Bloodshed could only be atoned by blood-money or by shedding the blood of the offender or of his family.
He had, as Demosthenes boasts, an action for outrage like a freeman, and his death at the hand of a stranger was avenged like that of a citizen (Eurip. Hec. 288), whilst, if caused by his master's violence, it had to be atoned for by exile and a religious expiation.
This seeming pedantry is, however, atoned for by the clear practical aim of his sermons, the noble ideal he keeps before his hearers, and the skill with which he handles spiritual experience and urges incentives to virtue.
Abroad the new King's position was prejudiced by the hideous crime which led to his accession, but among his own people this was from the first atoned for by the introduction of a real constitutional regime and increased political stability.
Thus McLeod Campbell (q.v.) held that Christ atoned by offering up to God a perfect confession of the sins of mankind and an adequate repentance for them, with which divine justice is satisfied, and a full expiation is made for human guilt.
