With the remote goal of advancing a theology of the cross in response to the exigencies of a secular culture, we now begin a dialectical inquiry into the historical transpositions of the soteriological notion “justice over power.” Though not invented by Augustine originally, this notion shapes Latin theology particularly through Augustine’s interpretation. Especially, since Augustine is the Theologian for Thomas Aquinas, and Thomas Aquinas, in turn, is the Theologian for Lonergan, it seems appropriate to devote the first two chapters in this second, “historical,” step of the work to examining Augustine’s understanding of the justice of the cross. This chapter will primarily draw on Augustine’s De Trinitate (trin.), while Chapter 4 will focus on his other major treatise, De ciuitate Dei (ciu.). But is the retrieval of St. Augustine’s soteriology still relevant in the context where the secularist bias makes us suspicious of anything that reminds us of mythological mentality? After all, it has been proposed that, in line with Church Fathers, such as Irenaeus of Lyon, Origen, and Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine sides with the ransom theory of atonement: In Adam, all humanity became a slave to sin, death, and the devil. In order to liberate us from this captivity, the second Adam, Christ, paid a ransom to the devil in his blood that was outpoured on the cross.2 J. Patout Burns indicates that such an interpretation is far from rare: Augustine’s primary explanation of redemption “is usually identified as a forensic analysis which addresses the rights of the devil.”3 Augustine’s ransom motif par excellence is commonly found in the thirteenth book of his theological treatise De Trinitate. There he claims that the cross of Christ responds to the fundamental problem of evil in such a way that communicates and enacts God’s preference for justice over power: non autem diabolus potentia dei sed iustitia superandus fuit.4