Once he has ‘handed the kingdom to God the Father,’ that is, presented to God as an offering all, converted and reformed, and has fully performed the mystery of the reconciliation of the world, then they will be in God’s presence, that God’s word may be fulfilled: “Because I live—the Lord says—every knee will bend before Me, every tongue will glorify God.”
The last sentence makes it clear once again that all will voluntarily adhere to God. Of course, the eventual restoration and salvation depends on Christ’s sacrifice and divine grace and providence,130 but this does not contradict human free will. The summit of beatitude is attained by grace (Princ. 3:1:12.15). Retribution, or better purification, is commensurate to sins and not eternal,131 precisely because it has a measure, i.e., it is according to our works, but beatitude after that is a gift from God and is commensurate to nothing and can therefore be eternal. After purification, all will reach perfection: “the end and perfection of all will be realized. Those who were wicked, after completely expiating the punishments inflicted to them for the purification of their sins, will deserve to inhabit that land” (Princ. 2:3:7).132
In Comm. in Io. 1:16:91 Origen declares that “the end [telos] is in the so-called apokatastasis” and again quotes 1 Corinthians 15:24–28. As anticipated in the introduction, Origen here refers to an existing tradition concerning restoration, not one that merely possessed the idea of restoration without the terminology of apokatastasis,133 nor one that had the terminology while meaning something other than universal salvation by it,134 but a Christian tradition that had both the idea and the word. This tradition, in its embryonic form, goes back to the Bible (especially Acts 3:20–21), and then Clement, who, as I have shown, identified the ultimate end with the restoration (apokatastasis).135 Origen interprets the “universal restoration” mentioned in Acts 3:20–21 as the “perfect end” after all aeons.136 Other biblical passages that—without the terminology of apokatastasis—Origen considered to buttress his theory of universal salvation include 1 Timothy 2:4–6: “God wants all human beings to be saved and to reach the knowledge of the truth,” and most especially 1 Corinthians 15:28 (“God will be all in all”), besides Jesus’ prayer for unity in John 17. Origen indeed presents the doctrine of universal restoration and salvation as rooted in Scripture.
Origen sets his Christian doctrine of apokatastasis against both the Stoic “pagan” theory of apokatastasis (which denied both human free will and any final restoration, with its endless, determined cycles of aeons) and “gnostic” conceptions of apokatastasis (which, unlike Origen’s, generally were neither universal—since they mostly excluded some human beings from restoration—nor holistic, because they excluded the resurrection-restoration of the body). Origen, instead, accepted the biblical notion of resurrection and integrated it in his holistic doctrine of restoration.137
For those who consider Origen to be a “heretic” (ante litteram, even before the definition of orthodoxy), it is salutary to note that Origen’s doctrine of rational creatures and their ultimate restoration and salvation was elaborated in the context of his defense of orthodoxy and divine goodness. It was developed in his case for human free will and his related polemic against “gnostic” predestinationism and the separation between the Old and the New Testament and between justice and goodness in God that both Marcionites and many “gnostics” advocated. This is especially evident in Princ. 3,138 where he starts from this very polemic—dictated by his concern for theodicy—and ends up with expounding the theory of the restoration and salvation of all rational creatures after their purification and illumination. This saves theodicy by reconciling divine goodness with divine justice. Rufinus understood this and consequently observed that the supporters of universal salvation, i.e., Origen, intended “to defend God’s justice and respond to those who claim that all things are moved either by Fate or by chance.” Origen, “wanting to defend God’s justice, . . . thought that it is worthy of the good, immutable, and simple nature of the Trinity to restore each one of its creatures, in the ultimate end, into the state in which it was created from the beginning, and, after long torments that can extend over whole aeons, to finally put an end to punishments” (Apol. c. Hier. 2:12). Rufinus exactly understood Origen’s motivations for the construction of his theory of universal salvation139 and rightly noticed that theodicy was Origen’s main anxiety.
