[edit] Christianity
In Christianity, apocatastasis is the
doctrine of the ultimate reconciliation of
good and
evil. Apocatastasis maintains that all moral creatures --
angels, humans and
devils -- will eventually come to a harmony in
God's kingdom. It is based on the
Biblical passage in
1 Corinthians 15:28 ("When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.") and was extensively preached in the Eastern church by St.
Gregory of Nyssa and
Gregory of Nazianzus, and in the Western church by
Ambrose of Milan in the
4th century.
Jerome (347-420) initially believed but then recanted and
Basil the Great (330-379), who opposed the doctrine, wrote that the majority of Christians believed.
The belief was first articulated and defended by
Origen of Alexandria (185-232) and
Clement of Alexandria (?-215), two theologians who were schooled and steeped in Hellenistic philosophy and familiar with Gnostic and Mystery Cult writings. They freely adapted neo-Platonic terminology and ideas to Christianity while explaining and differentiating the new faith from all the others.
[8] [9]. Some scholars credit Origen's
On First Principles as the first Christian systematic theological work.
[10] It contained key concepts of the Trinity and Free Will as well as Apocatastasis.
A little more than a century later, another systematic theologian,
Augustine of Hippo (354-386), focused on a different part of the bible and formulated what later developed into the doctrine of
double predestination, which is the belief that some people are predestined for salvation and some people are predestined for damnation.
[11] Constantinople 543 condemned Apocatastasis and the
Anathema was formally submitted to the Fifth Ecumenical
Synod of
Constantinople (553). However, Origen's other theology about transmigration of souls and the possibility of glorified man falling again to restart the cycle played a role.
[9] The Anathema against apocatastasis, or more accurately, against the belief that hell is not eternal, was not ratified despite support from the Emperor, and it is absent from the Anathemas spoken against Origen at Constantinople II.
Apocatastasis almost disappeared from Christian thought despite some respected theologians such as
Maximus the Confessor,
Scotus Erigena,
Amalric of Bena and
Hans Denck who continued to believe in the doctrine then generally considered
heterodox by the Western Church. The belief became more public during the Protestant Reformation when all Catholic doctrines and practices were called into question, causing
Adolf von Harnack, church historian, to state that nearly all Reformers were "apocatastatists at heart".
[12]
However, it should be noted that certain small groups who claimed to have preceded the Protestant Reformation, such as the early Anabaptists and Sabbatarian Church of God groups, did teach a form of apocatastasis and were condemned by the Latin and later Reformation churches. Groups, such as the
Living Church of God,
Philadelphia Church of God, and other Post
Armstrong Churches, which claim the Sabbatarian Anabaptists as ancestors, still teach that God will raise the dead and later call everyone who was not called in this age and that nearly everyone will ultimately accept that calling.
A related belief is
Universalism, which is the doctrine that all human beings will be saved from eternal damnation or annihilation in
hell.
[edit] Apocatastatic themes in the Bible
Origen's extensive writings showed great familiarity with the body of literature that eventually became canonized at a council in Carthage in 387.
[13] The Bible, which contains multiple stories of apocatastatic fall from grace followed by redemption and restoration, formed the bedrock of his theology.
Latin Bible c. 1407
These stories contain three key elements.
- The person or nation going through the cycle is fundamentally marked and changed by their experiences.
- There is a subtle current of inclusiveness that weave through these stories. In the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas' Parable of the Lost Sheep, the lost sheep is one of the largest and the shepherd abandons his ninety-nine to search for it. When he finds it, he tells it, "I love you more than the ninety-nine" (Gospel of Thomas, v. 107). In the Christian Gospels, the shepherd searches for the sheep only because it is lost.
- The person or nation sometimes return to something glorious and mysterious. It is a homecoming but it's not a place that they have been before. These are seen in the Eschatological prophecies for Egypt and Assyria in Isaiah (Isaiah 19:23-25), for Sodom in Ezekiel (Ezekiel 16:53-55) and for the entire world in Revelation (Revelation 21-22).
The word, apocatastasis, only appears once in the Bible in Acts 3:21. Peter heals a handicapped beggar and then addresses the astonished onlookers. His sermon sets Jesus in the Jewish context, the fulfiller of the Abrahamic Covenant, and says, "He [Jesus] must remain in heaven until the time comes for God to restore everything (apocatastasis), as he promised long ago through his holy prophets."
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