The goal of every soul is its increasing participation in the divine goods forever (De an. 105AD), an ideal that derives from Origen.226 In her concern—shared already by Origen—that the awareness of universal salvation may bring about moral relaxation, Macrina warns that the purifying process will be hard (De an. 157BD); however, it will achieve its aim, that is, universal salvation. In her exegesis of the Parable of Dives and Lazarus, Macrina (De an. 81A–84D) interprets Luke 16:19–31 as a warning that the soul must be freed from the “fleshly glue”—passions that keep it stuck to sins—to “rush toward the Good”; each soul, sooner or later, will do so (De an. 85B–88C).
The Feast of Tabernacles is interpreted as a symbol of the eventual universal salvation: all rational creatures will be happy, in harmony and unity, after the vanishing of evil (De an. 132C–136A). Philippians 2:10 is also read—as it was by Origen—in support of universal salvation (De an. 136A), since it foresees the “universal harmony with the Good” in the end. The interconnection between resurrection and restoration, and thereby salvation (De an. 145C–149B), is clear from the very description of the resurrection as the restoration (apokatastasis) of human nature to its original condition, free from evil. This does not mean that Gregory intended to “reduce” the restoration to the mere resurrection of the body, as has been suggested,227 but that he wanted to put forward—in the footsteps of Origen—a “holistic” and much richer concept of the resurrection. This will be, not simply the resurrection of the body and its transformation to an immortal body, but the restoration of the soul and all the intellectual and spiritual faculties of the human being to their prelapsarian state, through a purification from evil. The resurrection of the body is but the beginning of the full resurrection-restoration. Those who are still covered with sin will undergo a process of purification for their resurrection-restoration to be complete, as Macrina explains. But all will eventually achieve the state that was planned by God for humanity from the beginning: free from evil, suffering, decay, and death. For “human nature was something divine, before the human being acquired the impulse toward evil” (De an. 148A). God’s intention is the restoration of all humans to their original perfection with a view to their endless spiritual development. God will liberate all from evil, which is alien to human nature, so that in all the image of God will return to shine forth (De an. 157C–160C).
Gregory supports the doctrine of universal salvation in all kinds of his works, from all periods of his production and all literary genres, e.g., in a “catechetical handbook” such as his Catechetical Oration, in a consolatory work such as On Prematurely Dead Babies or On the Dead, in a dialogue such as that On the Soul, and in an exegetical short work such as that on 1 Corinthians 15:28, as well as in other works. As for the Catechetical Oration, it is significant that Gregory decided to support the theory of universal salvation, in its most radical form—including the salvation of the devil—in a handbook for all catechists, among the basic Christian teachings:
It is proper to the just to distribute things to each one in accord with his or her merits, and it is proper to the wise neither to subvert justice nor to separate the good purpose inspired by love for the human beings from the Judgement according to justice, but to join both these elements together in a fitting way, rendering to justice what it deserves, without parting from the goodness of the purpose inspired by love for the human beings. Let us now consider whether these two elements can be detected in what has happened [in Christ’s deception of the devil].228 The rendering of what one has deserved, through which the deceiver [i.e., the devil] is deceived in turn, shows God’s justice; the purpose of the fact is a proof of the goodness of its agent. For it is typical of justice to render to each one those things whose principles and causes one has initially provided as a foundation . . . and it is typical of wisdom not to fall down from the Good in the modality of rendering similar things for similar things. . . . From the point of view of justice, the deceiver [i.e., the devil] receives in exchange those things whose seeds he has sown by means of his own free choice. . . . Christ, who is just, good, and wise at the same time, used the intention of deception aiming at the salvation of the destroyed. In this way, he benefited not only the one who had perished [i.e., the human being], but also the one who had perpetrated that ruin against us [i.e., the