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BX 9931 .B3 1872 Ballou, Hosea, 1796-1861. Ancient history of universalism

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ANCIENT HISTOEY

UNIVERSALISM,

TROM THE

TIME OF THE APOSTLES TO THE FIFTH GENERAL COUNCIL,

WITH AN APPENDIX,

TRACING THE DOCTRINE TO THE REFORUA.TION.

HOSEA BALLOU, 2d., D. D.

WITH NOTES,

BY REV. A. ST. JOHN CHAMBRlS, A.M., AND T. J. SAWYER, D.D.

»>©<«^

BOSTON :

UNIVERSALIST PUBLISHING HOUSE,

37 CORNHILL.

1872.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by

THE

UNIVERSALIST PUBLISHING HOUSE, In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at "Washington.

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

The reader will perceive, in the commencement of the following work, that I have not introduced a statement of the Scripture doctrine upon the subject of my History. For the omission, which some may consider a defect, I submit these reasons : it seemed to me that a brief statement would prove useless, since every one would form his own opinion from other authority ; and it was thought that a satisfactory discussion of the important question belonged rather to the Polemic than to the His- torian. Accordingly, for the commencement of m}^ under- taking, I fixed on a date posterior to the publication of most of the New Testament ; and yet, as it was desirable to take into view every other Christian production extant of the first ages, it was necessary to begin as early as a. d. 90, before some of St. John's writings were composed.

The attentive reader will also discover, as he proceeds, that the Ancient History of Uuiversalism is naturally dis- tinguished, by certain peculiarities, into three successive Periods : the First, extending to the year 190, and ejn- braced in the first two chapters, affords but few indisputable traces either of that doctrine or of its opposite ; the Second, running through the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth chapters, to the year 390, or 394, is distinguished by the prevalence both of Universalism and of the doctrine of endless misery, without producing the least disturbance or uneasiness in the church; the Third, reaching to the Fifth General Council, in a. d. 553, is marked with continual censures,

IV PREFACE.

frequent commotions, and some disgraceful quarrels, on that subject.

And, as I have endeavored to vary my general plan, so as to suit the peculiar character and circumstances of each of these periods, I would here bespeak the reader's attention to the method I have pursued. In the first Period, then, I have been careful to state, in his own words, the opinion of every Christian author who has left us any remarks concerning future punishment, or the eventual salvation of the world ; arid down to the year 150, I have, with still more particularity, inserted every passage which I thought belonged to either of those subjects. Accordingly, it may be ex|3ected that, to many, the first two chapters will prove more tedious than the rest of the work. In the second Period, while it has been my principal object to give a full account of all those fathers who, during that time, advo- cated or favored Universalism, I have also aimed to present a correct view of the opinions entertained, the meanwhile, by the Christian world at large, on that point. In the third Period, I have pursued nearl^^ the same course ; leav- ing, however, the common sentiment of the church, concern- ing the doctrine in question, to be gathered from the controversies and quarrels which then occurred, and which I have minutely described. Thus far, I may venture to pronounce the Historj^ complete, in one respect : it contains an account of every individual of note, whom we haA'^e now the means of knowing to have been a Universalist.

In the Appendix the plan is very diff'erent, since a regular and connected history of Universalism, from the Fifth General Council to the Reformation, is, with me, utterly impracticable. Here, therefore, nothing but a sketch is attempted, pointing out those traces of the doctrine which I have happened to discover in the course of reading.

I would also take this opportunity, once for all, to ajp- prize my readers of the sense in which they will find certain

PREFACE. V

terms and phrases used in the following work. The title hisliop is supposed to have signified, at first, only the chief minister of a city, or territory ; though it afterwards be- came confined in its application to a distinct and superior order of clergy. By the popular epithets ortJiodox and heretic, I mean, not the true and the false, but the pre- dominant, or catholic, and the dissenting, or anathematized. To conclude, I have frequently spoken of the Western or Latin Churches, in distinction from the Eastern or Greek; though they were not finally separated from each other's communion, till the ninth century. EoxBURY, Oct. 22d, 1828.

A SECOND edition of this work was published in 1842. It always filled an important place in the literature of the Universalist Church ; and it is now republished with such additions to the notes as later researches have suggested.

THE PUBLISHERS. Boston, Dec. 1st, 1871.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

PAGB

From A. D. 90 to A. D. 150 7

CHAPTER II. From A. D. 150 to A. D. 190 33

CHAPTER III. From A. D. 190 to A. D. 230 52

CHAPTER IV. Origen 69

CHAPTER V.

Origen's Scholars and Cotemporaries 103

Appendix to Chapter V. 121

CHAPTER VI. From A. D. 254 to A. D. 390 130

CHAPTER VII. From A. D. 390 to A. D. 404 ..".... 191

CHAPTER VIII. From A. D. 404 to A. D. 500 224

CHAPTER IX. From A. D. 500 to A. D. 554 255

APPENDIX.

From A. D. 554 to A. D. 1500 283

7

THE

ANCIENT HISTORY OF UNIVERSALIS!.

CHAPTEE I.

FROM A. D. 90 TO A. D. 150.

At the date with which this history begins, a.d.9o. none of the apostles are supposed to have been alive, except St. John, who then resided, at a very advanced age, in the great city of Ephesus. St. Peter and St. Paul suffered martp'dom at Eome more than twenty years before ; and St. James the Great, and St. James the Less, at Jerusalem, at a still earlier period. Of the deaths of the other apos- tles, nothing can be pronounced with confidence, notwithstanding the accounts given of their martyr- dom by some ancient writers, and adopted by many of the moderns.

Nor must we pretend to define the extent to which Christianity had now spread ; since, on this subject, it is often impossible to distinguish the true from the fabulous accounts of early historians. It is probable, however, that some churches were already established in most of the Roman provinces, especially in the

7

8 THE ANCIENT HISTORY

eastern. But the number of professed Christians must still have been very small, compared with the whole mass of the community ; and it must have been composed, with some exceptions, of the lower classes of people. The rich and noble were, for the most part, attached to the ancient forms and institutions ; and the men of great learning, and those of refined tastes, did not depart, as indeed they seldom do, from that popular course where they might find reward, or at least hope for admiration.

The Christians were, nevertheless, not an obscure sect. Their religion was so novel, so difierent from every other, and they were so zealous and successful in its cause, that it drew much attention wherever it was introduced. It was, indeed, greatly misunder- stood by the public at large ; and still more misrepre- sented by its particular enemies. Of these, the most bitter were the heathen priests, who felt their long unmolested repose disturbed by the growing desertion of their temples, and neglect of their services.^ Still it must be remarked, that the Christians had su fibred very little persecution, except slander, since the death of Nero, more than twenty years before. But the time drew near when they were to encounter pro- scription, danger, and even death, from the civil authorities. It was but four or five years afterwards, that the jealousy of the Emperor Domitian revived the

1 Plinii Epist. 97, lib. x. and Taciti Annal. lib. xv. cap. 44. Afterwards, or towards the year 150, we find the most outrageous calumny heaped upon the Christians : they were commonly called Atheists ; and all kinds of licentiousness, even such as cannot, with decency, be mentioned, were charged upon them. To refute and expose these slanderous falsehoods was a grand object with several of the early Christian writers.

OF UNI VERS ALISM. 9

storm, which raged, with some considerable intervals, for more than two centuries, till the ominous conver- sion of Constantine gave to the church the kingdoms of this world, and the glory of them.

As to the system of doctrine held by the Christians at this period, we can determine few of its particulars, if indeed it be proper to say that such a system then obtained. Their religion had not, as yet, been taught on any regular plan, like that of a body of divinity. Its fundamental truths, that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah, the Christ of the only true God, and the Sa- viour of men, and that he rose from the dead, neces- sarily engrossed the chief attention of its professors, since these were the important facts they were obliged, almost continually, to urge on the people, and to de- fend against opponents. It is extremely difficult for us, who are brought up in a state of society Avhere Christianity is the original and universal religion, and where our disputes extend only to its particular tenets, to conceive of the simplicity in which the first preach- ers taught their faith, when, not the doctrine, but the truth itself, of that religion, was the principal point in dispute. When people were brought to acknowledge the mission of Christ, they were considered Christians, and, if their conduct became their profession, they were gladly received into the churches ; though fur- ther instructions were then given, or afterwards added as opportunities offered.^ Such being the liberal con-

1 This was the practice of the apostles. See the abstracts and accounts of those discourses which they addressed to unbelievers ; Acts ii. 14 — 41 ; iii. 12 — 26 ; iv. 8—12; V. 29—32; viii. 30—38; ix. 20—22; x. 34—48; xiii. 16—41; xvi. 30—33; xvii. 2—4, 18, 22—34; xxiii. 6; xxv. 18, 19; xxvi., xxviii. 23.

10 THE ANCIENT HISTORY

ditions on which the churches were gathered, they, of course, admitted persons of difierent, and even of op- posite sentiments, on many points of doctrine. Both the Jewish and Gentile converts retained many of their respective prejudices. The consequence was, that disputes had ah-eady arisen among them, particu- larly concerning the obligation of the Mosaic rituals, on one hand, and the heathen schemes of philosophy on another. The apostles themselves had, years before, interposed to decide these controversies ; but even thek authority could not remove the prejudices of the parties, nor silence their contentions. Even at this early period, some of the Gnostic believers, in particular, had prob- ably gone so far as to separate from the other churches and to form themselves into distinct bodies, which, however, must have been small and obscure. We can- not suppose, after all, that the Christians, in general, had so soon obliterated from their faith the prominent features of the apostolic doctrine ; especially, when we consider that most of the books of the New Testa- ment were now in circulation, and that St. John still lived to be consulted, and to give instructions.^

Proceeding, now, to the particular subject of our history, we shall, in the present chapter, produce all that can be known, with any degree of certainty, of the views entertained by the Christians, from this time till A. D. 150, in relation to a future state of punish- ment and the eventual salvation of the world. The only direct light that gleams, at intervals, through the

1 The principal facts in this section are illustrated at large by Mosheim, Eccl. Hist. Cent. i. ; and more particularly in his Commentaries on the Affairs of the Christians, before the Time of Constantine, etc. Vol. 1. VidaVs Translation.

OF UNIVERSALISM. 11

obscurity of the course we attempt, is derived from the few Christian T\Titings of this period, which are still extant. These are the productions of those com- monly called the Apostolical Fathers, the first Christian authors, whose works have reached us, after the apos- tles themselves. They are the following : The First Epistle of Clemens Romanus; seyen Epistles of Igna- tius; The Epistle of Polycarp; The Epistle of Barna- bas; and The Shepherd of Hermas. Among these, we should perhaps insert a Relation of the Martijrdom of Ignatius.^ These writings, composed by men of little learning, and, for the most part, of as little judgment, arq still valuable, as they afford some notion of the state of the early Christians, and of their sentiments ; but whoever expects to find them instructive or edify- ing in other respects will rise from their perusal in disappointment, if not with disgust.

The Epistle of Clemens Romanus is distinguished for the respect it received from the ancient _ ^^

■'■ , A. D. 90—95.

churches, some of which caused it to be read, in public, with the books of the New Tes- tament. It may be allowed, at least, the com- mendations, that it is simple though difi*use, and that it contains but one instance^ of those absm'd

1 Of the Second Epistle of Clemens Romanus, so called, the genuineness is con- sidered doubtful by Eusebius, Jerome, Du Pin, Mosheim, etc., and wholly denied by Photius, Archbishop Usher, Lardner, Brucker, Le Clerc, and others. Scarcely one admits it. There are other writings extant, ascribed to Clemens Romanus. but which are now universally considered forgeries, and of a much later date. I omit The Acts of Paul and Thecla, a forgery of the first century, because our present copy is either a forgery upon that original one, or else so much interpo- lated that we cannot determine what is ancient. See Lardner's Credibility, etc., Chap. Supposititious Writings of 2d Century. The reason why I place The Epis- tle of Bar7iabas, and The Shepherd of Hermas last in this catalogue will be given under the accounts respectively of those works.

2 Clemens' Rom. Epis. § 12. Wake's Translation. The date of this Epistle was

12 THE ANCIENT HISTORY

allegories which abound in the succeeding fathers. Clement, of Rome, who was bishop of the church in that city, and perhaps the same person whom St. Paul had mentioned (Phil. iv. 3), wrote this Epistle to the Corinthian Christians for the purpose of dissuading them from their quarrels and seditions. Earnestly exhorting them to repent of their mutual envy and abuse, he adduces, among other considerations, the justice of God as a motive of fear, and the terrible destruction of Sodom, and its neighboring cities as instances of the divine judgments on sinners. But it is remarkable that, in the whole of this Epistle, about as long as St. Mark's Gospel, there is no expressign which discovers whether he believed in any future state of punishment, nor whether he held the salvation of all mankind.^ There are, indeed, two passages,^ which may naturally, not necessarily, be understood to intimate that those only who here serve the Lord will hereafter be raised from the dead.^

probably between a. d. 90 and 95. Lardner places it at A. D. 94 or 95 ; Junius, at 98; Baronius and Cotelerius, at 92; Dodwell, Wake, and De Clerc, between 64 and 70.

1 He probably believed in the salvation of all mankind. He says, '' Let us reflect how free from wrath He is towards all His creatures," Ep. 1, xis. See also XX., where towards the last we read, that God "does good to all, but most abundantly to us who have fled for refuge to His compassions through Jesus Christ our Lord," etc. See also xsxii. We are "not justified by ourselves, nor by our own wisdom, or understanding, or godliness, or works which we have wrought in holiness of heart; but by that faith through which, from the beginning. Almighty God has justified all men; to whom we glory forever and ever. Amen." — A. St. J. C

N. B. — My notes through this volume are, for the most part, condensed from my MS. History of " Christianity and the Church." — A. St. John CEiAMBRt:.

Clem. llom. Epis. § 26 and 49. In these two passages, Clemens expressly men- tions the resurrection of those who " religiously serve the Lord," and are "made perfect in love; " but nowhere docs he assert the resurrection of others.

3 Clem. Rom. Ep. 1, xxviii., however, seems to teach otherwise. In that all are called to forsake sin, since none can escape God's judgments, nor remove them-

OF UNIVEUSALISM. 13

111 passing over the time at which St. John is commonly supposed to have written his Gospd and three Epistles,^ we " " may remark that this last of the apostles died at Ephesus, about the year 100. He left the world at a period when old errors appear to have been spreading in the church, and springing up there under new forms and modifications. They were chiefly of the Gnostic kind, derived from the Oriental or Persian philosophy, of which we shall have a more particular account to give in the sequel.

We come next to the famous Epistles of Ignatius; the o^enuineness of which has been at-

11 -,-„,-., . -, A. D. 107, or 116.

tacked and deiended with an immoderate zeal, altogether disproportioned to their worth, or real weight, in any cause whatever. Though the question is still involved in uncertainty, we shall follow, with some doubt, what appears the prevailing

selves from him, here or hereafter. The passage quoted to justify this is Ps. cxxxix. 7— 10. — A. St. J. C.

1 Of the Herniation, the date has been a point of much dispute ; but there seems, now, a general inclination to place it before the destruction of Jerusalem. Of the date of St. John's other writings, various opinions are entertained : Dr. Wither- spoon places the Gospel atA. D. 96,a and the i;>^■.s«e.s at 98; Lardner dates the Gospel at a. d. 68, and the Epistles at 80 and 85; by Le Clerc, the Gospel is as- signed to the year 97, and the Epistles to 91 and 92; Dr. Owen places the Gospel at about A. D. 69 ; Jer. Jones, at 97 ; and Du Pin, at about A. D. 100.

" The latest and best authorities now attest the Apocalj-pse to have been writ ten before the destruction of Jerusalem, in A. D. 70. Internal evidence is con elusive to our mind. For external evidence may be consulted, Grotius, Lightfoot. Sir Isaac Newton, Stewart ( Andover), T\Tiittemore, Blunt, Gieseler, Ewald, etc. etc. It was written, probably, about A. D. 67. No doubt Nero's second name Domiiianus, misled early writers into the idea that it was the production of the age of Domitian. The Apocalypse is positively a sealed book upon any hypoth- esis that places its production after the overthrow of the city and temple of Jerusalem, when ended the Jewish dispensation. — A. St. J. C.

14 THE ANCIENT HISTORY

opinion, that the seven/ translated by Archbishop Wake, are, in the main, genuine. They were written, if by Ignatius, while he was conducted, partly by sea, and partly by land, on a tardy journey of nearly two thousand miles, ^ from Antioch to Rome, for the exe- cution of the sentence of martyrdom. He is said to have been bishop of the church in the former city, for about forty years, and to have been personally ac- quainted, in his younger days, with some of the apos- tles. His writings, however, are not always worthy of his advantages : they contain some puerile conceits,^ betray an inclination to the Eastern fables concerning the angelic world, ^ and abound with earnest injunc- tions of the most unreserved submission in reason, faith, and practice, to the clergy, whose authority is often expressly likened to that of God and Jesus Christ. We cannot ascertain the author's views concerning the final extent of salvation ; and the following is all

1 Even of these there are two very different copies : the larger, which is gen- erally supposed to be much interpolated; and the shorter, which is followed by Wake, and almost universally preferred. Mosheim, however (Comment, on the Affairs of the Christiatis, etc.), seems to doubt whether the larger be not the genu- ine, if indeed either be so.**

2 His route, real or fabulous, is traced from Antioch to Smyrna, Troas, over the ^gean, into Macedonia and through Epirus, across the Adriatic and Tyrrhene Seas, to the mouth of the Tiber, and thence to Rome. The date of his journey, and of course of his Epistles and Martyrdom, is placed at A. D. 107, by Du Pin, Tillemont, Cave, andLardner; but at A. D. 116, by Pearson, Lloyd, Pagi, Le Clerc, and Fabricius. If the Relatio7i of the Martyrdom of Ignatius, which professes to be written by eye-witnesses, be genuine, this disputed date is fixed at A. l). 116. See § 3. Wake's Translation.

" Ignat. Epist. to the Ephesians, § 9. Wake''s Trans. 4 Ditto, § 19, and Epistle to the Trallians, § 5.

a Modern researches leave little doubt of the essential genuineness of the shorter recension of these epistles, and of the Syriac versions (discovered in A. D. 1838, 1839, and 1842, by Archdeacon Tattam, in the monastery of St. Mary Dei- para, in Nitrian Desert, Egypt), of the Epistles to Ephesians, Romans, and Poly- carp.— A. St. J. C.

OF UNIVERSALISM. 15

that seems to refer to a future state of punisliment : "Those that corrupt families by adultery shall not inherit the kingdom of God. If therefore they, who have done this according to the flesh, have suffered death, how much more shall he die, who by his wicked doctrine corrupts the faith of God, for which Christ was crucified? He, that is thus defiled, shall depart into unquenchable fire, and so also shall he that heark- ens to him." ^ In another place he says, in rather a disjointed paragraph : " Seeing, then, all things have an end, there are these two indifierently set before us, life and death ; and every one shall depart unto his proper place." ^ In the same unconnected manner, he says again: "For what remains, it is very reasonable that we should return unto a sound mind, whilst there is yet time to return unto God." ^ Some of these pas- sages may, indeed, have no allusion to a future state. It must, however, be remarked here, that the author evidently believed that certain heretics, and perhaps the wicked in general, will not be raised from the dead, but exist hereafter as mere incorporeal spirits.'*

The Relatio7i of the Martyrdom of Ignatius, written by Christian eye-witnesses of his trial and sufferings, contains nothing to our purpose ; we, therefore, pro- ceed to

The Epistle of Poly carp, — a piece which evinces a more connected tenor of thought than most of the ecclesiastical writ- ings of that age. The author is guilty of one

A Epist. to the Ephes., § 16.

2 Epist. to the Magnesians, § 5. 3 Epist. to the Smyrneans, § 9.

4 Ditto, § 2 and 7, compared with Epist. to the Trail., § 9, and Epist. to the Ro- mans, § 2.

16 THE ANCIENT HISTORY

exception to his usual moderation, when he exhorts his brethren " to be subject to the elders and deacons as unto God and Christ."^ They who receive this epistle as Polycarp's ^ generally suppose it to have been written soon after the martyixlom of Ignatius, to which it alludes. Polycarp was a bishop of the church at Smyrna, from about the year 100, till after the middle of the second century. He is said to have been the disciple of St. John ; and he was certainly regarded, after the death of that apostle, as the most eminent of the Christians of Asia.^

The following is all that his Epistle contains in relation to the particular subject of this history : " To whom [Christ] all things are made subject, both that are in heaven and that are in earth ; whom every living creature shall worship ; who shall come to be the judge of the quick and dead ; whose blood God shall require of them that believe not in him."^ Alluding, without doubt, to some of the Gnostic heretics, he says, " AYhosoever does not confess that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, he is antichrist. And whoever does not confess his suffering uj)on the cross, is from the devil. And whosoever perverts the oracles of the Lord to his own lusts, and says that there shall be neither any resurrection, nor judgment,

1 Polycarp's Epist., § 5. Wake''s Trans.

2 M. Daille and Blondel reject it, and Mosheim says it " has merely a question- able claim to credit." But Lardner, on the contrary, asserts that " there is scarce any doubt or question among learned men about the genuineness of this Epistle of Polycarp."

