240 Reviews

something between? Are they related to the idea of universal salvation or not?
If so, how? I contend that attention to those questions leads to a much more
nuanced picture of the influence of Böhme, whose role I argue is far less pivotal
than McClymond proposes.

Robin A. Parry
Diocese of Worcester

Michael J. McClymond, The Devil’s Redemption: A New History

and Interpretation of Christian Universalism, 2 vols. Grand
Rapids: Baker, 2018, 1376 pp. $90.00

This thorough book deserves much praise. In the Patristics section, however,
what is good is not so new, being detailed in my Apokatastasis,1 ‘Christian
Apokatastasis and Zoroastrian Frashegird’,2 and other treatments of patristic
apokatastasis. What is new – critiques of universalistic arguments – is often not
very good, finding responses in the Fathers’ works. McClymond maintains
Gnostic, Kabbalistic roots of Christian universalism (p. 125). Kabbala and
mediaeval gnosis are posterior to patristic universalism – like Frashegird, as
recognized in Appendix B and as I had demonstrated in ‘Apokatastasis and
Frashegird’. I argued (in Apokatastasis; A Larger Hope; a future study on Origen)
that patristic apokatastasis has biblical, intertestamental and philosophical
origins; thus, Origen spoke of ‘so-called apokatastasis’ referring to an earlier
tradition: Scripture, Petrine traditions, perhaps Clement and philosophy
(Platonism, Stoicism – but Origen refuted Stoic apokatastasis).
Ancient ‘Gnosticism’, unlike patristic universalism, had mostly no holistic
doctrine of the body’s and soul’s restoration (for the Carpocratians, only souls will
be saved, and undergo metensomatosis: Irenaeus, AH 1.25.4) – and reserved
salvation for the πνευματικοί and partially the ψυχικοί,3 although there might be
exceptions.4 I would not deem the eschatology of On the Origin of the World 126–7
‘very optimistic’ (p. 146), since the imperfect ‘will never enter the kingless realm’;
moreover, ‘all must return to the place from where they come’ and ‘their natures will
be revealed’ imply different classes of people with different beginnings and ends. In

1 Ilaria L.E Ramelli, The Christian Doctrine of Apokatastasis: A Critical Assessment

from the New Testament to Eriugena (Leiden: Brill, 2013) (hereafter Apokatastasis).
To McClymond’s review of this monograph in Theological Studies 76.4 (2015)
813–826, I wrote an invited ‘Reply’, Theological Studies 76 (2015), pp. 827–35
(= Appendix II in Ilaria L.E Ramelli, A Larger Hope? Universal Salvation from
Christian Beginnings to Julian of Norwich (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2019); Appendix
III is a much fuller version of the present review).
2 Ilaria L.E. Ramelli, ‘Christian Apokatastasis and Zoroastrian Frashegird’, Religion
and Theology 24 (2017), pp. 350–406.
3 Ilaria L.E. Ramelli, ‘Apokatastasis in Coptic Gnostic Texts’, Journal of Coptic
Studies 14 (2012), pp. 33–45.
4 Treated in a future monograph on philosophical doctrines of apokatastasis.
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the Wisdom of Jesus Christ, some know the Father perfectly, others defectively, and
each will experience the rest appropriate to this group: again, different ends. Those
who do not know the Father may experience no rest. The Apocryphon of John (p.
147) teaches metensomatosis and eternal punishment (for apostates and
blasphemers), both rejected by Origen. The Tripartite Tractate5 promises the
church’s apokatastasis, but a class of humans, the ‘carnal’, will ‘perish’ (p. 118), like
some ψυχικοί.6 I add Zostrianos NHC VIII.26.23–27.29 X.42.20–26, listing four
species of people who ‘have completely perished’ and ‘a type of person that is dead’
in soul, mind and body, ‘undergoing destruction’, father of ‘carnal men’, ὑλικοί.
Valentinianism and Origen are paralleled concerning universalism (p. 153),
but Valentinians often excluded the restoration of some human classes and
bodily resurrection. Pistis Sophia speaks of a ‘wise’ fire, discriminating between
good and evil: this also appears in Origen (pp. 153, 271), not only in Hom.Luc.
24 (p. 271), but also in Hom.Ier. 2.3 and elsewhere, and in Clement and Nazianzen
(Or.39, PG36.356BC). Nazianzen was uninfluenced by Gnosticism, but open to
apokatastasis, like Nyssen (and Basil).7 Origen was acquainted with Gnostic
texts, but, like Plotinus, he continued until his last works (Against Celsus, Munich
homilies etc.) to refute Gnostic determinism. From this refutation stemmed
Origen’s theory of rational creatures’ fall and restoration.8 Metensomatosis is
deemed (pp. 129, 263) a Gnostic tenet of patristic universalism connected with
the pre-existence of bare souls (p. 141). But Origen and Nyssen rejected
metensomatosis and pre-existence,9 albeit being universalists. Origen denied
metensomatosis, because it contradicted the biblical ‘end of the world’, and
spoke metaphorically of souls that become animal (‘not by nature’).10

