Chapter 11

The Weight of the Patristic Witness

A. McClymond’s Argument: Universalism Was a Fringe Position

McClymond makes a bold claim in the introduction to The Devil’s Redemption. He writes that “the overwhelming majority of Christian believers through the centuries have been particularists” (V 1, p. xxi). He goes further, stating flatly that “the support for universalism is paltry compared with opposition to it” and insisting that “there is not much of a universalist tradition during the first centuries of the Christian church” (V 2, p. 1099).¹ The picture he paints is clear: universalism has always been an oddity, a sideline curiosity, a theological experiment tried by a handful of adventurous thinkers and rejected by the vast majority of the faithful. If you have read McClymond and come away thinking that universalism is a modern invention with almost no historical pedigree, you are not alone. That is exactly the impression he wants to leave.

The backbone of this claim is a list. Drawing from Brian Daley’s respected survey The Hope of the Early Church (1991), McClymond compiles what he presents as sixty-eight authors and texts from the early centuries of Christianity that “clearly affirm the eternal punishment of the wicked.”² Against this towering wall of sixty-eight, he sets a meager handful: seven authors whose views are “unclear,” two who teach something like eschatological pantheism, and “perhaps four” who appear to be universalists in the Origenian sense.³ The math seems devastating. Sixty-eight versus four. Case closed, right?

Not so fast. Not nearly so fast.

McClymond lists these sixty-eight names in roughly chronological order, spanning the first eight centuries of the church: 1 Clement, 2 Clement, the Epistle of Barnabas, the Shepherd of Hermas, Ignatius of Antioch, the Sibylline Oracles, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Cyprian, Lactantius, Basil, John Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Augustine, Maximus the Confessor, John of Damascus—and many more besides.⁴ Reading this list, you might think the case is overwhelming. Every major region, every century, every language—all apparently testifying with one voice against universalism.

McClymond also uses this data to push back against the common universalist claim that the Eastern church was more open to apokatastasis (the Greek term for “restoration of all things,” from Acts 3:21) than the Western church. He argues that Daley’s data exposes “the distortion involved in claiming a ‘universalist East’ versus an ‘infernalist West’” (V 2, p. 1099), since the anti-universalist witnesses come from both East and West and wrote in Greek, Latin, Coptic, Syriac, and Armenian.⁵

Beyond the list, McClymond raises a second historical argument. He notes that there are “no unambiguous cases of Christian universalist teaching after the days of the apostles and before the writings of Origen” (V 2, p. 1099).⁶ This gap, he argues, undercuts Ilaria Ramelli’s claim that universalism was maintained continuously from the first century through Origen in the early third century. If universalism was truly the apostolic teaching, why does it vanish for over a hundred years before Origen picks it up?

Finally, McClymond suggests that Ramelli herself is guilty of “selection bias.” Because her massive scholarly study The Christian Doctrine of Apokatastasis focuses specifically on thinkers who supported universal restoration, she naturally gives the impression that universalism was more widespread than it actually was. McClymond argues that her work has “homogenizing tendencies”—that she smooths over real differences between thinkers and makes the universalist tradition look more unified and more dominant than the evidence warrants.⁷

McClymond also pushes against Ramelli’s claim that Origen was not an innovator in teaching universal restoration. Even if one were to agree with Ramelli that the New Testament teaches universal salvation, McClymond argues, “second-century Christian literature represents a perhaps insuperable problem for her historical reconstruction” (V 2, p. 1099). He even suggests that Daley’s analysis might support “a counterthesis to Ramelli—namely, that early Christian writing on eschatology, from as early as the third century, could be seen as an extended argument against Origen” (V 2, p. 1099).⁶⁵ In other words, McClymond reads the entire post-Origen history of Christian eschatology as one long refutation of the very idea of universal restoration.

So that is McClymond’s case in a nutshell. The numbers are against universalism. The historical gap is against it. The scholarly evidence, properly weighed, shows that the earliest Christians overwhelmingly rejected it. Universalism was a minority view then, and it remains a minority view now.

It is an impressive argument. It sounds airtight. But as we are about to see, it is built on foundations that are far shakier than McClymond lets on.

B. Identifying the Weaknesses: Why the List of Sixty-Eight Falls Apart

The first thing to understand about McClymond’s list of sixty-eight is where it comes from. He did not compile it himself through fresh, independent research into the patristic sources. He drew it from Brian Daley’s The Hope of the Early Church, published in 1991. Daley’s book is a fine piece of scholarship—widely acknowledged as a careful and detailed guide to early Christian eschatological views. But Daley’s book was written over three decades ago, and a great deal of patristic scholarship has advanced since then. More importantly, McClymond’s use of Daley’s data involves some significant stretches.⁸

It is also worth noting that Daley himself did not draw the conclusions McClymond draws from his data. Daley’s book is a careful survey, not a polemic. McClymond takes Daley’s survey data and weaponizes it for an argument Daley himself did not make—the argument that universalism was always a negligible fringe position. There is a difference between cataloging what various fathers wrote and concluding that the catalog proves universal consensus on eternal punishment.

Ilaria Ramelli, one of the foremost patristic scholars of our time, has subjected McClymond’s list to withering scrutiny. Her findings, published in the appendix to A Larger Hope, volume 1, expose several deep problems with the way McClymond handles the evidence. I want to walk through her main points carefully, because this is where McClymond’s argument begins to unravel.

