this engrossing occupation, and for carrying it on they possessed a vocabulary as accurate as it was copious, a strict method of reasoning, a stock of general propositions on conduct more or less verified by experience, and a rigid moral philosophy.  It was impossible that they should not select from the questions indicated by the Christian records those which had some affinity with the order of speculations to which they were accustomed, and that their manner of dealing with them should not borrow something from their forensic habits.  Almost every one who has knowledge enough of Roman law to appreciate the Roman penal system, the Roman theory of the obligations established by contract or delict, the Roman view of debts, etc., the Roman notion of the continuance of individual existence by universal succession, may be trusted to say whence arose the frame of mind to which the problems of Western theology proved so congenial, whence came the phraseology in which these problems were stated, and whence the description of reasoning employed in their solution.”  “As soon as they (the Western Church) ceased to sit at the feet of the Greeks and began to ponder out a theology of their own, the theology proved to be permeated with forensic ideas and couched in a forensic phraseology.  It is certain that this substratum of law in Western theology lies exceedingly deep."[318]

The theory of the atonement, developed by the scholastic writers, illustrates this view.  In the East, for a thousand years, the atoning work of Christ had been viewed mainly as redemption, as a ransom paid to obtain the freedom of mankind, enslaved by the Devil in consequence of their sins.  It was not a legal theory, or one based on notions of jurisprudence, but it was founded on warlike notions.  Men were captives taken in war, and, like all captives in those times, destined to slavery.  Their captor was Satan, and the ransom must be paid to him, as he held them prisoners by the law of battle.  Now as Christ had committed no sin, the Devil had no just power over him; in putting Christ to death he had lost his rights over his other captives, and Christ could justly claim their freedom as a compensation for this injury.  Christ, therefore, strictly and literally, according to the ancient view, “gave his life a ransom for many.”

But the mind of Anselm, educated by notions derived from Roman jurisprudence, substituted for this original theory of the atonement one based upon legal ideas.  All, in this theory, turns on the law of debt and penalty.  Sin he defines as “not paying to God what we owe him."[319] But we owe God constant and entire obedience, and every sin deserves either penalty or satisfaction.  We are unable to make it good, for at every moment we owe God all that we can do.  Christ, as God-man, can satisfy God for our omissions; his death, as offered freely, when he did not deserve death on account of any sin of his own, is sufficient satisfaction.  It will easily be seen how entirely this argument has substituted a legal basis for the atonement in place of the old warlike foundation.