[1122] The Gnostics taught that all souls return immediately to God, but this was rejected as heretical. Justin, Dial. 80.
[1123] So apparently Tertullian, who calls Gehenna "a reservoir of secret fire under the earth," and Paradise "the place of divine bliss appointed to receive the spirits of the saints, separated from the knowledge of this world by that fiery zone [i.e. the river Pyriphlegeton as by a sort of enclosure." ] Apol. c. 47.
[1124] So Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. V. 5, § 1: "Wherefore also the elders who were disciples of the apostles tell us that those who were translated were transferred to that place (for paradise has been prepared for righteous men, such as have the Spirit; in which place also Paul the apostle, when he was caught up, heard words which are unspeakable as regards us in our present condition), and that there shall they who have been translated remain until the consummation [of all things], as a prelude to immortality."
[1125] Apol. I. 46: hoi meta Logou biosantes Christianoi eisi, kan atheoi enomisthesan, oion en Hellesi Sokrates kai Herakleitos kai hoi homoioi autois. . Comp. Apol. I. 20, 44; Apol. II. 8, 13. He does not say anywhere expressly that the nobler heathen are saved; but it follows from his view of the Logos spermaticos (see p. 550). It was renewed in the sixteenth century by Zwingli, and may be consistently held by all who make salvation depend on eternal election rather than on water-baptism. God is not bound by his own ordinances, and may save whom and when and how he pleases.
[1126] 2 Macc. 12:39 sqq. Roman Catholic divines use this passage (besides Matt. 5:26; 12:32 and 1 Cor. 1:13-15) as an argument for the doctrine of purgatory. But it would prove too much for them; for the sin here spoken of was not venial, but the deadly sin of idolatry, which is excluded from purgatory and from the reach of efficacious; intercession.
[1127] See specimens in Luckock, l. c. p. 58 sqq.
[1128] De Cor. Mil. c. 3: "Oblationes pro defunctis, pro natalitiis annua dei facimus." Comp. the notes in Oehler's ed. Tom. I. 422.
[1129] De Monog. c. 10: "Pro anima ejus orat et refrigerium interim adpostulat ei et in prima resurrectione consortium."
[1130] Vita Const. IV. 71: sun klauthmo pleioni tas euchas huper tes basileos psuches apedidosan to theo.
[1131] Sermo 172. He also inferred from the passage on the unpardonable sin (Matt. 12:32) that other sins may be forgiven in the future world. De Civit. Dei, XXI. 24. In the Council of Chalcedon (452), Dioscurus was charged with a breach of trust for not having executed the will of a saintly woman who had left large sums of money to monasteries, hospitals, and alms-houses, in the hope of being benefited by the prayers of the faithful recipients.
[1132] ton pneumaton ... orthodoxon. The Greek church lays great stress on orthodoxy; but it has here evidently a very wide meaning, as it includes the faith of Abel and all Old Testament saints.
[1133] Not Purgatory. This shows the difference between the ante-Nicene and post-Nicene faith. See below.
[1134] Sometimes, however, this is expressed in the form of a wish or prayer: Mayest thou live in God" (Vivas in Deo, or in Christo); " May God refresh thy spirit"(Deus refrigeret spiritum tuum); " Mayest thou have eternal light in Christ," etc. Comp. § 86, (this vol.).
[1135] Longer Russian Catechism, in Schaff's Creeds, vol. II. p. 503.
[1136] pur katharsion. It is mentioned also before Origen in the Clementine Homilies, IX. 13. The Scripture passage on which the term ignis purgatorius was based, is 1 Cor. 3:13, 15, 'the fire shall prove each man's work he himself shall be saved; yet so as through fire. (hos dia puros).
[1137] As Möhler, Klee, and others.
§ 157. After Judgment. Future Punishment.
The doctrine of the Fathers on future punishment is discussed by Dr. Edward Beecher, l.c., and in the controversial works called forth by Canon Farrar's Eternal Hope (Five Sermons preached in Westminster Abbey, Nov. 1877. Lond., 1879.) See especially
Dr. Pusey: "What is of Faith as to Everlasting Punishment?" A Reply to Dr. Farrar's Challenge. Oxf. and Lond., second ed. 1880 (284 pages).
