Fact Checking--Ancient Christian Schools Taught Universalism

[BrianC]

"For the healing of the soul’s sicknesses the future judgment announces something of the same kind, and this to the thoughtless sort is held out as the threat of a terrible correction, in order that through fear of this painful retribution they may gain the wisdom of fleeing from wickedness: while by those of more intelligence it is believed to be a remedial process ordered by God to bring back man, His peculiar creature, to the grace of his primal condition.”

I see nothing in Gregory’s statement that implies eternal punishment. It only speaks of two beliefs about correction. Did I misunderstand you or did you misunderstand his statement?

[BrianC]

In response, I’d just say that I still think we may be misunderstanding the statements by Church Fathers that we (our scholars) are claiming to be statements of reserve due to translation issues and lack of understanding regarding their terms and saying back then. The few reserve statements I’ve seen so far seemly can be interpreted as different than reserve if the right words are translated correctly. Or have I forgotten one that was a dead ringer?

[Sobornost]

Rivera was fraudster and conspiracy theorist who was a close associate of Jack T. Chick who produced the Chick Comics (no friend of universalism he). I looked into him i detail a long time ago - he’s no good as a source for discussion of this matter. That’s what I think anyway; feel free to disagree, but I’ve nothing more to say about Rivera.

[BrianC]

[After more research, I deleted this post]

[BrianC]

I believe you’re right. I checked some different sources on Rivera and he was likely a fraud.

And with Jack Chick, I’ve only read his works centering around Rivera, as well as two or three more. I didn’t care for Chicks fundamentalism or strong hell fire advocation.

Thanks for the heads up. I should’ve looked for more sources on Rivera initially. I’m still going to do a little digging to see if the sources I found today are good, though. I will say this…he was a heck of a clever storyteller. I’m a decent fiction author who loves to write twists, and if I’d read Rivera’s story in a fiction novel, I would’ve thought it was a genius plot. Too bad it was likely fraudulent. What I know of how Jesuit priest operatives operate from what I’ve read or heard of them is what makes me very suspicious of the reports on Rivera. I hate when I can’t verify things like this. lol The former Pentagon employee on the old 7th Day Adventist documentary on the Jesuits was pretty interesting.

Thanks again for the heads-up.

[Questorius]

Thanks a lot for pointing that out, Brian. I did make a mistake there. The notion that Gregory could be comparing two different doctrines of correction seemed weird to me, so I basically read “terrible punishment” instead of “terrible correction”. I have now looked up the word translated in Gregory’s text as “correction” - ἐπανόρθωσις - and it really does clearly refer to setting things right. So it seems that it wasn’t Gregory’s habit to teach absolutely endless torment to anyone. Instead he simply emphasized the terrifying biblical imagery when preaching to his flock, but when he spoke to the “mature” or wrote theological treatises he highlighted the remedial, medicinal character of hell and described the eventual universal holiness and adoration of God.

I will adduce two likely examples of Gregory teaching the more terrible view of correction. Both examples are taken from this source: https://books.google.cz/books?id=KPbi_nBITycC&pg=PA59 The first example is from a sermon on the Resurrection of Christ:

I hear Scripture too saying that for the condemned just punishments are ordered: fire and darkness and a worm. All of these are punishments suited to composite and material bodies… By such consistent reasonings from all sides we are compelled to assent to the resurrection of the dead, which God will bring about at its appointed time.

Gregory takes here a literalistic view of the scriptural fire, darkness, and worm. He would have his listeners believe that sinners will be tormented by some kind of material fire, will be thrown in literal darkness, and gnawed at by a material worm. I am, however, highly skeptical he truly believed that when I remember what he wrote in On the Soul. But he apparently believed that it may be profitable for “immature” Christians to believe that keen physical torments are part of afterlife punishment for sins. But most importantly, as is evident from the context, he wanted to make as strong a case as possible for the essential Christian doctrine of resurrection and so he modified his view of punishment for the occasion.

The second excerpt comes from a written work titled Against Those Who Resent Correction which according to the source I quote from “was occasioned by the fact that some of [Gregory’s] flock so resented his correction that they left the Church.” The post-mortem suffering is described there as emotional, but pretty terrible nonetheless:

The doorkeepers of the kingdom [of heaven] are careful and they do not play games. They see the soul bearing the marks of her banishment. Then the miserable soul, accusing herself severely of her own thoughtlessness, and howling and wailing and lamenting, remains in that sullen place, cast away as if in a corner, while the incessant and inconsolable wailing takes vengeance forever [i.e. for an age].

