-
HTR 102:2 (2009) 13568
Origen, Bardaian, and the Origin of Universal Salvation*Ilaria
L. E. RamelliCatholic University of the Sacred HeartMilan,
Italy
The Question at StakeIs Origen of Alexandria the inventor of the
eschatological doctrine of apokatastasisof the eventual return of
all creatures to the Good, that is, God, and thus universal
salvation? Certainly, he is one of its chief supporters in all of
history, and he is, as far as we know, the rst to have maintained
it in a complete and coherent way, so that all of his philosophy of
history, protology, and anthropology is oriented toward this
telos.1 There are, however, signicant antecedents to his mature and
articulate theorization, at least some of which he surely knew very
well, and there is even a possible parallel. For this conception
did not appear ex nihilo, but in a cultural context rich in
suggestions and premises, and in a philosophical framework of
lively discussions concerning fate, free will, theodicy, and the
eternal destiny of rational creatures.
* This article is a signicantly revised and expanded version of
a paper I delivered at the SBL
International Meeting, Vienna; 2226 July, 2007. I am very
grateful to all colleagues and friends who discussed it with me at
various stages and to the anonymous readers of HTR, who offered
helpful suggestions.
1 See most recently Panayiotis Tzamalikos, Origen: Philosophy of
History and Eschatology
(Leiden: Brill, 2007); Ilaria L. E. Ramelli, Apocatastasi
(Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 2009); eadem, Christian Soteriology and
Christian Platonism: Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, and the Biblical and
Philosophical Basis of the Doctrine of Apokatastasis, VChr 61
(2007) 31356; eadem, Origene ed il lessico delleternit, Adamantius
14 (2008) 10029.
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136 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
Premises in Early Christian Apocrypha: Intercession, Postmortem
Conversion, and Christs RoleI shall argue that a few early
Christian apocrypha2 are extremely signicant for understanding the
background to Origens concept of apokatastasis. The most important
of these are above all the Apocalypse of Peter and the Sibylline
Oracles,in addition to the Apocalypse of Elijah, the Epistula
Apostolorum, and the Life of Adam and Eve. Some of these works were
well known to both Origen and Clement of Alexandria3 and were
considered by them to be inspired writings. Thus, even though these
texts do not present a full-blown theory of universal salvation,
they are likely to have constituted a common ground and source of
inspiration for the development of the doctrine of
apokatastasis.
The Apocalypse of Peter (Apoc. Pet.),4 which was probably read
in a liturgical context, attests to the doctrine of the
intercession of the blessed for the damned in the eschatological
scene, a conception that returns, in almost identical terms, in
the
2 On this category and the debate about it I limit myself to
referring to recent assessments
such as Jean-Claude Picard, Lapocryphe ltroit, Apocrypha 1
(1990) 69117; ric Junod, Apocryphes du Nouveau Testament. Une
appellation errone et une collection articielle,Apocrypha 3 (1992)
1746; Angelo Di Berardino, Gli apocri cristiani e il loro
signicato, in Storia della teologia (ed. Angelo Di Beradino and
Basil Studer; Casale Monferrato: Marietti, 1993) 1:273303; Tobias
Nicklas, crits apocryphes chrtiens. Ein Sammelband als Spiegel
eines weitreichenden Paradigmenwechsels in der Apokryphenforschung,
VChr 61 (2007) 7095, with ample documentation.
3 Many studies have been devoted to the relationship between
Clement and Origen in the context of
the school of Alexandria, some of which question the very notion
of a Christian school of Alexandria; see, e.g., Annewies van den
Hoek, The Catechetical School of Early Christian Alexandria, HTR90
(1997) 5987; Jutta Tloka, Griechische Christen, Christliche
Griechen (Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006) 11224 with wide-ranging
documentation (she notes that Eusebius himself employed different
expressions to denote the so-called School of Alexandria in the
days of Pantaenus and Clement); Anthony Grafton and Megan Williams,
Christianity and the Transformation of the Book (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 2006) 78, who accept Eusebiuss
information about Origen as a disciple of Clement but think, as the
majority of scholars do nowadays, that the HMHEWOEPIMDSRshould be
interpreted in a much less institutional way; it was not an
institution depending on the bishop of Alexandria from the very
beginning. Origen obtained support for his study rather from
private patronage (that of Ambrose). According to Emanuela
Prinzivalli, La metamorfosi della scuola alessandrina da Eracla a
Didimo, in Origeniana Octava (ed. Lorenzo Perrone; Leuven: Peeters,
2003) 91137, it is possible to speak of private schools of
Pantaenus and Clement and a public school from Origen onward. The
difference between the situation before Origen and that of his day
is due to the inuence of the episcopal institution, which then
associated itself with a didactic activity already existing in
Alexandria in more independent forms.
4 See Dennis D. Buchholz, Your Eyes will be Opened: A Study of
the Greek (Ethiopic) Apocalypse
of Peter (Atlanta: SBL, 1988); The Apocalypse of Peter (ed. Jan
N. Bremmer and Istvn Czachesz; Leuven: Peeters, 2003), esp. Kristi
Barrett Copeland, Sinners and Post-mortem Baptism in the Acherusian
Lake, 92107; Das Petrusevangelium und die Petrusapokalypse (ed.
Thomas J. Kraus and Tobias Nicklas; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2004) with
an edition of the Akhmm and Rainer fragments. Additional studies of
Apoc. Pet. include: Richard John Bauckham, The Apocalypse of Peter,
Apocrypha 5 (1994) 7111; idem, The Fate of the Dead: Studies on the
Jewish and Christian Apocalypses (Leiden: Brill, 1998); idem, Jews
and Jewish Christians in the Land of Israel at the Time of the Bar
Kochba War, with Special Reference to the Apocalypse of Peter, in
Tolerance
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ILARIA L. E. RAMELLI 137
Apocalypse of Elijah and in the Epistula Apostolorum. The Apoc.
Pet. seems to be particularly ancient, as its Christology is
extremely archaic5: It can be placed in an Alexandrian or Egyptian
milieu, ca. 100135 C.E., according to Mller.6 According to
Norelli,7 it may represent an important oral tradition independent
of those of the canonical Gospels. As Heinrich Weinel observed, the
Jewish Antichrist who persecutes Christians mentioned in chapter 2
may be an allusion to Bar Kochba.8 The dating of the Apocalypse to
the Bar Kochba war is upheld by a number of scholars,9although not
by all.10 James supposed that the Apoc. Pet. might be as ancient as
thatof John.11 In any case, the Apoc. Pet. is the earliest
Christian document to describe the kingdoms of the other world with
its attendant rewards and punishments.12 Its terminology is
specically Judaic, and so is the use of just in reference to the
good and the blessed, which comes as no surprise given the
connection of this
and Intolerance in Early Judaism and Christianity (ed. Graham N.
Stanton and Guy G. Stroumsa; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1998) 22838.
5 See Buchholz, Your Eyes, 38898: It is a low Christology,
perhaps the most ancient of
all. It is Jewish-Christian, strongly focused on eschatology, so
that Jesus messiahship does not appear during his own life, but at
his return in glory, a conception whose archaic traits are well
shown, for example, also by Giorgio Jossa, Ges Messia? (Roma:
Carocci, 2006). On Christology in apocalyptic texts, see Richard
Bauckham, The Worship of Jesus in Apocalyptic Christianity, NTS 27
(1981) 32241.
6 It is included in the Muratorian Canon of the second century
and in the Codex Claromontanus
catalogue of the fourth to sixth centuries. 7 See Enrico
Norelli, s.v. Apocri cristiani antichi, in Dizionario di omiletica
(ed. Manlio Sodi
and Achille M. Triacca; Torino: LDC/Leumann, 1998) 10211.8 The
terminus post quem should be established on the basis of 4 Esdra
dating to ca. 100 C.E.,
since it seems to be employed in the Apoc. Pet., ch. 3; also 2
Pet seems to be earlier than the Apoc. Pet. For the dating of this
apocalyptic text and bibliography on it, see Ilaria Ramelli, La
colpa antecedente come ermeneutica del male in sede
storico-religiosa e nei testi biblici, RSB 19(2007) 1164.
9 Bauckham, The Fate of the Dead, 16061; Paolo Marrassini,
LApocalisse di Pietro, in
Etiopia e oltre, Studi in onore di L. Ricci (ed. Yaqob Beyene;
Naples: Istituto Universitario Orientale, 1994) 171232; Enrico
Norelli, Pertinence thologique et canonicit. Les premires
apocalypses chrtiennes, Apocrypha 8 (1997) 14764, at 157; Attila
Jakab, The Reception of the Apocalypse of Peter in Ancient
Christianity, in The Apocalypse of Peter (ed. Bremmer and
Czachesz), 17486, at 174; Jnos Bolyki, False Prophets in the
Apocalypse of Peter, in The Apocalypse of Peter,5262.
10 Eibert Tigchelaar argues against the supposed allusions to
Bar Kochba in this Apocalypse (Is
the Liar Bar Kochba? in The Apocalypse of Peter [ed. Bremmer and
Czachesz] 6377), mainly on the basis of the fact that they are not
in the Greek fragments but in the Ethiopic translation, which is
often inaccurate and full of textual problems.
11 Montague Rhodes James, The Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford:
Oxford University Press,
1924) introduction. 12
Enrico Norelli has pointed out some typically Petrine themes in
the three apocryphal texts that are related to the Petrine
tradition: the Kerygmata Petri, the Apoc. Pet., and the Gospel of
Peter (Situation des apocryphes ptriniens, Apocrypha 2 [1991]
3138). There emerges an ancient Petrine tradition historically
connected with Antioch. From the doctrinal point of view, see
Michel Tardieu, Hrsiographie de lApocalypse de Pierre, in Histoire
et conscience historique dans les civilisations du Proche-Orient
ancien (Actes du colloque de Cartigny 1986; Leuven: Peeters, 1989)
3339.
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138 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
document to the tradition attached to Peter, who in Rome
introduced Christianity ritu Iudaico according to Ambrosiaster.13
The presence of this Petrine tradition in Egypt in an early period
is also related to the Egyptian tradition of Mark, Peters disciple
and interpreter (I.VQLRIYXLZb).14 An Egyptian origin of the Apoc.
Pet. would explain: 1) the reference in it to Egyptian elements,
above all the Egyptian cult of animals (e.g., cat and reptile
idols); 2) the synthesis of Jewish and Orphic traditions (and, I
would add, Platonic traditions, given the allusions to the
Phaedothat I shall mention shortly), which, as Jan Bremmer posits,
most likely took place in Alexandria;15 3) the mention of the angel
Tartaroukhos, unattested in classical literature but occurring in a
Cypriote and an Egyptian tablet;16 4) Clement of Alexandrias
knowledge of the text shortly after its composition, and echoes of
it in the Passio Perpetuae;17 and 5) the presence of both Jewish
and Hellenistic motifs, such as the use of the term just and
allusions to Plato18 respectively, which seems to me to point to
Hellenistic Judaism (compare Philo) and to Alexandria in
particular. Not only did Clement know the Apoc. Pet., but he also
considered it an inspired writing, like those of the New Testament.
