The Vexations of an Anti-Origen Universalist

I don't have any personal problem with Origen, I'm sure he was a nice guy and a Faithful follower of Jesus.  But as far as internal disagreements between Christians go Universal Salvation is about the only thing I agree with him on.  

He played an important role in the development of so many Middle Platonist/Neopythagorean tendencies that I consider at the root of everything wrong with Mainstream Christianity.  From his weird views on The Resurrection and the Immortality of the Soul to Divine Transcendence and Immutability and Impassability to Asceticism and Puritanical Sexual Morality and Infant Baptism and Free Will and his hyper allegorical approach to Scripture not to mention the Proto-Arianism in his Logos Doctrine founded on the bad Septuagint translation of Proverbs 8:22-25.

I recently purchased A Larger Hope?, Volume 1 by Ilaria L. E. Ramelli off Amazon and found it very frustrating.  I feel it's counterproductive for Universalists to play along with the idea that Origen is the main character in the history of Universalism.  Because if everyone after Origen is getting it directly or indirectly from Origen then that weakens the doctrine, if it all goes back to one guy who was controversial even while he was alive being exiled from Alexandria by it's actual Bishop, that's not a good look.  Not to even mention how that narrative reinforces the Great Man Theory of History.

Even when talking about people before Origen she says it's not "fully developed" yet.  To me the Doctrine of Universal Salvation is fully developed by Scripture itself, it's departing from it that required post Biblical Theological innovations, and the main Pre-Nicene culprits I blame for laying the groundwork are Tatian (who said he was Anti-Plato even though his theology was identical to contemporary Middle Platonism and was Proto-Arian in the same way Origen was) then Tertullian perhaps unintentionally in how he translated some Greek words into Latin and Cyprian of Carthage.  But the different forms of Infernalism are fully developed during the Theodosian era by Augustine of Hippo, Pelagius of Britannia, John Chrysostom and Cyril of Alexandria.

What we need to stress is not just that the earliest critics of Origen didn't include his Universalism in their critiques of him but that Methodius of Olympus is even teaching Universal Salvation in the exact same text he wrote to refute Origen On The Resurrection.  If Origen taught Universal Salvation more clearly and explicitly then anyone prior to him, it may be in response to Cyprian being the first to teach that there is no Salvation outside The Church.

Because the thing is those first Theodosian enemies of Universal Salvation were weaponizing the association with Origen from the start, Pelegius explicitly said when defending himself that anyone who accepts a face value reading of Romans 5 is an Origenist and that is why that council exonerated him.  Ironically I feel Arminians should stop embracing Pelegius for the same reasons, the association of Pelegius with Arminianism began as a Calvinist attack on Arminainism.

When Ramelli gets to discussing the Antiochene School even then she still wants to define their Universal Salvation as being argued with arguments similar to Origen's.  But it was that school that was founded on opposition to Origen's influence being the opposite of him in their approach to Scripture, on that issue being even more Anti-Origenist then I am.  That they taught Universal Salvation even more clearly and unambiguously should be the death nail to labeling it as inherently Origenist.

She also began her discussion of Antioch with Diodorus of Tarsus.  Theophilus of Antioch taught Universal Salvation in the 2nd Century and died around the same time Origen was born.  And then there is the representative of Antioch at the Council of Nicaea, Eustathius of Antioch.

Eustathius is one of the least talked about major theologians of who were at Nicaea, and thus his absence from Ramelli's book was one of my major disappointments with it.  The most in-depth discussion of Eustathius I've found was an article titled The Theological Anthropology of Eustathius of Antioch by Sophie Hampshire Cartwright.  Thing is I can't find that PDF simply googling it anymore which is why I'm glad I'd downloaded it.  

This article talks about how firmly Anti-Origen Eustathius was, however my main criticism of it is when it talks about Universal Salvation starting on page 370.  It acknowledges the Universalist implications of a lot of what Eustathius taught, yet insists he ultimately didn't believe in Universal Salvation because he referred to "Aionios Punishments" and "unquenchable fire" even though both those Biblical concept are acknowledged by all Biblical Universalists.  Aionios means "The Age" not Eternal and refers to when the Punishments happen not for how long, the Fire is described as Unquenchable to tell us about the Fire itself not how long anyone will be in it, the Fire is the very presence of God, it is the Baptism of The Holy Spirit.

It also talks about Eustathius as a bit of a Proto-Nestorian showing that his connection to the later Antiochene School isn't just a coincidence of location.

Athanasius of Alexandria and Eusebius of Caesarea were both fans of Origen to some extent.  And even Gregory of Nyssa had also probably read Origen. But they were still not following some of his more out there ideas.  

In time the Alexandrians were probably the first in the East to depart from Universal Salvation as we see with Cyril of Alexandria who had at one point thought even Augustine was too merciful.  

And the relationship between Origenism and Caesarea has a nuance I feel many overlook.  Theophilus of Caesarea was the teacher of Clement same as Clement was the teacher of Origen, so they could have got it from Caesarea rather then the other way around, then awkwardly mixed it with their Platonism which was very native to Alexandria.

It is I suppose also important to me to stress that Origen's belief in Universal Restoration was in-spite of his interest in Platonism not because of it.  The traditional view of Hell is another mainstream Christian Doctrine that comes from Platonism not Scripture being taught in Gorgias.  Plato may not have meant it to be taken literally, but Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism were all about taking Plato literally and nothing else.

But the final act of my rant here shall be about what Salvation even is to Origen.  

Origen's Salvation involves everything becoming one with God in a way that implies a loss of individuality.  It likely has it's Biblical roots in Ecclesiastes 12:7, but that verse is about what happens at physical death, Christians who have a proper Understanding of The Resurrection believe that is undone at The Resurrection, to Origen however it seems that Resurrection is only a step in making that happen.  The only time Origen's ideas resemble Stoicism is the one aspect of Stoic Metaphysics I consider incompatible with The Bible.

What Origen believed about the ultimate destiny of every Human Soul doesn't sound like Salvation to me at all, it sounds like the Human Instrumentality Project.... and that's the real reason I hate Origenism so much, talking about it causes me to make a Neon Genesis Evangelion reference.

The Gospel is the Bodily Resurrection, that we all live Forever with God in a perfectly restored but still Material and Physical Universe.

Divine Impassability and Divine Immutability

Are two doctrines that I had mistakenly conflated with each other in some of my past posts mentioning Divine Impassability on this blog. But they are related.

Divine Impassibility is the position that God did not suffer when Jesus was on Th Cross, it doesn't deny the Divinity of Christ, but holds that it was only in His Humanity that He Suffered.  Divine Immutability is the position that God doesn't change.  They tend to go together because Suffering is often both the cause and effect of some kind of Change.

The three way dispute between Chalcedonian, Nestorian and Miaphysite Christologies from the 5th and 6th Centuries is arguably pure semantics since all three were/are Nicene Trinitarians who view Christ as both Fully Divine and Fully Human.  The Nestorians held that Christ has two Natures, Divine and Human, that are not in any way mixed.  The Miaphysite position is that Christ has One Nature that is both Divine and Human.  The Chalcedonian position is that Christ had Two Natures, Divine and Human, that are mixed in the Incarnation.  The Bible doesn't directly address any of that, but my understanding of the Biblical Metanarrative leads me to favoring the Chalcedonian position, even if there are some details of the Chalcedonian Confession I don't like.

Thing is what makes these disputes a little less semantical are the other issues tied into them.  My greatest affinity with Nestorianism is that I don't like calling Mary Theotokos.  However since the technical accuracy of the term is not my issue with it, it's really irrelevant to the actual dispute Nestorius, Cyril and others were having 15 centuries ago.

While Divine Impassability is affirmed by theologians in all three camps, it was the Nestorians for whom it was the core of their position, and they alone who accused both other camps of rejecting Divine Impassability whether they would have self identified as doing so or not.  That is why in-spite of my respect for the Ancient Church of the East and how much I prefer the Antiochene School's approach to Scripture over the Alexandrian, I have to reject Nestorian Christology.

Thing is the Nestorians were not wrong to suggest that it's rather illogical to claim Divine Impassability if you believe the Divine and Human Natures were fully United in the Incarnation.  Cyril of Alexandria's attempts to justify himself on this involved a lot of Platonist Philosophical nonsense.  And that is why I unapologetically reject Divine Impassability.

