“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.
Matthew 5:38–42
NOTE: The following is a re-publish of an entire post written by Santo Calarco on Facebook in a series of posts he did on rethinking Isaiah 53. This was the final post of that series in the form of an epilogue of sorts. I think the contents are so important that I want to capture the whole post here and not just a link to it in case the Facebook post somehow ever gets lost.
RETRIBUTION AND THE FIRST FOUR CENTURIES.
The teaching of Jesus and the Apostles against retribution is continued on by Ignatius, the third Bishop of Antioch.
Ignatius – circa 110 AD
In an epistle he wrote to Christians in Ephesus (en route to his martyrdom in Rome!) Ignatius calls them to renounce retribution in dealing with their enemies: “Meet their animosity with mildness, their high words with humility, and their abuse with your prayers. But stand fast firm against their errors, and if they grow violent, be gentle instead of wanting to pay them back in their own coin” (Ignatius, Ephesians 10:2 as found in Early Christian Writings by Staniforth and Louth, 1987, p. 64).
What the early Church Fathers believed is also reflected in the Didache which is a late first-century manual for instructing candidates for baptism.
Didache – late 1st Century
The first section of this book presents two ways: “the way of life” and “the way of death”. The “way of life” is summarised by love to God and neighbour and the Golden Rule (Didache 1:1-4). In this section the baptismal candidate is called to renounce retaliation and to do good to those who do evil.
Moving onto the second-century we meet the writings of Athenagoras; a philosopher who converted to Christianity.
Athenagoras – late 2nd Century
He continued on the ideas of Jesus, Paul, Peter and the early church Fathers. In his Plea for the Christians, Athenagoras contrasted Christian practise with the principle of Greco-Roman retributive justice. He argues against the law of retribution and proclaims the law of love by contrast. Speaking of the followers of Jesus he said: “when struck, they do not strike again; when robbed, they do not go to law; they give to those that ask of them, and they love their neighbour as themselves.” (A Plea for the Christians, XI, in Schaff, The Ante-Nicene Fathers Vol. II; Fathers of the Second Century, 2004).
These ideas on justice are continued on in the second-century Epistle to Diognetus.
In this letter we read that Christians living under Roman Rule are no threat to Roman peace because they live beyond the Roman Law of Retribution and live by love: “They obey the prescribed laws, but in their private lives they transcend the laws. They show love to all men – and all men persecute them. ... They repay calumny with blessings, and abuse with courtesy” (5:10-11,15 as found in Early Christian Writings, pp. 144-45).
We now come to Tertullian, founder of the Latin [Western] tradition of Christian thought.
Tertullian - 3rd Century
He defends Christians against the accusations of being “enemies of the empire” by appealing to the norm which they practise: non-retaliation. He argues that Christians pose no threat to Rome because they are obligated to love their enemies and do no injury to them, not even in return for injury. He writes “If we are enjoined, then, to love our enemies, as I have remarked above, whom have we to hate? If injured, we are forbidden to retaliate, lest we become bad ourselves; who can suffer injury at our hands?” (Apology, XXXVII, in Schaff, The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol III: Latin Christianity: Its Founder Tertullian, 2006).
This clear idea concerning restorative, non-retaliatory justice is continued on in the third-century document: Apostolic Tradition.
Apostolic Tradition – 3rd Century – supposedly written by Hippolytus – presbyter at Rome.
In this document we find rules of the church including the prerequisites for baptism of new church members. This document clearly states that people of violent professions or trades could not be baptised! “A soldier under authority shall not kill a man ... if he is unwilling [to conform] let him be rejected [for baptism]. He who has power of the sword [executioner] ... let him be rejected.” (Apostolic Tradition 16:9-11 in Cumming, Hippolytus: A Text for Students, 1987 ).
The position in Apostolic Tradition was still in effect at the time of Constantine who was refused baptism until he finally renounced retribution and violence just before his death in 337 AD.
It is now, as we enter the fourth-century that things begin to change. Ambivalence enters the Western Church. It begins to compromise and speaks with two voices on justice. We turn to Augustine and then to Aquinas.
What is significant is the fact that Western Christian thinking about justice down through the centuries was shaped primarily by the writings of two great Western theologians: Augustine in the 4th century and later on by Aquinas in the 13th century. And the thinking of these two men on justice was influenced NOT by the Old Testament (which had many statements on retributive justice in it), but by Greco-Roman philosophy – especially that of Aristotle and Cicero. Aristotle’s theory of justice which was formative for both Roman law and later Christian ethics is found in his Nicomachean Ethics; Cicero’s discussion of natural law is presented in his dialogue on The Laws, in Book 1 where he formulates the Greco-Roman idea of justice as “giving each his own”; retribution pure and simple!