For this reason he commented on it in his Hypotyposeis, as attested
by Eusebius (Hist. eccl. 6.14.1), who states that in this work
Clement commented on all the books of the New Testament,
without
13 See Ilaria Ramelli in collaboration with Marta Sordi,
Commodiano era di Roma? RIL 138
(2004) 323.14
According to Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The
Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans,
2006), the term should be understood as interpreter, translator of
Peters words into Latin or Greek. For Papias, see The Apostolic
Fathers (ed. Bart D. Ehrman; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 2003) 2:85118. For the early tradition on the gospel of
Mark, see Ilaria Ramelli, Fonti note e meno note sulle origini dei
Vangeli: osservazioni per una valutazione dei dati della
tradizione, Aevum 81 (2007) 17185. On the secret gospel of Mark,
attested by Clement of Alexandria and rst studied by Morton Smith
in 1973, see Scott G. Brown, Marks Other Gospel (Waterloo, Ont.:
Wilfrid Laurier University, 2005); Hugh M. Humphrey, From Q to
Secret Mark (London: T&T Clark, 2006); Henny F. Hgg, Clement of
Alexandria and the Beginning of Christian Apophaticism (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2006) 13540; Peter Jeffery, The Secret
Gospel of Mark Unveiled (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007);
Pierluigi Piovanelli, Lvangile secret de Marc trente-trois ans
aprs, RB 114 (2007) 5272, 23754; Allan Pantuck and Scott G. Brown,
Morton Smith as M. Madiotes, Journal for the Study of the
Historical Jesus 6 (2008) 10625. Within the Petrine tradition the
Apoc. Pet. played a remarkable role; Peter is there the principal
witness to Jesus resurrection and the recipient of further
revelations, which he authoritatively transmits, rst of all to his
disciple Clement (2 Clem. 5).
15 Jan Bremmer, The Apocalypse of Peter: Greek or Jewish? in The
Apocalypse of Peter (ed.
Bremmer and Czachesz), 114. The same mixture is found in the
Testament of Orpheus, stemming from the same environment.
16 Respectively SEG 44.1279 and 38.1837. This connection is
noted by Bremmer, The
Apocalypse, 8.17
On postmortem salvation in this document, for Dinocrates,
Perpetuas brother, see Jeffrey A. Trumbower, Rescue for the Dead
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001) 7690; Ilaria Ramelli, Alle
origini della gura dellintercessore, in Mediadores con lo divino en
el Mediterrneo antiguo, Actas del Congreso Internacional de
Historia de las Religiones, Palma 1315.X.2005 (Palma de Mallorca:
Universitat de les Illes Balears, 2009).
18 Regarding these motifs, see below.
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ILARIA L. E. RAMELLI 139
omitting . . . the so-called Apocalypse of Peter.19 It is
probable that Origen too considered this document to be very
authoritative.
Several elements in the Apoc. Pet. are relevant to our question
and can be seen as premises of the doctrine of apokatastasis. One
such element is Christs descensus ad inferos,20 which is well
attested in Petrine texts such as 1 Pet 3:1921where Christ is said
to have announced salvation even to the wicked who had perished in
the ood and are a type (XYZTSb) of the non-baptizedand the Gospel
of Peter,datable to the second century like the Apoc. Pet. Another
element is the emptying of Hades, related to the descensus; a third
is the idea that spiritual development is always possible, even in
the other world.21 Most important, however, is the notion of the
nal salvation of sinners together with the blessed, so that, after
a longer or shorter period of suffering in the afterlife, sinners
too will be able to enjoy communion with God and the saints, thanks
to their own conversion after death or to the intercession of the
blessed on their behalf. Moreover, in Ecl. 48 Clement quotes a
passage from the Apoc. Pet., ascribing it to Peter himself (Peter
in his Apocalypse says that . . .) and at 41 he even quotes a
section from this Apocalypseassigning it to Scripture (Scripture
says that . . .), just as Methodius, an author deeply inuenced by
Clement and Origen, did a century later in Symp. 2.6 (It has been
handed down to us in divinely inspired Scriptures that . . .).
Since the passages corresponding to Clements and Methodiuss
quotations are also found in the Ethiopic translation of the Apoc.
Pet., which constitutes its widest recension,22we can conclude with
certainty that they actually belong to the Apoc. Pet.23
19 See James Brooks, Clement of Alexandria as a Witness to the
Development of the New
Testament Canon, SCent 9 (1992) 4155; Annewies van den Hoek,
Clement and Origen as Sources on Noncanonical Scriptural
Traditions, in Origeniana Sexta (ed. Gilles Dorival and Alain Le
Boulluec; Leuven: Peeters, 1995) 93113.
20 Trumbower, Rescue, 91107; Henryk Pietras, Lescatologia della
Chiesa (Rome: Augustinianum,
2006) 3746; for later developments (fourth to sixth cent.), see
Rmi Gounelle, La descente du Christ aux enfers (Turnhout: Brepols,
2000).
21 The specic reference is to little children who have died and
to their opportunity of receiving
baptism and conversion even in the next life, according to a
dynamic conception of deep continuity between the present and the
future life. This will be expressed by Gregory of Nyssa in his De
infantibus praemature abreptis (PG 46.161192; ed. Hadwiga Hrner,
GNO 3.2.6597). Gregory also takes over the notion of the angels
role in this, already present in the Apoc. Pet. and in Origen. On
this role in Origen and some Gnostics, see Riemer Roukema, Les
anges attendant les mes des dfunts, in Origeniana Octava (ed.
Lorenzo Perrone; Leuven: Peeters, 2003) 36775.
22 It presents Peters revelation to Clement concerning the world
from creation to judgment.
See Buchholz, Your Eyes, with status quaestionis, particularly
13952 and 41323 on the Akhmm fragment, found in a Giza manuscript,
preserved at Cairo. Two other short Greek fragments, concerning
suffering in hell, are in a folio of a fth-century manuscript in
the Oxford Bodleian Library (Madans Summary Catalogue, no. 31810).
The Coptic Apocalypse of Peter in NHC VII 3 is different; see The
Coptic Apocalypse of Peter (ed. Henrietta Wilhelmina Havelaar;
Berlin: Akademie, 1999) edition with English translation and
commentary.
23 Apart from a fragment preserved by Macarius of Magnesia,
Apocr. 4.16, all the fragments
transmitted by ancient authors have corresponding passages in
the Ethiopic translation.
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140 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
In the Ethiopic text, Christ afrms that he personally baptizes
and saves and endows with eternal life those for whom he is
supplicated, even after their death, and he says that he will be
happy to do so: Then I shall give to those who belong to me, the
elect and justied, the bath and the salvation for which they have
implored me, in the Acherusian valley, called Elysian Fields, and I
shall go and rejoice together with them.24 I shall have the peoples
enter my eternal Kingdom, and I shall do for them that which I and
my heavenly Father had promised them.25 The parallel Greek Rainer
fragment, which is far more ancient than the Ethiopic version and
dates to the third century,26 runs as follows: I shall grant to my
summoned and elect all those whom they ask me to remove from
punishment
[TEVLZWSQEMXSMDbOPLXSMDbQSYOEMINOPIOXSMDbQSYSaRINEREMNXLZW[RXEMZQIINOXLDbOSPEZWI[b].
And I shall grant them a beautiful baptism in salvation
[OEPSRFEZTXMWQEINRW[XLVMZE] in the Acherusian Lake, which is said
to be in the Elysian valley, a sharing of justice and justication
with my saints [QIZVSbHMOEMSWYZRLbQIXEX[DRE.KMZ[RQSY]. And I and my
elect will go and rejoice together with the Patriarchs in my
eternal Kingdom
[OEMENTIPIYZWSQEMINK[OEMSM.INOPIOXSMZQSYENKEPPM[DRXIbQIXEX[DRTEXVMEZVG[RIMNbXLREMN[RMZERQSYFEWMPIMZER],
and with them I shall keep my promises, made by me and by my Father
who is in heaven
[OEMTSMLZW[QIXEYNX[DRXEbINTEKKIPMZEbQSYEabINTEKKIMPEZQLRINK[OEMTEXLZVQSYS.INRXSMDbSYNVERSMDb].27
The Ethiopic text is secondary, and it is signicant that precisely
in the passage corresponding
24 The reference to the Acherusian Valley and the Elysian Fields
led, e.g., James to accept the
suppositions of Norden and Dieterich that the sources of the
eschatological vision of the Apoc. Pet. were pagan more than
Jewish, and especially Orphic. See Bremmer, The Apocalypse, 18;
Buchholz, Your Eyes, 98118, who shows how subsequently the Jewish
heritage in this writing and its relationship to Jewish texts, the
Apostolic Fathers, etc., has been investigated with success.
25 I cite Buchholzs translation of the Ethiopic text in Your
Eyes, 22430.
26 See Montague Rhodes James, The Rainer Fragment of the
Apocalypse of Peter, JTS 32
(1931) 27079; Buchholz, Your Eyes, 15255; James Keith Elliott,
The Apocalypse of Peter, in The Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford:
Clarendon, 1993) 593613; Caspar Detlef Gustav Mller, Offenbarung
des Petrus, in Neutestamentliche Apokryphen (ed. Edgar Hennecke and
Wilhelm Schneemelcher; 2 vols.; 5th ed.; Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck,
1989) 2:56278; Richard Bauckham, The Apocalypse of Peter: An
Account of Research, ANRW 2.25.6 (1988) 471350; idem, The Conict of
Justice and Mercy, in idem, The Fate of the Dead, 13248. The text
was published by Wesseley as a part of the Acts of Peter, in
Patrologia Orientalis 18 (1924) 48283, and again by Karl Prmm, De
genuino Apocalypsis Petri textu, Biblica 10 (1929) 6280, as a part
of the Apoc. Pet., and by James, who has given the best edition of
it. More recently, Kraus and Nicklas published Das Petrusevangelium
und die Petrusapokalypse, which is not a complete critical edition,
as Bart D. Ehrman remarks in his review in VC 61 (2007) 96117, but
includes all the Greek manuscripts of the Apoc. Pet. The editors
question whether the second part of the Akhmm fragment belongs not
to the Apoc. Pet. but to the Gospel of Peter (on these texts, see
also Enrico Norelli, Situation des apocryphes ptriniens, Apocrypha
2 [1991] 3183). In any case, the editors offer the entire Akhmm
fragment of the Apoc. Pet., with detailed notes, together with the
other two Greek fragments.