Just as Origen elaborated his doctrine of universal salvation in defense of orthodoxy against the “heretics” of his day—Marcionites and “gnostics”—in the same way Gregory of Nyssa, especially in his commentary on 1 Corinthians 15:28, maintained the very same doctrine against “Arianism.” And it is no accident that in this commentary he shows a pervasive influence from Origen.140 Origen and Gregory indeed put the doctrine of universal salvation in the service of their polemic against “heresy” as well as against “paganism.”
Origen’s Critique of Annihilationism
An alternative to both the eternal damnation of some and the salvation of all, which theoretically could serve theodicy better than the unending physical and mental torment of the lost in hell, was the so-called theory of annihilationism.141 According to some scholars, this is a view already supported by Paul. Unless one views Paul as a universalist, as Origen and Gregory of Nyssa did, and as has been suggested above in the spirit of their interpretation, one should consider him to be an annihilationist, as Mark Finney does. Paul, argues Finney, distinguished the destiny of believers and non-believers, and he taught that the latter will be “annihilated after judgement.”142 What is common to both universalism and annihilationism is the claim that Paul is not to be regarded as an advocate of an eternal hell.
Annihilationism, which emerged at the very beginning of the patristic age, held that the finally impenitent sinners will cease to exist altogether.143 This seems to have already been, for instance, the view of Philo of Alexandria, and it is not accidental that Origen, who knew Philo’s ideas very well, argued strongly against annihilationism for metaphysical reasons.144 Origen denied that any soul can ever perish ontologically (substantialiter); souls can be morally dead, but they will certainly rise again because their substance never vanishes, since it was created by God and as such it is good. Philo, instead, seems to believe that eternal life is a privilege granted by God only to virtuous souls, whereas the others seem to be doomed to perish altogether. Indeed, in Philo’s view, the rational soul alone is immortal and incorruptible, and only those who have exercised it will survive; the others, having renounced their own rational soul, will perish like irrational beings. Origen also claimed that the soul of a person who lives in vice perishes, because in his opinion the soul experiences mortality through “the real death,” that is, spiritual death, brought about by sin and vice, as he declares in his Dialogue with Heraclides and elsewhere. However, Origen did not regard this perdition and state of “being lost” (apoleia) as eternal. For Jesus has come to find and save the lost sheep, and Scripture proclaims everywhere the resurrection of those who have died (Homilies on Jeremiah 11.16).
For Philo, and for later patristic annihilationists, the death of the soul is an ontological destruction; for Origen (and his followers, such as Gregory of Nyssa), there can be no ontological or substantial destruction of any soul, since rational creatures were created by God in order for them to exist, and whatever God created is good. This is why they cannot be destroyed ontologically, for such destruction would amount to a defeat for God the Creator. So Origen explicitly rejected Philo’s thesis of the substantial annihilation of the soul that chooses evil. On the one hand, he maintains that if one chooses evil, which is non-being, one ends up with non-being, and therefore dies, but this death is moral, not ontological. In Commentary on John, 2.133 Origen is clear that “the One who is Good, therefore, coincides with the One who Is. On the contrary, evil and meanness are opposed to the Good and non-being to Being. As a consequence, meanness and evil are non-being.” If one adheres to God, who Is, one remains in bein
g; if, on the contrary, one rejects God, one falls into non-being (Homily 2 on Psalm 38, 12). But Origen, probably polemicizing with Philo, is careful to add that this does not mean that the soul is destroyed or perishes ontologically (substantialis interitus). (An alternative to annihilation would have been metensomatosis or reincarnation, but Origen rejected that view outright, denouncing it as impious; Philo might have entertained this view hypothetically or esoterically, as Karjanmaa suggests.)