Problem 1: Using Aionios Language Does Not Make Someone Anti-Universalist

This is probably the most fundamental flaw in the whole list. Many of the sixty-eight are classified as “anti-universalist” simply because they used phrases like pur aionion (“aionial fire”), kolasis aionios (“aionial punishment”), or thanatos aionios (“aionial death”). The assumption is that anyone who used such language must have believed in eternal, never-ending punishment.⁹

But here is the problem. These are biblical expressions. They come straight from Scripture. And every universalist in the early church used them too—without any sense of contradiction.

Think about that for a moment. Origen used these phrases. Gregory of Nyssa used them. Evagrius used them. These are the very thinkers whom everyone acknowledges as universalists. They spoke freely of “aionial fire” and “aionial punishment” because they understood aionios to mean something like “pertaining to the age to come” or “long-lasting”—not necessarily “eternal” in the sense of “without end.”¹⁰ As Ramelli points out, the mere presence of such phrases is simply not enough to conclude that a patristic thinker affirmed everlasting punishment.¹¹

To illustrate: the Didache, one of the earliest Christian texts, mentions the ways of life and death—but never mentions eternal death or torment. Yet it shows up on the list. Ignatius of Antioch, another early figure on the list, never actually mentions eternal punishment at all.¹² Ephrem the Syrian, yet another name on the list, does not speak of eternal damnation—and in fact has many hints of healing and restoration, as Ramelli has documented in a detailed article in the journal Augustinianum.¹³

The problem goes deeper than individual cases. The entire methodology of the list depends on the assumption that aionios means “eternal” in our modern English sense. But this assumption, as we will explore in detail in Chapter 15, is exactly what is in dispute. It is circular reasoning to use the conclusion of the debate (that aionios means “eternal”) as the basis for classifying patristic witnesses. If aionios actually means “age-long” or “pertaining to the age to come,” then a huge number of the sixty-eight would need to be reclassified—because all they were doing was repeating biblical language about age-long judgment, which is perfectly compatible with universal restoration.

Imagine someone compiled a list of every modern Christian author who has ever written about “eternal life” and concluded that they all must believe life is an infinite, timeless duration with no qualitative dimension—simply because the English word “eternal” can mean “unending.” That would be terrible methodology, because “eternal life” in Christian usage clearly has a qualitative dimension (“this is eternal life, that they may know you,” John 17:3). The same problem applies to McClymond’s reading of aionios in the church fathers. He imports a meaning that is not necessarily present and then uses that imported meaning to classify the fathers’ views. The list is built on an assumption that begs the very question at issue.

When you start actually checking each name on the list against the primary sources, the number sixty-eight begins to shrink. Fast.

Problem 2: Several of the “Sixty-Eight” Were Actually Universalists or Sympathizers

This one is remarkable. Ramelli has demonstrated that some of the names McClymond places on the anti-universalist side of the ledger actually belong on the universalist side—or at the very least in the “uncertain” column.

Take Theodore of Mopsuestia. He is one of McClymond’s sixty-eight. But when you look at the full range of evidence—not just the fragmentary Greek texts, but the Syriac and Latin evidence as well—Theodore becomes impossible to classify as anti-universalist. He explicitly ruled out unending retributive punishment. In Latin, the relevant phrase is sine fine et sine correctione—“without end and without correction.” Theodore rejected precisely that kind of punishment.¹⁴ Theodore envisioned an eventual universal restoration operated by Christ: “God has recapitulated all beings in Christ…a restoration of the whole creation through him…This will come to pass in a future aeon, when all humanity and all powers endowed with reason will adhere to him.”¹⁵ He does not belong on any list of anti-universalists. Like Origen before him, Theodore understood the eventual submission of all things to Christ as universal salvation, not mere forced subjection. “The submission of a soul that is not sad, but joyous,” Theodore wrote, “is a submission that produces, not suffering, but salvation.”⁶⁹

Or consider Maximus the Confessor, another name on McClymond’s list. Maximus used the word aionios when speaking of punishment—but he never used aidios, the Greek word that unambiguously means “everlasting” or “eternal.” Given that Maximus lived after the Emperor Justinian’s condemnation of certain Origenist ideas, it is understandable that he would speak of restoration only with caution, sometimes placing the teaching in the mouth of another character rather than stating it directly. Multiple modern scholars—Torstein Tollefsen, Panayiotis Tzamalikos, and Maria Luisa Gatti—agree that Maximus affirmed apokatastasis.¹⁶ Hans Urs von Balthasar, the great Catholic theologian, also read Maximus as a universalist. Even if one disagrees with this reading, placing Maximus confidently on the anti-universalist side—as McClymond does—is simply not justified by the evidence.

Then there is the case of Ambrose of Milan. Daley categorizes Ambrose as someone who “seems to oscillate”—and McClymond accepts this classification. But as we will see in our roll call below, Ambrose made numerous statements that are not merely oscillating but positively universalist. His exegesis of 1 Corinthians 15:28 is virtually identical to that of Origen and Gregory of Nyssa. Calling Ambrose “uncertain” is a generous reading of the evidence; calling him anti-universalist would be flatly wrong.

And the uncertain column? Many of those figures were actually sympathetic to universalism. Clement of Alexandria, the Apocalypse of Peter (in its Rainer Fragment), one passage of the Sibylline Oracles, Eusebius of Caesarea, Gregory Nazianzen, perhaps even Basil and Athanasius, Ambrose, Jerome before his politically motivated change of mind, and Augustine himself during his early anti-Manichaean years—all of these either supported apokatastasis or were genuinely open to it.¹⁷

When you do the actual accounting, the sixty-eight is not sixty-eight. It is significantly fewer. And the four universalists? That number should be significantly higher.