3 By some he is considered the angel of the church in Smyrna, addressed in Rev. ii. 8. This, however, is doubtful, as it is probable that he was not ordained till after the Revelation was written,

4 Polycarp's Epist., § 2.

OF UNI VERS ALISM. 17

he is the first-born of Satan." ^ There may also be a question, whether the author does not intimate that the future resurrection depends on faith and obedience in this life. 2

To these dates succeeds a period of several years, from which no Christian writings have descended to us, except a few passages that happen to have been quoted, by later writers, from Papias, Quadi-atus, and Agrippa Castor ; of which, however, we shall take no notice, as they throw no light upon our subject. But it is important to remark that Papias and Aristides (a writer of whom nothing whatever remains) con- tributed, undesignedly, to pervert the simplicity of Christianity; and that they serve, at the same time, to exemplify the manner in which corruptions grew up in the church. The former who was bishop at Hierapolis, near Laodicea, is said to have devoted himself to collecting traditions of the apos- tolic doctrine and sayings ; but being very credulous and of a weak mind, he received, with little discrimination, whatever was related to him. Having thus formed a collection of idle tales and foolish notions, he published them to the world as the authoritative instructions of Christ and his apostles. Such was the character of the church, that his w^ork appears to have been well re- ceived; and it certainly met with considerable

1 Ditto, § 2 and 7.

2 Ditto, § 2 and 5. If Clemens Komanus and Polycarp, as well as Ignatius, really held a partial resurrection, that of the saints exclusively, the circumstance would seem to prove that the notion of the Jews, or rather of the Pharisees, on this point, had spread pretty extensively in the church, — from Asia Minor to Rome, — at this early period. That such was the notion of the Pharisees, about the end of the first century, see Josephus, etc.

18 THE ANCIENT HISTORY

credit among the succeeding fathers, who adopted some of its fictions.^ But whatever were the injurious effects of these pretended traditions, the cause of truth sustained a much greater detriment from the gradual incorporation of the Grecian philosophy. Aristides was probably the fii'st pro- fessed philosopher from the Grecian schools, who took an active part in support of Chris-

A. D. 124-126. . . -r, T

tiamty. But he appears, unhappily, to have clothed it in the robe of the Academy ; for Jerome informs us that the Apology, which he presented to the Emperor Adrian, in behalf of the persecuted Christians, was full of philosophic notions, which were afterwards adopted by Justin Martyr.^ The Grecian philosophy was nearly as incompatible with Christianity as was the Oriental ; but the cor- ruptions it introduced, flom-ished in the church, after a few years, as in a congenial soil ; and, in less than a century, gave a new appearance to the general mass of doctrine considered orthodox.

The Epistle of Barnabas is the next in order;

unless, as has been hitherto conjectured,

it belongs to the first centmy.^ It was

composed by some Jewish Christian, of mean abilities,

for the purpose of representing the Mosaic law and

1 Du Pin's Bibliotheca Patrum, Article, Papias. Papias is said to have flourished about A. D. 116,

2 Du Pin's BibJioth. Pat. Art. Quadratus and Aristides, The Apology of Aris- tides is supposed to have been written about A. D. 124, or 126,

3 It has been thought, by most of the learned, that the Epistle of Barnabas was written in the first century ; and, by many, that it was the work of that Barnabas who was the companion and fellow-traveller of St. Paul. The latter opinion Mosheim treats as scarcely worthy of a refutation ; and, though it has had some eminent advocates, it is now generally discarded. That the former opinion is also

OF UNIVERSALISM. 19

other parts of the Old Testament as containing a hidden account of Christ and his religion. The allegorical and mystical interpretations, of which the Epistle mostly consists, present an extraordinary instance of blind stupidity aiming at discoveries.^

incorrect, I cannot but think sufficiently evident from the Epistle itself. The au- thor, speaking of the temple of Jerusalem, says, ''Again, he [Christ] speaketh after this manner: Behold, they that destroy this temple, even they shall again bicild it tip. And so it came to pass : for through their wars, it is now destroyed by their enemies; and the servants of their enemies build it up." (Barnab.Epist, § 16. Wake's Trans.) It will not be questioned that the author here speaks, 1, of the destruction of the temple after our Lord's ministry; that is, of its destruc- tion by Titus ; and 2, of attemjits at rebuilding it by the servants of the Ro- mans, at the time of writing this Epistle. Now, it is well known that there was no attempt at rebuilding either the temple or the city, after their destruction by Titus, till the time of Adrian, who, in A. D. 130 or 136, sent a colony to Jerusa- lem to restore the city, and on or near the site of the former temple to ei-ect a new one, which he afterwards dedicated to Jupiter. This circumstance appears to de- termine the date of the allusion quoted from Barnabas ; and I know of nothing that can be urged against the hypothesis. Irenseus, about A. D. 190, is the first who seems to have imitated any of the expressions of this Epistle ; and Clemens Alexandrinus, about A. D. 194, is the first who cither mentioned it, or formally alluded to it. It is but just, however, to apprize the reader, that my hypothesis is not supported by the authority of the critics ; who, so far as I know, have taken no notice of Barnabas's allusion to the rebuilding of the temple. Mosheim sup- poses the Epistle to^have been written in the first century; and he agrees with Cotelerius, Brucker, Basnage, and others, that its author was not the Barnabas who was the companion'^of St. Paul. Wake, Du Pin, and Lardner, on the contrary, ascribe it to that Barnabas, and place its date about A. D. 71 or 72.

1 *' Understand, children," says he, '' these things more fully, that Abraham, who was the first that brought in circumcision, pei'formed it, after having received the mystery of three letters, by which he looked forward in the spirit, to Jesus. For the Scripture says that Abraham circumcised three hundred and eighteen men of his house. But what, therefore, was the mystery that was made known unto him ? Mark, first, the eighteen ; and next, the three hundred. For the numeral letters of ten and eight are IH [that is, the Greek Eta, or long E, — IE are the fixst two letters of the word Jesus] . And these denote Jesus. And because the cross was that by which we were to find grace, he therefore adds three hundred; the numeral letter of which is T [the figure of the cross]. T\Tierefore, by two letters he signified Jesus, and by the third, his cross. He who has put the engrafted gift of his doctrine within us knows that I never taught to any a more certain truth ; but I trust that ye are worthy of it." — Barnabas's Epist., § 9. Such is one of the important discoveries our author communicates ; and, strange as it may seem, the later fathers, even those of undoubted learning, as Justin Martyn, Irenaeus, Clem- ens Alexandrinus, etc., appear to have been by no means insensible to the charms of this kind of nonsense.

20 THE ANCIENT HISTORY

It is worthy of remark, that of all the Christian writings, after the sacred Scriptures, this Epistle is the first in which we find the word everlasting^ or eternal^ applied to suffering ; near the end, Barnabas represents two ways, that of light, over which the angels of Grod are appointed, and that of darkness, where the angels of Satan preside ; and after describing the manner of walking in the way of light, he says, "But the way of darkness is crooked, and full of cursing ; for it is the way of eternal death with punishment, in which they that walk meet with those things that destroy their own souls." ^ He afterwards adds, that he who chooses this part shall "be destroyed, together with his works. For this cause, there shall be both a resurrection and a reti*ibution."2 Throughout his Epistle he says noth- ing of universal salvation; and it appears, from what we have quoted, that he believed in a future state of punishment. But whether he thought it endless can- not be determined ; since the word everlasting or eter- nal was used, by the ancients, to denote indefinite rather than interminable dm-ation.^

The last, as well as the longest, of the works of the Apostolical Fathers, so-called, is that effusion of second childishness. The Sheijlierd of Hernias.'^ It was wiitten at Eome, by a brother of

1 Barnabas's Epistle {Wake's Translation), §§ 18 and 20.

2 Ditto, § 21.

3 See instances of this, in the next chapter, sects, iii. iv. xi., and in succeeding chapters.

4 It had long been debated, by the learned, whether this work was composed in the first century, by that Hermas whom St. Paul mentions (Rom. xvi. 14) ; or in the second century, by another Hermas, brother to Pius, Bishop of Rome. But the question was finally decided by a fragment of a work of the second century, brought to light by Aluratori : •• Hermas, brother to Pius, bishop of the church in the

OF UNIVERSALISM. 21

the bishop of that city; but it betrays an ignorant and imbecile mind, in absolute dotage. Its object appears to have been to excite the professors of Christianity to more uprightness, zeal, and abstraction from the business as well as ordinary pleasures of life ; and this the author strives to effect by relating pre- tended visions, and by introducing instructions from an angel, who occasionally appeared to him, as he as- serts, in the habit of a shepherd. But the conversa- tion he attributes to . his celestial visitants is more insipid than we commonly hear from the weakest of men.

Without exti'acting at full length, as in the case of former works , the several passages which seem to have relation to our subject, it is sufficient to observe, that Hermas has left nothing to determine his views of the final extent of salvation, unless it may be gathered, from the following, that he totally precludes some of the human race from all prospect of bliss : he teach- es that a Christian, if he sin after his baptism, may possibly be allowed the privilege of one repentance, and of one only ; ^ but that for such as apostatize from

city of Rome," says this fragment, '* wrote very lately, in our own time. The Shep- herd, at Rome." (See Mosheim's Commentaries on the Affairs of the Christians, etc., Eccl. Hist, of the First Cent., § liv., notes n and o; where may he found a full discussion of this point.) The date of The Shepherd, therefore, cannot he much eaUer than A. D. 150; perhaps later.

1 Hermas, hook ii., command, iv., § 3, compared with hook i., vis. ii., § 2. Wake's Trans.

a This position is not tenable. The author of the fragment is unknown. Even the original language is obscure, and a matter of doubt. This opinion only occurs in a note of Muratori, and in a poem falsely ascribed to Tertullian. It doubtless belongs to the time of Hadrian, or Antoninus Pius, — A. D. 117 — 138. It is prob- ably an early ^fiction ; but is exceedingly valuable as reflecting the thought of that period. — A. St. J. C.

22 THE ANCIENT HISTORY

the faith, and blaspheme God, there is no return. They have /or erer • departed from God; and, in the next world, they are to be bm-ned, together with the heathen nations.^ Strong as such language may seem, those acquainted with the style of the earliest fathers, will not, perhaps, account it decisive in favor of end- less perdition. We may here add, that Hermas supposed that the apostles, after their death, went and preached to the souls of those who had led pure and virtuous lives before Christ's birth ; and that, when those spirits had thus heard the gospel, they re- ceived water baptism, in some way untold, and then entered the kingdom of God.^ He also held an opin- ion, common during the remainder of this century, that the end of the world was near at hand.^

We must now take om^ leave, for a while, of the or- thodox believers, and go back to an account of a very different kind of Christians, concerning whom we have not even the feeble light hitherto enjoyed to guide our investigations. Xo part of ecclesiastical history is involved in more uncertainty than that of the Gnostic heretics of the first and second centuries. Their own writings, except a few unconnected fragments, are wholly lost ; and the only way of attaining to an acquaintance with them and their sentiments is by comparing the faulty, and often al)usive, representations of their zealous opposers, with the imperfect knowledge we

1 Hermas, book iii. simil. vi. § 2.

2 Ditto, book iii. simil. ix. § 16.

3 Ditto, book i., vis. iv. § 3.

The idea of salvation, after punishment hereafter, seems taught. B.i. vis. iii. ch. vii. But of punishment even after repentance. B. iii. simil. vii. 1. —A. St. J. C.

OF IINIVERSALISM. 23

have of that system of philosophy, the Oriental, which they amalgamated with Christianity. ^ That they be- lieved in our Saviour as a messenger from the supreme God, and generally maintained their Christian profes- sion, amidst the opposition of the heathens, and the obloquy of the orthodox, is certain. But it is now considered equally certain that they believed, some of them, that Jesus Christ was an angelic being of the highest order, who came into om- world with only the visionary appearance, not the real body, of a man ; and others, that Jesus alone was a mere man, with a hu- man soul, into whom the Christ, a high celestial spirit, descended at his baptism in Jordan. As to the object of our Saviour's mission, they are thought to have been perfectly agreed, that it was not to satisfy any vin- dictive justice in Deity, whom they considered infi- nitely good, but to deliver mankind from the oppressive service of the degenerate gods of this world, and to teach them how to subdue their passions, and approx- imate the supreme God, the fountain of purity and bliss. From the long-venerated, but chimerical phi- losophy of the Persians, they retained the notion, that the material world was formed, not by the self-exist- ent, but by the inferior gods, called ^ons, whose be- ing was derived through a long and intricate succession,

as most of them thought, originally from him.^ This

•

1 1, however, attempt only to follow our modern historian, Mosheim (Ecclesiasti- cal History, and Commentaries on the Affairs of the Christians, etc.), with some help from Le Clerc (Histor. Eccl. duorum primonun, a Christo nato, Sasculorum), from Beausohre (HistOire de Manichee, etc.), and from the History of Heretics, in Lardner's Works.

2 A few of them, perhaps, held two original, self-existent beings, an evil, as well as a good, deity. Such it is conjectured, was the opinion of the Saturninians, about A. D. 120, and of the Marcionites, about A. D. 140. This is denied, however, in the History of Heretics, in Lardner's Works, and also by Beausobre.

24 THE ANCIENT HISTORY

led them to regard the God of the Jews, the Jehovah of the old Testament, as but a secondary bemg, the principal Maker of this world ; and they also con- cluded that he had apostatized, more or less, from the divine allca'iance, inasmuch as he had arros^ated to himself the honors of worship, and as Christ had been sent to annul his ancient covenant, and to overthrow his institutions. From the same philosophy they also received the doctrine of the eternity of matter, and, especially, of its inherent, radical depravity. Hence, they in general discarded the hope of the resurrection of the material body, which, in their view, would but perpetuate the bondage and corruption of the soul. "With such dislike did most of them regard the body, that they prescribed an excessively rigid discipline, a continual abstinence, in order to thwart all its inclina- tions, and to weaken, as far as possible, its power over the mind.

Such are the common outlines of their several sys- tems, as laid down by the more judicious of modern historians, who at the same time confess and lament the impossibility of arriving at a satisfactory knowl- edge of the subject. All the Gnostics were charged, by their cotemporary orthodox adversaries, with be- ing abandoned to licentiousness ; a scandal which the heathens first poured forth, with unsparing liberality, upon the orthodox themselves, and which these, in turn, have as freely passed over, and doubtless from nearly the same motives, to the successive orders of heretics.^

1 The licentiousness, alleged by the ancient orthodox against the Gnostics, ia in ^rt denied, and in part admitted, by Mosheim ; uniformly mentioned in terms of

OF UNIYERSALISM. 25

Some of the Gnostics, perhaps some of the earliest, believed in the endless exclusion of a part of mankind from the abodes of celestial light. But, among those who arose in Egypt, there were many, particularly the Basilidians, the Carpocratians, and the Yalentinians, who are supposed to have held an eventual restoration, or rather transmigration, of all human souls to a heaven of purity and bliss. But this tenet they appear to have involved in other notions, wild and chimerical enough to warrant the suspicion of lunacy, were it not for the antiquity, prevalence, and reputation of that whimsical philosophy from which they were derived.

The Basilidians and Carpocratians, it is said, believed that such souls as here follow the instructions of our Saviour will, at death, ascend immediately to the happy mansions above; while, on the contrary, such as neglect and disobey, will be condemned to pass into other bodies, either o*f*men or of brutes, until b}^ their purification they shall be fitted to share the joys of the incorporeal blest ; and so, all will finally be saved.

uncertainty by Le Clerc; and wholly denied by Beausobre; as it likewise is, in the History of Heretics, in Lardner's Works. The following remark deserves more consideration than, I fear, most readers wiU allow it : '* This is certain, that as bad things were said of the primitive Christians as were ever said of the ancient heretics by the Catholics [Orthodox]. Modern Refonners have been treated just in the same manner. (Hist, of Heretics, book i. sect. 8, Lardner's Works.) Look Into Roman Catholic writings, and see all kinds of immoral tenets attributed to Luther, Calvin, and their associates; turn to the Protestant side, and see the charge retorted with, at least, equal exaggeration; hear the mutual criminations of our modern sects, who accuse each other of j)rincij)les of conduct which they never thought of ; — and then judge how much credit should be given to ancient calum- nies of the same sort! It is a curious circumstance, that Mosheun, honored and admired, and standing on high ground in a national church, had never, himself, encountered the slander of bigotry ; while Le Clerc, an odious Arminian from Ge- neva, and Beausobre, a Protestant refugee from France, had ample experience of its malignity and falsehood. The Unitarian Lardner, was, in his own country, a heretic of the most obnoxious kind."

26 THE ANCIENT HISTORY

The Basiliclians were the followers of Basilides, a Gnostic Christian and Egyptian philosopher, who flourished, at Alexandria, in the early part of the second century, and died there between the years 130 and 140. Though he believed in one self-existent, supreme, and infinitely glorious God, yet he also held that depraved matter had been, in one state or another, coeval with him. In the past ages of eternity, the Deity produced from himself certain ^ons, who, in their turn, begat others, but of a rank somewhat inferior, and of a lower station ; and from these again proceeded a species still less exalted ; and so on, in succession, till the celestial hierarchy extended from the highest heaven down to the vicinity of chaotic matter. The lowest race of ^ons, whose station was the nethermost heaven, undertook, at length, to reduce the immense material mass below them from its pristine state of disorder; and having formed it into a world, and made man with a body and a material soul, the Deity, approving their work, gave the creature a rational mind, and thus completed the undertaking. He then allowed these ^ons to divide, among themselves, the government of the world they had formed. But they, swerving by degrees from their allegiance, arrogated at length divine honors from their creatures, grew ambitious of enlarging, each one, his dominion over the territory of the others, and for this purpose embroiled mankind in mutual wars, till the world became full of wretchedness and crime. Touched with compassion for the human race, God sent his Son, the first-begotten and noblest of nil the ^ons, to take up his abode in the man Jesus ;

OF UXIVERSALISM. 27

and through him to prochiim the supreme, but for- gotten, Deit}^ teach mankmcl to abjure the authority of their tyrannical gods, especially of the God of the Jews ; and to instruct them how to subdue their own sinful propensities, by mortifying their bodies, as well as by governing their passions. The God of the Jews, alarmed for his dominion, excited the people to apprehend and crucify Jesus ; but the Christ, the celestial ^on, had left his mortal associate, before the suffering man was nailed to the cross.

Basilides taught that God is perfectly good, or be- nevolent, in the real sense of those words ; but that he inflicts the proper punishment for every wilful transgression, whether of saint or sinner. Reforma- tion and improvement are the grand objects, as he appears to have held, of all punishment, and of all God's dealings with mankind. Though he treated the Old Testament with respect, as the revelation of that dignified Being who governed the Jews, he did not think it inspired by the supreme God ; and he is accused of having also rejected some parts of the New Testament ; which, though possibly a fact,^ cannot be satisfactorily proved. He wrote a Qommentary ^ in twenty-four books, on the Gospels, which was soon answered by Agi'ippa Castor, a cotemporary ortho- dox writer.

Basilides is thought to have been a grave and pious man, but bewildered by the fabulous theology of the East. He had a son, named Isidore, who wrote some books, long since lost, in illustration of their religious

1 Mosheim thinks it credible; Beausobre sees no proof of it; and in the Historj of Heretics, in Lardner, it is disputed. Le Clerc says nothing about it.

4

28 THE ANCIENT HISTORY

sentiments. His sect, though often assailed, and con- stantly opposed, both b}^ the orthodox and the heathens, was for a long time numerous, chiefly in Egypt and Asia. After having continued about two hundred years, we find it broken and decreased in the fourth century ; and not long afterwards it probably became extinct, or perhaps coalesced with that of the Manicheans.^

The Carpocratians, who arose at the same place with the Basilidians, and nearly at the same time, agreed with them in the final salvation of all souls, and did not gi-eatly differ from them in the general system of their doctrine. Like them, they clis- tinsruished between the Deitv and the inferior ^ons who formed the world ; like them they believed that matter had existed from eternity, and was unalterably corrupt. They, indeed, aiTanged the JEons in a little different order ; and there is some reason to think that they considered our Sa^dour not a twofold beings human and angelic, but a mere man, though of more than ordinary wisdom and divine intelligence. He was appointed by Deit}^ to teach mankind the knowl- edge of the true God, and to abolish the dominion of the arrogant makers of the world.

This sect, which seems never to have been large, spread chiefly in Egypt and the adjoining parts of Asia ; and disappeared, probably, in little more than a century after its rise, if indeed it ii^ad ever been altogether distinct from that of the Basilidians, Its founder was Carpocrates, a learned Pgyptian^ who

1 As to the time Aiwi cause of the disappearance of the Gnostic sects, Bee ^u*;» dock's Moshedm, vol. 1, p. 233, note.

or UXIVERSALISM. 29

flourished at Alexandria, about the year 130. His son Epiphanes, Tvas a youth of vast attainments and extraordinary promise ; but he died (about a. d. 140) at the early age of seventeen, after having written several treatises on religious subjects.

Their ancient opponents accuse the Carpocratians of avowing the most infamous principles of moral con- duct, and even of teaching that, to arrive at heaven, we must devote ourselves to the perpetration of every vile and licentious abomination : a calumny which, by its manifest exaggeration and malice, reflects only on its authors. Some of the learned allow no credit what- ever to any of the disadvantageous representations of their moral character ; while others refuse to exculpate them entirely, at the consequent expense of their or- thodox slanders.^

A sect^of Gnostics, still more whimsical than either of the precedins^, was' the Yalentinians.

. . About A. D. 130.

Man, m theu^ view, was a complex being, , consisting, 1, of the outward visible body ; 2, of an- other body ^within this, composed of fluid matter, and imperceptible to the senses; 3, of an animated soul, the seat of life and sensation only ; and 4, of a nobler, rational soul, of an angelic substance. The bodies, both outward and internal, were, they held, destined to perish; of the two souls, the animal or sensitive

1 Among the licentious tenents charged on the Carpocratians, some of the most moderate and judicious of the moderns consider that of the community of women, as well as of goods, justly imputed to them. But in the Hist, of Heretics, in Lard- ner (book ii. ch. iii. § 11). this charge is, I think, fairly shown to rest on very un- certain authority, and to be, in itself, quite improbable. Mosheim, in his Com- mentaries, etc.. has softened the features of the picture which he had drawn of the Carpocratians, in his Ecclesiastical Historj^.

