“The Eastern Church of that time (fourth and fifth centuries) was permeated, from Gregory of Nyssa downwards, with the wider Hope. (See Spirits in Prison, ch. iv., The Eschatology of the Early Church; and Gieseler, Church Hist. Per. ii. ch. ii. 85).”—The Dean of Wells.
“Of course I was aware that several of the Fathers are in favour of a restoration of all things.”—Cardinal Newman. (Spirits in Prison. p. 351.)
We have already noticed (p. 82) the dominant influence exercised over early christian thought, not by Greeks (for Greece itself was singularly barren theologically), but by Eastern theology, couched in the language of the New Testament. Even at Rome the Church continued, down to the end of the second century, or later, a Greek speaking body —reared under Oriental influences—and whose earliest teachers, like Clement and Hermas, wrote in Greek, as S. Paul had written to them, and not in Latin: indeed the very name Pope is Greek. This influence is very marked in the writings of the Latin Fathers, excluding North Africa, of the first four centuries. Ambrose and the Ambrosiaster, Hilary, Victorinus, Jerome, alike bear evident traces of the more liberal theology of the East. Doubtless to Alexandria, with its cosmopolitan culture, its varied learning, and its school of theology, at once the most ancient and most famous in the world, is due the largest share in thus moulding christian thought to a broader and truer catholicity. Its influence may be traced far and near.
Thus when Pamphilus, the martyr, founded towards the end of the third century a library and school at Cæsarea, (or, perhaps, restored the school founded there by Origen in his exile from Alexandria,) we find him giving the place of honour to the works of Origen, transcribing the greater part of them with his own hand—inspired by the influence of Alexandria, where he had studied. When, again, about the same epoch, the presbyters, Dorotheus and Lucian, laid the foundation of the celebrated school of Antioch, it is very significant that, though representing a healthy reaction against the allegorizing interpretations of Origen, the new school retained the dogma of restoration. The same advocacy of the larger hope may be found in the famous teachers of Cappadocia, whose spiritual ancestry is to be traced to the first Gregory, Origen’s bosom friend and pupil, and so to Alexandria finally.—(p. 110.)
But there is this to be noted and frankly admitted, that if Africa gave birth to a theology broad and truly catholic in its sympathies, so it furnished what to some may seem the antidote. North Africa was in a special sense the home of a theology cruel and remorseless in its eschatology. Let us hear Tertullian gloating and revelling over the future torments of the heathen. He is to “laugh,” “rejoice,” “exult.” He tells us why “when I behold so many kings * * groaning in the lowest darkness; so many magistrates liquefying in fiercer flames than they ever kindled against christians * * sapient philosophers blushing as they burn with their disciples: then shall we see the tragedians more tuneful under the fire * * the charioteer all red in his burning car.”—De Spectac. xxx.—Tertullian rejoices because the condemned are for ever burning; we are to rejoice while they are burning, even though our nearest and dearest are in those flames! Is the moral difference very great?) And when, exhausted by faction and strife, this Church fell hopelessly before the advance of Islam, the teachings of its greatest bishop not only survived, but gained a wider sphere. Extinct in their birthplace, the cruel doctrines of Augustine flourished as a graft on the Roman stock, thence leavening by slow degrees the whole of Latin christendom, with an element novel and uncatholic.
The moment was auspicious for their success, for now the churches of Italy were fast rising to power. The great Greek Fathers had spoken and passed away: their very language rapidly becoming unknown in the West. Thus no obstacle was left to stem the fast rising tide of Augustinianism, naturally triumphant in an age cruel, corrupt, and superstitious. And so by degrees no less than a doctrinal revolution was accomplished, and the whole framework of Western theology, to its infinite loss, bears to this day the imprint of Africa, and its pitiless creed, which slanders at once God and Man, true sign of an ignoble and false theology. The mediæval schoolman and the modern puritan, alike wear with complacency the spiritual fetters forged at Hippo, by one who, despite his genius, never so much as fully mastered the language of the New Testament,—a fact I commend to those who claim the authority of Scripture for the traditional creed.
Let us now turn to some Latin Fathers, whose works attest plainly this widespread influence of Greek theology. I take first a very distinguished name, S. Ambrose of Milan, 390 A.D. We shall see what his teaching is on the question of the divine punishment of the wicked. Their very destruction is, in his view, a mode of cure.
Many ask an important question here, whether Holy Scripture asserts the perishing of our nature, especially because it elsewhere says: ‘I will beat them small as the dust before the wind. I will destroy them as the mire of the streets.’”—Ps. 18:42. * * What, then, hinders our believing that he who is beaten small as the dust is not annihilated, but is changed for the better; so that, our believing that an earthly man, he is made a spiritual man, the way to do is so destroyed that all taint is removed, and there remains but what is pure and clean. And in God’s saying to the adversaries of Jerusalem, ‘they shall be as though they were not,’ * * you are to understand they shall exist substantially and as converted (to God), but shall not exist as (God’s) enemies.—In Ps. i. On the words: “I have set Thee over nations and kingdoms to root up, to destroy, to ruin, to build, and to plant.” S. Ambrose says this means Christ’s “destroying every vestige of sin * * this it is to destroy and to plant, viz., that what is sinful should be rooted out, and what is better planted in.”—In Ps. xliv. p. 1370. ed. Par. 1569. In harmony with this, but in hopeless contradiction to the traditional creed, stands S. Ambrose’s teaching as to death, which to him is not a penalty but a mode of cure. “Why, then, do we blame death,” asks S. Ambrose, “* * if life is a burden, death is freedom; if life is a punishment, death is a remedy. * * In every way, then, death is good * * because it does not change the state for the worse. We shall find death to be the end of sin. The Lord suffered death to enter in order that guilt might cease.”—De con. mort. ch. iv. “Death is a passage to better things, for if the guilty, who will not recall their steps from sin, die even against their will, yet they receive not an end of nature, but of their guilt.” —De Cain et Ab. ii. 10. “God gave death, not a penalty, but as a remedy; * * death was given for a remedy as the end of evils * * God did not appoint death from the beginning, but gave it as a remedy.”—De fide Res. p. 471.
In the next chapter we shall discuss the true meaning of the Resurrection, and shall quote S. Ambrose (and many other Fathers) as teaching that it involves restoration, as being a gift of life in Christ to all. (See e.g., De fide Res.) Next we see S. Ambrose asserting that from its very nature sin cannot last for ever.
“That which is of the devil is nothing, and can have no perpetuity and substance.”—De Jacob ii. 5. “How shall the sinner exist in the future, seeing the place of sin cannot be of long continuance?”—In Ps. xxxvii. p. 1302. Again (writing of the wickedness of evil spirits): “They will not always remain, nor can their wickedness be perpetual.”—In S. Luc. viii.
The next class of quotations consists of those, in which S. Ambrose argues from the divine image in man.
“That image may indeed be obscured, but cannot be destroyed by reason of its nature” (per naturam).—De fide Res. (frag.) p. 487. For as S. Ambrose asks; “Shall He Who has not permitted those things to perish, which belong to man’s needs, permit man to perish, whom He made after His own image?”—De fide Res. p. 473. “Because God’s image is that of the one God, it like Him starts from one, and is diffused to infinity. And, once again, from an infinite number all things return into one as into their end, because God is both beginning and end of all things.”—Epis. lib. i. 1.
The closing words of the last passage recall that Neo-Platonism, which we have noticed in Victorinus, and shall see fully elaborated by the so-called Dionysius (the Areopagite), and his imitators. We shall next quote S. Ambrose’s teaching as to the subjection of all things to Christ, which breathes the very spirit of universalism.
“How, then, shall (all things) be subject to Christ? In this very way in which the Lord Himself said: ‘Take my yoke upon you.’ For it is not the untamed who bear the yoke, but the humble and gentle * * so that in Jesus’ name every knee shall bend.” * * S. Ambrose asserts that subjection to Christ is loving submission, and that in this sense all must become Christ’s subjects. “Is this subjection to Christ now completed? Not at all. Because the subjection of Christ consists not in few, but in all (becoming obedient). * * Christ will be subject to God in us by means of the obedience of all * * (then) when vices having been cast away, and sin reduced to submission, one spirit of all people, in one sentiment, shall with one accord begin to cleave to God, then God will be All in All; * * when all, then, shall have believed and done the will of God, Christ will be All and in All; and when Christ shall be All in All, (then) God will be All in All.”—De fid. lib. v. 7. Again, on Ps. 119:91: “For all things serve Thee;” he says, “At present we do not all serve God. But, when Christ shall have delivered His kingdom over to God, then shall all things be subject to Him, Who has subjected the universe to Himself; acquiring the faith of all, through the Passion of His only begotten Son; * * when, therefore, all shall have believed in the Lord, then shall the universe serve God, so that He may be All in All.” “By a profound design the Apostle declares that Christ shall be subject to the Father in us, when there shall exist in all the fulness of faith. * * At present He is over all by His power, but it is not necessary that He be in all by their free will.”—In Ps. lxii. 1.
S. Ambrose, I may add, teaches that the sin against the Holy Ghost may be forgiven.—De pœnit. ii. 4—a chapter worth reading. Lastly, the following passages shew clearly the tone of his theology.
“The mystery of the Incarnation is the salvation of the entire creation * * as it is elsewhere said, ‘the whole creation shall be set free from the bondage of corruption.’”—De fide lib. v. 7. “The Father has committed all judgment to Christ; shall then He be able to condemn thee for whom He gave Himself?” * * Will not He say, what use is there in My blood if I condemn him whom I have saved?”—De Jacob i. 6. “All nations shall come and worship before Thee * * for all flesh shall come to Thee, no longer subject to the world, but united to the spirit.”—De fide Res. p. 486. “The mercy of the Lord is to all flesh, in order that all flesh may ascend to the Lord.”—In Ps. cxix. 156. “So the Son of Man came to save that which was lost, i.e., all, for as in Adam all die, so, too, in Christ shall all be made alive.”—In S. Luc. xv. 3.
In S. Ambrose’s teaching “death is altogether to be desired, * * the terrors of the future state almost entirely disappear * * he affirms that, even to the wicked, death is a gain.”—Dict. of Chris. Biog. (Smith and Wace). Thus, while S. Jerome with perfect truth asserts that nearly all of S. Ambrose’s books are full of Origenism,—Adv. Ruf. i., and the learned Huet confirms this.—Orig. ii. pp. 159, 199, we must note that even Origen lays more stress on sin and future penalty than does S. Ambrose.
I next proceed to quote an early and able writer (not certainly identified), whose works are usually bound with those of S. Ambrose, and who wrote during the Popedom of Damasus, 366-384 A.D. (see his words on 1 Tim. 3:14-5.) He teaches clearly the liberation of all souls by Christ from hades (p. 100). I quote some further specimens of his teaching.
