All shall be well explorations in Universalism and Christian theology from Origen to Moltmann (MacDonald, Gregory) (Z-Library)

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“All Shall Be Well”
Explorations in
UNIVERSAL SALVATION and CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY
from Origen to Moltmann
Edited by
Gregory MacDonald
James Clarke & Co
P.O. Box 60
Cambridge
CB1 2NT
www.jamesclarke.co
publishing@jamesclarke.co
“A
ll Shall Be W
ell” 
 
 
 M
acD
onald
C C
“All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”
—Lady Julian of Norwich
Universalism runs like a slender thread through the history of Christian theology. It 
has always been a minority report and has oft en been regarded as heresy, but it has 
been surprisingly resilient. Over the centuries Christian universalism, in one form or 
another, has been reinvented time and time again. 
In this book an international team of scholars explores the diverse universalisms of 
Christian thinkers from Origen to Moltmann. In his introduction Gregory MacDonald 
argues that theologies of universal salvation occupy a space between heresy and dogma. 
Th erefore disagreements about whether all will be saved should not be thought of as 
debates between “the orthodox” and “heretics” but rather as “in-house” debates between 
Christians.
Th e studies that follow aim, in the fi rst instance, to hear, understand, and explain 
the eschatological claims of a range of Christians from the third to the twenty-fi rst 
centuries. Th ey also off er some constructive, critical engagement with those claims.
Origen (Tom Greggs)
Gregory of Nyssa (Steve Harmon)
Julian of Norwich (Robert Sweetman)
Th e Cambridge Platonists (Louise Hickman)
James Relly (Wayne K. Clymer)
Elhanan Winchester (Robin Parry)
Friedrich Schleiermacher (Murray Rae)
Th omas Erskine (Don Horrocks)
George MacDonald (Th omas Talbott)
P. T. Forsyth (Jason Goroncy)
Sergius Bulgakov (Paul Gavrilyuk)
Karl Barth (Oliver Crisp)
Jaques Ellul (Andrew Goddard)
J. A. T. Robinson (Trevor Hart)
Hans Urs von Balthasar (Edward T. Oakes, s.j.)
John Hick (Lindsay Hall)
 Jürgen Moltmann (Nik Ansell)
“A lively and illuminating collection of essays.  Its well-judged blend of theological 
analysis and historical context makes it accessible to the general reader as well as raising 
provocative questions for theologians about the place of universalism in Christian 
tradition. I will certainly use it in my teaching.” — MORWENNA LUDLOW
Lecturer in Patristics, University of Exeter, UK
“Th is is a really fantastic collection. . . . Th e riveting theological biographies in chapter 
aft er chapter will keep readers tuned in from start to finish to follow the twists and turns 
that have characterized the quest to understand universal salvation.” — AMOS YONG
J. Rodman Williams Professor of Th eology, Regent University, Virginia Beach 
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“Is universalism the heart of the gospel or an idea concocted by the ‘devil’ to desen-
sitize human beings to the possibility of eternal damnation? The stakes could not 
be higher! This volume shows why many of the great theologians in the Christian 
tradition responded positively to the former question even as their engaging the 
arguments back-and-forth will equip readers to formulate their own answers to 
the latter, and other associated rationales rejecting the universalist notion.
This is a really fantastic collection! For all booklovers, the riveting theological 
biographies in chapter after chapter will keep readers tuned in from start to finish 
to follow the twists and turns that have perennially characterized the quest to 
understand universal salvation and its implications.”
—Amos Yong, J. Rodman Williams Professor of Theology, Regent University, Virginia Beach
“This is a lively and illuminating collection of essays. Its well-judged blend of theo-
logical analysis and historical context makes it accessible to the general reader as 
well as raising provocative questions for theologians about the place of universal-
ism in Christian tradition. I will certainly use it in my teaching.”
—Morwenna Ludlow, Lecturer in Patristics, University of Exeter
“Do some people spend eternity separated from God and God’s love? Or is God’s 
saving love so radical, and God’s victory in Christ so complete, that eventually all 
are reconciled? Robin Parry’s fine collection of exploratory essays, ‘All Shall Be Well,’ 
introduces readers to that relatively small but hopeful band of Christian Univer-
salists that stretches from the third century (in Origen of Alexandria) up through 
the twentieth and twenty-first centuries (in Karl Barth and Jürgen Moltmann). 
This fascinating book is for all who have ever wondered (or worried) about the 
eternal fate of those who die unreconciled to God.”
—Kevin Corcoran, Professor of Philosophy, Calvin College, Grand Rapids
‘All Shall be Well’
Explorations in Universalism and Christian Th eology
from Origen to Moltmann
Edited by
Gregory Macdonald
C
James Clarke & Co
James Clarke & Co
P.O. Box 60
Cambridge
CB1 2NT
www.jamesclarke.co
publishing@jamesclarke.co
ISBN 978 0 227 68028 5
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First published 2011
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To Jimmy Stock:
Brother, friend, dude
Contents
list of Contributors / ix
1. Introduction: Between Heresy and Dogma—Gregory MacDonald / 1
I. ThIrd To FIFTeenTh CenTurIes
2. Apokatastasis: Particularist Universalism in Origen (c.185–c.254) 
—Tom Greggs / 29
3. The Subjection of All Things in Christ: The Christocentric Universalism 
of Gregory of nyssa (331/340–c.395)—Steve Harmon / 47
4. Sin Has Its Place, but All Shall Be Well: The Universalism of Hope in 
Julian of norwich (c.1342–c.1416)—Robert Sweetman / 66
II. sevenTeenTh To nIneTeenTh CenTurIes
5. love Is All and God Is love: Universalism in Peter Sterry (1613–1672) 
and Jeremiah White (1630–1707)—Louise Hickman / 95
6. Union with Christ: The Calvinist Universalism of James Relly 
(1722–1778)—Wayne K. Clymer / 116
7. Between Calvinism and Arminianism: The evangelical Universalism 
of elhanan Winchester (1751–1797)—Robin Parry / 141
8. Salvation-in-Community: The Tentative Universalism of Friedrich 
Schleiermacher (1768–1834)—Murray Rae / 171
Contentsviii
9. Postmortem Education: Universal Salvation in Thomas Erskine 
(1788–1870)—Don Horrocks / 198
10. The Just Mercy of God: Universal Salvation in George MacDonald 
(1824–1905)—Thomas Talbott / 219
III. TWENTIETH TO TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
11. The Final Sanity Is Complete Sanctity: Universal Holiness in the 
Soteriology of P. T. Forsyth (1848–1921)—Jason A. Goroncy / 249
12. The Judgment of Love: The Ontological Universalism of Sergius 
Bulgakov (1871–1944)—Paul Gavrilyuk / 280
13. I Do Teach It, but I also Do Not Teach It: The Universalism of 
Karl Barth (1886–1968)—Oliver D. Crisp / 305
14. The Totalitybut 
that God still has ways to work with human freedom to bring about a 
situation in which all freely choose salvation. exactly what those ways 
are will differ from one account to another. Still others would object that 
we elevate human freedom too high if we see it as something that God 
must bow the knee to no matter what the cost.
To this list one could also add different view on election, Scripture, 
sin, Christology, Trinity, ecclesiology, the millennium, God’s relation to 
time, and so on, and so forth (and different approaches to how univer-
salism interweaves with such theological loci). Universalists can exist 
anywhere on the conservative–liberal spectrum. Some are theological 
conservatives while others are more theologically liberal. And in terms 
of ecclesial affiliation, setting aside the obvious—though unorthodox—
Unitarian Universalst congregations, we find Anglicans, Baptists, Cath-
olics, Congregationalists, Independents, Orthodox, Reformed, Pietists, 
Presbyterians, Quakers, Pentecostals, etc., etc. Christian universalism 
never has been a monolithic system to be taken off the shelf and adopted. 
We will explore some of this diversity through a range of case studies.
Soundings
Returning now to the issue of the studies that follow: this book makes 
no claims to discuss all the key universalist thinkers but simply aims to 
provide sample explorations. In fact, there are quite a few notable “miss-
ing persons” from the list of subjects. even if we do restrict ourselves to 
non-universalist churches, the following spring immediately to mind as 
those with universalist inclinations of some variety or other: Clement 
of Alexandria (c. 150–c. 215), Maximus the Confessor (580–662), John 
Scotus eriugena (c. 810–662), George Rust (d.1670), Ann Conway 
(d.1679), Jane lead (1623–1704), James Fraser of Brea (1639–1699), 
Johann Wilhelm Petersen (1649–1727), William law (1686–1761), 
Charles Chauncy (1705–1787), John Murray (1741–1815), Judith 
Sargent Murray (1761–1820), Johann Christoph Blumhardt (1805–
1880), Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt (1842–1919), Andrew Jukes 
(1815–1901), Samuel Cox (1826–1893), Thomas Allin (nineteenth cen-
tury), Hannah Whitall Smith (1832–1911), Herbert H. Farmer (1892–
1981), Karl Rahner (1904–1984), Marilyn McCord Adams (1943–), and 
“All SHAll Be Well”24
Thomas Talbott (1941–). And there are a growing number of thinkers 
exploring the possibilities of universalism with increasing theological 
sophistication.37
But all that is to speak of what is not in this book. What we offer are 
seventeen case studies on universalist thinkers. Most were overt, con-
vinced universalists, others were hopeful universalists, while a couple 
explicitly denied being universalists (P. T. Forsyth and Karl Barth). We 
have included the latter because, arguably, the logic of their theology 
led clearly in universalist directions and one might be justified in won-
dering whether their denial of universalism was a failure to follow the 
logic of their own theology to its conclusion (and chapters 11 and 13 in 
this book argue that this was indeed so for both these particular theolo-
gians). even if that is not the case, their theology has much of value for 
more explicit universalists to engage with.
Whatever readers may feel about universalism everyone will find 
numerous points of agreement and disagreement with the thinkers that 
are discussed in the chapters that follow. It is my hope that, if nothing 
else, this book can play some small role in bringing into the light a diverse 
minority-tradition that deserves both more attention and more respect 
as an authentically Christian attempt at faith seeking understanding.
Bibliography
Ansell, nik. “Afterword. Hell: The nemesis of Hope?” In Her Gates Will Never Be Shut: 
Hope, Hell, and the New Jerusalem, by Bradley Jersak, 191–210. eugene, OR: Wipf 
& Stock, 2009.
Augustine. Enchiridion; or Faith, Hope, and Love. Translated by J. F. Shaw. http://www 
.leaderu.com/cyber/books/augenchiridion/enchiridiontoc.html.
———. The City of God against the Pagans. Translated by Henry Bettenson. london: 
Penguin, 2003.
Chauncy, Charles. The Mystery Hid from Ages and Generations, Made Manifest by the 
Gospel-Revelation; or, The Salvation of All Men. london: Dilly, 1784.
Crouzel, Henri. Origen. edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1999.
Daley, Brian e. The Hope of the Early Church: A Handbook of Patristic Eschatology. 
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Harmon, Steven R. Every Knee Should Bow: Biblical Rationales for Universal Salvation in 
Early Christian Thought. Dallas: University Press of America, 2003.
37. See, for instance, David Congdon, The God Who Saves: A Dogmatic Sketch 
(eugene, OR: Cascade, forthcoming 2013), which will be, to the best of my knowledge, 
the first book-length systematic theological exploration of universalism ever published. 
It will represent a Reformed version of universalism.
MacDonald / Introduction 25
Hanson, J. W. Universalism: The Prevailing Doctrine of the Christian Church during Its 
First Five Hundred Years (and Showing the Influence of Greek Mythology and Pagan 
Philosophy on Christian Doctrine). Boston: Universalist Publishing House, 1899.
Murray, John. Letters and Sketches of Sermons. 3 vols. Boston: Belcher, 1812.
———. Records of the Life of the Rev. John Murray. Boston: Munroe & Francis, 1816.
norris, Frederick W. “Origen.” In The Early Christian World, edited by Philip F. esler, 
2:1005–26. london: Routledge, 2000.
———. “Universal Salvation in Origen and Maximus.” In Universalism and the Doctrine 
of Hell, edited by nigel Cameron, 35–72. Carlisle, UK: Paternoster, 1992.
Origen. On First Principles. Translated by G. W. Butterworth. new york: Harper & Row, 
1966.
Parry, Robin, and Christopher Partridge, eds. Universal Salvation? The Current Debate. 
Carlisle, UK: Paternoster, 2003.
Sinkinson, Christopher. The Universe of Faiths: A Critical Study of John Hick’s Religious 
Pluralism. Carlisle, UK: Paternoster, 2001.
Stone, edwin Martin. Biography of Rev. Elhanan Winchester. Boston: Brewster, 1836.
Winchester, elhahan. The Universal Restoration Exhibited in Four Dialogues between a 
Minister and His Friend. Boston: Mussey, 1831.
THIRD 
TO FIFTeenTH 
CenTURIeS
29
2 
Apokatastasis
Particularist Universalism in Origen 
(c. 185–c. 254)1
Tom Greggs
Origen grew up in a Christian family, spending his formative 
years studying and then teaching in Alexandria, before moving 
to Caesaria where he continued to teach and also to preach. He lived 
through a period of persecution: his father was matyred and he himself 
is thought to have died as the result of injuries sustained through the 
Decian persecution. Origen is famed for many things: he is arguably the 
1. Much of the argument in this chapter is based on my more detailed engagement 
with Origen in Greggs, Barth, Origen, and Universal Salvation. Other aspects of the 
discussion have also been considered in Greggs, “exclusivist or Universalist?”
“All SHAll Be Well”30
first ever systematic theologian, and his De Principiis is perhaps the first 
attempt at a thorough-going dogmatics; he was an avid biblical commen-
tator and exegete; he revived the theological school in Alexandria; he 
created the Hexapla;2 and he even offered corrections to the Septuagint. 
