Well, it is true that universalists believe all men will be saved from their sins even if they don’t accept Jesus in this life–we believe all rational creatures will accept Jesus as savior eventually.
So strictly speaking “Mike” isn’t actually inaccurate to say that (except where he says it is a false belief. 
)
JG,
Part of the problem is that people known to be universalists demonstrably used language that might otherwise be indicative of non-universalism. The list in the article includes Clement of Alexandria on that ground, because he used the term which the translator is calling “endless vengeance” (but also from a late post-Nicene fragment, which is suspect). Several of the early theologians on the list spoke of the punishment in terms much more like annihilation, so including them on the list is suspect anyway.
This is connected to the problem of the doctrine of reserve, where teachers would explain things to the common masses one way but actually mean them a different way when discussing it among themselves: known universalists like Origen recommended universalism be reserved for educated theologians and hopeless punishment taught to the uneducated, due to fear that the common people would misunderstand it as a license to behave however they wanted.
The practical result of those problems is that it introduces an unwanted level of agnosticism about whether a writer really was advocating some kind of hopeless punishment (anni or ECT) or not. Since non-universalists tend not to be carefully agnostic on the matter, that leads some universalists (like Hanson notoriously, who was the universalist the article appears to be quoting from) to overstate the case in the other direction.
The overstating can be interesting in itself sometimes. Hanson promotes the theory that if a writer like Athanasius often speaks like a universalist, and admires and follows Origen citing him as authority in controversies and defending him as orthodox, nominates a known universalist (Didymus the Blind) as president of the Alexandrian catechetical school, and doesn’t spend his heresy-hunting energy going after universalism, and only once mentions eonian punishment in a context not very contextually obviously indicating hopeless punishment of some sort, THEN CHALK HIM UP AS A UNIVERSALIST! Or if the one time he mentions eonian punishment he does seem to be talking about hopeless punishment, then instead of being merely agnostic because of the doctrine of reserve, CHALK HIM UP AS PROBABLY A UNIVERSALIST!–which is not entirely unreasonable as a Bayesian induction, but that depends on how any particular person “weighs” the “weight” of the different pieces of evidence. (Theodore of Mopsuestia is one notable theologian who explicitly followed the teaching of Athanasius into universal salvation, by the way.)
It would probably be quicker to just refer to you the Hanson and Beecher texts for more information, although Hanson should be used cautiously. The short version is that Barnabas (which is suspected of being a Gnostic text anyway), Ignatius, Polycarp, Irenaeus and Justin Martyr are more probably anni than ECT. The first and only genuinely accepted epistle from Clement of Rome (to the Corinthians) is cited with indications he was either an anni or a univ; notably the article from which Mike555 cites, only quotes from the Second Epistle, which is widely regarded as spurious and of late composition. Tatian is indisputably ECT (as even Hanson recognizes, and he tries to read Justin as possibly universalistic!)
Athenagoras says the wicked will suffer a worse life in fire, and in his surviving work doesn’t mention restoration but doesn’t mention duration per se either. (As even Mike555’s source cannot find a quote on.) He was the original head of the catechetical school in Alexandria, so at least his successors for several generations (through the 200s and 300s) followed universal restoration; Hanson thinks this is enough to certainly include him, too, other evidence against not being strong enough. He was certainly not an annihilationist for he spoke specifically against it.
While Theophilus of Antioch (in 181) wrote with the usual language of eonian fire and eonian punishments (as quoted by Mike’s source), he also wrote (in the same Treatise to Autolycus) that the purpose of the punishment is to remake or remodel a flawed vessel so that it becomes right, and so it comes that a wicked man is broken up by death so that he may come forth in the resurrection righteous and immortal. Consequently he would seem to belong to the universalists, apparently of a rare sort who believes in post-mortem punishment in hades but not after the resurrection. He also wrote some passages that would seem to involve annihilation. The most coherent way to harmonize his views would be annihilation of the wicked and their sins as such through post-mortem punishment but the salvation of their souls. (Theophilus of Egypt, much later around 400, teams up with Jerome and Epiphanius to finally assault the universalism of Origen, but even then they only oppose his belief in the salvation of Satan, not his belief in the salvation of all men.)
Clement of Alexandria is discussed by knowledgable authorities far moreso than the mere quote ascribed to him in Mike’s source, and has strong evidence for using his eonian language in a universalistic fashion: he believes all God’s punishments are remedial and even that the devil can repent. (Hanson extrapolates his predecessor Panteus’ universalism on the basis of Clement’s claim to have learned everything from his beloved teacher, but at most this can only be probable to some degree. I learned everything from Lewis myself, even my universalism in some real ways, but he was hardly one himself!)
Tertullian, like Tatian, was certainly ECT, although he does not regard endless torment as one of the doctrines of the church per se and speaks of the sinner after death being able to pay the uttermost farthing. Felix of Minucius was a disciple of Tertullian of the Latin school and his language may be safely interpreted as ECT as well. Cyprian of Carthage and Lactantius of North Africa, both of the Latin school obviously, followed suit later.
Hippolytus of Rome, who lived in the days of Clement and Origen, certainly speaks strongly of the punishment to come, but he was also avowedly a disciple of Origen and Dionysius of Alexandria (the latter of whom was also a well-known universalist and became famous as the Origen of the West), and Jerome (who started out a universalist supporter of Origen) says Hippolytus was attracted to Origen by all the affinities of heart and mind. (The Philosophumena of Hippolytus had originally been ascribed to Origen when first rediscovered. It uses limited punishment terms like {kolaston}.) Like other anti-heretics of his time, he never wrote against universalism, nor even against other points of Origen disputed by the anti-heretics of his time (such as Jerome, thus explaining in his own denunciations of Origen–but not for his universalism–why Hippolytus did not oppose him). If we may safely categorize the beliefs of Cyprian and Felix as following the school of Tertullian’s thought in their language, in continuity with Augustine after them (of the same local school), Hippolytus’ strong connections to Origen would tend to lend weight to the meaning of his language.
Hanson does not mention Cyril of Jerusalem at all; Beecher does but only briefly reckons him as perhaps being in Augustine’s camp. Cyril was a known anti-heretic but Beecher notes he never opposed universalism per se. I am suspicious of the citations from the “Convince Me” article, which on one hand rely on a refutation of annihilationism (with an eternal body for the wicked); and on the other hand simply rely on a convenient English translation of eonian as eternal in quoting from the judgment of the goats, after a whole paragraph exhorting us in the strongest language how necessary it is for us to believe that Christ can and will save sinners from sin since what is impossible with man is possible with God.
As Alex notes, it would be better to wait for the report by Ilaria (or a summary of it rather), although a Baptist historian (whose name escapes me and Amazon is currently down) has recently written a decent study of the period.
