Universalism: The Prevailing Doctrine Of The
Christian
Church During Its First Five Hundred
Years ...... By J.W. HANSON, D.D.
Introduction
The surviving writings of the Christian Fathers, of the first four or five
centuries of the Christian Era, abound in evidences of the prevalence of the
doctrine of universal salvation during those years. This important fact in the
history of Christian eschatology was first brought out prominently in a volume,
very valuable, and for its time very thorough: Hosea Ballou's "Ancient History
of Universalism," (Boston, 1828, 1842, 1872). Dr. Ballou's work has well been
called "light in a dark place," but the quotations he makes are but a fraction
of what subsequent researches have discovered. Referring to Dr. Ballou's third
edition with "Notes" by the Rev. A. St. John Chambre, A. M. and T. J. Sawyer,
D.D. (1872), T. B. Thayer, D.D., observes in the Universalist Quarterly, April,
1872: "As regards the additions to the work by the editors, we must say that
they are not as numerous nor as extensive as we had hoped they might be. It
would seem as if the studies of our own scholars for more than forty years since
the first edition, and the many new and elaborate works on the history of the
church and its doctrines by eminent theologians and critics, should have
furnished more witnesses to the truth, and larger extracts from the early
literature of the church, than are found in the 'Notes.' With the exception of
three or four of them no important addition is made to the contents of the work.
If the Notes are to be considered as final, or the last gleanings of the field,
it shows how thoroughly Dr. Ballou did his work, notwithstanding the poverty of
his resources, and the many and great disadvantages attending his first efforts.
But we cannot help thinking that something remains still to be said respecting
some of the apostolic fathers and Chrysostom, Augustine and others; as well as
concerning the gnostic sects, the report of whose opinions, it must be
remembered, comes to us mostly from their enemies, or at least those not
friendly to them." The want here indicated this volume aims to supply.
Dr. Ballou's work was followed in 1878 by Dr. Edward Beecher's "History of
the Doctrine of Future Retribution," a most truthful and candid volume, which
adds much valuable material to that contained in Dr. Ballou's work. About the
same time Canon Farrar published "Eternal Hope" (1878), and "Mercy and Judgment"
(1881), containing additional testimony showing that many of the Christian
writers in the centuries immediately following our Lord and his apostles, were
Universalists. In addition to these a contribution to the literature of the
subject was made by the Rev. Thomas Allin, a clergyman of the English Episcopal
Church, in a work entitled "Universalism Asserted." Mr. Allin was led to his
study of the patristic literature by finding a copy of Dr. Ballou's work in the
British Museum. Incited by its contents he microscopically searched the fathers,
and found many valuable statements that incontestably prove that the most and
the best of the successors of the apostles taught the doctrine of universal
salvation. The defects of Mr. Allen's very scholarly work, from this writer's
standpoint are, that he writes as an Episcopalian, merely from the view-point of
the Nicene creed, to show by the example of the patristic writers that one can
remain an Episcopalian and cherish the hope of universal salvation; and that he
regards the doctrine as only a hope, and not a distinct teaching of the
Christian religion. Meanwhile, the fact of the early prevalence of the doctrine
has been brought out incidentally in such works as the "Dictionary of Christian
Biography," Farrar's "Lives of the Fathers," and other books, the projecting
statements and facts in all which will be found in these pages, which show that
the most and best and ablest of the early fathers found the deliverance of all
mankind from sin and sorrow specifically revealed in the Christian Scriptures.
The author has not only quoted the words of the fathers themselves, but he has
studiously endeavored, instead of his own words, to reproduce the language of
historians, biographers, critics, scholars, and other writers of all schools of
thought, and to demonstrate by these irrefragable testimonies that Universalism
was the primitive Christianity.
The quotations, index, and other references indicated by foot notes, will
show the reader that a large number of volumes has been consulted, and it is
believed by the author that no important work in the abundant literature of the
theme has been omitted.
The plan of this work does not contemplate the presentation of the
Scriptural evidence--which to Universalists is demonstrative--that our Lord and
his apostles taught the final and universal prevalence of holiness and
happiness. That work is thoroughly done in a library of volumes in the
literature of the Universalist Church. Neither is it the purpose of the author
of this book to write a history of the doctrine; but his sole object is to show
that those who obtained their religion almost directly from the lips of its
author, understood it to teach the doctrine of universal salvation.
Not only are ample citations given from the ancient Universalists
themselves, but theorys and summarys of their opinions, and testimonials as to
their scholarship and saintliness, are presented from the most eminent authors
who have written of them. No equal number of the church's early saints has ever
received such glowing eulogies from so many scholars and critics as the ancient
Universalists have extorted from such authors as Socrates, Neander, Mosheim,
Huet, Dorner, Dietelmaier, Beecher, Schaff, Plumptre, Bigg, Farrar, Bunsen,
Cave, Westcott, Robertson, Butler, Allen, De Pressense, Gieseler, Lardner,
Hagenbach, Blunt, and others, not professed Universalists. Their eulogies found
in these pages would alone justify the publication of this volume.
BACK
Forward
The purpose of this book is to present some of the evidence of the
prevalence in the early centuries of the Christian church, of the doctrine of
the final holiness of all mankind. The author has endeavored to give the
language of the early Christians, rather than to paraphrase their words, or
state their sentiments in his own language. He has also somewhat amply quoted
the statements of modern scholars, historians and critics, of all sides of
opinion, instead of condensing them with his own pen.
The large number of extracts which this course necessitates gives his pages
a somewhat mosaic appearance, but he has preferred to sacrifice mere literary
form to what seems larger usefulness.
He has aimed to present irrefragable proofs that the doctrine of Universal
Salvation was the prevalent sentiment of the primitive Christian church. He
believes his investigation has been somewhat thorough, for he has endeavored to
consult not only all the fathers themselves, but the most distinguished modern
writers who have considered the subject.
The first form of his manuscript contained a thousand abundant notes, with
citations of original Greek and Latin, but such an array was thought by
perceptive friends too formidable to attract the average reader, as well as too
voluminous, and he has therefore retained only a fraction of the notes he had
prepared.
The opinions of Christians in the first few centuries should predispose us
to believe in their truthfulness, inasmuch as they were nearest to the divine
Fountain of our religion. The doctrine of Universal Salvation was nowhere taught
until they instilled it. Where could they have obtained it but from the source
whence they claim to have derived it--the New Testament?
The author believes that the following pages show that Universal Restitution
was the faith of the early Christians for at least the First Five Hundred Years
of the Christian Era. ---- ---- J.W. Hanson - Chicago, October 1899
BACK
UNIVERSALISM IN THE EARLY
CENTURIES
Chapter 1
The Earliest Creeds
Teaching of the Twelve Apostles
An examination of the earliest Christian creeds and declarations of
Christian opinion discloses the fact that no formulary of Christian belief for
several centuries after Christ contained anything incompatible with the broad
faith of the Gospel--the universal redemption of mankind from sin. The earliest
of all the documents pertaining to this subject is the "Teaching of the Twelve
Apostles."1 This work was discovered in manuscript in the library of the Holy
Sepulchre, in Constantinopole, by Philotheos Bryennios, and published in 1875.
It was bound with Chrysostom's "Synopsis of the Works of the Old Testament," the
"Epistle of Barnabas," A.D. 70-120--two epistles of Clement, and less important
works. The "Teaching" was quoted by Clement of Alexandria, by Eusebius and by
Athanasius, so that it must have been recognized as early as A.D. 200. It was
undoubtedly composed between A.D. 120 and 160. An American edition of the Greek
text and an English translation were published in New York in 1884, with notes
by Roswell D. Hitchcock and Francis Brown, professors in Union Theological
Seminary, New York, from which we quote. It is entirely silent on the duration
of punishment. It describes the two ways of life and death, in its sixteen
chapters, and indicates the rewards and the penalties of the good way and of the
evil way as any Universalist would do--as Origen and Basil did. God is thanked
for giving spiritual food and drink and "aeonian life." The last chapter exhorts
Christians to watch against the terrors and judgments that shall come "when the
earth shall be given unto his (the world's deceiver's) hands. Then all created
men shall come into the fire of trial, and many shall be made to stumble and
perish. But they that endure in their faith shall be saved from this curse. And
then shall appear the signs of the truth; first, the sign of an opening in
heaven; then the sign of the trumpet's sound; and, thirdly the resurrection from
the dead, yet not of all, but as it hath been said: 'The Lord will come and all
his saints with him. Then shall the world see the Lord coming upon the clouds of
heaven.'" This resurrection must be regarded as a moral one, as it is not "of
all the dead," but of the saints only. There is not a whisper in this ancient
document of endless punishment, and its testimony, therefore, is that that dogma
was not in the second century regarded as a part of "the teaching of the
apostles." When describing the endlessness of being it uses the word athanasias,
but describes the glory of Christ, as do the Scriptures, as for ages (cis tous
aionas). In Chapter 11 occurs this language: "Every sin shall be forgiven, but
this sin shall not be forgiven" (the sin of an apostle asking money for his
services); but that form of expression is clearly in accordance with the
Scriptural method of adding force to an affirmative by a negative, and vice
versa, as in the word (Matt. 18:22): "Not until seven times, but until seventy
times seven." In fine, the "Teaching" shows throughout that the most ancient
doctrine of the church, after the apostles, was in perfect harmony with
universal salvation. Cyprian, A.D. 250, in a letter to his son Magnus, tells us
that in addition to the baptismal formula converts were asked, "Dost thou
believe in the remission of sins and eternal life through the holy church?"
The Apostles' Creed
"The Apostles' Creed," so called, the oldest existing authorized declaration
of Christian faith in the shape of a creed was probably in existence in various
modified forms for a century or so before the beginning of the Fourth Century,
when it took its present shape, possible between A.D. 250 and 350. It is first
found in Rufinus, who wrote at the end of the Fourth and the beginning of the
Fifth Century. No allusion is made to it before these dates by Justin Martyr,
Clement, Origen, the historian Eusebius, or any of their contemporaries, all
whom make declarations of Christian belief, nor is there any hint in preceding
literature that any such document existed. Individual declarations of faith were
made, however, quite unlike the pseudo Apostles' Creed, by Irenieus, Tertullian,
Cyprian, Gregory Thaumaturgus, etc. Hagenback2 assures us that it was "probably
inspired of various confessions of faith used by the primitive church in the
baptismal service. Mosheim declared: "All who have any knowledge of antiquity
confess unanimously that the opinion (that the apostles composed the Apostles'
Creed) is a mistake, and has no foundation.3"
The clauses "the Holy Catholic Church," "the communion of Saints," "the
forgiveness of sins," were added after A.D. 250. "He descended into hell" was
later than the composing of the original creed--as late as A.D. 359. The
document is here given. The portion in Roman type was probably adopted in the
earlier part or middle of the Second Century4 and was in Greek; the Italic
portion was added later by the Roman Church, and was in Latin:
"I believe in God the Father Almighty (maker of heaven and earth) and it
Jesus Christ his only son our Lord, who was (conceived) by the Holy Ghost, born
of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified (dead) and
buried, (He descended into hell). The third day he arose again from the dead; he
ascended into heaven and sitteth at the right hand of (God) the Father
(Almighty). From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. I believe
in the Holy Ghost, the Holy (Catholic) Church; (the communion of saints) the
forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; (and the life everlasting)5.
Amen."
It will be seen that not a word is here uttered of the duration of
punishment. The later form speaks of "aionian life," but does not refer to
aionian death, or punishment. It is incredible that this declaration of faith,
made at a time when the world was ignorant of what constituted the Christian
belief, and which was made for the purpose of informing the world, should not
convey a hint of so vital a doctrine as that of endless punishment, if at that
time that dogma was a tenet of the church.
The Oldest Credal Statement
The oldest credal statement by the Church of Rome says that Christ "shall
come to judge the quick and the dead," and announces belief in the resurrection
of the body. The oldest of the Greek constitutions declares belief in the
"resurrection of the flesh, remission of sins, and the aionian life." And the
Alexandrian statement speaks of "the life," but there is not a word of
everlasting death or punishment in any of them. And this is all that the most
ancient creeds contain on the subject.6
In a earliest form of the Apostle's Creed, Irenaeus, A.D. 180, says that the
judge, at the final judgment, will cast the wicked into aionian fire. It is
supposed that he used the word aionian, for the Greek in which he wrote has
perished, and the Latin translation reads, "ignem aeternum."
As Origen uses the same word, and expressly says it denotes limited
duration, Irenaeus's testimony does not help the doctrine of endless punishment,
nor can it be quoted to reinforce that of universal salvation. Dr. Beecher
thinks that Irenaeus taught "a final restitution of all things to unity and
order by the annihilation of all the finally unrepentant"7--a
pseudo-Universalism.
