In the first few decades, the gospel was more restricted in Rome than in other places. Though many did understand Greek, the dominant language was Latin, and it took longer for the Scriptures to be translated into Latin. Likewise, the Greeks and Romans had different interests. The Greeks, with all their classical statues attempting to depict virtue, beauty, and perfection, were in a search for the ideal--the perfect man. The Romans, on the other hand, had an empire to administer and control, so they were concerned primarily with the pursuit of law and order.
And so the Roman Christians (such as Lactantius, Tertullian, and Augustine) pictured Jesus as the God of Law and Order. Their concept of divine justice followed the Roman idea that to keep law and order and to deter crime or revolt, one had to increase the punishment to intolerable levels. Thus, as time passed, one could be executed for relatively small crimes.
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On the other hand, biblical law concerns itself with justice, built upon the basic principle that the severity of judgment is always directly proportional to the crime itself.
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In biblical law, justice is not done until full restitution has been made to all the victims of injustice. In Roman law, "justice" is not done until the criminal has been punished and others deterred from committing the same type of crime.
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Few Christians today realize that the Church's doctrine of a burning hell is much closer to the Egyptian view than to the view of the early Church. The fact that the Egyptians taught eternal torture in both hell and purgatory stands in direct opposition to the teaching of the Church in the first few centuries.
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Origen of Alexandria was just seventeen when he became the head of the Church in Alexandria. The persecution of Emperor Severus began in 202 A.D., which caused Clement to flee to Antioch and which also saw Origen's father imprisoned and ultimately martyred. Origen himself would have exposed himself to the Roman authorities as well, had not his mother hidden his clothes so that he would not leave the house. Thus, she saved his life.
When his father was executed, the family estate was confiscated by the government, and the family was immediately reduced to poverty. But a wealthy lady in Alexandria took Origen into her house and provided for him so that he could preach the Word. But he insisted upon supporting himself, and so he soon opened a Grammar school.
A large number of non-Christians soon were sending their children to his school, also asking him to instruct them in religious subjects, and soon he had many converts to Christ. Seeing his potential, Demetrius, the bishop of Alexandria, then appointed him at the young age of 18 to head the great Catechetical School (their Bible College ).
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Origen wasn't a (fully) ordained teacher/priest and Demetrius made it his life's work to destroy Origen just because of that.
After Demetrius died in the East, the bishops ignored this excommunication and freely welcomed Origen, but in the West, particularly in Rome, it was a different matter. The Roman mind was more interested in law and order than in justice, and to them, Origen was now a non-Christian rebel. It was not for any of Origen's teachings that he was condemned and excommunicated, but rather to satisfy the pride of a carnally-minded bishop who took offense at his fellow bishops in Palestine for honoring a man who had attained greater popularity than himself.
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Demetrius resented the fact that these bishops, in effect, had bypassed him, and so he declared Origen to be unfit for the priesthood on the grounds that he was a self-made eunuch. His position was based upon the law of the Old Testament priesthood in Lev. 21:20. Here is evidence that even in the third century the Church's priesthood was already reverting back to the requirements of the Levitical priesthood instead of Melchizedek as established by Christ.
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It should be stressed, however, that he did not have to convince any of the Greek-speaking bishops that God would save all mankind. This teaching was not even an issue, because they all assumed it was true. If it had been considered to be heresy, they would have rejected him and excommunicated him for teaching it.
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Origen also had his critics, but the remarkable thing is that they never disputed his teaching on Universalism! Yet as the Church leaders became less Christian in their attitudes and more rigid and pompous in their show of religion, their passion for dispute began to reach the stage of frenzy.
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The fourth century came to a close, and the great Universalists of the day died and were resting in peace. Unfortunately, a great many Christian bishops had spent too little time cultivating the fruits of the Spirit and too much time accumulating money and power. During most of the fourth century, the Arian controversy about whether or not Christ was a created being, brought about the practice of holding Church Councils to decide truth and heresy by the reasoning of the carnal mind. The "heretics" were treated as badly as the Roman Emperors had treated Christians in the heyday of its persecutions.
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From that point on thinhs went downhill faster and faster. Origen believed in bodily resurrection while some others didn't. This became a great issue and mud throwing campaigns started to become more important than finding the truth. Origen insited living in poverty but for many church leaders power and wealth grew in importance.
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Accordingly, Anastasius, the new Pope, who had succeeded Siricius at Rome, readily gratified the numerous partisans of Jerome in that city, by issuing a decree [400 A.D.] which was received through all the West, condemning the works of Origen; and Epiphanius soon afterwards convened a synod of his bishops in Cyprus, and procured from them a like sentence."
What is perhaps most remarkable is that these decrees condemned Origen, not for his teaching on the salvation of all mankind, but for his other teachings, including, of course, his teaching that the devil would be saved in the end. There were many in the Church at that time who continued to preach the salvation of all mankind with no restraint from these anti-Origenist synods.
The Church bishops found it necessary to condemn Origen again in the Fifth General Council in 553 A.D., attended by only 148 bishops. Even so, nothing was specifically said about Origen's belief regarding the salvation of all men. It was left to the Emperor Justinian (527-565 A.D.) to condemn this belief in Anathema IX, where it read,
"If anyone says or thinks that the punishment of demons and impious men is only temporary, and will one day have an end, and that a restoration will take place of demons and of impious men, let him be anathema."
This seems to have been the first official decree on record condemning the restoration of all men, and it was done, not by the Church, but by a Roman Emperor participating in the Church Council. Ironically, the same Council praised Gregory of Nyassa, who believed that not only all men but also all the angels would be saved. Such is the inconsistent nature of the Church Council decrees.
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Another Church Council in 692 again condemned Origen for his belief that the devil would be saved in the end. After this time, the Church entered a period of "dark ages" which historians describe as "The Golden Age of Profound Ignorance." The light of God's Word did not shine brightly again until the time of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, which occurred largely because of the invention of the printing press, which brought the Scriptures to the common people. Likewise, through the efforts of translator, John Wycliffe, those Scriptures were brought to the common people in their own language.
http://www.gods-kingdom-ministries.org/COLDFUSION/booklet.cfm?PID=114
:cloud9: None of it is surprising..... :thumbsup:
Wow. Origen lived in modesty/poverty even when he was the head of the school of Alexandria?
Yeah, he was extremely driven. Even at young age.
Demetrius, the bishop of Alexandria, then appointed him at the young age of 18 to head the great Catechetical School (their Bible College ).
Origen took his duties very seriously. He insisted upon receiving only the smallest salary necessary to sustain life. He ate little and studied long into the night.
:cloud9: He was obviously eating manna they knew not of.....