Problem 3: Numbers Do Not Equal Theological Weight

Even if we accepted McClymond’s numbers at face value—which we should not—his argument would still have a fatal flaw. He treats the patristic witness as if it were a popular vote. Sixty-eight versus four. Majority wins. But theology is not a democracy, and the weight of a theological position is not determined by counting noses.

This is a principle McClymond himself would ordinarily affirm. He would never argue, for example, that Arianism was correct simply because it was held by a majority of bishops at certain points in the fourth century. He would never claim that the theology of the Reformation was invalid because the reformers were a tiny minority compared to the Roman Catholic establishment. In every other theological debate, McClymond evaluates positions by their arguments, their exegesis, and their theological coherence—not by a headcount. But when it comes to universalism, he suddenly becomes a majoritarian. The shift in method is revealing.

Consider who the universalists actually were. Origen of Alexandria was arguably the most influential theologian of the first three centuries. He was the first systematic theologian in church history, one of the greatest biblical exegetes who ever lived, and the intellectual father of much of later Christian thought—including the theology of figures who would later oppose his eschatology.¹⁸ Even scholars who disagree with his universalism freely acknowledge his towering genius. When Epiphanius campaigned against Origen, he was not fighting an obscure thinker. He was fighting against the most intellectually accomplished theologian the church had yet produced.

Gregory of Nyssa was one of the three Cappadocian Fathers—the theologians who gave us the mature doctrine of the Trinity that was enshrined at the Council of Constantinople in 381. He was honored with the title “Father of Fathers” by the later councils. He was an unambiguous, outspoken universalist. And he was never condemned for it.¹⁹

Athanasius of Alexandria, the great champion of Nicene orthodoxy against Arianism, stood firmly in Origen’s defense and may himself have held universalist sympathies.²⁰ Eusebius of Caesarea, the father of church history, also appears to have been sympathetic. Evagrius Ponticus, whose spiritual writings shaped Eastern monasticism for centuries, taught apokatastasis. Maximus the Confessor, one of the most important Byzantine theologians, almost certainly held to it. And Eriugena, the only author between Origen and Aquinas to write a comprehensive work of systematic theology and philosophy, was one of the most radical supporters of universal salvation in the entire tradition.²¹

Now compare that roster with some of the names on McClymond’s anti-universalist list. Barsanuphius. Victorinus of Pettau. Gaudentius of Brescia. Maximus of Turin. Tyconius. Evodius of Uzala. Orientius. Cosmas Indicopleustes.²² These are not exactly household names, even among scholars. Most were minor figures, many were ignorant of Greek, and their collective theological influence does not come close to matching the weight of Origen, the Cappadocians, Athanasius, or Maximus.

If we are going to play the numbers game, we need to weigh the numbers. And when we do, the scale tips dramatically in favor of the universalist tradition.

Problem 4: McClymond Ignores the Testimony of Augustine and Basil Themselves

Here is an irony that McClymond never addresses. Two of his own star witnesses—Augustine and Basil of Caesarea—actually testified that universalism was widespread in their day.

Augustine, writing in the early fifth century, mentions that there are “very many” Christians (immo quam plurimi) who, on the basis of their beliefs about divine goodness and mercy, reacted with horror at the thought of eternal torment.²³ This is a remarkable admission from someone who would go on to oppose universalism strenuously. He was not describing a tiny fringe. He was describing something widespread enough that he felt compelled to argue against it at length. When Augustine refuted universalism, he was not knocking down a straw man or correcting a marginal error. He was engaged in a major theological battle against a position that large numbers of Christians held.

Stop and let that sink in for a moment. The most influential anti-universalist in Western history tells us, in his own words, that “very many” Christians in his day believed in universal restoration. If we take Augustine at his word—and why would he exaggerate the strength of the position he was trying to defeat?—then McClymond’s picture of universalism as a “paltry” movement simply does not hold.

Basil of Caesarea, writing in the late fourth century, made a similar observation. And Jerome, writing around the same time, attested that “most people” among the exegetes and interpreters of Scripture believed in the eventual restoration of all rational creatures—including, he noted, even the devil.²⁴ Jerome was almost certainly referring to the views of biblical scholars rather than ordinary churchgoers, but the point stands: in the world of serious theological reflection, universalist belief was far from “paltry.” Jerome says “most people.” Not “some people.” Not “a few eccentrics.” Most.

If the opponents of universalism themselves acknowledged that it was widely held—“very many,” in Augustine’s own words; “most,” in Jerome’s—then McClymond’s claim that universalism was a marginal phenomenon simply does not survive contact with the evidence.

C. The Universalist Response: The Patristic Case Is Far Stronger Than McClymond Admits

So McClymond’s list of sixty-eight crumbles under examination. But I do not want to rest the case on simply tearing down his argument. Debunking is necessary but not sufficient. What we need is a clear, positive picture of what the patristic evidence actually shows. And the positive case for the strength of the patristic universalist tradition is even more impressive than the negative case against McClymond’s numbers. The evidence reveals not a fringe movement clinging to the margins of the church, but a deep, vibrant, intellectually powerful tradition running through the very heart of early Christian theology. Let me lay it out.

The Six Theological Schools

One of the most telling pieces of evidence comes from the early catechetical schools—the major centers of Christian teaching and theological education in the first five centuries. These schools were not minor institutions. They were the Harvard and Oxford and Cambridge of the early Christian world. They set the agenda for theological debate. They trained the bishops, priests, and teachers who shaped the faith of ordinary Christians. And the picture they reveal is stunning.