“This seemed good to God * * to manifest in Christ the mystery of His will * * namely, that He should be merciful to all who had strayed, whether in heaven or in earth * * Every being, then, in the heavens and on earth, while it learns the knowledge of Christ, is being restored to that which it was created.”—In Eph. i. 9-10. On the two last verses of the same chapter may be found a striking comment—tracing the salvation of all through Christ to His creation of all. Since all were made by Christ He is to be Head and Lord of all. “In speaking of the whole Church (regarding omnem ecclesiam), the Apostle summarily comprehends the totality of that which exists in heaven and on earth * * for when they shall have returned to the confession of one God, bending the knee to Christ, He is fulfilled in all, so as to be all, for all comes from Him.” Again, we find the same argument for universal salvation. “Christ rose that He might create anew once more those things which He had first made; that He should restore all those things which He (God) made through Him * * and all things that have been made by Him should live in Him as in their Author”—(compare Victorinus’ teaching already quoted).—In Col. i. 20.
A striking passage is the following, recalling Victorinus, and the Neo-Platonic school: “The creation was formed by God through Christ, so that * * it should be as it were a chain linked together (concatenatio), descending in ordered arrangement to the firmament, so as to form an united whole (creatura) may be brought back to one mind * * so that it may be harmonious in love of the Creator * * For it is rebuilding itself into a temple of the Lord.”—In Eph. iv. On 1 Cor. xv. 27, this writer says: “When every creature learns that Christ is its head, and that Christ’s head is God the Father, then God is All in All; that is to say, that every creature should believe alike, that with one voice every tongue of things in heaven and earth and under the earth, should confess that there is one God from Whom are all things.” The following is interesting on Christ’s enemies being made His footstool: “They are made to bow under His feet who * * return to the Lord, and as a footstool to the feet are so bent to His preaching.” Without doubt this is said of those enemies who, having been corrected, are set on His right hand.”—In Heb. i. 13. “The Father has granted to the Son that, after the Crucifixion, all things should be saved in the name of the Son.”—In Phil. ii. 10.
In S. Ambrose’s works is generally printed a treatise—De Sacramentis, assigned by most critics to a contemporary, or it may be, a later author. It is of interest as further tending to shew the tone of the current beliefs of christian antiquity.
“God,” it teaches, “desiring to undo everything hurtful * * sentenced man to death * * It was assigned as a remedy that man should die and rise again: * * death interposing puts a stop to sin. * * Christ brought in the Resurrection: * * We have on our side both (i.e., death and resurrection), because death ends sin, and resurrection is a remoulding of our nature.”—lib. ii. ch. 6. “What, then, is the Resurrection except our rising from death to life.”—ib. iii. 1. These words are in harmony with a very large body of primitive teaching (as my readers can see), and are in hopeless antagonism to the views now general, which regard death as essentially penal.
Our next witness shall be one who is, with the exception of Augustine, the most striking figure among the Latin Fathers; one to whom in learning and in critical acumen even Augustine cannot be compared—I mean S. Jerome. It is impossible not to pause as we survey these two great contemporaries, who corresponded, indeed, but never met In Jerome are represented the tendencies, broad and sympathetic, of Eastern theology (already beginning to wane.) In Augustine are summed up the cruel and uncatholic dogmas of the rising school of North Africa. In a true sense S. Jerome is the last of a long line of Latin Fathers, drawing their inspiration from Eastern sources.—Augustine is the founder of a new theological dynasty. The lengths to which S. Jerome went in teaching universalism may be seen from what follows.
“Christ will, in the ages to come, shew, not to one, but to the whole number of rational creatures, His glory, and the riches (of His grace).” He adds that the saints are to reign over the fallen angels, and the prince of this world, Lucifer even to them bringing blessing. * *—In Eph. ii. 7. This remarkable passage is followed by one even more explicit and outspoken. Both should be read in the original rather than in my brief summary, especially that which follows.—”In the end of (all) things the whole body which had been dissipated and torn into divers parts shall be restored. Let us understand the whole number of rational creatures under the figure of a single rational animal * * let us imagine this animal to be torn * * so that no bone adheres to bone, nor nerve to nerve. S. Jerome proceeds, And then suppose some wonderful physician to come and restore to its place every part. * * ‘So in the restitution of all things, when the true physician, Jesus Christ, shall come to heal the body of the whole Church, every one * * shall receive his proper place * * What I mean is, the fallen angel will begin to be that which he was created, and man, who has been expelled from Paradise, will be once more restored to the tilling of Paradise. These things, then, will take place universally.”—In Eph. iv. 16.
What an idea may not unprejudiced readers gain of the breadth of early teaching from these words. If, he says, we see one falling into sin we indeed are sorry, and hasten to rescue him, but we cannot be saddened, knowing that “with God no rational creature perishes eternally.”—In Gal. v. 22. “Death shall come as a visitor to the impious; it will not be perpetual; it will not annihilate them; but will prolong its visit, till the impiety which is in them shall be consumed.”—In Mic. v. 8. Again, speaking of the consummation of all things, S. Jerome says, on Zeph. iii. 10: The prophet, here aware of the extent of God’s mercy, is like the Psalmist communing with his heart and asking, ‘will the Lord cast off for ever?’ of which the meaning is—I did think God would abandon sinners for ever * * but now I perceive that it was done for this end * * to change everything, and that He might shew mercy on those whom He had before cast away.” “In the Cross and Passion of the Lord, all things have been summed up.” He goes on to shew what this means. It is, he says, as though one were to lend 100 pence in various sums and get all back in one sum. In other words, Christ is to get back all things.—In Eph. i. 10.
To this idea he returns: “The Cross of Christ has benefited not earth only but heaven * * and every creature has been cleansed by the blood of its Lord.”—ib. ii. 16. And on ch. iii. 14, he teaches clearly that “by every knee bending in Jesus’ name is meant ‘the obedience of the heart.’” “Christ is subject to the Father in those who are faithful, for all who believe, nay, all the race of man is counted as His members. But in those who are unbelievers, Jews, heathen, and heretics, Christ is said not to be subject, because a part of His members is not subject to the faith. But in the end of the world, when all His members shall have seen Christ, i.e., their own body, reigning, they, too, shall be subject to Christ, i.e., to their own body, so that the whole body of Christ may be subject to God and the Father, that God may be All in All.”—Ep. ad Aman. This involves the final obedience of all, and teaches that Jews, heathen, and heretics are Christ’s members.
Nor are these isolated instances: I have found nearly 100 passages in his works (and there are doubtless others) indicating S. Jerome’s sympathy with universalism. Further, we should note that when towards the year 400 A.D., S. Jerome took part with Epiphanius and the disreputable Theophilus, against Origen (whom he had hitherto extravagantly praised), he, as Huet points out—Orig. ii. p. 159—kept a significant silence on the question of human restoration. “Though you adduce,” says Huet, “six hundred testimonies, you thereby only prove that he changed his opinion.” But did he ever change his opinion? and if so, how far? Thus, in his Epis. ad Avit., where he goes at length into Origen’s errors, he says nothing of the larger hope; and when charged with Origenism, he refers, twice over, to his commentaries on Ephesians, which teach the most outspoken universalism.—Epis. lxv. ad Pam.; lxxv. adv. Vigil. As a specimen of his praise of Origen, he says, in a letter to Paula, that Origen was blamed, “not on account of the novelty of his doctrines, not on account of heresy, as now mad dogs pretend,” but from jealousy. So that to call Origen a heretic is the part of a mad dog! Note this, from the most orthodox Jerome.
Certain it is, that his works abound in universalistic teaching: I proceed to quote.
On Amos 9:2, we have this vivid (and significant) description of the fate of the sinful soul after death: “If despairing of safety, it shall try to avoid the eye of the Lord, and to fly to the utmost limits, * * even there shall the Lord command the old and crooked serpent, the enemy and avenger, and he shall bite it; * * it shall also be smitten by the sword of the Lord, * * in order that, by means of tortures and punishment, it may return to the Lord.” On Nahum 2:2, this striking comment occurs: At the end of the world satan and his hosts shall fly in terror. * * “Now while they (the devil and his hosts) are thinking over this, every thing that they have captured shall be brought forward (i.e., rescued). * * Further, all the substance of the world, and all its servants after they have submitted themselves to Christ, * * shall be led along in joy and gladness * * And then shall be fulfilled that which is spoken (Ps. 68:18) of the Saviour’s victory, when ascending on high, ‘He led captivity captive.’” Here there seems to be taught the final liberation from satan of all his captives. In this spirit this Father says that Christ’s final coming is “to destroy sin” (not sinners) and so, “at the consummation of the world, every creature shall have been set free.”—In Hab. ii. 11.
S. Jerome’s teaching as to God’s vengeance and destruction of His enemies is very significant.
“What shall I do to thee, Ephraim? * * I will destroy thee unto dust and ashes. And when the harsh, nay, cruel sentence has been passed * * he appeases the austerity of the Judge by the love of the Father * * for if I do not strike in order to destroy for ever, but in order to amend.”—In Hos. xi. 8. “The Jews think the original word may be translated, not only ‘judgment’ but ‘gold,’ meaning that in the valley of judgment, which they believe to be Gehenna, the taint of sins being purged away, thou (the sinner) mayest remain pure gold.—In Joel iii. 14—suggestive words. Again he says, commenting on Zech. 12:9: “He will destroy, not for their ruin, but for their amendment; * * for if He created all things out of nothing, He did not do so in order to destroy that which He had created, but in order that by His mercy the things created should be saved;”—words that recall Victorinus’ teaching as to creation.
From an early writer (not certainly identified), whose commentary on the Psalms is bound with S. Jerome’s works, ed. Paris 1624, I quote some passages, wholly breathing the larger hope.
Thus, on the destruction of God’s enemies, he writes: “When the Psalmist says, ‘Thine enemies, O God, shall perish,’ * * every one who has been Thine enemy shall hereafter be made Thy friend; the man shall not perish, the enemy shall perish.”—In Ps. xcii. 9.
No less striking is the comment on Ps. 9:5: “Thou hast blotted out their name for ever and ever.” This Father says, in effect, that it means blotting out their sins and their turning to God. Here an eternal blotting out is amending. So again: “The devil is, as it were, God’s executioner. They who walk not rightly are handed over to the devil. Wherefore? That they may perish eternally? And where then is the mercy of God?” What the Apostle says this is, ‘I have handed over sinners to the devil, that, tormented by him, they may be converted to me.’”—In Ps. cviii. 9. On the words, “His wrath will soon be kindled”—Ps. 2:12—This Father (reading in brevi), says: “This means at the death of every one, or, with a brief wrath at the Day of Judgment, as that (verse means) ‘sudden destruction shall come on them.’” This involves the opinion that the sudden destruction of the wicked, to which S. Paul refers, would be satisfied by a brief wrath at the Day of Judgment. A significant passage holds out hope of pardon even to satan. “Thou who wast first a dragon * * Look ye what the Psalmist says * * Do thou not then despair, repent and straightway thou art converted.”—In Ps. cxlviii. 12.