2 At least, so asserts Mosheim, confidently ; from whom, therefore, I dare not wander, though, in this particular, I follow him with much doubt.

30 THE ANCIENT HISTORY

could be saved by its obedience, or by its negligence bring upon itself entire dissolution at death ; but the rational, intelligent soul will, in all cases, be admitted to the realms of bliss.

In the immediate habitation of Deity, a world of pure light, infinitely above the visible heavens, the Yalentinians placed thirty ^ons, divided into three orders. These were guarded by Horns, stationed on the extreme verge of the high abode, to prevent them from wanderinsr off into the immense res^ions of chaotic matter, which lay around. The ^Eons, in process of time, grew envious of the distinguished and peculiar felicity enjoyed by the first and highest individual of their number, who alone was adequate to compre- hend the supreme Father's greatness. The ardent desire to attain the same divine pleasure grew stronger and stronger among them ; until wisdom, the youngest and weakest of all, became excessively agitated. From her ungovernable perturbations sprang a daughter, who was immediately expelled into the vast abyss of rude and unformed matter without. To allay the agitation thus raised in the celestial realm, the Deity produced two new tEous, who instructed the others to be content with their limited capacity, and to unite all their powers in giving existence to a being called Jesus, the noblest and brightest of all the ^ons.

Scarcely was the tranquillity of the heavenly world thus restored, when the most violent commotions began to agitate the drear abyss without. The exiled daughter of Wisdom had caught some glimpses of the eternal radiance, and attempted to reach the glorious

OF UNIVEKSALISM. 31

abode ; "but being continually repulsed by its watcli- ful guardian, her passions of grief, anxiety, and desire grew so violent, that the chaotic mass of matter, in which she was immersed, caught the strong contagious emotions, and became thereby separated into the difierent elements which exist in our world. By the assistance of Jesus, she formed a being who is the Maker and Governor of the material system. This Creator, having afterwards, with the same assistance, constructed the visible Universe, took up his abode in the lowest heaven, far from the refulgent habitation of the Deity ; and here his vanity at length transported him to fancy himself the only true God, and to call upon mankind by his prophets, especially by those he sent to the Jews, to worship him as such. To extri- cate mankind from this delusion, to reveal the Deity to them, to teach them piety and virtue, was Christ, one of the ^ons, sent into the world. He had a real body, but unlike those of mortals, since it was com- posed of an ethereal substance ; and when he was baptized in Jordan, Jesus himself, in the form of a dove, descended into him. Thus completely con- stituted, our Saviour proceeded, by means of instruc- tions and miracles, to fulfil his ministry. The Maker of the world was enraged by his success, and procured his apprehension and crucifixion ; but not till both Jesus and the spiritual, rational soul of Christ had ascended, leaving nothing but the sensitive soul and the ethereal body to sufler. Like other Gnostics, the Valentinians denied the resurrection of the body, and thought the authors of the Old Testament to have

32 THE ANCIENT HISTORY

been under the inspiration of the ^laker of this world.

This sect sprung from Valentine, an Eg}^3tian, who, after propagating his notions, for a while, in his native country, went, about a. d. 140, to Rome. Here, so many professors embraced his views, that the church became alarmed, and, after thrice excommifiiicating him, succeeded in rendering his residence in Italy so uncomfortable that he withdrew to the island of Cy- prus. In this delightful and luxurious region, his sect flourished in quiet ; and after his death, which oc- curred a little subsequent, perhaps, to a. d. 150, it was widely diffused thi'oughout Asia, Africa, and Europe, and excited considerable fear in the orthodox churches. It existed about a century and a half; when it seems to have sunk gradually into oblivion. Many of its sentiments, however, were then revived among the Manicheans, whom we shall consider in their proper place.

In closing our account of these Gnostic sects, it is important to remark, that while the orthodox fathers warmly and bitterly attacked their respective s^^stems at large, it does not appear that they ever selected the particular tenet of the salvation of all souls as obnox- ious. "What chiefly excited their resentment and ani- madversions was the distinction between Deity and the jNIaker of the world, the fables of the ^ons, the views of our Saviour's person, the rejection of the Old Testament, and the denial of the resurrection and of a futui-e judgment.

OF UNI VERS ALISM. 33

CHAPTER II.

FROM A. D. 150 TO A. D. 190.

It has been seen that heresies had multiplied to such a number, and spread to such an extent, as to become troublesome^ to the regular and approved churches, and that several sects had estab- lished separate communities, in distinction from the common body. Most of these were of the Gnostic kind, already described ; but there vras one which, though small, deserves particular mention, as consist- ing of that part of the original church at Jerusalem which continued to adhere, with unyielding tenacity, to the practice of the Mosaic rituals. This was the Nazarene, or Ebionite sect, which is said to have held the simple humanity of Jesus Christ.

But from the heretics, of all kinds, we return to a view of the doctrine and character of the orthodox. JNIany of the vulgar superstitions of the Gentiles pre- vailed among them, concerning magic, the demons, and the poetical regions of the infernal" world ; and the Greek philosophy, which had begun to mingle with the doctrine of Christ, was rapidly modifying his re- ligion to its own genius. The credulity of this age was rank, and the learning of the day, at least that of

1 This is also evident from the circumstance that Agrippa Castor wrote a hook against the heretics some years before this period, and Justin Martyr a little after.

34 THE ANCIENT HISTORY

the fathers, was too superficial to prove either a pre- ventive or remedy. Apostolical tradition also began to be urged as a proof, when it was so far lost or cor- rupted that even they who had been disciples of the apostles adduced contrary traditions on one and the same point ; ^ and yet upon this very precarious au- thority some whimsical notions ^ prevailed. To these shades in the picture we must add a still darker ; the Christians, orthodox as well as heretics, appear to have employed, in some cases, known falsehood in support of their cause. This pernicious artifice they are said to have derived from the Platonic paradox, that it is lairful to lie for the truth; but one would sujDpose it to have been suggested by their own intemperate zeal, rather than by any maxims of philosophy. They had already begun to forge books in support of their relig- ion, a practice which, it is thought, they borrowed from the heretics ; and they now proceeded to propa- gate accounts of frequent mu^acles, concerning which all the early writers, after the apostles, had been en- tirely silent.

In the works which we have hitherto had under examination we can discover little that belongs to the Grecian literature, except the language. All their fanciful conceits, all their extravagancies, are either of that peculiar character which denotes a Jewish, at least Asiatic, origin ; or else are the natural effusions

1 For instance, Polycarp visited Anicetus, Bisliop at Rome, about A. D. 150, and held an amicable discussion with him on the proper time for holding Easter. Each, according to Euscbius (Hist. Eccl., lib. v., cap. 24), alleged apostolical tradition for his own time, in opposition to that of the other; and they parted, but in friend- ship, without coming to an agreement on the point.

'■^ The doctrine of the proper Millennarians, for instance.

OF UXIVERSALISM. 35

of a stupidity that needs not the aggravation of false learning to become ridiculous. But when we pass the Shepherd of Hermas, we enter immediately on a new series of ecclesiastical writings, in most of which the learning of the Athenian and Roman schools is di- vested of its elegance, and converted into Christianity. This, however, we shall have occasion to exemplify, in detail, as we pursue the course of our examination.

The works which have descended to us from the period embraced in this chapter, and which succeed those of the Apostolical fathers, are The Sibylline Oracles, The Writings of Justin Martyr, A Relation of the Martyrdom of Poly carp, The Oration of Ta- tian, The Letter of the Churches of Lyons and Vienne, Two Productions of Athena gov as, A Treatise of Theophilus, and The Works of Irenmus.^ Through these, successively, we shall now attempt to follow the traces of our general subject.

It will be difficult to give the reader a just notion of the first work. The Sibylline Oracles, They were forged^ by some Christian, or Christians, generally supposed orthodox, for the pur- pose of convincing the heathens of the truth of Chris-

1 The book of one Rermas, in ridicule of the heathen philosophers, though often mentioned among the ecclesiastical works of this period, is, by all, acknowledged to be of uncertain date, and by the best critics considered the production of a later age.

2 Cave thinks the larger part of them composed about A. D. 130, and the rest before A. d. 192. Du Pin places them at about A. D. 160. Lardner thinks they may have been completed before A. D. 169, though possibly not till A. D. 190. Jus- tin Martyr repeatedly refers to them; and Hermas probably alluded to them in book 1. vis. n.a

a The original Sibylline Oracles (Pagan) -were destroyed B. c. 74. Very soon, however, new ones were collected; and from these, with perhaps also some of Jewish origin (Josephus, Antiq. 1, 4, 3, of Orac. Sibyll. Ill : 35), the Christian

36 THE ANCIENT HISTORY

tianity. The Sibyls were regarded as very ancient prophetesses, — of extraordiuai;y inspiration among the Eomans and the Greeks ; but their books, if, in- deed, they ever existed, had always been carefully concealed from the public, and consulted only upon emergencies, and by order of the government. The great veneration in which these supposed, but un- known, prophecies were held among the vulgar, in- duced some zealots to fabricate, under the name of the Sibyls, and in the form of ancient predictions, a nar- rative of the most striking events in sacred history, and a delineation of what was then considered the Christian faith. This work, which we now have with

Sibyllines were formed. They have been variouslj' attributed to Montanus, to Christiana of Alexandria, to the Gnostics, and even to Tertulliau ; and have also been deemed the productions of different ages, — by some as reaching from about B. c. 200 (in some of their materials) to A. D. 500, Much of this is mere con- jecture. They are certainly of very early origin, and have been generally accred- ited to the second centary, to which an important portion undoubtedly belongs. They were used, not only by Justin Martyr, but by Theophilus of Antioch, Athenagoras, Clemens Alexandrinus, Origen, Augustine, Eusebius, etc. Opso- pceus, in his notes, p. 27, says the Oracles teach '"that the wicked, suffering in hell (Gehenna), after a certain period, and through expiations of griefs, would be released from punishments, which was the opinion of Origen," etc. Opsop. Paris, 1599.

It may, perhaps, be well to state that there is a general agreement among the learned to the fact that these Oracles do teach Universalism. There is an inter- esting note upon this point in the Universalist Quarterly, for July, 1868, written, by an acknowledged scholar. Dr. T. B. Thayer. The learned Musardus, In His- toria Deorum Fatidicorum, etc., Colonise AUobrogium, 1675, p. 184, referred to by Dr. Thayer, affirms that the author of the Oracles says " that the damned shall be liberated after they shall have endured infernal punishments for many ages," "which was an error of Origen." Bicit danmatos liberandos postquam pcunas infernaUa per aliquot secida erunt perpessi, qui Origenis fuit error. So Davis, in his translation from the French of Blondel's Treatise of the Sibyls, etc., London, 1661, evidently takes the same view, though turning the passage referred to as implying that God gives men the power to save themselves. Dr. Thayer also well notices, that in the Latin Translation of the Oracles by Castalio (which is bound with the Greek of our edition), avdpiLiroi^ is rendered homines in the pas- sage quoted by Dr. Ballou. The Latin of Gallaeus, 1688, Amsterdam, has homines. In his Dissertationes, c. xxiii.,he argues against Universalism, as taught by the Sibyls and Origen. — A. St. J. C.

OF UNIVERSALISM. 37

some rariations,^ in eight bool^s of coarse Greek verses, was then sent into the world, to convert the heathens by the pretended testimony of their own prophetesses. It appears to have been seized with avidity by the orthodox Christians in general ; and all their principal wiiters^ quoted it as genuine, and urged its testimonies as indubitable evidence. It is mortifying to relate that not one of them had the honesty to discard the fraud, even when it was de- tected by their heathen opponents.

These books, though brought forth in iniquity, serve to show what sentiments existed among the Christians ; which is, indeed, about all the .utility of the genuine productions of this period. They contain the earliest explicit declaration extant of a restoration from the torments of hell. Having predicted the burning of the universe, the resurrection of the dead, the scene before the eternal judgment-seat, and the condemna- tion and horrible torments of the damned in the flames of hell, the writer proceeds to expatiate on the bliss and the privileges of the saved ; and he concludes his account by saying that, after the general judgment, "the omnipotent, incorruptible God shall confer an- other favor on his worshippers, when they shall ask him : he shall save mankind from the pernicious fire

1 So think Fabricius, Du Pin, Le Clerc, Lardner, and Jortin. Others speak of these now extant as wholly the same with the ancient. Paley, who by calling them Latin verses, betrays his ignorance of them, supposes they cannot be that ancient work, because such is the manifestness of their forgery that these could not have deceived the early fathers into a belief of their genuineness. (Evidences of Christianity, part i., chap, ix, sect, xi.) Cut all this he might have said, with equal propriety, of the very passages which they actually quoted. They were probably aware of the forgery.

2 Justin Martyr, Athenagoras, Theophilus of Antioch, Clemens Alexandrinus, and the succeeding fathers.

38 THE ANCIENT HISTORY

and immortal agonies. This will he clo. For, hav- ing gathered them, safely secured from the miwearied flame, and appointed them to another place, he shall send them, for his people's sake, into another and an eternal life, with the immortals on the Elysian plain, where flow perpetually the long, dark waves of the deep sea of Acheron." ^

This work is full of the fables of the Greeks con- cerning demons, the Titans or giants, and the in- fernal regions. The world was to be burned about the end of the second century ; and then all mankind were to be brought forth from the secret receptacle of the dead to judgment ; when the vicious and abomi- nable should be condemned to an intense fiery torment, repeatedly called everlasting, and described nearly in the language of the heathen poets, and with many of the circumstances they emplo3^ed. The righteous, on the contrary, were to be received into a heaven too nearly resembling the Elysian fields ; ^ and finally, at their request, the damned were to be admitted to the like happiness.^

l-Sibyll. Oracular, lib. ii p. 212, edit. Opsopoei, Paris, 1667.

2 All these particulars may be found in lib. ii.

3 The following prophecy of the final conflagration may amuse, as a specimen of the author's descriptions: Elijah, ''the Thesbite, shall descend from heaven, drawn in a celestial car, and show the whole world the three signs of the destruction of all life. Woe unto them whom that day shall overtake oppressed with the burden of the womb ; woe unto them who shall nurse children at the breast, and unto those who shall dwell near the waters. Woe unto them who shall see that day; for from the rising to the setting sun, and from the north to the south, the Avholo world shall be involved in the gloom of hideous night. A burning river of fire shall then flow from the lofty heavens, and utterly consume the earth, the vast ocean with its cerulean abyss, the lakes, rivers, fountains, the horrible realm of Pluto, and the celestial pole. The stars in heaven shall melt and drop down without form. All mankind shall gnash their teeth, encompassed on every hand with a flood of fire, and covered with burning cinders. The elements of the world shall lie forsaken : the air, the earth, the heavens, the sea, the Ught, and nights and days be confounded." — Lib. ii., p. 201,

OF UNIVEESALISM. 39

We proceed to the writings of the renowned Justin Martyr, the first professed scholar of the

•^ ' ^ . ,A. D, 150 to 162.

Grecian philosophy, whose productions in favor of the Christian religion have reached us. He was a native of Neapolis, the ancient Sichem, in Pal- estine. Having sought, as he says, for the knowledge of the true God, among all the sects of heathen phi- losophers, he was at length converted to Christianity by the conversation of an old man ; but he never laid aside the peculiar habit nor the profession of the Platonists. He engaged, however, with gi'eat zeal and boldness in the Christian cause, for which he wrote two Apologies: one, addressed to the Emperor Antoninus Pius, about a.d. 150, and the other about a.d. 162, to the succeeding emperor, Marcus Antoninus, and to the Senate and People of Rome.^ It was in this city, where he had resided for many years, that he sealed his testimony by martyrdom, about a. d. 166. His profession of philosophy, his extensive though cursory reading, together with his zeal and piety, se- cured him a great reputation and influence among the early fathers, who lacked the discernment to perceive his want of sober judgment, and to discover the fre- quent mistakes into which his carelessness and gi'oss credulity betrayed him. His early heathen notions, so far from being dispelled by the light of truth, were only modified to his new religion, and the more fondly

1 Cave, Pagi, Basnage, and Le Clerc date Justin's First Apology at about A. D. 140; Massuet, 145; The Benedictine Editors and Tillemont, Grabe, Du Pin, and Lardner, at 150. The Dialogue with TrjiDho was writteji certainly after the First Apology, but perhaps before the Second, which is generally placed at the year 162. Besides these three works, some attribute to him Two Orations to the Greeks, and the Epistle to Diognetus.

40 THE ANCIENT HISTORY

cherished, as they now formed part of a system he deemed sacred. Augels, he supposes, once descended to the earth, became enamored of women, and in their embraces begat the demons. These demons, learning from the prophets the principal events in Christ's life and administration, fabricated, in order to imitate them, the stories of the heathen m^i^hology. They first instituted idolatry, and they still continue to allure men to practise it, by the mysterious tricks they perform for the purpose; and all this, out of a desire to feed on the fumes of the sacrifices and liba- tions.^ Nothing can be more wonderful than the va- ried part which the demons perform in this world, ac- cording to Justin's representations. They labored, however, under one essential disadvantage ; for our author assures us, that the Christians, in his time, had the miraculous gift of exorcising them at pleasure, whatever shape they assumed, or wherever they con- cealed themselves.^ The reader cannot be surprised that Justin applied and explained Scripture without the least regard to rational interpretation.

His opinion concerning the future state of mankind was, that all souls, after death, are reserved in a cer- tain place, probably the Infermim of the Latins, till the general resurrection and judgment; when the righteous, whether Christians or virtuous heathens, such as Socrates and Plato, shall reign with Christ a thousand ^xars upon the earth, and then be admitted to the celestial mansions ; ^ while the wicked shall be

1 Justini. Apolog. Pi-im., p. 61, edit. Paris.

2 Apol. Secund., p. 45, axid passim.

3 Compare Dialog, cum. Tryph. p. 223, 306, Apol. i., p. 71; Apol. ii.,p. 83, etc., edit. Paris, 1742.

OF UNIVERSALISM. 41

condemned to a punishment which he frequently calls- everlasting .^ In another place, however, he states his opinion upon this last point more particularly, and intimates that the wicked will be, eventually, annihi- lated: "Souls," says he, "are not immortal . I do not say that all souls will die. Those of the pious will remain [after death] in a certain better place, and those of the unholy and wicked in a worse, all expecting the time of judgment. In this manner, those which are worthy to appear before God never die ; but the others are tormented so long as God wills that they should exist and be tormented . Whatever does or ever will exist in dependence on the will of God is of a perishable nature, and can be an- nihilated so as to exist no longer. God alone is self- existent, and by his own nature imperishable, and therefore he is God ; but all other things are begotten and corruptible. For which reason souls both suffer punishment and die."^

It was about this period, that the venerable Poly- carp closed an aged and pious life, amidst the flock he had long cherished in the " ' ~ ' ' great city of Smyi-na. Exhausted nature was not per- mitted to expire in quiet decay; the persecuting heathens sought him out, and crowned him with the honors of martyrdom. TJie Relation of his Martyr- dam, written,^ if genuine (of which there is some

1 Apol. Prim., pp. 57, 64, etc.

He says the devil will be punished througli an endless duration, anipavrov aiUva. I Apol. c. xxviii. — A. St. J. C.

2 Dialog, cum. Tryphonc pp. 222, 223."

3 Probably very soon after the martyrdom it relates ; which is placed by Pearson

a Compare c. V. vi. — A. St. J. C.

42 THE ANCIENT HISTORY

doubt) , by his own church at Smyrna, asserts that the martyrs hoped, by suffering the momentary torments of their cruel death, "to escape that fire which is eter- nal and shall not be extinguished." ^ And Poly carp himself is represented, by these writers, as reminding the Proconsul, before whom he was arraigned and tried, of "the fire of future judgment, and of that eternal punishment which is reserved for the un- godly." 2

This Relation, though composed apparently by plain, unlettered men, and manifestly free from the corruptions of the Greek philosophy, aflbrds a mod- erate specimen of the hyperbolical genius of that age. When the flame, say the writers, had arisen to a great height around Polycarp at the stake, it made a sort of arch, leaving him untouched in the midst ; while a rich odor, as of frankincense, proceeded from his body, and filled the air. The executioners, perceiving that they could not destroy him by burniug, struck him through with a dagger ; upon Avhich there came from him such a quantity of blood as extinguished the flames ! so that it " raised an admiration in all the people to consider what a difference there was between the infidels and the elect." ^

Tatian the Syrian, a convert from heathenism, and the scholar, perhaps; of Justin Martp', was a man of considerable Greek reading, and the

in A. D. 147; by Usher and Le Clerc in 169 ; and by Petit in 175. Polycarp %isited Rome while Anicetus was bishop there ; to which office the latter is commonly supposed to have been chosen as late as A. D. 150.

1 Relation of the Martyrdom of Polycarp, § 2. Wake^a Translation.

2 Ditto, § 11.

3 Ditto, §§ 15, 16.

OF UNIVERSALISM. 43

author of several works ; of which only his Oration against the Gentiles is extant. In this he represents that such souls as have not the truth or knowledsre of God die with the body, and with it rise to judgment, at the end of the world ; when they are to undergo " a death in immortality." ^ To the wicked demons he assigns the same final doom.^ It is sufficiently evident that Tatian was, at this time, like his master, a follower of the Platonic philosophy ; but towards the end of his life he ran into heresy, by prohibiting marriage, wine, and divers sorts of meat, and by advocating certain Gnostic notions.

