The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Fact Checking--Ancient Christian Schools Taught Universalism

Apart from Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Didymus the Blind, Gregory of Nyssa, Theodore of Mopsuestia and Isaac of Nineveh (maybe I forgot someone) there are few writers of whom we can conclusively demonstrate that they firmly held to universalism. Many were open to the possibility and wavered, that much can be shown.

Thing is, every time I read an e-book claiming that most fathers were universalists I am bound to be disappointed to some degree once I start fact-checking. Don’t get me wrong. I greatly appreciate the books like Dr. Ramelli’s tome you posted a link to in the thread about Athenagoras, but very often universalists just try to prove things that cannot be proven. For example, we can speculate that Chrysostom was secretly a universalist, but we can never make a good case for it to a skeptic. He was a friend of Theodore, sometimes he said things that somewhat imply universalism, and in Homily 9 on Romans he said this: “[T]hey assume punishment to be worse than sin which it is not, but just the contrary. Yet, if it were an evil to the sinner, God would not have added evils to the evil; for He that does everything to extinguish evil, would not have increased it. Being punished then is no evil to the man who has done wrong, but not being punished, when in that plight, is evil, just as for the infirm not to be cured.” This is pretty much all that can be brought forward to support the contention that he was a universalist. Against this, however, we have to put the countless passages where he describes terrifying, infernal tortures and insists that they have no end. The vast majority of his utterances regarding hell can be used to support the eternal torment doctrine. I’d even venture to say that Chrysostom played a major role in solidifying this doctrine in Eastern Christianity and helped to drown out the opinions of Gregory of Nyssa.

A case similar to that of Chrysostom is Hilary of Poitiers. Some universalists make much of the fact that he translated some books of Origen and wrote a couple of things that can be (mis)interpreted to signify universalism, but they ignore passages like this: “[I]f there remains for the saints an expectation, whereas for the wicked there waits the end they have deserved, we cannot conceive that end as a final dissolution (1 Cor 15:24). What punishment would it be for the wicked to be beyond the feeling of avenging torments, because the capability of suffering has been removed by dissolution? The end is, therefore, a culminating and irrevocable condition which awaits us, reserved for the blessed and prepared for the wicked.” (On the Trinity, Book XI, paragraph 28) Consider also these bone-chilling words: “The ungodly have no possible hope of having the image of the happy tree applied to them; the only lot that awaits them is one of wandering and winnowing, crushing, dispersion and unrest; shaken out of the solid framework of their bodily condition, they must be swept away to punishment in dust, a plaything of the wind. They shall not be dissolved into nothing, for punishment must find in them some stuff to work on, but ground into particles, imponderable, unsubstantial, dry, they shall be tossed to and fro, and make sport for the punishment that gives them never rest. Their punishment is recorded by the same Prophet in another place where he says: I will beat them small as the dust before the wind, like the mire of the streets I will destroy them.
Thus as there is an appointed type for happiness, so is there one for punishment. For as it is no hard task for the wind to scatter the dust, and as men who walk through the mud of the streets are hardly aware that they have been treading on it, so it is easy for the punishment of hell to destroy and disperse the ungodly, the logical result of whose sins is to melt them into mud and crush them into dust, reft of all solid substance, for dust and mud they are, and being merely mud and dust are good for nothing else than punishment.” (Homily on the First Psalm, paragraph 19)

My intention in quoting this wasn’t to depress you :slight_smile: I just wanted to make the point that once we take a comprehensive look at church fathers’ writings instead of just quote-mining them, we might become less confident that the majority of ancient Christians were convinced universalists. But at the end of the day, our goal is not cultivate undue confidence, it is to walk in the Truth through which we must go on our Way to the Life.

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Hi, James!

Thanks for the link. The problem is that there is no proof there for the claims about Christian schools, it’s simply stated as a fact. Obviously, it cannot be completely dismissed by the skeptics since it is a scholarly source, but at the same time someone who doesn’t put boundless faith in authorities will probably want to see what representatives of those schools actually wrote. But you did address Brian’s question as best as possible, I believe.

Thanks for all of the replies. They’re very helpful.

Questorius,
What do you think about Augustine’s statement about most believers being Universalists in his day?

I haven’t studied much about the Church Fathers, so I don’t know much about them.

Qaz,

What was wrong with the Church Father’s eschatology?

I have no idea about their eschatology, but you’ve got me interested now. Thanks!

Thanks for the link, James.

