Ilaria Ramelli on the alleged presence universalism in the early St. Augustine (text and a few comments)

 

Ilaria Ramelli on the alleged presence universalism in the early St. Augustine (text and a few comments)

In her book ‘A Larger Hope, vol. 1’, Ilaria Ramelli controversially suggests that the early St. Augustine (354-430) in a work apparently written in 388 AD, endorsed an ‘universalist’ view:

“But Augustine had not always been a defender of eternal torment. Many years earlier, when the target of Augustine’s polemic was not yet Pelagianism, but rather Manichaeism, Augustine used against the latter the same metaphysical arguments that Origen used against “gnostics.” This, especially in his double treatise On the Customs of the Catholic Church and on the Customs of the Manichaeans. It is not accidental that in this same work Augustine also embraced the doctrine of universal restoration, whether he knew that it was Origen’s or not. For in De mor. 2:7:9 he declared: “God’s goodness [Dei bonitas] . . . orders all creatures [omnia] that have fallen . . . until they return to the original state from which they fell.” This is the very same notion that Origen had expressed in Princ. 1:6:1, which may have reached Augustine in a compilation or partial translation anterior to Rufinus’: “God’s goodness [bonitas Dei], by means of his Christ, calls back all creatures [universam creaturam] to one and the same end.” God’s goodness, for both Origen and the young Augustine, is not simply God’s kindness or generosity or mercy, but first and foremost, on the ontological plane, it is God’s being the absolute Good, and since God is the true Being, evil, which is opposite to God the Good, is non-being. As Augustine explains in the rest of the passage in question (De mor. 2:7), the creatures that have fallen are precisely rational creatures, who, with their free choices, acquire merits or demerits. On the basis of these, God assigns them to different orders—in Origen’s view, the orders of angels, humans, and demons—all the while never abandoning them and never allowing them to end up by disappearing into evil-non-being. God’s providence guides these creatures until they return to the original condition from which they have fallen. This whole passage is so replete with Origen’s ideas that Augustine felt the need to disavow it in his later Retractations: “That all beings will return to the condition from which they fell should not be understood in the sense of Origen’s theory . . . for those who will be punished in the eternal fire do not return to God, from whom they detached themselves” (1:7:6). Given the closeness of Augustine’s thought to Origen, at least in his anti-Manichaean phase, it is not surprising that a collection of texts from Origen’s On First Principles has been ascribed to Augustine under the title On the Incarnation of the Logos to Ianuarius. Besides Karla Pollmann, István Perczel, and Michael Cameron, Daniel Heide, too, explicitly accepts my reconstruction of Augustine as a supporter of apokatastasis in his anti-Manichaean phase.” (A Larger Hope, vol. 1, pp. 156-7)

Admittedly, what Ramelli says here is interesting. However, given that Augustine was quite honest in his Confessions about his intellectual development, it would be quite strange that he never mentioned that he was an universalist back then. That said, taken to itself, the textual evidence is quite interesting. I’ll quote De mor 2:8-9 here from an English translation accessible on the NewAdvent website:

“8. What further does the Catholic light say? What do you suppose, but what is the actual truth, that it is the created substance which can be corrupted, for the uncreated, which is the chief good, is incorruptible; and corruption, which is the chief evil, cannot be corrupted; besides, that it is not a substance? But if you ask what corruption is, consider to what it seeks to bring the things which it corrupts; for it affects those things according to its own nature. Now all things by corruption fall away from what they were, and are brought to non-continuance, to non-existence; for existence implies continuance. Thus the supreme and chief existence is so called because it continues in itself, or is self-contained. In the case of a thing changing for the better, the change is not from continuance, but from perversion to the worse, that is, from falling away from essence; the author of which falling away is not He who is the author of the essence. So in some things there is change for the better, and so a tendency towards existence. And this change is not called a perversion, but reversion or conversion; for perversion is opposed to orderly arrangement. Now things which tend towards existence tend towards order, and, attaining order they attain existence, as far as that is possible to a creature. For order reduces to a certain uniformity that which it arranges; and existence is nothing else than being one. Thus, so far as anything acquires unity, so far it exists. For uniformity and harmony are the effects of unity, and by these compound things exist as far as they have existence. For simple things exist by themselves, for they are one. But things not simple imitate unity by the agreement of their parts; and so far as they attain this, so far they exist. This arrangement is the cause of existence, disorder of non-existence; and perversion or corruption are the other names for disorder. So whatever is corrupted tends to non-existence. You may now be left to reflect upon the effect of corruption, that you may discover what is the chief evil; for it is that which corruption aims at accomplishing.

9. But the goodness of God does not permit the accomplishment of this end, but so orders all things that fall away that they may exist where their existence is most suitable, till in the order of their movements they return to that from which they fell away. Thus, when rational souls fall away from God, although they possess the greatest amount of free-will, He ranks them in the lower grades of creation, where their proper place is. So they suffer misery by the divine judgment, while they are ranked suitably to their deserts. Hence we see the excellence of that saying which you are always inveighing against so strongly, "I make good things, and create evil things." (Isaiah 45:7 )To create is to form and arrange. So in some copies it is written, "I make good things and form evil things." To make is used of things previously not in existence; but to form is to arrange what had some kind of existence, so as to improve and enlarge it. Such are the things which God arranges when He says, "I form evil things," meaning things which are falling off, and so tending to non-existence — not things which have reached that to which they tend. For it has been said, Nothing is allowed in the providence of God to go the length of non-existence.” (On the Customs of Manicheans, source: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1402.htm ; Latin text available here: https://www.augustinus.it/latino/costumi/index2.htm , click on ‘Liber II’. For the Latin text of the ‘Retractiones’, see ‘Liber I’ in this link: https://www.augustinus.it/latino/ritrattazioni/index2.htm )

Admittedly, in paragraph 9, Augustine seems to say that the ‘goodness of God’ will restore all rational beings and that chastisements are for the better. And in the previous paragraph, he says that total corruption leads to non-being.

That said, it might be the case that Augustine didn’t realize the universalist implications of this text of the arguments he was giving in this text. Despite the textual evidence being interesting, I still don’t think that he was an universalist, simply due to the fact that he never mentioned his alleged previous acceptance of the belief (after all, we are considering the man that has wrote at length about his intellectual life). At the same time, though, it does appear that his argument in the text above seem to go into an universalist conclusion. And, roughly at the same time, he didn’t condemn the belief in the pre-existence of souls (see: https://ancientafterlifebelifs.blogspot.com/2026/08/the-early-st-augustine-on-pre-existence.html . To be honest, however, there is a difference between the 'Origenist' model of pre-existence, as I understand it, and the two models discussed by Augustine here: in the former souls that inhabit a mortal body do so because of their sin whereas in the models discussed by Augustine they do not participate in this earthily life because of their personal sins. ).

*Update(17/08): Found this interesting passage in Hans Urs von Balthasar’s ‘Dare we hope that all men be saved’:

“ One other remarkable aspect of Augustine’s speculations should be noted here. From the passage in the Vulgate in which it is said that God raised Christ up “having loosed the pangs of hell” (Acts 2:24), he concludes “that even the soul of Christ made its way into that region in which sinners are tormented, in order that he might redeem as many of them from their tortures as he, in his justice that is hidden from us, saw fit to redeem”.  He clearly distinguishes this region from what we call limbo and he calls the bosom of Abraham, where there are no torments whatsoever. This place of rest cannot be called the “netherworld” (inferi), since, as such, it cannot be in the netherworld. (Note 8: De Genesi ad litt. XII, 33, 63-64. On all this, cf. Augustine, Psychologie und Mystik (De Gen. ad litt. 12), translated with introduction by E. Korger and Hans Urs von Balthasar (Einsiedeln: Johannesverlag, 1960).” (Hans Urs Von Balthasar, Dare We Hope that All Men be Saved, chapter 8, p. 80)

Here is the Latin text translated roughly by Balthasar:

"Quae si ita sunt, ideo sub terris dicuntur inferi vel creduntur, quia congruenter in spiritu per illas corporalium rerum similitudines sic demonstrantur, ut quoniam defunctorum animae inferis dignae, carnis amore peccaverunt, hoc eis per illas corporalium similitudines exhibeatur, quod ipsi carni mortuae solet, ut sub terram recondatur. Denique inferi eo quod infra sint, latine appellantur: sicut autem secundum corpus si ponderis sui ordinem teneant, inferiora sunt omnia graviora; ita secundum spiritum inferiora sunt omnia tristiora: unde et in graeca lingua origo nominis quo appellantur inferi, ex eo quod nihil suave habeant, resonare perhibetur. Nec ipsam tamen rerum partem noster Salvator mortuus pro nobis visitare contempsit, ut inde solveret quos esse solvendos secundum divinam secretamque iustitiam ignorare non potuit." (De Genesis ad Litteram, Liber XII, source: https://www.augustinus.it/latino/genesi_lettera/index2.htm )

Google translation:

"If this is the case, the underworld is said—or believed—to lie beneath the earth because, through those likenesses of physical things, it is fittingly revealed to the spirit that—since the souls of the dead, being deserving of the underworld, sinned through love of the flesh—they should undergo what happens to the dead flesh itself: namely, to be buried beneath the ground. Indeed, the term *inferi* (the underworld) is used in Latin because the place lies *infra* (below); and just as, regarding the body, all heavier things occupy the lower positions if they follow the natural order of weight, so too, regarding the spirit, all things that are lower are more sorrowful. Hence, in the Greek language, the origin of the name given to the underworld is said to reflect the fact that it holds nothing pleasant. Yet our Savior, having died for us, did not disdain to visit even that realm, so that He might liberate those whom—in accordance with divine and secret justice—He knew required liberation."

Of course, this doesn’t mean that Augustine endorsed universalism in his commentary on Genesis but neverheless it shows that be thought that God could save at least some people after their death.*

*Update(18/08): ChatGPT translation of the same passage:

"If this is so, then the infernal regions are said or believed to be beneath the earth because, in accordance with spiritual realities, they are represented through likenesses of bodily things. Since the souls of the dead who deserve the infernal regions sinned through their attachment to the flesh, what is fittingly presented to them through these bodily likenesses is what ordinarily happens to dead flesh: that it is buried beneath the earth.

Hence the infernal regions are called inferi in Latin because they are “below.” Just as, according to the body, if things follow the order of their own weight, everything heavier is lower, so, according to the spirit, everything lower is sadder. Hence it is said that in the Greek language the origin of the name by which the infernal regions are called is said to echo the idea that they contain nothing pleasant.

Yet even that part of creation our Savior did not disdain to visit when He died for us, so that from there He might release those whom, according to the hidden and divine justice, He could not fail to know ought to be released."*