Origen hammers home in several places that the annihilation of the wicked is not ontological, but spiritual (e.g., Homily 2 on Psalm 38, 1). Sinners will actually perish in the other world, but will do so as sinners so as to live as saints, once purified from sins. This is a transformation of sinners into saints, not the annihilation of sinners. What will perish ontologically, according to Origen, is rather evil itself, sin, which was not created by God. Souls, or better rational creatures, who were created by God, and as such are good, will never cease to exist.145
Evil, according to Origen (CC 4.63), just as to Plato (Republic 445C6), is indefinite, something aoriston, like non-being, but virtue is one and simple, and therefore definite, like the Good (i.e., God, the One). What will be burnt away by the “otherworldly fire”146 will be not sinners, but their “bad beliefs,” their “evil thoughts” (Comm. in Matt. 5.10.2). Thus, the death and destruction that Philo attached to the soul itself as a consequence of its life of vice, Origen transferred onto the destruction of evil and sin, which results into the purification of the sinner and his ultimate salvation.
The impossibility of an ontological destruction of the soul directly bears on the possibility of universal salvation. In Philo’s perspective, only souls—and not bodies—will be saved, and only some souls: the souls of those who have led a philosophical and pious life (which from Philo’s viewpoint is much the same thing). Origen took over Philo’s notion of the restoration of the soul, just as Clement had done, but according to Origen all souls, and not only few, will be restored and saved, and they will have back their bodies as well, transformed and glorified as souls themselves will be. In this way they will be able to participate in the divine life and to be “deified.”
New Testament passages that speak of the destruction of sinners have been taken as references to annihilation, although universalists may note that nowhere is this destruction or death described as eternal (at most, it is said to be aiōnios, “otherworldly” or “long-lasting,” as in 2 Thessalonians 1:9, “the ruin of the age to come,”147 but never aïdios or strictly eternal). So Origen could note that Scripture announces a resurrection after the destruction or death.148 The texts variously adduced by the annihilationists are, e.g., Jesus’ warning: “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both body and soul in hell” (Matt 10:28), as well as references to sinners thrown into the fire as chaff or weeds (Matt 3:10, 12; 13:30), or to the destruction of sinners in Philippians 3:19 or 2 Peter 3:7; 2:1–3.149
Irenaeus might have believed that the wicked will be destroyed, which would fit his doctrine of recapitulation less awkwardly than eternal damnation would (how could the damned be considered “recapitulated” in Christ?).150 However, his doctrine of recapitulation was a precursor of apokatastasis; he was loved by both Origen and Gregory of Nyssa, who read him through a universalistic lens. Indeed, they tended to see recapitulation and apokatastasis as coincident. A universalistic reading of Irenaeus clearly excluded the alternative, annhiliationistic reading. Perhaps one might dare to argue that even if Irenaeus himself held on to a belief in annihilation, the universalist development of recapitulation theology, which we find in Origen and Gregory, was more true to Irenaeus’ own deepest insights and was a legitimate development of his thought.
Arnobius of Sicca is probably the clearest patristic annihilationist. He denied Plato’s doctrine of the immortality of the soul, which was instead strongly upheld by patristic universalists such as Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, and Evagrius. Arnobius was clear that “The wicked are cast into hell and, being annihilated, pass away vain in everlasting destruction which is a human’s real death” (Against the Gentiles 2.14).
Origen, instead, argued from creation: God created all rational beings, including the devil, in order for them to exist; nothing and nobody can cause them to cease to exist, not even their own free will. (Of course, the Godhead could cause creatures to cease to exist, but it will never want to do that, since this would be the failure of its creation.) If creatures choose evil, which is non-being, they will end up drifting into non-being, but this is a moral, spiritual condition of death that is distinct from ontological annihilation. From spiritual death it is always possible to be resurrected: therapeutic punishment and instruction will work the required conversion, that the choice of the Good may be voluntary for all. From Origen’s and his followers’ standpoint, theodicy rules out the eternity of hell, but also the annihilation of sinners. What befits God’s justice and goodness is only the voluntary conversion of the wicked.