Tertullian's Belief
Even Tertullian, born about A.D. 160, though his personal belief was
fearfully partialistic, could not assert that his pagan-born doctrine was
generally accepted by Christians, and when he formed a creed for general
acceptance he entirely omitted his lurid theology. It will be seen that
Tertullian's creed like that of Irenaeus is one of the earlier forms of the
so-called Apostles' Creed:8 "We believe in only one God, omnipotent, maker of
the world, and his son Jesus Christ, born of the Virgin Mary, crucified under
Pontius Pilate, raised from the dead the third day, received into the heavens,
now sitting at the right hand of the Father, and who shall come to judge the
living and the dead, through the resurrection of the flesh." Tertullian did not
put his private belief into his creed, and at that time he had not discovered
that worst of dogmas relating to man, total depravity. If fact, he states the
opposite. He says: "There is a portion of God in the soul. In the worst there is
something good, and in the best something bad." Neander says that Tertullian
"held original goodness to be lasting."
The Nicene Creed
The next oldest creed, the first declaration authorized by a consensus of
the whole church, was the Nicene, A.D. 325; completed in 381 at Constantinopole.
Its sole reference to the future world is in these words: "I look for the
resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world (aeon) to come." It does not
contain a syllable referring to endless punishment, though the doctrine was then
professed by a portion of the church, and was insisted upon by some, though it
was not generally enough held to be stated as the average belief.
So dominant was the influence of the Greek fathers, who had learned
Christianity in their native tongue, in the language in which it was announced,
and so little had Tertullian's cruel ideas prevailed, that it was not even
attempted to make the horrid sentiment a part of the creed of the church.
Moreover, Gregory Nazianzen presided over the council in Constantinople, in
which the Nicean creed was finally shaped--the Niceo-Constantinopolitan
creed--and as he was a Universalist, and as the clause, "I believe in the life
of the world to come," was added by Gregory of Nyssa, an "unflinching advocate
of extreme Universalism, and the very flower of orthodoxy," it must be apparent
that the consensus of Christian sentiment was not yet anti-Universalistic.
General Sentiment in the Fourth Century
This the general sentiment in the church from 325 A.D. to 381 A.D. demanded
that the life beyond the grave must be stated, and as there is no hint of the
existence of a world of torment, how can the conclusion be escaped that
Christian faith did not then include the thought of endless woe? Would a
council, composed even in part of believers in endless torment, permit a
Universalist to preside, and another to shape its creed, and not even attempt to
give expression to that idea? Is not the Nicene creed a witness, in what it does
not say, to the broader faith that must have been the religion of the century
that adopted it?
It is historical (See Socrates's Ecclesiastical History) that the four great
General Councils held in the first four centuries--those at Nice,
Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon--gave expression to no condemnation of
universal restoration, though, as will be shown, the doctrine had been prevalent
all along.
In the Nicene creed adopted A.D. 325, by three hundred and twenty to two
hundred and eighteen bishops, the only reference to the future world is where it
is said that Christ "will come again to judge the living and the dead." This is
the original form, subsequently changed. A.D. 341 the assembled bishops at
Antioch made a declaration of faith in which these words occur: "The Lord Jesus
Christ will come again with glory and power to judge the living and the dead."
A.D. 346 the bishops presented a declaration to the Emperor Constans affirming
that Jesus Christ "shall come at the consummation of the ages, to judge the
living and the dead, and render to every one according to his works." The synod
at Rimini, A.D. 359, affirmed that Christ "descended into the lower parts of the
earth, and disposed matters there, at the sight of whom the door-keepers
trembled--and at the last day he will come in his Father's glory to render to
every one according to his deeds." This declaration opens the gates of mercy by
recognizing the proclamation of the Gospel to the dead, and, as it was believed
that when Christ preached in Hades the doors were opened and all those in ward
were released, the words recited at Rimini that he "disposed matters there," are
very significant.
The Nicene and Constantinopolitan creeds, printed in one, will exhibit the
nature of the changes made at Constantinople, and will show that the "life to
come" and not the after-death woe of sinners, was the chief though with the
early Christians. (The Nicene is here printed in Roman type, and the
Constantinopolitan in Italic.)
The Niceo-Constantinopolitan Creed
"We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of (heaven and earth,
and) all things visible and invisible, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only
begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds,) only begotten,
that is, of the substance of the Father; God of God, Light of Light, very God of
Very God, begotten not made; being of one substance with the Father, by whom all
things were made, [transposed to the beginning] the things in heaven and things
in earth. Who for us men and for our salvation came down (from heaven) and was
incarnate (of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary) and made man (and was
crucified for us under Pontius Pilate), and suffered (and was buried), and rose
again the third day (according to the Scriptures), who ascended into heaven (and
sitteth on the right hand of the Father) and cometh again (in glory) to judge
quick and dead (of whose kingdom there shall be no end). And in the Holy Ghost,
(the Lord and giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father, who with the Father
and the Son, together is worshipped and glorified; who spake by the prophets; in
one holy Catholic, Apostolic Church; we acknowledge one baptism for the
remission of sins; and we look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of
the world to come.)" 9
This last clause was not in the original Nicene creed, but was added in the
Constantinopolitan. The literal rendering of the Greek is "the life of the age
about to come."
The first Christians, it will be seen, said in their creeds, "I believe in
the aeonian life;" later, they modified the phrase "aeonian life," to "the life
of the coming aeon," showing that the phrases are equivalent. But not a word of
endless punishment. "The life of the age to come" was the first Christian creed,
and later, Origen himself declares his belief in aeonian punishment, and in
aeonian life beyond. How, then, could aeonian punishment have been regarded as
endless?
The differences of opinion that existed among the early Christians are
easily accounted for, when we remember that they had been Jews or heathens, who
had brought from their previous religious associations all sorts of ideas, and
were disposed to retain them and reconcile them with their new religion. Faith
in Christ, and the acceptance of his teachings, could not at once eradicate the
old opinions, which, in some cases, remained long, and caused honest Christians
to differ from each other. As will be shown, while the Sibylline Oracles
predisposed some of the fathers of Universalism, Philo gave others a tendency to
the doctrine of annihilation, and Enoch to endless punishment.
Statements of the Early Councils
Thus the credal declarations of the Christian church for almost four hundred
years are entirely void of the lurid doctrine with which they afterwards blazed
for more than a thousand years. The early creeds contain no hint of it, and no
whisper of condemnation of the doctrine of universal restoration as taught by
Clement, Origen, the Gregories, Basil the Great, and multitudes besides.
Discussions and declarations on the Trinity, and contests over homoousion
(consubstantial) and homoiousion (of like substance) engrossed the energy of
disputants, and filled libraries with volumes, but the doctrine of the great
fathers remained unchallenged. Neither the Concilium Nicaeum, A.D. 325, nor the
Concilium Constantinopolitanum, A.D. 381, nor the Concilium Chalcedonenese, A.D.
451, lisped a syllable of the doctrine of man's final woe. The silence of all
the ancient formularies of faith concerning endless punishment at the same time
that the great fathers were proclaiming universal salvation, as appeared later
on in these pages, is strong evidence that the former doctrine was not then
accepted. It is apparent that the early Christian church did not dogmatize on
man's final destiny. It was engrossed in getting established among men the great
truth of God's universal Fatherhood, as revealed in the incarnation, "God in
Christ, reconciling the world unto himself." Some taught endless punishment for
a portion of mankind; others, the annihilation of the wicked; others had no
definite opinion on human destiny; but the larger part, especially from Clement
of Alexandria on for three hundred years, taught universal salvation. It is
insupposable that endless punishment was a doctrine of the early church, when it
is seen that not one of the early creeds embodied it" 11 BACK
1 *GR 2 Text-book of Christian Doctrine:
Gieseler's Text Book: Neander. 3 Murdoch's Mosheim Inst., Eccl.
Hist.4 Bunsen's Hippolytus and His Age. 5 Aionian, the original of
"everlasting." 6 The Apostles' Creed at first omitted the Fatherhood of
God, and in its later forms did not mention God's love for men, his reign,
repentance, or the new life. Athanase Coquerel the Younger, First Hist.
Transformations of Christianity, page 208. 7 History, Doct. Fut. Ret.,
pp. 108-205. 8 See Lamson's Church of the First Three Centuries. 9
Hort's Two Dissertations, pp. 106, 138-147. 10 *GR 11 The germ of
all the earlier declarations of faith had been formulated even before A.D. 150.
The reader can here consult the original Greek of the earliest declaration of
faith as given in Harnack's Outlines of the History of Dogma, Funk &
Wagnall's edition of 1893 pp. 44,45: *GR
Chapter 2
Early Christianity - A Cheerful
Religion
Darkness at the Advent
When our Lord announced his religion this world was in a condition of
unutterable corruption, wretchedness and gloom. Slavery, poverty, vice that the
pen is unwilling to name, almost universally prevailed, and even religion
partook of the general degradation.1 Decadence, depopulation, insecurity of
property, person and life, according to Taine, were everywhere. Philosophy
taught that it would be better for man never to have been created. In the first
century Rome held supreme sway.2 Nations had been destroyed by scores, and the
civilized world had lost half of its population by the sword. In the first
century forty out of seventy years were years of famine, accompanied by plague
and pestilence. There were universal depression and deepest melancholy. When men
were thus overborne with the gloom and horror of error and sin, into their night
of darkness came the religion of Christ. Its announcements were all of hope and
cheer. Its language was, "Come unto me, all ye who labor and are heavy laden and
I will give you rest." "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice."
"We rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory." Men were invited to accept
the tidings of great joy. John, the herald of Jesus, was a recluse, mortifying
body and spirit, but Jesus said, "John come neither eating nor drinking, but the
Son of Man came eating and drinking." He forbade all anxiety and care among his
followers, and exhorted all to be as trustful as are the lilies of the field and
the fowls of the air. Says Matthew Arnold, "Christ professed to bring in
happiness. All the words that belong to his mission, Gospel, kingdom of God,
Savior, grace, peace, living water, bread of life, are brimful of promise and
joy." And his cheerful, joyful religion at once won its way by its messages of
peace and tranquillity, and for a while its converts were everywhere
characterized by their joyfulness and cheerfulness. Haweis writes: "The three
first centuries of the Christian church are almost idyllic in their simplicity,
sincerity and purity. There is less admixture of evil, less intrusion of the
world, the flesh, and the devil, more simple-hearted goodness, earnestness and
reality to be found in the space between Nero and Constantine that in any other
three centuries from A.D. 100 to A.D. 1800."3 De Pressense calls the early era
of the church its "blessed childhood, all calmness and simplicity."4 Cave, in
"Lives of the Fathers," states: "The noblest portion of church history, the most
considerable age of the church, the years from Eusebius to Basil the Great."
"Sweetness and Light"
Christianity was everywhere at first a religion of "sweetness and light."
The Greek fathers exemplified all these qualities, and Clement and Origen were
ideals of its perfect spirit. But from Augustine downward the Latin reaction,
prompted by the tendency of men in all ages to escape the requirements laid upon
the soul by thought, and who flee to external authority to avoid the demands of
reason, was away from the genius of Christianity, until Augustinianism ripened
into Popery, and the beautiful system of the Greek fathers was succeeded by the
nightmare of the theology of the medieval centuries, and later of Calvinism and
Puritanism.5 Had the church followed the prevailing spirit of the ante-Nicene
Fathers it would have conserved the best thought of Greece, the divine ideals of
Plato, and joined them to the true interpretation of Christianity, and we may
venture to declare that it would thus have continued the career of progress that
had rendered the first three centuries so marvelous in their character; a
progress that would have continued with accelerated speed, and Christendom would
have widened its borders and deepened its sway immeasurably. With the prevalence
of the Latin language the East and the West grew apart, and the latter, more and
more discarding reason, and controlled, by the iron inflexibility of a
semi-pagan secular government, gave Roman Catholicism its opportunity.
Oriental Asceticism
The influence of the ascetic religions of the Asiatic countries, especially
Buddhism, contaminated Christianity, resulting later in celibacy, monasteries,
convents, hermits, and all the worser elements of Catholicism in the Middle
Ages.6 At the first contact Christianity absorbed more than it modified, till in
the later ages the alien force became supreme. In fact, orientalism was already
beginning to mar the beautiful simplicity of Christianity when John wrote his
Gospel to counteract it. Schaff, in his "History of the Christian Church,"
remarks: All the germs of (Christian) asceticism (severe self-discipline) appear
in the third century. The first two Christian hermits were not till Paul of
Thebes, A.D. 250, and Anthony of Egypt, A.D. 270, appeared. Asceticism was in
existence long before Christ. Jews, Nazarites, Essenes, Therapeutae, Persians,
Indians, Buddhists, all originated this Oriental heathenism. The religion of the
Chinese, Buddhism, Brahmanism, the religion of Zoroaster and of the Egyptians,
more or less leavened Christianity in its earliest stages. So did Greek and
Roman paganism with which the apostles and their followers came into direct
contact.
The doctrines of substitutional atonement, resurrection of the body, native
depravity, and endless punishment, are not listed in the earliest creeds or
formulas.7 The earliest Christians (Allen: Christian Thought) taught that man is
the image of God, and that the in-dwelling Deity will lead him to holiness.
