Illaria Ramelli - Origen, Bardaisan, and The Origin of Universal Salvation

HTR 102:2 (2009) 13568
Origen, Bardaisan, and the Origin of

Universal Salvation
*
Ilaria L. E. Ramelli
Catholic University of the Sacred Heart
Milan, Italy
The Question at Stake
Is Origen of Alexandria the inventor of the eschatological doctrine of apokatastasis
of 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.
136 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
Premises in Early Christian Apocrypha: Intercession,
Postmortem Conversion, and Christs Role
I shall argue that a few early Christian apocrypha
2
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 Alexandria
3
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, HTR
90 (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 oioooxociov
should 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
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 archaic
5
: 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,
9
although not by all.
10
James supposed that the Apoc. Pet. might be as ancient as that
of 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.
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 (cpvcutp).
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 Phaedo
that 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 Plato
18
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.
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 (tuao) 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 Apocalypse
assigning 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,
22
we 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.
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 [aopoooi toi xptoi
ou xoi cxcxtoi ou ov cov oitpomvtoi c cx tp xooocm]. And I shall
grant them a beautiful baptism in salvation [xoov oatioo cv omtpio] in the
Acherusian Lake, which is said to be in the Elysian valley, a sharing of justice and
justication with my saints [co oixoioouvp cto tmv oyimv ou]. And I and
my elect will go and rejoice together with the Patriarchs in my eternal Kingdom
[xoi oaccuoooi cym xoi oi cxcxtoi ou oyoimvtc cto tmv aotiomv
ci tpv oimviov ou ooiciov], and with them I shall keep my promises, made
by me and by my Father who is in heaven [xoi aoipom ct' outmv to caoyycio
ou o caoyyciopv cym xoi aotp ou o cv toi ouovoi].
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,
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 (oaoum) 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
xoooi oimvio, 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 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: xoooi oimvio 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.)
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 14
Jesus unequivocally announces their nal salvation. There is no contradiction here,
however, since behind the Ethiopic eternal stands the Greek oimvio,
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 oimvio 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 (au o ocotov) 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 oimvio ooicio, which in fact
is attested in the Rainer fragment (in other Greek texts we have oimvio ooicio).
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.
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 salvic
power 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 oimvim, 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
au oimviov, the re of the world to come, which lasts indenitely, oimvim, and
7.8: We didnt know that we were to come to the eternal punishment, where
the Greek Vorlage surely had xoooi oimvio, the only biblical phrase that
correspondsfor there exists no xo ooi o i oio (eternal punishment) in the Bible,
no 0ovoto oioio (eternal death), no au oioiov (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 sinners
39
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 Vorlage
had toao oimvio, 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.
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 apocalypticism
42
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.
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.
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, and
from the oimvio 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 [oao oyo
oxootoio ooo' oaootpoo acci oio oov coutou ci mpv ctcov xoi
oimviov o0ovotoioiv], 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 codex
54
that is particularly close to the Greek text, God assures that in the
51
Vv. 33238 run as follows: cx ocoio auo xoi o0ovotmv oao uymv / ov0maou
omooi omoci xoi touto aoipoci / cocvo yo coou0i oao oyo oxootoio / ooo'
oaootpoo acci oio oov coutou / ci mpv ctcov xoi oimviov o0ovotoioiv / 'Huoim acoim,
o0i oi acc xuoto oxo / ivp ocvoou 'Acouoiooo o0uxoaou. For 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 resurrectione
glosses 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.
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 signicant
text, Comm. Rom. 4.10, from which it is clear that Origen has the apokatastasis
depend 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 (tco) of all will consist
in the elimination of evil.
55
In Christian Greek, oixovoio precisely means Gods saving action toward humans. When
it refers to Christ, in the Greek Fathers the expression (cvooxo) oixovoio indicates the salvic
plan 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 0cooyio by the Greeks, his human nature is called oixovoio.
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, oixovoio 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 ovoxcooimoi 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.
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 God
60
and on Gods salvic will and providence for
each and every creature (ao tpv tou oou omtpiov tm tmv omv Kuim aovto
coti oiotctoycvo xoi xo0oou xoi cai cou), 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 (aoiocuoci) are not retributive punishments, but are
inicted by God out of goodness (oyo0otpti), not only in preliminary judgments,
but also in the nal judgment, and they force even those who are extremely
hardened to convert (c xio ovtoi ctovoci v) (Strom. 7.2.12). Indeed, according
to Clement, salvic repentance (ctovoio) 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 salvic
providence 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 (tco) with life in the other world (mp oimvio)
and expressly afrms that Paul teaches that this end is the hoped-for apokatastasis
(tco oioooxci tpv tp caioo oaoxotootooiv). In 7.10.57.14, moreover, he
describes the apokatastasis as the passage from unbelief to faith and from faith to
knowledge (yvmoi), which yields love (o yoap)which will be closely related
to apokatastasis by Origen as welland leads to the restoration, explicitly named
o aoxoto oooi and described as peace and rest (o vo aouoi).
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 au oimviov, which is not
eternal but of the other world. See Ramelli, Apocatastasi. Clement also regarded this world as
a place of instruction, a aoiocutpiov.
61
Compare to Peters description of the o aoxoto otooi ao vtmv as o vo ui in Acts 3:2021,
a passage Origen, and probably Clement, read as referring to the eventual universal restoration.