However, Origen is perhaps best known in theological circles for one 
thing above all—his advocacy of universal salvation. When systematic 
theology mentions Origen’s universalism in passing, however, it often 
does so without subtlety or recognition of the complexity that exists in 
Origen’s corpus with regards to his infamous doctrine of apokatastasis, 
pointing automatically, instead, to its supposed condemnation. Indeed, 
one does well to remember that apokatastasis was not directly or singu-
larly anathematized at the fifth ecumenical council in 553 Ce, and it is 
also worth noting that the condemnations of 553 were no doubt more 
directed at Origenism thanat Origen himself (see the Introduction). 
“Origenism” quickly became a complaint not only against those whose 
thoughts were claimed (not always accurately) to have been derived 
from Origen, and, as edwards puts it, “once an embittered combat-
ant had found reason for branding one of his opponents an Origenist, 
Origen might be tarred with every heresy that malice could lay at his 
opponent’s door.”3 To attend to Origen’s account of universalism in detail 
is no doubt a useful enterprise in order to dispel certain assumptions 
about his work. 
This chapter seeks not only to outline Origen’s particular version 
of the doctrine of universal salvation, but also to comment on the way 
in which Origen’s universalism does not stand in stark opposition to a 
particularist agenda. I will take as read in this chapter that Origen is a 
universalist, though this has variously been a point of dispute.4 I will 
instead seek to explain how Origen’s belief in apokatastasis is related to 
other of his dogmatic and systematic concerns, and seek to advocate that 
Origen’s version of universalism does not undermine (but arises from) 
2. This was six versions of the Old Testament (in its various editions and transla-
tions) laid side by side for comparison.
3. edwards, Origen against Plato, 5. For further on the relationship between Origen 
and Origenism, and on the political nature of the Origenist controversy, see Clark, The 
Origenist Controversy.
4. For the perspective that maintains that Origen is a separationist, see norris, 
“Universal Salvation in Origen and Maximus,” 35–58. I have, however, advocated else-
where that this perspective is erroneous; see my Barth, Origen, and Universal Salvation, 
chs. 3, 4, 6, and 7; and my “exclusivist or Universalist?”
Greggs / Origen (c.185–c.254) 31
concerns with particularity. To do this, I will firstly consider the rela-
tionship between apokatastasis and pre-existence in Origen; secondly, 
address Origen’s teaching on Christ’s epinoiai; and thirdly, discuss the 
relationship between his version of universalism and diversity, growth, 
and sanctification. 
Origen on Apokatastasis: Pre-existence and Restoration
Origen is traditionally interpreted to be an arch-universalist, offering 
ultimate salvation even to the devil. However, his doctrine of universal 
salvation is neither universally dominant in his many and varied writ-
ings, nor univocally affirmed throughout all of Origen’s writings. There 
is, indeed, something of a tension in Origen’s works, with strong affirma-
tions at certain points of his corpus of God’s sovereign grace, and clearly 
advocated separationism at other points in his writings. Certainly, for 
pastoral reasons Origen seems nervous about affirming a doctrine of 
universal salvation in, for example, his homiletic writings.5 yet the map-
ping of Christian theology offered in his systematic theology, along with 
certain comments offered in his commentaries, clearly suggests that 
Origen imagined an ultimate end in which all would be well, and God’s 
final victory would be triumphant. 
Because of the way in which Origen’s articulation of universalism 
is connected to his systematic mapping of the Christian faith, it is neces-
sary to consider the doctrines that are interdependent with his discus-
sion of universal salvation. If one were to imagine systematic theology 
as an enterprise that might crudely be thought of as being a little like the 
interrelation of cogs and levers in a great mechanism, clearly how one 
manoeuvres certain cogs will determine what happens to other ones. 
With universal salvation, this is no different than with any other doctri-
nal concern. Origen does not write his theology with the propositional 
concerns, relating to the logical outcomes of positions, that one sees 
within a hundred years of his death in the debates such as those between 
Arius and Athanasius, and the multivocity of his theological speech is 
no doubt left wanting by the standards of later ages. However, Origen’s 
doctrine of apokatastasis does arise from his consideration of other doc-
trinal concerns (and vice versa), and it is necessary to attend to these. 
5. For further details on this point, see my “exclusivist or Universalist?”
“All SHAll Be Well”32
Firstly, one should note that the universalist strand in Origen’s the-
ology is strongly connected to his doctrine of the soul. For Origen, souls 
are substances which exist in all living things. He believes that the word 
for “soul” (psuche) derives from the word for cooling (psuchesthai), the 
reason for this connection being that the soul cooled as it moved away or 
was moved away from its participation in the divine fire. It is this cooling 
in fervor from the divine fire (perhaps related in some way to boredom 
or over-satisfaction) which is the basis for the soul’s fall from contempla-
tion of God. Despite this fall, however, the soul retains its ability to be 
restored to its original position and nature in relation to God.6 While it is 
appropriate to speak of souls as pre-existing from Origen’s perspective, 
with their existence beginning in the eternal fire of God, souls are not 
eternal in the way that God is eternal: they are “ingenerate” only in such 
a way as to be unable to be procreated like bodies.7
In Origen’s anthropology, the soul is the seat of reason,8 and Jesus’ 
work of salvation is in relation to that which is rational: he is the one 
who “shines on those who are rational and intellectual.”9 Salvation is 
necessary, according to Origen, because while souls have the capacity for 
reason, they may or may not engage actively in the pursuit of it.10 Christ’s 
work of salvation is, therefore, to save humanity from the irrational.11 
The mechanism of salvation is the soul’s participation in reason, which 
is part of its participation in the logos who is the fount of all reason. The 
relationship of the logos to all rational creatures is the special salvific ac-
tivity of the second member of the Trinity:12 “God the Father bestows on 
all the gift of existence; and a participation in Christ, in virtue of his being 
the word or reason, makes them rational.”13 Humans share in rational-
ity as a result of their participation in the work of the Christ in making 
6. De Princ. II.8.3.
7. Prestige, God in Patristic Thought, 51; cf. Anatolios, “Theology and economy in 
Origen and Athanasius,” 166.
8. De Princ. II.1.2 & III.1.13. 
9. CommJoh. I.24.
10. Ibid., I.29 (Heine, I.190, 72). 
11. Ibid., I.42.
12. De Princ. I.3.7. The special remit of the first member of the Trinity is that of 
everything that possesses natural life, and the third’s is the life of the saints.
13. Ibid., I.3.8, emphasis added.
Greggs / Origen (c.185–c.254) 33
humans rational.14 This sharing in rationality is universal among humans: 
all humans share to some degree (even if just in terms of potentiality) in 
the rationality of the logos, and “all rational beings are partakers of the 
word of God, and so have implanted within them some seeds, as it were, 
of wisdom and righteousness, which is Christ.”15 The logos is present in 
all rational creatures,16 and all human souls have some relation to reason 
even if this reason is not exercised.17 Origen utilizes two terms that help 
to make this distinction: logika (all humans) who are distinct from the 
logikoi, a title which can only be applied to the saints. It may be useful 
to differentiate here in Origen’s writing between some form of passive 
participation in the logos, who supplies reason to all humans (logika), 
and active participation in the logos, through exercise of the human will 
towards reason (in the logikoi).
Because of this differentiated relationship between the logos and 
all rational beings, the basis for Origen’s universal salvation is one of 
participation: all rational beings participate variously in the logos. 
However, this participatory relationship is not simply passive, and 
Origen’s universalism might usefully be thoughtof in more contempo-
rary terms as some version of compatibilism in which human freedom 
and divine determinism are not in conflict. It is not simply, in Origen’s 
account, that there is a triumph of God’s will which crushes any sense 
of human particularity or freedom: Origen is still determined to retain 
the necessity of active human engagement in working out salvation. 
Although Origen is clear that the greater work of salvation is on the part 
of God, he is equally clear that humans also have some involvement in it, 
completing the work of salvation by their active participation in the pro-
cess of becoming logikoi.18 nevertheless, this active engagement is not 
exclusive and only for the saints. Participation in Christ as logos is not 
14. O’leary suggests that the Son’s work for Origen is primarily the perfecting of 
humanity’s innate participation in the logos (“The Invisible Mission of the Son in 
Origen and Augustine,” 610).
15. De Princ. I.3.6. We should be careful to note that this position is not uniformly 
articulated in Origen’s writing. For a contrasting perspective in Origen, see CommJoh. 
II.4 (Heine, II.60, 109).
16. e.g., De Princ. I.3.5.
17. Crouzel, Origen, 95. layton, on the other hand, argues that even negative and 
sinful actions can be seen as rational, as in the case of Judas (layton, “Judas yields a 
Place to the Devil,” 534).
18. De Princ. III.1.18. 
“All SHAll Be Well”34
merely reserved for those who recognize God’s work of salvation, but it 
is a participation in which all things take a part. For example, all things 
which have received power participate in Christ insofar as he is power,19 
and all things which have come into being as the result of Wisdom par-
ticipate in Christ who is all Wisdom—even those who fail to recognize 
the Wisdom by which they were created.20 This is connected to Origen’s 
doctrine of the epinoiai (see below).
Origen’s teaching on the universal participation of rationality in 
the fount of all reason (the logos) is the condition for his teaching on 
apokatastasis.21 Since pre-existent souls have moved from their par-
ticipation in the divine fire, for Origen, salvation takes place through 
a return and restoration of God’s perfect, creating will: “when the Son 
is said to be subjected to the Father the perfect restoration of the entire 
creation is announced, so when his enemies are said to be subjected 
to the Son of God we are to understand this to involve the salvation 
of those subjected and the restoration of those that have been lost.”22 
The pre-fallen condition is what is restored for human beings, and in 
this way God’s creating will and his redeeming will are innately con-
nected. Salvation is seen ultimately as the “perfect restoration of the 
whole of creation.”23 Given Origen’s discussion of the soul which was 
originally a participant in the divine fire but cooled, the restoration that 
takes place is a restoration to a life in full communion and participa-
tion with God—restoration to the full participation in God that the soul 
once enjoyed. This is the ultimate hope of salvation, in contrast to the 
present situation of limited, partial, and distinct modes of participation 
in the logos that the soul presently has. Crucially, this eschatological 
vision involves the whole of creation, and all human beings. All that is 
created will be restored. Origen grounds this in theological reflection on 
1 Corinthians 15:28: “God will be all in all.” He writes: “when ‘God shall 
be all in all,’ they [all creatures] also, since they are a part of all, may have 
19. CommJoh. I.38.
20. Ibid., I.39.
21. For a discussion of the use of this term in the fathers, see ludlow, Universal 
Salvation, 38–44. 
22. De Princ. III.5.7, emphasis added.
23. Cf. Daley, The Hope of the Early Church, 58. We can note here a distinction be-
tween Origen’s version of universal salvation and that of Gregory of nyssa; see ludlow, 
Universal Salvation, 258. This is not, however, to deny the transformative nature of res-
toration for Origen; see John Behr, The Formation of Christian Theology I, 172. 
Greggs / Origen (c.185–c.254) 35
God even in themselves, as he is in all things.”24 The restorative aspect of 
this eschatological end is the process of the soul becoming a second time 
what it was before.25 
The return of the soul to full participation in God takes place, ac-
cording to Origen, over a long period of time that might involve purga-
tion and punishment.26 However, this punishment is not absolute,27 but 
is instead intended to reform the soul:28 punishment is a mechanism 
of salvation, rather than the determination of condemnation. There is, 
therefore, no permanent hell in Origen’s thought, as Origen’s sense of 
God’s graciousness always allows for a further opportunity of reform 
in future ages. Origen asserts that even “the worst sinner, who has blas-
phemed the Holy Spirit and been ruled by sin from beginning to end 
in the whole of this present age, will afterwards in the age to come be 
brought into order, I know not how.”29 His theory of cycles of ages before 
and beyond this age allows that even those seemingly beyond any salva-
tion in the present age will receive grace in the future. For Origen, the 
will of God must be fulfilled for the unjust as for the just:30 salvation, 
therefore, involves all creation and not simply a limited few.
The Epinoiai and Varied Participation in the Logos
Origen’s articulation of universalism is not one in which a dominant 
universal undermines all particularity, variety, and difference. As Paul 
considers himself to be “all things to all,” so, Origen writes, “[t]he 
Saviour . . . in a way much more divine than Paul, has become ‘all things 
to all,’ that he might either ‘gain’ or perfect ‘all things.’”31 Origen does not 
simply concern himself with binary categorizations when it comes to 
24. De Princ. I.7.5.
25. Ibid., II.8.3. This is not, however, the cyclical and endless determinism of 
Stoicism.
26. However, Origen does on another occasion suggest that purgation might take 
place “in the twinking of an eye” (CommMt. XIV.9). There may be lines of continuity 
here in terms of Rahner’s discussion of purgatory (Rahner, “Purgatory,” 181–93).
27. De Princ. II.10.7. See Farrar, Mercy and Judgment, 330; and Tzamalikos, The 
Concept of Time in Origen, 393.
28. De Princ. I.6.3.
29. Prayer XXVII.15.
30. Ibid., XXVI.6. 
31. CommJoh. I.34 (Heine, I.217, 76). 
“All SHAll Be Well”36
salvation (the elect compared to the rejected, or sinners compared to the 
righteous), but is fully aware of the breadth of human interactions with 
God: “The Savior, therefore, is first and the last, not that he is not what 
lies between, but it is stated in the terms of extremities to show that he 
himself has become ‘all things.’ But consider whether the ‘last’ is man, 
or those called the underworld beings, of which the demons also are a 
part, either in their entirety or some of them.”32 Origen interprets Jesus’ 
being the first and the last not in simple temporal terms, but in terms of 
personal understanding and relationship: the Savior is first and last to 
everything in salvation—an angel to angels, a human to humans, and 
so on. Salvation thus seems even to stretch (in speculation and logical 
outcome at least) to the demonic:33 the work of the logos cannot be 
limited.34 Origen is insistent that Jesus came for the benefit of (at least) 
the whole human race.35
This logic forms part of Origen’s doctrine of the epinoiai, or titles of 
Christ. The form of the logos is varied depending on the ability of those 
to whom he directs his economy to receive him. Thus, for Origen, there 
is constancy in the divine form of the logos, but variety in his revelation. 