In Alexandria, the center of Greek culture and Christian thought, "more
thoroughly Greek than Athens it its days of renown," the theological atmosphere
was more nearly akin to that of the Universalist church of the present day than
to that of any other branch of the Christian church during the last fifteen
centuries.8
Wonderful Progress of Christianity at First
The wonderful progress made during the first three centuries by the simple,
pure and cheerful faith of early Christianity shows us what its growth might
have been made had not the gloomy spirit of Tertullian, reinforced by the "dark
shadow of Augustine," transformed it. As early as the beginning of the second
century the heathen Pliny, the propraetor of Bithynia, reported to the emperor
that his province was so filled with Christians that the worship of the heathen
deities had nearly ceased. And they were not only of the poor and despised, but
of all conditions of life--omnis ordinis. Milner thinks that Asia Minor was at
this time quite thoroughly evangelized. As early as the close of the Second
Century there were not only many converts from the humbler ranks, but "the main
strength of Christianity lay in the middle, perhaps in the merchants classes."
Gibbon says the Christians were not one-twentieth part of the Roman Empire, till
Constantine gave them the sanction of his authority, but Robertson estimates
them at one-fifth of the whole, and in some districts as the majority.9 Origen:
"Against Celsus" says: "At the present day (A.D. 240) not only rich men, but
persons of rank, and delicate and high-born ladies, receive the teachers of
Christianity; and the religion of Christ is better known than the teachings of
the best philosophers." And Arnobius testifies that Christians included orators,
grammarians, rhetoricians (those who effectively expressed), lawyers,
physicians, and philosophers. And it was precisely their bright and cheerful
views of life and death, of God's universal fatherhood and man's universal
brotherhood--the divinity of its ethical principles and the purity of its
professors, that account for the wonderful progress of Christianity during the
three centuries that followed our Lord's death. The pessimism of the oriental
religions; the corruption and folly of the Greek and Roman mythology; the
unutterable wickedness of the mass of mankind, and the universal depression of
society invited its advance, and gave way before it. Justin Martyr wrote that in
his time prayers and thanksgivings were offered in "the name of the Crucified,
among every race of men, Greek or barbarian." Tertullian states that all races
and tribes, even to farthest Britain, had heard the news of salvation. He
declared: "We are but of yesterday, and lo we fill the whole empire--your
cities, your islands, your fortresses, your municipalities, your councils, nay
even the camp, the tribune, the decory, the palace, the senate, the forum."10
Chrysostom testifies that "the isles of Britain in the heard of the ocean had
been converted."
God's Fatherhood
The complete and consecrated word of the Alexandrian fathers, as of the New
Testament, was FATHER. This word, as now, unlocked all mysteries, solved all
problems, and explained all the enigmas of time and eternity. Holding God as
Father, punishment was held to be remedial, and therefore restorative, and final
recovery from sin universal. It was only when the Father was lost sight of in
the judge and tyrant, under the spiritually deadly poisonous reign of
Augustinianism, the Deity was hated, and that Catholics transferred to Mary, and
later, Protestants gave to Jesus that supreme love that is due alone to the
Universal Father. For centuries in Christendom after the Alexandrine form of
Christianity had waned, the Fatherhood of God was a lost truth, and most of the
worst errors of the modern creeds are due to that single fact, more than to all
other causes.
It was during those happy years more than in any subsequent three centuries,
that, as Jerome observed, "the blood of Christ was yet warm in the breasts of
Christians." Says the accurate historian, Cave, in his "Primitive Christianity:"
"Here he will find an active and zealous devotion, shining through the blackest
clouds of malice and cruelty; afflicted innocence triumphant, notwithstanding
all the powerful or political attempts of men or devils; a patience
unconquerable under the biggest temptations; a charity truly universal and
unlimited; a simplicity and upright manner in all transactions; a sobriety and
temperance remarkable to the admiration of their enemies; and, in short, he will
see the divine and holy precepts of the Christian religion drawn down into
action, and the most excellent genius and spirit of the Gospel breathing in the
hearts and lives of these good old Christians."
Christianity, a Greek Religion
"Christianity," says Milman, "was almost from the first a Greek religion.
Its primal records were all written in Greek language; it was made known with
the greatest rapidity and success among nations either of Greek descent, or
those which had been Grecized by the conquest of Alexander. In their organized
structure the Grecian churches were a federation of republics." At the first,
art, literature, life, were Greek, cheerful, sunny, serene. The Latin type of
character was sullen, gloomy, characterized, says Milman, by "adherence to legal
form; severe subordination to authority. The Roman Empire extended over Europe
by a universal code, and by subordination to a spiritual Caesar as absolute as
he was in civil obedience. Thus the original simplicity of the Christian belief
structure was entirely subverted; its pure democracy became a spiritual
dictatorship. The presbyters developed into bishops, the bishop of Rome became
pope, and Christendom reflected Rome." But during the first three centuries this
change had not taken place. "It is there, therefore, among the Alexandrine
fathers that we are to look to find Christianity in its pristine purity. The
language, organization, writers, and Scriptures of the church in the first
centuries were all Greek. The Gospels were everywhere read in Greek, the
commercial and literary language of the Empire. The books were in Greek, and
even in Gaul and Rome Greek was the liturgical language. The Octavius of
Minucius Felix, and Novatian on the Trinity, were the earliest known works of
Latin Christian literature.11
An Impressive Thought
The Greek Fathers derived their Universalism directly and solely from the
Greek Scriptures. Nothing to suggest the doctrine existed in Greek or Latin
literature, mythology, or theology; all current thought on matters of
eschatology was utterly opposed to any such view of human destiny. And,
furthermore, the unutterable wickedness, degradation and woe that filled the
world would have inclined the early Christians to the most pessimistic view of
the future consistent with the teachings of the religion they had espoused. To
know that, in those dreadful times, they derived the divine optimism of
universal deliverance from sin and sorrow from the teachings of Christ and his
apostles, should predispose every modern to agree with them. On this point
Allin, in "Universalism Asserted," eloquently says: "The church was born into a
world of whose moral rottenness few have or can have any idea. Even the sober
historians of the later Roman Empire have their pages tainted with scenes
impossible to translate. Lusts the foulest, debauchery to us happily
inconceivable, raged on every side. To assert even faintly the final redemption
of all this rottenness, whose depths we dare not try to sound, required the
firmest faith in the larger hope, as an essential part of the Gospel. But this
is not all; in a peculiar sense the church was militant in the early centuries.
It was engaged in, at times, a struggle, for life or death, with a relentless
persecution. Thus it must have seemed in that age almost an act of treason to
the cross to teach that, though dying unrepentant, the bitter persecutor, or the
ones bound and devoted to abominable lusts, should yet in the ages to come find
salvation. Such considerations help us to see the extreme weight attaching even
to the very least expression in the fathers which involves sympathy with the
larger hope, especially so when we consider that the idea of mercy was then but
little known, and that truth, as we conceive it, was not then esteemed a duty.
As the vices of the early centuries were great, so were their punishments cruel.
The early fathers wrote when the wild beasts of the arena tore alike the
innocent and the guilty, limb from limb, amid the applause even of
gently-nurtured women; they wrote when the cross, with its living burden of
agony, was a common sight, and evoked no protest. They wrote when every minister
of justice was a torturer, and almost every criminal court a petty inquisition;
when every household of the better class, even among Christians, swarmed with
slaves liable to torture, to scourging, to mutilation, at the impulse of a
master or the frown of a mistress. Let all these facts be fully weighed, and a
conviction arises irresistibly, that, in such an age, no idea of Universalism
could have originated unless inspired from above. If, now, when criminals are
shielded from suffering with almost morbid care, men, the best of men, think
with very little concern of the unutterable woe of the lost, how, I ask, could
Universalism have arisen of itself in an age like that of the fathers? Consider
further. The larger hope is not, we are informed, in the Bible; it is not, we
know, in the heart of man naturally; still less was it there in days such as
those we have described, when mercy was unknown, when the dearest interest of
the church forbade its avowal. But it is found in many, very many, ancient
fathers, and often, in the very broadest form, embracing every fallen spirit.
Where, then, did they find it? Whence did they import this idea? Can we doubt
that the fathers could only have drawn it, as their writings testify, from the
Bible itself?"
Testimony of the Catacombs
An illuminating side-light is cast on the opinions of the early Christians
by the inscriptions and emblems on the monuments in the Roman Catacombs.12 It is
well known that from the end of the First to the end of the Fourth Century the
early Christians buried their dead, probably with the knowledge and consent of
the pagan authorities, in subterranean galleries excavated in the soft rock
(tufa) that underlies Rome. These ancient cemeteries were first uncovered A.D.
1578. Already sixty excavations have been made extending five hundred and
eighty-seven miles. More than six, some estimates say eight, million bodies are
known to have been buried between A.D. 72 and A.D. 410. Eleven thousand epitaphs
and inscriptions have been found; few dates are between A.D. 72 and 100; the
most are from A.D. 150 to A.D. 410. The galleries are from three to five feet
wide and eight feet high, and the niches for bodies are five tiers deep, one
above another, each silent tenant in a separate cell. At the entrance of each
cell is a tile or slab of marble, once securely cemented and inscribed with
name, epitaph, or emblem.13 Haweis beautifully says in his "Conquering Cross:"
"The public life of the early Christian was persecution above ground; his
private life was prayer underground." The emblems and inscriptions are most
suggestive. The principal device, scratched on slabs, carved on utensils and
rings, and seen almost everywhere, is the Good Shepherd, surrounded by his flock
and carrying a lamb. But most striking of all, he is found with a goat on his
shoulder; which teaches us that even the wicked were at the early date regarded
as the objects of the Savior's solicitude, after departing from this life.13
Matthew Arnold has preserved this truth in his immortal verse:14
"He saves the sheep, the goats he doth not save!" So rang Tertullian's
sentence on the side
of that unpitying Phrygian sect which cried,-- "Him can no fount of fresh
forgiveness lave, Whose sins once washed by the baptismal wave!" So spake the
fierce Tertullian. But she sighed, The infant Church,--of love she felt the tide
Stream on her from her Lord's yet recent grave, And then she smiled, and in the
Catacombs, With eyes suffused but heart inspired true, On those walls
subterranean, where she hid Her head in ignominy, death and tombs, She her Good
Shepherd's hasty image drew And on his shoulders not a lamb, a kid!
This picture is a "distinct protest" against the un-Christian sentiment then
already creeping into the church from Paganism.
Everywhere in the Catacombs is the anchor, emblem of that hope which
separated Christianity from Paganism. Another symbol is the fish, which plays a
prominent part in Christian symbolry. It is curious and instructive to account
for this symbol. It is used as a code for Christ. The word is a sort of a
description of the name and office of our Lord.
Early Funeral Emblems
The Greek word fish, in capitals would be a secret cypher that would stand
for our Lord's name, when men dared not write or speak it; and the word or the
picture of a fish meant to the Christian the name of his Savior; and he wore as
a charm a fish cut in ivory, or mother-of-pearl, on his neck living, and bore to
his grave to be exhumed centuries after his death an effigy of a fish to signify
his faith. These and the vine, the sheep, the dove, the ark, the palm and other
emblems in the Catacombs express only hope, faith, cheerful confidence. The
horrid inventions of Augustine, the cruel monstrosities of Angelo and Dante, and
the abominations of the medieval theology were all unthought of then, and have
no hint in the Catacombs.
Stll more instructive are the inscriptions. As De Rossi observes, the most
ancient inscriptions differ from those of Pagans "more by what they do not say
than by what they do say." While the Pagans denote the rank or social position
of their dead as clarissima femine, or lady of senatorial rank, Christian
writings is destitute of all mention of distinctions. Only the name and some
expression of endearment and confidence are inscribed. Says Northcote: "They
proceed upon the assumption that there is an incessant interchange of kindly
offices between this world and the next, between the living and the dead."
Mankind is a brotherhood, and not a word can be found to show any thought of the
mutilation of the great fraternity, and the consignment of any portion of it to
final despair. Such are these among the inscriptions: "Paxtecum, Urania;" "Peace
with thee, Urania;" "Semper in D. vivas, dulcis anima;" "Always in God mayest
thou live, sweet soul;" "Mayest thou live in the Lord, and pray for us." They
had "emigrated," had been "translated," "born into eternity," but not a word is
found expressive of doubt or fear, horror and gloom, such as in subsequent
generations formed the staple of the literature of death and the grave, and
rendered the Christian graveyard, up to the beginning of the seventeenth
century, a horrible place. The first Christians regarded the grave as the
doorway into a better world, and expressed only hope and trust in their emblems
and inscriptions.
Following are additional specimen epitaphs: "Irene in Pace." "Here lies
Marcia put to rest in a dream of peace." "Victorina dormit," "Victoria sleeps;"
"Zoticus hic ad dormiendum," "Zoticus laid here to sleep; "Raptus eterne domus,"
"Snatched home eternally." "In Christ; Alexander is not dead but lives beyond
the stars, and his body rests in this tomb." Contrast these with the tone of
heathen funeral inscriptions. In general the pagan epitaphs were like that which
Sophocles expresses in OEdipus, at Colomus:
"Happiest beyond compare Never to taste of life; Happiest in order next,
Being born, with quickest speed Thither again to turn, From whence we came."
