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 Ascetism 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 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. 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 the Fourth Century, 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 is still not following some of his more out there ideas. In fact 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.
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