While in the work of Justin Martyr (100–165) and Tatian († 185) there is a notion of restoration or apokatastasis, and even the terminology of apokatastasis, it is unclear whether it coincides with universal salvation. However, in Theophilus of Antioch († 183) it is clearer. He uses the very noun apokatastasis in reference to the eschatological restoration, proclaiming that once human beings will have abandoned evil, even animals will be restored to their original meekness. At the same time Theophilus interprets ferocious beasts as a symbol of sinners, as they are interpreted by Origen and in the Acts of Philip.39
In the beginning animals were not created evil or venomous, because from the beginning no evil came from God, but all was good and very good, but it was human sin that made them evil. When the human being transgressed, they too transgressed. Therefore, when humanity will return to the state that is in accord with its nature, and will no longer do evil, animals too will be restored [ἀποκατασταθήσεται/apokatastathēsetai] into their original meekness. (Aut. 2:17)
Theophilus uses the same key verb in Aut. 3:9: Moses gave the Law to the Hebrews, but also to the whole world, and restored the Hebrews into the Land of Canaan, which is also a symbol of paradise. Theophilus thus hints at apokatastasis as universal salvation for humans and animals.
Another second-century Christian apologist, Melito of Sardis († 180), also hints in this direction. In his Homily on the Passion of Christ, he states that Christ, “through whom the Father created everything, has the authority to judge and save all beings.” This is, at least, suggestive, although it falls short of a clear assertion of universal salvation.40
Bardaisan and Clement
Bardaisan of Edessa
It is rather in Bardaisan of Edessa (154–222), Clement of Alexandria (c.150–c.215), and some so-called apocryphal writings that one can find the clearest antecedents to Origen’s full-blown doctrine of apokatastasis as eschatological universal restoration and salvation.
Bardaisan was a Syriac Christian philosopher and theologian inaccurately accused of “Gnosticism” by heresiologists.41 At his school in Edessa Greek philosophy was studied as well. In the final section of the Book of the Laws of Countries—basically corresponding to Bardaisan’s Against Fate, in which he defended human free will against determinism, as Origen was later to do—he proclaims the eventual universal restoration:
For, just as human freewill is not governed by the necessity of the Seven [i.e., the planets], and, if it were governed, it would be able to stand against its governors, so this visible human being, in turn, is unable to easily get rid of its principalities’ government, since he is a slave and a subject. For, if we could do all, we would be all; if we couldn’t decide anything, we would be the instruments of others.
But whenever God likes, everything can be, with no obstacle at all. Indeed, there is nothing that can impede that great and holy will. For, even those who are convinced to resist God, do not resist by their force, but they are in evil and error, and this can be only for a short time, because God is kind and gentle, and allows all natures to remain in the state in which they are, and to govern themselves by their own will, but at the same time they are conditioned by the things that are done and the plans that have been conceived [sc. by God] to help them. For this order and this government that have been given [sc. by God], and the association of one with another, damps the natures’ force, so that they cannot be either completely harmful or completely harmed, as they were harmful and harmed before the creation of the world.
