Gregory of Nyssa was a universalist

[DavidFord]

"the idea of Hell... whatever its origins, in orthodox doctrine it finally became a place of Eternal Conscious Torment, in which sinners will be punished perpetually.... even at my most pious, I could never really internalize the idea of ECT. No matter how you characterized the notion, it just seemed like endless, pointless torture. I had all the usual questions. How would the Blessed be able to enjoy Heaven knowing that even while they rejoice, billions of people are being tormented? How come Gandhi is in the same Hell as Hitler? Why would pious Muslims or Buddhists be sent to Hell just because they happened to be born in the wrong time or place? If you had asked me back then I would have said out loud what I was supposed to say, but down deep I just thought – that can't be right!"

ECT is bogus.
Did Gregory of Nyssa ever _not_ promote "orthodox doctrine"?

When (the Father) Will Subject All Things to (the Son), Then (the Son) Himself Will Be Subjected to Him (the Father) Who Subjects All Things to Him (the Son)
A treatise on First Corinthians 15.28
by Gregory of Nyssa
https://documentacatholicaomnia.eu/04z/z_0330-0395__Gregorius_Nyssenus__A_Treatise_on_First_Corinthians_15-28__EN.doc.html
...
Paul adds to this fact that as all have died in Adam, all will be restored to life in Christ.
Clearly does Paul here reveal the mystery of the Resurrection.
Anyone who looks at what results from the Resurrection readily sees its consequence, that is, the goal for which all men hope and for which they direct their prayers.

[M.1313] Here then is the object of our treatise.
I will first set forth, however, my own understanding of the text, and will then add the Apostle Paul's words as applied to my understanding.
What therefore does Paul teach us?
It consists in saying that evil will come to nought and will be completely destroyed.
The divine, pure goodness will contain in itself every nature endowed with reason; nothing made by God is excluded from his kingdom once everything mixed with some elements of base material has been consumed by refinement in fire.
Such things had their origin in God; what was made in the beginning did not receive evil.
...
It is time now to quote the apostle himself on these matters.
"For as in Adam all die,
so also in Christ shall all be made alive.
But each in his own order:
Christ the first fruits,
then at his coming those who belong to Christ.
Then comes the end when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father
after destroying every rule and every authority and power.
For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.
The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
'For God has put all things in subjection under his feet' [a reference to Ps 8.6].
But when it says, 'All things are put in subjection under him,' it is plain that he is accepted who put all things under him.
When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who puts all things under him, that God may be everything to everyone" [1 Cor 15.22-28].

In the last of his words [above], Paul plainly speaks of the nonexistence (anuparktos) of evil by stating that God is in all things and present to each one of them.
It is clear that God will truly be in all things when no evil will be found.
It is not proper for God to be present in evil; thus, he will not be in everything as long as some evil remains.
...
Paul shows, by the words quoted above, that God becomes all things for us.
He appears as the necessities of our present life, or as examples for partaking in the divinity.
Thus, for God to be our food, it is [M.1317] proper to understand him as being eaten; the same applies to drink, clothing, shelter, air, location, wealth, enjoyment, beauty, health, strength, prudence, glory, blessedness and anything else judged good which our human nature needs.
Words such as these signify what is proper to God.

We therefore learn by the examples mentioned above that the person in God has everything which God himself has.
To have God means nothing else than to be united with him.
Unity then means to be one body with him as Paul states, for all who are joined to the one body of Christ by participation are one body with him.
When the good pervades everything, then the entirety of Christ's body will be subjected to God's vivifying power.
...
Christ eternally builds himself up by those who join themselves to him in faith.
...
Subjection to God is our chief good when all creation resounds as one voice, when everything in heaven, on earth and under the earth bends the knee to him, and when every tongue will confess that has become one body and is joined in Christ through obedience to one another, he will bring into subjection his own body to the Father.
...
Paul says of himself that
"with Christ I am crucified.
It is no longer I who live,
but Christ who lives in me" [Gal 2.20].
If Paul no longer lives, but Christ lives in him, everything which Paul does and says is referred to Christ living in him.
...
Paul claims that the good works of the Gospel are not his; rather, he attributes them to the grace of Christ dwelling within him.
If Christ living in Paul works and speaks those things as a result of this indwelling, Paul has relinquished everything which formerly dominated him when he was a blasphemer, persecutor and behaved arrogantly.
Paul looked to the true good alone, and by it made himself submissive and obedient.

Once Paul has been subjected to God, he is brought to the One who lives, speaks and effects good things.
The supreme good is subjection to God.
This fact which occurred in one person [Paul] will be harmoniously applied [M.1324] to every human being "when," as the Lord says, "the Gospel will be preached throughout the world" [Mk 16.15].
All who have rejected the old man with its deeds and desires have received the Lord who, of course, effects the good done by them.
...

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_A Dictionary of Christian Biography, Literature, Sects and Doctrines_ by William George Smith et al. (1880), 193-194
https://archive.org/details/adictionarychri07wacegoog/page/n212/mode/2up
https://archive.org/stream/adictionarychri07wacegoog/adictionarychri07wacegoog_djvu.txt

What Origen thus whispered, as it were, to the ear in the secret chamber was proclaimed by Gregory of Nyssa as from the housetop. His universalism is as wide and unlimited as that of bishop Newton of Bristol. The whole course of this life was for him a discipline leading to virtue. If any one remain uncured by it the healing process (...) is continued in the life that follows. It may take for some, sharp and severe forms, the work of the knife and cautery ; for others, the work of God, restoring the creature of His hands to its original likeness will be sufficient (_Orat. Catech._ viii.). Those who are not sharers in the purification by baptism will be purified by fire (_Orat. Catech._ xxxv.). Men are angry often with those who use severe remedies, but afterwards they thank them, and so, in like manner, when the evil now intermingled and implanted in their nature has been, after long periods of time, eradicated, and there shall be a restoration (ἀποκαταστασις) of those who are now lying in evil to their primal state ; there shall be an accordant thanksgiving to God from all creation, both of those who needed and those who did not need purification (_Orat. Catech._ xxvi.).

