the fallacy of eternal torment and related issues

[Pilgrim 33]

What Was Held as to Doctrine.

It seems to have been held that "faith, the foundation of Christian knowledge, was fitted only for the rude mass, the animal men, who were incapable of higher things. Far above these were the privileged natures, the men of intellect, or spiritual men, whose vocation was not to believe but to know."10

The ecclesiastical historians class as esoteric believers, Chrysostom and Gregory Nazianzen; and Beecher names Athanasius and Basil the Great as in the same category; and Beecher remarks: "We cannot fully understand such a proclamation of future endless punishment as has been described, while it was not believed, until we consider the influence of Plato on the age. * * * Socrates is introduced as saying in Grote's Plato: 'It is indispensable that this fiction should be circulated and accredited as the fundamental, consecrated, unquestioned creed of the whole city, from which the feeling of harmony and brotherhood among the citizens springs." Such principles, as a leprosy, had corrupted the whole community, and especially the leaders. In the Roman Empire pagan magistrates and priests appealed to retribution in Tartarus, of which they had no belief, to affect the masses. This does not excuse, but it explains the preaching of eternal punishment by men who did not believe it. They dared not entrust the truth to the masses, and so held it in reserve--to deter men from sin."

General as was the confession of a belief in universal salvation in the church's first and best three centuries, there is ample reason the believe that it was the secret belief of more than gave expression to it, and that many a one who proclaimed a partial salvation, in his secret "heart of heart" agreed with the greatest of the church's fathers during the first four hundred years of our era, that Christ would achieve a universal triumph, and that God would ultimately reign in all hearts.

 

[Pilgrim 33]

Modern Theologians Equivocal.

There can be no doubt that many of the fathers threatened severer penalties than they believed would be visited on sinners, impelled to utter them because they considered them to be more salutary with the masses than the truth itself. So that we may believe that some of the patristic writers who seem to teach endless punishment did not believe it. Others, we know, who accepted universal restoration employed, for the sake of deterring sinners, threats that are inconsistent, literally interpreted, with that doctrine. This disposition to conceal the truth has actuated many a modern theologian. In Sermon XXXV, on the eternity of hell torments, Arch-bishop Tillotson, while he argues for the endless duration of punishment, suggests that the Judge has the right to omit inflicting it if he shall see it inconsistent with righteousness or goodness to make sinners miserable forever, and Burnet urges: "Whatever your opinion is within yourself, and in your breast, concerning these punishments, whether they are eternal or not, yet always with the people, and when you preach to the people, use the received doctrine and the received words in the sense in which the people receive them." It is certainly allowable to think that many an ancient timid teacher discovered the truth without daring to entrust it to the mass of mankind.

 

[Pilgrim 33]

Even Lying Defended.

Theophilus of Alexandria proposed making Synesius of Cyrene, bishop. The latter said: "The philosophical intelligence, in short, while it beholds the truth, admits the necessity of lying. Light corresponds to truth, but the eye is dull of vision; it can not without injury gaze on the infinite light. As twilight is more comfortable for the eye, so, I hold, is falsehood for the common run of people. The truth can only be harmful for those who are unable to gaze on the reality. If the laws of the priesthood permit me to hold this position, then I can accept consecration, keeping my philosophy to myself at home, and preaching fables out of doors."11


1 Christian History in Three Great Periods. pp. 257,8.

2 Bigg's Platonists of Alexandria. p. 58.

3 Grote's Plato, Vol. III, xxxii. pp. 56, 7.

4 J.H. Newman, Arians; Apologia Pro Vita Sua

5 Allin, Univ. Asserted, shows at length the prevalence of the doctrine of "reserve" among the early Christians.

6 Stromata.

7 Against Celsus I, vii; and on Romans ii.

8 "St. Basil distinguishes in Christianity between what is openly proclaimed and which are kept secret." Max Muller, Theosophy of Psychology, Lect. xiv.

9 Ag. Cels. De Prin.

10 Dean Mansell's Gnostic Heresies of the First and Second Centuries. Introduction, p. 10.

11 Neoplatonism, by C. Bigg, D.D. London: 1895, p. 339.

 

[Pilgrim 33]

Two Kindred Topics.

Gospel Preached to the Dead.

The early Christian church almost, if not quite, universally believed that Christ made proclamation of the Gospel to the dead in Hades. Says Huidekoper: "In the Second and Third Centuries every branch and division of Christians believed that Christ preached to the departed." 1 Dietelmaier declares2 this doctrine was believed by all Christians. Of course, if souls were placed where their doom was irretrievable salvation would not be offered to them; whence it follows that the early Christians believed in post-mortem probation. Allin says that "some writers teach that the apostles also preached in Hades. Some say that the Blessed Virgin did the same. Some even say that Simeon went before Christ to Hades." All these testimonies go to show that the earliest of the fathers did not regard the grave as the dead-line which the love of God could not cross, but that the door of mercy is open hereafter as here. "The platonic doctrine of a separate state, where the spirits of the departed are purified, and on which the later doctrine of purgatory was founded, was approved by all the expositors of Christianity who were of the Alexandrian school, as was the custom of performing religious services at the tombs of the dead. Nor was there much difference between them and Tertullian in these particulars."