devil]. For, when death is approached by life, darkness by light, and corruption by incorruptibility, there occurs the disappearance of the worse element and its passage into non-being. This is beneficial to the one who is purified from those worse elements. . . . [T]he approach of the divine power, like fire, to death, corruption, darkness, and whatever product of evilness had grown upon the inventor of evil [i.e., the devil], produced the disappearance of what is against nature and therefore benefited the nature [i.e., of the devil] with the purification, even though the above-mentioned separation is painful. Indeed, not even the adversary himself would doubt that what has happened is just and salvific at the same time, in consideration of the benefit produced. . . . Once, after the revolving of long ages, evil has been wiped out from nature, while now it is completely mixed and confused with it, when there will be the restoration of those who now lie in evilness into their original state, a unanimous thanksgiving will be elevated by the whole creation, both those who have been punished in purification and those who did not need even a beginning of purification. These and such things are allowed by the great Mystery of the inhumanation of God. For, thanks to all the respects in which Christ has mixed with humanity, having passed through all that is proper to the human nature, birth, nourishment, growth, and having even gone as far as the trial of death, he has accomplished all the tasks I have mentioned, both liberating the human being from evil and healing even the inventor of evilness [i.e., the devil]. (Or. cat. 26)
The restoration and salvation enabled by Christ is so universal, says Gregory, that it will even incorporate Satan, the deceiver, whose purification is “both just and salvific.” Sin is presented as the result of deception and ignorance. Gregory in De hom. op. 20 says about the forbidden fruit: “it seems to be good, but, in that it causes the ruin of those who taste it, it turns out to be the culmination of all evil.” Adam and Eve ate it because it seemed to be good, and it seemed so to them because they were deceived by the devil.229 But Christ saved both humanity and the devil, by liberating them from evil, which is alien to their nature. Manifestly Gregory, like Origen, has universal salvation depend on Christ—his inhumanation, sacrifice, and resurrection—and on divine grace.
What Christ performs is essentially the radical eviction of evil. That evil must eventually disappear absolutely is repeatedly asserted by Gregory in the dialogue On the Soul and the Resurrection, in the commentary on 1 Corinthians 15:28, in the Catechetical Oration, and in a number of other works, including the treatise On the Titles of the Psalms, GNO V 100:25 and 101:3. Here Gregory proclaims that “evil does not exist from eternity [ἐξ ἀϊδίου/ex aidiou], and therefore it will not subsist eternally. For what does not exist always will not exist forever either.” This is why there will come a “complete elimination of evil.” “Being in evil properly means non-being, since evil itself has no ontological subsistence of its own; what originates evil, indeed, is rather a lack of Good” (In inscr. Ps. GNO III/2, 62–63). That the final eviction of evil depends on Christ is repeated by Gregory in De trid. sp. GNO IX 285:7–286:12 and even more clearly in De v. Mos. 2:175: “Out of love for us . . . Christ has accepted to be created just as we are, to bring back to being what had ended up out of being,” that is, “out of the Good, far from God.”230 Restoration to being means that evil, qua non-being as no creature of God the Being, will have to vanish (In Inscr. Ps. GNO III/2, 101:18–21 and 155231). Evil is also limited, while God is unlimited; therefore, to remain in evil indefinitely is impossible—something on which Bardaisan, well known to Gregory, had already insisted. “The mutability of human nature does not remain stable, not even in evil. . . . As a consequence, after the extre
me limit of evil, there comes again the Good. . . . Even if we should have crossed the boundary of evilness and reached the culmination of the shadow of evilness, we shall return to living again in the Light” (De hom. op. 21).232
Universal restoration and salvation is the end of all (telos), as is clear from De mort. 60:26–27 Lozza and On the Titles of the Psalms, since the whole Psalter is a progression toward the telos, which is beatitude (In Inscr. Ps. GNO V 25–26). This is why the last psalm in the Psalter describes, according to Gregory, the glorification of God by all creatures, finally liberated from evil and death (GNO V 66:7–9; 16–22; 67:3–6; see also In Inscr. Ps. 57 and 87 GNO V 86:4–5; 13–14). All rational creatures, humans and angels, will join in this final thanksgiving that will mark universal salvation (In Inscr. Ps. 1:9).233
