Part 4: https://universalistheretic.blogspot.com/2022/02/indeed-very-many-part-4-rise-of-proto.html
‘Universalism is heresy!’ has been the default position of the church for nearly 1500 years, alongside the idea that ‘infernalism (eternal torment) is orthodoxy.’ For this reason, it’s hard for many Christians to fathom a time in which universalism might have been considered orthodox, and the idea of eternal torment heretical. However, the fact is that universalism was actually the majority view for the first four hundred years of the church’s existence. In fact, until the time of Augustine of Hippo, who was one of the first mainstream infernalists, the salvation of all was proclaimed by major champions of early orthodoxy such as Irenaeus of Lyons, the three Cappadocian Fathers, and St. Jerome. This series of posts will go through the history of early church thought on hell and universal salvation.
In the 4th century, the proto-orthodoxy of the 2nd and 3rd centuries began to be solidified into official orthodoxy. The canon of scripture was established around this time, although it’s debated when it actually became official. At the First Council of Nicaea in 325, the basis for the doctrine of trinitarianism was laid, and it was officially affirmed in 381 at Constantinople and again in 431 and 451. Most of the patristic writers around this time were concerned with maintaining what they saw as orthodoxy, and defending the doctrines that they believed were biblical and had been passed down to them. Therefore, it’s important to determine what the Christian writers of this time believed about universal salvation. This post will demonstrate that universalism was the majority view of the 4th century Eastern Church.
Basil of Caesarea
Basil the Great (330 - 379) was bishop of Caesarea Mazaca and a prominent supporter of both trinitarianism and the Nicene Creed. Along with Gregory Nyssen and Gregory Nazianzen, he was one of the Cappadocian Fathers, three respected defenders of orthodoxy who are now venerated as saints and some of the most important members of the early Church. He wrote many works of literature, of which his principal writings are De Spiritu Sancto (On the Holy Spirit) and Refutation of the Apology of the Impious Eunomius.
Basil was a strong defender of Origen and his ideas, including his doctrine of universal salvation. Although it comes short of promoting universal reconciliation, Basil does describe a ‘restoration to the beginning’ in one of his epistles which is similar to Origen’s idea of apokatastasis:
Only pray, I beseech you, that the Lord may not deliver us for aye to the enemies of the Cross of Christ, but that He will keep His Churches, until the time of that peace which the just Judge Himself knows when He will bestow. For He will bestow it. He will not always abandon us. As He limited seventy years for the period of captivity for the Israelites in punishment for their sins, so perhaps the Mighty One, after giving us up for some appointed time, will recall us once again, and will restore us to the peace of the beginning (Epistles of Basil 264)
As well as promoting the idea of eventual apokatastasis (restoration to the beginning), Basil also clearly promoted the doctrine of universalism in his Commentary on Isaiah. Here are a number of quotes from this commentary which demonstrate this:
After those worthy of restoration to their original state have been saved with judgement and with mercy, those entirely lawless and those persevering in sin shall be broken together… But perhaps even in those whom God benefits, wishing them to walk in newness of life, He breaks their old man. That is why sacrifice to God is a broken spirit. For the spirit of the world which effects sin is broken, so that a straight will be renewed in the inward parts of man. The arm of the sinner is also broken, that is, the active power of sin, in order that his sin may be sought for and not found. Such is also the pronouncement: “I will kill and I will make alive; I will smite and I will heal.” For God will kill him who lives in an evil way, so that after purification of the evil life He may grant him a new one. Therefore “the lawless and sinners shall be broken together,” so that they may cease to be rebellious and disobedient. (Comm. on Isa. 1.59)
For He says: “He that, until the time, is in distress, shall not be perplexed”. Not forever shall this ignorance hold mankind fast, but he who now seeks out the truth of it and is in travail of its discovery, at some time shall see “face to face” and receive the perfection of knowledge, when the time comes for the restoration of all. For that is what the phrase “until the time” means. (Comm. on Isa. 8.222)
