Atonement in the Early Church

Genesis 3:22-24
And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

Ezekiel 18:20
The one who sins is the one who will die. The child will not share the guilt of the parent, nor will the parent share the guilt of the child. The righteousness of the righteous will be credited to them, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against them.

Romans 6:23
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Galatians 3:10
“Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.”

Romans 3:5
But if our unrighteousness brings out God’s righteousness more clearly, what shall we say? That God is unjust in bringing his wrath on us?

Romans 5:18
So then as through one trespass the judgment came unto all men to condemnation; even so through one act of righteousness the free gift came unto all men to justification of life.

Romans 8:20
For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope;

Colossians 3:5-6
Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.

Hebrews 2:2
For since the message spoken through angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, how shall we escape if we ignore so great a salvation? 

St. Ignatius of Antioch (35 – 108 AD) – Epistle to the Ephesians, Chapter 11
The last times are come upon us. Let us therefore be of a reverent spirit, and fear the long-suffering of God, lest we despise the riches of His goodness and forbearance. For let us either fear the wrath to come, or let us love the present joy in the life that now is; and let our present and true joy be only this, to be found in Christ Jesus, that we may truly live.  

Polycarp (69 – 155 AD) – Victories of the Martyrs
I have served Jesus Christ these fourscore and six years; he never did me harm, but much good; how can I blaspheme him ? How can I blaspheme my Creator and my Savior, who is also my judge, and who justly punishes those who deny him ?

St. Justin Martyr (100 – 165 AD) – Justin’s Hortatory Address to the Greeks
For it was not just that they who did not keep the first commandment, which it was easy to keep, should any longer be taught, but should rather be driven to just punishment. Being therefore banished from Paradise, and thinking that they were expelled on account of their disobedience only, not knowing that it was also because they had believed in the existence of gods which did not exist, they gave the name of gods even to the men who were afterwards born of themselves.

St. Irenaeus (130 – 202 AD)
For this reason also He has taught us to say in prayer, “And forgive us our debts;” since indeed He is our Father, whose debtors we were, having transgressed His commandments.

St. Irenaeus (130 – 202 AD) – Against Heresies, Book 3
Wherefore also He drove him out of Paradise, and removed him far from the tree of life, not because He envied him the tree of life, as some venture to assert, but because He pitied him, [and did not desire] that he should continue a sinner for ever, nor that the sin which surrounded him should be immortal, and evil interminable and irremediable. But He set a bound to his [state of] sin, by interposing death, and thus causing sin to cease, putting an end to it by the dissolution of the flesh, which should take place in the earth, so that man, ceasing at length to live to sin, and dying to it, might begin to live to God.

St. Clement of Alexandria (150 – 215 AD) – Exhortation to the Heathen
“Behold,” He says, “I have set before your face death and life.” The Lord tries you, that “you may choose life.” He counsels you as a father to obey God. “For if ye hear Me,” He says, “and be willing, ye shall eat the good things of the land:” this is the grace attached to obedience. “But if ye obey Me not, and are unwilling, the sword and fire shall devour you:” this is the penalty of disobedience. For the mouth of the Lord — the law of truth, the word of the Lord — hath spoken these things.

St. Clement of Alexandria (150 – 215 AD) – Recognitions of Clement Book 9
And yet they are deceived even in this; for if men be quickly turned to repentance, and remember and fear the future judgment, the punishment of death is remitted to those who are converted to God by the grace of baptism

Tertullian (160-220 AD) – THE FIVE BOOKS AGAINST MARCION, Book II
This his state was confirmed even by the very law which God then imposed upon him. For a law would not be imposed upon one who had it not in his power to render that obedience which is due to law; nor again, would the penalty of death be threatened against sin, if a contempt of the law were impossible to man in the liberty of his will. So in the Creator’s subsequent laws also you will find, when He sets before man good and evil, life and death, that the entire course of discipline is arranged in precepts by God’s calling men from sin, and threatening and exhorting them; and this on no other ground than that man is free, with a will either for obedience or resistance.

St. Cyprian (200 -258 AD) – The Glory of Martyrdom
For what have you to do with this light, if you have the promise of an eternal light? What interest have you in this commerce of life and nature, if the amplitude of heaven is awaiting you? Doubtless let that lust of life keep hold, but let it be of those whom for unatoned sin the raging fire will torture with eternal vengeance for their crimes. Let that lust of life keep hold, but let it be of those to whom it is both a punishment to die, and a torment to endure (after death).

St. Hilary of Poitiers (310 – 367 AD) – On the Trinity, Book 1
He blotted out through death the sentence of death that by a new creation of our race in Himself He might sweep away the penalty appointed by the former Law. He let them nail Him to the cross that He might nail to the curse of the cross and abolish all the curses to which the world is condemned. 

St. Athanasius (296 – 373 AD) – Letters of Athanasius with Two Ancient Chronicles of His Life
…He became man in the body for our salvation, in order that having somewhat to offer for us He might save us all, ‘as many as through fear of death were all their life-time subject to bondage.’ For it was not some man that gave Himself up for us; since every man is under sentence of death, according to what was said to all in Adam, ‘earth thou art and unto earth thou shalt return.

St. Athanasius (296 – 373 AD) – Contra Apollinarium
He who held the enquiry into the transgression, and gave judgment, passed the general doom in a twofold form, saying to the earthly part, Earth thou art, and to earth shalt thou depart:—and so, the Lord having pronounced sentence, corruption receives the body: —but to the soul, Thou shalt die the death: and thus man is divided into two parts, and is condemned to go to two places. For this reason the action of Him who had pronounced sentence became necessary, that He might by His own act annul His own sentence, after He had been seen in the form of him that was condemned, but in that form as uncondemned and sinless; that the reconciliation of God to man might come to pass, and the freedom of the whole of man might be effected by means of man, in the newness of the image of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord…

St. Athanasius (296 – 373 AD) – Contra Arianos, Discourse II, Chapter 21, #67
For then, because the works were become imperfect and mutilated from the transgression, He is said in respect to the body to be created; that by perfecting them and making them whole, He might present the Church unto the Father, as the Apostle says, ‘not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but holy and without blemish.’ Mankind then is perfected in Him and restored, as it was made at the beginning, nay, with greater grace. For, on rising from the dead, we shall no longer fear death, but shall ever reign in Christ in the heavens. And this has been done, since the own Word of God Himself, who is from the Father, has put on the flesh, and become man. For if, being a creature, He had become man, man had remained just what he was, not joined to God; for how had a work been joined to the Creator by a work? or what assistance had come from like to like, when one as well as other needed it? And how, were the Word a creature, had He power to undo God’s sentence, and to remit sin, whereas it is written in the Prophets, that this is God’s doing? For ‘who is a God like unto Thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by transgression?’ For whereas God has said, ‘Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return,’ men have become mortal; how then could things originate undo sin? but the Lord is He who has undone it, as He says Himself, ‘Unless the Son shall make you free;’ and the Son, who made free, has shewn in truth that He is no creature, nor one of things originate, but the proper Word and Image of the Father’s Essence, who at the beginning sentenced, and alone remitteth sins. For since it is said in the Word, ‘Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return,’ suitably through the Word Himself and in Him the freedom and the undoing of the condemnation has come to pass.

St. Athanasius (296 – 373 AD) – ON THE SALUTARY APPEARING OF CHRIST,
AND AGAINST APOLLINARIS
And since Adam’s soul was detained under sentence of death, and was continually crying out to its Lord, and those who had been well-pleasing to God, and had been justified by the natural law, were detained with Adam, and were mourning and crying out with him, God, taking pity on man whom He had made, was pleased through the revelation of a mystery to work out a new salvation for the race of men, and to effect the overthrow of the enemy, who through envy had deceived them, and to exhibit an incalculable exaltation of man by his union and communion with the Most High in nature n and truth.

St. Athanasius – On the Incarnation of the Word
Forasmuch then as the children are ” the sharers in blood and flesh, he also himself in like ” manner partook of the same, that through death he ” might bring to nought him that had the power of ” death, that is, the devil; and might deliver them “who, through fear of death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage.” For by the sacrifice of his own body, he both put an end to the law which was against us, and made a new beginning of life for us, by the hope of resurrection which he has given us. For since from man it was that death prevailed over men, for this cause conversely, by the Word of God being made man has come about the destruction of death and the resurrection of life; as the man which bore Christ saith: ” For since by man came death, by man came also the “resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so “also in Christ shall all be made alive: ” and so forth. For no longer now do we die as subject to condemnation; but as men who rise from the dead we await the general resurrection of all, “which in its own times he shall” show,” even God, who has also wrought it, and bestowed it upon us…Why, now that the common Saviour of all has died on our behalf, we, the faithful in Christ, no longer die the death as before, agreeably to the warning of the law; for this condemnation has ceased; but, corruption ceasing and being put away by the grace of the Resurrection, henceforth we are only dissolved, agreeably to our bodies’ mortal nature, at the time God has fixed for each, that we may be able to gain a better resurrection.  

St. Cyril of Jerusalem (313 – 386 AD) – Catechetical Lectures of St. Cyril
There is a sentence in the Gospels, saying, He that believeth not on the Son, shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him. For the Father hath indignation when the Only-begotten Son is set at nought.  For it is grievous to a king that merely his soldier should be dishonored; and when one of his nobler officers or friends is dishonored, then his anger is greatly increased: but if any should do despite to the king’s only-begotten son himself, who shall appease the father’s indignation on behalf of his only-begotten son?  

St. Cyril of Jerusalem (313 – 386 AD), Lecture XIII, On the Words Crucified and Buried
What power, O robber, led thee to the light?  Who taught thee to worship that despised Man, thy companion on the Cross? O Light Eternal, which gives light to them that are in darkness!  Therefore also he justly heard the words, Be of good cheer; not that thy deeds are worthy of good cheer; but that the King is here, dispensing favours. The request reached unto a distant time; but the grace was very speedy. Verily I say unto thee, This day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise; because to-day thou hast heard My voice, and hast not hardened thine heart. Very speedily I passed sentence upon Adam, very speedily I pardon thee.  To him it was said, In the day wherein ye eat, ye shall surely die; but thou to-day hast obeyed the faith, to-day is thy salvation.   

St. John Chrysostom explains that death was a punishment humanity suffered on account of Adam’s transgression, but saved through the grace of Jesus Christ:

St. John Chrysostom – Homilies on Epistle to the Romans, Homily X, Rom. V. 12
“But not as the offence, so is also the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto the many.” For what he says is somewhat of this kind. If sin had so extensive effects, and the sin of one man too; how can grace, and that the grace of God, not the Father only, but also the Son, do otherwise than be the more abundant of the two? For the latter is far the more reasonable supposition. For that one man should be punished on account of another does not seem to be much in accordance with reason. But for one to be saved on account of another is at once more suitable and more reasonable. If then the former took place, much more may the latter. Hence he has shown from these grounds the likelihood and reasonableness of it.  

St. John Chrysostom – Commentary on Galatians 2:1,2
For as regards the former Dispensation and Law, I had incurred the severest punishment, and had long ago perished, “for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” (Rom. iii. 23.) And we, who lay under sentence, have been liberated by Christ, for all of us are dead, if not in fact, at least by sentence; and He has delivered us from the expected blow. When the Law had accused, and God condemned us, Christ came, and by giving Himself up to death, rescued us all from death. So that “the life which I now live in the flesh, I live in faith.” Had not this been, nothing could have averted a destruction as general as that which took place at the flood, but His advent arrested the wrath of God, and caused us to live by faith. That such is his meaning appears from what follows. 

St. John Chrysostom (349 – 407 AD) – Homilies on First Corinthians
Dost thou not see how He punished Adam for one single sin… And we cannot even say that Adam had heard prophets, that he had seen others punished for sins, and it was meet that he should have been terrified thereby and corrected, were it only by the example. For he was at that time first, and alone; but nevertheless he was punished.

St. John Chrysostom (349 – 407 AD) – Commentary on Galatians
“For our sins,” says the Apostle; we had pierced ourselves with ten thousand evils, and had deserved the gravest punishment; and the Law not only did not deliver us, but it even condemned us, making sin more manifest, without the power to release us from it, or to stay the anger of God. But the Son of God made this impossibility possible for he remitted our sins, He restored us from enmity to the condition of friends…

St. John Chrysostom (349 – 407 AD) – Homilies on Epistle to the Hebrews, Hebrews 9:15
“And for this cause” (he says) “He is the Mediator of the New Testament.” What is a “Mediator”? A mediator is not lord of the thing of which he is mediator, but the thing belongs to one person, and the mediator is another: as for instance, the mediator of a marriage is not the bridegroom, but one who aids him who is about to be married. So then also here: The Son became Mediator between the Father and us.The Father willed not to leave us this inheritance, but was wroth against us, and was displeased [with us] as being estranged [from Him]; He accordingly became Mediator between us and Him, and prevailed with Him. And what then? How did He become Mediator? He brought words from [Him] and brought [them to us], conveying over what came from the Father to us, and adding His own death thereto. We had offended: we ought to have died: He died for us and made us worthy of the Testament. By this is the Testament secure, in that henceforward it is not made for the unworthy. At the beginning indeed, He made His dispositions as a father for sons; but after we had become unworthy, there was no longer need of a testament, but of punishment. Why then (he would say) dost thou think upon the law? For it placed us in a condition of so great sin, that we could never have been saved, if our Lord had not died for us; the law would not have had power, for it is weak.

St. John Chrysostom (349 – 407 AD) – Against the Jews, Homily VIII
He said to Adam: ‘From every tree in the garden you will eat; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil do not eat; for on the day you eat of it; you will surely die.‘ God put Adam on his guard by giving him every warning he would need: he showed him the ease of fulfilling the Law, the liberality of what it permitted, the harshness of the future punishment, and the speed with which it would come. For God did not say: ‘After one, two, or three days, but, ‘on the very day you eat of it, you will surely die.’

St. John Chrysostom – Homily 1 On Philemon (i. 1-3)
The offenses against us here are a hundred pence, but those from us against God are ten thousand talents. But you know that offenses are also judged by the quality of the persons: for instance, he who has insulted a private person has done wrong, but not so much as he who has insulted a magistrate, and he who has offended a greater magistrate offends in a higher degree, and he who offends an inferior one in a lower degree; but he who insults the king offends much more. The injury indeed is the same, but it becomes greater by the excellence of the person. And if he who insults a king receives intolerable punishment, on account of the superiority of the person; for how many talents will he be answerable who insults God? So that even if we should commit the same offenses against God, that we do against men, even so it is not an equal thing: but as great as is the difference between God and men, so great is that between the offenses against Him and them.

Sulpitius Severus (363 – 420 AD) – Doubtful Letters
What then? Did God punish man with death for the sake of the fruit of a tree? No: not on account of the fruit of the tree, but on account of the contempt of the commandment. The question, therefore, is not about the nature of the offense, but about the transgression of the commandment.

St. Cyril of Alexandria – Commentary on Hosea, Chapter 13
I shall rescue them from the hand of Hades, and ransom them from death. Death, where is your vengeance? Hades, where is your goad? (v.14) After mentioning the effects of his anger on sinners, and foretelling the future results of his being offended, he re-turns to the clemency proper to God. The fact that, far from his being at odds with the whole race on earth and banishing them to unbridled and never-ending destruction, there will be some compassion and a summons to return in due time to the original condition through Christ, he mentions, adding that he will rescue them from the hand of Hades, and ransom them from death, obviously meaning those subject to him on account of the sin against the Creator and the original transgression of Adam.

St. Cyril of Alexandria – Commentary on Habakuk, Chapter 3
Humankind offended the Creator as a result of the transgression by Adam, who showed extremely little regard for the commandment given him. Accordingly, we were both disturbed and destroyed; in our wretched state we fell foul of curse and retribution, and were under the power of death for having provoked God…Now, the fact that we have been condemned to death for offending God, and in turn saved by being shown mercy, blessed David confirms by saying to the Creator of all things, “When you avert your face, they will be disturbed and return to their dust; when you send forth your Spirit, they will be created, and you will renew the face of the earth.” In other words, we suffered the aversion on account of the transgression by Adam, and returned to the dust from which we were made; but when in turn we were enriched with the divine Spirit in Christ and through Christ, we became sharers in his nature, according to the Scriptures, and we were restored to our original condition, and have been renewed and saved.

St. Cyril of Alexandria – Festal Letters 13-30, Letter 27, PG 175
For just as he died in Adam, the punishment in his case spreading to the whole race that is from him, so also we have lived in Christ. For since he is a second root of humanity, and a second Adam, he will transmit his own life to all human beings. And just as there was in Adam the nature on which was inflicted the curse and the penalty of death, so also there is again in Christ the human nature blessed by God the Father and through him rendered superior to death. 

St. Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch Vol 2, Page 131
Now by means of the incense we may understand that the death of Christ was not for any justifiable causes, or for any offense of his, but it was a most wonderful and wholly faultless sacrifice for us (for he was presented as an offering so that he might do away with sin and with the death that came through it and because of it). For our forefather Adam by the transgressions committed in the beginning received the curse that was most properly deserved. So when he first became infected with that truly malodorous disease of sin, he was justly condemned. But the Lord and Savior of all, as he could not be charged with any wrongdoing (for he did not commit any sin), became a beautiful and fragrant offering for us, being the first, as it were, of the new fruit, and of every kind, that is to say, both of wheat and of legumes. For he died for all, great and small, Jew and Gentile, and through him and in him we have become a memorial portion for God the Father.

St. Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch Vol 2, Numbers, Page 205
“God did not create death, nor does he delight in the destruction of living creatures,” according to what is written. For he created everything to have being and the generations of the world to be preserved. But as the first person of our race, Adam, was plagued by disobedience and ignored the divine command, he offended God the Maker, and so fell into corruption. Human nature came under a curse, and the race was subject to punishment. And we wretches, even though we were made in incorruption after we barely flourished like shadows and like the grass of the field for a short season, we descend ingloriously back to the earth, our mother.

St. Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch Vol 2
For the Maker did not entrust that which was so wonderful and glorious to those who had come into being for it then to perish so easily. Rather, death entered due to wrath, because our forefather Adam disregarded the divine command and turned aside to disobedience and waywardness. In Christ, however, the charges were taken up and removed from the midst, through the obedience of one man, for in Him we have been justified. The divine Paul testifies to this when he writes, “For as through one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also through one man’s obedience many will be made righteous.” (Rom 5:19). In that one man we were condemned to death, but we have been shown mercy through Christ, and we have been given new life. For to the Father He was “obedient even to the point of death,” “he laid down his life on our behalf,” and “by his wounds we were healed,” in accordance with the Scriptures.

St. Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch Vol 1, PG 64-65
For Adam was the beginning of the race, with respect to death, the curse, and condemnation. But Christ was the complete reverse, bringing life, blessing, and justification. Adam received the woman as one flesh with himself, and came to ruin through her. Yet Christ, uniting the church to Himself through the Sprit, rescues and saves her, and accomplishes better things for her than the devil did in his deceit. Thus we are encouraged to proclaim that “we are not ignorant of his schemes.” Our forefather Adam, as the wages of sin, and the punishment for transgression, received corruption. Yet righteousness was attributed to Christ, according to the insanity of the Jews, as an offence. So, because he suffered death he is crowned with honor and glory, as the blessed Paul says. And while only a few things upon earth were subject to Adam, all things are subject to Christ. For to him every knee shall bow, of those in heaven, upon earth, and under the earth, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Amen.

St. Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch Vol 1, PG 62-64
For then the author of sin deceived Adam in the beginning, he made him to be guilty of the charge of carelessness, and so it came about that he was brought down to death. Then the punishment passed upon all men, this condition coming forth just as things grow out of a root. “For death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of Adam’s transgression”…And just as the disobedience found in that first man brought us into punishment, so the total surrender and complete obedience  in this second man made us to be partakers of heavenly blessing from the Father

St. Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch Vol 1, PG 99
Now, that Emmanuel has become a high priest for us, through Whom also we have gained access to God the Father, and that we have been restored to our original state, having been set free from the curse, namely that placed upon the first-formed man, one can observe in those things that are written next…So then, when Christ became our high priest, and through him we were offered spiritually as a pleasing aroma to God the Father, we were then counted worthy of his abundant favor and we have a sure foundation, that death would no longer have power over us. Also, that wrathful condition, even that which stems from the ancient curse, has been dissolved. For we have been blessed in Christ, through whom and with whom be glory to God the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, for ever and ever. Amen.

St. Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch Vol 1, PG 60
So in the beginning man was assigned a free and unrestrained disposition of mind with respect to everything he did. But by the trickery of the serpent he was witlessly carried away into improper actions and committed transgression without any justification. Accordingly, he was condemned to death and corruption, although in this event God, I believe, foresaw some greater good. Since man turned aside into sin and his nature was now infirm through its inclination to commit base acts, in the same way perhaps as the unclean spirits, continual evil was to be found upon the earth. For this reason, the death of the flesh was determined. Yet the living creature was not consigned to complete destruction, but rather to renewal and, if we might say it thus, to a refashioning in the same way to that a vessel which has been smashed is later made whole. That in the meantime the living creature would in fact experience corruption, the Maker was not unaware, but he well knew that together with this there would be deliverance from those things that were improper and the removal of corruption, as well as the return to a better state and the restoration of those good things that were there in the beginning. For he knew that he would later send his own Son in human form to die on our behalf, and to destroy the power of death, so that he might have dominion over the dead and the living

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – On the Unity of Christ
Therefore if it is true, as it is understood by them to mean rightly, that the Word has in such sort been MADE flesh, as He has been MADE both curse and sin; i. e. to the destruction of the flesh; how will He render it incorruptible and indestructible, as having achieved this in His own Flesh first? for He did not leave it to remain mortal and under decay, Adam transmitting to us the punishment for the transgression, but rather as the flesh of the uncorruptible God, Own and His, rendered it superior to death and to decay.

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – Commentary on the Gospel of St. John
And the meaning of the figure is in no way affected by the fact, that the men who hung by His side were malefactors; for we were by nature children of wrath, before we believed in Christ, and were all doomed to death, as we said before…And the title contained a handwriting against us—the curse that, by the Divine Law, impends over the transgressors, and the sentence that went forth against all who erred against those ancient ordinances of the Law, like unto Adam’s curse, which went forth against all mankind, in that all alike broke God’s decrees. For God’s anger did not cease with Adam’s fall, but He was also provoked by those who after him dishonoured the Creator’s decree; and the denunciation of the Law against transgressors was extended continuously over all. We were, then, accursed andcondemned, by the sentence of God, through Adam’s transgression, and through breach of  the Law laid down after him; but the Savior wiped out the handwriting against us, by nailing the title to His Cross, which very clearly pointed to the death upon the Cross which He underwent for the salvation of men, who lay undercondemnation. For our sake He paid the penalty for our sins. For though He was One that suffered, yet was He far above any creature, as God, and more precious than the life of all. Therefore, as the Psalmist says, the mouth of all lawlessness was stopped, and the tongue of sin was silenced, unable any more to speak against sinners. For we are justified, now that Christ has paid the penalty for us; for by His stripes we are healed, according to the Scripture. And just as by the Cross the sin of our revolt was perfected, so also by the Cross was achieved our return to our original state, and the acceptable recovery of heavenly blessings; Christ, as it were, gathering up into Himself, for us, the very fount and origin of our infirmity.

St Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – Commentary on Gospel of St. John – Book II
And in harmony with this do we see that which is said by one of the prophets, He hath smitten, and He will bind us up. After two days will He revive us, in the third day He will raise us up, and we shall live in His Sight. Then shall we know if we follow on to know the Lord; His going forth is prepared as the morning. For He smote us for the transgression of Adam, saying, Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. That which was smitten by corruption and death He bound up on the third day: that is, not in the first, or in the middle, but in the last ages, when for us made Man, He rendered all our nature whole, raising it from the dead in Himself. Wherefore He is also called the Firstfruits of them that slept.

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – That Christ is One
Such then, as I think, is the meaning of the Saviour’s words; for He was inviting the good favour of the Father not on Himself but on us rather. For as the [fruits] of wrath passed through as from the first root, I mean Adam, unto the whole nature of man (for death hath reigned from Adam unto Moses over them too which sinned not after the likeness of Adam’s transgression): thus too will the [fruits] from our second first-fruits, Christ, pass through unto the whole human race. And the all-wise Paul will be our warrant, saying, For if by the transgression of one man the many died, much more by the righteousness of the One shall the many live, and again, For as in Adam all die so too in Christ shall all be quickened.

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – That Christ is One
In that case, if it is true. that the Word became flesh in exactly the same way that he became curse and sin, which is how they understand it, then surely he must have become flesh for the suppression of flesh? But how would this serve to exhibit the incorruptibility and imperishability of flesh which he achieved, first of all in his own body? For he did not allow it to remain mortal and subject to corruption, thus allowing the penalty of Adam’s transgression to continue to pass unto us, but since it was his own and personal flesh, that of the incorruptible God, He set it beyond death and corruption.

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – Commentary on the Gospel of St. John, Book XII
For death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the likeness of Adam’s transgression; and we bore the image of the earthy in his likeness, and underwent the death that was inflicted by the Divine curse. But when the Second Adam appeared among us, the Divine Man from heaven, and, contending for the salvation of the world, purchased by His death the life of all men, and, destroying the power of corruption, rose again to life, we were transformed into His Image, and undergo, as it were, a different kind of death, that does not dissolve us in eternal corruption, but casts upon us a slumber which is laden with fair hope, after the Likeness of Him Who has made this new path for us, that is, Christ.

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – Commentary on the Gospel of St. John, Book XII
For it was meet that the Lord should be our restorer in this way also. For by Adam’s transgression, as in the firstfruits of the race, the sentence went forth to the whole world: Dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return; and to the woman in special: In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children. To be rich in sorrow, then, as by way of a penalty, was the fate of woman. It was, therefore, necessary that by the mouth of Him That had passed sentence of condemnation, the burden of that ancient curse should be removed, our Saviour Christ now wiping away the tears from the eyes of the woman, or rather of all womankind, as in Mary the firstfruits. For she, first of women, being offended at the death of the Saviour, and grieving thereat, was thought worthy to hear the voice that cut short her weeping…Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turneth herself, and saith, unto Him in Hebrew, Rabboni; which is to say, Master, and ran forward to touch Him.

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – Commentary on Gospel of St. Luke
For the first man was indeed in the beginning in the paradise of delight, being ennobled by the absence both of suffering and of corruption: but when he despised the commandment that had been given him, and fell under a curse and condemnation, and into the snare of death, by eating the fruit of the forbidden tree, Christ, as I said, by the very same thing restores him again to his original condition. For He became the fruit of the tree by having endured the precious cross for our sakes, that He might destroy death, which by means of the tree had invaded the bodies of mankind.

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – Commentary on Gospel of St. Luke
For it is thus written in the Exodus concerning the children of Israel; “And they came to Marah: and the people could not drink the waters of Marah; for they were bitter. And Moses cried unto the Lord, and the Lord shewed him a tree; and he cast it into the waters, and the waters were made sweet.” Now Marah, when translated, means bitterness; and is taken by us as a type of the law.For the law was bitter, in that it punished with death. And of this Paul is witness, saying, “He that hath despised Moses’ law is put to death without mercy at the mouth of two or three witnesses.” It was bitter therefore, and unendurable to those of old time, and was unacceptable on this account, just as were also those bitter waters. But it also was sweetened by the precious cross, of which that tree there shewn by God to the blessed Moses was a type.  

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – Commentary on Gospel of St. John, Chapter IX
Man then is a creature rational, but composite, of soul that is and of this perishable and earthly flesh. And when it had been made by God, and was brought into being, not having of its own nature incorruption and imperishableness (for these things appertain essentially to God Alone), it was sealed with the spirit of life, by participation with the Divinity gaining the good that is above nature (for He breathed, it says, into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul). But when he was being punished for his transgressions, then with justice hearing Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return, he was bared of the grace; the breath of life, that is the Spirit of Him Who says I am the Life, departed from the earthy body and the creature falls into death, through the flesh alone, the soul being kept in immortality, since to the flesh too alone was it said, Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return. It needed therefore that that in us which was specially imperilled, should with the greater zeal be restored, and by intertwining again with Life That is by Nature be recalled to immortality: it needed that at length the sentence, Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return should be relaxed, the fallen body being united ineffably to the Word That quickeneth all things.

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – Commentary on Gospel of St. John
For by the effect of His precious cross the sovereignty of the devil was doomed to fall to eternal ruin; death was to be deprived of its sting, and the sway of corruption to be destroyed; the  human race was to be freed from that ancient curse, and to be enabled through the gracious love of our Saviour Christ to hope for the annulling of the sentence: Earth thou art, and to earth shalt thou return; all iniquity, in the words of the prophet, was to stop her mouth, and those in all the world that know not Him Who alone is in His nature God were to be utterly brought to nought, and no longer to condemn those that had been in her power but were justified by faith in Christ; and for the time to come the gate of paradise was to be expected to be opened. 