According to the careful research of Edward Beecher, published in his scholarly work History of Opinions on the Scriptural Doctrine of Retribution (1878), there were at least six major theological schools in the early church. Of these six, four taught universal restoration. One taught the annihilation of the wicked. Only one—the school of Rome—taught eternal punishment.²⁵

Read that again. Four out of six. Not four out of sixty-eight. Four out of six.

McClymond does not address this evidence anywhere in The Devil’s Redemption. He does not attempt to refute it. He does not argue that Beecher’s analysis is wrong or outdated. He simply ignores it. But the data is difficult to dismiss. If the overwhelming majority of the major theological schools taught some form of universal restoration, then it is very hard to maintain that universalism was a marginal, fringe view.

The two most important early Christian centers of exegesis and theology were the school of Alexandria and the school of Antioch. Both produced major universalist thinkers. Alexandria produced Clement, Origen, and Didymus the Blind. Antioch was founded by Diodore of Tarsus, a supporter of universal restoration, and counted Theodore of Mopsuestia among its leading teachers—another universalist.²⁶ The school of Caesarea, shaped by Origen’s long years of teaching there and later by his defender Eusebius, was sympathetic to universalism. The school of Edessa/Nisibis, in the Syriac-speaking world, also had universalist representation.

Beecher also made a point that McClymond never addresses: the leading defenders of universal restoration “were decided believers in the divinity of Christ, in the Trinity, in the incarnation and atonement, and in the great Christian doctrine of regeneration; and were, in piety, devotion, Christian activity, and missionary enterprise, as well as in learning and intellectual power and attainments, inferior to none in the best ages of the Church.”²⁷ These were not theological radicals or liberal revisionists. They were the pillars of orthodoxy.

The Greek-Speaking Theological Elite

There is a pattern in the early church that McClymond notices but badly misinterprets. He acknowledges the common observation that universalism was stronger in the East than the West, but he tries to dismiss it by pointing to Coptic, Syriac, and Armenian anti-Origenist writers. What he fails to appreciate is the significance of the Greek-speaking theological elite.

Why does this matter? Because the New Testament was written in Greek. The key theological debates of the first five centuries were conducted in Greek. The great ecumenical councils deliberated in Greek. The nuances of biblical language—including the crucial difference between aionios and aidios—were available only to those who could read Greek. And among the Greek-speaking theologians, universalism was not a fringe position. It was held by many of the most important and influential thinkers of the tradition.²⁸

Think of it this way. Imagine a group of English-speaking scholars debating what Shakespeare meant by a particular passage. Now imagine that the most important debate partners are people who cannot actually read English and are working from French translations. Would you trust the French-only scholars to have the final word on what Shakespeare meant? Of course not. You would naturally give more weight to the scholars who could read Shakespeare in the original. The same principle applies here. The theologians who could read the New Testament in Greek had direct access to nuances that the Latin-only theologians did not. And the Greek-reading theologians were disproportionately sympathetic to universalism.

Ramelli has demonstrated something genuinely remarkable about the way patristic authors handled the language of punishment. In the New Testament, as in the Old, death, punishment, and fire are described as aionios—pertaining to the coming age, or long-lasting. But they are never described as aidios—strictly eternal. This distinction, which Ramelli was the first to document comprehensively, was not lost on the Greek fathers. Almost unanimously, they followed the biblical usage carefully, calling punishment and fire aionia but never aidia.²⁹

The Latin-speaking theologians who did not know Greek had no access to this distinction. In Latin, both aidios and aionios were generally translated with a single word: aeternus. The result was a catastrophic linguistic collapse. A nuance that Greek preserved—the difference between “age-long” and “absolutely eternal”—was flattened into a single term in Latin. Augustine, who knew little or no Greek, read his Latin Bible and saw aeternus applied to both life and punishment. He naturally concluded that Scripture taught punishment of absolutely endless duration.³⁰

Here is the telling pattern: the Latin-speaking theologians who did know Greek—Marius Victorinus, Ambrose, Jerome (before his political about-face), Rufinus, John Cassian, and Eriugena—did not think the Bible unambiguously proclaimed eternal punishment. Several of them were sympathetic to or openly supportive of universal restoration.³¹ It was primarily among those who could not read the Greek that the doctrine of eternal conscious torment became unquestioned orthodoxy.

This is not a minor point. It means that the shift toward particularism in the Western church was not driven by superior exegesis or deeper theological insight. It was driven, at least in part, by a linguistic accident—the collapse of a Greek distinction that Latin could not preserve.

A Roll Call of the Universalist Tradition

I want to take a moment to survey the actual roster of patristic thinkers who supported or were sympathetic to universal restoration. This is not a handful of isolated eccentrics. This is a tradition of extraordinary depth and breadth.

We begin with the New Testament itself. Paul’s letters contain the most sweeping universalist language in all of Scripture: “God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all” (Rom. 11:32). “As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Cor. 15:22). “At the name of Jesus every knee shall bow…and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord” (Phil. 2:10–11). “God desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:4). “We have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe” (1 Tim. 4:10). These texts receive their full treatment in Chapters 14 and 20, but even at a glance, they show that the universalist hope has roots in the apostolic witness itself.³²

From the sub-apostolic period, we have the Rainer Fragment of the Apocalypse of Peter, which contains a striking passage about the eventual salvation of the damned through the prayers of the blessed.³³ There are also passages in the Sibylline Oracles that point in a universalist direction.

