A Larger Hope 1

by Ilaria L E Ramelli

  God will restore the life of the righteous who suffers (Job 8:6 and 22:28; cf. 33:25). In Psalm 34:17 God restores the life of a person in anguish, saving her from evil. In Isaiah 23:17 God will reconstitute Tyre to its ancient state of prosperity.14 In Jeremiah 15:19 God will restore Israel if Israel returns to God and repents; Origen will see here, too, a reference to the eventual apokatastasis. In Jeremiah 16:15, 23:8, and 27:19, God will restore Israel to the land of its forefathers. In Ezekiel 16:55 God will restore Sodom and Gomorrah to their original condition prior to their destruction; this too was read by patristic exegetes as a reference to the mystery of universal restoration and salvation.15

  The Greek New Testament

  In the New Testament—apart from Matthew 17:11, Mark 9:12, and Acts 3:21, to which I shall return below in Chapter 1—there are several occurrences of the verb “to restore” related to apokatastasis, and these are all rendered in the Latin translation of the Vulgate with restituo. It is notable that, consistently with the Old Testament use, the subject of the action of restoration is always God or Christ. In four cases, in the Gospels, it is Jesus who restores someone to health (Matt 12:13; Mark 3:5; 8:25; Luke 6:10). Jesus, by performing these healing acts, shows God’s therapeutic and restoring power. This power works both on the body and on the soul, as St. Gregory of Nyssa will especially point out in his holistic conception of resurrection–restoration (anastasis–apokatastasis): both body and soul will be restored by God to their original, prelapsarian integrity.

  In the rest of the New Testament, the verb “to restore” related to apokatastasis appears in Acts 1:16 and Hebrews 13:19, the subject of the action of restoration being again God. In Acts 1:16 the disciples ask the risen Lord when he will restore the kingdom to Israel; Jesus replies that this restoration is an eschatological event.16 In Hebrews 13:19, the author hopes to be restored or returned by God to his addressees. God restored Jesus from death to life; all the more God will be able to return the author to his addressees.

  From Greek Philosophy and Scripture to Christian Authors

  As we have seen, the term apokatastasis was used in Greek in various senses related to the concept of “restoration, restitution, reconstitution, reintegration, return,” and in philosophy it was a Stoic cosmological theory, which Origen knew and criticized. In the Greek Bible, which is the main source of inspiration for Origen and the other fathers who supported the doctrine of universal salvation, the noun apokatastasis and the relevant verb are found in the Old and in the New Testament.

  As I set out to show now, in the Bible there are many, not only lexical, but also conceptual bases for the Christian doctrine of universal restoration and salvation. This view was supported by a number of patristic, mediaeval, modern, and contemporary authors, including many who are venerated as saints and recognized as “orthodox,” and also including many women. After Bardaisan and Clement, who both fought “Gnosticism” and Marcionism, let me just mention, for instance, St. Anthony, St. Pamphilus Martyr, Methodius of Olympus, Eusebius of Caesarea, Didymus of Alexandria, St. Macrina Junior, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Evagrius Ponticus, Diodore of Tarsus, Theodore of Mopsuestia, St. John of Jerusalem, the “Tall Brothers,” St. Melania, Rufinus of Aquileia, St. Jerome and St. Augustine for many years of their lives, Cassian (according to some to be distinguished: St. John Cassian and Cassian the Sabaite), St. Isaac of Nineveh, St. John of Dalyatha, Joseph Hazzaya, Stephen Bar Sudhaili, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, St. Maximus the Confessor, John the Scot Eriugena, St. Julian of Norwich, Lady Ann Conway, Jane Lead, and many others, up to St. Therèse of Lisieux, St. John Paul II, and those engaged in the contemporary debate. Most of these believers based their hope for universal salvation on the Bible. The doctrine of universal salvation in its Christian form, as I thoroughly argued elsewhere,17 entirely depends on Christ’s work.

  So Scripture and Christian beliefs about Jesus are both core to the development of the theology of apokatastasis in the early church, but the role of philosophical notions of apokatastasis cannot be dismissed either, with respect not only to the Stoic doctrine (whose necessitarianism and infinite cyclicality Origen expressly criticized, as mentioned above), but also to Platonism (for while Plato himself did not believe in universal salvation, later Neoplatonists, such as Macrobius, did).18 Platonism, in its Christianized form, was indeed embraced by most of the fathers who supported universal salvation, first of all Origen,19 and provided them with a number of tenets to support it, including the critical idea of the ontological non-subsistence of evil—which entails evil’s ultimate vanishing—and ethical intellectualism. For, if wrong moral choices come from a clouding-over of intellectual sight, its illumination on the part of the Logos will not fail to bring about restoration. We shall explain and explore these ideas later in the book.

  Two main and interrelated tenets are also shared by the Christian supporters of universal salvation:

  1.A continuity between the present and the future life, in an uninterrupted process of education. God is the Teacher and Father, who may use even drastic means to educate, but only in the interest of the pupil or child.

  2.Any punishment inflicted by God is therapeutic and cathartic, not retributive, and therefore not eternal.