In order to embrace everything that relates to our subject, we must insert a small fragment from an Ucclesiastical History hy Hegesij[>ims^ an author whose works are lost, but who is suspected of having been a weak and credulous writer. He relates that when some of our Saviour's kindi'ed were called before the Emperor Domitian, and questioned on the nature of the kingdom they attributed to Christ, they answered that it was merely celestial, and would take place "at the consummation of the world, when he should come in his glory, judge the quick and the dead, and reward every man according to his works." ^

1 Tatiani Assyr. Contra Graec. Orat., §§ 6 and 13, a inter. Justini Martyr, 0pp. edit. Paris, 1742. Ttiis Oration is placed by Lardner between A. D. 165 and 172.

2 Ditto, § 14.

3 Eusebii Hist. Eccl., lib. iii., cap. 20, Lardner dates Hegisippus's History at the year 173.

« There is nothing in § 6, to this effect. In § 13 the language is, "The soul in itself, O Greeks, is not immortal, but mortal. But it is possible for it not to die. At death it is dissolved with the body, if it is ignorant of the truth ; but it after- wards rises again, at the end of the world, united with the body, receiving death by punishment in immortality" — Qa.va.yQv 5td Ti/xwpt'as iv o.Qa.va.<j'i.Q. Aajix5<w'0U(Ta, -A. St. J. C.

44 THE ANCIENT inSTORY

This is evidence of the opinion of Hegesippus ; but no historian would probably consider it as authority for the sentiments of the persons he mentions. The whole story, indeed, is now suspected to be fabulous. The Epistle of the Churches of Lyons and Vienne, generally supposed to have been written by the celebrated Irenseus, claims but a moment's attention. It gives an affecting, though perhaps ex- aggerated, account of the terrible persecution and martyrdom of the Christians in those two cities, dur- ing the reign of the philosophical emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Of one Byblias, who through weakness had at first recanted her profession, it is said, "that in the midst of her torments she returned to herself, waking as it were out of a deep slumber ; and, call- ing to recollection the everlasting punishment in hell, she, against all men's expectations, reproved her tor- mentors." ^

The next, in order, is Athenagoras, an Athenian philosopher, and probably, for a while, master of that distinguished Christian seminary, the Catechetical School at Alexandria in Eg}TDt. He addressed to the Emperor Marcus Aure- lius and to his son Commodus, an Apology for the Christians ; and wrote a Treatise on the Resurrection, to remove the objections of the heathens, and to con- vince them, by philosophical reasonings, of the truth of that doctrine. 2 Though a learned and polite writer,

1 Eusebii Hist. Eccl., lib. v., cap 1. Lardner assigns this Epistle to the year 177.

2 His Apology is placed by Lardner at A. D. 178- His Treatise on the Resurrec- tion was probably written soon afterwards. «

aComp. c. xviii; c. sxv. — A. St, J. C.

OF UNTVERSALISM. , 45

little notice was paid him or his works, by the early fathers.

He asserts, as a manifest fact, "that the righteous are not properly rewarded, nor the evil punished in this life ; " and contends that there is no ground on which we can vindicate the ways of Providence and maintain the justice of God, but by admitting a resur- rection to a state of retribution. At the future judg- ment, says he, "rewards and punishments will be dis- tributed to all mankind, as they shall have conducted well or ill ; " ^ but of the dm-ation of suffering he has left us no intimation. He treats it as a conjecture not unreasonable, that the brutes may be raised from the dead, and afterwards remain in subjection to man.^ As to the mode of governing the universe, he says that God has distributed the angels into different ranks and orders, and assigned to them the care of the ele- ments, the heavens, and the earth. But the angel presiding over matter, together with some others, swerving from their allegiance, fell in love with women, and begat giants ; and those rebellious spirits now wander up and down the earth, opposing God, excit- ing lust, and upholding idolatry, that they may refresh themselves with the blood and steam of sacrifices.^

Of Theophilus, bishop of the church at Antioch, we have only one work remaining : a Treatise in defence of Christianity, addressed to Autohj- cus, a learned heathen. There are sufficient proofs that our author was a man of at least a moderate de-

1 Atbenagor. De Resurrec. passim, particularly the latter part.

2 Ditto, near the beginning.

3 Athenagorae Legat. passim.

46 THE ANCIENT HISTORY

gree of learning ; but, like most of his cotempo- raries, he was unhappily an admirer of the Greek phi- losophy, and a believer in the vulgar superstitions of the heathens. His views of future punishment may be discovered from his exhortation to Autolycus : " Do you also studiously read the prophetic Scriptures, and 3^ou will have their safer light to enable you to shun everlasting torments." Soon afterwards he says of the unbelievina: and abominable, to them there will be wrath and indignation, tribulation and anguish ; and, at length, everlasting fire shall be their portion." ^ We arrive, at last, to the wi'itings of that distin- ofuished father, Irenseus. Born and

A. D. 180—190. ^

brought up in Asia Minor, he attended, in his youth, the discourses both of the venerable Polycarp, and of the weak, injudicious Papias ; and perhaps enjoyed some acquaintance with those who had personally conversed with the apostles. At a later period he travelled into France, where his piety, his zeal and devotedness to the Christian cause, together with his acquirements, rendered him conspicuous, and at length elevated him to the bishopric of the church

1 Theophili ad Autolycura, lib. i., cap. 14, inter Justini Martyr, Opp. edit. Paris, 1742. Lardner places this work at A. D. 181.

In another place, however, b. ii. c. sxvi., he seems to teach a final universal restora- tion. It reads : '' God showed great kindness to man in that he did not suffer him to remain forever in sin; but as a kind of punishment cast him out of Paradise, in order that, having expiated by punishment, within an appointed time, the sin, and having been disciplined, he might subsequently be restored. 'Wlierefore. also, when man had been formed in this world, as is made known mystically in Genesis, as if he had twice been placed in Paradise; so that the one was fulfilled when he was placed there, and the other will be fulfilled after the resurrection and judgment. For just as a vessel which, after it has been made, has some ilaw,*is remade or remoulded, that it may become new and right, so it comes to man by death. For in some way or other he is broken up, that he may come forth in the resur- rection whole, I mean spotless, and righteous, and immortal." — A. St. J. C.

OF u?:ive: SALiSM. 47

at Lyons. But, notwithstanding his advantages, there are some things in his principal remaining work, that Against Heresies ^^ which show that he yielded to the whimsical and credulous turn of the age, if, indeed, that were not also his own character. Miracles, he says, even fiom raising of the dead down to the cast- ing out of demons, were, in his time, frequently per- formed by Christians ; so that it was " impossible to reckon up all the mighty works which the church per- formed, every day, for the benefit of the nations."^ With the Greek philosophy he was not so thoroughly imbued as Justin Martyr ; but, like his master, Papias, he was an assiduous collector of apostolic traditions, and upon their authority advanced some very ridicu- lous notions.^ Some of his allegorical interpretations ^ of Scripture, too, will almost vie, in contemptible ab- surdity, with those of Barnabas. AYe remark, once for all, that the principal writers mentioned in this chapter agreed in attributing to the Scriptures a double meaning, a hidden and mysterious as well as the obvious.

With regard to the future state, Irenasus supposes that souls are, after death, reserved in some invisible place, the Infernum of the heathens, whither Christ

1 This is a large, and in many respects a valuable work. Lardner thinks it to have been published not long after A. d. 178; Tillemont, near 190. Siren. Adv. nseres, lib. ii., cap. 57.

3 In the Millennium, says he, *• there shall grow vineyards, having each ten thou- sand vine-stocks ; each stock ten thousand branches; each branch ten thousand twigs ; each twig ten thousand bunches ; each bunch ten thousand grapes ; and each grape, when pressed, shall yield twenty-five measures of wine. And when any of the saints* shall go to pluck a bunch, another bunch will cry out, lam better, take me, and bless the Lord through me. In like manner, a grain of wheat sown, shall bear ten thousand stalks ; each stalk ten thousand grains ; and each grain ten thousand pounds of the finest flour," etc. Ditto, lib. v., cap. 32, 33.

4 Ditto, Ub. iv., cap. 42, and lib. v., cap. 8.

48 ^ THE ANCIENT HISTORY

went and preached after liis crucifixion, delivering from sufferance those who then believed. At the end of the world, which was then very near at hand, all ■were to be raised, and brought to judgment, when the just should be admitted to a thousand years' reign with Christ upon earth, preparatory to endless bliss in heaven ; but the unjust should be sent into inextin- guishable and eternal fire.^ Here, he appears to think, they will be annihilated : he contends that souls or spirits, like all other created things, depend entirely on the upholding providence of God, for their contin- uance in being, and that they can " exist only so long as he wills. For-," says he, " the principle of existence is not inherent in our own constitution, but given us by God. He who cherishes this gift, and is thankful to the Giver, shall exist forever ; but he who despises it, and is ungrateful, deprives himself of the privilege of existing forever. Therefore, the Lord said, If ije have not been faithful in a little, ivho ivill give you that which is greater? (Luke xvi. 11) ; signifying that he who is ungrateful to him for this temporal life, which is little, cannot justly expect from him an existence which is endless."^

It is in Ircnseus that we meet with the earliest at- tempt at a formal summary of the faith, as held by the orthodox churches in general ; and, on this account, his compendium, or creed, is worthy of particular notice. In opposition to all the peculiar tenets of the Gnostics, he brings forward the system of doctrine which, he says, "the churches, though scattered into

1 Iren. Adv. Haeres, lib. v., cap. 27, and passim.

2 Ditto, lib. ii., cap. 64.

OF UNI VERS ALISM. * 49

all parts of the world, had received from the apostles and theh* disciples, namely, To believe in one God, the omnipotent Father, who made heaven, and earth, and sea, and all things in them ; in one Jesus Christ, the Son of God, incarnate for our salvation ; and in the Holy Ghost, who by the prophets declared the dispensation and coming of Christ, his birth of a vir- gin, his suffering, his resurrection from the dead, his ascension in his flesh into heaven, and his coming from heaven, in the glory of the Father, to gather together in one all things, and to raise the flesh of all mankind ; that unto Jesus Christ, our Lord, Saviour, and King, according to the will of the invisible Father, every knee shall bow, of things in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue confess to him ; and that he shall pass a righteous sentence upon all, and send wicked spirits, and the angels who have trans- gressed, together with ungodly men, into eternal fire, but give life to the righteous who have kept his com- mandments and abided in his love, either from the beginning or after repentance, and confer on them mortality and eternal glory." ^

A great number of the early productions of the orthodox, and all those of the heretics, are lost, and with them, probably, some information upon the subject of our history. Thus far, however, we have carefully produced, in his own words, the opinion of every writer whose works are extant ; we have also presented the views of the heretics upon this subject,

llren. Adv.HseresJib. i., cap. 2. Anyone, acquainted with the notions attributed to the Gnostics, will instantly perceive that almost every expression in this creed was framed for the purpose of opposing them ; as, indeed, is intimated by the manner in which Irenaeus introduces the passage.

50 * THE ANCIENT HISTORY

from the best authorities within our reach. To the reader belongs the privilege of such reflections as the whole case, now pretty fully laid before him, may suggest. We will, however, observe that of the or- thodox writers, nearly all allude to, or expressly assert, a future judgment and a future state of punish- ment : seven ^ call it the everlasting, the eternal fire or torment : but out of these there are three who cer- tainly did not think it endless, since two of them believed the damned would be annihilated, and the other asserted their restoration to bliss. What were the views of the remaining four upon this point cannot be determined ; for the circumstance just mentioned shows that .their use of the word everlast- ing is no criterion. The others whom we have passed in review are silent with regard to the dura- tion of misery.

To these remarks we must add, that such of the Gnostic sects as are thought to have held the salvation of all souls still flourished ; but their history, like that of all the heretic Christians, is obscure and un- certain.

Among the orthodox, it is curious to mark the seeming progress of sentiment concerning a future state of punishment. In their earliest writings, that of Clemens Eomanus and those of Ignatius, it is either wholly omitted, or else expressed in the most in- definite manner. Afterwards, we find it introduced as a peculiar motive of terror ; and as such it became

1 Xamcly, Barnabas, Hermas, Sibylline Oracles, Justin Martyr, Kelation of Polycarp's Martyrdom, Thcopbilus, and Irenaeus in the Letter of the churches of Lyons and Vienne, and in his work Against Heresies.

OF UNIVEKSALISM. 51

more and more employed, even by those who ex- pressly assigned it a limited duration. When the Greek philosophy and heathen superstitions began to prevail in the church, they soon succeeded in deline- ating the whole topography of the infernal realm, pointed out its divisions, described its regulations, and familiarly brought to light all its secrets.

In the succeeding parts of our work we shall not detain the reader with a distinct paragraph for every ecclesiastical writer ; but direct om- attention more specially to those authors and those parties who advocated the salvation of all mankind. In the mean time, however, we shall aim at such a representation as will afford a general view of the notions entertained by the church at large, in relation to that subject.

52 THE ANCIENT HISTORY

CHAPTEE III.

FROM A. D. 190 TO A. D. 230.

Of all the Christian fathers, before Origen, the most ilkistrioiis wi'iter, and the most

A. D. 190 to 196. .

renowned for extensive erudition, was Clemens Alexandrinus. That he was a Universalist is alleged against him by some of the learned,^ and sufficiently manifest from his works yet extant; though he seldom affords us a direct and positive assertion to this point. He uniformly asserts, how- ever, and illustrates, the universal goodness of God, the benevolent nature of justice, the salutary design and effect of punishment both here and hereafter, the purification of the damned in hell, and their deliver- ance from suffering and exaltation to bliss.

"The Lord," says he, "does good unto all, and delights in all ; as God, he forgives our trangressiong,

1 The learned and orthodox DaiEe says : "It is manifest, throughout his works, that Clemens thought all the punishments that God inflicts upon men are salutary, and executed by him only for the purpose of instruction and reformation. Of this kind he reckons the torments which the damned in hell suffer. . . . From Vv'hich we discover that Clemens was of the same opinion as his scholar Oi-igen, who every- where teaches that all the punishments of those ia hell are purgatorial, that they are not endless, but will at length cease, when the damned are sufficiently purified by the fire." Dallaci Do Usu Patrum, lib. ii., cap. 4.

Archbishop Potter, having spoken of Origen's belief in the salvation of all the damned, and of the devil himself, adds, ''from which opinion Clemens does not appear to have differed much, as he taught that the devil can repent, and that even the most heinous sins are purged away by punishments after death." V. Not. h\ Clem. Alexand. Strom., lib. vi., p. 794, edit. Potter, 1715.

OF UNIVERSALISM. 53

and as Man, he teaches and instructs us that we may not sin. Man is, indeed, necessarily dear to God, because he is his workmanship. Other things he made only by his order ; but man he formed by his own hand, and breathed into him his distinguishing properties. Now, whatever was created by him, especially in his own image, must have been created because it was, in itself, desirable to God, or else desirable from some other consideration. If man was made because he was in himself desirable, then God loved him on account of his being good ; and there certainly is in man that lovely principle, called the breath or inspiration of God. But if it was on ac- count of some other desirable end that he was made, then there could be no other reason why God should create him, than that God could not otherwise be a benevolent Maker, nor his glory be displayed to the hmnan race. . . . And, indeed, in either case, man may be said to be, in himself considered, a being desirable to God, since the Almighty, who cannot err in his undertakings, made him just such as he desired. He therefore loves him. How, indeed, is it possible that he should not love him, for whom he sent his only begotten Son from his own bosom ? " ^

There are some,^ says Clemens, who deny that the Lord is good, because he inflicts punishments and enjoins fear. To this he replies, that "there is no tiling which the Lord hates ; for he cannot hate anything and yet will that it should exist ; nor can he will that anything should not exist, and at the same time cause

1 Clem. Alexand. Psedagog., lib. i., cap. 3, pp. 101, 102, edit. Potter.

2 Clemens here alludes to the Marcionites, a Gnostic sect.

54 THE ANCIENT HISTORY

it to exist. Now as the Lord is certainly the cause of whatever exists, he cannot, of course, desire that any- thing which is, should not be ; and therefore he cannot hate anything, as all exist by his own will." And, continues our author, "if- he hates none of his works, then it is evident that he loves them all, especially man above the rest, who is the most excellent of his creatures. Now whoever loves another wishes to benefit him ; and therefore Ood does good unto all. He does not merely bless them in some particulars, yet neglect all care over them ; he is both careful for them, and solicitous for their interests." Con- sistently with this, Clemens adds, that God's "justice is, of itself, nothing but goodness ; for it rewards the virtuous with blessings, and conduces to the improve- ment of the sinful. There are many evil affections which are to be cured only by suffering. Punishment is, in its operation, like medicine : it dissolves the hard heart, purges away the filth of uncleanness, and reduces the swellings of pride and haughtiness ; thus restoring its subject to a sound and healthful state. It is not from hatred, therefore, that the Lord rebukes mankind." ^

"It is the office of salutary justice," says he, in an- other place, "continually to exalt everything towards

1 Psedagog., lib. i., cap. 8, pp. 135—140. N. B. — I have attempted in this para- gi-aph to compress the argument which Clemens, in his diffuse style and rambling method, spreads over two or three folio pages. «

a Comp. Strom, i., xxvi. 11, " and punishment, in virtue of its being so, is the correction of the soul." And viii., xvi. 24. ''But as children are chastised by their teachers, or their father, so are we by Providence. But G-od does not pun- ish ; for punishment is retaliation for evil. He chastises, however, for good to those who are chastised, collectively and iadividually." — A. St. J. C.

OF UNIVERSALISM. 55

the best state of which it is capable. Inferior things are adapted to promote and confirm the salvation of that which is more excellent ; and thus whatever is endued with any virtue is forthwith changed still for the better, through the liberty of choice, which the mind has in its own power. And the necessary chas- tisements of the great Judge, who regards all with benignity, make mankind grieve for their sins and imperfections, and advance them through the various states of discipline to perfection.^ "Even God's wrath, if so his admonitions can be called, is full of benevolence, towards the human race ; for whose sake the word of God was made man." ^

The same means which are employed upon earth for the salvation of the living are introduced, he thinks, among the dead, for the restoration of such as died, either in sin, or in ignorance and unbelief of Jesus Christ: "Wherefore, our Lord," says he, "preached also in the regions of the dead ; for says the Scripture, the Grave saith to Destruction, His countenance ice have not indeed beheld, but ive have heard his voice, (Job xxviii. 22.) It is not the j;?ace, however, which thus speaks, but its inhabitants, who had delivered themselves to destruction. They heard the divine power and voice. And, indeed, who can suppose that souls [which departed ignorant of Christ] are indis- criminately abandoned, the virtuous and the vicious, to the same condemnation, thus impeaching the justice of providence ? Does not the Scripture inform us that the Lord preached the gospel even to those

1 Stromat., lib. vii., cap. 2, p. 825.

2 Paedagog., lib. i., cap. 8, p. 142.

56 THE ANCIENT HISTORY

who perished in the deluge, and were confined in prison ? ^ We have ah'eady shown that the apostles also, as well as their Master, preached the gospel to the dead. . . . Wherefore, since the Lord descended to hell for no other purpose than to preach the gospel there, he preached it either to all, or only to the Jews. If to all, then all who believed there, were saved, whether Jews or Gentiles. And the chastisements of God are salutary and instructive, leading to amend- ment, and preferring the repentance to the death of the sinner ; especially as souls in their separate state, though darkened by evil passions, have yet a clearer discernment than they had whilst in the body, because they are no longer clouded and encumbered by the fltsh." ^ Again he says, " Now all the poets, as well as the Greek philosophers, took their notions of the punishments after death, and the torments of fire, from the Hebrews. Does not Plato mention the rivers of fire, and that profound abyss which the Jews call Gehenna [hell], together with other places of punishment, where the characters of men are reformed by sufiering?"^ It would, however, far exceed our limits to transcribe the passages of this kind scattered throu«:h his writinc^s.

With regard to the actual salvation of all, the fol-

1 In another place Clemens says, "If therefore, the Lord preached the gospel to those in the flesh, lest they should he unjustly condemned, was it not necessary, for the same reason, that ho should preach also to those who had departed this life before his advent? And as all sinful flesh perished in the deluge, we must believe that the will of God, which has the power of instructing and operating, confers salvation upon those who are converted by the punishments inflicted on them." Stromal., lib. vi., cap. 0, p. 766.

2Stromat., lib. vi., cap. 6, pp. 763, 764.

3 Ditto, lib. v., cap. 14, p. 700.

OF UNIVEESALTSM. 57

lowing are, perhaps, his fullest and most pointed ex- pressions : " How is he a Saviour and Lord, unless he is the Saviour and Lord of all ? He is certainly the Saviour of those who have believed ; and of those who have not believed he is the Lord, until, by being brought to confess him, they shall receive the proper and well-adapted blessing for themselves." ^ " The Lord," says he, "es the jjropitiation, not only for our sins, that is, of the faithful, but also for the icJiole ivorld (1 John ii. 2) ; therefore he indeed saves all, but converts some by punishments, and others by gaining their free will ; so that he has the high honor, that unto him every knee should bow, of things in heaven, on earth, and under the earth; that is, angels, men, and the souls of those who died before his advent." ^

It is remarkable that Clemens, unlike the other ancient fjithers who believed in Universalism, appears to have avoided the use of such epithets and phrases as everlasting , forever and ever, etc. , in connection with misery.^ Nor does he seem to have considered the torments of the future state very intense, as he never represents them in terrific colors, nor dwells upon them in a way to agitate the mind with fear. AVhen the virtuous Christian dies, he enters upon a mild and grateful discipline, which, by purifying his remaining faults, and supplpng his imperfections, elevates him by degrees from glory to glory, till he arrives at

1 Stromat., lib. vii., cap. 2, p. 833.

2 Fragmenta. Adumbrat. in Epist. I. Johan., p. 1009.

3 The only place I recollect in all bis writings, where any of these controverted words is applied to suffering, is Ptedagog., lib. i., cap. 8, end^ p. 142. ''When the soul has ceased to grieve for its sins, it is not, even then, a time to inflict upon it a deadly wound, but a healthful one, that by a little grief it may escape eteriial deathP

58 THE ANCIENT HISTORT

perfection ; but the soul of an obstinate and vicious infidel must, before it can begin this sublime progres- sion, be overcome by severe chastisement, instructed in the knowledge of the truth, and brought to control its passions.

