The term Christus Victor, Latin for “Christ is the conqueror,” originated with a 1931 book by Gustaf Aulén, which presents a theory of Christ’s work of atonement. Aulén argued that the Christus Victor model of atonement was espoused by the early church fathers and is therefore closer to the truth than Anselm’s satisfaction (or commercial) theory, formulated in the eleventh century; and the Reformers’ penal substitution theory, which was a modification of Anselm’s view. Christus Victor asserts that “the work of Christ is first and foremost a victory over the powers which hold mankind in bondage: sin, death, and the devil.” In contrast, the satisfaction model says that Christ had to die in order to restore God’s honor that had been offended by mankind’s sin; the penal substitution model says that Christ was punished for the sake of justice—that God’s just punishment of sin was satisfied by Christ so that the punishment would not fall on humanity.