St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on John 10:48-50

This was the first thing that [Adam] learnt [after the fall]—his own shame; and he hid himself from God.  Yet here too he makes a gain, namely death, and the cutting off of sin, in order that evil may not be immortal.  Thus his punishment is changed into a mercy; for it is in mercy, I am persuaded, that God inflicts punishment.

The below quote is among many quotes refuting the modern deviant view that asserts that death was merely a “natural consequence” to sin and not also a divine punishment. St. Cyril explains that death was a “Divine sentence” and that the Savior ended God’s anger when He overthrow death which prevailed from God’s curse:

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – Commentary on Gospel of St. John, Book V, Chap IV
Hearest thou how to the Jews asking a sign as a proof that He is God by Nature, even though they said it tempting Him, He says that no other shall be shewn to them save the sign of the prophet Jonas, i. e. the three days death and the coming to life again from the dead? For what token of God-befitting authority so great and manifest, as to undo death and overthrow decay, albeit by Divine sentence having the mastery over human nature? For in Adam it heard, Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return; but it was in the power of Christ the Saviour both to end His Anger, and by blessings to overthrow the death which from His curse prevailed. But that the Jews exceedingly feared the sign of the resurrection as mighty to convince that Christ is by Nature God, their final deed will clearly tell us, for when they heard of the Resurrection of the Saviour, and that He was not found in the tomb, terrified and exceeding fearful thereat, they planned to buy off the informations of the soldiers by large money. 

St. Cyril refutes an argument that the soul supposedly pre-existed and was given a flesh by God as a punishment. He argues that we were punished while in the flesh not before :

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – Commentary on Gospel of St. John, 
If souls were embodied for previous sins, and the nature of the body were invented as a species of punishment for them, how did the Saviour profit us by abolishing death? how was not rather decay a mercy, destroying that which punished us, and putting an end to the wrath against us? Hence one might rather say that it were meeter to give thanks to decay than on the contrary to Him Who laid on us endless infliction through the resurrection of the dead. And yet we give thanks as freed from death and decay through Christ.  

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – Commentary on Gospel of St. Luke, SERMON XLII
For that there is no obedience without reward, and on the other hand, no disobedience without penalty, is made plain by what God spake by His holy prophet to those who disregarded Him…For let us see, if you will, even from the writings of Moses, the grief to which disobedience has brought us. We have been driven from a paradise of delights, and have also fallen under the condemnation of death; and while intended for incorruption:—for so God created the universe:—we yet have become accursed, and subject to the yoke of sin. And how then have we escaped from that which betel us, or Who is He that aided us, when we had sunk into this great misery? It was the Only-begotten Word of God, by submitting Himself to our estate, and being found in fashion as a man, and becoming obedient unto the Father even unto death. Thus has the guilt of the disobedience that is by Adam been remitted: thus has the power of the curse ceased, and the dominion of death been brought to decay. 

St. Cyril of Alexandria – Commentary on the Gospel of St. John, Book V, Chapter III
“Hearest thou how to the Jews asking a sign as a proof that He is God by Nature, even though they said it tempting Him, He says that no other shall be shewn to them save the sign of the prophet Jonas, i. e. the three days death and the coming to life again from the dead? For what token of God-befitting authority so great and manifest, as to undo death and overthrow decay, albeit by Divine sentence having the mastery over human nature? For in Adam it heard, Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return; but it was in the power of Christ the Saviour both to end His Anger, and by blessings to overthrow the death which from His curse prevailed.  

St. Gregory Nazianzen – Oration II
Moreover, to distinguish still more clearly between them, we have, against the fear of office, a possible help in the law of obedience, inasmuch as God in His goodness rewards our faith, and makes a perfect ruler of the man who has confidence in Him, and places all his hopes in Him; but against the danger of disobedience I know of nothing which can help us, and of no ground to encourage our confidence. For it is to be feared that we shall have to hear these words concerning those who have been entrusted to us:  I will require their souls  at your hands; and, Because ye have rejected me, and not been leaders and rulers of my people, I also will reject you, that I should not be king over you; and, As ye refused to hearken to My voice, and turned a stubborn back, and were disobedient, so shall it be when ye call upon Me, and I will not regard nor give ear to your prayer. God forbid that these words should come to us from the just Judge, for when we sing of His mercy we must also by all means sing of His judgment.

Theodoret (393 – 457 AD) – Dialogues. The “Eranistes” or “Polymorphus”
Orth.—And what punishment did God assign for the transgression of the commandment?
Eran.—Death…
Orth.—… For since death is the punishment of sinners, and death unrighteously and against the divine law seized the sinless body of the Lord, He first raised up that which was unlawfully detained, and then promised release to them that were with justice imprisoned.

Salvian (400 – 490 AD) – On the Government of God
But, forsooth, I seem to be contradicting myself; whereas I said before that we are punished by God on account of our sins, now I say that we are punishing ourselves. Both are true; we are indeed punished by God, but we ourselves force him to punish us. Inasmuch as we cause our own punishment, who can doubt that we are chastising ourselves by our crimes? For whoever gives cause for his punishment chastises himself, according to the saying: “Every one is bound by the chains of his sins.” If wicked men are bound by the chains of their sins, every sinner doubtless binds himself when he sins.

St. Severus of Antioch (465 – 538 AD) – Letter of St. Severus to EUPRAXIUS THE CHAMBERLAIN
Since Adam was condemned to death after the transgression which was committed through the deceitfulness of the serpent, and heard the words, “Dust thou art and to dust shalt thou return”, and, “Cursed is the ground in the work of thine hands”, and, “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread”, and Eve too was also condemned with him by hearing the words, “In pains shalt thou bear children”, so with us also who are sprung from them the charges of disobedience have been confirmed, and we ourselves are dust and to dust we return, and we are condemned to the curse and are creatures born in pains: and from that time we have been in subjection, being subject to lust and to the varied pleasure of this, according to the saying of the blessed Paul. For it was right that against the cunning contriver of evil, the serpent and the destroyer of our life, we should contend with him with the same weapons (?) with which he deceived those founders of our race: and, since it was not the part of another power to annul the punishment fixed by our Lord himself, he did not send an envoy nor an angel, but, as Isaiah cries, the Lord himself saved us.

St. Gregory the Great (540 AD –  604 AD) –  Registrum Epistolarum, Book XI, Letter 64
For, when our first parents had transgressed in Paradise, they lost by the just judgment of God the immortality which they had received.  Therefore, because Almighty God would not utterly extinguish the human race for their fault, He took away immortality from man for his sin, and yet, in the kindness of His pity, reserved to him fruitfulness in offspring. 

St. Gregory the Great (540 AD –  604 AD) – Morals on the Book of Job
For man, being created for the contemplation of his Maker, but banished from the interior joys in justice to his deserts, gone headlong into the wofulness of a corrupt condition, undergoing the darkness of his exile, was at once subject to the punishment of his sin, and knew it not; so that he imagined his place of exile to be his home, and so rejoiced under the weight of his corrupt condition as in the liberty of a state of salvation.

St. Gregory the Great (540 AD– 604 AD) – Epistles of St. Gregory, Epistle XXXIV
And certainly Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden tree, and yet in their flesh they lived afterwards more than nine hundred years.  It is therefore evident that in his flesh he did not die. If then he did not die in his soul, the impious conclusion follows that God pronounced a false sentence concerning him, when He said that in the day that he ate he should die. But far be this error, far be it from the true faith.  For what we say is, that the first man died in soul in the day that he sinned, and that through him the whole human race is condemned in this penalty of death and corruption.  But through the second man we trust that we can be freed, both now from the death of the soul, and hereafter from all corruption of the flesh in the eternal resurrection:—as moreover we said to the aforesaid representatives; ‘We say that the soul of Adam died by sin, not from the substance of living, but from the quality of living. For, inasmuch as substance is one thing, and quality another, his soul did not so die as not to be, but so died as not to be blessed.  Yet this same Adam returned afterwards to life through penitence.’

John Damascene (676 – 749) – EXPOSITION OF THE ORTHODOX FAITH
Man, then, was thus snared by the assault of the arch-fiend, and broke his Creator’s command, and was stripped of grace and put off his confidence with God, and covered himself with the asperities of a toilsome life (for this is the meaning of the fig-leaves); and was clothed about with death, that is, mortality and the grossness of flesh (for this is what the garment of skins signifies); and was banished from Paradise by God’s just judgment, and condemned to death, and made subject to corruption. Yet, notwithstanding all this, in His pity, God, Who gave him his being, and Who in His graciousness bestowed on him a life of happiness, did not disregard man

John of Damascus (676 – 749) – On Holy Images
At that time Adam’s race was under a curse, and death was a penalty, therefore a mourning. A corpse was looked upon as unclean, and the man who touched it as contaminated. But since the Godhead has taken to Himself our nature, it has become glorified as a vivifying and efficacious remedy, and has been transformed unto immortality. Thus the death of the saints is a rejoicing, and churches are raised to them, and their images are set up.

John of Damascus (676 – 749) – On Holy Images
The gates of heaven are opened to receive the receptacle of God, who, bringing forth the tree of life, destroyed Eve’s disobedience and Adam’s penalty of death. And Christ, the cause of all life, receives the chosen mirror, the mountain from which the stone without hands filled the whole earth. She, who brought about the Word’s divine Incarnation, rests in her glorious tomb as in a bridal chamber, whence she goes to the heavenly bridals, to share in the kingdom of her Son and God, leaving her tomb as a place of rest for those on earth.

John of Damascus (676 – 749) – The Orthodox Faith, Book Two, Chap 27
Some of those things which do not depend upon us have their origin, or cause, in things which do depend upon us. Such are the recompenses for our deeds, which we receive both in the present world and in that to come. All the rest, however, depend upon the divine will. The creation of all things is due to God, but corruption came in afterwards due to our own wickedness and as a punishment and a help. ‘For God made not death: neither hath he pleasure in the destruction of the living’; rather, it was through man, that is to say, Adam’s transgression, that death came with the other punishments. All the rest, however, are to be attributed to God. Thus, our creation is due to His creative power, our permanence to His providential power, and to His goodness the eternal enjoyment of the good things reserved for them that keep the law of nature-for which reason we were made.

Methodius (815 – 885 AD) – From the Discourse on the Resurrection
Therefore, since the flesh is the boundary between corruption and incorruption, not being either corruption or incorruption…Therefore it became subject to corruption. When, then, it had been overcome by corruption, and was given over to death for chastisement,  

Exodus 34:6-7 (Septuagint)
The Lord God, pitiful and merciful, longsuffering and very compassionate, and true, and keeping justice and mercy for thousands, taking away iniquity, and unrighteousness, and sins; and he will not clear the guilty; bringing the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and to the children’s children, to the third and fourth generation

Psalm 85:10
Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.

Psalm 89:14
Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne: mercy and truth shall go before thy face.

Psalm 33: 5
The LORD loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of his unfailing love.

Psalm 101:1
I will sing of mercy and judgment: unto thee, O LORD, will I sing.

Psalm 103:6-10 (Septuagint)
The Lord executes mercy and judgment for all that are injured. He made known his ways to Moses, his will to the children of Israel. The Lord is compassionate and pitiful, long-suffering, and full of mercy. He will not be always angry; neither will he be wrathful for ever.  

Psalm 119:149-150 (Septuagint)
Hear my voice, O Lord, according to thy mercy; quicken me according to thy judgment. They
have drawn nigh who persecuted me unlawfully; and they are far removed from thy law

Jeremiah 9:24 (Septuagint)
But let him that boasts boast in this, the understanding and knowing that I am the Lord that exercise mercy, and judgment, and righteousness, upon the earth; for in these things is my pleasure, saith the Lord.

Sirach 18:20
Before judgment examine thyself, and in the day of visitation thou shalt find mercy. Humble thyself before thou be sick, and in the time of sins shew repentance.

Jeremiah 9:24
But let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,” declares the LORD.

Deuteronomy 32:39-41
See now that I myself am He! There is no god besides me. I put to death and I bring to life, I have wounded and I will heal, and no one can deliver out of my hand. I lift my hand to heaven and solemnly swear: As surely as I live forever, when I sharpen my flashing sword and my hand grasps it in judgment, I will take vengeance on my adversaries and repay those who hate me.

Sirach 5:6
Do not say, “His mercy is great,  he will forgive the multitude of my sins,” for both mercy and wrath are with him, and his anger rests on sinners.

Romans 2:5
Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance? But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed.

Romans 11:22
Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off.

Ephesians 2:3-4
Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the  flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),

James 2:13
For judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

Revelation 3:19
Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent.

St. Justin Martyr (100 – 165 AD)
For we see that the Almighty God is kind and merciful, causing His sun to rise on the unthankful and on the righteous, and sending rain on the holy and on the wicked; all of whom He has taught us He will judge.

St. Irenaeus (130 – 202 AD) – Against Heresies, Book 4 CHAPTER 28
Those persons prove themselves senseless who exaggerate the mercy of Christ, but are silent as to the Judgment, and look only at the more abundant grace of the New Testament; but forgetful of the greater degree of perfection which it demands from us 

Clement of Alexandria (150 – 215 AD) – The Instructor, Chap X
By Moses, too, by reason of the love He has to man, He promises a gift to those who hasten to salvation. For He says, “And I will bring you into the good land, which the Lord sware to your fathers.” …”And blessed is he,” He saith by David, “who has not sinned; and he shall be as the tree planted near the channels of the waters, which will yield its fruit in its season, and his leaf shall not wither “(by this He made an allusion to the resurrection)…Again, showing the opposite scale of the balance of justice, He says, “But not so the ungodly–not so; but as the dust which the wind sweeps away from the face of the earth.” By showing the punishment of sinners, and their easy dispersion, and carrying off by the wind, the Instructor dissuades from crime by means of punishment; and by holding up the merited penalty, shows the benignity of His beneficence in the most skilful way, in order that we may possess and enjoy its blessings.  

Tertullian (160 -220 AD) – Marcion’s “God”, Book 1, chapter 27

Again, he plainly judges evil by not willing it, and condemns it by prohibiting it; while, on the other hand, he acquits it by not avenging it, and lets it go free by not punishing it. What a prevaricator of truth is such a god! What a dissembler with his own decision! Afraid to condemn what he really condemns, afraid to hate what he does not love, permitting that to be done which he does not allow, choosing to indicate what he dislikes rather than deeply examine it! This will turn out an imaginary goodness, a phantom of discipline, perfunctory in duty, careless in sin. Listen, ye sinners; and ye who have not yet come to this, hear, that you may attain to such a pass! A better god has been discovered, who never takes offense, is never angry, never inflicts punishment, who has prepared no fire in hell, no gnashing of teeth in the outer darkness! He is purely and simply good. He indeed forbids all delinquency, but only in word. He is in you, if you are willing to pay him homage, for the sake of appearances, that you may seem to honor God; for your fear he does not want. And so satisfied are the Marcionites with such pretenses, that they have no fear of their god at all. They say it is only a bad man who will be feared, a good man will be loved. Foolish man, do you say that he whom you call Lord ought not to be feared, whilst the very title you give him indicates a power which must itself be feared? But how are you going to love, without some fear that you do not love? Surely (such a god) is neither your Father, towards whom your love for duty’s sake should be consistent with fear because of His power; nor your proper Lord, whom you should love for His humanity and fear as your teacher.

 

Origen (185 -254 AD) – De Principiis, Book 2
By all which it is established, that the God of the law and the Gospels is one and the same, a just and good God, and that He confers benefits justly, and punishes with kindness; since neither goodness without justice, nor justice without goodness, can display the (real) dignity of the divine nature.

Origen (185 -254 AD) – Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans
For at the end of the age, in the most recent times, God has manifested his righteousness and given Christ to be our redemption. He has made him our propitiator. If he had sent him as the propitiator at some earlier time, there would have been fewer people whose sins needed propitiating than there are now. For God is just, and therefore he could not justify the unjust. Therefore he required the intervention of a propitiator, so that by having faith in him those who could not be justified by their own works might be justified

St. Cyprian (200 -258 AD) – Select Epistles
We read, moreover, in the psalms, the justice of God in his menaces, and his mercies in saving the persons he so had threatened, punishing them in order to their reformation, and then saving them after it; I will visit (saith he) their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes; nevertheless my lovingkindness will I not utterly take from them.

St. Cyprian (200 -258 AD) – Treatise 3 – On the Lapsed
But if any one, by an overhurried haste, rashly thinks that he can give remission of sins to all, or dares to rescind the Lord’s precepts, not only does it in no respect advantage the lapsed, but it does them harm. Not to have observed His judgment is to have provoked His, wrath, and to think that the mercy of God must not first of all be entreated, and, despising the Lord, to presume on His power. Under the altar of God the souls of the slain martyrs cry with a loud voice, saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood upon those who dwell on the earth?”…And again: “I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord, but that he should return and live.” And Joel the prophet declares the mercy of the Lord in the Lord’s own admonition, when he says: “Turn ye to the Lord your God, for He is merciful and gracious, and patient, and of great mercy, and repenteth Him with respect to the evil that He hath inflicted.” He can show mercy; He can turn back His judgment. He can mercifully pardon the repenting, the laboring, the beseeching sinner. He can regard as effectual whatever, in behalf of such as these, either martyrs have besought or priests have done. Or if any one move Him still more by his own atonement, if he appease His anger, if he appease the wrath of an indignant God by righteous entreaty, He gives arms again whereby the vanquished may be armed; He restores and confirms the strength whereby the refreshed faith may be invigorated.

Lactantius (240-320 AD) – OF TRUE WISDOM AND RELIGION
But since God is kind and merciful to His people, He sent Him to those very persons whom He hated, that He might not close the way of salvation against them for ever, but might give them a free opportunity of following God, that they might both gain the reward of life if they should follow Him (which many of them do, and have done), and that they might incur the penalty of death by their fault if they should reject their King. 

St. Athanasius (296 – 373 AD) – Contra Arianos
Not as being subject to laws, and biassed to one side, does He love the one and hate the other, lest, if from fear of falling away He chooses the one, we admit that He is alterable otherwise also; but, as being God and the Father’s Word, He is a just judge and lover of virtue, or rather its dispenser. Therefore being just and holy by nature, on this account He is said to love righteousness and to hate iniquity; as much as to say, that He loves and chooses the virtuous, and rejects and hates the unrighteous.

St. Athanasius (296 – 373 AD) – On the Incarnation of the Word
For death, as I said above, gained from that time forth a legal hold over us, and it was impossible to evade the law, since it had been laid down by God because of the transgression, and the result was in truth at once monstrous and unseemly. For it were monstrous, firstly, that God, having spoken, should prove false—that, when once He had ordained that man, if he transgressed the commandment, should die the death, after the transgression man should not die, but God’s word should be broken.For God would not be true, if, when He had said we should die, man died not…It was, then, out of the question to leave men to the current of corruption; because this would be unseemly, and unworthy of God’s goodness. But just as this consequence must needs hold, so, too, on the other side the just claims of God lie against it: that God should appear true to the law He had laid down concerning death. For it were monstrous for God, the Father of truth, to appear a liar for our profit and preservation. So here, once more, what possible course was God to take? To demand repentance of men for their transgression?…But repentance would, firstly, fail to guard the just claim of God. For He would still be none the more true, if men did not remain in the grasp of death; nor, secondly, does repentance call men back from what is their nature—it merely stays them from acts of sin. 

St. Basil the Great (330 – 379 AD) – Extant Letters, Letter CCXXXIV
Do you worship what you know or what you do not know? If I answer, I worship what I know, they immediately reply, What is the essence of the object of worship?  Then, if I confess that I am ignorant of the essence, they turn on me again and say, So you worship you know not what.  I answer that the word to know has many meanings.  We say that we know the greatness of God, His power, His wisdom, His goodness, His providence over us, and the justness of His judgment; but not His very essence.  The question is, therefore, only put for the sake of dispute.  For he who denies that he knows the essence does not confess himself to be ignorant of God, because our idea of God is gathered from all the attributes which I have enumerated.  But God, he says, is simple, and whatever attribute of Him you have reckoned as knowable is of His essence.  But the absurdities involved in this sophism are innumerable.  When all these high attributes have been enumerated, are they all names of one essence?  And is there the same mutual force in His awfulness and His loving-kindness, His justice and His creative power, His providence and His foreknowledge, and His bestowal of rewards and punishments, His majesty and His providence?  In mentioning any one of these do we declare His essence? If they say, yes, let them not ask if we know the essence of God, but let them enquire of us whether we know God to be awful, or just, or merciful.These we confess that we know.  If they say that essence is something distinct, let them not put us in the wrong on the score of simplicity.  For they confess themselves that there is a distinction between the essence and each one of the attributes enumerated.  The operations are various, and the essence simple, but we say that we know our God from His operations, but do not undertake to approach near to His essence.  His operations come down to us, but His essence remains beyond our reach…We know God from His power.  We, therefore, believe in Him who is known, and we worship Him who is believed in.

St. Ambrose (337- 397 AD)
Yet that we may not think that this mercy is without judgment, there is a distinction made between those who have paid continual obedience to God’s commandments, and those who at some time, either by error or by compulsion, have fallen….consider the decision of Christ, Who said: “If the servant knew his Lord’s will and did it not, he shall be beaten with many stripes, but if he knew it not, he shall be beaten with few stripes.” Each, then, if he believes, is received, for God “chasteneth every son whom He receiveth,”and him whom He chasteneth He does not give over unto death…

St. John Chrysostom (349 – 407 AD) – Homilies on First Corinthians
But, “They are men,” someone will say, “who do these things; as for God, He is loving unto men.” Now, first of all, not even men do these things in cruelty, but in humanity. And God Himself, as “He is loving unto men,” in the same character doth He punish sins. (Sirac. xvi. 12.) “For as His mercy is great, so also is His reproof.” When therefore thou sayest unto me, “God is loving unto men,” then thou tellest me of so much the greater reason for punishing: namely, our sinning against such a Being… For as His mercy is great, so also is His punishment.

Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom 
O Lord our God, who didst bow the heavens, and come down for the salvation of the race of men, look upon thy servants, and upon thine inheritance. For to thee the fearful Judge, and lover of man, have thy servants bowed down their heads, and subjected their necks; not awaiting the help which is of men, but abiding thy mercy, and waiting for thy salvation; whom keep at all times, especially during the present evening, and the approaching night, from every enemy, from all adverse power of the devil, from vain thoughts, and wicked imaginations.

St. John. Chrysostom (349 – 407 AD) – Homily on the Gospel of St. John
Many of the more careless sort of persons, using the loving-kindness of God to increase the magnitude of their sins and the excess of their disregard, speak in this way, “There is no hell, there is no future punishment, God forgives us all sins.”To stop whose mouths a wise man says, “Say not, His mercy is great, He will be pacified for the multitude of my sins; for mercy and wrath come from Him, and His indignation resteth upon sinners” (Ecclus. v. 6 )

St. Cyril of Alexandria – Commentary on the Twelve Prophets Vol 3, On Zephaniah, Chapter 3, PG 41
The Lord is righteous in its midst, and will not commit injustice; morning by morning he will deliver his judgment, and not allow injustice to prevail (v.5). Justice and injustice can never be reconciled, nor would what is pure have anything in common with what is profane. After all, “what does light share with darkness?” In fact, such things are at odds, and you would find them quite at variance. So since God, who controls all things, loves righteousness and has no truck with injustice, how were the awful crimes of the Jews likely to prevail or attain their goal without being nipped in the bud? It seems, however, that it is somehow a form of injustice not to subject the sinner to punishment, and not call to account the one who opts for a licentious and sacrilegious life, paying no heed to the laws, and being so inclined to injustice as to set no store by better behavior, and take as a credit and a boast what should be found a source of shame. Accordingly, since the Lord is righteous in its midst, and will not commit injustice, showing no tolerance for those in the habit of being unjust, morning by morning he will deliver his judgment, that is, at daybreak, in the open and, as it were, in daylight he will no longer postpone the effects of wrath, instead, bringing them forth, making them obvious, and, as it were, putting what he promised in full view. In fact, he will not allow injustice to prevail. Now, by prevail he means achieve complete victory; when wrongdoers are punished, the form of injustice will cease, there being no one to engage in it any longer.  

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – Commentary on Gospel of St. John
But now attend carefully, for I am about to take up again the question proposed at first. God declares Himself to shew His kindness and His incomparable love of  men in a manner suitable to Deity…The Lord is long-suffering and of great mercy and true, forgiving transgressions and iniquities and sins; and He will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the sins of fathers upon children unto the third and fourth generation. Forgive this people their sin according to Thy great mercy, as Thou hast been favourable to them from Egypt even until now. It appears therefore that He Who is God over all attributes to Himself love of men and the greatest forbearance towards evil. 

St. Augustine (354 – 430 AD) – A Treatise on the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins…
Now the children of wrath God punishes in anger; whereas it is in mercy that He punishes the children of grace; since “whom He loveth He correcteth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth.”

Constitutions of the Holy Apostles
Observe, you who are our beloved sons, how merciful yet righteous the Lord our God is; how gracious and kind to men; and yet most certainly “He will not acquit the guilty:”

The Blessed Fabiola – Fathers of the Desert 
But what the anger of God could not accomplish, was done by the Blood of God, and by His love.

Theodoret (393 – 457 AD) – The Ecclesiastical History of Theodoret
How the Lord God is long suffering towards those who rage against him, and chastises those who abuse his patience, is plainly taught by the acts and by the fate of Valens. For the loving Lord uses mercy and justice like weights and scales; whenever he sees any one by the greatness of his errors over-stepping the bounds of loving kindness, by just punishment He hinders him from being carried to further extremes.

Salvian (400 – 490 AD) – On the Government of God
And although the spirit and majesty of God are such that he is not moved by any passion or anger, yet such is the aggravation of our sins that they drive him to wrath. If I may say so, we subject his loving kindness to force, and seem to lay violent hands on his mercy. For although he is so gentle that ho would like to spare us constantly, our perversity compels him to punish our sins. As those who blockade well-fortified cities or attempt to capture and undermine their mighty strongholds, customarily lay siege to them with all sorts of machines and weapons, so we attack the mercy of God with every kind of frightful sin as if we, too, were using siege engines. Then we think God injures us, though we are acting most injuriously toward him. Indeed every fault of all Christians is an insult to his divinity. “When we perform those acts that are forbidden by God we trample underfoot the orders of him who forbade us. It is impious to blame God’s severity for our misfortunes: we should instead accuse ourselves. For when we commit the sins that cause our torture, we are ourselves the authors of our torments. Why then do we complain of the bitterness of our punishments? Each one of us punishes himself. 

Agpeya (Coptic Orthodox daily book of prayers) – A Prayer for Repentance  
Do not judge me according to Your justice, but according to Your mercy for no one will be justified before You. Dress me in a new attire that befits Your glory. Forgive my sins and I shall sing saying: “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.” I said I will confess my sins to the Lord, and You cleansed me. Amen.

H.G. Bishop Youanis – Paradise of the Spirit
Is there a contradiction to God’s justice, which states that “The wages of sin is death?” (Romans 6:23) This could have been true if God’s mercy had not interfered. But God’s mercy has met God’s justice and that is what David stated, “Mercy and truth are met together; Righteousness and peace have kissed each other.” (Psalms 85:10) God’s mercy did not contradict His justice, but it found a solution. That solution is based on God’s death to redeem man who sinned.

Fr. Tadros Malaty – THE PERSONALITY OF ST. ATHANASIUS THE APOSTOLIC
AND THE CHURCH ENVIRONMENT
Previously I have shown the stereological thought in the theology of St. Athanasius including
the following points: 1. We would have never been redeemed if God the Word (the Logos) had not become Man. For man is in need of the Creator to redeem his fallen nature to its origin, granting it the image of God, restoring it from corruption to incorruption. In Him mankind overcame death and was recreated. 2. As the Son of God is one with the Father in essence (ousia), He offered Himself as a Sacrifice, paying the debt of our sins, and achieving the divine justice and mercy 3. The Logos is God who defended Satan not only for Himself, but also for our sake. 4. Being God, the incarnate Logos He regained for us our honor, granting us to be children of the Father in the Holy Spirit. St. Athanasius says: [He was made Man that we might be come gods.] [For although there is one Son by nature, True and Only-Begotten, we too become sons, not as He in nature and truth, but according to the grace of Him that calls us, and though we are earthly humans, we are called gods.] 5. The Incarnation presented us to God, the Incarnate Logos reveals the Father to us, and the Father attracts us to the Son (John 17:26; 6:44).

