ATONEMENT. To "atone" is to make "at one," and this is the actual derivation of the word. A doctrine of atonement makes the following assumptions. (a) There is a natural relation of communion between man and God. (b) This communion has been broken through man's fault. Early conceptions of this breach as due to the non-observance of taboos and rituals become, in the higher religions, a sense of sin, as an ethical offence against God's holiness and love. (c) Communion can be restored, i.e., sin can be forgiven.
The Religious Doctrine.—Atonement is the means or condi tion of the restoration of communion between man and God. This has been variously found (a) in the endurance of punishment; (b) in the payment of compensation for wrong done, in the form of sacrifices or other offerings; (c) in the performance of some special ritual, the efficacy of which consists in its being pleasing to or appointed by God, or even in its having a coercive power over God; (d) in repentance and amendment of life. In most theories two or more of these are combined. Some or all of the conditions of atonement may be fulfilled, according to various views, either by the sinner or vicariously on his behalf by some kinsman ; or by his family, clan or nation ; or by someone else.
Old Testament,--In the Old Testament to "atone" represents the Heb. Kipper, a word originally meaning to "cover" or "wipe out," but probably used simply as a technical term. There is no harmonious system of teaching on the subject. In some cases there is no suggestion of forgiveness; sinners are "cut off" from the chosen people (Josh. vii. 24), nations perish in their iniquity (Jer. li. 62) . Some passages make punishment the condition of pardon (II. Sam. xii. 13, 14 ; Is. xl. 2), though here repentance is assumed as following the punishment. Sometimes penitence and amendment are the sole conditions (Ezek. xviii. ; Mic. vi.) .
Sacrifice and other rites are also spoken of in this connection. The Priestly Code (Leviticus and allied passages) seems to con fine the efficacy of sacrifice to ritual, venial and involuntary sins (Lev. iv. 2), and requires that the sacrifices should be offered at Jerusalem by the Aaronic priests; but these limitations did not belong to the older religion. Some writers (Ps. li.; Mic. vi. 6-8; Is. i. 11) protest against the ascription of great importance to sacrifice. The Old Testament has no theory of sacrifice ; in con nection with sin the sacrifice was popularly regarded as payment of penalty or compensation and this is specially connected with the offering of the blood (Lev. xvii. 11).
Jewish Day of Atonement.—The atoning ritual reached its climax on the Day of Atonement (in the Mishna simply "the Day" Yoma), observed annually on the loth day of the 7th month (Tisri), shortly before the Feast of Tabernacles or vintage festival. The laws of the Day of Atonement belong to the Priestly Code. There is no trace of this function before the exile (see Ezek. xlv. 18-20 LXX.) but the ritual of the "scapegoat" was doubtless derived from earlier times. The object of the observ ances was to cleanse the sanctuary, the priesthood and the people from all their sins and to renew and maintain favourable relations between Yahweh and Israel. The ritual includes certain unique acts. The Day of Atonement is the only fast provided in the Law; it is only on this occasion that (a) the Jews are required to "af flict their souls"; (b) the High Priest enters the Holy of Holies; (c) the High Priest offers incense before the mercy seat and sprinkles it with blood; and (d) the scapegoat or goat for Azazel is sent away into the wilderness, bearing upon him all the iniqui ties of the people. In later Judaism, especially from about ioo B.C., great stress was laid on the Day of Atonement, and it is now the most important religious function of the Jews.
The idea of vicarious atonement appears in the Old Testament in different forms. The nation suffers for the sin of the individual (Josh. vii., In-15); and the individual for the sin of his kinsfolk (2 Sam. xxi., 1-9; Deut. v. 9, io) ; or of the nation (Ezek. xxxi. 3, 4). Above all the Servant of Yahweh appears as atoning for sinners by his sufferings and death (Is. liii.). But the Servant is nowhere identified with the Messiah.
New Testament.—In the New Testament, the English version uses "atonement" once, Rom. v. II, for KaraXXay7 (R.V. here and elsewhere "reconciliation") . This Greek word corresponds to the idea suggested by the etymology of at-one-ment, the reuniting in amity of those at variance, a sense which the word had in the 17th century but has since lost. But the idea which has usually been expressed by "atonement" is rather represented in the New Testament by IXaaµos and its cognates, e.g., I. John ii. 2, R.V., "He (Jesus) is the propitiation (iX for our sins." But these words are rare, and we read more often of "salvation" awrnpia) and "being saved," which includes or involves restora tion to communion with God. The leading varieties of teaching, the sayings of Jesus, St. Paul, the Johannine writings, the Epistle to the Hebrews, connect the Atonement with Christ especially with His death, and associate it with faith in Him and with re pentance and amendment of life. It is quite clear that such teach ing goes back to Jesus Himself. Attempts to dispute the authen ticity of Mark x. 45 ("to give His life a ransom for many") and xiv. 24 (This is My blood of the covenant which is shed for many") have not been successful.
These ideas are also common to Christian teaching generally. The New Testament, however, does not indicate that its writers were agreed as to any formal dogma of the atonement, but various suggestions are made. St. Paul's teaching connects with the doc trine of Is. liii., and less directly with the ritual sacrifices (I. Cor. v. 7) . It is developed mainly on legalistic lines. (Christ's right eousness makes possible the acquittal [Sucaiwats] of the sinner who has identified himself with Christ by faith [Rom. vi. 3-9, etc.]. His work is an expression of God's love to man (Rom. v. 8) . The redeeming power of Christ's death is also explained by his solidarity with humanity as the second Adam—the redeemed sinner has "died with Christ" (Rom. v. 15-19; vi. 8) . Some aton ing virtue seems also attributed to the Resurrection (Rom. iv. 25). In I. John, Christ is a "propitiation" (iXaaµos) provided by the love of God that man may be cleansed from sin ; He is also their advocate (HapaKAfTos) with God that they may be forgiven, for His name's sake. Hebrews speaks of Christ as transcending the rites and officials of the law; He accomplishes the realities which they could only foreshadow ; in relation to the perfect sacrifice which has atoned for sin, He is both priest and victim (Heb. ii. 17; ix. 14).