In the early ages of the church great stress was laid on I Pet. iii. 19: "He (Christ) went and preached unto the spirits in prison." That this doctrine was prevalent as late as Augustine's day is evident from the fact that the doctrine is anathemitised in his list of heresies--number 79. And even as late as the Ninth Century it was condemned by Pope Boniface VI. It was believed that our Lord not only proclaimed the Gospel to all the dead but that he liberated them all. How could it be possible for a Christian to entertain the thought that all the wicked who died before the advent of our Lord were released from bondage, and that any who died after his advent would suffer endless woe? Eusebius says: "Christ, caring for the salvation of all * * * opened a way of return to life for the dead bound in the chains of death." Athanasius: "The devil * * * cast out of Hades, sees all the fettered beings led forth by the courage of the Savior." 3 Origen on I Kings, xxviii:32: "Jesus descended into Hades, and the prophets before him, and they proclaimed beforehand the coming of Christ." Didymus observes "In the liberation of all no one remains a captive; at the time of the Lord's passion he alone (Satan) was injured, who lost all the captives he was keeping." Cyril of Alexandria: "And wandering down even to Hades he has emptied the dark, secret, invisible treasures." Gregory of Nazianzus: "Until Christ loosed by his blood all who groaned under Tartarian chains." Jerome on Jonah ii: 6: "Our Lord was shut up in æonian bars in order that he might set free all who had been shut up."

Such passages might be multiplied, demonstrating that the early church regarded the conquest by Christ of the departed as universal. He set free from bonds all the dead in Hades. If the primitive Christians believed that all the wicked of all the æons preceding the death of Christ were released, how can we suppose them to have regarded the wicked subsequent to his death as destined to suffer interminable torments? Clement of Alexandria is explicit in declaring that the Gospel was preached to all, both Jews and Gentiles, in Hades;--that "the sole cause of the Lord's descent to the underworld was to preach the gospel." (Strom. VI.) Origen says: "Not only while Jesus was in the body did he win over not a few only, * * * but when he became a soul, without the covering of the body, he dwelt among those souls (in Hades) which were without bodily covering, converting such of them as were fit for it."

 

[Pilgrim 33]

The Gospel of Nicodemus.

About a century after the death of John appeared the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, valuable as setting forth current eschatology. It describes the effect of Christ's preaching in Hades: "When Jesus arrived in Hades, the gates burst open, and taking Adam by the hand Jesus said, "Come all with me, as many as have died through the tree which he touched, for behold I raise you all up through the tree of the cross.'" This book shows conclusively that the Christians of that date did not regard æonian punishment as interminable, inasmuch as those who had been sentenced to that condition were released. "If Christ preached to dead men who were once disobedient, then Scripture shows us that the moment of death does not necessarily involve a final and hopeless torment for every sinful soul. Of all the blunt weapons of ignorant controversy employed against those to whom has been revealed the possibility of a larger hope than is left to mankind by Augustine or by Calvin, the bluntest is the charge that such a hope renders null the necessity for the work of Christ. * * * We thus rescue the work of redemption from the appearance of having failed to achieve its end for the vast majority of those for whom Christ died. * * * In these passages, as has been truly said, 'we may see an expansive paraphrase and exuberant variation of the original Pauline theme of the universalism of the evangelic embassage of Christ, and of his sovereignty over the world;' and especially of the passage in the Philippians (ii. 9-11) where all they that are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, are enumerated as classes of the subjects of the exalted Redeemer." 5And Alford observes: "The inference every intelligent reader will draw from the fact here announced: it is not purgatory; it is not universal restitution; but it is one which throws blessed light on one of the darkest enigmas of divine justice." Timotheus II., patriarch of the Nestorians, wrote that "by the prayers of the saints the souls of sinners may pass from Gehenna to Paradise," (Asseman. IV. p. 344). See Prof. Plumptre's "Spirits in Prison," p. 141; Dict. Christ. Biog. Art. Eschatology, etc. Says Uhlhorn (Book I, ch. iii): "For deceased persons their relatives brought gifts on the anniversary of their death, a beautiful custom which vividly exhibited the connection between the church above and the church below."

"One fact stands out very clearly from the passages of patristic literature, viz.: that all sects and divisions of the Christians in the second and third centuries united in the belief that Christ went down into Hades, or the Underworld, after his death on the cross, and remained there until his resurrection. Of course it was natural that the question should come up, What did he do there? As he came down from earth to preach the Gospel to, and save, the living, it was easy to infer that he went down into Hades to preach the same glad tidings there, and show the way of salvation to those who had died before his advent." 6

 

[Pilgrim 33]

Prayers for the Dead.

It need not here be claimed that the doctrine that Christ literally preached to the dead in Hades is true, or that such is the teaching of I. Pet. iii: 19, but it is perfectly apparent that if the primitive Christians held to the doctrine they could not have believed that the condition of the soul is fixed at death. That is comparatively a modern doctrine.

There can be no doubt that the Catholic doctrine of purgatory is a corruption of the Scriptural doctrine of the disciplinary character of all God's punishments. Purgatory was never heard of in the earlier centuries.7 It is first fully stated by Pope Gregory the First, 'its inventor,' at the close of the Sixth Century, "For some light faults we must believe that there is before judgment a purgatorial fire." This theory is a perversion of the idea held anciently, that all God's punishments are purgative; what the Catholic regards as true of the errors of the good is just as true of the sins of the worst,-- indeed, of all. The word rendered punishment in Matt. xxv: 46, (kolasin) implies all this.

 

[Pilgrim 33]

Condition of the Dead not Final.

That the condition of the dead was not regarded as unalterably fixed is evident from the fact that prayers for the dead were customary anciently, and that, too, before the doctrine of purgatory was formulated. The living believed--and so should we believe--that the dead have migrated to another country, where the good offices of supervisors on earth avail. Perpetua begged for the help of her brother, child of a Pagan father, who had died unbaptized. In Tertullian the widow prays for the soul of her departed husband. Repentance by the dead is conceded by Clement, and the prayers of the good on earth help them.

