201

The Debate on Apokatastasis in Pagan and Christian Platonists:

Martianus, Macrobius, Origen,

Gregory of Nyssa, and Augustine

ILARIA L. E. RAMELLI

This contribution studies how the doctrine of apokatastasis was common

to pagan and Christian Platonism, and how both pagans and Christians—

especially Macrobius and Origen—confronted Plato’s eschatology. The

concept of apokatastasis as universal salvation and return to the Good

seems to be a Christian novelty. Indeed, to uphold this doctrine, Origen

had to correct Plato using an argument from the omnipotence of God,

and Gregory of Nyssa, following Origen, supported the doctrine of

apokatastasis on the grounds of Christ’s “inhumanation” and redemptive

work. But later pagan Neoplatonists, such as Macrobius, definitely

embraced this doctrine, to the point of (wrongly) ascribing it to Plato

himself to legitimize it and make it nobler. Pagan Neoplatonists may

here have been influenced by Christian Neoplatonists, although they

would never have admitted that they had drawn inspiration from them.

This would not be the only example of Christian Neoplatonic influence

on pagan Neoplatonism

1. Presentation and Methodological Guidelines

The theory of apokatastasis (!!"#$%"&%$&'#, “restoration, reconstitution,

reestablishment”) involves the restoration and return of fallen beings to their

original condition and, in general, to their adhesion to the supreme Good.1

Universal apokatastasis implies that all fallen beings will be restored; if only

some beings are supposed to be restored, apokatastasis is not universal. Here

I shall study Martianus’ conception of the origin and destiny of the soul,

which seems to entail a nonuniversal apokatastasis (at least, this was surely

the interpretation of his commentator John the Scot Eriugena, as I shall point

1 This article is the revised and expanded version of a paper I presented at the

session on Martianus Capella at the International Mediaeval Congress, Leeds, July

12–17, 2009. I am very grateful to the participants for discussion. Special thanks to

Danuta Shanzer for her invitation to the session and to submission to ICS, and to the

anonymous readers of ICS for helpful comments.

202 Illinois Classical Studies 33–34 (2008–2009)

out), and I shall draw a parallel with Macrobius, who has a doctrine of

universal apokatastasis, which he ascribes to Plato. I shall then consider the

relationship between this “pagan” theory and the Christian doctrine of

apokatastasis—which was subsequently considered to be heretical—in two

contemporaries of Martianus and Macrobius: Gregory of Nyssa and the early

Augustine. The latter, as I shall argue, initially embraced this doctrine along

with other tenets of Origen’s thought.

I start from the fundamental premise that Neoplatonism, just like Middle

Platonism, was compatible both with paganism and with Christianity.2 Since

“true Platonism” is not “pagan Platonism” (for both pagan and Christian

Platonism are equally Platonic and equally well attested historically), it

makes no sense even to ask whether Platonism is reconcilable or

irreconcilable with Christianity, since this very question presupposes the

identification of Platonism with pagan Platonism, which is to beg the

question. This, of course, is an important debate that I shall not enter here.3

Some think that speaking of Christian Platonism, or patristic Platonism,

makes no sense, in that only a heretical Christian could be a Platonist. This is

because they consider Platonism as necessarily “pagan” and increasingly a

religion, and a pagan religion at that. It is of course true that pagan

Neoplatonism exhibited this development, but a Plotinus, for instance, would

probably have abhorred Iamblichus’ pagan mysteriosophy—which

nevertheless is regarded as Neoplatonic—no less than, say, Gregory of

Nyssa’s Christian Neoplatonism.

In fact, both Middle and Neoplatonism had pagan and Christian sides, the

latter represented, for example, by Justin, Athenagoras, Clement, Origen,

Gregory of Nyssa, and the whole of patristic philosophy, which was

prevalently Platonic.4 In this connection, I set out to investigate here how the

2 See my “Origen, Patristic Philosophy, and Christian Platonism: Re-thinking the

Christianization of Hellenism,” VigChr 63 (2009) 217–63. 3 I have discussed it in Gregorio di Nissa Sull’Anima e la Resurrezione (Milan

2007), second integrative essay. 4 There was even a Jewish Middle Platonism with Philo of Alexandria, who was a

precursor of the Christian Middle Platonism insofar as he realized the first synthesis

between Platonism and the Bible thanks to the powerful instrument of allegory, which

was used by both pagan Middle and Neoplatonists, who applied it to myths (Plutarch,

Porphyry), and Christian Middle and Neoplatonists, who applied it to the Bible. See

Ilaria Ramelli 203

doctrine of apokatastasis was common to pagan and Christian Platonism, and

how both pagans and Christians—especially Macrobius and Origen—

confronted Plato’s eschatology.

2. Martianus Capella and Pagan Apokatastasis: Not Universal?

Martianus’ work is strongly imbued with Middle Platonism, Neoplatonism,

Pythagoreanism, and the doctrine of the Chaldaean Oracles. He seems either

to have been a contemporary of Augustine or, more probably, to have lived

slightly later, in the second half of the fifth century,5 and, like Augustine, in

Africa. He was a pagan—as is also maintained by Préaux, Lenaz, Turcan, and

Shanzer, against Cappuyns’ or Böttger’s doubts—and there is anti-Christian

polemic behind his De Nuptiis.6

In Martianus’ view, the apokatastasis of the soul, its return to its original

condition, is a Platonic $!'&%(")%, the third Neoplatonic movement after

my “Philosophical Allegoresis of Scripture in Philo and Its Legacy in Gregory of

Nyssa,” StudPhilon 20 (2008) 55–99. 5 I discuss the chronology in Tutti i commenti a Marziano Capella: Scoto

Eriugena, Remigio di Auxerre, Bernardo Silvestre e anonimi, Essays, improved

editions, translations, commentaries, appendixes, bibliography (Milan 2006) 769–70

and 775–6; more briefly in the entry “Martianus Capella” in the The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Ancient History (forthcoming). See also Konrad Vössing,

“Augustinus und Martianus Capella—ein Diskurs im Spätantiken Karthago?” in Die christlich-philosophischen Diskurse der Spätantike: Texte, Personen, Institutionen,

ed. Therese Fuhrer (Stuttgart 2008), who, however, prefers the high chronology. 6 M. Cappuyns, “Capella (Martianus),” in Dictionnaire d’Histoire et Géographie

Ecclésiastiques (Paris 1949) 2.835–47, esp. 838 and 843; James Willis, Martianus Capella and His Early Commentators (diss. Univ. of London 1952); idem, “Martianus

und die mittelalterliche Schulbildung,” Altertum 19 (1973) 164–74, esp. 165; Jean

Préaux, “Jean Scot et Martin de Laon en face du ‘De Nuptiis’ du Martianus Capella,”

in Jean Scot Érigène et l’histoire de la philosophie, ed. René Roques (Paris 1977)

161–70, esp. 162–63; idem, “Les manuscrits principaux du ‘De nuptiis Philologiae et

Mercurii’ de Martianus Capella,” in Lettres latines du Moyen Âge et de la Renaissance (Bruxelles 1987) 76–128, esp. 76; Danuta Shanzer, A Philosophical and Literary Commentary on Martianus Capella’s De Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii Book 1 (Berkeley 1986) 16 and 21ff.; and Danuta Shanzer, “Martianus and

Christianity Reconsidered,” delivered at “Martians Landing Under Our Radar?:

Contextualizing Martianus Capella’s Deviancy or Heresy,” at the International

Medieval Congress, Leeds, 14 July, 2009.

204 Illinois Classical Studies 33–34 (2008–2009)

*"+% and !(&","#, and, as such, a -'.&'#—a notion that was common to

both pagan and Christian Neoplatonism.7 He undoubtedly has a doctrine of

some souls’ apokatastasis, but he is not at all explicit concerning the

possibility of all souls’ returning. I shall show that Macrobius, who has so

much in common with him, including pagan Neoplatonism, is much more

interested in the universalistic issue and closer to contemporary Christian

Neoplatonists who supported the doctrine of apokatastasis—later on

condemned as heretical by the church—in the form of universal salvation—

famously in Origen for the devil himself.8

Martianus’ work revolved around the elevation of the wise soul,

represented by Philologia, who loves the Logos, to heaven, to marry

Mercury, that is, Hermes the Logos, according to an ancient allegorical

tradition. The Logos is not only the word, but also, and above all, reason; the

soul who loves it is the philosophical soul, who must get rid of all mundane

learning in order to access free wisdom. Philologia is not only love for words

and thus our discipline of philology, but it is the love of the soul for wisdom,

rationality, thought, and knowledge. This is why Martianus emphasizes

Philologia’s vast knowledge, which embraces all human knowledge.

Philologia symbolizes the human soul that is divinized through philosophy.

According to Remigius of Auxerre,9 Mercury represents sermo, rhetorically

crafted speech, and Philologia human reason and the knowledge that it

acquires. According to Lenaz,10

Mercury represents God, and Philology the

human soul: their marriage symbolizes the union between the human and the

divine. Martianus identifies Mercury with the Neoplatonic Intellect (De nupt. 1.92), the hypostasis derived from the One and prior to the third hypostasis,

the Soul.

Philosophy, broadly conceived, including all human knowledge and

behavior, leads to the divinization of the human soul. The gods’ decree, of

which Martianus speaks in the narrative frame, concedes immortality to those

human beings who have deserved it with their conduct and study. The model

7 See my “Divinization/Theosis” in the Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception

(Berlin 2011). 8 See below 21517.

9 Edition, translation, and commentary in my Commentari.

10 Preface to Martiani Capellae de nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii liber secundus,

ed. L. Lenaz (Padova 1975) 117.

Ilaria Ramelli 205

is Philologia herself, who, as Martianus says, “had her birth on earth, but the

intention to tend to the stars” (sed cui terreus/ortus, propositum in sidera tendere; De nupt. 1.93). She ascends to heaven thanks to her efforts in study

and the exercise of reason. Philosophical culture, including the liberal arts, is

conceived by Martianus as an instrument of elevation and a means to attain

immortality. The interest in humans’ eternal destiny and in prizes or

punishments in the other world according to one’s conduct in this one is

shared by Martianus and his possible contemporary Macrobius; both of them

were influenced by Neoplatonism and by Cicero’s Somnium Scipionis.