5 Analysed in Ramelli, ‘Apokatastasis in Coptic Gnostic Texts’.

6 Gal. 3:28 is here projected onto eschatology: see Ilaria L.E. Ramelli, ‘Gal 3:28 and
Categories of Inferiority’, Eirene 55 (2019).
7 Apokatastasis, pp. 440–61 (Nazianzen); pp. 344–72 (Basil); further Ilaria L.E.
Ramelli, ‘Origen the Christian Platonist’, Journal of Early Christian History 1 (2011),
pp. 98–130; on Nyssen: Ilaria L.E. Ramelli, ‘Christian Soteriology’, Vigiliae
Christianae 61 (2007), pp. 313–56; Apokatastasis, pp. 372–440; Ilaria L.E. Ramelli,
‘Gregory of Nyssa on the Soul’, in Anna Marmodoro and Neil McLynn, eds.,
Exploring Gregory of Nyssa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), pp. 110–41.
8 Demonstration in Ilaria L.E. Ramelli, ‘Origen, Bardaisan, and the Origin of
Universal Salvation’, Harvard Theological Review 102 (2009), pp. 135–68.
9 Argument in Ilaria L.E. Ramelli, ‘Gregory of Nyssa’s Purported Criticism of
Origen’, in Svetla Slaveva-Griffin and Ilaria L.E. Ramelli, eds., Lovers of the Soul,
Lovers of the Body (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 2019), ch. 14; Ilaria
L.E. Ramelli, ‘Origen’ and ‘Gregory of Nyssa’, in Anna Marmodoro and Sophie
Cartwright, eds., A History of Mind and Body in Late Antiquity (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2018), pp. 245–66; 283–305; Ilaria L.E. Ramelli,
‘Sôma’, in Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum, forthcoming.
10 C.Matth. 11.17; Apol. 180. Plato taught the eternal punishment of evil souls, as I
demonstrated in Apokatastasis, pp. 153–4 (further in an investigation into ‘pagan’
philosophical theories of apokatastasis); this is correctly acknowledged (pp. 136,
272).
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McClymond endorses Augustine’s charge against Origen of postulating an

infinite alternative of restorations and falls, given the eternity of rational creatures’
freewill (pp. 265, 277). However, Origen argued against infinite restorations and falls
using Paul’s ‘love never falls’: once in apokatastasis perfect love is achieved, rational
creatures will never fall, albeit maintaining freewill. Satan’s fall was due to his
unawareness of God’s love, manifested by Christ’s incarnation and crucifixion.11 In
his anti-Manichaean phase, Augustine embraced apokatastasis, using against
dualistic Manichaeism Origen’s monistic arguments against ‘Gnostic’ dualism.12
Augustine was aware of the ‘perishability axiom’: ‘nothing can be without
any end of time, unless it has no beginning’ (CD 10.31 [335]). ‘Prior to Augustine,
Gregory of Nyssa’s arguments for the final extinction of evil and final salvation
for all were likewise corollaries from Platonic assumptions’ (p. 335). However,
not only Gregory, but also Origen, Basil, Evagrius and other Fathers used the
perishability axiom; moreover, Gregory denied the pre-existence of disembodied
souls; this axiom is the basis for the eternity of souls and Good and the
perishability of evil in Gregory.13 ‘Adamic androginy’ (p. 223) is detected in
Nyssen and Eriugena. One could add Bardaisan,14 but Nyssen and Eriugena
rather supported ungenderedness, planned by God, modified for the Fall, and
restored at apokatastasis.15 The ‘return from exile’ is a ‘specifically cabalistic
motif’ (p. 226), but did not shape much earlier patristic apokatastasis.
‘Dematerialization’ is a Gnostic–Kabbalistic motif (p. 226), but in patristics it
was rejected by universalists such as Origen, Nyssen and Evagrius.16
Nyssen, Evagrius and Eriugena had their own universalisms (p. 233). But
they are indebted to Origen; Eriugena cites Origen as his main authority on
apokatastasis; Nyssen ‘copied’ Origen’s arguments and scriptural quotations in
its support.17 Origen did not appeal to Gnostic teachings to buttress apokatastasis