H.G. Bishop Youanis – Paradise of the Spirit, Part 1, Second Edition
Your soul is worth more than the whole world. Jesus said, “For what is a man profited, if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26) The price of your soul is the blood of Jesus Christ, which was shed for your salvation. It is pathetic that some people do not care for their souls. If their shoes or clothes get dirty, they hurry to clean them, but they never care about cleaning their souls and straightening their ways. We live now in the age of mercy, but tomorrow you shall be in the age of justice. If you insult justice here, you may ask for mercy; but if you do not care for mercy here, what will be your status there?

Romans 3:25-26
God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

St. Irenaeus (130 – 202 AD) – Against Heresies, Book 5
And since the apostasy tyrannized over us unjustly, and, though we were by nature the property of the omnipotent God, alienated us contrary to nature, rendering us its own disciples, the Word of God, powerful in all things, and not defective with regard to His own justice, did righteously turn against that apostasy, and redeem from it His own property, not by violent means, as the [apostasy] had obtained dominion over us at the beginning, when it insatiably snatched away what was not its own, but by means of persuasion, as became a God of counsel, who does not use violent means to obtain what He desires; so that neither should justice be infringed upon, nor the ancient handiwork of God go to destruction. Since the Lord thus has redeemed us through His own blood, giving His soul for our souls, and His flesh for our flesh, and has also poured out the Spirit of the Father for the union and communion of God and man, imparting indeed God to men by means of the Spirit, and, on the other hand, attaching man to God by His own incarnation, and bestowing upon us at His coming immortality durably and truly, by means of communion with God…

St. Ephraim Syrus (306 -373 AD) – Nineteen Hymns on the Nativity of Christ in the Flesh, Hymn II
He had commanded that we should be sold for ourdebt: His mercy became our advocate;principal and increase, we repaid with the farthing [unit of currency of one quarter of a penny], which our repentance offered. Ten thousand talents for that little payment, our debt He forgave us.  He was bound to exact it, that He might appeaseHis justice: He was constrained again to forgive, that He might make His grace to rejoice….He satisfied His justice, in exacting and taking a little; He made His grace to rejoice, when for a little He forgave much.

St. Ephraim Syrus (306 -373 AD) – The Nisibene Hymns
The good God has divided and given, my misdeeds to His grace,—my offenses to His justice; His mercy has blotted out my misdeeds—His judgment has requited my offences.

St. Cyril of Alexandria explained that it did not “satisfy justice” for any created being to save the human race:

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – Commentary on the Gospel of St. John
For when God determined to save the corrupted race upon the earth, and it did not satisfy justice that any created being should accomplish this, the Only-begotten God, Who knows the Will of God the Father, Himself undertook the task, as the enterprise exceeded all the power that there was in the world. And thus He came down to a voluntary subjection, so as even to descend to death, and that a most shameful one.

St. Augustine (354 – 430 AD) –REPLY TO FAUSTUS THE MANICHAEAN, Book XIV, p.7
And as He died in the flesh which He took in bearing our punishment, so also, while ever blessed in His own righteousness, He was cursed for our offences, in the death which He suffered in bearing our punishment…The believer in the true doctrine of the gospel will understand that Christ is not reproached by Moses when he speaks of Him as cursed, not in His divine majesty, but as hanging on the tree as our substitute, bearing our punishment, any more than He is praised by the Manichæans when they deny that He had a mortal body, so as to suffer real death…Confess that He died, and you may also confess that He, without taking our sin, took its punishment.  Now the punishment of sin cannot be blessed, or else it would be a thing to be desired.  The curse is pronounced by divine justice, and it will be well for us if we are redeemed from it.

Theodoret (393 – 457 AD) – On Divine Providence
For He [God] did not wish to liberate us merely in virtue of His omnipotence, nor did He want mercy to be His sole weapon against the enemy who had enslaved our nature—the enemy might misrepresent such mercy as unjust—but instead He contrived a way that was full of kindness and adorned with justice.

Salvian (400 – 490 AD) – On the Government of God
How are we bad servants? Because, to be sure, our sufferings are only in proportion to our deserts. How are we the servants of a good master? Because he shows what we deserve, even though he does not inflict on us the punishment due, for he would rather correct us by the most kind and mercifulchastisement than permit us to perish. As far as our misdoings are concerned, we deserve the penalty of death, but he, attaching more importance to mercy than to severity, prefers to better us by mercifully tempering his censure, than to slay us by the infliction of a just chastisement.

Fr. Tadros Malaty –Commentary on Gospel of St. John
The  Voice  of  the  Father  is  heard  saying:  “I  have  both  glorified  it  and  will  glorify  it again,”. It is as though He was saying: ‘I have achieved My plan through You. I have sent You to be atonement for the sins of the world. I have executed justice which will never be void of My love and mercy. You have completed My work. That is why You offer Your Blood on the Cross, and I accept it as a sacrifice of love. Your death and resurrection  glorify Me and  fulfill  My  mission  towards  My  beloved:  Man. I have glorified You and will glorify You at Your death and at Your resurrection’.

Fr. Tadros Malaty – Lecures in Patrology, Book One
“Being the Son of God, one and equal with the Father in the same essence (ousia), He offered Himself as a self-sacrifice that can pay our debt of sins and achieve divine justice and mercy at the same time.”

Fr. Tadros Malaty – Commentary on Epistles of St. John
“Our Lawyer is righteous and He does not want to acquit us unjustly. He does not defend us in heaven without any justice, but He has paid the price for our debt. St. Ephram the Syrian says, ‘The bowels of the Father has sent Him to us, so He has not taken our sins to the divine majesty, but through His goodness, He has offered Himself to Him a propitiation for us.’”

Fr. Tadros Malaty – Christ in the Eucharist
And the Founder of the covenant is called “the Just King,” who pays our debts by His blood, fulfilling the divine justice, reigning over our hearts. He is “Victorious,” for He conquers Satan by the power of His Cross. He is “humble,” for He crushes the powers of darkness…The rite does not stop at the splattering of blood, but the believers should eat the flesh of the lamb,  roasted  in  fire  to  unite  with  the  Lord  Christ,  who  went  through  the  divine  justice,  as through fire.

Fr. Tadros Malaty – The Coptic Orthodox Church and The Dogmas – God
It was necessary for our salvation that the Word of God Himself be incarnated so that He might die on our behalf; then, He alone not only can realize the divine justice, but as the Creator He can renew our human nature…St. Athanasius states, “It is just that the Word of God, in offering His body as a ransom for us, should discharge our debt by His death.

Fr. Tadros Malaty – Commentary on Isaiah
There was a great need for the Son of God, the One with the Father and the equal in essence, to offer Himself a Sacrifice that is capable of repaying the debt of our sins, and, at the same time, of realizing divinejustice and mercy…St.  John  Chrysostom  says, “…[God did not condemn us for our several transgressions that we committed against Him despite His goodness to us, but, instead, gave us His Son; whom He turned, for our sake, into sin… He forsook Him to be convicted and to die as someone cursed…He, who did not know sin, He made Him as a sinner and a sin…He is like a king, watching a thief about to be executed, He sends His only Son, to put on Him the criminal’s guilt, and even death itself! All that for the sake of salvation of the guilty, to lift him up to a great dignity.]  [The Lord Christ paid more than we deserve, as an ocean is compared to a drop of water.]”

Matthew 18: 23-27
Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.

Mark 8:36-37
For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? 

Hosea 13:14
I will ransom them from the power of Sheol; I will redeem them from death: O death, where are thy plagues? O Sheol, where is thy destruction?

Psalm 49:7
None of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him: the ransom for a life is costly, no payment is ever enough

Psalm 118: 17-18
I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the LORD. The LORD has chastened me severely: but he has not given me over unto death.

Isaiah 43: 1-4  (Septuagint)
And now thus saith the Lord God that made thee, O Jacob, and formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine. And if thou pass through water, I am with thee; and the rivers shall not overflow thee: and if thou go through fire, thou shalt not be burned; the flame shall not burn thee. For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, that saves thee: I have made Egypt and Ethiopia thy ransom, and given Soene for thee. Since thou becamest precious in my sight, thou hast become glorious, and I have loved thee: and I will give men for thee, and princes for thy life

Jeremiah 38:10-11 (Septuagint)
Hear the words of the Lord, ye nations, and proclaim them to the islands afar off; say, He that scattered Israel will also gather him, and keep him as one that feeds his flock. For the Lord has ransomed Jacob, he has rescued him out of the hand of them that were stronger than he.

Zephaniah 3:14-15 (Septuagint)
Rejoice, O daughter of Sion; cry aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem; rejoice and delight thyself with all thine heart, O daughter of Jerusalem. The Lord has taken away thine iniquities, he has ransomed thee from the hand of thine enemies: the Lord, the King of Israel, is in the midst of thee: thou shalt not see evil any more

Mark 10:45
For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

John 11:51-52
Nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not. And this spoke he not of himself: but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation

Acts 20:28
Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood.

1 Timothy 2:5
For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people.

1 Thessalonians 5:9
For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Romans 8: 3-4
For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us

Hebrews 9:15
For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.

2 Cor 5:21
For He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.

Hebrews 2:9
But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.

1 Corinthians 6:20
“you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.”

1 Thessalonians 1:9-10
…and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead–Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.

Romans 5:8-9
But God commends his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.

Colossians 2:13-14
And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. 

1 Peter 3:18
For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit.”

We were debtors to God against whom we sinned. We became God’s enemies. Christ PROPITIATED THE FATHER. He fastened OUR DEBT (OWED TO THE FATHER) to the cross, giving us remission of our debt:

St. Irenaeus of Lyons (c. 130-202) , Against Heresies Book V, Chapter 16-17
For we were debtors to none other but to Him whose commandment we had transgressed at the beginning. Now this being is the Creator (Demiurgus), who is, in respect of His love, the Father; but in respect of His power, He is Lord; and in respect of His wisdom, our Maker and Fashioner; by transgressing whose commandment we became His enemies. And therefore in the last times the Lord has restored us into friendship through His incarnation, having become “the Mediator between God and men;”propitiating indeed for us the Father against whom we had sinned, and cancelling (consolatus) our disobedience by His own obedience; conferring also upon us the gift of communion with, and subjection to, our Maker. For this reason also He has taught us to say in prayer, “And forgive us our debts;” since indeed He is our Father, whose debtors we were, having transgressed His commandments…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.

St. Irenaeus of Lyons (c. 130-202) , Against Heresies Book V, Chapter 23
For along with the fruit they did also fall under the power of death, because they did eat in disobedience; and disobedience to God entails death. Wherefore, as they became forfeit to death, from that [moment] they were handed over to it. Thus, then, in the day that they did eat, in the same did they die, and became death’s debtors, since it was one day of the creation. For it is said, “There was made in the evening, and there was made in the morning, one day.” Now in this same day that they did eat, in that also did they die. But according to the cycle and progress of the days, after which one is termed first, another second, and another third, if anybody seeks diligently to learn upon what day out of the seven it was that Adam died, he will find it by examining the dispensation of the Lord. For by summing up in Himself the whole human race from the beginning to the end, He has also summed up its death. From this it is clear that the Lord suffered death, in obedience to His Father, upon that day on which Adam died while he disobeyed God. Now he died on the same day in which he did eat. For God said, “In that day on which ye shall eat of it, ye shall die by death.” The Lord, therefore, recapitulating in Himself this day, underwent His sufferings upon the day preceding the Sabbath, that is, the sixth day of the creation, on which day man was created; thus granting him a second creation by means of His passion, which is that [creation] out of death. And there are some, again, who relegate the death of Adam to the thousandth year; for since “a day of the Lord is as a thousand years,” he did not overstep the thousand years, but died within them, thus bearing out the sentence of his sin. Whether, therefore, with respect to disobedience, which is death; whether [we consider] that, on account of that, they were delivered over to death, and made debtors to it; whether with respect to [the fact that on] one and the same day on which they ate they also died (for it is one day of the creation); whether [we regard this point], that, with respect to this cycle of days, they died on the day in which they did also eat, that is, the day] of the preparation, which is termed “the pure supper,” that is, the sixth day of the feast, which the Lord also exhibited when He suffered on that day; or whether [we reflect] that he (Adam) did not overstep the thousand years, but died within their limit, — it follows that, in regard to all these significations, God is indeed true. 

St. Clement of Alexandria (150 – 215 AD) – The Rich Mans’ Salvation
Forgetful of his years John followed after him with all his strength, crying out: ” Why do you fly from me, child, from your own father, from this old, unarmed man ? Have pity on me, child, do not fear. You have still hopes of life, I myself will give account” to Christ for you. If need be, I will willingly undergo your penalty of death, as the Lord did for us.I will give my own life in payment for yours. Stand; believe; Christ has sent me.” On hearing this he at first stood still, looking down; then threw away his weapons; then trembling began to weep bitterly. When the old man had come near the robber embraced him, making excuse as best he could by his groans, and being baptized a second time with his tears,” hiding his right hand alone.

Origen (185 -254 AD) – Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, Book 12
But the saying, “What shall a man give in exchange for his own life,” if spoken by way of interrogation, will seem to be able to indicate that an exchange for his own life is given by the man who after his sins has given up his whole substance, that his property may feed the poor, as if he were going by that to obtain salvation; but, if spoken affirmatively, I think, to indicate that there is not anything in man by the giving of which in exchange for his own life which has been overcome by death, he will ransom it out of its hand. A man, therefore, could not give anything as an exchange for his own life, but God gave an exchange for the life of us all, “the precious blood of Christ Jesus,” according as “we were bought with a price,” “having been redeemed, not with corruptible things as silver or gold, but with precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot,” even of Christ.

Hippolytus (170 -235 AD) – Exegetical Fragments
But though He took to Himself the frame of man as He received it from the Virgin, and was made under the law, and was thus purified after the manner of the first-born, it was not because He needed this ceremonial that He underwent its services, but only for the purpose of redeeming from the bondage of the law those who were sold under the judgment of the curse.

Hippolytus (170 -235 AD) – Treatise Against the Jews
Then, in what next follows, Christ speaks, as it were, in His own person: “Then I restored that,” says He, “which I took not away;” that is, on account of the sin of Adam I endured the death which was not mine by sinning.

St. Cyprian (200 -258 AD) – Treatise X, On Works and Alms
Many and great are those divine bounties, dearest brethren, wherein the plentiful and abundant mercy of God the Father and of Christ,both hath been, and ever continues to be,exercised for our salvation; in that the Father sent His Son, in order to preserve and quicken us, and thereby to restore us, and in that the Son was sent, and willed to be called the Son of man, that He might make us sons of God; humbled Himself, that He might upraise a race which before was fallen; was wounded, that He might heal our wounds; served, that He might ransom to liberty them that were in servitude; endured to die, that He might give to mortal men the boon of immortality.

Gregory Thamaturgus (213 AD – 270 AD) – Second Homily on the Annunciation to the Holy Virgin Mary
And on this account did God the Word deem it meet to take to Himself the flesh and the perfect humanity by a woman, the holy Virgin; and He was born a man, in order that He might discharge our debt, and fulfill even in Himself the ordinances of the covenant made with Abraham, in its rite of circumcision, and all the other legal appointments connected with it.

Alexander of Alexandria (250 – 326 AD) – On the Soul and Body and Passion of the Lord
Then the Lord, the third day after His death, rose again, thus bringing man to a knowledge of the Trinity. Then all the nations of the human race were saved by Christ. One submitted to the judgment, and many thousands were absolved.

Alexander of Alexandria (250 – 326 AD) – Epistles on Arianism
Who compelled God to come down to earth, to take flesh of the holy Virgin, to be wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger, to be nourished with milk, to be baptized in the Jordan, to be mocked of the people, to be nailed to the tree, to be buried in the bosom of the earth, and the third day to rise again from the dead; in the cause of redemption to give life for life, blood for blood, to undergo death for death? For Christ, by dying, has discharged the debt of  death to which man was obnoxious. Oh, the new and ineffable mystery! The Judge was judged. He who absolves from sin was bound; He was mocked who once framed the world; He was stretched upon the cross who stretched out the heavens; He was fed with gall who gave the manna to be bread; He died who gives life. He was given up to the tomb who raises the dead…But when our Lord rose from death and trampled it down, when He bound the strong man and set man free, then every creature wondered at the Judge who for Adam’s sake was judged, at the invisible being seen, at the impassable suffering, at the immortal dead, at the celestial buried in the earth. For our Lord was made man; He was condemned that He might impart compassion; He was bound that He might set free; He was apprehended that He might liberate; He suffered that He might heal our sufferings; He died to restore life to us; He was buried to raise us up.

Alexander of Alexandria (250 – 326 AD) – Epistles on Arianism
Why did He clothe Himself in flesh who was invested with glory? And since He was God, why did He become man? And since He reigned in heaven, why did He come down to earth, and become incarnate in the virgin’s womb?…The Lord, indeed, did not descend into hell in His body but in His Spirit. He forsooth is working everywhere, for while He raised the dead by His body, by His spirit was He liberating their souls. For when the body of the Lord was hung upon the cross, the tombs, as we have said, were opened; hell was unbarred…Then the Lord, the third day after His death, rose again, thus bringing man to a knowledge of the Trinity. Then all the nations of the human race were saved by Christ. One submitted to the judgment, and many thousands were absolved.

Macarius of Jerusalem (? – 335 A.D.) – Acts of the Council of Nice. Book 2
But he himself came as the Savior of all, and in our name bore, in his own flesh, the punishment owed by us.

Eusebius of Caesarea (263 -339 AD) – Church History, Book X
But he alone having reached our deep corruption, he alone having taken upon himself our labors, he alone having suffered the punishments due for our impieties, having recovered us who were not half dead merely, but were already in tombs and sepulchers, and altogether foul and offensive, saves us, both anciently and now, by his beneficent zeal, beyond the expectation of any one, even of ourselves, and imparts liberally of the Father’s benefits,—he who is the giver of life and light, our great Physician and King and Lord, the Christ of God. 

St. Athanasius (296 – 373 AD) – On the Incarnation of the Word
But beyond all this, there was a debt owing which must needs be paid; for, as I said before, all men were due to die. Here, then, is the second reason why the Word dwelt among us, namely that having proved His Godhead by His works, He might offer the sacrifice on behalf of all, surrendering His own temple to death in place of all, to settle man’s account with death and free him from the primal transgression. In the same act also He showed Himself mightier than death, displaying His own body incorruptible as the first-fruits of the resurrection…For there was need of death, and death must needs be suffered on behalf of all, that the debt owing from all might be paid. Whence, as I said before, the Word, since it was not possible for Him to die, as He was immortal, took to Himself a body such as could die, that He might offer it as His own in the stead of all, and as suffering, through His union with it, on behalf of all, “Bring to nought Him that had the power of death, that is the devil; and might deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.”

St. Athanasius (296 – 373 AD) – On the Incarnation of the Word
But since it was necessary also that the debt owing from all should be paid again: for, as I have already said, it was owing that all should die, for which especial cause, indeed, He came among us: to this intent, after the proofs of His Godhead from His works, He next offered up His sacrifice also on behalf of all, yielding His Temple to death in the stead of all, in order firstly to make men quit and free of their old trespass, and further to shew Himself more powerful even than death, displaying His own body incorruptible, as first-fruits of the resurrection of all. And do not be surprised if we frequently repeat the same words on the same subject…The body, then, as sharing the same nature with all, for it was a human body, though by an unparalleled miracle it was formed of a virgin only, yet being mortal, was to die also, conformably to its peers. But by virtue of the union of the Word with it, it was no longer subject to corruption according to its own nature, but by reason of the Word that was come to dwell in it it was placed out of the reach of corruption. And so it was that two marvels came to pass at once, that the death of all was accomplished in the Lord’s body, and that death and corruption were wholly done away by reason of the Word that was united with it. For there was need of death, and death must needs be suffered on behalf of all, that the debt owing from all might be paid.

St. Athanasius (296 – 373 AD) – Against the Arians, Discourse IV
And again, since God’s work, that is, man, though created perfect, has become wanting through the transgression, and dead by sin, and it was unbecoming that the work of God should remain imperfect (wherefore all the saints were praying concerning this, for instance in the hundred and thirty-seventh Psalm, saying, ‘Lord, Thou shalt requite for me; despise not then the works of Thine hands’); therefore the Word of God puts around Him an imperfect body, and is said to be created ‘for the works;’ that, paying the debt in our stead, He might, by Himself, perfect what was wanting to man. Now immortality was wanting to him, and the way to paradise…He sends His own Son, and He becomes Son  of Man, by taking created flesh; that, since all were under sentence of death, He, being other than them all, might Himself for all offer to death His own body; and that henceforth, as if all had died through Him, the word of that sentence might be accomplished (for ‘all died in Christ), and all through Him might thereupon become free from sin and from the curse which came upon it, and might truly abide for ever, risen from the dead and clothed in immortality and incorruption.

St. Athanasius (296 – 373 AD) – Personal Letters, to Epictetus
For what John said, ‘The Word was made flesh,’ has this meaning, as we may see by a similar passage; for it is written in Paul: ‘Christ has become a curse for us.’ And just as He has not Himself become a curse, but is said to have done so because He took upon Him the curse on our behalf, so also He has become flesh not by being changed into flesh, but because He assumed on our behalf living flesh, and has become Man…As then this is the sense of the above text, they all will reasonably condemn themselves who have thought that the flesh derived from Mary existed before her, and that the Word, prior to her, had a human soul, and existed in it always even before His coming. And they too will cease who have said that the Flesh was not accessible to death, but belonged to the immortal Nature. 

St. Athanasius (296 – 373 AD)  – Later Treatises, Treatise VIII
Vain, then, is your sophism : for how could His death have taken place, if the Word had not constituted for Himself both our outward and inward man, that is, body and soul? and how then did He pay a ransom for all, or how was the loosening of the grasp of death completely effected, if Christ had not constituted for Himself, in a sinless state, that which had sinned intellectually, the soul? In that case, death still “reigns” over the inward’ man: for over what did it ever reign, if not over the soul, which had sinned intellectually, as it is written, The soul ‘that sinneth, it shall die? on behalf of which Christ laid down His own soul, (thus) paying a ransom. But what was it that God originally condemned ? that which the Fashioner fashioned, or the action of what was fashioned ? If God condemned that which the Fashioner fashioned, He condemned Himself, and He would then be like to men. But if it is impious to think this of God, and if He condemned the action of the thing fashioned, in that case He annuls the action, and renews the thing fashioned. For we are a thing of His making, created unto good works.

St. Athanasius (296 – 373 AD) – Against the Arians, Discourse II
Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessing in. heavenly places in Christ Jesus, according as He has chosen us in Him before the foundation, of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself. How then has He chosen us, before we came into existence, but that, as He says Himself, in Him we were represented beforehand ? and how at all, before men were created, did He predestinate us unto adoption, but that the Son Himself was founded before the world, taking on Him that economy which was for our sake ? or how, as the Apostle goes on to say, have we an inheritance, being predestinated to it, save that the Lord Himself was founded before the world, inasmuch as He had a purpose, for our sakes, to take on Him through the flesh all that inheritance of adverse judgment which lay against us, and henceforth to make us sons in Him? And how did we receive it before eternal times, when we were not yet in being’ but afterwards in time, save that in Christ was stored the grace which has reached us ? Wherefore also in the Judgment, when every one shall receive according to his conduct, He says, Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you front the foundation of the world. How then, or in whom, was it prepared before we came to be, save in the Lord who before the world was founded for this purpose ; that we, as built upon Him, might partake, as well-compacted stones, the life and grace which is from Him ?

St. Hilary of Poitiers (310 – 367 AD) – Homilies on the Psalms
And although this suffering did not belong to His nature as eternal Son, the immutability of God being proof against the assault of any derogatory disturbance, yet it was freely undertaken, and was intended to fulfil a penal function without, however, inflicting the pain of penalty upon the sufferer…

St. Hilary of Poitiers (310 – 367 AD) – Homily on Psalm LIII. (LIV.)
It is true that in order to take the whole of our nature upon Him He submitted to death, that is to the apparent severance of soul and body, and made His way even to the realms below, the debt which man must manifestly pay: but He rose again and abides for ever and looks down with an eye that death cannot dim upon His enemies, being exalted unto the glory of God and born once more Son of God after becoming Son of Man, as He had been Son of God when He first became Son of Man, by the glory of His resurrection. 

St Cyril of Jerusalem (313 – 386 AD) – Catechetical Lectures, Lecture XIII
And wonder not that the whole world was ransomed; for it was no mere man, but the only-begotten Son of God, who died on its behalf.  Moreover one man’s sin, even Adam’s, had power to bring death to the world; but if by the trespass of the one death reigned over the world, how shall not life much rather reign by the righteousness of the One?  And if because of the tree of food they were then cast out of paradise, shall not believers now more easily enter into paradise because of the Tree of Jesus?  If the first man formed out of the earth brought in universal death, shall not He who formed him out of the earth bring in eternal life, being Himself the Life?  If Phinees, when he waxed zealous and slew the evildoer, staved the wrath of God, shall not Jesus, who slew not another, but gave up Himself for a ransom, put away the wrath which is against mankind? Let us then not be ashamed of the Cross of our Saviour, but rather glory in it.

St. Gregory Nazianzen (329 – 390 AD) – On Easter and His Reluctance
Let us become like Christ, since Christ became like us.  Let us become God’s for His sake, since He for ours became Man.  He assumed the worse that He might give us the better; He became poor that we through His poverty might be rich; He took upon Him the form of a servant that we might receive back our liberty; He came down that we might be exalted; He was tempted that we might conquer; He was dishonoured that He might glorify us; He died that He might save us; He ascended that He might draw to Himself us, who were lying low in the Fall of sin.  Let us give all, offer all, to Him Who gave Himself a Ransom and a Reconciliation for us.  But one can give nothing like oneself, understanding the Mystery, and becoming for His sake all that He became for ours.

St. Gregory Nazianzen (329 – 390 AD) – The Fourth Theological Oration, Which is the Second Concerning the Son
He is Sanctification, as being Purity, that the Pure may be contained by Purity. And Redemption, because He sets us free, who were held captive under sin, giving Himself a Ransom for us, the Sacrifice to make expiation for the world.  And Resurrection, because He raises up from hence, and brings to life again us, who were slain by sin.

St. Basil (330 – 379 AD) – St. Basil the Great, Chap XII, The Christian Life
So that Moses desired to be blotted out of the book of God, if pardon were not extended to the people for their sin, and Paul dared to pray that he himself might be accursed from Christ for his brethren’s sake: filled with the desire to be like his Lord, a ransom for the sins of all : yet knowing, at the same time, that it was impossible that one who had rejected the gracious gifts of God through love to Him, and for the sake of keeping the greatest of the commandments, should be estranged from Him—nay, should not for that reason receive manifold more from Him.

St. Basil of Caeserea (330 – 379 AD)  – Letter 261
Hence it is evident that our Lord assumed the natural affections to establish His real incarnation, and not by way of semblance of incantation, and that all the affections derived from evil that besmirch the purity of our life, He rejected as unworthy of His unsullied Godhead. It is on this account that He is said to have been made in the likeness of flesh of sin; not, as these men hold, in likeness of flesh, but of flesh of sin. It follows that He took our flesh with its natural afflictions, but did no sin. (1 Peter 2:22)Just as the death which is in the flesh, transmitted to us through Adam, was swallowed up by the Godhead, so was the sin taken away by the righteousness which is in Christ Jesus, so that in the resurrection we receive back the flesh neither liable to death nor subject to sin. These, brethren, are the mysteries of the Church; these are the traditions of the Fathers. Every man who fears the Lord, and is awaiting God’s judgment, I charge not to be carried away by various doctrines. 

St. Basil of Caeserea (330 – 379 AD)  –  Letter CCLXI, To the Sozopolitans
After all these in the last days He was Himself manifested ill the flesh, “made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.”If, then, the sojourn of the Lord in flesh has never taken place, the Redeemer paid not the fine to death on our behalf, nor through Himself destroyed death’s reign.  For if what was reigned over by death was not that which was assumed by the Lord, death would not have ceased working his own ends, nor would the sufferings of the God-bearing flesh have been made our gain; He would not have killed sin in the flesh: we who had died in Adam should not have been made alive in Christ; the fallen to pieces would not have been framed again; the shattered would not have been set up again; that which by the serpent’s trick had been estranged from God would never have been made once more His own.  All these boons are undone by those that assert that it was with a heavenly body that the Lord came among us.  And if the God-bearing flesh was not ordained to be assumed of the lump of Adam, what need was there of the Holy Virgin?

