2nd – first half of the 3rd century

The work of Christ in the Apostolic Fathers, the Apologists and the Gnostics

In the Apostolic Fathers, according to Berkhof, the work of Christ is presented unevenly: at times as liberation from sin and death through his sufferings, at times as the revelation of the Father and a new moral law; there is as yet no systematic doctrine of the atonement. The most significant statement is in the Epistle to Diognetus: God gives his Son as a ransom, and sin is covered by Christ's righteousness. For the Apologists Christ is above all a Teacher, and the gospel a "new law"; but Christ's sufferings are insistently acknowledged as the way to forgiveness and liberation from sin and the devil. Pelikan distinguishes three definitions of the content of salvation – revelation of the truth, forgiveness of sins, and immortality with deification – with salvation most often understood as deliverance from death. For the Gnostics redemption is the liberation of the spirit from the realm of darkness and matter through knowledge, and for Marcion Christ's death is the price by which the God of love redeemed people from the Demiurge.