Like all the early fathers, Clemens held the entire and permanent freedom of the human will, contrary to the present orthodox doctrines of predestination and irresistible grace. Original sin and total depravity were unknown in his day ; as was also the modern notion of a mysterious and counter-natural conversion.

T7e may now complete the sketch of his general system of doctrine : God, infinitely and unchangeably good, created man upright, though not entirely^ per- fect, and designed him and all his posterity for hap- piness. But Adam, being left to his own free will, yielded to temptation ; and so, in a greater or less de- gree, have all mankind after him. As the world thus began to grow up in ignorance of God, in the indul- gence of vice, and under the dominion of evil demonsj the Almighty gave, as a partial remedy, tlie Law to the Jews, and Philosophy to the Gentiles, in order to restrain and enlighten them in some measure, till the coming of Christ. Both the Law and Philosophy were preparatory to the Gospel ; and so far as the Hebrews on the one hand, and the Heathens on the other, preserved and practised their respective systems in their pristine purity, they were justified ; though they still needed evangelical faith to prepare them for heaven. At length, God was pleased to grant the world a full and perfect revelation ; and for this pur-

1 Stromat., lib. iv., cap. 23, p. 632.

OF UNIVERSALISM. 59

pose sent his Son, the Jehovah of the Old Testament, who was a divine agent, begotten of the Father. He came, not to appease God, whom Clemens thought originally and immutably good, but to crush the power of the evil demons, to impart the knowledge and commend the love of God to mankind, to instruct them in religion, and to set before them a perfect exam- ple of piety and virtue . That these means may become effectual to the salvation of the world, the whole sys- tem of divine providence and government is constantly directed to induce mankind to believe and obey their Saviour. To this end, the Almighty urges them by threatenings and punishments, and allures them by promises and rewards ; and if they die impenitent or unbelieving, a similar course is pursued with them after death, until they are brought to submission. After all, faith and obedience depend, both here and hereafter, on the free will of the creature ; though God, by his Holy Spirit, communicates impulses to all, and, by his grace, assists those who strive to obey. Such were his views.

He was a hearty champion of the orthodox church against the heretics, particularly against all the Gnos- tics ; and he has had the good, or indifferent, fortune, that, notwithstanding his manifest Universalism, his doctrine Was reprehended by none of his cotempo- raries, nor his standing ever impeached, even in after ages, when the works of Origen came to be anathe- matized, partly on account of the same sentiment.

Titus Flavins Clemens, usually called Clemens Al- exandrinus, or Clement of Alexandria, is thought by some to have been a native of Athens, and by others, of Alexandria in Egypt, where he certainly spent the

60 THE ANCIENT HTSTOEY

most memorable part of his life. The precise dates of his birth and death are miknown ; and not the slightest account is preserved of his childhood an' youth. It appears that, after travelling through man^ countries in pursuit of philosophical and religious knowledge, he sat down at last under the instructions of the learned Pantaenus, a Christian philosopher, in Egypt. Here Clemens studied, in conformity with the plan of his master, to extract from all the schemes of philosophy then in vogue, from the Oriental as well as the Grecian, what he deemed their original princi- ples, and to form a system for himself out of all these combined ; though he gave a decided preference to the tenets of the Stoics. About the year 195, he was or- dained a presbyter in the church at Alexandria ; and, near the same time, was appointed, in the absence of Pantaenus, to supply his place as President of the fa- mous Catechetical School in that city. In addition to the cares and labors which necessarily devolved upon him from these two offices, he composed, it is thought, at about this period, those of his works which are yet extant.^

1 These are, 1, His Exhortation to the Gentiles, designed to confute the notions of the heathens, and to con-vince them of the truth of Christianity; 2, his Pada- gogue, wiitten to instruct new converts, and to train them up to a holy and truly Christian life; 3, his Stroniata, a miscellaneous woi'k, containing a more particu- lar illustration of the Christian doctrine, together with confutations both of the heathen religions, and of the heretical opinions, particularly those of the Gnostics; 4, his Tract entitled, Whatliich Man shall be saved ; 5, his Epitome of the Oriental Doctrine of Theodotus : and 6, his Comments on some of the Epistles of the New Testament. These Comments were fonncrly thought supposititious ; but they are now generally considered fragments from his Ilypotifposes, a work which is lost. His Exhortations to the Gentiles, Paedagogue, and Stromata. are supposed to have been written between A. D. 193 and 195 (Dodwell, Dissert, iii. in Irenajum, and Dissert, de prim. Pontif. Ptoman. successione. Moshcim. Dissertationes ad Hist. Eccl., vol. I., pp. 34 — 38); his Hypotyposes perhaps earlier.

OF UNIVEESALISM. 61

Alexandria, next to Rome the most populous and frequented city of that age, was then the great empo- rium of literature, philosophy, and religion. The splendor of learning, which had once beamed so full upon Athens, seemed returned, though with many fan- tastic colors, to shine upon the native land of letters and of science. Some of the celebrity, and many of the advantages, which the capital of Egypt now en- joyed, arose, undoubtedly, from its immense library, the largest the world had ever seen. Seven hundred thousand manuscripts, deposited in two sections of the city, offered to the inquisitive geniuses who assembled from every region, all the treasures of ancient wisdom and folly.

Ever since the days of the apostles, the Christians of this city had supported a school, founded, it is said, by St. Mark; but it had always been obscure, and kept in rather a private manner, till the time of Pan- tseiius. When he succeeded to its care, he brought it into public notice, and soon rendered it the first, in character and renown, of all the ancient Christian seminaries.

While Clemens presided here, with distinguished reputation, he had the honor of instructing some who arose to eminence in the church, particularly Alexan- der, afterwards Bishop of Jerusalem, and the celebrated Origen. But about a. d. 202, the persecution under the Emperor Severus, which spread death and terror through the. church at Alexandria, drove Clemens from the city. It is supposed that he embraced this opportunity to revisit the eastern countries ; and we find him, in the year 205, at Jerusalem, in comjpany

62 THE ANCIENT HISTORY

with his scholar, Alexander. From this place we trace him to Antioch ; whence he returned, it is thought, to Alexandria, and, in connection with Ori- gen, resumed, for a while, the care of the school. He died not far, probably, from a. d. 217.^

So imperfect is the account preserved of this dis- tinguished father. Of his learning, the ancients uni- formly speak in terms of admiration. His reading was certainly extensive, almost universal ; history, poetry, mythology, and philosophy seem perfectly familiar to him ; and the sacred Scriptures, together with all that related to the concerns of the church, were treasured in his memory. With his great learning and piety, the placid benevolence of his disposition must have conspired to render him esteemed and beloved. If we may judge from the character of his writings, his pas- sions were naturally moderate, his heart benignant, and incapable of sourness and severity. Impartiality obliges us, however, to remark, that, like the rest of the early fathers, he wanted sober judgment; he was credulous, fanciful, and incorrect, ignorant of rational criticism, and delighted with allegorical interpretations of Scripture. His fondness for the heathen systems of philosophy was extravagant ; and it is thought that his example had the pernicious influence to recommend those systems to a more general admiration in the church. He was naturally of a poetical genius ; his style often runs into metre, and his works abound with quotations from the ancient poets and philoso- phers, as well as from the Scriptures. His method of

1 For his life see Cave's Lives of the Fathers, and Lardner's Credibility, etc., chap. Clement of Alexandria.

OF UNIVERSALISM. 63

writing is careless, feeble, and sometimes very ram- bling.

Passing over several writers of little note, we shall now make some observations on the only

•^ A. D. 200 to 204.

succeeding fathers of eminence, before Origen. Cotemporary with Clemens, but belonging to the Western or Latin church, was the celebrated Tertullian, a presbyter of Carthage in Africa ; a man of extensive learning, of strong and vehement genius, but severe and morose, superstitious and fanatical, even when compared with those of his own age. He is thouofht to have been the first Christian writer who expressly asserted that the torments of the damned will be of " equal ^ duration " with the happiness of the blest.

1 TertuUiani Apologet., cap. 18. At the general resurrection and judgment, eays he, " God will recompense his worshippers with life eternal; and cast the profane into a fire equally perpetual and unintermitted." See Whifftoji on the Eternity of Hell and Torments, p. 86. N. B.— Tertullian's Apology was written about A. D. 200.a

a This is the only place, so far as we have discovered, where Tertullian is thus definite as to duration of punishment. Like all the '' fathers," he speaks freely of " everlasting " punishment. Yet it is by no means certain that he did not look to the end of sin, either by the annihilation of the sinner, or his restoration at some time in the far-off future. In his work against Marcion, he argues against his (Marciou's) limitation of salvation, thus : " But since God is eternal and rational, thus I think : He is perfect in all things. ' Be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.' (Matt. v. 48.) That it is indeed imperfect has been already fully shown, since it is found to be neither natural nor rational. The same conclusion, however, shall now be made apparent by another method : it is not simply imperfect, but actually defective, weak, and exhausted, failing to embrace the full number of its material objects, and not manifesting itself in them all. For all are not made salvable., but a few of all the Creator's subjects, both Jew and Christian. Now, when the greater part thus perish, how can that good- ness be defended as perfect which is inoperative in most cases, is somewhat only in few, naught in many, succumbs to perdition, and is a partner with destruction ? And if so many shall miss salvation, it will not be with goodness, but with malignity. For as it is the operation of goodness which brings salvation, so is it malevolence which does not bring it. . . . So long, then, as you prefer your God to the Creator on the simple ground of his goodness, and since he professes to have this attribute as solely and wholly his own, he ought not to have been wanting in it

64 THE ANCIENT HISTORY

This circumstance is, indeed, no proof that the same opinion had never been entertained before ; but we may safely say that, of all the early fathers, there was none with whose natural disposition the doctrine of endless misery better accorded than with Tertullian's : "You are fond of your spectacles," said he, in allusion to the pagans ; " there are other spectacles : that day disbelieved, derided, by the nations, that last eternal day of judgment, when all ages shall be swallowed up in one conflagration, — what a variety of spectacles shall then appear ! How shall I admire, how laugh, how rejoice, how exult, when I behold so many kings, worshipped as gods in heaven, together with Jove himself, groaning in the lowest abyss of darkness ! so many magistrates who persecuted the name of the Lord, liquefying in fiercer flames than they ever kin- dled against Christians ; so many sage philosophers blushing in raging fire, with their scholars whom they persuaded to despise God, and to disbelieve the resurrection ; and so many poets shuddering before the tribunal, not of llhadamanthus, not of Minos, but of the disbelieved Christ 1 Then shall we hear the tragedians more tuneful under their own sufferings ; then shall we see the players far more sprightly amidst the flames ; the charioteer all red-hot in his burning car ; and the wrestlers hurled, not upon the accustomed list, but on a plain of fii^e."^ Such is the

1 Tertull., de Spectaculis, cap. 30. AVritten abouf A. d. 203 or 204.

to anyone." B. i. c. xxiv. Conip. xxvi. — ''But it would be more unworthy in God to spare the evil-doer than to punish him, especially in the most good and holy God, who is not otherwise entirely good except as the enemy of evil, and that to such an extent as to show His love of good by the hatred of evil, and to fulfil his defence of the good by the extirpation of the evil." — A. St. J. C.

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relish with which his fierce spirit dwells on the pros- pect of eternal torments. His gloomy and enthnsi- astic disposition soon led him to abandon the regular churches, as not sufficiently austere and visionary, and to join himself to the fanatical sect of Montanists.

Next to Tertullian is Minucius Felix, another writer of the Western church, either a Roman or an African, a lawyer by profession, and a man of considerable learning. His Dialogue, the only work he has left us, is a popular disputation, elegantly written, in defence of Christianity against paganism ; but its beauty is somewhat sullied by a mixture of hea- then superstitions, and its force impaired by frequent declamation instead of argument. The author seems to assert the strict eternity of hell torments, and to rep- resent that his was the common opinion of Chiistians on the subject. In allusion to the Grecian fable of the tremendous oath of the gods, he says that Jupiter swears by the broiling banks of the river of fire, and " shudders at the torments which await him and his worshippers : torments that know neither measure nor end. For there the subtile fire burns and repairs, consumes and nourishes ; and as lightnings waste not the bodies they blast, and as ^tna, Vesuvius, and other volcanoes <3ontinue to burn without expending their fuel, so these penal flames of hell are fed, not from the diminution of the damned, but from the bodies they prey upon without consuming." ^ The objector to Christianity is, in another passage, represented as

1 Minucii Fel. Dialog., cap. 34. Lardner dates this Dialogue at A. D. 210; some critics have assigned it to an earlier period, and others to a later, even to the year

6Q THE ANCIENT HISTORY

saying that Christians threaten all but themselves '' with torments that never shall have an end." ^

Clemens, Tertullian, and Minucius Felix, in treat- ing of the infernal region and its torments, frequently adopt the language, and some of the views, of the ancient heathen poets. Ever since Justin Martyr, it had been a common opinion among the orthodox fathers, that at death all souls, both the righteous and the wicked, descended to the Hades of the Greeks, or Iiifernum of the Latins ; which was a subterranean world consisting of two general divisions, the mansions of the just, and the abodes of the guilty. Here the separate spirits dwelt, either in joy or suffering, ac- cording to their cliiferent characters and deserts ; un- dergoing various courses of discipline and purification, as was thought by some ; or fixed in their respective stations, awaiting the decision of the approaching gen- eral judgment, as was represented by others. Some of the fathers,^ however, do not seem to have believed in the conscious existence of the soul in the interval between death and the general judgment; but the latter event, they all agreed, was near at hand, when the world should be destroyed by fire, Tertullian says, in the end of his own age.

In concluding this chapter, it may be proper to give, as far as practicable, a succinct account of the state of Universalism at the period now under con- sideration. It appears, then, that of the orthodox Christians some believed the eventual salvation of all mankind, after a future punishment for the wicked ;

1 Minucii Fel. Dialog., cap. 11.

3 Namely, Tatian, and perhaps Miuuciua Felix.

OF UNIVERSALISM. 67

while others, again, held the doctrine of endless misery. This diversity of opinion, however, oc- casioned no divisions, no controversies, nor contentions among them ; and both sentiments existed together in the church without reproach. If we may hazard a conjecture, the orthodox had not, generally, any fixed opinion on the subject. That there was a future state of sufiering, they all agreed ; but whether it were endless, or would terminate in annihilation, or whether it would result in a general restoration, were probably points which few inquired into. Such, we may sup- pose, was the case with the orthodox churches.

But we must not here fors^et the Universalists amono^ the Gnostic Christians. The Basilidians, Carpocra- tians, and Valentinians were now thinly scattered* over all Christendom, and abounded in some places, par- ticularly in Egypt and the adjacent countries. Though they agreed with the Universalists among the ortho- dox, in the simple fact of the ultimate salvation of all souls, yet their denial of the resurrection and of a fu- ture judgment, their views concerning the creation of this world, and, in short, the mass of Oriental fables, which they held in common with the rest of the Gnos- tics, deprived them of all intercourse with their breth- ren, except as opponents. They were Gnostics, and the others were Orthodox ; these were the terms of distinction. As Universalism, on either side, was not a subject of abuse, so it was not an occasion for special favor and friendship ; and the striking difierence be- tween their views, on almost every particular in the whole circle of divinity, occasioned a perpetual alter- cation, in which the few instances of their mutual

68 THE ANCIENT HISTOKY

agreement were overlooked or forgotten. The entire body of the orthodox, whether Universalists or not, stood in uniform array against the Gnostics of all kinds ; and these, in their turn, united their various sects in the struggle against their common adver- saries.

OF UNIVERSALISM. 69

CHAPTER IV.

ORIGEN.

Meanwhile, the attention of the Christian world was directed to an extraordinary genius who had arisen in the church. The name of Ori- igen Adamantius had awakened an interest among heathens as well as believers, from Egypt and Greece eastward to the remotest provinces of the Roman em- pire. As a doctor in the chm'ch, and as a philosopher ^ among the learned, he stood alone, without either rival or competitor, and enjoyed, while living, such a repu- tation as few, in any age, have ever acquired.

It was about the year 230, that he published, at Al- exandria, among other works, his books Of Pnnciples, in which he advocated, at considerable length, the doctrine of Universal Salvation. This work has come down to us only in the Latin translation by Rufinus, who altered it in many places, especially in what related to the Trinity, in order to accommodate its doctrine to the faith of the fourth century. This

1 He became a philosopher, as many a one does, not by original discoveries, nor by his own investigations into the nature of things; but by a thorough acquaint- ance with the pliilosopliic principles and maxims he had learned from his precep- tors, and by his surprising, though not always happy, readiness in illustrating and tracing them, and in accommodating them to every case and subject which occurred. In one word, he was a philosopher of the schools, not of nature. Mosheim (De Reb. Christian, ante Constant., pp.611, 612) has drawn his character, as a phi- losopher, in strong, but not unfaithful colors.

70 THE ANCIENT HISTORY

circumstance throws a shade of uncertainty, in some respects, upon the original character of the treatise. But that it contained, in its first, as well as in its present state, the doctrine in view, is beyond a ques- tion ; since ancient writers,^ who lived while the genu- ine Greek copies were yet extant, referred to them, and quoted their language, for the purpose of exciting the indignation, or calling forth the anathema of the church, against the memory of the illustrious author, for having asserted the restoration of every fallen, in- tellisrent creature.

Taking, then, the translation of Rufinus for our au- thority, where we can obtain no better, it appears that Origen introduced the doctrine of Universalism and that of the Pre-existence of souls, together: "Whoever," said he, "would read and acquaint him- self with these subjects, so difficult to be understood, should possess a mature and well-instructed under- standing. For if he be not accustomed to such top- ics, they may appear to him vain and useless ; or if his mind be already established in opposite sentiments, he may hastily suppose, through his own prejudice, that these are heretical and contrary to the faith of the church. Indeed, they are advanced by us with much hesitation, and more in the way of investigating and discussing them than as pronouncing them certain and indisputable.

"The end and consummation of the world will take place, when all shall be subjected to punishments proportioned to their several sins ; and how long each one shall suffer, in order to receive his deserts, God

1 Namely, Jerome, Justinian, etc.

OF UNIVERSALISM. 71

only knows. But we suppose that the goodness of God, through Christ, will certainly restore all crea- tures into one final state ; his very enemies being overcome and subdued. For thus saith the Scripture : The Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou at my right hand, until 1 make thine enemies thy footstool, (Ps. ex. 1.) To the same purport, but more clearly, the apostle Paul says that Christ must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet. But if there be any doubt what is meant hy putting enemies under his feet, let us hear the apostle still further, who says, for all things must be subjected to him, (1 Cor. xv.) What, then, is that subjection, with which all things must be subdued to Christ? I think it to be that with which we ourselves desire to be subdued to him ; and with which also the apostles and all the saints who have followed Christ have been subdued to him. For the very expression, subjected to Christ, denotes the salva- tion of those who are subjected : as David says, shall not my soul be subjected to God? for from him is my salvation, (Ps. Ixii. 1.)

"Such, then, being the final result of things, that all enemies shall be subdued to Christ, death the last enemy be destroyed, and the kingdom be delivered up to the Father, by Christ ; let us, with this view before us, now turn and contemplate the beginning of things. Now, the beginning always resembles the end ; and as there vsdll be one common end or result to all, so we should believe that all had one common beginning. In other words, that as the great variety of characters and diflerent orders of beings which now exist, will, through the goodness of God, their subjection to Jesus

72 THE ANCIENT HISTORY

Christ, and the unity of the Holy Spirit, be finally restored to one and the same state ; so were they all originally created in one common condition, resembling that into which they are eventually to be recalled. All who are, at last, to bow the knee to Jesus Christ, in token of subjection, — that is, all who are in heaven, all on earth, and all under the earth (by which three terms is comprehended the whole intelligent creation) , — proceeded, at first, from that one common state ; but as virtue was not immutably fixed in them, as in God, they came to indulge difierent passions, and to cherish difierent princij)les. They were therefore assigned to the various ranks and conditions they now hold, as the reward or punishment of their respective deserts,*' ^ etc., etc. The same subject he introduces repeatedly, with various illustrations, in the course of this work. Our author was, at this time, about forty-five years old. From his childhood, the greatest expectations had been entertained of him ; and in his case, ma- ture years did not disappoint the hopes which preco- cious i^enius had inspired. Orii^en, after-

A. D. 185 to 203. " .1

wards surnamed Adamantius, was born in the city of Alexandria, a. d. 185 or 186. Under his father, Leonidas, he was, while very young, well instructed in all the rudiments of learning, and assidu- ously trained to the study of the sacred Scriptures. Of these, it was his daily task to commit a portion to memory ; but with his characteristic passion for specu- lative inquiry, he refused to be content with their obvious meaning, and often perplexed his father by

1 Origen, De Principiis, lib. i., cap. 6. N. B. — The reader will find our author's notion of pre-existence more plainly described in this chapter beginning on page 79.

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an inquisitive desire after a hidden, mysterious sense of the passages which struck his attention. This imaginary sense was then the great object of investi- gation among all who aspired to superior attainments in religious knowledge ; and therefore his son's in- quiries, at so early an age, were hailed by Leonidas with secret rapture, though he seemingly checked his too manly researches, and admonished him to confine his thoughts to subjects more within the reach of his infantile powers.