The deities are represented as having a heavenly abode, around the zodiac

circle (De nupt. 1.45–60), at different levels, from the sphere of fixed stars to

the circles comprised between this and the sun, then those between the sun

and the moon, and finally the sublunary region down to earth. Human souls,

which have a fiery nature, after leaving the body, can be lifted to different

planes of this celestial hierarchy. Of course, the idea of the body’s liberation

and the soul’s return to its original place owes much to (Neo)platonic and

(Neo)pythagorean asceticism, which deeply influenced Martianus.

Martianus’ conception of the apokatastasis—whether or not universal—

comes close to what Marrou called “the religion of culture” in his Histoire de l’éducation dans l’antiquité: eternal beatitude is the fruit of culture, of a

moral and intellectual elevation, pursued through philosophy and the liberal

arts, the symbol of which is the marriage between Philologia and Mercury.

The latter, indeed, assumes the characteristics of Hermes Psychopompus,

who guided the souls of the dead to the other world, in particular those

destined to beatitude. Indeed, the theory that underlies Martianus’ work and

is only cursorily described therein is that humans are endowed with a fiery

soul that comes from heaven and there must return. This is also close to the

doctrine of “astral immortality” already described in Cicero’s Somnium Scipionis, and hence in Macrobius’ commentary on it, where Macrobius

expounds his apokatastasis theory. Humans must tend to eternal beatitude

through the attainment of wisdom.

Martianus’ ethical intellectualism is typical of Neoplatonists, both pagan

and Christian, and it is especially clear in Gregory of Nyssa and in the other

patristic philosophers who supported the doctrine of apokatastasis. Medieval

commentators highlight this trait and make it even more pronounced.

Intellectual engagement in “philosophy” (which tends to include all

knowledge and virtues) is the key to eternal beatitude. Philosophical study

can reach the whole cosmos and the divine sphere (De nupt. 1.22), which is

the end of the apokatastasis.

Another conception that, against a typical Platonic backdrop, Martianus

shares with Macrobius and is related to the apokatastasis of the soul—a

206 Illinois Classical Studies 33–34 (2008–2009)

doctrine that was already present in Philo, who was by no means a

universalist11

—is the understanding of the sublunary world as the true

Hades. This means that the world of the dead is this world, in which souls are

incarnated. In De nupt. 2.160–66, he interprets the infernal river

Pyriphlegethon as a reference to the air that surrounds the earth and connects

it to the relationship of the souls to their bodies. This air around the earth is

that which obstacles the separation of the souls from the bodies and thus the

true life of the souls, conceived as a disembodied life. The souls that must be

reincarnated are those who are condemned: it is no accident that Pluto and

Proserpine, the deities who presided over Hades, are said by Martianus to

rule over the terrestrial deities. The true Hades is on earth. This is why

Philologia, to acquire immortality, must leave the earth and cross all the

celestial circles (De nupt. 2.142–99).12

Among the commentators of Martianus,13

the one who most highlighted

this idea, explicitly ascribing it to the Platonic tradition, is John the Scot

Eriugena in his Glosae Martiani 13.5 (ed. Jeauneau), in a section entitled

“<Secundum> sectam Platonicam antiquissimorum Graecorum de lapsu et

apostrophia animarum,”14

where apostrophia indicates the Neoplatonic

!!"&%(")% or $!'&%(")% and in fact the apokatastasis. Eriugena in this

passage also presents the same etymologies of the infernal rivers that

Macrobius does and the identification of these rivers with the planetary

orbits, which are located under the fixed stars, which are described as the

natural seat of the souls, whereas the earth is not their natural seat. Eriugena

also identifies the return of the soul to its original place with its divinization,

which he calls, not -'.&'#, but !!"-'.&'#. And, taking !!"- in the sense of

“back,” he interprets it as a redivinization, i.e., a return or restoration to the

divine state that was the original state of the soul. This return is clearly the

11 See my Apokatastasis (forthcoming).

12 See my Marziano Capella (Milan 2001) and commentary ad loc.

13 All Latin Medieval commentators on Martianus are found, with critical essays,

translations, editions, and commentaries, in my Tutti i commenti a Marziano Capella: Scoto Eriugena, Remigio di Auxerre, Bernardo Silvestre e anonimi (Milan: Istituto

Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici, 2006). 14

In the Oxford manuscript: “sectam Platonicam antiquissimorum Graecorum de

lapsu et apostrophia animarum.” I accept Liebeschütz’s integration “<secundum>

sectam Platonicam”; H. Liebeschütz, “Zur Geschichte der Erklärung des Martianus

Capella bei Eriugena,” Philologus 104 (1960) 131n1.

Ilaria Ramelli 207

apokatastasis of the soul, and this is hardly surprising, for Eriugena himself

was one of the few Latin supporters of the doctrine of apokatastasis. Indeed,

what he describes, the original unity of all beings in God and their return to

this condition in the end, is the Origenistic-Evagrian doctrine that Eriugena

himself was to develop and reinterpret in his Periphyseon, even though both

the Origenian authors and Eriugena dropped the “astral” doctrine of descent

and purification through the planetary orbits. This is the most important

section of this treatment:

And since they [sc. the Platonists] thought that there was nothing outside

the universe, they were convinced that the souls return to the same orbits

of the planets through which they imagined that they had fallen into the

bodies, and that thus they find again their original and natural abode.

However, since they had been contaminated by the stains of the body,

they could not return without the purification that they call !!"-'.&'#,

that is, “redivinization.” Because at the beginning they [sc. the souls]

were linked to the divinity in unity, in their [sc. the Platonists’] opinion,

and then they return to it after purification; therefore, they [sc. the

Platonists] thought that souls are purified in the planetary orbits . . . and

they assigned a particular space to each single soul, according to the

quality of their merits. And they called the orbit of Saturn Styx, which

means “sadness” . . . that of Mars, on the other side, was called

/0()123'-.+ [sic], that is, flaming fire. In these two orbits the impious

souls are either tormented eternally, if characterized by an excessive

wickedness, or purified, in order to return, at a certain moment,15 to peace. And they [sc. the Platonists] thought that this peace was found in

the orbit of Jupiter and Venus, where they thought that the Elysian Fields

were found, the fields of $1(&2"# [sic], that is, of liberation from pains

. . . even after purification some of them [sc. the souls] wish to return

again to some bodies; others, on the contrary, completely despise bodies

and reach their natural abodes among stars, from which they had fallen.

. . . The souls’ free examination, with which they decide whether to

return back to the body or to despise any corporeal abode and to return to their original place, is indicated by the peregrination of the Fortunae

from river to river and their return from river to river in the opposite

direction.

15 In my edition I have corrected quandam, p. 132 l. 1 Jeauneau, into quondam,

which is the perfect pendant to semper, “eternally,” in the preceding line.

208 Illinois Classical Studies 33–34 (2008–2009)

Eriugena clearly does not ascribe a universalistic apokatastasis to

Martianus, as he states that, according to him, there are some souls that are

not purified by torments after this life, but only punished, and these must

endure hell forever. This was also Plato’s view, but I shall soon demonstrate

that Macrobius’ opinion was very different, that he took the apokatastasis as

universal and even attributed this universality to Plato himself.16

3. Macrobius and the Attribution of Universal Apokatastasis to Plato

Martianus’ conception of the apokatastasis of the soul finds a close

parallel—but with one remarkable difference—in that of his (probable)

contemporary Macrobius, a Latin Neoplatonist17

and a member of the

senatorial order and vir illustris. He might be identifiable with the Macrobius

cited in Codex Theodosianus as a prefect of Spain in A.D. 399 or proconsul

in Africa in 410, or, as maintained by Mazzarino and Cameron,18

with a

Theodosius who was the Praetorian Prefect of Italy in A.D. 430, also

mentioned in the codex. The two might even be the same person. Many

scholars tend nowadays to place the composition of Macrobius’ commentary

16 Some aspects of these interpretations are taken up by Eriugena in several points

of his Commentary on Martianus as well, for instance in 68.16 and 69.2. This

philosophical discourse is less developed in Remigius of Auxerre’s commentary,

which nevertheless has some traces of these exegeses, especially in 13.6 (15.8) and

69.1 (166.49). The anonymous Berlin-Zwettl commentary, too, written by an author

who was close to the Platonic School of Chartres, takes over the Platonic-Pythagorean

exegesis reflected in Martianus and locates the true hell on earth as the place of the

incarnation of the souls. 17

Mireille Armisen Marchetti, Macrobe: Commentaire au Songe de Scipion (Paris

2001) vii ff.; Averil Cameron, “Macrobius, Avienus, and Avianus,” CQ n.s. 17 (1967)

386–99; Nicola Marinone, “Per la cronologia di Servio,” AAT 104 (1970): 181–211 =

idem, Analecta Graecolatina (Bologna 1990) 265–86; J. Flamant, Macrobe et le néo-platonisme latin à la fin du IVe siecle (Leiden 1977) 91–141; S. Döpp, “Zur Datierung

von Macrobius’ Saturnalia,” Hermes 106 (1978) 619–32; Silvio Panciera, “Iscrizioni

senatorie di Roma e dintorni 38,” in Epigrafia e ordine senatorio: Atti del Colloquio internazionale AIEGL, Roma, 14–20 maggio 1981 (Roma 1982) 2.658–60; Joan M.

Norris, “Macrobius,” AugStud 28 (1997) 81–100. 18

Santo Mazzarino, “La politica religiosa di Stilicone,” RIL 71 (1938) 235–62; and

Averil Cameron, “The Date and Identity of Macrobius,” JRS 56 (1966) 25–38.

Ilaria Ramelli 209

on the Somnium Scipionis after A.D. 410 or 430;19

some, however, with

Courcelle, Georgii, Döpp, and others, advocate a date toward the end of the

fourth century.20

Just like Martianus, Macrobius was a pagan and probably also had some

anti-Christian points. In his Saturnalia, the name “Evangelus,” designating a

very unpleasant character, ignorant and arrogant, who offends people and

sows hatred, might be significant. This is a person with whom a serene

conversation is impossible.21

His identification with the historical person

mentioned by Symmachus in Ep. 6.7 is uncertain. Evangelus’ name, together

with his designation of Virgil as vester rather than noster, suggests an

allusion to Christianity as well,22

and a negative allusion at that. Moreover,

the three major characters who make their houses available for conversation

are among the most illustrious pagan figures of that time: Symmachus is the

orator who asked for the restoration of the Altar of Victory to the Senate and,

to defend paganism, developed the motif of religious relativism that had

already been adduced by Themistius in support of religious freedom; his

famous opponent was Ambrose of Milan.23

Flavianus favored Eugenius

19 See, e.g., Marinone, La cronologia; Flamant, Macrobe et le néo-platonisme

latin, 80–81; Armisen Marchetti, Macrobe: Commentaire, xviii. 20

H. Georgii, “Zur Bestimmung der Zeit des Servius,” Philologus 71 (1912) 518–

26, proposed 395–410; Pierre Courcelle, “Nouveaux aspects du Platonisme chez S.