"In a Roman monument which I had occasion to publish not long since, a
father (Calus Sextus by name,) is represented bidding farewell to his daughter,
and two words--'Vale AEternam,' farewell forever--give an expressive utterance
to the feeling of blank and hopeless severance with which Greeks and Romans were
burdened when the reality of death was before their eyes." (Mariott, p. 186.)
Death was a cheerful event in the eyes of the early Christians. It was called
birth. Anchors, harps, palms, crowns, surrounded the grave. They discarded
lamentations and extravagant grief. The prayers for the dead were thanksgiving
for God's goodness. (Schaff, Hist. Christ. Church, Vol. 1. p. 342.) Their
language is such as could not have been used by them had they entertained the
views that prevailed from the Sixth to the Eighteenth Century, among the
majority of Christians; and their remains all testify to the cheerfulness of
early Christianity.
Cheerful Faith of the First Christians
"The fathers of the church live in their voluminous works; the lower orders
are only represented by these simple records, from which, with scarcely an
exception, sorrow and complaint are banished; the boast of suffering, or an
appeal to the revengeful passions is nowhere to be found. One expresses faith,
another hope, a third charity. The genius of primitive Christianity--to believe,
to love and to suffer--has never been better illustrated. These 'sermons in
stones' are addressed to the heart and not to the head--to the feelings rather
than to the taste. In all the pictures and scriptures of our Lord's history no
reference is ever found to his sufferings or death. No gloomy subjects occur in
the cycle of Christian art." (Maitland.) Chrysostom says: "For this cause, too,
the place itself is called a cemetery; that you may know that the dead laid
there are not dead, but at rest and asleep. For before the coming of Christ
death used to be called death, and not only so, but Hades, but after his coming
and dying for the life of the world, death came to be called death no longer,
but sleep and repose." The word cemeteries, dormitories, shows us that death was
regarded as a state of repose and thus a condition of hope. If fact, "in this
favorable world,15 now for the first time applied to the tomb, there is manifest
a sense of hope and immortality, the result of a new religion. A star had arisen
on the borders of the grave, dispelling the horror of darkness which had
hitherto reigned there; the prospect beyond was now cleared up, and so dazzling
was the view of an 'eternal city sculptured in the sky,' that numbers were found
eager to rush through the gate of martyrdom, for the hope of entering its starry
portals."16 Says Ruskin: "Not a cross as a symbol in the Catacombs. The earliest
certain Latin cross is on the tomb of the Empress Galla Placidia, A.D. 451. No
picture of the crucifixion till the Ninth Century, nor any portable crucifix
till long after. To the early Christians Christ was living, the one agonized
hour was lost in the thought of his glory and triumph. The fall of theology and
Christian thought dates from the error of dwelling upon his death instead of his
life."17 Farrar adds: "The symbols of the Catacombs, like every other indication
of early teaching, show the glad, bright, loving character of the Christian
faith. It was a religion of joy and not of gloom, of life and not of death, of
tenderness not of severity. We see in them as in the acts of the apostles, that
the keynotes of the music of the Christian life were 'exultation' and
'simplicity.' And how far superior in beauty and significance were these early
Christian symbols to the meaninglessness and pagan broken columns and broken
rose-buds and skulls and weeping women and inverted torches of our cemeteries.
We find in the Catacombs neither the cross of the fifth and sixth centuries nor
the crucifixes of the twelfth, nor the torches and martyrdoms of the
seventeenth, nor the skeletons of the fifteenth, not the cypresses and death's
heads of the eighteenth. Instead of these the symbols of beauty, hope and
peace."18
Dean Stanley's Testimony
From A.D. 70, the date of the fall of Jerusalem, to about A.D. 150, there is
very little Christian literature. It is only when Justin Martyr, who was
executed A.D. 166, that there is any considerable literature of the church. The
fathers before Justin are "shadows, formless phantoms, whose writings are
uncertain and only partially genuine." Speaking of the scarcity of literature
pertaining to those times and the changes experienced by Christianity, says Dean
Stanley: "No other change equally momentous has even since affected its
features, yet none has ever been so silent and secret. The stream in that most
critical moment of its passage from the everlasting hills to the plain below is
lost to our view at the very point where we are most anxious to watch it. We may
hear its struggles under the overarching rocks; we may catch its spray on the
branches that overlap its course, but the torrent itself we see not or see only
by imperfect glimpses. A fragment here, an allegory there; romances of unknown
authorship; a handful of letters of which the genuineness of every portion is
contested inch by inch; the summary explanation of a Roman magistrate; the
pleadings of two or three Christian apologists; customs and opinions in the very
act of change; last, but not least, the faded paintings, the broken sculptures,
the rude epitaphs in the darkness of the Catacombs--these are the scanty, though
attractive materials out of which the likeness of the early church must be
produced, as it was working its way, in the literal sense of the word,
underground, under camp and palace, under senate and forum."19
There were eighty years between Paul's latest epistle and the first of the
writings of the Christian fathers. Besides the writings of Tacitus and Pliny,
the long haitus is filled only by the emblems and inscriptions of the Catacombs.
What an eloquent story they tell of the cheerfulness of primitive
Christianity!20 BACK
1 Martial, Juvenal, Tacitus, Pliny, Suetonius, and
other heathen writers, describe the well-nigh universal depravity and depression
of the so-called civilized world. In Corinth the Acrocorinthus was occupied by a
temple to the goddess of lust. 2 Uhlhorn's Conflict of Christianity and
Paganism. 3 Conquering Cross. Forewords. 4 Early Years of the
Christian Church. 5 Allen's Continuity of Christian Thought. 6
Milman's Latin Christianity. 7 Shedd's History of Christian Doctrine.
8 The early Christians never transferred the rigidity of the Jewish
Sabbath to Sunday. Both Saturday and Sunday were observed religiously till
towards the end of the second centurty--then Sunday alone was kept. Fasting and
even kneeling in prayer was forbidden on Sunday with the early Christians.
Ancient Christian writers always mean Saturday by the word "Sabbath." 9
The Emperor Maximin in one of his edicts says that "Almost all had abandoned the
worship of their ancestory for the new faith." 10 Hesterni summus et
vestra omnes implevimus urbes, insulas, castella, municipia, conciliabula,
castra ipsa, tribus, decurias, palatium, senatum, forum. Apol. c. XXXVII.
Moshein, however, thinks that the "African orator, who is inclined to
exaggerate, "rhetoricates" a little here. The primitive Christians exulted at
the wonderful progress and diffusion of the Gospel. 11 Milman's Latin
Christianity. "The breadth of the best Greek Fathers, such as Origen, or Clement
of Alexandria, is a thousand times superior to the dry, harsh narrowness of the
Latins." Athanase Coquerel the Younger, First His. Trans. of Christianity, p.
215. 12 Cutts, Turning Points of Church History 13 See DeRossi,
Northcote, Withrow, etc., on the Catacombs. 14 A suggestive thought in
this connection is, that our Lord (Matt. 25:33), calls those on his left hand
"kidlings," "little kids," a term for tenderness and regard. 15
Maitland's Church and the Catacombs. 16 Maitland. 17 Bible of
Amiens. 18 Lives of the Fathers. 19 Christian Institutions.
20 Martineau's Hours of Thought, p. 155. "In the cycle of Christian
emblems the death of Christ holds no place; it was not till six centuries after
his death that artists began to venture upon the representation of Christ
crucified. The crucifix dates only from the end of the Seventeenth
Century."--Athanase Coqueral
Chapter 3
Origin of Endless Punishment
When our Lord spoke, the doctrine of unending torment was believed by many
of those who listened to His words, and they stated it in terms and employed
others, entirely differently, in describing the duration of punishment, from the
terms afterward used by those who taught universal salvation and annihilation,
and so gave to the terms in question the sense of unlimited duration.
For example, the Pharisees, according to Josephus, regarded the penalty of
sin as torment without end, and they stated the doctrine in unambiguous terms.
They called it eirgmos aidios (eternal imprisonment) and timorion adialeipton
(endless torment), while our Lord called the punishment of sin aionion kolasin
(age-long chastisement).
Meaning of Scriptural Terms
The language of Josephus is used by the profane Greeks, but is never found
in the New Testament connected with punishment. Josephus, writing in Greek to
Jews, frequently employs the word that our Lord used to define the duration of
punishment (aionios), but he applies it to things that had ended or that will
end.1 Can it be doubted that our Lord placed his ban on the doctrine that the
Jews had derived from the heathen by never using their terms describing it, and
that he taught a limited punishment by employing words to define it that only
meant limited duration in contemporary literature? Josephus used the word aionos
with its current meaning of limited duration. He applies it to the imprisonment
of John the Tyrant; to Herod's reputation; to the glory acquired by soldiers; to
the fame of an army as a "happy life and aionian glory." He used the words as do
the Scriptures to denote limited duration, but when he would describe endless
duration he uses different terms. Of the doctrine of the Pharisees he says:
"They believe that wicked spirits are to be kept in an eternal imprisonment
(eirgmon aidion). The Pharisees say all souls are incorruptible, but while those
of good men are removed into other bodies those of bad men are subject to
eternal punishment" (aidios timoria). Elsewhere he says that the Essenes, "allot
to bad souls a dark, tempestuous place, full of never-ceasing torment (timoria
adialeipton), where they suffer a deathless torment" (athanaton timorion).
Aidion and athanaton are his favorite terms for duration, and timoria (torment)
for punishment.
Philo's Use of the Words
Philo, who was contemporary with Christ, generally used aidion to denote
endless, and aionian temporary duration. He uses the exact phraseology of Matt.
25:46, precisely as Christ used it: "It is better not to promise than not to
give prompt assistance, for no blame follows in the former case, but in the
latter there is dissatisfaction from the weaker class, and a deep hatred and
aeonian punishment (chastisement) from such as are more powerful." Here we have
the precise terms employed by our Lord, which show that aionian did not mean
endless but did mean limited duration in the time of Christ. Philo adopts
athanaton, ateleuteton or aidion to denote endless, and aionian temporary
duration. In one place occurs this sentence concerning the wicked: *GR "to live
always dying, and to undergo, as it were, an immortal and endless death."2
Stephens, in his valuable "Thesaurus," quotes from a Jewish work: "These they
called aionios, hearing that they had performed the sacred rites for three
entire generations."3 This shows conclusively that the expression "three
generations" was then one full equivalent of aionian. Now, these eminent
scholars were Jews who wrote in Greek, and who certainly knew the meaning of the
words they employed, and they give to the aeonian words the sense of indefinite
duration, to be determined in any case by the scope of the subject. Had our Lord
intended to instill the doctrine of the Pharisees, he would have used the terms
by which they described it. But his word defining the duration of punishment was
aionian, while their words are aidion, adialeipton, and athanaton. Instead of
saying with Philo and Josephus, thanaton athanaton, deathless or immortal death;
eirgmon aidion, eternal imprisonment; aidion timorion, eternal torment; and
thanaton ateleuteton, endless death, he used aionion kolasin, an adjective in
universal use for limited duration, and a noun denoting suffering resulting in a
complete change. The word by which our Lord describes punishment is the word
kolasin, which is thus defined: "Chastisement, punishment." "The trimming of the
luxuriant branches of a tree or vine to improve it and make it fruitful." "The
act of clipping or pruning--restriction, restraint, reproof, check,
chastisement." "The kind of punishment which tends to the improvement of the
criminal is what the Greek philosopher called kolasis or chastisement."
"Pruning, checking, punishment, chastisement, correction." "Do we want to know
what was uppermost in the minds of those who formed the word for punishment? The
Latin poena or punio, to punish, the root pu in Sanscrit, which means to
cleanse, to purify, tells us that the Latin derivation was originally formed,
not to express mere striking or torture, but cleansing, correcting, delivering
from the stain of sin."4 That it had this meaning in Greek usage, see Plato:
"For the natural or accidental evils of others no one gets angry, or admonishes,
or teaches, or punishes (kolazei) them, but we pity those afflicted with such
misfortune for if, O Socrates, if you will consider what is the design of
punishing (kolazein) the wicked, this of itself will show you that men think
virtue something that may be acquired; for no one punishes (kolazei) the wicked
looking to the past only simply for the wrong he has done--that is, no one does
this thing who does not act like a wild beast; desiring only revenge, without
thought. Hence, he who seeks to punish (kolazein) with reason does not punish
for the sake of the past wrong deed, but for the sake of the future, that
neither the man himself who is punished may do wrong again, nor any other who
has seen him chastised. And he who entertains this thought must believe that
virtue may be taught, and he punishes (kolazei) for the purpose of deterring
from wickedness?"5
Use of Gehenna
So of the place of punishment (gehenna) the Jews at the time of Christ never
understood it to denote endless punishment. The reader of Farrar's "Mercy and
Judgment," and "Eternal Hope," and Windet's "De Vita functorum statu," will find
any number of statements from the Talmudic and other Jewish authorities,
affirming in the most explicit language that Gehenna was understood by the
people to whom our Lord addressed the word as a place or condition of temporary
duration. They employed such terms as these "The wicked shall be judged in
Gehenna until the righteous say concerning them, 'We have seen enough.'"5
"Gehenna is nothing but a day in which the impious will be burned." "After the
last judgment Gehenna exists no longer." "There will hereafter be no Gehenna."6
These quotations might be multiplied indefinitely to demonstrate that the Jews
to whom our Lord spoke regarded Gehenna as of limited duration, as did the
Christian Fathers. Origen in his reply to Celsus (VI, 25) gives an exposition of
Gehenna, explaining its usage in his day. He says it is an analogy of the
well-known valley of the Son of Hinnom, and signifies the fire of purification.