The eighth beatitude describes the eventual restoration and salvation of all sinners, “the restoration into heavens of those who had fallen into captivity,” that of sin (De beat. PG 44:1292B; cf. De or. dom. PG 44:1148C). In De vit. Mos. GNO VII/1, 57:8–58:3, Gregory interprets Moses’ outstretched hands—which saved not only the Hebrews, but the Egyptians too, i.e. sinners—as a type of the salvific effect of Christ’s cross, which saves sinners. The plague of darkness indicates that Christ’s cross can dissipate even the “outer darkness” of hell (Matt 8:12). Since “after three days of suffering in darkness, even the Egyptians participated in light,” this passage (Exod 10:21) announces “the restoration [apokatastasis] that we expect will come to pass in the end, in the kingdom of heavens: the restoration of those who had been condemned to Gehenna, . . . the ‘outer darkness.’ Now, both this and the ‘outer darkness’ are dispelled when Moses outstretched his arms for the salvation of those who lay in darkness.” The “outer darkness” image of hell appears again in Gregory’s exegesis of Psalm 59. Sinners will be pushed into the external darkness, but he does not say that this confinement will be eternal. For sinners will eventually be purified from sin: “Instead of human creatures, what will be destroyed and reduced to non-being will be sin. . . . When all that is evil has disappeared, ‘they will know’—says Scripture—‘that God is the Lord of Jacob and of the ends of the earth.’ . . . There will be no evilness left anywhere; . . . evil, which now reigns over most people, will have been wiped out.” In his (probably) last work, the Homilies on the Song of Songs, 4, Gregory continues to proclaim universal salvation: the end (telos) of all is:
that love may always increase and develop, until the One who “wants all to be saved and to reach the knowledge of truth” [1 Tim 2:4] has realized his will, . . . until the good will of the Bridegroom is accomplished. And this good will is that all human beings be saved and reach the knowledge of truth.
God wants universal salvation and God’s will shall come true in the end.
The last of these homilies is replete with references to the final restoration and its conclusion describes the restoration of all, after the purification of all from evil, which confirms that Gregory continued to support the doctrine of universal salvation until the end of his life.234 All will come to be in communion with God:
. . . all will be unified with one another, in connaturality with the only Good, thanks to perfection. . . . The run for this beatitude is common to all the souls of every order; . . . it is a natural impulse common to all that of tending to what is blessed and praised . . . until all look at the same object of their desire and become one and the same thing and no evilness will any longer remain in anyone. Then God will really be ‘all in all.’ For all, thanks to the union with one another, will be joined in communion with the Good, in Jesus Christ Our Lord.” (GNO VI 466–7)
Universal salvation will pass through the restoration of the image of God in all humans (e.g., De virg. 12 GNO VIII/1, 302), which can be blurred by sin but never cancelled.235 For humanity was created precisely in the image of God, and will be restored to that state (De hom. op. PG 44:188CD: “the restoration of those who have fallen to their original condition. Indeed, the grace that we expect is a sort of re-ascent to the first kind of life, given that it lifts up again into paradise the being who had been chased from it”). In De perf. GNO VIII/1, 194–95 Gregory makes it clear that this restoration of the image of God depends on Christ and on divine grace (e.g., Or. cat. 16; De hom. op. 17; De mort. 20–21). And “the grace we expect is the restoration to the original life that brings back to paradise those who had been chased out of it. . . . [O]ur restoration into the original condition makes us similar to angels” (De hom. op. 17). This angelic life is similar to that of Gregory’s sister St. Macrina as described by him in her biography. Likewise, Lazarus “kept himself free from sin for the whole duration of his life, and, when the scenery of this world disappeared for him, because the enemy had been defeated already during his earthly life, he was immediately found among angels. . . . This is the dance and roaming with the angels, the bosom of the patriarch who receives Lazarus in himself, and the inclusion in the joyful symphony of the choir” (In Inscr. Ps. 2:6).
Once again, a close lexical analysis is paramount to evaluate Gregory’s eschatological thought and avoid falling into mistakes and misunderstandings. He speaks without problem of an αἰωνία/aiōnia suffering for those who are purified in the other world (C. usur. PG 46:436), because with this he—like the Bible, Origen, and other church fathers—does not mean an “eternal” suffering, but a suffering of a certain duration, albeit long, in the next world.236 He also speaks of a διαιωνίζουσα/diaiōnizousa suffering in fire (De benef. GNO IX 100:5): this will extend through the aeon to come, but not in the final restoration, as is clear from the dialogue On the Soul and the Resurrection. Also, the “incessant lamentation” in Adv. eos qui cast. aegre fer. GNO X/2, 328:16 means that those who are suffering purifying punishments are continually lamenting, but it does not specify that this suffering will go on eternally. The “αἰώνιον/aiōnion fire” is the purifying fire in the other world, and it is not an “eternal fire.” It enables the final universal restoration and salvation by burning away sin from all rational creatures.237 I have already warned that the same care must be used in the study of the the terminology of “perdition” (apollymi and related terms) in Gregory, which for him never indicates a definitive damnation or death.
Gregory focuses his soteriology on Christ’s inhumanation and sacrifice. First, Christ assumed human nature entirely, thus sanctifying its whole “lump” (De perf. GNO VIII/1, 203–7). Then he performed his sacrifice of sanctification and redemption, as great High Priest and propitiatory victim at the same time (175–76; 186–87).238 Stretching his arms on the cross, Christ embraced and unified all, and attracted all to himself (Or. cat. 32); the cross is a recapitulation of all.239 Gregory relies on Ephesians 1:10, about Christ’s recapitulation of all, and Acts 3:21, on the second coming of Christ, which will bring about “universal restoration [apokatastasis].”240 Christ’s risen body transmits the resurrection to all of humanity, his “body.”241 This is especially emphasized in Or. cat. 16: “Just as the principle of death, becoming operative in the case of one human being [i.e., Adam], from it passed on to the whole human nature, likewise the principle of the resurrection, from one human being, and through it, extends to the whole of humanity.”242 With his resurrection Christ has all of humanity raise with him and cancels death, the consequence of Adam’s sin (Contr. c. Apoll. 21, GNO III/1, 160–61). In Or. cat. 32, too, Gregory insists that the resurrection of all humanity is enabled by the resurrection of Christ, who has the same nature as humanity. This universal resurrection in Gregory’s view is a restoration of body, soul, and intellect. “The totality of human nature” will thereby achieve perfection and even “deification,” according to God’s intention (De hom. op. 22; De an. 129BC; 152A).243 God’s intention will definitely be realized, even if some will need a long purification to this end. Gregory does not admit of cases in which some people will never get purified. Indeed, the aim of Christ’s resurrection was “to restore the o
riginal grace that belongs to human nature, and thus allow us to return to the absolutely eternal [aïdios] life” (Or. Cat. 16). Only life is eternal in the strict sense of the term (aïdios). Gregory never describes as aïdios death, punishment, or fire in the world to come.244 In Christ humans become God, in a “deification” that will be full and eternal (again aïdios):
The human being surpasses its nature by becoming, from mortal, immortal, from corruptible, incorruptible, from ephemeral, absolutely eternal [aïdios]; in a word, from human being becoming God. For one who has received the honor of becoming Son of God will surely possess the dignity of the Father, and inherits all the goods of the Father. (De beat. GNO VII/2, 151).
Only Christ allows the deification of humanity, because in him human nature is joined to the divinity: “by participating in the purest being, human weakness is transformed into what is better and more powerful; . . . human smallness is united to divine greatness” (CE 3:4). In this union, God’s nature is affected by the weaknesses of human nature, but human nature receives divine perfections. “The two (natures) must become one, and the conjunction will consist in a transformation into the better nature” (De beat. 7). Not only humanity, but even all of creation will become “one body” in the final restoration (In Illud 20 D.); salvation is as universal as possible: “no being will remain outside the number of the saved” (21).
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