11 See Ilaria L.E. Ramelli, ‘Origen in Augustine’, Numen 60 (2013), pp. 280–307;
Apokatastasis, pp. 169–73.
12 Arguments in ‘Origen in Augustine’. Research into Origen’s influence on Augustine
in all phases of his thought is under way.
13 Demonstration in ‘Gregory of Nyssa’s Purported Criticism of Origen’.
14 As analysed in Ilaria L.E. Ramelli, Bardaiṣan (Piscataway: Gorgias, 2009), pp. 107–26.
15 Demonstration in Ilaria L.E. Ramelli, ‘Body’ and ‘Double Creation’, in Brill

Encyclopedia of Early Christianity (Leiden: Brill, 2020); Ilaria L.E. Ramelli, ‘Christian
Platonists in Support of Gender Equality’, in Otherwise than the Binary, forthcoming.
16 See ‘Origen’ and ‘Nyssa’, in A History of Mind and Body in Late Antiquity; for
Evagrius, Ilaria L.E. Ramelli, ‘Nyssen’s and Evagrius’ Biographical and Theological
Relations’, in Ilaria L.E. Ramelli, ed., Evagrius between Origen, the Cappadocians,
and Neoplatonism (Leuven: Peeters, 2017), pp. 165–231. A work on Evagrius’
philosophical theology will include his eschatology.
17 I indicated this in Apokatastasis, sections on Nyssen, Evagrius and Eriugena;

Ramelli, ‘Christian Soteriology’; Ilaria L.E. Ramelli, ‘Origen’s Anti-Subordinationism’,
Vigiliae Christianae 65 (2011), pp. 21–49; a future work on Origen’s influence on
Gregory; Evagrius’ Kephalaia; ‘Gregory’s and Evagrius’ Relations’; a future
monograph on Evagrius. For Eriugena, I direct a work on his debt to Patristic
Platonism (primarily Origen) for Oxford Patristics.
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(p. 234), but to Scripture, inter-testamentary literature, the Petrine tradition and
philosophical (Platonic) tenets consonant with Scripture (including the
ontological non-subsistence of evil). Instead, he continually combated Gnostic
ideas about freewill and soteriology.
In a history of the rehabilitation of Origen, I am honoured to see the
account of my work pp. 237–8, close to Henri Crouzel’s. This is based on a
thorough study of Origen’s texts, antecedents in Christian and ‘pagan’
philosophical thought, milieu and followers (as explained in my ‘Reply’).
Scholars are exposing Rufinus’ grasp of the aims of Origen’s thought – grounded
in theodicy – and his overall reliability as a translator, who just abridged,
simplified and glossed Origen. For Sidonius, Rufinus understood ‘both the letter
and the sense’ of Origen’s oeuvre (Ep. 2.9.5) and translated Origen better than
Apuleius Plato and Cicero Demosthenes. The Greek Munich homilies allow for
new comparisons between Origen and Rufinus’ translation, and confirm
Rufinus’ reliability;18 sometimes, Rufinus simplifies, e.g. dropping technical
terms (ἐπίνοια: H.2Ps.36.1, fol.42v). For Edmon Gallagher, Rufinus reflected
faithfully Origen’s New Testament canon.19
Rufinus’ statement that Origen’s manuscripts were tampered with is declared
‘implausible’ (p. 309). But Origen himself lamented being a victim of
misunderstandings and interpolations.20 In a letter, Origen adduces three
examples:21 (1) A ‘heretic’, after a public debate with Origen, ‘took the
manuscript from those who wrote it, added what he liked, cancelled what he
liked, and changed what seemed best to him, and then circulated this manuscript
under my name!’ Some Christians in Palestine sent someone to Origen in Athens,
to receive the non-interpolated copy of the debate. (2) A ‘heretic’ first refused to
have an open discussion with Origen in Ephesus, then invented a fictitious
debate and spread it. When Origen met him publicly, he asked him to produce
that dialogue, to show that the parts ascribed to himself did not bear his own
style and way of arguing. The ‘heretic’ refused and was thereby convicted of