Bardaisan of Edessa (154–222), writing before Origen, articulated ideas that were compatible with universal restoration, drawing on his understanding of God’s eventual victory over evil.³⁴

Clement of Alexandria (c. 150–215), Origen’s predecessor at the great catechetical school in Alexandria, taught that God’s punishments are corrective and pedagogical, aimed at the restoration of the sinner rather than mere retribution. McClymond’s list places him among the “uncertain,” but Ramelli has argued persuasively that he belongs among the universalists.³⁵

Then comes Origen himself (c. 185–254), the towering giant of early Christian theology, who gave apokatastasis its fullest and most systematic expression. His universalism was not a peripheral speculation. It was woven into the heart of his theology—grounded in Scripture, in his understanding of God’s justice and goodness, and in his conviction that evil, being parasitic on the good, cannot endure forever. We covered Origen in detail in Chapter 9.³⁶

Didymus the Blind (c. 313–398), head of the catechetical school in Alexandria for over fifty years, was a faithful disciple of Origen and an explicit supporter of universal restoration.³⁷

Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335–395) was, as we saw in Chapter 10, one of the three Cappadocian Fathers and an unambiguous, outspoken universalist. His On the Soul and Resurrection and his Catechetical Oration contain some of the most eloquent defenses of apokatastasis in all of Christian literature. He was never condemned for his universalism, and he was honored by the later ecumenical councils as a pillar of orthodoxy.³⁸

Gregory Nazianzen (c. 329–390), the other Cappadocian Father often called “the Theologian,” was more cautious in his public statements, but multiple scholars have detected universalist sympathies in his writings. McClymond places him among the “uncertain,” but the uncertainty leans toward universalism, not away from it.³⁹

Basil of Caesarea (c. 330–379), the third Cappadocian, inherited Origenist sympathies from his sister Macrina and his grandmother Macrina the Elder. He praised Origen’s disciple Gregory Thaumaturgus, collected Origen’s writings in a devotional anthology (the Philocalia), and shared with Origen the conviction that otherworldly sufferings would not be physical. Ramelli has argued that Basil’s apparently anti-universalist statements may have been interpolated into his texts.⁴⁰ Interestingly, a letter expounding the doctrine of apokatastasis was attributed to Basil (actually by his friend Evagrius), and a chapter from Origen’s On First Principles even circulated under Basil’s name and was used by Pope Leo the Great to support the dogmas of Chalcedon.⁴¹

Evagrius Ponticus (345–399), a brilliant monk and spiritual writer ordained by Basil, taught apokatastasis and shaped Eastern monasticism for centuries.⁴²

Diodore of Tarsus (d. c. 390), the founder of the Antiochene school of biblical interpretation, supported universal restoration. His student Theodore of Mopsuestia (c. 350–428), as we have already seen, explicitly affirmed the eventual salvation of all rational creatures.⁴³

Titus of Basra (active c. 360–378), a follower of Diodore, wrote in his treatise Against the Manichaeans that hell “is a place of torment and chastisement, but not eternal.”⁴⁴

Ambrose of Milan (c. 340–397), one of the most important Western fathers, made numerous statements compatible with universal restoration. Commenting on 1 Corinthians 15:28, he offered an exegesis identical to that of Origen and Gregory of Nyssa: the eschatological submission of Christ to the Father will be achieved when all become obedient and believe and do God’s will, and then—and only then—God will be “all in all.” Ambrose explained that God will be “in all” not simply by power, as now, but “by their free will,” because all will voluntarily adhere to God.⁴⁵ This is universalism.

Jerome (c. 347–420) was an enthusiastic supporter of Origen and his eschatology for many years before turning against him for politically expedient reasons. Even after his public about-face, Jerome never criticized the eventual salvation of all human beings—only the salvation of the devil. And in a private letter written long after his change of mind, he still recommended Origen’s On First Principles (the very book that most clearly teaches universal salvation) as the best treatment of the question of free will.⁴⁶

Augustine himself (354–430), during his early anti-Manichaean period, appears to have embraced apokatastasis before later turning against it under the influence of his doctrine of predestination.⁴⁷

Isaac of Nineveh (c. 613–700), the great Syriac mystic, taught that God’s love extends even beyond the grave and that the fires of hell are ultimately healing and restorative. His writings have been deeply influential in Eastern Orthodox spirituality for over a millennium.⁴⁸

John Scottus Eriugena (c. 810–877), the last great philosopher of the patristic period, was one of the most radical supporters of universal salvation in the entire Christian tradition. His Periphyseon is the only comprehensive work of systematic theology and theoretical philosophy written between Origen’s On First Principles and Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae.⁴⁹ Eriugena knew Greek—a rarity in the medieval West—and his eschatology drew deeply on Origen and Gregory of Nyssa. He rejected the Augustinian doctrine of double predestination and argued forcefully for the eventual restoration of all creation. His existence demolishes the notion that universal restoration disappeared from serious Christian thought after the fifth century.

And this is only a partial list. I have not even mentioned figures like Macarius of Magnesia, who taught that God “wants all human beings to be saved” and interpreted Paul to mean that “all are granted mercy by God and saved” (1 Tim. 2:4).⁶⁶ Or Rufinus of Aquileia, who devoted himself to translating Origen’s works into Latin precisely because he was convinced that Origen’s theology—including his universalism—was sound and faithful to Scripture. Or John Cassian, whose Conferences preserved the Origenian tradition of affirming that God “wants all human beings to be saved and to reach the knowledge of truth” (1 Tim. 2:4) and insisted that God’s grace will intervene to reorient even the wayward will toward the Good.⁶⁷ The universalist tradition in the early church was not a trickle. It was a deep, broad, and powerful stream.

