Quotes of early Christian thinkers about the end of sin and evil

 

Quotes of early Christian thinkers about the end of sin and evil

It is generally accepted, I believe, by Christians that evil and sin are not substantial realities but corruptions of what is good since God is good and what God creates is good. So, fundamentally, all that is God’s creation is fundamentally good. This doesn’t imply that evil is an illusion but it has a weaker reality than the good.

To me if the above is true, it seems quite clear that the final state of creation will also be completely good. If the initial state of creation is good, the presence of evil in the final state would mean, in my opinion, that the final state is ‘worse’ than the initial state. After all, the Christian God is said to be omnipotent and omniscient, so it would be quite weird for me if evil and sin will persist in the final state of creation.

To me this means that either that sin and evil will be removed from all sinners and evildoers (and therefore all will be ‘restored’ to the good) or that sin and evil will be removed from some sinners and evildoers and other sinners and evildoers will cease to exist (i.e. they will be annihilated).

In what follows, I provide some quotes from early Christian thinkers that are generally accepted to be ‘universalists’ (i.e. thinkers that believed that, ultimately, all human beings will be saved).

Origen of Alexandria:

"Nevertheless, no matter how much a person may continue in sin, no matter how much he should hold out under the dominion and authority of death, I do not think that the kingdom of death is therefore of eternal duration in the same way as that of life and righteousness, especially when I hear from the Apostle that the last enemy, death, is going to be destroyed. And in fact, if the duration of the eternity of death is supposed to be the same as that of life, death will no longer be the contrary to life but its equal. For an eternal will not be contrary to an eternal, but identical. Now it is certain that death is contrary to life; therefore it is certain that if life is eternal, death cannot be eternal; whence also the resurrection of the dead necessarily takes place. For when the death of the soul, who is the last enemy, should be destroyed, likewise this common death, which we have said to be like the shadow of the other one, shall necessarily be abolished." (Origen of Alexandria, Comm. in Rom. v.7, source: https://afkimel.wordpress.com/2019/11/05/faith-reason-and-moral-sensibility-one-catholics-reflection-on-that-all-shall-be-saved/ )

Evagrius Ponticus:

"There was a time when evil did not exist, and there will be a time when it will no longer exist; but there was never a time when virtue did not exist, and there will never be a time when it will not exist. Indestructible, in effect, are the seeds of virtue. I am also convinced of this by the rich man who was condemned in the Shéol because of his evil and had pity for his brothers; thus to have pity is a beautiful seed of virtue" (Kephalaia Gnostica, Evagrius Ponticus, ch. 1,40 ; source: https://evagriusponticus.net/cpg2432/cpg2432.eng.1990.dysinger-s1.html )

Gregory of Nyssa (and, arguably, Macrina the Younger): 

"But He that becomes all things will be in all things too; and herein it appears to me that Scripture teaches the complete annihilation of evil. If, that is, God will be in all existing things, evil; plainly, will not then be among them; for if any one was to assume that it did exist then, how will the belief that God will be in all be kept intact? The excepting of that one thing, evil, mars the comprehensiveness of the term all. But He that will be in all will never be in that which does not exist." (On the Soul and Resurrection, Gregory of Nyssa who attributed this view to his sister Macrina who appears in the dialogue as his teacher; source: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2915.htm )

“What therefore does Paul teach us?  It consists in saying that evil will come to nought and will be completely destroyed. The divine, pure goodness will contain in itself every nature endowed with reason; nothing made by God is excluded from his kingdom once everything mixed with some elements of base material has been consumed by refinement in fire. Such things had their origin in God; what was made in the beginning did not receive evil. ” (Gregory of Nyssa, In Illud, source: https://afkimel.wordpress.com/2019/10/04/in-illud-tunc-et-ipse-filius/ )

“In the last of his words [above], Paul plainly speaks of the nonexistence (anuparktos) of evil by stating that God is in all things and present to each one of them. It is clear that God will truly be in all things when no evil will be found. It is not proper for God to be present in evil; thus, he will not be in everything as long as some evil remains. If it compels us to truly believe that God is in everything, then evil cannot be seen as existing along with faith; for God cannot be present in evil. ” (Gregory of Nyssa, ibid.)

Also, this passage in Gregory of Nyssa's 'On the Making of Man', chapter 21 seems relevant: 

"1. Wickedness, however, is not so strong as to prevail over the power of good; nor is the folly of our nature more powerful and more abiding than the wisdom of God: for it is impossible that that which is always mutable and variable should be more firm and more abiding than that which always remains the same and is firmly fixed in goodness: but it is absolutely certain that the Divine counsel possesses immutability, while the changeableness of our nature does not remain settled even in evil.

2. Now that which is always in motion, if its progress be to good, will never cease moving onwards to what lies before it, by reason of the infinity of the course to be traversed:— for it will not find any limit of its object such that when it has apprehended it, it will at last cease its motion: but if its bias be in the opposite direction, when it has finished the course of wickedness and reached the extreme limit of evil, then that which is ever moving, finding no halting point for its impulse natural to itself when it has run through the lengths that can be run in wickedness, of necessity turns its motion towards good: for as evil does not extend to infinity, but is comprehended by necessary limits, it would appear that good once more follows in succession upon the limit of evil; and thus, as we have said, the ever-moving character of our nature comes to run its course at the last once more back towards good, being taught the lesson of prudence by the memory of its former misfortunes, to the end that it may never again be in like case.