But I still oppose misrepresenting Nestorius or the Ancient Church of The East, they did and still do believe Christ was one Person/Personality.  But the Miaphysites also get misrepresented, they were NOT Monophysites.

The Fifth Ecumenical Council affirmed the Theopaschite formula in it's 10th Canon.  And yet Impassability has still been affirmed by theologians belonging to Churches that nominally uphold that Council, thanks to Augustine's influence in the West and Cyril's in the East, so that canon gets ignored.  When the Fifth Council is brought up today it's only to debate what/who it did or did not condemn, never what it affirmed.  But getting the Theopaschite Formula affirmed was the whole point of the Council at the time, Justinian thought that would be the key to mending the Chalcedonian schism.

The fact that I agree with Justinian on the Theopaschite formula doesn't change that I despise him as a Ruler.  His obsession with trying to force everyone to agree only made them dig their heels in deeper.

Another issue related to the Divine Impassability v Theopaschite debate is Patripassianism, did The Father also suffer?  I would argue He Suffered in the way any Father watching His Son Suffer would Suffer, but that is distinct from feeling the Physical pain.

Augustine of Hippo used to be a Manichean Gnostic, and the whole reason he once held a Gnostic attitude towards the God of the Old Testament was because he was uncomfortable with the idea of God being so Emotional.  It was Ambrose telling he can just allegorize away all of those verses that finally enabled Augustine to abandon Gnosticism and become "Orthodox".  To me it is Augustine being someone who doesn't want an Emotional God that is the source of everything wrong with this Theology.

While strictly speaking the word Impassibility refers to is Suffering, to some this doctrine refers to God not feeling Pleasure as well.  To me this rejecting of God being an Emotional being at all is pure Platonic/Pythagorean heresy and utterly in conflict with The Hebrew Bible and The New Testament which teaches that God Is Love as the experience of Love tends to involve both Pleasure and Pain.

On the subject of Divine Immutability, it depends what you mean by it.  Malachi 3:6 is what most gets abused here as people keep quoting it while ignoring it's context.  That God keeps His Promises doesn't change, that He Is Love won't change, therefore He will NOT allow His People to be Consumed.  That Core aspect of Who God Is does not change.  It's the same with Hebrews 13:8 "Jesus Christ is the same Yesterday, Today and Forever" the context is about Grace and Jesus being a Sacrifice offered for us, it's about His essential character not some absolute declaration that nothing can ever change, as Romans 8:35 and it's context make clear.

But The Bible also refers to God Repenting (See Exodus 32:14 and Numbers 14:12-20; Jonah 3:10; Amos 7:3-9; Jeremiah 26:3), repent means to change one's mind.  And I feel the whole point of the Incarnation is that Humanity and Divinity are both permanently changed by being United in Christ.  The Hyper Immutability that is favored by Nestorius, Cyril and Augustine is again a heresy based on the Greek and Roman Churches' infatuation with Platonic and Pythagorean theology, not Scripture.

Divine Immutability doesn't begin with Plato or Pythagoras however but with Xenophanes.

There is also the matter of one of the most vital passages to defining God in all of scripture.  The famous "I Am that I am" statement, many scholars have argued a more accurate translation would be "I Am who I Am Becoming" or "I Will Be whom I Will Be", meanings that imply change even if in a paradoxical way due to God's knowing the future.  I personally have grown to like "I Am whom I Will Be", "Watashi wa watashi ga dare ni naru ka".

Update September 2022: I bought Robert C. Gregg and Dennis E. Groh's Early Arianism - a view of salvation for the purpose of research on the Arian controversy I'm doing for the sake of a possible future post.  But two things I didn't expect to learn were. 1. Arius had a fixation on Divine Impassability similar to the future Nestorians.  2. The Arians used Divine Immutability against the Nicenes by proving the changeability of The Son.  And this was kind of their greatest strength because Athanasius was unwilling to abandon Divine Immutability.

The Changeability the Arians the argued for The Son was for Improvability, which you may at first think doesn't correlate to the Changeability I am here arguing for The Godhead, but from a certain point of view it is.  God incarnating and becoming fully Human made Him a better God.  Hebrews stresses how Jesus faced all the Temptations normal humans face yet never sinned.  Not sinning is easy when you aren't even tempted, it is facing Temptation and beating it that is a true accomplishment.

The Pagan Greek Origins of Puritan Sexual Morality.

I wrote an Amazon Review for the book Plato or Paul?: The Origins of Western Homophobia by Theodore W. Jennings Jr.  [I recently learned that Jennings had passed away in 2020, may he Rest in Peace.]

I have also more recently obtained The Classical Origins of Modern Homophobia by Robert H. Allen.  I may also write an Amazon Review for it. 

I first learned about the Homophobia of Plato's The Laws however when I discovered this Website.

https://people.well.com/user/aquarius/

In it's article Plato: The Serpent in the Garden of Sexuality.  

My own past blog posts on this issue are a bit outdated now due to their references to things I've since changed my mind on, or at least now have a more informed opinion on.  Like how I had fallen into the trap of mistakenly thinking there was anything Communist or Socialist about either of Plato's proposed political systems.

Each of those three discussions of this issue have areas I disagree with.  None are as "Conservative" as I am about the origins of The Bible.  Only Jennings agrees with me that Paul is on our side, and Allen's agenda is not to exonerate The Bible of Homophobia at all, he alone of them agrees with the Homophobic reading of even the Leviticus verses.  Actually he cites a Saul Olyan that it's specifically referring to Male on Male Anal Penetration, which is close to my old position, but I now believe the "Wife's Bed" and "Abomination to Her" readings are the key to proving this is not a unilateral condemnation of any specific Sex act much less any type of relationship.

I think Jennings's theory on what Arsenokoites refers to (which is that it's essentially Rape) is probably most correct.  But I don't agree with his argument against it being in any way an allusion to the Leviticus verses, I simply think what he correctly argues Arsenkoites refers to, is what some people in Ancient Corinth and Ephesus thought those Leviticus verses were about.  His argument that Paul doesn't generally cite Leviticus to make moral arguments is irrelevant to the Vice Lists, because in those he was just using terms his audience would be familiar with, the vice lists are not themselves arguments against the behaviors listed.

I think Jennings's break down of Romans 1 is useful. but I still mainly side with Colby Martin's take on that in his Unclobber series.  Which is that Romans 1:18-32 is a rhetorical rant, that he's laying out the worldview the Epistle as a whole is written against, paraphrasing passages from Wisdom of Solomon and adding in Philo's usage of the "Para Phusis" concept introduced in The Laws, in order to spend the rest of the Epistle refuting that world view, in Romans 11 what God does is Para Phusis clearly rejecting the idea that being Para Phusis is immoral.

And Allen's cynical readings of The Bible lead to similar issues with extra-Biblical Church writers as well.  Clement of Alexandria was the first Christian to bring this "Para Phusis" Sexual Morality into the Church.  The crime of "corrupting youth" in works like the Didache is not Homosexuality or anything Sexual, just as it wasn't when Athens executed Socrates for that crime.  I likewise feel Allen is being unfair to both Justin Martyr and Tertullian.

The reason why I didn't put Plato in the title of this post is because Allen argues Pythagorean Philosophy and it's Dualism is the ultimate origin of this problem.  He argues Authentic Plato may have been at least partially influenced by Pythagoreanism, but also argues that The Laws as we have it is not an authentic work of Plato but a forgery produced and transmitted primarily by Pythagoreans.  And I think he might be correct on that.  Here is a YouTube video expressing similar ideas about the origins of Laws and how to interpret The Republic.

But still Authentic Plato or not the development of Platonic Schools of Philosophy was influenced by The Laws on these issues and others, which in turn influenced Roman Stoicism, Neopythagoreanism, Hellenistic Judaism, Gnosticism, The Alexandrian School of Christianity, and Neo-Platonism, which also all influenced each other in late Antiquity culminating in John Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria and Augustine of Hippo.  Allen also documents how across the board Pagan Roman Society was Homophobic having been influenced by Southern Italian Pythagoreanism long before they even came into contact with the Eastern Mediterranean.