Ambroise,” REL 34 (1956) 220–39, thought that the Commentary was earlier than

Ambrose’s Hexaëmeron, of the years 386–87; against M. Fuhrmann, “Macrobius und

Ambrosius,” Philologus 10 (1963) 301–8. End of century: Döpp, Zur Datierung; R.

Cristescu-Ochesanu, “Controverse recente cu privire la cronologia di lui Macrobius,”

StudClas 14 (1972) 231–37. 21

This is his characterization from his very first appearance in 1.7.1–2: “Dum ista

narrantur, unus e famulitio, cui provincia erat admittere volentes dominum convenire,

Evangelum adesse nuntiat cum Disario, qui tunc Romae praestare videbatur ceteris

medendi artem professis. Conrugato indicavere vultu plerique de considentibus

Evangeli interventum otio suo inamoenum minusque placido conventui congruentem.

Erat enim amarulenta dicacitate et lingua proterve mordaci, procax ac securus offensarum quas sine delectu cari vel non amici in se passim verbis odia serentibus provocabat.”

22 See my review of Fuhrer, Die christlich-philosophischen Diskurse, in BMCR

2009. 23

See my “‘Vie diverse all’unico mistero’: la concezione delle religioni in

Temistio ed il suo atteggiamento verso il Cristianesimo,” RIL 139 (2005) 455–83; and

210 Illinois Classical Studies 33–34 (2008–2009)

against Theodosius. So when Theodosius defeated Eugenius and made

Christianity the State religion, Flavianus committed suicide. Praetextatus,

too, who is presented very positively by Macrobius, and precisely in contrast

to Evangelus,24

was a pagan and for some time also an important pagan

priest; he was an expert in Eastern cults.

Macrobius’ treatment of apokatastasis is found in his philosophical work,

the Commentarii in Somnium Scipionis,25

a commentary on the famous

fragment from the last book of Cicero’s Republic inspired by Plato’s

homonymous work. The Somnium corresponded, in position and content, to

the myth of Er in Plato’s Republic, as Macrobius himself remarks in Comm.

1.1 and as other ancient authors, such as Favonius Eulogius (Disp. 1.1) and

“Apofatismo cristiano e relativismo pagano: un confronto tra filosofi platonici,” in

Verità e mistero fra tradizione greco romana e multiculturalismo tardo antico, ed.

Angela M. Mazzanti (Bologna 2009) 101–69. 24 Saturnalia 1.7.2–7: “Erat enim [Evangelus] amarulenta dicacitate et lingua

proterve mordaci, procax ac securus offensarum quas sine delectu cari vel non amici

in se passim verbis odia serentibus provocabat. Sed Praetextatus, ut erat in omnes aeque placidus ac mitis, ut admitterentur missis obviis imperavit. Quos Horus

ingredientes commodum consecutus comitabatur, vir corpore atque animo iuxta

validus, qui post inter pugiles palmas ad philosophiae studia migravit, sectamque

Antisthenis et Cratetis atque ipsius Diogenis secutus inter Cynicos non incelebris

habebatur. Sed Evangelus, postquam tantum coetum adsurgentem sibi ingressus

offendit: Casusne, inquit, hos omnes ad te, Praetextate, contraxit, an altius quiddam

cui remotis arbitris opus sit cogitaturi ex disposito convenistis? Quod si ita est, ut

aestimo, abibo potius quam me vestris miscebo secretis, a quibus me amovebit

voluntas, licet fortuna fecisset inruere. Tunc Vettius, quamvis ad omnem patientiam constanter animi tranquillitate firmus, nonnihil tamen consultatione tam proterva motus: Si aut me, inquit, Evangele, aut haec innocentiae lumina cogitasses, nullum

inter nos tale secretum opinarere, quod non vel tibi vel etiam vulgo fieri dilucidum

posset, quia neque ego sum inmemor nec horum quemquam inscium credo sancti

illius praecepti philosophiae, sic loquendum esse cum hominibus, tamquam dii

audiant; sic loquendum cum diis, tamquam homines audiant: cuius secunda pars sancit

ne quid a dis petamus quod velle nos indecorum sit hominibus confiteri. Nos vero, ut

et honorem sacris feriis haberemus et vitaremus tamen torporem feriandi atque otium

in negotium utile verteremus, convenimus diem totum doctis fabulis velut ex symbola

conferendis daturi.” 25

Ed. Ambrosii Theodosii Macrobii Commentarii in Somnium Scipionis, ed. I. [J.]

Willis (Stutgardiae/Lipsiae 1994).

Ilaria Ramelli 211

Augustine (CD 22.28), observed.26

To the Pythagorean-Platonic myth of Er,

in which Er is revealed the otherworldly destiny of souls, Cicero added Stoic

elements.

Already in Cicero’s Somnium the astral beatitude of the virtuous is

understood as truly eternal, and not liable to the cyclical destructions of the

cosmos. This clearly was not in line with orthodox Stoicism, which subjected

everything to cyclical destructions—including souls, which were conceived

as material—apart from the supreme deity-Logos-Pneuma. Of course, the

Stoic doctrine of the periodical and total cosmic destruction, expounded in

2.10, is at odds with the Platonic conception, and Macrobius must have

recourse to the trick of regarding these destructions as only partial, that is,

limited to some parts of the world, which, in its wholeness, endures eternally.

The Somnium Scipionis joined Stoic, Platonic, and Pythagorean ideas;

Macrobius read it mainly in the light of Neoplatonism. He viewed Cicero as

Plato’s spokesman.

Thus, the dogma of the absolute eternity of the soul, which is strongly

asserted in Cicero’s Somnium (“fragile corpus animus sempiternus mouet”)

and was demonstrated by Plato by many proofs,27

taken up by Plotinus and

then greatly developed by Macrobius in his commentary, contrasted with the

orthodox Stoic doctrine according to which souls, being material, vanish at

each cosmic destruction. Scipio indeed describes the so-called great year

which is complete at each apokatastasis, that is, in this case, at each return of

26 “Imitatione Platonis Cicero de re publica scribens locum etiam de Eris

Pamphylii reditu in vitam . . . commentus est.” 27

Cf. M. L. McPherran, “Socrates on the Immortality of the Soul,” JHPh 32

(1994) 1–22; F. Karfik, Die Beseelung des Kosmos: Untersuchungen zur Kosmologie, Seelenlehre, und Theologie in Platons “Phaidon” und “Timaios” (Leipzig/München

2004) 57–84; H. Bonitz, Platonische Studien (Hildesheim 1968) 293–323; E. A.

Brown, “A Defense of Plato’s Argument for the Immortality of the Soul at ‘Republic’

X 608C–611A,” Apeiron 30 (1997) 211–38; G. R. F. Ferrari, City and Soul in Plato’s Republic (Sankt Augustin 2003); Z. Planinc, ed., Politics, Philosophy, Writing: Plato’s Art of Caring for Souls (Columbia, MO 2001); J. D. Evans, “Souls,

Attunements, and Variation in Degree,” IPQ 34 (1994) 277–87; C. Quarch, Sein und Seele (Münster 1998). A. S. Mason, “Immortality in the Timaeus,” Phronesis 39

(1994) 90–97. D. Apolloni, “Plato’s Affinity Argument for the Immortality of the

Soul,” JHPh 34 (1996) 5–32.

212 Illinois Classical Studies 33–34 (2008–2009)

all the stars to their initial position.28

It was Plato who, on the contrary, had

demonstrated the immortality of the soul, which he considered to be

immaterial. But Platonic elements had infiltrated Middle and Neostoicism.

Thus, Scipio Senior, in Macrobius, directly asserts that the soul is immortal

and will never perish, as it never had a beginning. Souls must therefore be

educated to immortality, not be immersed in sense perception. The soul must

be trained in what is best, detached from the body bent on the contemplation

of eternal realities. Those who, on the contrary, indulge their souls in bodily

pleasures make it a slave to the body. Thus, after death, such souls shall be

unable to return to the place where Scipio Senior is, but will have to wander

for many aeons before returning to their homeland. Macrobius, however,

does not mention the case of souls that never return to their original place.

But in Cicero there was no precise universalistic assertion about the beatitude

of souls. It is Macrobius who stresses this, as I shall point out, and I shall

hypothesize that this may be due to the influence of the Christian doctrine of

apokatastasis that had developed meanwhile.

Macrobius, like Plato, posits the Good, i.e., the first Cause, at the top of

the hierarchy of beings. The Nous or Intellect (mens, animus) comes

immediately after; it derives from God and contains the models of all

realities. These are the Ideas, which already in Middle Platonism were

conceived as thoughts of God. Alcinoous in Didaskalikos 9 described them as

+"%&2'# -2") $*.++"0 (“thoughts of the eternal God”), which are eternal in

turn. Only in the Platonic tradition does $*,+'"# means “eternal” in the sense

of atemporal.29

When the Nous turns to itself instead of turning to the Good,

it produces the Soul (anima), the third Plotinian hypostasis. In it, all

individual souls are comprised, but some separate themselves from it, falling

into a body in that they abandon the contemplation of superior realities.

Bodies are Platonically described as “tombs” to souls, and the latters’

liberation from matter and its plurality and dispersion is Platonic as well:

reminiscence—when souls can finally remember their origin and true nature.

This return to their origin and the attainment of unity is the apokatastasis.

28 For the meanings of !!"#$%"&%$&'# in classical Greek, see my Apokatastasis

(forthcoming). 29

See Ilaria Ramelli and David Konstan, Terms for Eternity (Piscataway, NJ

2007).

Ilaria Ramelli 213

Thanks to its very nature and derivation, the soul can never completely

detach itself from its origin. In its upper, rational and intellectual part, it

keeps an innate knowledge of the divine and can join it again thanks to its

virtues. In this way, the role of ethics is mainly that of metaphysical bridge.