The Barsanuphius Letter: A Smoking Gun

One piece of evidence deserves special attention because it comes not from a universalist but from an anti-universalist—and it inadvertently confirms that universalism was widely held by the most respected figures in the church.

In the sixth century, an ascetic named Barsanuphius of Gaza received a troubling question from a monk. The monk wanted to know why Origen’s doctrines, and especially apokatastasis, were supported by orthodox authors—even saints—such as the Cappadocian Fathers. This was clearly a question that bothered the monk deeply. If these great pillars of the faith believed in universal restoration, how could a faithful Christian reject it?

Barsanuphius did not deny that the Cappadocians held to apokatastasis. He did not claim the monk was mistaken. He did not argue that the Cappadocians’ writings had been misunderstood or corrupted. He simply observed that “even saints can have a limited understanding of the mysteries of God.”⁵⁰

This is a remarkable admission. It confirms, from a hostile witness, that the Cappadocians were widely known as supporters of universal restoration. Even in the sixth century, after centuries of controversy and after the political condemnation of certain Origenist ideas, the connection between the greatest champions of Nicene orthodoxy and the doctrine of apokatastasis was an acknowledged fact. Barsanuphius could not deny it. He could only try to explain it away. And his explanation—that even saints can be wrong—actually concedes the universalist’s point: that universalism was held by some of the holiest, wisest, and most orthodox Christians who ever lived.

What Really Drove the Shift to Particularism

If universalism was held by so many important thinkers in the early centuries, what happened? Why did particularism come to dominate, especially in the West?

Several factors converged. First, as I have already noted, the Latin translation of aionios as aeternus created a linguistic foundation for the doctrine of eternal punishment that was difficult to challenge in the Latin-speaking world. Those who knew Greek could see the nuance; those who did not could not.⁵¹

Second, Augustine’s enormous influence on Western theology cannot be overstated. His theology of predestination, original sin, and the massa damnata (“damned mass” of humanity) created a theological framework in which eternal punishment was not merely possible but expected for the majority of the human race. Augustine’s prestige was so great that his conclusions shaped Western theology for over a thousand years.⁵²

Third, the political dynamics of the Origenist controversies of the late fourth and sixth centuries led to formal condemnations of certain ideas associated with Origen—though, as we will see in Chapter 12, what was actually condemned is far less clear than McClymond suggests. The political pressures were real. Epiphanius of Salamis led a campaign against Origen’s theology in the 390s, pressing his fellow bishops and the monks to pass judgment on Origen’s teachings. Epiphanius grieved, as he wrote, “to see numbers of my brothers…deceived by his persuasive arguments.”⁷⁰ Whatever one thinks of the merits of Epiphanius’s concerns, the result of his campaign was the creation of an atmosphere in which supporting Origenist ideas carried real personal risk. Jerome, who had once championed Origen, switched sides for political reasons—though even after his public about-face, he continued to recommend Origen’s works in private correspondence. The result was a chilling effect: after the condemnations, thinkers who held universalist sympathies had good reason to keep quiet.⁵³

We see this chilling effect in action with Maximus the Confessor. Maximus lived after the Justinianic condemnation of certain Origenist ideas, and he quite clearly adjusted his language accordingly. He expressed universalist hope through a literary device—placing the teaching in the mouth of another person—rather than stating it directly in his own voice. This is the behavior of someone who holds a conviction but knows the political cost of expressing it openly. How many other thinkers in similar positions chose simply to remain silent? We will never know, but the silence of the prudent should not be confused with the absence of belief.

Fourth, the merger of church and state under Constantine and his successors created an environment in which theological uniformity was increasingly enforced by political power. Doctrines that had been matters of legitimate debate became tests of orthodoxy, enforced not by persuasion but by imperial authority. In this environment, the nuance of earlier centuries was often the first casualty.⁵⁴

None of this means that particularism was wrong simply because it was enforced by political power. But it does mean that McClymond’s argument from majority opinion is far weaker than he realizes. The “majority” that endorsed eternal punishment was shaped by linguistic limitations, political pressures, and the outsized influence of a single (brilliant but flawed) theologian who could not read the language of the New Testament.

Consider what we are really saying here. The two greatest centers of theological education in the early church—Alexandria and Antioch—both produced leading universalist thinkers. The Greek-speaking elite, who could actually read the New Testament in its original language, were disproportionately sympathetic to apokatastasis. The Latin-speaking theologians who also knew Greek tended to be more open to the possibility. It was primarily in the Latin-only world, cut off from the Greek nuance of aionios, that the doctrine of absolutely endless punishment became unshakeable dogma. That is not a picture of universalism as a fringe position. That is a picture of universalism as the sophisticated, exegetically grounded position that was gradually eclipsed by factors having little to do with superior biblical interpretation.

I want to be careful here. I am not saying that all the anti-universalist fathers were simply ignorant or wrong. Theologians like Chrysostom and Cyril of Alexandria were serious thinkers who held to particularism for what they believed were good reasons. The debate was real, and the anti-universalist side had arguments that needed answering. But the balance of the debate was nothing like the lopsided picture McClymond paints. It was a genuine, ongoing conversation between heavyweights on both sides—not a case of sixty-eight stalwarts versus four eccentrics.