Now observe: Christ carefully avoided the words in which his auditors expressed
endless punishment (aidios, timoria and adialeiptos), and used terms they did
not use with that meaning (aionios kolasis), and employed the term which by
universal consent among the Jews has no such meaning (Gehenna); and as his
immediate followers and the earliest of the Fathers pursued exactly the same
course, is it not demonstrated that they intended to be understood as he was
understood?7
Professor Plumptre in a letter concerning Canon Farrar's sermons, says:
"There were two words which the Evangelists might have used--kolasis, timoria.
Of these, the first carries with it, by the definition of the greatest of Greek
ethical writers, the idea of a reformatory process, (Aristotle, Rhet. I, 10,
10-17). It is inflicted 'for the sake of him who suffers it.' The second, on the
other hand, describes a penalty purely vindictive or retributive. St. Matthew
chose--if we believe that our Lord spoke Greek, he himself chose--the former
word, and not the latter."
All the evidence conclusively shows that the terms defining
punishment--"everlasting," "eternal," "Gehenna," etc., in the Scriptures teach
its limited duration, and were so regarded by sacred and profane authors, and
that those outside of the Bible who taught unending torment always employed
other words than those used by or Lord and his disciples.
Professor Allen concedes that the great prominence given to "hell-fire" in
Christian preaching is a modern innovation. He says: "There is more
'blood-theology' and 'hell-fire,' that is, the vivid setting-forth of
everlasting torment to terrify the soul, in one sermon of Jonathan Edwards, or
one harangue at a modern 'revival,' than can be found in the whole body of
preaching and epistles through all the dark ages put together. Set beside more
modern dispensations the Catholic position of this period (middle ages) is
surprisingly merciful and mild."3
Whence Came the Doctrine? - Of Heathen Origin
When we ask the question: Where did those in the primitive Christian church
who taught endless punishment find it, if not in the Bible?--we are met by these
facts:--1. The New Testament was not in existence, as the canon had not been
arranged. 2. The Old Testament did not contain the doctrine. 3. The Pagan and
Jewish religions, the latter corrupted by heathen additions, taught it
(Hagenbach, I, First Period; Clark's Foreign Theol. Lib. I, new series).
Westcott tells us: "The written Gospel of the first period of the apostolic age
was the Old Testament, interpreted by the vivid recollection of the Savior's
ministry. The knowledge of the teachings of Christ to the close of the Second
Century, were generally derived from tradition, and not from writings. The Old
Testament was still the great store-house from which Christian teachers derived
the sources of consolation and conviction."9 Hence the false ideas must have
been brought by converts from Judaism or Paganism. The immediate followers of
our Lord's apostles do not explicitly treat matters of eschatology. It was the
age of defending truth and not of arousing controversy.10 The new revelation of
the Divine Fatherhood through the Son occupied the chief attention of
Christians, and the efforts seem to have been almost exclusively devoted to
establish the truth of the Incarnation, "God in Christ reconciling the world
unto himself." We may reasonably conclude that if this great truth had been kept
constantly in the foreground, uncorrupted by pagan error and human invention,
there would have been none of those false conceptions of God that gave rise to
the horrors of medieval times,--and no occasion in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth
Centuries for the rebirth of original Christianity in the form of Universalism.
The first Christians, however, naturally brought heathen additions into their
new faith, so that very early the doctrine of the annihilation of the wicked, or
their endless torment, began to be avowed. Here and there these doctrines
appeared from the very first, but the early writers generally either state the
great truths that legitimately result in universal good, or in unmistakable
terms avow the doctrine as a revealed truth of the Christian Scriptures.
"Numbers flocked into the church who brought their heathen ways with them."
(Third Century, "Neoplatonism," by C. Bigg, D.D., London: 1895, p. 160.)
At first Christianity was as a bit of leaven buried in foreign elements,
modifying and being modified. The early Christians had individual opinions and
idiosyncrasies, which at first their new faith did not eradicate; they still
retained some of their former errors. This accounts for their different views of
the future world. At the time of our Lord's advent Judaism had been greatly
corrupted. During the captivity11 Chaldaean, Persian and Egyptian doctrines, and
other oriental ideas had tinged the Mosaic religion, and in Alexandria,
especially, there was a great mixture of borrowed opinions and systems of faith,
it being supposed that no one form alone was complete and sufficient, but that
each system possessed a portion of the perfect truth. "The prevailing tone of
mind was to choose various views from other sources," and Christianity did not
escape the influence.
The Apocryphal Book of Enoch
More than a century before the birth of Christ12 appeared the apocryphal
(questionable authenticity) Book of Enoch, which contains, so far as is known,
the earliest statement still in existence of the doctrine of endless punishment
in any work of Jewish origin. It became very popular during the early Christian
centuries, and modified, it may be safely supposed, the views of Tatian,
Minucius Felix, Tertullian, and their followers. It is referred to or quoted
from by Barnabas, Justin, Clement of Alexandria, Irenaeus, Origen, Tertullian,
Eusebius, Jerome, Hilary, Epiphanius, Augustine, and others. Jude quotes from it
in verses 14 and 15, and refers to it in verse 6, on which account some of the
fathers considered Jude apocryphal; but it is probable that Jude quotes Enoch as
Paul quotes the heathen poets, not to endorse its doctrine, but to illustrate a
point, as writers nowadays quote fables and legends. Cave, in the "Lives of the
Fathers," attributes the prevalence of the doctrine of fallen angels to a
perversion of the account (Gen. 6:1-4) of "the sons of God and the daughters of
men." He refers the prevalence of the doctrine to "the authority of the 'Book of
Enoch,' (highly valued by many in those days) wherein this story is related, as
appears from the fragments of it still existing." The entire work is now
accessible through modern discovery.
A little later than Enoch appeared the Book of Ezra, advocating the same
doctrine. These two books were popular among the Jews before the time of Christ,
and it is supposed, as the Old Testament is silent on the subject, that the
corrupt traditions of the Pharisees, of which our Lord warned his disciples to
beware,13 were obtained in part from these books, or from the Egyptian and Pagan
sources whence they were derived. At any rate, though the Old Testament does not
contain the doctrine,14 Josephus, as has been seen, assures us that the
Pharisees of his time accepted and taught it. Of course they must have obtained
the doctrine from uninspired sources. As these and possibly other similar books
had already corrupted the faith of the Jews, they seem later to have infused
their virus into the faith of some of the early Christians. Nothing is better
established in history than that the doctrine of endless punishment, as held by
the Christian church in medieval times, was of Egyptian origin,15 and that for
purposes of state it and its accessories were adopted by the Greeks and Romans.
Montesquieu states that "Romulus, Tatius and Numa enslaved the gods to
politics," and made religion for the state.
Catholic Hell Copied from Heathen Sources
Classic scholars know that the heathen hell was early copied by the Catholic
church, and that almost its entire details afterwards entered into the creeds of
Catholic and Protestant churches up to a century ago. Any reader may see this
who will consult Pagan literature16 and writers on the opinions of the ancients.
And not only this, but the heathen writers declare that the doctrine was
invented to instill a pseudo-reverence and fear and control the multitude.
Polybius writes: "Since the multitude is ever fickle there is no other way to
keep them in order but by fear of the invisible world; on which account our
ancestors seem to me to have acted soundly, when they contrived to bring into
the popular belief these notions of the gods and of the hell regions." Seneca
says: "Those things which make the hell regions terrible, the darkness, the
prison, the river of flaming fire, the judgment seat, etc., are all a fable."
Livy declares that Numa invented the doctrine, "a most effective means of
governing an ignorant and barbarous populace." Strabo writes: "The multitude are
restrained from vice by the punishments the gods are said to inflict upon
offenders, for it is impossible to govern the crowd of women and all the common
rabble by philosophical reasoning: these things the legislators used as
scarecrows to terrify the childish multitude." Similar language is found in
Dionysius Halicarnassus, Plato, and other writers. History records nothing more
distinctly than that the Greek and Roman Pagans borrowed of the Egyptians, and
that some of the early Christians unconsciously absorbed, or studiously
appropriated, the doctrines of the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans concerning
punishment after death, and gradually corrupted the "simplicity that is in
Christ"17 by the inventions of antiquity, as from the same sources the Jews at
the time of Christ had already corrupted their religion.18 What more natural
than that the small reservoir of Christian truth should be contaminated by the
opinions that converts from all these sources brought with them into their new
religion at first, and later that the Roman Catholic priests and Pagan
legislators should seize them as engines of power by which to control the world?
Coquerel describes the effect of the invasion of Pagans into the early
Christian church: "The gradual entrance and soon rapid invasion of an idolatrous
multitude into the bosom of Christianity was extremely detrimental to the truth.
The Christianity of Jesus was too lofty, too pure, for this multitude escaped
from the degrading cults of Olympus. The Pagans were not able to enter en masse
into the church without bringing to it their habits, their tastes, and some of
their ideas."19 Milman and Neander think20 that old Jewish prejudices could not
be rooted out in the proselytes of the infant church, and that concealed Judaism
lurked in it and was continued into the darker ages. Chrysostom complains that
the Christians of his time (the Fourth Century) were "half Jews." Enfield21
declares that converts from the schools of Pagan philosophy interwove their old
errors with the simple truths of Christianity until "heathen and Christian
doctrines were still more intimately blended and both were almost entirely lost
in the thick clouds of ignorance and barbarism which covered the earth. The
fathers of the church departed from the simplicity of the apostolic church and
corrupted the purity of the Christian faith." Hagenbach reminds us that22 "There
were two errors which the newborn Christianity had to guard against if it was
not to lose its unique religious features, and disappear in one of the already
existing religions: against a relapse into Judaism on the one side, and against
a mixture with Paganism and speculations borrowed from it, and a mythologizing
tendency on the other." The Sibylline Oracles, advocating universal restoration;
Philo, who taught annihilation, and Enoch and Ezra, who taught endless
punishment, were all read by the early Christians, and no doubt exerted an
influence in forming early opinions.
Early Christianity Adulterated
The Edinburgh Review concedes that "upon a full inspection it will be seen
that the corruption of Christianity was itself the effect of the debased state
of the human mind, of which the vices of the government were the great and
primary cause." "That the Christian religion suffered much from the influence of
the Gentile philosophy is unquestionable."23 Dr. Middleton, in a famous "Letter
from Rome," shows that from the pantheon down to heathen temples, shrines and
altars were taken by the early church, and so used that Pagans could employ them
as well as Christians, and retain their old superstitions and errors while
professing Christianity. In other words, that much of Paganism, after the First
Century or two, remained in and corrupted Christianity. Mosheim writes that "no
one objected (in the Fifth Century) to Christians retaining the opinions of
their Pagan ancestors;" and Tytler describes the confusion that resulted from
the mixture of Pagan philosophy with the plain and simple doctrines of the
Christian religion, from which the church in its infant state "suffered in a
most essential manner." The Rev. T. B. Thayer, D. D.,24 thinks that the faith of
the early Christian church "of the orthodox party was one-half Christian,
one-quarter Jewish, and one-quarter Pagan; while that of the gnostic party was
about one-quarter Christian and three-quarters philosophical Paganism." The
purpose of many of the fathers seems to have been to bridge the void between
Paganism and Christianity, and, for the sake of proselytes, to tolerate Pagan
doctrine. Says Merivale: In the Fifth Century, Paganism was assimilated, not
exterminated, and Christendom has suffered from it more or less even since. The
church was content to make terms with what survived of Paganism, content to lose
even more than it gained in an unholy alliance with superstition and idolatry;
enticing, no doubt, many of the vulgar, and some even of the more intelligent,
to a nominal acceptance of the Christian faith, but conniving at the surrender
by the great mass of its own baptized members of the highest and purest of their
spiritual acquisitions."25 It is difficult to learn just how much surrounding
influences affected ancient or modern Christians, for, as Schaff says (Hist.
Apos. Ch. p. 23): "The theological views of the Greek Fathers were modified to a
considerable extent by Platonism; those of the medieval schoolmen, by the logic
and solutions of Aristotle; those of the latter times by the system of
Descartes, Spinoza, Bacon, Locke, Leibnitz, Kant, Fries, Fichte, Schelling, and
Hegel. Few scientific evidences can absolutely emancipate themselves from the
influence of the philosophy and public opinion of their age, and when they do
they have commonly their own philosophy, etc."