This perfectly fits in Platonic ethical intellectualism (which also functioned in

Christian Platonism and significantly contributed to the construction of the

Christian doctrine of apokatastasis). Plato and the Neoplatonists were the

main sources used by Macrobius.30

In book 1, chap. 4, Macrobius makes clear the skopos (a technical term of

Neoplatonic allegorical interpretation) of Cicero’s allegory in the Somnium. It

is aimed at teaching that “animas bene de re publica meritorum post corpora

caelo reddi et illic frui beatitatis perpetuitate.” The theme is ethical and

eschatological. The reward for virtue will be eternal beatitude: “omnibus qui

patriam conseruarint adiuuerint auxerint, certum esse in caelo definitum

locum ubi beati aeuo sempiterno fruantur.” Cicero focused on civic virtues,

whereas Macrobius expands his interpretation to all virtues: all of them pave

the way for the attainment of eternal bliss. This is Scipio Senior’s

recommendation, in which the doctrine of “astral beatitude” is transparent:

“iustitiam cole et pietatem . . . ea uita uia est in caelum et in hunc coetum

eorum qui iam uixere et corpore laxati illum incolunt locum quem uides

significans galaxian.” Indeed, the promise of eternal bliss to virtuous people

is commented on by Macrobius in chap. 8. He resumes a typical Stoic and

Platonic ethical tenet: “solae faciunt uirtutes beatum.” In particular, he

indicates the four cardinal virtues, already theorized by Plato in his Republic,

and then preached by the Stoics. Macrobius also cites Plotinus on this score;

he assigns him the first place in philosophy together with Plato: “Plotinus

inter philosophiae professores cum Platone princeps.”

In chap. 9 Macrobius explains in which sense Scipio says that souls come

from heaven and return to heaven.31

Those who philosophize in the right way

30 For the problem of Macrobius’ sources, and whether he read Plato directly, see

my Macrobio allegorista neoplatonico. 31

It has been noted long since that chaps. 9–10 in the Somnium Scipionis

constitute a particular section, characterized by a great many Latin quotations, from

Virgil, Persius, Juvenal, and even the ancient Accius. Another oddity is given by the

story of Damocles, which does not fit well in the context. Hence the hypothesis of

Bitsch and other scholars, among whom Courcelle and Hadot, that Macrobius was

using a Neoplatonic commentary on Virgil, perhaps by Marius Victorinus. Pierre

214 Illinois Classical Studies 33–34 (2008–2009)

do not doubt that the origin of the souls is in heaven and these, while they

make use of the body, can reach the highest wisdom if they recognize their

origin. He also expounds the doctrine of the transmigration of souls. Two

points ought to be stressed in this connection:

1. This Orphic-Pythagorean doctrine was described by Plato—not,

however, as a theoretical statement, but only as a myth.

2. Pagan Neoplatonists received it to different degrees, some even

admitting of a reincarnation of human souls in animals or plants, others

accepting only a reincarnation in human bodies. But Christian

Neoplatonists who adopted the doctrine of apokatastasis and, like

Origen, were accused of professing the reincarnation of souls in fact did

not adhere to it at all; Origen and Gregory of Nyssa even openly refuted

it.32

Macrobius envisaged a more or less long series of reincarnations at

the end of which came the definitive liberation from the body (which is

“physically” located in the Milky Way, in the sky of fixed stars, the

firmament). The virtuous attain this liberation at once, whereas the

wicked reach it much later, but all will gain access to it in the end.

In chap. 10 Scipio Africanus Senior declares that those who have got rid of

the body as of a prison are really alive, whereas life on earth is a death,

according to the Orphic-Pythagorean-Platonic tradition in Martianus and his

commentators. Macrobius continues along these lines and states that Hades

and its torments are the imprisonment experienced by the soul during its stay

in the body. Therefore, according to an interpretation also present in

Martianus, the river Lethe is the error of the soul that forgets its origin and

preceding life; Styx is hatred, Cocytus sorrow; Titius’ legendary vulture

remorse; Tantalus’ thirst desire, and so on. Lucretius famously identified

punishments in Hades with the torments that people experience on earth

because of empty fears and desires;33

Macrobius calls theologi those who

Courcelle, “Les Pères de l’église devant les enfers virgiliens,” AHMA 30 (1955) 5–74;

Pierre Hadot, Marius Victorinus: Recherches sur sa vie et ses œuvres (Paris 1971)

215–31, who also draws parallels between Macrobius, Servius, and Favonius

Eulogius; Flamant, Macrobe et le neo-platonisme, 580. 32

Origen in several passages and Nyssen in De anima; see my Gregorio di Nissa sull’Anima.

33 See my Allegoria, vol. 1: L’età classica (Milan 2004) chap. 5.

Ilaria Ramelli 215

interpreted Hades in this way, meaning allegorical exegetes of myths. One of

those was Porphyry, well known to Macrobius, who in fragments 377–78

Smith34

interprets the Homeric geography of Hades as a progressive

detachment of the soul from the sense-perceptible world to approach closer to

the intelligible world, which is its authentic dimension, that of its union with

the divine. In chap. 11 Macrobius explicitly ascribes to Plato and the

Pythagoreans this conception of the true life as the life of the soul prior to

incarnation and after the death of the body, and also mentions the &-*$-&.*$

pun.35

He moreover states that the Platonists locate Hades not in the body—

unlike the above-mentioned theology—but in a part of the cosmos, either in

the sublunary space, that is, the space between the earth and the moon, or in

all the celestial spheres, crossing which the soul descends to earth or reaches

its homeland. Chapter 12 describes this descent, not without many

astrological notions. But Macrobius also relies on Plato’s Timaeus and

Phaedo, in order to describe the passage of the soul from the monad to the

dyad.

When the soul is dragged to the body, it begins to feel the silvestrem tumultum, that is, the disorder of matter (silva = /15 = “matter”). This

expression is well attested in Neoplatonism and derives from Plato’s notion

of matter as disorder; for example, Iamblichus in Theologumena Arithmeticae

44.7, speaks of /15# !#"&*+$. This is why Macrobius mentions that,

according to Plato’s Phaedo, the soul, when it enters the body, falls prey to a

sort of drunkenness, precisely because of the disorder that characterizes

matter. This drunkenness is also a forgetting: the soul can no longer

remember divine realities (in Plato, the Ideas) that it had contemplated at

home. Cicero’s Milky Way becomes an allegory for Plato’s hyperouranios.

The proof of this oblivion is, according to Macrobius, human disagreement

concerning the divine and truth in general, which demonstrates that truth is

no longer immediately evident. It is philosophy that provides its recovery and

the liberation of the soul from the body. Philosophy brings about detachment

from passions and from all that is corporeal. In this way the soul, even if it is

still in a body, elevates itself to its heavenly homeland. This is a prelude to

the definitive liberation that will come with death for those who have led a

34 Porphyrii Fragmenta, ed. A. Smith (Leipzig 1993). 35

“Ideo corpus demas hoc est uinculum nuncupatur, et soma quasi quoddam sema

id est animae sepulcrum.”

216 Illinois Classical Studies 33–34 (2008–2009)

philosophical life. This is why philosophy is considered by Macrobius, just as

by Plato (Phaedo 67E and 81A) and Plotinus, a meditatio mortis.

The basis for this whole conception is a tenet of Platonic anthropology that

is well outlined in chap. 12 of book 2: it is the identification of the human

being with its soul, which is immortal and uses the body as an instrument.

The soul is the most divine part in each human being. Plato in his Timaeus

had defined the human intellectual soul %0 -21"+ in us, and the -2'&%2("+ part

in a human being in his Alcibiades I 133C, from which also the identification

of the human being with its soul (130C) and the notion of care of one’s self

as care of one’s soul stem.36

In the last chapter of his work Macrobius comments on the conclusion of

Cicero’s Somnium. Scipio Senior recommends the exercise of the soul in the

noblest activities. In this way, the soul will return “home” at once, and all the

more speedily if it is more detached from the body and attentive to the

contemplation of the superior realities: “Si iam tum cum erit inclusus in

corpore, eminebit foras, et ea quae extra erunt contemplans quam maxime se

a corpore abstrahet.” The last sentence is a warning against the kind of life in

which the soul serves the body and its pleasures and desires. The souls of

such people, after death, will long wander around the earth and will return to

their original seat, and thus experience their apokatastasis, only after many

saecula (i.e., the $*-+2# of the Stoic and Platonic temporal cycles).

Macrobius observes that Scipio’s words on the contemplation of superior

realities and detachment from the body precisely refer to the theoretical

virtues, and comments that those who strive for these virtues are

philosophers: these people, “adhuc in corpore positi, corpus ut alienam

sarcinam, in quantum patitur natura, despiciant.” As for the final sanction

against the souls that are excessively attached to the body, Macrobius relates

it to the long sections of the myth of Er at the end of Plato’s Republic,

devoted to the eschatological destiny of such souls:

Et facile nunc atque oportune uirtutes suadet, postquam quanta et quam diuina

praemia uirtutibus debeantur edixit.

Sed quia inter leges quoque illa imperfecta dicitur in qua nulla deuiantibus

poena sancitur, ideo in conclusione operis poenam sancit extra haec praecepta

uiuentibus, quem locum Er ille Platonicus copiosius executus est saecula

36 Cf. D. J. Johnson, “God as the True Self: Plato’s Alcibiades I,” AncPhil 19

(1999) 1–20.

Ilaria Ramelli 217

infinita dinumerans, quibus nocentium animae, in easdem poenas saepe

reuolutae, sero de tartaris permittuntur emergere et ad naturae suae principia,

quod est caelum, tandem impetrata purgatione remeare.

Necesse est enim omnem animam ad originis suae sedem reuerti, sed quae

corpus tamquam peregrinae incolunt cito post corpus uelut ad patriam

reuertuntur, quae uero corporum illecebris ut suis sedibus inhaerent, quanto ab

illis uiolentius separantur, tanto ad supera serius reuertuntur. (Comm. in Somn. Scip. 2.17.12–14)

Now, it is notable that Macrobius affirms that, according to Plato, all souls

will return to their original place, some sooner and others later, but all of

them will eventually return. Even those souls that have erred most of all, after

a very long stay in Tartarus, will return, purified, to their seats. In fact, Plato

admitted of some exceptions, for souls who are absolutely irrecoverable.

According to him, these will remain in Tartarus forever. For he thought that

pains were therapeutic and cured the souls, but that some were “incurable”

because the crimes they committed were too extreme; therefore, they would

never leave Tartarus, where they undergo an eternal punishment. This is

stated by Plato in several passages, in particular in Phaedo 113E, Gorgias

525C, and Republic 10.615C–616A, where the worst pains are those suffered

by tyrants, even though in his Phaedrus the “law of Adrasteia” (248C2)

prescribes that, after migrations and purifications, souls return to their

original place, after three thousand years for the souls of philosophers, which

become winged again at that time, or after ten thousand years for common

souls. This is the only passage—against several others—that might suggest

that apokatastasis for Plato was universal.