However another theory on the perceived inconsistencies between The Laws and the seemingly more positive Sexual attitudes expressed in works like Symposium is that Plato changed over the course of his life, perhaps partly from Pythagorean influence.  The Laws is considered the very last book he wrote and Symposium one of the earliest.

But going back to more indisputably authentic Plato, the title character of Timaeus (who's still around during Critias) is inferred to be a Pythagorean in the text of that dialogue.  So what Timaeus says can reasonably be presumed to be at least what Plato thought the Pythagoreans believed.  And it's from Timaeus we get what's considered the Platonist Creation Myth including the The Demiurge.  What's up for debate is how much the author wants us to take the title character and his ideas seriously.

The Website I linked to up top also has interesting stuff on the "Born Eunuch" issue and other subjects.  But it's article The Historic Origins of Church Condemnation of Homosexuality I don't recommend.  I have found no other sources claiming Eusebius of Nicomedia was ever referred to as a Eunuch.  meanwhile the pro Nicene Emperor Constans was a known Homosexual, before Theodosius I it was the Arian Emperors who were far more oppressive to those who disagreed with them.  [Update: So the Eunuch he's talking isn't the Bishop of Nicomedia who died in 341 but a different Eusebius mentioned in Athanasius's History of The Arians during the "Papacy" of Liberius.  Still I feel it's wrong to say the Arian controversy is why The Church embraced this Pythagorean sexual morality.  There were clearly Homosexuals and Platonists on both sides, Arian theology wouldn't be possible without the Timaeus based distinction between the Demiurge and the Monad, though making that distinction arguably begins with Numenius of Apamea in the 2nd Century.]

It's not just Homophobia, condemning all Sex Outside Marriage has the same roots in The Laws attributed to Plato.  As well as the idea that Sex is only for Reproduction which 1 Corinthians 7 explicitly contradicts.  What's almost Prophetic about it is how it talks about using Religion to condition society to react to Same Sex love the same way they do Incest.  These people were never fully able to get the Greeks to believe such things about their Native gods, but once many Greeks started worshiping the God of Abraham without a proper understanding of Bronze Age Semitic culture, that was when this long term scheme to lie about God's attitude towards Sex was able to take off.

Here is another Article I found about Pythagorean Sexual Morality.  And here is one on Pythagoras and Celibacy.

And it's not just the Sexual Morality of The Laws either.  Some people accuse Plato of being Proto-Fascist just based on The Republic, but The Laws is even more indistinguishable from the actual definition of Fascism.  Allen argued that the Pythagorean movement was tied to Totalitarianism already even before Plato's time.  Meanwhile the Calvinist view of Election which derives from Augustine's Gnostic Predestinationism lends itself well to the in-group vs out-group mentality.

Connecting this Sexual Morality to Platonism is useful because of how many other Unbiblical Ideas to enter Christianity are also tied to Plato's both direct and indirect influence on Greco-Roman Church Writers, including ideas opposed by many Conservative Evangelicals today.  So maybe a good way to open some minds is to show how these Sexual attitudes are tied to other doctrines they don't like.

Not all Platonist Ideas to enter the Church became part of Mainstream Christian thought.  Gnosticism and Marcionism were condemned as Heretical, as well as the Pre-Existence of Souls doctrine often associated with Origen, and Arianism which was also influenced by the Theology of Timaeus.  Still those ideas are related to things that did become mainstream.  Most casual Christians do have a fairly Platonist Understanding of the Immortality of the Soul simply minus the Reincarnation and Pre-Existence (Pope Benedict XII's Benedictus Deus in 1336 basically canonized the After Life depicted in Gorgias for the Western Church.), which in turn helps lead to Full Preterism and any other Eschatology that denies a Literal Bodily Resurrection. 

Divine Impassability and Divine Immutability which I plan on making a separate post on are also tied to Platonist understandings of The Divine.  And a section in Gorgias definitely influenced the Traditional Judeo-Christian understanding of Hell and The Lake of Fire.

Evangelicals who don't like how more mainline denominations have been rejecting taking The Old Testament literally should know that not only is that a Platonist influence but the Allegorists are open about that.  In Brad Jersak's seminar on the subject he brags about how the Early Church Fathers decided to take the same approach to the Hebrew Bible that Plato and other Philosophers took to Homer and Hesiod.  He leaves out how the Antiochene School rejected that idea and were hyper-literalists.

Even Plato wasn't wrong on everything, he correctly concluded that the Earth was Round.  And that is why the most openly anti-Plato Christians on YouTube right now are the Flat Earthers.  So someone should explain to them how their Puritan Sexual morality has the same Platonist roots.  Still these Flat Earthers are unwittingly Pythagorean themselves with their Dome Cosmology resulting in a hard separation between the Divine and Earthly realms, and Rob Skiba even entertaining the view that we didn't have physical bodies before The Fall which is outright Gnostic.

One Pythagorean idea that was only ever accepted among some of the Full Blown Gnostics was Reincarnation, that one was especially impossible to make fit into The Bible.  But I do feel those who on Eschatology argue John The Baptist was the return of Elijah promised by Malachi's final verse are unwittingly planting a seed for it.

Over the course of the 2nd through 6th centuries Greco-Roman Christians increasingly took on Platonist Influences but in different ways.  Some seemed to be taking the Dialogue structure more so then any Metaphysics.  However when I look at Athenagoras of Athens who came a little before even Clement, it seems like the Sexual Morality of Laws was one of the first aspects of Platonism Christians embraced.  Maybe it's because even early on Paul's use of Para Phusis was easy to misunderstand.  Or maybe it's because this Minority religion mistakenly felt they should be rebelling agaisnt the Morals of mainstream Greek Society which it so happened was also what the Pythagoreans were doing.

Some similarities between Neoplatonism and Hellenic Judeo-Christians are the former being influenced by the latter, Numenius of Apamea definitely studied Jewish Platonists like Philo, and Ammonius Saccas was raised a Christian but then left the faith before becoming a teacher of Plotinus.  The puritanical Sexual Morality however definitely began with the Platonists not the Christians as this post has shown.

The Pagan Egyptian Origins of Antisemitism

The first thing I want to clarify is that this post is not in any way being done with an agenda to exonerate Christianity of the Antisemitism we've been guilty of.  The origins of Antisemitism have nothing to do with the fact that The Church has over a Millennia of Jewish Blood on it's hands.  Antisemtism was creeping into the Church already before Constantine and once we held state power we quickly became it's driving force.

And yes that means that during the last 15 centuries even most Antisemitism committed by non Christians is still indirectly a product of the cultural influence of Christian Antisemitism.  Islamic Antisemitism has it's roots in the Antisemitism of the Eastern Roman Empire and the Axumite kingdom that had been festering for decades before Muhammad was born.  And whatever your theory on the actual religious views of the Nazi Party leadership, they didn't invent German Antisemitism, it was a bandwagon they jumped onto that had been jump-started by Martin Luther's On The Jews and Their Lies and reached it's zenith with Houston Stewart Chamberlain who definitely saw himself as a Christian whether you like his doctrines or not.

If this post has an agenda at all, it's to convince Christians not to be Antisemitic, a common tactic in trying to argue that something the Church has been doing for a long time is something we shouldn't do is to point out it was already a part of the Pre-Christian Pagan Greco-Roman culture and so our adopting it rather then opposing it is evidence of the Church's corruption.  I've on this blog already taken that tactic in my wars against Homophobia and Puritan Sexual Morality and the doctrine of Endless Torment.

In other words I'm arguing the fact that the Pagans did it first is all the more reason we should have known better.

Still there are some secularists out there, particularly of the New Atheist persuasion, who want to claim Antisemitism is an inherently Christian problem and would never have existed without Christianity.  So refuting that can be viewed as a secondary goal of this post, but it's of much lower priority.

You might at first assume the thesis of this post is going to be that Antisemitism began with the Hebrews being slaves in Egypt, but while the Exodus narrative has a role to play in what I'll talk about here, directly speaking no it's not.

