Early theories of atonement (hint: there weren't any)

It is interesting that the Christian doctrine that Christ atoned for human sin through his death and resurrection did not, unlike such doctrines as the incarnation and the Trinity, become the subject of controversy in the early church, and therefore never was explained or spelled out in the early, ecumenical creeds. The New Testament itself, in describing Christ’s atonement, employs a number of different images or metaphors. Christ’s death is variously described as a sacrifice, a punishment that Christ bore on behalf of humans, and as a “ransom for many.” Early Christian thinkers mainly relied on the last of these images, seeing Christ’s death as a ransom paid by God that liberated humans from the power of sin, death, and Satan.—Evans, A History of Western Philosophy, 160–61