18 Emanuela Prinzivalli, ‘L’originale e la traduzione die Rufino’, in Lorenzo Perrone,

ed., Die Neuen Psalmenhomilien (Berlin: De Gruyter 2015), pp. 35–55; Emanuela
Prinzivalli, ‘Il Cod.Mon.Gr. 314’, Adamantius 20 (2014), pp. 194–216. John Behr,
Origen: First Principles (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), p. xxiv, agrees with
me that Origen’s works were altered and Rufinus is reliable.
19 Edmon Gallagher, ‘Origen via Rufinus on the NT Canon’, New Testament Studies 62
(2016), pp. 461–76. On Hilary, who paraphrased Origen’s homilies: Isabella Image,
The Human Condition in Hilary of Poitiers (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 2018;
my review at http://readi​ngrel​igion.org/books/​human-condi​tion-hilary-poitiers.
20 As examined in Ilaria L.E. Ramelli, ‘Decadence Denounced in the Controversy over
Origen’, in Therese Fuhrer, ed., Décadence (Heidelberg: Winter, 2014), pp. 263–83;
Ilaria L.E. Ramelli, ‘Autobiographical Self-Fashioning in Origen’, in Maren R.
Niehoff and Joshua Levinson, eds., Self, Self-Fashioning, and Individuality in Late
Antiquity (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019), ch. 13; further in a work on Origen in
preparation.
21 Ap. Rufinus, Adult. 7, 300–304 Amacker-Junod.
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forgery. (3) A letter of Origen was tampered with; falsifiers, Origen warns, harm
themselves, becoming guilty of false testimony – a mortal sin (against the Eighth
Commandment) God will punish. Origen denounced the adulteration of his
works in another letter, too.22
Rufinus tolerated Origen’s errors because he did not understand them (p.
310) – or because he knew these were not errors (often Origen grounded future
orthodox tenets23). Orthodoxy’s definition (‘God Creator, Incarnation, Trinity’,
with ‘freedom to discuss points that had not been so defined, such as the origin
of the soul and the fate of the devil’, p. 310) comes from Origen’s definition in
the Prologue of First Principles. Jerome’s charge against Origen’s apokatastasis
of allowing ‘no difference of rank in heaven’ (p. 315) refers merely to the last
stage of restoration: Origen postulated big postmortem differences in the length
and severity of purifying punishments.24
Whether Porphyry’s fragment ap. Eusebius HE 6.19 refers to Origen the
Christian or another Origen is declared uncertain (p. 247). However, this passage
surely refers to the Christian, since it mentions his exegesis of Scripture. The
debate rather concerns another passage by Porphyry, in Vita Plotini, and
testimonies from Hierocles, Proclus etc.25
Clement, a precursor of Origen’s apokatastasis (with Bardaisan, I add)
commented on the Apocalypse of Peter with its universalistic penchant (p. 240).
I argued so in ‘Origen, Bardaisan’,26 Apokatastasis, pp. 67–136, and ‘Clement’s
Apokatastasis’, in The Seventh Book of the Stromateis (Leiden: Brill, 2012), pp.
239–57. A Hypotyposeis fragment, on God who ‘saves all’, evidences Clement’s
teaching on universal salvation (p. 242). Clement supported Christian faith
through the logos.27 The ‘interpretation of “gnostic” in terms of soteriological
elitism and determinism’ is not mine (p. 247), but Clement’s and Origen’s.
Origen’s criticism of ‘Gnostic’ ideas coincided with that of Plotinus against the
‘Gnostics’ who attended his school.28 NHC texts differ from heresiologists’
accounts,29 but Origen and Plotinus knew Gnosticism prima manu.