27 See Buchholz, Your Eyes, 228 and 345; Elliott, The Apocalypse
of Peter, 609; James, The
Rainer Fragment, 271 for the Greek text. This section
corresponds to ch. 14 in the Ethiopic text, whereas the section is
completely lacking in the Akhmm fragment, which suggests that it
belongs to a different recension. A detailed comparison between the
Rainer fragment and the Ethiopic translation is provided by
Buchholz, Your Eyes, 34462. According to James, The Rainer
Fragment, 278,
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ILARIA L. E. RAMELLI 141
to the Rainer fragment it plainly underwent modications, in all
probability due to the fact that the reviser tried to eliminate the
patent reference to the salvation of the damned (and, according to
some scholars, even universal salvation).28 However, these are all
limited modications, which did not prevent scholars from
recognizing the original version even before the discovery of the
Rainer fragment.29 The mention of the Acherusian Lake as a place
passing through which the sinners will obtain salvation in the
afterworld is remarkable because, even in such an early text, it is
a clear reference to Platos Phaedo. In Phaedo 113Dwhich is,
notably, included in Eusebiuss lengthy quotationthe sinners are
said to be puried in the Acherusian Lake, which frees them
(ENTSPYZ[) through expiation; in the Rainer fragment, this very
lake is present and functions in the very same way.30
The Ethiopic translation of the Apoc. Pet., being complete,
helps us to place the valuable Rainer fragment in context. In
chapter 12 the description of the sinners torments ends with the
river of re creating a wheel which will turn numberless times.
Chapter 13 states that the just watch the punishment of the damned,
which is described as eternal, but the Greek Vorlage surely had the
scriptural expression OSZPEWMbEMN[ZRMSb, indicating not an eternal
punishment, but rather, one that lasts for an indenite period in
the world to come.31 The conclusion of chapter 13, in fact, runs as
follows: The ainios punishment is for each one according to his or
her deeds. . . . The angel Tartaroukhos will come and instruct them
with punishment, telling them: You repent now that there is no time
left for repentance, and you
the Rainer and the Bodleian fragments of this Apocalypse
originally belonged not only to the same recension, but even to the
same manuscript.
28 Buchholz, Your Eyes, 348; Lautaro Roig Lanzillotta, Does
Punishment Reward the Righteous?
The Justice Pattern Underlying the Apocalypse of Peter, in The
Apocalypse of Peter (ed. Bremmer and Czachesz) 12757, at 15152.
29 See Buchholz, Your Eyes, 34262; 42526. The Ethiopic text is
much longer than the Greek
of the Akhmm fragment, and includes a lengthy section on Christs
second coming and the nal judgment (chs. 16) and a shorter one on
the Ascension (ch. 17) which are absent from the Akhmm fragment, as
are the Ethiopic chs. 1314. Furthermore, in the Ethiopic
translation the description of the damned comes before that of the
blessed, whereas in the Akhmm fragment the opposite is the case.
Moreover, in the Akhmm fragment both descriptions are narrated as a
vision, in the past tense, whereas in the Ethiopic only that of the
blessed is such, while that concerning the damned is a prophecy.
The Ethiopic expands much more on the description of the damned,
the Greek on that of the blessed. The Ethiopic seems to translate
the Greek from the Bodleian recension rather than from the Akhmm
recension. See ibid., 41718.
30 This is rightly noted by Copeland, Sinners, 98.
31 See Ilaria Ramelli and David Konstan, Terms for Eternity
(Piscataway, N.J.: Gorgias, 2007);
Heleen Maria Keizer, Life, Time, Entirety: A Study of %-;2 in
Greek Literature and Philosophy and Philo (Ph.D. diss.,
Universiteit van Amsterdam, 1999). This is why the supposed
disagreement between the Rainer fragment and the rest of the Greek
Apocalypse of Peter in regard to the eternity of punishment noted
by Peter van Minnen, The Greek Apocalypse of Peter, in The
Apocalypse of Peter (ed. Bremmer and Czachesz), 1539, at 32 seems
to be misguided: OSZPEWMbEMN[ZRMSb does not mean eternal
punishment. (According to van Minnen, the Rainer fragment, with its
notion of the cessation of the punishment of the damned, is
completely out of tune with the rest of the text, even with what
little remains of the Greek, because the punishments are clearly
eternal.)
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142 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
have no life left. And they all will say: Gods judgment is
right. We have heard and known that his judgment is good, because
we have paid each one according to his/her actions. The ainios
punishment is the ultra-mundane punishment, not the eternal
punishment, and its aim is therapeutic and pedagogical, a
conception that is stressed in Clement, Origen, and Gregory of
Nyssa.32 Although some passages in the Apoc. Pet. speak of eternal
punishment for the damned, in chapter 14Jesus unequivocally
announces their nal salvation. There is no contradiction here,
however, since behind the Ethiopic eternal stands the Greek
EMN[ZRMSb,33 which in the biblical lexicon signies eternal only
when it refers to God; otherwise it means ancient, remote,
enduring, divine, heavenly or pertaining to the future world.34 The
adjective EMN[ZRMSb for punishment and re and future death, both in
the Bible and in the Apoc. Pet., does not imply their absolute
eternity and does not contradict the salvation of the damned
expressed in chapter 14. Already at the beginning of Jesus
revelation to Peter (chs. 34), when Peter, worrying about the
sinners fate, says to Jesus: O my Lord, please permit me to quote
your own words concerning these sinners, namely, Better if they had
never been created,Jesus immediately reminds him of Gods mercy: O
Peter, why do you say that not having been created would have been
better for them? It is you who oppose God in this way! But you
certainly do not have more mercy than God has, who created them. If
Peter pities the damned, but God is said to have even more mercy
than Peter has, it is already possible to foresee an outcome of
salvation. Immediately after this, Jesus, who is about to speak of
the eschatological perspective, tells Peter, who is worrying about
the damned, that there is nothing that perishes for God, nothing
that is impossible for him (4.5).35 In 5.89, infernal punishment is
described through traditional images employed in the Gospels, such
as the re that cannot be put out (TYDVE?WFIWXSR) and the gnashing
of teeth. These punishments are evidently not deemed to be opposed
to the eventual salvation of the damned anticipated in chapters 34
and proclaimed in chapter 14, where it is asserted that Jesus will
pull the damned out of the torments. This is all the more
remarkable in that the Apoc. Pet. is a coherent text, endowed with
a strong unity;36 already at the beginning we nd hints of the
notion of the salvation of the damned.
32 Documentation in Ramelli, Apocatastasi.
33 E.g., at 14.2 behind the Ethiopic eternal Kingdom there lies
EMN[RMZEFEWMPIMZE, which in fact
is attested in the Rainer fragment (in other Greek texts we have
EMN[ZRMSbFEWMPIMZE).34
See Ramelli and Konstan, Terms for Eternity, 3770. 35
The kind of death that is at stake here is not simply bodily
death, which will be overcome by universal resurrection, but the
sinners spiritual death, the resurrection from which coincides with
salvation. This is also the case in Origen, where death and life
bear multiple meanings, illustrated, e.g., in his Dialogue with
Heraclides. A good parallel to this passage from the Apoc. Pet. is
provided, in my view, by a scene in the synoptic gospels in which
it is salvation, not only resurrection, to which Jesus refers when
he declares that everything is possible for God (Matt 19:26, Mark
10:27, Luke 18:27).
36 This is well demonstrated by Buchholz, Your Eyes, 38798.
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ILARIA L. E. RAMELLI 143
The fundamental role of Jesus as Savior of the sinners is
evident when he liberates them from the torments and plunges them
into the Acherusian Lake. This is why as early as 3.5 he is called
the Savior in the discussion concerning the ultimate fate of
sinners. The cross that precedes him on his Parousia in 1.6
indicates the salvicpower of Christs sacrice, which will be
revealed only in the eschatological scene. This is thus not in
sharp contrast with passages such as 6.6: They will prepare for
them a place where they will be punished eternally, each one in
conformity to his own sin, where the Greek had EMN[RMZ[b,
indenitely, in the world to come; 6.9: They will be burnt together
with them in the eternal re . . . they will punish them eternally,
where the underlying Greek was the New Testament expression
TYDVEMN[ZRMSR, the re of the world to come, which lasts
indenitely,EMN[RMZ[b and 7.8: We didnt know that we were to come to
the eternal punishment, where the Greek Vorlage surely had
OSZPEWMbEMN[ZRMSb, the only biblical phrase that correspondsfor
there exists no OSZPEWMbENM"ZHMSb (eternal punishment) in the
Bible, no UEZREXSbENM"ZHMSb (eternal death), no TYDVENM"ZHMSR
(eternal re).37
The Ethiopic translation of the Apoc. Pet. is found within the
Ethiopic version of the Pseudo-Clementines,38 in which a long
dialogue between Peter and Jesus is entirely devoted to the problem
of sinners salvation (139rb144rb). The result is the nal salvation
of sinners39 after their torments. In this case, it is Jesus
himself who intercedes for them, rather than the blessed. Peter
asks Jesus to reveal to him the fate of the sinners on the last day
and is upset at the thought of the second death (139rb140ra). Jesus
answers that sinners will not repent if they understand (140ra),
that is, if they know that they will eventually be saved in any
way. This is an idea that Origen, who read and knew the Apoc. Pet.,
would develop: he was convinced that awareness of universal
salvation might facilitate sin, especially in morally immature
persons who need to be motivated by fear in order to do good.
(Origen expresses this concern several times and says that it is
better to believe in eternal damnation and repent than not to
believe in it and remain in sin.40) Peter
37 In fact, when sinners arrive at their punishment, they cannot
realize that it is eternal, but they
know perfectly well that it is the punishment of the other
world. Likewise, in 7.11 they say: We didnt know that we would come
to this eternal place of punishment, where the Greek Vorlagehad
XSZTSbEMN[ZRMSb which means, not eternal place, but other-worldly
place.
38 On which, in addition to Buchholz, see Monika Pesthy, Thy
Mercy, O Lord, is in the Heavens,
and thy Righteousness Reaches into the Clouds, in The Apocalypse
of Peter (ed. Bremmer and Czachesz), 4051. Pesthy is concerned only
with the Ps. Clementine work entitled The Second Coming of Christ
and the Resurrection of the Dead, edited by Sylvain Grbaut in ROC
15 (1910) 198214, 30723, 42539. Both this work and another Ps.
Clementine text that follows it, The Mystery of the Judgment of
Sinners (ed. Sylvain Grbaut in ROC 12 [1907] 13951, and 13 [1908]
28587) are considered to contain Origenistic elements by
Gianfrancesco Lusini, Tradizione origeniana in Etiopia, in
Origeniana Octava, 117784. That these two writings form one whole
is claimed by Roger W. Cowley, The Ethiopic Work Which is Believed
to Contain the Material of the Ancient Greek Apocalypse of Peter,
JTS 36 (1985) 15153.
39 See Buchholz, Your Eyes, 37681.
40 See Ilaria Ramelli, Origens Exegesis of Jeremiah:
Resurrection Announced throughout the
Bible and its Twofold Conception, Augustinianum 48 (2008)
5978.