“And I will eradicate the insolence of the lawless”, says the Lord, “and I will humble the insolence of the arrogant.” It is the word of the good God to eradicate what is worthless in order to restore His creation from every evil and to elevate it, released from every sickness, into its natural state. (Comm. on Isa. 13.267)
Similarly, Basil saw judgment and punishment as merely tools used by God to bring about the salvation of sinners. To support this notion, he quotes 1 Corinthians 3:15:
Then Isaiah adds: “The whole earth has been set on fire because of the wrath of the lord’s anger”. He shows that earthly things are given over to the purifying fire for the benefit of the soul, just as the Lord indicates saying: “I came to bring fire upon the earth, and I wish to see it already kindled”. And the people shall be as a man burnt by fire. The prophecy does not threaten with obliteration, but indicates purification, in accordance with what is said by the Apostle: “If somebody’s work burns up, he shall suffer loss; yet himself shall be saved, but only as through fire.” (Comm. on Isa. 9.231)
“When,” says the Lord, “the anger of my wrath is over, I will heal again.” That is: “after chastening blows, whenever I see the correction to be sufficient, I will not abandon them in sorrowful circumstances”; just as a physician would say to the sick: “When I cut and when I cauterise, I will leave neither the incision, nor the sores from the cautery uncared for. For whenever I have achieved the end for the sake of which painful methods have been adopted, then, providing the final treatment, I will restore to health.” (Comm. on Isa. 7.195)
Therefore, Basil was a universalist and clearly expressed this belief in some of his writings. Why did he not do so in his other works? First of all, he was mainly concerned with trinitarianism and refuting those who disagreed with the Nicene Creed, so universalism wouldn’t have been a topic in most of his writings. Moreover, following the guideline set out by the Apocalypse of Peter and Origen, most universalists of the early Church did not share this belief with non-Christians, to avoid provoking them to sin even more and to reject Christ. Therefore, it is only natural that Basil’s universalism would be primarily confined to his pedagogical works, such as his Commentary on Isaiah.
Perhaps even more important for determining Basil’s beliefs on universalism is Orosius’ work Commonitorium de errore Priscillianistarum et Origenistarum in which he describes Basil, along with two other Greek fathers, as hardcore Origenists:
But these two Aviti, and with them Saint Basil the Greek (who taught these things most blessedly), have delivered some things from the books of Origen himself, as I now understand... They preached that the eternal fire by which sinners are to be punished is neither true fire, nor eternal, saying that the punishment in one’s own conscience was called fire. They said that ‘eternal’ [aiōnios] according to its Greek etymology does not mean ‘perpetual’. They even added a Latin proof: for in saying “for eternity [eis ton aiōna]” and “for ever and ever [eis tous aiōnas tōn aiōnōn]” something is added to eternity. And so [they said that] all the souls of sinners will return to unity in Christ’s body after the purification of their conscience. They were also willing to assert regarding the devil that, because good deeds cannot perish, his substance, once the whole wickedness of the devil is burnt up, is to be saved. (Commonitorium 3.3-7)
This testimony is extremely important in more than one way. First, it shows that Basil was, beyond a doubt, a full universalist (and even left open the possibility that the devil might be saved, in line with Comm. on Isa. 14.280). Even more significantly, it demonstrates that even by the late fourth century, the Greek phrases aiōnios, eis ton aiōna, and eis tous aiōnas tōn aiōnōn were understood not to mean ‘everlasting’ or ‘perpetual’. Therefore, we can be absolutely sure that Basil was as much a universalist as his brother Gregory Nyssen (see below) and not merely a hopeful universalist or an infernalist.
Gregory Nyssen
Gregory, brother of Basil the Great (c. 335 - 395) was bishop of Nyssa and an influential theologian during his later life. Along with his brother and his friend Gregory Nazianzen, he was one of the three Cappadocian Fathers of the fourth century. He was actually one of the most venerated saints of the early Church, and the bishops of the Second Council of Nicaea (787) said of him that “all have called [him] the father of fathers.”
