Defensio fidei catholicae de satisfactione Christi adversus Faustum Socinum

Hugo Grotius's Defensio fidei catholicae de satisfactione Christi adversus Faustum Socinum, Ioannes Patius, Leiden, 1617, is a primary theological text, written against Faustus Socinus, who had denied that satisfaction for sin could be transferred from one person to another. Its strength is that it is the founding statement of the governmental or rectoral account of the atonement, in Grotius's own words, arguing that God acts at the cross as ruler of a moral order rather than as a private party owed a debt. Its limit is the ordinary one for a polemical treatise written to answer a named opponent: it argues one contested theological position rather than surveying the field neutrally.