22 Adult. 8.
23 See Ilaria L.E. Ramelli, ‘Ethos and Logos: A Second-Century Apologetical Debate
between ‘Pagan’ and Christian Philosophers’, Vigiliae Christianae 69 (2015), pp.
123–56; further in a monograph in preparation.
24 On the Jerome–Rufinus debate: Apokatastasis, pp. 627–58.
25 Discussed in Ilaria L.E. Ramelli, ‘Origen, Patristic Philosophy’; ‘Origen Christian
Platonist’; ‘Origen and the Platonic Tradition’, Religions 8 (2017), pp. 1–20; further
in ongoing work.
26 Cited on p. 230.
27 In Ilaria L.E. Ramelli, ‘Ethos’; ‘The Mysteries of Scripture’, in Judith Kovacs et al.,
eds., Clement’s Biblical Exegesis (Leiden: Brill, 2016), pp. 80–110.
28 Parallels in the work on Origen in preparation; further, a future comparison between
Origen and Plotinus.
29 Discussion in Ramelli, ‘Apokatastasis in Gnostic Texts’; ‘Origen, Bardaisan, and the
Origin of Universal Salvation’; further in a work on philosophical notions of
apokatastasis.
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Disembodied minds falling into earthly bodies parallel Gnostic myths (p.
248). But this is not Origen’s thought.30 Nyssen ‘offered a version of universalism
that omitted Origen’s preexistent souls . . . that fell from the love of God and
then inhabited mortal bodies’ (pp. 320, 280), but Origen rejected the pre-
existence of disembodied souls.31 Gregory’s Op.hom. 28, linking metensomatosis
to the pre-existence of souls theorized by people who wrote on protology,
criticizes, not Origen (p. 280), but likely ‘pagan’ Neoplatonists, such as Porphyry
who wrote on protology, and/or Manichaeans.32
A ‘permanent habituation into evil’ (p. 262) is excluded by Origen, qua
leading to the annihilation of the rational creature (since evil is non-being): a
defeat of God’s creation. Thus, there cannot be a soul’s substantialis interitus –
perhaps against Philo’s annihilationism.33 Origen’s deification is not a human’s
ontological absorption into God’s substance (pp. 266–7). Rather, rational
creatures will live the divine life: their wills shall be oriented towards God.34
Origen emphasized grace (p. 274), but applied to all (Augustine only to some).35
Origen did not demonstrate the premises of apokatastasis (p. 275). However,
that ‘the end is like the beginning’ was also supported by Plotinus (Origen’s
fellow-disciple), who also did not demonstrate this. Origen never argued that
God’s punishments are ameliorating (p. 275). But Origen often did so through
Scripture (e.g. Princ. 2.5.3; Hom.Ier. 1.15–16), adducing 1 Peter 3:18ff. on the
salvation of all sinners who died in the deluge; Isaiah 47:14–15 on ardent but
beneficial coals; Psalm 77: God in the desert killed people to save them, and so
on. The ‘primal equality among creatures’ is not undemonstrated (p. 275), but
argued through theodicy: otherwise, God would be culpable of injustice.36
Nyssen’s theology of freedom depends on Origen.37 Gregory’s tenet that
‘evil exists only through the exercise of the creatures’ will’ (p. 285) is what
Origen’s ontological monism taught. Nyssen’s treatise on 1 Corinthians 15:28
(pp. 285–6) depends on Origen’s exegesis and links ‘anti-subordinationism’ to

3 0 As I argue in ‘Origen’.
31 As I argued in Ilaria L.E. Ramelli, ‘Preexistence of Souls’? (Leuven: Peeters, 2013);
‘Origen’.
32 Argument in ‘Gregory’s of Nyssa’s Purported Criticism of Origen’.
33 Argument in Ilaria L.E. Ramelli, ‘Philo’s Apokatastasis’, Studia Philonica 26 (2014),
pp. 29–55.
34 See Ilaria L.E. Ramelli, ‘Harmony in Patristic Platonism’, International Journal of
the Platonic Tradition 7 (2013), pp. 1–49; further in a future work on Origen.
35 As I argue in ‘Origen in Augustine’ and a future work on Origen’s influence on
Augustine.
36 Argument in Ilaria L.E. Ramelli, ‘La coerenza della soteriologia origeniana’, in
Pagani e cristiani alla ricerca della salvezza (Rome: Augustinianum, 2006), pp. 661–
88; received, e.g., by Luca Battistini, Bardesane (Parma: University, 2017), p. 136,
passim; Apokatastasis, section on Origen. Further in the work on Origen in
preparation.
37 As I argue in Ilaria L. E. Ramelli, Social Justice and the Legitimacy of Slavery
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), ch. 4.
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apokatastasis, identifying the submission of all humanity – Christ’s body – to