The fact is there isn't really anything much like what we today think of as Antisemtism in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), just Israel as a nation having enemies the way most nations inevitably do.  The closest would be the example of Haman in the book of Esther, but even then that is the story of one weird nut-job who tried to commit Genocide because one Jew bruised his ego.  Some modern fiction based on the book has sought to make Haman more like a modern Antisemite, the movie where he's played by Gaius Fraking Baltar is a ridiculously fun film, but not a good history lesson.  Antiochus Epiphanes is another kinda Biblical figure often linked to the history of Antisemitism, but he was a King oppressing the indigenous people of a land in his empire, so an asshole but a different kind of asshole.

What we're looking for is Diaspora Jews being painted as a simultaneously internal and external threat to the nation they live in, as a boogeyman who is simultaneously incredibly weak and incredibly powerful.

The Jewish Diaspora in Egypt probably begins with the Elephantine Colony, the origin of which is controversial.  But it's traditionally said to have ended when the various Pagans of the Island suddenly rioted and destroyed the Elephantine temple, but that narrative too is shrouded in oral legend.

The history of Jews in Alexandria and Ptolemaic followed by Roman Egypt is what the focus of this post shall be.

Alexandria was founded by Alexander The Great in 332 BC, and from it's foundation Alexander gave any Jews who chose to move there the same privileges as the Greeks and Macedonians.  This city wound up becoming where Alexander would be buried and the capital of Ptolemy's Successor Kingdom, the "King of the South" of Daniel 11.  I can't discern when tensions between these different populations of Alexandria began, but tensions did emerge.

Manetho was an Egyptian Priest who lived in the Third Century BC, during the reign of either Ptolemy I or Ptolemy II Philadelphus he wrote a History of Egypt in Greek that is the source of our modern system of organizing the Kings of Egypt into 30 Dynasties.  We do not have what Manetho wrote in full, only how he was quoted and paraphrased by later sources, the oldest surviving of which is Josephus in his Against Apion, some scholars think even by Josephus time the original works of Manetho were already lost and he was only known from later revisions of what he wrote.  So maybe what I'm about to talk about didn't actually come from Manetho, but it was part of Manetho's history as it was known in the 1st Century AD.

That History included a sort of alternate Egyptian POV account of the Exodus narrative and the origins of the Jews, which later Greco-Egyptian writers expanded on.  Josephus while seeking to refute this narrative wound up accepting part of it, the identification of the Hebrews with the Hyksos.  That identification was made for the purpose of changing the Jews from the oppressed to the oppressors.

While this revisionist narrative began with the Hyksos identification it doesn't end there.  Moses is identified with an Egyptian Priest said to have lived much later then the Hyksos expulsion named Osarseph during the reign of a Pharaoh named Amenophis.  Amenophis is how Manetho commonly rendered the name Amenhotep, but chronologically this Amenophis seems to be the one who reigned after Rameses Miamun, the Pharaoh we commonly know as Merneptah.  This Osarseph led a revolt of lepers and other "unclean" people of Egypt and conspired with the Hyksos to temporarily drive Amenophis out of Egypt.  This is also the origin of thinking the Exodus happened during the 19th Dynasty, conventional chronology actually points more to an 18th Dynasty Exodus at the latest.

You can already see how a narrative like that parallels a lot of modern Antisemitic myths about where the Jews came from, like the whole Edomite Mud People nonsense, (when I first watched the pilot of Justified I figured that couldn't possibly be real a real thing, but I eventually learned it was).  A desire to see them as inherently degenerate and untrustworthy.

An apocryphal 1st Century text known as III Maccabees tells a story about Ptolemy IV trying to kill all the Jews of Alexandria by gathering them together and having them trampled by drunk Elephants but then being saved by divine intervention.  Josephus in Against Apion says this attempted Genocide was tried by Ptolemy VIII.  I'm amused by how many Christians like Bishop James Ussher prefer to side with III Maccabees on which one did this even though that text is clearly a dramatized narrative while Josephus was a Historian who in this particular work was focusing on things he was confident his enemies could fact check for themselves in the gentile sources they had.  But it could be this incident simply happened twice, Ptolemy VIII doesn't seem like someone known for having completely original ideas.

Remember all of this was going on in Alexandria while Alexandria was the cultural and intellectual capital of the Hellenistic world.  So what people thought of the Jews there often spread elsewhere.

Fortunately places where Antisemitism festered often had Philosemites to balance things out.  Cleopatra II was a great friend of the Jews who I'm a big fan of and think is much more worthy of having 100 films made about her then Cleopatra VII who we descendants of Rome find interesting simply because she shagged a couple famous Romans.  Speaking of Cleopatra VII, Josephus also records that during the siege of Alexandria she made a deliberate decision to try to starve the Jewish population to death.

Now we come to the Antisemitic crisis that occurred during the reign of Gaius Caligula.  Which Josephus talks about more in Antiquities of The Jews then in Agaisnt Apion.  But our main primary source isn't Josephus but Philo of Alexandria.  Philo wrote 5 books on this subject but only two of them have survived, Flaccus and Embassy to Gaius.  Most of our sources on the notorious Caligula are sources written after he died, Philo's Embassy is actually the only eye witness account of the Mad Emperor we have.

The Reign of Caligula is after Christianity already started to exist (unless you're a New Atheist conspiracy theorist), but we were still a sect of Judaism and hadn't really spread outside of Judea and Syria yet.  I remember reading one early source I've forgotten that said it was 12 years after the Crucifixion that the Apostles first left Judea, even by the earliest plausible date for the Crucifixion, 29 AD, the entirety of Caligula's reign is within 12 years.

The Governorship of Flaccus was only when these tensions finally first boiled over into the Alexandrian Riots of 38 AD.  In Embassy we see that Caligula himself was quite Antisemitic, which may well be a product of how much he desired to be like the Ptolemies which was also part of the reason for his incest with Drusilla.  He called the Jews "hated of the gods" showing even the desire to make Antisemitism theological was already there.

This crisis was not the end of the Antisemitism in Alexandria, Josephus was born after Caligula died and he wrote Against Apion after he'd already written Wars of the Jews and Antiquities of The Jews in response to Antisemitic Alexandrians saying his history of the Jews was BS.  But at the same time Josephus was opposing those views Tacitus was reinforcing them.

But the question now is, can I draw a line from that Antisemitism to the beginnings of Christian Antisemitism?

There is one quote of Ignatius of Antioch that is sometimes called Antisemitic.  What he says in that quote I consider wrong as it's an early expression of what I call Reverse Legalism, which is an attitude often expressed by Antisemtic Christians but I do not consider it inherently Antisemitic on it's own.  It was solely him expressing an opinion on what Christians should and shouldn't do in our worship.

So the first really major expression of Antisemitism in the Early Church was the Pseudepigrapha known as the Epistle of Barnabas.  There are a few reasons to suspect that epistle was Egyptian in origin.  Our earliest references to it among Early Church writers are Clement and Origen, and the oldest text of it we have is it's inclusion in the Sinaticus, one of the Alexandrian Bibles.  I also have another theory I'm working on that would explain why Alexandrians would have been particularly interested in forging a work in the name of Barnabas, but that would be a distraction here.

There is an Antisemitic quote attributed to Origen, but I can't find a place online saying specifically what writing of Origen it's from.  So I have to consider this one iffy for now.

Constantius II was the first Christian Emperor to persecute the Jews and he's also known as the Arian Emperor because he was influenced by Arians, Arius was a deacon of Alexandria originally and his heresy is derivative of things Origen and Clement taught.  Some try to make Arius more philosophically Anitochian but there is no solid evidence Lucian actually taught anything proto-Arian.

John Crysostom is a source of some very Antisemitic quotes, but he seems to be atypical of the general attitude of Antiochian Christians at the time as the very context of those quotes are his outrage that most Christians in Antioch were actually getting along with The Jews.

But the major vital escalator of Antisemitism in Christianity was Cyril of Alexandria via his influence on Theodosius II and Augustine of Hippo.

And it was permanently cemented by Justinian as he was seeking to reconcile the Chlaceodnian and Miaphsyte traditions (which both revered Cyril) by scapegoating the Nesotrians and other Anitochians, and increased persecution of non-Christians in the Empire.  Revolts broke out against him in the Holy Land.

The Egyptian Heresy of Eternal Damnation

Augustine of Hippo and other Latin writers of his time are usually given as being the chief popularizers of Endless Torment (Augustine admitted in his writings that the majority believed in Universal Salvation).  But the key to most of Augustine's beliefs, (at least the ones I think he was wrong on, which are a lot of them), was his preference for an Allegorical Non-Literal interpretation of Scripture and willingness to borrow from Platonic Philosophy.