Origen’s teaching on the titles of Christ is found in its fullest form in the 
first book of his Commentary on John,36 though it is also present else-
where.37 At a basic level, the teaching concerns the reality, for Origen, 
that “[w]e do not . . . allcome to him [Christ] in the same way, but each 
one ‘according to his own proper ability.’”38 Therefore, Christ is “named 
in different ways for the capacity of those believing or the ability of those 
approving it.”39 Attention is given to the plurality of Christ’s names in 
32. Ibid., I.34 (Heine, I.219, 77).
33. The salvation of the devil and demons was a point of major concern to later 
critics and defenders of Origen. We must note that Origen never explicitly claims that 
Christ becomes a demon, albeit that may well be the logical implication to Origen’s 
thought. Indeed, in his Letter to Alexandrian Friends, Origen is not prepared to extend 
salvation to the devil and demons. 
34. Cf. Williams, “Origen: Between Orthodoxy and Heresy,” 13.
35. e.g., CCel. II.33, II.52; CommJoh. VI.37, I.24.
36. CommJoh. I.9–11, 22–42.
37. e.g., De Princ. I.2.1 & 4; HomGen. I.7; 14.1; HomEx. 7.8; CCel. 2.64ff. For a list 
of further passages in Origen’s corpus concerning Christ’s epinoiai, see Drewery, Origen 
and the Doctrine of Grace, 115–17.
38. HomGen. 1.7.
39. HomEx. 7.8.
Greggs / Origen (c.185–c.254) 37
order to allow for the plurality of means by which one might come to 
and know the Savior.40 
In his Commentary on John, Origen lists and explains the titles of 
Christ as a precursor to understanding what it is to speak of the Son as 
Logos.41 Origen laments the tendency of his own contemporaries to “stop 
in the case of the title ‘Word’ alone, as if they say that the Christ of God 
is ‘Word’ alone.”42 In order to understand Christ as Logos, Origen goes 
on to cite and seek to explain what it means to speak of the Christ under 
the following titles: “light of the world,” “true light” and “light of men,”43 
“the resurrection,” “the way,” “truth,” “life,” “door,” “shepherd,” “king,” 
“teacher” and “lord,” “son,” “true vine,” “bread of life,” “first and last,” “an 
angel of great counsel,” “wisdom,” “cornerstone,” “the last Adam,” “a sharp 
sword,” “a chosen arrow ‘hidden in the quiver’ of the Father,” “servant,” 
“a lamb,” “a man,” “the advocate,” “propitiation,” “power,” “sanctifica-
tion,” “redemption,” “justice,” “good teacher,” “great high priest,” “Judah,” 
“Jacob” and “Israel,” “David,” “rod,” “flower,” and “stone.”44 He asserts 
that each of these titles is found in the biblical corpus, and he looks to 
what he understands to be figural names of Christ in the Hebrew Bible 
alongside the titles found in the new Testament. It is the multiplicity 
and superabundance of the biblical titles of Christ that forces Origen to 
think beyond the traditional titles by which Christ is named. There is 
order at the highest level of the aspects of Christ (Wisdom and Logos), 
but no one title of Christ is to be so crushingly dominant as to destroy 
the power of any other.
Origen sees the plurality of the names as a function of the highest 
title of Christ—Wisdom. He writes: “And if we should carefully consider 
all the concepts applied . . . [to Christ], he is the beginning only insofar 
as he is wisdom. He is not even the beginning insofar as he is the Word, 
since ‘the Word’ was ‘in the beginning,’ so that someone might boldly say 
that wisdom is older than all the concepts in the names of the first-born 
40. “I frequently marvel when I consider the things said about the Christ by some 
who wish to believe in him. Why in the world, when countless names are applied to our 
Savior, do they pass by most of them in silence? even if they should perhaps remember 
them, they do not interpret them in their proper sense, but say that these name him 
figurally” (CommJoh., Heine, I.125). 
41. Ibid., Heine, I.153–57.
42. Ibid., Heine, I.125.
43. Ibid., Heine, I.168–80.
44. Ibid., Heine, I. 181–265.
“All SHAll Be Well”38
of creation.” 45 The Wisdom of God exists hypostatically and eternally 
according to Origen;46 and subsisting in Wisdom “was implicit every 
capacity and form of creation that was to be.”47 Wisdom contains, in 
Origen’s thought, the potentiality of all creation in its diversity. By virtue 
of that, she also contains the many epinoiai of Christ, which exist for the 
sake of the variety of creation.
This economic focus of the epinoia is important in Origen. Origen 
differs here from more heterodox presentations of the concept found 
in the likes of the Acts of John and the Acts of Peter.48 While a few titles 
belong to Christ by essence, others were taken on for the sake of creation. 
Origen asserts: “wisdom alone would remain, or word, or life, and by all 
means truth, but surely not also the other titles which he took in addition 
because of us.”49 There is thus an economic focus to the vast majority 
of the epinoiai. While more heterodox versions of the teaching are fo-
cused on Christ’s nature, leading to some version of docetic Christology 
focused on the incompatibility of the logos and flesh,50 Origen’s ver-
sion of the teaching is focused on Christ’s work and is thereby primarily 
soteriological. Origen is able to differentiate in relation to the epinoiai 
between that which Christ is in himself and that which Christ is for us,51 
and between that which Christ is not “for himself ” but is “for others.”52 
The vast majority of the titles of Christ that exist do so because, in his be-
ing Wisdom, there is in him the blueprint for all the world, which must 
be reached in its created diversity and variety by the economy of God. 
The epinoiai are, therefore, the way in which the One God reaches out to 
the plurality and diversity of all creation.53 This doctrine is thus not one 
45. Ibid., Heine, I.118. However, elsewhere Origen sees Wisdom and Word as ba-
sically synonymous (De Princ. I.2.3). On the order of epinoiai, see Heine “epinoiai,” 
93–94. 
46. De Princ. I.2.2.
47. Ibid., I.2.2.
48. On this topic, see McGuckin, “The Changing Forms of Jesus.”
49. CommJoh., Heine, I.123, emphasis added.
50. See McGuckin, “The Changing Forms of Jesus,” 215–17.
51. e.g., Comm Joh., Heine, I.248 & 25.
52. Ibid., Heine, II.125f.
53. See Danielou, Origen, 257: “the argument that between absolute unity and the 
multiplicity of creatures there must be a being who is one and yet shares in that multi-
plicity.” Cf. Williams, “The Son’s Knowledge of the Father in Origen,” 147; and Williams 
“Origen: Between Orthodoxy and Heresy,” 12–13.
Greggs / Origen (c.185–c.254) 39
in which the focus is on Christ’s ontology but upon soteriology, a soteri-
ology that encompasses the whole of the created order in recognition of 
created plurality. For Origen, the epinoiai are primarily concerned with 
the capacity of creation to know Christ. Thus, without being docetic, 
Origen can speak of how Jesus’ appearance was not simply the same for 
all who saw him, but varied “according to their individual capacity.”54 
This doctrine extends, therefore, the hope of salvation far beyond the 
walls of the church: Christ is not simply known by one salvific title, but 
by many, and is, therefore, able to relate to more than simply those who 
name him “Savior” or “lord.”
Furthermore, one does well not think of a rigid hierarchy in terms 
of the epinoiai in Origen’s presentation (beyond the essential titles listed 
above). One cannot think of a simple superiority for those who utilize 
names associated more with the naming of Christ in churches. As noted 
above, Origen is saddened, for example, by the overly exclusive focus 
on the title Logos, and given that this belongs to the titles Christ pos-
sesses by nature as well as for others, his disappointment surely points 
to the significance of each of the titles of Christ. Origen does compare 
the epinoiai to the steps of the temple, and he also points out that there 
are certain logical relations between certain of them: one must be on the 
“way” to arrive at the “door” and so on.55 However, Origen does not offer 
a hierarchy of how each of these titles is related to the complete plurality 
of the titles of Christ, and it is difficult to know from Origen, there-
fore, which of thetitles corresponds to which stage in the progression 
towards “the Holy of Holies.” Origen’s focus is not the relative heights 
of the epinoiai but on the full plurality of titles for a diverse world. His 
concern is to offer hope to the full breadth of creation, which has its 
full blueprint in God who will redeem it. Despite (or better, within) this 
diversity, God is able to work his ultimate salvific purposes, and bring 
all things to full and complete unity in God:56 “Finally, when the world 
was in need of variety and diversity, matter lent itself to the fashioning 
of the diverse aspects and classes of things in wholly obedient service to 
54. CCel. II.64 cf. HomGen. 7.8.
55. CommJoh. VI.26.
56. According to Clark, Jerome rejected the apokatastasis because it did not allow 
sufficient room for a differentiation of heavenly rewards based on ascetic renunciation. 
While he could allow the ultimate forgivibility of sins, he was more strongly commit-
ted to a hierarchy in the afterlife. See Clark, “The Place of Jerome’s Commentary on 
ephesians in the Origenist Controversy,” 155. 
“All SHAll Be Well”40
the Maker, as to its lord and Creator, that from it he might produce the 
diverse forms of things heavenly and earthly. But when events have be-
gun to hasten towards the ideal of all being one as the Father is one with 
the Son, we are bound to believe as a logical consequence that where all 
are one there will no longer be any diversity.”57 This unity marks God’s 
ultimate salvific work, and comes with full recognition of the variety and 
plurality of creation.
Diversity, Growth, and Sanctification
It is worthy of note that in Origen’s system, there is no removal of the 
idea of diversity in relation to the exercise of human will, and while he 
accounts for the full plurality of creation and suggests a universal par-
ticipation of the rational in the logos, this does not come at the expense 
of precluding space for growth in faith and sanctification. Humans are 
sanctified by participating in Christ’s sanctification,58 and the nature of 
participation means that some may participate more fully and actively 
than others.59 For Origen, the work of Christ is not only an objective 
work, but also includes a pedagogical soteriology,60 involving the self-
disclosure of God and human progression in the knowledge of God.61 
This is focused upon those who believe in Christ, and progress is some-
thing for which the believer must strive with the help of the Trinity: “In 
this way, through renewal of the ceaseless work on our behalf of the 
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, renewed at every stage of our progress, we 
may perchance just succeed at last in beholding the holy and blessed 
life.”62 It is to the journey towards holiness that the individual is chosen in 
57. De Princ. III.6.4.
58. CommJoh. I.39. Indeed, it is through sanctification that humans become like 
Christ, who is the image of God (CCel. VIII.17). In a similar manner, all righteousness 
and justice flow to the individual from the one Righteousness and Justice who is Christ. 
See CommJoh. VI.3 (Heine, VI.40, 179). 
59. The soul, which is made after-the-image of God, comes to be after-the-likeness 
of God (Crouzel, Origen, 95); there are clearly multiple points and tremendous variety 
between these two conditions.
60. e.g., CommMt. X.9.
61. See Torjesen, “Pedagogical Soteriology from Clement to Origen.” young under-
stands Origen’s understanding of God’s wrath and propitiation in this sense (young, 
The Use of Sacrificial Ideas in Greek Christian Writers, 168ff.).
62. De Princ. I.3.8.
Greggs / Origen (c.185–c.254) 41
Christ. For Origen, exercise of the will in terms of progress towards God 
is considered entirely continuous with predestination. Origen describes 
predestination thus: “in the letter to the ephesians it is written concern-
ing all those to be saved that the Father ‘chose’ them ‘in him,’ ‘in Christ,’ 
‘before the foundation of the world’ that they should be ‘holy and blame-
less before him, having destined them in love to be his sons through Jesus 
Christ’ (eph 1:3–5).”63 To be chosen is to be chosen for sanctification.64 
This is the mechanism by which the flesh becomes obedient to the will of 
the soul and finally the soul reaches the stage at which it is perfect.65
Spiritual growth is not confined to the present world for Origen,66 
but also follows in the afterlife:
alike in these ages that are “seen” and “temporal” and in those 
that are “not seen” and “eternal,” all those beings are arranged 
in a definite order proportionate to the degree and excellence of 
their merits. And so it happens that some in the first, others in the 
second, and others even in the last times, through their endur-
ance of greater and more severe punishments of long duration, 
extending, if I may say so, over many ages, are by these very stern 
methods of correction renewed and restored, first by the instruc-
tion of angels and afterwards by that of powers yet higher in rank, 
so that they advance through each grade to a higher one, until at 
length they reach the things that are “invisible” and “eternal,” hav-
ing traversed in turn, by some form of instruction, every single 
office of the heavenly powers.67
Sanctification is, therefore, possible in future ages beyond the present, 
and takes place through punishment and instruction from the angels. 
There is, therefore, in more modern terms, not only a version of post-
mortem conversion taking place here, but also a post-mortem sanctifica-
tion. The early version of the doctrine of purgatory presented by Origen 
63. Prayer V.5, emphasis added.
64. According to Daley, Origen “demythologizes” eschatological thought in a pas-
toral direction. This is in order that Christians realize that there is a continuity between 
the present life and the future: humans thus grow towards union with God (Daley, 
The Hope of the Early Church, 48).
65. HomJosh. 22.2.
66. In this way, Origen may prepare the way for Gregory of nyssa (Daniélou, Origen, 
213). However, there is discontinuity here with Maximus the Confessor, who speaks of 
“rest” in eternal life (louth, Maximus the Confessor, 66ff.).