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144 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
intervenes as a defender, observing that he is the rst sinner
because he denied the Lord three times (140rab). Jesus replies that
it will be up to the Father to grant mercy (140rb140vb): Because
the mercy of my Father is like this: as the sun rises and the rain
falls in the same way, so shall we have mercy and compassion for
all of our creatures (140rb). When Peter asks him to speak clearly,
Jesus answers that upon his return he will destroy the devil and
severely punish the sinners (140vb141vb). Peter then expresses his
concern about the second death consisting in other-worldly
punishment for sinners (141vb), but Jesus replies: You will have no
more mercy on the sinners than I do, for I was crucied because of
the sinners, in order to obtain mercy for them by my Father. The
Lord will have mercy upon them and will give each of them life,
glory, and kingdom without end, in that Jesus will intercede for
them, but this ought to be kept secret, in order not to provoke sin
(141vb142bv). This was a real concern, which must have been felt
also by those who believed in the ultimate salvation of all.41
Peter thanks Jesus for the explanation and says that he now can
believe without doubting any more, after knowing that only Satan
and the demons will descend to Sheol (143vb144ra). Peter concludes
by describing the various orders of saved humanity according to
Pauls words in 1 Cor 15, on which Origen comments as well: each one
in his/her own order. This dialogue is reported by Peter to Clement
with the recommendation to keep this mystery secret: truth
concerning the ultimate salvation of the damned should not be
communicated overtly, because this might encourage sin.
Thus, the Apoc. Pet. seems to have been a good basis for the
doctrine of apokatastasis, even though it does not yet maintain it
expressly, and it certainly was known to both Clement and Origen.
Moreover, it stresses the indispensable role of Christs sacrice in
the nal restoration of the sinners, an important trait that will be
emphasized by Origen, according to whom the apokatastasis is made
possible by Christs cross.
But the Apoc. Pet. is not the only ancient apocryphal text that
contains such suggestions. Other texts, some of which depend on it,
express a similar idea of intercession for the damned, which paves
the way for their salvation. The Coptic Apocalypse of Elijah, a
text that is related to Jewish apocalypticism42 and likewise
derives from the Egyptian region, dating to the second or third
century C.E., includes a passage that bears a close resemblance to
the conception expressed by the Rainer
41 A strong supporter of universal salvation, Gregory of Nyssa,
however, was not in the least touched by this concern, and preached
the doctrine of apokatastasis everywhere, even expounding it
(including the salvation of the devil!) in Oratio Catechetica 26,
among the fundamental Christian doctrines to be taught by
catechists.
42 See David T. M. Frankfurter, Elijah in Upper Egypt: The
Apocalypse of Elijah and Early
Egyptian Christianity (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997); also
Giovanni Maria Vian, Lescatologia nel Giudaismo ellenistico, ASE 16
(1999) 2134; Edmondo Lupieri, Escatologia nel Giudaismo
apocalittico, ASE 16 (1999) 3543.
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ILARIA L. E. RAMELLI 145
fragment. Here it is the just, already blessed, who intercede
for sinners,43 just as in a text of apostolic tradition which
originated in Syria in the rst decades of the second century,44 the
Epistula Apostolorum 40.45 Another example is the second book of
the Oracula Sibyllina,46 which derives from the Apoc. Pet. and
dates to the mid-secondcentury. (The rst two books of the Oracula
are closely connected to one another and are Christian).47 The
Oracula are well known in early Patristics and are quoted by
Justin, Clement, and Origen.48 They contain a paraphrase of a long
section of the Apoc. Pet. in Greek hexameters. Indeed, some editors
include Oracula 2.190338 as an appendix to the Apoc. Pet.49
The context of the relevant portion of the Oracula is
eschatological. Soon after describing the terrible torments of the
damned, which are abundantly represented in the Apoc. Pet. as well,
the Oracula depict the dwelling place of the blessed.50
43 The just will contemplate sinners in their sufferings, and
those who have persecuted, betrayed,
or handed them [to hostile people]. The sinners will contemplate
the place where the just will be living, and will take part in
Grace. In that day the just will be granted that for which they
will often have prayed, that is, salvation for the sinners
(23.1124.12). In H. P. Houghton, The Coptic Apocalypse, III,
Akhmimite: The Apocalypse of Elias, Aegyptus 39 (1959) 179210. That
the Apocalypse of Elijah was based on that of Peter was already
supposed by James, whose hypothesis is accepted by Buchholz, Your
Eyes, 6061.
44 For an Asiatic context in the second century C.E., see
Alistair Stewart-Sykes, The Asian Context
of the New Prophecy and of Epistula Apostolorum, VChr 51 (1997)
41638; see also Charles E. Hill, The Epistula Apostolorum, JECS 7
(1999) 153, who places the Epistle in Asia Minor in the rst half of
the second century, probably soon after 120 C.E., or at the latest
in the Forties of the second century, on the basis of parallels
with works of the same area and the possible social
contextualization of its group, and the historical circumstances
reected in the document; Julian Hills also takes the document to
reect early-second-century traditions: Hills, Tradition and
Composition in the Epistula Apostolorum (2d ed.; Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 2006).
45 The very expression in the Apocalypse of Elijah here occurs
in Jesus words: The just are sorry
for the sinners, and pray for them. . . . And I shall listen to
the prayer of the just, which they utter for the sinners. Editions:
Epistula Apostolorum, nach dem thiopischen und koptischen Texte
(ed. Hugo Duensing; Bonn: Adolph Marcus und Eduard Weber, 1925);
Manfred Hornschuh, Studien zur Epistula Apostolorum (Berlin: de
Gruyter, 1965); Buchholz, Your Eyes, 4748; C. Detlef G. Mller,
trans., Epistula Apostolorum, in New Testament Apocrypha (ed. Edgar
Hennecke and Wilhelm Schneemelcher; trans. R. Mcl. Wilson;
Louisville: John Knox, 2003) 1:24984.
46 These Oracles as a whole are a collection of texts from
different epochs, from the second century
B.C.E. to the fourth century C.E. Editions: Sibyllinische
Weissagungen (ed. Alfons Kurfess and J. D. Gauger; Dsseldorf-Zrich:
Artemis, 1998); Peter Dronke, Hermes and the Sibyls: Continuations
and Creations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); Thomas
H. Tobin, Philo and the Sibyl, StudPhilon 9 (1997) 84103.
47 See Emil Schrer et al., The History of the Jewish People in
the Age of Jesus Christ (3 vols.;
Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1986) 3/1:645; Sibyllinische
Weissagungen (ed. Alfons Kurfess and Jrg-Dieter Gauger) 41819.
According to Jane L. Lightfoot, The Sibylline Oracles (Oxford:
University Press, 2007) 150, the author of books 12 is a
second-century Christian.
48 See Gerard J. M. Bartelink, Die Oracula Sibyllina in den
frhchristlichen griechischen
Schriften von Justin bis Origenes, in Early Christian Poetry
(ed. Jan Den Boeft and Anton Hilhorst; Leiden: Brill, 1993)
2333.
49 So James, The Apocryphal New Testament, 52124; Elliott, The
Apocalypse of Peter, 613.
50 There will be no seasons or days, no marriage or death, but a
single long daybeyond time.
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146 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
Immediately after comes the relevant passage (2.33038): And to
these pious persons immortal and omnipotent God will grant another
gift: when they will ask him, he will grant them to save the human
beings from the erce re, andfrom the EMN[ZRMSb gnashing of teeth,
and will do so after having pulled them out of the imperishable ame
and removed them, destining them, for the sake of his own elect, to
the other life, that of the world to come, for immortals
[ENTSJPSKSbENOEQEZXSMSE?PPSWENTSWXLZWEbTIZQ]IMHMEPESRI.EYXSYDIMNb^[LRI.XIZVEROEMEMN[ZRMSRENUEREZXSMWMR],
in the Elysian Fields, where there are the long waves of the
Acherusian Lake, imperishable, which has a deep bed.51 The
correspondence with the Rainer fragment of the Apoc. Pet. is
striking. Moreover, it is remarkable that the intercession of the
just frees the damned not from purgatory, a subsequent theological
construction, but from hell itself, according to its evangelical
description (gnashing of teeth, unquenchable ame, etc.). It is
signicant that in the manuscript tradition, in correspondence to
this fundamental passage, some iambic verses of uncertain date
protest against the doctrine of apokatastasis that their author
found expressed here and rightly connect this passage to Origens
doctrine.52 The closeness of these passages in the Apoc. Pet. and
the Sibylline Oracles to Origens doctrine is patent, and I deem it
probable that such texts inuenced the Alexandrian theologian in the
elaboration of his hypothesis.
Another apocryphal text is very interesting in this connection.
In the Greek recension of the Life of Adam and Eve 37.36,53 Adam is
forgiven by his Lord and brought into heaven before the Final
Judgment, for which he waits together with Eve. He is washed three
times by a seraph and is introduced by Michael into paradise. In
this way, the text indicates that even after death, and even for
the original sinners, it is possible to obtain forgiveness and
salvation. Above all, in a Latin codex54 that is particularly close
to the Greek text, God assures that in the
51 Vv. 33238 run as follows:
INOQEPIVSMDSTYVSbOEMENUEREZX[RENTSFVYKQ[DR /ENRUV[ZTSYb
W[DWEM H[ZWIM OEM XSYDXS TSMLZWIM / PI\EZQIRSb KEV INWEYDUMb
ENTS JPSKSb ENOEQEZXSMS / E?PPSWENTSWXLZWEbTIZQ]IMHMEPESRI.EYXSYD/
IMNb^
[LRI.XIZVEROEMEMN[ZRMSRENUEREZXSMWMR/,PYWMZ[TIHMZ[S_UMSM.TIZPIOYZQEXEQEOVEZ/PMZQRLbENIREZSY%GIVSYWMEZHSbFEUYOSZPTSYFor
their connection to the Apoc. Pet., see Trumbower, Rescue,
4954.
52 At the assertion that the damned will be removed from the
torments, the scholiast says: It
is completely false, because the re will never cease to torment
the damned. I may pray that this be the case, since I am marked by
the deep scars of transgressions that are in need of the greatest
Grace. But shame be on Origen for his mendacious words, who claims
that there will be an end to the torments. Likewise, in the
manuscript tradition of Gregory of Nyssas De anima et
resurrectioneglosses are scattered throughout endeavoring to
explain that Gregory did not really hold Origens heretical doctrine
of universal salvation, and that passages referring to purifying re
and the like should be understood in reference to purgatory. Origen
himself lamented that his writings were interpolated already during
his life, and Runus attests to this also for the subsequent period
in his De adulteratione librorum Origenis.
53 See Daniel A. Bertrand, La vie grecque dAdam et dve (Paris:
Maisonneuve, 1987); I.
Michael Stone, A History of the Literature of Adam and Eve
(Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992).54
Paris, Bibliothque Nationale, lat. 3832, edited by Jean-Pierre
Pettorelli, Vie latine dAdam et dve. La recension de Paris, BNF,
lat. 3832, Archivum Latinitatis Medii Aevi 57 (1999) 552.
