Ambrose of Milan : But Christ, who was sold, is held by the assumption of the condition, not by the price of guilt, because He Himself did not commit sin. Therefore, He contracted our debt, not His own money; He took away the handwriting, removed the lender, stripped off the debtor: He alone paid what was owed by all. It was not lawful for us to escape from servitude. He undertook this for us, to repel the servitude of the world, restore the freedom of paradise, and bestow a new grace of His fellowship in honor. This is by way of mystery. — On Joseph the Patriarch Ambrosiaster : This is the protection of God, which the Apostle explains through the significance of various causes. For he mentions many things that were done, so that the human race might attain forgiveness; not only did he forgive us our own sins, but he also took away that sin which came from Adam's transgression (which he called the handwriting in decrees), which prevented us from rising from the dead; for if he had not also removed this, those who had received forgiveness, upon departing from here, would have been held captive there in the underworld. Moreover, all sins were allowed so that they would rise from the dead. For indeed, death comes from sin, and the resurrection of the dead is achieved by the removal of sin: which could not have happened unless sin had affixed itself to the cross. For while the Savior conquers sin by not sinning, which held humanity captive, He also is killed by Him who is innocent: thus, sin is crucified. For sin, once defeated, is said to be mortified, for the cross is not the death of the Savior but of sin. For the innocent who is killed, makes those who kill him guilty. — Commentary on Colossians Augustine of Hippo : This is the whole scheme of our salvation, by which the one who as God had made man himself became man, for the sake of finding lost man. This is the whole matter of Christ shedding for the forgiveness of our sins true, not false, blood, and with his blood, "obliterating the bond of our sins." All this these damnable heretics strive to drain of all meaning. All this, so the Manichaeans believe, as it appeared to human eyes, was spirit and not flesh. Augustine of Hippo : She [i.e., his mother, Monica] did not ask for such things but simply requested that remembrance be made for her at Thy altar, which she had attended without missing a single day. She knew that on it the Holy Victim is offered; by means of which "the decree against us, which was hostile to us" is canceled; by means of which the Enemy, adding up our offenses and seeking something to charge against us, and finding nothing in him in whom we conquer, was overcome. . Augustine of Hippo : With good reason do we celebrate the Passover wherein the blood of the Lord was poured out, by which we are cleansed of every offense. Let us be assured; the devil was holding the bond of slavery against us, but it was blotted out by the blood of Christ. . Ephrem the Syrian : At the Birth of the Son the king was enrolling all men for the tribute-money, that they might be debtors to Him: the King came forth to us Who blotted out our bills, and wrote another bill in His own Name that He might be our debtor. — Nineteen Hymns on the Nativity of Christ in the Flesh, Hymn 4 Hippolytus of Rome : In order, then, to show the time when He is to come whom the blessed Daniel desired to see, he says, "And after seven weeks there are other threescore and two weeks," which period embraces the space of 434 years. For after the return of the people from Babylon under the leadership of Jesus the son of Josedech, and Ezra the scribe, and Zerubbabel the son of Salathiel, of the tribe of David, there were 434 years unto the coming of Christ, in order that the Priest of priests might be manifested in the world, and that He who taketh away the sins of the world might be evidently set forth, as John speaks concerning Him: "Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world!" And in like manner Gabriel says: "To blot out transgressions, and make reconciliation for sins." But who has blotted out our transgressions? Paul the apostle teaches us, saying, "He is our peace who made both one; " and then, "Blotting out the handwriting of sins that was against us." — Hippolytus Exegetical Fragments Irenaeus : Therefore, by remitting sins, He did indeed heal man, while He also manifested Himself who He was. For if no one can forgive sins but God alone, while the Lord remitted them and healed men, it is plain that He was Himself the Word of God made the Son of man, receiving from the Father the power of remission of sins; since He was man, and since He was God, in order that since as man He suffered for us, so as God He might have compassion on us, and forgive us our debts, in which we were made debtors to God our Creator. And therefore David said beforehand, "Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord has not imputed sin;" pointing out thus that remission of sins