67. De Princ. I.6.3.
“All SHAll Be Well”42
is offered not only negatively in terms of punishment,68 but also more 
positively in terms of a growth towards holiness.69
For believers, the work of salvation takes place in the present 
through the economy of the Holy Spirit.70 The saints in the present 
partake of the “sanctifying power”’ of the Holy Spirit,71 and according 
to Origen the Spirit “dwells with the saints alone.”72 In this, the Spirit 
provides for the sanctification of the Christian, enabling the Christian 
to grow in the present towards God. This is a central aspect of Origen’s 
teaching.73 Although Origen clearly affirms apokatastasis,74 through the 
Holy Spirit the Christian is able to move towards God in the present, 
and thus is made holy. Origen writes: “there is also available the grace 
of the Holy Spirit, that those beings who are not holy in essence may be 
made holy by participating in this grace.”75 In the present, the Spirit leads 
humans to their perfection,76 and brings a purification that awaits all 
things in the here and now.77 According to Origen, the Spirit cleanses the 
Christian, and offers the remission of sins, and in so doing transforms 
68. On the doctrine of divine punishment, see ludlow, “Universal Salvation and 
a Soteriology of Divine Punishment”; Trigg, “Divine Deception and the Truthfulness 
of Scripture,” 159–62; Hanson, Allegory and Event, 335–40; and Farrar, Mercy and 
Judgment, 330. To compare Origen’s understanding to that of the so-called Gnostics 
and to Clement of Alexandria, see Daley, The Hope of the Early Church, 25ff. & 44ff.
69. See also Daley, The Hope of the Early Church, 57–58.
70. This is also related to Origen’s doctrine of baptism, and the particular work of 
the Holy Spirit in that. See Drewery, Origen and the Doctrine of Grace,172–73; Crouzel, 
Origen, 223–24; McDonnell, “Does Origen Have a Trinitarian Doctrine of the Holy 
Spirit?” 20–21.
71. De Princ. I.1.3.
72. Ibid. I.3.5. 
73. Daniélou, Origen, 103: “In Origen’s view, Christianity is not so much a set of 
doctrines as a divine force for changing men’s hearts.” For Hadot, this is the purpose 
of all ancient philosophy: “The philosophical notion of spiritual progress constitutes 
the very backbone of Christian education and teaching. As ancient philosophical dis-
course was for the philosophical way of life, so Christian philosophical discourse was a 
means of realizing the Christian way of life” (Hadot, What Is Ancient Philosophy?, 240). 
According to Crouzel, it is the Spirit who transforms the human from being after the 
image to being after the likeness of God (Crouzel, Origen, 97–98; cf. FragEph. III on 
eph 1:5).
74. De Princ. I.7.5.
75. Ibid., I.3.8. 
76. CommMt. XIII.18.
77. CommRom. 2.13.32.
Greggs / Origen (c.185–c.254) 43
the Christian into the sweet scent of Christ.78 Human will continues to 
have a role here, and the path to perfection is such that the more one is 
purified, the more one receives the Spirit. Origen writes that “the purer 
the soul is returned, the more generously the Spirit is poured into it.”79 
However, sanctification comes ultimately from without the Christian, as 
it is the Spirit who brings about all of the sanctifying work of God: “all 
sanctification, both in our hearts and in our words and deeds . . . come 
from the Holy Spirit in Christ Jesus.”80 Although this particular work 
of the Spirit is a work in the present with Christians specifically, it is 
nevertheless eschatologically ordered.81 The present work of the Spirit is 
to sanctify the church in order to bring it to future perfection in heav-
en.82 In the process of this restoration, Christians receive Christ and the 
Spirit as the deposit of their future salvation.83 Through the operation 
of the Holy Spirit, one is able to see how for Origen there is still space 
for Christian particularity and the quest for the holy life even within 
a universalist system. There is in Origen a version of universality that 
still allows for a greater relationship of the logos to the saints than that 
which he has to all other rational creatures. For Origen, it is true that “he 
[Christ] is the Savior of all men, especially of the faithful.”84 Restoration 
is universal, but the process of restoring begins actively with those who 
by the power of the Holy Spirit have faith in Christ.85
78. HomLev. 2.2.5.
79. CommRom. 6.13.7, emphasis added.
80. HomLk. 26.6.
81. See Williams, “The Son’s Knowledge of the Father,” 4–8.
82. CommRom. 8.5.2.
83. HomLev. 4.3.2.
84. CommJoh. VI.37 (Heine, VI.285, 245).
85. edwards interprets this in terms of Origen’s understanding of two resurrec-
tions, in which the saint partially anticipates in her mortal body what will be com-
pleted after death and will then be the portion of all humanity (edwards, “Origen’s Two 
Resurrections,” 510). edwards also rejects Crouzel’s belief that one should sharply dis-
tinguish between Hades and Gehenna in Origen’s system (511, 517); cf. Henri Crouzel, 
“Hadès et la Géhenna Selon Origène”; Crouzel, Origen, 240ff. & 264ff.; Hennessey, 
“The Place of Saints and Sinners after Death.” For further discussion of the relation-
ship between universalism and the special place of the saint see Castagno, “Origen the 
Scholar and Pastor,” which advocates that this dual understanding results from Origen’s 
pastoral concern. Although the case is overstated, Rabinowitz, “Personal and Cosmic 
Salvation,” sees this tension as explicable in terms of the separation between soteriology 
and eschatology in Origen’s thought. I have dealt in detail with this theme elsewhere; 
see my Barth, Origen, and Universal Salvation, chs. 6 & 7. 
“All SHAll Be Well”44
It is around this point, indeed, that one might detect the reason 
for the seeming dichotomy in Origen between points in his corpus that 
appear to affirm universal salvation and points which seem to point 
towards some version of separationism. Origen is desirous that the fu-
ture prospect of the universal salvation of Christ does not undermine 
a desire for the holy life in the present; indeed, it is through progress 
and holiness that the apokatastasis will take place. For pastoral reasons, 
therefore, he is prepared at times to point towards a limited salvation re-
served only for believers. Salvation, in Origen’s theology, comes through 
progression towards God, by the aid of the Son and the Holy Spirit, and 
universalism should not be preached if it might in any way be consid-
ered to impede the growth towards full rationality and holiness, which 
is the mechanism by which God will restore creation to something even 
more glorious than its pre-fallen original condition was. For Origen, 
universal redemption should never, therefore, remove particularity, plu-
rality, history, and growth in faith, but should be a hope that arises from 
seeking to understand the Christian life in the context of a pluralistic 
and diverse world: he seeks to give account both of the reasons for being 
Christian and following the life of faith, and of God’s engagement with 
those outside of the church. This is surely one of the great strengths of 
Origen’s account of universal salvation. no doubt arising from a pastoral 
situation in which persecution was a reality, Origen’s universalism is not 
one of cheap and easy grace. nor is his account one that renders all of 
history impotent by virtue of an ultimate love principle that renders all 
that happens in this world of no significance. Whether successfully or 
not, Origen seeks to allow for free grace and for a degree of continuity 
between this life and the next in his account of universal salvation. Faith 
is important to him—important enough to suffer persecution—and his 
universalism does not undermine that reality. But, even in a situation 
of persecution, Origen remains convinced of God’s manifold and plural 
engagements with his creation, both within and outside of the church. 
Realizing the wonderful complexity of God and his engagement with 
the world, and the plurivocity of Scripture on the issue of who will be 
saved, Origen offers a hope for all creation that does not undermine the 
particular hope of the church. His account of the Christian faith is one 
that is at once responsible to the faithful life of the church and to the full 
diversity of the world. In that way, while we may not wish to endorse all 
of the speculative system that Origen offers, his theology surely still has 
something significant to offer the present theological age.
Greggs / Origen (c.185–c.254) 45
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Translation 71. edited and translated by Ronard e. Heine (from the translation of 
Rufinus). Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1982.
———. Origen Homilies on Joshua. The Fathers of the Church: A new Translation 105. 
edited by Cynthia White and translated by Barbara J. Bruce (from the translation of 
Rufinus). Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2002.
———. Origen Homilies on Leviticus. The Fathers of the Church: A new Translation 83. 
edited and translated by Gary Wayne Barkley (from the translation of Rufinus). 
Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1990.
———. Origen Homilies on Luke. The Fathers of the Church: A new Translation 94. 
edited and translated by Joseph T. lienhard, SJ (from the translation of Jerome). 
Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1996.
———. Origen On First Principles: Being Koetschau’s Text of the De Principiis into 
English, Together with an Introduction and Notes. edited and translated by G. W. 
Butterworth. Gloucester, MA: Smith, 1973.
———. “On Prayer.” In Origen, edited and translated by R. A. Greer (from the translation 
of Rufinus). new york: Paulist, 1979.
Prestige, G. l. God in Patristic Thought. london: SPCK, 1952.
Rabinowitz, Celia e. “Personal and Cosmic Salvation in Origen.” Vigiliae Christianae 38 
(1984) 319–29.
Torjesen, Karen Jo. “Pedagogical Soteriology from Clement to Origen.” In Origeniana 
Quarta, edited by lothar leis, 370–78. Innsbruck, Austria: Tyrolia, 1987.
Trigg, Joseph W. “Divine Deception and the Truthfulness of Scripture.” In Origen of 
Alexandria: His World and His Legacy, edited by Charles Kannengiesser and 
William l. Petersen, 147–64. notre Dame: University of notre Dame, 1988.
Tzamalikos, P. The Concept of Time in Origen. Bern: lang, 1991.
Williams, Rowan. “The Son’s Knowledge of the Father in Origen.” In Origeniana Quarta, 
edited by lothar leis, 156–53l. Innsbruck, Austria: Tyrolia, 1987.
Williams, Rowan D. “Origen: Between Orthodoxy and Heresy.” In Origeniana Septima: 
Origenes in Den Auseinandersetzungen Des 4. Jahrhunderts, edited by W. A. Bienert 
and U. Kühneweg, 3–14. leuven: leuven University Press, 1999.
young, Frances M. The Use of Sacrificial Ideas in Greek Christian Writers from the New 
Testament to John Chrysostom. Patristic Monograph Series 5. Cambridge, MA: 
Philadelphia Patristic Foundation, 1979.
47
3 
The Subjection of All Things 
in Christ
The Christocentric Universalism of Gregory of Nyssa 
(331/340–c. 395)1
Steven R. Harmon
I first encountered the thought of Gregory of nyssa, the youngest 
of the three great “Cappadocian Fathers” of the fourth century and 
arguably the most enduringly significant constructive theologian among 
them, in an undergraduate course in Christian doctrine. like many be-
ginning students in Christian theology, I was introduced to Gregory in 
1. This chapter is based on Harmon, “The Word of Jesus Christ and the Universal 
Apokatastasis”; and Harmon, Every Knee Should Bow, ch. 4.
“All SHAll Be Well”48
connection with atonement theory. In the tradition of Protestant sys-
tematic theologies that list five or six major atonement theories chrono-
logically and then evaluate their strengths and weaknesses, my textbook 
identified Gregory as a major representative of the “classical” or “ransom” 
theory of the atonement.2 According to Gregory’s development of the 
idea in the Catechetical Oration, the devil rightfully holds unredeemed 
humanity in bondage, since humans have willingly exchanged their free-
dom for slavery through their free choice of evil. God must therefore 
offer the devil a ransom, lest God be unjust in stealing from the devil 
what is rightfully his.3 The devil agrees to the offer of Christ as a ransom, 
but does not realize that enveloped within the humanity of Christ is his 
divinity.4 Consequently, in the language of Gregory’s frequently cited 
“fishhook” metaphor, “the deity was concealed by the veil of our nature, 
so that, in the manner of gluttonous fish, the fishhook of divinity might 
be swallowed along with the bait of flesh.”5
I became better acquainted with Gregory of nyssa in a graduate 
seminar on patristic eschatology. With the aid of Brian Daley’s Handbook 
of Patristic Eschatology, I discovered that, like Origen, Gregory affirmed 
hope in an ultimate restoration (apokatastasis) of all rational souls to 
their prelapsarian state of union with God and understood hell as lim-
ited in duration and remedial rather than retributive in nature.6 Unlike 
Origen and the scholastic Origenists, Gregory escaped posthumous con-
demnation by the fifth ecumenical council, owing perhaps to his more 
orthodox protology7 and to his staunch defense of nicene orthodoxy in 
his polemical writings against the neo-Arians of the late fourth century.
2. Roark, The Christian Faith, 148–49.
3. Gregory of nyssa, Catechetical Oration 22 (GNO III/IV, 57–58).
4. Ibid., 23 (GNO III/IV, 58–60).
5. Ibid., 24 (GNO III/IV, 62). Unless otherwise noted, english translations of 
Gregory and other patristic texts that appear in this chapter are my own.