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ILARIA L. E. RAMELLI 147
end he will have mercy on all, by way and for the sake of his
Son. He addresses these words to Michael: Put him [Adam] in
Paradise, in the third heaven, until the day of dispensation, which
is called oikonomia, when I shall have mercy upon all, through my
most beloved Child (pone eum [Adam] in Paradiso in tertio caelo,
usque in diem dispensationis qui dicitur economia, quando faciam
omnibus misericordiam per dilectissimum Filium meum). The term
omnibus is particularly relevant, since in the documents I have
analyzed so far it is not expressly stated that all the damned will
be saved, whereas here it is said that Gods mercy will be bestowed
upon all.55 Here, as in the Apoc. Pet., the central role of Christ
in universal salvation is manifest (per dilectissimum lium); this
core idea is shared by Origen, who ascribes to Christ a crucial
function in the apokatastasis, as I think should be stressed.56 By
way of example, I limit myself to quoting one signicanttext, Comm.
Rom. 4.10, from which it is clear that Origen has the
apokatastasisdepend on Christ, and in particular on his sacrice: I
declare that the power and effectiveness of Christs cross and of
this death of his are so great as to be enough to set right and
save, not only the present and the future aeon, but also all the
past ones, and not only this order of us humans, but also the
heavenly orders and powers.57 In Cels. 8.72, too, it is
Christ-Logos who determines the apokatastasis,which is made
possible by the complete elimination of evil: The Logos is more
powerful than any illness that may exist in the souls: he applies
to everyone the necessary therapy, according to Gods will, and the
end (XIZPSb) of all will consist in the elimination of evil.
55 In Christian Greek, SMNOSRSQMZE precisely means Gods saving
action toward humans. When
it refers to Christ, in the Greek Fathers the expression
(I?RWEVOSb)SMNOSRSQMZE indicates the salvicplan of his incarnation,
his permanence on earth up to his death, e.g., in Maximus the
Confessor. See Massimo il Confessore, Ambigua (ed. Claudio
Moreschini; Milan: Bompiani, 2003) 154. Whereas Christs divine
nature is often called UISPSKMZE by the Greeks, his human nature is
called SMNOSRSQMZE.In the Bible, in Gal 4 and Eph 1 there decidedly
emerges the meaning of salvic economy linked to Gods government in
history; in the classical world, instead, SMNOSRSQMZE means
service, economy, orderespecially in rhetoricor government, mainly
in philosophy, among the Stoics, in Plato, in Philo. The biblical
meaning was inherited by the Fathers, who focus this economy on the
incarnation, beginning with Ignatius in his Epistle to the
Ephesians, then Polycarp, Athenagoras, and above all Justin, and
Irenaeus, who uses this term in an anti-gnostic meaning in the
context of his doctrine of the ENREOIJEPEMZ[WMb of all in Christ.
See Giulio Maspero, Storia e salvezza: il concetto di oikonomia no
allinizio del secolo III, in Pagani e cristiani, 23960.
56 See Samuel Fernndez Eyzaguirre, El carcter cristolgico de la
bienaventuranza nal, in
Origeniana Octava, 64148; Tzamalikos, Origen: Philosophy of
History, 65116; Ilaria Ramelli, The Universal and Eternal Validity
of Jesus High-Priestly Sacrice, in A Cloud of Witnesses: The
Theology of Hebrews in Its Ancient Contexts (ed. Richard J.
Bauckham et al.; Library of New Testament Studies 387; London:
T&T Clark, 2008) 21021; eadem, La dottrina dellapocatastasi
eredit origeniana nel pensiero escatologico del Nisseno, in Ilaria
Ramelli, Gregorio di Nissa. Sullanima e la resurrezione (Milan:
Bompiani, 2007), with new edition, essays, and commentary on this
dialogue.
57 Tantam esse vim crucis Christi et mortis huius . . .
asserimus, quae ad sanitatem et remedium
non solum praesentis et futuri, sed etiam praeteritorum
saeculorum, et non solum humano huic nostro ordini, sed etiam
caelestibus virtutibus ordinibusque sufciat.
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148 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
Antecedents in Clement: Pedagogical Perspective and the
Ubiquitousness of Gods Providence Seeds of the theory of
apokatastasis were already present in the writing of Clement of
Alexandria,58 who, as I mentioned, knew at least the Apoc. Pet. and
considered it inspired just like the other texts that subsequently
constituted the canonical New Testament. Clement, who, like Origen,
stressed each humans free will and responsibility,59 insisted on
the pedagogical and therapeutic value of all suffering inicted by
God60 and on Gods salvic will and providence for each and every
creature
(TVSbXLRXSYDS_PSYW[XLVMZERX[DX[DRS_P[R/YVMZ[TEZRXEINWXMHMEXIXEKQIZREOEMOEUSZPSYOEMINTMQIZVSYb),
since God is good and from eternity and eternally saves through his
Son and the task of salvic justice is to lead each being to what is
better (Strom. 7.2.12; see also 1.17.86.12). This is why the
necessary instructions (TEMHIYZWIMb) are not retributive
punishments, but are inicted by God out of goodness (ENKEUSZXLXM),
not only in preliminary judgments, but also in the nal judgment,
and they force even those who are extremely hardened to convert
(INOFMEZ^ SRXEMQIXERSIMDR) (Strom. 7.2.12). Indeed, according to
Clement, salvic repentance (QIXEZRSME) is always possible, both
here on earth and on the other side, because Gods goodness operates
absolutely everywhere (Strom. 4.6.37.7; see also 6.6.4547). Clement
states that Gods providence operates in two ways, either through
good deeds or through punishment, but the end of both is salvation
through conversion from evil to virtue (Strom. 1.17.173).
Moreover, as will be the case in Origens thought, the main agent
of this salvicprovidence is Christ-Logos, who always encourages,
admonishes, saves (Protr.1.6.2; see also 9.87.6). Above all, in
Strom. 2.22.134.4 Clement, on the basis of Rom 6:22, identies the
end (XIZPSb) with life in the other world (^[LEMN[ZRMSb)and
expressly afrms that Paul teaches that this end is the hoped-for
apokatastasis(XIZPSbHMHEZWOIMXLRXLDbINPTMZHSbENTSOEXEZWXEWMR). In
7.10.57.14, moreover, he describes the apokatastasis as the passage
from unbelief to faith and from faith to knowledge (KR[DWMb, which
yields love ENKEZTLwhich will be closely related to apokatastasis
by Origen as welland leads to the restoration, explicitly named
ENTSOEXEZWEWMb and described as peace and rest (ENREZTEYWMb).61
Indeed, in 7.10.56.2
58 John R. Sachs, Apocatastasis in Patristic Theology, ThSt 54
(1993) 61740, esp. section 1 on
Clement; complete demonstration with further arguments in
Ramelli, Gregorio di Nissa SullAnima 833, 843, 849, 883900.
59 E.g., in Strom. 1.1.4.1; 2.1415.6071; 5.14.136; indeed, like
Origen, he asserted this of every
rational creature, including the devil, who was not forced by
nature to choose evil (1.17.8384). In 2.3 he maintains the freedom
of human will in polemic against the Valentinians (also in
1.20.11516) and Basilides.
60 E.g., in Strom. 2.15.6971; 7.16.102.13; 7.6.34.13 regarding
the TYDVEMN[ZRMSR, which is not
eternal but of the other world. See Ramelli, Apocatastasi.
Clement also regarded this world as a place of instruction, a
TEMHIYXLZVMSR.
61 Compare to Peters description of the ENTSOEXEZWXEWMbTEZRX[R
as ENREZ]Y\Mb in Acts 3:2021,
a passage Origen, and probably Clement, read as referring to the
eventual universal restoration.
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ILARIA L. E. RAMELLI 149
5 Clement explains that the apokatastasis, which he nominally
mentions again, will come after the necessary purication of all our
sins through a salvic instruction (TEMZHIYWMb; then we shall enjoy
the apokatastasis in eternal contemplation. To be sure, Clement did
not develop a consistent and thorough theory of apokatastasis,but
all this clearly paved the way to the theory of universal
salvation.
If Origen drew inspiration from Clement for his conception of
the apokatastasis,Clement and Origen seem to me to have been
inspired by Philo, although Philo did not believe in universal
salvation.62 In Her. 293 Philo interprets Gen
15:16(XIXEZVXLHIKIRIEDENTSWXVEJLZWSRXEM[`HI) allegorically,
observing that this was said in order to present the perfect
restoration of the soul
(Y.TIVXSYDXIPIMZERENTSOEXEZWXEWMR]YGLDbTEVEWXLDWEM), that is, its
return to its original perfection, unsullied by sins. In fact, as
Philo explains in 29399, at the beginning it is like a wax tablet
without any mark, but soon it begins to acquire evils (OEOEZ), sins
(E.QEVXLZQEXE), and passions (TEZUL). This requires the
intervention of philosophy in its therapeutic function
(MNEXVMOLJMPSWSJMZE) with its reasoning bringing about health
(PSZKSMbY.KMIMRSMDbOEMW[XLVMZSMb). As a result, vigor and strength
grow in the soul, which will be steadfast in all virtues. This is
the apokatastasis of the soul, which, from sin, returns to its
original purity (ENTSWXVEJIMDWEXSYDHMEQEVXEZRIMR)and inherits
wisdom (OPLVSRSZQSbENTSHIMZORYXEMWSJMZEb). This apokatastasis is
also described as a restoration of the soul to health (Y.KMZIME)
after the abandonment of evil (ENTSWXVIJSZQIRSMXEJEYDPE). This
therapeutic and medical imagery, too, will be dear to Clement and
Origen as well.
Both Clement and Origen, as I have mentioned, knew at least the
Apoc. Pet.among the Christian apocrypha that seem to have
anticipated, to some extent, the theory of universal salvation, and
they considered the Apoc. Pet. to be an inspired writing. In this
regard, it is important to highlight that the main supporters of
the doctrine of apokatastasis, especially Origen and Gregory of
Nyssa, in their writings continually based it on Scriptureswhat
became the canonical Scriptureespecially on Paul (their favorite
passage is 1 Cor 15:2628),63 but also on many other passages from
both the Old and the New Testaments. Indeed, they regarded the
entire Bible as full of hints of universal salvation, which they
noted in their exegesis, and they believed that the foremost
antecedents to the doctrine of apokatastasis were to be found in
Scripture.
62 See Ilaria Ramelli, Philosophical Allegoresis of Scripture in
Philo and Its Legacy in Gregory
of Nyssa, SPhilo 20 (2008) 5599.63
See Ramelli, Christian Soteriology; eadem, Origens
Interpretation of Hebrews 10:13, the Eventual Elimination of Evil
and the Apokatastasis, Augustinianum 47 (2007) 8593; eadem, In
Illud: Tunc et Ipse Filius . . . (1Cor 15,2728): Gregory of Nyssas
Exegesis, Some Derivations from Origen, and Early Patristic
Interpretations Related to Origens, seminar paper delivered at the
2007 Oxford Patristic Conference, forthcoming in StPatr.
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150 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
Bardaians Parallel: Apokatastasis and Defense of Human Free
WillAmong the precursors of Origen in supporting universal
salvation, the hellenized Syrian philosopher Bardaian of Edessawho
probably knew at least the OraculaSibyllina passage concerning the
eventual salvation of the damned, and perhaps also the Epistula
Apostolorum and some of the other early Christian apocrypha that
are a prelude to the doctrine of apokatastasisis the one who
presents this theory in its most developed, coherent, and
philosophical form, closest to that of Origen. Indeed, a deep and
impressive connection exists between Bardaians and Origens
eschatological doctrines, which, to my knowledge, has never been
pointed out by scholars: Origen and Bardaian64 both held the same
doctrine of apokatastasis, in addition to both writing in defense
of human free will against deterministic theories. Both were
Christian philosophers and teachers of philosophy, deeply engaged
in the controversies of their own day, and deeply committed to
scriptural exegesis.