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
(aoi ocuoi); 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
(tctotp oc ycvco oaootopoovtoi moc) allegorically, observing that this was
said in order to present the perfect restoration of the soul (uac tou tcciov
oaoxotootooiv up aoootpooi), 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 (xoxo), sins
(ootpoto), and passions (ao0p). This requires the intervention of philosophy
in its therapeutic function (iotixp ioooio) with its reasoning bringing about
health (oyoi uyicivoi xoi omtpioi). 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 (oaootocioo tou oiootovciv)
and inherits wisdom (xpovoo oaoocixvutoi ooio). This apokatastasis is
also described as a restoration of the soul to health (uyicio) after the abandonment
of evil (oaootcocvoi to ouo). 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.
Bardaisans Parallel: Apokatastasis and Defense of Human
Free Will
Among the precursors of Origen in supporting universal salvation, the hellenized
Syrian philosopher Bardaian of Edessawho probably knew at least the Oracula
Sibyllina 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 Bardaian
64
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.
Bardaisan, 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
Bardaisan, 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 Bardaisan 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 Bardaisan, see, among others, Han J. W. Drijvers, Bardaian of Edessa (Assen: van Gorcum,
1966), with an overview on the sources concerning Bardaisan; 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 Lettere
133 (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 Bardaisan, 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
Bardaisans 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.
astrological determinism; their position was to be inherited by Gregory of Nyssa.
68
Han J. W. Drijvers and other scholars have presented Bardaisan as a philosopher,
69
following 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 Bardaisans way of presenting and understanding
himself, his ethics, his doctrine of the resurrection, the communitarian organization
of his school, etc., and is perfectly true: Bardaisan 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
philosopher
71
who played an essential role in making Christianity acceptable even
to the most intellectually demanding, among whom were many gnostics.
72
Origen
and Bardaisan 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.
Bardaisan (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 Bardaisan. Eusebius, who excerpts this dialogue
in Praep. ev. 6.10, says that it was composed by Bardaisan 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, Bardaisan 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 Bardaisans writings as
philosophical works in Syriac ( 31).
70
Ute Possekel, Bardaisan 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.
original title, Hci ci oc vp oio oyo (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 Bardaisan: 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 Bardaisan 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 Bardaisan.
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 Hci
ciocvp, or better, according to Epiphanius and Theodoretus, Koto ciocvp. See Ramelli,
Bardesane kata heimarmens, with thorough argument and documentation.
74
'Ev oi cotiv xoi o ao 'Avtmvivov ixovmtoto outou Hci ciocvp oiooyo ooo tc
oo ooiv outov aoooci tou totc oimyou ouyyooi. 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 Bardaisans dialogue, see eadem, Bardesane kata
heimarmens.
75
Pan. 56: Aaomvim oc tm tou 'Avtmvivou ctoim ovtpc aooivoucvm ovpooo0oi
to Xiotiovov coutov cyciv, o oc ocoov cv toci oooyio xotcotp, oyou tc ouvctou
oacxivoto, uac cuoccio ovocim oaooyoucvo, 0ovotov p ocoicvoi poo, ov ovoyxp
coco0oi, xov tc tm ooici p ovtciaoi (Apollonius, Antoninuss friend, exhorted him to deny
that he was a Christian, but Bardaisan 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 Bardaisans 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 Bardaisans oruit
under the last Antoninus. Elagabaluss name was Varius Avitus. Now, Bardaisans 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
(oi c0cvtc ovoovoov Xiotiovoi ycyovcvoi, 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
expresses Bardaisans thought, is an important example of hellenization in the
Edessan milieu. John Healey admits that Bardaisan 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 signicance
in 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 Bardaisan, 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,
Bardaisan, 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
Bardaisan, who is by far the main character of the dialogue. Let us briey analyze
both these doctrines, which are strongly interrelated in Bardaisans 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, Bardaisan 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 (tp tmv cyxuximv aoiocio
. . . tmv Epvixmv o0potmv), 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 (tmv tc oao aoiocio xoi ioooio) were won over by his teaching
(6.3.13). Even after handing the teaching of the otoicio 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 (Epvixo o0poto), 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 (Auyom oc tm tmv 'Eocoopvmv ouvootp
ovoi ooimtotm xoi oyimtotm coixcioucvo to amto, xoi ouaottmv tc oo xoi tp outou
ctoomv aoiocio). He received a Greco-Roman instruction, and also knew Greek very well.
The doctrine of free will is the core thesis of the dialogue, which Bardaisan, the
protagonist, supports, arguing that human beings do not depend on the inuence
of 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
(xioto). 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 Bardaisan, 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 (oyixoi), 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.
contrasting the mainly Valentinian
84
deterministic theory of the threefold division
of humanity into eshly, psychic, and spiritual persons (ooxixoi , uixoi ,
and avcuotixoi), 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.
Now, both the polemic against determinism and the separation of justice
and goodness in God and the doctrine of apokatastasis markedly characterize
Bardaisans philosophical reection as well. Bardaisan 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, Bardaisan 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
Bardaisans 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
Bardaisan often uses theological passives, just as the Bible and Origen do.
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 movements
88
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 Bardaisans 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 (oimvc), 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 Bardaisans and in Origens thought.
Furthermore, the apokatastasis is expressly characterized by Bardaisan 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: oioo
tou Ocou mp oimvio ou yo c pmv Ocou to omov. (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 Bardaisan).
90
Again, the apokatastasis is described as complete peace by Bardaisan, 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 (otov p cipvp tccim0p cto ctp tp oixovoio).
One of the closest resemblances between Bardaisan 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 Bardaisan.
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. Bardaisan
speaks 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 Bardaisan, 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 Bardaisan
maintained the centrality of Christ in soteriology. Indeed, Bardaisan, 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 (ovoio . . . cotm
o0o, cmv to cio pamcvo cv tuam otouou). 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 (ocomxcvoi tov 0cov tm uim, oapvixo tov xooov cxticv, ivo 0cotov
cp aooociyo). Thus, just as it is evident in Origen, in Bardaisan, too, Christ-
Logos plays an essential role both in creation and in soteriologyand the latter,
in Bardaisan 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 Bardaisan, 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.