The Great Schism and the Eastern Tradition

McClymond dismisses the idea of a “universalist East versus an infernalist West,” but the Great Schism of 1054 did in fact divide the church along lines that are relevant to this discussion. The Eastern Orthodox tradition, which maintained continuity with the Greek-speaking theological heritage, has always been more open to the idea that hell is a state of being rather than a place of endless retributive punishment. Many Eastern Orthodox theologians, following the tradition of Isaac of Nineveh and the Cappadocians, understand hell as the experience of God’s purifying love by those who have resisted it. This is far closer to the universalist position than to the Western doctrine of eternal conscious torment.⁵⁵

Alexandre Kalomiros’s famous lecture “The River of Fire” (1980) articulated a view shared by many Eastern Christians: that God does not send people to hell as a punishment, but that the same divine love that is paradise for the righteous is experienced as torment by the wicked—not because God is punishing them, but because His love is unbearable to those who have rejected everything He is.⁵⁶ While not all Eastern Orthodox Christians are universalists, the Eastern tradition preserves a theological framework that is far more compatible with universal restoration than the Augustinian framework of the West.

This matters for McClymond’s argument because it means the “consensus” against universalism that he claims is really a Western consensus, shaped by Augustine’s theology and the limitations of the Latin Bible. The Eastern half of Christianity has never fully shared this consensus. When McClymond surveys the whole of Christian history and concludes that universalism was always marginal, he is looking at the landscape through Augustinian spectacles—and what he sees is largely the Western landscape. The Eastern landscape looks very different.

Even today, many Orthodox theologians and spiritual writers hold to a position that, while carefully nuanced, is functionally compatible with the hope of universal restoration. Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, for example, has written that Christians are free to hope for the salvation of all. Sergei Bulgakov, one of the most important Russian Orthodox theologians of the twentieth century, affirmed universal restoration. The tradition is very much alive.

D. Counter-Objections

“Ramelli’s scholarship is revisionist and agenda-driven.”

McClymond suggests that Ramelli has “homogenizing tendencies” and exhibits a “Rufinian quality” in her efforts to vindicate Origen.⁵⁷ This is a charge worth taking seriously. Ramelli is an advocate for the apokatastasis tradition, and her work naturally reflects that commitment.

But let us be fair. McClymond also has an agenda. He has written a two-volume, 1,300-page work arguing that universalism is rooted in gnostic and esoteric traditions. If anyone has a dog in this fight, he does. The question is not whether a scholar has a perspective—all scholars do—but whether their evidence and arguments hold up under scrutiny.

It is also worth noting that McClymond’s own approach has its own “homogenizing tendencies.” By lumping together sixty-eight very different authors from different centuries, languages, and theological traditions into a single anti-universalist camp, he creates an artificial impression of unanimity. The reality is that these sixty-eight did not all agree with one another. Some believed in eternal conscious torment. Some believed in annihilation. Some made passing references to judgment without developing a systematic eschatology at all. Calling all of them “anti-universalist” is itself a homogenizing move that obscures the real diversity of early Christian eschatological thought.

On the specific points at issue in this chapter, Ramelli’s arguments are well supported. Her demonstration that many of the sixty-eight were not actually anti-universalist is based on careful analysis of the primary texts in the original languages. Her argument about the aionios/aidios distinction is philologically grounded and has been taken seriously by scholars across the field. Her claim that Augustine once held to apokatastasis is supported by multiple independent scholars.⁵⁸ One can question individual points, but the overall picture she paints is far more nuanced and more accurate than McClymond’s simple “sixty-eight to four” scorecard.

And here is a point that McClymond himself inadvertently concedes: it is “illogical,” he admits, “to criticize a monograph on patristic apokatastasis for not being a book on the diversity of early Christian eschatological teachings.”⁵⁹ Exactly. Ramelli wrote a book about the universalist tradition. McClymond faults her for not writing a different book. But the existence of anti-universalist voices does not erase the universalist tradition. It simply means there was a real debate—which is precisely what Ramelli argues and McClymond tries to deny.

“The second-century gap proves universalism was not the apostolic teaching.”

McClymond argues that the absence of unambiguous universalist texts between the apostles and Origen (roughly 100–230 AD) is a devastating problem for the universalist position. If universalism was truly the apostolic teaching, where did it go for over a century?

Several responses are in order. First, the second century is one of the most poorly documented periods in Christian history. We have relatively few surviving texts from this period compared to the third and fourth centuries. Arguments from silence are always risky, and they are especially risky when the evidence base is thin.⁶⁰

Second, the gap is not as empty as McClymond claims. Ramelli has documented evidence of universalist or proto-universalist thinking in Bardaisan, Clement of Alexandria, the Rainer Fragment of the Apocalypse of Peter, and parts of the Sibylline Oracles—all of which predate or are roughly contemporary with Origen. These are not definitive proof of a continuous universalist tradition, but they are suggestive evidence that the hope of universal restoration did not simply appear out of thin air when Origen sat down to write.⁶¹

Third—and this is the most important point—the universalist hope is grounded in the New Testament texts themselves. If Paul teaches that God will have mercy on all (Rom. 11:32), that in Christ all will be made alive (1 Cor. 15:22), and that every knee will bow and every tongue confess (Phil. 2:10–11), then universalism does not need an unbroken chain of witnesses to be legitimate. It needs only the witness of Scripture. The question is not “How many people believed this?” but “Is it true?”⁶²

Fourth, we should note that the second-century church was largely focused on other issues: the relationship between Christianity and Judaism, the identity of Jesus, the canon of Scripture, the threat of persecution. Eschatological details were not the primary focus of theological reflection in this period. The fact that universalism was not the subject of formal treatises in the second century does not mean it was absent from Christian belief. Many doctrines that we now consider essential were not formally articulated until later centuries simply because they had not yet become the focus of controversy.⁶⁸

“History shows that the church rejected universalism at the Fifth Ecumenical Council (553 AD).”