And there will come a time when even this capacity for harm that remains in them will be brought to an end by the instruction that will obtain in a different arrangement of things. And, once that new world will be constituted, all evil movements will cease, all rebellions will come to an end, and the fools will be persuaded, and the lacks will be filled, and there will be safety and peace, as a gift of the Lord of all natures.42
Bardaisan uses theological passives. It is God who excogitates plans to help all creatures, i.e., to save them. Like Origen later, Bardaisan too thinks that God’s providence is not incompatible with creatures’ free will. During history, each one is free to adhere to the Good as much or as little as one wishes, and to experience the consequences of this, but in the end Providence guides all to salvation. Providence does not allow any creature to be damaged completely and perish, or else to damage completely, doing evil forever. Evil will utterly disappear, as Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, Evagrius, Isaac of Nineveh, Sergey Bulgakov, and other universalists will repeat. To this end, God disposes a work of teaching and persuasion, that those immersed in evil may be purified and healed. Bardaisan again anticipates Origen’s theology on this score. Thanks to instruction, “the fools will be persuaded,” and not punished eternally. Bardaisan does not even mention retributive punishment anywhere in what survives of his work. He manifestly shares the vision of ethical intellectualism later embraced by Origen; this is why he thinks that instruction will enable the eventual restoration; all will choose the Good when all have achieved a pure, non obfuscated intellectual sight. Knowledge of the Good cannot but produce adhesion to the Good. That the final restoration will be a work of God is another idea that Bardaisan shares with Origen, as well as the description of the final state in apokatastasis as one of peace.43
Eusebius (260/65–339/40), who was a fervent admirer of Origen, not by chance appreciated Bardaisan, spoke well of him in his Church History, and in his Preparation to the Gospel reports long excerpts from his work against Fate (which he clearly had at his disposal in the Caesarea library and was perhaps already in Origen’s own library). It is meaningful that Eusebius, in the section of his Preparation in which he quotes Bardaisan’s arguments against determinism and in defense of free will, cites Origen together with Bardaisan (6:10 and 6:11). He clearly noticed that they were arguing on the very same line. It is not accidental either that Didymus (c.313–98), another faithful Origenian and a supporter of universal salvation, appreciated Bardaisan and depicted him in the best light. In general, it is remarkable that the most favorable testimonies on Bardaisan all come from authors who appreciated Origen as well, such as Africanus, Didymus, Eusebius, and the early Jerome.44
Clement of Alexandria
Clement of Alexandria (c.150–c.215), an educated convert to Christianity from a pagan background, was a theologian at the famous catechetical school in Alexandria, North Africa. He was a pioneering Christian Platonist and an older contemporary of Origen whose work was certainly known to Origen. Clement entertained a notion of apokatastasis which was open to universal salvation.45 Like Bardaisan and later Origen, he was a strong defender of human free will and responsibility against determinism.46 At the same time he emphasized God’s mercy, which forgives even voluntary sins: God “prefers the sinner’s repentance to his death . . . gives according to one’s merits but remits sins” (Strom. 2:15:66). In this context, Clement also uses therapeutic metaphors, which will be dear to Origen as well: God’s aim is to heal the sinner.47 Contrary to the claims of some,48 Clement, for instance in Strom. 7.16.102, consistently applies the distinction between timōria and kolasis, the former indicating retributive punishment, and the latter therapeutic punishment. He explicitly states there that God kolazei, but never timōreitai: God applies therapeutic, educative punishments, but not retributive punishments.
Clement advocated, like Origen, a distinction between sinners and their sins: the latter must be hated, but not sinners, who are God’s creatures (Origen and Gregory of Nyssa will say that they bear the image of God, which sin can obfuscate and cover, but never cancel).49 Clement applies to the devil, too, the criterion of responsibility; according to him, just as later to Origen, Satan was not compelled by his nature to do evil, but he was free to either choose or reject it (Strom. 1:17:83–84). Soon after, Clement explains the decisional mechanism that gives rise to a bad choice in terms “ethical intellectualism” (i.e., the view that what you choo
se depends on what you know; evil is chosen because it is mistaken for a good, due to an error of judgment), a line that Origen and Gregory of Nyssa will keep:
One never chooses evil qua (as, insofar as) evil, but because, attracted by the pleasure that one finds in it, one believes that it is a good and deems it enjoyable. . . . We can, nevertheless, detach ourselves from the bad choice, however enjoyable it may be, and beforehand we can avoid giving assent to those fallacious images.
Ethical intellectualism surfaces again in many points of Clement’s work.50 Gregory of Nyssa will even use this doctrine to explain the so-called original sin: Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit because, even though this was an evil, they mistakenly believed that it was good. For they had been deceived by the serpent.
In Strom. 7:2:12 Clement is clear that God’s project, aim, and activity is universal salvation:
The God of the universe has disposed everything for universal salvation, in general and singularly. Thus, God did whatever did not prevent the voluntary nature of human choice, and showed this as a help to attain virtue, that in some way even those who are endowed only of weak vision the sole true Omnipotent could be revealed a good God who from eternity and forever saves through the Son and is absolutely not responsible for evil. Thus, it is a work of God’s salvific justice to lead every being to the best insofar as possible.