In the Greek speaking Church those two things were primarily characteristic of the Alexandrian School.  And indeed Augustine was known to have communicated with Cyril of Alexandria, and Cyril also taught Endless Torment.

And so ought we to reckon for ourselves; for to endure patiently, and maintain the conflict with courage, brings with it great reward, and is highly desirable, and wins for us the blessings bestowed by God: while to refuse to suffer death in the flesh for the love of Christ, brings upon us lasting, or rather never-ending punishment. For the wrath of man reaches at most to the body, and the death of the flesh is the utmost that they can contrive against us: but when God punishes, the loss reaches not to the flesh alone;----how could it?----but the wretched soul also is cast alone; with it into torments. Let our lot therefore rather be the honoured death; for it makes us mount up to the commencement of an eternal life, to which of necessity are attached those blessings also which come from the divine bounty: and let us flee from and despise a life of shame; a life accursed, and of short duration, and which leads down to bitter and everlasting torment.

From his Commentary on Luke Sermon 87.  The correspondence between Augustine and Cyril further confirms this (Letter 4*).

Sometimes Cyril has been cited as a supporter of Universal Salvation, but that is based on his reference to the Harrowing of Hell, which plenty of enemies of Universal Salvation do still believe in.

Don't forget that the text of the Apocalypse of Peter that removes the reference to the eventual Salvation of all Sinners is the one found in Egypt.  I have argued that that scene was in the original version.

Alexandrians who were okay with Universal Salvation like Clement, Origen and maybe Athanasius were okay with it in-spite of their Alexandrianism not because of it.  With Cyril we see there were counter examples among the Alexandrians, but I can't find any counter examples among the highly Literalist Antiochene School.  Even the Cappadocians' support of Universal Salvation seems to reflect closer affinity to Antioch then Alexandria, Cappadocia was not far from Nisibis and Edessa where offshoots of the School of Antioch existed during their lifetime, and Basil had been Bishop of Caesarea, home of another related school, and Gregory of Nazianzus obtained the position of Bishop of Constantinople with the help of Meletius of Antioch..  Gregory was also critical of Origen on some issues.  Among the Antiochians who strongly opposed the Allegorical approach of Origen was  Eustathius of Antioch who was at the Council of Nicaea and a strong ally of Athanasius in opposing Arianism, he blamed Origenism for Arianism, Eustathius's possible support of Universal Salvation is disputable.

Athanasius does seem to be an exception to the general rule among prominent Christian figures of Alexandria in general, his writings rarely quotes anything outside The New Testament and the few times he discuses Greek Philosophy he doesn't seem to have understood it well.   Maybe he wasn't a Literalist in a similar way to the Antiochians, but he was different from other Alexandrians.

It was the Alexandrian acceptance of Plato that opened the door for the endless punishment doctrine taught in The Republic to creep into the Church.  That Eternal Torment seemingly took the longest of any Platonic ideas to catch on in even the Alexandrian Church is all the more evidence of how Unbiblical it was.

Plato's later dialogues like Republic, Timaeus and Laws are thought to be heavily influenced by the Pythagoreans, Pythagoras was said to have spent some time in Egypt.  Plato also presents his family as passing down knowledge Solon learned in Egypt.  Clement of Alexandria himself claims Pythagoras and Plato got many of their teachings from the Egyptians.

The Ancient Egyptians believed the Hearts of the Impure were devoured by the monster Ammit condemning them to eternal restlessness.

The Bible itself gives good reason to trust Antioch over Egypt when it comes to Church History.  Acts strangely doesn't record an Apostolic Church being set up in Egypt at all, but Antioch is where Believers were first called Christians, and where Paul started most of his missions, and we know Peter was there for a time thanks to Galatians.

Many will accuse Universal Salvation of being something taught to appease the world, but to me it looks like the secular world, even specifically the politically and socially liberal or leftist world, doesn't actually object to hell that much.  The Horror Genre is now unwilling to settle for just death, they have to literally depict people going to Hell, like in Drag Me To Hell, or American Horror Story The Coven.  I watch a lot of YouTube Video Essays about popular culture from fellow SJWs, (Like Renegade Cut's Little Shop of Horrors video) and they're often obsessed with wanting actions to have consequences, ya know like the Hindu concept of Karma.  And some fans of The Last Jedi think Kylo Ren is beyond redemption.

What they find offensive about specifically Evangelical Christianity is the notion that Belief is the sole or primary determining factor. That it might be possible for a believer to lose Salvation, but impossible for someone who never believed no matter how nice they were to avoid Hell.  And these Christians sadly think that idea is how to separate Biblical Hell from the Egyptian concept of Ammit.

My old Second Resurrection post wasn't directly about Universal Salvation at all, simply arguing that there may even be some Unbelievers who aren't cast into the Lake of Fire to start with.  But since then my views have shifted a bit on the Lake of Fire.  Now I like to stress how backsliden believers will have it worse on the day of Judgment then those who never Believed based on passages like Luke 12.

But what's really controversial is that I'm even contemplating the possibility that after death/resurrection punishment is only for Believers. Jesus paid the full price of Sin, which was death, but those who enter a covenant relationship with Him take on certain responsibilities in addition to the benefits of that decision.  I'm not willing to state this definitively yet, but I see reasons to suspect it could be the case.

Which opens the possibly that some Nazis won't qualify at all, we can debate Hitler himself endlessly but some Nazis certainly hated Christianity, and wanted people to think Hitler was with them on that hence the dubious quotes in Table Talk.  And nothing is more offensive to the Left right now then suggesting Nazis could get off scottfree.  Oh and pretty much none of Japan's war criminals were Christians.

But I suppose they'll still find that preferable to the typical Christian view that whether or not Hitler gets into Heaven the Six Million Jews he killed certainly won't.

Why include that rant in a post mainly about associating the mainstream doctrine of Hell with Egypt?  Because lots of Conservative Christians see Egypt in The Bible as often representing The World.  Hence why Chad Schafer's book is doing so well.  So I'm showing that endless torment and/or annihilation is the doctrine of the Egyptian World.

I take The Bible Literally and beleive in Universal Salvation.

It annoys me how it's only with The Bible where people feel the need to go down this rabbit hole of "do you take the figures of speech literally?", no other book is talked about that way.  And yes there are also accounts of visions and dreams that use symbolic imagery.

One Baptist Pastor I used to know said he prefers to say he takes The Bible Seriously rather then Literally.  The thing is there are people who take nothing literally and feel from their POV they're taking it just as seriously.

What's important to be understood is that I'm a Six-Day Young Earth Creationist, and I believe in a literal Virgin Birth and Bodily Resurrection from The Dead.

I watched Brad Jersak's video about "How the Church Fathers interpreted Scripture" in which he makes many valid points I agree with.  But every time a prominent figure in the Universal Salvation community makes clear they're not a Creationist and don't take all of The Bible Literally, it reinforces a perception that you have to do that to believe God will Save Everyone.  But for me this doctrine is proven because I take Romans 5 and Ezekiel 16 highly literally.

Now I'm also not gonna say you have to agree with me on how to interpret Genesis to be a "True Christian", I'm not interested in heretic hunting.  The issue is I want Literalists to know that the Literal interpretation of Scripture supports Universal Salvation.  Ezekiel 16 taken literally promises restoration for Sodom.

Peter Hiett has an approach to Genesis and Revelation that is kind of similar to Jersak's, though he defines his view as being very literal.  The whole "time is relative from the viewpoint" argument could be useful to Creation Science.  But I'm firmly against any view that has any kind of Death already happening prior to Adam's Sin not even mainly because of anything Genesis says, but because of Romans 5, 1 Corinthians 15 and 2 Peter 3, those Chapters make a literal historical understanding of Genesis vital to New Testament theology.

Brad Jersak talks about The Bible coming in different genres, and yes I agree the Psalms and Job are not history books.  And most of Jesus parables I don't think are events that literally happened either.

But the problem is when does the Book of Genesis change genre from Myth to History?  Does it ever? Because it's clearly presenting itself as an ongoing narrative, the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11 are there to connect it's three different eras.  And then Exodus and Numbers genealogically link themselves to the later part of Genesis.