St. Ambrose of Milan (337- 397 AD) – LETTER XLI
Shall we deem servitude to be a state of greater weakness than that of being made sin, of being a curse, a reproach, than the infirmities which He bore for our sakes that we might be saved from them?For He was made all of these that He might relieve the world from them. But they will not admit that He was made a servant, a reproach, a curse, because they affirm that the Word and the flesh are of one substance, and say, Because He redeemed us He is called a servant, and ought to be called sin. And they do not perceive this to be the glory of Christ, that in His Incarnation He took upon Him the state of a servant that He might restore liberty to all; He bore our sins, that He might take away the sin of the world. He was made a servant, He was made sin and a curse, that thou mightest cease to be a servant of sin, and that He might absolve thee from the curse of the Divine judgment. He therefore took upon Him thy curse, for Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree. He was made a curse upon the cross, that thou mightest be blessed in the kingdom of God.  

Ambrose of Milan (337- 397 AD) – Letters of Ambrose, Letter 41
And let no one be startled at the word creditor. (Luke 7:41) We were before under a hard creditor, who was not to be satisfied and paid to the full but by the death of the debtor. The Lord Jesus came, He saw us bound by a heavy debt. No one could pay his debt with the patrimony of his innocence. I could have nothing of my own wherewith to free myself. He gave to me a new kind of acquittance, changing my creditor because I had nothing wherewith to pay my debt. But it was sin, not nature, which had made us debtors, for we had contracted heavy debts by our sins, that we who had been free should be bound, for he is a debtor who received any of his creditor’s money. Now sin is of the devil; that wicked one has, as it were, these riches in his possession. For as the riches of Christ are virtues, so crimes are the wealth of the devil. He had reduced the human race to perpetual captivity by the heavy debt of inherited liability, which our debt-laden ancestor had transmitted to his posterity by inheritance. The Lord Jesus came, He offered His death for the death of all, He poured out His Blood for the blood of all.

St. John Chrysostom (349 – 407 AD) – Homilies on Second Corinthians, Homily XI
‘I say nothing of what has gone before, that you have outraged Him, Him that had done you no wrong, Him that had done you good, that He exacted not justice, that He is first to beseech, though first outraged; let none of these things be set down at present. Ought ye not in justice to be reconciled for this one thing only that He has done to you now?’ And what has He done? Him that knew no sin He made to be sin, for you. For had He achieved nothing but done only this, think how great a thing it were to give His Son for those that had outraged Him. But now He has both well achieved mighty things, and besides, has suffered Him that did no wrong to be punished for those who had done wrong. But he did not say this: but mentioned that which is far greater than this. What then is this? Him that knew no sin, he says, Him that was righteousness itself , He made sin, that is suffered as a sinner to be condemned, as one cursed to die. For cursed is he that hangs on a tree. (Galatians 3:13) For to die thus was far greater than to die; and this he also elsewhere implying, says, Becoming obedient unto death, yea the death of the cross. (Philippians 2:8) For this thing carried with it not only punishment, but also disgrace. Reflect therefore how great things He bestowed on you. For a great thing indeed it were for even a sinner to die for any one whatever; but when He who undergoes this both is righteous and dies for sinners; and not dies only, but even as one cursed; and not as cursed [dies] only, but thereby freely bestows upon us those great goods which we never looked for; (for he says, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him;) what words, what thought shall be adequate to realize these things? ‘For the righteous,’ says he, ‘He made a sinner; that He might make the sinners righteous.’  Yea rather, he said not even so, but what was greater far; for the word he employed is not the habit, but the quality itself. For he said not made [Him] a sinner, but sin; not, ‘Him that had not sinned’ only, but that had not even known sin; that we also might become, he did not say ‘righteous,’ but, righteousness, and, the righteousness of God. For this is [the righteousness] of God when we are justified not by works, (in which case it were necessary that not a spot even should be found,) but by grace, in which case all sin is done away. And this at the same time that it suffers us not to be lifted up, (seeing the whole is the free gift of God,) teaches us also the greatness of that which is given. For that which was before was a righteousness of the Law and of works, but this is the righteousness of God. Reflecting then on these things, let us fear these words more than hell; let us reverence the things [they express] more than the kingdom, and let us not deem it grievous to be punished, but to sin. For were He not to punish us, we ought to take vengeance on ourselves, who have been so ungrateful towards our Benefactor. 

St. John Chrysostom (349 – 407 AD) – Homilies on Romans, Homily X on Rom. v. 12
“For if by one man’s offence death reigned by one, much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift and (so Field with most mss.) of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.” What he says, amounts to this nearly. What armed death against the world? The one man’s eating from the tree only. If then death attained so great power from one offence, when it is found that certain received a grace and righteousness out of all proportion to that sin, how shall they still be liable to death? And for this cause, he does not here say “grace,” but “superabundance of grace.” For it was not as much as we must have to do away the sin only, that we received of His grace, but even far more. For we were at once freed from punishment, and put off all iniquity, and were also born again from above (John iii. 3) and rose again with the old man buried, and were redeemed, justified, led up to adoption, sanctified, made brothers of the Only-begotten, and joint heirs and of one Body with Him, and counted for His Flesh, and even as a Body with the Head, so were we united unto Him! All these things then Paul calls a “superabundance” of grace, showing that what we received was not a medicine only to countervail the wound, but even health, and comeliness, and honor, and glory and dignities far transcending our natural state. And of these each in itself was enough to do away with death, but when all manifestly run together in one, there is not the least vestige of it left, nor can a shadow of it be seen, so entirely is it done away. As then if any one were to cast a person who owed ten mites (ὀβόλους) into prison, and not the man himself only, but wife and children and servants for his sake; and another were to come and not to pay down the ten mites only, but to give also ten thousand talents of gold, and to lead the prisoner into the king’s courts, and to the throne of the highest power, and were to make him partaker of the highest honor and every kind of magnificence, the creditor would not be able to remember the ten mites; so hath our case been.For Christ hath paid down far more than we owe, yea as much more as the illimitable ocean is than a little drop. Do not then, O man, hesitate as thou seest so great a store of blessings, nor enquire how that mere spark of death and sin was done away, when such a sea of gifts was brought in upon it. For this is what Paul intimated by saying that “they who have received the abundance of the grace and righteousness shall reign in life.”

St. John Chrysostom (349 – 407 AD) – Homilies on Romans
For indeed we are not so much in love with money, as is He with our salvation. Wherefore itwas not money, but His own Blood that He gave as bail for us. And for this cause He would not have the heart to give them up, for whom He had laid down so great a price. See too how he shows that His power also is unspeakable.

St. John Chrysostom (349 – 407 AD) – Homilies on Colossians
For truly, He hath not only delivered from sins, but hath also placed amongst the approved…as if one should not only free a condemned criminal from his punishment, but also advance him to honor.

St. John Chrysostom (349 – 407 AD) – Homilies on Colossians
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.

St. John Chrysostom (349 – 407 AD) – Homily Eleven on Second Corinthians
“For Him who knew no sin He made to be sin on our account.”
‘I say nothing of what has gone before, that you have outraged Him, Him that had done you no wrong, Him that had done you good, that He exacted not justice, that He is first to beseech, though first outraged; let none of these things be set down at present. Ought ye not in justice to be reconciled for this one thing only that He has done to you now?’ And what has He done? Him that knew no sin He made to be sin, for you. For had He achieved nothing but done only this, think how great a thing it were to give His Son for those that had outraged Him. But now He has both well achieved mighty things, and besides, has suffered Him that did no wrong to be punished for those who had done wrong. But he did not say this: but mentioned that which is far greater than this. What then is this? Him that knew no sin, he says, Him that was righteousness itself , He made sin, that is suffered as a sinner to be condemned, as one cursed to die. For cursed is he that hangs on a tree. Galatians 3:13 For to die thus was far greater than to die; and this he also elsewhere implying, says, Becoming obedient unto death, yea the death of the cross. Philippians 2:8 For this thing carried with it not only punishment, but also disgrace. Reflect therefore how great things He bestowed on you. For a great thing indeed it were for even a sinner to die for any one whatever; but when He who undergoes this both is righteous and dies for sinners; and not dies only, but even as one cursed; and not as cursed [dies] only, but thereby freely bestows upon us those great goods which we never looked for; (for he says, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him;) what words, what thought shall be adequate to realize these things? ‘For the righteous,’ says he, ‘He made a sinner; that He might make the sinners righteous.’ Yea rather, he said not even so, but what was greater far; for the word he employed is not the habit, but the quality itself. For he said not made [Him] a sinner, but sin; not, ‘Him that had not sinned’ only, but that had not even known sin; that we also might become, he did not say ‘righteous,’ but, righteousness, and, the righteousness of God. For this is [the righteousness] of God when we are justified not by works, (in which case it were necessary that not a spot even should be found,) but by grace, in which case all sin is done away. And this at the same time that it suffers us not to be lifted up, (seeing the whole is the free gift of God,) teaches us also the greatness of that which is given. For that which was before was a righteousness of the Law and of works, but this is the righteousness of God.”

St. John Chrysostom (349 – 407 AD) – Homily on Romans
For it was not as much as we must have to do away the sin only, that we received of His grace, but even far more. For we were at once freed from punishment, and put off all iniquity, and were also born again from above…

St. Augustine (354 – 430 AD) – Writings in Connection with Manichaen Controversy
So sin means both a bad action deserving punishment, and death the consequence of sin.  Christ has no sin in the sense of deserving death, but He bore for our sakes sin in the sense of death as brought on human nature by sin.  This is what hung on the tree; this is what was cursed by Moses.  Thus was death condemned that its reign might cease, and cursed that it might be destroyed.  By Christ’s taking our sin in this sense, its condemnation is our deliverance, while to remain in subjection to sin is to be condemned…Death is the effect of the curse; and all sin is cursed, whether it means the action which merits punishment, or the punishment which follows. Christ, though guiltless, took our punishment, that He might cancel our guilt, and do away with our punishment…And as He died in the flesh which He took in bearing our punishment, so also, while ever blessed in His own righteousness, He was cursed for our offenses, in the death which He suffered in bearing our punishment…

St. Augustine (354 – 430 AD) – Reply to Faustus the Manichaean
Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree; not this one or that, but absolutely every one.  What! the Son of God?  Yes, assuredly.  This is the very thing you object to, and that you are so anxious to evade.  You will not allow that He was cursed for us, because you will not allow that He died for us.  Exemption from Adam’s curse implies exemption from his death.  But as Christ endured death as man, and for man; so also, Son of God as He was, ever living in His own righteousness, but dying for our offences, He submitted as man, and for man, to bear the curse which accompanies death.  And as He died in the flesh which He took in bearing our punishment, so also, while ever blessed in His own righteousness, He was cursed for our offences, in the death which He suffered in bearing our punishment. And these words “every one” are intended to check the ignorant officiousness which would deny the reference of the curse to Christ, and so, because the curse goes along with death, would lead to the denial of the true death of Christ.

St. Augustine (354 – 430 AD) – Expositions on the Book of Psalms
For even the Lord was subject to death, but not on account of sin: He took upon Him our punishment, and so looseth our guilt. With reason then, “In Adam all die, but in Christ shall all be made alive.” 

St. Augustine (354 – 430 AD) – City of God
He showed also that death itself, although the punishmentof sin, was submitted to by Him for our sake without sin, and must not be evaded by sin on our part, but rather, if opportunity serves, be borne for righteousness’ sake.  For he was able to expiate sins by dying, because He both died, and not for sin of His own.

St. Augustine (354 – 430 AD) – Doctrinal Treatises
For we, indeed, came to death through sin; He through righteousness: and, therefore, as our death is the punishment of sin, so His death was made a sacrifice for sin. 

St. Augustine (354 – 430 AD) – A Treatise on Nature and Grace
For if he said this about the law, which only the nation of the Jews received, how much more justly may it be said of the law of nature, which the whole human race has received, “If righteousness come by nature, then Christ died in vain.” If, however, Christ did not die in vain, then human nature cannot by any means be justified and redeemed from God’s most righteous wrath—in a word, from punishment—except by faith and the sacrament of the blood of Christ.

St. Augustine (354 – 430 AD) – Treatise on the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins… 
Now death came by the serpent, which persuaded man to commit the sin, by which he deserved to die. The Lord, however, transferred to His own flesh not sin, as the poison of the serpent, but He did transfer to it death, that the penalty without the fault might transpire in the likeness of sinful flesh, whence, in the sinful flesh, both the fault might be removed and the penalty. As, therefore, it then came to pass that whoever looked at the raised serpent was both healed of the poison and freed from death, so also now, whosoever is conformed to the likeness of the death of Christ by faith in Him and His baptism, is freed both from sin by justification, and from death by resurrection.

St. Cyril of Alexandria – Festal Letters 13- 30, Letter 13, PG 9
Now in what does the mystery consist? Or where will we find the beauty of the truth hidden in the shadow that is in the law? Well, the true stater, the image of the great king, the Son that is, the imprint and reflection of the Father’s substance, gave him-self for us. And he gave his own soul in exchange for the life of all, not that he might save Israel alone, even though Israel seemed to be rich in the knowledge of the law, but that he might rescue as well from the devil’s greed the innumerable flock of the nations, “who had no hope,” as Paul says, and who suffered from the lack of every good. The divine, heavenly stater was therefore given for two peoples. “For we have been ransomed not with perishable things such as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or stain.” “We are debtors, therefore, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh,” but to Christ, who ransomed and redeemed us.

St. Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch Vol 2, Pages 46-47
“Everything that first opens the womb of the donkey, shall be exchanged for a lamb.” And what is this saying? According to the law a donkey was unholy and profane, but a lamb was holy, and so it was presented on behalf of the donkey. Once more the law figuratively represents in these matters the fact that what is profane and unholy is made holy in Christ, and that through him that which is unacceptable is made acceptable. For when we were sinful and unclean, for our sakes he became a holy sacrifice and a pleasing aroma. For he died for sinners, the righteous for the unrighteous, the clean for the unclean, just as the lamb died for the donkey. So the firstborn of men were redeemed by offerings, which were most likely given in payment for those who were being presented. For what reason? Because that which was wholly dedicated and consecrated to God needed to be completely sacrificed. Yet God, who created everything in a state of incorruptibility, refrains from the killing of men. For “he did not create death, nor does he delight in the destruction of living creatures, “as it is written. Nor does he take pleasure from those who are perishing, as he does from the destruction of the unclean demons. Rather, he commands that a ransom should be laid down on their behalf, and so we ought to confess openly that, in essence, we owe even our very lives to him. For he indicated this ransom when he commanded that the sum called the “two drachmas” should be paid. So the true ransom given for all is to be understood as Christ himself, through whom and in whom we have overcome corruption, for he gave himself for us.

St. Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch Vol 2, Book 9: Exodus, Pg 79
For who, on seeing death incapacitated, which was once so fearful and loathsome to those upon the earth, on seeing corruption removed, and human nature restored to the hope of unending life, would not be converted to a ready obedience? For as we died with Adam, so we have been raised with Christ. The divine Paul testified to us of this when he writes, “For as in Adam we all die, even so in Christ we all will be made alive.” For he purchased us with his own blood, and counted his life to be an exchange for the life of all.

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – Five Tomes Against Nestorious, Tome V
For we say that He which was crucified is Lord of glory, and He is so of a truth: yet acknowledging that the Word of God is inseverable and one with the flesh united, to Him having a reasonable soul, we say that He it is Who offered Himself, as it were the Immaculate Offering and most sweet-smelling Sacrifice of His Own Body, to God the Father, and nailed to the wood the handwriting that was against us. And one may hear Him say by the mouth of David, Sacrifice and offering Thou wouldest not but a Body preparedst Thou Me, whole burnt sacrifices and for sin Thou tookest no pleasure in: then said I, Lo I come (in the volume of the book it has been written of Me) to do Thy Will, o God. The commandment according to the Law now availing nought, and perfecting nothing, and God the Father holding the sacrifices through blood unacceptable;—-He says that a Body has been prepared for Himself, in order that giving it a Ransom for the salvation and life of all, He might redeem all, from both death and decay and yet more from sins.

Ambrose of Milan – Against Auxentius on the Giving up the Basilicas  (386 A.D.) 
They read  too to-day that Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, being made a curse for us. Was Christ a curse according to His Divinity? But why He should be called a curse the Apostle teaches thee, alleging the text, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree, that is, He Who in His flesh took upon Him our flesh, in His body carried our griefs and our curses that He might crucify them, for He is cursed, not in Himself, but in thee. Lastly, you have in another place, Who knew no sin, but was made sin for us, for He took upon Him our sins, to do away with them by the Sacrament of His Passion.

Pope Leo I (390 – 461 AD) – Sermon On the Feast of S. Laurence the Martyr
For, although that Love, wherewith the Lord has redeemed us, cannot be equalled by any man’s kindness, because it is one thing that a man who is doomed to die one day should die for a righteous man, and another that One Who is free from the debt of sin should lay down His life for the wicked:  yet the martyrs also have done great service to all men, in that the Lord Who gave them boldness, has used it to show that the penalty of death and the pain of the cross need not be terrible to any of His followers, but might be imitated by many of them.  

Pope Leo I (390 – 461 AD) – Letter CXXXIX
The true birth of Christ, therefore, is confirmed by the true cross; since He is Himself born in our flesh, Who is crucified in our flesh, which, as no sin entered into it, could not have been mortal, unless it had been that of our race.  But in order that He might restore life to all, He undertook the cause of all and rendered void the force of the old bond, by paying it for all, because He alone of us all did not owe it:  that, as by one man’s guilt all had become sinners, so by one man’s innocence all might become innocent, righteousness being bestowed upon men by Him Who had undertaken man’s nature. 

Theodoret (393 – 457 AD) – Dialogue I, The Immutable 
“For just as when the apostle says ‘Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us,’ he does not say that the substance of Christ departed from His own glory, and took the substance of a curse, a position which not even devils would imagine, nor the utterly senseless, and the naturally idiotic—so remarkable being the connection between impiety and insanity. But what he does assert is that after receiving the curse due to us, He does not suffer us to be cursed for the future. It is in this sense that He is stated to have been made flesh, not because he had changed the substance into flesh, but because he had assumed the flesh, the substance remaining all the while unimpaired.”

St. Gregory the Great (540 AD –  604 AD) – Morals on the Book of Job
He ‘ was destroyed without cause,’ Who, being made incarnate, had no sins of His own, and yet being without offence took upon Himself the punishment of the carnal. For it is hence, that speaking by the Prophet He says, Then I restored that which I took not away. For that other that was created for Paradise would in his pride have usurped the semblance of the Divine power, yet the Mediator, Who was without guilt, discharged the guilt of that pride. It is hence that a Wise Man saith to the Father; Forasmuch then as Thou art righteous Thyself, Thou orderest all things righteously; Thou condemnest Him too that deserveth not to be punished.

John of Damascus – On Holy Images
From the time that God the Word became flesh He is as we are in everything except sin, and of our nature, without confusion. He has deified our flesh for ever, and we are in very deed sanctified through His Godhead and the union of His flesh with it. And from the time that God, the Son of God, impassible by reason of His Godhead, chose to suffer voluntarily He wiped out our debt, also paying for us a most full and noble ransom. We are truly free through the sacred blood of the Son pleading for us with the Father.

Methodius (815 – 885 AD) – From the Homily On the Cross and Passion of Christ
It was for this mainly that the cross was brought in, being erected as a trophy against iniquity, and a deterrent from it, that henceforth man might be no longer subject to wrath, after that he had made up for the defeat which, by his disobedience, be had received, and had lawfully conquered the infernal powers, and by the gift of God had been set free from every debt. 

Ibn Al-Assal – The Collection Of Safey Ibn Al-Assal, (Published Originally In Arabic In Cairo, Egypt; 1245 A.D)
And if one is lost look for him and the one that is hopeless because of his many transgression do not let him reach complete destruction. And if the bishop can, he should carry the sin of the sinner on himself and makes it his own and say to the transgressor come back and I will accept death in your place as my Lord the Christ who died for me and for everyone. Jesus said: “I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.  

Fr. Matta El Miskeen (Matthew the Poor) – The Birth of Christ And the Birth of Man
Nevertheless, He freely took upon Himself the role of a slave with an extraordinary and amazing humility, in order to raise up all slaves to the heights of His sonship. “I no longer call you servants, but friends, for I have taught you all I have heard from my Father” (Jn. 15:5). He stripped Himself, as far as He was able, of all outward glory to devote Himself to participating with mankind in suffering, that suffering which He was born to bear in full on their behalf, so that its curse might be lifted from the sons of men. He finally crowned His suffering with a death freely accepted, as the payment of a debt and a punishment, on behalf of all the sinners of the earth, so that through His death He might win their acquittal. So death is no longer a debt to be paid or a punishment to be undergone by man for his sins and transgressions; it is rather the declaration of his release and forgiveness.

Fr. Matta El Miskeen (Matthew the Poor) – Resurrection and Redemption in the Orthodox Concept
Thus in the doctrine of the Orthodox Church resurrection has come to be the foundation of the act of redemption which was latent in the heart of Christ from the very beginning. Redemption did not mean merely that Christ should pay the price of our sins, or remove the wrath of God upon the reprobate who were enslaved to sin, but to Christ redemption in the first place meant something beyond forgiveness and reconcilement — to restore to man the love and eternal life which he had lost through transgression and separation from God. This was originally implied in the concept of incarnation as understood by the fathers of the Church such as St. Athanasius who says: “The Word became human that we might become gods in Him” (that is partakers of the divine nature). The aim of incarnation therefore in the view of the Orthodox Church fathers never stopped short at the atonement of the cross or redemption by blood, but always proceeded further to resurrection for the renewal of man as the ultimate end of incarnation. Why? Because man did not stop at falling in sin or breaking with God and incurring the divine wrath, so that if his sins were remitted and he got reconciled to God he would be restored to his original state. Unfortunately man went beyond all this, for he lost his original gifts and the image of God was distorted in him, in the sense that he finally lost his power to know and love God, and consequently to return to life with God by purgation, knowledge and instruction. This we hear from Christ himself when he approached this problem with rabbi Nicodemus, “Except a man be born from above he cannot see the kingdom of God.” This means that it is not a question merely of repaying the debt of our sins, but there must needs be a re­creation of man.

H.E. Metropolitan Bishoy of Damietta – Remarks on the Understanding of Mercy and Justice in the Writings of Isaac the Syrian
The Lord Jesus Christ was a substitute for the sinners, was crucified instead of them repaying their debt. He is the Only Savior through Whom we received salvation. He is the only One Who is sinless, the only One Who can carry the sin of the whole world and become an accepted ransom before the Heavenly Father, because of His perfect righteousness and His super valuable sacrifice in the perception of God the Father since it is the sacrifice of the only begotten son. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

H.E. Metropolitan Bishoy of Damietta – THE COMMON THREAD BETWEEN HEGUMEN MATTA-EL-MESKEEN AND MAX MICHEL
If we ignore divine justice… then what is the point of the cross anyway? … What is its necessity? Is the cross simply a play just so the Lord Christ reveals His love? Also, what is the meaning of the word redemption? When He speaks of giving “His life a ransom for many” (Mat 20:28), or “Who gave Himself a ransom for all” (1 Tim 2:6). Has the term redemption become meaningless? They deny the Redeemer offering Himself instead of the sinner, placing Himself in the place of the sinner, while the Holy Scripture is clear as Isaiah the prophet says: “The LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all” (Is 53:6); John the Baptist said: “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (Jn 1:29); Isaiah says again: “You make His soul an offering for sin” (Is 53:10); in his first epistle, our teacher St. Peter says: “Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things… but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1 Pt 1:18-19); our teacher St. Paul says: “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us” (Gal 3:13); again: “For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s” (1 Cor 6:20); and yet again: “Having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross” (Col 2:14). What does tearing apart the handwritten debt against us mean, but fully paying the debt by the cross! So, why do we count the debt as a reproach to the beloved Savior?

H.E. Metropolitan Bishoy – The Dogma Of Atonement And Redemption 
If we had been crucified with Christ on the day of His crucifixion, so that He was not crucified for us but with us, as some claim, are we crucified with Him once more in Baptism or not?! Is it allowable for the crucifixion to be repeated for Him or for us? What is the use of the sacraments and of Baptism? What is the use of the Holy Spirit in the Church?!! We are granted the communion of death with Christ at baptism. Thus Saint Paul the Apostle says: “For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection” (Rom. 6:5). When He says: “we have been united together” it implies that this happened during the Baptism, not before. We are warning about this strange and dangerous teachings that destroy the dogma of redemption. We should stick firmly to the teachings of the ancient holy fathers and the teaching of His Holiness Pope Shenouda III, may God grant him long life. His Holiness affirmed several times the necessity of adhering to the sound teachings of the fathers “that we should no longer be children, tossed to and for and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting” (Eph.4: 14).

Matthew 5:17
Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.

Luke 24:44,46
He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.”…He told them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day,

John 1:17
For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

Romans 3:31
Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law.

Romans 4:15
because the law brings wrath. And where there is no law there is no transgression.

Romans 5:16
Nor can the gift of God be compared with the result of one man’s sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification.

Romans 5:18
Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people. 

Romans 6:14
For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.

Romans 7:1, 2, 4
Do you not know, brothers and sisters—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law has authority over someone only as long as that person lives? For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law that binds her to him…So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. 

Romans 8:3-4
For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

Romans 11:32
For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.

Galatians 3:10, 13
For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, as it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law…Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.

2 Corinthians 5:14 
For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.

Ephesians 2:15
Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace

Colossians 2:13-14
And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. 

Galatians 4:4-5
But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship.

St. Athanasius (296 – 373 AD) – Discourses Against the Arians
But if not for Himself is He created, but for us, then He is not Himself a creature, but, as having put on our flesh, He uses such language. And that this is the sense of the Scriptures, we may learn from the Apostle, who says in Ephesians, ‘Having broken down the middle wall of partition between us, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances, to create in Himself of twain one new man, so making peace.’ But if in Him the twain are created, and these are in His body, reasonably then, bearing the twain in Himself, He is as if Himself created; for those who were created in Himself He made one, and He was in them, as they. And thus, the two being created in Him, He may say suitably, ‘The Lord created me.’ For as by receiving our infirmities, He is said to be infirm Himself, though not Himself infirm, for He is the Power of God, and He became sin for us and a curse, though not having sinned Himself, but because He Himself bare our sins and our curse, so, by creating us in Him, let Him say, ‘He created me for the works,’ though not Himself a creature...But the Apostle opposes such a doctrine a little before, when he says, ‘For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus;’ and if in Christ we are created, then it is not He who is created, but we in Him; and thus the words ‘He created’ are for our sake. For because of our need, the Word, though being Creator, endured words which are used of creatures; which are not proper to Him, as being the Word, but are ours who are created in Him…so, when for our need He became man, consistently does He use language, as ourselves, ‘The Lord hath created Me,’ that, by His dwelling in the flesh, sin might perfectly be expelled from the flesh, and we might have a free mind.

St. John Chrysostom (349 – 407 AD) – Homilies on Paul’s Epistle to the Romans
But after this, they of the seed of Abraham all became subject to punishment. For the Law wrought wrath unto them by being transgressed, and thenceforward deprived them of that promise made unto the fathers…For having fulfilled the whole Law in which He also fulfilled the circumcision, and having by it, and by the Cross, freed them from the curse of the transgression, He suffered not this promise to fall to the ground. When then he calls Him “a Minister of the circumcision,” he means this, that by having come and fulfilled the Law, and been circumcised, and born of the seed of Abraham, He undid the curse, stayed the anger of God, made also those that were to receive the promises fit for them, as being once for all freed from their alienation.To prevent then these accused persons from saying, How then came Christ to be circumcised and to keep the whole Law? he turns their argument to the opposite conclusion. For it was not that the Law might continue, but that He might put an end to it, and free thee from the curse thereof, and set thee entirely at liberty from the dominion of that Law. For it was because thou hadst transgressed the Law, that He fulfilled it, not that thou mightest fulfil it…

St. John Chrysostom (349 – 407 AD) – Commentary on Galatians
“But when the fullness of the time came God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, under the Law that he might redeem them which were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.” Here he states two objects and effects of the Incarnation, deliverance from evil and supply of good, things which none could compass but Christ. They are these; deliverance from the curse of the Law, and promotion to sonship. Fitly does he say, that we might “receive,” “[be paid,]” implying that it was due; for the promise was of old time made for these objects to Abraham, as the Apostle has himself shown at great length. And how does it appear that we have become sons? he has told us one mode, in that we have put on Christ who is the Son; and now he mentions another, in that we have received the Spirit of adoption.“And because ye are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. So that thou art no longer a bond-servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God.”