81. Ramelli, “Origen, Patristic Philosophy” and “Origen the Christian Middle-Neoplatonist”; O’Leary, Christianisme et philosophie, with my review in GNOMON 84 (2012) 560–63 ; a monograph on Origen’s relation to Platonism and imperial philosophy has been for much time and is in the works; it will rest on 25 years on research. A future one on Origen and Plotinus is projected.
82. Emphasized especially by Mark J. Edwards and Panayiotis Tzamalikos with several correct observations.
83. Of course Origen would reject doctrines such as that of metensomatosis (the transmigration of souls), which was incompatible with the Bible and in fact was supported by Plato himself only in a mythical form, while it was “pagan” Platonism that supported it in a theoretical and dogmatic form—and this is what both Origen and Gregory Nyssen countered.
84. “It is the good God who says so [‘I am the One who Is’], and it is the same God whom the Savior glorifies when he says: ‘No one is good but God the Father.’ The one who is good, therefore, coincides with the One who is. On the contrary, evil and meanness are opposed to the Good as non-being to Being. Therefore, meanness and evil are non-being.”
85. This is because the soul was created by God and therefore cannot fall into non-being: “The beings that God created in order for them to exist and endure cannot undergo a destruction in their very substance” (Princ. 3:6:5). The logoi or ontological principles of God’s creatures will never pass away (CC 5:22).
86. E.g., Princ. 2:9:2; 1:7:5; Comm. in Io. 2:13; CC 4:63; 7:72; Sel. in Ps. 56; Exh. ad mart. 13; Ramelli, “Christian Soteriology.”
87. In In Illud: Tunc et Ipse Filius 17 Downing and De anima et resurrectione 104–5. See Ramelli, “The Trinitarian Theology of Gregory of Nyssa,” 445–78.
88. “When God will be ‘all in all’ we cannot admit of evil, lest God be found in evil. . . . That God is said to be ‘all in all’ means that God will be all even in the single creatures . . . whatever the rational intelligence, freed from every dirtiness of sin and purified from every obfuscation of evilness, will be able to perceive, grasp, and think, all of this will be God . . . , therefore, God will be ‘all’ for this intelligence . . . because evil will exist no more: for this intelligence, everything is God, who is untouched by evil. . . . Therefore, if at the end of the world, which will be similar to the beginning, there will be restored that condition which the rational nature had when it had not yet felt the need to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, once every sense of evil is removed, then for the creature, who has returned pure and unsullied, the One who is the only good God will become all. And not only in few or in many, but ‘in all’ God will be all, when there exists no more death, nor death’s sting, nor evil any more, absolutely: then God will truly be ‘all in all’” (Princ. 3:6:2–3). See also CC 6:36.
89. See Ramelli, “1 Cor 15:28.”
90. Princ. 1:6:3; 3:6:5 “This is why it is also written that ‘the last enemy, death, will be destroyed’ [1 Cor 15:26], that there may be nothing painful left, when death will exist no more, nor anything opposed, when there will be no enemy left.” But the last enemy, who is called “death,” i.e., the devil, “will be destroyed, not in such a way as to exist no more, but so that he may no longer be an enemy and death. . . . [W]e must understand the destruction of the last enemy as the destruction, not of the substance that was created by God, but of the inclination and the hostile will that stemmed, not from God, but from the enemy himself. Therefore, he will be destroyed, not in order for him to exist no more, but in such a way as to be no longer ‘enemy’ and ‘death’.”
91. From Jerome, Ep. 124:3.
92. “Both in these visible and temporal aeons and in those invisible and otherworldly, God’s providence operates in favor of all with measure and discernment, with regard to order and merit. Therefore, some first and then others, and yet others in the very last times, by means of heavier and more painful sufferings, long and undergone, say, for many aeons, in the end all, renewed by instruction and severe corrections, will be restored first among the angels, then in the superior hierarchies; thus all will be gradually received higher and higher, until they arrive at the invisible and eternal realities, after running, one by one, the offices of the heavenly hierarchies to be instructed.”
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