Original Greek New Testament
That the Old Testament does not teach even after-death punishment is
universally conceded by scholars, as has been seen; and that the Egyptians, and
Greek and Roman Pagans did, is shown already. That the doctrine was early in the
Christian church, is equally evident. As the early Christians did not obtain it
from the Old Testament, which does not contain it, and as it was already a Pagan
doctrine, where could they have aquired it except from heathen sources? And as
Universalism was nowhere taught, and as the first Universalist Christians after
the apostles were Greeks, perfectly familiar with the language of the New
Testament, where else could they have found their faith than where they declare
they found it, in the New Testament? How can it be supposed that the Latins were
correct in claiming that the Greek Scriptures teach a doctrine that the Greeks
themselves did not find therein? And how can the Greek fathers in the primitive
church mistake when they understand our Lord and his apostles to teach universal
restoration? "It may be well to note here, that after the third century the
descent of the church into errors of doctrine and practice grew more rapid. The
worship of Jesus, of Mary, of saints, or relics, etc., followed each other. Mary
was called 'the Mother of God,' 'the Queen of Heaven.' As God began to be
represented more stern, unappeased anger, cruel, the people worshiped Jesus to
induce him to appease his Father's wrath; and then as the Son was held up as the
severe judge of sinners and the executioner of the Father's vengeance, men
prayed Mary to mollify the anger of her God-child; and when she became unfeeling
or lacked influence, they turned to Joseph and other saints, and to martyrs, to
intercede with their cold, unappeasable superiors. Thus theology became more
hard and merciless --hell was intensified, and enlarged, and eternalized--heaven
shrunk, and receded, and lost its compassion--woman (despite the deification of
Mary) was regarded as weak and despicable--the Agape (the Godly feasts and
celebrations in the early Church where the eucharist [symbolic partaking of
bread and wine] was just a part of) were abolished and the Eucharist itself
deified, and its cup withheld from the people--and woman deemed too impure to
touch it! As among the heathen Romans, faith and reverence decreased as their
gods were multiplied, so here, as objects of worship were increased, familiarity
bred only sensuality, and sensuous worship drove out virtue, respect, and
reverance until, in the language of Mrs. Jameson's "Legends of the Madonna,"
(Int. p. 31): One of the paintings in the Vatican represents Giulia Farnese (a
noted impure woman and mistress of the pope!) in the character of the Madonna,
and Pope Alexander VI. (the drunken, unchaste, beastly!) kneeling at her feet in
the character of a worshipper! Under the influence of the Medici, the churches
of Florence were filled with pictures of the Virgin in which the only thing
aimed at was a sensual beauty. Savonarola thundered from his pulpit in the
garden of S. Marco against these impieties."26 BACK
1 See my "Aion-Aionious, pp. 109-114; also Josephus,
"Antiq." and "Jewish Wars." 2 "De Praemiis" and "Poenis" Tom. II, pp.
19-20. Mangey's edition. Dollinger quoted by Beecher. Philo was learned in Greek
philosophy, and especially reverenced Plato. His use of Greek is of the highest
authority. 3 "Solom. Parab." 4 Donnegan, Grotius, Liddel, Max
Muller, Beecher, Hist. Doc. Fut. Ret. pp. 73-75. 5 The important passage
may be found more fully quoted in "Aion-Aionios." 6 Targum of Jonathan on
Isaiah, xvi: 24. See also "Aion-Aionious" and "Bible Hell." 7 Farrar's
"Mercy and Judgment." pp. 380-381, where quotations are given from the Fourth
Century, asserting that punishment must be limited because aionian correction
(aionian kolasin), as in Matt. xxv: 46, must be terminable. 8 "Christian
Hist. in its Three Great Periods." pp. 257-8. 9 Introduction to Gospels.
p. 181 10 The opinions of the Jews were modified at first by the
captivity in Egypt fifteen centuries before Christ, and later by the Babylonian
captivity, ending four hundred years before Christ, so that many of them, the
Pharisees especially, no longer held the simple doctrines of Moses. 11
Robertson's History of the Christian Church, vol. 1. pp. 38-39. 12 The
Book of Enoch, translated from the Ethiopian, with Introduction and Notes. By
Rev. George H. Schodde. 13 Mark 7:13; Matthew 16:6,12; Luke 21:1; Mark
8:15. 14 Milman Hist. Jews; Warburton's Divine Legation; Jahn,
Archaeology. 15 Warburton. Leland's Necessity of Divine Revelation.
16 Virgil's AEneid. Apollodorus, Hesiod, Herodotus, Plutarch, Diodorus
Siculus, etc. 17 II Cor. 11:3. 18 Milman's Gibbon, Murdock's
Mosheim, Enfield's Hist. Philos., Universalist Expositor, 1853. 19
Coquerel's First Historical Transformations of Christianity. 20 See
Conybeare's "Paul," Vol. I, Chapters 14,15. 21 See also Priestley's
"Corruptions of Christianity." 22 Hist. Doct. I Sec. 22. 23
Vaughan's Causes of the Corruption of Christianity; also Casaubon and Blunt's
"Vestiges." 24 Hist. Doct. Endelss Punishment, pp. 192-193. 25
Early Church History, pp. 159-160. 26 Universalist Quartarly, January
1883.
Chapter 4
Doctrines of "Mitigation" and of
"Reserve"
There was no controversy among Christians over the duration of the
punishment of the wicked for at least three hundred years after the death of
Christ. Scriptural terms were used with their Scriptural meanings, and while it
is not probable that universal restoration was contentiously or dogmatically
announced, it is equally probable that the endless duration of punishment was
not taught until the heathen corruptions had adulterated Christian truth. God's
fatherhood and boundless love, and the work of Christ in man's behalf were dwelt
upon, accompanied by the announcement of the fearful consequences of sin; but
when those consequences, through Pagan influences, came to be regarded as
endless in duration, then the antidotal truth of universal salvation assumed
prominence through Clement, Origen, and other Alexandrine fathers. Even when
some of the early Christians had so far been overcome by heathen error as to
accept the dogma of endless torment for the wicked, they had no hard words for
those who believed in universal restoration, and did not even deny their views.
The doctrines of Prayer for the Dead, and of Christ Preaching to those in Hades,
and of Mitigation, were humane teachings of the primitive Christians that were
subsequently discarded.
"Mitigation" Explained
The doctrine of Mitigation was, that for some good deed on earth, the damned
in hell would occasionally be let out on a respite or furlough, and have ceasing
of torment. This doctrine of mitigation was quite general among the fathers when
they came to advocate the Pagan dogma. In fact, endless punishment in all its
enormity, destitute of all benevolent features, was not fully developed until
Protestantism was born, and prayers for the dead, mitigation of the condition of
the "lost," and other softening features were repudiated.1
It was taught that the worst sinners--Judas himself, even--had furloughs
from hell for good deeds done on Earth. Matthew Arnold embodies one of the
legends in his poem of St. Brandon. The saint once met, on an iceberg on the
ocean, the soul of Judas Iscariot, released from hell for awhile, who explains
his temporary refuge. He had once given a cloak to a leper in Joppa, and so he
says--
"Once every year, when carols wake On earth the Christmas night's repose,
Arising from the sinner's lake' I journey to these healing snows. "I stand with
ice my burning breast, With silence calm by burning brain; O Brandon, to this
hour of rest, That Joppan leper's ease was pain."
It remained for Protestantism to discard all the softening features that
Catholicism had added to the left-overs of heathenism into Christianity, and to
give the world the absolute horror that Protestantism taught from the Sixteenth
to the Nineteenth Century.
The Doctrine of "Reserve"
We cannot read the patristic literature understandingly unless we constantly
bear in mind the early fathers' doctrine of "OEconomy," or "Reserve."2 Plato
distinctly taught it,3 and says that error may be used as a medicine. He
justifies the use of the "medicinal lie." The resort of the early fathers to the
esoteric or exclusivity is no doubt derived from Plato. Origen almost quotes him
when he says that sometimes fictitious threats are necessary to secure
obedience, as when Solon had purposely given imperfect laws. Many, in and out of
the church, held that the wise possessor of truth might hold it in secret. when
its impartation to the ignorant would seem to be fraught with danger, and that
error might be properly substituted. The object was to save "Christians of the
simpler sort" from waters too deep for them. It is possible to defend the
practice if it be taken to represent the method of a skillful teacher, who will
not confuse the learner with principles beyond his comprehension.4 Gieseler
remarks that "the Alexandrians regarded a certain accommodation as necessary,
which ventures to make use even of falsehood for the attainment of a good end;
nay, which was even obliged to do so." Neander declares that "the Orientals,
according to their theology of oeconomy, allowed themselves many liberties not
to be reconciled with the strict laws of adherence to truth."5
Some of the fathers who had achieved a faith in Universalism, were
influenced by the mischievous notion that it was to be held esoterically
(exclusively), cherished in secret, or only communicated to the chosen
few,--withheld from the multitude, who would not appreciate it, and even that
the opposite error would, with some sinners, be more beneficial than the truth.
Clement of Alexandria admits that he does not write or speak certain truths.
Origen claims that there are doctrines not to be communicated to the ignorant.
Clement says: "They are not in reality liars who use roundabout and indirect
expressions6 because of the oeconomy of salvation." Origen said that "all that
might be said on this theme is not appropriate to explain now, or to all. For
the mass need no further teaching on account of those who hardly through the
fear of aeonian punishment restrain their recklessness." The reader of the
Church Father's literature sees this opinion frequently, and unquestionably it
caused many to hold out threats to the multitude in order to restrain them;
threats that they did not themselves believe would be executed.8
The gross and carnal interpretation given to parts of the Gospel, causing
some, as Origen said, to "believe of God what would not be believed of the
cruelest of mankind," caused him to dwell upon the duty of reserve, which he
does in many of his dicourses. He says that he can not fully express himself on
the mystery of eternal punishment in an exoteric (public) statement.9 The
reserve advocated and practiced by Origen and the Alexandrians was, says Bigg,
"the screen of an esoteric belief." Beecher reminds his readers that while it
was common with Pagan philosophers to teach false doctrines to the masses with
the mistaken idea that they were needful, "the fathers of the Christian church
did not escape the infection of the leprosy of pious fraud;" and he quotes
Neander to show that Chrysostom was guilty of it, and also Gregory Nazianzen,
Athanasius, and Basil the Great. The prevalence of this fraus pia in the early
centuries is well known to scholars. After saying that the Sibylline Oracles
were probably forged by a gnostic, Mosheim says: "I cannot yet take upon me to
acquit the most strictly orthodox from all participation in this form of crime;
for it appears from evidence superior to all exception that a destructive
formulation was current, namely, that those who made it their business to
deceive with a view of promoting the cause of truth, were deserving rather of
praise that disapproval."
What Was Held as to Doctrine
It seems to have been held that "faith, the foundation of Christian
knowledge, was fitted only for the rude mass, the animal men, who were incapable
of higher things. Far above these were the privileged natures, the men of
intellect, or spiritual men, whose vocation was not to believe but to know."10
The ecclesiastical historians class as esoteric believers, Chrysostom and
Gregory Nazianzen; and Beecher names Athanasius and Basil the Great as in the
same category; and Beecher remarks: "We cannot fully understand such a
proclamation of future endless punishment as has been described, while it was
not believed, until we consider the influence of Plato on the age. Socrates is
introduced as saying in Grote's Plato: 'It is essential that this fiction should
be circulated and accredited as the fundamental, consecrated, unquestioned creed
of the whole city, from which the feeling of harmony and brotherhood among the
citizens springs." Such principles, as a leprosy, had corrupted the whole
community, and especially the leaders. In the Roman Empire pagan rulers and
priests appealed to punishment in Tartarus, of which they had no belief, to
affect the masses. This does not excuse, but it explains the preaching of
eternal punishment by men who did not believe it. They dared not entrust the
truth to the masses, and so held it in reserve--to deter men from sin."
General as was the confession of a belief in universal salvation in the
church's first and best three centuries, there is ample reason the believe that
it was the secret belief of more than gave expression to it, and that many a one
who proclaimed a partial salvation, in his secret "heart of heart" agreed with
the greatest of the church's fathers during the first four hundred years of our
era, that Christ would achieve a universal triumph, and that God would
ultimately reign in all hearts.
Modern Theologians Equivocal
There can be no doubt that many of the fathers threatened severer penalties
than they believed would be visited on sinners, compelled to utter them because
they considered them to be more beneficially corrective with the masses than the
truth itself. So that we may believe that some of the Church Father writers who
seem to teach endless punishment did not believe it. Others, we know, who
accepted universal restoration employed, for the sake of deterring sinners,
threats that are inconsistent, literally interpreted, with that doctrine. This
inclination to conceal the truth has motivated many a modern theologian. In
Sermon 35, on the eternity of hell torments, Arch-bishop Tillotson, while he
argues for the endless duration of punishment, suggests that the Judge has the
right to omit inflicting it if he shall see it inconsistent with righteousness
or goodness to make sinners miserable forever, and Burnet urges: "Whatever your
opinion is within yourself and in your heart concerning these punishments,
whether they are eternal or not, yet always with the people and when you preach
to them, use the received doctrine and the received words in the sense in which
the people receive them." It is certainly allowable to think that many an
ancient timid teacher discovered the truth without daring to entrust it to the
mass of mankind.