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 Bardaisan revolving
around the doctrine of apokatastasis are striking. It is not unlikely that Origen
actually knew Bardaisans 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 Bardaisans ideas. Indeed, the Syrian man
(ti tmv 'Aoouimv) whom Clement mentions in Strom. 1.1.11.2 as a Christian
teacher whom he met in the o votop , just before meeting Pantaenus in Alexandria,
may well be Bardaisan. (It has also been suggested that it was Tatian, but I nd
this very unlikely, because Clement criticizes Tatian, especially for his encratism,
whereas he speaks of his teachers, including his Syrian teacher, as blessed persons,
worthy of veneration, who received the tradition
96
from the apostles through oral
transmission, and we know from the testimonia that Bardaisan based his ideas on
Scripture but also on an esoteric tradition.
97
) This would explain the knowledge
and admiration of Bardaisan on the part of Origen and his followers, although,
of course, certainty is difcult to reach, and there are many other ways in which
Origen may have learned of Bardaisans ideas, particularly given that Bardaisans
writings were soon translated into Greek by his disciples (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 4.30)
and that he knew and used Greek as well as Syriac (Epiphanius, Pan. 56). Origen
also corresponded about scriptural exegesis with Julius Africanus,
98
who remained
for a long time in Edessa at Abgars court as an instructor of Manu, king Abgar
the Greats son, and in that city knew and frequented Bardaisan, as Julius himself
attests in his Kcotoi 1.20.
99
Thus, he too may well represent a good trait dunion
between the Alexandrian and the Edessan thinker.
It is very probable that such knowledge existed and that there was a relationship
between these two Christian philosophers and exegetes and their schools.
96
Tpv op0p tp oxoio omovtc oioooxoio aoooooiv.
97
For this aspect, see the lengthy essay devoted to the testimonia in Ramelli, Bardesane kata
heimarmens.
98
See Ilaria Ramelli, La Chiesa di Roma in et severiana: cultura classica, cultura cristiana,
cultura orientale, Rivista di Storia della Chiesa in Italia 54 (2000) 1329; Grafton-Williams,
Christianity, ch. 2.
99
See Ilaria Ramelli, Edessa e i Romani tra Augusto e i Severi, Aevum 73 (1999) 10743, at
13536, and eadem, La Chiesa. On Julius, see also Tiziana Rampoldi, I Kestoi di Giulio Africano
e limperatore Severo Alessandro, ANRW 2.34.3 (1997) 245170, and, more for his chronicle than
for his Kestoi, Julius Africanus und die christliche Weltchronistik (ed. Martin Wallraff; Berlin: de
Gruyter, 2006); Iulius Africanus, Chronographiae (ed. Martin Wallraff et al.; GCS 15; Berlin: de
Gruyter, 2007), also with biography of Africanus and relevant testimonia. On Africanuss stay in
Edessa, see W. Adler, Sextus Julius Africanus and the Roman Near East in the Third Century,
JTS 55 (2004) 52050, esp. 53039.
Further Relations and Conrmations: Origens and Bardaians
Followers and Environments
It is no accident, I believe, that Bardaisan was appreciated by Eusebius, who speaks
well of him in Praep. ev. 6.9.32
100
and in Hist. eccl. 4.30.13, where he praises his
extraordinary capacities and excellent dialectic skill and his refutationsexactly
parallel to Origensof the Marcionites and other heretics among whom there
surely were some gnostic groups.
101
Furthermore, Eusebius preserves very long
passages from the Liber translated into Greek in Praep. ev. 6.10.149. Eusebius
was a fervent admirer of Origen and a disciple of the holy martyr Pamphilus, who
wrote a vibrant apology for Origen while he was in prison waiting to be martyred
(307310); Eusebius helped him to compose this apology and wrote the sixth and
last book himself.
102
And in his Hist. eccl. 6 he devotes a remarkably extensive
treatment to Origen along with many praises,
103
which he also bestows on Pamphilus
and his master Pierius, a convinced Origenist, who wrote in praise of Pamphilus
and was called Origen the Younger according to Jerome (Vir. ill. 76)such
was his admiration for Origen. It even seems that Eusebius was not hostile to the
theory of apokatastasis itself (Marc. 2.4; Eccl. theol. 2.8; 3.1416, 1820; Comm.
Isa. 1.85).
104
It is notable, likewise, that Didymus the Blind, another deeply committed
Origenist and a supporter of the doctrine of apokatastasis, including the restoration
100
Here he presents him as a Syrian who had reached the highest expertise in the Chaldaic
doctrine (ca' oxov tp Xoooixp caiotpp cpoxoto).
101
For, immediately after, Eusebius reports that Bardaisan, after abandoning the Valentinian sect,
turned to writing refutations of the gnostics (see below). This is Eusebiuss account: Under the
same reign there were plenty of heresies. In Mesopotamia Bardaisan, an excellent man and very well
versed in the Syriac language, composed and published in his own language and alphabet dialogues
against Marcionites and other supporters of different doctrines, in addition to a great many other
works of his. His disciplesvery numerous, as he strongly attracted them by means of words and
argumenttranslated them from Syriac into Greek ('Eai oc tp outp ooicio, ap0uouomv
tmv oicocmv, cai tp Mcop tmv aotomv Boocoovp, ixovmtoto ti ovp cv tc tp Eumv
mvp oiocxtixmtoto, ao tou xoto Moximvo xoi tivo ctcou oioomv aoiotocvou
ooyo tmv oioo you ouotpoo cvo tp oi xci o aoc omxcv ym ttp tc xoi yop cto xoi
aciotmv ctcmv outou ouyyootmv ou oi yvmioi [aciotoi oc poov outm ouvotm tm
oym aoiotocvm] cai tpv Epvmv oao tp Eumv ctocpxooi mvp).