And Genesis has nothing truly comparable to what you see in Pagan myths, there are no embodiments of the elements or abstract concepts that also behave like sentient life forms.  Nor any myths about the Sun just not doing her job for awhile and hiding in a cave, we have an example of that at Ugarit but it didn't make it into The Bible.

Jersak says that a "man literally named Man and a woman named Living" is clearly a symbolic myth.  But you see all Hebrew names have meanings, Ancient languages weren't like modern English, all their names also were common words.  Adam's name means Human because his descendants were named after him, that's actually not what it originally meant, he was named after the substance he was made from.

It is only with Early Genesis that there is this attitude that thinking these events literally happened must somehow take away from learning it's applicable lessons.  I have a study called "Ye Hath God Said", I know full well there is a lesson to be learned here.  But we also learn lessons from the narratives told about Jesus and the Kings & Prophets of Ancient Israel, that doesn't mean those events didn't happen.

I'm absolutely someone who understands the importance of context, I just did a post on Dinosaurs and Dragons where I talk about the difference between literal zoological descriptions of animals and animals being used symbolically.

Brad Jersak talks about the Early Church as if none of them valued Literalism.  But actually the Antiochene School did, however their tradition was suppressed by Justinian following the 5th Ecumenical Council.

He also says that we should be careful about calling The Bible the Word of God because Jesus is The Word of God.  "Logos" is what's used of that title of Jesus in John 1, 1st John 1 and 1st John 5.  When Paul in Ephesians 6 refers to "the Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God", he says Rhema.  Church tradition has always understood there to be a distinction between between the Logos and the Rhema.

The issue when addressing the doctrine of Endless Torment in "Hell" isn't about if they're literal or not.  Even if you want to believe the KJV rendering is literally true it's still a matter of what's being called "Eternal" and what even does "Eternal" truly mean.  And then after that is the issue of understanding what the Greek and Hebrew truly said.

The only area where my approach can even be slightly called a less literal one is how I approach the Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man in Luke 16.  But again that is a parable, it's those wanting to Hellfire Preach from it treating it different then how they do other parables.  And I've done a post on that subject fully showing that even if it is a Literal event that actually happened it still doesn't prove endless torment.  The idea of endless punishment is refuted by Luke 12.

Do Universalists need to throw out certain books of The Bible?

I just found a website attacking Universal Salvation that acknowledges the Antiochian School taught it, and then says.

It was not without reason that the Antioch School refused to canonize the books of II Peter, II and III John, Jude and Revelation. The doctrine of the Universal Salvation could be easily refuted by these five books which contained so many verses on eternal judgment as to render them irrepressible:

I'm a proponent of Universal Salvation who is not at all afraid of these books.  The very verses from Jude they go on to cite are cited by me to prove "Eternal Fire" can't mean endless torment in both KJV Universal Salvation and Words Translated Eternal, because it's used of the fire that destroyed Sodom and in Ezekiel 16 Yahuah promises Sodom will be restored.  And I recently wrote a blog post on how Revelation points to Universal Salvation, and addressed The Lake of Fire in my posts on Gehenna and the Baptism of Fire.

As far as second Peter goes, they cited two verses referring to Judgment on Sinners, none inherently saying it'll be endless or even Aionion.  God's punishments are for Correction (Habakkuk 1:12 and Proverbs 3:11) and not endless (Matthew 5:26, Luke 12:59 and Matthew 18:34).  And again one of them was about Sodom and Gomorrah, which again we know will be restored because of Ezekiel 16.  2 Peter 3:9 is one of my favorite Universal Salvation proof texts, he says God is "not willing" that any should perish.

They didn't even cite anything from II or III John, those short books deal with Believers behaving badly which makes them attractive to those who say Salvation can be lost or that we need to be on guard for fake believers.  But nothing in those books refers to endless torment or annihilation as being their Punishment.  In III John it's clear the bad Christian we're to be concerned about is the one trying to kick others out.

This came up later in an article mainly opposing the Semitic New Testament theory, since the Aramaic Peshita lacks exactly the books listed above, and the Church of the East emerged largely from the Antiochene School.  I mostly agree with them that the original Language of most of The New Testament was Greek, I'm going to be doing a post on that in the near future.

They accuse Universal Salvation of being Gnostic by associating it with Clement, Origen and Diodore.  But they left out Gregory of Nyssa.  The Predestination doctrine of Augustine is what was condemned as Gnostic Hersey by the Pre-Nicene fathers, both Origen and Methodius of Olympus (who on many other issues disagreed with Origen) wrote books on the subject.

This website decided to just accept the worst slanders against Nesotrius and Theodore of Mopsuestia uncritically.  Theodore did NOT teach a from of Adoptionism, he wrote whole books on the Incarnation.

At any rate dispute on some of these books existed already before Nicaea, it used to be opponents of Pre-Millenial Eschatology just rejected Revelation altogether, like Eusebius of Caesarea, it was Augustine who enabled them to allegorize it away.

The Muratorian Fragment fails to mentions Either of Peter's Epistles or James or Hebrews and apparently includes only two of John's.  But it did include Jude.  And it adds the Apocalypse of Peter which affirms Universal Salvation.

I doubt this website approves of the Book of Enoch being added to the Canon, which I mention because the ancient arguments against Jude's inclusion were because it seemingly quotes Enoch.  So no, it being a problem for Universal Salvation was not the reason.

I do support the 27 Book New Testament as preserved by the Textus Receptus.  I just pointed out these facts to provide some context showing that Universal Salvation could not have been the issue.

Some of my allies give Enoch part of the blame for the development of the Endless Torment doctrine.  But while I definitely don't consider Enoch Canon, I do consider what it says about the fate of Azazel and his armies consistent with how I interpret the nature of the Lake of Fire.

 And he said unto me, “These are being prepared for the armies of Azazel, in order that they may take them and cast them into the abyss of complete condemnation, and as the Lord of the Spirits has commanded it, they shall cover their jaws with rocky stones. Then Michael, Raphael, Gabriel, and Phanuel themselves shall seize them on that great day of judgment and cast them into the furnace (of fire) that is burning that day, so that the Lord of the Spirits may take vengeance on them on account of their oppressive deeds which (they performed) as messengers of Satan, leading astray those who dwell upon the earth.”

It said "on account of their deeds" meaning the Punishment will fit the Crime.  Meanwhile the first 8 verses of the Book sound pretty Universalist.

In Richard Laurence's Translation "for ever" must be a bad translation (or the Ethiopic was a poor translation).   Chapter 10 Verse 8 describes a condition as "for ever" that the very next verse says will one day end.  And then verse 15 says "till the judgment that will last forever be completed"???????.  Repeatedly the imprisonment of the Angels is said to be "for ever" even though it's also defined as 70 Generations.

Enoch 22:13-14 is what most seemingly opposes Universal Salvation in the book.  But it is also a big problem for those who want to make it Canon, it explicitly says the Souls of Sinners won't rise from where they currently are on the day of judgment, this is explicitly contradicted by Revelation 20, 1 Corinthians 15, John 5 and Daniel 12.   It might be possible to argue all Jude was even vaguely endorsing was the first part of the book and not this later proto-Dante's Inferno.  Or this could be another textual corruption or translation issue and that verse meant to say their souls won't be destroyed or released from their prison until the Day of Judgment.

Origen was pretty fine with Enoch even though we know he supported a form of Universal Salvation.

Early Jewish-Christian groups.

The different early Jewish-Christian groups mentioned in Early Church writings are often confused with each other, some of that confusion may begin with the Greek and Latin fathers themselves not always treating them as different.  Nazarenes, Ebonites and Hebrews are three names that get thrown around.

The Nazarenes according to most references were not guilty of any major Heresies, they had the entire New Testament, they viewed Jesus as the Son of God and The Messiah, and believed in The Virgin Birth, and they did not reject Paul.  They were viewed as outside of Orthodox Christianity only because they kept Torah.

The Ebonites didn't believe Jesus was Divine in any way, used only an altered version of Matthew, and rejected Paul. (It seems most also rejected the Virgin Birth but there were exceptions.)