6. Daley, Hope of the Early Church, 85–89.
7. Whereas Origen had posited the preexistence of souls in a state of disembodied 
contemplation of God and a subsequent fall from this contemplation that resulted in their 
presentcorporeality, Gregory rejected the preexistence of the soul and attributed the cur-
rent bodily residence of the soul to God’s work of creation (Gregory of nyssa, On the 
Making of Humanity 28.4; Gregory of nyssa, Dialogue on the Soul and the Resurrection 
(PG 46:113, 125). Consequently, the resurrection of the body figured more prominently 
in Gregory’s depiction of the restored state than in Origen’s, e.g., Gregory of nyssa, On the 
Making of Humanity 27.5.2; Gregory of nyssa, Dialogue on the Soul and the Resurrection 
(PG 46:28–29, 48, 76–77, 85, 108–9, 128–32). On the importance of the resurrection of 
Harmon / Gregory of Nyssa (331/340–c. 395) 49
Scripture and Gregory’s Universalism
My interest in this aspect of Gregory’s thought led ultimately to a disser-
tation on the role of biblical exegesis in the eschatological universalism 
of Gregory and his predecessors, Clement of Alexandria and Origen.8 In 
regard to the exegetical roots of Gregory’s universalism, the following 
summary of my conclusions suffices for the purposes of this book chap-
ter. For Gregory, a pair of Pauline passages explicitly taught an ultimately 
universal salvation. First Corinthians 15:22–28 teaches the salvific subjec-
tion of all creatures, including the enemies of God, to God. This requires 
the ultimate finitude of evil, for when all are subject to God and God is 
“all in all,” evil can no longer exist, since it has no existence apart from 
the choice not to be subject to God. Gregory interpreted Philippians 
2:10–11 similarly, often in connection with 1 Corinthians 15:22–28: if 
all will worship and confess Christ as lord, all will be subject to God and 
therefore will experience God’s salvation. Gregory’s equation of subjec-
tion and salvation in 1 Corinthians 15:22–28 and Philippians 2:10 was, 
in turn, based on the Greek Septuagint text of Psalm 61:2: “Will my soul 
not be subjected to God? For from him is my salvation.” Though Gregory 
followed Origen in reading these texts and their interconnections in 
this fashion, he did not relate his universalism as comprehensively to 
Scripture as did Origen. In addition to the trio of core texts, Gregory 
mentioned only exodus 10:21–23 and 1 Corinthians 15:42–44 as pas-
sages in which the universal restoration might be discerned. yet a more 
extensive relationship between a universalist eschatology and biblical 
exegesis may be found in Gregory’s use of Scripture in connection with 
related concepts that will be examined later in this chapter. An impor-
tant corollary of the apokatastasis for Gregory was the finitude of evil, 
a conclusion he believed to be required by 1 Corinthians 15:22–28 and 
Philippians 2:10–11, and supported by James 1:13–15 and the account 
of the origin of evil in Genesis 1–3. His portrayal of the purifying nature 
the body in Gregory’s thought, see Dennis, “Gregory on the Resurrection of the Body,” 
55–80. The first anathema against Origen from the fifth ecumenical council connects the 
apokatastasis condemned therein to the doctrine of the preexistence of souls: “If anyone 
advocates the fabulous preexistence of souls and the monstrous restoration that results 
from it, let him be anathema” (NPNF2 14:318; ACO bk. 4, vol. 1, 248). Since Gregory’s 
apokatastasis is not a restoration of preexistent souls, it may be that the council did not 
equate his teaching with the Origenism it condemned.
8. Harmon, “Apokatastasis and exegesis,” published in revised form as Every Knee 
Should Bow.
“All SHAll Be Well”50
of punishment drew upon 1 Corinthians 3:10–15 and Malachi 3:2–3. 
He associated Matthew 9:12 and Mark 2:17 with the medicinal nature of 
punishment, and he found several indications of the redemptive nature 
and limited duration of punishment in Matthew 18:23–25 and luke 
15:8–10. Although Gregory did not match the expansiveness of Origen’s 
biblical rationale for the universal restoration, he surpassed Origen in 
the creativity with which he reinterpreted such traditional prooftexts for 
eternal punishment as Matthew 8:12; 18:8–9/Mark 9:42–48, and espe-
cially luke 16:19–31.9
The Place of Christ in Gregory’s Universalism
In the course of writing the dissertation on the place of Scripture in 
Gregory’s universalism, I became puzzled by the apparent lack of explicit 
connections between the universality of salvation and the common but 
mistaken conception of the “ransom theory” as the primary expres-
sion of Gregory’s soteriology. In addition, I was struck by the paucity 
of references to the person or work of Christ in connection with some 
of Gregory’s clearest affirmations of the universal restoration. The main 
thrust of this chapter therefore returns to these unresolved issues in the 
present attempt to determine the relationship between the work of Christ 
and the universal apokatastasis in the theology of Gregory of nyssa.
A key expression of Gregory’s eschatology is the Dialogue on the 
Soul and the Resurrection. In this treatise, Gregory portrays his “Teacher” 
Macrina as laboring on her deathbed to convince him, among other 
things, that in the resurrection the restoration of the soul to its pre-fall 
state will be an ultimately universal experience. In addressing the prob-
lem of the relationship of one’s manner of conduct in this life to one’s 
state in the next life, Macrina contends that the power and purpose of 
God will overcome any obstacles to the restoration of human nature to 
the “first creation”:10
9. See Harmon, Every Knee Should Bow, 83–123.
10. Balás, “Plenitudo Humanitatis,” 127, notes that for Gregory “the ‘original state’ 
that is ‘restored’ at the end is not that of the first individuals (Adam and eve) in para-
dise, but that of the fullness of humanity as conceived in God’s eternity, of which the 
historical existence of Adam and even [sic] was but an inchoate anticipation (soon lost 
by sin).” This qualification should be kept in mind in connection with all of Gregory’s 
references to the restoration of an original state or “first creation.”
Harmon / Gregory of Nyssa (331/340–c. 395) 51
But when God restores [human] nature to the first creation of 
humanity through resurrection, it would be fruitless to speak 
of such things and to suppose the power of God to be thwarted 
from the goal on account of such obstacles. He has one goal: after 
all the fullness of our nature has been perfected in each person—
some immediately who have been purified from evil in this life, 
others who have been healed after these things through fire for 
the appropriate periods of time, and still others who are unaware 
of the experience of both good and evil equally—to set before all 
the participation in the good things in him, which the Scripture 
says “eye has not seen, nor ear has heard,” nor has it become ac-
cessible to reasoning.11
If this passage were the solitary witness to Gregory’s belief in the univer-
sal restoration, one might reasonably conclude that he did not consider 
the work of Christ to be of crucial importance for the accomplishment 
of the apokatastasis. It is accomplished by the “power of God,” which 
cannot be prevented from achieving its goal. This comes about not after 
Christ has done something for humanity, but rather after humanity has 
been purified from evil through penance in the present life or purgation 
after death.
One receives similar impressions from other references to the 
apokatastasis in the Dialogue. earlier in the treatise, Philippians 2:10 
with its reference to the bending of every knee is interpreted as teaching 
that “in the restoration of all, the whole rational creation looks to the one 
who governs all.”12 Although in the cited Scripture it is “at the name of 
Jesus” that “every knee will bend,” Gregory makes no explicit reference 
to Christ in the ensuing discussion of the text, referring more imperson-
ally to “the one who governs all.”13
later in the Dialogue, Gregory and Macrina arrive at a definitive 
summary of their views on the nature of punishmentafter death:
“Then,” I said, “the divine judgment, as it seems to me, does not 
bring punishment upon sinners according to the foregoing dis-
cussion, but rather, as the discourse demonstrated, it only effects 
the separation of good from evil and direction toward the fellow-
ship of blessedness, but the tearing in pieces of what has grown 
11. Gregory of nyssa, Dialogue on the Soul and the Resurrection (PG 46:149–52).
12. Ibid. (PG 46:69).
13. later in Macrina’s reply to Gregory, she does mention that “some say” that “the 
confession of Christ’s lordship” will come even from the demons (ibid.).
“All SHAll Be Well”52
together brings about pain for the one being torn apart.” “So,” 
said the Teacher, “that is also my reasoned opinion, and that the 
measure of suffering is the quantity of evil in each person; for it 
is not likely that the one who has become involved to such an 
extent in forbidden evils and the one who has fallen into moder-
ate evils will be distressed on an equal basis in the purification of 
bad habits, but rather that painful flame will be kindled either to a 
greater or lesser degree according to the amount of matter, as long 
as its source of nourishment exists. Accordingly if one has a great 
load of the material, then the consuming flame of necessity will 
be great and longer-lasting for that one, but if the consumption 
of the fire is introduced to a lesser degree, then the punishment 
diminishes in degree its actions of greater violence and ferocity, in 
proportion to the lesser measure of evil which exists in that one. 
For it is necessary that at some time evil be wholly and completely 
removed out of existence, and as was said previously, that what 
does not really exist should not exist at all. For since it does not 
belong to its nature that evil have existence outside of the will, 
when every will rests in God evil will depart into utter destruc-
tion, since there is no receptacle remaining for it.”14
This passage sets forth three major themes in Gregory’s doctrine of 
apokatastasis and reveals the manner in which they are intertwined: first, 
every free will ultimately will rest in God; second, this means that evil will 
ultimately cease to exist, for evil “exists” only through the exercise of the 
will, and when every will chooses God, evil can no longer be chosen; and 
third, the means by which this will come about is a process of purifying 
punishment which will consume the accretions of evil on the soul until 
only the good is left. This reflects the grounding of Gregory’s view of the 
nature of evil in neo-Platonic thought.15 evil is the “deprivation of the 
14. Ibid. (PG 46:100–101).
15. While Gregory cited neither Plotinus (c. 205–270) nor his successors Porphyry 
(c. 232–c. 305) and Iamblichus (c. 245–330), there are clear connections between their 
thought (Meredith, “Gregory of nyssa and Plotinus,” 1120–30). Cf. Gregory’s under-
standing of evil and its relationship to the good with that of Plotinus: “The Good is 
that on which all else depends, towards which all existences aspire as to their source 
and their need . . . If such be the nature of Beings and of That which transcends all the 
realm of Being, evil cannot have place among Beings or in the Beyond-Being; these are 
good. There remains only, if evil exist at all, that it be situate in the realm of non-Being, 
that it be some mode, as it were, of the non-Being, that it have its seat in something in 
touch with non-Being or to a certain degree communicate in non-Being” (Plotinus, 
Enneades 1.8.2–3).
Harmon / Gregory of Nyssa (331/340–c. 395) 53
good.”16 Only good, the fullness of which is the nature of God in which 
humanity participates via the imago dei,17 has real, infinite existence; evil 
as a parasitic corruption of the good has no independent existence and 
is therefore finite.18 Consequently there will ultimately be a time when 
there will be “no evil remaining in anyone.”19 By itself, this rationale for 
the universal restoration makes the work of Christ seem superfluous. It 
appears to be achieved more through the eventual self-destruction of 
evil, determined by its essential finitude, than through some action of 
Christ on behalf of humanity.
What accounts for this lack of emphasis on the instrumentality 
of Christ in effecting the universal apokatastasis? Anthony Meredith 
has noted a similar absence of christocentric devotional concerns in 
Gregory’s spiritual writings. Meredith attributes this partially to a theo-
centrism that typically distinguishes eastern Christian spirituality from 
a more Christocentric Western spirituality.20 This observation holds 
true for some of Gregory’s dogmatic works as well. In the Dialogue on 
the Soul and the Resurrection, for example, there are forty-two occur-
rences of theos and its inflected forms, while forms of Christos appear 
only twice and Iēsous appears but once.21 Gregory does directly address 
Christological concerns in his anti-eunomian and anti-Apollinarian 
16. Gregory of nyssa, Homilies in Ecclesiastes 5 (GNO V, 356); Daley, Hope of the 
Early Church, 87. On Gregory’s understanding of evil, see Philippou, “Doctrine of evil 
in St. Gregory of nyssa,” 251–56; Scouteris, “Malum Privatio Est,” 539–50.
17. Gregory of nyssa, On the Making of Humanity 16.10 (PG 44:184A15–B7): “On 
account of this the Word declares all these things, drawing them together in a compre-
hensive phrase, in saying that humanity was created in the image of God. For this is 
the same as saying that he made human nature a participant in all good; for if deity is 
the fullness of good—and this is his image—then the image has the likeness in being 
in the fullness of all good.” On the participation of humanity in the goodness of God in 
Gregory’s thought, see David l. Balás, Metousia Theou, 54–75.
18. Gregory of nyssa, Dialogue on the Soul and the Resurrection (PG 46:93): “But 
outside it (the divine nature) there is only evil, which (although it is a paradox) has 
existence in not existing. For the origin of evil is nothing other than the deprivation of 
being. That which really exists is the nature of the good. Therefore, that which does not 
exist in being exists entirely in non-being.”
19. Gregory of nyssa, Homilies on the Song of Songs 15 (GNO VI, 469).
20. Meredith, Gregory of Nyssa, 25–26.
21. Gregory of nyssa, Dialogue on the Soul and the Resurrection, in TLG, search 
string “theos OR theou OR theō OR theon; ibid., search string “Christos OR Christou 
OR Christō OR Christon”; ibid., search string “Iēsou.” Christ is frequently referenced 
as the divine Logos throughout the treatise, but this circumlocution is also consistent 
with Gregory’s theocentrism.
“All SHAll Be Well”54
writings, but one is often hard-pressed to connect Gregory’s Christology 
to other aspects of his theology.
Despite the lack of such clear connections in the Dialogue on the 
Soul and the Resurrection, one can find a place for the work of Christ in 
Gregory’s vision of the universal restoration if one moves beyond a focus 
on the unambiguous affirmations of the apokatastasis in the Dialogue 
to a consideration of the correlative logic of two other dimensions of 
Gregory’s thought: first, his understanding of salvation as the diviniza-
tion of humanity through the incarnation, and second, his corporate 
theological anthropology.
Christ, Divinization, and Universal Salvation
The Western Christian tradition has tended to focus on the death of 
Christ as the primary event that secures the salvation of humanity. But 
in the eastern Christian tradition, it is the incarnation as a whole, rather 
than one event within it, that makes it possible for human nature to be 
saved through participation in the divine nature. The affirmation of 
Athanasius and subsequent Greek theologians that Christ “was made 
human that we might be made God”22 is present in Gregory as well. For 
example, in Against Eunomius, Gregory explains the necessity of a real 
incarnation in similar terms:“having become what we were, he through 
himself again united humanity to God.”23 In the Catechetical Oration, 
Gregory attributes the ultimate universality of this union with God to 
various aspects of “the great mystery of the divine incarnation”:
In the same manner, after the evil of the [human] nature which 
is now mingled and united with it [i.e., human nature] has been 
removed through long periods of time, when the restoration of 
those now lying dead in evil to the original state has come to pass, 
there will be a harmonious thanksgiving from all creation, even 
from those who have been chastised in the purification, as well 
as from those who needed no purification in the first place. The 
great mystery of the divine incarnation grants these and other 
such things. For through those things which were mingled with 
human nature when he came into being through all the prop-
erties of the nature—birth, rearing, growth, even to the extent 
of going through the experience of death—he accomplished all 
22. Athanasius, On the Incarnation 54.3, 458.
23. Gregory of nyssa, Against Eunomius 12.1 (GNO II, 294); english translation 
NPNF2 5:241.