Whereas Plato repeatedly stated that some souls would not return to their

original place, Macrobius, just like his contemporary Gregory of Nyssa, the

Christian Neoplatonist and follower of the Christian Platonist Origen of

Alexandria,37

thought that all the souls, without exception, would return to

their “homeland.” Those who had erred the most would take a very long time

to do so, but nevertheless would return. For Macrobius, apokatastasis would

really be universal. He interprets Plato by radicalizing his thought and giving

priority to ontology over ethics. Indeed, it is true that souls “quae corpus

tamquam peregrinae incolunt, cito post corpus uelut ad patriam reuertuntur,

37 See my Gregorio di Nissa: sull’anima e la resurrezione (Milan 2007); and

Apokatastasis.

218 Illinois Classical Studies 33–34 (2008–2009)

quae uero corporum illecebris ut suis sedibus inhaerent, quanto ab illis

uiolentius separantur, tanto ad supera serius reuertuntur”; however, all souls

will be restored to their original seat, because “necesse est omnem animam ad

originis suae sedem reuerti.” Universal apokatastasis is grounded in an

ontological necessity according to Macrobius. This is an important element of

differentiation between Macrobius’ and Origen’s doctrines of apokatastasis,

but in the interest of focus and balance I shall not develop this point further in

the present essay.

If Macrobius distances himself from Plato on this score, or rather presents

him as saying something slightly different from what he actually maintained,

this means that Macrobius’ conviction concerning universal apokatastasis,

the return of absolutely all souls to their original state and place, was truly

strong.

This conviction was equally strong in roughly contemporary Christian

Neoplatonists who supported the doctrine of apokatastasis, such as Gregory

of Nyssa or Evagrius, but with the difference that in their view—which is

directly based on Origen’s view—this was not simply an ontological

necessity, but depended on Christ’s incarnation, sacrifice, and resurrection.38

4. Origen’s Universal Apokatastasis: How Origen “Corrected” Plato on This Score

Macrobius, however, was not the only Platonist and supporter of the doctrine

of apokatastasis who “corrected” Plato in regard to the universality of the

apokatastasis itself. A Christian Greek Middle-Neoplatonist, Origen, who

was the first to consistently and explicitly support this theory,39

had already

done so, between the end of the second and the first half of the third century.

Origen not only praised Plato for his choice of myth as a means to present the

arkh! and the telos, as I have argued elsewhere,40

but at the same time did

38 See demonstration in my Gregorio di Nissa, integrative essay I. For Origen see

also my “Origen and the Apokatastasis: A Reassessment,” lecture at the Origeniana X, Cracow, August 31–September 4, 2009, forthcoming in the proceedings, ed.

Henryk Pietras (Leuven). 39

In fact he may have been preceded by Bardaisan of Edessa; see my “Origen,

Bardaisan, and the Origin of Universal Salvation,” HTR 102.2 (2009) 135–68. 40

See Ilaria Ramelli, “The Philosophical Stance of Allegory in Stoicism and Its

Reception in Platonism, Pagan and Christian: Origen in Dialogue with the Stoics and

Ilaria Ramelli 219

not hesitate on occasion to rectify them. With respect to the doctrine of

apokatastasis, he corrected Plato’s eschatological myths, in order to affirm

the universality of the restoration of the souls, something Plato did not admit.

Therefore, Origen corrected Plato’s aforementioned postulation of the

existence of some “incurable” souls, a notion that made universal

apokatastasis impossible and thus had to be rejected by the Christian

Platonist.

Let me briefly return in more detail to Plato’s position, with which Origen

was well acquainted. According to Plato, some people have committed too

much injustice, i.e., evil, in their earthly lives, and therefore become

“incurable.” This means that, after their death, their souls cannot be healed

through suffering and restored to the contemplation of the Ideas, but must

remain in hell (“Tartarus”) forever. This notion of people who are

“incurable,” on earth and/or in hell, occurs frequently in Plato. In particular,

let me shortly take into consideration the three above-mentioned passages

from Plato’s descriptions of otherworldly punishments in Phaedo, Gorgias,

and Republic. In Phaed. 113E2 Plato claims that those who are “incurable”

because of the gravity of their sins are destined to Tartarus and will never go

out:

Those who seem to be in an incurable condition [!+'"%.# 262'+] due to

the enormity of their sins, having committed, for instance, many grave

profanations of temples, or many illicit murders against the law, or other

similar crimes, well, the appropriate Fate throws these people into

Tartarus, from where they never exit [3-2+ "4!"%2 $#7$++"0&'+].

Likewise, in Resp. 615E3 Plato remarks that tyrants, the worst sinners in his

opinion, and other people who committed dreadful sins are “incurable” and

thus will never be allowed to leave their place of torment:

We suddenly saw him down there, and others—most of them tyrants, but

there were also some private citizens who had committed terrible sins—

who believed they were finally about to go up, but whom the opening

did not receive, but it mooed every time one of these people who were in

such a situation of incurability ["/%.# !+'"%.# $6&+%.+] in respect to

wickedness, or one who had not paid enough, attempted to go up.

Plato,” lecture delivered on November 15, 2010 at Boston University, forthcoming in

IJCT.

220 Illinois Classical Studies 33–34 (2008–2009)

Here Plato, piling up therapeutic and debt metaphors, distinguishes those who

finish paying their debt to justice and can exit the place of punishment at a

certain point, in that they have been cured, and those who are utterly

“incurable” and will never finish paying; in this way, they will never leave

their place of punishment.

Moreover, after remarking that only through suffering is it possible to be

purified from evil, in Gorg. 525C2 Plato claims that those who committed

extremely serious sins have become “incurable,” and their torments, which

are expressly described as eternal, do not purify them, but are simply

retributive and useful for other people, as a paradigm, and not for these

sinners themselves:

As for those who commit the most extreme kinds of injustice and

because of such crimes become incurable [!++$%"' 3'+.+%$'], these

people provide examples to others. They are no longer useful to

themselves in anything, precisely because they are incurable [5%2!++$%"' 6+%2#], but they are useful to others, who see them endure the

greatest and most painful and dreadful sufferings perpetually [%0+ !27

6(&+"+], due to their sins.

Besides these passages, there are several others in which sin is depicted by

Plato as an illness of the soul that may become incurable, likewise in contexts

in which he is speaking of human justice.

Faced with Plato’s conviction that some sinners are “incurable,” Origen

decided to “correct” Plato on this point by stating that no being is “incurable”

for its creator. His argument is based on Christian revelation, which was

unknown to Plato. In Origen’s view, Christ-Logos, who is God, having

created all creatures, will be able to heal all of them from the illness of evil:

“Nihil enim omnipotenti impossibile est, nec insanabile est aliquid factori

suo” (De princ. 3.6.5). Origen, who inserts this declaration in the context of a

discussion of the eventual conversion and salvation of the devil on the

grounds that he is creature of God, is in fact arguing on the basis of God’s

omnipotence, which comes, not from Greek philosophy, but from Scripture

(e.g., Matt. 19.25–26; Mark 10.26–27). His conclusion is that those who are

incurable by man or by themselves—those whom Plato labeled “incurable”—

are not incurable for God. The consequence of such a position is that, in

Origen’s view, universal apokatastasis, which would be humanly impossible,

will in fact be a miracle performed by the Godhead in its omnipotence.

It is possible that Macrobius, who had a very good command of Greek

(and in whose day, moreover, Latin translations of Origen were available),

may have been influenced by Origen’s “correction” of Plato’s postulated

incurable souls. If this is the case, this would be a further, extremely

Ilaria Ramelli 221

interesting instance of osmosis between pagan and the Christian

Neoplatonism in Late Antiquity.

5. Christian Universal Apokatastasis, Greek and Latin: Gregory of Nyssa and the Early Augustine

Gregory of Nyssa inherited the doctrine of apokatastasis directly from

Origen. In Gregory’s day, in the second half of the fourth century, it was

already a well-developed theory, whose roots went back to the very origin of

Christianity and partially rested also on Stoic and Platonic thought; Evagrius

also elaborated it on the basis of the ideas of Origen and Didymus the

Blind.41

Gregory—who has never been regarded as a heretic, even though he

manifestly embraced a doctrine that had been already criticized in his time

and was later condemned—following Origen, maintained the universality of

apokatastasis, saving at the same time both human freedom and the biblical

foundation for each doctrine. One of the forms in which Gregory expressed

the doctrine of apokatastasis was through the use of the so-called theology of

the image, which is based on the Genesis account of the creation of the

human being “in the image and likeness of God” (Gen. 1.26–27). In this

connection, Gregory also identifies the souls’ “homeland” with God their

Father: all human souls bear the seal of God, which is God’s image, in

themselves (from this also derives the immense dignity of each human being

and Gregory’s condemnation of slavery both de jure and de facto).42

This

image will be finally restored in absolutely all souls, however blurred and

covered with filth—i.e., sins—they may have become. For the image of God

in each human soul is indelible, and, after the due purification, however hard

and long, it will shine forth again. This will happen in the eventual

apokatastasis, when all will return to their homeland, that is, God, who is the

Good, and thus God will be “all in all.”

Indeed, 1 Cor. 15.28 is the favorite biblical passage quoted, along with

many others, by both Origen and Gregory of Nyssa in support of the theory

of apokatastasis. Gregory even devoted a whole treatise, In illud: Tunc et ipse Filius, to its exegesis, in which he put forward a veritable syllogism:

41 For all this see my Apokatastasis.

42 See my “Slavery as a Necessary Evil or as an Evil That Must Be Abolished?”

lecture delivered at the Annual Meeting of the SBL, Boston, November 21–25, 2008.

