Frederick Cyril Nugent Hicks was a Church of England bishop and author who served as Bishop of Gibraltar from 1927 to 1933, and Bishop of Lincoln from 1933 to 1942.

On the face of it, this book is the product of lifelong thought, study and research. Its value as an original and able contribution to scientific theology has received wide and ample recognition and must be assessed by others than myself. I am bold to write these few lines in preface to its third and posthumous edition, simply to stress that which I think must be obvious to every reader of it. It is instinct with intense religious conviction. Theory and concept of sacrifice which are present in it might have been merely the conclusion of an academic theologising. They are almost palpably the expression of the writer's inner life in Christ.