Harmon / Gregory of Nyssa (331/340–c. 395) 55
the aforementioned things, both freeing humanity from evil and 
healing even the originator of evil himself. For the purification of 
moral disease is the healing of illness, even if it is painful.24
For Gregory, then, in the incarnation the divine Word is united not only 
with the nature of the individual human being Jesus but also with human 
nature as a whole. Since all that is common to human nature is in need of 
redemption, it is necessary that the incarnate Word share in everything 
common to that nature—from birth to death—with the result that not 
only human nature as a whole but also the one who introduced human 
nature to evil in the first place is restored to the original state.
Death is the chief effect of the evil that had become mingled with 
human nature. Therefore the incarnate Word must both suffer death and 
triumph over it, that humanity as a whole may be restored to the original 
state in the resurrection. later in the Catechetical Oration Gregory teach-
es that Christ accomplishes this through union with the whole of human 
nature, so that in his resurrection he raises along with himself “the whole 
human”: “Since therefore it was necessary that there be a return from 
death of the whole of our nature, for this reason after he stooped down 
toward our corpse, as if stretching out his hand to the one lying dead, he 
drew so near to death as to fasten himself to the state of death and to give 
the principle of the resurrection to our nature in his own body, having 
raised the whole human along with himself by his power.”25
Christ, Theological Anthropology, and Universalism
The reference to “the whole human” highlights the connection of the 
apokatastasis and the divinization of humanity through the incarnation 
with another feature of Gregory’s thought—his distinctive theological 
anthropology. The passage from Catechetical Oration 32 cited above 
continues:
For since the God-bearing human was from no other source than 
our common mass, which through the resurrection was raised 
by union with the divinity, just as in the case of our body the 
working of one of the organs of sense extends to the whole con-
sciousness—the unity in the member—so also the resurrection of 
the member goes completely through the whole, as if the whole 
24. Gregory of nyssa, Catechetical Oration 26 (GNO III/IV, 67).
25. Ibid., 32 (GNO III/IV, 78).
“All SHAll Be Well”56
nature were a single living being, being imparted alike from the 
member to the whole in accordance with both the continuity and 
the unity of the nature.26
For Gregory, the image of God in human beings is located not in indi-
vidual human beings but rather in humanity as a whole.27 Human nature 
is then essentially corporate rather than individual, although Gregory’s 
anthropology does not negate individuality. Through the corporate soli-
darity of humanity all share in the death introduced into it by the choice 
of evil of one of its members. Through the union of the Word with this 
corporate human nature, all of humanity shares in the life of the resur-
rection when one of its members is raised from the dead.28
The application of this corporate anthropology to the Pauline con-
cept of the “body of Christ” enables Gregory to counter eunomian ap-
peals to biblical prooftexts in which the Son is said to be subject to the 
Father. In the Refutation of the Confession of Eunomius, Gregory explains 
the salvific subjection of all to God in terms of a corporate Christology:
But it is with reference to the subjection of all human beings 
to God, when we all, united with one another through faith, 
become one body of the lord who exists in all things, that the 
apostle speaks of the subjection of the Son to the Father, when 
the adoration given to the Son by all with one accord, by those 
in heaven and those upon the earth and those under the earth, 
will be transferred to the glory of God the Father. Thus Paul 
says, “to him every knee will bend of those in heaven and those 
on the earth and those under the earth, and every tongue will 
confess that Jesus Christ is lord to the glory of God the Father.” 
The great wisdom of Paul affirms that when this comes about the 
Son, who is in all, will himself be subjected to the Father through 
the subjection of all those in whom the Son is. Therefore, what-
ever sort of once-for-all subjection eunomius loudly proclaims 
for the Spirit is not taught by the phrase to which he attributes 
it, whether of the irrational or of captives or of servants or of 
chastened children or of those who are saved through subjection. 
For the subjection of people to God is salvation to those who are 
subjected according to the voice of the prophet, who says that the 
soul is subject to God, since from him comes salvation through 
subjection, so that subjection is a protection against destruction. 
26. Ibid.
27. Cf. Gregory of nyssa, On the Making of Humanity 16.16–17 (PG 44:185).
28. Gregory of nyssa, Catechetical Oration 16, 25, 32 (GNO III/IV, 48, 64, 78).
Harmon / Gregory of Nyssa (331/340–c. 395) 57
Just as medicine is zealously pursued by the sick, so also is sub-
jection by those in need of salvation.29
eunomius had appealed to 1 Corinthians 15:27–28 as evidence for 
an eternal subordination within the Godhead; Gregory refutes this by 
explaining the subjection of the Son as the subjection of all those who 
will be “one body of the lord” rather than an eternal subjection of the 
Son himself to the Father. Gregory interpreted Philippians 2:10–11 to 
refer to the same eventual subjection of all people in Christ to God. 
His use of this text as a witness to universal salvation hinges on two 
equations: first, the equivalence of the subjection of all to God in 1 
Corinthians 15:28 with the worship and confession of Christ by all in 
Philippians 2:10–11; and second, the equivalence of subjection with sal-
vation as taught by “the voice of the prophet,” actually an allusion to the 
Septuagint text of Psalm 61:2: “Will my soul not be subjected to God? 
For from him is my salvation.”
Gregory makes a sustained case for the same interpretation of 
Christ’s subjection to the Father in 1 Corinthians 15:28 in a homily on 
that text.30 His argument may be summarized in the following manner: 
Christ’s body is humanity as a whole; humanity as a whole will eventu-
ally become subject to God; therefore it is not the divine Word but rather 
the whole of human nature joined to the divine Word in the incarnation 
that is said to be subject to God.31 The relation of the apokatastasis to 
the linking of the eastern trajectory of incarnational soteriology with 
Gregory’s own distinctive corporate anthropology is clear in this sen-
tence from the homily: “And on the basis of the whole human nature 
with which the divinity wasof Condemnation Fell on Christ: Universal Salvation in 
Jaques Ellul (1912–1994)—Andrew Goddard / 325
15. In the End, God . . . : The Christian Universalism of J. A. T. Robinson 
(1919–1983)—Trevor Hart / 355
16. Christ’s Descent into Hell: The Hopeful Universalism of Hans Urs 
von Balthasar (1905–1988)—Edward T. Oakes, SJ / 382
17. Hell and the God of Love: Universalism in the Philosophy of John 
Hick (1922–)—Lindsey Hall / 400
18. The Annihilation of Hell and the Perfection of Freedom: Universal 
Salvation in the Theology of Jürgen Moltmann (1926–) 
—Nik Ansell / 417
Index / 440
ix
Contributors
nik Ansell is Assistant Professor of Theology at the Institute for Chris-
tian Studies, Toronto. He is the author of The Woman Will Overcome 
the Warrior: A Dialogue with the Christian/Feminist Theology of 
Rosemary Radford Ruether (University Press of America, 1994), The 
Annihilation of Hell: Universal Salvation and the Redemption of Time 
in the Eschatology of Jürgen Moltmann (Paternoster, forthcoming), 
plus a number of articles and book chapters, including “Hell: The 
nemesis of Hope?” in Bradley Jersak, Her Gates Will Never Be Shut: 
Hell, Hope, and the New Jerusalem (Wipf and Stock, 2009).
wayne K. Clymer is a retired American Bishop of the United Methodist 
Church, elected in 1972 and retired in 1984. He also distinguished 
himself as a pastor in the evangelical United Brethren Church; as a 
preacher and lecturer; as a Professor, Dean, and President of evan-
gelical Theological Seminary, naperville, Illinois; as a delegate to the 
United nations and ecumenical church bodies; and as an author.
oliver Crisp is Reader in Theology at the University of Bristol. Among 
his recent publications are Analytic Theology, edited with Michael Rea 
(OUP, 2009), Divinity and Humanity (CUP, 2007), God Incarnate: 
Explorations in Christology (T. & T. Clark, 2009), and An American 
Augustinian: Sin and Salvation in the Dogmatic Theology of William 
G. T. Shedd (Paternoster, 2007).
Paul L. Gavrilyuk is University Scholar and Associate Professor of His-
torical Theology at the Theology Department of the University of St. 
Thomas, St. Paul, Minnesota. He is the author of The Suffering of the 
Contributorsx
Impassible God: The Dialectics of Patristic Thought (OUP, 2004) and 
Histoire du catéchuménat dans l’église ancienne (Cerf, 2007). He ed-
ited with Douglas M. Koskela and Jason e. Vickers Immersed in the 
Life of God: The Healing Resources of the Christian Faith. Essays in 
Honor of William J. Abraham (eerdmans, 2008). 
Andrew Goddard is Tutor in Christian ethics at Trinity College, Bristol. 
He is author of, amongst other things, Living the Word, Resisting the 
World: The Life and Thought of Jacques Ellul (Paternoster, 2002) and is 
on the Board of Directors of the International Jacques ellul Society.
Jason Goroncy is a Presbyterian Minister of Word and Sacrament who 
teaches in the areas of theology, church history, and pastoral care, 
and serves as Dean of Studies, at the Knox Centre for Ministry and 
leadership in Dunedin. His book on the (mostly) unpublished ser-
mons of P. T. Forsyth is forthcoming from Wipf and Stock.
Tom Greggs is Professor of Systematic Theology at the University of 
Chester, england. A graduate of the Universities of Oxford and Cam-
bridge, he is the author of Barth, Origen, and Universal Salvation: 
Restoring Particularity (OUP, 2009) and editor of New Perspectives for 
Evangelical Theology (Routledge, 2010). Tom is currently completing 
a book on the theological critique of religion, which will be published 
by T. & T. Clark in 2011.
Lindsey hall is the author of Swinburne’s Hell and Hick’s Universal-
ism (Ashgate, 2003) and co-editor of the SCM Reader in Christian 
Doctrine (SCM, 2010). She has taught Christian doctrine at King’s 
College, london; Trinity College, Dublin; and The Church of Ireland 
Theological College. She lives in Ireland and is a local preacher in the 
Methodist Church.
steven r. harmon is Adjunct Professor of Christian Theology in the 
School of Divinity at Gardner-Webb University in Boiling Springs, 
north Carolina. He previously served on the faculties of Samford 
University’s Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Alabama (2008–
2010), and Campbell University Divinity School in Buies Creek, north 
Carolina (1998–2008), and as Visiting Professor at Duke University 
Divinity School in Durham, north Carolina (2007). He is the author 
of Ecumenism Means You, Too: Ordinary Christians and the Quest for 
Christian Unity (Cascade Books, 2010), Towards Baptist Catholicity: 
Contributors xi
Essays on Tradition and the Baptist Vision (Paternoster, 2006), and 
Every Knee Should Bow: Biblical Rationales for Universal Salvation in 
Early Christian Thought (University Press of America, 2003).
Trevor hart is Professor of Divinity and Director of the Institute for 
Theology, Imagination, and the Arts in the University of St. Andrews. 
His research interests lie chiefly in systematic and historical theology, 
and he has published widely on themes in Christology, soteriology, 
eschatology, theology and Scripture, and theology and the arts. His 
current projects are a book on artistry and the doctrine of creation, 
and one on the doctrine of God.
Louise hickman teaches theology at newman University College, Bir- 
mingham. She was educated at the Universities of exeter and Cambridge 
and her main research interests are seventeenth- and eighteenth-
century intellectual history (with a special interest in Cambridge 
Platonism) and contemporary philosophical theology.
don horrocks is Head of Public Affairs at the evangelical Alliance and 
a Research Associate at london School of Theology. He is author of 
Laws of the Spiritual Order: Innovation and Reconstruction in the So-
teriology of Thomas Erskine of Linlathen (Paternoster, 2004), and has 
edited books on human sexuality and GM crops and foods.
Gregory Macdonald is a pen name for Robin Parry. He is author of The 
Evangelical Universalist (Cascade, 2006).
edward T. oakes, sJ, teaches at the University of St. Mary of the lake in 
Mundelein, Illinois and is author of Pattern of Redemption: The The-
ology of Hans Urs von Balthasar (Continuum, 1997), and co-editor, 
with David Moss, of The Cambridge Companion to Hans Urs von Bal-
thasar (CUP, 2004). His latest book is Infinity Dwindled to Infancy: A 
Catholic and Evangelical Christology (eerdmans, forthcoming).
robin Parry is an Acquisitions editor for Wipf and Stock. Prior to that 
he was a teacher and then the editorial Director for Paternoster. He 
lives in Worcester, england, and is author of Old Testament Story and 
Christian Ethics (Paternoster, 2004), Worshipping Trinity (Paternos-
ter, 2005), and a commentary on Lamentations (eerdmans, 2010). He 
has also co-edited books on topics such as epistemology, exorcism, 
canonical hermeneutics, biblical theology, and evangelicalism. 
Contributorsxii
Murray rae is Associate Professor of Theology at the University of 
Otago, new Zealand. He has published extensively on the thought of 
Søren Kierkegaard, including Kierkegaard’s Vision of the Incarnation 
(OUP, 1997) and Kierkegaard and Theology (T. & T. Clark, 2010). He 
has also written on biblical hermeneutics, History and Hermeneutics 
(T. & T. Clark, 2005), and has edited books on the person of Christ, sci-
ence and theology, salvation, and, with others, two readers in Christian 
doctrine.
robert sweetman holds the H. evan Runner Chair in the History of 
Philosophy at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto, Canada. 
In addition he presently serves the institution as Dean and Acting 
President. He is a trained medievalist who has published articles on 
Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, Scotus, eckhart, and a number of 
late medieval women mystics. His is author of In the Phrygian Mode: 
Antiquity, Neo-Calvinism, and the Lamentations of Reformational Phi-
losophy (University Press of America, 2007).