The same thought of an ... is developed more systematically in the treatise _de Anima et Resurrectione_. "The process of healing shall be proportioned to the measure of evil in each of us, and when the evil is purged and blotted out, there shall come in its place to each immortality and life and honour" (vol. iii. pp. 255, 260, ed. 1637).

Now the race of man is by its evil shut out from the divine, but the barriers by which sin excludes us from that within the veil will one day be broken down, and when our nature shall be reconstructed, as in a new tabernacle (...), and all the corruption that sin has brought in shall be blotted out from the universe ; then shall there be the great feast of God for all whom the resurrection has brought together as His guests (iii. p. 245). In the end there shall be one common joy for all, and those who are now through sin outside the sanctuary of the divine blessedness will then cling to the horns of the altar, _e.g._ to the Founder of the world above (_De Anima, Opp._ ii. p. 677).

It is true that he, too, speaks of punishment through aeons to which no limit can be assigned (_De Anima, Opp._ ii. p. 650) of a chastisement that shall extend through an eternal interval (...) ; but it is clear, as indeed the last word shews that he looks forward beyond this to the ultimate extirpation of evil and the restoration of mankind, to a time "when there shall no longer be a sinner in the universe (in _Psalm. iii. vol. ii. p. 289), and the war between good and evil shall be ended (_ibid_), and the nature of evil shall pass into nothingness, and the divine and unmingled goodness shall embrace all intelligent existence." (vol. i. 844).

What is noticeable in Gregory of Nyssa is that in thus teaching there is no apparent consciousness that he is deviating into the bye-paths of new and strange opinions. He claims to be taking his stand on the doctrines (...) of the church in thus teaching with as much confidence as when he is expounding the mysteries of the divine nature as set forth in the creed of Nicaea (ii. p. 663). And the same absence of any sense of being even in danger of heresy is seen in most of those who followed in his footsteps or those of Origen. The _Apologia_ for Origen, which was the joint work of Eusebius and Pamphilus, defends him without any hesitation.

Theodore of Mopeuestia teaches that in the world to come "those who have done evil all their life long will be made worthy of the sweetness of the divine bounty. For never would Christ have said 'until thou hast paid the uttermost farthing,' unless it were possible for us to be cleansed when we have paid the penalty. Nor would He have spoken of the many stripes and few unless after men had borne the punishment of their sins they might afterwards hope for pardon." (_Fragm._ ed. Fritzsche, p. 41.)

Even Gregory of Nazianzus, when speaking of the fire that is not quenched, throws out the thought, as though it were at least admissible, that there may be a .... (_Orat._ xl. 86). Diodorus of Tarsus taught that the penalty of sin is not perpetual, but issues in the blessedness of immortality, and was followed by Stephanus, bishop of Edessa, and Solomon of Bassora, and Isaac of Nineveh. "Even those who are tortured in Gehenna are under the discipline of the divine charity" (Assemanni, _Biblioth. Orient._ iii. p. 328); and they were followed in their turn by Georgius of Arbela and Ebed Jesu of Soba (_ibid._ iv. p. 204).

Timotheus II. patriarch of the Nestorians, wrote that "by the prayers of the saints the souls of sinners may pass from Gehenna to Paradise" (_ibid._ iv. p. 844). Many of these teachers were, it is true, like the last-named, followers of Nestorius, and were so far not in communion with the orthodox churches of the East, but it is obvious that the special point on which Nestorius was condemned had no direct connexion with this or that form of eschatology, and that it was derived by them from those whose orthodoxy, like that of Gregory of Nyssa, was unquestioned.

We have no evidence that the belief in the ἀποκαταστασις which prevailed in the 4th and 5th centuries, was ever definitely condemned by any council of the church, and so far as Origen was named as coming under the church's censure it was rather as if involved in the general sentence passed upon the leaders of Nestorianism than singled out for special and characteristic errors.

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_The Catechetical Oration of Gregory of Nyssa_ (1903), 182pp., on xv-xvi
https://books.google.com/books?id=KqlKAAAAMAAJ&dq=gregory%20of%20nyssa&pg=PR15#v=snippet&q=attested&f=false
But though the work is frequently cited as belonging to Gregory, a careful perusal of its contents excited the suspicions of orthodox readers. The traces of Origenistic teaching, especially on the ἀποκαταστασις, in the writings of one who ranked amongst the three great Fathers of the Eastern Church, needed explanation. Accordingly an attempt was made to prove that Gregory's writings had been interpolated by the Origenists.

This idea first appears in the book written by Germanus, to which Photius refers. The work was entitled .... In the first part of the book Germanus refuted the teaching of Origen on the purgation of wicked spirits. In the latter part he maintains that the works of Gregory of Nyssa had been falsified by the Origenists, who had inserted many passages from Origen's writings. The works to which he referred are, according to Photius, the _de Anima et Resurrectione_, the _Oratio Catechetica_ and the _de Vita Perfecta_. But the idea of a universal restoration occurs too frequently in Gregory's writings^1 to be disposed of by a theory of interpolation, which further receives no support from any change of style.

An objection of a different character has been raised against the concluding chapter of the treatise by Aubertin, on the ground that Gregory, after treating of Baptism in cc. 34-36, and of the Eucharist in c. 37, again returns to Baptism in c. 40. But the objection is of little value, as the whole section, cc. 38-40, deals with the moral conditions which are essential to the life of grace, and as baptism marks the initiation into that life it is naturally chosen as the point of reference for his remarks.

The spurious addition to c. 40, found in the Paris editions and in some late manuscripts, is an extract from a work on the Incarnation by Theodore of Rhaithu, a monk of the seventh century, and its presence in the text is due to a blunder of transcription.

The _Oratio Catechetica_ has received considerable attention in modern times as representing more adequately than any single treatise the characteristic features of Gregory's teaching.

1 Other passages in which Gregory teaches an ἀποκαταστασις are _de Hom. Opif._ c. 21, _in Psalmos_ i 9, _Or. in illud Tunc ipse Filius_ (of doubtful genuineness) p. 1316 (Migne), _de Mortuis_ pp. 524, f. (Migne), in _Chr. Resurr. Or._ i pp. 609, f. (Migne).