222 Illinois Classical Studies 33–34 (2008–2009)

since all that is found in Christ will be saved, and the body of Christ is the

whole of humanity, which Christ has taken up in both his incarnation and his

resurrection, then the whole of humanity will be found in Christ and therefore

will be saved in the end, when all evil will perish, according to its nature,

because it has no ontological existence (this is a Platonic tenet as well, but

Christian Platonists also grounded it in the fact that evil, like death, is not a

creature of God: this is why it has no ontological substance; it is only a

negation, and will have to disappear).43

The dependence of universal

apokatastasis on Christ is one of the very many features that Gregory

inherited from Origen.44

It rests on a Nicene understanding of the Trinity and

an antisubordinationistic view that was already present in Origen, as an “anti-

Arian” tendency ante litteram, that became explicit in Gregory of Nyssa who

in In illud grounded the doctrine of apokatastasis in his anti-Arian

interpretation of 1 Cor. 15.28.45

But in the Latin landscape too, that of Martianus and Macrobius, this

doctrine emerges in Late Platonism, perhaps in Victorinus, and surely in the

early Augustine, in addition of course to Rufinus and (for a long time)

Jerome.46

Here I shall briefly concentrate on the young Augustine, probably

a contemporary of Macrobius. For intellectual depth in ancient philosophy,

and especially in Platonism, Augustine is comparable to the most important

patristic philosophers, that is, Origen and Gregory of Nyssa. At a later date,

however, just when he was losing his confidence in philosophy, he also

rejected the doctrine of apokatastasis, which he had formerly embraced.

Augustine’s first attack on it seems to stem from A.D. 413, in De fide et operibus 15.24, where he criticized the supporters of this doctrine for

43 See my “In Illud: Tunc et Ipse Filius . . . (1 Cor 15,27–28): Gregory of Nyssa’s

Exegesis, Its Derivations from Origen, and Early Patristic Interpretations Related to

Origen’s,” seminar paper at the 2007 Oxford Patristic Conference, in Studia Patristica

44, ed. J. Baun, A. Cameron, M. Edwards, M. Vinzent (Leuven 2010) 259–74. 44

Demonstration in my “The Universal and Eternal Validity of Jesus’s High-

Priestly Sacrifice: The Epistle to the Hebrews in Support of Origen’s Theory of

Apokatastasis,” in A Cloud of Witnesses: The Theology of Hebrews in Its Ancient Contexts, ed. Richard J. Bauckham, Daniel R. Driver, Trevor A. Hart, and Nathan

MacDonald (London 2008) 210–21. 45

I have argued this in “Origen’s Anti-Subordinationism.” 46

For hints of this doctrine in Victorinus and for Rufinus and Jerome, see my

Apokatastasis.

Ilaria Ramelli 223

adducing 1 Cor. 3.11–15 to demonstrate the saving purpose of otherworldly

punishments. In A.D. 415 Augustine published a short refutation of

Origenianism in Ad Orosium 8.10; cf. 5.5.47

He argued that this world was

not created for the purification of the fallen souls and that ignis aeternus must

mean “eternal fire,” to parallel the eternal beatitude of the righteous. This

argument had already been adduced against universal apokatastasis in a

passage ascribed to Basil, but Origen had refuted it earlier in his Commentary on Romans by means of a syllogism.

48 Augustine’s argument is further

weakened by a datum I have already pointed out before: in the Bible only life

in the next world is called !8,'"# (“eternal”), whereas otherworldly

punishment, death, and fire applied to human beings are only called $*,+'$,

which in the Bible means “otherwordly, remote in past or future, of long

duration, mundane,” and so on; it means “eternal” only if it refers to God, and

only by virtue of God’s intrinsic eternity. This terminological distinction is

also observed by many patristic authors.49

In De gestis Pelagii 1.3.10 Augustine observes:

In Origene dignissime detestatur Ecclesia, quod etiam illi quos Dominus

dicit aeterno supplicio puniendos, et ipse diabolus et angeli eius, post

tempus licet prolixum purgati liberabuntur a poenis, et sanctis cum Deo

regnantibus societate beatitudinis adhærebunt. . . . Detestabiliter cum

Origene sentiat quisquis dixerit aliquando eorum finiri posse supplicium,

quod Dominus dixit aeternum.

Aeternus renders $*,+'"#, in reference to #&1$&'#, in this biblical allusion.

And $*,+'"# does not mean “eternal,” but it simply indicates that the

aforementioned punishment will take place in the next world. But in Latin the

same adjective, aeternus (or sempiternus), translated both $*,+'"# and

!8,'"#.

In Contra Iulianum Augustine rejected the theory of the eventual

conversion and restoration of the devil, for example, in 5.47 and 6.10: “nisi

forte dices etiam diabolum voluntate a bono lapsus; si voluerit, in bonum

quod deseruit reverturum, et Origenis nobis instaurabis errorem.” The same

error is ascribed to Origen by Augustine in his polemics against Pelagius,

47 PL 42.669–78.

48 See the section devoted to Basil in my Apokatastasis, with demonstration and

full documentation. 49

Demonstration in Ramelli and Konstan, Terms for Eternity.

224 Illinois Classical Studies 33–34 (2008–2009)

wrongly considered by him to be inspired by Origen, in De gestis Pelagii 1.3.9. Augustine criticized “those compassionate Christians who refuse to

believe that the punishments of hell will be eternal”; among those, Origen

was the most compassionate, qua supporter of the eschatological restoration

of the devil. According to some critics, this theory was not even supported by

Origen.50

At any rate, Gregory of Nyssa embraced it with no hesitation and

without Origen’s doubts.

Augustine also rejected the theory, allegedly supported by Origen, of

“unending shifts between misery and beatitude,” in an “infinite fluctuation”

(CD 21.17). The church does not admit of these ideas, Augustine approvingly

remarks (Ep. 169.4.43). He does not know, or take into account, that Origen

did not postulate unending shifts or infinite fluctuations, but a finite series of

aeons, the end of which would be the eventual apokatastasis, the telos.

Analogously, in his De praedestinatione sanctorum (A.D. 429/430),

Augustine, in order to turn the accusation of predestinationism against the

Origenians,51

maintained that their supposed doctrine of an eternal revolving

of $*-+2# did not respect human freedom, and that universal apokatastasis

did not respect divine justice. Augustine fails to grasp the main difference

between Origen’s and the Stoics’ concepts of aeons. For Origen, the aeons

constitute a finite sequence, which will come to an end in the final telos, and

are in the service of rational creatures’ freedom and intellectual and spiritual

growth. For the Stoics, the aeons succeed to one another with no end, and in

50 This is maintained today by Lisa R. Holliday, “Will Satan Be Saved?

Reconsidering Origen’s Theory of Volition in Peri Archon,” VigChr 63 (2009) 1–23,

on the basis of the importance of free will for Origen, but without considering that still

in Commentary on Romans 5.10.212–22 Origen excluded that human free will may

prevent universal apokatastasis: “si haec omnia quae enumerauit apostolus separare

nos non possunt a caritate Dei . . . multo magis libertas arbitrii nos ab eius caritate

separare non poterit.” Moreover, he thought that the devil will be saved not as devil,

enemy, and death (this is why ibid. 8.8 he says that of Satan “nec in fine saeculi erit

ulla conversio”), but as a creature of God, when he will be no longer an enemy. And

still in his Commentary on John 32.3 Origen identifies the telos with the apokatastasis

even of the devil: for even Satan “will be among those who will submit to Christ, conquered because he will have yielded to the Logos and will have submitted to the Image of God, becoming a stool to his feet.”

51 See Vittorino Grossi, “Il termine praedestinatio tra il 420 e il 435,”

Augustinianum 25 (1985) 27–64.

Ilaria Ramelli 225

each of them the same people will live, and the same things will take place.

Also, Augustine does not consider that in Origen’s view the justice of God

would certainly be satisfied by the purifying suffering of sinners before the

eventual apokatastasis, since their suffering would be commensurate with

their sins. Likewise, in De haeresibus 43 Augustine accused Origen of

teaching an infinite sequence of aeons in which the devil would be purified

and rational creatures would fall again and again, in an infinite repetition:

Sunt huius Origenis alia dogmata quae catholica ecclesia omnino non

recipit . . . de purgatione et liberatione, ac rursus post longum tempus ad eadem mala revolutione rationalis universae creaturae . . . ipsum etiam

postremo diabolum atque angelos eius, quamvis post longissima

tempora, purgatos atque liberatos, regno Dei lucique restitui, et rursus

post longissima tempora omnes qui liberati sunt ad haec mala denuo relabi et reverti, et has vices alternantes beatitudinis et miseriarum

rationalis creaturae semper fuisse, semper fore?

Augustine does not grasp, or know, that for Origen this succession would

eventually come to an end, and all rational creatures would be united in love

and unable to fall again, because in Paul’s words that Origen quotes, “love

never falls.”52

Augustine criticizes Origen’s doctrine of the origin of the rational

creatures and their fall and eschatology,53

or rather what he regards as

Origen’s, in his intent to prove the eternity of punishment against what he

considers to be the Platonic and Origenian error of deeming otherworldly

suffering purifying, therapeutic, and limited (CD 21.17, 23). Similarly, in

A.D. 417, in De haer. 43, Augustine denounced what he thought to be the

Platonic roots of Origen’s mistakes: “a quibus [sc. Platonicis] ista didicit

Origenes.” Like Macrobius, Augustine too overlooks, or does not know, that

Plato did not support universal apokatastasis. Augustine may have used

Orosius’ Commonitorium, which offered a very imprecise account of

Origen’s doctrine of apokatastasis.54

At any rate, Augustine’s source in this

52 See my Gregorio Sull’Anima, integrative essay I, with demonstration.

53 Giulia S. Gasparro, Origene e la tradizione origeniana in occidente (Roma

1998) 123–50. 54

PL 31.1211–16 = CSEL 18.151–57, in which he also presented Origen’s

presumed doctrine of the rational creatures’ fall and on the creation of this world as a

place of expiation.

226 Illinois Classical Studies 33–34 (2008–2009)

period was anti-Origenian lore, probably already sclerotized in heresiological

schemata.

What emerges from this overview is that Augustine had quite a vague and

inaccurate notion of Origen’s doctrines, and one, moreover, acquired later in

his life. However, earlier works of his, especially those belonging to his anti-

Manichaean phase, seem to reveal a distinctive Origenian influence. Yet,

Augustine seems to have been unaware, at that time, that he was being

inspired by Origen. Indeed, at the beginning of his episcopate, Augustine

manifested a desire to know Origen’s thought better,55

thus giving the

impression that he thought he knew very little or nothing of it. I suspect that

in fact Augustine already knew, and even adopted, some of Origen’s

arguments, including the theory of apokatastasis, but did not yet know them

to be Origen’s. Indeed, shortly after, but before the Pelagian controversy,

Augustine manifested esteem for Origen; hostility emerged only during

Augustine’s anti-Pelagian phase (411–19). The condemnation of Pelagianism

actually facilitated that of Origen’s thought, which was mistakenly

considered to have led to Pelagianism. But before the Pelagian controversy,

in A.D. 404/405 Augustine criticized Jerome for vilifying Origen while

earlier he had praised him greatly (Ep. 82). The Origenistic controversy,

indeed, had arisen in A.D. 393 in Palestine, where Jerome and Rufinus were,

and reached the West shortly afterward.