Nor should the name of Diodorus, 378 A.D., Bishop of Tarsus, be absent from the roll of early universalists. He was one of the greatest ornaments of the famous school of Antioch, with whose teaching we are now to make acquaintance In his lifetime he was noted for untiring zeal in defence of the Nicene Faith, and was praised by men like Basil, Theodoret, Chrysostom, and Cyril, and died in universal honour; having, says Theodoret, saved the bark of the Church from being submerged under the waves of unbelief. Of his numerous writings but mere fragments have survived. The following is from his book De Œcon.—Assem. Bibl. Or. iii. p. 324.
“For the wicked there are punishments not perpetual, * * but they are to be tormented for a certain brief period. They shall therefore suffer punishment for a short space, but immortal blessedness, having no end awaits them; * * the penalties to be inflicted for their many and grave crimes are very far surpassed by the magnitude of the mercy to be shewed them. The Resurrection, therefore, is regarded as a blessing not only to the good but also to the evil.”
We may next note that Rufinus, 390 A.D., certainly taught that the future punishment of the wicked would be temporary, in his exposition of the Creed. He plainly so teaches, says Huet, Orig. ii. p. 160. He contrasts the perpetuity of glory of the just, with a (merely) lengthy punishment of the wicked. There remain two other facts by which we may ascertain Rufinus’ views. In his preface to Origen—De prin., he states, in effect, that he had removed what was “discordant with our belief” from that book. But he certainly left there very distinct assertions of universalism. Again, it seems hardly possible to doubt that in his work on the Creed, he taught the liberation from hades of all souls by Christ.
I quote next from S. Paulinus, Bishop of Nola, 393 A.D. (not attempting to decide what he at heart believed).
Paulinus’ brother Delphinus, seems to have died in sin: so far from abandoning his case as quite hopeless, Paulinus begs S. Amandus to pray for him, because “doubtless the dew of God’s indulgence will penetrate hell (inferna), so that those burning there * * may be refreshed.” He, too, teaches that the destruction of the heathen by Christ is really their cure. His iron rod “breaks their hearts as though vessels formed of clay, in order to remake them (for the) better.” How far this principle logically goes—for Christ is to have possession of the whole earth—any one can judge—Par. of Ps. 2. A common disobedience shut up all, in order that faith might heal the whole; so that all the world may be made God’s servant.”—Carm. Ad Cyth. p. 494, ed. Antwerp, 1622.
I take next S. Chrysostom; trained in the school of Diodorus of Tarsus, his education can hardly have been otherwise than decidedly universalistic in character. And when all the evidence is fairly weighed, I think that but little doubt can remain, as to his very strong sympathy with, or, indeed, adoption of the larger hope; notwithstanding his apparent teaching of the ordinary creed. For, on the theory of his really holding that creed, I can find no explanation of such passages as I shall quote; while his threats of future punishment, however terrible, may be easily explained (I.) as coming from a great preacher in cities stained with horrible vices, like Antioch or Constantinople—(e.g., see Hom. ix. on Rom. v., where he speaks of lusts worse than those of Sodom: perhaps civilisation has nowhere assumed so base a form as in the Byzantine empire.) (II) By the rhetorical and ambiguous character of the terms used. (III) By the notorious advocacy of deceit—apate—as a spiritual medicine, which we find in his works. (a) We may note, too, the fact that he was charged with a leaning to Origenism in the controversy between Jerome (and Epiphanius), and John of Jerusalem. (b) Again, he sanctions prayers and almsgiving on behalf of those who had died in sin (i.e., unrepentant).—In S. John Ser. lxi. In 1 Cor. Serm. xli. (c) Nor should his enthusiastic praise of the universalists, Diodorus, and Theodorus of Mopsuestia, be forgotten.—Fac. Pro def. tr. cap. iv. 2; vii. 7. These facts raise a strong suspicion, at least, of his sympathy with the larger hope. Let us therefore try to gather his views from his own words. Writing on Rom. v. 16 (Ser. x.), he uses language inconsistent with the perpetuation of evil in hell. S. Paul is speaking of the result of Christ’s work; on this S. Chrysostom comments as follows:
“By this is inevitably shewn that death is plucked up root and branch; * * not was the sin (of Adam) abolished, but also all other sins whatsoever.” * * Of death “not a trace remains, nor can its shadow be discerned, as it is utterly destroyed.’ Again, on the words, God shall be “All in All” he says: “Some maintain that the Apostle asserts here the abolition of evil, so that all shall henceforth willingly yield (to God), and not one resist or be under the power of evil, for when sin shall no longer exist, it is evident that God will be All in All.” He closes his comment with these words: “For when evil has been taken away, much more shall death cease.” The abolition of sin is surely a synonym for the larger hope. And so, on Col. i (Hom. iii), where the Apostle is speaking of Christ as first creating all things, and then reconciling all things, Chrysostom says that it was needful that He should reconcile them “perfectly, so that they should never again become His enemies:” and on v. 18 says that the Church stands for the whole race. I cannot see any escape from the conclusion that these words involve universalism, in their natural meaning. Again, on Eph. i, Hom. i., this Father says that all angels and men are to be brought under one head.
“Thus, then, shall there be an unity * * when all things (the universe) shall have been brought under one head, having a necessary bond of connection from above.” On S. John 12:32: “‘I will draw all men unto me.’ Had Christ said, ‘I will rise,’ it is not clear that (He would have implied that) (all) will believe, but in saying that they shall believe, He combines both.”
The following extracts again teach a view of “vengeance” and “penalty” and “death” which seems to point clearly in the direction of the larger hope.
“Tell me on what account do you mourn for him that is departed? Is it because he was wicked? But for that very reason you ought to give thanks, because his evil works are put a stop to.”—De dorm. Serm. xxx. “Death has been ordered for our benefit by the Lord * * for such a Master is ours that in His vengeance (timoria) no less than in His benefits, He shews His care of us. Had He known that sinning without vengeance i.e. (with impunity) would make us worse, He never would have inflicted vengeance on us. * * To extirpate our wickedness * * He kindly inflicts vengeance.”—In Gen. iii. Hom. xviii. “If punishment were an evil to those who sin, God never would have added evils to evils. * * It is, then, no evil to the offender to be punished, but that one acting should not be punished (is an evil), just as for a sick man not to be cured.”—In Rom. ch. v. Hom. ix. “God is equally to be praised when He chastises, and when He frees from chastisement. For both spring from goodness. * * It is right, then, to praise Him equally both for placing Adam in Paradise, and for expelling him, and to give thanks, not alone for the kingdom of (God), but for hell as well (Gehenna).”—In Ps. cxlviii. 10. Note, too, the following: “What great goodness did it not shew to restrain from sin those who, at the time of the Deluge, were incurably diseased * * and to employ, as a medicine, the common debt of nature, and to bring on them the easiest death by water.”—In Ps. clxv. 8. “God does all things through love, as, e.g., to benefit man He set him in Paradise, and to benefit him He turned him out of Paradise. * * To benefit him He sent that fire on Sodom,”—In Ps. cxi. 3,—the “eternal” fire of S. Jude.
The drift of S. Chrysostom’s teaching is further shewn by his attitude toward the so-called unpardonable sin, as quite capable of pardon. Many, though guilty of it, were, he tells us, pardoned subsequently on their repentance.—In S. Matt. xii. hom. xlii.. I commend to the thoughtful and unprejudiced to consider the light thrown by this teaching on the patristic use of such terms as “never,” “for ever,” “eternal” (see pp. 88-92).
Again, I may appeal to Chrysostom’s very clear assertion of the liberation of every soul whatsoever from hades by Christ, and of the subversion of hades itself in consequence. I give a summary of his striking words:
Christ, he asserts, not merely opened, but broke in pieces the gates of brass, in order to make the prison useless; where there is neither door, nor bar, whosoever enters is not detained. What God destroys, who can set up again? Earthly kings indeed set free prisoners, yet leave untouched the prison gates; but Christ broke in pieces the gates of brass. Christ went to the utterly black and joyless portion of hades, and turned it into heaven, transferring all its wealth, the race of man, into His royal treasury. In this, too, Christ surpasses kings, for they send messengers, but He went in person to set the captives free.—De cœm. et cruce. Ser. xxxiv. So again, he says: “Our Lord, when He was in hades, set free all who were kept prisoners by death.”—In magn. heldom.
We now come to the famous Theodore of Mopsuestia, 407 A.D., who enjoyed during his lifetime an extraordinary renown as a teacher of the catholic faith. “He was,” says Dorner, Pers. of Christ, i. 50, “the crown and climax of the school of Antioch, and was called the Master of the East from his theological eminence.”
Theodore and (perhaps) Diodorus, after they had rested for a century and a quarter in their honoured graves, were condemned as Nestorians in the Fifth Council, an assembly unrecognised by the English Church. No question of universalism was thereby raised, for the very promoters of this Council were Origenists, and intrigued against Theodore on the very ground of his hostility to Origen. That Diodorus was condemned is uncertain, for though Photius states that he, his name does not occur in the Acts of the Council. Certain it is that (1) Theodore towered above almost all his contemporaries, and lived and died in honour. See a striking letter full of praise from Chrysostom, addressed to Theodore.—Epist. cxii. Certainly, too, (2), such posthumous attacks by Councils of very doubtful authority are most often rooted in paltry jealousy and intrigue. And it is a painful reflection to compare the impunity enjoyed by those who blacken the divine character (e.g., S. Augustine) with the sharp measure meted, too often, to those great men, who, (as in Theodore’s case,) before the Church has defined the point at issue, write, perhaps, incautiously, (but moved with real zeal for the truth,) about the divine nature. (4) Huet has the candour to confess that, if the mere teaching, or originating heresy, unconsciously, and with a readiness to abjure it, (as distinguished from persisting in it when the Church has once spoken,) make a heretic, then very many orthodox Fathers, e.g., Cyprian, Irenæus, &c., may be called heretics.—Orig. ii. ch. iii. p. 195.
And it is (5) certain, too, that, as his best editor says, “Every accesion to our knowledge of Theodore adds strength to the conviction, that he was entirely unconscious of deviating from the catholic Church.” (6) And to talk of heretics is ground most unsafe for the advocates of endless sin. Who was its first distinguished advocate?—the heretic Tertullian. What were the authors of the Pseudo-Clementines?—heretics, and forgers, and teachers of unending pain? What was Tatian, another very early champion of this doctrine?—a Gnostic heretic. What was Lactantius?—an ill-taught layman, “hovering ever on the verge of heresy.” And who is the true fountain and source of the cruel heresy of Calvin?—no less a name than Augustine himself. And what was Pelagius?—at once a heretic, and a champion of misery without end. (7) But did Theodore and Diodorus really teach what is known as Nestorianism? “The Syrian teachers, and Nestorius himself, in the opinion of every one who understands the case, are guilty of no error; and the dogmas which are known as Nestorianism have been neither taught by Nestorius, nor approved by the Syrian church.”—Munter—Stsend. u. Tzsch. Archiv. i. “Theodore,” says Neander, “sincerely adopted the doctrine of the Church respecting the divine Incarnation.”—Church Hist. iv. p. 110. “Of all that the Church declared to be of this faith, he was the staunch defender,” says his editor Swete. (8) Certain it is that, practically, the Anglican Church has abandoned the term (theotókos [θεοτόκος]), so strenuously contended for. (9) And it is also certain that the condemnation of Nestorius brought its Nemesis, it helped to pave the way for the cult of the Blessed Virgin, and its terrible abuses, and for the heresy of Eutyches.