Even Lying Defended
Theophilus of Alexandria proposed making Synesius of Cyrene, bishop. The
latter said: "The philosophical intelligence, in short, while it beholds the
truth, admits the necessity of lying. Light corresponds to truth, but the eye is
dull of vision; it can not without injury gaze on the infinite light. As
twilight is more comfortable for the eye, so, I hold, is falsehood for the
common run of people. The truth can only be harmful for those who are unable to
gaze on the reality. If the laws of the priesthood permit me to hold this
position, then I can accept consecration, keeping my philosophy to myself at
home, and preaching fables out of doors."11 BACK
1 Christian History in Three Great Periods. pp. 257,8.
2 Bigg's Platonists of Alexandria. p. 58. 3 Grote's Plato, Vol.
III, xxxii. pp. 56, 7. 4 J.H. Newman, Arians; Apologia Pro Vita Sua
5 Allin, Univ. Asserted, shows at length the prevalence of the doctrine
of "reserve" among the early Christians. 6 Stromata. 7 Against
Celsus I, vii; and on Romans 2. 8 "St. Basil distinguishes in
Christianity between *GR what is openly proclaimed and *GR which are kept
secret." Max Muller, Theosophy of Psychology, Lect. xiv. 9 Ag. Cels. De
Prin. 10 Dean Mansell's Gnostic Heresies of the First and Second
Centuries. Introduction, p. 10. 11 Neoplatonism, by C. Bigg, D.D. London:
1895, p. 339.
Chapter 5
Two Kindred Topics
Gospel Preached to the Dead
The early Christian church almost, if not quite, universally believed that
Christ made proclamation of the Gospel to the dead in Hades. Says Huidekoper:
"In the Second and Third Centuries every branch and division of Christians
believed that Christ preached to the departed."1 Dietelmaier declares2 this
doctrine was believed by all Christians. Of course, if souls were placed where
their doom was irretrievable salvation would not be offered to them; whence it
follows that the early Christians believed in probation after death. Allin says
that "some writers teach that the apostles also preached in Hades. Some say that
the Blessed Virgin did the same. Some even say that Simeon went before Christ to
Hades." All these testimonies go to show that the earliest of the fathers did
not regard the grave as the dead-line which the love of God could not cross, but
that the door of mercy is open hereafter as here. "The platonic doctrine of a
separate state, where the spirits of the departed are purified, and on which the
later doctrine of purgatory was founded, was approved by all the expositors and
teachers of Christianity who were of the Alexandrian school, as was the custom
of performing religious services at the tombs of the dead. Nor was there much
difference between them and Tertullian in these particulars."
In the early ages of the church great stress was laid on I Pet. 3:19: "He
(Christ) went and preached unto the spirits in prison." That this doctrine was
prevalent as late as Augustine's day is evident from the fact that the doctrine
is banned and cursed in his list of heresies--number 79. And even as late as the
Ninth Century it was condemned by Pope Boniface VI. It was believed that our
Lord not only proclaimed the Gospel to all the dead but that he liberated them
all. How could it be possible for a Christian to entertain the thought that all
the wicked who died before the advent of our Lord were released from bondage,
and that any who died after his advent would suffer endless woe? Eusebius says:
"Christ, caring for the salvation of all opened a way of return to life for the
dead bound in the chains of death." Athanasius: "The devil cast out of Hades,
sees all the shackled beings led forth by the courage of the Savior."3 Origen on
I Kings 28:32: "Jesus descended into Hades, and the prophets before him, and
they proclaimed beforehand the coming of Christ." Didymus observes "In the
liberation of all, no one remains a captive; at the time of the Lord's passion
he alone (Satan) was injured, who lost all the captives he was keeping." Cyril
of Alexandria: "And wandering down even to Hades he has emptied the dark,
secret, invisible treasures." Gregory of Nazianzus: "Until Christ loosed by his
blood all who groaned under Tartarian chains." Jerome on Jonah 2:6: "Our Lord
was shut up in aeonian bars in order that he might set free all who had been
shut up."
Such passages might be multiplied, demonstrating that the early church
regarded the conquest by Christ of the departed as universal. He set free from
bonds all the dead in Hades. If the primitive Christians believed that all the
wicked of all the aeons preceding the death of Christ were released, how can we
suppose them to have regarded the wicked subsequent to his death as destined to
suffer endless torments? Clement of Alexandria is explicit in declaring that the
Gospel was preached to all, both Jews and Gentiles, in Hades;--that "the sole
cause of the Lord's descent to the underworld was to preach the gospel." (Strom.
6) Origen says: "Not only while Jesus was in the body did he win over not a few
only, but when he became a soul, without the covering of the body, he dwelt
among those souls (in Hades) which were without bodily covering, converting such
of them as were fit for it."
The Gospel of Nicodemus
About a century after the death of John appeared the apocryphal Gospel of
Nicodemus, valuable as setting forth current eschatology. It describes the
effect of Christ's preaching in Hades: "When Jesus arrived in Hades, the gates
burst open, and taking Adam by the hand Jesus said, "Come all with me, as many
as have died through the tree which he touched, for behold I raise you all up
through the tree of the cross.'" This book shows conclusively that the
Christians of that date did not regard aeonian punishment as endless, inasmuch
as those who had been sentenced to that condition were released. "If Christ
preached to dead men who were once disobedient, then Scripture shows us that the
moment of death does not necessarily involve a final and hopeless torment for
every sinful soul. Of all the blunt weapons of ignorant controversy employed
against those to whom has been revealed the possibility of a larger hope than is
left to mankind by Augustine or by Calvin, the bluntest is the charge that such
a hope renders null the necessity for the work of Christ. We thus rescue the
work of redemption from the appearance of having failed to achieve its end for
the vast majority of those for whom Christ died. In these passages, as has been
truly said, 'we may see an expansive paraphrase and exuberant variation of the
original Pauline theme of the universalism of the evangelic mission of Christ,
and of his sovereignty over the world;' and especially of the passage in the
Philippians (2:9-11) where all they that are in heaven and on earth and under
the earth, are counted and listed as classes of the subjects of the exalted
Redeemer."5 And Alford observes: "The deduction every intelligent reader will
draw from the fact here announced: it is not purgatory; it is not universal
restitution; but it is one which throws blessed light on one of the darkest
puzzles of divine justice." Timotheus II., patriarch of the Nestorians, wrote
that "by the prayers of the saints the souls of sinners may pass from Gehenna to
Paradise," (Asseman. IV. p. 344). See Prof. Plumptre's "Spirits in Prison," p.
141; Dict. Christ. Biog. Art. Eschatology, etc. Says Uhlhorn (Book 1, ch. 3):
"For deceased persons their relatives brought gifts on the anniversary of their
death, a beautiful custom which vividly exhibited the connection between the
church above and the church below."
"One fact stands out very clearly from the passages of patriarchal
literature, viz.: that all sects and divisions of the Christians in the second
and third centuries united in the belief that Christ went down into Hades, or
the Underworld, after his death on the cross, and remained there until his
resurrection. Of course it was natural that the question should come up, What
did he do there? As he came down from earth to preach the Gospel to, and save,
the living, it was easy to infer that he went down into Hades to preach the same
glad tidings there, and show the way of salvation to those who had died before
his advent."6
Prayers for the Dead
It need not here be claimed that the doctrine that Christ literally preached
to the dead in Hades is true, or that such is the teaching of I Pet. 3:19, but
it is perfectly apparent that if the primitive Christians held to the doctrine
they could not have believed that the condition of the soul is fixed at death.
That is comparatively a modern doctrine.
There can be no doubt that the Catholic doctrine of purgatory is a
corruption of the Scriptural doctrine of the disciplinary character of all God's
punishments. Purgatory was never heard of in the earlier centuries.7 It is first
fully stated by Pope Gregory the First, 'its inventor,' at the close of the
Sixth Century, "For some light faults we must believe that there is before
judgment a purgatorial fire." This theory is a perversion of the idea held
anciently, that all God's punishments are purgative; what the Catholic regards
as true of the errors of the good is just as true of the sins of the worst,--
indeed, of all. The word rendered punishment in Matt. 25:46, (kolasin) implies
all this.
Condition of the Dead not Final
That the condition of the dead was not regarded as unalterably fixed is
evident from the fact that prayers for the dead were customary anciently, and
that, too, before the doctrine of purgatory was formulated. The living
believed--and so should we believe--that the dead have migrated to another
country, where the good offices of supervisors on earth avail. Perpetua begged
for the help of her brother, child of a Pagan father, who had died unbaptized.
In Tertullian the widow prays for the soul of her departed husband. Repentance
by the dead is conceded by Clement, and the prayers of the good on earth help
them.
The dogma of the purifying character of future punishment did not degenerate
into the doctrine of punishment for believers only, until the Fourth Century;
nor did that error crystallize into the Catholic purgatory until later.
Hagenbach says: "Comparing Gregory's doctrine with the earlier, and more
spiritual notions concerning the desired effect of the purifying fire of the
intermediate state, we may adopt the statement of Schmidt that the belief in a
lasting desire of perfection, which death itself cannot quench, degenerated into
a belief in purgatory."
Plumtre ("Spirits in Prison," London, p. 25) has a valuable statement: "In
every form; from the solemn worship systems which embodied the belief of her
profoundest thinkers and truest worshippers, to the simple words of hope and
love which were traced over the graves of the poor, her voice (the church of the
first ages) went up without a doubt or misgiving, in prayers for the souls of
the departed;" showing that they could not have regarded their condition as
unalterably fixed at death. Prof. Plumptre quotes from Lee's "Christian Doctrine
of Prayer for the Departed," to show the early Christians' belief that
intercessions for the dead would be of avail to them. Even Augustine accepted
the doctrine. He prayed after his mother's death, that her sins might be
forgiven, and that his father might also receive pardon. ("Confessions," 9,
13.)8
The Platonic doctrine of a separate state where the spirits of the departed
are purified, and on which the later doctrine of purgatory was founded, was
approved by all the ministers and teachers of Christianity who were of the
Alexandrian school, as was the custom of performing religious services at the
tombs of the dead. Uhlhorn gives similar testimony: "For deceased persons their
relatives brought gifts on the anniversary of their death, a beautiful custom,
which vividly exhibited the connection between the church above and the church
below." Origen's tenet of Catharsis of Purification was absorbed by the growing
belief in purgatory.9
Important Thoughts
Let the reader reflect, (1) that the Primitive Christians so distrusted the
effect of the truth on the popular mind that they withheld it, and only
cherished it exclusively, and held up terrors for effect, in which they had no
faith; (2) that they prayed for the wicked dead that they might be released from
suffering; (3) that they universally held that Christ preached the Gospel to
sinners in Hades; (4) that the earliest creeds are entirely silent as to the
idea that the wicked dead were in irretrievable and endless torment; (5) that
the terms used by some who are accused of teaching endless torment were
precisely those employed by those acknowledged to have been Universalists; (6)
that the first Christians were the happiest of people and infused a wonderful
cheerfulness into a world of sorrow and gloom; (7) that there is not a shade of
darkness nor a note of despair in any one of the thousands of epitaphs in the
Catacombs; (8) that the doctrine of universal redemption was first made
prominent by those to whom Greek was their native tongue, and that they declared
that they derived it from the Greek Scriptures, while endless punishment was
first taught by Africans and Latins, who derived it from a foreign tongue of
which the great teacher of it confesses he was ignorant. (See "Augustine" later
on.) Let the reader give to these considerations their full and proper weight,
and it will be impossible to believe that the fathers regarded the unrepentant
as consigned at death to hopeless and endless woe.
Note.--After giving the emphatic language of Clement and Origen and other
ancient Christians declarative of universal holiness, Dr. Bigg, in his valuable
book, "The Christian Platonists of Alexandria," frequently quoted in these
pages, remarks (pp. 292-3): "Neither Clement not Origen is, properly speaking, a
Universalist. Nor is Universalism the logical result of their principles." The
reasons he gives are two: (1) They believed in the freedom of the will; and (2)
they did not deny the eternity of punishment, because the soul that has sinned
beyond a certain point can never become what it might have been!
To which it is only necessary to say (1) that Universalists generally accept
the freedom of the will, and (2) no soul that has sinned, as all have sinned,
can ever become what it might have been, so the Dr. Bigg's premises would
necessitate Universalism, but universal condemnation!
And, as if to contradict his own words, Dr. Bigg adds in the very next
paragraph: "The hope of a general restitution of all souls through suffering to
purity and blessedness, lingered on in the East for some time;" and the last
words in his book are these: "It is the teaching of St. Paul,--Then cometh the
end, when he shall have delivered up the Kingdom to God, even the Father. Then
shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him,
that God may be all in all." And these are the last words of his last note: "At
the end all will be one because the Father's will is all in all and all in each.