When a little more advanced in years, Origen was sent to the Catechetical School, where he studied di- vinity under Clemens Alexandrinus. Here his pur- suits were at length interrupted, in the seventeenth year of his age, by the persecution under Severus ; which began at Alexandria in a. d. 202, and soon obliged his master to flee from the city. His father was seized and imprisoned for his religion ; and many others shared the same fate. But, undismayed by the gathering dangers, the eager spirit of the youth con- templated them with the strange delight of an enthu- siast. He would have thrown himself into the hands of the persecutors, in hope of obtaining the prize of martp'dom, had he not been prevented by his mother, who hid his clothes, and thus, by the sense of shame, confined him to his house. Fearing that his father's constancy would yield to anxiety for his family's wel- fare, he entreated him, by letter, to persevere: "Be steadfast, my father," said he, "and take heed that you do not renounce your profession on our account." Animated by his son's exhortation, he remained in-

74 THE ANCIENT HISTOKY

flexible to the last, and courageously sufTered mar- tyrdom.

On the execution of the father, the estate was con- fiscated, and the family reduced at once to extreme poverty ; but a rich lady of Alexandria, either from compassion or respect, took Origen into her own house, and freely gave him a support. There lived with her, at the same time, a famous heretic, whom she had adopted as her son, and who held public lec- tures under her patronage. With him, though Origen was obliged by his situation to converse, yet not even gi'atitude to their common patroness could overcome his constant, perhaps bigoted, refusal to unite in prayers ; and he took every method to express his ab- horrence of heresy, little thinking that future ages would repay this detestation twofold upon his own head. Whether his benefactress began to withdraw her favor, or whether he resolved of himself to spare her charity, it appears that in about a year he threw himself upon his own exertions for a livelihood. Hav- ing been engaged, ever since his father's death, in the study of the sciences, he now (a. d. 203) opened a grammar school, from which he had the prospect of deriving a support. But his attention was immedi- ately called to other subjects ; some of the heathens applying to him for religious instruction, he gladly ac- ceded to their request ; the number of his scholars and converts increased ; and Demetrius, bishop at Alexan- dria, appointed him, though but eighteen years old, to the care either of the great Catechetical School, or per- haps, at first, to a more private one of the same kind. Placed in a station so congenial with his taste, all

OF UNIVERSALISM. 75

his talents and attainments were devoted to the dis- charsre of its duties. In order to abstract

, . . ^ ^ T n A. D. 203 to 216.

his attention from other studies, as well as to secure himself a maintenance, he sold that part of his library which treated of science and literature, and received from the purchaser an obligation to sup- ply him daily with foin^ oboli, about five pence, as an income for his subsistence. From this period, his life was one of the most rigid abstinence and laborious study. The day he spent partly in fasting and other religious exercises, and partly in the duties of his oflSlce ; the night he passed in the study of the Scrip- tures, reserving a little time for sleep, which he sel- dom took in bed, and generally on the bare ground. A sort of monkish austerity had grown to high repute in the church ; consequently, Origen's self-denial increased the fame of his sanctity, and conspired, with his eloquence and extensive learning, to draw from every quarter a great number of disciples. They did not dishonor their master. Of their constancy in the faith, he soon had an opportunity of witnessing a full, though painful, proof; for, in a furious persecution which some of the Roman magistrates set on foot at Alexandria, several of his scholars undauntedly sealed their professions with their lives. He himself was often attacked with showers of stones, while going to the place of execution to exhort and encourage the martyrs ; and as no dangers ever deterred him from this practice, the exasperated heathens at length beset his house, and obliged him to secrete himself, in order to escape their rage. About this time, a. d. 206, in his twenty-first year, the ex-

76 THE ANCIENT HISTORY

cessive rigor of his discipline led to an act which became an occasion of self-regret, and of much re- proach, in future life ; understanding our Saviour to recommend emasculation,^ he made himself a eunuch, not only for the kingdom of heaven's sake, but also from prudential considerations ; his instructions being sought by both sexes. Demetrius, his bishop, ap- plauded it, at first, as an act of the greatest Christian heroism; though he afterwards alleged it against him as an inexcusable offence.

Such, at length, was the increase of his school, that its cares engrossed too much of his thoughts, leaving him no time for reflection and improvement. He therefore committed the younger pupils to his friend Heraclas, one of his earliest converts ; and employed the leisure which this arrangement afforded in vari- ous studies and occupations. He applied himself to the Hebrew, a language then but little known ; next he began, it is thought, that astonishing monument of application and labor, the Hexajpla or Octapla, a Polyglot of the Old Testament; and it was, perhaps, not far from this period ^ that he attended the lectures • of the ingenious and subtle Ammonius Saccas, whose darling study it was to harmonize all the different sys- tems of philosophy and religion, heathen as well as Christian, by combining their leading principles, anrfeg by rejecting from each, or turning into allegory, what- ever was absolutely discordant with his general design. Under him, Origen became master of the Platonic,

1 Matt. xix. 12.

2 So thinks Lardncr ; other biographers, however, refer his attendance at the school of Ammonius to an earlier period.

OF UNIVERSALISM. 77

P}i:hagorean, Stoic, and Oriental notions ; which, to- gether with his previous acquirements, rendered him so expert in the whole circle of ancient literature and science, that many of the learned, even among the heretics and the heathens, came to make trial of his skill, or to be instructed by him. Of these, there was one who preserved his own name from oblivion, by the zeal with which he assisted Origen, and the suc- cess with which he drew forth his talents. The name of Ambrosius will frequently occur in this biography. He was a wealthy nobleman of Alexandria, who had followed the Valentinian and Marcionite lieresies ; but on being convinced, by attending the school of Origen (a. d. 212), he joined the orthodox church, and be- came the great patron and benefactor of his master. Not far from the year 213, Origen's curiosity led him to visit Kome. Here, however, he tarried but a short time, and then returned to Alexandria. Soon after- wards he went into Arabia, on the request of some leader of the wandering tribes, who had earnestly en- treated him to come and instruct him in the Christian religion. Scarcely was he re-established in Alexan- dria, when the Emperor Caracalla (a. d. 216) threw the whole city into consternation by an indiscriminate massacre, in revenge for the jeers and scoffs he had ■Received from some of the inhabitants ; and to escape the terrible confusion, Origen retired to Cesarea in Palestine. Here, the bishops of the province per- suaded him, though never ordained, to expound the Scriptures publicly to the people.

This appointment, so honorable to

1 ,1 n . A. D. 216 to 230.

Origen, was but the forerunner of an in-

78 THE ANCIENT HISTORY

veterate, and at length fatal, persecution from his own bishop at Alexandria. Demetrius instantly addressed a letter of complaint to his brethren in Palestine, assert- ing that it was a thing unheard of, that a layman should preach in the presence of bishops ; but Alexander, Bishop of Jerusalem, and Theoctistus, Bishop of Cesarea, answered him, by showing that the practice had been sanctioned in the church by several precedents. Demetrius, however, remained dis- satisfied, and sent some deacons to Origen, with an order for his immediate return to Alexandria. He came accordingly and resumed the care of his school. This he seems, to have prosecuted, in quiet, for five or six years ; when an event occurred, which serves to show, at once, the superiority of his reputation, and the influence it had in recommending Christianity to the favorable notice of the great. The Princess Mammaga, mother of Alexander, the reigning emperor, sent for Origen to visit her at Antioch, and furnished a military guard to escort him thither. Having given her a general illustration of the Christian doctrine, he returned, with her permission, to his charge at Alexandria.

At the earnest solicitation of Ambrosius, he now began his Comynentaries. He was furnished, by this devoted patron, with every convenience for the pur- pose : seven notaries stood ready to record as he dictated ; and a number of transcribers received their hasty notes, and wrote them out in a plain and elegant hand. In this manner he was engaged till A. D. 228 ; when he was sent into Achaia, on some ecclesiastical affairs, with letters of recommendation

OF UNIVERSALISM. 79

from Demetrius. Passing through Palestine on his journey, he was ordained Presbyter, by the bishops of that province. Demetrius warmly resented this procedure of foreign prelates, without his leave ; and wrote letters against Origen to the churches, declaring him disqualified for the priesthood, by the act per- formed in his youth, and alleging that it was unlawful to ordain the Principal of the Alexandrian School, without his knowledge and concurrence. In the midst of this ferment, Origen, having accomplished his busi- ness in Greece, returned to Alexandria, finished the first ^\^ books of his Commentaries on St. John, those on the La^nentations , on some of the Psalms, and on part of Genesis, and published them, a. d. 230, together with his work entitled Stromata, and his book Of Principles.

These were, perhaps, his first publications. From the last-mentioned work, we have already seen that, in connection with Universalism, he held the doctrine of Pre-existence. His opinion was, that in the past ages of eternity, God created, at once, all the rational minds which have ever existed, whether of angels or men, gave them the same nature and the same powers, and placed them all in one celestial state. Accord- ingly, they were all, at first, exactly alike in rank, capacity, and character. But as they all had perfect freedom of will, they did not long continue in this state of equality ; for while some improved them- selves more or less, others degenerated proportionally, till an infinite diversity of character and condition began to take place among them. In consequence of this, the Almighty at length formed the material

80 THE ANCIENT HISTORY

universe out of pre-existent matter, and appointed those spirits to different ranks and conditions in it, according to their respective deserts ; elevating some to the angelic order, consigning others to the infernal abodes as demons, and sending the intermediate class, as occasion might require, into human bodies. Origen supposed, also, that the sun, moon, and stars were animated by certain spirits who had attained to great moral splendor, dignity, and power, and who might, with justice, claim those bright and glorious spheres as their own appropriate bodies.

As all these intelligent beings, whatever their char- acter and station, still retain their original freedom of will, and are therefore capable of returning from their former transgressions, of forfeiting their honors, or of rising to still higher degrees of excellence, their pres- ent conditions are not only the allotments of retribu- tive justice for the past, but are also states of discipline adapted to reclaim the degenerate, and to encom^age the virtuous. To this end, indeed, are all the appoint- ments of providence, and all the administrations of the divine government, constantly directed ; and justice itself steadily pursues the same gracious design^ in

1 Many of the Gnostics held that Justice is opposed to Goodness, and that it is therefore an attribute of the stern Creator of this world, and not of the benevolent Deity. Against these, Origen says : " Let them consider this : if Goodness is a virtue, as doubtless they will confess it to be, what will they say of Justice ? They will not be so stupid, I think, as to deny that Justice is a virtue. If Goodness then is a virtue, and Justice also a virtue, thero is no question but that Justice is Good- ness. But if they still assert that Justice is not Goodness, it remains that it is either evil or indifferent. Now, I suppose it would be folly to reply to any who should Bay that Justice is evil; for how can that be evil, which renders bless- ing to the good, as they themselves confess that Justice does ? But if they assert that it is indifferent [neither good nor evil], then it follows th.-it, together with Justice, every other virtue, as sobriety, prudence, etc., must be considered in- diflerent. And how theu should we understand St. Paul, who says, If there he

OF UNIVEKSALISM. 81

all its severe, but salutary, inflictions. Such are the views we may gather from Origen's books Of Prin- ciples, and his other works published at this period.

The language in which he defines, or involves, his notions of the Trinity is not always such as would now be judged orthodox, though it was probably re- garded as sufficiently so in his own age. Of the fall of man he has no other view than it consisted in the descent of the celestial soul to the prison of an earthly body, in consequence of its transgressions ; it is evident that he made no distinction between the natural state of Adam, and that in which all mankind have since been born. He holds that none can ever be happy, or miserable, but by the right or wrong use of their own free-wills ; and that even what are now

any virtue, any praise, think on these things which ye have both learned and re- ceived, and heard, and seen in me f (Phil. iv. 8, 9.) Let them, therefore, learn, by Bearching the Scriptures, what are the several virtues. And when they allege that the God who rewards every one according to his deserts, renders evil to the evil, let them not conceal the principle : that as the sick must be cured by harsh medicines, so God administers, for the purpose of emendation, what for the present appears to produce pain. They do not consider what is written concern- ing the hope of those who perished in the deluge ; of which hope, St. Peter says, in his first Epistle, that Christ was put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the spirit; by which also he went and preached to the spirits in prison, which some- time were disobedient, when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, etc. (1 Pet. iii. 18, 19, 20.) Let them also consider the instances of Sodom and Gomorrah : as they believe the prophecies are the word of that God, the Creator, who is said to have rained fire and brimstone upon them ; what, we ask, does the prophet Ezekiel say of them ? Sodom, says he, shall be restored to its former state. (Ezek. xvi. 55.) Now, he who afflicts those who deserve punishment, does he not afliict them for their good ? He says also to Chaldea, thou hast coals of fire; sit upon them; they will be a help to thee. (Isa. xlvii. 14, 15.) Let them also hear what is said, in the Psalms, of those who fell in the desert : when he had slain them, then they sought him. (Ps. Ixxviii. 34.) It is not said, that when some were slain, the rest sought God ; but that such was the end of those who were slain, that, when dead, they sought him." De Princip., hb. ii., cap. 5, § 3.

N. B. — Whenever the early fathers quote from the Old Testament, they make use of the Septuagint version, which, in many passages, difters considerably from our translation.

82 THE ANCIENT HISTORY

called the gracious influences of the Holy Spirit, are imparted to creatures only in proportion to their previous deserts. After death, the souls of the faith- ful may perhaps remain awhile upon earth, under a course of purification ; then be taken into the air, and at length elevated, by degrees, to the highest heaven. In the resurrection, mankind will come forth with bodies, not of gross earthly matter, but of an aerial substance ; and then the whole human race, both good and bad, will be subjected to a fiery ordeal in the general conflagration, with difierent degrees of pain, according to their moral purity or corruption. The righteous will quickly pass through this trial into the enjoyments of heaven ; but the wicked will then be condemned to the punishments of hell, which consist both of inflicted pain and of the remorse of conscience. These sufferings, though he calls them everlasting,'^ Origen held, would be apportioned, in length and severity, to every one's wickedness and hardness of heart : for some, they would be shorter and more moderate ; but for others, especially for the devil, they would necessarily be rendered intense, and pro- tracted to an immense duration, in order to overcome the obstinacy and corruption of the guilty suflferers. At last, however, the whole intelligent creation should be purified, and God become all in all.^

1 Proem., lib. De Principiis, and lib. ii., cap. 10, §§1 and 3.

2 Huet, Du Pin, and others, represent Origen to have held a perpetual change of character and condition among all classes of rational creatures; so that not only the damned will, in time, ascend to happiness, but also the blest may, at length, fall into sin and misery; and joy as well as suffering come to an end. It is true, he holds the perpetual freedom of the will, and seems to admit, in conse- quence, the probability of a fall hereafter, from heaven, at least in individual cases. But if I do not greatly mistake, he contemplates a distant period, beyond

OF UNIVERSALISM. 83

But nothing is more remarkable, in these early publications, than the rule they set forth for the interpretation of Scripture. We have already seen that the allegorical method had long been in vogue ; and that it had now become almost universal. Strange as it may seem, Origen pursued this farther than even his predecessors, and reduced it to a sort of system, unequalled in absurdity, except by that of the

all revolutions, when every intelligent nature will have become so thoroughly taught by experience and observation, and so intimately united to God, as to be in no more danger of defection. See De. Princip., lib. ii., cap. 3, § 5, and lib. iii., cap. 6, §6.

Origen expressly discusses this question in the fifth book of his Commentaries on Romans, vol. vi. pp. 407 — 413, Lommatzsch's ed. In accordance with his whole system, he maintained an indestructible freedom of the will, and with the great mass of Christians, then and now, believed that angels had sinned in heaven, even '' he who dwelt among cherubims, and was employed in the midst of resplen- dent gems, and was clothed with the ornament of every virtue, and for the splendor of his glory was called Lucifer, the son of the morning." Sin, then, with free, finite beings must always be hypothetically possible, since virtue is in its very nature mutable, and the soul, as it must ever be able to turn from vice to virtue, so also from virtue to vice. But as a matter of fact, Origen distinctly maintained that the souls of the redeemed would not sin. '' We assert," said he, " that the power of the cross of Christ and of his death, suflPered once in the end of the world, is sufficient for the cure and health, not only of the present and future, but even of past ages, and not only for our human race, but even for the celes- tial orders and powers ; for according to the opinion of the Apostle Paul, Christ, by the blood of his cross, has reconciled not only the things which are in the earth but also the things which are in heaven." To prove that, though free, the soul will not run into sin, he quotes the declaration of the apostle, that Love never fails. "For if the soul shall rise to that degree of perfection, so that it will love God with all its heart, and all its powers, and all its mind, and its neighbor as itself, what place will there be for sin ?" He also quotes the language of St. John, that he who dwells in love dwells in God, and " therefore," he adds, '• that love which alone is greater than all will preserve omnem creaturam (every creature, or the whole creation) from falling. Then shall God be all in all." He also quotes St. Paul's words: "Who shall separate us from the love of God?" etc., and con- cludes that if all these things were unable to alienate the soul from God, much less would the freedom of the will. The angels sinned before the love of God had been manifested in Christ, but after that love begins to be shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost, the soul is bound by it and walks in its light; and he closes his discussion by some beautiful illustrations of the power of the Christian conviction that we are dead with Christ, and believe also that we shall live with him. — T. J. S.

84 THE ANCIENT HISTORY

famous Baron Swedenborg. To the sacred writings in general, he attributed three distinct senses : 1, the literal, which in no case is of great importance, and sometimes entirely useless ; 2, the moral, superior in value to the former, teaching us to consider every historical account as an allegorical representation of certain virtues or vices in our own hearts ; as, when the Scripture relates that Joseph being dead, the children of Israel increased in number, we learn, ^ by the moral sense, that if we receive the death of Christ, our spiritual Joseph, into our sinful members, the children of Israel, that is, the graces of the spirit, will be multiplied within us ; 3 , the mystical or spiritual sense, the most excellent of all ; by which the more enlightened can trace in all the Scripture narratives, of whatever sort, a latent history of Christ's church ; and by which also they can discover, in every account of earthly things, some representations of that celestial, invisible world, of which the present is but a faint and imperfect image. There, souls are the inhabitants, and angels the rulers ; and there the ideal regions and the order of events correspond, in some degree, to those on .earth. Eidiculous as was this system of interpretation, it met the taste of his times ; though, even then, there were some who rejected it, at least, in part, and raised their feeble voice against its extravagance. But they themselves often ran into other notions nearly as chimerical.

While Origen was engaged in preparing and pub-

1 Homil. i. in Exod., § 4. I have taken this illustration from one of Origen'e later ■works ; but in the books Of PHnciples, the nature and use of the moral sense are abundantly explained.

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lishing the works now mentioned, the storm which his bishop had raised against him continued, increasing in violence. Wearied out, at lenglh, with contention, he took a private and final leave of his native country (a. d. 231), and retired to Palestine, where he was cordially received by his old friends, Alexander of Jerusalem, and Theoctistus of Cesarea. Immediately on his re- treat, Demetrius assembled all the Egyptian bishops, and such of the presbyters as he thought in his own favor, with the hope of procuring the condemnation of his victim. In this, however, he was disappointed : the council decreed only that Origen should be deprived of his office in the Catechetical School, and of the privilege of teaching at Alexandria ; but that he should still enjoy his character of presbyter. This not satisfying his ^vrath, Demetrius called another council (probably in a. d. 232), composed of such bishops only as he saw fit to select from his own province. With these he succeeded : they ordained that Origeft should be deposed from his sacerdotal dignity, and excommunicated from the church. When this sentence was thus formally passed upon him, he could not, according to the ecclesiastical Constitution and Canons, be received in any church, nor by any bishop, under the Catholic jurisdiction ; nevertheless, the bishops of Arabia, Palestine, Phoenicia, and Achaia, his personal acquaintances, hazarded the exj^eriment of supporting him, at the expense of non- conformity to the established regulations. But in the West, and particularly at Rome, the sentence of ex- communication was readily confirmed.

86 THE ANCIENT HISTORY

That it was not for error in doctrine that Origen was condemned, is expressly asserted by some of the ancients,^ and evident from the silence of all the rest. It is not incredible, indeed, that his adversary adopted the usual expedient in ecclesiastical persecution, and, in order to increase the odium, represented some opinions he had advanced, as worthy of reproof. But if this were the case, it cannot have formed a prominent ground in the prosecution, since there is no trace of it left in all antiquity. ^¥hat were the principal charges alleged against him, we can only conjecture.^ The consciences of an angry prelate, and his select minions, could not be very scrupulous in the choicQ of matter for condemnation ; and it is thought to have related only to some informality hi his ordination, and to some disregard of the customary claims of his bishop. Demetrius, however, did not long enjoy his revenge, as he died, probably, this year. After his decease, the rage of opposition appeared to subside ; but still Origen was considered, by the Egyptian Christians, as an excommunicated person ; and such was their respect for the ecclesiastical canons, that the sentence of Demetrius was never

1 Jerome, Apud. Ruf. Invect. ii., inter Hieronymi Opera.

2 As for the story we find in Epiphanius (Haeres. Ixiv. 2), that before Origen left Alexandria, he consented to hold incense over the altar in honor of an idol, rather than he unnaturally defiled by an Ethiopian, it is generally thought by the moderns to have been one of Epiphanius's fables, or perhaps an interpolation in his works. Nicephorus appears to have taken the same account, with some altera- tion, from Epiphanius. Some later writer, in order to continue the story, has forged a piece entitled The Lamentation of Origen^ or Origeii's Repentance, in which he is made to bewail, in the most extravagant manner, his having sacrificed to idols. See Uuct. Origenian, lib. i., cap. 4, §4, and Append, ad. lib. iii., §8, Cave's Lives of the Fathers, art. Origen, etc. Du Pin's Bibliotheca Pati-um, art. Origen, note n; and Mosheim, De lleb. Christian, ante Constant, p. 676. The Lamentation of Origen may be found in Dr. Hanmer's English translation of Eusebius, Socrates, and Evagrius.