Augustine received a (pagan and Christian) Platonic education from

readings of Plotinus, Porphyry, Ambrose, and Victorinus; there seem to be

traces of a direct reading of Origen, in Latin, around A.D. 400, especially on

the doctrine of justification.56

As emerges from Enarr. 2 in Ps. 31 (A.D.

55 See Vittorino Grossi, “L’origenismo latino negli scritti agostiniani,”

Augustinianum 36 (2006) 51–88 at 55; also G. Heidl, Origen’s Influence on the Young Augustine: A Chapter of the History of Origenism (Louaize/Piscataway 2003). Cf.

idem, “Did the Young Augustine Read Origen’s Homily on Paradise?” in Origeniana VII 597–604; B. Altaner, “Augustinus und Origenes: Eine quellenkritische

Untersuchung,” Historisches Jahrbuch 70 (1951) 15–41 = idem, Kleine patristische Schriften (Berlin 1967) 224–52; Agostino Trapè, “Nota sul giudizio di s. Agostino su

Origene,” Augustinianum 26 (1986) 223–27. 56

According to Pierre Courcelle, Les lettres grecques en Occident (Paris 19482)

185–87, Augustine knew Origen’s eschatological theories from the controversy

between Jerome and Rufinus in A.D. 397 and by consulting Orosius in A.D. 414; after

Ilaria Ramelli 227

401), Augustine read Origen’s Commentary on Romans, in Rufinus’ version,

and borrowed from it many ideas on justification.57

But he may have

encountered Origen’s ideas even earlier, without knowing that they were his.

In the light of Augustine’s initial knowledge of Origen, for which I shall

argue, and which also implied his adhesion to the doctrine of apokatastasis

and to Origen’s theodicy, protology, and eschatology, one can understand

why the De Incarnatione Verbi ad Ianuarium was ascribed to Augustine,

although it was a collection of passages from Origen’s De Principiis. This

would be impossible to explain without what I am going to argue.

Indeed, from De ordine 1.11.32 it emerges that Augustine shared Origen’s

Platonic distinction between the sense-perceptible and the intelligible world

and his appreciation of Greek philosophy.58

The theme of the return to one’s

true identity, in Contra Academicos 2.2.5, which Augustine applied to his

return to Catholicism, and the motif of the return of the human being, image

of God, to its prelapsarian condition are very close to Origen’s ideas. Further

similarities can be traced with Origen’s exegesis of the Song of Songs

(Contra Academicos 2.2.5 and De ordine 1.8.24).59

Conf. 9.2.3 also shows

Augustine’s familiarity with Origen’s exegesis of the Song of Songs.

Jean Pépin realized that Augustine’s first commentaries on Genesis

depend on Origen because of the similarity of their interpretation of the “skin

tunics.” And Roland Teske hypothesized that Augustine had been acquainted

with Origen since A.D. 385 and speculated about a possible mediation by

Ambrose and the Milanese circle.60

This is the right direction to pursue in

further research, which is badly needed, and I shall argue that indeed in his

anti-Manichaean works Augustine largely availed himself of Origen’s

about ten years, he read the translation of Origen’s Homilies on Genesis and probably

of his De principiis. 57

Cf. Caroline P. Hammond Bammel, “Justification by Faith in Augustine and

Origen,” JEH 47 (1996) 223–35. 58

Ambrose reproached this to Origen in De Abr. 2.8.54: “etiam ipsum plurimum

indulgere philosophorum traditioni pleraque eius scripta testantur.” 59

Augustine’s teaching method in his first works also seems to have been inspired

by Origen: Heidl, Origen’s Influence, 37–61. 60

Jean Pépin, “Saint Augustin et le symbolisme néoplatonicien de la vêture,” in

Augustinus Magister (Paris 1954) 1.293–306; cf. Roland J. Teske, “Origen and St

Augustine’s First Commentaries on Genesis,” in Origeniana V (Leuven 1992) 179–

86.

228 Illinois Classical Studies 33–34 (2008–2009)

arguments, especially concerning ontology and apokatastasis. Here I shall of

course concentrate on the latter.

Augustine in De Genesi adversus Manichaeos takes up several Origenian

elements: allegorical exegesis of Scripture, which he would subsequently

reject in De Genesi ad litteram (and this would significantly arouse the

protestations of an Origenian such as Eriugena);61

the interpretation of the

“skin tunics” in Gen. 3.21 as mortal corporeality in De Gen. adv. Man. 2.21.32 (which is the same as Origen’s exegesis in Hom. In Lev. 6.2.276–78

and probably in his Commentary on Genesis) and the interpretation of

individual Hebrew words. Augustine’s argument against divine

anthropomorphism in De Gen. adv. Man. 1.17.2762

is also derived from

Origen. Indeed, both Augustine’s protology and eschatology in his anti-

Manichaean phase are Origenian. For instance, the existence of the ideas of

creatures ab aeterno in God’s Wisdom is shared by both Augustine and

Origen. De Gen. adv. Man. 2.8.10 shows remarkable parallels with Origen’s

notion of the original condition of humanity before the introduction of the

heavy, mortal body. Likewise, Origen’s concept of the different conditions of

rational natures as a consequence of their free choices emerges in another

important work of his anti-Manichaean phase: De moribus ecclesiae catholicae et de moribus Manichaeorum (about A.D. 391). This is,

remarkably, one of his most Platonic works, but of course it is a Christian Platonic work, like those of Origen.

63

What scholars in general have overlooked is that in this work Augustine

embraced Origen’s conception of apokatastasis and, more broadly, his

metaphysics and protology. From the very beginning of his work, Augustine

describes God as the supreme and absolute Good, immutable, transcendent,

but possessing Being to the highest degree, whose opposite is nonbeing.64

61 See my chapter on Eriugena in Apokatastasis.

62 For this passage it is possible to draw a parallel with Origen’s Selecta in

Genesim PG 12.93, and with Tractatus Origenis 1.1–3, 5–6: Heidl, Origen’s Influence, 105–10. Cf. Teske, “Origen and St Augustine’s First Commentaries,” 180–

86. 63

PL 32.1309–78, then ed. J. B. Bauer (CSEL 90, 1992); commentary by K. Coyle

(Palermo 1991). 64

1.1: “Hoc enim maxime esse dicendum est, quod semper eodem modo sese

habet, quod omnimodo sui simile est, quod nulla ex parte corrumpi ac mutari potest,

Ilaria Ramelli 229

Manichaeans, on the contrary, posited evil as the opposite of God and

regarded it as a substance, therefore a being: “asseritis quamdam naturam

atque substantiam malum esse” (2.2). While every being derives from God,

evil does not; it is not a creature of God (“omnium naturarum atque

substantiarum esse auctorem Deum . . . non esse Deum auctorem mali”). Just

as it was the case with Origen, also for Augustine the primary concern was

theodicy. God, the Being, is the only absolute Good, the Good per se; all that

does not participate in this Good and Being does not even exist; hence, evil is

not: “bonum quod summe ac per se bonum est, non participatione alicuius

boni, sed propria natura et essentia . . . malum ostenditur non secundum

essentiam, sed secundum privationem” (4.6). This doctrine of the ontological

nonsubsistence of evil was one of the main metaphysical pillars of Origen’s

thought.

Only God exists, and God’s creatures, unlike evil, participate in God qua

Being. God does not allow any of them to fall into nonbeing, i.e., evil,

because God created them so that they might exist. This is Origen’s

argument, by means of which he also supported the eventual conversion and

restoration of the devil: a creature of God cannot progress on the path to evil

to the point of falling into nonbeing, since God created it in order for it to

exist.65

This is what Augustine too maintains and what underlies his

exposition in De mor. 2.7.9–10, in which he, very consistently, claims that

God, qua supreme Good, will restore all creatures into the original condition

from which they have fallen, in a universal apokatastasis:

Sed Dei bonitas eo rem perduci non sinit, et omnia deficientia sic ordinat

ut ibi sint ubi congruentissime possint esse, donec ordinatis motibus ad id recurrant unde defecerunt. Itaque etiam animas rationales, in quibus

potentissimum est liberum arbitrium, deficientes a se in inferioribus

creaturae gradibus ordinat ubi esse tales decet. Fiunt ergo miserae divino

iudicio dum convenienter pro meritis ordinantur. Ex quo illud optime

dictum est, quod insectari maxime soletis: Ego facio bona et creo mala.

Creare namque dicitur condere et ordinare. Itaque in plerisque

quod non subiacet tempori . . . cui si contrarium recte quaeras, nihil omnino est. Esse

enim contrarium non habet nisi non esse. Nulla est ergo Deo natura contraria.” 65

Gabriel Bunge, “Créé pour être,” BLE 98 (1997) 21–29; Ilaria Ramelli, “La

coerenza della soteriologia origeniana: dalla polemica contro il determinismo gnostico

all’universale restaurazione escatologica,” in Pagani e cristiani alla ricerca della salvezza (Roma 2006) 661–88; eadem, “Christian Soteriology,” 337.

230 Illinois Classical Studies 33–34 (2008–2009)

exemplaribus sic scriptum est: Ego facio bona et condo mala. Facere

enim est, omnino quod non erat; condere autem, ordinare quod

utcumque iam erat, ut melius magisque sit. Ea namque condit Deus, id

est ordinat, cum dicit: Condo mala quae deficiunt, id est ad non esse tendunt. . . . Nihil per divinam providentiam ad id ut non sit pervenire permittitur . . . quidquid est, in quantum est, ex Deo sit, in quantum

autem ab essentia deficit, non sit ex Deo, sed tamen divina providentia semper sicut universitati congruit ordinetur.

Augustine’s statement in 2.7.9 (“Dei bonitas . . . omnia deficientia sic

ordinat . . . donec ad id recurrant unde defecerunt”) corresponds to Origen’s

doctrine of apokatastasis. An exact parallel with Origen’s text can even be

drawn, for example with De princ. 1.6.1: “In unum sane finem putamus quod

bonitas Dei per Christum suum universam revocet creaturam.” Both Origen

and Augustine think that Dei bonitas is the agent of the apokatastasis, and

not that of some individual creatures, but of all creatures (omnia deficientia

in Augustine perfectly corresponds to Origen’s universam creaturam).