3. Our course, then, will once more lie in what is good, by reason of the fact that the nature of evil is bounded by necessary limits. For just as those skilled in astronomy tell us that the whole universe is full of light, and that darkness is made to cast its shadow by the interposition of the body formed by the earth; and that this darkness is shut off from the rays of the sun, in the shape of a cone, according to the figure of the sphere-shaped body, and behind it; while the sun, exceeding the earth by a size many times as great as its own, enfolding it round about on all sides with its rays, unites at the limit of the cone the concurrent streams of light; so that if (to suppose the case) any one had the power of passing beyond the measure to which the shadow extends, he would certainly find himself in light unbroken by darkness — even so I think that we ought to understand about ourselves, that on passing the limit of wickedness we shall again have our conversation in light, as the nature of good, when compared with the measure of wickedness, is incalculably superabundant.

4. Paradise therefore will be restored, that tree will be restored which is in truth the tree of life — there will be restored the grace of the image, and the dignity of rule. It does not seem to me that our hope is one for those things which are now subjected by God to man for the necessary uses of life, but one for another kingdom, of a description that belongs to unspeakable mysteries." (source: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2914.htm )

Isaac of Nineveh:

"Sin, Gehenna and Death do not exist at all with God, for they are effects, not substances. Sin is the fruit of free will. There was a time when sin did not exist, and there will be a time when it will not exist. Gehenna is the fruit of sin. At some point in time it had a beginning, but its end is not known. Death, however, is a dispensation of the wisdom of the Creator. It will rule only a short time over nature; then it will be totally abolished." (Isaac of Nineveh, First Part 26 (using the numbering of the East-Syrian edition), source: https://classicalchristianity.com/2011/04/02/sin-gehenna-and-death/ ; Regarding Isaac, see also the section about him in my previous post about the East-Syrian tradition: https://ancientafterlifebelifs.blogspot.com/2026/01/on-presence-of-universalism-in-east.html )

"As a handful of sand thrown into the ocean, so are the sins of all flesh as compared with the mind of God; as a fountain that flows abundantly is not dammed by a handful of earth, so the compassion of the Creator is not overcome by the wickedness of the creatures" (Isaac of Nineveh, First Part, 50, source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_the_Syrian#cite_note-55 )




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ancient and Medieval witnesses of the presence of ‘universalism’ in Diodore of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia

Ancient and Medieval witnesses of the presence of ‘universalism’ [1] in  Diodore of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia Introduction In this text, witnesses of Theodore of Mopsuestia’s and Diodore of Tarsus’ eschatological ‘universalist’ views, are reported.  As shall we see, the attestations of Diodore’s endorsement of a form of apokatastasis are always accompanied by an attestation of his disciple, Theodore, endorsing the same view. All these common testimonies are from Syriac sources, both Eastern-Syriac - Isaac of Nineveh (fl. 7 th century in his Second Part, 39.7-14; for Theodore only in his Second Part, 3.3.94 ), Solomon of Basra (fl. 13 th century in his book of the Bee, 60 ), Theodore bar Konai (fl. 8 th century in his Liber Scholiorum 2.63 ) - and Western-Syriac - John of Dara (fl. 9 th century in his On the Resurrection of Human Bodies 4.21 ). There is a brief comparison of a passage in Isaac’s Third Part (discourse 6) about eschatological punishments and the cont...
Read more

On the possible presence of universalism in some ancient Christians Latin authors

  On the possible presence of universalism in some ancient Christians Latin authors Introduction In what follows, I’ll present some evidence for the presence of a doctrine or a sympathy of universalism (i.e. the belief that all human beings will be ultimately saved) in some Latin Fathers. There are some suggestive passages in the writings of Ambrose of Milan and John Cassian. Also, Rufinus of Aquileia, in his quarrel against Jerome of Stridon, while admitting that the fate of the wicked is a mystery shows a clear sympathy for the doctrine of universalism. However, it should be noted that none of the figures I quote in this post have been cited as universalists (as far as I know) before the 19 th century and, also, the interpretation of their texts never seem to have caused controversy among later writers (again, as far as I know) about the possible presence of genuine universalist beliefs or interpolations in their texts. While this fact alone doesn’t exclude an universalist...
Read more

On the presence of universalism in East Syrian tradition

On the presence of universalism [1] in East Syrian tradition East Syrian theologians were influenced by Diodore of Tarsus (fl. 4 th century), his disciple Theodore of Mopsuestia (fl. 4-5 th century) who is called the ‘Interpreter/Exegete/Expositor’ in the East Syrian church (also called ‘Church of the East’), and Evagrius Ponticus (fl. 4 th century) [2] .  The point of this text is to show that there a was significant prevalence of the idea in this tradition (this doesn’t necessarily mean that it was a majority view). For more details about Diodore and Theodore see my previous post: https://ancientafterlifebelifs.blogspot.com/2026/01/ancient-and-medieval-witnesses-of_28.html A testimony of an opponent: Babai the Great (fl. 6 th century): Let me start with the testimony of an opponent of ‘universalism’ in the East-Syrian Church. This testimony is particularly interesting because it provides evidence that ‘universalism’ was often actively contested in this Tradition. Also, it p...
Read more