It looks like Questorius kind of killed the whole argument anyway with his explanation for the schools, so that answers my question. The argument isn’t really useful, it seems, which is good to know.

What about the other writers to which Ramelli refers: "McC’s statement, “there are no unambiguous cases of universalist teaching prior to Origen” (p. 823), should also be at least nuanced, in light of Bardaisan…the Apocalypse of Peter’s Rainer Fragment, parts of the Sibylline Oracles, and arguably of the NT, especially Paul’s letters.” ":

Who do you have in mind here? Ramelli lists, for one example of a ECF Christian universalist, “Jerome before his change of mind”:

What early Christian writers would you list in the definitely (1) ECT & (2) CI categories? Assuming they weren’t engaging in a “doctrine of reserve” by doing so. And that their writings are genuine & haven’t been interpolated or re written by later pro endless torments advocates, who ruled by the sword through the dark & middle ages of Inquisitions, Crusades, burning of “heretics” & their writings.

Have you read Dr. Ramelli’s tome? AFAIK she has never made a claim that “most fathers were universalists”. Though that there were at times many, if not a majority of, Christians who believed in punishment coming to an end, seems likely, in light of these quotes, assuming they were telling the truth:

https://www.christianforums.com/threads/church-fathers-universalism-since-early-church-times.8042013/#post-72140416

An apparently pro ECT EO member says after English language quotes of Chrysostom he seems to assume are accurately translated & prove Chrysostom’s supports ECT: “Jonathan Edwards, stand aside! The Eastern Church can boast a fire-and-brimstone preacher as terrifying as you!” He adds:

“My ignorance on this question is partly determined by the fact that a huge portion of the Eastern theological patrimony has never been translated into English. I read neither Greek (modern or patristic), Russian, Romanian, Serbian, or Syriac…”

“…Look high and low, but you will not find a comprehensive, detailed, and in-depth scholarly discussion of the eschatology of the Church Fathers, much less of the two thousand year old Eastern tradition. Perhaps such surveys are available in French, German, Russian or Greek, but alas not in English.”

Those English translations give the appearance of rejecting universalism. Yet i am always skeptical of such, since they seem to be made by those of pro endless punishment bias, as is evident, for example, when they always translate aionios punishment as “eternal punishment”. Have you read & researched Ramelli’s comments, quotes & references re Hilary?

Not depressing at all. Ultimately my faith isn’t in the majority opinion (whether ECT, CI, UR, or none of the above, i.e. if they were all minority views) of fallible men on any subject, but what the Spirit reveals as truth in the inspired Scriptures. The ECF, despite their differences of opinions about many things & some really strange viewpoints on some, are still an interesting topic of study. Though perhaps of more interest to those of EO & RC traditions than of others.

I’ll be perfectly honest now: I am an atheist.

Please don’t evict me :fearful:

:laughing:

Not long ago, I used to be a Christian, and in the last and longest phase of my Christian walk I was a universalist. I wasn’t 100% sure, but I believed it is better to err on the side of hope. The basis of my belief was the Bible (“God is love”, “God will be all in all”, “Behold the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world”, “Love thy enemy” etc.), the realization that aionios doesn’t have to mean eternal, logic (e.g.“God will not eternally torment creatures for sins of which He knew before he created them”), and also the fact that devout ancient Christians generally seemed much more open to universalism than modern Christians. This last reason, however, was the least important for me. The first work of the fathers that I read was the First Epistle of Clement of Rome who writes there about the phoenix as if it were a real animal. So I never considered any church father fully inspired. But this thread is about ancient Christians, and so I focused on them. Pointing out the fathers who taught universalism can certainly make the claim that the first Christians were universalists more plausible.

Even though I’m an atheist, I see much that is valuable in Christianity. I don’t believe in God, but I surely hope that a God greater than anything I can understand exists. It’s just that I’m convinced that gods of the religions that I know can’t be real. I would be happy if some kind of universalism were true and I also think most of the New Testament was written by universalists. On top of that, I’ve become fascinated with the evolution of Christianity in the first millennium.

Please forgive me for letting you believe I was still a Christian. One could say that I practised the “doctrine of reserve” with you :laughing:

Thanks for the info.

Would you mind if I ask about your relationship with your father growing up? Your mother too, I suppose, but the father’s more important.

Also, might I ask how you believe everything came into existence without a Creator?