The dogma of the purificatory character of future punishment did not degenerate into the doctrine of punishment for believers only, until the Fourth Century; nor did that error crystallize into the Catholic purgatory until later. Hagenbach says: "Comparing Gregory's doctrine with the earlier, and more spiritual notions concerning the efficacy of the purifying fire of the intermediate state, we may adopt the statement of Schmidt that the belief in a lasting desire of perfection, which death itself cannot quench, degenerated into a belief in purgatory."

Plumtre ("Spirits in Prison," London, p. 25) has a valuable statement: "In every form; from the solemn liturgies which embodied the belief of her profoundest thinkers and truest worshippers, to the simple words of hope and love which were traced over the graves of the poor, her voice (the church of the first ages) went up without a doubt or misgiving, in prayers for the souls of the departed;" showing that they could not have regarded their condition as unalterably fixed at death. Prof. Plumptre quotes from Lee's "Christian Doctrine of Prayer for the Departed," to show the early Christians' belief that intercessions for the dead would be of avail to them. Even Augustine accepted the doctrine. He prayed after his mother's death, that her sins might be forgiven, and that his father might also receive pardon. ("Confessions," ix, 13.)8

The Platonic doctrine of a separate state where the spirits of the departed are purified, and on which the later doctrine of purgatory was founded, was approved by all the expositors of Christianity who were of the Alexandrian school, as was the custom of performing religious services at the tombs of the dead. Uhlhorn gives similar testimony: "For deceased persons their relatives brought gifts on the anniversary of their death, a beautiful custom, which vividly exhibited the connection between the church above and the church below." Origen's tenet of Catharsis of Purification was absorbed by the growing belief in purgatory. 9

 

[Pilgrim 33]

Important Thoughts.

Let the reader reflect, (1) that the Primitive Christians so distrusted the effect of the truth on the popular mind that they withheld it, and only cherished it esoterically, and held up terrors for effect, in which they had no faith; (2) that they prayed for the wicked dead that they might be released from suffering; (3) that they universally held that Christ preached the Gospel to sinners in Hades; (4) that the earliest creeds are entirely silent as to the idea that the wicked dead were in irretrievable and endless torment; (5) that the terms used by some who are accused of teaching endless torment were precisely those employed by those acknowledged to have been Universalists; (6) that the first Christians were the happiest of people and infused a wonderful cheerfulness into a world of sorrow and gloom; (7) that there is not a shade of darkness nor a note of despair in any one of the thousands of epitaphs in the Catacombs; (8) that the doctrine of universal redemption was first made prominent by those to whom Greek was their native tongue, and that they declared that they derived it from the Greek Scriptures, while endless punishment was first taught by Africans and Latins, who derived it from a foreign tongue of which the great teacher of it confesses he was ignorant. (See " Augustine" later on.) Let the reader give to these considerations their full and proper weight, and it will be impossible to believe that the fathers regarded the impenitent as consigned at death to hopeless and endless woe.

Note.--After giving the emphatic language of Clement and Origen and other ancient Christians declarative of universal holiness, Dr. Bigg, in his valuable book, "The Christian Platonists of Alexandria," frequently quoted in these pages, remarks (pp. 292-3): "Neither Clement not Origen is, properly speaking, a Universalist. Nor is Universalism the logical result of their principles." The reasons he gives are two: (1) They believed in the freedom of the will; and (2) they did not deny the eternity of punishment, because the soul that has sinned beyond a certain point can never become what it might have been!

To which it is only necessary to say (1) that Universalists generally accept the freedom of the will, and (2) no soul that has sinned, as all have sinned, can ever become what it might have been, so the Dr. Bigg's premises would necessitate Universalism, but universal condemnation!

And, as if to contradict his own words, Dr. Bigg adds in the very next paragraph: "The hope of a general restitution of all souls through suffering to purity and blessedness, lingered on in the East for some time;" and the last words in his book are these: "It is the teaching of St. Paul,--Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the Kingdom to God, even the Father. Then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all." And these are the last words of his last note: "At the end all will be one because the Father's will is all in all and all in each. Each will fill the place which the mystery of the economy assigns to him."

It would be interesting to learn what sort of monstrosity Dr. Bigg has constructed, and labeled with the word which he declares could not be applied to Clement and Origen.

1 An excellent resume of the opinions of the fathers on Christ's descent into Hades, and preaching the gospel to the dead, is Huidekoper's "The Belief of the First Three Centuries Concerning Christ's Mission to the Underworld;" also Huidekoper's "Indirect Testimony to the Gospels;" also Dean Plumptre's "Spirits in Prison." London: 1884.

2 Historia Dogmatis do Descensu Christi ad Inferos. J. A. Dietelmaier.

3 De Passione et Cruce Domin. Migne, XXVIII, 186-240.

4 Carm. XXXV, v. 9

5 Farrar's "Early Days of Christianity." ch. vii.

6 Universalist Quarterly.

7 Archs. Usher and Wake, quoted by Farrar, "Mercy and Judgment."

8 That these ideas were general in the primitive church, see Nitzsch, "Christian Doctrine," Sec. III; Dorner, "System of Christian Doctrine," Vol. IV (Eschatology). Also Vaughan's "Causes of the Corruption of Christianity," p. 319.

9 "Neoplatonism," by C. Bigg, p. 334.

 

[Pilgrim 33]

The Apostles' Immediate Successors.

The First Christians not Explicit in Eschatological Matters.

As we read the writings of the immediate successors of the apostles, we discover that matters of eschatology do not occupy their thought. They dwell on the advent of our Lord, and dilate on its blessings to the world; they give the proofs of his divinity, and appeal to men to accept his religion. Most of the surviving documents of the First Century are hortatory. It was an apologetic, not a polemic age. A very partisan author, anxious to show that the doctrine of endless punishment was bequeathed to their immediate successors by the apostles, concedes this. He says that the first Christians "touched but lightly and incidentally on points of doctrine," but gave "the doctrines of Christianity in the very words of Scripture, giving us often no certain clew to their interpretations of the language.1 " The first Christians were converted Jews, Greeks, Egyptians, Romans, differing in their theologies, and only agreeing in accepting Christ and Christianity; their ideas of our Lord's teaching concerning human destiny and on other subjects were tinctured by their antecedent predilections.