This is a separate argument that we will address fully in Chapter 12. For now, I will simply note that the Fifth Council’s relationship to universalism is far more complex than McClymond acknowledges. The specific propositions condemned were largely about the preexistence of souls and eschatological pantheism—ideas associated with certain followers of Origen, not necessarily with Origen himself or with the broader universalist tradition. Gregory of Nyssa, who taught the same universalist theology, was never condemned and continued to be honored as a Father of the Church.⁶³ If the Fifth Council had truly intended to condemn universalism as such, it is very difficult to explain why Gregory escaped censure.

“Even if some early church fathers were universalists, that does not make universalism true.”

This is the strongest objection, and it is absolutely correct. The patristic witness, by itself, does not settle the question. The truth of universalism must be determined by Scripture, theological reasoning, and the inner consistency of the position—which is exactly what the rest of this book aims to demonstrate.

The church fathers were brilliant, faithful, deeply devoted men. But they were not infallible. They disagreed with one another on many points, and the later fathers sometimes corrected the earlier ones. If universalism is wrong, then the fact that Gregory of Nyssa held it does not make it right. If it is right, then the fact that John Chrysostom rejected it does not make it wrong. The truth of a theological position cannot be settled by an appeal to authority alone.

But McClymond is the one who raised the patristic argument. He is the one who claimed that the historical evidence overwhelmingly favors particularism. He is the one who compiled the list of sixty-eight to show that universalism was a fringe view. If the patristic witness is not decisive, then McClymond’s argument from history collapses just as surely as the universalist argument from history would. You cannot appeal to the church fathers when you think they support your position and then dismiss them as irrelevant when you find out they do not.⁶⁴

What the patristic evidence does establish is this: universalism is not and has never been a fringe position within the Christian tradition. It was held by some of the most important, most orthodox, and most intellectually gifted theologians in the history of the church. It was grounded in Scripture, articulated with philosophical rigor, and defended with pastoral passion. The idea that McClymond can dismiss it by counting names on a list is, frankly, not worthy of the serious scholar he otherwise is.

Conclusion: The Witness of the Fathers Points Toward Hope

So where does this leave us?

McClymond claimed that the patristic evidence overwhelmingly supports particularism. We have seen that this claim is built on a list that inflates the anti-universalist side, deflates the universalist side, confuses the use of aionios language with belief in eternal punishment, and ignores the testimony of anti-universalist witnesses themselves (Augustine and Jerome) about how widespread universalist belief actually was.

The reality is far more complex—and far more favorable to universal restoration—than McClymond admits. The earliest and most important Greek-speaking theologians were disproportionately sympathetic to universalism. Four of six major theological schools taught it. The shift to particularism in the West was driven largely by Augustine’s influence and by a linguistic accident in the Latin translation of the Greek Bible. And the Eastern tradition, which maintained the Greek, has always preserved a theological framework far more compatible with apokatastasis than the Augustinian framework of the West.

I think it is worth pausing to feel the weight of what we have established. Gregory of Nyssa—one of the three theologians who gave us the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity—was a universalist. Athanasius, the man who stood against the entire world to defend the full deity of Christ, was sympathetic to Origen’s theology, including his universalism. The theological school in Alexandria, the most important intellectual center in early Christianity, produced universalist after universalist. The school in Antioch, the birthplace of the “literal-historical” method of biblical interpretation that evangelicals love to claim as their own, was founded by a universalist and staffed by universalists. Augustine, the most influential theologian in Western Christianity, began his career as a supporter of apokatastasis before abandoning it—and even he admitted that “very many” Christians in his day still held to it.

This is not a fringe position. This is a tradition with roots as deep as any in the history of the church.

None of this proves that universalism is true. That case must be made from Scripture, and we will continue to build it in the chapters that follow. But what the patristic evidence does prove is that McClymond’s claim of an overwhelming historical consensus against universalism is simply wrong. The fathers who shaped Christian orthodoxy—who gave us the Trinity, the two natures of Christ, and the canon of Scripture—were far more open to the hope of universal restoration than McClymond wants his readers to know.

And here is something else worth considering. If universalism were truly the dangerous heresy that McClymond portrays it as—a doctrine rooted in gnostic and esoteric traditions, corrosive of Christian faith, leading inevitably to Unitarianism—then we would expect to see it flourishing among the heterodox and rejected by the orthodox. But the exact opposite is the case. The universalists of the early church were among the most orthodox, most biblically grounded, most doctrinally faithful thinkers in the entire tradition. The Cappadocians did not drift into Unitarianism. Origen did not abandon the deity of Christ. Maximus did not lose his Christology. The “slippery slope” McClymond warns about did not materialize among any of the patristic universalists. Their universalism was held within and because of their robust orthodoxy, not in spite of it.

The next chapter will examine the Fifth Ecumenical Council and the question of whether universalism was ever formally condemned by the church. Spoiler: the answer is far more complicated than McClymond suggests. But for now, the point is clear. When McClymond appeals to history, history does not back him up. The patristic witness, honestly weighed, does not point toward eternal conscious torment as the unquestioned consensus of the early church. It points toward a living, vibrant, and deeply orthodox tradition of hope—hope that the God who created all things in love will one day restore all things through love.

And if the pillars of orthodoxy could hold this hope without compromising their faith, so can we.