102
ric Junod, Lapologie pour Origne de Pamphile et la naissance de lorignisme, in StPatr
26 (Leuven: Peeters, 1993) 26786; Grafton and Williams, Christianity, 17993.
103
See Robert M. Grant, Eusebius and His Lives of Origen, in Forma Futuri. Studi in onore
del Card. Pellegrino (Torino: Bottega dErasmo, 1975) 63549; Manlio Simonetti, Eusebio e
Origene. Per una storia dellOrigenismo, Augustinianum 26 (1986) 32334; Emanuela Prinzivalli,
Per unindagine sullesegesi del pensiero origeniano nel IV secolo, Annali di Storia dellEsegesi
11 (1994) 43360; Holger Strutwolf, Der Origenismus des Euseb von Caesarea, in Origeniana
Septima (ed. Wolfgang A. Bienert and Uwe Khneweg; Leuven: Peeters, 1999) 14148; Grafton
and Williams, Christianity, 133232.
104
So Ramelli, In Illud:. . . Gregory of Nyssas Exegesis.
of the devil,
105
presents Bardaisan in a fully positive light, in contrast to many
other sources which curse him as a heretic or even a pagan. In a passage in his
Commentary on the Psalms he depicts Bardaisan as a convert from Valentinian
gnosis to Christian orthodoxy, when he became a presbyter.
106
This piece of
information is similar to that offered by Eusebius (Hist. eccl. 4.30), who also
speaks of Bardaisans passage from Gnosticism to the church and his subsequent
refutations of Gnosticism,
107
but Didymus presents Bardaisan in an even more
positive light: His priestly dignity is not mentioned by Eusebius. Indeed, Didymus
is the only source, aside from Theodorus Bar Konai, to attest that Bardaisan was a
presbyter, like Origen; according to Theodorus, however, in Liber scholiorum,
108
Bardaisan then abandoned the church, whereas Didymus praises him saying that he
remained in the orthodox church as a presbyter until his death, just as Origen did.
In fact, according to Pamphiluss Apology, Origen was a teacher of the Church
and grew old inside the catholic [sc. universal] Church.
109
Many other sources are
very negative and depict Bardaisan as an utter heretic; Didymus, a close follower
of Origens, instead presents the Christian philosopher and theologian of Edessa in
a very positive light, and agrees with him about the eventual apokatastasis of all.
It is highly signicant, too, that Eusebius closely links Bardaisan and Origen
when he quotes ample sections of Bardaisan from the Liber legum regionum in
Praep. ev. 6.10. Immediately after these excerpts, he also quotes Origen on the
very same subjecthuman free will (Praep. ev. 6.11). This strongly suggests that
105
On Didymuss Origenism, see Emanuela Prinzivalli, La metamorfosi della scuola alessandrina
da Eracla a Didimo, in Origeniana Octava, 91137; Michael Ghattas, Die Epinoia-Lehre bei
Origenes und Didymos dem Blinden von Alexandria, in Origeniana Septima, 52530; Richard
A. Layton, Judas Yields a Place for the Devil: The Appropriation of Origens Commentary on
Ephesians by Didymus of Alexandria, Origeniana Septima, 53143.
106
Michael Gronewald, Didymos der Blinde. Psalmenkommentar (Tura-Papyrus), Teil III (Bonn:
Habelt, 1969) 18284 = p. 181, ll. 79 of the papyrus: Bardaisan lived in the past, in the day of
Antoninus, the emperor of the Romans. At rst he belonged to the Valentinian school, but he passed
to the church and became a presbyter (oipycv oc o Botpoovp cv toi caoo0cv ovoi cv toi
pcoi 'Avtmvivou tou ooicm Pmoimv. Outo oc xot' opv tp oop pv Ouocvtivou,
ctcotp ci tpv cxxpoiov, ycyovcv acoutco). See Sebastian Brock, Didymus the Blind
on Bardaisan, JTS 22 (1971) 53031.
107
At rst he belonged to the Valentinian school, but then he condemned it and refuted a great
many Valentinian mythological constructions. He believed he had passed to orthodoxy; yet he did
not liberate himself quite completely from the dirtiness of his old heresy (Hv oc outo aotcov
tp xoto Ouocvtivov oop, xotoyvou oc toutp acioto tc tp xoto toutov u0oaoiio
oaccyo, cooxci cv am outo coutm cai tpv o0otcov yvmpv ctotc0cio0oi, ou pv xoi
aovtcm yc oacuoto tov tp aooio oicocm uaov).
108
Addai Scher edition, CSCO Syri 26.2.307, lines 2426.
109
Apol. 16 (Ren Amacker and ric Junod, Pamphile et Eusbe de Csare. Apologie pour
Origne [2 vols; Paris: Cerf, 2002] 1.54.36, in Runuss translation): Some even dared to write
against him and, with the publication of booklets, derogate this great man, who for so many years
was a teacher of the Church and grew old inside the catholic Church. (Quidam etiam conscribere
adversus eum ausi sunt, et libellis editis derogare ei viro, qui per tot annos magister Ecclesiae fuit,
qui in Ecclesia catholica senuit.)
Eusebius was perfectly aware of the similarities between Bardaisans and Origens
thought. Moreover, he is one of the few sources favorable to Bardaisan, and it is no
accident, in my opinion, that precisely all the favorable sources on him, and only
these, turn out to be represented by admirers of Origen, such as Julius Africanus,
Didymus the Blind, Eusebius himself, and the early Jerome, who in Vir. ill. 33,
drawing inspiration from Eusebiuss portrait of Bardaisan, praises his mind, his
dialectical ability, and his literary activity against heresies (notably, the same that
Pamphilus commended in Origen).