You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to. Actually, oddly enough, in the four stages of spiritual development that psychologists have repeatedly defined through research, the third stage (Doubt) is where Atheists and those who’ve begun to doubt religion(s) [not necessarily God, but definitely religion(s)] are. Which means they’re actually more spiritually developed than the people in stage two, which is religion (or rule following). LOL In stage 3, the doubt stage, people either go Atheist or they just do a lot of research and discover that religions tend to mess up things. The latter end up in stage 4 eventually, which is a comfortable relationship with God where they realize He’s okay with them the way they are and they’re okay with Him, too. Atheists often get stuck because they don’t realize what drove them to rejection of God. They get a bit confused due to their intellectualism or other factors. They’re often looking right past the issue and can’t see it even when it’s pointed out to them. It’s very interesting to see it in action.

So I have a lot of respect for Atheists since they’ve at least seen through religion and figured out how man has screwed it up. I like that they keep Christians on their toes, too, about the facts, whether about the Bible or science. :slight_smile:

Sooo, you’re an amateur psychologist? :grinning:

I did not have a very good relationship with my father. Not that he was abusing me in any way, but we didn’t become really close when I was a kid. I feel like he failed to provide me a male role model. I had a better relationship to my mum, but the person I felt closest to was my grandma. By the way, my family was non-religious, although my mum has become New-Agey over the years. My homeland is Czechia, one of the most atheistic countries in the world. At school, there is on average one Christian in a class. A Catholic or a Jehovah’s Witness usually; Protestantism is all but extinct here. Until I was about 15 I thought that all Christians were literally either greedy paedophiles or retards. Then I was given a free copy of the New Testament and watched a few Christian videos on YouTube. I got saved. Though I’m an atheist I believe that Christ saved me in a way. I’m not sure I’d still be here if it weren’t for Christianity. This is all I’ll tell you about my childhood for now since I don’t think this thread is the right place for a psychotherapy session :laughing:

As for how everything came into existence, I guess the first cause could be a god, but it could also be something impersonal, possibly unintelligent, even unconscious. The existence of evil never made sense to me when I believed in God. As an atheist I can accept it as a tragic reality of a universe which is not guided by a wise providence. But the main reasons why I became an atheist were irreconcilable contradictions in the Gospels and my realization that morality makes perfect sense without the belief in a god. I could go into detail, but not here and now.

Hi Questorius,

I cannot confirm all that the article states, but I read a lot of translations of leaders of the ancient Alexandrian school that is clearly universalism or the possibility of universalism. I also read a translation of Augustine’s Letter 164 that indicates a majority of Christians at the time believed that hell was empty. Perhaps I will come up with more info in the future. I skimmed through my copy of The Christian Doctrine of Apokatastasis : A Critical Assessment from the New Testament to Eriugena (Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae) by Ilaria Ramelli, but I do not know when I will have more time to write about that work.

Pax,

Jim

Hi all, I apologize for my potentially pointless and bland thoughts. I have a bit of brain damage.

Questorius,

Regarding your problem with evil and God, how has your atheism answered the following thoughts?

Creation would be boring and uninspiring without many forms of diversity. A world with only two “colors” would conceivably be less interesting than a world with our color continuum. The world would be a little less interesting without diversity of races. Is there any question that we could point to hundreds or thousands of forms of diversification in creation that add value to creation?

What if God, in creating an existence for finite beings, decided that it was best to use an optimized level of diversity of “evil” versus “good” in early (pre-return of Christ) creation? Perhaps He created a complex puzzle of life, so deeply convoluted that the solving of the puzzle would take eons… and eventually lead to a blissful life for all created beings? Could life truly be blissful if there was no “neutral” point of reference to compare the blissful to? Could “neutral” life exist if there was no “bad” life to compare it to? What if God included an optimum level of “bad” in His creation… just a taste of “bad” in comparison to eons of bliss… so that bliss could be “good”?

Do humans not love to see wrongs righted? What if, in allowing thousands of years of “wrongs,” God created a plan whereby creation would, after Christ’s return, continually heal and improve, righting all wrongs, for an unending eternity? Are you so wise that you know that the best potential creation, could be possible without the existence of a relatively small amount of initial pain and suffering?

Those thoughts alone are enough for me to attempt to have patience through the pains and trials of life, including my brain damage.