St. John Chrysostom (349 – 407 AD) – Commentary on the Gospel of St. John
So that when you hear that “the Word became Flesh,” be not disturbed nor cast down. For that Essence did not change to flesh, (it is impiety to imagine this,) but continuing what it is, It so took upon It the form of a servant. Wherefore then does he use the expression, “was made”? To stop the mouths of the heretics. For since there are some who say that all the circumstances of the Dispensation were an appearance, a piece of acting, an allegory, at once to remove beforehand their blasphemy, he has put “was made”; desiring to show thereby not a change of substance, (away with the thought,) but the assumption of very flesh. For as when (Paul) says, “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us,” he does not mean that His essence removing from Its proper glory took upon It the being of an accursed thing, (this not even devils could imagine, nor even the very foolish, nor those deprived of their natural understanding, such impiety as well as madness does it contain,) as (St. Paul) does not say this, but that He, taking upon Himself the curse pronounced against us, leaves us no more under the curse; so also here he (St. John) says that He “was made Flesh,” not by changing His Essence to flesh, but by taking flesh to Himself, His Essence remained untouched.

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – Commentary on the Gospel of St. John, Chapter I
The first man, being earthy, and of the earth, and having, placed in his own power, the choice between good and evil, being master of the inclination to each, was caught of bitter guile, and having inclined to disobedience, falls to the earth, the mother from whence he sprang, and over-mastered now at length by corruption and death, transmits the penalty to his whole race…Since then the first Adam preserved not the grace given him of God, God the Father was minded to send us from Heaven the second Adam. For He sendeth in our likeness His own Son Who is by Nature without variableness or change, and wholly unknowing of sin, that as by the disobedience of the first, we became subject to Divine wrath, so through the obedience of the Second, we might both escape the curse, and its evils might come to nought…For this reason, I deem, it was that the holy Baptist profitably added, I saw the Spirit descending from Heaven, and It abode upon Him. For It had fled from us by reason of sin, but He Who knew no sin, became as one of us, that the Spirit might be accustomed to abide in us, having no occasion of departure or withdrawal in Him.

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – Commentary on the Gospel of St. Luke
But recently we saw the Emmanuel lying as a babe in the manger, and wrapped in human fashion in swaddling bands, but extolled as God in hymns by the host of the holy angels. For they proclaimed to the shepherds His birth, God the Father having granted to the inhabitants of heaven as a special privilege to be the first to preach Him. And to-day too we have seen Him obedient to the laws of Moses, or rather we have seen Him Who as God is the Legislator, subject to His own decrees. And the reason of this the most wise Paul teaches us, saying, “When we were babes we were enslaved under the elements of the world; but when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem them that were under the law.” Christ therefore ransomed from the curse of the law those who being subject to it, had been unable to keep its enactments. And in what way did He ransom them? By fulfilling it. 

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – Commentary on Gospel of St. John Book XII
For He That was truly God, and had no sin in Him, was yet Man; and just as the sentence of condemnation for transgression went forth over all mankind, through one man, the first Adam, so likewise, also, the blessing of justification by Christ is extended to all through One Man, the Second Adam. Paul is our witness, who says: As through one the judgment came unto all men to condemnation; even so through One the free gift came unto all men to justification of life. We therefore are diseased through the disobedience of the first Adam and its curse, but are enriched through the obedience of the Second and its blessing. For He that was Lord of the Law as God came among us, and kept the Law as Man. Yea, we find Him saying unto us: He that loveth Me will keep My commandments; even as I have kept My Father’s commandments, and abide in His love.  

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – Commentary on the Gospel of St. John
For albeit the Son were by nature God and had shone forth from His essence and possessed naturally the immutability of His proper being, and for this cause in no wise could stumble into sin, or turn aside anywhither into what is not right, the Father caused him voluntarily to descend into the flesh that is subject to sin, with intent that making very flesh His own, He might bring it over unto His own natural property, to wit, sinlessness. For, I conceive, we shall not be right in believing that it was with intent to effect this for the Temple of His own Body alone that the Only-begotten has been made man; for where were the glory and profit of His Advent unto us to be seen, if He accomplished the salvation of His own Body alone? But we believe rather that it was to secure the benefits for all nature through Himself and in Himself first as in the firstfruits of humanity, that the Only-begotten has become like us. For like as we have followed after not only death but all the sufferings of the flesh, undergoing this suffering in the first man by reason as well of the transgression as of the divine curse; after the same sort, I conceive, shall we all of us follow Christ, as He saves in many ways and sanctifies the nature of the flesh in Himself. Wherefore also Paul said: And as we love the image of the earthy, we shall bear also the image of the heavenly. For the image of the earthy, to wit of Adam, is to be in sufferings and corruption; and the image of the heavenly, to wit of Christ, is to be in impassibility and incorruption. So then the Word being God by nature condemned sin in His own flesh, by charging it to cease its activity, or rather so amending it as that it should move after the good pleasure of God, and no longer at its own will; and so whereas the body was natural, He made it spiritual. This then is one method of the gathering together; but the method that is most befitting and appropriate to the drift of the passage before us shall follow it. And it will be our task to speak touching eternal life and the slaying of Death, and how the Only-begotten removed from human nature the corruption that came of the transgression. Therefore forasmuch as the children are partakers of blood and flesh, He also in like manner took part in the same with intent to slay Death, and that He that created all things unto immortality and made the generations of the world healthful, according as it is written, might remould once more the fashion of things unto their ancient estate.

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – Commentary on the Gospel of St. John
For if we examine as well as we may the real character of the mystery of His work, we shall see that He died, not merely for Himself, nor even especially for His own sake; but that it was on behalf of humanity that He suffered and carried out both the suffering in itself and the resurrection that followed. For in that He died according to the flesh, He offered up His own life as an equivalent for the life of all; and by rendering perfect satisfaction for all, He fulfilled in Himself to the uttermost the force of that ancient curse. And in that He has risen again from the dead to a life imperishable and unceasing, in Himself He raises the whole of nature.

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – Five Tomes Against Netorius, Tome III
The God of all uttered the Law to them of old, Moses being mediator. But there was not in the Law the power of achieving good without any blame, to those who wished it (for it hath perfected nothing). But neither was the first covenant found faultless, but the all-wise Paul called it the ministry of condemnation. I hear him say, We know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become under sentence before God, because by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight, (for the Law worketh unto wrath, and the Letter killeth), and as himself somewhere saith, He that despised Moses’ law dieth without mercy under two or three witnesses. Seeing therefore that the Law condemneth them that sin and decreeth sometimes the uttermost punishment to them that disregard it, and in no wise pitieth, how was not the manifestation to them on the earth of a Compassionate and truly Merciful High Priest necessary? of One Who should make the curse to cease, should stop the condemnation and free sinners with forgiving grace and with the bending of clemency? for I (He says) am He that blotteth out thy transgressions and will not remember. For we have been justified by faith and not out of the works of the Law, as it is written. On Whom then believing are we justified? is it not on Him who suffered death for us after the flesh? is it not on One Lord Jesus Christ? have we not on declaring His Death and confessing His Resurrection been redeemed? If therefore we have believed on a man like us and not rather on God, the thing is man-worship, and confessedly nothing else: but if we believe that He That suffered in the flesh is God, Who hath been made also our High Priest, we have no ways erred, but acknowledge the Word out of God made Man: and thus is required of us faith God-ward, Who putteth out of condemnation and freeth from sin those that are taken thereby.

Ambrose of Milan (337- 397 AD) – Letters of Ambrose, Letter 41
So, then, we have changed our creditor, not escaped wholly, or rather we have escaped, for the debt remains but the interest is cancelled, for the Lord Jesus said, To those who are in bonds, Come out, and to those who are in prison, Go forth; Isaiah 49:9 so your sins are forgiven. All, then, are forgiven, nor is there any one whom He has not loosed. For thus it is written, that He has forgiven all transgressions, doing away the handwriting of the ordinance that was against us. Colossians 2:13-14 Why, then, do we hold the bonds of others, and desire to exact the debts of others, while we enjoy our own remission? He who forgave all, required of all that what every one remembers to have been forgiven to himself, he also should forgive others.

St. Jerome (347 A.D – 420 A.D.) – Letter to Amandus
The chief stumbling-block in the passage is that the Son is said to be subject to the Father. Now which is the more shameful and humiliating, to be subject to the Father (often a mark of loving devotion as in the psalm “truly my soul is subject unto God”) or to be crucified and made the curse of the cross? For “cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree.” If Christ then for our sakes was made a curse that He might deliver us from the curse of the law, are you surprised that He is also for our sakes subject to the Father to make us too subject to Him as He says in the gospel: “No man cometh unto the Father but by me,” and “I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.” Christ then is subject to the Father in the faithful; for all believers, nay the whole human race, are accounted members of His body…He does not say “that the Father may be all in all” but that “God” may be, a title which properly belongs to the Trinity and may be referred not only to the Father but also to the Son and to the Holy Ghost. His meaning therefore is “that humanity may be subject to the Godhead.”

Pope Leo I – Letter 124, IV
What hope then do they, who deny the reality of the human person in our Saviour’s body, leave for themselves in the efficacy of this mystery? Let them say by what sacrifice they have been reconciled, by what blood-shedding brought back. Who is He who gave Himself for us an offering and a victim to God for a sweet smell (Ephesians 5:2): or what sacrifice was ever more hallowed than that which the true High priest placed upon the altar of the cross by the immolation of His own flesh? For although in the sight of the Lord the death of many of His saints has been precious, yet no innocent’s death was the propitiation of the world. The righteous have received, not given, crowns: and from the endurance of the faithful have arisen examples of patience, not the gift of justification. For their deaths affected themselves alone, and no one has paid off another’s debt by his own death: one alone among the sons of men, our Lord Jesus Christ, stands out as One in whom all are crucified, all dead, all buried, all raised again. Of them He Himself said when I am lifted from the earth, I will draw all (things) unto Me.  True faith also, that justifies the transgressors and makes them just, is drawn to Him who shared their human natures and wins salvation in Him, in whom alone man finds himself not guilty; and thus is free to glory in the power of Him who in the humiliation of our flesh engaged in conflict with the haughty foe, and shared His victory with those in whose body He had triumphed.

Theodoret (393 – 457 AD) – Dialogue I, The Immutable
“The text ‘the Word was made flesh’ does not indicate a deterioration of nature but the assumption of our nature. Suppose you take the word ‘was made’ to indicate a change; then when you hear Paul saying ‘Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us,’ do you understand him to mean a change into the nature of a curse? Just as being made a curse had no other meaning than that He took our curse upon Himself, so the words was made flesh and dwelt among us mean nothing other than the assumption of flesh.”

St. Severus of Antioch (465 – 538 AD) – LETTER TO EUPRAXIUS THE CHAMBERLAIN 
You see that on all points by being himself made a curse he becomes a dispeller of the curse, and this curse he takes up on to the cross, and thence puts it to flight: for it was overcome by the law which said, “Cursed of God is everyone who shall be hanged upon wood”. And he himself underwent the accursed death that was for our sake, and thence blessed the whole human race…So also he is said to have become sin, because he endured the death that was the due of sinners; for, while he is himself the pure justice of the Father, he is crucified between two robbers; but these on account of their offences, and in accordance with the passage in the Gospel of Mark who says, “And with him they crucified two robbers, one on the right hand and one on the left, and the Scripture was fulfilled which saith, ‘He was numbered with the unjust'”. So he became sin to remit the sins of others: so also he paid the debt that was incurred for us, and we ourselves became righteousness in Him; for those who have been freed from debts are righteous, and are not termed liable. And, because during the time of his Humanization he did no sin, therefore also iniquity was not found in him, but he showed himself righteous, that is, he is righteousness; and, when he became flesh, all our nature again was justified in him as in firstfruits.

Constitutions of the Holy Apostles
But as to those bonds which were further laid upon them after they had sinned, do not thou draw them upon thyself: for our Savior came for no other reason but that He might deliver those that were obnoxious thereto from the wrath which was reserved far them, that He might fulfill the Law and the Prophets, and that He might abrogate or change those secondary bonds which were superadded to the rest of the law. For therefore did He call to us and say, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

Fr. Tadros Malaty – Commentary on the book of Joshua
The law condemned the sin in us; thus all of us came under the curse of the law. Instead of enjoying salvation, the curse was confirmed, and we came under the verdict of death. That is why, the Lord Jesus Christ came to remove the ‘head cover of execution’, and to abolish the authority of death, not by words or commands, but through practical love; He carried our body, to receive death in it; and to bear our judgment in His body; He, on whom death is unable to shut in, nor judgment be proven; rose, in order to raise us, righteous, in His body; so that the curse cannot, any more, reign on us. That is why the apostle says: “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law” (Galatians 3: 13); and, “For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh” (Romans 8:3). It is as though the Lord Christ has realized the ultimate aim of the law, namely our salvation, by carrying the judgment in His body, setting us free from judgment; He came under the law, to liberate us from its killing literality.

Christ redeemed us from the curse, by becoming a curse for us, thus making perfect satisfaction for the requirement of the Law:

Fr. Tadros Malaty – Commentary on Galatians
We can say that through sin we became under the curse, while our Savior who is without sin became a curse for our sake not by committing a sin but by being hanged on a tree, and thus he embraced us while we were under the curse and saved us from it by His grace. The crucified Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law by fulfilling in his Person all the requirements of the Law perfectly and at the same time making complete and perfect satisfaction for all the transgressions of the Jews (and mankind in general) against the Law. The Law thus satisfied has no further claims on Him nor on the rest of the human race in so far as they are united with Him by baptism.

Exodus 12:3-11
…each man is to take a lamb for his family, one for each household… Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs. That same night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire, along with bitter herbs, and bread made without yeast…

Leviticus 4:13-15 (Septuagint)
And if the whole congregation of Israel trespass ignorantly, and a thing should escape the notice of the congregation, and they should do one thing forbidden of any of the commands of the Lord, which ought not to be done, and should transgress: and the sin wherein they have sinned should become known to them, then shall the congregation bring an unblemished calf of the herd for a sin-offering, and they shall bring it to the doors of the tabernacle of witness. And the elders of the congregation shall lay their hands on the head of the calf before the Lord, and they shall slay the calf before the Lord.

Leviticus 4: 33-35 (Septuagint)
And he shall lay his hand on the head of the sin-offerings, and they shall kill it in the place where they kill the victims for whole-burnt-offerings. And the priest shall take of the blood of the sin-offering with his finger…the priest shall make atonement for him for the sin which he sinned, and it shall be forgiven him.

Leviticus 5:6 (Septuagint)
And he shall bring for his transgressions against the Lord, for his sin which he has sinned, a ewe lamb of the flock, or a kid of the goats, for a sin-offering; and the priest shall make an atonement for him for his sin which he has sinned, and his sin shall be forgiven him.

Numbers 16: 44-50 (Septuagint)
And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying Depart out of the midst of this congregation, and I will consume them at once: and they fell upon their faces. And Moses said to Aaron, Take a censer, and put on it fire from the altar, and put incense on it, and carry it away quickly into the camp, and make atonement for them; for wrath is gone forth from the presence of the Lord, it has begun to destroy the people. And Aaron took as Moses spoke to him, and ran among the congregation, for already the plague had begun among the people; and he put on incense, and made an atonement for the people. And he stood between the dead and the living, and the plague ceased. 

2 Samuel (24:17,25)
“When David saw the angel who was striking down the people, he said to the Lord, “I have sinned; I, the shepherd, have done wrong. These are but sheep. What have they done? Let your hand fall on me and my family…David built an altar to the Lord there and sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings. Then the Lord answered his prayer in behalf of the land, and the plague on Israel was stopped.“

Hebrews 9:22
And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.

Exodus 12:12-13
“On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord. The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt… Eat it in haste; it is the Lord’s Passover.

Justin Martyr – From manuscript of writings of Justin
The goat that was sent away presented a type of Him who taketh away the sins of men. But the two contained a representation of the one economy of God incarnate. For He was wounded for our transgressions, and He bare the sins of many, and He was delivered for our iniquities.

St. Athanasius (296 – 373 AD) – Festal Epistles
Now He willed it to be in every place, so that in every place incense and a sacrifice might be offered to Him…Our Savior also, since He was changing the typical for the spiritual, promised them that they should no longer eat the flesh of a lamb, but His own, saying. Take, eat and drink; this is My body, and My blood. When we are then nourished by these things, we shall also, my beloved, properly keep the feast of the Passover.

St. Athanasius – Festal Letters, Letter 6
And, in offering his son, he worshipped the Son of God. And, being restrained from sacrificing Isaac, he saw the Messiah in the ram, which was offered up instead as a sacrifice to God. The patriarch was tried, through Isaac, not however that he was sacrificed, but He who was pointed out in Isaiah; ‘He shall be led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers he shall be speechless;’ but He took away the sin of the world…Thus God accepted the will of the offerer, but prevented that which was offered from being sacrificed. For the death of Isaac did not procure freedom to the world, but that of our Saviour alone, by whose stripes we all are healed.

Eusebius of Caesarea (263 -339 AD) – Proof of the Gospel
He then that was alone of those who ever existed, the Word of God before all worlds, and High Priest of every creature that has mind and reason, separated One of like passions with us, as a sheep or lamb from the human flock, branded on Him all our sins, and fastened on Him as well the curse that was adjudged by Moses’ law, as Moses foretells: “Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.” This He suffered ” being made a curse for us: and making himself sin for our sakes.” And then “He made him sin for our sakes who knew no sin,” and laid on Him all the punishments due to us for our sins, bonds, insults, contumelies, scourging, and shameful blows, and the crowning trophy of the Cross. And after all this when He had offered such a wondrous offering and choice victim to the Father, and sacrificed for the salvation of us all, He delivered a memorial to us to offer to God continually instead of a sacrifice.

Eusebius of Caesarea (263 -339 AD) –  Demonstratio Evangelica, BOOK IV 
Since then according to the witness of the prophets the great and precious ransom has been found for Jews and Greeks alike, the propitiation for the whole world, the life given for the life of all men, the pure offering for every stain and sin, the Lamb of God, the holy sheep dear to God, the Lamb that was foretold, by Whose inspired and mystic teaching all we Gentiles have procured the forgiveness of our former sins, and such Jews as hope in Him are freed from the curse of Moses, daily celebrating His memorial, the remembrance of His Body and Blood, and are admitted to a greater sacrifice than that of the ancient law…And any Jews, of course, who have taken refuge in Christ, even if they attend no longer to the ordinances of Moses, but live according to the new covenant, are free from the curse ordained by Moses, for the Lamb of God has surely not only taken on Himself the sin of the world, but also the curse involved in the breach of the commandments of Moses as well. The Lamb of God is made thus both sin and curse—sin for the sinners in the world, and curse for those remaining in all the things written in Moses’ law. And so the Apostle says: “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us”; and “Him that knew no sin, for our sakes he made sin.”For what is there that the Offering for the whole world could not effect, the Life given for the life of sinners, Who was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a lamb to the sacrifice, and all this for us and on our behalf? And this was why those ancient men of God, as they had not yet the reality, held fast to their symbols.

St. Cyril of Alexandria – Commentary on Hosea, Chapter 4
The priest, therefore, was taken as a mediator between God and man, accepting the gifts from the people and having a share in what is sacrificed on the altar, as Scripture says; he sacrificed himself, as it were, for the sins of the people, as of course our Lord Jesus Christ also did. For proof that what I say is true, I shall cite the Law dealing with the he-goat; it goes as follows: “Moses made an inquiry about the he-goat of the sin offering, and it had already been burnt. Moses was angry with Eleazar and Ithamar, Aaron’s remaining sons, and said, Why did you not eat the sin offering in a holy place? For it is a holy of holies, and he has given it to you to eat there for you to remove the sin of the assembly, to make atonement on their behalf before the Lord.” Do you see how those assisting at the holy altar and appeasing wrath for sinners with pure prayers act as mediators by eating the sin offerings, as it were, offering to God their own souls as a sweet-smelling odor for the sins of the people? As in the case of the divinely inspired Aaron, of course, when the people took ill, Scripture says, he seized the censer, put on the incense, “stood between the dead and the living, and the plague was stopped.” The blessed Moses likewise acted as mediator as well and placated God when the people of Israel had made a golden heifer in the wilderness; he submitted himself to justice and made an appeal, “If you will forgive their sin, forgive it; but if not, blot me also out of this book you have written.”  

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – Commentary on the Gospel of St. John
And, marvel of marvels, the most absurd and irrational idea of all, they think themselves purified by the slaughter of a lamb, which typified for us nothing but the shadow of the mystery that is in Christ; and, while honouring the type of what is coming to pass, they scorn the reality itself. For while they were performing that which was but the semblance of His Atonement, they were defiled by the shedding of the Blood of Christ.  

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – Five Tomes Against Nestorious
But let us see from the legal and more ancient scripture too in what manner and for whom, Emmanuel hath offered Himself for an odour of a sweet smell unto God the Father…For God the Father was representing the sacrifices that were to be made for sins, in the Law as on a tablet, outlining yet the mystery of Christ, and thus He said to the hierophant Moses, If the whole congregation of the children of  Israel sin unwillingly and the thing be hid from the eyes of the assembly and they have done one of all the commandments of the Lord which should not be done, and have transgressed and the sin be known to them which they have sinned therein, the congregation shall offer a young bullock without blemish from among the herd for the sin. And having fully gone through how the details of the sacrifice should be done, He adds and says, And the priest shall make an atonement for them and the sin shall be forgiven them. Observe then that the bullock was offered as a type of Christ the All-Pure and That hath no spot, and they who offer and not surely the bullock were set free from their guilt…we say that the Word out of God the Father was made the High Priest and Apostle of our confession when He was made Man, abasing Himself unto emptiness and in our condition: in order that having offered Himself to the Father for an odour of sweet smell in behalf of all, He might win all under Heaven, might remove the ancient guilt, might justify by grace through faith, might render superior to death and decay, holy and hallowed and full well versed in every kind of virtue confessing Him their Saviour and Redeemer, through Whom and with Whom to God the Father be glory with the Holy Ghost for evermore. Amen.

Fr. Matta El Miskeen (Matthew the Poor) – The Titles of Christ
Slaughtering the bull and shedding its blood stood as a life for a life; for blood is known to contain the life or soul. The bull’s soul and life were given in lieu of the sinner’s soul and death. As it were, the bull’s soul and life saved the sinner’s life before God. In meaning and actual fact, the sacrifice should die for the sinner to live. The fire represents God’s anger and the curse which, instead of consuming the sinner, consumed the bull completely. The bull bore God’s curse and wrath instead of the sinner. The offering, here, was considered an expiation for the sinner’s sins. The slaughter, death and blood of the bull brought about God’s forgiveness. The blood, which was sprin­kled before God on the mercy seat, carried those sins. The burning fire, which completely annihilated the bull, signified and atoned for God’s curse and wrath and His neglect and total, final abandonment of the sinner.

Fr. Abraam D. Sleman, St Basil Liturgy Reference Book
The people confess their sins during offering the incense among them. The incense brings into our memory the redemptive act of the Lord’s Atonement on the cross. Every one confesses his sins to be redeemed by the Blood of Jesus and to be saved from the plagues resulting from his sins.

Father Athanasius Iskander, UNDERSTANDING THE LITURGY
God ordered Aaron and his children to offer incense twice a day, once in the morning (Ex. 30:7) and once in the evening (Ex. 30:8). Our Church observes this ordinance in the morning and evening Offering of Incense service. But God also ordered another offering of incense, during the high priestly sacrifice of Yum Kippur (the day of atonement). This sacrifice, the most solemn of all the Old Testament sacrifices was done only once a year. Only the high priest could offer it, because he was the only one allowed to enter the Holy of Holies (the second tabernacle) to make this offering. He went in “not without blood to offer for his own sins and for the people’s ignorance” (Heb. 9:7). After offering the sacrifice Aaron was instructed to “take a censer full of burning coals of fire from off the altar before the Lord, and his hands full of sweet incense beaten small, and bring it within the veil. And he shall put the incense upon the fire before the Lord, that the cloud of incense may cover the mercy seat that is upon the testimony, that he die not” (Lev. 16:12-13). Saint Paul tells us that this Old Testament sacrifice was only a shadow and a figure of Christ’s perfect sacrifice, Who “Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us” (Heb. 9:12). The priest’s entrance into the sanctuary (behind the veil) to offer incense is in emulation of the Old Testament ordinance. We do this because as we said before, these sacrifices were types and figures of Christ’s eternal sacrifice. And if it behoved Aaron to offer incense over the animal sacrifices of the Old Testament, how much more it behoves the priests of the New Testament to offer incense over Christ’s perfect sacrifice, whose memorial is on the altar?

Isaiah Chapter 53 (Septuagint)
O Lord, who has believed our report? and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed We brought a report as of a child before him; he is as a root in a thirsty land: he has no form nor comeliness; and we saw him, but he had no form nor beauty. But his form was ignoble, and inferior to that of the children of men; he was a man in suffering, and acquainted with the bearing of sickness, for his face is turned from us: he was dishonored, and not esteemed. He bears our sins, and is pained for us: yet we accounted him to be in trouble, and in suffering, and in affliction. But he was wounded on account of our sins, and was bruised because of our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and by his bruises we were healed. All we as sheep have gone astray; every one has gone astray in his way; and the Lord gave him up for our sins. And he, because of his affliction, opens not his mouth: he was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before the shearer is dumb, so he opens not his mouth. In his humiliation his judgment was taken away: who shall declare his generation? for his life is taken away from the earth: because of the iniquities of my people he was led to death. And I will give the wicked for his burial, and the rich for his death; for he practised no iniquity, nor craft with his mouth. The Lord also is pleased to purge him from his stroke. If ye can give an offering for sin, your soul shall see a long-lived seed: the Lord also is pleased to take away from the travail of his soul, to shew him light, and to form him with understanding; to justify the just one who serves many well; and he shall bear their sins. Therefore he shall inherit many, and he shall divide the spoils of the mighty; because his soul was delivered to death: and he was numbered among the transgressors; and he bore the sins of many, and was delivered because of their iniquities. 

Isaiah 53:4, 8-12 (Hebrew)
Surely our diseases he did bear, and our pains he carried; whereas we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted….By oppression and judgment he was taken away, and with his generation who did reason? for he was cut off out of the land of the living, for the transgression of my people to whom the stroke was due. And they made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich his tomb; although he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.’ Yet it pleased the LORD to crush him by disease; to see if his soul would offer itself in restitution, that he might see his seed, prolong his days, and that the purpose of the LORD might prosper by his hand: Of the travail of his soul he shall see to the full, even My servant, who by his knowledge did justify the Righteous One to the many, and their iniquities he did bear. Therefore will I divide him a portion among the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the mighty; because he bared his soul unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

Isaiah 53:10 – KJV
Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin.

Isaiah 63:1-3
Who is this coming from Edom, from Bozrah, with his garments stained crimson? Who is this, robed in splendor, striding forward in the greatness of his strength? “It is I, proclaiming victory, mighty to save.” Why are your garments red, like those of one treading the winepress? “I have trodden the winepress alone; from the nations no one was with me.

Psalm 69:26
For they persecute him whom thou hast smitten; and they talk to the grief of those whom thou hast wounded.

Psalm 69:4, 26 (Septuagint)
They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of my head: my enemies that persecute me unrighteously are strengthened: then I restored that which I took not away…Because they persecuted him whom thou hast smitten; and they have added to the grief of my wounds.

Psalm 88:6-9
You have put me in the lowest pit, in the darkest depths. Your wrath lies heavily on me; you have overwhelmed me with all your waves. You have taken from me my closest friends and have made me repulsive to them.

Zechariah 13:7
Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the LORD of hosts: smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered: and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones.

Mark 14:27
“You will all fall away,” Jesus told them, “for it is written: “‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.’

Luke 24:7
The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.

John 19:11
Jesus answered, “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above.

Matthew 27:46
And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

John 3:16
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

John 3:36
He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.

Romans 4:25
He was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.

Romans 8:32-34
He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.

Galatians 1:4
Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father

Galatians 3:13
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree. 

1 Peter 2:24
“He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.”

Revelation 19:13-16
He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. Coming out of his mouth is a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. “He will rule them with an iron scepter.” He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS

St. Barnabas (? – 61 AD) – Epistle of Barnabas
The Son of God therefore came in the flesh with this view, that He might bring to a head the sum of their sins who had persecuted His prophets to the death. For this purpose, then, He endured. For God saith, “The stroke of his flesh is from them;” and “when I shall smite the Shepherd, then the sheep of the flock shall be scattered.” He himself willed thus to suffer, for it was necessary that He should suffer on the tree.

St. Justin Martyr (100 – 165 AD) – First Apology of Justin, Chap 50
He was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of peace was upon Him, by His stripes we are healed…Accordingly, after He was crucified, even all His acquaintances forsook Him, having denied Him; and afterwards, when He had risen from the dead and appeared to them, and had taught them to read the prophecies in which all these things were foretold as coming to pass…

St. Clement of Alexandria (150 – 215 AD) – The Instructor
And this same Word who inflicts punishment is judge; regarding whom Esaias also says, “The Lord has assigned Him to our sins,” plainly as a corrector and reformer of sins. Wherefore He alone is able to forgive our iniquities, who has been appointed by the Father, Instructor of us all; He alone it is who is able to distinguish between disobedience and obedience. 