Certainly Theodore’s immense influence must have spread very widely the larger hope which lay at the root of his doctrinal system. Nor did his enemies charge him with this as a fault, so far as I have read, a fact to be noted; as is also this, that he calls those penalties “eternal”—as being out of time, which he yet taught to be finite (so little does the use of such terms prove). He lays great stress—with the school of Antioch—on the Resurrection as in itself, and to all, a blessing.
“Who is so great a fool as to think, that so great a blessing can be to those that arise, the occasion of endless torment?”—Frag. Ez. lib. cont. pecc. orig. “All have the hope of rising with Christ, so that the body having obtained immortality, thenceforward the proclivity to evil should be removed.”—In Rom. vi. 6. Speaking of the Resurrection he says, “then, too, shall we be freed from sin, for being rendered immutable by the grace of the Spirit, we shall set free from sin.”—ib. viii. 2. God “recapitulated all things in Christ * * as though making a compendious renewal, and restoration of the whole creation, through Him, * * Now this will take place in a future age, when all mankind and ALL POWERS (virtutes) POSSESSED OF REASON, look up to Him, as is right, and obtain mutual concord and firm peace.”—In Eph. i. 10.
Cyril of Alexandria, 412 A.D., frequently teaches the liberation of every soul from hades by Christ.
“The devil was deprived of all power of being able to do anything for the future. * * The souls of men who had been caught in his toils to their ruin, came out of the underground gates, and, leaving the hiding-places of the pit, escaped.”—Hom. pasch. vi. “Traversing the lowest recesses of the infernal regions, after that He had preached to the spirits there, He led forth the captives in His strength.—ib. xx. For when death devoured Him who was the Lamb on behalf of all, it vomited forth all men in Him and with Him. * * Now when sin has been destroyed, how should it be but that death, too, should worthily perish?”—In S. John i. 29. Speaking of the cities of Refuge are these words: “It is, perhaps, not improbable, that those who have been entangled in sins, are, as it were, homicides of their own souls; * * So, then, the wretched soul of man is punished by difficulty set free when Christ, the residing in the recesses of death as in a city of Refuge, was spending these long ages: but was with difficulty set free when the High Priest died, * * and went down to hades and loosed their bonds.”—De adorat. lib. viii. ad fin. This picture is suggestive. (All) sinners who die before their Christ’s visit to hades go thither, as to a CITY OF REFUGE, and are by Him set free; because, though sinners, yet they have been as it were forced to sin by a nature prone to evil (so he says). But if so, how can you fairly suppose Christ’s work less efficacious after His death? On the side of death of guilt, “all iniquity stopped its mouth, and the rule of death was destroyed, all sin (tes hamartias, sin generally) having been taken away, * * so, then, the sin of all having been taken away, we can justly say, ‘O death where is thy sting?’”—In Hos. xiii. 14. “Through Christ has been saved the holy crowd of the Fathers, nay, the whole human race altogether which was earlier (than Christ’s death) for He died for all, and the death of all was done away in Him.”—Glaph. in Ex. ii. ad fin.
Cyril’s teaching as to the final salvation of all men before Christ is fairly clear. I fail to see how this can be logically held apart from the larger hope. I close with the following quotation. “The force of sin has been dissolved * * the evil that has grown out of it, i.e., death has been plucked up from the very root.”—Hom. pasch. xxiv.
In S. Ambrose’s works (Paris, 1569), there are included ninety-two sermons, which may be by Maximus of Turin, 422 A.D. The author seems to teach (I.) the liberation of every soul from hades, and (II.) to take the significant view of God’s inflicting death to amend the sinner.
“By the Resurrection of Christ, hell—Tartarus—is opened * * hell yields up those it contains; * * so David invites everything created to the festivity of this day.”—Ser. lii. It illuminates, he adds, heaven, earth and hell. Christ “destroyed the sins of all believers. He must of necessity have destroyed the sins of all, As the Evangelist: ‘The Lamb of God Who taketh away the sins of the world.’”—ib. xxi. “We read in the Scripture, that the salvation of the entire human race, was won by the Redemption of the Saviour * * the everlasting safety of the entire world.”—ib. li.
I take next Theodoret, the Blessed, 423 A.D. This great Father was, I cannot doubt, an universalist. He became Bishop of Cyrus, or Cyrrhus, in Syria, and is the last representative, that we shall quote, of the school of Antioch. Theodoret was perhaps the most famous, and certainly the most learned teacher of his age; uniting to a noble intellect a character and accomplishments equally noble. We notice in his writings great prominence given to the view which regards the Resurrection as being of itself restoration; as essentially a spiritual force, bringing to man’s whole nature immortality and glory, and, therefore, immunity from sufferings; a view supported by very many Fathers, but surely fatal to all forms of the traditional creed.
S. Paul, asserting that “the last enemy to be destroyed is death,” and that “He hath put all things under Christ’s feet,” adds finally, “in order that God may be All in All.” * * In the present life God is in all, for His nature is without limits, but is not All in All. But in the future, (by the Resurrection) mortality is at an end and immortality granted, and (consequently) sin has no longer place, God will be All in All.”—In Eph. i. 23. “For Christ has wholly destroyed the power of sin by His promise of immortality; for it (sin) cannot trouble immortal bodies.”—In Heb. ix. 26. “In the future life, the body, when it has been made incorruptible, cannot admit the filth of sin.”—In Col. ii. 11. On 1 Cor. 15:20, he writes: “Now the mass shall certainly follow the ‘firstfruits.’” This refers to the entire mass of humanity. For, says Theodoret, as all men became mortal through Adam, “so shall the whole nature of mankind (all men) follow the Lord Christ, and be made partaker of the Resurrection.” The meaning of this is stated in a lengthy comment, of which I can only give a brief summary.
No doubt there shall be a difference between good and bad, and so the Apostle writes: “Every one in his own order” (meaning probably a delayed Resurrection till Judgment has done its cleansing work). Then comes the end, i.e., the General Resurrection, when Christ delivers up His kingdom, causing all to know God, for He must altogether subdue all men. In what sense? in that indicated by the Apostle—Phil. 3:21, “Who shall change our vile body after the fashion of His glorious body.” But how is the Son to be Himself subjected to God? The apostle shews by adding, “that God may be ALL IN ALL.” So the Son is subject in the subjection of mankind (when that is complete). At present God is indeed in All, for in Him we live, “But He is not by obedience in all: for He is by obedience in those fearing Him * * even in those He is not All; for nobody is sinless: * * But in the future life when corruption is at an end, and immortality granted, there is no place for suffering (pathe) but it (suffering) being totally removed, no form of sin remains at work. So shall God be All in All, all being out of danger of falling, and converted to Him, and not admitting an inclination to what is worse.” So on Phil. 3:21 he says, Christ “puts an end to corruption and death * * causing all to look up to Himself.” In the same spirit Theodoret writes: “Christ being taken as ‘firstfruits,’ the whole nature of man (all humanity) shall know the true God, and chant praises for His loving kindness.”—In Ps. lxxx. 18. “Afterwards the Psalmist speaks more plainly: ‘All the kings of the earth shall adore Him.’ Some, indeed, in the present life willingly, but all the rest after the Resurrection; for not yet do we see all things subject to Him, but then every knee shall bow to Him.”—In Ps. lxxii. 11. Here the context shews that “all kings” to be used for “all peoples,” and the subjection of all to Christ, is in Theodoret’s view their submission and adoration.
Finally, on two other points, let us note his teaching. (I.) He explicitly asserts the liberation from hades of every soul. I shall shut up thee only * * “Thou,” says Christ to satan, “art justly despoiled of all thy subjects * * Thou shalt vomit forth all that thou hast already swallowed. * * I shall free all from death * * for I paid the debt for the race. * * As the debt has been paid, it is right that those confined on account of it should be set free from their prison.”—De Prov. Or. x. (II.) He teaches that death is a medicine, not a penalty.—Ques. in Gen. xl., and even goes a great deal farther, for he says that, to imagine that God, in anger at a little eating, inflicted death as a penalty, is to copy the abominable (heretic) Marcion. This statement I commend to my readers’ attention. Those who fancy God to have acted from wrath, shew, says Theodoret, their ignorance of the mystery of the dispensation. Can this teaching be reconciled with any modification of the traditional creed? Take, finally, the following: “After His anger, God will bring to an end His judgment; for He will not be angry unto the end, nor keep His wrath to eternity.”—In Isa. xiii.
From S. Peter Chrysologus, 433 A.D. (so called from his eloquence), Bishop of Ravenna, I take the following, which refers to the great gulf separating Lazarus and Dives.
“Those assigned to penal custody in hades cannot be transferred to the repose of the saints, unless, having been redeemed by the grace of Christ, they be freed from this hopelessness by the intercession of the holy faithful: so that what the sentence denies them, the Church may gain for them and grace bestow.”—Ser. cxxiii.—suggestive words, coming from one who uses elsewhere such strong language as to the fate of the lost. Again, explaining the words, “Thy kingdom come?” he says: “We thus pray for the coming of that time when the author of so great evil (satan) perishing, the whole creation may reign and triumph for the whole glory of Christ only. * * We pray that the devil may perish, that sin may cease, death may die. * * This is the kingdom of God, * * when in all men God lives, God acts, God reigns, God is everything.”—Ser. lxvii. This seems to involve an anticipation that all evil shall in the future wholly cease. So he says on the parable of the leaven: “In order that, as a woman had corrupted the whole mass of the human race in Adam, the leaven of death, so (a woman) should, by the leaven of the Resurrection, restore in Christ the whole mass of our flesh” (all humanity)!—Ser. xcix.
On the parable of the hundred sheep he says, that the one lost sheep represents “the whole human race lost in Adam,” and so the Good Shepherd “follows the one, seeks the one, in order that in the one He may find all, in the one He may restore all.”—Ser. clxviii. I may finally cite a striking passage on the raising of Lazarus. Hades, personified, is represented as addressing God, to this effect: “If I permit Lazarus to escape, You lose all whom I have been keeping.” Christ answers: “I, O Father, will pay Adam’s debt, in order that those who, through Adam, are perishing in hades, may, through Me, live to Thee.” On this the whole Trinity consent. And Lazarus is ordered to leave the tomb, and “hell (Tartarus) was ordered to obey, and give up to Christ all the dead.”—Ser. lxv. Surely these teachings involve universalism, if taken logically: at least if they be set over against any passages that seem to teach the ordinary view.