Their doctrines on many points were colored by Jewish and Pagan errors, until their minds were clarified, when the more systematic teachers came,--Clement, Origen and others, who eliminated the errors Christian converts had brought with them from former associations, and presented Christianity as Christ taught it. The measures of meal were more or less impure until the leaven of genuine Christianity transformed them. But it is conceded that there is little left of this apostolic age, out of the New Testament, to tell us what their ideas of human destiny were.

It is probable, however, that the Pharisaic notion of a partial resurrection and the annihilation of the wicked was held by some, and the heathen ideas of endless punishment by others. We know that even while the apostles lived some of the early Christians had accepted new, or retained ancient errors, for which they were reprimanded by the apostles. "False teachers" and "philosophy and vain deceit" were alleged of them, and it is the testimony of scholars that errors abounded among them, errors that Christianity did not at first exorcise. But the questions concerning human destiny were not at all raised at first. True views and false ones undoubtedly prevailed, brought into the new communion from former associations. And it is conceded that while very little literature on this subject remains, there is enough to show that they differed, at first, and until wiser teachers systematized our religion, and sifted out the wheat from the chaff.

 

[Pilgrim 33]

Views of Clement of Rome.

The first of the apostolic fathers was Clement of Rome, who was bishop A.D. 85. Eusebius and Origin thought he was Paul's fellow laborer. His famous (first) epistle of fifty-nine chapters in about the length of Mark's Gospel. He appeals to the destruction of the cities of the plains to illustrate the divine punishment, but gives no hint of the idea of endless woe, though he devotes three chapters to the resurrection. He has been thought to have held to a partial resurrection, for he asks: "Do we then deem it any great and wonderful thing for the maker of all things to raise up again those who have proudly served him in the assurance of a good faith?" But this does not prove he held to the annihilation of the wicked, for Theophilus and Origen use similar language. He says: "Let us reflect how free from wrath he is towards all his creatures." God "does good to all, but most abundantly to us who have fled for refuge to his compassions," etc. God is "the all-merciful and beneficent Father." Neander affirms that he had the Pauline spirit," with love as the motive, and A. St. J. Chambre, D.D.,2 thinks "he probably believed in the salvation of all men," and Allin3 refers to Rufinus and says, "from which we may, I think, infer, that Clement, with other fathers, was a believer in the larger hope." It cannot be said that he has left anything positive in relation to the subject, though it is probable that Chambre and Allin have correctly characterized him. He wrote a Greek epistle to the Corinthians which was lost for centuries, but was often quoted by subsequent writers, and whose contents were therefore only known in fragments. It was probably written before John's Gospel. It was at length found complete, bound with the Alexandrian codex. It was read in church before and at the time of Eusebius, and even as late as the Firth Century.

 

[Pilgrim 33]

Polycarp, a Destructionist.

Polycarp was bishop of the church in Smyrna, A.D. 108-117. He is thought to have been John's disciple. Irenæus tells us that he and Ignatius were friends of Peter and John, and related what they had told them. His only surviving epistle contains this passage: To Christ "all things are made subject, both that are in heaven and that are on earth; whom every living creature shall worship; who shall come to judge the quick and the dead; whose blood God shall require of them that believe not in him." He also says in the same chapter: "He who raised up Christ from the dead, will also raise us up if we do his will," implying that the resurrection depended, as he thought, on conduct in this life. It seems probable that he was one of those who held to the Pharisaic doctrine of a partial resurrection. And yet this is only the most probable conjecture. There is nothing decisive in his language. When the proconsul Statius Quadratus wrote to Polycarp, threatening him with burning, the saint replied "Thou threatenest me with a fire that burns for an hour, and is presently extinct, but art ignorant, alas! of the fire of aionian condemnation, and the judgment to come, reserved for the wicked in the other world." After Polycarp there was no literature, that has descended to us, for several years, except a few quotations in later writings, which, however, contain nothing bearing on our theme, from Papias, Quadratus, Agrippa, Castor, etc.

 

[Pilgrim 33]

The Martyria.

"The Martyrdom of Polycarp" purports to be a letter from the church of Smyrna reciting the particulars of his death. But though it is the earliest of the Martyria, it is supposed to have a much later date than it alleges, and much has been interpolated by its transcribers. Eusebius omits much of it. It speaks of the fire that is "aionion punishment," and it is probable that the writer gave these terms the same sense that is given them by the Scriptures, Origen, Gregory and other Universalist writings and authors.

Tatian states the doctrine of endless punishment very strongly. He was a philosophical Platonist more than a Christian. He was a heathen convert and repeats the heathen doctrines in language unknown to the New Testament though common enough in heathen works. He calls punishment "death through punishment in immortality," 4 terms used by Josephus and the Pagans, but never found in the New Testament. His "Diatessaron," a collection of the Gospels, is of real value in determining the existence of the Gospels in the Second Century.

 

[Pilgrim 33]

Barnabas's "Way of Death."