It is interesting, then, that out of the three Cappadocians, Gregory Nyssen was the most prominent defender of Origen and his doctrine of universal apokatastasis. In fact, the theme of universalism runs so clearly throughout Gregory’s writings that in medieval times, following the Origenist controversy, some thought that his works had been altered to make him look like a heretic (!). One of his most famous works, On the Soul and the Resurrection, clearly demonstrates his belief in universal salvation:
[Macrina the Younger:] “when evil shall have been some day annihilated in the long revolutions of the ages, nothing shall be left outside the world of goodness, but that even from those evil spirits shall rise in harmony the confession of Christ’s Lordship. If this is so, then no one can compel us to see any spot of the underworld in the expression, ‘things under the earth’; the atmosphere spreads equally over every part of the earth, and there is not a single corner of it left unrobed by this circumambient air.” (On the Soul and the Resurrection 4)
[Gregory Nyssen:] “Then it seems”, I said, “that it is not punishment chiefly and principally that the Deity, as Judge, afflicts sinners with; but He operates, as your argument has shown, only to get the good separated from the evil and to attract it into the communion of blessedness.” (On the Soul and the Resurrection 7)
[Macrina:] “In any and every case evil must be removed out of existence, so that, as we said above, the absolutely non-existent should cease to be at all. Since it is not in its nature that evil should exist outside the will, does it not follow that when it shall be that every will rests in God, evil will be reduced to complete annihilation, owing to no receptacle being left for it?… But He that becomes ‘all’ things will be ‘in all’ things too; and herein it appears to me that Scripture teaches the complete annihilation of evil. If, that is, God will be in all existing things, evil, plainly, will not then be among them; for if any one was to assume that it did exist then, how will the belief that God will be ‘in all’ be kept intact? The excepting of that one thing, evil, mars the comprehensiveness of the term ‘all’. But He that will be ‘in all’ will never be in that which does not exist.” (On the Soul and the Resurrection 7)
The remedy offered by the Overseer of the produce is to collect together the tares and the thorns, which have grown up with the good seed, and into whose bastard life all the secret forces that once nourished its root have passed, so that it not only has had to remain without its nutriment, but has been choked and so rendered unproductive by this unnatural growth. When from the nutritive part within them everything that is the reverse or the counterfeit of it has been picked out, and has been committed to the fire that consumes everything unnatural, and so has disappeared, then in this class also their humanity will thrive and will ripen into fruit-bearing, owing to such husbandry, and some day after long courses of ages will get back again that universal form which God stamped upon us at the beginning. (On the Soul and the Resurrection 12)
Interestingly, much of On the Soul and the Resurrection is written as a dialogue between Gregory and his sister, Macrina the Younger, who seems to share many doctrines with Origen. Not only does she espouse universalism and apokatastasis, but she also uses the exact same argument as Origen does to defend this doctrine; namely, that evil is not inherent to the creation and so once we see God clearly we will naturally be reconciled to Him. If the dialogue associated with Macrina is actually her own words, and not, as some argue, merely a contrived conversation, then all four Cappadocians were universalists.
Paul signifies, by the Son’s subjection, the destruction of death [1 Cor. 15:26-27]. Therefore, these two elements concur, that is, when death will be no more, and everything will be completely changed into life. The Lord is life. According to the apostle, Christ will have access to the Father with his entire body when he will hand over the kingdom to our God and Father. Christ’s body, as it is often said, consists of human nature in its entirety to which he has been united. Because of this, Christ is named Lord by Paul, as mediator between God and man. He who is in the Father and has lived with men accomplishes intercession. Christ unites all mankind to himself, and to the Father through himself (In Illud)
Therefore, Gregory of Nyssa was very clearly a universalist and a follower of Origen, and his sister Macrina the Younger likely was as well.
Gregory Nazianzen
Gregory of Nazianzus (329 - 390) was the archbishop of Constantinople during his later life, and so one of the most important theologians and Eastern Church leaders of his time. Along with Basil of Caesarea and Gregory Nyssen, he is considered one of the Cappadocian Fathers and is venerated along with them. He was also a prominent defender of the orthodoxy of his day, and convened the second ecumenical council at Constantinople in 381. For this reason, his opinions on eschatology and soteriology are highly important in determining whether universalism was still considered orthodox in the late fourth century.
Gregory Nazianzen’s beliefs on soteriology appear to have shifted back and forth throughout his life. Early on, in an oration of his written in 362, he seems to have believed in universalism:
This is why God was united to the flesh by means of the soul, and natures so separate were knit together by the affinity to each of the element which mediated between them: so all became one for the sake of all, and for the sake of one, our progenitor, the soul because of the soul which was disobedient, the flesh because of the flesh which co-operated with it and shared in its condemnation, Christ, Who was superior to, and beyond the reach of, sin, because of Adam, who became subject to sin. (Orations 2.23)
This passage seems to suggest that Gregory believed that the Son’s sacrifice was effective for all, and went even beyond the reach of Adam’s sin. However, unfortunately, this statement is less than clear as to whether Gregory believed that all people would truly be saved, or whether all people merely have the opportunity to be saved.