God and its salvation.38 That evil, qua ontologically non subsistent, must
disappear is deemed ungrounded (p. 286). Nonetheless, Origen and Gregory
founded it on 1 Corinthians 15:28 (God will be ‘all in all’), which proves that
there will remain no evil in apokatastasis, lest God be found in evil.39 Gregory’s
Catechetical Oration 16 announces the eschatological purification from evil for
humans and the devil by Christ’s incarnation. Eriugena remembered this,
teaching that through Christ’s Inhumanation every creature is saved (Periph.
5.24).40
For Gregory, individuals’ ‘free and deliberate choice . . . is not in contradiction
to corporate salvation’ (p. 289). This held true for Origen, too: for both embraced
ethical intellectualism.41 That the purifying fire may last πρὸς ὅλον αἰῶνα means
the future age before apokatastasis for Gregory (and Origen).42 Gregory insists
on postmortem suffering (p. 281), purifying and related to the Theology of the
Cross. Plato stated that evil can be removed only through (personal or vicarious?)
suffering. He and Scripture inspired patristic conceptions of purifying suffering.
Evagrius was influenced not only by Basil and Nazianzen (p. 293), but
also by Nyssen.43 Concerning the two redactions of Kephalaia Gnostika,
Bundy does not assign S1 chronological priority over S2 (p. 293). I concur
and explained my reasons in ‘Evagrius’ Relations’. Evagrius is often attributed
the idea ‘that physical body or materiality will pass away’ (p. 294); however,
this indicates the subsumption of body into soul, soul into intellect, intellect
into God.44 Evagrius’ notion that ‘the movement is the cause of evil’ (p. 295)
comes from Origen, like his tenet that there was a time when evil was not and
there will be one when it will no longer exist (p. 295).45 That trinitarian
distinctions will cease ‘could be inferred from Evagrius’ Great Letter’

38 Arguments in Ilaria L.E. Ramelli, ‘In Illud: Tunc et Ipse Filius…’, Studia Patristica
44 (2010), pp. 259–74; Ilaria L.E. Ramelli, ‘Origen’s Anti-Subordinationism’; ‘The
Father in the Son, the Son in the Father’, in Die Quellen der Idee der dynamischen
Einheit (Leuven: Peeters, forthcoming).
39 Demonstration in Ramelli, ‘Christian Soteriology’.
40 Apokatastasis, section on Eriugena.
41 See Ilaria L.E. Ramelli, ‘Ethical Intellectualism and the Invention of “Original
Sin”’, in The Invention of Sin, Paris, IAS, April 2017, forthcoming.
42 Argument in Ilaria L.E. Ramelli, ‘Aἰώνιος and αἰών in Origen and Nyssen’, Studia
Patristica 47 (2010), pp. 57–62, received by Hans Boersma, ‘Overcoming Time and
Space’, Journal of Early Christian Studies 20 (2012), pp. 579–84; Ilaria L.E. Ramelli,
‘Apokatastasis and Epektasis in Cant.’, in Giulio Maspero, ed., In Canticum
Canticorum (Leiden: Brill, 2018), pp. 312–39.
43 As I argued in Ilaria L.E. Ramelli, ‘Evagrius and Gregory’, Greek, Roman, and
Byzantine Studies 53 (2013), pp. 117–37; Ilaria L. E. Ramelli, Evagrius’s Kephalaia
Gnostika (Atlanta: SBL Press 2015), introduction; commentary; further ‘Gregory’s
and Evagrius’ Relations’.
44 Ilaria L.E. Ramelli, ‘Relations’ and ‘Evagrius, the Origenian Ascetic’, in John