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revoked by his successors, Heraclas and Dionysius, though they had been disciples of Origen (the former, his assistant) , and though they both still retained the greatest veneration and the warmest affection for him. At Cesarea he was again appointed to expound the Scriptures to the people ; and the bishops of Pales- tine, themselves, often sat under his instructions, as though he were their master. This city, at that time the largest in the Holy Land, and the capital of one of its divisions, might be classed, perhaps, with the Roman cities of the third rank in Asia, inferior not only to Antioch, the queen of the East, but also to Ephesus and Smyrna. It rose on a gentle acclivity from the shore of the Mediterranean, about midway between Joppa and Ptolemais ; and its white marble buildings, its magnificent amphitheatre, and, higher than all the rest, its splendid heathen temple, met the view of the distant voyager as he coasted along, or approached the harbor.^ Here Origen opened a school, somewhat on the plan of that at Alexandria, for the study of literature and religion ; and his fame soon drew scholars both from the adjacent province and from remoter regions. From Cappadocia he re- ceived Firmilian, who afterwards returned to his na- tive country and became the most eminent bishop there. Still farther to the north, from Pontus on the shore of the Euxine, came Gregory Thaumaturgus and his brother Athenodorus.

Meanwhile, Origen proceeded with his Oommenta- ries on St. John's Gospel, and began those on Isaiah

1 Josephus Antiq., book xv., chap. 9, § 6, and Reland. Palaest. Illustrat., lib. iii., art. Cesarea. The city was sixty-two miles north-west of Jerusalem.

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and Ezekiel. Thus constantly engaged either in his school, or in preaching, or writing, he seems to have passed about four years in quiet, till a. d. 235 ; when the barbarous Maximin, on coming to the throne, instituted a persecution against the more dis- tinguished of the Christians, out of a fearful suspicion that they cherished, with too grateful a regard, the memory of his murdered predecessor. Among oth- ers, Protoctetus, a presbyter of Cesarea, and the gen- erous Ambrosius, were thrown into prison, and tor- tured with various cruelties. To them Origen wrote and dedicated his book On Martyrdom ; but concealed himself, the meanwhile, in a private ftimily in the city, and sometime afterwards retired across the seas to Athens. Here he finished his Commentaries on Eze- kiel, and went forward with those upon Canticles. From this place it is thought he made a visit to his friend Ambrosius ; who, on being released from his sufferings in Palestine, had gone, with his family, to the city of Nicomedia, on the north-east of the Pro- pontis. Returning at length to Cesarea, about a. d. 240, his next journey, it seems, was to the city of the same name in Cappadocia, the metropolis of that province, whither his former scholar, Firmilian, now elevated to the bishopric there, had importuned him to come, in order to instruct his churches in the knowl- edge of the Scriptures. About A. D. 243, he went into Arabia, on the request of a council convened against Beryllus of Bostra, a bishop of that country, who differed somewhat from the popular faith con- cerning the trinity. With him Origen's conversation effected, what the council had been unable to attain,

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the renunciation of his supposed error ; and with such grace was this accomplished, that Beryllus became the lasting and ardent friend of his victorious oppo- nent. It was a little after this, perhaps the next year, that he wrote, at the solicitation of Ambrosius, his books Against Celsus, a heathen philosopher of the second century, who had hoped, by a labored treatise, to overthrow Christianity. To this learned and witty enemy of the Gospel, Origen's work is generally es- teemed a candid and thorough answer ; though some of the more judicious and impartial have detected in it a few instances of the prevailing disingenuousness and sophistry of the times. He was soon called again into Arabia, by another council of bishops, in order to reclaim some Christians there, who held that the soul dies with the body, and with it awakes to consciousness at the resurrection. On his arrival, he contended so successfully against the obnoxious sentiment, that its advocates changed their opinion, and returned to the cordial fellowship of the church. This was under the reign of Philip, to whom, per- haps, more properly belongs the distinction commonly allowed to Constantine, of having been, though se- cretly, the first Christian emperor. Be that as it may, Origen appears to have been honored with his corre- spondence, and with that of the empress.

Notwithstanding the multiplicity of his pursuits, the variety of his situations, and the changes of his fortune, he seems never to have neglected the Ilexapla or Octapla,^ that great

1 It was called Tetrapla, ffexapla, or Octapla, according as the copy contained three, six, or all of the columns.

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work, which alone would have immortalized his name. At what time it was completed is unknown ; proba- bly, however, not far from this period. In its entire state it consisted of the Hebrew text of the Old Tes- tament, placed in the first column ; the same, but written in Greek letters, in the second; the transla- tion of Aquila in the third ; that of Symachus in the fourth ; the Septuagint in the fifth ; the version of Theodotian in the sixth ; two other versions of the prophets in the seventh and eighth ; together with a translation only of the Psalms. AYherever he found the Septuagint to depart from the Hebrew text, he af- fixed difierent marks to denote what was omitted, or what was added; and, by similar means, he distin- guished the various readings of the Original itself, according to the countenance each one received from the several translations. This is supposed to have been the first attempt at a Polyglot, or critical com- pilation of the Scriptures in diiferent languages. In the great uncial letters of ancient manuscripts, it must have swelled to an enormous bulk, amounting, as Montfaucon thinks, to at least fifty volumes of a very large size. Mosheim says, that "though almost en- tirely destroyed by the waste of time, it will, even in its fragments, remain an eternal monument of the in- credible application with which that great man labored to remove those obstacles which retarded the progress of the Gospel."

But neither the services he had rendered the church, nor the veneration with which his name was generally regarded throughout the East, could stifle a strong disafiection, in many Christians of that day,

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towards some of his extravagancies. We may per- ceive, in his later writings, allusions to the complaints of such as reprehended his perpetual use of heathen philosophy, and of those who animadverted on his allegorical system of interpreting the Scriptures. And we occasionally discover that he felt and lamented, what is the common misfortune of greatness, that the unbounded praises lavished upon him by his personal admirers had awakened in others a spirit of envy and abuse. An invidious hostility, once -excited, could never be at a loss, amidst the prodigious num- ber of his writings, to select some wild notions, many unguarded expressions, which would seemingly justify the clamors of passion, and the cold discountenance, of more prudent malignity ; and it is said that Origen, at length, judged it expedient to write a letter to Fa- bian, the Bishop of Rome, in vindication of his im- peached orthodoxy.^

1 Eusebius (Hist. Eccl., lib. vi., cap. 36) barely mentions that Origen wrote a let- ter to Fabian concerning his own orthodoxy ; but Jerome, who is not the best authority, says (Hieron. Epist. xli., vel. 65, ad Pammach., p. 347), that Origen therein lamented that he had written those things for which he had been censured, and that he also cast upon Ambrosias the blame of having circiilated those writ- ings which contained them, and which he himself had intended only for private use. How much of this improbable account is true cannot be determined, as the letter is lost. It is natural, here, to ask. Was Universalism one of those tenets which then gave offence ? But to this interesting cxuestion no certain answer is to be found. Circumstances, however, would lead us to hazard an answer in the negative : 1. Origen continued to advocate that doctrine even in his latest publica- tions (see note s to § xi. of this chapter), without an intimati(fh that it was cen- sured. 2. In all the succeeding controversies concerning his orthodoxy, which be- gan to rage in about forty years after his death, we never find that doctrine in- volved, till after the contention had lasted a century (see chapters \\. and vii.); and it is not likely that a doctrine of so much consequence, had it once been pointed out as subject of complaint, would have been forgotten as such, both by his adversaries and his apologists.

It does, indeed, appear, from an expression in his Letter to his Alexandrian friends, as explained by Jerome, that a Valentinian heretic endeavored to stigma- tize him with holding the salvation of the devil. But we have only a part of the

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Though now above sixty years of age (a. d. 246) , he appears to have subjected himself to as great exer- tions as at any former period ; proceeding in the com- position of some large works, and at the same time delivering daily lectures to the people of CesarGa. These, though extemporaneous and unprepared, were nevertheless so highly esteemed, that, with his con- sent, transcribers were now employed, for the first time, to take them down as they were delivered, and then to publish them under the title of Homilies. At length his Commentaries on St. Matthew's Gospel, those on the twelve minor Prophets, and on the Epis- tle to the Romans, were finished in succession, having employed him till near the year 250. At this date the terrible persecution under the Emperor Decius broke out ; and Origen was seized at the city of Tyre, cast into prison, and loaded with irons. Here he suffered the most excruciating torments : his feet were kept in the stocks, distended to the utmost ex- tremity, for several days ; he was then threatened

letter, and that only in the translations of Rufinus (De Adulterat. Librorum Ori- gen), and of Jerome (Apolog. adversus Rufin., lib. ii., pp. 413, 415); both of whom are well known to have taken considerable freedom with Origen's language. There is some difference in their versions of this passage; but much more in the light in which they leave the subject. According to the former, Origen incidentally observes that his enemies accused him of asserting the salvation of the devil, " which," adds he, " no one can assert, unless transported or manifestly insane." According to Jerome, who corrects the misrepresentations of Rufinus, Origen barely alludes to the cavils of a certain Valentinian concerning the salvation of the devil; '' which," continues he, -'none could avow, unless insane." VThat is unaccountable in these two translations is, not their difference, but the point in which they agree, namely, that they both make Origen pronounce the salvation of the devil a tenet which none could assert, unless insane (when he himself had as- serted and illustrated it (De Principlis, lib. i., cap. 6, and lib. iii.. cap. 6, § 5), and continued to do so in his latest works (tom. xiii. in Matt., and Homil. in Josh.). Ab neither Rufinus nor Jerome had this sentence particularly in view, we may Buspect that they have given it a false construction.

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with being burned alive ; and when it appeared that threats could not shake his constancy, he was racked with several kinds of torture. At length his execu- tioners, tired with the infliction of unavailing cruelties, or more probably prevented by the death of Decius (a. d. 251), sufiered him to escape alive. After this he held several conferences, and wrote many letters, in all which he evinced a soul worthy of the life he had led. He died at T}Te, about a. d. 253, in the sixty-sixth or sixty-seventh year of his age ; and a splendid tomb, erected in that city, declared to future times the grateful veneration which the church paid to his memory.^

Nothing but a frame like iron could so long have held out under his rigid privations and unremitted labors. Employed, for the most of his life, in the numerous duties of a i^ublic and daily instructor, he still found time to perfect himself in the whole circle of human knowledge, such as it then was, and, after all, to become one of the most voluminous ^ writers that ever lived. The wonder with which the an- cients regarded his various achievements was but natural ; and it was with some propriety that they

1 For the Life of Origen, I have had recourse to the moderns, instead of at- tempting to collect, arrange, and illustrate the original accounts scattered through Eusebius and other ancient writers. See Huetii Origeniana, inter Origenis Opera ; Cave's Lives of the Fathers ; Du Pin's Bibliotheca Patrum; Lardner's Credibility of the Gospel History; and Delarue's Notes and Prefatory Remarks (edit. Orige- nis Operum Delarue), and Mosheim's Criticisms (De Rebus Christian, ante Con- stantinum). These authors, though they agree in everything inaportant, differ somewhat in dates, and in the order of events.

- He published, some say, six thousand volumes, many of which, however, must, of course, have been very small. The remains of this astonishing mass are col- lected in four volumes folio, besides two additional volvmaes containing the frag- ments of the Hexapla.

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surnamecl him Adamantiiis, to intimate the invincible strength of a constitution that sustained toils which would have worn out several ordinary lives. With regard to his native talents, there is a striking, though not singular, contrariety in his character : endued with a perception the very quickest, and with a memory the most retentive, but deficient in the more substan- tial gifts of cool judgment and good sense, he ap- pears, by turns, the brightest of geniuses and the wildest of visionaries. As a moral and religious man, however, his character is consistent, and his reputa- tion without a blot. Both his friends and his enemies agree in attributing to him the most illustrious virtue, ardent piety, and the purest zeal. Austere, but not morose, he never spared himself, and amidst all the abuse he sufiered seldom showed the least severity against others. Naturally of a meek and unassuming temper, he endured, unmoved, the admu-ation of the world, with no apparent vanity, and without that more treacherous symptom of pride, the affectation of humility. As a writer, his style is simple, clear, and fluent; but careless, redundant, and often incorrect. To conclude his character, in the words of one of the most learned and discriminating of ecclesiastical his- torians, he was "a man of vast and uncommon abili- ties, and the greatest luminary of the Christian world, which this age exhibited to view. Had the justness of his judgment been equal to the immensity of his genius, the fervor of his piety, his indefatigable pa- tience, his extensive erudition, and his other eminent and superior talents, all encomiums must have fallen short of his merit. Yet such as he was, his virtues

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and his labors deserve the admiration of all ages ; and his name will be transmitted with honor through the annals of time, as long as learning and genius shall be esteemed among men." ^

We have as yet quoted only one of his testimonies in favor of Universalism. It was, with him, a favorite topic ; and he introduced it, not only in his earliest, but also in his latest publications, in his popular discourses, or Ho^nilies, as well as in his more labored and systematic treatises.^ Passing over his books Of Princijples^ and many other works, in which this doctrine abounds, we shall transcribe only a passage

1 Mosheim, Eccl. Hist., cent, iii., part 2, chap, ii., § 7.

2 I do not attempt to point out all the passages in which Origen introduces this doctrine ; but, however imperfect, the following table of references to Delarue's splendid edition of his works may aflFord some notion of its frequent occurrence, and assist the inquiries of such as wish to consult the original. The dates here affixed to the respective works are those assigned by the learned editor : —

Be Frincipiis, A. D. 230, hb. i., cap. vi. and vii., § 5. Lib. ii., cap. i. 2, cap. iii. 3, 5, 7, cap. v. 3, cap. x. 5, 6. Lib. iii., cap. v. 5, 6, 7, 8, cap. vi. 1, 2,3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9. Lib. iv., cap. 21 and 22 and 25. — Homilia in Lucam. Perhaps about A. D. 230, Homil. xiv. — CommentaHorum in Johannem, torn, i., cap. 14. About A. D. 230. — De Oraiione. After A. D. 231, cap. v., p. 205 ; cap. xsvii., pp. 250, 251 ; cap. xxix., pp. 261 to 264. — Comment, in Johan. Tom. xix., cap. 3. About A. D. 234. — Tract xxxiv. m Johannem — Commentarli in Matthcieum. About A. D. 245, torn. x. and xiii. and xv. — Tract xxiii. and xxx. and xxxiii. in 3Iatthceum,. — Commentarii in Epist. ad Romanos. About A. D. 246, lib. v., cap. 7, Ub. viii., cap. 12. — Ilomilice. Between A. D. 245 and 250, Homil. in Leviticum vii., cap. 2, p. 222. Homil. viii., cap. 4, p. 230. Homil. in Numerosvi.,cap.4. Homil. xi., cap. 5. Homil. xxvi., cap. 4, etc. Homil. in i., lib. Regum ii., cap. 28, pp. 494 to 498. Homil. in lib. Jesu Nave viii., cap. 4, p. 416. Homil. in Jeremiam ii., cap. 2 and 3, pp. 138, 139. Homil. xvi., cap. 5 and 6, pp. 232, 233. Homil. in Ezekielem iv. and v. and x. — Contra Celsum. About A. D. 248 or 249, lib. iv., cap. 10, p. 507; cap. 13, p. 509; cap. 28, p. 521. Lib. V. cap. 21, p. 594; cap. 15 and 16, pp. 588, 589. Lib. viii., cap, 72, pp. 795, 796.0

a We thought to quote in full all the passages in which Origen clearly teaches Universalism. But in arranging to do this, the matter so grew upon our hands, that we found it would occupy far too much space. The above references only indicate how fully Origen has treated the subject. They do not at all exhaust the places in which it is touched. His De Pnncipiis, and Comm. in Epist. ad Bom,, are particularly full and interesting. — A. St. J. C.

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or two from one of his last productions, which is still extant in the original Greek.

Celsus, the heathen philosopher, had accused the Christians of representing God as a merciless tor- mentor, descending, at the end of the world, armed with fire. To this charge Origen replied, that "since the scoffing Celsus thus compels us to go into subjects of a profounder nature, we shall first say a few^ things, enousrh to o^ive the readers a notion of our defence on this point, and then proceed to the rest. The sacred Scripture does, indeed, call our God a. consuming fire (Dent. iv. 24), and says that rivers of fire go before his face (Dan. vii. 10) , and that he shall come as a refiner's fire and as fuller's soap, and purify the people (Mai. iii. 2). As, therefore, God is a consuming fii'e, w^hat is it that is to be consumed by him ? We say it is wickedness, and w^hatever proceeds from it, such as is figuratively called wood, hay, and stubble. These are w^hat God, in the character of fire, consumes. And as it is evidently the wicked w^orks of man which are denoted by the terms wood, hay, and stubble, it is, consequently, easy to understand what is the nature of that fire by which they are to be consumed. Says the apostle, the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. If any one's ivork abide, ivhich he hath built, he shall receive a reivard. If any 07ie\^ work be burned, he shall suffer loss. (1 Cor. iii. 13 — 15.) What else is here meant by the work which is to be burned, than whatever arises from iniquity? Our God is, accordingly, a consuming fire, in the sense I have mentioned. He shall come also as a refiner's fire, to purify rational nature from the alloy

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of wickedness, and from other impure matter which has adulterated, if I may so say, the intellectual gold and silver. Elvers of fire are, likewise, said to go forth before the face of God, for the purpose of con- suming whatever of evil is admixed in all the soul." ^

Again : Celsus had treated, as very extravagant, the expectation of Christians that all the nations of the earth should at length agree in one system of belief and practice. On this, Origen observed, "It is here necessary to prove that all rational beings, not only may, but actually shall, unite in one law. The Stoics say that when the most powerful of the elements shall prevail, then will come the universal conflagra- tion, and all things be converted into fire ; but we assert that the Word, who is the wisdom of God, shall bring together all intelligent creatures, and convert them into his own perfection, through the instru- mentality of their free will and of their exertions. For, though among the disorders of the body there are, indeed, some which the medical art cannot heal, yet we deny that of all the vices of the soul, there is any which the supreme Word cannot cure. For the Word is more powerful than all the diseases of the soul ; and he applies his remedies to every one ac- cording to the pleasure of God. And the consumma- tion of all things will be the extinction of sin ; but whether it shall then be so abolished as never to revive again in the universe, does not belong to the present discom\se to show. What relates, however, to the entire abolition of sin and the reformation of every soul may be obscurely traced in many of the

1 Contra Celsum, lib. iv., cap. 13, p. 509.

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prophecies ; for there we discover that the name of God is to be invoked by all, so that all shall serve him with one consent ; that the reproach of contumely is to be taken away, and that there is to be no more sin, nor vain words, nor treacherous tongue. This may not, indeed, take place with mankind in the present life, but be accomplished after they shall have been liberated from the body." ^

In all his works, Origen freely uses the expressions everlasting fire, everlasting punishment, etc., without any explanation, such as our modern prepossessions would render necessary to prevent a misunderstand- ing. It should also be particularly remarked, that among the numerous passages in which he advances Universalism, there is not an instance of his treating it in the way of controversy with the orthodox ; and that, on the other hand, they themselves did not, so far as we can discover, censure or oppose it. Some- times he avails himself of its peculiar principles to vindicate Christianity from the reproaches or witti- cisms of the heathens, and to maintain the benevolence of the one God against the objections of the Gnostics. Sometimes, again, he states and defines it, in a formal and labored manner ; but in most cases he introduces it incidentally, either as the natural result of some well-known Christian principle, or as the positive doctrine of particular Scriptures.^

1 Contra Celsum, lib. viii., cap. 72, pp. 795, 796.

2 I subjoin the principal texts that he adduced in favor of Universalism. Those from the Old Testament are translated according to the Septuagint version, which Origen, like all the ancient fathers, followed.