[Sobornost]

Well done Brian - I can’t tell you how pleased I am about that. Thank you

[Sobornost]

After reading the article you got the link for I think it does seem pretty clear to me now that the doctrine of ‘reserve’ was about the nature of the punishment and not the duration. Would you agree ?

[BrianC]

Sobornost, thanks for the reply. Unfortunately, I can’t figure out what you’re referring to! LOL Here’s what you said:

“Well done Brian - I can’t tell you how pleased I am about that. Thank you ”

Would you mind clarifying?

Regarding Rivera, I’m reading The Secret History of the Jesuit Order by Edmond Paris. He’s a French author of works on History, mostly pertaining to the modern history of the Catholic church. I haven’t seen anyone contesting his work’s accuracy yet, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the Catholic Church tried to refute him.

I bring him up because he allowed (or possibly requested) Dr. Rivera to write the Introduction to the book. And the publisher was Chick Publications. Of all of Edmond Paris’s books, I believe that’s the only one published by Chick. That doesn’t mean that Paris checked out Rivera’s story, though. It’s just something to be noted.

I have another book my Chick Publications called Is Alberto for real? It goes through all of the evidence and people (often former Catholic priests) supporting Rivera’s story. At least that’s what it claims–I haven’t had a chance to read it yet. I’ll let you know what I find in the book and if it’s convincing or can be cooborated with outside sources. It’ll take a while since I’m reading the other book first. If they were on audiobook, I’d have them read in a few days while driving.

[Sobornost]

I was truly delighted that you’d shelved a conspiracy theorist - because they sometimes seem to have taken over. That was the reason for my brief moment of joy

[Questorius]

I would say it was about the nature of punishment for Gregory of Nyssa as I laid out in my last response to Brian. But even in Gregory’s case the argument is based only on the word “correction” that he used. If he had used the more neutral word “punishment”, the issue would still be pretty much in the air. What I’m getting at is that when one was practising reserve he may have used ambiguous words that told the hearers nothing definite about the punishment’s duration.

I think it would be an oversimplification to say that sometimes a limited medicinal punishment was taught and at other times a limited retributive one. I’d rather say that when a retributive punishment was preached its duration may not have been clearly described or even if it was said to be limited, it could have been thought to lead to annihilation.

Origen seemed to say that many Christians, though they believed in future punishments, did not at all understand what these punishment are leading up to. He didn’t say they believed in endless torment, or annihilation. Perhaps some of them did, but perhaps they just had no definite idea, except that there will be a terrible punishment for sinners.

it might be said by the Father of the Christian doctrine, I have given the best laws and instruction for the improvement of morals of which the many were capable, not threatening sinners with imaginary labours and chastisements, but with such as are real, and necessary to be applied for the correction of those who offer resistance, although they do not at all understand the object of him who inflicts the punishment, nor the effect of the labours. For the doctrine of punishment is both attended with utility, and is agreeable to truth, and is stated in obscure terms with advantage. (Against Celsus, Book 3, Chapter 79)

the Scripture is appropriately adapted to the multitudes of those who are to peruse it, because it speaks obscurely of things that are sad and gloomy, in order to terrify those who cannot by any other means be saved from the flood of their sins, although even then the attentive reader will clearly discover the end that is to be accomplished by these sad and painful punishments upon those who endure them (Against Celsus, Book 5, Chapter 15)

I would say Origen didn’t operate with two universalist doctrines of punishment – medicinal punishment + universalism vs. retributive punishment + universalism. Rather, he taught the complete doctrine of medicinal punishment leading to universalism to the “perfect” and the obscure doctrine of fearful punishment that neither denied nor confirmed universalism to the “multitude”. Though even to the multitude universalism was sometimes occasionally divulged, it doesn’t seem to me Origen did it on purpose, it was more of a slip-up.

Another problem with saying that reserve referred only to the nature of punishment arises if we count Gregory of Nazianzus and Basil of Caesarea (not to speak of Chrysostom) among its practitioners. These guys did explicitly teach endless punishment at some instances. But maybe we shouldn’t consider them adherents of reserve, but rather proponents of “medicinal lies”.

I’m getting a feeling the situation was quite nuanced back then. There may have been no monolothic understanding of reserve. Instead I get the impression there was just a culture of playing fast and loose with the facts which influenced different theologians in different ways - some kept back portions of truth from their flock, some occasionally lied, and others lied a lot.

[BrianC]

Well, I apologize for stealing your delight away, but I haven’t shelved it. lol

Think about it like this (and all I’m about to state is factual and we’ll documented from several government sources and histories: there is plenty of documentation on the Jesuits and their activities and how they operate. They’ve been thrown out of several countries because of their attempts to weed their way into governments and start controlling the country to bring it under the power of the Pope or use it for whatever reason he so desires. We know the Jesuits intermarried with the richest families in the world, whom eventually started the Federal Reserve banks in order to control governments that way. Dr. Anthony Sutton was a professor at the Hoover Institute who did historical research for the government on the Federal Reserve banks working with our government to cause wars that the bankers would profit from heavily. He shows the bankers were funding and manipulating the events that started WWI, WWII, and so on. He shows how all of the US’s biggest companies (which are the biggest in the world and all owned by the Fed Res bankers) went to Russia between 1917 - 1930 and built bigger, better factories there than those here in the US. He then shows how they financed Russia’s communism. The Bolshevik Revolution that created that communism was also orchestrated by the Jesuits and Jesuits were put on the throne after it was complete. The big companies who’d built factories in Russia were building their rockets with exactly the same parts as our rockets, which is how they started the space race with us. Dr. Sutton shows all of these things with government docs. The government stopped funding his research once it showed that the government (how much of the government is hard to say–elements of it, at least) was working with the bankers on all of these things. When the government then started contesting his claims, he would openly present proof in the form of government documents in the news and that shut them up. They finally stopped coming against him to mitigate exposure. So when you think bankers, think Jesuit control of the bankers. Apply that to everything stated above.

Since I’ve read accounts of how Jesuits infiltrate organizations and governments and churches and use leverage against people to control them, and since biblical scholars from the 19th Century talk about how it had been well proved that the Catholics had falsified historical documents to support their beliefs, I can’t help but think, “What if they did that to Dr. Alberto Rivera?”

So, honestly, it would be irresponsible and naive of me to just take the little bit I’ve read about the supposed inaccuracies of Dr. Rivera’s claims and assume they’re correct and he’s a fraud. That’s not only judgmental and dismissive on my part–it can easily lead to false beliefs. I approach both the Bible and other research projects with a lot of open-mindedness and objectivities, considering the legitimate possibilities until I can rule them out with solid evidence.

Quick case and point: a group of State appointed officials (a corrupt judge, DA, and law enforcement) all strategically worked to destroy Kent Hovind, a Creationist. There were websites put out that flat out lied about why he was arrested and imprisoned, making it out to be tax fraud. But when you look at the case, these people got him on a charge of making more than one bank deposit for his company in a single year. I forget the technical name for it. It was absurd. I want to say there was another charge that was also ridiculous l, too. And what’s interesting is that he has recordings of the agents who came in and raided his place and specifically were looking for his seminars on CD and they targeted a specific one, I think having to do with either evolution or old earth. I forget. They took all of those specifically. It was a very bizarre case. While Hovind was in prison, all of the above mentioned state employees went down for crimes.

When I see things like those, and I hear the testimony of former Pentagon officials who specialized in tracking the Jesuits in our country, I can’t help but consider that Rivera may have been telling the truth and was defaced for it.

So it’s still a subject I am looking into. At first glance, sure, it looks like he was a fraud. So I keep that in mind and give it considerable weight. I’ll just have to see what I find and see if I can come to any solid conclusions from it. Hard to say.

But I definitely am thankful that you mentioned Rivera could be a fraud. That’s very helpful, even if it did cause me a lot of work researching him more in depth. But for all I know, you could be a Jesuit priest operative. LOL

[Sobornost]

That’s a wonderful answer. I’ll run with that. I guess some of this is rooted in Plato’s concept of the ‘noble lie’

[Sobornost]

I think your initial idea here was that the Catholic Church conspired to silence universalists because of its authoritarian/totalitarian ethos. Like all conspiracy theories there is something in this. But nothing is ever as simple as a conspiracy. For example it was Justinian the Emperor of the East who is now a Saint in the Orthodox Church who drew up the original condemnations against Origenism and explicitly against universalism. Augustine - who was more influential on the Western Church which was to become the Catholic Church - also condemned universalism and had great influence in so doing. But Justinian’s role is enormously important - so it’s not good history to say that the suppression of Universalism was simply a Catholic plot. It’s good to see those grey areas. The truths of history are difficult and messy.

[Questorius]

Origen certainly was influenced by the concept. Let me quote Jerome’s Apology Against Rufinus. In that work Jerome indulged in rabid anti-Origenism, but he also put excerpts from Plato and Origen side by side quite nicely:

“The words of Plato in the third book of the Republic are as follows: Truth, said Socrates, is to be specially cultivated. If, however, as I was saying just now, falsehood is disgraceful and useless to God, to men it is sometimes useful, if only it is used as a stimulant or a medicine; for no one can doubt that some such latitude of statement must be allowed to physicians, though it must be taken out of the hands of those who are unskilled. That is quite true, it was replied; and if one admits that any person may do this, it must be the duty of the rulers of states at times to tell lies, either to baffle the enemy or to benefit their country and the citizens. On the other hand to those who do not know how to make a good use of falsehood, the practice should be altogether prohibited. Now take the words of Origen: When we consider the precept ‘Speak truth every man with his neighbour,’ we need not ask, Who is my neighbour? But we should weigh well the cautious remarks of the philosopher. He says, that to God falsehood is shameful and useless, but to men it is occasionally useful. We must not suppose that God ever lies, even in the way of economy; only, if the good of the hearer requires it, he speaks in ambiguous language, and reveals what he wills in enigmas, taking care at once that the dignity of truth should be preserved and yet that what would be hurtful if produced nakedly before the crowd should be enveloped in a veil and thus disclosed. But a man on whom necessity imposes the responsibility of lying is bound to use very great care, and to use falsehood as he would a stimulant or a medicine, and strictly to preserve its measure, and not go beyond the bounds observed by Judith in her dealings with Holofernes, whom she overcame by the wisdom with which she dissembled her words. He should act like Esther who changed the purpose of Artaxerxes by having so long concealed the truth as to her race; and still more the patriarch Jacob who, as we read, obtained the blessing of his father by artifice and falsehood. From all this it is evident that if we speak falsely with any other object than that of obtaining by it some great good, we shall be judged as the enemies of him who said, I am the truth. This Origen wrote, and none of us can deny it. And he wrote it in the book which he addressed to the ‘perfect,’ his own disciples. His teaching is that the master may lie, but the disciple must not.” (www.newadvent.org/fathers/27101.htm Chapter 18.)

[Sobornost]

That’s really interesting Questorius You should write an article on this one. I don’t think anyone else has yet as far as I can see.

[Questorius]

Thanks a lot for the encouragement For now I’m content with having shared a couple of my findings here. If I have time to do more research, I’d really like to write a book that would examine in detail the various Christian ideas of hell existing in the first 300 years after Christ. In fact, I’ve already done a substantial amount of research in preparation for writing the book, but the greater part of work is still ahead of me. If all goes well, I will get to the actual writing in a year. If it turns out I can’t find enough time, I’ll probably just dump here the most interesting of the obscure patristic quotes I’ve collected

[Sobornost]

I’d buy your book You’ve opened up a whole new horizon for me Most things I know about the Patristics comes from trying to understand Michael McClymond’s book ‘The Devil’s Redemption’. I had to go read some of his sources to come to a tested conclusion about his claims about the Gnostic origin of Universalism (although I was tempted to just dismiss it). It took a whole year for any critical reviews to come out). So yes I did read his primary sources - especially Irenaeus and the Gnostic Gospels - and came to a the considered conclusion that his scholarship is bad. But this has whetted my appetite for reading more about this period and topic. Bless you for posting your stuff

[BrianC]

I didn’t mean to give the impression that I had it all figured out and it was simple. I was speaking in general and about only part of the cause of Universalism being snuffed out.

Regarding Justinian, that was only a local council, not and ecumenical council. The only real lasting power it had was when it was referenced by proponents centuries later, it seems. At least that’s how Beecher made it sound if I remember correctly. Augustine played a much bigger role simply in convincing the masses of a different belief (ECT). But who’s to say Justinian’s council wasn’t a Catholic plot that was well hidden? I doubt it was, but I suppose it’s possible. The Catholic Church did some really crazy things over the years.

While it may have looked like I was jumping on a conspiracy their, I’m actually constantly trying to disprove them. I figure that’s a good way to test them. Some hold water. Many don’t. I will say that I’m surprised at how many manage to hold water, though, at least to a degree. But to a degree isn’t good enough. Must have difinitive proof. Otherwise, it’s just speculation. And contrary to what you said, sometimes, I’ve found that an event truly is just a conspiracy. Saying it’s never just a conspiracy is speaking in absolutes, which is often be the opposite of seeing the grey areas.

I’m curious why you think Justinian’s role was enormously important. You probably know more about it than I do. What I know, I read in Beecher’s and Hansen’s books.

[BrianC]

I tend to agree with that explanation. Origen didn’t seem the type to lie from what little I’ve read from him and if him. Not speaking the whole truth but rather just a portion of it regarding hell makes the most sense to me. And maybe it was unintentional, though people with that level of intelligence are usually very aware of what they’re doing and saying and how it will be received by those listening. Hard to know for sure with so many centuries between us and him.