McGuckin, ed., Orthodox Monasticism (New York: Theotokos, 2014), pp. 147–205.
45 On this point and its antecedents see commentary in Ramelli, Kephalaia.
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(p. 349); however, Evagrius’ letter denies this: the three Hypostases will
remain eschatologically distinct.46
The question ‘whether Evagrius’s Christology is orthodox in the Nicene
sense’ (p. 299) should be overall answered positively.47 KG 6.14, other Kephalaia
and the Letter on Faith contradict ‘subordinationism’: the Son is  divine, with
Father and Spirit. I read either the first sentence of KG 6.14 as an objector’s (as
attested  elsewhere in Evagrius) or this kephalaion as an internal dialectics of
thesis, antithesis and discussion (what Evagrius uses ‘zetetically’), so as to
understand KG 6.14 non-contradictorily. It first states: ‘Christ is not consubstantial
[ὁμοούσιος] with the Trinity’, then: ‘Christ is consubstantial [ὁμοούσιος] with the
Father’. This is a contradictio in  adiecto. If in KG 4.9 and 4.18 Evagrius
distinguishes Christ from the Logos, in KG 6.14 he considers both: ‘in union,
Christ is ὁμοούσιος with the Father’ and ‘is the Lord’ God. In KG 3.1, Christ is
considered in his divine nature: ‘The Father – only he – knows Christ, and the
Son – only he – the Father’. That Father:Christ = Son:Father implies the
identity between Son and Christ’s divine nature. Evagrius, like Origen, calls Christ
sometimes the rational creature (λογικόν), sometimes the union of this λογικόν
with God’s Logos/Son, e.g. in Skemmata 1, claiming that Christ qua Christ
possesses Essential Knowledge (God), who constitutes his divine nature. Palladius
in Evagrius’ biography depicts him as supporting, against ‘heretics’, the divinity
of Christ-Logos, God’s Son, who also assumed a human body, soul and nous.48
Sometimes Evagrius is accused of supporting a dichotomic Christology, but
this is the same as Nyssen’s – unsurprisingly, as I think Gregory exerted more
influence on Evagrius than is commonly assumed.49 Scholars also attribute to
Evagrius a Christology that does not anticipate Chalcedon – an accusation from
the perspective of posterior theological developments. However, precisely in KG
6.14, the adverb  ‘inseparably’ (Christ possesses ‘inseparably’ God – Essential
Knowledge), is the same as the adverbs that at Chalcedon will describe the
inseparability of Christ’s two natures: ἀχωρίστως,  ἀδιαιρέτως. ‘Inseparable’ is
used by Evagrius to describe the union of Christ’s divine and human natures:
‘Christ is the only one who always and inseparably possesses Essential Knowledge
in himself.’ ‘Always’ might anticipate Chalcedon’s ἀτρέπτως, ‘without change’.
Thus, Christ is the only λογικόν who always and inseparably possesses God in
himself. Christ is both a λογικόν and God.
It has been advocated that Dionysius did not support apokatastasis (p. 342),
since he speaks of apokatastasis in the present, not the future. However, Dionysius
speaks of apokatastasis and reversal/conversion (Neoplatonic ἐπιστροφή) in the

4 6 Pointed out in my monographic essay in Kephalaia.

47 See Ramelli, Kephalaia, commentary sections on Christology; ‘Evagrius’ Relations’;
the work in preparation on Evagrius’ philosophical theology.
48 See Ramelli ‘Life of Evagrius’, in Novel Saints, University of Ghent.
49 On KG 6.14 and Evagrius’ Christology: Ramelli, ‘Nyssen’s and Evagrius’ Biographical
and Theological Relations’; further a future monograph on Evagrius.
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present,50 not because he denies the eventual apokatastasis, but because God, being
atemporal, lives in an eternal present, as the eternal circle of love’s movement shows.51
Justinian condemned Bar Sudhaili’s ideas (p. 347), not Origen’s (or Nyssen’s).52
Maximus criticized Origenism (p. 364), correcting a radicalized Origenism–
Evagrianism, not Origen.53 Maximus’ statement, ‘to be a creature is to be in
movement’ (p. 365), follows Origen. Maximus was not ‘rejecting Origen’s idea of
an original state of ontologically static creatures’, since Origen posited movement
– soul’s movement: an act of will – as God’s gift to all rational creatures, enabling
their fall or adhesion to God.54 When Ambiguum 7 criticizes an initial unity of
rational beings ‘connatural with God’ (συμφυεῖς θεῷ), this hardly could target
Origen, who explicitly denied, against ‘Gnostics’, that rational creatures could
be connatural (ὁμοούσιοι) with God.55 When Maximus attacks the doctrine that
God imprisoned rational creatures in bodies as a result of sin, he is not criticizing
Origen, who maintained that God created them with a spiritual body, which
after the Fall became heavy and mortal (for humans) and ‘ridiculous’ (for
demons).56 Likewise, Maximus’ objection to an endless series of falls and
restorations, like Augustine’s, does not fit Origen’s theory of a finite series of
aeons followed by the eternal restoration. The silence that Nyssen and others
used in mystical apophaticism, Maximus applies to apokatastasis and deification
(θέωσις),57 treating apokatastasis per interpositam personam, a ‘wise man’.
Εriugena’s (Neoplatonist) exitus-reditus scheme is acknowledged (p. 376):
this dovetails with the creation-apokatastasis movement.58 Eriugena admired
Origen.59 Against Augustine’s postlapsarian non posse non peccare, Eriugena