[DavidFord]

Gregory of Nyssa, "The Great Catechism" in _Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 5_, edited by Schaff and Wace (1893), 495-6
https://ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf205/npnf205.xi.ii.xxviii.html
https://books.google.com/books?id=pF9EAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA495#v=onepage&q&f=false

Chapter XXVI. ....
Two persons may both mix poison with food, one with the design of taking life, the other with the design of saving that life; the one using it as a poison, the other only as an antidote to poison; and in no way does the manner of the cure adopted spoil the aim and purpose of the benefit intended; for although a mixture of poison with the food may be effected by both of these persons alike, yet looking at their intention we are indignant with the one and approve the other; so in this instance, by the reasonable rule of justice, he who practised deception receives in return that very treatment, the seeds of which he had himself sown of his own free will. He who first deceived man by the bait of sensual pleasure is himself deceived by the presentment of the human form. But as regards the aim and purpose of what took place, a change in the direction of the nobler is involved; for whereas he, the enemy, effected his deception for the ruin of our nature, He Who is at once the just, and good, and wise one, used His device, in which there was deception, for the salvation of him who had perished, and thus not only conferred benefit on the lost one, but on him, too, who had wrought our ruin.

For from this approximation of death to life, of darkness to light, of corruption to incorruption, there is effected an obliteration of what is worse, and a passing away of it into nothing, while benefit is conferred on him who is freed from those evils. For it is as when some worthless material has been mixed with gold, and the gold-refiners^2004 burn up the foreign and refuse part in the consuming fire, and so restore the more precious substance to its natural lustre: (not that the separation is effected without difficulty, for it takes time for the fire by its melting force to cause the baser matter to disappear; but for all that, this melting away of the actual thing that was embedded in it to the injury of its beauty is a kind of healing of the gold.) In the same way when death, and corruption, and darkness, and every other offshoot of evil had grown into the nature of the author of evil, the approach of the Divine power, acting like fire, and making that unnatural accretion to disappear, thus by purgation of the evil becomes a blessing to that nature, though the separation is agonizing.

Therefore even the adversary himself will not be likely to dispute that what took place was both just and salutary, that is, if he shall have attained to a perception of the boon. For it is now as with those who for their cure are subjected to the knife and the cautery; they are angry with the doctors, and wince with the pain of the incision; but if recovery of health be the result of this treatment, and the pain of the cautery passes away, they will feel grateful to those who have wrought this cure upon them. In like manner, when, after long periods of time, the evil of our nature, which now is mixed up with it and has grown with its growth, has been expelled, and when there has been a restoration of those who are now lying in Sin to their primal state, a harmony of thanksgiving will arise from all creation, as well from those who in the process of the purgation have suffered chastisement, as from those who needed not any purgation at all.

These and the like benefits the great mystery of the Divine incarnation bestows. For in those points in which He was mingled with humanity, passing as He did through all the accidents proper to human nature, such as birth, rearing, growing up, and advancing even to the taste of death, He accomplished all the results before mentioned, freeing both man from evil, and healing even the introducer of evil himself. For the chastisement, however painful, of moral disease is a healing of its weakness.

2004 οἱ θεραπευταὶ τοῦ χρυσίου On the margin of one of Krabinger's Codd. is written here in Latin, "This must be read with caution: it seems to savour of Origen's opinion," i.e. the curing of Satan.

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Gregory of Nyssa, _The Great Catechism_ (Part III, The Sacraments), chapter 35
https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/29083.htm
....I am thinking of the restoration to a blessed and divine condition, separated from all shame and sorrow. For not everything that is granted in the resurrection a return to existence will return to the same kind of life. There is a wide interval between those who have been purified, and those who still need purification. For those in whose life-time here the purification by the laver has preceded, there is a restoration to a kindred state. Now, to the pure, freedom from passion is that kindred state, and that in this freedom from passion blessedness consists, admits of no dispute.

But as for those whose weaknesses have become inveterate, and to whom no purgation of their defilement has been applied, no mystic water, no invocation of the Divine power, no amendment by repentance, it is absolutely necessary that they should come to be in something proper to their case-- just as the furnace is the proper thing for gold alloyed with dross-- in order that, the vice which has been mixed up in them being melted away after long succeeding ages, their nature may be restored pure again to God.

Since, then, there is a cleansing virtue in fire and water, they who by the mystic water have washed away the defilement of their sin have no further need of the other form of purification, while they who have not been admitted to that form of purgation must needs be purified by fire.

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_On the Soul and the Resurrection_ by Gregory of Nyssa, in _Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 5_, edited by Schaff and Wace (1893), cited at
https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2915.htm

When I had finished, the Teacher thus replied, You have attacked the doctrines connected with the Resurrection with some spirit, in the way of rhetoric as it is called; you have coursed round and round the truth with plausibly subversive arguments; so much so, that those who have not very carefully considered this mysterious truth might possibly be affected in their view of it by the likelihood of those arguments....

But whenever the time come that God shall have brought our nature back to the primal state of man, it will be useless to talk of such things then, and to imagine that objections based upon such things can prove God's power to be impeded in arriving at His end. His end is one, and one only; it is this: when the complete whole of our race shall have been perfected from the first man to the last-- some having at once in this life been cleansed from evil, others having afterwards in the necessary periods been healed by the Fire, others having in their life here been unconscious equally of good and of evil-- to offer to every one of us participation in the blessings which are in Him, which, the Scripture tells us, eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor thought ever reached. But this is nothing else, as I at least understand it, but to be in God Himself; for the Good which is above hearing and eye and heart must be that Good which transcends the universe.

But the difference between the virtuous and the vicious life led at the present time will be illustrated in this way; viz. in the quicker or more tardy participation of each in that promised blessedness. According to the amount of the ingrained wickedness of each will be computed the duration of his cure. This cure consists in the cleansing of his soul, and that cannot be achieved without an excruciating condition, as has been expounded in our previous discussion.