Later Interpretation.—The subsequent development of the Christian doctrine has chiefly shaped itself according to the Pauline formulae ; the demands of divine righteousness were met on man's behalf, or in man's stead, by Christ, a formula, how ever, which left much room for controversy. The creeds and con fessions are usually vague. Thus the Apostles' Creed, "I believe in the forgiveness of sins" ; the Nicene Creed, "I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ . . . who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven . . . I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins"; the Athanasian Creed, "Who (Christ) suf fered for our salvation." In the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England we have (ii.) "Christ suffered ... to reconcile His Father to us, and to be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for all actual sins of men" (so, verbally, the Augsburg Con fession) ; and (xxxi.) "The offering of Christ once made is that perfect redemption, propitiation and satisfaction, for all the sins of the whole world." The Council of Trent declared that "Christus . . . nobis sue sanctissima passione ligno crucis justificationem meruit et pro nobis deo patri satisfecit," "Christ earned our justi fication by His most holy passion and satisfied God the Father for us." The Westminster Confession declares : "The Lord Jesus Christ, by His perfect obedience and sacrifice of Himself, which He through the Eternal Spirit once offered up to God, hath fully satisfied the justice of His Father, and purchased not only recon ciliation but an everlasting inheritance in the kingdom of heaven, for all those whom the Father bath given unto Him." Individual theologians have sought to define more exactly the points on which the standards are vague. For instance, how was justice satisfied by Christ? The early Fathers, from the 3rd to the r r th century held, inter alia, that Christ paid a ransom to Satan to induce him to release men from his power. Anselm and the scholastics regarded the Atonement as a satisfaction to God's honour, rather than a ransom or a penalty, a satisfaction of such worth that the outrage of man's sin is made good. Hence this view is often called the Satisfaction Theory. The leading re formers emphasized the idea that Christ bore the punishment of sin, sufferings equivalent to the punishments deserved by men, a view especially characteristic of the later Calvinism, and known as the Penal Theory. But the intellectual activity of the Re formation also developed other views; the Socinians, with their humanitarian theory of the Person of Christ, taught that He died only to assure men of God's forgiving love and to afford them an example of obedience—"Forgiveness is granted upon the ground of repentance and obedience." Grotius put forward what has been called the Governmental Theory, viz., that the atonement took place not to satisfy the wrath of God, but in the practical interests of the divine government of the world, "The sufferings and death of the Son of God are an exemplary ex hibition of God's hatred of moral evil, in connection with which it is safe and prudent to remit that penalty, which so far as God and the divine attributes are concerned, might have been remitted without it." Modern Views.—The formal legal view continued to be widely held, though it was modified in many ways by various theolo gians. For instance, it has been held that Christ atoned for man kind not by enduring the penalty of sin, but by identifying Him self with the sinner in perfect sympathy, and feeling for him an "equivalent repentance" for his sin. Thus McLeod Campbell held that Christ atoned by offering up to God a perfect confession of the sins of mankind and an adequate repentance for them, with which divine justice is satisfied, and a full expiation is made for human guilt. A similar view was held by F. D. Maurice. Others hold that the effect of the atoning death of Christ is not to pro pitiate God, but to reconcile man to God; it manifests righteous ness and thus reveals the heinousness of sin; it also reveals the love of God, and conveys the assurance of His willingness to for give or receive the sinner; thus it moves men to repentance and faith, and effects their salvation; so substantially Ritschl. This view, which is found as early as Abelard, is commonly called the Moral Theory. In England much influence has been exerted by Dr. R. W. Dale's Atonement, the special point of which is that the death of Christ is not required by the personal demand of God to be propitiated, but by the necessity of honouring an ideal law of righteousness. This view, however, leads to a dilemma; if the law of righteousness is simply an expression of the divine will, sat isfaction to law is equivalent to propitiation offered to God; if the law has an independent position, the view is inconsistent with pure monotheism.
Dale's attempt to restate the Penal Theory in a form free from objection on ethical grounds was followed on rather less definite lines by J. Denney in his Death of Christ and Atonement and the Modern Mind. The general trend of recent thought has been, however, in the direction (a) of much more strongly modified transactional statements and (b) of a moral theory, stated as ob jectively as possible. Of the first of these types a good example is J. Scott Lidgett's Spiritual Principle of the Atonement, in which it is insisted that God should be regarded as a loving Father rather than a Judge, and the work of atonement is restated in the light of this principle. An even more influential book is R. C. Moberly's Atonement and Personality. Here an attempt is made to work out the implications of McLeod Campbell's suggestion that vicarious penitence, rather than vicarious suffering, is the key to atonement. Moberly retains the conception of an objective transaction, but interprets this along the lines of the Moral Theory, as an expression of love. This combination of views is made possible by emphasis upon the mystical self-identification of Christ with the sinner. More recently H. Rashdall (The Idea of Atonement in Christian Theology) has devoted a long and care ful historical discussion to a defence of the Moral Theory in its simpler and less objective form, and his work has given a consider able impetus in Modernist circles to views of this type. There is, however, an undoubted reaction from such extreme treatments of the subject and both Rashdall's historical data and his reconstruc tion have been widely criticized. Meanwhile modified forms of Anselm's Satisfaction Theory, often expressed in terms of sacri fice, still hold the field in popular theology of a Catholic type and in devotional literature.