110
A conrmation of the long overlooked connection between Origens and
Bardaisans doctrines of apokatastasis comes, to my mind, also from a dialogue
composed more than a century after Bardaisan, the Dialogue of Adamantius on
the Orthodox Faith in God, probably written in Greek by a disciple of Methodius
who was deeply inuenced by Origen and even took part in the philosophical
debate on free will.
111
The Dialogue seems to have been reworked in Greek toward
330 C.E. and was ascribed to Origen himself by the redactors of the Philocalia,
and for this reason translated into Latin by Runus at the end of the fourth century,
perhaps with some Origenistic additions (Runus directly identies Adamantius
and Origen).
112
Now, in the eschatological section, the orthodox position is
110
His great brilliance and keenness in discussion are celebrated by the Syrians. He wrote
innite works against almost all heretics who sprouted in his day, among which the most famous
and vigorous book On Fate that he presented to Marcus Antoninus, and many other volumes on
the occasion of the persecution. His followers translated them from Syriac into Greekat least if
translations maintain all the force and splendor that we guess there were in the original language.
(Ardens eius a Syris praedicatur ingenium et in disputatione vehemens; scripsit innita adversus
omnes paene haereticos, qui aetate eius pullulaverant, in quibus clarissimus est et fortissimus liber,
quem Marco Antonino de fato tradidit, et multa alia super persecutione volumina, quae sectatores
eius de Syra lingua verterunt in Graecam, si autem tanta vis est et fulgor in interpretatione quantam
putamus in sermone proprio.) All the sources mentioned are collected and discussed in Ramelli,
Bardesane kata heimarmens.
111
Methodius in his Symposium, inspired by the homonymous Platonic dialogue, devotes a long
section to the defense of free will (8.13.161B17.173C) and to polemic against determinism, above
all in its astrological form, just as Bardaisan too did in the Liber. He also wrote a work on free
will, where, however, as observed by Claudio Moreschini, Storia della losoa patristica (Brescia:
Morcelliana, 2004) 178, the theme is treated at much less depth than by Origen. Methodius, at any
rate, was deeply inuenced by Origen, although he disagreed with him, or with what he thought
Origen maintained, on some points, especially concerning the resurrected bodies. But he nally
retracted his attack and wrote a dialogue in praise of Origen, the Xenon (Socrates, Hist. eccl. 6.13;
Photius, Bibl., cod. 235 also mentions this lost dialogue of Methodius); above all, he did share the
doctrine of apokatastasis with Origen, and with Bardaisan. See Ilaria Ramelli, LInno a Cristo-
Logos nel Simposio di Metodio, in Motivi e forme della poesia cristiana antica tra Scrittura e
tradizione classica (XXXVI Incontro di studiosi dellAntichit cristiana, Rome, 46.V. 2007; SEA
108; Rome: Augustinianum, 2008) 25780.
112
Runuss translation is found in the edition of Vinzenz Buchheit, Tyranii Runi Librorum
Adamantii Origenis adversus haereticos interpretatio (Munich: Beck, 1966); the Greek is available
in the edition of W. Hendrik van de Sande Bakhuyzen, Dialog des Adamantius (GCS 4; Leipzig:
Hinrichs, 1901); a recent commentary and translation is provided by Robert A. Pretty, Dialogue on
the True Faith in God: De recta in Deum de (ed. Garry W. Trompf; Leuven: Peeters, 1997).
represented by Adamantius, who bears Origens second name and holds the opinions
that Methodius in his De resurrectione attributed to Memianus, an opponent of
Origen; it is patent that Runus, through the identication between Adamantius
and Origen, aims at presenting Origen as fully orthodox. Most relevant to my
argument, the character who, in the Adamantius dialogue, re-proposes the ideas that
in Methodiuss dialogue were supported by Aglaophon, who denied the resurrection
of the body, is Marinus, who is a follower of Bardaisan;
113
thus, he was perceived
as an Origenist, and even more radical than Origen.
114
I think that this Marinus
is to be identied with Bar Yamm, a character who appears in the Liber legum
regionum as an interlocutor of Bardaisan: Bar Yamm in Syriac means Son of
the Sea and Marinus is the best translation of this Syriac name into Latin. The
conclusions, drawn by Eutropius as a judge, are in line with Origens own thought.
This dialogue conrms that both in Bardaisan and in Origen the eschatological
question was central, and that Bardaisans views, in this respect, were felt to be
even more drastic than Origens.
115
In this connection, it is signicant that an Alexandrian contemporary of Origen
and Bardaisan, Achilles Tatius, in his novel on Leucippe and Cleitophon, clearly
113
For Bardaisans view on the resurrection, see Ute Possekel, Bardaisan of Edessa on the
Resurrection: Early Syriac Eschatology in Its Religious-Historical Context, Oriens Christianus 88
(2004) 128; eadem, Expectations of the End in Early Syriac Christianity, Hugoye 11 (2008) 126,
on Bardaisans refraining from apocalyptic eschatology, but with no mention of apokatastasis.
114
Of course, it is by no means certain that we ought to ascribe this position to Bardaisan
himself.