....the order indicated in this similitude clearly shows that all that blessed state, which arises for us by means of the Resurrection is only a return to our pristine state of grace. We too, in fact, were once in a fashion a full ear ; but the burning heat of sin withered us up, and then on our dissolution by death the earth received us: but in the spring of the Resurrection she will reproduce this naked grain of our body in the form of an ear, tall, well-proportioned, and erect, reaching to the heights of heaven, and, for blade and beard, resplendent in incorruption, and with all the other godlike marks. ....

The virtuous life as contrasted with that of vice is distinguished thus: those who while living have by virtuous conduct exercised husbandry on themselves are at once revealed in all the qualities of a perfect ear, while those whose bare grain (that is the forces of their natural soul) has become through evil habits degenerate, as it were, and hardened by the weather (as the so-called hornstruck seeds, according to the experts in such things, grow up), will, though they live again in the Resurrection, experience very great severity from their Judge, because they do not possess the strength to shoot up into the full proportions of an ear, and thereby become that which we were before our earthly fall.

The remedy offered by the Overseer of the produce is to collect together the tares and the thorns, which have grown up with the good seed, and into whose bastard life all the secret forces that once nourished its root have passed, so that it not only has had to remain without its nutriment, but has been choked and so rendered unproductive by this unnatural growth. When from the nutritive part within them everything that is the reverse or the counterfeit of it has been picked out, and has been committed to the fire that consumes everything unnatural, and so has disappeared, then in this class also their humanity will thrive and will ripen into fruit-bearing, owing to such husbandry, and some day after long courses of ages will get back again that universal form which God stamped upon us at the beginning.

....we spoke of in the previous parts of the discussion, when we said how many were the passions, sprung from evil, which are so hard for the soul to get rid of, when they have infused themselves into the very substance of its entire nature and become one with it. When such, then, have been purged from it and utterly removed by the healing processes worked out by the Fire, then every one of the things which make up our conception of the good will come to take their place; incorruption, that is, and life, and honour, and grace, and glory, and everything else that we conjecture is to be seen in God, and in His Image, man as he was made.

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Gregory of Nyssa, "The Great Catechism" in _Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 5_, edited by Schaff and Wace (1893), 482-5
https://books.google.com/books?id=pF9EAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA482#v=onepage&q&f=false
https://ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf205/npnf205.xi.ii.x.html
Chapter VIII.
....
But since there is a necessity that the defilements which sin has engendered in the soul as well should be removed thence by some remedial process, the medicine which virtue supplies has, in the life that now is, been applied to the healing of such mutilations as these. If, however, the soul remains unhealed, the remedy is dispensed in the life that follows this.

Now in the ailments of the body there are sundry differences, some admitting of an easier, others requiring a more difficult treatment. In these last the use of the knife, or cauteries, or draughts of bitter medicines are adopted to remove the disease that has attacked the body. For the healing of the soul's sicknesses the future judgment announces something of the same kind, and this to the thoughtless sort is held out as the threat of a terrible correction, in order that through fear of this painful retribution they may gain the wisdom of fleeing from wickedness: while by those of more intelligence it is believed to be a remedial process ordered by God to bring back man, His peculiar creature, to the grace of his primal condition.

They who use the knife or cautery to remove certain unnatural excrescences in the body, such as wens or warts, do not bring to the person they are serving a method of healing that is painless, though certainly they apply the knife without any intention of injuring the patient. In like manner whatever material excrescences are hardening on our souls, that have been sensualized by fellowship with the body's affections, are, in the day of the judgment, as it were cut and scraped away by the ineffable wisdom and power of Him Who, as the Gospel says, "healeth those that are sick." For, as He says again, "they that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick."

Since, then, there has been inbred in the soul a strong natural tendency to evil, it must suffer, just as the excision of a wart gives a sharp pain to the skin of the body; for whatever contrary to the nature has been inbred in the nature attaches itself to the subject in a certain union of feeling, and hence there is produced an abnormal intermixture of our own with an alien quality, so that the feelings, when the separation from this abnormal growth comes, are hurt and lacerated. Thus when the soul pines and melts away under the correction of its sins, as prophecy somewhere tells us, there necessarily follow, from its deep and intimate connection with evil, certain unspeakable and inexpressible pangs, the description of which is as difficult to render as is that of the nature of those good things which are the subjects of our hope.
....
He knew what was going to be, yet did not prevent the tendency towards that which actually happened. That humanity, indeed, would be diverted from the good, could not be unknown to Him Who grasps all things by His power of foresight, and Whose eyes behold the coming equally with the past events. As, then, He had in sight the perversion, so He devised man's recall to good. Accordingly, which was the better way?-- never to have brought our nature into existence at all, since He foresaw that the being about to be created would fall away from that which is morally beautiful; or to bring him back by repentance, and restore his diseased nature to its original beauty?
....
That man is the work of God, created morally noble and for the noblest destiny, is evident not only from what has been said, but from a vast number of other proofs; which, because they are so many, we shall here omit.

....by whom was man to be recalled to the grace of his original state? To whom belonged the restoration of the fallen one, the recovery of the lost, the leading back the wanderer by the hand? To whom else than entirely to Him Who is the Lord of his nature? For Him only Who at the first had given the life was it possible, or fitting, to recover it when lost. This is what we are taught and learn from the Revelation of the truth, that God in the beginning made man and saved him when he had fallen.

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Gregory of Nyssa, "On the Soul and the Resurrection" in _Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 5_, edited by Schaff and Wace (1893)
https://ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf205.x.iii.ii.html
And I at once tried to repeat all the devices hit upon by their captious champions to upset the doctrine of the Resurrection.

She, however, replied, First, I think, we must briefly run over the scattered proclamations of this doctrine in Holy Scripture; they shall give the finishing touch to our discourse. Observe, then, that....
Now this passage from the Psalms runs as follows: "God and Lord hath showed Himself to us; keep the Feast amongst the decorators even unto the horns of the altar;" and this seems to me to proclaim in metaphors the fact that one single feast is to be kept by the whole rational creation, and that in that assembly of the saints the inferiors are to join the dance with their superiors.