Tertullian (160 -220 AD) – De Fuga In Persecutione
Why, in this very standing of yours there was a fleeing from persecution, in the release from persecution which you bought; but that you should ransom with money a man whom Christ has ransomed with His blood, how unworthy is it of God and His ways of acting, who spared not His own Son for you, that He might be made a curse for us, because cursed is he that hangeth on a tree, — Him who was led as a sheep to be a sacrifice, and just as a lamb before its shearer, so opened He not His mouth; but gave His back to the scourges, nay, His cheeks to the hands of the smiter, and turned not away His face from spitting, and, being numbered with the transgressors, was delivered up to death, nay, the death of the cross. All this took place that He might redeem us from our sins.

Tertullian (160 -220 AD) – Against Praxeas, Chapter 30
What is your inquiry and reasoning about that? You have Him exclaiming in the midst of His passion: “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” Either, then, the Son suffered, being “forsaken” by the Father, and the Father consequently suffered nothing, inasmuch as He forsook the Son; or else, if it was the Father who suffered, then to what God was it that He addressed His cry? But this was the voice of flesh and soul, that is to say, of man — not of the Word and Spirit, that is to say, not of God; and it was uttered so as to prove the impassibility of God, who “forsook” His Son, so far as He handed over His human substance to the suffering of death. This verity the apostle also perceived, when he writes to this effect: “If the Father spared not His own Son.” This did Isaiah before him likewise perceive, when he declared: “And the Lord hath delivered Him up for our offenses.” In this manner He “forsook” Him, in not sparing Him; “forsook” Him, in delivering Him up. In all other respects the Father did not forsake the Son, for it was into His Father’s hands that the Son commended His spirit. Indeed, after so commending it, He instantly died; and as the Spirit remained with the flesh, the flesh cannot undergo the full extent of death, i.e., in corruption and decay. For the Son, therefore, to die, amounted to His being forsaken by the Father.

Melito of Sardis explains that the ram which was slain in place of Isaac, is a type of Christ sacrificed to redeem humanity. He also explains that Isaac who was led by his father to a mountain to be slain, is a perfect type of Christ:

Melito, Bishop of Sardis (? – 180 A.D) – From the Catena on Genesis
In place of Isaac the just, a ram appeared for slaughter, in order that Isaac might be liberated from his bonds. The slaughter of this animal redeemed Isaac from death. In like manner, the Lord, being slain, saved us; being bound, He loosed us; being sacrificed, He redeemed us…For the Lord was a lamb, like the ram which Abraham saw caught in the bush Sabec. But this bush represented the cross, and that place Jerusalem, and the lamb the Lord bound for slaughter. For as a ram was He bound, says he concerning our Lord Jesus Christ, and as a lamb was He shorn, and as a sheep was He led to the slaughter, and as a lamb was He crucified; and He carried the cross on His shoulders when He was led up to the hill to be slain, as was Isaac by his father. But Christ suffered, and Isaac did not suffer: for he was but a type of Him who should suffer. Yet, even when serving only for a type of Christ, he smote men with astonishment and fear. For a new mystery was presented to view,-a son led by his father to a mountain to be slain, whose feet he bound together, and laid him on the wood of the sacrifice, preparing with care whatever was necessary to his immolation. Isaac on his part is silent, bound like a ram, not opening his mouth, nor uttering a sound with his voice. For, not fearing the knife, nor quailing before the fire, nor troubled by the prospect of suffering, he sustained bravely the character of the type of the Lord. Accordingly there lies Isaac before us, with his feet bound like a ram, his father standing by, with the knife all bare in his hand, not shrinking from shedding the blood of his son.

Origen (185 -254 AD) – Origen De Principiis
The Father of Jesus is therefore a tender and loving Father, though “He spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up” as His lamb “for us all,” that so “the Lamb of God,” by dying for all men, might “take away the sin of the world.” It was not by compulsion, therefore, but willingly, that He bore the reproaches of those who reviled Him.

Origen (185 -254 AD) – Origen Against Celsus
He continues in this strain: “If he had determined upon these things, and underwent chastisement in obedience to his Father, it is manifest that, being a God, and submitting voluntarily, those things that were done agreeably to his own decision were neither painful nor distressing.” But he did not observe that here he was at once contradicting himself. For if he granted that He was chastised because He had determined upon these things, and had submitted Himself to His Father, it is clear that He actually suffered punishment, and it was impossible that what was inflicted on Him by His chastisers should not be painful, because pain is an involuntary thing. But if, because He was willing to suffer, His inflictions were neither painful nor distressing, how did He grant that “He was chastised?” He did not perceive that when Jesus had once, by His birth, assumed a body, He assumed one which was capable both of suffering pains, and those distresses incidental to humanity, if we are to understand by distresses what no one voluntarily chooses. Since, therefore, He voluntarily assumed a body, not wholly of a different nature from that of human flesh, so along with His body He assumed also its sufferings and distresses, which it was not in His power to avoid enduring, it being in the power of those who inflicted them to send upon Him things distressing and painful. 

St. Cyprian (200 -258 AD) – Treatises of S. Caecilius Cyprian, TREATISE XI.
In fine, all His actions, even from His first coming, are marked by patience as their companion; because first descending out of that heavenly height, into earthly places, the Son of Gods scorned not to put on the flesh of man; and while He Himself was not a sinner, to bear the sins of others. Meantime, putting off His immortality, He suffers Himself to be made mortal, that He, the innocent, may be slain for the salvation of the guilty.

St. Athanasius (296 – 373 AD) – Orationes contra Arianos 
For as by receiving our infirmities, He is said to be infirm Himself, though not Himself infirm, for He is the Power of God, and He became sin for us and a curse, though not having sinned Himself, but because He Himself bare our sins and our curse, so, by creating us in Him, let Him say, ‘He created me for the works,’ though not Himself a creature.

St. Athanasius (296 – 373 AD) – Discourses Against the Arians 
‘Christ hath become a curse for us,’ and ‘He hath made Him sin for us who knew no sin,’ we do not simply conceive this, that whole Christ has become curse and sin, but that He has taken on Him the curse which lay against us (as the Apostle has said, ‘Has redeemed us from the curse,’ and ‘has carried,’ as Isaiah has said, ‘our sins,’ and as Peter has written, ‘has borne them in the body on the wood’); so, if it is said in the Proverbs ‘He created,’ we must not conceive that the whole Word is in nature a creature, but that He put on the created body and that God created Him for our sakes, preparing for Him the created body, as it is written, for us, that in Him we might be capable of being renewed and deified. 

Eusebius of Caesarea (263 -339 AD) – The Proof of the Gospel Vol 1
In this he shews that Christ, being apart from all sin, will receive the sins of men on Himself. And therefore He will suffer the penalty of sinners, and will be pained on their behalf; and not on His own. And if He shall be wounded by the strokes of blasphemous words, this also will be the result of our sins. For He is weakened through our sins, so that we, when He had taken on Him our faults and the wounds of our wickedness, might be healed by His stripes

Eusebius of Caesarea (263 -339 AD) – Proof of the Gospel
And He speaks thus, since He shares our sins. So it is said: “And the Lord hath laid on him our iniquities, and he bears our sins.” Thus the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world, became a curse on our behalf: “Whom, though he knew no sin, God made sin for our sake, giving him as redemption for all, that we might become the righteousness of God in him.” But since being in the likeness of sinful flesh He condemned sin in the flesh, the words quoted are rightly used. And in that He made our sins His own from His love and benevolence towards us, He says these words, adding further on in the same Psalm: “Thou hast protected me because of my innocence,” clearly shewing the impeccability of the Lamb of God. And how can He make our sins His own, and be said to bear our iniquities, except by our being regarded as His body, according to the apostle, who says: “Now ye are the body of Christ, and severally members?”…And the Lamb of God not only did this, but was chastised on our behalf, and suffered a penalty He did not owe, but which we owed because of the multitude of our sins; and so He became the cause of the forgiveness of our sins, because He received death for us, and transferred to Himself the scourging, the insults, and the dishonor, which were due to us, and drew down on Himself the apportioned curse, being made a curse for us. And what is that but the price of our souls? And so the oracle says in our person: “By his stripes we were healed,” and ” The Lord delivered him for our sins,” with the result that uniting Himself to us and us to Himself, and appropriating our sufferings, He can say, ” I said, Lord, Lord mercy on me, heal my soul,  for I have sinned against thee”…

Eusebius of Caesarea (263 -339 AD) – Life of the Blessed Emperor Constantine
I may allege yet a third cause of the Saviour’s death. He was the victim offered to the Supreme Sovereign of the universe for the whole human race…This was that sacrifice delivered up to death, of which the sacred oracles speak: “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”…They declare also the cause, saying: “He bears our sins, and is pained for us: yet we accounted him to be in trouble, and in suffering, and in affliction. But he was wounded on account of our sins, and bruised because of our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and by his bruises we were healed. All we as sheep have gone astray; every one has gone astray in this way; and the Lord gave him up for our sins.”  

St. Hilary of Poitiers (310 – 367 AD) – On the Trinity, Book X
He was found in fashion as a man, with a body which could feel pain, but His nature could not feel pain; for, though His fashion was that of a man, His origin was not human, but He was born by conception of the Holy Ghost. For the reasons mentioned, He was esteemed ‘stricken, smitten and afflicted.’ He took the form of a servant: and ‘man born of a Virgin’ conveys to us the idea of One Whose nature felt pain when He suffered. But though He was wounded it was ‘for our transgressions.’

St. Hilary of Poitiers (310 – 367 AD) – On the Trinity, Book X
If then He said, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me, and Father, into Thy hands I commend My Spirit, that we might be sure that He did die, was not this, in His care for our faith, rather a scattering of our doubts, than a confession of His weakness? When He was about to restore Lazarus, He prayed to the Father: but what need had He of prayer, Who said, Father, I thank Thee, that Thou hast heard Me; and I know that Thou hearest Me always, but because of the multitude I said it, that they may believe that Thou didst send Me? He prayed then for us, that we may know Him to be the Son; the words of prayer availed Him nothing, but He said them for the advancement of our faith. He was not in want of help, but we of teaching. Again He prayed to be glorified; and immediately was heard from heaven the voice of God the Father glorifying Him: but when they wondered at the voice, He said, This voice hath not come for My sake, but for your sakes. The Father is besought for us, He speaks for us: may all this lead us to believe and confess! The answer of the Glorifier is granted not to the prayer for glory, but to the ignorance of the bystanders: must we not then regard the complaint of suffering, when He found His greatest joy in suffering, as intended for the building up of our faith?…If Christ, ever secure of His divinity, made clear to us His death, Himself indifferent to death, yet dying to assure that it was true humanity that He had assumed: why should we use this very confession of the Son of God that for us He became Son of Man and died as the chief weapon to deny His divinity?

Ambrose of Milan (337- 397 AD) – Sermon Against Auxentius on Giving Up of the Basilicas
Do they not consider these very words which they have brought forward; that Christ is said to have been made, but of a woman; that is, He was “made” as regards his birth from a Virgin, Who was begotten of the Father as regards His divine generation? Have they read also to-day, “that Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us”? Was Christ a curse in His Godhead? But why He is called a curse the Apostle tells us, saying that it is written: “Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree,” that is, He Who in his flesh bore our flesh, in His body bore our infirmities and our curses, that He might crucify them; for He was not cursed Himself, but was cursed in thee. I So it is written elsewhere: “Who knew no sin, but was made sin for us, for He bore our sins, that he might destroy them by the Sacrament of His Passion.”

Ambrose of Milan (337- 397 AD) – Exposition of the Christian Faith, Book IV
He is not alone, for whatsoever things the Father doeth, the same things doeth the Son also, in like manner. He is not weak, for though in the flesh He suffered weakness for our sins yet that was the chastisement of our peace upon Him, not lack of sovereign Power in Himself.

Ambrose of Milan (337- 397 AD) – Dogmatic Treatises, Ethical Works, and Sermons Book II
For Christ died for us, that we might live in His revived Body. Therefore not our life but our guilt died in Him, “Who,” it is said, “bare our sins in His own Body on the tree; that being set free from our sins we might live in righteousness, by the wound of Whose stripes we are healed.”

Ambrose of Milan (337- 397 AD) – Exposition of the Christian Faith
As, then, He was made sin and a curse not on His own account but on ours, so He became subject in us not for His own sake but for ours, being not in subjection in His eternal Nature, nor accursed in His eternal Nature. “For cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.” Cursed He was, for He bore our curses; in subjection, also, for He took upon Him our subjection, but in the assumption of the form of a servant, not in the glory of God; so that whilst he makes Himself a partaker of our weakness in the flesh, He makes us partakers of the divine Nature in His power.

Ambrose of Milan (337- 397 AD) – Exposition of the Christian Faith, Book IV
Here, indeed, our adversaries may perchance enquire: “How can the Father and the Son be One, if the Son at one time commands, at another entreats?” True, They are One; true also, He both commands and prays: yet whilst in the hour when He commands He is not alone, so also in the hour of prayer He is not weak. He is not alone, for whatsoever things the Father doeth, the same things doeth the Son also, in like manner. He is not weak, for though in the flesh He suffered weakness for our sins yet that was the chastisement of our peace upon Him, not lack of sovereign Power in Himself.

St. Cyril of  Jerusalem (313 – 386 AD) – Catechetical Lectures
He stretched forth human hands, who by His spiritual hands had established the heaven; and they were fastened with nails, that His manhood which bore the sins of men, having been nailed to the tree, and having died, sin might die with it, and we might rise again in righteousness.

St. John Chrysostom (349 – 407 AD) – Homilies on Gospel According to St. Matthew
After this He mentions also a prophecy, “For it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered abroad:” at once persuading them ever to give heed to the things that are written, and at same time making it plain that He was crucified, according to God’s purpose; and by everything showing He was no alien from the old covenant, nor from the God preached therein, but that what is done is a dispensation, and that the prophets all proclaimed all things beforehand from the beginning that are comprised in the matter, so that they be quite confident about the better things also.

St. John Chrysostom (349 – 407 AD), On the Epistle to the Hebrews
“To appear,” he says, “in the presence of God for us.” What is “for us”? He went up (he means) with a sacrifice which had power to propitiate the Father. Wherefore (tell me)? Was He an enemy? The angels were enemies, He was not an enemy. For that the Angels were enemies, hear what he says, “He made peace as to things on earth and things in Heaven.”( Col. i. 20.) So that He also “entered into Heaven, now to appear in the presence of God for us.” He “now appeareth,” but “for us.” Nor yet that He should offer Himself often, as the High Priest entereth into the Holy place every year with blood of others.” Seest Thou how many are the differences? The “often” for the “once”; “the blood of others,” for “His own.” Great is the distance. He is Himself then both victim and Priest and sacrifice. For if it had not been so, and it had been necessary to offer many sacrifices, He must have been many times crucified. “For then,” he says, “He must often have suffered since the foundation of the world.”

St. Augustine (354 – 430 AD) – Doctrinal Treatises, The Enchiridion
He does not say, as some incorrect copies read, “He who knew no sin did sin for us,” as if Christ had Himself sinned for our sakes; but he says, “Him who knew no sin,” that is, Christ, God, to whom we are to be reconciled, “hath made to be sin for us,” that is, hath made Him a sacrifice for our sins, by which we might be reconciled to God. He, then, being made sin, just as we are made righteousness (our righteousness being not our own, but God’s, not in ourselves, but in Him); He being made sin, not His own, but ours, not in Himself, but in us, showed, by the likeness of sinful flesh in which He was crucified, that though sin was not in Him, yet that in a certain sense He died to sin, by dying in the flesh which was the likeness of sin; and that although He Himself had never lived the old life of sin, yet by His resurrection He typified our new life springing up out of the old death in sin.

St. Augustine – DeTrin. xiii. 11
What means this, ‘reconciled by the death of His Son ?’ Is it, that when the Father was angry with us He looked on the death of His Son for us and was appeased? Had the Son, then, been so completely appeased already, that He even vouchsafed to die for us, but was the Father still so incensed that He would not be appeased unless the Son died for us ? And what is it, which the same teacher of the Gentiles says elsewhere; ‘ What then shall we say to these things ? If God be for us, who is against us ? He, who spared not His own Son but delivered Him up for us all, how has He not with Him given us all things ? Would the Father, unless He had been already appeased, deliver up His Son for us, not sparing Him? Do not these statements seem to contradict each other? In the former the Son dies for us, and the Father is reconciled to us by His death; but in the latter the Father, as though He first loved us, Himself does not spare His Son for our sakes, Himself delivers Him up to death for us. But I see that the Father loved us before also, not only before the Son died for us, but before He created the world, as the Apostle himself testifies, saying, ‘As He has chosen us in Him before the creation of the world.’ Nor was the Son delivered up, for us as it were, unwillingly when the Father spared Him not, since it is said of Him also, ‘who loved me, and gave Himself for me.’ The Father therefore, and the Son, and the Spirit of Both, work all things at the same time, equally and harmoniously; yet we are justified in the blood of Christ, and reconciled to God through the death of His on.” 

St. Cyril of Alexandria – Commentary on the Twelve Prophets Vol 3, On Zechariah, Chapter 13, PG 255
Now, the fact that in surrendering his own Son to death for us the God and Father is said to strike him, or at least to let him suffer in every possible way, the Son himself confirms in the verse of the psalmist about those guilty of unholy crimes against him—namely, the Jews—“They persecuted the one you struck, and added to the distress of my wounds; add iniquity to their iniquity.” He voluntarily underwent the Passion, therefore, as I said, so that the achievement of his sufferings might be resplendent. But the fact that for the crucifiers the crime would be the source of ruin, and that those responsible for such a scheme and such exploits—namely, the leaders of the people—would be subjected to the evils arising from divine wrath, he makes clear in saying, And I shall raise my hand against the shepherds.

St. Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch Vol 1, PG 89
Furthermore, the law given through Moses decreed that the slaying of the lamb should be carried out “between the evenings,” that is, when the lamps were lit at eventide. Likewise, when the time had come, as it were, for the sun to set, through the age that was then present being in effect shortened, the Only-Begotten Word of God became a man and endured being slain for all, freeing them from any penalty or punishment, removing those who believe far from all such fear. For He himself is the true Noah, that is, righteousness and rest, for that is what the name means. For according to the Scriptures, we have been justified, not by works of righteousness that we ourselves have done, but according to his great mercy. So now for us who believe, Christ has become our righteousness and in truth our rest also, for “He was bruised because of our iniquities, and was delivered up on account of our sins; and by His wounds we are healed,” and also, “the Lord delivered Him up for our sins,” as the prophet says.

St. Cyril of Alexandria – Letter 41 (To Acacius, the Bishop Conerning the Scapegoat)
Thus Christ became a victim “for our sins according to the Scriptures.” For this reason, we say that he was named sin; wherefore, the all-wise Paul writes, “For our sakes he made him to be sin who knew nothing of sin,” that is to say, God the Father. For we do not say that Christ became a sinner, far from it, but being just, or rather in actuality justice, for he did not know sin, the Father made him a victim for the sins of the world. “He was counted among the wicked,” l having endured a condemnation most suitable for the wicked. And the divinely inspired prophet Isaiah will also vouch for this, saying, “We had all gone astray like sheep, each following his own way, but the Lord laid upon him the guilt of us all,” yet it was on our behalf he suffers, “and by his stripes we were healed.” The all-wise Peter writes, “he bore our sins in his body upon the tree.” Therefore, the lot of the necessary endurance of death hung over those on the earth through the transgression in Adam and through sin reigning from him until us. But the Word of God the Father, being generous in clemency and love of men, became flesh, that is, man, in the form of us who are under sin, and he endured our lot. For as the very excellent Paul writes, “By the grace of God he tasted death for all,” and he made his life be an exchange for the life of all. One died for all, in order that we all might live to God sanctified and brought to life through his blood, “justified as a gift by his grace.” For as the blessed evangelist John says, “The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin.”

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – Commentary on St. Luke
He bore suffering that He might deliver us from sufferings: “He was despised and not esteemed,” as it is written, that He might make us honourable: He did no sin, that He might crown our nature with similar glory: He Who for our sakes was man submitted also to our lot; and He Who gives life to the world submitted to death in the flesh…for it is written, that “He was also numbered with the transgressors.” For our sake He became a curse, that is, accursed: for it is written again, that “Cursed is every one that hangs on a tree.” But this act of His did away with the curse that was upon us: for we with Him and because of Him are blessed. And knowing this, the blessed David says:“Blessed are we of the Lord, Who made heaven and earth:” for by His sufferings blessings descend to us. He in our stead paid our debts: He bore our sins; and as it is written, “in our stead He was stricken.” “He took them up in His own body on the tree:” for it is true that “by His bruises we are healed.” He too was sick because of our sins, and we are delivered from the sicknesses of the soul.

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – On the Gospel According to John, Book XI, CHAPTER XII (John 18:22)
It had been foretold, by the mouth of the prophet, that with Christ this would come to pass: I gave My back to the scourge, and My cheeks to them that smite. He was being led on in truth to the end long ago foretold, to the verdict of Jewish presumption, which was also the abolition and determination of our deserved dishonour, for that we sinned in Adam first, and trampled under foot the Divine commandment. For He was dishonoured for our sake, in that He took our sins upon Him, as the prophet says, and was afflicted on our account. For as He wrought out our deliverance from death, giving up His own Body to death, so likewise, I think, the blow with which Christ was smitten, in fulfilling the dishonour that He bore, carried with it our deliverance from the dishonour by which we were burthened through the transgression and original sin of our forefather. For He, being One, was yet a perfect Ransom for all men, and bore our dishonour. But I think the whole creation would have shuddered, had it been suffered to be conscious of such presumption.

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – Commentary on the Gospel of St. Luke
for it is written, that “He was also numbered with the transgressors.” For our sakes He became a curse, that is, accursed: for it is written again, that “Cursed is every one that hangs on a tree.” But this act of His did away with the curse that was upon us: for we with Him and because of Him are blessed. And knowing this, the blessed David says: “Blessed are we of the Lord, Who made heaven and earth:” for by His sufferings blessings descend to us.

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – Commentary on the Gospel of St. John, Book XII
He was scourged unjustly, that He might deliver us from merited chastisement; He was buffeted and smitten, that we might buffet Satan, who had buffeted us, and that we might escape from the sin that cleaves to us through the original transgression. For if we think aright, we shall believe that all Christ’s sufferings were for us and on our behalf, and have power to release and deliver us from all those calamities we have deserved for our revolt from God. For as Christ, Who knew not death, when He gave up His own Body for our salvation, was able to loose the bonds of death for all mankind, for He, being One, died for all; so we must understand that Christ’s suffering all these things for us sufficed also to release us all from scourging and dishonour. Then in what way by His stripes are we healed, according to the Scripture? Because we have all gone astray, every man after his own way, as says the blessed Prophet Isaiah; and the Lord hath given Himself up for our transgressions, and for us is afflicted. For He was bruised for our iniquities, and has given His own back to the scourge, and His cheeks to the smiters, as he also says.

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – On Easter
For the divine Abraham was commanded to slay his one and only beloved son, a man who had lived unto old age, and had no hope of being able to become a sire of other children ; but he was old having passed beyond affectionateness and  from sparing his son because of God’s will. And for as much as the child was near to suffering death, for the father had taken in his hand the sword, he was in marvelous manner saved by the ram running in between and undergoing his slaying. So also were we also rescued from our own death befitting and due by Christ taking it on himself. And he was slain for our sake ; and he suffered because of our sins, as saith the prophet Isaiah. And because of our iniquities he was given over and by his stripes were we healed…For he commanded to bring forward two steers equal in stature and similar of aspect and in no one respect unlike each other. And the name of the one was Lord, but the other was Released. And then the lot having fallen into the priest’s hands they slew the one of which the name was Lord, and released from the slaying the one released, that  is the other which from being released from the slaying is named Released.

Pope Leo I  (390 – 461 AD) – Sermon 68, On the Passion, II
For the blessed Apostle says the Father “spared not His own Son, but gave Him up for us all;” and again, he says, “For Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify it.”  And hence the giving up of the Lord to His Passion was as much of the Father’s as of His own will, so that not only did the Father “forsake” Him, but He also abandoned Himself in a certain sense, not in hasty flight, but in voluntary withdrawal.  For the might of the Crucified restrained itself from those wicked men, and in order to avail Himself of a secret design, He refused to avail Himself of His open power.  For how would He who had come to destroy death and the author of death by His Passion have saved sinners, if he had resisted His persecutors? 

Pope Leo I (390 – 461 AD) – On the Passion, Sermon XVI
Hence it is that the Lord Jesus Christ, our Head, representing all the members of His body in Himself, and speaking for those whom He was redeeming in the punishment of the cross, uttered that cry which He had once uttered in the psalm, “O God, My God, look upon Me:  why hast Thou forsaken Me?” That cry, dearly-beloved, is a lesson, not a complaint. For since in Christ there is one person of God and man, and He could not have been forsaken by Him, from Whom He could not be separated, it is on behalf of us, trembling and weak ones, that He asks why the flesh that is afraid to suffer has not been heard.  For when the Passion was beginning, to cure and correct our weak fear He had said, “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me:  nevertheless not as I will but as Thou;” and again, “Father, if this cup cannot pass except I drink it, Thy will be done.” As therefore He had conquered the tremblings of the flesh, and had now accepted the Father’s will, and trampling all dread of death under foot, was then carrying out the work of His design, why at the very time of His triumph over such a victory does He seek the cause and reason of His being forsaken, that is, not heard, save to show that the feeling which He entertained in excuse of His human fears is quite different from the deliberate choice which, in accordance with the Father’s eternal decree, He had made for the reconciliation of the world?

St. Severus of Antioch (465 – 538 AD) – Letter of St. Severus
He endured a death that was for our sake, he who for the sins of us all became one that is subject, he who knows not sin, for according to the prophet’s saying, “He came to death for the sins of my people, and for our sake he suffered pain, and was smitten, and he endured sickness for our iniquity“. So also Paul wrote to the Hebrews and said, “Christ was offered once, that he might bear the sins of many” , and he says that ‘by his sacrifice he hath been revealed once for all at the last for the doing away of sin’, and ‘he offered one eternal offering for our sins‘ : and Peter the eminent among the apostles said, «The same carried up our sins in his body on to the cross, that we, being freed from sins, might live in righteousness».

Salvian (400 – 490 AD) – On the Government of God
But the apostle also says: “God spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all. How hath he not with him also freely given us all things?” This confirms my former statement, that God loves us more than a father loves his son. It is clear that his love surpasses a man’s love for his sons, since for our sake he did not spare his own child. Nay, I add more, he did not spare his righteous Son, his only begotten Son, his Son who is himself God. What more can be said? And this was done for us, that is for wicked, unjust and most irreverent men. 

St. Gregory the Great (540 AD –  604 AD) – Morals on the Book of Job 
For it is hence that speaking by the Prophet He says, Then I restored that which I took not away…But we must consider how He is righteous and ordereth all things righteously, if He condemns Him that deserveth not to be punished. For our Mediator deserved not to be punished for Himself, because He never was guilty of any defilement of sin. But if He had not Himself undertaken a death not due to Him, He would never have freed us from one that was justly due to us. And so whereas ‘ The Father is righteous,’ in punishing a righteous man, ‘ He ordereth all things righteously,’ in that by these means He justifies all things, viz. that for the sake of sinners He condemns Him Who is without sin; that all the might rise up to the height  of righteousness, in proportion as He Who is above all underwent the penalties of our unrighteousness. What then is in that place called ‘ being condemned without deserving,’ is here spoken of as being ‘ afflicted without cause.’ Yet though in respect of Himself He was ‘ afflicted without cause,’ in respect of our deeds it was not ‘ without cause.’ For the rust of sin could not be cleared away, but by the fire of torment. He then came without sin, Who should submit Himself voluntarily to torment, that the chastisements due to our wickedness might justly loose the parties thereto obnoxious, in that they had unjustly kept Him, Who was free of them. Thus it was both without cause, and not without cause, that He was afflicted, Who had indeed no crimes in Himself, but Who cleansed with His blood the stain of our guilt

John of Damascus (676 -749 AD) – An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book III
Further, these words, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? He said as making our personality His own. For neither would God be regarded with us as His Father, unless one were to discriminate with subtle imaginings of the mind between that which is seen and that which is thought, nor was He ever forsaken by His divinity: nay, it was we who were forsaken and disregarded. So that it was as appropriating our personality that He offered these prayers

CONSTITUTIONS OF THE HOLY APOSTLES, BOOK I
For you imitate Christ the Lord; and as He “bare the sins of us all upon the tree” at His crucifixion, the innocent for those who deserved punishment, so also you ought to make the sins of the people your own. For concerning our Savior it is said in Isaiah, “He bears our sins, and is afflicted for us.” And again: “He bare the sins of many, and was delivered for our offences.”