God’s justice saves.51 Every punishment decided by God aims at saving the punished, even those who are the most hardened: “And the necessary corrections, inflicted out of goodness by the great Judge who chairs—either through the angels who surround him, or by means of preliminary judgments, or with the complete and final judgment—, force to repentance those who are too hardened.” Even the punishments inflicted at the Last Judgment, according to Clement—that is, even torments in hell—aim at the conversion of the sinner. Repentance can take place even after the Last Judgment (i.e., in hell), after which the punishments, which aimed at this, will cease. Repentance is therefore not limited to our earthly life, but can take place “both here on earth and elsewhere, because there is no place where God does not do good” (Strom. 4:6:37:7). Thus, punishment in hell will come to an end. God’s goodness and its beneficial effects are active even in hell. Christ descended to hell precisely with this goal:
The Lord brought the good news even to those who were in hell. . . . God’s punishments save and educate! They induce sinners to convert and want them to repent and not to die.52 . . . It is certainly demonstrated that God is good and the Lord is able to save with impartial justice those who convert, here or elsewhere. For God’s operative power does not reach only on earth, but it is everywhere, and it operates always.53
Always . . . , even in hell.
Clement deemed the second-century text known as the Apocalypse of Peter to be divinely inspired and commented on it in his Hypotyposeis (Outlines), where he also proclaims that “God saves all, converting some by chastisements, others by their own will, with dignity.” This is significant since this Apocalypse, as we shall see later, proclaims the eschatological salvation of the damned thanks to the intercession of the just. And this should not surprise us, especially in the light of Clement’s conviction that apokatastasis is announced by Paul. In Romans 6:22, Paul declares that the telos, the end to which one must tend (identified with the assimilation to God), is life in the world to come. Clement, after referring to this, claims that Paul “teaches that the telos is the hoped-for apokatastasis.”54 Universal restoration is the supreme end. Clement is obviously thinking of 1 Corinthians 15:23–28, where the telos is described as the eventual destruction of evil and death and the submission of all creatures to God, who will then be “all in all.” Clement relies on the authority of Paul to proclaim that the end of all things will be universal restoration and salvation. The very term apokatastasis is attested in Clement in other passages in reference to the telos. In Strom. 7:10:57:1–4 Clement describes the perfection of the soul that has reached knowledge and dwells in the divine as “restoration (ἀποκατάστασις/apokatastasis) into the highest place of rest.” This restoration will be tantamount to “seeing God face to face.” Like Origen later, basing himself on 1 Corinthians 15:25–28, Clement connects this condition to the voluntary submission to the Lord, postulating a salvific passage from incredulity to faith and from faith to knowledge, which, tending to love, leads to the final apokatastasis:
Love comes after knowledge and fruition after love, and this is when one depends on the Lord through both faith and knowledge. . . . This perfects what is not yet perfect and teaches in advance the future life we shall enjoy with the “gods” in God, after being liberated from every punishment and suffering that we sustain because of our sins with a view to a salvific education. After this payment, rewards and honors will be bestowed on those who have been made perfect once they have completed their purification. . . . Then restoration [ἀποκατάστασις/apokatastasis] awaits them in eternal [ἀΐδιος/aïdios] contemplation. . . . Thus, knowledge rapidly brings to purification.
Punishments are again declared to be educative. Clement uses ἀΐδιος/aïdios in reference to what is eternal proper, as apokatastasis certainly is. However, it is important to note that only αἰώνιος/aiōnios is used in reference to death or punishment in the other world. By refusing to apply ἀΐδιος to these, Clement shows that he does not deem them truly eternal. Only life is.