The Epistle of Barnabas was written by an Alexandrian Gnostic, probably about A.D. 70 to 120, not, as has been claimed, by Paul's companion, and yet some of the best authorities think the author of the Epistle was the friend of Paul. Though often quoted by the ancients, the first four and a half chapters of the Epistle were only known in a Latin version until the entire Greek was discovered and published in 1863. It is the only Christian composition written while the New Testament was being written, except the "Wisdom of Solomon." It is of small intrinsic value, and sheds but little light on eschatology. The first perfect manuscript was found with the Sinaitic manuscript of Tischendorf, a translation of which is given by Samuel Sharpe. (Williams & Norgate, London, 1880.) It was the first document after the New Testament to apply aionios to punishment; but there is nothing in the connection to show that it was used in any other than its Scriptural sense, indefinite duration. It is quoted by Origen on Cont. Cels., and by Clement of Alexandria. It is chiefly remarkable for standing alone among writings contemporary with the New Testament. The phrase, eis ton aiona, "to the age," mistranslated in the New Testament "forever" (though correctly rendered in the margin of the Revision), is employed by Barnabas and applied to the rewards of goodness and the evil consequences of ill doing. He says, "The way of the Black one is an age-lasting way of death and punishment," but the description accompanying shows that the Way and its results are confined to this life, for he precedes it by disclaiming all questions of eschatology. He says: "If I should write to you about things that are future you would not understand." And when he speaks of God he says: "He is Lord from ages and to ages, but he (Satan) is prince of the present time of wickedness." Long duration but not strict eternity seems to have been in his mind when he referred to the consequences of wickedness. This is confirmed by the following language: "He that chooseth those (evil) things will be destroyed together with his works. For the sake of this there will be a resurrection, for the sake of this a repayment. The day is at hand in which all things will perish together with the evil one. The Lord is at hand and his reward." Barnabas probably held the Scriptural view of punishment, long-lasting but limited, though he employs timoria (torment) instead of kolasis (correction) for punishment.

 

[Pilgrim 33]

The Shepherd or Pastor of Hermas.

In the middle of the Second Century, say A.D. 141 to 156, a book entitled the "Shepherd," or "Pastor of Hermas," was read in the churches, and was regarded as almost equal to the Scriptures. The author was commissioned to write it by Clemens Romanus. Irenæus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Eusebius and Athanasius quote from it, and rank it among the sacred writings. Clement says it is "divinely expressed," and Origin calls it "divinely inspired." Irenæus designates the book as "The Scripture." According to Rothe, Hefele, and the editors of Bib. Max. Patrum, Hermas teaches the possibility of repentance after death, but seems to imply the annihilation of the wicked. Farrar says that the parable of the tower "certainly taught a possible amelioration after death: for a possibility of repentance and so of being built into the tower is granted to some of the rejected stones." The "Pastor" does not avow Universalism, but he is much further from the eschatology of the church for the last fifteen centuries, than from universal restoration. Only fragments of this work were preserved for a long time, and they were in a Latin translation, until 1859, when one-fourth of the original Greek was discovered. This, with the fragments previously possessed, and the æthiopic version, give us the full text of this ancient document. The book is a sort of Ante-Nicene Pilgrim's Progress--an incoherent imitation of Revelation.5 The theology of the "Shepherd" can be gauged from his language: "Put on, therefore, gladness, that hath always favor before God, and is acceptable to him, and delight thyself in it; for every man that is glad doeth the things that are good, but thinketh good thoughts, despising grief." How different this sentiment from that which prevailed later, when saints mortified body and soul, and made religion the apotheosis of melancholy and despair.

Of some fifteen epistles ascribed to Ignatius, it has been settled by modern scholarship that seven are genuine. There are passages in these that seem to indicate that he believed in the annihilation of the wicked. He was probably a convert from heathenism who had not gotten rid of his former opinions. He says: "It would have been better for them to love that they might rise." If he believed in a partial resurrection he could not have used words that denote endless consequences to sin any more than did Origen, for if annihilation followed those consequences, they must be limited. When Ignatius and Barnabas speak of "eternal" punishment or death, we might perhaps suppose that they regarded the punishment of sin as endless, did we not find that Origen and other Universalists used the same terms, and did we not know that the Scriptures do the same. To find aionion attached to punishment proves nothing of its duration. In his Epist. ad Trall., he says that Christ descended into Hades and cleft the aionion barrier.

 

[Pilgrim 33]

Ignatius Probably a Destructionist.

It seems on the whole probable that while Ignatius did not dogmatize on human destiny, he regarded the resurrection as conditional. But here, as elsewhere, the student should remember that the pernicious doctrine of "reserve" or "oeconomy" continually controlled the minds of the early Christian teachers, so that they not only withheld their real views of the future, lest ignorant people should take advantage of God's goodness, but threatened consequences of sin to sinners, in order to supply the inducements that they thought the masses of people required to deter them from sin. Dr. Ballou thinks that this father held that the wicked "will not be raised from the dead, but exist hereafter as incorporeal spirits." He was martyred A.D. 107.

 

[Pilgrim 33]

Justin Martyr's Views.

Justin Martyr, A.D. 89-166, is the first scholar produced by the Church, and the first conspicuous father the authenticity of whose writings is not disputed. His surviving works are his two Apologies, and his Dialogue with Trypho. It is difficult to ascertain his exact views. Cave says: "Justin Martyr maintains that the souls of good men are not received into heaven until the resurrection * * * that the souls of the wicked are thrust into a worse condition, where they expect the judgment of the great day." Justin himself says that "the punishment is age-long chastisement (aionion kolasin) and not for a thousand years as Plato says, "(in Phoedra). "It is unlimited; men are chastised for an unlimited period, and the kingdom is aionion and the chastening fire (kolasis puros) aionion, too. * * * "God delays the destruction of the world, which will cause wicked angels and demons and men to cease to exist, in order to their repentance. * * * Some which appeared worthy of God never die, others are punished as long as God wills them to exist and be punished. * * * Souls both die and are punished." He calls the fire of punishment unquenchable (asbeston). He sometimes seems to have taught a pseudo-Universalism, that is, the salvation of all who should be permitted to be immortal; at other times endless punishment. Again he favors universal salvation. He not only condemned those who forbade the reading of the Sibylline Oracles, but commended the book. His language is, "We not only read them without fear, but offer them for inspection, knowing that they will appear well-pleasing to all." As the Oracles distinctly advocate universal salvation, it is not easy to believe that Justin discarded their teachings. And yet he says: "If the death of wicked men had ended in insensibility," it would have been a "god-send" to them. Instead, he says, death is followed by aionion punishment. If he used the word as Origen did, the two statements are reconcilable with each other. Justin taught a "general and everlasting resurrection and judgment. Body and soul are to be raised and the wicked with the devil and his angels, and demons, sent to Gehenna. 6 * * * Christ has declared that Satan and his host, together with those men who follow him, shall be sent into fire, and punished for an endless period.7" But it may be that he speaks rhetorically, and not literally. It is the general opinion, however, that he regarded punishment as limited, to be followed by annihilation. He himself says: "The soul, therefore, partakes of life, because God wills it should live; and, accordingly, it will not partake of life whenever God shall will that it should not live." And yet he says that bodies are consumed in the fire, and at the same time remain immortal.