....the race of man, on the contrary, on account of indwelling evil was excluded from the Divine precinct, but that purified with lustral water it re-enters it; and, since all the further barriers by which our sin has fenced us off from the things within the veil are in the end to be taken down, whenever the time comes that the tabernacle of our nature is as it were to be fixed up again in the Resurrection, and all the inveterate corruption of sin has vanished from the world, then a universal feast will be kept around the Deity by those who have decorated themselves in the Resurrection; and one and the same banquet will be spread for all, with no differences cutting off any rational creature from an equal participation in it; for those who are now excluded by reason of their sin will at last be admitted within the Holiest places of God?s blessedness, and will bind themselves to the horns of the Altar there, that is, to the most excellent of the transcendental Powers.

The Apostle says the same thing more plainly when he indicates the final accord of the whole Universe with the Good: "That" to Him "every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth: And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father": instead of the "horns," speaking of that which is angelic and "in heaven," and by the other terms signifying ourselves, the creatures whom we think of next to that; one festival of united voices shall occupy us all; that festival shall be the confession and the recognition of the Being Who truly Is.

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Sergius Bulgakov, _The Bride of the Lamb_ (2002), 531pp., on 361
https://www.amazon.com/Bride-Lamb-Sergius-Bulgakov/dp/0802839150/ https://archive.org/details/brideoflamb0000bulg/page/360/mode/2up?q=%22force+in+the%22
Page 361
...at least in Orthodoxy, which recognizes the efficacy of the prayer for the deceased (see below), for which no limits are set (this is expressed with particular force in the third prayer of the Pentecost vespers).
According to Orthodox doctrine, the state of sinners in the afterlife is that of a temporary purgatory rather than that of an irrevocable hell.

Hat tip
Mike Parsons, _Unconditional Love: Good News for All Creation_ (2025)
https://www.amazon.com/Unconditional-Love-Good-News-Creation/dp/1789635454/

[DavidFord]

"I'm not debating the issue of the afterlife"
Perhaps somebody here would care to promote ECT, or trash universalism.

"Universalism... definitely became a fringe view"
Just because a view is "fringe" doesn't necessarily mean that it's incorrect.

"discussing the effects of what became the dominant viewpoint in the church about the fate of the Damned"
Just because a viewpoint is "dominant" doesn't necessarily mean that it's correct.
Embrace of ECT has had bad effects.

Darwin
http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=1&itemID=CUL-DAR26.1-121&viewtype=text
...disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but was at last complete.
The rate was so slow that I felt no distress, & have never since doubted even for a single second that my conclusion was correct.
I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true;
for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, & this would include my Father, Brother & almost all my best friends, will be everlastingly punished.
And this is a damnable doctrine.

"you've backed off the claim that the orthodox Orthodox position is not ECT"
I don't recall making any claim about "the orthodox Orthodox position."
What exact words of mine are you looking at?

"by the 6th century, starting with one of the councils at Constantinople, if memory serves, Universalism began to be formerly marginalized in the Church"
Reference?

"My problem with the idea of Universalism is, _what exactly is the point_? If ultimately everyone will be 'saved', why not just get on with, do it, and be done with it?"
How? (by forcing everybody to enter heaven, whether they want to or not?)

[DavidFord]

"the formidable problem of divine hiddenness. Why would an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God allow a truth he wants the world to know to be obscured by miserable messengers"
Was Jesus one of those "miserable messengers"?

Q & R with Children – Brad Jersak – Oct 15, 2020
https://www.ptm.org/q-r-with-children-brad-jersak
hat tip
https://x.com/i/grok/share/8013c2c34c8a4551bb6e6ca90304d622
This is a good example of why we should not read these old stories without Jesus as our guide and as our God.
Whoever wrote down the story had certain ideas about God, sin and sickness.
And God lets him tell the story even with those ideas.
In this case, the narrator thought it works this way:

If you disobey, God gets angry and makes you sick.
Then if you beg him, God will take away the sickness.
And so that's how he tells the story.

But if we come to the story with Jesus as our Rabbi, we have to read this story with his ideas of God.
And what does Jesus show us about God, sin and sickness?
Jesus shows us that it is more like this:

Sometimes, people get sick and they didn't even sin.
Like the blind man in John 9.
Some people just get sick.

[DavidFord]

Do you see anything erroneous here?:

Witness to God's mercy:  Conference of Br. Sabino Chialà on Isaac of Nineveh (June 14, 2008)
https://avowofconversation.wordpress.com/2008/06/14/witness-to-gods-mercy-conference-of-br-sabino-chiala-on-isaac-of-nineveh/
After Ephraim, Isaac of Nineveh, also known as Isaac the Syrian, is the most well known and best loved of the Syrian writers and his works have been translated into many languages.
...
Isaac tells us that we cannot know God as He is but only through the economy, through salvation history, and this economy is nothing other than love.
God's entire activity in the past, the present and the future is motivated by only one feeling, namely love.
Even when Scripture speaks of God's wrath we need to understand this correctly.
Even when God allows us to suffer, He still acts out of love and never out of wrath or justice but rather out of fatherly wisdom.
Even the last judgement must be understood as a purification and as an act of love.
It is only this love that can account for the Cross of Christ:

"Why did Christ stretch himself out on the cross for sinners and why did He give His holy body over to suffering for the sake of the world?
I suggest that God did this for only one reason:
to make His love known to the world, so that our ability to love, increased by such a discovery, would be the prisoner of His love.
As such, the exceptional power of the Kingdom of Heaven, which consists of love, found an opportunity to express itself in the death of His Son.
Our Lord did not die in order to redeem us from sin, or for any other reason, but purely and only so that the world would see and perceive the love of God for His creation.
If this wonderful act was only in order to forgive sins, then another means could have been found to realise it." (Cent IV, 78)

[DavidFord]

'Repent' means to turn back to God and begin doing what he wants you to do. If you do that, God will forgive your sins"
Reference for "If you do that"?

"Atonement, on the other hand, is when he [God] would make you pay a price"
Reference?
What kind of "price"?