Fr. Matta El Miskeen (Matthew the Poor) – The Titles of Christ
In his book Critical and Exegetical Handbook to the Epistle to the Galatians, the German scholar H. Meyer enumerates the great theo­logians of our time who head Peter’s position in defense of Christ’s holiness and the impossibility of him receiving the curse. It is not our intention here to create an issue of contention out of this problem which is the heart and spirit of the faith. However, we say that if Christ had not accepted the curse of the law for our sake, which is itself the very curse of God, he would not have been able to die and his death would not have been genuine. It would have only appeared to them as such [as Docetic heretics claim]. Neither would we have been able to escape eternal damnation or eternal death. [There are two alterna­tives]: Either Christ must have received the curse for our sake and died and risen on the third day, or we must have had to live subject to the curse and death under the wrath of God, never to rise again. Any argument which claims that because Christ is holy and the Son of God and, therefore, denies that he should have received the curse, we refute thus: If Christ were not holy and were not the Son of God, he would never have accepted to bear sin and the curse, that is, crucifix­ion and death. For it was on account of his holiness and divinity that he trampled death underfoot by his own death, having risen from the dead and shaken off the curse from himself and from us forever…Isaiah cries out across the ages: You [foolish] theologians! It is the Father’s will: “Yet it was the will of the Lord to bruise him; he has put him to grief; when he makes himself an offering for sin” (Is. 53:10). It is from the cross that the voice of Christ answers: Amen! approving the Father’s will to bruise him and the cup of gall [he has made him drink], but questioning the harshness of the punishment: “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” Christ was crying out of the depth of his sonship to the Father in defense of man whom he carried in his basest form of disgrace with God’s wrath having fallen upon him…If some theologians still claim that Christ did not receive the curse, we then ask: how did he accept the cross which is the very curse itself? Indeed, it was to gulp the curse to its last dregs and to fulfill it to the last breath that he endured suffering to the very end. His last testimony came out with his last breath: “It is finished.” Yes, the toil of the cross is finished: the curse, the wrath of God — even unto death. It is only now that the verdict, which came forth out of God’s mouth against Adam, is at last fulfilled.

Isaiah 53:10 (Septuagint)
The Lord also is pleased to purge him from his stroke. If ye can give an offering for sin, your soul shall see a long-lived seed

Isaiah 53: 12
He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors

John 12: 23-24
The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.

Romans 3:25
God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood–to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished

Romans 5:8-10
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! 

Romans 6:3-7
Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin.

1 Cor 5:7
Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.

Ephesians 5:2
And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.

Hebrews 2:17
Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.

Hebrews 7:27, 28
Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself. For the law appoints as high priests men in all their weakness; but the oath, which came after the law, appointed the Son, who has been made perfect forever.

Hebrews 9:11-14
But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation; and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

Hebrews 9:22
And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.

Hebrews 9:26-28
For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.

Hebrews 10:4-10
It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said: “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased. Then I said, ‘Here I am—it is written about me in the scroll—I have come to do your will, my God.’ ” First he said, “Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them”—though they were offered in accordance with the law. Then he said, “Here I am, I have come to do your will.” He sets aside the first to establish the second. And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Hebrews 13:11-13
The high priest carries the blood of animals into the Most Holy Place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. Let us, then, go to Him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore.

1 Peter 2:24
“He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.”

1 John 1: 1-2
But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.

Revelation 7:14
And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

Origen (185 -254 AD) – Commentary on Gospel of John
But none of the names we have mentioned expresses His representation of us with the Father, as He pleads for human nature, and makes atonement for it; the Paraclete, and the propitiation, and the atonement. 

Origen (185 -254 AD) – Commentary on Gospel of John
And in his Catholic Epistle John says that He is a Paraclete for our souls with the Father, as thus: “And if any one sin, we have a Paraclete with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous,” and he adds that He is a propitiation for our sins, and similarly Paul says He is a propitiation: “Whom God set forth as a propitiation through faith in His blood, on account of forgiveness of the forepast sins, in the forbearance of God

St. Cyprian (200 -258 AD) – Epistles of Cyprian
St. John hath also declared, that Jesus Christ our Lord is an advocate and intercessor for our sins, saying; My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not: and if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the propitiation for our sins. And the apostle St. Paul, in his epistle, hath thus argued: If when we were yet sinners Christ died for us, much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. We should therefore call to mind his tender affections towards us, and should not be rigorous and hard hearted to our brethren…

St. Cyprian (200 -258 AD) – Epistles of Cyprian
John also proves that Jesus Christ the Lord is our Advocate and Intercessor for our sins, saying, “My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Supporter: and He is the propitiation for our sins.” And Paul also, the apostle, in his epistle, has written, “If, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us; much more, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.”

Aphrahat  (280 – 345 AD) – Select Demonstrations (of Persecution)
Daniel was led away among the hostages in behalf of his people; and the body of Jesus was a hostage in behalf of all nations. For Daniel’s sake the wrath of the King was appeased from the Chaldeans, so that they were not slain; and for Jesus’ sake the wrath of His Father was appeased from all nations, so that they were not slain and died not because of their sins. Daniel besought of the king, and he gave his brethren authority over the affairs of the province of Babylon; and Jesus besought of God, and He gave His brethren, His disciples, authority over Satan and his host. 

St. Athanasius (296 – 373 AD) – On the Incarnation of the Word
But on this one point, above all, they shall be all the more refuted, not at our hands, but at those of the most wise Daniel, who marks both the actual date, and the divine sojourn of the Savior, saying: “Seventy weeks are cut short upon thy people, and upon the holy city, for a full end to be made of sin, and for sins to be sealed up, and to blot out iniquities, and to make atonement for iniquities, and to bring everlasting righteousness, and to seal vision and prophet, and to anoint a Holy of Holies…

St. Athanasius (296 – 373 AD) – Discourses Against the Arians
Since then the Word, being the Image of the Father and immortal, took the form of the servant, and as man underwent for us death in His flesh, that thereby He might offer Himself for us through death to the Father; therefore also, as man, He is said because of us and for us to be highly exalted, that as by His death we all died in Christ, so again in the Christ Himself we might be highly exalted, being raised from the dead, and ascending into heaven…

St. Athanasius (296 – 373 AD) – Discourses Against the Arians, Discourse II
‘Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession Jesus, who was faithful to Him that made Him.’when became He ‘Apostle,’ but when He put on our flesh? and when became He ‘High Priest of our profession,’ but when, after offering Himself for us, He raised His Body from the dead, and, as now, Himself brings near and offers to the Father those who in faith approach Him, redeeming all, and for all propitiating God?

St. Basil the Great (330 – 379 AD) –  Letter 260
The Lord was bound to taste of death for every man—to become a propitiation for the world and to justify all men by His own blood.

St. Gregory of Nyssa (335 -394 AD)
For in that passage too, in giving the name of High Priest to Him Who made with His own Blood the priestly propitiation for our sins…For Jesus, the great High Priest (as Zechariah says), Who offered up his own lamb, that is, His own Body, for the sin of the world;

St. Ambrose (337- 397 AD) – Exposition of the Christian Faith
…this High Priest was indeed bound to make passage and entry into the holy of holies in heaven through His own blood, in order that He might be the everlasting propitiation for our sins. Priest and victim, then, are one; the priesthood and sacrifice are, however, exercised under the conditions of humanity, for He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and He is a priest after the order of Melchizedek.

St. John Chrysostom (349 – 407 AD) – Homilies on First Corinthians
“For if He was not raised, neither did He die; and if He died not, neither did He take away sin: His death being the taking away of sin. “For behold,” saith one, “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” (John i. 29.) But how “taketh away?” By His death. Wherefore also he called him a Lamb, as one slain.”

St. John Chrysostom (349 – 407 AD) – Homilies on First Corinthians
For if He was not raised, neither did He die; and if He died not, neither did He take away sin: His death being the taking away of sin. “For behold,” saith one, “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” (John i. 29.) But how “taketh away?” By His death. Wherefore also he called him a Lamb, as one slain…And besides, death remains immortal, if He did not arise.

St. John Chrysostom (349 – 407 AD) – Homilies on Epistle to the Hebrews
Accordingly he added, “in things pertaining to God,”—that is, for the sake of things in relation to God. We were become altogether enemies to God, (he would say) condemned, degraded, there was none who should offer sacrifice for us. He saw us in this condition, and had compassion on us, not appointing a High Priest for us, but Himself becoming a High Priest.

St. John Chrysostom – Homilies on the Epistle to the Hebrews
“And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this, the Judgment.” He next says also why He died once [only]: because He became a ransom by one death. “It had been appointed” (he says) “unto men once to die.” This then is [the meaning of] “He died once,” for all. (What then? Do we no longer die that death? We do indeed die, but we do not continue in it: which is not to die at all. For the tyranny of death, and death indeed, is when he who dies is never more allowed to return to life. But when after dying is living, and that a better life, this is not death, but sleep.) Since then death was to have possession of all, therefore He died that He might deliver us.

St. Augustine (354 – 430 AD) – A Treatise Against Two Letters of the Pelagians
This, the catholic faith has known of the one and only mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who condescended to undergo death—that is, the penalty of sin—without sin, for us. As He alone became the Son of man, in order that we might become through Him sons of God, so He alone, on our behalf, undertook punishment without ill deservings, that we through Him might obtain grace without good deservings. Because as to us nothing good was due so to Him nothing bad was due.

St. Augustine (354 – 430 AD) – On the Holy Trinity
Therefore “God commendeth His love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified in His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.” Justified, he says, in His blood,—justified plainly, in that we are freed from all sin; and freed from all sin, because the Son of God, who knew no sin, was slain for us. Therefore “we shall be saved from wrath through Him;” from the wrath certainly of God, which is nothing else but just retribution. For the wrath of God is not, as is that of man, a perturbation of the mind; but it is the wrath of Him to whom Holy Scripture says in another place, “But Thou, O Lord, mastering Thy power, judgest with calmness.” If, therefore, the just retribution of God has received such a name, what can be the right understanding also of the reconciliation of God, unless that then such wrath comes to an end? Neither were we enemies to God, except as sins are enemies to righteousness; which being forgiven, such enmities come to an end, and they whom He Himself justifies are reconciled to the Just One...And not only so,” he says, “but we also joy in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.” “Not only,” he says, “shall we be saved,” but “we also joy;” and not in ourselves, but “in God;” nor through ourselves, “but through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement,” as we have argued above.

St. Augustine (354 – 430 AD) – Lectures on the Gospel According to St. John
The separating medium is sin, the reconciling Mediator is the Lord Jesus Christ…To take then away the separating wall, which is sin, that Mediator has come, and the priest has Himself become the sacrifice. And because He was made a sacrifice for sin, offering Himself as a whole burnt-offering on the cross of His passion, the apostle, after saying, “We beseech you in Christ’s stead to be reconciled unto God

St. Augustine (354 – 430 AD) – Writings in Connection with the Manichaen Controversy
As regards animal sacrifices, every Christian knows that they were enjoined as suitable to a perverse people, and not because God had any pleasure in them. Still, even in these sacrifices there were types of what we enjoy; for we cannot obtain purification or the propitiation of God without blood. The fulfillment of these types is in Christ, by whose blood we are purified and redeemed. In these figures of the divine oracles, the bull represents Christ, because with the horns of His cross He scatters the wicked; the lamb, from His matchless innocence; the goat, from His being made in the likeness of sinful flesh, that by sin He might condemn sin.

St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on Second Epistle to the Corinthians
He says of God the Father, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” It is as if he were to say, “He arranged that he who has never sinned should suffer the punishment of the worst sinners so that he may render us righteous who have received faith in him.” That is why he “endured the cross, disregarding its shame.” The one who was worth as much as all died for all. Now when he is said to have become “sin,” you should not suppose that he has committed sin. After all, the Word is God; he does not know how to sin. Rather, you should understand it to mean that he has been given by God the Father for our sins. In fact, the animals slaughtered for sin in accordance with the law of Moses are referred to as “sin” in just the same way…Therefore, this wise thought has great power to convert those who want to neglect the faith: he who knew no sin was condemned and suspended from a cross with sinners for us so that “we might become the righteousness of God.” For we have been justified by God the Father “not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to the greatness of his mercy” through faith in Christ.

St. Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch Vol 2, Page 136
You can now see how God commanded the sin offering to be  sacrificed. A male goat served here as a figure of Christ, who, as I said, became sin for us. For he was counted among the lawless, was crucified with thieves, and was also called a curse, since it is written that “cursed is everyone who is hanged upon a  tree.”… Christ, then, although he became sin, remained that which he was, that is to say, he continued to be holy as he was by nature God. Moreover, “he does not give the Spirit by measure,” in accordance with what John said. Now, that the death of his flesh, which took place for the destruction of the flesh, was holy and pure, being well-pleasing to God the Father in a manner similar to incense offerings, the law clearly spoke of when it said, “In the place where they slay the burnt offerings, they shall also slay the sin offering before the Lord.” Christ is a burnt offering, that is, one which is wholly and entirely, and not just partially, dedicated to God the Father as a pleasing aroma. Therefore, he is truly “most holy.” For in him we have been sanctified, and he is our whole justification, and he is moreover the sanctification of the spirits above, as I said a moment ago.

St. Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch Vol 2, Page 129
Note how he who established the legal ministration clearly described the cleansing that comes through Christ as being incomparably superior to the ministration of the law. For if you transgressed the precepts of Moses, it says, and some did neglect to keep the ordinances of the legal ministration, it is then you find that the passing over of the offense is granted through the shedding of blood when a calf was sacrificed or a goat offered. Yet this was figurative of Christ. So while the law determined the punishment for transgressions, it is the precious blood of Christ that delivers us from punishment and sets us free from condemnation due to sins committed in ignorance, For he laid down his life for us so that he might do away with the sin of the world. In the loaf of bread, therefore, Christ is understood as life and giver of life, while in the calf he is further considered as a burnt offering, dedicating himself as a pleasing aroma to God the Father. Also, in the form of the goat he became a sin offering for us and was slain for our sins.

St. Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch Vol 2, Book 10: Exodus, Pg 121
Yet Moses persisted in his entreaty, determined to restrain the wrath against all the people. For it was necessary for the one acting as mediator to be like Christ, who warded off the wrath of heaven that was upon us due to our many sins, and who, being the Son, offered justification by faith to those who had sinned. Moses was, then, on this occasion also, a figure of the mediatorship of Christ. So by his supplications the divine Moses held back the severity of God’s wrath; then he came down from the mountain.

St. Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch Vol 2, Book 10: Exodus, Pg 110
Nevertheless, the God of all commanded Moses and Aaron, those who were holy and elect, to ascend the high mountain. So it was necessary that those who were later to come into glory, those who were presented as the first actually to go up that they might draw near to God, should be purified by the blood of Christ, who gave his life in exchange for the life of all, and who offered up the flesh that he had assumed as a pleasing aroma. For he gave himself on our behalf as an offering that was holy and undefiled to God, a spiritual burnt offering. This the divine Moses also showed us in a figure, through the illumination given by the Spirit, and leads the way to the knowledge of things to come.

St. Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch Vol 2, Book 9: Exodus, Page 36
In addition to this, the Passover was to be kept annually at its appointed time, so that a year would not be whole or would still remain incomplete without it. This was also the case because this most divine feast that relates to suffering would be celebrated on a yearly basis by those who obtain good things from that suffering. It says it should be taken “from the lambs or from the kids.” The lamb is understood by the law to be a victim that is pure and without blemish, while the kind of animal taken from the kids is always offered for the sake of sins at the altar. This same thing you shall find in Christ also. For he himself was, as it were, a sacrificial victim without blemish, offering himself up as a pleasing aroma to God the Father, slain like a kid on behalf of our sins.

Christ did not die “with us”. He died “for us”:
St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – Five Tomes Against Nestorius, TOME III
I hear Him saying of us, For their sakes do I sanctify Myself, and as the Divine-speaking Paul saith, By the grace of God for every man tasted He death, and again, He was delivered up because of our transgressions and was raised because of our justification, and as the Prophet Esaias saith, The chastisement of our peace was upon Him, with His stripes were WE healed, not Himself has been healed by the suffering of His own Flesh. He was delivered up because of our transgressions (not because of His own, far from it, for confessedly has the nature of man been borne down by the transgression in Adam unto curse and death, it is moreover sick of proneness to sin in the flesh), in order that the righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in its who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit. For therefore was He also named the last Adam, not enduring to be sick of the things of the first one, but rather ridding in Himself first the nature of man from the blame of that ancient transgression. For it was condemned in Adam, but in Christ was seen most approved and worthy of wonder…Every one who has become guilty of sin needs therefore sacrifice for his own transgressions: and Christ hath offered Himself for His kin according to the flesh, i. e., for us; but for Himself not a whit, being superior to sin, as God. For if He have been sacrificed for Himself, not WE alone have been bought by His Blood according to the Scriptures but Himself too will have been co-bought with us, no longer according to Isaiah’s voice did the Lord give Him up for our sins, but He has been given rather for His own. For where is at all sacrifice and offering, there surely is also remission of sins…But let us see from the legal and more ancient scripture too in what manner and for whom, Emmanuel hath offered Himself for an odour of a sweet smell unto God the Father. For a shadow confessedly was the Law, yet hath it the outline of the mystery Christ-ward and travails with the form of the Truth. And indeed Christ said somewhere when conversing with the Jews, Had ye believed Moses ye would have believed Me, for of Me he wrote...For God the Father was representing the sacrifices that were to be made for sins, in the Law as on a tablet, outlining yet the mystery of Christ, and thus He said to the hierophant Moses, If the whole congregation of the children of Israel sin unwillingly and the thing be hid from the eyes of the assembly and they have done one of all the commandments of the Lord which should not be done, and have transgressed and the sin be known to them which they have sinned therein, the congregation shall offer a young bullock without blemish from among the herd for the sin. And having fully gone through how the details of the sacrifice should be done, He adds and says, And the priest shall make an atonement for them and the sin shall be forgiven them. Observe then that the bullock was offered as a type of Christ the All-Pure and That hath no spot, and they who offer and not surely the bullock were set free from their guilt. For He has been sacrificed not rather for Himself, as THOU sayest, but for the infirm, for whom the high priest according to the Law used to make supplication, that you may again understand Him That was made an Advocate for us, a High Priest undefiled and holy, separated from sinners. 

St. Cyril of Alexandria – Five Tomes Against Nestorius, Tome III
The God of all uttered the Law to them of old, Moses being mediator. But there was not in the Law the power of achieving good without any blame, to those who wished it (for it hath perfected nothing). But neither was the first covenant found faultless, but the all-wise Paul called it the ministry of condemnation. I hear him say, We know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become under sentence before God, because by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight, (for the Law worketh unto wrath, and the Letter killeth), and as himself somewhere saith, He that despised Moses’ law dieth without mercy under two or three witnesses. Seeing therefore that the Law condemneth them that sin and decreeth sometimes the uttermost punishment to them that disregard it, and in no wise pitieth, how was not the manifestation to them on the earth of a Compassionate and truly Merciful High Priest necessary? of One Who should make the curse to cease, should stop the condemnation and free sinners with forgiving grace and with the bending of clemency? for I (He says) am He that blotteth out thy transgressions and will not remember. For we have been justified by faith and not out of the works of the Law, as it is written…but if we believe that He That suffered in the flesh is God, Who hath been made also our High Priest, we have no ways erred, but acknowledge the Word out of God made Man: and thus is required of us faith God-ward, Who putteth out of condemnation and freeth from sin those that are taken thereby. For the Son of man hath authority on the earth also to forgive sins, as Himself too saith. Contrasting therefore with the salvation and grace that is through Christ the harshness (so to speak) of the law’s severity, we say that Christ was made a Merciful High Priest. For He was and is God Good by Nature and Compassionate and Merciful always, and hath not become this in time but was so manifested to us.

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – Commentary on the Gospel of St. Luke
For the law, which the all-wise Moses ordained, was for the reproof of sin, and the condemnation of offences: but it justified absolutely no one. For the very wise Paul writes, “Whosoever rejected the law of Moses, was put to death without mercy at the mouth of two or three witnesses.” But our Lord Jesus Christ, having removed the curse of the law, and proved the commandment which condemns to be powerless and inoperative, became our merciful High Priest, according to the words of the blessed Paul. For He justifies the wicked by faith, and sets free those held captive by their sins.

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – Five Tomes Against Nestorious
For He has been sacrificed not rather for Himself, as THOU sayest, but for the infirm, for whom the high priest according to the Law used to make supplication, that you may again understand Him That was made an Advocate for us, a High Priest undefiled and holy, separated from sinners. Since therefore our opponent is on all sides sick of uncomeliness of speech, we say that the Word out of God the Father was made the High Priest and Apostle of our confession when He was made Man, abasing Himself unto emptiness and in our condition: in order that having offered Himself to the Father for an odour of sweet smell in be half of all, He might win all under Heaven, might remove the ancient guilt, might justify by grace through faith, might render superior to death and decay, holy and hallowed and full well versed in every kind of virtue, confessing Him their Saviour…

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – The Gospel According to John, Book XI, Chapter VIII
He once more mediates as Man, the Reconciler and Mediator of God and men; and being our truly great and all-holy High Priest, by His own prayers He appeases the anger of His Father, sacrificing Himself for us. For He is the Sacrifice, and is Himself our Priest, Himself  our Mediator, Himself a blameless Victim, the true Lamb Which takes away the sin of the world. The Mosaic ceremonial was then, as it were, a type and transparent shadowing forth of the mediation of Christ, shown forth in the last times, and the high priest of the Law indicated in his own person that Priest Who is above the Law. For the things of the Law are shadows of the truth. For the inspired Moses, and with him the eminent Aaron, continually intervened between God and the assembly of the people; at one time deprecating God’s anger for the transgressions of the people of Israel, and inviting mercy from above upon them when they were faint; at another, praying and blessing the people, and ordering sacrifices according to the Law and offerings of gifts besides in their appointed order, sometimes for sins, and sometimes thank-offerings for the benefits they felt that they had received from God. But Christ Who manifested Himself in the last times above the types and figures of the Law, at once our High Priest and Mediator, prays for us as Man; and at the same time is ever ready to co-operate with God the Father, Who distributes good gifts to those who are worthy. Paul showed us this most plainly in the words: Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. He then prays for us as Man, and also unites in distributing good gifts to us as God. For He, being a holy High Priest, blameless and undefiled, offered Himself not for His own weakness, as was the custom of those to whom was allotted the duty of sacrificing according to the Law, but rather for the salvation of our souls, and that once for all, because of our sin, and is an Advocate for us: And He is the propitiation for our sins, as John saith; and not for ours only, but also for the whole world

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – The Gospel According to John, BOOK IX, Chapter 1
Then desiring to put before us in a clear light the methods of the gathering in detail, at one time he said: For what the Law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the ordinance of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit; and at another again: Since then the children are sharers in flesh and blood, He also Himself in like manner partook of the same; that through death He might bring to nought him that had the power of death, that is the devil; and might deliver all them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. 

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – That Christ is One
Yes, for we say that His are the human by an Economic appropriation, and along with the flesh that which is its: seeing that no other son beside Him is conceived of by us, but the Lord Himself hath saved us, giving His own Blood a ransom for the life of all; for we were bought with a price, not with things corruptible silver or gold but with the Precious Blood as of a Lamb Immaculate and without blemish, Christ, Who offered Himself in our behalf for an odour of a sweet smell to God the Father. And hereto will be our warrant Paul most learned in the law, who hath written, Be therefore imitators of God as beloved children, and walk in love as Christ too loved us and delivered Himself for us an offering and sacrifice to God for an odour of a sweet smell…For it beseemed God the Father because of Whom all things and through Whom all things, to perfect the Son Who had descended to emptying and become man, having taken bondman’s form, through sufferings in that He consecrates His own flesh a Ransom for the life of all. For Christ hath been sacrificed for us, the spotless Victim, and by One offering hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified, re-forming man’s nature into what it was in the beginning: for all things in Him are new. 

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – On the Gospel According to John,  Book XI
For since He is the High Priest of our souls, insomuch as He appeared as Man, though being by Nature God together with the Father, He most fittingly makes His prayer on our behalf; trying to persuade us to believe that He is, even now, the propitiation for our sins, and a righteous Advocate; as John saith. Therefore also Paul, wishing us to be of this mind, thus exhorts us: For we have not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but One that hath been in all points tempted like as we are; yet without sin. Then, since He is an High Priest, insomuch as He is Man, and, at the same time, brought Himself a blameless sacrifice to God the Father, as a ransom for the life of all men, being as it were the firstfruits of mortality, that in all things He might have the pre-eminence, as Paul says; and He reconciles to Him the reprobate race of man upon the earth, purifying them by His own Blood, and shaping them to newness of life through the Holy Spirit; and since, as we have often said, all things are accomplished by the Father through the Son in the Spirit; He moulds the prayer for blessings towards us, as Mediator and High Priest, though He unites with His Father in giving and providing Divine and spiritual graces. For Christ divideth the Spirit, according to His own Will and pleasure, to every man severally, as He will.

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – On the Gospel According to John, Book IV, Chapter II
I die (He says) for all, that I may quicken all by Myself, and I made My Flesh a Ransom for the flesh of all. For death shall die in My Death, and with Me shall rise again (He says) the fallen nature of man. For for this became I like to you, Man (that is) and of the seed of Abraham, that I might be made like in all things unto My brethren. The blessed Paul himself also, well understanding what Christ just now said to us says, Forasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same, that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil. For no otherwise was it possible that he that hath the power of death should be destroyed, and death itself also, had not Christ given Himself for us, a Ransom, One for all, for He was in behalf of all. Wherefore He says in the Psalms too, offering Himself as a spotless Sacrifice to God the Father, Sacrifice and offering Thou wouldest not, but a Body preparedst Thou Me. In whole burnt-offerings and offerings for sin Thou tookedst no pleasure: then said I, Lo I come (in the chapter of the book it is written of Me) to do Thy will, O God, was My choice. For since the blood of bulls and of goats and the ashes of an heifer sufficed not unto the purging away of sin, nor yet would the slaughter of brute beasts ever have destroyed the power of death, Christ Himself came in some way to undergo punishment for all. For with His stripes WE were healed, as saith the Prophet, and His Own Self bare our sins in His Own Body on the tree; and He was crucified for all and on account of all, that if One died for all, all we might live in Him. For it was not possible that He should be holden by death, neither could corruption over-master that Which is by Nature Life. But that Christ gave His Own Flesh for the Life of the world, we shall know by His words also, for He saith, Holy Father keep them; and again, For their sakes I sanctify Myself. He here says that He sanctifies Himself, not aiding Himself unto sanctification for the purification of the soul or spirit (as it is understood of us), nor yet for the participation of the Holy Ghost, for the Spirit was in Him by Nature, and He was and is Holy always, and will be so ever. He here says, I sanctify Myself,for, I offer Myself and present Myself as a spotless Sacrifice for an odour of a sweet smell. For that which is brought to the Divine Altar was sanctified, or called holy according to the law. 

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF LUKE, BOOK IV, Chapter II
Look not therefore upon Him Who was laid in the manger as a babe merely, but in our poverty see Him Who as God is rich, and in the measure of our humanity Him Who excels the inhabitants of heaven, and Who therefore is glorified even by the holy angels. And how noble was the hymn, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, and among men good will!” For the angels and archangels, thrones and lordships, and high above them the Seraphim, preserving their settled order, are at peace with God: for never in any way do they transgress His good pleasure, but are firmly established in righteousness and holiness. But we, wretched beings, by having set up our own lusts in opposition to the will of our Lord, had put ourselves into the position of enemies unto Him. But by Christ this has been done away: for He is our peace; for He has united us by Himself unto God the Father, having taken away from the middle the cause of the enmity, even sin, and so justifies us by faith, and makes us holy and without blame, and calls near unto Him those who were afar off: and besides this, He has created the two people into one new man, so making peace, and reconciling both in one body to the Father. For it pleased God the Father to form into one new whole all things in Him, and to bind together things below and things above, and to make those in heaven and those on earth into one flock. Christ therefore has been made for us both Peace and Goodwill…  

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – On the Gospel According to John, Book XI, Chap X
For He brought Himself as a Victim and holy Sacrifice to God the Father, reconciling the world unto Himself, and bringing into kinship with Him that which had fallen away therefrom, that is, the race of man. For He is our Peace, according to the Scripture. And, indeed, our reconciliation to God could no otherwise have been accomplished through Christ that saveth us than by communion in the Spirit and sanctification. For that which knits us together, and, as it were, unites us with God, is the Holy Spirit; Which if we receive, we are proved sharers and partakers in the Divine Nature, and we admit the Father Himself into our hearts, through the Son and in the Son...For the Only-begotten sanctified Himself for our sins; that is, offered Himself up, and brought Himself as a holy Sacrifice for a sweet-smelling savour to God the Father; that, while He as God came between and hedged off and built a wall of partition between human nature and sin, nothing might hinder our being able to have access to God, and have close fellowship with Him, through communion, that is, with the Holy Spirit, moulding us anew to righteousness and sanctification and the original likeness of man.