115
We may add the intriguing detail that a passage in the Dialogue is almost identical to a passage
from Methodiuss writing On Freewill reported by Eusebius in his Praep. ev., but Eusebius ascribes
it to a work entitled On Matter by a certain Maximus who lived far earlier than Methodius, in the
days of Commodus and Septimius Severus, that is, precisely the epoch of Bardaisan. It was not
by chance, I believe, that Methodius, a follower of Origen, probably took and adapted Maximuss
piece, precisely in his discussion on free will, a theme that is central to both Bardaisans and
Origens reection. This is all the more noteworthy in that this Maximus, according to Eusebius
(Hist. eccl. 5.27.1), polemicized against the gnostics, just as Origen and Bardaisan did in the same
days. Eusebius attests that Maximus belonged to the churchhe lists him among the men of the
church (cxxpoiootixoi ovoc), who included the presbyters Origen and Bardaisanand that in
his writings he treated the problems of whether matter has been created (aci tou ycvptpv uaociv
tpv upv) and the origin of evil (aci tou aou0uptou aoo toi oicoimtoi ptpoto tou
ao0cv p xoxio), which were also addressed by Bardaisan, as is evident from both the Liber and
many attestations concerning him collected by Drijvers (Bardaian, 6076; 16785) and further
analyzed by Camplani (Rivisitando, 52126). One may even wonder whether Maximus was
a follower of Bardaisans or a double of Bardaisan himself, possibly a translator into Greek of
Bardaisans works (we know from Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 4.30, that Bardaisans disciples translated
his Syriac works into Greek). The author of the Dialogue of Adamantius, a follower of Methodius
(?), proves to know the works of Bardaisan and his schoolat least the Liber, of which he knows
the character Marinus/Bar Yamm and surely the discussion on free will, and the work of Maximus,
who seems to be somehow related to Bardaisan. This also conrms that the intellectual context
was rich in discussions.
draws inspiration from two passages of Bardaisans writing on India,
116
thus
conrming the knowledge of Bardaisans work in Alexandria. In his De Styge
Porphyry
117
quotes or paraphrases two passages from Bardaisans treatise on India, a
text based on direct testimonies of ambassadors from India. Both passages concern
an ordeal involving the Brahmans. It is signicant that Bardaisan, consistently
with his own view, which is very similar to that of Origen, praises the Brahmans
because they did not put the convicted sinner to death, but rather had him instructed
and educated (aoiocu0pvoi mi 0ovotixp xotooixp). Indeed, Bardaisan
shares Clements, Origens, and Gregory of Nyssas conception of the therapeutic
and pedagogical aim of punishments, as is clear both from this passage and the
concluding section of the Liber legum regionum, where, as I have shown, he speaks
of instruction and persuasion of the fools in the end, rather than of their destruction
or eternal chastisement.
In the second passage on India, Bardaisans words are quoted by Porphyry
xoto civ. Again emphasis is put on the didactic and therapeutic treatment of
the sinners, who, far from being punished against their will, confess their sins and
ask the others to pray for them, and are puried by fasting (oitivc ioocvoi
uao tou ooxiootpiou coooyouvtoi cai tmv ctcmv ci ti potov, ocpoiv
aoiouvtoi ivo oi oiaoi cumvtoi aci outmv, xoi vpotcuouoi ovov tivo
ixovov). Moreover, here an Indian statue is also mentioned, which Bardaisan
presents as a paradigm of the world given by God to his child while he was creating
the world (ocomxcvoi tov 0cov tm uim, oapvixo tov xooov cxticv, ivo 0cotov
cp aooociyo). This seems to be an echo of the Demiurge of Platos Timaeus;
the androgyny of the statue itself, whose matter was unknown to anyone (pocvo
ci oc voi aoi o u p c oti v), was a symbol of the union of the Monad and the Dyad,
the two supreme principles of Plato inherited by the Platonic tradition.
118
Now, the
tests by ordeal described by Bardaisan apud Porphyry show close analogies with the
ordeal described by Achilles Tatius in his novel (8.12.9 and 8.6.1214). I believe,
with Camplani, Boll, and partially Drijvers
119
and Castelletti,
120
that Achilles was
116
Castelletti is correct to note the close afnities between the ordeals described by Achilles and
Bardaisan. Porrio, Sullo Stige (ed. and trans. Cristiano Castelletti; Milan: Bompiani, 2006) 27273.
117
F376 Smith = 7 Castelletti (ap. Stob. 1.3.56). Wide-ranging documentation in Castelletti,
Porrio, 24580.
118
See also Wayne A. Meeks, The Image of the Androgyne: Some Uses of a Symbol in Earliest
Christianity, HTR 13 (1974) 165208.
119
Camplani (Rivisitando, 522 n. 6) argues for the direct dependency of Achilles on Bardaisan,
as does Franz Boll, Zum griechischen Roman, Philologus 66 (1907) 115. Drijvers (Bardaian,
175) who dates Achilles to the second half of the third century, hypothesizes a dependence either
on Bardaisan or on Porphyry, which, however, is less probable because Achilles conserves typically
Indian details, such as a tablet hanging from the neck of the accused person (as noted by Boll),
which are absent in Porphyry and must derive from the Indians whom Bardaisan met.
120
Castelletti (Sullo Stige, 274) hypothesizes Achilles dependence either on Bardaisan or on a
common source, in that he dates the novel to the second century on the basis of its papyri dating to
the late second and third century. See Graham Anderson, Perspectives on Achilles Tatius, in ANRW
quoting not Porphyrywho lived several decades later and would imply a date
toward the end of the third century at least for Achillesbut Bardaisan himself, who,
according to Epiphanius, knew Greek, too,
121
and whose works written in Syriac
were soon translated into Greek by his friends and disciples (Eusebius, Hist. eccl.