Augustine – Bishop in the West in Hippo – former lawyer – late 4th Century.
Augustine both affirmed that love is the true measure of justice as Jesus said, but that in certain situations that retribution was a proper an acceptable form of justice in line with what Aristotle and Cicero. How did Augustine get around the clear statements of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount?
In his commentary on the Sermon on the Mount Augustine makes the following points:
He maintains that Jesus teaches about 3 levels of response to evil: the normal instinct of humanity which is to inflict greater evil for a lesser evil. Then we have the “lesser righteousness” [justice!] of the Pharisees which returns equal evil for evil according to “an eye for an eye”; and then we have the “greater righteousness” [justice] of the kingdom of God which is totally non-retributive.
He then points out that Jesus taught that there are those “least IN THE KINGDOM” and those who are “greatest IN THE KINGDOM” – both are still in the Kingdom! The least are those practising the righteousness [justice] of the law as modelled by the Pharisees! Those who engage the justice of God are those who are “perfect” in righteousness-justice as Matthew 5:45-48 points out.
Augustine taught that while Jesus taught the renunciation of retribution “for the purpose of perfecting the disciples”, nonetheless, the “middle course” of exact retribution “holds a certain place” for those who are “least in the kingdom”. Although it does not reach the “very highest development of mercy” Augustine concludes that repaying exact retribution is an “incomplete, by no means severe, but merciful justice”. (Augustine, Sermon on the Mount, LXIX, 56-57 in Schaff The Nicene and Ante-Nicene Fathers Series 1 Vol VI).
Augustine then concludes that under certain conditions that exact retribution is acceptable as a moral virtue provided it is done in mercy and with the exclusive goal of correction. He says that this principle falls in line with the natural order of things as taught by Aristotle.
We need to remember that Augustine was previously a Lawyer and an expert of Roman Law which was based on the retributive ideals of Aristotle. He maintained that society had to keep the peace and so laws governing retribution were acceptable to meet that end – provided it was delivered in compassion and with the sole goal of correction and maturity. Since the city is made up of families, “Consequently it is fitting that the father of a household should take his rules from the law [retributive] of the city” with peace of the city in view. (Augustine, City of God, XIX, 16, p. 876).
Augustine’s view represents a major shift in Christian thought in the West.
Whereas all previous Church Fathers maintained that Christians pose no threat to Roman Peace (pax Romana) because they have totally renounced retribution, Augustine maintains that Christians practise Roman Peace through retribution within their own households!
This idea of retributive justice came from the philosophers of natural law: nature demands that justice is retributive to maintain peace and order. Cicero and Aristotle influence Augustine more than Jesus!
Augustine based much of his thinking on the premise of “natural law” which he got by reading Stoic Philosophy through the writings of Cicero. Compare Augustine, Confessions, III, vii with Cicero, Republic, III.
Aquinas took the idea of Augustine and developed it even further in the thirteenth-century.
Thomas Aquinas – 13th Century – West.
Thomas Aquinas blatantly followed the ideas of Cicero and Aristotle more than Augustine did. He unashamedly formulates his definition of justice according to the ideas of “the Philosopher” Aristotle.
In Summa Theologiae he says:
“Any if anyone would reduce it to a proper form of definition, he might say that ‘justice is a habit whereby a man renders to each one his due by a constant and personal will’; this is about the same definition as that given by the Philosopher, who says that ‘justice is a habit whereby a man is said to be capable of doing just actions in accordance with his choice’” (Aquinas, On Law, Morality and Politics, p. 145 quoting Summa Theologiae II-III, Q. 58, A. II).
To see the substantial dependence of Aquinas on Aristotle on justice we need only remember that when Aquinas discusses justice in Summa Theologiae, he writes 12 articles on the subject, makes 62 references to authors – he quotes Church Father 12 times (which includes Augustine and Anselm), Scripture only 4 times (!) Aristotle 38 times and Cicero 7 times! This demonstrates that Aquinas acquired his ideas on justice from pagan philosophers over against Jesus.
Aquinas was a firm believer in Retributive Justice.
I skipped over Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, in West on purpose to reveal his direct continuity of Aquinas with Augustine who were both dependent on Cicero and Aristotle.
So now let’s consider the way this idea of justice made its way into Protestant Western Christianity.
Anselm – 11th Century – the crucial missing link.