50 Ilaria L.E. Ramelli, ‘The Question of Origen’s Conversion and His Philosophico-
Theological Lexicon of Epistrophē’, in Hermut Loehr, ed., Religious and Philosophical
Conversion (Leiden: Brill, 2020).
51 Argument in Apokatastasis, pp. 694–721; Ilaria L.E. Ramelli, ‘Origen, Evagrios, and
Dionysios’, in Handbook to Dionysius (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), ch. 5.
52 I analysed the Barsanuphius–John correspondence about Nyssen’s and Evagrius’
apokatastasis in Apokatastasis, pp. 410, 725–8.
53 I argued for this in Apokatastasis, pp. 738–57; further work in preparation.
54 See also Ilaria L.E. Ramelli, ‘Response to Giulio Maspero’, in Evagrius between
Origen, the Cappadocians, and Neoplatonism, pp. 101–4.
55 Argument in Ilaria L.E. Ramelli, ‘Origen, Greek Philosophy, and the Birth of the
Trinitarian Meaning of Hypostasis’, Harvard Theological Review 105 (2012), pp.
302–50.
56 See Ramelli, ‘Origen’, in A History of Mind and Body in Late Antiquity.
57 Discussion in Ilaria L.E. Ramelli, ‘Epopteia–Epoptics in Platonism’, in Harold
Tarrant, ed., The Language of Inspiration in the Platonic Tradition (Amherst, NY:
Prometheus, 2020).
58 Apokatastasis, pp. 773–815; further, Ilaria L.E. Ramelli, ‘From God to God’, lecture,
Oxford workshop Eriugena’s Christian Neoplatonism and its Sources in Patristic
Philosophy and Ancient Philosophy, dir. Ramelli, Oxford University, August 2019,
forthcoming.
59 See Ilaria L.E. Ramelli, ‘The Reception of Origen’s Thought in Western Theological
and Philosophical Traditions’, main lecture, in Anders Jacobsen, ed., Origeniana
Undecima, Aarhus University 2013 (Leuven: Peeters, 2016), pp. 443–67.
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Reviews 249

deemed human nature ‘essentially free’ and ‘freedom remained after sin’ (p.
377). Eriugena followed Origen here, and by supporting apokatastasis.60 I find
his notion that ‘purified souls will be absorbed into pure intellects’ (p. 379)
aligned with Evagrius’ subsumption of body into soul, soul into ‘unified
intellect’, and this into God at the stage of deification/unity. Eriugena rightly
traced this theory back to Nyssen, who theorized at resurrection ‘the
transformation of body into soul, soul into intellect, intellect into God’.61
McClymond questions whether humanity’s restoration ‘carries with it the
salvation of every human soul’ (p. 381). Now, Eriugena claims: ‘every creature,
in heaven and on earth, has been saved’ through Christ’s Inhumanation (Periph.
5.24). No substantial nature can ‘be in unhappiness’ (Praed. 16.1); all will enjoy
‘a wonderful joy’ (Praed. 19.3). The evilness of sinners’ perverted will shall
perish (peritura): their substance will remain ( permansura) and be happy (Periph.
5.931A). Truly, ‘all . . . shall return into Paradise, but not all shall enjoy the Tree
of Life – or rather . . . not all equally’ (Periph. 1015A [381]), but this distinguishes
salvation and deification: it does not entail that some will not be saved.
I very much appreciate this book as a substantial academic work, of the
kind that costs a great deal of time and concentration to be conceived, written
and read. Academia and academic publishers should continue to encourage
such sustained research and systematic, important works.

Ilaria L.E. Ramelli

Durham University
Sacred Heart University

Michael J. McClymond, The Devil’s Redemption: A New History

and Interpretation of Christian Universalism, 2 vols. Grand
Rapids: Baker, 2018, 1376 pp., $90.00

As one can immediately tell by looking at the blurbs on the book’s back cover,
McClymond has written a book that goes after universalism. After a long
scene-setting, the story-telling of this belief’s fortunes through the Christian
centuries is first dominated by the theories of Origen and their effects. Origen
was, the author insists (despite the evidence being unclear and known to be
so in antiquity), infamous for that sharpened version of universalism, whereby
there is a final restoration of every soul to its original state with even the devil
finding salvation: hence the book’s title, The Devil’s Redemption. However, ‘the
Devil’s Redemption’ and ‘Universal Salvation’ are not the same thing, not even
in the Origenian or Origenist version of the latter, and even less so in the debates
of the modern era, where the devil is less believed in and accordingly less in

60 As I show in Apokatastasis, pp. 773–815; Ramelli, ‘From God to God’.

61 Periph. 5.987C. See Ramelli, ‘Gregory of Nyssa on the Soul’.
© 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd