The Evangelical Universalist Forum

ancient theological schools

Hey everyone-

I’m wondering if anyone knows of any source material that supports the claim that Gary Amirault makes over at tentmaker.org that there were 6 main theology schools in the first century of the church, and that 4 taught UR, and that 1 taught annihilation and the lats taught ECT.

I believe i saw some source material for one called didacius or something of the sort, but does anyone know where there is conclusive evidence of this? it is QUITE interesting, but not very present on the web.

andrew

6 months ago I tried digging deeper on that one but without any success :confused: We know from Augustine that there were many universalists around, however, that’s quite different from it being taught officially. I’d love to hear if you have any luck finding proof, one way or the other.

I’ve just emailed Gary, hopefully he knows…

If I don’t remember it all wrong, Gary’s article cited Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge as the source.

That’s as far as I got last time.

Unfortunately, that may also be as far as it’s possible to get with online sources.

Years ago someone posed the same question on Tentmaker, but no-one could really give him any further proof.

Here’s the thread: tentmaker.org/forum/discussi … l#msg14796

Thanks for the link. At least Schaff sounds legit, I just wish it was clear why he thought that.

That’s a start, but I agree with him that it’s not really sufficient. Sadly I too have way too many projects on my plate to look into it :neutral_face:

Here’s the academic reference: George T. Night, “Universalists”, New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, Vol. XII: Trench – Zwingli, ed. S. M. Jackson, 96, ccel.org/ccel/schaff/encyc12/Page_96.html.

The problem which has been brought up to this ‘reference’ isIt doesn’t reference it’s source material however where they received this conclusion, and therefore has been publicly disputed on the Wikipedia reference for Universal Reconciliation, claiming that the author of the encyclopedia (which no reference for their refute) was a universalist.

Yes it seems the 4/6 claim is overstating the case.

I think we can say with much historical evidence that universalism was widely
taught and believed in the early church and was not considered heretical until
the 5 or 6th century.

But where indeed is that evidence?

There’s this one book by J.W. Hanson, called “Universalism, The Prevailing Doctrine Of The Christian Church During Its First Five Hundred Years”.

tentmaker.org/books/Prevailing.html

It’s over 300 pages long, and therefore quite a lot to read. I’ve only read bits and pieces here and there (planning to read it all one day). But at least the work does seem to be very well-referenced. Could be useful stuff for someone.

This looks relevant tentmaker.org/books/Doctrine … on.html#AV

I’ve formatted this so you can print/read it easier. It’s attached to this thread:

Thanks for the heads up. Looks like an interesting read.

I was wondering the same question after reading “hope beyond hell”

at the end of the book by J.W. Hanson, called "Universalism is this:

“(26) In all Christendom, from A.D. 170 to 430, there were six Christian schools. Of these four, the only strictly theological schools, taught Universalism, and but one endless punishment.”

There is SO SO SO much helpful stuff in that book. That book is a must read. If that book doesn’t seal the deal on Universal Salvation I don’t know what will.

Scroll to the end for his 31 point summary and find some amazing historical facts in support of Universalism and when and how Eternal Suffering became the official Belief.

For the first time I feel somewhat betrayed that this information was never even realized or mentioned by any Evangelical Church I ever attended.

Summarizing Hanson’s “500 years of Early Christian Universalism” is on my list of things to do. I know he eventually mentions what the six schools were, and why he regards four as teaching universalism, but he does so in a very piecemeal fashion. Also, he doesn’t bother to mention the names of the two other schools, just where they basically were! (And he denies they were proper seminaries. :wink: )

The two main schools were Alexandria (in Egypt) and Antioch (in Asia Minor); each one had a related school, one in Caesarea (the port of northwestern Palestine–there were lots of Caesarea-es :wink: ) from Alexandria, and one in Syria somewhere (Damascus or Taursus if I recall correctly) from Antioch. (Edited to add: the school was certainly moved eventually to Nisibius, outside the Roman Empire, where it functioned as the most advanced medical university in the West, perhaps the world, well into the Muslim era.) The Syrian school eventually became the base of operations for the Church of the East after the orthodox party sacrificed Nestorius as an example involving too much schism in the two natures of Christ (even though he went to the grave denying this and insisting instead that he agreed with Pope Leo on the topic–or rather that Pope Leo agreed with him! :wink: )

Another Asia Minor school featured many annihilationists; and then the North African school (in Tunisia or Cyrenia), which was highly connected to Latin Rome, featured many ECTists (most prominently Augustine.)

Hanson’s argument that the four schools “taught” universalism is rather loose, and has come under rightful criticism in the century+ since publication; but I think he makes a decent case for a prevalence of universalism in the four schools, especially among their top masters.