"the doctrine of atonement is that somebody's got to pay"
Which if any Christian theologians _don't_ believe that "somebody's got to pay"?
Did Jesus believe that "somebody's got to pay"?

"God is... just, and so justice requires a payment"
Where if anywhere in the Old Testament do you see God requiring "a payment"?

Bart Ehrman, in
Jesus had 1 core teaching; Christianity ignored it – C. J. Cornthwaite
https://youtu.be/ymsdXLIplIM?
https://grok.com/share/bGVnYWN5_e122ed1a-4741-4c04-b612-815737fa674a
Jesus' core teaching was about forgiveness — both on the interpersonal level and on the divine level.
Jesus taught that God wants people to turn back to him.
"Repent" means to turn back to God and begin doing what he wants you to do.
If you do that, God will forgive your sins.
Forgiveness means that he doesn't require a penalty.
There's no payment involved.
He just forgives you.
Atonement, on the other hand, is when he would make you pay a price.

I heard somebody else use this illustration, so I like using it:
Imagine my daughter has done something wrong — something I told her not to do — and it's harmful.
Later she regrets it and comes to me and says she's sorry.
I forgive her.
I just let it go.
That's forgiveness.
Atonement is when I say, "Ah, well, thanks dear, I really appreciate that. Now, your little kitten Tammy here — I need to kill Tammy to make up for what you did. And if I kill Tammy, then we'll be fine."
...
That's atonement.
Somebody's got to pay the price.
So the doctrine of atonement is that somebody's got to pay, right?

And that makes sense if you think of justice.
The understanding is that God is both loving and just, and so justice requires a payment.
But Jesus didn't think so.
Jesus thought that God was a loving father who would forgive his children.
And so what happens in Christianity is that immediately after Jesus' death, his followers come to think he was raised from the dead.
And whatever you think about the traditions of the resurrection, some of them came to believe that he had been raised from the dead.
This made them wonder:
"Wait — we were right! He is the chosen one. But why did he die then? Why did God let him die? In fact, why did God make his chosen one die? Why would God have his chosen one publicly tortured to death?"

Then they immediately thought it must have been a sacrifice for sins.
He didn't die for his own sins — because he was the chosen one, he didn't have any.
So they concluded that Jesus' death was a sacrifice.
Once they thought that, they thought that God does not forgive freely.
God requires atonement — and Jesus paid the atonement.
So Christianity ends up being based on a teaching that is contrary to Jesus's own core teaching.

===========
https://grok.com/share/bGVnYWN5_2d00b125-2416-404a-a8a8-ee9fbce6fe5f
**Throughout history, across countless religions and cultures, humans have believed that angry or displeased gods/deities could be appeased through various acts of propitiation (turning away wrath), atonement, or reconciliation.** These practices stem from the widespread ancient view that divine beings were powerful, often capricious or justice-oriented, and that human wrongdoing, neglect, or cosmic imbalance could provoke their anger—manifesting as disasters, plagues, famines, or personal misfortune.

### Common Methods to Appease Angry Gods
Methods varied by culture but often overlapped:

– **Sacrifices (Animal, Food, Incense, or Human)**: The most widespread practice. Offerings were seen as gifts, payments of debt, or substitutions for human punishment.
– **Animal sacrifice**: Central in ancient Greece (oxen, goats, sheep), Rome, Vedic/Hindu traditions, and ancient Israel (e.g., burnt offerings, sin offerings). Parts were burned for the gods; the rest often eaten in communal meals.
– **Human sacrifice**: Practiced in extreme cases, especially during crises, to "feed" or repay gods. Examples include Aztecs (heart extraction for the sun god Huitzilopochtli to sustain the world), Carthaginians (infants to Baal/Moloch), some Celtic practices, and biblical references to Canaanite/Moabite child sacrifice.
– **Bloodless offerings**: Grain, wine, fruits, or incense in many traditions (e.g., ancient Israel had grain offerings; Greek libations of wine/oil).

– **Prayer, Repentance, and Confession**: Acknowledging wrongdoing and asking for mercy. In Judaism, repentance (*teshuvah*), prayer, and charity became central after the Temple's destruction in 70 CE, replacing sacrifices.

– **Rituals and Ceremonies**: Festivals, processions, purification rites, or mystery cults. In Greece, specific rites (*thysia* for Olympian gods; *sphagia* for chthonic/underworld ones) aimed at communion or placation.

– **Moral Reform and Obedience**: Changing behavior, self-denial (fasting), or good works to demonstrate sincerity.

– **Votive Offerings and Pilgrimages**: Dedicating objects or undertaking journeys to show devotion.

– **Substitution or Scapegoating**: Transferring guilt (e.g., the biblical scapegoat on Yom Kippur).

### Examples Across Traditions

– **Ancient Mesopotamia/Egypt/Greece/Rome**: Gods were appeased with sacrifices to avert plagues or ensure victory (e.g., in Homer's *Iliad*, Greeks sacrifice to Apollo to end a plague).

– **Aztec/Mesoamerican**: Massive-scale human sacrifice (thousands annually) to repay the gods' primordial sacrifices and prevent cosmic collapse.

– **Ancient Judaism**: Detailed Temple sacrificial system (Leviticus) for sin, guilt, and atonement, plus the annual Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) with repentance and rituals. Post-Temple, emphasis shifted to prayer, fasting, and ethics.

– **Christianity**: Jesus' crucifixion seen as the ultimate, once-for-all sacrifice that propitiates God's wrath and atones for humanity's sins (drawing on Jewish sacrificial imagery but transcending it). Many denominations emphasize faith, repentance, and sacraments over ongoing ritual sacrifice.

– **Hinduism**: Vedic sacrifices (*yajna*) evolved; practices include *puja* (offerings), fasting, and devotion (*bhakti*) to appease deities like Shiva or Kali.

– **Buddhism**: Less focused on appeasing angry gods (due to its non-theistic leanings), but emphasizes ethical action, merit-making, and reducing suffering through karma and mindfulness.

### Why These Practices?
Anthropologically, they served social functions (community bonding, reinforcing hierarchy) and psychological ones (giving people agency over uncontrollable events). Many viewed the universe as requiring balance—gods "fed" on offerings, and humans owed a debt for existence.