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – The Gospel According to John
For He, being a holy High Priest, blameless  and undefiled, offered Himself  not for His own weakness, as was the custom of those to whom was allotted the duty of sacrificing according to the Law, but rather for the salvation of our souls, and that once for all, because of our sin, and is an Advocate for us: And He is the propitiation for our sins… For the Only-begotten  sanctified Himself for our sins; that is, offered Himself up, and brought Himself as a holy Sacrifice for a sweet-smelling savor to God the Father…

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – COMMENTARY ON ZECHARIAH 1
For those who reverence God, therefore, there is sound and certain hope, to be sure, that should they happen to offend God through weakness, they still have suppliants with God on their behalf, not only human beings but also the holy angels themselves, who render God mild and benign, appeasing his wrath with their peculiar purity and, as it were, making the Judge ashamed of his indignation. While at that time it was an angel who was making appeals for the assembly of the Jews, we who are believers and are now sanctified by the Spirit “have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, who is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but for those of the whole world.” As the divinely inspired Paul writes, it is he whom “God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement through faith,” freeing from sin those who approach him.

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – Commentary on Hosea, Chapter 4
The priest, therefore, was taken as a mediator between God and man, accepting the gifts from the people and having a share in what is sacrificed on the altar, as Scripture says; he sacrificed himself, as it were, for the sins of the people, as of course our Lord Jesus Christ also did. For proof that what I say is true, I shall cite the Law dealing with the he-goat; it goes as follows: “Moses made an inquiry about the he-goat of the sin offering, and it had already been burnt. Moses was angry with Eleazar and Ithamar, Aaron’s remaining sons, and said, Why did you not eat the sin offering in a holy place? For it is a holy of holies, and he has given it to you to eat there for you to remove the sin of the assembly, to make atonement on their behalf before the Lord.” Do you see how those assisting at the holy altar and appeasing wrath for sinners with pure prayers act as mediators by eating the sin offerings, as it were, offering to God their own souls as a sweet-smelling odor for the sins of the people? As in the case of the divinely inspired Aaron, of course, when the people took ill, Scripture says, he seized the censer, put on the incense, “stood between the dead and the living, and the plague was stopped.” The blessed Moses likewise acted as mediator as well and placated God when the people of Israel had made a golden heifer in the wilderness; he submitted himself to justice and made an appeal, “If you will forgive their sin, forgive it; but if not, blot me also out of this book you have written.”

Pope Leo I (390 – 461 AD) – SERMON XXIII, ON THE FEAST OF THE NATIVITY
A Victim had to be offered for our atonement Who should be both a partner of our race and free from our contamination, so that this design of GOD whereby it pleased Him to take away the sin of the world in the Nativity and Passion of Jesus Christ, might reach to all generations: and that we should not be disturbed but rather strengthened by these mysteries, which vary with the character of the times, since the Faith,whereby we live, has at no time suffered variation.

Pope Leo I (390 – 461 AD) – Letters and Sermons, To Anatolius, Bishop of Constantinople
For otherwise in the Church of God, which is Christ’s Body, there are neither valid priesthoods nor true sacrifices, unless in the reality of our nature the true High Priest makes atonement for us, and the true Blood of the spotless Lamb makes us clean. For although He be set on the Father’s right hand, yet in the same flesh which He took from the Virgin, he carries on the mystery of propitiation, as says the Apostle, “Christ Jesus Who died, yea, Who also rose, Who is on the right hand of God, Who also maketh intercession for us.”

Pope Leo I (390 – 461 AD) – On Whitsuntide, III.
For if man, made after the image and likeness of God, had retained the dignity of his own nature, and had not been deceived by the devil’s wiles into transgressing through lust the law laid down for him, the Creator of the world would not have become a Creature, the Eternal would not have entered the sphere of time, nor God the Son, Who is equal with God the Father, have assumed the form of a slave and the likeness of sinful flesh. But because “by the devil’s malice death entered into the world,” and captive humanity could not otherwise be set free without His undertaking our cause, Who without loss of His majesty should both become true Man, and alone have no taint of sin, the mercy of the Trinity divided for Itself the work of our restoration in such a way that the Father should be propitiated, the Son should propitiate, and the Holy Ghost enkindle. 

Theodoret  (393 – 457 AD)
But no one holding the right faith would call the unmade the uncreate, God the Word coeternal with the Father, a creature; but on the contrary, Him of David’s seed Who being free from all sin was made our high priest and victim, after Himself offering Himself on our behalf to God having in Himself the Word, God of God, united to Himself and inseparably conjoined.

St. Gregory the Great (540 AD –  604 AD) – Book of Pastoral Rule
He took blows on the face from insulting men; that, while washing us with the water of salvation, He hid not His face from the spitting of the faithless; that, while delivering us by His advocacy from eternal punishments.

John Damascene (676 – 749) – On Holy Images
From the time that God the Word became flesh He is as we are in everything except sin, and of our nature, without confusion. He has deified our flesh or ever, and we are in very deed sanctified through His Godhead and the union of His flesh with it. And from the time that God, the Son of God, impassible by reason of His Godhead, chose to suffer voluntarily He wiped out our debt, also paying for us a most full and noble ransom. We are truly free through the sacred blood of the Son pleading for us with the Father. And we are indeed delivered from corruption since He descended into hell to the souls detained there through centuries and gave the captives their freedom, sight to the blind, and chaining the strong one. He rose in the plenitude of His power, keeping the flesh of immortality which He had taken for us. And since we have been born again of water and the Spirit, we are truly sons and heirs of God.

Fr. Matta El Miskeen (Matthew the Poor) – PENTECOST: The Descent of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost Day THE PROMISE OF THE FATHER 
For as He ascended on that day and crossed the barrier which separated us from the Father, entering into the inner shrine behind the curtain as a forerunner on our behalf, He entered with his blood on his hand and appeared before the Father – slain in the flesh because of his love and obedience, the wrath of God on man’s transgression was checked forever, for the Son himself became an offering of atonement for the imperfection of humanity. Hence the saying that “Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf…thus securing an eternal redemption.

Fr. Matta El Miskeen (Matthew the Poor) – Resurrection and Redemption in the Orthodox Concept
Thus the doctrine of the Orthodox Church, in emphasizing the love of God as a basic motive, extends to the very end, from the cross to the resurrection to the ascension, and even to the entry into the holies and the sitting on the right hand of the Father in order to ensure the consummation of redemption. Christ is still alive, and even after he died for us and justified us with his blood he still intercedes for us before God the Father by the boldness of the love with which he accomplished the redemption, so that no wrath or blame may befall us on account of our ignorance and daily transgression, “but God commendeth his love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him” (Rom.5:8-9).

Liturgy, Agpeya and Praises – Coptic Orthodox Diocese of Southern U.S. (Quoting H.G. Bishop Mettaous, The Spirituality of the Rites of the Holy Liturgy in the Coptic Orthodox Church)
Since our Master, Jesus Christ carried our sins within His Body on the cross as He offered Himself as a sacrifice for sin, so the bread offered in the Holy Liturgy should be made with yeast to symbolize these sins that Christ bore. The Coptic Orthodox Church, led by the Holy Spirit, makes its holy bread with yeast, which should then be baked so that the yeast perishes just as sin perished in the Resurrected Body of Christ. The yeast is still present in the bread but is dead because of the fire. As the fire spoiled the effect of the yeast, so Christ had ended the effect of sin through offering His Body as a sacrifice; “God…by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh on account of sin, He condemned sin in the flesh” (Rom.8:3).

Father Athanasius Iskander – Understanding the Liturgy
In the Old Testament sacrifice of the day of atonement, as in other sin sacrifices, the high priest had to lay his hands on the sacrificial animal, then make an atonement for himself and for the sins the people committed in ignorance. The laying on of hands signifies transfer of the sins to the sacrificial animal. The animal is then killed. Rubbing the Lamb may represent the old Testament’s laying on of hands, while uttering the words, “Grant O Lord that our sacrifice may be accepted in Thy sight for my sins and for the ignorance of Thy people…” reminds us of the atonement that the high priest made for his own sins and for the sins the people made in ignorance.

Fr. Tadros Malaty, Commentary on the First Epistle of St. Peter
St. Peter, as an eyewitness to the sufferings of the Lord Jesus, saw Him as an example for enduring suffering. He heard Him saying: “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death.” He entered the garden of Gethsemane to carry the sins of all humanity and to crucify them on the cross. St. Paul talked about the Lord Jesus as an example for enduring death on the cross. St. Peter reveals the concept of the sufferings of the cross. It does not center around mere courage or the ability to endure but rather love and sacrifice. For He wanted His stripes, that is His wounds, to heal our wounds. He bent His back willingly to carry our sins in His body. “Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many” (Heb. 9:28). “He poured out His soul unto death, and He was numbered with the transgressors, and He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors” (v.12). Through the sufferings of His love, He demonstrated to us His extreme caring nature and that He is the Shepherd and Overseer of our souls, who seeks every sick soul, opening His arms to every one who goes astray! He chose death on the cross. This was not coincidence, but as St. Athanasius the Apostolic said: “It was not appropriate for the Lord to be sick and He is the One who heals others. He came as the Savior not to die Himself, but to die instead of others. If His death was in secret, it would not have witnessed the resurrection. He became a curse for us. (Gal. 3:13), and this is the cross. How can He call us (the Gentiles) if He were not crucified stretching His arms to call us? Since the cross was the worst kind of death and the most brutal punishment, therefore the Lord Jesus endured the cross, willingly, through His humanity, redeeming all human beings from the worst punishment of death.”

H.E. Metropolitan Bishoy – The Dogma Of Atonement And Redemption 
In order to save us from the results of sin, God “sent His Son to be the propitiation (atonement) for our sins” (1 John 4:10). He condemned sin as Saint Paul the Apostle said: “God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh” (Rom. 8: 3). “Condemned sin in the flesh” means that sin was judged upon the cross. God “did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all” (Rom. 8: 32). He didn’t pity His Son when He carried our sins in His flesh but announced His wrath against sin so that sin would receive a fair judgement. Here God as holy and as a rejecter of sin is justified. God wants to announce His vengeance and wrath against the sin of man. The one accepting that our Lord Jesus Christ carries his sins and is moved by the love of Christ, would watch sin by his own eyes nailed upon the cross. He would thus know that his sins were forgiven. He would see by his own eyes that sin was judged fairly. Thus Saint Paul says: “Having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross” (Col. 2: 14).

Fr. Tadros Malaty –Commentary on Exodus
As the people could not have quenched their thirst from that rock, unless it is struck by the rod; likewise, we would have not enjoyed the limitless wells of God’s love, and the Holy Spirit in us, unless the Lord Christ is struck, to bear on the cross, through the divine justice, the price of our sins. And as the rock was publicly struck once, so also the Lord Christ was visibly lifted up on the cross, and offered up Himself, once, for all (Hebrew 7: 27), and from Him a flow of blood and water came out (John 19: 34), as atonement and purification for all who believe in Him.

Fr. Tadros Malaty –Commentary on Isaiah
He washed our filth in the water of Baptism, in the worthiness of His blood; and is still washing all our weaknesses by His blood that flowed from his stabbed side, mingled with water. If our hands got spoiled with blood  through our sins, He offers His blood as atonement  for  our  sake,  to  set  us  a  glorious Church, with no defilement or wrinkles, but in every respect sanctified. That  washing  or  purification  is  realized  “by  the  spirit  of  judgment and by the spirit of burning.” As to the spirit of Judgment, it has been realized by His being nailed on the Cross, to bear the price of our sins in His body, consummating divine justice what we due on Him. As to the spirit of burning, it refers to what has been proclaimed by the law in the Book of Leviticus, concerning the ‘burnt offering,’ where the sacrifice is wholly burnt, as a reference to complete love.

Fr. Tadros Malaty –Commentary on Daniel
These were all fulfilled by the coming of the Lord Jesus: To finish the transgression: that is to erase sins from the eyes of God, by preaching the Gospel of salvation and enjoying the gift of the Holy Spirit, which God granted to His church through the worthiness of the precious blood. The captivity was considered a chastisement for the sins of Israel and Judah, but it was not a just punishment for captivity cannot forgive sins, therefore, the sacrifice of the cross was a must, where the Lord Jesus offers Himself on the cross as a propitiation for the sins of the whole world. (1John 2:1) To make an end of sins: When the Lord Jesus offered Himself, who is without blemish, a Sacrifice for sin, one time for the whole world, He put an end to sin. To make reconciliation of iniquity: This means that the sacrifice for reconciliation or atonement has to be offered.

St. Basil Liturgy Reference Book  (CopticChurch.net, Edited by Fr. Abraam D. Sleman)
“The bread is pierced in five places around the central crosses in reference to the 3 nails that hold Jesus on the cross, the crown of thorns and the spear that pierced His side. The bread is made from pure wheat, leavened but unsalted, because Jesus Christ is the salt of the world. The leaven symbolizes our Sins which the Lord Jesus Christ bore for us. The bread must be freshly baked. …During choosing the lamb, The priest lays his hands on the oblations in the shape of the cross as the priest of the old testament, who lays his hand on the sacrifice while the sinner confesses his sins. This declares that Jesus Christ, The Lamb of God has carried our sins on His shoulders.” 

Fr. Tadros Malaty –The Book of Revelation
And He treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of God, for He alone is the Almighty God who can bear the wage of sin in His body. Thus He dies on our behalf, and He lifts us up, out of our death. On the cross, He carried our sins that makes the Father hid His face from us, for He can’t bear them. Through His resurrection we are victoriously risen

Fr. Tadros Malaty –Ezekiel
There was no being who could bear the wrath of God on the land, and intercede on its behalf. That is why He sent His Only-Begotten Son, as a Son of Man; who, alone, can stand in the gap, bear the divine wrath in His body for our sake; and intercede for us by His pure blood; and bring us back to the bosom of the Father.

Fr. Tadros Malaty – Patristic Commentary on the Book of Deuteronomy
Moses stood as an intercessor between God and His people, as we saw in Deuteronomy 5:5. Whereas the Lord Christ was, being the Mediator who is One in essence with the Father, He carried us as members in His body, and reconciled us with His Father. “For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time” (1 Timothy 3:5, 6). But there is a great difference between the two mediations: The first was a mediator to gain the divine promise through the ministry of  the copy and shadow of the heavenly things; whereas the second has brought us into heaven itself.

Fr. Tadros Malaty – School of Alexandria, Part 2
Origen interprets Christ’s death as an act of vicarious subtitution or propitiatory sacrifice. He argues that, as the Leader of the Church, Jesus is the head of a body of which we are members; He has taken our sins upon Himself, has borne them and has suffered freely for us. As a true priest, He has offered the Father a true sacrifice in which He is Himself the Victim, thereby propitiating the Father. The Son offers the Christians’ own gifts of pity, justice, piety, peace. He offers the lives of transformed believers.

Fr. Tadros Malaty – Patristic Commentary on Second Book of Samuel
The Psalmist David says: “For His anger is but for a moment; His favor is for life”; referring to the divine wrath, as Uzza was struck dead before the ark, when he dared to touch it. That was only for a moment; Yet, the people, through that ark, enjoyed life, as they gained the pleasure of God. That was a symbol of what happened with Jesus, the Lord of Glory, as He bore the divine wrath on the cross; it was said: “It pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief, when You make His soul an offering for sin. … For He shall bear the iniquities of many” (Isaiah 53: 10, 12). As His wrath was only for a moment, as our iniquities were put on Him; He rose and caused us to rise with Him, granting us life in His pleasure.

Exodus 30: 11-15 (Septuagint)
Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “When you take the census of the children of Israel for their number, then every man shall give a ransom for his soul to the Lord, so there may be no plague among them when you number them. This is what everyone among those who are numbered shall give: half a drachma according to the drachma of the sanctuary (a drachma is twenty obols). The half-drachma shall be an offering to the Lord. Everyone included among those who are numbered, from twenty years old and above, shall give an offering to the Lord. The rich shall not give more and the poor shall not give less than half a drachma when you give an offering to the Lord to make atonement for your souls. You shall take the money of the offering of the children of Israel and shall give it for the service of the tabernacle of testimony, that it may be a memorial for the children of Israel before the Lord to make atonement for your souls.”

Leviticus 25: 47-52 (Septuagint)
‘Now if a resident alien or sojourner with you prospers, and your brother becomes poor and sells himself to the resident alien or sojourner with you, or to a member of the resident alien’s family, after he is sold he may be redeemed again. One of his brothers may redeem him; or his 
uncle or his uncle’s son may redeem him; or anyone near of kin to him in his family may redeem him; or if he is able he may redeem himself. Thus he shall compute the years with him who bought him: The price of his release shall be according to the number of years from the year that he was sold to him until the Year of Remission; it shall be according to the time he was a hired servant for him. If there are still more years remaining to someone, he shall pay his ransom from the money of his sale. Now if there remain but a few years until the Year of Remission, then he shall compute with him, and according to his years, he shall repay his ransom.

Psalm 49:7-9 (NKJV)
None of them can by any means redeem his brother, Nor give to God a ransom for him—For the redemption of their souls is costly, And it shall cease forever—That he should continue to live eternally, And not see the Pit.

Matthew 6:12
And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

Matthew 18: 23-27
Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.

Mark 10:45
For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

Colossians 2:13-14
And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. 

1 Timothy 2:5-6
For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time,

Ephesians 5:2
And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour.

Hebrews 9:14
How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

St. Cyprian (200 -258 AD), Epistle 62
For if Jesus Christ, our Lord and God, is Himself the chief priest of God the Father, and has first offered Himself a sacrifice to the Father, and has commanded this to be done in commemoration of Himself, certainly that priest truly discharges the office of Christ, who imitates that which Christ did; and he then offers a true and full sacrifice in the Church to God the Father, when he proceeds to offer it according to what he sees Christ Himself to have offered.

St. Victorinus (250 – 303 AD) –  Commentary on Apocalypse
And when for man’s salvation He was made man to overcome death, and to set all men free, and that He offered Himself a victim to the Father on our behalf, He was called a calf. And that He overcame death and ascended into the heavens, extending His wings and protecting His people, He was named a flying eagle.

Eusebius Pamphilus  (263 -339 AD) – Life of the Blessed Emperor Constantine
I may allege yet a third cause of the Saviour’s death. He was the victim offered to the Supreme Sovereign of the universe for the whole human race…But forasmuch as he was the great high priest, consecrated to the Supreme Lord and King, and therefore more than a victim, the Word, the Power, and the Wisdom of God; he soon recalled his body from the grasp of death, presented it to his Father as the first-fruit of our common salvation, and raised this trophy, a proof at once of his victory over death and Satan, and of the abolition of human sacrifices, for the blessing of all mankind.

St. Athanasius (296 – 373 AD) – Festal Epistles, Letter X
This is the Lord, Who is manifested in the Father, and in Him also the Father is manifested; Who, being truly the Son of the Father, at last became incarnate for our sake, that He might offer Himself to the Father in our stead, and redeem us through His offering and sacrifice. This is He Who once, in old time, brought the people out of Egypt; but Who afterwards redeemed all of us, or rather the whole race of men, from death, and brought them up from the grave. This is He Who, in old time, was sacrificed as a lamb, having been typified in the lamb; but Who afterwards was slain for us, for Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed.

St. Hilary of Poitiers (310 – 367 AD) – Homily on Psalm LIII
And although this suffering did not belong to His nature as eternal Son, the immutability of God being proof against the assault of any derogatory disturbance, yet it was freely undertaken, and was intended to fulfill a penal function without, however, inflicting the pain of penalty upon the sufferer: not that the suffering in question was not of a kind to cause pain, but because the divine Nature feels no pain. God suffered, then, by voluntarily submitting to suffering; but although He underwent the sufferings in all the fullness of their force, which necessarily causes pain to the sufferers, yet He never so abandoned the powers of His Nature as to feel pain. For next there follows: I will sacrifice unto Thee freely. The sacrifices of the Law, which consisted of whole burnt-offerings and oblations of goats and of bulls, did not involve an expression of free will, because the sentence of a curse was pronounced on all who broke the Law. Whoever failed to sacrifice laid himself open to the curse. And it was always necessary to go through the whole sacrificial action because the addition of a curse to the commandment forbad any trifling with the obligation of offering. It was from this curse that our Lord Jesus Christ redeemed us, when, as the Apostle says: Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made curse for us, for it is written: cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree. Thus He offered Himself to the death of the accursed that He might break the curse of the Law, offering Himself voluntarily a victim to God the Father, in order that by means of a voluntary victim the curse which attended the discontinuance of the regular victim might be removed. Now of this sacrifice mention is made in another passage of the Psalms: Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared for Me; that is, by offering to God the Father, Who refused the legal sacrifices, the acceptable offering of the body which He received. Of which offering the holy Apostle thus speaks: For this He did once for all when He offered Himself up, securing complete salvation for the human race by the offering of this holy, perfect victim. 

St. Basil the Great (330 – 379 AD) – Homily on Psalm xlviii
Seek not to have thy brother for thy redeemer, but to have One who transcends thine own nature; neither a mere man, but the God-Man, Jesus Christ, who alone can offer to God a propitiatory Sacrifice for all of us, because “God appointed Him as a propitiation through faith in His Blood.” For what can a man find that is so valuable as that he can offer it for the redemption of his soul? But there was found one thing, equal in value to all men put together, which was given as the price of redemption of our soul,—even the holy and most precious Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which He shed for us all; therefore were we “bought with a price.”…For He had no need to offer to God an atonement for Himself, nor to redeem His own soul, seeing that “He did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth.”…He who will not give to God an atonement for Himself, but for the whole world. For He needs no propitiation: He is a Propitiation Himself.

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – Commentary on Gospel of St. John
For not by the violence of the Jews, but of His own Will did He come to the Cross for our sakes and on account of us. Wherefore also He saith, averting the reproach of seeming powerlessness, No man taketh My life from Me, I lay it down of  Myself: I have power to lay it down, and again I have power to take it. For as we have already before said, He bare no unwilling Cross for us. For He hath offered Himself as a Holy Sacrifice to God the Father, purchasing the salvation of all men by His Own Blood. Wherefore He also said in the Gospel preachings, For their sakes do I sanctify Myself. But sanctify He here says for “offer,” and “consecrate;” for that which is offered in sacrifice to God is holy. But that He accepted being the Sacrifice for all free from all violence from any, we shall know when we hear Him saying in the Psalms to God the Father, Sacrifice and, offering Thou wouldest not, but a Body preparedst
Thou Me: in whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin Thou tookest no pleasure: then I said, Lo I come, in the chapter of the book it is written of Me, to do Thy will, O God.  

St. Cyril explains that the Son offered Himself through love of His Father:

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – The Gospel According to St. John
He willed that His own Son, though of like fashion with Himself and distinguished by His perfect equality with Him should descend to such humiliation as to take the form of man for our sake, and not shrink from death to save the world. This the Son did through love of His Father, Who is said to have ordered Him by His own powerto suffer death in His fleshly nature, and to destroy the power of corruption, and to quicken the dead, and to restore them to their ancient state.

Ambrose (337- 397 AD) –  Selected Works and Letters
The father offered indeed his son, but God is appeased not by blood but by dutiful obedience. He showed the ram in the thicket in the stead of the lad, that He might restore the son to his father, and yet the victim not fail the priest. And so Abraham was not stained with his son’s blood, nor was God deprived of the sacrifice. The prophet spoke, and neither yielded to boastfulness nor continued obstinate, but took the ram in exchange for the lad. And by this is shown the more how piously he offered him whom he now so gladly received back. And thou, if thou offer thy gift to God, dost not lose it. But we are tenacious of our own; God gave His only Son for us, we refuse ours. Abraham saw this and recognized the mystery, that salvation should be to us from the Tree, nor did it escape his notice that in one and the same sacrifice it was One that seemed to be offered, Another which could be slain.

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – On the Gospel According to John, Book V
The most wise Evangelist profitably makes plea in behalf of the saving Passion and shews that the Death on the Cross was not of human necessity, nor did Jesus suffer death against His will from the tyranny of another, but rather did offer Himself for us a spotless Sacrifice to God the Father by reason of His inherent love for us. For since He must needs suffer (since thus would the imported corruption and sin and death be overturned), He hath given Himself a Ransom for the life of all.

 St. Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch Vol 2, Pages 46-47
For “he did not create death, nor does he delight in the destruction of living creatures, “as it is written. Nor does he take pleasure from those who are perishing, as he does from the destruction of the unclean demons. Rather, he commands that a ransom should be laid down on their behalf, and so we ought to confess openly that, in essence, we owe even our very lives to him. For he indicated this ransom when he commanded that the sum called the “two drachmas” should be paid. So the true ransom given for all is to be understood as Christ himself, through whom and in whom we have overcome corruption, for he gave himself for us.

St. Cyril of Alexandria (378 – 444 AD) – On the Gospel According to John, Book III
The Law then appointed to the children of Israel to give to every man a ransom for his poll, half a didrachm. But one stater contains a didrachm. Yea and herein again was shadowed out to us Christ Himself, Who offered Himself for all, as by all, a Ransom to God the Father, and is understood in the one drachma, but not separately from the other, because that in the one coin, as we said before, two drachmae are contained. Thus may both the Son be conceived of in respect of the Father, and again the Father in respect of the Son, Both in One Nature, but Each Separate in part, as existing in His own Person, yet not wholly severed, nor One apart from the Other. And as in the one coin were two drachmae, having equal bulk with one another, and in no ways one less than the other; so shalt thou conceive of the in nought differing Essence of the Son in respect of God the Father, and again of the Father in respect of the Son, and thou shalt at length receive wholesome doctrine upon all points spoken of concerning Him.

Eusebius of Caesarea (263 -339 AD) –  Demonstratio Evangelica, BOOK IV 
For firstly, the Word teaches by His death that He is Lord both of dead and living; and secondly, that He will wash away our sins, being slain, and becoming a curse for us; thirdly, that a victim of God and a great sacrifice for the whole world might be offered to Almighty God; fourthly, that thus He might work out the destruction of the deceitful powers of the daemons by unspeakable words… 

St. Severus of Antioch (465 – 538 AD) – Letters of St. Severus, TO EUPRAXIUS THE
CHAMBERLAIN 
This therefore was thus performed in the case of the two goats also, that the one was slaughtered and the other dismissed. We clearly see the hidden meaning which relates to the Cross: for the type denotes that the same one Christ suffered in the flesh, but remained without suffering in that he is considered to he true God. For the same person both is separated by lots to the Lord and slaughtered (for ‘he delivered himself for our sake as an offering and a sacrifice to God the Father for a sweet savour’ ), and goes away without suffering bearing the sins of all Israel, which in the type of Aaron were confessed over the head of the goat: for he clearly displays himself as being himself true God, over whom we confess our sins according to law; for “I will make confession”, he saith, “unto thee, Lord, concerning my sins, and thou wilt forgive the wickedness of my heart”; for, though ‘he was led as a lamb to the slaughter’, yet, ‘who shall tell his generation, because his life is taken away from the earth?’…Accordingly the lamb is the type of the righteous, and the goat of sinners; for the righteous stand as lambs on the right hand, and the sinners as goats on the left. Let no one think- that through the symbol of the two goats he shows us two Christs, one passible and the other impassible, but one and the same, passible in the flesh, but impassible in his Godhead. 

Church Midnight Praises – Sunday Theotokia
You are the Censer; made of pure gold, carrying the blessed and live coal; which is taken from the Altar; to purge the sins and take away the iniquities; which is God the Logos, Who was incarnate of you and offered Himself to God, His Father, as incense.  

Fr. Tadros Malaty – Interpretation of the Book of Genesis
Abraham saw the true Lamb, “Jesus Christ”, to be offered, not as a ransom for Isaac alone but  for the whole world. In his saying, “God will provide”, Abraham proclaimed his complete trust in God’s salvation plan, that is not the work of man but a divine ordainment; God, alone, would provide, by His own exalted means.

Fr. Tadros Malaty – A Patristic Commentary on the Book of Isaiah
The Savior has paid the price. The early Church considered the blood shed on the cross, as a payment for the debt that we owe the Father, and a ransom from the hand of the devil who bought us as slaves. That is the work of the Holy Savior, to sanctify us and to set us free from his servitude. That is why He says, “For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt for your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in your place.” (Is. 43: 3)