Pre-Nicea and Post-Nicea Universal Reconciliation

I don't need a doctrine to be supported by the "Early Church" for me to consider it true.  But I study the Early Church because history interests me, and I'd like to think that in every era there was someone somewhere who understood what I consider to be the True Gospel.

Here is a Website on Early Church History that doesn't agree with Universalism.

I definitely feel my fellow Universalists often overstate their case on this issue.  Outside of Origen I'm not currently aware of any Pre-Nicene fathers clearly indisputably expressing Universalist views.  However outside of maybe Tertulian and Tatian no one was clearly contradicting it either, and they were both influenced by Heretical movements.  The writings of the Pre-Niene Fathers were mostly either Apologetics or refuting Heresies, and yet Universalism was not ever listed among those Heresies, the Soterology they objected to was the Predestination of the Gnostics and Valentinians.

I can also understand why during the era of persecution Christians might have been less inclined to emphasize it, they found comfort in emphasizing the Judgment that will fall on their persecutors.

It's become popular in Protestant/Evangelical and Hebrew Roots circles to think anything that became more popular after the Edict of Milan must be bad.  But that's an oversimplification in my view.  For those who were already believers before, the weight of that threat being removed may have allowed them to dig into questions they weren't likely to before.

Not to mention how both Origen and whoever wrote the version of the Apocalypse of Peter that supports Universal Reconciliation held the view that this truth should be hidden from the casuals because fear is a good motivator.  This of course is another area where I disagree with Origen and don't like him being propped up as the standard bearer of Unviersalism.  Our motivation to do good should be Love not Fear.

The above linked to site concedes that Aionios and Aonion comes from words for Age and don't inherently mean Eternal.  But they try to insist it does mean that in the context of Aionios fire or punishment for reasons that I responded to in the post I made yesterday.

This site I feel overstates the extent to which Post-Origen Universalists held that view because they were influenced by him.  But of course I feel Pro-Unviersalists do the same thing.  Yes Gregory of Nyssa and Athanasius of Alexandria probably had read Origen.  But the fact is they clearly disagreed with Origen on issues like the Pre-Existence of Souls and and whether or not the Resurrection is of the Flesh.  And Origen's version of Apokastasis was tied to his views on those matters.  So the Universalism expressed by the Cappadocian Fathers and people of the Antiochian school was in-spite of not because of Origen.

As far as any Universalists who signed the Nicean Creed and opposed Arianism goes.  Many of them blamed the origins of Arianism in part on Origen's view that Jesus was originally just another Pre-Existent Human Soul that got untied to the Logos.

And evidence that it existed before Origen is implied in how Augustine described Origen as different from other Univeralists, saying he didn't go as far as them, not that they went further then he did.

But let's go on to some people who this site wants to insist weren't Universalist.

Theophilus of Antioch I can now agree can't clearly be proven to have been a Universalist.  But here is what this site says on him.

Theophilus

He quotes Theophilus as saying:

And God shewed great kindness to man, in this, that He did not suffer him to continue being in sin for ever; but, as it were, by a kind of banishment, cast him out of Paradise, in order that, having by punishment expiated, within an appointed time, the sin, and having been disciplined, he should afterwards be recalled.

I didn't look this up. I'm sure he did say this. However, the context is clearly Adam to Christ, not the eternal kingdom. The punishment to man, being cast out of paradise, was not forever. Now, in Christ, paradise is offered again to us.
On the subject of eternity, here's what Theophilus said:

But to the unbelieving and despisers, who obey not the truth, but are obedient to unrighteousness, when they shall have been filled with adulteries, fornications, filthiness, covetousness, and unlawful idolatries, there shall be anger and wrath, tribulation and anguish, and at the very end everlasting fire shall possess such men. Since you said, "Show me your God," this is my God, and I counsel you to fear him and to trust him.

That is the very last sentence of book 1 of To Autolycus.
To publicize the first quote while ignoring the second is the product either of ignorance—in which case this man shouldn't be writing on the subject—or dishonesty unworthy of a Christian.

For the latter quote, if Theophilus said Aionios/Aionion then he's just quoting what Scripture says and not interpreting it.

On the above quote being about "Adam to Christ" I agree what we don't know what Theophilus thought that meant.  The problem to me is what Paul said about contrasting Adam and Christ in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15 should be viewed as unambiguously Universlaist.  In Adam all are made Sinners and in Jesus all are made Righteous.  If the number made righteous is less then the number made sinners then Jesus was lesser then Adam, which is clearly not what Paul taught.

His attempt to show Clement of Alexandria didn't teach Universal Salvation I also find similarly inadequate, they're quotes about the Judgment but do not prove it would be endless.

And likewise with the attempt to prove Methodius of Olympus believed in Eternal Punishment, it is again just a quote that proves the Judgment will happen.  And the article doesn't include every Methodius quote from On the Resurrection that can be interpreted as supporting Universal Reconciliation, only two of them.  Some others are

"The Scriptures usually call 'destruction' the turning to the better at some future time." 

 "The world shall be set on fire in order to purification and renewal."

 "Christ was crucified that he might be adored by all created things equally, for 'unto him every knee shall bow,'"

Not all believers, all Created things.

Methodius died in 311 AD, two years before the Edict of Milian.  And he wrote On the Resurrection specifically against Origen defending the Resurrection as being Bodily.

Regardless of how long the Early Church Fathers thought God's Anger would last.  Psalm 30 defines His Anger as being but a moment.