Canon F. W. Farrar: Mercy and Judgment: A few last words on Christian Eschatology with reference to Dr. Pusey's "What is of Faith?" London and N. York, 1881 (485 pages). See chs. II., III., IX.-XII. Farrar opposes with much fervor "the current opinions about Hell," and reduces it to the smallest possible dimensions of time and space, but expressly rejects Universalism. He accepts with Pusey the Romanizing view of "future purification" (instead of "probation"), and thus increases the number of the saved by withdrawing vast multitudes of imperfect Christians from the awful doom.
After the general judgment we have nothing revealed but the boundless prospect of aeonian life and aeonian death. This is the ultimate boundary of our knowledge.
There never was in the Christian church any difference of opinion concerning the righteous, who shall inherit eternal life and enjoy the blessed communion of God forever and ever. But the final fate of the impenitent who reject the offer of salvation admits of three answers to the reasoning mind: everlasting punishment, annihilation, restoration (after remedial punishment and repentance).
I. Everlasting Punishment of the wicked always was, and always will be the orthodox theory. It was held by the Jews at the time of Christ, with the exception of the Sadducces, who denied the resurrection. [1138] 138 It is endorsed by the highest authority of the most merciful Being, who sacrificed his own life for the salvation of sinners. [1139]
Consequently the majority of the fathers who speak plainly on this terrible subject, favor this view.
Ignatius speaks of "the unquenchable fire;" [1140] 140 Hermas, of some "who will not be saved," but "shall utterly perish," because they will not repent. [1141] 141
Justin Martyr teaches that the wicked or hopelessly impenitent will be raised at the judgment to receive eternal punishment. He speaks of it in twelve passages. "Briefly," he says, "what we look for, and have learned from Christ, and what we teach, is as follows. Plato said to the same effect, that Rhadamanthus and Minos would punish the wicked when they came to them; we say that the same thing will take place; but that the judge will be Christ, and that their souls will be united to the same bodies, and will undergo an eternal punishment (aionian kolasin) and not, as Plato said, a period of only a thousand years (chiliontaete periodon)" [1142] 142 In another place: "We believe that all who live wickedly and do not repent, will be punished in eternal fire" (en aionio puri). [1143] 143 Such language is inconsistent with the annihilation theory for which Justin M. has been claimed. [1144] 144 He does, indeed, reject with several other ante-Nicene writers, the Platonic idea that the soul is in itself and independently immortal [1145] 145 and hints at the possibility of the final destruction of the wicked, [1146] 146 but he puts that possibility countless ages beyond the final judgment, certainly beyond the Platonic millennium of punishment, so that it loses all practical significance and ceases to give relief.
Irenaeus has been represented as holding inconsistently all three theories, or at least as hesitating between the orthodox view and the annihilation scheme. He denies, like Justin Martyr, the necessary and intrinsic immortality of the soul, and makes it dependent on God for the continuance in life as well as for life itself. [1147] 147 But in paraphrasing the apostolic rule of faith he mentions eternal punishment, and in another place he accepts as certain truth that "eternal fire is prepared for sinners," because "the Lord openly affirms, and the other Scriptures prove" it. [1148] 148 Hippolytus approves the eschatology of the Pharisees as regards the resurrection, the immortality of the soul, the judgment and conflagration, everlasting life and "everlasting punishment;" and in another place be speaks of "the rayless scenery of gloomy Tartarus, where never shines a beam from the radiating voice of the Word." [1149] 149 According to Tertullian the future punishment "will continue, not for a long time, but forever." [1150] 150 It does credit to his feelings when he says that no innocent man can rejoice in the punishment of the guilty, however just, but will grieve rather. Cyprian thinks that the fear of hell is the only ground of the fear of death to any one, and that we should have before our eyes the fear of God and eternal punishment much more than the fear of men and brief suffering. [1151] 151 The generality of this belief among Christians is testified by Celsus, who tells them that the heathen priests threaten the same "eternal punishment" as they, and that the only question was which was right, since both claimed the truth with equal confidence. [1152] 152
II. The final Annihilation of the wicked removes all discord from the universe of God at the expense of the natural immortality of the soul, and on the ground that sin will ultimately destroy the sinner, and thus destroy itself.