Ps. xxxi. 19. How great is the multitude of thy favors. Lord, which thou hast laid up in secret for those who shall fear thee I — Ps. Ixxviii. 30—35. Even while

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In two or three places, however, he represents the salvation of all men as belonging, in some sense, to the Christian mysteries, w^hich should not be too freely

their meat was yet in their mouth the anger of God came up against them, and slew them in their fatness, and crippled the chosen ones of Israel. In all this they still sinned, and believed not his wondrous works : therefore their days passed away in vanity, and their years with speed. But ichen he had filaiti them, then they sought him, and returned, and camat^uickly to God ; and they remembered that God icas their helper, and that God the JToat High teas their redeemer. — Ps. ex. 1, 2. The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, till I make .thine enemies thy footstool. Out of Zion theJLord will send thee a rod of power; rule thou in the midst of thine enemies. — ^Isa. iv. 4. For the Lord shall wash away the filth of the sons and the daughters of Zion, and cleanse the blood from the midst of them by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning. — Isa. xii. 1, 2, And in that day thou wilt say, I bless thee, O Lord; for though thou wast angry with me, thou hast turned away thy fury and pitied me. Behold, God is my Saviour; I will trust in him and not be afraid; because the Lord is my glory and my praise, and hath saved me. — Isa. xxiv. 21 — 23. And the Lord shall bring his hand upon the host of heaven, even upon the -kings of this land; and they shall gather the congregation thereof to the prison, and shall shut them up in the strong hold. Their visitation shall be for many generations. But the brick shall melt, and the wall shall fall ; because the Lord shall reign from Zion and from Jerusa- lem, and be glorified in the presence of the elders. — Isa. xlvii. 14. Behold, they shall all be burned in the fire, as stubble, aud they shall not deliver their soul from the flame. Thou hast coals of fire; sit upon them; they trill he a help) to thee. — Ezek. xvi. 53 — 55. And I will restore their apostacies", even the apostacy of Sodom aud of her daughters ; and I will restore the apostacy of Samaria and of her daughters ; and I will restore thine apostacy in the midst of them, that thou mayest bear thy punishment, and be put to shame for all thou hast done to provoke me to anger. And thy sister Sodom and her daughters shall be restored as at the beginning; and thou and thy daughters shall be restored to your former state. — Hosea xiv. 3, 4. We will no more say to the work of our own hands, Ye are our gods. He who is in thee shall have mercy on the fatherless. / icill heal their habitations ; I will love them openly ; for he hath turned aicay my icrath from himself — 'iAXch. vii. 8, 9. Exult not over me, O mine enemy; though I have fallen, I shall rise, though I should sit in darkness, the Lord will give me light. I will sustain the anger of the Lord, until he justify my cause, for I have sinned against him. He will do me justice, and bring me into light, and I shall behold his righteousness. — Malachi iii. 2, 3. Who shall abide the day of his coming? or who shall be able to endure his appearance ? For he cometh as the fire of a re- finer's furnace, and as the soap of the fullers. He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver and gold ; and he shall jjurify the sons of Levi, and melt them as gold and silver. Then shall they present to the Lord an off'ering in righteousness. — Matt. V. 26. Verily I say unto thee, thou shalt by no means come out thence till thou hast paid the uttennost farthing. — Matt, xviii. 12, 13. [Parable of the Lost Sheep. 1 —John x. 16. And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold : th.em also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice ; and there shall be one fold and one shepherd. —Rom. viii. 20—23. For the creature was made subject to vanity,

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divulged. But we must observe that in this he only applied a rule which the orthodox of his age held with respect to several points in their common faith. They used much caution in avowing some of their tenets, particularly concerning Antichrist and the near approach of the end of the world. Even the form of

not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subiected the same in hope : because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption, into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now ; and not only they, but our- selves also, which have the first fruits of the spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. — Rom. xi. 25, 26. For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery (lest ye should be wise in your own conceits), that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in ; and so all Israel shall be saved. — Verse 32. For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all. — 1 Cor. iii. 13 — 15. Every man's work shall be made manifest; for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work, of what sort it is. If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire. — 1 Cor. xv. 24 — 28. Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father ; when he shall have put down all rule, and all authority, and power. For he must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet. Death, the last enemy, shall be destroyed. For He hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith, all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted which did put all things under him. And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all. — Verse 54. So when this cor- ruptible shall have put on incorruption and this mortal shall have put on im- mortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. — Eph. i. 9, 10. Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: that in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth, even in him. — Eph. ii. 7. That in the ages to come, he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness towards us, through Christ Jesus. — Eph. iv. 13. Till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. — 1 Tim. iv. 10. For therefore we both labor and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe. — 1 Pet. iii. 19, 20. By which also, he went and preached unto the spirits in prison, which sometime were disobedient, when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah. etc. — 1 John ii. 1, 2. If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father. Jesus Christ, the righteous : and he is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours on' v, but also for the sins of the whole world.

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their creed, and the rites of the Lord's supper, were concealed, as mysteries, from the uninitiated.^ In- deed, within the church itself there was a series of doctrines appropriated to the maturer believers, and withheld from the less-disciplined members. This will help to account for the caution which Origen sometimes recommended in promulgating Univer- salism. Commenting on that text in Romans (xi. 26, 27) where St. Paul denominates the salvation of all Israel, and of the Gentile world, a mystery, he takes particular notice of this term, and then says, " The word of the Gospel in the present life purifies the saints, whether Israelites or Gentiles, according to that expression of our Lord, now ye are dean thovgh the ivord I have spoken unto you, (John xv. 3.) But he who shall have spurned the cleansing which is efiected by the Gospel of God will reserve him- self for a dreadful and penal course of purification ; for the fire of hell shall, by its torments, jDurify him whom neither the apostolic doctrine nor the evan- gelical word has cleansed ; as it is written, / will thoroughly purify you with fire. (Isa. i. 25.) But how long, or for how many ages, sinners shall l^e tormented in this course of pm^ification which is efiected by the pain of fire, he only knows to whom' the Father hath committed all judgment, and who so loved his creatures that for them he laid aside the form of God, took the form of a servant, and humbled himself unto death, that all men might be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. Nevertheless, we ought always to remember that the apostle would

1 Mosheim, de Reb. Christian, ante Constant., pp. 304, 305.

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have the text now under consideration regarded as a mystery ; so that the faithful and thoroughly instructed should conceal its meaning among themselves, as a mrstery of God, nor obtrude it everywhere upon the imperfect and those of less capacity. For, says the Scripture, it is good to keep close the mystery of the king, (Tobit xii. 7.)"^ Such is his suggestion.

It may be difficult to reconcile it with the undenia- ble fact that he himself was in the habit of publishing this secret doctrine in his w^orks, and of proclaiming it in his sermons, or homilies, before indiscriminate con- gregations. Of this species of inconsistency, how- ever, there are remarkable instances, not only among the ancients, but also among the moderns ; who some- times declare, in public, the secret will of God, and proclaim the doctrine of universal decree, which they contend, the meanwhile, should be rather withheld than divulged.

1 Comment, in Epist. ad Rom., lib. viii., cap. 12. The other passage of this kind is Conti'aCelsmn, lib. v., cap. 15.

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CHAPTEE y.

ORIGEN'S SCHOLARS AND COTEMPORARIES.

With the account of Origen naturally belongs a view of the extent to which Universalism prevailed in his time, together with some notice of the more emi- nent of its believers among his cotemporaries. But, here the clear light of history forsakes us. In the lapse of ten or fifteen centuries every document, if such there was, which might have pointed out the state of the doctrine, has perished ; and we are left to the uncertainty of conjecture, guided only by cir- cumstantial evidence, scanty and indistinct.

In attempting to gather some general opinion out of this obscurity, we must place no great reliance on any supposed efiect which the plain testimonies of Scripture ought to have had upon the common belief of that time ; for ecclesiastical history shows that, in every age, Christians have taken their sentiments from other sources than immediately from the Bible. Nor must we adopt the convenient axioms of some enthu- siasts, that every essential Christian truth, or what we deem such, has found an uninterrupted succession of adherents, from Christ to the present time ; for when we assume this ground, we forsake, at once, the re- gion of history, for that of mere Jiypothesis. We must, in the present case, judge what \^ probable only

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from what is known ; and remember, meanwhile, that we may still err in our conclusions.

It would certainly be unreasonable to suppose that the great authority of Clemens Alexandrinus, and the vast influence of Origen, could have failed to secure many believers in all their prominent tenets. Were we to take into our account all their disciples, patrons, and admiring friends, or even those of the latter alone, we should have the main body of the bishops and churches throughout all the East. Those of Arabia regarded him as the great and successful champion of the faith ; in Palestine and Phoenicia his authority in doctrine was almost absolute ; in Cappadocia his in- structions were eagerly sought and followed ; and in the remote province of Pontus his scholars stood first among the bishops ; Greece had long esteenaed and revered him ; and even in Egypt, notwithstanding the quarrel of Demetrius, it is evident that the churches, together with the presbyters in general, and many of their bishops, were warmly attached to Origen. But to reckon all these, barely on this account, as Univer- salists, would certainly be extravagant. Many of his advocates probably regarded him only for his aston- ishing genius, his universal erudition, his illustrious virtue, or the services he had rendered the church; some, perhaps, considered him merely as a persecuted man, and, overlooking his harmless peculiarities, felt it their duty to defend him against injustice. It must also be remarked, that, as his Universalism was not made a matter of complaint, we can draw but little evidence of an agreement in that particular, from mere friendship and adherence to him ; but this cir-

OF UXIVEKSALTSM. 105

cumstance, at the same time, leads us strongly to sus- pect that a doctrine, so momentous and yet unim- peached, prevailed among his adversaries as well as among his followers.

Without attempting, then, the impracticable task of exploring the real extent of the doctrine at this pe- riod, I shall only select from the Eastern or Greek churches, which were the principal sphere of Origen's. influence, some eminent individuals, whose intimac}^ with him, veneration for his opinions, and peculiar re- gard for his expositions of the Scripture, can hardly be taken into view without producing a conviction that they were Universalists.

Among these, the venerable Alexander, Bishop of Jerusalem, holds a distinguished place. Somewhat older, probably, than Origen, he had already studied with Pantsenus, when the former became his school- fellow under Clemens i^lexandrinus. In this situa- tion^ the two scholars formed a friendship which was to endure through life. After the interruption of their studies by the persecution under Severus, we find Al- exander in prison at Jerusalem, in a. d. 205 ; at which time his faithful sufierings were cheered, for a while, by a visit from his late master, Clemens, whom he always regarded with great respect. The exact period of his release is not known ; but within a few years he was chosen bishop of some place in Cappa- docia, perhaps of the metropolis. He returned, how- ever, to Jerusalem, about a. d. 212 ; and, on his arrival, was unanimously elected colleague with Nar- cissus, the superannuated bishop of that city. From this time we hear nothing of him, till Origen visited

106 THE ANCIENT HISTORY

Palestine, about a. d. 216 ; and the affectionate def- erence he then paid his early friend, together with the faithful support he afterwards gave him, has been al- ready mentioned. He and Theoctistus appear to have taken the lead in the promotion and defence of their illustrious guest. Regarding him as their own mas- ter, they resigned to him, in their respective churches, the authority of publicly expounding the Scriptures, and instructing the people in religion.

To Alexander belongs the honor of having estab- lished, at Jerusalem, the first ecclesiastical library of which there is any account. Though a bishop of some eminence, he seems to have written nothing, ex- cept commonplace letters ; a few sentences only of which are extant. In the general persecution under Decius, he was arraigned at Cesarea, and again cast into prison, where he soon died, a. d. 250.^

Of Theoctistus, we have only to add, that after presiding with reputation for many years in the met- ropolitan bishopric of Cesarea in Palestine, he died not far from a. d. 260.^ It does not appear that he left any writings whatever.

Perhaps we ought here to mention Heraclas, the successor of Demetrius in the bishopric of Alexan- dria. He was one of those heathens who were con- verted to Christianity in the year 203, by Origen's instructions ; and who then entered the great Cate- chetical School under his care. Heraclas was soon called to witness the sacrifice of his own brother, a

1 Cave's Lives of the Fathers, chap. Clem. Alexand.. §§ 4 and 5; and chap. Origen. § 22; and Chronol. Table, Ann. 212. Also Euseb. Uist. Eccl., lib. vi.,cap. 14. I have omitted, in this account, a vision or two.

2 Euseb. Hist. Eccl., lib. vi., cap. 46, and lib. vii., cap. 14.

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fellow-convert and disciple, among the early mart}TS with which this seminary was honored. Pursuing his studies, he seems to have become the favorite of his master, since he was at length selected as his assist- ant, when Origen found the increasing duties of the school too numerous for his sole management. On the flight of the latter from Alexandria, in a. d. 231, Heraclas succeeded him in the presidency ; and about a year afterwards, on the death of Demetrius, he was promoted to the Alexandrian bishopric, the second for dignity and influence in all Christendom. Here he continued to govern the churches till his death, in A. D. 247 or 248 ; when Dionysius the Great, another disciple and friend of Origen, succeeded him.

Heraclas seems to have been of a quiet and philo- sophic disposition. He had the reputation of exten- sive learning, particularly in secular literatm'e, for which he, perhaps, entertained a decided partiality; for on his elevation to the bishopric he adopted, and ever afterwards wore, the philosopher's robe as his distinguishing habit. ^ He has left no writings.

Ambrosius, the convert, patron, and familiar friend of Origen, can hardly be refused, by the most scepti- cal, a place among the believers in Universalism. It was at his request, and by his pecuniary aid, that Origen composed several of the works in which that doctrine is found. So zealous was he to perfect him- self in the whole system of his master, that, during some years in which they were almost constantly to- gether, he sufiered scarcely a leisure moment to escape without additional instruction from him on religion.

1 Euseb. Hist. Eccl., Ub. vi., cap. 3, 15, 20, 26, 31, 35.

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Their meals and their walks, their morning and their evening hours, "vvere devoted to investigations of the Scriptures, and to the solution of difficult questions. We have only to add, that he was ordained deacon in the church of Alexandria ; he died before Origen. It is said that some of his Letters, extant in Jerome's time, but long since Jost, except a shprt fragment, evinced considerable genius.^

Firmilian, who, after completing his studies, pre- sided with celebrity over the churches of Cappadocia, entertained so warm an affection for his former mas- ter, and so great a regard for his doctrine, that he made several journeys into Palestine in order to enjoy his society and attend his instructions. At length he prevailed on Origen to visit Cappadocia, in turn, and to gratify the common wish of the churches there, by imparting to them those treasures of religious knowl- edge which he himself had so much admired, and which they were so desirous to obtain.

Cesarea, the metropolis of Cappadocia, stood on the northern declivity, at the foot of Mount Argaeus ; which, rising to the south above the clouds, looked down on the whole province, and, from its summit of everlasting snow, afforded indistinct views, in opposite directions, of the remote waters of the Euxine and the Mediterranean. In this great city, of perhaps four hundred thousand inhabitants,^ Firmilian was chosen bishop, not far from a. d. 234, over the churches in that region. He soon became eminent and consid-

1 Cave's Lives, etc., chap. Origen, § 10; and Historla Literaria, cap. Ambrosius. Also Du Pin's Bibliotheca Patrnm, art. Ambrose and Tryphon.

2 D'Anville's Ancient Geography, and lices' Cyclopedia, art. Cesarea.

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erably known throughout Christendom, by his exten- sive correspondence, and the active part he took in the general concerns of the church. On the famous question, which began to be agitated about a. d. 253, concerning the validity of baptism administered by heretics, he, like the churches of Asia in general, maintained the negative; and in the violent "conten- tion which raged upon that point, between the two western bishops, Stephen of Rome, and Cyprian of Carthage, he accordingly sided with the latter. Soon after this, at the numerous synod held in Antioch, A. D. 264, against the Unitarian Paul of Samosata, Fir- milian is thought to have presided, and to have pre- vented his condemnation, being either favorable to his sentiment, or perhaps deceived with the evasions prac- tised by the accused. As the matter was not put to rest, he was called to a second council, held there on the same subject, and finally to a third ; in going to which he died on the way, at the city of Tarsus, a. d. 269 or 270. He has left no writings, except a long Letter, on the rebaptizing of heretics, addressed to Cyprian. In this we discover that Firmilian en- tertained the common notion of that period, that bap- tism, administered by proper authority, conferred remission of sins and the spiritual new birth ; that he held the prevailing faith respecting the mysterious tricks of demons, and their ordinary interference with the concerns of life ; and that the good man was capa- ble of sarcasm, and boisterous invective, which he pours out profusely against Stephen of Rome. The subject, however, leads to no discovery of his senti-

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ments concerning endless punishment, or universal salvation.^

The last, whom I here mention, are the two broth- ers, Gregory Thaumaturgus ^ and Athenodorus. Born of a rich and noble family at Neocesarea, the capital of Pontus, they were brought up in a manner suita- ble to their birth and fortune, and instructed in hea- thenism, the common religion of the place. When Gregory was about fourteen years old their father died, and their mother, assuming the care of their education, placed them successively under difierent masters, with whom they studied Ehetoric, the Latin language, and the Roman laws. At lengi:h their sister removing to Palestine, the Governor of which had appointed her husband one of his assessors or counsellors, the brothers accompanied her as far as Berytus in Phoenicia, where was a celebrated school for the study of law. This happened about the time of Origen's flight from Egypt, in a. d. 231 ; and the youths, eager to see and converse with a man of his renown, went to visit him at Cesarea. Here they were at length prevailed upon, by his entreaties, to apply themselves to the study of philosoph}^ the in- troduction, as he considered it, to the science of relig- ion ; and when they had made sufficient progress, he led them to the study of the Scriptures, explaining to them, as they proceeded, the obscure and difficult passages. In this way he trained them up to a sys-

1 Firmiliani Epistola ad Cyprianum, is the Epist. Ixxv. inter Cypriani Opera., edit. Baluzii. For his life, see Cave's Lives, etc., chap. Origen, § 16; and Hist. Literaria, cap. Firmilianus. Consult also Lardner's Credihility, etc., chap. Fir- milian.

2 His name originally was Theodorus.

OF UNI VERS ALISM. Ill

tematical knowledge and ardent love of Christianity, which they had, indeed, begun to regard with a favor- able eye when they left Pontus. It is worthy of re- mark that in the early part of their residence in Pal- estine, Firmilian was their fellow-student, with whom they then formed an acquaintance which the future circumstances and events of their lives must have cherished*

Having remained with Origen about ^ve years, they were recalled to their native country. At their departure, Gregory pronounced in public his Pane,- gync on Origen^ yet extant, in which he lavishes the most extravagant praise on the genius and doctrine of his master, recounts the history of their acquaintance with each other, and laments, with fulsome declama- tion, the necessity that tore them asunder. On the return of the brothers to Neocesarea, it is said that the inliabitants entertained so high an expectation of Gregory's talents and acquirements, that, though heathens, they desired him to reside among them as a public instructor of philosophy and virtue. He soon received, also, a letter from Origen, commending his abilities, and urging him to prosecute his study of the Scriptures and of the Christian religion. But, dislik- ing the cares of a public life, or modestly distrusting his qualifications, he complied neither with the request of the citizens, nor with the evident wishes of his late master, and withdrew to some obscure retreat, in order to lead a solitary and contemplative life. A certain bishop of that country, however, pursued him with unwearied solicitations to devote himself to the public

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service of Christianity ; and overcoming at length his reluctance, ordained him about a. d. 240, or 245.

Neocesarea, an inland place of considerable size,^ on the river €jycus, had scarcely been visited, as yet, by the light of the gospel; but. when the popular Gregory entered on his ministry there, things assumed a new aspect. His success was surprising. A large congregation was soon gathered ; the number of his converts rapidly increased ; and eventually a stately church, or Christian temple, was erected ; the first of the kind of which we have any distinct account in ecclesiastical history. In the general persecution of A. D. 250, he and his people fled to caves and deserts for safety ; but when the brief, yet violent, tempest subsided, he returned with such of his brethren as had survived. About ten years afterwards, an irrup- tion of the northern barbarians carried universal desolation and distress through Pontus and other Ro- man provinces ; and the heathen inhabitants, though sufierers in common with the Christian, seem to have taken advantage of the general ^onfusion which en- sued, to indulge their malice. Many of the believers having denied their faith in order to save their lives, and others having committed depredations on the property of those who had fled, Gregory was per- suaded, at the request of a neighboring bishop, to address them a Canonical Epistle, jQt extant, con-

1 It now bears the name of Niksar, and stands in a luxuriant and delightful valley, through which, to the west of the city, flows the river called Kelki Irmak, from south to north. Around, but at some distance, rise the mountains, covered with forests of the wildest growth, and presenting the most romantic and pic- turesque views. It is thirty miles north-east of Tocat; and is placed on the map at about eighty miles from the shore of the Black Sea. (Morier's Journey through Persia, Armenia, and Asia Minor, pp. 332, 334, Philadelphia, 1816.)

OF tJNIVERSALISM. 1 13

sisting of authoritative rules to regulate their conduct and discipline in those lawless times. In a. d. 264, he and Athenodorus, who also was an influential bishop of some place in Pontus, assisted at the council of Antioch against Paul of Samosata. Having returned to Neocesarea, Gregory soon afterwards died in peace, wdth the satisfaction of leaving but few heathens in the city, where, at the beginning of his ministry, Christianity had scarcely an advocate.^ He was reckoned among the most eminent bishops of the time ; but his reputation unfortunately increased and grew monstrous after his death, w^hen miracles the most ridiculous and incredible were attributed to him, so that his name went down to posterity wdth the sig- nificant appellation of Thaumaturgus, or Wonder- worker. Besides his Panegyric on Oru/en and his Canonical Epistle^ we have his brief Paraphrase on Ucclesiastes ; ^ but none of these being of a doctrinal character, they throw no light on his views concerning the final extent of salvation, or the nature and result of future punishment. An ancient writer,^ however, intimates, if I mistake him not, that Gregory Thau-

1 In the account of Gregory Thaumaturgus and Athenodorus, I have generally- followed Lardner, who allows but little credit to Gregory Nyssen's legendary tale. Du Pin, also, seems to have discarded it. But Cave and some others adopt the whole, miracles and all, with veteran credulity.

2 Some attribute to him the short Greedy relating solely to the Trinity, which Gregory Nyssen says was brought to him from heaven by St. John and the Virgin Mary. It is probable, however, that Gregory Thaumaturgus never saw it. (See Lardner's Credibility, etc., chap. Gregory Tliaumat.) The Brevis Expositio Fklei, which Cave, in his Lives of the Fathers, had ascribed to Gregory, is allowed, in his Hist. Literaria, to be supposititious; in which he agrees with Du Pin, Fabri- cius, Tillemont, and Lardner.

3 Rufinus (Invect. in Hieron>Tn.. lib. 1., prope Jinem, inter Hieronymi. Opp., tom. iv., part i., p. 406, edit. Martianay) alludes to the fact, as notorious, that Gregory Thaumaturgus erred with Origen ; and it is of Universalism that he is sj-f-aking.

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matui'gus was well known to have held, with his mas- ter, the doctrine of Universal Restoration.

With him ends our select catalogue of Origen's cotemporary followers. It may serve, at least, to point out some of the circumstances, which, together with the general diffusion of his writings, tended to spread his sentiments widely through the East, What other j)articular causes operated to diffuse or cherish Universalism among the orthodox of this period, it is in vain to inquire ; but we have no reason to believe that it was confined exclusively to his adherents.

As to the different bodies of heretics, it is probable that among the Gnostics the doctrine remained in the same state as formerly; and among those of other kinds it may have found some believers and advo- cates.^

Turning our eyes, for a moment, from the Greek