I will now ask my readers to consider another very important piece of evidence. Within the first five centuries, the two great Creeds—the Apostles’ and the Niceno-Constantinopolitan, received their present form, and the first four General Councils were held at Nice, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon. Now it is a highly significant fact, that though universalist views were then widely prevalent, no syllable of condemnation was breathed against them at any of these councils. Nobody ever thought of including amongst the articles of the faith a belief in endless punishment; and this, be it remembered, though the very question of the life to come was distinctly raised at Constantinople, in the clauses then added to the creed. I say, without fear of contradiction, that this silence would of itself be an argument of irresistible weight in proving that universalism was, as an opinion, perfectly tenable in those days.
But this is a very small part of the evidence. If the silence of these councils is significant, so are the following facts still more significant. We have the faith of the Church defined in two documents, of an authority in its kind quite unique and fundamental—the two Creeds[1]—the Apostles’, and that we call the Nicene. Rightly to estimate the weight of the testimony they bear, let us remember that in the second Great Ecumenical Council, where the Nicene Creed received its present shape, S. Gregory of Nazianzus, (whose opinions are discussed p. 117-9) presided: while the chief agent in the task of adding to the Nicene Creed the new clauses then adopted, and ending with the significant words, “I believe in the life of the world to come,” (in the life, be it remembered, and in nothing more), was, probably, S. Gregory of Nyssa; whose words—see pp. 121-5, shew him to have been an unhesitating advocate of universal salvation.
What can be more significant of the belief of the Church in those primitive days? Look at the facts. To a known and outspoken believer in universal salvation is entrusted principally, by the Church in her Great Council, the duty of defining that definition runs thus, “I believe in the life of the world to come.” What but the larger hope could such words, under such circumstances, have conveyed to the Council? And mark the position these words occupy in the Creed (as does the corresponding clause in the[2] Apostles’ Creed). They close, and as it were, sum up the whole. The Creed opens with a statement of belief in the great Creator; it speaks of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost: of the work of salvation: of the Incarnation, &c. But the great procession of the christian verities ends, in both Creeds, in the expressive assertion of faith in everlasting life. It is as though both Creeds proclaimed—that to this all christian truth led, in this all christian hope culminated: in life, and not in death everlasting.
We have now reached the close of the second, and most important of the three periods embraced in our enquiry (p. 82), a point from which it will be well to look back over the ground we have traversed. We have seen the tide of universalism, (so far from being censured) rising, swelling, and broadening; till in that famous age of the Church’s story, the period embracing the fourth and the earlier years of the fifth century, universalism seems to have been the creed of the majority of christians in East and West alike; perhaps even of a large majority. It had gained a footing in the most famous schools of theology: it had leavened Alexandria and its school; had leavened Palestine; had leavened Cappadocia; had even leavened Antioch—where Origen’s teaching was directly opposed; it had leavened the early Latin Fathers (for those, at least, in sympathy with it), were, as we have seen, most of the greatest names of the greatest age of primitive christianity. A crowd of witnesses, from almost every quarter to which the Gospel had reached, assure us of their belief that Christ liberated from hades every soul, without exception. And we have heard teachings that openly assert, or, by fair inference, involve the larger hope, from both East and West, from Gaul as well as from Alexandria; from Rome; from Milan; from Arabia; from Palestine; from Antioch; from Cappadocia; from Cilicia; from Constantinople; from the distant Euphrates. And this teaching, be it noted, is strongest where the language of the New Testament was a living tongue, i.e., in the great Greek Fathers: it is strongest in the Church’s greatest era, and declines as knowledge and purity decline. On the other hand endless penalty is most strongly taught precisely in those quarters where the New Testament was less read in the original, and also in the most corrupt ages of the Church.
Note carefully—the point is significant—that this universalism was essentially and first of all based on Scripture; on those promises of a “restitution of all things,” taught “by all God’s holy prophets,” repeated so often by the Psalmists; and echoed clearly and distinctly in the New Testament. Another point there is, whose importance in view of some modern teaching, seems to me very great; it is the teaching of so many, and such illustrious Fathers, that death is no penalty, but is, indeed, A CURE, that it is, in fact, the great Potter remoulding His own handiwork to restore it to its pristine beauty, and that the sinner’s destruction means but the destruction of the sin, (the sinner perishes, the man lives). Such teaching would be significant even in a solitary instance; but here we have witness upon witness, to whom Greek was a familiar and a living tongue, repeating the same striking idea; teaching death to be no penalty, but designed to cure sin; teaching, too, that the sinner’s destruction by God is not loss but gain, is not annihilation, but conversion and reformation. To this point I shall return, and adduce fresh evidence from early writers, in the next chapter.
I have said enough, amply to prove the wide diffusion of universalism in the early centuries, alike in East and West, taught as it was, as in perfect harmony with the catholic faith. But it may be well to call three witnesses (whose testimony it is quite hopeless to gainsay). From S. Basil I quote “The mass of men (i.e., of christians) say that there is to be an end of punishment to those who are punished.” (quoting S. Luke 12:47-8)—Conc. xiv. De fut. judic. This opinion the writer disputes: but his words prove, that a terminable penalty was the ordinary view, and he does not even hint that this view was opposed to the Faith. The passage is from the Ascetica, a work interpolated, and I do not claim it as certainly Basil’s: its value as antient testimony is, however, not altered.
Again, S. Jerome (and no more competent witness can exist), writing towards the end of the fourth century, says—
I know that most persons understand by the story of Nineveh and its king, the ultimate forgiveness of the devil and all rational creatures.—In Jon. iii. Now, if most believed the ultimate salvation of every evil spirit, ought we not to say that all, or nearly all, believed in the more moderate dogma of universal human salvation in S. Jerome’s day?
But there is another witness of slightly later date, and of equal weight. S. Augustine tells us that, in his days, there were not only some, but “very many” or “the majority”—quam plurimi, “who compassioned the eternal punishment of the damned, and believed that it would not take place.”—Enchir., 112.
In addition we have the testimony of Domitian to be presently quoted, which, if indirect, is perhaps even stronger.
The significance of such testimonies is very great indeed. They state precisely the all important fact that universalism was the belief of half, or more than half, christendom, even in the West, during the fourth and part of the fifth century. S. Augustine speaks for the West, S. Basil for the East, and Domitian for the same, while S. Jerome, from his peculiar position, may represent both. How, indeed, shall any fact be attested satisfactorily, if such testimony, backed by the very words of so many Fathers (as quoted) be not decisive? And how hopeless and inveterate must be the prejudice which rejects such testimony because unwelcome.
In the succeeding ages as ignorance spread, and superstitions of every kind multiplied, with a wholly corrupt and licentious people, and a clergy venal and grossly ignorant, there is no reason to wonder that, by slow degrees, the earlier and nobler faith decayed everywhere (declining in almost exact proportion as knowledge declined and corruptions flourished); a process aided largely in the West by the preponderance of the cruel and uncatholic Augustinian theology, and by the consequent development of the doctrine of Purgatory. It would be difficult, and want of space forbids the attempt, to convey to general readers, an adequate idea of the degraded state of learning and morals, when, in the tenth century, the climax of darkness was reached in the West. Yet the creed even then current was mercy itself compared with our modern traditions, leaving as it did a door of hope widely open, beyond the grave, to all but a few exceptionally great sinners.
I now resume my task of quoting; from what has been said all can understand why in the period, into which we now proceed to enquire, our quotations are neither so numerous nor so striking as before. This period (the third of the divisions already made, p. 82) extends from about the middle of the fifth century to the eleventh or twelfth. I may begin by an extract from Facundus, who was a man of considerable eminence, Bishop of Hermiane. “To all this is to be added the confession of Domitian of Galatia, formerly Bishop of Ancyra; for in the book which he wrote to Vigilius * * he says, ‘they have hastily run out to anathematize most holy and glorious teachers, on account of those doctrines which have been advanced concerning pre-existence and restitution; and this, indeed, under pretext of Origen, but thereby anathematizing all those Saints, who were before and have been after him.’”—Pro. def. trium cap. iv. 4. It is clear from the context, that Domitian believed in the salvation of all evil spirits—a noteworthy fact—indeed, we shall see this belief existing at a still later period.
There are also three branches of evidence to which I desire here briefly to refer. (a) First, we know on excellent authority that many of the followers of Nestorius, who were very widely diffused over the East, taught universalism.—See Assemanni, Bibliotheque Orientale. Nor has their Nestorianism the very least connection with this particular opinion, which they drew, not from Nestorius, but from the general current of Church teaching in that age, and to which they thus become witnesses. “It is obvious,” says the Dean of Wells, “that the special point on which Nestorius was condemned had no connection with this or that form of eschatology; and that it was derived by them from those whose orthodoxy, like Gregory of Nyssa, was unquestioned.”—Spirits in prison. (b) But next, it is also certain that in the sixth century, in the monasteries, erected in the wilds lying between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea, there was a strong party, of which Domitian (just quoted) was a leader, teaching (with other tenets of Origen) the restitution of all souls. (c) Further, several testimonies might be quoted from writers of the period now under discussion, teaching the liberation from hades, by Christ, of every soul whatsoever.
I proceed to quote Gennadius, Patriarch of Constantinople, 458 A.D.
“The firstfruits shall obtain the totality and the rest of the body shall follow the head. * * For, said He, when lifted up, I will draw all men unto Myself.”—Rom. ch. viii. 34. Gennadius also seems to hold the opinion shared by many Fathers—see next chapter—which regards the Resurrection, as in itself involving immunity from sin and suffering. “Thank God who has given us immortality, incorruptibility, and impassibility.”—ib. vii. 24. Finally, as I understand his comments on Rom. viii. 19, there will be one day an universal regeneration. Other passages might be given; but I pass on to quote from Andrew, Bishop of Cæsarea (500 A.D.). He is describing the great (future) Apocalyptic song of praise, thus: “By all things intelligible or sensible (i.e., visible or invisible), both living and simply existing, God is glorified as author of all, in the modes of speech natural (to them).”—In Rev. v. 13. Neither Gennadius nor Andrew are consistent writers; and they probably do not design to teach universalism, but such extracts seem noteworthy, and very hard to reconcile with the dogma of endless misery and sin.
We now approach a striking incident in the history of religious thought. In the sixth century were published the (so-called) works of Dionysius, the Areopagite. The influence exerted by these writings, and their profoundly mystical tone, was extremely great, and has lasted, in a true sense, even to our day. As the worship of the Church became more and more material, so contemplative minds gladly turned for relief to a theology which spiritualised, without rejecting, the external symbols. The system these writings embrace recalls the earlier teaching of Alexandria, and its Platonism; and asserting, as they do, that all things come out of God, and return to, (or into) Him, cleansed from all stain, they form a storehouse of universalism. Although challenged when first produced in 533 A.D., at Constantinople, yet, in an uncritical age, a belief in their authenticity prevailed. Thus viewed as belonging to the Apostolic era, their influence was widely felt, especially in the case of two remarkable men. Of these, one was Maximus, head of a monastery near Constantinople, 645 A.D., the ablest theologian of his day. The other was J. S. Erigena—perhaps the acutest of the Schoolmen—if he be not rather their forerunner—who, two centuries later, taught at the Court of Charles the Bald. We thus find the East once more communicating an impulse, vital and fertile, to the colder West, warming her narrow creed, now touched with a stern Africanism.