The name Nazarenes is Biblically used of Believers in Acts 24:5, but it is of outside origin just as much as the name Christian was.  Contrary to how some people present it, I feel the origin of the name Christians in Acts 11 at Antioch is presented positively.

A website called NazareneJudaism.Com claims the Nazarene sect were the True Church and seek to identify themselves as the heirs to that group.  They have a lot of good information, but I also have to disagree with them in many areas.  Mainly they think the fact that the Nazarenes kept the Law means they must have disagreed with "Christianity" that we're not under it anymore.

Justin Martyr in Dialogue with Trypho distinguished between Jewish-Christians who keep the law but don't teach it's obligatory, and those who teach it is obligatory.  I believe the former were the Nazarenes and the later the Ebonites, or this could be a disagreement among Nazarenes since Justin didn't allude to anyone rejecting Paul.  My own position is that keeping the Law can be beneficial, but we are not obligated to keep it.

The Nazarenes as I said used the proper New Testament, but they did have the original Hebrew version of Matthew.  Confusion seems to come in via that the altered Matthew the Ebonites used was called the Gospel According the Hebrews and sometimes of the Nazarenes.  In Bart Ehrman's Lost Scriptures of Christianity book, everything he puts under either the Nazarenes or the Ebonites I view as being from the Ebonite Gospel, and I think the Egyptian Gospel of the Hebrews may be the same as the Gospel of the Egyptians.

The Nazarenes viewed Jesus as the Son of God, but it's difficult to verify if they held a true Trinitarian doctrine.  What's said of their Christology could be interpreted as consistent with Arianism, or a view that Jesus had no pre-existence before being conceived in Mary's Womb (which is sometimes an aspect of Modalism).  It's difficult to know one way or the other.  However that the Arian Emperors engaged in a lot of Antisemitism makes me think them and the Nazarenes wouldn't have seen eye to eye.

According to http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/antioch the Gentile Christians of Antioch at least originally weren't that Antisemitic, but often joined the Jews in Synagogues.  But after the Church married Rome the establishment started trying to fight this.  It may not be a coincidence that the key adversaries of Nestorius (Cyril of Alexandria and the Sister of Theodosius II) were also highly Antisemitic.

In Antioch, various means were used to counteract the great influence which the Jews had upon the local Christians. The synod of Antioch (341) forbade the Christians to celebrate Easter when the Jews were observing Passover, and John Chrysostom of Antioch, in his six sermons (c. 366–387), vituperatively denounced those Christians in Antioch who attended synagogues and resorted to the Jewish law courts.

When Christianity became the state religion, the position of the Jews of Antioch deteriorated. The Jews of Imnestar were accused of having crucified a Christian boy on the feast of Purim, and the Antiochian Christians destroyed the synagogue (423 C.E.). When the emperor Theodosius II restored it, he was rebuked by Simon Stylites and refrained from defending the Jews. In the brawls between the sport factions known as the "blues" and the "greens," many Jews were killed.

So that may make interesting background for my Nestorians and the Church of The East post.  Epiphanius of Salamis associates the Nazarenes with Boreas (Aleppo) and Basanitis (Bashan), thus placing them near Antioch.

Some commentators view the Gospel reaching Damascus as fulfilling the Syria part of the Great Commission, but that's because of Old Testament Aram being misleadingly translated as Syria.  Antioch was the capital of the Roman Province of Syria, so the Church being established in Antioch by the end of Acts 11 is what I view as fulfilling the Syria part of the Great Commission.

Nestorianism and The Church of The East

My previous post on the subject of the Nestorian Schisim was a bit mistaken.  The actual Council of Calchedon happened after Cyril of Alexandria and Theodosius II had died.  And Miaphysite Christians tend to identify themselves as being the true followers of Cyril.

YouTuber Ryan Reeves has a series of informative videos on Church History, but they reflect his bias as a Protestant of the Reformed tradition.  He also reflects the very Western Bias in how we tend to view Church History, including when he talks about Nestorius as if the opposing side was the one vindicated by History.  Because the Church that did not condemn Nesotrius may well have actually been larger then all of Calchedonian Christendom at some points during the Middle Ages.

Catholic Apologists will often attempt to smear Protestants by associating them with Nestorianism, chiefly because of the refusal to call Mary by the title Theotokos (Mother of God or God Bearer).  Protestants will respond by saying something like "Nesotrius was disputing the title's technical accuracy while we're concerned with quasi deification".  The thing is it's not like the Nesotrian controversy was already raging and then the Theotokos dispute was a symptom, it was the inciting incident, that's how it started.  And there are other ways in which Nestorians have been compared to Protestants.

In my opinion the core disagreement between Calchedonians, Miaphysites and Nestorians is semantical.  They all view Jesus as both Divine and Human, and as not being one more then He is the other.  Critics of Nestorius have greatly exaggerated the implications of what he taught, there is nothing "Schizophrenic" about the Nestorian view of Jesus because the issue in mind is His Nature(s) not His Personality.  Still, if I had to choose, the Nestorian position on this is the least likely to be the one I'd take, I prefer to think of Deity and Humanity as united or made one in Christ.  So I'm going to defend Nestorians not out of intellectual agreement but out of respect for their Labor for The Gospel.

Ryan Reeves seems to feel that the Nestorian view is a problem for the doctrine of Salvation, specifically of Jesus dying as our substitute. Jesus was our substitute because He was of Adam's flesh and blood, but was without Sin, He was tempted but never sinned.  And it was only His Divinity that made that Sinslessness possible.  The semantic technicalities of how they relate are irrelevant to that.  So no, what Nestorius taught was not inherently related to the Pelagian Hersey.  It is also wrong to suggest that Nestorius believed in something bordering on Adoptionism as Ryan Reeves makes it sound.

The Ancient Church of the East or Assyrian Orthodox Church, does not really call themselves Nestorian.  They refused to condemn him as a Heretic and for that reason rejected the 3rd and all following Ecumenical Councils, but his teachings are not considered core defining doctrines of their Church.  Now there are people who would call themselves Nestorians both within and without that Church, but that position is not the definition of the Church itself.  And I've seen Church of the East followers say they agree that the doctrine that was condemned at Ephesus 1 was Heresy, they just view it as wrong to attribute that to Nestorius.

Before the Council of Ephesus even happened the Christians who were east of what the Roman Empire controlled were already becoming isolated from the Roman Church, partly because the persecutions they faced from the Persian Government were often politically justified by their being associated with a foreign rival nation.

The Council of Ephesus in 431 was really two Councils, one lead by Cyril, who started it before most Bishops likely to be sympathetic to Nestorius arrived, that excommunicated Nestorius without him even being there.  And then when the other Bishops arrived they held their own council that excommunicated Cyril.  The Anti-Nestorius ruling became the official position of the Roman Church essentially because Theodosius II decided they were the valid one, because his sister was good friends with Cyril sharing her immense hatred of The Jews.  So the Christians outside the Roman Empire had very good justification to simply reject those proceedings altogether.

Christianity had reached Iraq and Persia very early on.  Acts 2:9 lists Jews and Proselytes of Mesopotamia, Elam, Media and Parthia as present at Pentecost.  I also firmly believe Peter was exactly where he said he was when he wrote his First Epistle, and in response to some criticism of that I am going in the future to argue he may have wrote it there before 41 AD.  I also have my theory that Helena, Izates II and Monobaz II of Adiabene may have been Christians.  And Osroene/Edessa was definitely a Christian region before 200 AD because of the Conversion of Abgar VIII also sometimes called Abgar IX.  Traditions also say Simon Zelotes and Thaddeus/Jude of the 12 may have come to Edessa and other parts of Mesopotamia.

So the Christian Communities that rejected Ephesus had deeper roots then those in Rome, Alexandria and Constantinople.

And then the Fifth Ecumenical Council/Second Council of Constantinople's condemnation of the previously consistently viewed as Orthodox Theodore of Mopsuestia as well as certain writings of Theodoret and Ibas of Edessa for their tenuous association with Nestorius, further drove many more Christians of the Schools of Antioch and Edessa out of the Roman Church.  If any Ecumenical Council was the product of the then Roman Emperor asserting his will it was this one.  Justinian had the idea in his head that the way to bring the Calchedonian and Miaphysite Churches back together was to crack down even harder on the Nestorians, it of course didn't work, it only created more divisions.