  Having introduced some of the key terminology and ideas, we are now in a position to begin our journey. We will do that by turning to the texts accepted by the church as Holy Scripture, for it was here that many believers in the early church found the basis for a larger hope, the hope that God will one day restore the whole creation through Christ to the good destiny for which he created it.

  1. 1 Cor 15:24–28. Origen’s passage is in his Commentary on John 1:16:91. See Ramelli, “1 Cor 15:24–26,” 241–58.

  2. On which, see below, Chapter 1.

  3. See my “Origen, Bardaisan, and the Origin of Universal Salvation.”

  4. On which, see below, Chapter 1.

  5. Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta 2:599; 2:625.

  6. E.g., CC 4:12; 4:67–68; 5:20; Princ. 2:3.

  7. Hom. in Ier. 14:18.

  8. Decal. 164.3.

  9. Ant. 11.63. In Ant. 11.98 apokatastasis is used for the restoration of Jerusalem.

  10. Her. 293; see my “Philo’s Doctrine of Apokatastasis.”

  11. See below, Chapter 2.

  12. Apart from trivial meanings such as the restitution of money, possessions, an earthly kingdom, and the like (Gen 23:16; 29:3; 40:13 and 21; 41:13; 2 Kgs 9:7; 1 Esd 1:29 and 33; 5:2; 6:25; 1 Macc 15:3; 2 Macc 12:25; 12:39).

  13. See Ramelli, “Origen’s Exegesis of Jeremiah,” 59–78.

  14. In Greek: ἀποκαταστήσεται εἰς τὸ ἀρχαῖον, “he will restore to the ancient (state),” a phrase that will return in St. Gregory of Nyssa in reference to the universal restoration.

  15. In Daniel 4:36(A) God restores Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom; in Os 2:5 God will restore Israel to the condition of its birth; in Tob(BA) 10:13, God will restore Tobit, having him return home safe and sound.

  16. The Vulgate uses a future: Domine si in tempore hoc restitues regnum Israhel, “Lord, will you restore the kingdom of/to Israel in this time?” This passage must be connected to Acts 3:20–21, where “universal restoration” (apokatastasis) is foreseen. See here below, Chapter 1.

  17. In my The Christian Doctrine of Apokatastasis.

  18. “Pagan” philosophical notions of apokatastasis, especially Stoic and, even more, Platonic, will be the object of a specific scholarly monograph I am currently writing. On Macrobius, see my “The Debate on Apokatastasis in Pagan and Christian Platonists,” 197–230.

  19. It is even possible that Origen the Neoplatonist and Origen the Christian were one and the same person: see Ramelli, “Origen, Patristic Philosophy,” 217–63; Ramelli, �
�Origen the Christian Middle/Neoplatonist,” 98–130; Ramelli, “Origen and the Platonic Tradition”; Ramelli, Origen of Alexandria.

  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 Lord; God will console and restore all beings.25 The same is suggested in Matthew 17:11: after the Transfiguration Jesus recommends that his disciples do not speak of this until his resurrection. They ask him whether Elijah will come before the Messiah at the end of time; Jesus replies that Elijah will come and God will restore all beings.26

  Peter’s discourse to the crowd in the temple courts, which Origen will interpret as a clear announcement of the future universal restoration and salvation, is to be contextualized within the Jewish eschatological expectations of that time (the restoration of Israel, the entering of the nations, and the forgiveness of sins).27 The same is the case with Acts 1:6: the disciples asked the risen Jesus when he would restore the kingdom to Israel. Both passages are Lukan, but the connection between Peter’s speech and the announcement of universal apokatastasis is nevertheless interesting, not least because four other texts belonging to the Petrine tradition support restoration.28 Origen in Princ. 2:3:5 interprets the “universal restoration” announced in Acts 3:21 as the “perfect end [telos]” and “the perfection of all beings” at the end of all aeons: “What will take place at the universal restoration [in restitutione omnium], when all beings will achieve their perfect end, must be understood as something beyond all aeons. Then there will be the perfect accomplishment of all, when all beings will be no longer in any aeon, but God will be ‘all in all.’’” (Note the quotation of 1 Corinthians 15:28, Origen’s and Gregory of Nyssa’s favorite passage in support of their doctrine of apokatastasis.29) Likewise, Origen interprets Acts 3:21 in reference to the eventual universal apokatastasis in Comm. in Matt. 17:19, where, echoing St. Paul, he remarks that now we do not see God as God is, but we shall do so in the end, and this end will be the universal restoration: “In the end, when there will be ‘the restoration of all beings, of which God has spoken by means of his holy prophets from time immemorial,’ we shall see God not as now, when we see what God is not, but as it becomes that future state, when we shall see what God is.” In Hom. in Ier. 14:18, Origen connects Jeremiah 15:19 to Acts 3:21: “If we return, God will restore us: the end of this promise is the same as is written in the Acts of the Apostles: ‘until the times of universal restoration, of which God has spoken from time immemorial by means of his holy prophets’ in Jesus Christ.”