In another oration, written seven years later, he expresses a belief in annihilation:
This is my fear, this day and night accompanies me, and will not let me breathe, on one side the glory, on the other the place of correction: the former I long for till I can say, “My soul faints for Your salvation”; from the latter I shrink back shuddering; yet I am not afraid that this body of mine should utterly perish in dissolution and corruption; but that the glorious creature of God (for glorious it is if upright, just as it is dishonourable if sinful) in which is reason, morality, and hope, should be condemned to the same dishonour as the brutes, and be no better after death; a fate to be desired for the wicked, who are worthy of the fire yonder. (Orations 7.22)
And again, in another passage written just before the death of his father in 374:
I do not dwell on the judgments to come, to which indulgence in this world delivers us, as it is better to be punished and cleansed now than to be transmitted to the torment to come, when it is the time of chastisement, not of cleansing. For as he who remembers God here is conqueror of death (as David has most excellently sung) so the departed have not in the grave confession and restoration; for God has confined life and action to this world, and to the future the scrutiny of what has been done. (Orations 16.7)
During this period, Gregory Nazianzen clearly thought that the punishment in the world to come was death and dissolution from which there would be no return.
However, later on, he appears to advocate universal salvation and the complete, final destruction of death and evil, just as Origen and the other Cappadocians:
[Adam] forgot the Commandment which had been given to him; he yielded to the baleful fruit; and for his sin he was banished, at once from the Tree of Life, and from Paradise, and from God; and put on the coats of skins...that is, perhaps, the coarser flesh, both mortal and contradictory. This was the first thing that he learned — his own shame; and he hid himself from God. Yet here too he makes a gain, namely death, and the cutting off of sin, in order that evil may not be immortal. Thus his punishment is changed into a mercy; for it is in mercy, I am persuaded, that God inflicts punishment. (Orations 38.12)
For since that Deceiver thought that he was unconquerable in his malice, after he had cheated us with the hope of becoming gods, he was himself cheated by God’s assumption of our nature; so that in attacking Adam as he thought, he should really meet with God, and thus the new Adam should save the old, and the condemnation of the flesh should be abolished, death being slain by flesh… Let these men then if they will, follow our way, which is Christ’s way; but if they will not, let them go their own. Perhaps in it they will be baptized with fire, in that last baptism which is more painful and longer, which devours wood like grass, and consumes the stubble of every evil. (Orations 39.13)
For if God is called upon as a Mediator to ratify human professions, how great is the danger if we be found transgressors of the covenant which we have made with God Himself; and if we be found guilty before the Truth Himself of that lie, besides our other transgressions...and that when there is no second regeneration, or recreation, or restoration to our former state, even though we seek it with all our might, and with many sighs and tears, by which it is cicatrized over (with great difficulty in my opinion, though we all believe that it may be cicatrized). Yet if we might wipe away even the scars I should be glad, since I too have need of mercy. But it is better not to stand in need of a second cleansing, but to stop at the first… For it is a strange thing to substitute for a painless remedy one which is more painful; to cast away the grace of mercy, and owe a debt of punishment (Orations 40.9)
In these orations, which were written in 380 and 381, Gregory of Nazianzus appears to preach a belief in merciful, restorative punishment and a “second cleansing”. However, because he seems not to be certain whether all people really will be saved (modifying his statements with “perhaps,” “whether,” “if,” etc.) some have suggested that he was rather an agnostic or ‘hopeful’ universalist.
As quoted in the second post of this series, at the turn of the fourth century, the Latin universalist Rufinus lists a number of well-respected early Origenists as a polemic against the nascent infernalist Jerome of Stridon. In this list, alongside known universalists like Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Didymus the Blind, he includes Clement of Rome and Gregory Nazianzen as fathers whom both he and Jerome agreed believed in full universalism. This could be evidence that Gregory of Nazianzus did indeed believe in universalism, and was not merely a ‘hopeful’ universalist. However, in lieu of a clear statement from Gregory himself, it is impossible to be sure.
Other fourth-century Greek Fathers
Although the three Cappadocians were by far the most prominent defenders of orthodoxy in the fourth-century Greek Church, there were also many others which we will now consider. The esteemed Church historian Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 260 - 339) definitely believed in the eventual apokatastasis, and very likely believed that it would be universal as well. [2] He wrote that “the expression ‘until the times of restoration’... indicates to us the world to come, in which all beings must receive the perfect restoration” (Against Marcellus 2.4.11).