Questorius,

Thanks for the info. I worked with people with Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD/DID) for five years helping them integrate their alternate personalities into one, so I enjoy psychology. The research on Atheists shows, across the board, that nearly every Atheist has issues with their father, whether it be an absent father or an emotionally-unavailable father, etc. That’s why I was asking. The emotions and beliefs of our subconscious form from birth to age 7, and from that point on, we’ll relate to God, subconsciously, fairly similarly to the way we relate to our biological father. But consciously, we’ll often have a different sort of view of God and relationship with Him. However, some people’s subconscious feelings and beliefs bleed more heavily into their conscious beliefs. Just depends on the person and their situation.

So you believe that everything could be created by an impersonal, unintelligent, even unconscious being or “thing”? Interesting. Well, I can’t go along with that one since it takes intelligence to create the laws of the universe and the incredibly intricate and sophisticated structures we have present in life on earth. And Evolution theory is so incredibly easy to disprove it’s not even funny. The odds that it’s possible are virtually impossible according to evolution scientists as far back as the 50s who sought to test its plausibility. And by Dawkins own research and confession, we know for sure that neither punctuated equilibrium nor mutation are the driving forces behind evolutionary change. In fact, he admits that we still don’t know what drives evolution. His book that claimed his computer model proved that there didn’t need to be a God to direct Evolution actually proved exactly the opposite. Even Dan Brown in his book Origin pointed that out, as well as many other scientists. But anyway, what I’ve noticed both in my own observation is that in cultures where fathers are by in large emotionally unavailable or extremely strict with their children (like the Asian cultures), the religions in those area end up having an impersonal deity, such as “the Universe,” or in Islam, “Allah,” who is a distant god who doesn’t interact with his people on a personal level, and doesn’t love them unless they love him first. This is all textbook, caused by father wounds. Again, it’s uncanny how clearly it presents itself. But it usually doesn’t matter if you tell someone that who has those issues, because that doesn’t affect change in them. They actually would have to bring up the repressed emotions related to their father and process them in order to see change. So it really does no good to discuss it, but I figure some people who enjoy research might hear it and decide to look into it. And some might be a little ticked off if they find that their subconscious is running the show against their will. Either way, it’s an interesting subject, as if evolution. You know, Mohammad had horrible father and mother wounds growing up. And wouldn’t you know it, his behaviors and actions as an adult are exactly what you’d expect them to be from what happened to him growing up. His religion reflects those issues perfectly.

You say the contradictions in the Gospels are what turned you Atheist? You know, if you ever ask a detective what he thinks about eyewitness testimonies, he’ll tell you that he never believes the witnesses, because their stories always conflict. My wife’s a brain researcher and she says that human memories is extremely unreliable. So detectives know better than to trust witnesses. TV shows and movies grossly misrepresent stuff like that. My point is that the Gospels aren’t necessarily contradicting each other. They’re the retelling of the events from different people’s perspectives decades after they happened. So of course they’re going to be a little bit different than one another, but they’re pretty dark close. That’s not half back for people remembering events that happened decades before, I’d say. And Hebrew writers weren’t exactly worried about everything lining up exactly right. They’re more concerned about writing from the heart to convey the message within the stories. The language of the heart is story and body language. That’s why Christ died on the cross–to show us, visually, that God isn’t holding anything against us. He did that so our hearts would drop all of their judgments against their self which would in turn drop their shame. And that’s exactly what near-death experiences show us.

When people get to heaven in near-death experiences, they relive everything they did that hurt other people, but this time, they have to feel how it made the other person feel. They relive it all at the same time, extremely quickly, and when it’s done, they feel awful. God basically does it bring all of their shame to the surface to be dealt with. The person usually says something like, “That was so bad, so wrong.” Then God comes close and says, “No, no. Not good or bad, not right or wrong…just a lesson learned.” The people say at that point, they realize that it was their own judgment that was causing them all their pain in life, not God. They say they realize God was never judging them. That’s when the realize there is no good or bad, no right or wrong, and they drop all of their shame. And immediately when that happens, they feel God’s love engulf them and it’s indescribably amazing. So, like you said, there’s no good or bad, no right or wrong…God agrees with you. lol Not only that, but if you do some good solid research into the Ancient Hebrews, you’ll find that they had the same belief. They believed in function and dysfunction, but not good and evil. Those are our culture’s words, not theirs. They have no equivalent words or concepts in their culture. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil should be translated The Tree of the Intimate Knowing of Function and Dysfunction. And there’s no judgment on those words function and dysfunction. These people were nomads, so a dysfunctional person could cause people to die. So they had to be very careful and loving when dealing with dysfunctional people. And if they couldn’t help them, they had to deal with them harshly. So this idea of no good or bad makes a lot more sense in their culture than in ours. And verses like this one make a lot of sense, too:

Isaiah 45:7 - I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the LORD, do all these things.