Each will fill the place which the mystery of the economy assigns to him."
It would be interesting to learn what sort of monstrosity Dr. Bigg has
constructed, and labeled with the word which he declares could not be applied to
Clement and Origen. BACK
1 An excellent resume of the opinions of the fathers on
Christ's descent into Hades, and preaching the gospel to the dead, is
Huidekoper's "The Belief of the First Three Centuries Concerning Christ's
Mission to the Underworld;" also Huidekoper's "Indirect Testimony to the
Gospels;" also Dean Plumptre's "Spirits in Prison." London: 1884. 2
Historia Dogmatis do Descensu Christi ad Inferos. J. A. Dietelmaier. 3 De
Passione et Cruce Domin. Migne, XXVIII, 186-240. 4 Carm. XXXV, v. 9
5 Farrar's "Early Days of Christianity." ch. vii. 6 Universalist
Quarterly. 7 Archs. Usher and Wake, quoted by Farrar, "Mercy and
Judgment." 8 That these ideas were general in the primitive church, see
Nitzsch, "Christian Doctrine," Sec. III; Dorner, "System of Christian Doctrine,"
Vol. IV (Eschatology). Also Vaughan's "Causes of the Corruption of
Christianity," p. 319. 9 "Neoplatonism," by C. Bigg, p. 334.
Chapter 6
The Apostles' Immediate Successors
The First Christians not Explicit in Eschatological Matters
As we read the writings of the immediate successors of the apostles, we
discover that matters of eschatology do not occupy their thought. They dwell on
the advent of our Lord, and extend its blessings to the world; they give the
proofs of his divinity, and appeal to men to accept his religion. Most of the
surviving documents of the First Century are exhortative. It was an apologetic,
not an age of controversy. A very partisan author, anxious to show that the
doctrine of endless punishment was passed on to their immediate successors by
the apostles, concedes this. He says that the first Christians "touched but
lightly and incidentally on points of doctrine," but gave "the doctrines of
Christianity in the very words of Scripture, giving us often no certain clue to
their interpretations of the language.1" The first Christians were converted
Jews, Greeks, Egyptians, Romans, differing in their theologies, and only
agreeing in accepting Christ and Christianity; their ideas of our Lord's
teaching concerning human destiny and on other subjects were influenced by their
former preferences. Thier doctrines on many points were colored by Jewish and
Pagan errors, until their minds were clarified, when the more systematic
teachers came, -- Clement, Origen and others, who eliminated the errors
Christian converts had brought with them from former associations, and presented
Christianity as Christ taught it. The measures of meal were more or less impure
until the enlightenment of genuine Christianity transformed them. But it is
conceded that there is little left of this apostolic age, out of the New
Testament, to tell us what their ideas of human destiny were.
It is probable, however, that the Pharisaic notion of a partial resurrection
and the annihilation of the wicked was held by some, and the heathen ideas of
endless punishment by others. We know that even while the apostles lived some of
the early Christians had accepted new, or retained ancient errors, for which
they were reprimanded by the apostles. "False teachers" and "philosophy and vain
deceit" were alleged of them, and it is the testimony of scholars that errors
abounded among them, errors that Christianity did not at first expel. But the
questions concerning human destiny were not at all raised at first. True views
and false ones undoubtedly prevailed, brought into the new communion from former
associations. And it is conceded that while very little literature on this
subject remains, there is enough to show that they differed, at first, and until
wiser teachers systematized our religion, and sifted out the wheat from the
chaff.
Views of Clement of Rome
The first of the apostolic fathers was Clement of Rome, who was bishop A.D.
85. Eusebius and Origin thought he was Paul's fellow laborer. His famous first
epistle of fifty-nine chapters in about the length of Mark's Gospel. He appeals
to the destruction of the cities of the plains to illustrate the divine
punishment, but gives no hint of the idea of endless woe, though he devotes
three chapters to the resurrection. He has been thought to have held to a
partial resurrection, for he asks: "Do we then deem it any great and wonderful
thing for the maker of all things to raise up again those who have proudly
served him in the assurance of a good faith?" But this does not prove he held to
the annihilation of the wicked, for Theophilus and Origen use similar language.
He says: "Let us reflect how free from wrath he is towards all his creatures."
God "does good to all, but most abundantly to us who have fled for refuge to his
compassions," etc. God is "the all-merciful and beneficent Father." Neander
affirms that he had the Pauline spirit," with love as the motive, and A. St. J.
Chambre, D.D.,2 thinks "he probably believed in the salvation of all men," and
Allin3 refers to Rufinus and says, "from which we may, I think, infer, that
Clement, with other fathers, was a believer in the larger hope." It cannot be
said that he has left anything positive in relation to the subject, though it is
probable that Chambre and Allin have correctly characterized him. He wrote a
Greek epistle to the Corinthians which was lost for centuries, but was often
quoted by subsequent writers, and whose contents were therefore only known in
fragments. It was probably written before John's Gospel. It was at length found
complete, bound with the Alexandrian manuscript. It was read in church before
and at the time of Eusebius, and even as late as the Fifth Century.
Polycarp, a Destructionist
Polycarp was bishop of the church in Smyrna, A.D. 108-117. He is thought to
have been John's disciple. Irenaeus tells us that he and Ignatius were friends
of Peter and John, and related what they had told them. His only surviving
epistle contains this passage: To Christ "all things are made subject, both that
are in heaven and that are on earth; whom every living creature shall worship;
who shall come to judge the quick and the dead; whose blood God shall require of
them that believe not in Him." He also says in the same chapter: "He who raised
up Christ from the dead, will also raise us up if we do his will," implying that
the resurrection depended, as he thought, on conduct in this life. It seems
probable that he was one of those who held to the Pharisaic doctrine of a
partial resurrection. And yet this is only the most probable guess. There is
nothing decisive in his language. When the proconsul Statius Quadratus wrote to
Polycarp, threatening him with burning, the saint replied "Thou threatenest me
with a fire that burns for an hour, and is presently extinct, but art ignorant,
alas! of the fire of aionian condemnation, and the judgment to come, reserved
for the wicked in the other world." After Polycarp there was no literature, that
has descended to us, for several years, except a few quotations in later
writings, which, however, contain nothing bearing on our theme, from Papias,
Quadratus, Agrippa, Castor, etc.
The Martyria
"The Martyrdom of Polycarp" claims to be a letter from the church of Smyrna
reciting the particulars of his death. But though it is the earliest of the
Martyria, it is supposed to have a much later date than it alledges, and much
has been added onto by its transcribers. Eusebius omits much of it. It speaks of
the fire that is "aionion punishment," and it is probable that the writer gave
these terms the same sense that is given them by the Scriptures, Origen, Gregory
and other Universalist writings and authors.
Tatian states the doctrine of endless punishment very strongly. He was a
philosophical Platonist more than a Christian. He was a heathen convert and
repeats the heathen doctrines in language unknown to the New Testament though
common enough in heathen works. He calls punishment "death through punishment in
immortality,"4 terms used by Josephus and the Pagans, but never found in the New
Testament. His "Diatessaron," a collection of the Gospels, is of real value in
determining the existence of the Gospels in the Second Century.
Barnabas's "Way of Death"
The Epistle of Barnabas was written by an Alexandrian Gnostic, probably
about A.D. 70 to 120, not, as has been claimed, by Paul's companion, and yet
some of the best authorities think the author of the Epistle was the friend of
Paul. Though often quoted by the ancients, the first four and a half chapters of
the Epistle were only known in a Latin version until the entire Greek was
discovered and published in 1863. It is the only Christian composition written
while the New Testament was being written, except the "Wisdom of Solomon." It is
of small value to our subject, and sheds but little light on eschatology. The
first perfect manuscript was found with the Sinaitic manuscript of Tischendorf,
a translation of which is given by Samuel Sharpe. (Williams & Norgate,
London, 1880.) It was the first document after the New Testament to apply
aionios to punishment; but there is nothing in the connection to show that it
was used in any other than its Scriptural sense, indefinite duration. It is
quoted by Origen on Cont. Cels., and by Clement of Alexandria. It is chiefly
remarkable for standing alone among writings contemporary with the New
Testament. The phrase, eis ton aiona, "to the age," mistranslated in the New
Testament "forever" (though correctly rendered in the margin of the Revision),
is employed by Barnabas and applied to the rewards of goodness and the evil
consequences of ill doing. He says, "The way of the Black one is an age-lasting
way of death and punishment," but the description accompanying shows that the
Way and its results are confined to this life, for he precedes it by disclaiming
all questions of eschatology. He says: "If I should write to you about things
that are future you would not understand." And when he speaks of God he says:
"He is Lord from ages and to ages, but he (Satan) is prince of the present time
of wickedness." Long duration but not strict eternity seems to have been in his
mind when he referred to the consequences of wickedness. This is confirmed by
the following language: "He that chooseth those (evil) things will be destroyed
together with his works. For the sake of this there will be a resurrection, for
the sake of this a repayment. The day is at hand in which all things will perish
together with the evil one. The Lord is at hand and his reward." Barnabas
probably held the Scriptural view of punishment, long-lasting but limited,
though he employs timoria (torment) instead of kolasis (correction) for
punishment.
The Shepherd or Pastor of Hermas
In the middle of the Second Century, say A.D. 141 to 156, a book entitled
the "Shepherd," or "Pastor of Hermas," was read in the churches, and was
regarded as almost equal to the Scriptures. The author was commissioned to write
it by Clemens Romanus. Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Eusebius and
Athanasius quote from it, and rank it among the sacred writings. Clement says it
is "divinely expressed," and Origin calls it "divinely inspired." Irenaeus
designates the book as "The Scripture." According to Rothe, Hefele, and the
editors of Bib. Max. Patrum, Hermas teaches the possibility of repentance after
death, but seems to imply the annihilation of the wicked. Farrar says that the
parable of the tower "certainly taught a possible improvement after death: for a
possibility of repentance and so of being built into the tower is granted to
some of the rejected stones." The "Pastor" does not avow Universalism, but he is
much further from the eschatology of the church for the last fifteen centuries,
than from universal restoration. Only fragments of this work were preserved for
a long time, and they were in a Latin translation, until 1859, when one-fourth
of the original Greek was discovered. This, with the fragments previously
possessed, and the AEthiopic version, give us the full text of this ancient
document. The book is a sort of Ante-Nicene Pilgrim's Progress--an incoherent
imitation of Revelation.5 The theology of the "Shepherd" can be evaluated from
his language: "Put on, therefore, gladness, that hath always favor before God,
and is acceptable to Him, and delight thyself in it; for every man that is glad
doeth the things that are good, but thinketh good thoughts, despising grief."
How different this sentiment from that which prevailed later, when saints
mortified body and soul, and made religion the deification of melancholy and
despair.
Of some fifteen epistles ascribed to Ignatius, it has been settled by modern
scholarship that seven are genuine. There are passages in these that seem to
indicate that he believed in the annihilation of the wicked. He was probably a
convert from heathenism who had not gotten rid of his former opinions. He says:
"It would have been better for them to love that they might rise." If he
believed in a partial resurrection he could not have used words that denote
endless consequences to sin any more than did Origen, for if annihilation
followed those consequences, they must be limited. When Ignatius and Barnabas
speak of "eternal" punishment or death, we might perhaps suppose that they
regarded the punishment of sin as endless, did we not find that Origen and other
Universalists used the same terms, and did we not know that the Scriptures do
the same. To find aionion attached to punishment proves nothing of its duration.
In his Epist. ad Trall., he says that Christ descended into Hades and cleft the
aionion barrier.
Ignatius Probably a Destructionist
It seems on the whole probable that while Ignatius did not dogmatize on
human destiny, he regarded the resurrection as conditional. But here, as
elsewhere, the student should remember that the destructive doctrine of
"reserve" or "oeconomy" continually controlled the minds of the early Christian
teachers, so that they not only withheld their real views of the future, lest
ignorant people should take advantage of God's goodness, but threatened
consequences of sin to sinners, in order to supply the incentives that they
thought the masses of people required to deter them from sin. Dr. Ballou thinks
that this father held that the wicked "will not be raised from the dead, but
exist hereafter as spirits without bodies." He was martyred A.D. 107.
Justin Martyr's Views
Justin Martyr, A.D. 89-166, is the first scholar produced by the Church, and
the first prominent father whose authenticity of writings is not disputed. His
surviving works are his two Apologies, and his Dialogue with Trypho. It is
difficult to ascertain his exact views. Cave says: "Justin Martyr maintains that
the souls of good men are not received into heaven until the resurrection that
the souls of the wicked are thrust into a worse condition, where they expect the
judgment of the great day." Justin himself says that "the punishment is age-long
chastisement (aionion kolasin) and not for a thousand years as Plato says, "(in
Phoedra). "It is unlimited; men are chastised for an unlimited period, and the
kingdom is aionion and the chastening fire (kolasis puros) aionion, too. "God
delays the destru |