Bardaian, a very learned Christian philosopher and theologian,
had a school in Edessa where Greek philosophy was studied just as
it was at the school of Origen, both in Alexandria and in
Caesarea.65 Bardaian, like Origen, was later accused of Gnosticism,
but this allegation in both cases was ultimately unfounded:
although both these Christian philosophers were notoriously objects
of harsh polemics, reected respectively in the heresiological
reports on Bardaian and in the so-called Origenistic controversy,66
both wrote against gnostic and Marcionite doctrines,67 above all
against the Valentinian theory of predestination, with its
anthropology of differentiation into categories of human beings,
and against
64 On Bardaian, see, among others, Han J. W. Drijvers, Bardaian
of Edessa (Assen: van Gorcum,
1966), with an overview on the sources concerning Bardaian;
Ilaria Ramelli, Linee generali per una presentazione e per un
commento del Liber legum regionum, con traduzione italiana del
testo siriaco e dei frammenti greci, Rendiconti dellIstituto
Lombardo, Accademia di Scienze e Lettere133 (1999) 31155; eadem,
Bardesane e la sua scuola tra la cultura occidentale e quella
orientale: il lessico della libert nel Liber legum regionum (testo
siriaco e versione greca), in Pensiero e istituzioni del mondo
classico nelle culture del Vicino Oriente (ed. Rosa Bianca Finazzi
and Alfredo Valvo; Alessandria: DellOrso, 2001) 23755, with further
documentation; eadem, Bardesane Kata Heimarmens (Bologna: ESD,
2009).
65 See, e.g., Tloka, Griechische Christen, 4750 and 6476,
7985.
66 The heresiological accounts on Bardaian, after Drijvers, have
been further investigated by
Alberto Camplani, Rivisitando Bardesane. Note sulle fonti
siriache del Bardesanismo e sulla sua collocazione
storico-religiosa, CNS 19 (1998) 51996; on the Origenistic
controversy, see especially Elizabeth A. Clark, The Origenist
Controversy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992) and
Emanuela Prinzivalli, Magister Ecclesiae. Il dibattito su Origene
fra III e IV secolo (SEA 82; Rome: Augustinianum, 2002).
67 For Origens polemic against the gnostics, see below; he also
constantly opposed the Marcionites,
who separated the OT and the NT, their respective divinities,
and justice and mercy in God. For Bardaians refutations of gnostics
and Marcionites the main sources are Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 4.30;
Jerome, Vir. ill. 33; Epiphanius, Pan. 56, and Moses of Chorene,
Patmutiwn Hayoc 2.66.
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ILARIA L. E. RAMELLI 151
astrological determinism; their position was to be inherited by
Gregory of Nyssa.68Han J. W. Drijvers and other scholars have
presented Bardaian as a philosopher,69following Ephraem who called
him the Aramaic philosopher, and surely there are good reasons to
do so, although Ute Possekel has rightly called attention to the
remarkable theological aspects of his thought,70 without denying
that he also used many philosophical categories. Surely the
distinction between philosophy and theology is more a modern than
an ancient idea, and in patristic philosophy it is hardly correct,
from an historical and methodological point of view, to speak of
philosophy as separate from theology and vice-versa. Possekels
assessment, however, is well grounded in Bardaians way of
presenting and understanding himself, his ethics, his doctrine of
the resurrection, the communitarian organization of his school,
etc., and is perfectly true: Bardaian considered himself primarily
a Christian who tried to render his faith acceptable from an
intellectual point of view. This characterization, I believe, is
also perfectly suited to Origen, a Christian philosopher71 who
played an essential role in making Christianity acceptable even to
the most intellectually demanding, among whom were many gnostics.72
Origen and Bardaian played the same role in the intellectual
landscape of the late second and early third centuries, when
Christianity was endeavoring to acquire a cultural, and even
specically philosophical, credibility.
Bardaian (154222 C.E.) lived somewhat earlier than Origen (ca.
186255 C.E.), which would assign him priority in the formulation of
the theory of universal salvation. However, his doctrine of
apokatastasis is attested in the so-called Liber legum regionum,
which is preserved in a single Syriac manuscript and was probably
written by a disciple of Bardaian. Eusebius, who excerpts this
dialogue in Praep. ev. 6.10, says that it was composed by Bardaian
himself and attests its
68 For Gregorys polemic against astrology, see, e.g., Beatrice
Motta, Lastrologia nel Contra
fatum di Gregorio di Nissa, in La cultura
scientico-naturalistica nei Padri della Chiesa (XXXV Incontro di
studiosi dellantichit cristiana, Rome, 46.V. 2006; SEA 101; Rome:
Augustinianum, 2007) 67784. Above all, Gregory adopted Origens
defense of free will and doctrine of apokatastasis:see Ramelli,
Gregorio di Nissa Sullanima, rst integrative essay.
69 E.g., Drijvers, Bardaian; idem, Bardaian of Edessa and the
Hermetica, JEOL 21 (1970)
190210; Taeke Jansma, Natuur, lot en vrijheid. Bardesanes, de
losoof der Aramers en zijn images(Cahiers bij het Nederlands
Theologisch Tijdschrift 6; Wageningen: Veenman, 1969); Albrecht
Dihle, Libert et destin dans lAntiquit tardive, RTP 121 (1989)
12947; Javier Teixidor, Bardesane ddesse: la premire philosophie
syriaque (Paris: Cerf, 1992); John F. Healey, The Edessan Milieu
and the Birth of Syriac, Hugoye 10 (2007) 134, who describes
Bardaians writings as philosophical works in Syriac ( 31).
70 Ute Possekel, Bardaian of Edessa: Philosopher or Theologian?
ZAC 10 (2007) 44261.
71 On Origen as fully philosopher and fully Christian and the
polemics that this identity ignited
among both pagans and Christians, see Ilaria Ramelli, Origen,
Patristic Philosophy, and Christian Platonism: Re-Thinking the
Christianization of Hellenism, VC 63 (2009) 10750.
72 See, most recently, Tloka, Griechische Christen, ch. 2, with
my review in Adamantius 14
(2008) 64145; Christoph Markschies, Origenes und sein Erbe
(Berlin: de Gruyter, 2007), also with a review of mine forthcoming
in Adamantius.
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152 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
original title, 4IVMIM.QEVQIZRLbHMEZPSKSb(Hist. eccl. 4.30).73
In fact, it is a Platonic dialogue, and, again according to
Eusebius (Hist. eccl. 4.30), it was dedicated to an Antoninus whom
Jerome identies with Marcus Aurelius, the philosopher emperor (Vir.
ill. 33: liber quem Marco Antonino de fato tradidit). This would
situate this dialogue within the lifetime of Bardaian: the
persecution that Eusebius places under Antoninus perfectly ts the
great anti-Christian persecution that took place under Marcus
Aurelius.74 This is further supported by Epiphaniuss attestation
that under this emperor Bardaian was, if not a martyr, certainly a
confessor of the Christian faith.75 Scholars, however, tend to
think that the addressee was Caracalla or Elagabalus (although no
persecution occurred under their reigns) and that the dialogue was
written by a disciple of Bardaian.76 In any case, the Liber,
which
73 Even if we assume that the Liber legum regionum, as we have
it in Syriac, is the product
of a disciple, it is probable that it faithfully reects his
masters thought, expressed in his 4IVMIM.QEVQIZRLb, or better,
according to Epiphanius and Theodoretus, /EXEIM.QEVQIZRLb. See
Ramelli, Bardesane kata heimarmens, with thorough argument and
documentation.
74
)RSM`bINWXMROEMS.TVSb%RX[RMDRSRM.OER[ZXEXSbEYNXSYD4IVMIM.QEVQIZRLbHMEZPSKSbS_WEXIE?PPEJEWMREYNXSRTVSJEZWIMXSYDXSZXIHM[KQSYDWYKKVEZ]EM
Under Marcus Aureliuss persecution several Christian apologies were
written. On this persecution, see Marta Sordi, I Cristiani e
lImpero romano (2d ed.; Milan: Jaca Book, 2004) 10316; Ilaria
Ramelli, Montanismo e Impero Romano nel giudizio di Marco Aurelio,
Contributi dellIstituto di Storia Antica dellUniversit Cattolica di
Milano 25 (1999) 8197; eadem, Protector Christianorum, Aevum 76
(2002) 10112. On the connection between this persecution and
Bardaians dialogue, see eadem, Bardesane kata heimarmens.
75 Pan. 56: %TSPP[RMZ[ HI X[D XSYD %RX[RMZRSY I.XEMZV[ ENRXLDVI
TEVEMRSYQIZR[
ENVRLZWEWUEMXS'VMWXMERSRI.EYXSRPIZKIMRS.HIWGIHSRINRXEZ\IMS.QSPSKMZEbOEXIZWXLPSZKSYbXIWYRIXSYbENTIOVMZREXSY.TIVIYNWIFIMZEbENRHVIMZ[bENTSPSKSYZQIRSbUEZREXSRQLHIHMIZREMJLZWEbSaRENREZKOLI?WIWUEMOEARXIX[DFEWMPIMDQLENRXIMZTSM(Apollonius,
Antoninuss friend, exhorted him to deny that he was a Christian,
but Bardaian resisted and almost joined the number of the
confessors. He replied with intelligent discourses, courageously
defending piety, and said that he did not fear death, since it
would necessarily come, even if he had not opposed the
emperor.)
76 Porphyry, De Styge, fr. 376 Smith (ap. Stob. 1.3.56 =
1.66.2470.13 Wachsmuth), places the
composition of Bardaians work on India at the time of the
emperor Antoninus from Emesa, i.e., Elagabalus; the same is
indicated by Moses of Chorene, PH 2.66, who locates Bardaians
oruitunder the last Antoninus. Elagabaluss name was Varius Avitus.
Now, Bardaians interlocutor in the Liber is Avid, the Syriac
transposition of Avitus. In the initial frame he is presented as a
heathen who is philosophically interested in Christian monotheism
and theodicy. Moreover, the other interlocutor is the young Philip,
who might even be M. Julius Philippus the Arab, from Bostra, who
was either a Christian or not hostile to Christianity; see Ramelli,
Linee generali, 31518. Origens letters to Philip and his wife in
defense of his own orthodoxy (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 16.36.34) and
the hostility of all pagan sources to Philip may suggest that he
was a Christian, as is implied by Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.34, who
mentions that a bishop forbade him to take part in the churchs
prayers on Easters eve before penitence for his crimes (cf. Jerome,
Vir. ill. 54). John Chrysostom, Bab. 6 identies that bishop with
Babylas of Antioch, who died during Deciuss persecution, which was
a reaction to Philip according to Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.39.1.