In monotheistic traditions, appeasement often evolved toward internal moral transformation rather than purely transactional rituals. Practices declined with philosophical shifts, ethical reforms, and the rise of religions emphasizing grace, faith, or enlightenment over blood offerings.

These beliefs highlight a near-universal human impulse: seeking harmony with the divine when things go wrong. While specifics differ dramatically, the core idea—that humans can (and must) do *something* to restore right relationship—persists in many forms today.

===========
https://grok.com/share/bGVnYWN5_9c4948ab-d081-43a6-810f-2d586befd4e4
**Many Christian theologians and traditions disagree with framing Jesus' crucifixion primarily (or exclusively) as the "ultimate, once-for-all sacrifice that propitiates God's wrath" through penal substitution.**

This specific view—**Penal Substitutionary Atonement (PSA)**—holds that Jesus bore the legal punishment for humanity's sins, satisfying God's retributive justice and turning away (propitiating) divine wrath. It became prominent in the Protestant Reformation (especially with John Calvin) and is central in many evangelical circles. However, it is not the only or universally accepted interpretation.

### Major Traditions and Theologians Who Disagree

1. **Eastern Orthodox Christianity** (Strongest and most consistent opposition)
– The dominant views are **Christus Victor** (Christ's victory over sin, death, and the powers of evil) and **Recapitulation** (Christ summing up and restoring humanity in himself, as developed by Irenaeus and Athanasius).
– They affirm substitution and Christ's death as a sacrifice but reject the idea of the Father pouring out wrath on the Son as unjust and as dividing the Trinity.
– Key emphasis: The cross as healing, deification (*theosis*), and liberation rather than primarily legal punishment.
– Modern Orthodox voices (e.g., Fr. John Behr, Fr. Stephen De Young, and many bishops/theologians) often call strict PSA a Western distortion or even incompatible with patristic theology.

2. **Roman Catholic Tradition**
– Accepts **satisfaction** (Anselm of Canterbury's 11th-century theory: Christ's death satisfies God's honor offended by sin) and substitution, but explicitly rejects the *penal* element (God actively punishing the innocent Son).
– Thomas Aquinas and official Catholic teaching emphasize merit, satisfaction, and participation in Christ's sacrifice, not retributive wrath transferred to Jesus.
– Modern Catholic apologists (e.g., Karlo Broussard) argue penal substitution makes the Father unjust by punishing an innocent person.

3. **Moral Influence / Exemplar Theory**
– **Peter Abelard** (12th century): Christ's death demonstrates God's love, inspiring moral transformation and repentance in humans. No need for wrath satisfaction.
– Later liberal theologians and some modern progressives continue this line.

4. **Other Historical and Modern Critics**
– **Fausto Sozzini** (16th century, Socinian/Anabaptist roots): Called penal substitution irrational, immoral, and impossible.
– **Gustaf Aulén** (20th century, *Christus Victor*, 1931): Argued the classic early church view was dramatic victory over evil, not legal transaction. He disputed that even Luther fully held PSA.
– **C.H. Dodd** (20th century): Challenged the translation/idea of "propitiation," preferring "expiation" (removal of sin/guilt) without emphasis on appeasing wrath.
– Contemporary figures: **Steve Chalke**, **Greg Boyd**, **John Mark Comer** (in some statements), **Robin Collins**, and various progressive or post-evangelical theologians who see PSA as morally problematic ("cosmic child abuse") or as a later development not central to the early church.

### Additional Notes
– Many theologians hold **multiple models** as complementary rather than mutually exclusive (e.g., substitution + victory + example). Critics of PSA often do not deny substitution entirely but object to the penal/wrath-propitiation emphasis as overly legalistic or distorting God's love.
– The early church (first 1,000 years) leaned more toward ransom, recapitulation, and Christus Victor than PSA.
– Some Anglicans, Methodists, and mainline Protestants also de-emphasize or reject strict PSA.

In short, while PSA (with its focus on propitiating wrath) is influential in parts of Protestantism, it faces significant disagreement from Eastern Orthodoxy, Catholicism, and various Protestant and liberal theologians who favor other biblical images of the cross (victory, healing, moral example, solidarity, etc.). The debate often centers on how to balance God's justice, love, and the patristic witness.

===========
https://x.com/RealShahriqKhan/status/2060875700354093456?s=20
When I was Muslim, I used to ask Christians:
"If Jesus was really God, why did He eat, sleep, and bleed like us?"
...I used to ask it with pride like it was some unbeatable argument.

But later I realized something:
That question was not exposing Christianity.
It was exposing my misunderstanding of what kind of God Jesus claimed to be.

Because the real question is not:
"Why would God become weak?"

The real question is:
"What kind of God would willingly step into human suffering at all?"

Islam taught me about a God who was distant and untouchable.
But Christianity introduced me to a God who stepped into hunger, exhaustion, grief, pain, betrayal, blood, and suffering with us.
And suddenly His humanity stopped feeling like weakness to me.
It became proof of love.

If Jesus ate, it means He came close enough to experience hunger beside us.
If He slept, it means He embraced the exhaustion we carry.
If He bled, it means He did not stand above suffering watching us from a distance.
He entered it Himself.

Philippians 2 says Christ emptied Himself and took on flesh.
Not because He stopped being God, but because He wanted humanity to finally see what God is actually like.
And it turns out God is willing to suffer for the people He loves.

That changed everything for me.
Because every other religion demanded sacrifice from humanity.
Jesus became the sacrifice Himself.
And no prophet in history ever claimed that.