This theory is attributed to Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and others, who believed only in a conditional immortality which may be forfeited; but, as we have just seen, their utterances in favor of eternal punishment are too clear and strong to justify the inference which they might have drawn from their psychology.
Arnobius, however, seems to have believed in actual annihilation; for he speaks of certain souls that "are engulfed and burned up," or "hurled down and having been reduced to nothing, vanish in the frustration of a perpetual destruction." [1153] 153
III. The Apokatastasis or final restoration of all rational beings to holiness and happiness. This seems to be the most satisfactory speculative solution of the problem of sin, and secures perfect harmony in the creation, but does violence to freedom with its power to perpetuate resistance, and Ignores the hardening nature of sin and the ever increasing difficulty of repentance. If conversion and salvation are an ultimate necessity, they lose their moral character, and moral aim.
Origen was the first Christian Universalist. He taught a final restoration, but with modesty as a speculation rather than a dogma, in his youthful work De Principiis (written before 231), which was made known in the West by the loose version of Rufinus (398). [1154] 154 In his later writings there are only faint traces of it; he seems at least to have modified it, and exempted Satan from final repentance and salvation, but this defeats the end of the theory. [1155] 155 He also obscured it by his other theory of the necessary mutability of free will, and the constant succession of fall and redemption. [1156] 156
Universal salvation (including Satan) was clearly taught by Gregory of Nyssa, a profound thinker of the school of Origen (d. 395), and, from an exegetical standpoint, by the eminent Antiochian divines Diodorus of Tarsus (d. 394) and Theodore of Mopsuestia (d. 429), and many Nestorian bishops. [1157] 157 In the West also at the time of Augustin (d. 430) there were, as he says, "multitudes who did not believe in eternal punishment." But the view of Origen was rejected by Epiphanius, Jerome, and Augustin, and at last condemned as one of the Origenistic errors under the Emperor Justinian (543). [1158] 158
Since that time universalism was regarded as a heresy, but is tolerated in Protestant churches as a private speculative opinion or charitable hope. [1159] 159
[1138] The point is disputed, but the 4th Maccabees, the 4th Esdras, the Book of Enoch, the Apocalypse of Baruch, and the Psalms of Solomon, contain very strong passages, which Dr. Pusey has collected, l.c. 48-100, and are not invalidated by the reply of Farrar, ch. VIII. 180-221. Josephus (whose testimony Farrar arbitrarily sets aside as worthless) attests the belief of the Pharisees and Essenes in eternal punishment, Ant. XVIII. 1, 3; Bell. Jud. II. 8, 11, Rabbi Akiba (about 120) limited the punishment of Gehenna to twelve months; but only for the Jews. The Talmud assigns certain classes to everlasting punishment, especially apostates and those who despise the wisdom of the Rabbis. The chief passage is Rosh Hoshanah, f. 16 and 17: "There will be three divisions on the day of judgment, the perfectly righteous, the perfectly wicked, and the intermediate class. The first will be at once inscribed and sealed to life eternal; the second at once to Gehenna (Dan. 12:2); the third will descend into Gehenna and keep rising and sinking" (Zech. 12:10). This opinion was endorsed by the two great schools of Shammai and Hillel, but Hillel inclined to a liberal and charitable construction (see p. 596). Farrar maintains that Gehenna does not necessarily and usually mean hell in our sense, but 1) for Jews, or the majority of Jews, a short punishment, followed by forgiveness and escape; 2) for worse offenders a long but still terminable punishment; 3) for the worst offenders, especially Gentiles--punishment followed by annihilation. He quotes several modern Jewish authorities of the rationalistic type, eg. Dr. Deutsch, who says: "There is not a word in the Talmud that lends any support to the damnable dogma of endless torment." But Dr. Ferd. Weber who is as good authority, says, that some passages in the Talmud teach total annihilation of the wicked, others teach everlasting punishment, e.g. Pesachim 54a: "The fire of Gehenna is never extinguished." Syst. der altsynag. Poläst. Theologie, p. 375. The Mohammedans share the Jewish belief, but change the inhabitants: the Koran assigns Paradise to the orthodox Moslems, and Hell to all unbelievers (Jews, Gentiles, and Christians), and to apostates from Islam.