Justin was a heathen philosopher before his conversion, and his Christianity is of a mongrel type. He wore a pagan philosopher's robe, or pallium, after his conversion, calls himself a Platonist, and always seems half a heathen. His effort appears to be to fuse Christianity and Paganism, and it is not easy to harmonize his statements. His Pagan idiosyncrasies colored his Christianity. But, as Farrar says, the theology of the first one or two centuries had not been crystallized, the "language was fluid and untechnical, and great stress should not be laid on the expressions of the earliest fathers. He nowhere calls punishment endless, but aionion; and yet it can not be proved that he was at all aware of the true philosophic meaning of aionios as a word expressive of quality, and exclusive of--or rather the absolute antithesis to--time. He says that demons and wicked men will be punished for a boundless age (aperanto aiona), but in some passages he seems to be at least uncertain whether God may not will that evil souls should cease to exist." 8 When Justin says that transgressors are to remain deathless (athanata) while devoured by the worm and fire, may he not mean that they cannot die while thus exposed? So, too, when he used the word aionios, and says the sinner must undergo punishment during that period, why not read literally "for ages, and not as Plato said, for a thousand years only?"

When, therefore, these terms are found unexplained, as in Justin Martyr, they should be read in the bright light cast upon them by the interpretations of Clement and Origen, who employ them as forcibly as does Justin, but who explain them--"eternal fire" and "everlasting punishment"--as in perfect harmony with the great fact of universal restoration. Doctor Farrar regards Justin Martyr as holding "views more or less analogous to Universalism. 9"

We cannot do better here than to quote H. Ballou, 2d D.D.:

"The question turns on the construction of a single passage. Justin had argued that souls are not, in their own nature, immortal, since they were created, or begotten; and whatever thus begins to exist, may come to an end. 'But, still, I do not say that souls wholly die; for that would truly be good fortune to the bad. What then? The souls of the pious dwell in a certain better place; but those of the unjust and wicked, in a worse place, expecting the time of judgment. Thus, those who are judged of God to be worthy, die no more; but the others are punished as long as God shall will that they should exist and be punished. * * * For, whatever is, or ever shall be, subsequent to God, has a corruptible nature, and is such as may be abolished and cease to exist. God alone is unbegotten and incorruptible, and, therefore, he is God; but everything else, subsequent to him, is begotten and corruptible. For this reason, souls both die and are punished." 10

 

[Pilgrim 33]

Punishment Not Endless.

The Epistle to Diognetus.--This letter was long ascribed to Justin Martyr, but it is now generally regarded as anonymous. It was written not far from A.D. 100, perhaps by Marcion, possibly by Justin Martyr. It is a beautiful composition, full of the most apostolic spirit. It has very little belonging to our theme, except that at the close of Chapter X it speaks of "those who shall be condemned to the aionion fire which shall chastise those who are committed to it even unto an end," 11 (mechri telous). Even if aionion usually meant endless, it is limited here by the word "unto" which has the force of until, as does aidios in Jude 6,--"aidios chains under darkness, unto (or until) the judgment of the great day." Such a limited chastisement, it would seem, could only be believed in by one who regarded God as Diognetus's correspondent did, as one who "still is, was always, and ever will be kind and good, and free from wrath."

This brief passage shows us that at the beginning of the Second Century Christians dwelt upon the severity of the penalties of sin, but supplemented them by restoration wherever they had occasion to refer to the ultimate outcome. A few years later (as will appear further on) when Christianity was systematized by Clement and Origen, this was fully shown, and explains the obscurities, and sometimes the apparent incongruities of earlier writers. The lovely spirit and sublime ethics of this epistle foreshadow the Christian theology so soon to be fully developed by Clement and Origen. Bunsen thinks (Hipp. and His Age, I, pp. 170, 171) the letter "indisputably, after Scripture, the finest monument we know of sound Christian feeling, noble courage, and manly eloquence."

Irenæus (A.D. 120, died 202) was a friend of Ignatius, and says that in his youth he saw Polycarp, who was contemporary with John. He had known several who had personally listened to the apostles. His principle work, "Against Heresies," was written A.D., 182 to 188. No complete copy of it exists in the original Greek: only a Latin translation is extant, though a part of the first book is found in Greek in the copious quotations from it in the writings of Hippolytus and Epiphanius. Its authority is weakened by the wretched Latin in which most of it stands. One fact, however, is incontrovertible: he did not regard Universalism as among the heresies of his times, for he nowhere condemns it, though the doctrine is contained in the "Sibylline Oracles," then in general use, and though he mentions the doctrine without disapproval in his description of the theology of the Carpocratians.

 

[Pilgrim 33]

Interesting Exposition of Irenæus.

