The Fathers often worked upon biblical quotations, from both Testaments, describing Christ's saving work, sometimes adding one to another from different places in Scripture. The dominant strain in the soteriological writings of the Greek Fathers, such as Athanasius of Alexandria (c.296/298–373), was the so-called "physical" theory that Christ, by becoming man, restored the divine image in us; but blended with this is the conviction that his death was necessary to release us from the curse of sin, and that he offered himself in sacrifice for us.