We may now turn to the Atonement, by which Christ has overcome sin. Hilary’s language concerning it is, as a rule, simply Scriptural E.g. Trin. ix. 10; Tr. in Ps. cxxix. 9.. He had no occasion to discuss the doctrine, and his teaching is that which was traditional in his day, without any such anticipations of future thought as we found in his treatment of sin. Since the humanity of Christ is universal, His death was on behalf of all mankind, ‘to buy the salvation of the whole human race by the offering of this holy and perfect Victim Tr. in. Ps. liii. 13 fin..’ His last cry upon the cross was the expression of His sorrow that some would not profit by His sacrifice; that He was not, as He had desired, bearing the sins of all Comm. in Matt. xxxiii. 6.. He was able to take them upon Him because He had both natures. His manhood could do what His Godhead could not; it could atone for the sins of men. Man had been overcome by Satan; Satan, in his turn, has been overcome by Man. In the long conflict, enduring through Christ’s life, of which the first pitched battle was the Temptation, the last the Crucifixion, the victory has been won by the Mediator in the flesh Ib. iii. 2.. The devil was in the wrong throughout. He was deceived, or rather deceived himself, not recognising what it was for which Christ hungered Ib. iii. 3.. The same delusion as to Christ’s character led him afterwards to exact the penalty of sin from One Who had not deserved it Tr. in Ps. lxviii. 8.. Thus the human sufferings of Christ, unjustly inflicted, involve His enemy in condemnation and forfeit his right to hold mankind enslaved. Therefore we are set free Tr. in Ps. lxi. 2., and the sinless Passion and death are the triumph of the flesh over spiritual wickedness and the vengeance of God upon it Trin. ix. 7.. Man is set free, because he is justified in Christ, Who is Man. But the fact that Christ could do the works necessary to this end is proof that He is God. These works included the endurance of such suffering—in the sense, of course, which Hilary attaches to the word—as no one who was not more than man could bear. Hence he emphasises the Passion, because in so doing he magnifies the Divine nature of Him Who sustained it E.g. Trin. x. 23, 47 in.. He sets forth the sufferings in the light of deeds, of displays of power E.g. ib. x. 11., the greatest wonder being that the Son of God should have made Himself passible. Yet though it was from union with the Godhead that His humanity possessed the purity, the willingness, the power to win this victory, and thought, in Hilary’s words, it was immortal God Who died upon the Cross, still it was a victory won not by God but by the flesh Comm. in Matt. iii. 2.. But the Passion must not be regarded simply as an attack, ending in his own overthrow, made by Satan upon Christ. It is also a free satisfaction offered to God by Christ as Man, in order that His sufferings might release us from the punishment we had deserved, being accepted instead of ours E.g. Tr. in Ps. liii. 12, 13 (translated in this volume) lxiv. 4.. This latter was a thought peculiarly characteristic of the West, and especially of St. Cyprian’s teaching; but Hilary has had his share in giving prominence to the propitiatory aspect of Christ’s self-sacrifice Cf. Harnack, ii. 177; Schwane, ii. 271.. Yet it must be confessed that the death of Christ is somewhat in the background; that Hilary is less interested in its positive value than in its negative aspect, as the cessation from earthly life and the transition to glory. Upon this, and upon the evidential importance of the Passion as a transcendent exertion of power, whereby the Son of God held Himself down and constrained Himself to suffer and die, Hilary chiefly dwells. The death has not, in his eyes, the interest of the Resurrection. The reason is that it does not belong to the course of the Incarnation as fore-ordained by God, but is only a modification of it, rendered necessary by the sinful self-will of man. Had there been no Fall, the visible, palpable flesh would still have been laid aside, though not by death upon the Cross, when Christ’s work in the world was done; and there would have been some event corresponding to the Ascension, if not to the Resurrection. The body, laid aside on earth, would have been resumed in glory; and human flesh, unfallen and therefore not corrupt, yet free and therefore corruptible, would have entered into perfectly harmonious union with His Divinity, and so have been rendered safe from all possibility of evil. The purpose of raising man to the society of God was anterior to the beginnings of sin; and it is this broader conception that renders the Passion itself intelligible, while relegating it to a secondary place. But Hilary, though as a rule he mentions the subject not for its own sake but in the course of argument, has as firm a faith in the efficacy of Christ’s death and of His continued intercession in His humanity for mankind E.g. Tr. in Ps. liii. 4. as he has in His triumphant Resurrection.