Irenæus has been quoted as teaching that the Apostles' creed was meant to inculcate endless punishment, because in a paraphrase of that document he says that the Judge, at the final assize, will cast the wicked into "eternal" fire. But the terms he uses are "ignem aeternum" (aionion pur.) As just stated, though he reprehends the Carpocratians for teaching the transmigration of souls, he declares without protest that they explain the text "until thou pay the uttermost farthing," as inculcating the idea that "all souls are saved." Irenæus says: "God drove Adam out of Paradise, and removed him far from the tree of life, in compassion for him, that he might not remain a transgressor always, and that the sin in which he was involved might not be immortal, nor be without end and incurable. He prevented further transgression by the interposition of death, and by causing sin to cease by the dissolution of the flesh * * * that man ceasing to live to sin, and dying to it, might begin to live to God."

The Creed or Irenæus.

Irenæus states the creed of the church in his day, A.D. 160, as a belief in "one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them; and in one Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit who proclaimed through the prophets the dispensation of God, and the advents, and the birth from a virgin, and the passion, and the resurrection from the dead, and the ascension into heaven in the flesh of the beloved Christ Jesus our Lord, and his manifestation from heaven in the glory of the Father 'to gather all things in one," (Eph. 1:10) and to raise up anew all flesh of the whole human race, in order that to Christ Jesus, our Lord, and God, and Savior, and King, according to the will of the invisible Father, 'every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess to him,'(Phil. ii:10,11) and that he should execute just judgment towards all; that he may send 'spiritual wickedness,' (Eph. vi:12) and the angels who transgressed and became apostates, together with the ungodly and unrighteous, and wicked and profane among men, into aionion fire; and may in the exercise of his grace, confer immortality upon the righteous, and holy, and those who have kept his commandments, and have persevered in his love, some from the beginning, and others from their repentance, and may surround them with everlasting glory."

The reader must not forget that the use of the phrase, aionion fire, does not give any color to the idea that Irenæus taught endless punishment, for Origen, Clement, Gregory Nyssen, and other Universalists conveyed their ideas of punishment by the use of the same terms, and held that salvation is beyond, and even by means of the aionion fire and punishment.

Probably a Universalist.

Schaff admits that the opinions of Irenaeus are doubtful from his (Schaff's) orthodox standpoint and says: 12 "In the fourth Pfaffian fragment ascribed to him (Stieren I, 889) he says that 'Christ will come at the end of time to destroy all evil----and to reconcile all things-- from Col. i:20--that there may be an end of all impurity.' This passage, like I. Cor. xv:28, and Col. i:20, looks toward universal restoration rather than annihilation," but good, orthodox Dr. Schaff admits that it, like the Pauline passages, allows an interpretation consistent with eternal punishment. (See the long note in Stieren.) Dr. Beecher writes that Irenæus "taught a final restitution of all things to unity and order by the annihilation of all the finally impenitent. * * * The inference from this is plain. He did not understand aionios in the sense of eternal; but in the sense claimed by Prof. Lewis, that is, 'pertaining to the world to come,'" not endless. Irenæus thought "that man should not last forever as a sinner and that the sin which was in him might not be immortal and infinite and incurable."

Bunsen's View.

Says Bunsen: "The eternal decree of redemption, is, to Irenæus, throughout, an act of God's love. The atonement, is, according to him, a satisfaction paid, not to God, but to the Devil, under whose power the human mind and body were lying. But the Devil himself only serves God's purpose, for nothing can resist to the last, the Almighty power of divine love, which works not by constraint (the Devil's way) but by persuasion.13 The different statements of Irenæus are hard to reconcile with each other, but a fair inference from his language seems to be that he hovered between the doctrines of annihilation and endless punishment, and yet learned not a little hopefully to that of restoration. He certainly says that death ends sin, which forecloses all idea of endless torments. It is probable that the fathers differed, as their successors have since differed, according to antecedent and surrounding influences, and their own idiosyncrasies.

Of Christian writers up to date, all assert future punishment, seven apply the word rendered everlasting (aionios) to it; three, certainly did not regard it as endless, two holding to annihilation and one to universal restoration. Remembering, however, the doctrine of Reserve, we can by no means be certain that the heathen words used denoting absolute endlessness were not used "pedagogically," to deter sinners from sin.

Quadratus.--Quadratus, A.D. 131, addressed an Apology to the Emperor Adrian, a fragment of which survives, but there is no word in it relating to the final condition of mankind.

The Clementine Homilies, once thought to have been written by Clement of Rome, but properly entitled by Baur "Pseudo Clementine," the work of some Gnostic Christian--teach the final triumph of good. One passage speaks of the destruction of the wicked by the punishment of fire, "punished with aionion fire," but this is more than canceled by other passages in which it is clearly taught that the Devil is but a temporal evil, a servant of good, and agent of God, who, with all his evil works, are finally to be transformed into good. On the one hand, the Devil is not properly an evil, but a God-serving being; on the other, there is a final transformation of the Devil, of the evil into good. The sentiments of the Homilies seem, however, somewhat contradictory.

It is an important consideration not always realized, when studying the opinions that prevailed in the primitive church, that the earliest copies of the Gospels were not in existence until A.D. 60; that the first Epistle written by Paul--1st Thessalonians--was not written till A.D. 52; that the New Testament canon was not completed until A.D. 170; that for a long time the only Christian Bible was the Old Testament; 14 that the account of the judgment in Matt. xxv is never referred to in the writings of the apostolic fathers, who probably never saw or heard of it till towards the end of the Second Century; and, therefore, when considering the opinions of the fathers for at least a century and a half, we must in all cases interpret them by the Old Testament, which scholars of all churches concede does not reveal the doctrine of endless woe. Probably not a single Christian writer heretofore quoted ever saw a copy of the Gospels.

 

[Pilgrim 33]

Athenagoras and Theophilus.

Athenagoras wrote an "Apology," about A.D. 178, and a "Treatise on the Resurrection." He was a scholar and a philosopher, and made great efforts to convert the heathen to Christianity. He declared that there shall be a judgment, the award of which shall be distributed according to conduct; but he nowhere refers to the duration of punishment. He was, however, the head of the Catechetical school in Alexandria, before Pantænus, and must have shared the Universalist views of Pantænus, Clement and Origen, his successors.

Theophilus (A.D. 180). This author has left a "Treatise" in behalf of Christianity, addressed to Autolycus, a learned heathen. He uses current language on the subject of punishment, but says: "Just as a vessel, which, after it has been made, has some flaw, is remade or remodeled, 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 resurrection whole, I mean spotless, and righteous, and immortal."

The preceding writers were "orthodox," but there were at the same time Gnostic Christians, none of whose writings remain except in quotations contained in orthodox authors, with the exception of a few fragments. They seem to have amalgamated Christianity with Orientalism. But they have been so misrepresented by their opponents that it is very difficult to arrive at their real opinions on all subjects. Happily they speak distinctly on human destiny.


1 Dr. Alvah Hovey, State of the Impenitent Dead, pp. 131, 2.

2 Anc. Hist. Univ., Note.

3 Univer. Assorted, p. 105.

4

5 Bunsen, Hipp. and His Age, Vol. I, p. 182

6 Apol. 1, 8.

7 But Gregory Nyssen the Universalist par excellence, says that Gehenna is a purifying agency. So does Origen.

8 Lives of the Fathers, p. 112.

9 Eternal Hope, p. 84.

10 Univer. Quar., July, 1846, pp. 299, 300.

11 Migne, II, p. 1184.

12 Vol. I, p. 490.

13 Longfellow gives expression to the same thought:

"It is Lucifer, Son of Mystery
And since God suffers him to be,
He, too, is God's minister
And labors for some good
By us not understood."

14 Westcott Int. to Gospels, p. 181.

 

[Pilgrim 33]

Three Gnostic Sects.

​

Three Gnostic sects flourished nearly simultaneously in the Second Century, all which accepted universal salvation: the Basilidians, the Valentinians, and the Carpocratians.

The Basilidians.

The Basilidians were followers of Basilides, who lived about A.D. 117-138. He was a Gnostic Christian and an Egyptian philosopher. He wrote an alleged Gospel--exegetical rather than historical--no trace of which remains. As some of his theories did not agree with those generally advocated by Christians, he and his followers were regarded as heretics and their writings were destroyed, though no evidence exists to show that their view of human destiny was obnoxious. Greek philosophy and Christian faith are mingled in the electicism of the Basilidians. Basilides taught that man's universal redemption will result from the birth and death of Christ. According to the "Dictionary of Christian Biography," 1 Hippolytus gives an exposition of the mystic Christian sect. Basilides himself was a sincere Christian, and "the first Gnostic teacher who has left an individual, personal stamp upon the age." 2 He accepted the entire Gospel narrative, and taught that the wicked will be condemned to migrate into the bodies of men or animals until purified, when they will be saved with all the rest of mankind. He did not pretend that his ideas of transmigration were obtained from the Scriptures but affirmed that he derived them from philosophy. He held that the doctrines of Christianity have a two-fold character--one phrase simple, popular, obtained from the plain reading of the New Testament; the other sublime, secret, mysteriously imparted to favored ones. His system was a sort of Egyptian metempsychosis grafted on Christianity, an Oriental mysticism endeavoring to stand on a Christian foundation, and thus solve the problem of human destiny. Man and nature are represented as struggling upwards. "The restoration of all things that in the beginning were established in the seed of the universe shall be restored in their own season."

Irenæus charges the Basilidians with immortality, but Clement, who knew them better, denies it, and defends them. 3

The Carpocratians.

The Carpocratians were followers of Carpocrates, a Platonic philosopher, who incorporated some of the elements of the Christian religion into his system of philosophy. The sect flourished in Egypt and vicinity early in the Second Century. Like the Basilidians they called themselves Gnostics, and inculcated a somewhat similar set of theories. Irenæus says that the Carpocratians explained the text: "Thou shalt not go out thence until thou hast paid the uttermost farthing," as teaching "that no one can escape from the power of those angels who made the world, but that he must pass from body to body until he has experience of every kind of action which can be practiced in this world, and when nothing is wanting longer to him, then his liberated soul should soar upwards to that God who is above the angels, the makers of the world. In this way all souls are saved," etc. But while Irenæus calls the Carpocratians a heretical sect, and denounces some of their tenets, he had no hard words for their doctrine of man's final destiny.

The Valentinians.

The Valentinians (A.D. 130) taught that all souls will be finally admitted to the realms of bliss. They denied the resurrection of the body. Their doctrines were widely disseminated in Asia, Africa and Europe, after the death of their Egyptian founder, Valentine. They resembled the teachings of Basilides in efforts to solve the problem of human destiny philosophically. Valentine flourished, in Rome from A.D. 129 to 132. A devout Christian, and a man of the highest genius, he was never accused of anything worse than heresy. He was "a pioneer in Christian theology." His was an attempt to show, in dramatic form, how "the work of universal redemption is going on to the ever-increasing glory of the ineffable and unfathomable Father, and the ever-increasing blessedness of souls." There was a germ of truth in the hybrid Christian theogony and Hellenic philosophizing that made up Valentinianism. It was a struggle after the only view of human destiny that can satisfy the human heart.

These three sects were bitterly opposed by the "orthodox" fathers in some of their tenets, but their Universalism was never condemned.