I append the following brief extracts to shew the tone of the writings of the so-called Dionysius.
“Out of Him and through Him is every being and life * * every power, every energy * * and (all) are being turned into the good and beautiful. All things—whatsoever exist and are formed—exist and are formed for the sake of beauty and goodness. * * and He is beginning and end of all things. * * for (out) of Him and through Him, and unto Him are all things.’”—(Rom. 10:36)—De div. nom. iv. 10. “He makes all things, makes perfect all things. He holds together and converts all things (to Himself).”—ib. “With God are the causes of evils, they are beneficent powers.”—ib. 30. “Even of all evils, the beginning and end is the good, because for the sake of good exist all things, both those which are good, and those which are opposed to it.”—ib. 31. “What is good is the beginning and end of all things.”—ib. 35. “Even to the demons that they exist both comes of good and is good.”—ib. 34. God “converts and holds together all things, as being the all powerful abode of all, safe guarding all things, * * nor permitting them to fall away from Himself, and perish by departing from the all perfect home.”—ib. x. 1. “The good (or beautiful) is the beginning and end of all things.”—ib. iv. 7. All this leads logically and naturally to the larger hope.
At this point I must ask attention to two names, as teaching the larger hope, whose personality has almost faded away in the mists of time.
The first is Hierotheus, who is known only by a few brief extracts, which Dionysius quotes, as from the writings of his master. Hierotheus belongs, probably, to the school of Edessa, sometime in the fifth century. I give two brief specimens. “Towards the supreme love tends the total love flowing from all existences”—quoted—De div. nom. iv. 16. “There is one simple force, self moved, towards a blending together in unity (flowing) from what is good unto the last of those things that exist.”—ib. 17. Inadequate as are these brief extracts to represent the man, yet his teaching is evidently in harmony with the Pseudo-Dionysius.
The other name is that of an Abbot of Edessa, Barsudaili, who, towards the end of the fifth century, taught (under the name of Hierotheus) the broadest universalism. He asserts the termination of all penalties of the future world, and their purifying character. Even the fallen spirits are to receive mercy, and all things are to be restored, so that God may be All in All.—Assem. Bibl. Orient. ii. p. 291.
I now quote briefly from Maximus, Saint and Confessor, 645 A.D., to whom I have alluded, p. 153. Having spoken somewhat unfavourably of Gregory of Nyssa’s teaching, he proceeds:
“For it is necessary that as all nature is to receive at the Resurrection immortality of the flesh, * * so, too, the fallen powers of the soul must, in the process of the ages, cast off the memories of sin implanted in them, and having passed all the ages, * * come to God; and so by the knowledge, not the fruition of good, receive strength and be restored to their original state.”—Quæst. et Dub. xiii. Again, in his Aphorisms, sec. xx., ‘the reunion of all rational essences with God is established as the final end.’”—Neander, Eccles. Hist. v. p. 242.
This writer adds that the fundamental ideas of Maximus seem to lead to the doctrine of a final universal restoration —a proposition which is, in my judgment, beyond question true, not only of Maximus, but of the Pseudo-Dionysius, and of Erigena: while we may admit that an absolutely consistent enunciation of this was rendered difficult by the theology current in their days, (the language of which Maximus indeed sometimes uses).
In his Scholia on Dionysius, we find him teaching that “God is end and measure of all things.”—In De div. nom. iv. 20. “God moves, for He transforms and changes for the better all things * * “—ib. v. ad fin. And again, “He is beginning and end of all things.” (Migne). And again, “God is made All in All, embracing all things.” “All things made by God are gathered into God perpetually and unchangeably.”—ib. p. 1200. “The rest—the Sabbath—of God is the full bringing back into Himself of the things that are created.”—Cap. theol. i. 47. Again, with so many Fathers, Maximus teaches that the passing away of the wicked, is the passing away of their wickedness. Thus on Ps. 37:36, he says the meaning is that evil will pass away and leave no trace.—Schol. De div. nom. iv. 18. Maximus, as noted above, connects with the Resurrection the idea of restoration. I take one more passage: “At the Resurrection, through the grace of the Incarnate Son, the flesh will be absorbed by the soul.”—Quoted by Eric.—De div. nat. lib. v. 8.
Our next witness shall be Erigena, of whom I have spoken, whose remarkable writings may be heartily commended to every student of theology. Profound thinking—conveyed in clear and vivid style—lends to them an unusual charm.
“It belongs in common to all things that have been made to return—as though by a perishing—into those causes which subsist in God.”—De div. nat. lib. v. 21. In another very characteristic passage (to which I have unfortunately mislaid the reference), he argues that as Christ is maker and cause of all things, so “the universal end of the whole[3] creation is the Word of God. * * Last of all, the universal creation shall be united with the Creator, and shall be one in Him, and with Him. And this is the end of all things visible and invisible.” Again he says, there is to be a return and a gathering together “into that unity of all things[4] which is in God and is God: so that both all things may be God, and God be all things.”—Pref. in Max. Ambig., Migne, p. 1195. This passage gives the substance of Maximus’ version of the teaching of the Pseudo-Dionysius, and involves Erigena’s agreement with it. “The whole human race has been both redeemed in Christ, and will return into the heavenly Jerusalem.”—De div. nat. v. 38. “Nothing contrary to the divine goodness, and life, and blessedness can be co-eternal with it. Because the divine goodness will destroy evil, eternal life will absorb death, blessedness absorb sin.”—ib. 27. “Sins and iniquities * * shall be completely brought to nothingness, so that they shall have no existence.”—De div. nat. iv. 4. “Further, if the entire world, and the entire creation UNIVERSALLY, which has been made by God, is not destined to return into the eternal causes in which it subsists, then the whole of our reasoning so far, will fall away, as vain, and completely gone to pieces.”—ib. v. 28.
There are still writers who (even at dates later than the present) teach the liberation from hades of all souls, but any direct evidence for universalism is now very rare. The following from Œcumenius, 990 A.D., shews evident traces of primitive teaching. He writes on the famous words: “That God may be All in All,” “The abolition of evil (evil tís kakías [τῆς κακίας]) is shewn by these words, for when sin (i amartía [ἡ ἁμαρτία]—all sin) has been taken away, it is evident God will be All in All, when we are no longer divided between God and passions. Others have so interpreted it, that all things will be brought back to the Father as source.”—In 1 Cor. xv. 28.
Theophylact, Archbishop of Achrida, in Bulgaria, 1077 A.D., shall be our next witness. By the parable of the ninety-nine, and the one lost, sheep, he understands the just and sinners. But as the lost sheep of the parable is found, then, if this represent the sinners of mankind, the passage seems logically to involve universalism. But there is more than this:
Some, he goes on to say, understand by the 100 sheep all rational creatures, and by the one lost sheep man (i.e., mankind), * * and by the lost coin, the lost image of God. “The whole world is cleansed over again from sin, and plainly the lost coin (the royal image) is found.” Both interpretations seem to involve the larger hope. On 1 Cor. 15:28, he says: “Some understand by this the removal of wickedness, for when sin is no more, plainly God will be All in All.” This seems to shew that the larger hope survived up to nearly the end of the 11th century: it is also noteworthy that Theophylact says nothing against it here. On Eph. 1:10: “Things in heaven were cut off from things on earth, and had not one head. For though by creation all had one God, yet by friendship (oikeiosis domesticity) they had not yet (one God): and so it was that the Father planned to bring back to one head the things in heaven and on earth, i.e., to set Christ as head over all.” On Col. 1:18-20, he says: “Paul by the Church intends the whole human race. * * Christ, as firstfruits, has even (all) the rest following him (kai tous loipous) * * One sheaf being offered, the whole harvest is sanctified * * and one body rising, the whole nature (mankind) is deemed worthy of the Resurrection * * Christ is first begotten (from the dead) as firstfruits of the Resurrection, because that is regeneration.” The train of thought in these passages is hard to reconcile with the perpetuity of evil, whatever the writer’s views may have been.
Nor are later instances wanting. “Both S. Thomas Aquinas, and Durandus shew us that, even in their day, absolute universalism was not unknown. It was the opinion of the school of Gilbert of Poictiers—S. Thomas Aquinas, Sent. iv. 45—and ‘aliquorum juristarum’—Durandus,”—(Mercy and Judgment,) and, probably, of some mystics. Again, a great name, S. Anselm, in the twelfth century, writes thus: “It is quite foreign to God’s nature to suffer any reasonable creature wholly to perish.”—Cur Deus Homo, ii. 4 (a striking proof of the survival of the earlier hope) “nor,” adds the saint, “is it possible for the reasonable mind to think otherwise.” To these testimonies may be added a highly interesting prayer, quoted by the Dean of Wells from an old English manual, The Fifteen O’s, published by Caxton; and illustrating the dominant tone of religious feeling in England, in the age immediately preceding the Reformation:—“Be merciful to those souls for whom there is no hope * * in their torment, save that they were made in thine image * * Put forth thy right hand and free them from the interminable pains and anguish of hell, and lead them to the fellowship of the citizens on high.”
The three periods of the Church’s history, embraced in the enquiry we have just made, may be said to correspond to early Spring time; to Summer, brief and bright; to Autumn, followed by wintry gloom. After some centuries of conflict and growth, the freedom won for the Gospel by Constantine was followed by an outburst of activity, theological and intellectual (such were the Church’s Spring and Summertide). But in the very success lay unperceived the seeds of disaster. Elements of evil, repressed in adversity, soon revived; and the crowds who now flocked to christian teaching brought with them, too often, the superstition, the ignorance, the vices of heathenism. Bitter intestine strife, scandalous intrigues, virulent controversies, began more than ever to exhaust the energies of the Church, or to direct them into barren channels. And so the Autumn and its decay followed. To the Fathers succeeded—after a period of barrenness—the Schoolmen in the West; while, in the East, no successor appeared to the great names of earlier days. Other features of this period I can barely notice, e.g., the break up of the Roman empire; the growth of the Papacy; the successive inroads of barbarians into Italy; the spread of Monasticism; the steady advance of superstition; the decay of learning; the ever-widening divisions between East and West. Who can pretend to wonder that amid all this “hurly burly,” the larger hope,—taught so freely in the Church’s Spring and Summer time,—gained ever fewer adherents in its Autumnal decay, and well nigh died out in its dark Winter?
