Gustaf Aulén

Gustaf Aulén was a Swedish Lutheran theologian who served as Bishop of Strängnäs in the Church of Sweden. He was born on 15 May 1879 in Ljungby parish in Kalmar County and died on 16 December 1977 at the age of 98. After studying at Uppsala University he became professor of dogmatics at Lund University in 1913 and bishop in 1933, and he retired from the bishopric in 1952. He belonged to the Lundensian school of theology, which largely rejected nineteenth century German liberal thought while embracing orthodoxy, and he consistently praised Martin Luther while being much more frequently critical of Friedrich Schleiermacher. He is the author of Christus Victor, first published in Swedish in 1930, which sorted theories of the atonement into three types and argued for a return to what he called the classic view of the atonement as a divine conflict and victory over the evil powers of the world.