THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
with seven heads, the four ages, the seven spirits, the twenty-four elders, the candlestick with seven branches, the two witnesses, and the woman clothed with the sun— all these imply great religioushistorical connections which can not now be fully understood, but which nevertheless existed. A necessary rule for the interpretation of apocalyptic literature is that a single apocalypse can not be explained in itself, but only from a survey comprising, if possible, all related works. The fantastic element in Jewish apocalyptic literature is not due to an excess of imagination in these authors, who were so poor in spirit; the impression of strangeness is due to the use of abnormal religious images. For discussion of the several books, see Apocrypha, B, IV.; Pseudefigeapha, Old Testament, II., 4-21. (W- Bousset.)
Bibliography: The best treatment is to be found in R. H. Charles's editions of apocalyptic writings, e.g., his Enoch, London, 1893, Apocalypse of Baruch, 1896, Ascension of Isaiah, 1900, Jubilees, 1902, and in his Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life, 1899; A. Hilgenfeld, Die judische Apokalyptik, Jena, 1857; J. Drummond, Jewish Messiah, London, 1877; R. Smend, in ZATW. v. (1885) 222-250; DB, i. 109-110; Schtirer, Geschichte, iii. 181-185, Eng. transl., II. iii. 44 sqq.; M. S. Terry, Biblical Apocalyptics, New York, 1898; EB, i. 213- 250 (reviews the important apocalyptic literature); JE, i. 669-685 (treats of late Jewish productions); W. Bousset, Die judische Apokalyptik, Berlin, 1903; F. C. Porter, The Messages of the Apocalyptical Writers, New York, 1905.
APOCATASTASIS, ap"o-ca-tas'ta-sis.
Earliest Advocates (§ 1). In the Middle Ages (§ 3). Opponents (§ 2). The Reformation (§ 4).
In Modern Times (§ 5).
By Apocatastasis ("restoration") is meant the ultimate restitution of all things, including the doctrine that eventually all men will be saved. The term comes from the Greek of Acts iii. 21, but is given a wider meaning than it has in that passage. The doctrine first appears in Clement of Alexandria (flourished 200) in the declaration that the punishments of God are " saving and disciplinary, leading to conversion " {Strom., vi. 6). His successor at the head of the Alexandrian
catechetical school, Origen (186-253), i. Earliest taught that all the wicked would be Advocates, restored after they had undergone
severe punishment and had received instruction from angels and then from those of higher grade (De principiis, I. vi. 1-3). He also raised the question whether after this world there perhaps would be another or others in which this instruction would be given (De principiis, II. iii. 1), and interpreted Paul's teaching respecting the subjection of all things to God as implying the salvation of the " lost " (De principiis, III. v. 7). These beliefs and speculations he based on Bible statements(especially on Ps. ex. 1 ; I Cor. xv. 25 sqq.), but declared that the doctrine would be dangerous to disseminate (Contra Celsum, vi. 26). He, and it would seem, Clement of Alexandria also, advocated the Apocatastasis as part of a theory of the divine attributes which subordinated righteousness to mercy; of human freedom, which made the will never finally fixed; and of sin, which represented it rather as weakness and ignorance.
Similar ideas of the divine goodness, human freedom, and sin led to the advocacy of the Apocatastasis by Gregory Nazianzen (328-389), but not openly; by Gregory of Nyssa (332-398), publicly, as in his treatise " On the Soul and the Resurrection " (MPG, xlvi. 104); by Didymus of Alexandria (308-395), in his commentary on I Peter iii. (in Galland, Bibliotheca patrum, vi. 292 sqq.); and by Diodorus of Tarsus (flourished 375), in his treatise " On the Divine Economy " (in J. S. Assemanus, Bibliotheca orientalis, III. i. 324). Even Chrysostom (347-407), when commenting on I Cor. xv. 28, quoted without contradiction the view that by the expression " God shall be all in all " was meant universal cessation of opposition to God (MPG, lxi. 342). So also the Monophysite, Stephen bar- Sudaili, abbot of a monastery at Edessa in the sixth century, advocated the Apocatastasis in a treatise which he wrote on the subject under the name of Hierotheus (as is stated in Assemanus, ut sup., ii. 290 sqq.). It was taught also by Maximus Confessor (580-662), called by the Greeks Theologos and revered as the leader of the Orthodox against the Monothelites, drawing from Gregory of Nyssa, as in his answer to the thirteenth question of his " Questions and Doubts " (MPG, xc. 796). The existence of this belief in the eighth century is shown by the warning against it given in 718 by Pope Gregory II., when sending out missionaries (MPL, lxxxix. 534). In the ninth century it was roundly asserted by that very independent speculative theologian Johannes Scotus Erigena, in the third book of his treatise " On the Division of Nature " (MPL, exxii. 619-742). He drew from Origen, pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita, Gregory of Nyssa, and still more directly, from Maximus Confessor.
But the writers defending the Apocatastasis are decidedly in the minority; and so bad was the repute of Origen for sound thinking that any theory known to be derived from him was looked at askance by the sober-minded. Jerome (d. 420), for example, reckoned the Apocatastasis among the " abhorrent " heresies of Origen (Epist., exxxiv.). The emperor Justinian, in his edict
2. Oppo- against Origen, issued in 545, made it nents. the ninth of the ten doctrines for which the latter should be anathematized; and when, at Justinian's call, a council met in Constantinople that same year to condemn Origen, the doctrine appears as the fourteenth of the fifteen for which he was cursed (Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, ii. 789, 797, Eng. transl., iv. 220, 228).
In the West, Augustine (354-430) threw his influence against the Apocatastasis, teaching in the most unmistakable language the absolute endlessness of future punishment (e.g., " City of God," xxi. 11-23).
At a later period the doctrine appears in the teachings of the great pantheistic thinker Amalrio of Bena (d. 1204), only to be again condemned by the Western Church; for it was one of the counts upon which Amalric was declared a heretic by Pope Innocent III., and for which his followers, the Brethren and Sisters of the Free Spirit, after his