4.30). Achilles, according to the Suda, his manuscripts, and the etymology of his
name Totioprobably related to the Egyptian deity Tatwas from Alexandria,
which would constitute a further very interesting case of knowledge of Bardaisans
work in the late-second to early-third century on the part of an Alexandrian
intellectual. This seems to be meaningful in light of the deep analogies between
Origen of Alexandrias and Bardaisan of Edessas thought that I have underscored,
and of the Origenists esteem for Bardaisan, so different from the accusations of
virtually all other sources.
Another indication of a relationship between Origen and his school, on the
one hand, and, on the other, Bardaisan and his school in Edessa, may be offered
by Porphyry himself. This neoplatonist knew Origen in his youth, probably when
the latter had already left Alexandria and moved to Caesarea.
122
Porphyry (apud
Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.19) attests that he saw and heard Origen and criticizes him for
embracing Christianity and living against the laws (aoovo m), while reasoning
as a Greek (Platonic) philosopher in metaphysics and theology and applying Greek
2.34.3 (1997) 227899, at 229596. See also Garnauds edition of Achilles Le roman de Leucipp
et Clitophon (ed. with commentary by Jean-Philippe Garnaud; Paris: PUF, 1991), which takes into
account the Robinson-Cologne papyrus, reviewed by Graham Anderson, Classical Review 42 (1992)
439. But the dating to the second century is uncertain and the nal redaction of the novel is assigned
to the third (see Achille Tazio, Leucippe e Clitofonte [ed. Federica Ciccolella; Alessandria: DellOrso,
1999], with introduction and bibliography on 4356; Ilaria Ramelli, I romanzi antichi e il Cristianesimo
[Madrid: Signifer, 2001] ch. 4). It is relevant to our argument that the parts preserved by the papyri
do not include the passages drawn from Bardaisan. Franz Winter, Bardesanes von Edessa ber Indien
(Innsbruck: Thaur, 1999) 8896, rejects the hypothesis of a dependency of Bardaisan on Achilles,
given that the Edessan scholar depends on the Indian ambassadors. But this very fact refutes also
Winters hypothesis of a common source: if Achilles or the nal redactor of the novel lived in the
second centurythe motive adduced for doubting the novelists dependence on Bardaisanhow
could he possibly know what the ambassadors reported to Bardaisan at the beginning of the third?
We should be forced to give the lie to Bardaisan or Porphyry and imagine that he did not draw his
information from the Indians, but from a written source, which is an unnecessary complication. The
Antoninus in whose days, according to Porphyry, Bardaisan met the Indians might even be not the
Antoninus of Emesa, but Marcus Aurelius: Porphyry may have easily confused the two, since
Elagabalus too was made emperor under the name of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, and Bardaisan
in his work on India probably did not specify under which Antoninus he met the Indians. A date
under Marcus Aurelius would perfectly t both Bardaisans lifetime (we have seen that Jerome
identies with Marcus Aurelius the dedicatee of Bardaisans On Fate, simply called Antoninus
by Eusebius) and the dating of Achilles to the second century.
121
Pan. 56: He was uent in both languages, Greek and Syriac (Aoyio ti mv cv toi ouoi
ymoooi, Epvixp tc oiocxtm xoi tp tmv Eumv mvp).
122
We cannot know with certainty whether Porphyry was a Christian at that timeas Socrates
suggests in Hist. eccl. 3.23, drawing his information from Eusebiuss refutation of Porphyrybut
he is certainly not mistaken when he identies our Origen with a disciple (oxootp, ap. Eusebius,
Hist. eccl. 6.19.6) of Ammonius Saccas.
(Stoic) allegorical method to Scripture; he also offers us remarkable details on
Origens readings in philosophy,
123
on which he manifestly was very well informed,
probably thanks to his direct acquaintance with Origen.
124
I even wonder whether Origen himself, who met Porphyry several years after
the death of Bardaisan,
125
might have brought Bardaisans work to his attention.
Porphyry cites Bardaisan not only in his De Styge, as we have seen, concerning the
Indian ordeals and statue with approval of the pedagogical attitude of the Brahmans,
but also in De abstinentia 4.17.12, where he speaks of the ascetical life of the
Indian philosophers, the Gymnosophists, the Brahmans, and the Eoovoioi
(Sanskrit ramana). After introducing them, he goes on to expound what he learned
about them from Bardaisan, who in turn had learned it from Indian ambassadors led
by Dandamis.
126
What Porphyry borrows from Bardaisan perfectly suits Origens
interests and way of thinking, too.
Indeed, I suspect that many connections between the two are still waiting to be
traced and investigated. Surely there seem to be many theological, philosophical,
and historical elements that connect Origen to Bardaisan, the most important of
which is the theory of apokatastasis, which for both of them appears to be related
to the defense of human free will, and the polemic against predestinationism and
separation of justice and goodness in God. The investigation of the relationship
between these two Christian thinkers casts much new light upon the origins of the
doctrine of apokatastasis, where Bardaisan too played a signicant role, thus far
completely neglected by scholars.
123
These readings were Plato, Middle-Platonists, Neo-Pythagoreans, and two Roman Stoics
who allegorized Greek and barbarian myths. See now Ramelli, Origen, Patristic Philosophy, also
with previous bibliography.
124
A less probable, but nevertheless possible, alternative may be that Porphyrys source concerning
Origens philosophical formation and readings was his master Plotinus, who was a fellow disciple
of Origens at Ammonius Saccass school in Alexandria. Our Origen, in fact, may even be the
homonymous neoplatonist repeatedly mentioned by Porphyry also in his Vita Plotini, but on this
see my Origen, Patristic Philosophy.
125
In his Eusebian fragment on Origen, Porphyry states that he met Origen in his own youth.