Thomas Talbott is emeritus Professor of Philosophymixed, which is a certain sort of first-fruits 
of the common dough, humanity exists according to Christ, through 
whom all humanity is joined to the divinity.”32
What role does the “ransom” transaction play in bringing about the 
universal restoration? In his recent dissertation, Stephen emerson makes 
a cogent argument for understanding the ransom motif in Gregory as 
a subset of his “physical theory” of the work of Christ, i.e., his under-
standing of the work of Christ principally as the incarnation by which 
29. Gregory of nyssa, Refutation of the Confession of Eunomius (GNO II, 396–97).
30. Gregory of nyssa, In illud: tunc et ipse filius (Homily on 1 Corinthians 15:28) 
(GNO III/II, 3–28).
31. See Balás, “Unity of Human nature,” 27–39.
32. Gregory of nyssa, Homily on 1 Corinthians 15:28 (GNO III/II, 14).
“All SHAll Be Well”58
human nature is physically united with the divine nature. The death of 
Christ as a ransom paid to the devil for the liberation of humanity is 
one event within the totality of the incarnation.33 And what connection 
does this event have with the apokatastasis? In the “fishhook” analogy 
in the Catechetical Oration 24, Gregory explains that the deceptive offer 
of the humanity of Christ as a ransom was necessary in order to bring 
the very source of evil into contact with the divine nature, so that “life” 
is “introduced into the house of death.” In section 26 Gregory suggests 
that just as contact with the divine nature ultimately restores human be-
ings to the original state, so also the demonic dimension of the rational 
creation experiences the same benefits when touched by divinity: “In 
the same manner, since death and destruction and darkness and other 
offspring of evil are adhered to the originator of evil, after the approach 
of the divine power accomplishes the judgment of fire, the destruction 
of that which is contrary to nature, it shows kindness to the nature by 
means of purgation, even if the separation is painful. So then not even 
the adversary of his own accord may doubt that what has happened is 
both just and salvific.”34 This results in “healing even the originator of 
evil himself.”35 The ransom transaction therefore has the function of 
ensuring the completion of the apokatastasis. no dimension of creation, 
no matter how thoroughly corrupted, will fail to be restored to God’s 
original intention for the universe.
Christ, Purgatorial Punishment, and Universalism
A lingering question concerns the relationship of the work of Christ to 
purgatorial punishment. The purifying fire applied to those who were 
not sufficiently purified in their earthly lives often seems to be a function 
of the power of God apart from any association with the work of Christ. 
It also seems to undermine the role of the incarnation in securing salva-
tion. If the union of the divine Word with the human nature objectively 
secures the salvation of humanity in its entirety, is it not unnecessary for 
individuals to purify themselves through penance or undergo remedial 
punishment after death? A satisfactory answer to the latter question is 
that while the incarnation does grant humanity as a whole participation 
33. emerson, “Work of Christ,” 304.
34. Gregory of nyssa, Catechetical Oration 26 (GNO III/IV, 66–67).
35. Ibid.
Harmon / Gregory of Nyssa (331/340–c. 395) 59
in the divine nature as the body of Christ, some members of the body are 
beset by “accretions of evil,” some of which are more difficult to excise. 
At this point there is an implicit connection of this punishment with the 
work of Christ. Gregory draws from Origen in comparing purgatorial 
suffering to the painful cure a physician must sometimes administer to 
cure a disease.36 Gregory’s portrayal of the medicinal character of punish-
ment after death in the Catechetical Oration echoes the biblical image of 
Jesus as the “Good Physician” who heals diseases physical and spiritual:
For as those who scrape off calluses and warts contrary to nature 
which have become attached to the body with a knife or cautery 
do not apply to the one being treated a painless cure—only they 
do not use the knife intending harm—so also whatever sort of 
material accretions are becoming callous on our souls which 
have become fleshly through fellowship with the passions are cut 
away and scraped off at the time of judgment by that indescrib-
able wisdom and power of the one who, just as the Gospel says, 
“heals those who are sick.” For it says, “those who are healthy 
have no need of a physician, but rather those who are sick.”37
This healing work of Christ extends even beyond the grave in Gregory’s 
concept of purgatory.
Conclusions and Theological Judgments
In summary, the work of Christ brings about the restoration of all 
rational creatures to God’s original intention for the creation in three 
ways. First, in the incarnation Christ unites human nature as a whole 
with the divine nature and so raises the whole of human nature in the 
resurrection. Second, in his death Christ ransoms humanity from en-
slavement to evil and in doing so grants salvation even to the devil and 
the demons. Finally, as physician Christ performs his healing work in 
applying the painful cure of purgatorial suffering to those who need it in 
order for God truly to be “all in all.” These propositions certainly do not 
exhaustively describe all the dimensions of the work of Christ by which 
Christ secures human salvation in the thought of Gregory of nyssa. 
36. Origen, Treatise on Prayer 29.15; Origen, On First Principles 2.10.6; Origen, 
Homilies on Jeremiah 20.3; Origen, Homilies on Ezekiel 1.3. On Origen’s use of medi-
cal imagery and its significance for his soteriology, see Bostock, “Medical Theory and 
Theology in Origen,” 191–99.
37. Gregory of nyssa, Catechetical Oration 8 (GNO III/IV, 32–33), citing Matt 9:12.
“All SHAll Be Well”60
nevertheless, they do seem to be the principal elements of Gregory’s 
soteriology that account for the universal scope of such salvation in his 
hopeful vision of the apokatastasis.
Gregory’s universalism may well be thoroughly christocentric, but 
that feature of Gregory’s thought will not necessarily answer to every-
one’s satisfaction two lingering questions many readers of this book will 
have about it. First, can it be reconciled with other aspects of biblical 
eschatology that seem to preclude the possibility of universal salvation? 
Second, is Gregory’s universalism tantamount to heresy from the per-
spective of the doctrinal tradition of the church?
Jürgen Moltmann has given attention to the tension in Scripture 
between the texts that hint of universalism in the outcome of God’s work 
of salvation and the texts that point to a “double outcome of judgment,” 
concluding that “universal salvation and a double outcome of judgment 
are therefore both well attested biblically,” while the tension between 
them is not easily resolved via biblical exegesis alone.38 This tension is 
attributable in part to the fact that the new Testament addresses a differ-
ent soteriological concern than does the later patristic controversy over 
apokatastasis. In historical context, the universalistic new Testament 
texts are extensions to the Gentiles of Israel’s eschatological hopes—the 
atoning work of Christ is “not only for our sins” (i.e., for Jewish believers 
in Jesus) but also for “the sins of the whole world” (i.e., for Gentiles as 
well) (1 John 2:2). The Pauline expressions of universalism in particular 
make sense against the backdrop of the identity crisis occasioned by the 
encounter of primitive Jewish Christianity with the positive response of 
the Gentiles to God’s work of redemption. The universalistic language of 
the new Testament does not necessarily preclude the kind of universal 
salvation envisioned by Clement, Origen, and Gregory, but neither does 
it advocate such an understanding.
A much greater difficulty is posed by the texts that speak of es-
chatological punishment. It isdifficult to read the new Testament and 
escape noticing the “double outcome of judgment” as a recurrent theme. 
At the very least, it means “the irrevocability of the decision for faith or 
unbelief,” as Moltmann notes en route to making the case for a universal 
salvation that does not simply dismiss this key biblical teaching.39 It is 
possible for a theologian to read the biblical story as culminating in the 
38. Moltmann, Coming of God, 241.
39. Ibid., 243.
Harmon / Gregory of Nyssa (331/340–c. 395) 61
salvation of all creation and be true to the normativity of Scripture, so 
long as this reading of the story also has a place for the reality of judg-
ment and its eternal implications. Without the subplot of judgment, an 
eschatology of universal salvation becomes an altogether different story 
from the one told by the church’s Scriptures. The patristic universalists 
avoided this pitfall through their emphasis on the “refiner’s fire” as the 
key biblical image communicating the purpose of eternal punishment.
In its efforts to clarify this not insignificant ambiguity in the plot of 
the biblical story of God’s salvation, early Christian theology offered three 
major readings of the manner in which the story concludes for those who 
have not responded positively to the divine work of salvation during 
their earthly lives.40 The majority reading, represented by Tertullian and 
Augustine, understands the eschatological punishment of such persons 
as eternal in duration—the everlasting torment of separation from God. 
Some of the second- and third-century apologists, represented by Justin 
Martyr and Arnobius, offered what was ultimately a minority reading in 
which punishment is eternal in effect rather than duration—following 
the resurrection, the wicked are destroyed, evil therefore ceases to ex-
ist, and God is “all in all.” The other minority reading is represented by 
Clement, Origen, and Gregory—punishment is eternal in effect rather 
than duration, but its effect is not destruction but transformation. It is 
possible that these three early Christian readings of the biblical portrayal 
of the destiny of the impenitent might not be mutually exclusive. If we 
may theorize that it is possible for God in the eschaton to save, say, Adolf 
Hitler (or any other fallen human being)—and “for God all things are 
possible” (Matt 19:26)—such a salvation would require the destruction 
of the evil person he had become in his earthly life (cf. Justin Martyr and 
Arnobius), the painful transformation of who he had willingly become 
into what God intended him to be (cf. Clement, Origen, and Gregory), 
and the torment of knowing for eternity the tragedy of what was irre-
vocably lost in his refusal to participate in God’s salvation during his 
earthly life (cf. Tertullian and Augustine).41
Is belief in an ultimately universal salvation heresy from the per-
spective of the tradition of the community of faith across the ages? One 
40. ellis, Christ and the Future, 179–84.
41. For similar proposals in contemporary constructive theology, see Moltmann, 
Coming of God, 325–55; and (cautiously) Volf, Exclusion and embrace, 295–301, esp. 
299 nn. 7–8.
“All SHAll Be Well”62
certainly cannot claim with J. W. Hanson, a nineteenth-century Univer-
salist (of the American denominational variety), that universal salvation 
was the consensus position of the patristic church.42 While it remained a 
minority viewpoint throughout the patristic period, one may argue that 
in its basic outlines universalism contradicted neither creed nor council. 
It affirmed belief in the coming of Christ “to judge the living and the 
dead,” “the resurrection of the body” (the speculations of Origen ex-
cepted), and “the life everlasting.” even in the anathemas against Origen 
associated with the fifth ecumenical council, the objection seems not 
to have been with a universal apokatastasis per se but rather with the 
protology presupposed by the Origenist version of the apokatastasis: as 
Anathema I suggests: “If anyone asserts the fabulous pre-existence of 
souls, and shall assert the monstrous restoration [apokatastasis] which 
follows from it: let him be anathema.”43 It is significant that Gregory of 
nyssa, who developed a concept of apokatastasis virtually identical to 
that of Origen sans Origen’s protology, was never condemned by council 
or synod, was revered by the later church as a staunch defender of nicene 
orthodoxy, and was canonized as a saint with a feast day on March 9 (al-
though doubts of later copyists of Gregory’s works about the orthodoxy 
of his eschatology are reflected in their emendations of a number of pas-
sages in which these ideas are expressed).44
Implicit in this traditional criterion of a proper protology for as-
sessing the orthodoxy of eschatological proposals is a healthy aversion 
to deterministic theologies that negate divine and human freedom, for 
“the monstrous restoration which follows from” a doctrine of the pre-
existence of souls is deterministic in its requirement of a cyclical return 
to the beginning. This concern is the rationale behind Karl Barth’s denial 
of dogmatic universalism, even though the logic of his doctrine of elec-
tion points in that direction: if God must save humanity and humanity 
must be saved, then neither God nor humanity would be free.45
42. Hanson, Universalsim.
43. NPNF2 14:318; ACO bk. 4, vol. 1, 248.
44. Daley, Hope of the Early Church, 241 n. 23.
45. Barth, CD II/2, e.g., 417–23. Cf. ludlow, Universal Salvation, 265: “although 
[Karl] Rahner and Gregory express a belief with which not all Christians would agree, 
there are good grounds for thinking theirs is a Christian belief—particularly if it is 
expressed as a hope rather than as a certain prediction.”
Harmon / Gregory of Nyssa (331/340–c. 395) 63
Those who find themselves attracted to Gregory’s hopeful eschatol-
ogy must also consider Origen’s own reservations about making it the 
customary public teaching of the church (c. Cels. 6.26). In this connection 
there is much wisdom in the words of the nineteenth-century German 
pietist Christian Gottlieb Barth: “Anyone who does not believe in the 
universal restoration is an ox, but anyone who teaches it is an ass.”46
The church is right to guard against a dogmatic universalism in 
light of its experience. Universal salvation as a foregone conclusion can 
lead, and has led, to indifference toward evangelistic endeavors and easy 
cultural accommodation rather than transformative engagement with 
culture. On the other hand, a hypothetical outcome of universal salva-
tion ought not to detract necessarily from the urgency of the mission 
of the church. In such a case, failure to experience God’s salvation in 
one’s earthly existence would be an eternal tragedy both for that person 
and for all those to whom that person relates, a tragedy that the church 
should be urgently concerned about preventing. As I sometimes tell my 
students, “I will not be surprised if I discover in the resurrection that the 
God revealed in Jesus Christ has saved all people, but in the meantime 
we should not count on that.”
In the meantime, God does wish to save all people (1 Tim 2:4). 
Whether all will be saved must remain a mystery of divine and human 
freedom—as it seems to have remained for Gregory of nyssa.
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66
4 
Sin Has Its Place, but 
All Shall Be Well
The Universalism of Hope in Julian of Norwich 
(c. 1342–c. 1416)
Robert Sweetman
Julian of norwich has a high profile these days. This is surely no 
accident. In an age that has become sensitive to the wisdom sounding 
in voices historically less heeded, she speaks as a medieval woman. In 
an age that has learned to wonder whether the systematic discourses 
of reason penetrate to those mysteries lying at the very heart of things, 
she speaks in the language of mystical revelation. Moreover, among the 
female, medieval, and mystical voices we have been minded to listen to 
Sweetman / Julian of Norwich (c.1342–c.1416) 67
anew, hers is one of the most mellifluous. I mean that her voice attracts 
us. It speaks to us about matters we too care about desperately—love, 
evil, wrath, and reconciliation. And it does so in a manner that strikes us 
as not too far from how we would speak if only we had thought or been 
graced to try.