Another patristic writer of the fourth century is Athanasius of Alexandria (297 - 373), who was perhaps the most fervent defender of Nicene trinitarianism. He shared many beliefs with Origen, not least of which were universalism and the eventual destruction of death and evil. A few quotes from his writings will suffice to demonstrate this:
...the Word Himself was made flesh, and being in the form of God, took the form of a servant, and from Mary after the flesh became man for us, and that thus in Him the human race is perfectly and wholly delivered from sin and vivified from the dead, and given access to the kingdom of the heavens. (Tomus ad Antiochenos 7)
For being over all, the Word of God naturally by offering His own temple and corporeal instrument for the life of all satisfied the debt by His death. And thus He, the incorruptible Son of God, being conjoined with all by a like nature, naturally clothed all with incorruption, by the promise of the resurrection… For the race of men had gone to ruin, had not the Lord and Saviour of all, the Son of God, come among us to meet the end of death. (On the Incarnation 9.2-4)
And so it was that two marvels came to pass at once, that the death of all was accomplished in the Lord’s body, and that death and corruption were wholly done away by reason of the Word that was united with it. For there was need of death, and death must needs be suffered on behalf of all, that the debt owing from all might be paid. Whence, as I said before, the Word, since it was not possible for Him to die, as He was immortal, took to Himself a body such as could die, that He might offer it as His own in the stead of all, and as suffering, through His union with it, on behalf of all, “Bring to nought Him that had the power of death, that is the devil; and might deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.” Why, now that the common Saviour of all has died on our behalf, we, the faithful in Christ, no longer die the death as before, agreeably to the warning of the law; for this condemnation has ceased; but, corruption ceasing and being put away by the grace of the Resurrection, henceforth we are only dissolved, agreeably to our bodies’ mortal nature, at the time God has fixed for each, that we may be able to gain a better resurrection. (On the Incarnation 20.5-21.1)
Clearly, then, Athanasius believed in universal salvation and repeatedly called the Son “the Savior of all”. Although he didn’t agree with Origen that all would come to the same end, as he believed that those who have faith in Christ “may be able to gain a better resurrection,” he did at least believe that all would participate in the resurrection and achieve incorruption. Even more evidence of Athanasius’ universalism can be found here if the reader is curious.
A number of other fourth-century Greek fathers were also universalists and supporters of Origen: Didymus the Blind (a known universalist), Evagrius Ponticus [3], Diodore of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia [4], Ephrem the Syrian [5], and possibly Cyril of Jerusalem [6]. In contrast, not one single orthodox Greek Church father from the 4th century certainly believed in infernalism. (If any readers know of one, I would be happy to add them to this list; however, I haven’t actually been able to find any.)
The Western Church in the Fourth Century
As detailed in the previous post, following Tertullian of Carthage, the majority of Latin Church fathers believed in the eternality of punishment (whether infernalism or conditionalism). For example, Hilary of Poitiers, a doctor of the Catholic Church, wrote
What of our expectation in heaven, if for us as well as for the wicked the end is a cessation of being? But even if there remains for the saints an expectation, whereas for the wicked there waits the end they have deserved, we cannot conceive that end as a final dissolution. What punishment would it be for the wicked to be beyond the feeling of avenging torments, because the capability of suffering has been removed by dissolution? The end is, therefore, a culminating and irrevocable condition which awaits us, reserved for the blessed and prepared for the wicked. (On the Trinity 11.28)
He immediately afterward describes this torment of the wicked as “an ultimate and final condition,” a clear expression of his belief in infernalism. Similarly, the Ambrosiaster (the anonymous author of a commentary on Paul’s epistles) believed that, although some Christians would be saved through fire and attain to the apokatastasis, unbelievers would remain to be tormented forever. The third-century writer Novatian believed in conditionalism, as did Arnobius of Sicca. However, there were also a few holdouts in the Western church to the doctrine of universal reconciliation. Ambrose of Milan, another doctor of the Catholic Church, believed in an apokatastasis at least of Christians and possibly of all people [7].
Conclusion
In the fourth century, at the same time that universalism had almost completely fallen out of favor among Latin-speaking Christians, a belief in universal apokatastasis reached its fullest extent in the Greek-speaking Church. The most prominent defenders of this doctrine were Basil the Great and Gregory Nyssen, along with the third Cappadocian Father, Gregory Nazianzen, who may have been a full universalist (but more likely merely a hopeful universalist). Many other Greek and Syriac patristic writers of this time expressed a belief in universalism, including Athanasius of Alexandria and Ephrem of Edessa. Both infernalism and conditionalism were confined entirely to the Western Church.
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