On the linguistic argument for Christian Universalism

 

On the linguistic argument for Christian Universalism

The following passage from the ‘book of the Bee’, written by the East-Syrian Solomon of Basra (fl. 13th century), is sometimes quoted by Christian universalists to show that words like aionios or phrases like eis ton aiona do not mean what are generally taken to mean, i.e. ‘eternal’ or ‘forever’:

“But if punishment is to be weighed out according to sin, not even so would punishment be endless. For as regards that which is said in the Gospel, 'These shall go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into life eternal;' (Matthew 25:46) this word 'eternal' (le-`âlam) is not definite: for if it be not so, how did Peter say to our Lord, 'Thou shalt never wash my feet,' (John 13:8) and yet He washed him? And of Babylon He said, 'No man shall dwell therein for ever and ever,' (Isaiah 13:20) and behold many generations dwell therein.” (Book of the Bee, chapter 60, E. Budge’s translation with a small modification: ‘eternal punishment’ instead of ‘everlasting punishment’; source: https://sacred-texts.com/chr/bb/bb60.htm )

This quote is generally attributed to Diodore of Tarsus (fl. 4th century) and, given the structure of the chapter I tend to agree with this attribution. The chapter is made up of a few lines of commentary followed by a series of quotes of an otherwise unknown to me ‘Book of Memorials’, Isaac of Nineveh, Theodore of Mospuestia and Diodore of Tarsus.

If I recall correctly, the fragment actually works better in Syriac than in Greek (i.e. Diodore’s language). Indeed, it is said that the same Syriac word translated both the adjective aionios and the adverbial eis ton aiona. The fragment, indeed, denies that aionios in Matthew 25:46 necessarily implies unendingness as the same ‘word’ was used in John 13:8 and Isaiah 13:20 to describe conditions that were later reversed. However, given that, aionios and eis ton aiona, if I recall correctly renders the same Hebrew word, I think that the point is still valid: just because ‘forever’ and ‘eternal’ are used, it doesn’t necessarily imply that a condition is truly ‘without end’. Indeed, later in the same chapter, we find:

“But in the New Testament le-`âlam is not without end” (ibid.)

As I said in the first lines of this post, some take this as evidence that the ‘eternal’ and ‘forever’ translations are wrong. Rather, the argument goes, the fact that sometimes the Greek/Hebrew/Syriac words and phrases are used to denote conditions that are later reversed is taken to imply that the real meaning of the ‘aion-’ words and phrases is better understood as ‘pertaining to an age’, ‘age-long’ and so on. However, Diodore’s and/or Solomon’s point is simply that the ‘aion-’ words and phrases are used to denote conditions that have a finite duration. If they meant to say that the relevant words and phrases actually meant ‘age-long’ or ‘pertaining to an age’, we would expect a more explicit statement in this sense.

Still, it is clear that they used the relative flexibility in the use of the relevant words/phrases as an indication that the ‘eternal punishment’ might in fact be not truly ‘without end’. Perhaps, Diodore and Solomon took ‘eternal punishment’ to mean a punishment that has the consequence of liberating one from sins permanently and, hence, a punishment that has permanent effects. The fragment of Theodore of Mopsuestia (known in the East-Syrian tradition as the ‘Interpreter/Expositor’), might be taken as evidence of this:

“Those who have here chosen fair things will receive in the world to come the pleasure of good things with praises; but the wicked who have turned aside to evil things all their life, when they are become ordered in their minds by penalties and the fear that springs from them, and choose good things, and learn how much they have sinned by having persevered in evil things and not in good things, and by means of these things receive the knowledge of the highest doctrine of the fear of God, and become instructed to lay hold of it with a good will, will be deemed worthy of the happiness of the Divine liberality. For He would never have said, "Until thou payest the uttermost farthing," (cf. Matthew 5:26, Luke 12:59) unless it had been possible for us to be freed from our sins through having atoned for them by paying the penalty; neither would He have said, "he shall be beaten with many stripes," or "he shall be beaten with few stripes," (cf. Luke 12:47-48) unless it were that the penalties, being meted out according to the sins, should finally come to an end.” (ibid., addition of biblical references mine)

Clearly, Theodore understands the eschatological punishment as educative and aimed at freeing the wicked permanently from their sins. However, from the text we can’t assume that it is in this way that Diodore, Theodore and Solomon understood the expression ‘eternal punishment’.

Furthermore, I do not think that this kind of reasoning would convince the opponents of universalism. Let’s assume that ‘age-long’ is the best interpretation of aionios in Matthew 25:46. This would give us the following rendering:

“These shall go away into age-long punishment, but the righteous into life age-long”

A quite ancient argument (which we might call the ‘parallelism argument’) against Christian universalism was that if aionios doesn’t mean ‘without end’ in the case of punishment, it also doesn’t mean ‘without end’ in the case of life. So, if we interpret aionios as ‘age-long’ in the case of punishment and we interpret this ‘age-long’ as referring to a finite duration, we should do the same in the case of ‘life’ and the result would be a denial of endlessness of the life of the blessed.

As far as I know, this argument advanced by Basil of Caesarea (fl. 4th century) and Augustine of Hyppo (fl. 4-5th century) among many others was never explicitly addressed by ancient universalists. And while it is true that Diodore might have tried to deny that that aionios in Matthew 25:46 implies unendingness, his quote doesn’t really address the ‘parallelism argument’. So, we have a sort of impasse here: the universalists deny that aionios (and eis ton aiona etc) must be taken to mean ‘without end’ because the aion- words and phrases have been used to denote conditions that were later reversed. The opponents of universalism, however, argue that the parallel use of aionios for punishment and life implies that ‘without end’ is the real meaning here.

So, no matter which translations we use, the situation doesn’t change, in my opinion. The Christian universalist might invoke passages in which the language of permanence or perpetuity is used for conditions, states etc that came to and end, whereas the Christian opponents of Christian universalism might use the ‘parallelism argument’ in order to try to show that the universalist reading of Matthew 25:46 is wrong.

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