Porphyry was born in 232/3 C.E., and Origen died toward 255 C.E. (He was between 69 and 70 when
he died, according to Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 7.1. Since he was not yet seventeen when he lost his
father during Septimiuss persecution in 202 C.E.the tenth year of his reign according to Eusebius,
Hist. eccl. 6.2.2he was born in 186 C.E.; hence, he was 69 in 255, when he died, no later than
256 C.E.). Therefore, Porphyry was twenty-two or younger when he met Origen.
126
They are likely to be those located under the Antoninus of Emesa in De Styge, but who
may have met Bardaisan in the days of his namesake Marcus Aurelius as well (see above): What
concerns them runs as follows, as Bardaisan wrote; he was a man coming from Mesopotamia,
who lived in the time of our fathers, and met the Indians who partook in Dandamis expedition to
Caesar. (Eci oc to xot' outou toutov tov toaov, m Boopoovp ovp Boumvio, cai
tmv aotcmv pmv ycyovm, xoi cvtumv toi aci Aovooiv acaccvoi 'Ivooi ao tov
Koiooo, ovcyocv.)
Conclusions: Contribution to Research
It emerges from this investigation that the conception of apokatastasis had a
variegated background and certainly did not emerge with Origen all at once. It
was present toward the end of the second century and at the beginning of the third
in different Christian philosophical environments such as those of Alexandria
(Didaskaleion) and Caesarea (school and library of Origen), and that of Edessa
(Bardaisan and his school). All these connections, which shed new light on the origin
of the doctrine of universal salvation, seem to me worthy of reection and close
analysis. Origen is usually seen as the initiator of this theory, and indeed he was the
rst Christian philosopher who expressed it in a complete and fully coherent form,
making it the essence of his theoretical system.
127
But as Clement and, even more,
Bardaisan suggest, Origens insight did not emerge in a vacuum. It was evoked by
reection on human free will and its relationship to Gods justice and goodness
and love, in a polemic that was directed above all against predestinationism. The
same polemic against determinism and predestinationon the part of an author
who, just like Origen, wrote against Valentinian and Marcionite theories, as several
testimonia and the Liber itself indicatewas the basis for the development of
Bardaisans thought concerning human free will and apokatastasis. It is remarkable
that almost at the same time both Origen and Bardaisan, one in Alexandria and the
other in Edessa, held the very same doctrine of apokatastasis. Bardaisan may even
have supported it somewhat before Origen. The latter certainly found important
premises for his doctrine in Clements conceptions and in the necessity of arguing
against determinism, which Bardaisan too had to face.
My hypothesis is that both Origen and Bardaisan developed this doctrine in
polemic with determinism, particularly Valentinian and astrological predest-
inationism. This is indicated, respectively, by Princ. 3, as I have argued, and by
the whole argument presented by Bardaian in the Liber. In order to oppose such
forms of determinism and, as Runus realized, to deny that everything depends
either on fate or on chance, they created an alternative theodicy by postulating the
very same nature for all rational beings, their free will, and its consequences during
the worlds or aeons (oimvc) (i.e., the different conditions in which the intellectual
creatures [voc] are found to be during the aeons, depending on their own choices
and regulated by Gods justice) and at the same time posited providential action on
Gods part that is respectful of each individuals free will but leads all to salvation
as a gift of grace and as a consequence of the nal eviction of evil.
Both Origen and Bardaian supported the doctrine of apokatastasis against
determinism and predestinationism, just as, one and a half centuries after them,
Gregory of Nyssa supported it against Arianism, especially in his In Illud. Tunc
127
See Ramelli, Christian Soteriology; eadem, Apocatastasi; and Tzamalikos, Origen:
Philosophy of History.
et Ipse Filius and elsewhere.
128
This doctrine was formulated and promulgated in a
polemical framework at the philosophical and theological level. Indeed, the rst
emergence of the theory of apokatastasis in Clement, Bardaisan, and Origen shows
that this theory took shape in the context of philosophical discussions on free will,
fate, theodicy, and the eternal destiny of rational creatures.
I think that a comparative study of Origen and Bardaisan leads to a better,
deeper, and wider understanding of the historical and theoretical roots of this
doctrine, which was stimulated by a philosophical framework rich in debates on
free will and theodicy. These seem to have influenced its first clear and coherent
expositions in Christian philosophy, that is to say, not only Origen`s formulation,
but also that of Bardaisan. Even though Origen`s codification is more important
and extensive, that of Bardaisan, which is strikingly similar for many aspects I
have endeavored to point out, may have shortly preceded it, and perhaps even had
an impact upon it. Moreover, premises are to be found in Clement and, even if in
a narrative and not theoretical form, in some early Christian apocrypha, some of
which were surely known to Clementwho regarded the Apoc. Pet. as inspired
ScriptureOrigen and Bardaisan. They are very likely to have influenced them,
in addition of course to what subsequently became the canonical Scripture, to all
of which Origen and Nyssen continually have recourse in order to buttress their
doctrine of universal salvation.
128
See the essay on Gregorys In Illud. Tunc et Ipse Filius in Ramelli, Gregorio di Nissa
Sullanima; eadem, In Illud. . . . Gregory of Nyssas Interpretation. On Arianism I refer to
Lewis Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) who challenges several
assumptions on Nicene and Arian theology, and to the discussion of his study in HTR 100 (2007)
125241, especially the frame provided by Sarah Coakleys introduction at 12538. Interesting
novelties are also proposed by Henryk Pietras, Lettera di Costantino alla Chiesa di Alessandria
e Lettera del sinodo di Nicea agli Egiziani (325)i falsi sconosciuti da Atanasio? Gregorianum
88 (2008), who argues that the two letters cited in the title, which most stress the condemnation of
Arius, were unknown to Eusebius and Athanasius because they are apocryphal. I am very grateful
to Henryk Pietras for letting me read his study before its publication.

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