Clement proclaims the final harmony of all beings brought about by Christ (Protr. 1:5:2) who “has saved us while we were already close to ruin” (Protr. 1:7:4). The telos is “deification,”55 which is grounded in the incarnation. Christ-Logos additionally exerts a therapeutic, purifying, and illuminative function, becoming “a sting for salvation.” He waits for unbelievers to believe even after their death, as he is “the Savior of all,”56 who “almost compels to salvation out of a superabundance of goodness” (Strom. 7:14:86:6). Christ-Logos, the revelation of God, is the divine Pedagogue who is “God’s instrument for the love of humanity: the Lord has compassion, teaches, exhorts, warns, and saves.”57
This is the highest, most perfect good deed: to be able to convert one from evilness to virtue and righteousness. . . . Providence that governs is necessarily sovereign and good, and its power takes care of salvation in two ways: either, qua sovereign, has one repent by means of punishment, or, qua good, helps with good deeds. (Strom. 1:17:173:1–6)
No mention of a third way in which divine providence does not save. In Strom. 2:8:37:5 Clement describes God’s Wisdom—who is again Christ—as the cause of all creation and of “the restoration [ἀποκατάστασις/apokatastasis] of the elects.”58 Indeed, in 3:9:63:4 he remarks that “It is necessary that generation and corruption take place in the creation until all elects have appeared and there comes the restoration [ἀποκατάστασις/apokatastasis], so that even substances will return to their original place.” This testifies to the radical universality of the eventual restoration. Alain Le Boulluec thinks that Clement did not anticipate the doctrine of apokatastasis, later supported by Origen and others, because he understood apokatastasis as the reestablishment of the original plan of God,59 but this is precisely the way in which Origen himself understood it, and Clement’s influence on Origen, in this as in many other respects, can hardly be overestimated.
The αἰώνιον/aiōnion fire of which the Gospels speak is not “eternal,” but “ultramundane,” and its function is to purify and sanctify the sinners’ souls (Strom. 7:6:34:1–3). Clement does not cease to hope that even heretics can be converted by God, even after death, thanks to God’s paternal care:
May these heretics, too, after learning from these notes, regain wisdom and turn to the Omnipotent God. But if, like deaf snakes, they should not listen to, and understand, the song that has been sung recently but is most ancient, may they be educated, at least, by God, bearing his paternal admonitions, that they may be ashamed and repent, and may not happen
that, if they behave with obstinate disobedience, they must undergo the final and general judgment. Beside this, also partial educative processes take place, which we call chastisements, which most of us, who belong to the people of the Lord, stumble upon, when we find ourselves in sin: we are chastised by divine providence just as children are by their teacher or father. God does not punish [τιμωρεῖται/timōreitai]—because punishment is a retribution of evil with evil—but chastises [κολάζει/kolazei] to help those who are chastised. (Strom. 7:16:102:1–3)
God never exerts retributive punishments, but only educative corrections. Even “heretics” who die without being corrected can still be corrected by God after death. Even the final Judgment delivers sinners to a purifying process. The possibility of purification and salvation after death will be contemplated by a number of later patristic thinkers, from Origen to Gregory of Nyssa, Maximus the Confessor, and Eriugena. The idea that if one does not repent within one’s earthly life, there will be no possibility of doing so after death, as though one’s free will should be lost, was alien to these thinkers.60 It was, however, supported by some other patristic thinkers, who did not advocate universal restoration. For example, the late Augustine (treated below), or Aphrahat, the Persian sage, who wrote in Syriac Demonstrations between 336 and 345. He seems to be one of the voices that limit the possibility of conversion and improvement to the present life. In Dem. 7.27 he states that the present world is the world of grace, but the future one will be the world of justice. “A limit has been imposed to grace: the departure (from this world); after that, there will be no chance of conversion.”
Soteriological Universalism in Some “Apocrypha”
The Apocalypse of Peter
Not only Bardaisan and Clement, but also some ancient so-called Apocrypha, known at least to Clement and likely (or in some cases certainly) to Origen, form the background of Origen’s theorization of universal salvation. The most important of these is the Apocalypse of Peter, a Jewish-Christian work of the Petrine tradition.61 It seems that the Apocalypse of Peter is very early—coming from the first half of the second century—and even influenced the biblical book of 2 Peter.62
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