But any sketch of universalism would be incomplete without a discussion of the assertion still repeated, though often refuted, that the dogma of the final salvation of all men was condemned, in the person of Origen, at the Fifth Council. This assertion is, as will be distinctly shewn, untrue. An attempt was indeed made to procure a condemnation of this doctrine—an attempt which wholly failed; and which was made, not at the Fifth Council, but at the Home Synod of Constantinople (i.e., a committee of Bishops from a small number of sees near Constantinople, who, with some officers of the Metropolitan Church, formed a standing Council for the Patriarch). For a clearer understanding of the facts, which are very generally misunderstood, it must be premised that the larger hope was but a very inconsiderable part of what was known as “Origenism,” and quite independent of it, e.g, so that it was strongly held by Origen’s determined antagonists in the school of Antioch. Origenism meant a widely spreading system, embracing amongst many other points: (a) certain highly speculative tenets, e.g., pre-existence, and also (b) certain views, e.g., on the Trinity, capable at least of easy misrepresentation, (c) and a doctrine of the Resurrection, in which this great writer was too far in advance of his day. These it was, the two latter especially, that led Origen into grave disrepute; and not his belief in the final salvation of all men. The proofs of this are abundant and decisive. (I.) Those who taught simple universalism perhaps more fully than Origen, e.g., Gregory, of Nyssa, and many others, were held in universal honour, or if some were condemned, like Theodore of Mopsuestia, (see pp. 141-2) no condemnation, direct or indirect, was made of their universalism. (II.) The larger hope was, in fact, widely held by those who opposed Origen in nearly everything else (e.g., the school of Antioch). Indeed, the intrigue against Theodore was promoted by Origenists. (III.) We have several lists, more or less complete, of the alleged errors of Origen, from 300 down to 404 A.D., in none of them is any mention of the larger hope. I may instance the lists[5] of Methodius, 300 A.D., that given by Pamphilus and Eusebius, in their Apology, 310 A.D.; of Epiphanius, 376 and 394 A.D.; of Theophilus, in a circular letter, and in three Paschal letters of 400, 402, and 404 A.D.; and more than one of S. Jerome, 400 A.D.
I beg that this most significant fact may be noted, Jerome, Theophilus, and Epiphanius literally scrape together every possible charge against Origen, but never allude to his teaching of the larger hope as heretical. How can any fair mind refuse the inevitable conclusion, that this was, at least, a perfectly open question? Again I ask how these facts can be reconciled with the common prejudice, which asserts that Origen’s teaching of all men’s final salvation, was that which brought him into disrepute? Indeed, so far from the larger hope, as we understand it, being something peculiar to Origen, there is reason to believe that—while he certainly taught restoration and the limited duration of all future punishment (and thus give a great impulse to these opinions)—he himself held them in a peculiar form. I do not mean so much that he taught the final salvation of all evil spirits—a view held by several Fathers, but that he seems to have taught (I.) that all human beings would return to exactly the same level, so that a prostitute, as S. Jerome says, would finally be the same as the Blessed Virgin; (II.) that, thereafter, fresh cycles would ensue, in which even the good angels might fall away, and so on for long periods, or, possibly, even for ever. These views naturally invited opposition on all sides, from the friends of the larger hope, as well as from its enemies.
Thus, from what has been stated, it is absolutely certain that to condemn “Origen” or “Origenism” in general terms, does not involve disapproval of restoration, even as he taught it; still less of the restoration of all human beings; (a tenet quite compatible with very strong hostility to Origenism—as in the school of Antioch). I repeat that all the evidence goes to prove that it was speculative tenets—at least tenets wholly unconnected with the larger hope—that brought Origen into disrepute, aided, doubtless, by the jealousies of rivals. Equally misunderstood are the facts connected with the alleged condemnation of Origen at the Fifth Council, so that it is needful to state briefly the salient points, which are these:—In 541 A.D., (the exact year is not certain,) the Emperor Justinian caused the Patriarch Mennas to convene at Constantinople the Home Synod, expressly to condemn the larger hope, and certain other opinions attributed to Origen. This is noteworthy, as being the first attempt to procure a distinct condemnation of the larger hope. Mark the result. “This Synod passed fifteen Canons, in which various theories of Origen were condemned, but deliberately omitted” that concerning the larger hope, i.e., deliberately refused to condemn it. Twelve years later was convened the Fifth Council (born in intrigue and unrecognised by the English Church). It is said, but the fact is disputed by able and impartial writers, to have condemned Origen by name in the eleventh canon, but only in general terms, which, as I have shewn above, proves nothing at all as to the condemnation of the larger hope. Further, special reasons exist which render any intention to condemn universalism, on the part of the Fifth Council, in the highest degree unlikely. (I.) The promoters were themselves Origenists. (II.) The object of the Council was to condemn certain Nestorian tenets, quite distinct from universalism. (III.) The Council expressly referred to S. Gregory of Nyssa, as a prop of the faith, who was the most outspoken universalist of all the Fathers! Such is the true story of the so-called condemnation of universalism. The Home Synod distinctly refused to condemn it, even at the Emperor’s bidding; while if, as is doubtful, the Fifth Council did condemn Origen, it did so in general terms only, and it did not thereby condemn the larger hope; nor am I aware that this special point was ever so much as submitted to any antient general council for decision. In short, “we have no evidence that the belief in ‘restitution,’ which prevailed in the fourth and fifth centuries, was ever definitely condemned by any council of the church.”—Spirits in Prison, p. 141. A fact which I must ask my readers to impress most clearly on their minds; a fact further attested by a witness of most strict orthodoxy, in these words: “Whatever the amount, and quality of authority arrayed against Origen’s view may be, conciliar decisions make no part of it.”—Church Times, Feb. 1, 1884. No doubt some will ask, Does not the very fact that the belief in an endless hell was permitted to spread so widely, as to have become practically universal, prove its truth?
If so, I reply, why not then carry out your theory? Infant Communion was universal for centuries; slavery was universally defended from the earliest age of the Church. Are we, therefore, to adopt them? The duty of persecution for errors of faith was universally held—shall we adopt it? Shall we invoke saints and angels because the practice was once universal, or burn witches for the same cogent reason? It has pleased God to permit in numberless cases error to prevail, and obscure in this present age His truth. This very fact is but a louder call to us to work against all that hides or distorts that truth. Nay, it points not uncertainly to a conclusion in perfect agreement with the larger hope, this namely, that the present is but an initial stage of being; one of many ages, during which God is slowly, very slowly, working out a vast plan, and permits for a moment, as it were, an apparent triumph to error and to evil.
Let us now pass on and see what our own Church teaches on this point. We shall, I think, find, if we examine it carefully, in our Book of Common Prayer—moulded as it is on primitive lines, and on Scripture—not a few testimonies in favour of the larger hope. Not that I mean to represent the compilers as themselves universalists, far from it. But it is interesting to note the indications of a wider hope that emerge, even where indirect and unintentional.
Take, for instance, the service of Holy Baptism—what is the profession of faith required? “Dost thou believe in everlasting life after death,” and not a word or hint further. Again, in our Litany, do we not pray God to have mercy, not on some men, but on all men? If this were in fact impossible, would it not be very like a sham to address such a prayer to God—just as the Inquisition used to hand over prisoners to the secular courts with a request that they would be merciful? Do we not also address, in the same Litany, Jesus Christ as the “Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world,” and that twice over? Do we not, in Holy Communion, repeat, three times in one prayer, this truly catholic address to Christ, as “taking away the sins of the world”? And here it is right to ask, are words a mere pretence, and that in our holiest moments? How does Christ take away the sins of the world, if to all eternity in hell the sins of any men remain not taken away? On this point our Book of Common Prayer is especially emphatic, for in the proper preface for Easter Day we are bidden to remember how Christ “hath taken away the sins of the world” and has by His death destroyed death.” But to abolish death in its Scriptural meaning is surely to abolish all that the Fall brought on man.
Take next one of the Ember Collects: “To those who shall be ordained, grant Thy grace, that they may set forward the salvation of all men.” Does the salvation of all men mean the damnation of most men, of any man? And so, too, when the Church bids us render thanks for a world Redeemed, and for our Creation, no less than for our Redemption, how can this be if Creation be not a certain promise of good? If Creation does, as a matter of fact, imply an awful, unutterable risk of hell’s torment, why bid a man give thanks for that, which may be to him an occasion of endless pains? I will next ask your attention to a fact perhaps not always remembered, that our Church deliberately expunged that article which (adopted in 1552) condemned the belief in the final salvation of all men. “The 42nd article was withdrawn” (says the Bishop of Manchester), “because the Church, knowing that men like Origen, Clement, and Gregory of Nyssa, were universalists, refused to dogmatise on such questions.” Nor are other indications wanting of the hopeful teaching of our Prayer Book. Let us not fail to note the hope expressed for all in the Burial Service; the stress laid on the wide extent of the Atonement in the Catechism, and in the General Confession; the true force of all this is best seen when our formularies are compared with those of other reformed communions (a comparison for which I have not space). In a word, the tone of the Book of Common Prayer is frequently that indicated in the Collect for the Sunday before Easter—where the object of Christ’s death is described as this—“that all mankind should follow the example of His great humility,” and in that other prayer, which addresses God as one, “whose property is always to have mercy;” words which, if taken in their full meaning, certainly seem to teach the larger hope.
But there is further important evidence of our Church’s teaching. Of Christ’s descent into hades I have already spoken; and pointed out that to teach the liberation of all souls thence, is logically at least to teach universalism.—p. 103.
And this liberation of all, it can, I think, be shewn that our Church teaches: For the Church has intimated her belief in the fact of Christ’s descent into hades, and preaching there, by the selection of S. Peter iii. 19, as the Epistle for Easter Eve, and of Zech. 9., as the first lesson (see v. 11, and its striking allusion to the “prisoners of hope.”) Further, in the Homily (Of the Resurrection) appointed for Easter Day, we have the result of Christ’s preaching in hades stated in the following words:—“He destroyed the devil, and all his tyranny, and took from him all his captives, and hath raised and set them with Himself among the heavenly citizens above. His death destroyed hell and all the damnation thereof.” These words, as I think, teach the liberation of all souls, without exception, from hades.
Nor has the larger hope wanted able defenders in English theology since the days of the Prayer Book. It is interesting to note, that amid the tumults of the Rebellion and the gross profligacy of the Restoration, there rose a school of devout men (trained, most of them, at Cambridge); partly Anglican, partly Nonconformists, who held, or sympathised with, the larger hope.
One of the earliest was Gerald Winstanley, who taught a complete restoration of the whole creation in the Mystery of God, &c., printed 1669. To nearly the same epoch belong two very remarkable names, Ralph Cudworth and Henry MORE, of the school of Cambridge Platonists, whose sympathies were distinctly in favour of the larger hope. More out-spoken in his teaching was Peter Sterry, Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge—one of Cromwell’s chaplains—whose works published (after his death) in 1683 and 1710, evidence a strong leaning to mysticism, often stated with much beauty of imagery. I may note next, also of the same school of thought, Sadler, author of Olbia, and Whichcote, a friend of Cudworth and MORE, a Fellow of Emmanuel College, a contemporary of Milton and Jeremy Taylor; and two less known authors, R. Coppin, 1649, and W. Erbury.