Antioch was kind of Paul's base of operations in the Book of Acts.  But it's also interesting how the region where Antioch is was part of the Assyrian Empire in the time of Isaiah.  So one could argue it's Antioch and Mesopotamia becoming Christian that partly fulfilled the later part of Isaiah 19.

Nestorianism is thought to have had some presence in Pre-Islamic Arabia, with figures in the biography of Muhammad sometimes said to be either Nestorians or Ebonites depending on who you read.
 http://www.tentmaker.org/books/Retribution/retribution26.htm
But one figure of the Church of the East who definitely was born in Arabia was Isaac of Nineveh, born in the region of Beth Qatraye in Eastern Arabia in 613 AD, three years after Muhammad has his first vision.  He lived to the year 700 AD.

Actually it may be much of the reason for this association is how many Christian Communities of Arabia were moved to Mesopotamia by early Caliphs.  So they became part of the Assyrian Communion and basically merged with them making their background also part of the Eastern Church's background.

I recommend this YouTube Video.
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhdLKBKNf0I

It talks about a Monument in China erected in about 780 AD commemorating Christians of the Church of the East coming to China in about 635 AD.  One thing it suggested was that by the time this monument was erected the Church of the East may have been twice the Size of the Western Church.

Claims of the Church of the East reaching Japan are more controversial.  They tend to get tied into speculation about the Hata Clan which in turn gets tied into Lost Tribes coming to Japan theories.  Those theories I have an interest in, but the thing left out is that the Hata Clan arrived and become prominent in Japan before when the Nestorians reached China according to the above video.

Also difficult to investigate are the claims of a Maru Toma who was in Japan during the time of Prince Shotoku (574-622).

However a claim I do find fairly plausible is that a Persian Missionary known as Rimitsui arrived in Nara in 735 AD during the reign of Emperor Shomu (724-749) and that his wife Empress Komyu might have converted.  However these Christians were probably always a small Minority in Japan just as the Catholics have been since they arrived.

Another important factor in the History of Nestorian Christianity in Asia were the Keraites, a Turkic-Mongol Tribe who converted about 1000 AD.  For a time they were the dominant political force in what we today call Mongolia until they were conquered by Genghis Kahn.  The adoptive father of Genghis Kahn Toghrul was a ruler of the Keraites.

So if either side of the 431 Schism should be viewed as the Heretics who broke off from the true Church, it would be the Roman side.

KJV Only Universal Salvation!!!

I've already done a post on the Words Translated Eternal.  But that is obviously not going to matter to the most absolute KJV onlyists.  And this remains the top reason that KJV onlyists are among the most difficult to convince of a Universalsit argument.

This post isn't just for KJV only people however, but anyone who refuses to accept the specific Translation Error arguments that Universal Salvation proponents make.  These issues all have their roots in the Vulgate and were inherited by Luther's German Bible and all early English Bibles, and probably also French Bibles.  So I can understand refusing to accept that the True Gospel was inherently incompatible with the only Bibles the Western Church had for well over a Thousand years.

The KJV says "Endless" only twice, in neither does it refer to judgment or punishment or torment. 1 Timothy 1:4 is about genealogies and Hebrews 7:16 is about Endless Life.  And it is only things like Jesus' Kingdom that are described as being "without end".

It is still in the KJV that "Hell" is cast into the Lake of Fire and yet elsewhere the Lake of Fire seems to be what is called "Hell".   There is more then one Bethlehem in he KJV, and more then one Kadesh.  So likewise there can be more then one place called "Hell".

What we've overlooked is that there are different ways to define "Eternal" and Everlasting which is a synonym for Eternal in the KJV.  I've seen many non Universalist Christians (like Chuck Missler) define "Eternity" as being not unlimited or endless time but as being outside of time.  And so remembering how I showed back before I was a Unviersalsit that the fire of the Lake of Fire comes from God.  Perhaps there is room to define the Fire of Gehenna and the coming Judgment as Eternal because it comes from Eternity, and not as an indication of how long it lasts.

Which can again be backed up by how the KJV translates Jude 7.

"Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire."

That Fire is not still raging in the Dead Sea area today.  And again Ezekiel 16 assures us that Sodom will be restored.  And Jude 6 uses Everlasting of the angels' chains while also telling us that imprisonment will have an end.

If it's the Fire being described as Eternal or Everlasting, that's because the Fire is from God in Revelation 14, God is a Consuming Fire.  But Malachi 3 explains the fire is to purify and purge, same as 1 Corinthians 3.

And in some verses maybe the key to the Universal Salvation interpretation isn't even how Aionion is translated but how to understand other words in those passages.  Take the KJV of Matthew 25:46.

"And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal."

This verse doesn't even mention fire or Gehenna it just says the Punishment (for other verses remember Damnation meant judgment or punishment in 1611) is everlasting.  Well in the Ancient world a common Punishment was Exile or Banishment.  Which is consistent with my argument that "Outer Darkness" means outside New Jerusalem.  Now the fire is mentioned earlier in verse 41, but again sometimes exile or banishment was in addition to a more brief physical chastisement.

Other options for the Punishment or Judgment could be a loss of Citizenship or inheritance, or maybe losing a reward you'd previously earned.  Whatever it is it needs to be understood in the context of the KJV telling us in Habakkuk 1:12 that God's Judgment is for Correction, and Psalm 30 that his anger is for but a moment.

Even in the KJV no Torment or Torture is ever directly described as Eternal or Everlasting.

And the only place where "for ever and ever" is used in connection to the judgment of normal humans is Revelation 14:11 where it says the Smoke goes up forever, terminology also used of the Judgment on Babylon in Revelation 19:3 drawing on Isaiah 34:10 showing it can be used of a temporal judgment.   It is in Revelation 20:10 only used directly of the Devil's sentence to the Lake of Fire, though The Beast and False Prophet being there is mentioned.

And a lot of popular Universalist Proof texts I absolutely default to quoting in their KJV version, from Romans 5&11 to the things Jesus said. And as such my other posts on this blog tend to use the KJV when I quote them, or I had the KJV in mind if I only referenced them without directly quoting.  In fact with 2 Peter 3:9 and 1 Timothy 2:4 the KJV version is the most explicitly Universalist version, other translations of those verses try to allow some wiggle room, but the KJV says God "Will have All Men to be Saved" and is "not willing that any should perish" no ifs ands or buts about it.

Luke 2:14 is also very Universalsit in the KJV in a way that's undermined by how others say it should be translated.

KJV onliers who oppose Universal Salvation arguably have a little hypocrisy on this issue.  Because most KJV onliers, especially if they're also Baptists, teach that we're not under The Law anymore, that it was done away with because it was Fulfilled by Jesus.   But the KJV of the Pentateuch and other parts of the Hebrew Bible tend to say The Law and the Aaronic Priesthood and the Feasts and the Sabbath will be "forever" or "perpetual".  The Hebrew uses Olam, the Hebrew equivalent of Aion which means Age, and so many of us point that out, but the KJV onliers can't do that.  But the KJV in the New Testament has Jesus say that the Law and the Prophets were until John, and Paul says that we're now in the age or dispensation of Grace not the Law, and that the Law was a curse and imperfect.

Maybe God's Judgment/Punishment/Damnation(Which meant Judgment in 1611) on Sinners is described as seemingly forever for the same reason The Law was?  A Judge can issue a Life sentence that is latter commuted, but that doesn't make it wrong to say the sentence was for life.

Or if you argue all those Torah Laws are still Forever because they are Fulfilled in Jesus, then the entire point of the Penal Substitutionary view of Atonement is that all the ordained Punishment for All Sin is fulfilled in full in what Jesus suffered on The Cross.

And I find it interesting in this context that the post Reformation revival of Unviersalsit thinking largley started in the English Speaking world, after the KJV was published.  With men like Gerrard Winstanley.  Many claim the Geneva Bible was still popular during this era, but being as that was a Calvinist production I highly doubt it translated Aionion/Aionos or the Hell verses differently then the KJV.

[Update December 2024: I've defended form a Universalist perspective the use of the word Lake.]

So, I think a Universalist interpretation of even specifically the KJV is perfectly viable.

Everything below this point is really not the main topic of this post and is really a giant Post Script.