Philips contemporary, Dionysius of Alexandria, a disciple of
Origen, in a letter speaks of emperors who were said to have been
publicly Christian (SM.PIGUIZRXIbENREJERHSR'VMWXMERSMKIKSRIZREM,
ap. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 1.7.10), which cannot but refer to
Philip. On Philip, see Pat Southern, The Roman Empire from Severus
to Constantine(London: Routledge, 2001) 7174. Favorable to the
theory that he was a Christian are John M. York, Philip the Arab,
the First Christian Emperor of Rome (Ph.D. diss., University of
Southern
-
ILARIA L. E. RAMELLI 153
expresses Bardaians thought, is an important example of
hellenization in the Edessan milieu. John Healey admits that
Bardaian forms a prominent peak of Hellenism in the landscape of
the early Edessan environment of Syrian Christianity, and that he
had a group of supporters and followers who shared his interests,
although it is not clear that he is the tip of an iceberg of any
great signicancein that landscape.77 In fact, notwithstanding that
in those days Edessa was a sort of detachment of the Roman Empire
and its rulers were at home in Rome,78 a better parallel for
Bardaian, his intellectual activity, and his school seems to be
constituted by Origens activity and his school in Alexandria (and
later in Caesarea),79 rather than by the Osrhoene environment, as I
shall endeavor to demonstrate. Moreover, Bardaian, just like Origen
according to Eusebiuss biographical account,80 received a Greek
education in liberal disciplines and philosophy.81
In this connection, the most interesting features of the Liber
are its main philosophical doctrines: that of free will, held
against astrological determinism, and, at the very end of the
dialogue, that of apokatastasis, which, surprisingly enough, has
never been realized by scholars. This theory is here expressly
attributed to Bardaian, who is by far the main character of the
dialogue. Let us briey analyze both these doctrines, which are
strongly interrelated in Bardaians thinking and constitute a close
parallel toand perhaps an anticipation ofOrigens conception of
apokatastasis and rational creatures free will.
California, 1965), Dissertation Abtracts 25 (1965) 523031 and
Sordi, I Cristiani, 13539. In any case, Philip was not at all
hostile to Christianity.
77 Healey, The Edessan Milieu, quotations from 32.
78 Steven K. Ross, Roman Edessa: Politics and Culture in the
Eastern Fringe of the Roman
Empire (London: Routledge, 2001); Ilaria Ramelli, Abgar Ukkama e
Abgar il Grande alla luce di recenti apporti storiograci, Aevum 78
(2004) 1038.
79 When Origen moved to Caesarea, Bardaian had already died, but
his school was still alive
and well: His followers continued to exist for centuries. 80
Origen studied the customary curriculum of the Greek disciplines
(XLDX[DRINKOYOPMZ[RTEMHIMZEX[DR)PPLRMO[DRQEULQEZX[R), which were
crowned by philosophy, and after his fathers death he deepened his
knowledge of them (Hist. eccl. 6.2.15). Many learned pagans who had
received a philosophical education
(X[DRXIENTSTEMHIMZEbOEMJMPSWSJMZEb) were won over by his teaching
(6.3.13). Even after handing the teaching of the WXSMGIMDE to
Heraclas (6.15.1), Origen did not stop teaching philosophy, and
many renowned philosophers attended his classes in order to be
instructed not only in the divine things, but also in pagan
philosophy, consisting not only in the liberal arts, but also in
the doctrines of the various philosophical sects (6.17.23). Origen
himself in a letter claims that while he was studying Scripture, he
was approached by heretics, philosophers, and experts in Greek
disciplines ()PPLRMOEQEULZQEXE), and thus he had to examine both
the heretics opinions and what the philosophers claimed to say
concerning the truth. He adduces Pantaenus and Heraclas, Christian
philosophers in Alexandria, whom he imitates (ap. Eusebius, Hist.
eccl. 6.19.1214).
81 He was taught the Greek paideia together with king Abgar the
Great, as Epiphanius attests in
Pan. 56: In his youth he was friends with Abgar, king of Edessa,
a very pious and learned man; he shared his Greek education and
collaborated with him
(%YNKEZV[HIX[DX[DR)HIWWLR[DRHYREZWXLENRHVMS.WM[XEZX[OEMPSKM[XEZX[IN\SMOIMSYZQIRSbXETV[DXEOEMWYQTVEZXX[RXIE_QEOEMXLDbEYNXSYDQIXEWG[RTEMHIMZEb).
He received a Greco-Roman instruction, and also knew Greek very
well.
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154 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
The doctrine of free will is the core thesis of the dialogue,
which Bardaian, the protagonist, supports, arguing that human
beings do not depend on the inuenceof stars in their choices. Their
habits vary from nation to nation and from religion to religion,
but do not depend on celestial bodies or on the astrological zones
(OPMZQEXE). The doctrine of free will, which was already stressed
by Clement of Alexandria (e.g., in Strom. 1.1.4; 2.14.6062;
2.16.75; 4.24.153, etc.), was elaborated at length and strongly
defended by Origen, like Bardaian, against both astrological
determinism and the Valentinian tripartition of human beings into
classes, which asserts their predestination by nature. Origen
develops his polemics in many passages and especially in Book 3 of
his De Principiis, which is devoted to free will and the
philosophical and theological problems connected to it, an issue
that was hotly debated in the philosophy of his time.82 In the very
preface to Book 1 of De Principiis, 5, he argues against astral
determinism that the church maintains as a dogma that every
rational creature is endowed with free will and is not subject to
necessity. In several commentaries on Old Testament books (such as
Hom. Judic. 3.3; Hom. Jes. Nav. 7.4) and in Philocalia 23, largely
based on his lost Commentary on Genesis, Origen continues his
critique. Against both gnostic and astrological determinism, he
insists that God is not responsible for the different conditions of
the rational creatures (PSKMOSMZ), that he is no respecter of
persons (Rom 9:14; Origen, Princ. 1.7.4), and that there is no
unrighteousness with God. Present sufferings must be explained
either as pedagogical strategies applied by God, or as a result of
ones demerits in an existence previous to the present, or as a
choice of some generous souls who are willing to suffer in this
life in order to assist the process of salvation (Princ.
2.9.7).83
Indeed, my hypothesis is that the doctrine of human free will
was at the very basis of Origens theoretical elaboration of the
doctrine of apokatastasis,as is evident, again, in Book 3 of his De
Principiis. Here, indeed, he begins by
82 See Ilaria Ramelli, La coerenza della soteriologia
origeniana: dalla polemica contro il
determinismo gnostico alluniversale restaurazione escatologica,
in Pagani e cristiani alla ricerca della salvezza (Atti del XXXIV
Incontro di Studiosi dellAntichit Cristiana, Rome 57 May, 2005;
SEA, 96; Rome: Augustinianum, 2006) 66188, and George Boys-Stones,
Middle Platonism on Fate and Human Autonomy, in Greek and Roman
Philosophy 100 BC200 AD (ed. Richard Sorabji and Robert W.
Sharples; London: Institute of Classical Studies, 2007) 43147. Also
see Alain Le Boulluec, La place de la polmique antignostique dans
le Peri Archn, in Origeniana (Bari: Edipuglia, 1975) 4761; Albrecht
Dihle, Die Vorstellung philosophischer Lehren vom Schicksal und
Freiheit in der Frhchristlichen Theologie, JAC 30 (1987) 1428;
Henri Crouzel, Theological Construction and Research: Origen on
Freewill, in Scripture, Tradition and Reason (ed. Benjamin Drewery
and Richard Bauckham; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988) 23965; Enrico
Norelli, Marcione e gli gnostici sul libero arbitrio e la polemica
di Origene, in Il cuore indurito del Faraone, Origene e il problema
del libero arbitrio (ed. Lorenzo Perrone; Genova: Marietti, 1992)
130; Josep Rius Camps, Orgenes frente al desafo de los gnsticos, in
Origeniana Quinta (Leuven: Peeters 1992) 5778; Hendrik S.
Benjamins, Eingeordnete Freiheit. Freiheit und Vorsehung bei
Origenes(Leiden: Brill, 1994).
83 See Clark, The Origenist Controversy, 19596.
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ILARIA L. E. RAMELLI 155
contrasting the mainly Valentinian84 deterministic theory of the
threefold division of humanity into eshly, psychic, and spiritual
persons (WEVOMOSMZ]YGMOSMZand TRIYQEXMOSMZ), destined respectively
to damnation, an inferior salvation, and perfect salvation; then he
goes on to argue that the Bible supports the doctrine of free will
everywhere, and he explains away such passages as the hardening of
Pharaohs heart, which would seem to contradict this doctrine, by
invoking Gods pedagogical care and the conciliation of universally
saving Providence and individual free will. At the same time, he
also polemicizes against the gnostic and Marcionite distinction
between the Old and New Testaments and between the justice and
goodness in God. Thus, he paves the way for the doctrine of
apokatastasis of all rational creatures after the purication and
instruction needed by each one, as the glorious triumph not only of
divine justice, but also of divine goodness. It is precisely with
this doctrine that he concludes this strongly coherent book, which
constitutes a complete argument and signicantly begins with the
polemic against the opponents of the doctrine of human free will.
In this way, Book 3 of De Principiis seems to provide an
archaeological reconstruction of the theoretical genesis of Origens
argument for the apokatastasis as not at all undermining each human
beings free will, but indeed grounded in his defense of it against
predestinationism.85 Moreover, that the theoretical basis, grounded
in theodicy, of Origens doctrine of apokatastasis is his defense of
human free will and of the coincidence of justice and goodness in
God was well seen by Runus, who in Apol. Hier. 2.12 remarked that
the supporters of apokatastasisespecially Origenintended to defend
Gods justice and counter those who maintain that all is determined
by fate or chance . . . eagerly wishing to defend Gods justice . .
. it becomes that good, immutable, and simple nature of the Trinity
to eventually restore all of its creatures into the same state in
which they were created at the beginning, and, after long
sufferings, enduring for whole aeons, to nally put an end to
torments.86 The theoretical motive of the apokatastasis, according
to Runuswho of course knew the third book of Origens De Principiis
perfectly wellis the defense of both Gods goodness and Gods justice
against determinism.
84 Rather than gnostic tout court. Of course, when speaking of
Gnosticism, it is always
necessary to be aware of the often puzzling complexity of this
category. See Karen L. King, What Is Gnosticism? (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 2003); Ilaria Ramelli, review of Kings
book, Invigilata Lucernis 25 (2003) 33134; eadem, Gnosticismo, in
Nuovo Dizionario Patristico e di Antichit Cristiane (ed. Angelo Di
Berardino; Genoa: Marietti, 2007) 2:236480.
