Anselm on the Atonement. The honor of first presenting the doctrine of the satisfaction of Christ in anything like a complete form, however, goes to Anselm. His Cur Deus Homo (Why God became Man), though small, was a truly epoch-making work and contained nearly all the essential elements of a real satisfaction theory. Anselm emphasized the seriousness of sin as an infringement of the honor of God, grounded the necessity of the atonement in the very nature of the divine Being, regarded the death of