A Larger Hope?, Volume 1

Universal Salvation from Christian Beginnings to Julian of Norwich

Ilaria L. E. Ramelli

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781532643002
• Topic: Theologie & Religion
• Subtopic: Christliche Theologie

In the minds of some, universal salvation is a heretical idea that was imported into Christianity from pagan philosophies by Origen (c.185-253/4). Ilaria Ramelli argues that this picture is completely mistaken. She maintains that Christian theologians were the first people to proclaim that all will be saved and that their reasons for doing so were rooted in their faith in Christ. She demonstrates that, in fact, the idea of the final restoration of all creation (apokatastasis) was grounded upon the teachings of the Bible and the church's beliefs about Jesus' total triumph over sin, death, and evil through his incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. Ramelli traces the Christian roots of Origen's teaching on apokatastasis. She argues that he was drawing on texts from Scripture and from various Christians who preceded him, theologians such as Bardaisan, Irenaeus, and Clement. She outlines Origen's often-misunderstood theology in some detail and then follows the legacy of his Christian universalism through the centuries that followed. We are treated to explorations of Origenian universal salvation in a host of Christian disciples, including Athanasius, Didymus the Blind, the Cappadocian fathers, Evagrius, Maximus the Confessor, John Scotus Eriugena, and Julian of Norwich.

1

Some Biblical Roots of the Hope for Universal Salvation?

An Origenian Reading of Scripture

Many passages in the Bible can be taken to support a doctrine of universal salvation and were understood by many in the early church to do precisely that.20 In this chapter, I shall very briefly cite some examples of biblical texts that were understood by some of the church fathers in universalist ways. There is no time to give any of them more than a passing glance, for our focus will be on subsequent developments, but the brief survey here will give a flavor of some of the passages that laid a foundation for what was to come.

The Hebrew Bible

In the Old Testament, in Isaiah 42:1–4, the Servant of YHWH, whom Luke 3:18–21, followed by patristic authors, identifies with Christ, will bring justice to the nations. This justice is salvific, not retributive: it restores sight to the blind and liberates the prisoners from darkness and oppression. In Isaiah 49:6 God declares he wants his “salvation to reach the boundaries of the earth,” and in Isaiah 49:15, God uses a comparison: “Can a mother forget her baby and have no compassion on the little one she has given birth to? But even if she could, I shall not forget you.” Isaiah 51:4–5 announces the justification (i.e., making people righteous) and salvation given by God, so that the peoples “will hope in his arm,” God’s saving power. All nations of all tongues will come and see God’s glory (Isa 66:18); all peoples will see the salvation brought about by the Lord; “all will come and worship me” (Isa 66:23). Even the Egyptians and the Assyrians, the worst idolaters, will worship God, and God will bless them together with Israel (Isa 19:23–25).21 The global extent of God’s salvific plans is clear from such passages.

In Ezekiel 33:11, the Lord makes clear that he wants none to perish: “As I live, I do not rejoice in the death of the sinners, but I want them to repent and live,” and Ezekiel 16:54–55 he even announces the restoration of Sodom and Samaria with Jerusalem, as “sisters.” Given Sodom’s role as the paradigm of the destruction of sinners by divine fire (Matt 10:34; 11:24; 2 Pet 2:6; Jude 7), this restoration is noteworthy.

Lamentations 3:22 and 31–33 lay some theological groundwork for a wider hope: “The faithful love of the LORD never ceases, his acts of mercy never end. . . . the LORD will not reject forever. Even if he causes pain, he will have compassion, thanks to the abundance of his faithful love, because he does not want to afflict or hurt anybody.” Wisdom 11:23 and 26 in the Apocrypha insists on God’s mercy, which is the counterpart of God’s omnipotence: “You have mercy upon all, because you can do everything; you do not look at the sins of humans, in view of their repentance. . . . You spare all beings because all are yours, o Lord, who love life.” Consider too Wisdom 15:1: “You are good and faithful, patient, and govern all according to mercy.” The possibility of repentance and forgiveness thanks to God’s mercy is also the focus of Sirach 17:19 and 24: “God offers the return to those who repent. . . . How great is the LORD’s mercy, his forgiveness to those who convert to him!” (cf. Wis 12:2–19). These passages and others like them were picked up by some of the church fathers and interpreted in terms of a vision for the restoration of all things.

The New Testament

Gospels

In the New Testament there are very few passages that might be taken to indicate an eternal damnation: the most obvious candidates are those that speak of “αἰώνιον fire” and “αἰώνιος punishment,” and of the worm “that does not die” and the fire “that cannot be quenched” (e.g., Matt 18:8–9; 25:41). However, while all of these phrases indicate otherworldly suffering, none of these indicates its eternity. They have not a quantitative, but a qualitative meaning; they denote that this fire, punishment, and worm are not similar to those of this world/age, but belong to the other world/age. For fire in this world can be quenched and worms in this world die, but in the world to come it will not be so. As for the adjective αἰώνιος (aiōnios), it never means “eternal” in Scripture unless it refers to God; when it refers to life, death, and other things such as “fire,” it means “belonging to the world to come,” “otherworldly,” “divine.” In the Bible, only life in the other world is called “eternal” proper (ἀΐδιος/aïdios), whereas death, punishment, and fire are never called ἀΐδια, but only αἰώνια, “otherworldly.”22 The mistranslation and misinterpretation of αἰώνιος as “eternal” (already in Latin, where both αἰώνιος and ἀΐδιος are rendered aeternus and their fundamental semantic difference is blurred) certainly contributed a great deal to the rise of the doctrine of “eternal damnation” and of the “eternity of hell.” (For more detail on the meaning of the word αἰώνιος/aiōnios, see the first Appendix to this book.)

What is more, soon after speaking of the worm and the fire (with a reminiscence of Isaiah 66:24, also echoed in Matthew 18:8–9), Mark 9:49 offers a further explanatory comment on the flames of Gehenna, characterizing the fire as purifying, and insisting that all will be purified by it—“. . . for everyone will be salted with fire.”

But how can God save all people? Given the depths of our sin and our free will, which God is not controlling, can God ensure that all will be saved? In Matthew 19:25 Jesus declares that salvation is “impossible for human beings, but everything is possible for God.” Origen, as I shall show, will echo this argument when he will ground his doctrine of universal salvation in the claim that “nothing is impossible for the Omnipotent; no being is incurable for the One who created it.” God will find a way. In Luke 16:16, Jesus even proclaims that after John the Baptist, the last prophet, “the good news of the kingdom of God is announced, and everyone is forced in” by God.23

As for John, I will briefly address the Gospel and Letters together. In 1 John 4:8 and 16, God is described as Love (ἀγάπη/agape; Latin caritas), in his very being. In John 1:29, Christ is the one who takes upon himself the sins of the world, thus purifying the world. God, out of love, sent Christ to save the world (John 3:17; 12:47; 1 John 4:14); his sacrifice expiates the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:2; 1 John 4:10). Referring to his crucifixion, Jesus declares: “Now the ruler of this world [i.e., the devil] will be thrown out. And when I am lifted up from earth, I will drag all people to myself” (John 12:31–32). Jesus has been entrusted with all humans, and wants to bestow eternal life on all them: “Father . . . glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you, because you have entrusted him with every human being, that he may give eternal life to every being that you have given him. Eternal life is that they know you” (John 17:1–2). This corresponds to 1 Timothy 2:4–6: “God wants all humans to be saved and to reach the knowledge of the truth,” that is, God. Martha already believed in the (bodily) resurrection of the dead, when Jesus replied to her: “I am the Resurrection and Life. Whoever believes in me, even if she dies, will continue to live, and whoever lives and believes in me will absolutely not die in the world to come [εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα]” (John 11:24–26). Many Johannine passages declare that eternal life, or life in the world to come, is Christ and is guaranteed to those who believe in Christ.

Acts

Acts 3:20–21 includes the only occurrence of the noun apokatastasis in Scripture. Peter, who is delivering a speech to “the Jews” in Jerusalem, at Pentecost, announces the eschatological “times of universal restoration”:

Repent/convert, that your sins may be cancelled, and the times of consolation may come, coming from the face of the Lord, and he may send Jesus Christ, who was handed for you. Heaven must keep him until the times of the restoration of all beings [ἀποκαταστάσεως πάντων], of which God has spoken by means of his holy prophets from time immemorial.24

The eschatological consolation and universal restoration will come when all have repented and their sins have thus been forgiven by God. Then will God’s promise to Abraham be fulfilled: “All the families of the earth will be blessed in your offspring” (Gen 12:3; Acts 3:25). Universal restoration parallels the eschatological consolation. Both come from the...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• By Way of Introduction
• Chapter 1: Some Biblical Roots of the Hope for Universal Salvation?
• Chapter 2: Universal Restoration before Origen
• Chapter 3: Origen of Alexandria
• Chapter 4: Universal Salvation in Origen’s First Followers and His Apologists
• Chapter 5: Fourth-century Origenians I
• Chapter 6: Fourth Century Origenians II
• Chapter 7: Apokatastasis in Antioch
• Chapter 8: The Latin Origenians
• Chapter 9: The Last Exponents of Patristic Thought
• Chapter 10: The Middle Ages and the Early Renaissance
• Conclusion
• Appendix I: The Meaning of Aiōnios
• Appendix II: A Reply to Michael McClymond’s Review of The Christian Doctrine of Apokatastasis424
• Appendix III: Is Apokatastasis “Gnostic,” Rather Than Christian?
• Bibliography