85 Full demonstration in Ramelli, La coerenza, 66188, where, on
the basis of Princ. 3 and
other evidence, it is hypothesized that Origen elaborated the
doctrine of apokatastasis in opposition to Valentinian
predestinationism and Marcionite division of justice and mercy in
God, which parallels the separation of the two Testaments.
86 Dei iustitiam defendere et respondere contra eos qui vel fato
vel casu cuncta moveri dicunt . . . Dei iustitiam defendere
cupientes . . . bonae illi et incommutabili ac simplici naturae
Trinitatis convenire ut omnem creaturam suam in ne omnium restituat
in hoc quod ex initio creata est et post longa et spatiis
saeculorum exaequata supplicia nem statuat aliquando poenarum.
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156 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
Now, both the polemic against determinism and the separation of
justice and goodness in God and the doctrine of apokatastasis
markedly characterize Bardaians philosophical reection as well.
Bardaian too, in the same period as Origen and very probably a
little earlier than he, maintained the very same theory of
apokatastasis, which is clearly stated at the end of the Liber
legum regionum,albeit briey. Indeed, after a long confutation of
astrological determinism typical of Chaldaic doctrines, and after
arguing that God is both good and just and has endowed each
rational creature with free will, Bardaian offers a nal perspective
in which he expounds what is evidently the doctrine of
apokatastasis. Thus he, like Origen, links the defense of free will
and the polemic against the separation of justice from goodness in
God to universal salvation, and grounds the apokatastasis in the
theory of free will. This is the relevant passage, in the closing
section of Bardaians Liber:
What should we say, then, concerning the new race of us, the
Christians, whom Christ established in every land and in all
regions at his coming? For, behold, in whatever land we are, we are
all called Christians, from the one name of Christ. And in the same
day, the rst of the week, we come together, and in the prescribed
days we fast. And neither do our brothers who are in Gaul marry
men, nor are those who live in Judea circumcised . . . nor do those
who live in Edessa kill their wives who commit fornication, or
their sisters, but they separate themselves from them and hand them
to Gods judgment. Nor do those who live in Hatra stone thieves, but
in whatever land they are, and in whatever place, local laws cannot
separate them from the law of their Christ: the Principates power
does not force them to do or use things that are impure for them,
but illness and good health, richness and poverty, all that does
not depend on their freewill happens to them wherever they are.
For, just as human freewill is not governed by the necessity of the
Seven [sc. planets], and, if it is governed, it is able to stand
against its governors, so this visible human being, too, is unable
to easily get rid of its Principalities government, since he is a
slave and a subjectfor, if we could do all, we would be all; if we
couldnt decide anything, we would be the instruments of others.
But whenever God likes, everything can be, with no obstacle at
all. In fact, there is nothing that can impede that great and holy
will. For, even those who are convinced to resist God, do not
resist by their force, but they are in evil and error, and this can
be only for a short time, because God is kind and gentle, and
allows all natures to remain in the state in which they are, and to
govern themselves by their own will, but at the same time they are
condi-tioned by the things that are done and the plans that have
been conceived [sc. by God]87 in order to help them. For this order
and this government that have been given [sc. by God], and the
association of one with another, damps the natures force, so that
they cannot be either completely harmful or completely harmed, as
they were harmful and harmed before the creation of the world.
87 Bardaian often uses theological passives, just as the Bible
and Origen do.
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ILARIA L. E. RAMELLI 157
And there will come a time when even this capacity for harm that
remains in them will be brought to an end by the instruction that
will obtain in a differ-ent arrangement of things: and, once that
new world will be constituted, all evil movements88 will cease, all
rebellions will come to an end, and the fools will be persuaded,
and the lacks will be lled, and there will be safety and peace, as
a gift of the Lord of all natures.89
Saving divine Providence (the plans conceived by God to help all
creatures), the total eviction of evila state in which it is
impossible that any being can remain foreverthe instruction and
purication of the wicked, their voluntary renunciation of
rebellion, and the apokatastasis are here clearly foreseen.
According to Bardaians argument, each creature endowed with reason
is free, and its free will is not conditioned by the stars, but God
does not allow this freedom to bring the creature itself to total
perdition: Till the end of time (EMN[DRIb), the divinity lets the
creatures govern themselves by their free will, but in the end, on
the basis of its own plans conceived in order to help them, it will
annihilate all evil according to its purely negative nature from
the ontological point of view. This is why being in evil is being,
not in force, but in weakness and error, and such a state cannot
endure forever. As a consequence, all creatures, once puried and
set free from evil, through persuasion and teaching and the lling
of all lacks, will adhere to the Good, that is God, voluntarily.
The fools will be persuaded, not forced into submission.
Now, all these ideas are present both in Bardaians and in
Origens thought. Furthermore, the apokatastasis is expressly
characterized by Bardaian as a free gift of God (a gift of the Lord
of all natures or beings), just as it is conceived by Origen, who,
quoting St. Paul, afrmed in Comm. Rom. Catenae 22.11:
GEZVMWQEXSYD5ISYD^ [LEMN[ZRMSbSYNKEVIN\L.Q[DR5ISYDXSH[DVSR. (The
true life ainios, in Origens view, is, on the spiritual plane,
ultimate salvation, according to the polysemy of life and death
that is typical of both Origen and Bardaian).90Again, the
apokatastasis is described as complete peace by Bardaian, in the
very same way as Origen depicts it, for example, in Hom. Luc. 36:
God has not yet established peace . . . there is still war due to
the existence of evil, but there will denitely be an absolute
peace; Comm. Jo. 10.39: when peace will be perfect, after the years
of the oikonomia
(S_XERL.IMNVLZRLXIPIM[ULDQIXEI?XLXLDbSMNOSRSQMZEb).One of the
closest resemblances between Bardaian and Origen is that
according
88 Remarkably, the language is exactly the same as in Origen:
Movement here indicates an act
of will. See, e.g., Princ. 3.3.5: Freewill is always moved to
good or evil by the souls movements; our rational faculty, that is,
our mind or soul, never can be without any movement, either good or
evil. These movements constitute the rationale for deserts (motibus
suis [animae] . . . libertas arbitrii vel ad bona semper vel ad
mala movetur, nec umquam rationabilis sensus, is est mens vel
anima, sine motu aliquo esse vel bono vel malo potest, quos motus
causas praestare meritorum).
89 Patrologia Syriaca, ed. Franois Nau, 2.60811. [My
translation; emphasis mine].90
As documented by Ramelli, Origens Exegesis of Jeremiah for
Origen, and idem, Bardesane kata heimarmens for Bardaian.
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158 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
to both, Providence does not force our free will, but acts in
harmony with it, and yet does not fail to achieve its objective,
which is universal salvation. Bardaianspeaks of things that are
done and plans that have been conceived [by God] in order to help
the creatures; Origen says that Providence is applied [by God] to
all, in accord with each ones freewill (Cels. 5.21). Both employ a
theological passive and express the very same thought: Gods
Providence respects human free will, but it infallibly leads all
rational creatures to salvation.91
Ultimate annihilation of evil is one of the main metaphysical
pillars of the doctrine of apokatastasis, and it is clearly
asserted by Bardaian, by Origen, and subsequently, thanks to
Origens inuence, by all the supporters of this doctrine, especially
Gregory of Nyssa and Evagrius.92 Moreover, both Origen and Bardaian
maintained the centrality of Christ in soteriology. Indeed,
Bardaian, who considered Jesus Christ to be generated by God and by
the Virgin (as attested by Ephraem and Philoxenus of Mabbug),
thought that, just as he intervened as Logos in the creation (as
attested by Moses Bar Kepha), he plays a core role in redemption
and salvation, and ascribed a universal salvic effect to his
cross.93 In fact, in his treatise on India, ap. Porphyry, De Styge
fr. 376 Smith (= Stob. 1.3.56), he described a statue located in a
place where all possible sins are tested, representing the whole
universe with all its inhabitants, including the angels, in the
shape of a human being, standing with its arms outstretched in the
symbol of the cross
(ENRHVMEZbI.WX[bSNVUSZbI?G[RXEbGIMDVEbL.TP[QIZREbINRXYZT[WXEYVSYD).
This cross, representing Jesus Christs crucixion in its cosmic
value,94 is further related to Christ-Logos through the Logoss
activity in creation, since (in a manner reminiscent of Platos
Timaeus) it was given by the Father to the Son as a model for the
creation of this world
(HIH[OIZREMXSRUISRX[DYM.[DS.TLRMZOEXSROSZWQSRI?OXM^IRM_REUIEXSRI?GLTEVEZHIMKQE).
Thus, just as it is evident in Origen, in Bardaian, too,
Christ-Logos plays an essential role both in creation and in
soteriologyand the latter, in Bardaian just as in Origen,
culminates in the apokatastasis. In the thought of both these
authors, as will be the case with Gregory of Nyssa as well,95
the
91 For this notion in Origen, see Ramelli, La coerenza.
92 Documentation in Ramelli, Apocatastasi and, for Gregory of
Nyssa, eadem, Gregorio di
Nissa, integrative essay 2.93
All these testimonia de Bardesane are collected and discussed at
length by Ramelli, Bardesane kata heimarmens, including a strong
valorization of Porphyrys fragments from Bardaian, thus far widely
neglected in the reconstruction of his thinking. On the cross in
early Christian thinking (Ps.Barnabas, Gospel of Peter, Justin,
Oracula Sibyllina, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Origen), see Jean-Marc
Prieur, La croix chez les Pres (Strasbourg: Universit Marc Bloch,
2006).
94 On the cosmic Christ and cross, see Werner Thiede, Wer ist
der kosmische Christus? (Gttingen:
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2001); Ramelli, Gregorio di Nissa
sullanima, 78386.95
For the christological foundation of Gregorys doctrine of
apokatastasis, see Steven R. Harmon, The Work of Jesus Christ and
the Universal Apokatastasis, in Jesus Christ in St. Gregory of
Nyssas Theology (ed. lias Moutsoulas; Athens: Eptalophos, 2005)
22543, with very partial, but correct, argumentation; much more
complete argumentation in Ramelli, La dottrina; see also eadem, In
Illud . . . Gregory of Nyssas Exegesis.
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ILARIA L. E. RAMELLI 159
apokatastasis, far from being a pagan doctrineas it has been
repeatedly accused of being especially in the course of the
Origenist controversyis rmly grounded in Christology.
All these convergences in thought between Origen and Bardaian
revolving around the doctrine of apokatastasis are striking. It is
not unlikely that Origen actually knew Bardaians thinking to some
extent, just as many of his followers did, as I shall show. One
possibility, among others, is that Clement may have brought to
Alexandria the knowledge of Bardaians ideas. Indeed, the Syrian man
(XMbX[DR %WWYVMZ[R) whom Clement mentions in Strom. 1.1.11.2 as a
Christian teacher whom he met in the ENREXSPLZ, just before meeting
Pantaenus in Alexandria, may well be Bardaian. (I