The Ancient Hebrews were Eastern Philosophy, just as everyone was back then before the 7th Century B.C. Western Philosophy came later and had good and bad things it introduced. But in their view, God is a balance of chaos and order, but His will is perfect love. So He uses darkness and light for His good purpose. This can be seen in stories such as Ahab and the prophet Macaiah. Macaiah says that God and the hosts of heaven were on His left and His right (which means some were good and some were evil–these are angels and demons). He asks them how they can make Ahab attack the king of Assyria and get killed. One of them says he will be a lying spirit in the mouths of Ahab’s prophets. God says, “Go, you will be successful.” So clearly, an angel of God isn’t a lying spirit, so that was a demon. God actively uses demons for His purposes and He treats them with respect all throughout scripture. Jesus treats the demons called Legion with much respect. They beg Him not to send them to the Abyss, but instead to cast them into the pigs so they can kill their selves and be dispersed back into the world to cause more mischief. lol I mean, seriously? Jesus is just gonna let them go back into the world and cause trouble? Yep! So yeah, He treats them with respect and kindness. He knows He’s in control of everything, so they’re not a problem. I agree with you–there’s no right or wrong, no good or bad. What there is, though, are loving actions and unloving (selfish) actions. And that’s what we see in the world. The standard of “good and bad” or “right and wrong” is what causes so much shame in the world. If we ran things differently so as not to build so much shame in people, we’d see a lot more loving people with a lot less shame in the world. But that ain’t gonna happen this side of heaven. lol

Thanks again for the info. Much appreciated. Good luck, man.

Thanks for the info, James.

I need to read Ramelli’s book, but I haven’t gotten around to it. If it were on audiobook, I could get it read while I’m driving, but I doubt it is. It sounds like a good one.

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Brock,

You might want to ask those questions directly to Quest in a private message since it’s off topic. I posted a response to Quest, but I’m done posting about that subject in this thread. It could be a fun thread to start, but it’s a little bit private for Quest, so might be best discussed in private.

My apologies, I now realize that the first person who “went off topic” with Quest was the OP. You certainly have a right to do what you want with your thread.

Quest’s posts in this thread seemed to add a bit to the discussion. Quest’s depth of thought behind his/her atheistic beliefs seemed a bit wanting, though. Before considering researching Quest’s earlier posts in depth, I’d like to see his/her response to your thoughts on atheism and the gospels. I’d also like to understand why Quest believes that the problem of evil lends to atheistic thought.

Should we make this a “nevermind” post?

Oh, it’s all good. You came in late to the conversation.

I have a great relationship with my father and although I don’t quite label myself an atheist, I do register as an agnostic. I guess you could call me a fence sitter, for the most part. Though my morality still follows very closely to Christianity. I guess I tend to see it too arrogant to declare one way or the other on the matter. The way I like to put it is this: God may in fact talk to some people, but he hasn’t talk to me. So, I can’t declare God doesn’t exist, because it is entirely possible that God decides only to reveal himself to certain people. So I definitely am open regarding my ignorance in the matter. That said, I also think that a God worth his salt will take all this into consideration. So if God exists, I don’t believe most people (if any) will be found at fault as I genuinely think people are, for the most part, honest and decent people.

As I said, nearly all Atheists have father issues, but there are a very few exceptions. However, I haven’t assessed your relationship with your father when you were 0 - 7 years old or how he treated or disciplined you, so I wouldn’t know if the relationship fostered it or not. Your relationship with him now doesn’t matter…it’s the relationship in the early years that matters. And a lot of people say they had a great childhood until a therapist starts asking them about the details. They quickly start to see the issues they were previously blind to.

For instance, did your father spank you when you were really young? All the studies show that it causes resentment, but it gets repressed in the younger years and causes different issues in different people. But what’s more important is how emotionally expressive your father is and how willing he was to let you fully express your full range of emotions back then. Was he your biological father? How religious were your father and mother? There are a lot of factors that contribute that people don’t understand.

Absolutely one of the most honest post’s I have seen on this site. Thanks.

Oh, by the way, I agree with you that all people are good at their core, and most haven’t repressed that goodness to the point where they do horrible things. Bad things, sure, but not horrific things. God will fix all of that eventually, though, in my opinion.

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