At this time there also appeared not a few anonymous books, advocating the wider hope, which deserve mention, as illustrating the course of theological enquiry in the seventeenth century, e.g., Enochian Walks with God, by the same author; and The Revelation of the Everlasting Gospel Message, by the same author; and God’s Light, 1653; also Of the Torments of Hell, the Foundation and Pillars thereof Shaken, 1658, by S. Richardson. A more distinguished advocate of the larger hope was Bishop Rust, successor of Jeremy Taylor, author of De Veritate, and A Letter concerning the Opinions of Origen. Another name almost equally eminent is that of Jeremy White, Fellow of Trinity, Cambridge, chaplain to Cromwell, and author of The Restoration of all Things, published (after his death) in 1712; a book, I may add, eloquent, devout, and breathing the deepest reverence for Holy Scripture. Towards the close of the seventeenth century, came R. Stafford and Jane Leade, the latter a mystic, whose works are rare and valuable.
To these I may add Tillotson, who seems to have held that God was not bound to execute his threatenings pronounced against sinners; a view in which he was followed more decisively by Bishop Stillingfleet, Master of the Charter House, a pupil of his at Cambridge, who, in his De Statu Mortuorum, teaches universalism openly. The movement in favour of the larger hope was continued during the eighteenth century by William Whiston, in his Sermons and Essays, London, 1707, and by many others. I name Dr. Cheyne, in his Discourses, published 1742, and (probably) Bishop Warburton.—(See ch. viii. note on Rev. 20:14), Bishop Newton, 1750, in a sermon on the Final state of man; and William Law, 1766, in his Letters and Way to Divine Knowledge. To the latter may probably be due, ultimately, the whole revival movement in England. To this era belong also two books, little known, De Vitâ Functorum Statu, by J. Windet, and Glad Tidings to Jews and Gentiles, by R. Clarke, both published in 1763, and both advocating the larger hope. Other names of authors, favourable to universalism, in this century, are—J. Cooke, London, 1752; J. Relly, 1759; Sir G. Stonehouse, 1768; W. Dudgeon, 1765; Rev. C. Berrow, 1772; C. Charnay, 1784; F. Leicester, 1786; J. Weaver, 1792; J. Browne, 1798. About this time Elhanan Winchester, a follower of John Wesley, advocated the larger hope in his Dialogues; and, indeed, Wesley himself seems to have finally shared this view, for he published, in 1787, as “one of the most sensible tracts he had ever read,” a translation from Bonnet’s Palingenesie Philosophique, which seems to advocate universalism, e.g., it teaches: “There will be a perpetual advance of all the individuals of humanity towards perfection” (in the other life). There is also a considerable American literature advocating universalism.
In the present century the same steady movement continues, with ever-increasing force, in the direction of the larger hope. The name of Erskine, of Linlathen, will be familiar to many. Again, the late Bishop Wilberforce is stated on high authority to have finally “leaned to the larger hope,” which his son now preaches. Other well-known names may be given as openly teaching, or sympathising with universalism, e.g., Tennyson, Whittier, Bryant, Browning and Mrs. Browning, Whitman, Edna Lyall, George Macdonald, O. W. Holmes, Mrs. Oliphant, James Hinton, C. Bronte and her sister Emily, Gen. Gordon, Miss Mulock, Fredericka Bremer, Ellice Hopkins, Hesba Stretton, Florence Nightingale, F. Schlegel, De Quincey, Emerson, Longfellow, Mrs. Beecher Stowe. A remarkable fact is the consensus of all the leading poets as well as in America as in England in favour of the larger hope, a fact noteworthy if true poetic inspiration be a reality. In theology not a few names may be added, as adopting, or at least in sympathy with, the larger hope, e.g., the late Bishop Ewing of Argyll, Canon Kingsley, F. D. Maurice, Dr. Cox, Baldwin Brown, Bishop Westcott, Dr. Littledale, the Bishop of Manchester, F. W. Robertson, Sir G. W. Cox, A. Jukes, Archer Gurney, Phillips Brooks, Professor Mayor, Canon Farrar, Principal Caird, the Bishop of Meath, Dean CHURCH, Neander, Martensen, Tholuck, Reuss, Schleiermacher, Bengel, Eberhard, Lavater, J. Macleod Campbell, the Dean of Wells, Canon Wilberforce, Pastor Oberlin, Bishop Ken, &c.
I do not represent this list as at all exhaustive, yet it is enough to prove that this movement is deep-seated, long continued, and extending itself widely amongst men of the most varied schools of thought. Besides this, we must not forget the very numerous cases in which the traditional creed has been wholly abandoned, for the “conditional immortality” theory, and those cases, also very numerous, in which the larger hope is (practically) held in silence. How vast has been the change in men’s minds may be seen in this fact, that in the Church Congress of this year (1890), at least two Bishops—one of them the President, and the most eminent living Anglican theologian—advocate the larger hope.
I do not write these chapters with a view to magnify Patristic authority. My aim is historical. Place, for argument’s sake, the Fathers in the lowest rank. They are, at the least, our only possible witnesses to the teaching of christianity in those ages when the language of the New Testament was a living tongue. It is certainly a most important fact in this controversy to find that in an age so little merciful, and when the inducements to silence were so very strong, (p. 83,) the larger hope was so widely held, and based on the authority of Scripture. The higher Patristic theology, in its view of death, of penalty, and of the future state is totally unlike our modern views. If we do not, our opponents are wise enough to see the importance of all this. They are wise enough to see how grievously impaired thereby is their appeal to Scripture, as teaching endless penalty; and how their chance is gone of appealing to that ignorance of history, which calls universalism a modern novelty, or the product of an indifferent and sentimental age.
And here I beg my readers to note that these pages are only a plea for a truly catholic Church, for a genuine, not a nominal, catholicity. I am pleading that Christ’s Holy catholic Church may not be narrowed or dwarfed, but may, with a true catholicity, savingly embrace (sooner or later) every soul for whom its Founder died. I believe this to have been the deepest conviction of many, of very many, of the primitive Saints.
It is possible that in spite of all care and labour, (now extending over several years,) some errors of detail may be found in these chapters; some passages may have been misunderstood. I ask my readers to believe that, if so, I have offended involuntarily. I ask my critics to blame, if they must blame, in a spirit of fairness, not wielding a tomahawk in the service of the God of Love, nor using scorn and taunt in the service of Jesus Christ. But all the main conclusions are, I believe, absolutely true.
The so-called inconsistency of the Fathers has been frankly faced, and the complete unfairness of the mode of interpretation which is still too common, has been exposed.—see pp. 93-4. When all the facts are fairly weighed, pp. 83-94, the evidence for the existence of a great body of universalistic teaching in early times remains clear and wholly unshaken.
Taking a rapid survey of facts, I think we may thus arrange early eschatological teaching. There were at first, probably, three distinct currents. Some held the final annihilation of the wicked; some, especially in North Africa, held their endless punishment; some, perhaps even a majority, taught universalism. By the days of Gregory of Nyssa the latter view, aided doubtless by the unrivalled learning, genius and piety of Origen had prevailed, and had succeeded in leavening, not the East alone, but much of the West (pp. 148-50). While the doctrine of annihilation has practically disappeared, universalism has established itself, has become the prevailing opinion, even in quarters antagonistic to the school of Alexandria.
But the waning fortunes of the dogma of endless penalty soon revived, and in their turn gained the ascendency. The Church of North Africa, in the person of Augustine, enters the field. The Greek tongue soon becomes unknown in the West, and the Greek Fathers forgotten. A Latin Christianity, redolent of the soil, develops itself, assuming, in accordance with the Roman bent, a rigid forensic type. On the throne of Him whose name is Love, is now seated a stern Judge (a sort of magnified Roman Governor). The sense of Sin practically dwarfs all else. The Father is lost in the Magistrate.
In the East the decay of the earlier belief was, if less rapid, nearly as complete. Strife within and without the Church, increasing ignorance and corruptions, bitter controversy (and other factors, p. 159) combined to form a soil in which the larger hope of earlier days at length dwindled and almost expired. Indeed, who can wonder that this was so, if he will but reflect how cruel was the age, how narrow is the natural heart of man, how slowly, even now, it responds to that which is most divine. The true wonder (to me, at least) is this, viz., the appearance in such an age as that of the later Roman empire of the very idea of universalism—a phenomenon which can, I think, be alone accounted for by the fact that the early Fathers found it, as they tell us, in the New Testament, p. 84. And so I close this sketch of early universalism, under a deep sense of my personal deficiencies, increased as they are, at once, by the difficulties of limited space (e.g., S. Gregory of Nyssa alone would furnish extracts enough to fill this volume); and by the no less real difficulty of inducing my readers to view this evidence from the standpoint of the early centuries.
Let us take the facts as they then were; let us try to picture a state of society in which the sentiment of mercy was practically unknown; in which all things reeked with vices, too loathsome even to name; add the fear of cruel persecution, often threatening the repose, if not the very existence of the Church; then, under such circumstances, to promise these blood-stained persecutors, these votaries of lust (even though unrepentant in life), a final salvation in the ages to come, must have seemed almost treason to the cause of Christ, because only too likely to arrest conversions. And when to this we add the undoubted fact, that the moral principles then current within the Church, explicitly sanctioned dissimulation—thus rendering lawful that concealment (or denial) of universalism which must have seemed so expedient; then it is that we gain some idea of the depth of conviction needed to account for even indirect teaching—for hints even—of the larger hope in the early centuries. And, if so, how much more for an universalism, often, as we have seen, wide enough to assert or imply, the final salvation of every fallen spirit. For in two respects the teaching of this book—let us note the fact—falls short of a great body of primitive teaching, (a) it states a hope instead of a certainty of restoration, (b) it does not extend this to all rational and fallen spirits; a point which lies beyond my immediate province.
Footnotes / Endnotes:
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- Whatever we may think of the Athanasian Creed—its want of conciliar authority—its comparatively late date—its uncertain origin—its doubtful acceptance in the East—when it speaks of “everlasting,” that term can mean no more than the Scriptural eónios, which it represents: and as it is clear that everlasting is not the necessary or even the usual meaning of eónios, this Creed is really quite consistent with the larger hope. (↩)
- On the great significance of the clause—the Descent into hell—in this Creed I have already spoken. (↩)
- Erigena guards against Pantheism, by repudiating any blending in the future life of the human and divine.”—De div. nat. lib. v. 8. (↩)
- It is true that Erigena, writing in the Latin Church of the ninth century, naturally professes a belief in endless punishment. But this stands in hopeless contradiction to his entire theological system; and the extraordinary process of jugglery with words, by which he attempts to teach that a thing can exist, and not exist, at the same time, may be read in the fifth book.—De div. nat. A curious and striking passage intimates that perhaps the eternal punishment of the devils will be the universal abolition of their wickedness and impiety.—ib. v. 27. (↩)
- Some other early writers against Origen are known, e.g., Eustathius of Antioch, 330 A.D., Marcellus of Ancyra, 320 A.D. But none of these touch on the doctrine of restoration. Leo the Great, in a letter—Ep. xxxv.—alludes to Origen as condemned for teaching pre-existence.(↩)