which follows upon His advent, by which "He has destroyed the handwriting" of our debt, and "fastened it to the cross;" so that as by means of a tree we were made debtors to God, [so also] by means of a tree we may obtain the remission of our debt. — Against Heresies Book 5.17.3 Irenaeus : Those who have become acquainted with the secondary (i.e., under Christ) constitutions of the apostles, are aware that the Lord instituted a new oblation in the new covenant, according to [the declaration of] Malachi the prophet. For, "from the rising of the sun even to the setting my name has been glorified among the Gentiles, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure sacrifice;" as John also declares in the Apocalypse: "The incense is the prayers of the saints." Then again, Paul exhorts us "to present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." And again, "Let us offer the sacrifice of praise, that is, the fruit of the lips." Now those oblations are not according to the law, the handwriting of which the Lord took away from the midst by cancelling it; but they are according to the Spirit, for we must worship God "in spirit and in truth." And therefore the oblation of the Eucharist is not a carnal one, but a spiritual; and in this respect it is pure. For we make an oblation to God of the bread and the cup of blessing, giving Him thanks in that He has commanded the earth to bring forth these fruits for our nourishment. And then, when we have perfected the oblation, we invoke the Holy Spirit, that He may exhibit this sacrifice, both the bread the body of Christ, and the cup the blood of Christ, in order that the receivers of these antitypes may obtain remission of sins and life eternal. Those persons, then, who perform these oblations in remembrance of the Lord, do not fall in with Jewish views, but, performing the service after a spiritual manner, they shall be called sons of wisdom. — Fragments from the Lost Writings of Irenaeus, Fragment XXXVII John Chrysostom : Seest thou how great His earnestness that the bond should be done away? To wit, we all were under sin and punishment. He Himself, through suffering punishment, did away with both the sin and the punishment, and He was punished on the Cross. To the Cross then He affixed it; as having power, He tore it asunder. What bond? He means either that which they said to Moses, namely, "All that God hath said will we do, and be obedient" (Ex. xxiv. 3), or, if not that, this, that we owe to God obedience; or if not this, he means that the devil held possession of it, the bond which God made for Adam, saying, "In the day thou eatest of the tree, thou shalt die." (Gen. ii. 17.) This bond then the devil held in his possession. And Christ did not give it to us, but Himself tore it in two, the action of one who remits joyfully. — Homily on Colossians 6 John Chrysostom : "In doctrines" [ordinances], he saith. What doctrines? The Faith. It is enough to believe. He hath not set works against works, but works against faith. And what next? Blotting out is an advance upon remission; again he saith, "And hath taken it out of the way." Nor yet even so did He preserve it, but rent it even in sunder, "by nailing it to His Cross." — Homily on Colossians 6 Severian of Gabala : When the law was given as a curse on transgressors, all the people of Israel stood crying aloud. For there was deposited with what was said a bond that bound them, as they received these things. This "bond" was the binding character of the law, which Christ transcended in his teachings, when he decreed against the observances of the law…. Retroactively he abolished the punishments of the law against sinners through the forgiveness of sins and repentance for salvation. . Tertullian : But, to come now to Moses, why, I wonder, did he merely at the time when Joshua was battling against Amalek, pray sitting with hands expanded, when, in circumstances so critical, he ought rather, surely, to have commended his prayer by knees bended, and hands beating his breast, and a face prostrate on the ground; except it was that there, where the name of the Lord Jesus was the theme of speech-destined as He was to enter the lists one day singly against the devil-the figure of the cross was also necessary, (that figure) through which Jesus was to win the victory? Why, again, did the same Moses, after the prohibition of any "likeness of anything," set forth a brazen serpent, placed on a "tree," in a hanging posture, for a spectacle of healing to Israel, at the time when, after their idolatry, they were suffering extermination by serpents, except that in this case he was exhibiting the Lord's cross on which the "serpent" the devil was "made a show of," and, for every one hurt by such snakes-that is, his angels -on turning intently from the peccancy of sins to the sacraments of Christ's cross, salvation was outwrought? For he who then gazed upon that (cross) was freed from the bite of the serpents. — An Answer to the Jews