[darryl]

great work,thank you

[DavidFord]

Sebastian Brock, _Isaac of Nineveh (Isaac the Syrian):  The Second Part, Chapters 4-41 (Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium)_ (1995), 207pp., 162-173; 174-180
https://www.amazon.com/Isaac-Nineveh-Syrian-Christianorum-S/dp/B01FKSBEMO/
Isaac of Nineveh:  Mystic Treatises II
https://www.scribd.com/document/830912849/Corpus-Christianorum-Orientalium-Vol-555-Scriptores-Syri-Tomus-225-Sebastian-P-Brock-Isaac-of-Nineveh-Isaac-the-Syrian-the-Second-Part-Ch

https://grok.com/share/bGVnYWN5_7218c925-4f69-4626-a7f6-7662c48ec8ae
**Summary of Chapter XXXIX: "Contemplation on the topic of Gehenna, in so far as grace can be granted to human nature to hold opinions on these mysteries" (Isaac of Nineveh, *The Second Part*, trans. Sebastian Brock)**

In this profound and cautious eschatological chapter (one of three final homilies in the Second Part devoted to the Last Things), St. Isaac of Nineveh (Isaac the Syrian, 7th century) meditates on the "difficult matter of Gehenna" (Hell) within the framework of God's infinite, unchanging love and goodness. He writes with deep humility, emphasizing that human understanding of such mysteries is limited by grace, and he rejects any view that would compromise the divine nature.

### Key Themes
- **Rejection of Retributive Punishment**: Isaac strongly opposes the idea that Gehenna involves divine anger, wrath, resentment, or vengeful retribution. Such passions are incompatible with God's nature. Even if Scripture sometimes speaks of punishment in seemingly retributive terms, this is on the "outer surface"; the deeper reality is God's fatherly, medicinal, and educational providence aimed solely at the ultimate good of rational beings. Attributing spite or endless punitive torment to God is blasphemous, as it implies weakness or changeability in the divine Nature.

- **Gehenna as Part of God's Salvific Plan**: Gehenna is not an afterthought or a failure of God's love but was foreseen and included within His eternal goodness and mercy from before creation. It serves a remedial and purifying purpose. Isaac expresses the opinion that God will manifest "some wonderful outcome" from Gehenna's torments — revealing even more profoundly the wealth of His love, power, wisdom, and the "insistent might of the waves of His goodness." The Kingdom will ultimately triumph over Gehenna.

- **The Scourge of Love**: Those in Gehenna are tormented not by the absence of God but by the painful awareness of having sinned against infinite Love. This "scourge of love" (a famous motif from Isaac's First Part, here deepened) causes bitter regret sharper than any external fire. Yet this very suffering is transformative and temporary, leading the wicked to knowledge, repentance, and eventual participation in divine felicity. Punishments are measured according to sins and have an end (echoing patristic authorities like Theodore of Mopsuestia and Diodore of Tarsus, whom Isaac cites).

- **God's Unchanging Love**: Divine love is equal, eternal, and impartial toward all rational beings (just or wicked). God created humanity out of love, foreknowing sin, and His providence — including Gehenna — always looks to future advantage and restoration rather than past requital. There is no "before or after" in God's love or intentions.

### Tone and Approach
Isaac approaches the topic with awe, silence, and adoration before the unfathomable wisdom of God. He warns against infantile or blasphemous conceptions that limit God's compassion. The chapter reflects his mystical experience: profound knowledge of divine love makes eternal conscious torment unthinkable. It aligns with (and radicalizes) hints in his First Part while remaining rooted in Scripture and earlier Eastern Fathers.

This chapter is a cornerstone for discussions of universal restoration (*apokatastasis*) in the Syriac tradition, emphasizing hope in God's victorious mercy without diminishing the seriousness of sin or the reality of judgment. For the full text, consult Sebastian Brock's critical edition and translation in the *Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium* (Second Part, chapters IV–XLI).

============
**Summary of Chapter XL (from *The Second Part*, Chapters IV–XLI, trans. Sebastian P. Brock)**

Chapter XL continues and deepens the eschatological reflections begun in Chapter XXXIX on Gehenna (Hell), maintaining the same humble, awe-filled tone while focusing more explicitly on the triumph of God's Kingdom, the uniform and unchanging nature of divine love, and the ultimately restorative purpose of all divine dealings with rational beings.

### Key Themes
- **God's Single, Impartial Love**: Isaac emphasizes that God has one consistent ranking of complete and impassible love toward *all* rational creatures — the just and the fallen alike. There is no shift from love to wrath or retribution. God's caring concern remains identical before and after any "fall." Attributing anger, vengeance, or eternal retributive punishment to God is incompatible with His nature and borders on blasphemy.

- **Kingdom and Gehenna as Expressions of Mercy**: Both the Kingdom of Heaven and Gehenna belong to God's merciful providence, conceived from eternity out of His goodness. Gehenna is not an end in itself or a failure of divine love but a temporary, medicinal, and educational reality. Its torments function as the "scourge of love" — a painful awareness of having opposed infinite Love — that leads to repentance, purification, and eventual restoration.

- **Triumph of the Kingdom**: Isaac expresses confident hope that the Kingdom will ultimately prevail over Gehenna. The sufferings of Gehenna have limits measured according to sins and serve a corrective purpose. God's power, wisdom, and overwhelming goodness will manifest even more gloriously through the resolution of this "difficult matter," bringing all to participation in divine joy. No rational being is ultimately excluded from the fullness of God's salvific plan.

- **Humility and Mystery**: As in the previous chapter, Isaac approaches these mysteries with profound caution, relying on grace and spiritual insight rather than speculative certainty. He distinguishes the "outer surface" of scriptural language (which can appear retributive) from its deeper, merciful inner meaning. Human opinions on these matters are provisional; the full reality exceeds our present understanding.

### Overall Character
This chapter (along with XXXIX and XLI) forms part of Isaac's most sustained treatment of the Last Things in the newly discovered Second Part. It exemplifies his mystical theology: divine love is the beginning, middle, and end of all things. Judgment and Gehenna are real and serious but never ultimate or retributive; they are subsumed within God's fatherly, healing providence aimed at the restoration and felicity of all. The tone is one of wonder, adoration, and pastoral warning against despair or overly literal, "infantile" interpretations of Scripture.

These ideas align with broader Syriac traditions of *apokatastasis* (universal restoration) while remaining rooted in Isaac's own contemplative experience of God's boundless compassion. For the full text, consult Brock's critical edition and translation in the *Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium*.