Augustine may have known Origen’s passage in a Latin version or anthology;

indeed, partial versions and selections seem to have already circulated before

Rufinus’ translation of De Principiis. Likewise, Origen insisted on the link

between God’s goodness and apokatastasis in Comm. in Io. 6.57. There he

argued that the submission of all rational creatures to Christ and to God in the

end would correspond to the salvation of all (i.e., universal apokatastasis)

because only this was “worthy of the goodness [%.# !3$-&%5%"#] of the God

of all beings [%") %-+ 31.+ 82")].” For Augustine, just as for Origen, the

final universal apokatastasis would be a work of Dei bonitas; the expression

is the same in both authors. This bonitas is not simply God’s kindness and

mercy, but it is a metaphysical truth: namely, that God is the supreme Good,

the fullness of Good, and the only true and absolute Being, as opposed to evil

which is a lack of good and of being. It is easy to see that Augustine’s anti-

Manichaean polemic, at that time, induced him to emphasize the idea of God

as the Good and the Being and of evil as nonbeing.

The fallen creatures of which Augustine speaks in the passage quoted are

the rational creatures that Origen called noes or logika, who are assigned by

God to different orders, as Augustine says. Likewise, Origen spoke of the

orders of angels, humans, and demons, and of different conditions of rational

creatures within each order. These differences depend on the gravity of the

various creatures’ falls and on the choices (the “movements”) of their free

will. But even if these choices are oriented toward evil, God does not permit

rational creatures to fall into absolute evil, which is nonbeing. Thus, divine

Providence always assists them, until all return to the original state from

which they fell: “omnia deficientia sic ordinat . . . donec ad id recurrant unde

Ilaria Ramelli 231

defecerunt.” A further close correspondence with Origen’s doctrine of

apokatastasis is found in Augustine’s statement that this return will take

place ordinatis motibus. There will be an order in the restoration. The same

was maintained by Origen: each rational creature will be restored, but each

one in its own order, which depends on the merits and demerits acquired

through the exercise of its free will.

It is patent that Origen closely inspired the whole of Augustine’s argument

in his De moribus. In light of this, it is telling that later on, when the

Origenistic controversy surfaced again, and the Pelagian controversy further

jeopardized Origen’s reputation and heritage (albeit on no grounds),

Augustine was especially worried by the passage of De moribus I cited.

Therefore, in Retractationes 1.7.6 he warned that his old declaration was in

fact not meant in an Origenian sense: “non sic accipiendum est, tanquam

omnia recurrant ad id unde defecerunt sicut Origeni visum est . . . non enim

recurrunt ad Deum, a quo defecerunt, qui sempiterno igne punientur.” But

many years earlier Augustine clearly supported the doctrine of apokatastasis,

which was embedded in a metaphysical view—that of Origen—that was

perfect for combatting Manichaean dualism.

Indeed, Augustine received from Origen the notion of the possibility of a

(more or less metaphorical) passage of rational creatures between the human,

the angelic, and the demonic states, not only in the locus from De moribus

that I have quoted, but also in De lib. arb. 3.217 and Serm. 45.10. In this

period Augustine also shared with Origen the conception of the resurrected

body as spiritual, angelic, luminous, and ethereal.

Later on, owing to the upsurge of the Origenistic controversy and to his

own anti-Pelagian polemics, Augustine rejected Origen’s ideas, and in

particular his doctrine of universal apokatastasis. He was convinced

meanwhile that he had learnt Origen’s thought, although what was described

to him by Orosius and others as Origen’s thought was mostly a distorted

account. But earlier, during his anti-Manichaean phase, while Augustine

believed that he didn’t know Origen’s thought, he in fact both knew and used

it.

It is necessary to endeavor to identify the channels through which

Augustine had access to Origen’s thought, and in particular to his theory of

apokatastasis, so to speak anonymously. Some of these channels might have

included Ambrose, the Milanese circle, and partial translations, anthologies,

and anonymous manuscripts that contained translations of Origen’s works

without indicating him as the author. That such manuscripts circulated is

proved by two examples. One is the following: in Aurelius’ library in

Carthage Augustine could read some commentarioli in Matthaeum that

Aurelius considered to have been composed or translated by Jerome. But the

232 Illinois Classical Studies 33–34 (2008–2009)

latter denied that they were his. In fact, they probably are a Latin translation

of exegetical passages from Origen, whose interpretation of the Lord’s Prayer

was taken up by Augustine in his commentary on the Sermon on the Mount,

which he began in A.D. 393/394.66

The other example is provided by

Pamphilus, who in Apol. 12 attests that already toward the beginning of the

fourth century manuscripts containing works of Origen circulated, which did

not bear the name of their author. Pamphilus was denouncing Origen’s

detractors, who often did not even read his works and yet deemed them

heretical:

Accidere solet, vel casu vel interdum studio, ut nomine in codice non praetitulato legatur aliquid ipsius [sc. Origenis] in auribus obtrectatorum

quasi alterius tractatoris; quod tam diu placet et laudatur atque in omni

admiratione habetur quam diu nomen non fuerit indicatum. At ubi

Origenis cognita fuerint esse quae placebant, statim displicent, statim

haeretica esse dicuntur!

Origen’s homilies on the Song of Songs were known to Augustine through

Jerome’s translation, which was completed in Rome in A.D. 383. For his

part, Ambrose was perfectly conversant with the ideas of Origen. He took up

his exegesis of the Song of Songs in his own homilies De bono mortis and

Isaac De Anima, which Augustine very probably knew even before his

“conversion.” Ambrose and the Milanese circle could even have transmitted

more of Origen’s thought to Augustine. Passages of Origen’s works could

have reached Augustine through the translation of one of the members of this

circle. It is also worth considering the possible influence of Marius

Victorinus on Augustine, given that this Neoplatonist who converted late to

Christianity was well known to Augustine and, at the same time, is likely to

have had a penchant for the doctrine of apokatastasis; indeed, he would seem

to have shared Origen’s protology and eschatology.67

6. Conclusions

Thus, it seems that, during his anti-Manichaean phase, Augustine embraced

several tenets of Origen’s thought, and in particular the theory of

apokatastasis, precisely when he was convinced that he was not yet

66 Other intermediate sources can be excluded, as Tertullian, Cyprian, and

Ambrose have different interpretations. See Heidl, Origen’s Influence, 219–35. 67

Argument in the section on Victorinus in my Apokatastasis.

Ilaria Ramelli 233

conversant with Origen’s doctrines. Later on, when he assimilated a rather

imperfect and distorted picture of Origen’s thought, and moreover was

profoundly influenced by the Pelagian controversy and by a new outburst of

the Origenistic controversy, he condemned the doctrine of apokatastasis as

heretical, and even recanted it in his Retractationes. Here, he explains that in

his De moribus he did not really mean to support universal apokatastasis, and

that when he said therein that restoration will involve all creatures that have

fallen (omnia deficentia), with omnia he did not actually mean “all,” but only

“some.” Indeed, in his later phase, Augustine offers other remarkable

examples in which he claims that omnia/omnes and omnis do not mean “all,”

but in fact “some,” for instance in his exegesis of 1 Cor. 15.28, in which Paul

proclaims that God will be omnia in omnibus, but in which omnes refers to

the sole elect for Augustine, and in his exegesis of Rom. 11.26: “cum

plenitudo gentium introierit, omnis Israel salvabitur.” For the mature

Augustine (Ep. 149 to Paulinus, 19), plenitudo gentium was not the totality of

the Gentiles, but the small part of them that is elected by God: “plenitudo

autem gentium in his intrat, qui secundum propositum vocati sunt”; likewise,

omnis Israel does not mean “all of Israel,” but those Jews and Gentiles who

are elected by God: “et sic omnis Israel salvus fiet, quia et ex Iudaeis et ex

Gentibus, qui secundum propositum vocati sunt, ipsi verus sunt Israel . . . non

utique omnium Iudaeorum, sed dilectorum.” In this light, it does not come as

a surprise that in his Retractationes Augustine maintains that omnia in his old

De moribus did not mean “all,” but in fact only “some.”

The case of Augustine, and even more that of Jerome and the whole

“Origenistic controversy,”68

show how the doctrine of apokatastasis had

become an object of much concern and acrimonious debate. At that time, as

the present investigation suggests, the theory of apokatastasis was

“transversal” between pagan and Christian Platonism—even at the expenses

of Plato’s own position. For Plato does not seem to have supported a doctrine

of universal restoration. This is why both pagan and Christian supporters of

this theory, such as Origen and Macrobius, engaged in a confrontation with

Plato’s eschatology in order either to correct it (Origen, who argued against

the notion of the “incurability” of some souls) or to present it straightforward

as universalistic (Macrobius, who claimed that Plato did actually support a

universal apokatastasis).

68 Documentation in Ramelli, Apokatastasis.

234 Illinois Classical Studies 33–34 (2008–2009)

It is notable that the concept of apokatastasis as universal salvation and

universal return to the Good is a Christian novelty, grounded in Scripture, in

the omnipotence of God, and in the work of Christ.69

Indeed, Origen had to

correct Plato using precisely the argument from the omnipotence of God, and

Gregory of Nyssa, following Origen, supported the doctrine of apokatastasis

in his In Illud: Tunc et Ipse Filius on the grounds of Christ’s “inhumanation”

and redemptive work.70

But later pagan Neoplatonists, such as Macrobius,

definitely embraced this doctrine, to the point of ascribing it to Plato himself

(quite a forced operation!) in order to legitimize it and make it nobler. My

suspicion is that pagan Neoplatonists were here influenced by Christian

Neoplatonism, even though they would never have overtly admitted that they

had drawn inspiration from them and their “barbarian” books. Indeed, this

would not be the only example of Christian Neoplatonic influence on pagan

Neoplatonists. While usually an influence of pagan Neoplatonism on

Christian Neoplatonism is acknowledged (and often deplored!), the reverse is

virtually never admitted; however, there are in fact many instances that can

be argued for. But that will require a separate study.

Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milan ilaria.ramelli@unicatt.it

69 Demonstration in Ramelli, Apokatastasis, especially the conclusions.

70 See my “The Trinitarian Theology” and, with further arguments, “Origen’s

Anti-Subordinationism and Its Heritage in the Nicene and Cappadocian Line,” VigChr

65 (2011) 21–49.