Whereas Augustine used his model of retributive justice in the arena of ethics, Anselm took this retributive model and applied it to the death of Jesus on the Cross. This was a major step which paved the way for the Protestant Reformation.
Anselm began to look at the death of Jesus through the lenses of retributive justice as expressed in the feudal system of his day. His society was governed by feudal laws – how Lord and servants related to one another and he wrote of the death of Jesus in these terms. Servants and the lower classes were to render honour to the “lords”. To refuse to do so was an insult and “sin”. He applied this to God and man. He then read this through the lenses of retributive justice and came up with the Satisfaction Theory of the death of Jesus.
Man owed God honour. They disobeyed their “Lord’s” will and so insulted his honour. This honour had to be repaid according to the laws of retributive justice. Man was incapable of restoring the damage done to God’s honour. So God had two choices: punish man by exterminating him or make a way available that his wounded honour could be satisfied. Anselm never considered punishment through extermination as an option for God. So he developed that Satisfaction Theory of the death of Jesus.
Man had to repay this honour-debt to God. He could not. God could, but he need not. So God becomes man in the person of Jesus, lives a perfect life of obedience to the will of God, suffered and as a result created a bank of credits that humanity could use to make retributive payment and so make satisfaction for God’s honour. See Anselm, Why God became Man, [I], pp. 11,19,.283; [20] p. 303
This idea of satisfaction through retribution lay the foundation for the Protestant belief of the death of Jesus as an act of substitutionary retributive punishment.
According to Anselm, what Jesus did had nothing to do with punishment but restitution of God’s honour through retribution: Jesus repays God back. These credits are obtained by penance, indulgences and good works.
The Protestant position inherited the idea of satisfaction and retribution but applied it not to honour but to God’s broken Law.
Calvin – 15TH Century.
Luther and later Calvin took their stand against the Latin Church in the West. They insisted that no good works on our behalf earned anything from God. Calvin [followed by Beza] insisted that God’s justice was still retributive. But instead of God punishing us for our sins he instead transferred this punishment from us onto Jesus and so achieved retribution and payback!
Where Calvin differed from Anselm was this: for Anselm Jesus obeys, suffers and dies to repay (retribute) a debt of honour to God on account of sin; Calvin says that the problem is not God’s wounded honour but his broken law. Anselm’s retributive theory is about repaying God back but it is about “satisfaction of divine honour”. For Calvin and Protestantism it is about “appeasing and satisfying divine wrath on account of a broken law”. Anselm does not talk about Jesus being punished by God on the Cross on our behalf. He saw Jesus earning credits with God through his obedience and suffering. Calvin saw that punishment was the only option: either we or Jesus had to die!
Herein is the way the penal substitution theory was birthed – not in the biblical idea of restorative justice – but in the pagan philosophical notion of retributive justice.
Leading scholars today such as John Stott (in The Cross of Christ), Leon Morris (in The Atonement) and J.I. Packer (in What did the Cross Achieve?) have continued on the Penal Substitution Theory.
CONCLUSION:
Justice for Jesus, the Apostles and the church Fathers was defined by love, non-retaliation and blessing. This was the case up till the 4th Century when Augustine compromised this stance and introduced the idea that retributive justice was permitted provided it was done in mercy and with the view to correction. The seed of retributive justice was sown in the West and came to bear fruit under Aquinas who took up this notion and developed it under the direction of pagan philosophers Cicero and Aristotle.
In the 11th Century Anselm applied this concept of justice to the life and death of Jesus. He combined retributive justice with his Feudal Model of the death of Jesus. God’s honour was insulted by man’s disobedience. Retributive justice demanded that he be “paid back”. Man was unable to retribute God by good works and so God sends Jesus to provide the works required to satisfy God’s honour retributively. Indulgences and the sacraments were some of the ways these merits could be attained.
By connecting the death and sufferings of Jesus with retributive justice Anselm paved the way for the Protestant Reformation. For Anselm Jesus obeys and suffers to satisfy and pay back God’s honour; punishment was not an option for God. For the Protestants punishment was God’s only option. Instead of bruised honour it was God’s Law that was insulted. So God had two choices; punish us eternally or transfer it onto Jesus, humanity’s substitute. Divine Justice for the Protestant Reformers, demanded that the debt of sin be paid back and Jesus was punished by God so that his wrath could be appeased and satisfied.
This is not in agreement with Isaiah, Jesus, the Apostles or the Church Fathers. God does not have to deal with sin by punishing it retributively. God can and has dealt with it through an act of healing: “For by his stripes you have been healed”. 1 Peter 2:24.
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