What I want to hold up for reflection, then, are the ways in which 
Julian explores the implications of her “showings” for the mysterious 
coexistence of divine Creator’s love and creaturely evil in our world. The 
benefit of doing so is twofold. In the first place, we witness an approach 
to the issue that is compelling and yet different than that of most sys-
tematic, theological treatments. She does not carry on her exploration in 
the tried and true philosophical manner. She does not seek to discover 
those first principles from which to argue, with coercive deductive force, 
that divine love and evil do and even must coincide in the manner that 
they do, whether in our experience as is or as it ought to be. Indeed, she 
fails to add even one sentence to the age-old discursive effort at theodicy. 
Rather, as I will try to show, she chooses to address her topic via the 
relationship of promise, trust, and hope. Central to her efforts are the 
stories she tells or receives. And it is in thinking about her stories that 
our second benefit surfaces. For she lived in a literary culture that was 
acutely aware of story and that had theorized its power to invent plau-
sible “conjectures” about the world; conjectures that disclose what I will 
call a promissory “order of hope.”
Julian of Norwich and Her “Showings”
We begin with Julian and the “showings” or revelations she received. We 
know very little about her. We do not even know her name, for she is 
known to us today by the name of the church to which her anchorhold 
was appended: St. Julian’s in norwich. In the course of the text of her 
Showings, Julian does tell us that the revelations she sought to under-
stand occurred on 13 May, 1373, during her thirty-first year. That would 
mean that she was born somewhere in the latter half of 1342 or the first 
third of 1343. She also tells us that she pondered the meaning of her 
“showings” for nearly twenty years, before she felt she was given to un-
derstand the most difficult of them.1 
1. The edition of the Showings used throughout this essay is edmund Colledge 
O.S.A. and James Walsh S.J., A Book of Showings to the Anchoress Julian of Norwich. For 
“All SHAll Be Well”68
It would seem that this final contemplative enlightenment and her 
move into the anchorhold adjacent to St. Julian’s were closely aligned, for 
it is on 20 May, 1393, that we first witness financial support being laid 
aside on her behalf, almost twenty years to the day after she received her 
“showings.”2 Julian’s contemporary, the redoubtable Margery Kempe, 
speaks of having traveled to norwich to meet Julian, an occurrence that 
fits the chronology of Margery’s life best if it occurredwithin the period 
1413–1415.3 The last evidences of Julian and her upkeep occur in late 
1415 and in 1416. It is reasonable to conjecture that subsequent silence 
bespeaks her death, as by 1416 she would have been seventy-three or 
seventy-four years old.
Julian’s text manifests a deep familiarity with the phraseology of 
Vulgate latin and of the writings of Augustine of Hippo, Gregory the 
Great, William of St. Thierry, and a number of Middle english spiritual 
works.4 The editors have argued that she must have entered a religious 
house and community when she was young and that she might well have 
remained a member of the community right through to 1393 when she 
was fifty years old.5 Scholars point to the house of Benedictine nuns at 
Carrow just outside of the walls of norwich as a community of appro-
priate learning endowed with an apt theological library.6 If Julian had 
lived long years as a Benedictine sister, her move into the anchorhold of 
St. Julian’s is understandable on very Benedictine terms, provided life as 
a nun is assumed to be isomorphic with that of a monk. The Rule of St. 
Benedict names the hermit as the second type of monk. Such a monk 
is one “who has learned to combat the devil, not in the first heat of his 
conversion but only after long testing in the monastery. Such a monk 
has been instructed by the counsel of many and has been formed to the 
single combat of the hermit by the best of fraternal wisdom so that he 
is equipped to carry on the spiritual struggle without the aid of others 
the purposes of providing the reader a modern english translation, I have used Julian, 
Revelations of Divine Love. 
In the present context, one should add that Julian speaks of the essential gist of 
her “showings” as having come to her fifteen years after the showings themselves or 
sometime in 1388. Cf. Colledge and Walsh, Showings, 732. 
2. College and Walsh, Showings, 33.
3. Ibid., 35.
4. Ibid., 43–59.
5. Colledge and Walsh, “editing Julian of norwich’s Revelations.”
6. College and Walsh, Showings, 44.
Sweetman / Julian of Norwich (c.1342–c.1416) 69
on the strength of his own hand and arm against viciousness of body 
and mind.”7
It is fairly seldom that we are given indications of how a recipient 
understands her revelations and their reception. Does she understand 
them to be received as visions stimulating the sense of sight whether 
physical, spiritual, or intellectual? Or might they better be thought of as 
auditions by which the sense of hearing is stimulated? Moreover, if the 
receiver understood the revelations to be visions, did she understand 
them to have been given via dreams or, by contrast, were they received, 
as with Hildegard of Bingen, while wide-awake with eyes open and fully 
aware?8 
In Julian’s case, we know that all but one of her revelations were 
given to her in the context of a near-death experience, when, in extremis, 
she was presented a crucifix to focus her devotion in the interstice be-
tween Viaticum and death.9 A sixteenth vision confirming the authentic-
ity of the first fifteen came to her in a dream after she had preliminarily 
judged her other visions to be “ravings.”10 Julian later described each of 
the “showings” and commented upon their significance. She first pro-
duced a shorter theological reflection on her visions and then a longer 
and more complex reflection some twenty years later. 
What the vision-descriptions do not tell us is how Julian understood 
these visions to work and the relation of authority that was properly to 
hold between vision-description and spiritual commentary. In Julian’s 
case, however, we are helped immeasurably by the difficulty she had in 
making sense of one of her visions—that of a lord and his servant. It is 
worth pausing to reflect on what she has to say in this context.
In chapter 50 of the long text, Julian struggles with the absence of 
evil within her visions: “It was the more surprising that I should see the 
lord God regard us with no more blame than if we had been as pure 
7. Chamberlin, ed., The Rule of St. Benedict, 20. “Deinde secundum genus est 
anachoritarum, id est heremitarum, horum qui non conuersationis feruore nouo sed 
monasterii probatione diuturna didicerunt contra diabolum multorum solacio iam 
docti pugnare.”
8. For the genera of vision and dream see above all, Dinzelbacher, Vision und 
Visionsliteratur im Mittelalter. So also Ringler, “Die Rezeption”; newman, God and the 
Godesses, especially pp. 24–35; and lynch, The High Medieval Dream Vision.
9. The term “Viaticum” names the seventh of the sacraments of the Roman Catholic 
Church. It is dispensed to the believer when she or he is seriously ill and facing death.
10. College and Walsh, Showings, 632–34.
“All SHAll Be Well”70
and holy as his angels in heaven.”11 She knows in her heart and has been 
taught by Mother Church that sin is real and ubiquitous, so she longs to 
see how God looks upon sin: “nor could I relax for fear that I might lose 
sight of his blessed presence and be left ignorant how he could be thought 
to regard us in our sin.”12 This was a matter of considerable anxiety for 
her. If we are blameless she fails to see this and must account her failure 
blameworthy. On the other hand, if we are blameworthy, she wonders 
“how is it that I cannot see this truth in you, my God and Creator, in 
whom I long to see all truth?”13 
Her conundrum becomes the occasion for inward tears and prayer. 
In answer, she is given to see “a wonderfull example”14 —the story of a 
lord and his servant. She relates the vision and testifies to God’s leading 
in her reflection upon it. And yet she cannot let the vision go: “yet for all 
his guidance, my puzzlement over the exemplum never left me. I thought 
that it had been given as an answer to my request, yet at the same time I 
was unable to find a wholly satisfying meaning in it.”15 For three months 
shy of twenty years she struggled with the text with the help of inward 
leading. That is, inwardly she was prompted “to consider all the details 
and circumstances shown in the illustration; even if you think they are 
vague and unimportant.”16 To this prompting she responds with a will:
I assented wholeheartedly and eagerly, and began to give close 
attention to all the points and details that had been shown at 
that time, as far as my ability to understand would allow. I began 
with the lord and the servant as I saw them: how and where the 
11. Julian, Revelations, 140. “Then was this my merveyle, that I saw oure lorde god 
shewyng to vs no more blame then if we were as clene and as holy as angelis be in 
hevyn” (College and Walsh, Showings, 511).
12. Ibid. Translation altered: “and [I] culde haue no rest for drede that his blessed 
presens shulde passe fro my syght, and I to be lefte in vnknowyng how he beholde vs in 
oure synne” (College and Walsh, Showings, 511).
13. Ibid. “[H]ow may it than be that I can nott see this truth in the, which arte my 
god, my maker in whom I desyer to se alle truth” (College and Walsh, Showings, 512).
14. College and Walsh, Showings, 513.
15. Julian, Revelations, 143. “But nott withstanding all thys forthledyng, the mar-
veylyng of þe example went nevyr fro me; for me thought it was gevyn me for answere 
to my desyer. And yet culde I nott take there in full vnderstandyng to my ees in that 
tyme” (College and Walsh, Showings, 519).
16. Ibid., 144. “[T]o take hede to alle þe properties and the condescions that were 
shewed in the example, though þe thyngke that it be mysty and inddefferent to thy 
sight” (College and Walsh, Showings, 520).
Sweetman / Julian of Norwich (c.1342–c.1416) 71
lord sat; the colour and cut of his clothes; his appearance, and his 
innate nobility and goodness; and how and where the servant 
stood, what his clothes were like, and their colour and style; his 
outward bearing and his inner goodness and loyalty.17
Julian’s description of her inner promptings points us in the direc-
tion of ancient andmedieval rhetorical theory as it had been appropri-
ated within the Christian tradition. From Cicero and the pseudo-Cicero, 
medieval schoolmasters had appropriated the notion that rhetoric is 
divided into five parts, one of which is memoria or schooled memo-
ry.18 Memoria was in many ways the lynchpin of the whole disciplinary 
structure. In other words, rhetoric, like all ancient and medieval cultural 
practice, was mnemonically primed; it depended upon the memory 
for its content and cogitative pattern. And that meant that the memory 
could not be left to chance or nature’s gifting; it had to be trained, ex-
panded by art, so that it was rendered capacious enough to include all 
that it must, i.e., in the present context, all those claims about the world 
that constituted the right or authoritative places to start in order to think 
properly and fruitfully about the topic to hand. 
Cultural practice of any kind, then, was organized around the 
schooled memory and its stable and carefully tended central mental 
image. That image would be endowed with enough striking features to 
furnish what might be termed “a mnemonic closet organizer” (ratio) 
for thought. One had ceaselessly to reinforce one’s organizing image so 
as to be able to attach to each of its striking features what one needed 
to remember in units, each graspable via a single act of recall.19 Thus, 
17. Ibid., 144. “I assentyd wylfully with grett desyer, seeing inwardly with avyse-
ment all the poyntes and the properties that were shewed in the same tyme, as ferforth 
as my wytt and my vnderstandyng wylle serve, begynnyng my beholding at the lorde 
and at þe servant, at the manner of syttyng of the lorde and the place he satt on, and the 
coloure of his clothing and the manner of shape, and his chere withoute and his nobley 
and his goodness within; and the manner of stondyng of the servant, and the place 
where and how, and his manner of clothing, the coloure and the shape, at his outwarde 
behaving and at his inwarde / goodness and his unlothfulnesse (College and Walsh, 
Showings, 520–21).
18. For discussions of rhetorical memoria in its ancient and medieval contexts see 
the classic study of yates, The Art of Memory, as well as the more contemporary surveys 
of Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Tradition; and Carruthers, 
The Book of Memory.
19. Cf. Thomas Bradwardine’s statement, “each [memory—sw.] location should 
be of moderate size, as much as one’s visual power can comprehend in a single look.” 
Translated by Carruthers, The Book of Memory, 281.
“All SHAll Be Well”72
the artificial memory could be stocked with heterogenous units, one 
strand of which could be, for example, sayings (sententiae) that were in 
themselves trustworthy starting points (auctoritates) for thinking about 
divine love and creaturely evil. Other strands might be arguments, 
metaphors, or narratives; all of them trustworthy starting points in 
their own right.20 
Julian’s inner promptings suggested that she was to treat the vi-
sion of the lord and the servant as if it were a memory image. In other 
words, she felt prompted to examine the vision’s every detail and to do 
so in a determinate order. If this were, in fact, a memory image that 
she constructed and maintained on her own recognizance, her orderly 
examination of its features would gain access to units of meaning and 
expression she had previously attached to the image’s many places. By 
collating and re-collating these units, she would “invent” a discourse in 
and through which to think about things and so discover their mean-
ing. Of course, she had not constructed the “image” of the lord and his 
servant. Rather she had been given it. Was her “showing” or revelation, 
then, an infused memory image to which were attached units of revela-
tion to be discovered by subsequent contemplation?
As tempting as it is, there is one difficulty with this picture. Her vision 
is not a static one, and memory images needed to be static or unchanging 
as well as striking if they were to do their work. That is why the most fa-
mous treatment of rhetorical memoria, the pseudo-Cicero’s Rhetorica Ad 
Herennium, takes architectural tableaux as its memory images of choice.21 
While medieval memory images did not need to be restricted to archi-
tectural tableaux, they too were invariably static and unchanging. What 
Julian is given in her vision is, by contrast, a story. It is full of movement. 
In it, characters are given to grandiose gestures; they leap, race and fall, 
writhe in agony or empathy, embrace and weep for joy. 
Still, it is beyond dispute that Julian felt prompted to treat the vi-
sion mnemonically. I mean that she assumed the narrative contained 
hidden meaning she had to discover contemplatively via the cogitative 
acts of collation and invention proper to memoria as formal rhetorical 
constituent. This assumption points us, in turn, towards the literary and 
20. For the conjunction of authority, authorship, and memory see Carruthers’ chap-
ter, “Memory and Authority,” in Carruthers, The Book of Memory, 189–220, and the 
literature cited there.
21. yates is particularly thorough in discussion of this point in The Art of Memory, 
1–26.
Sweetman / Julian of Norwich (c.1342–c.1416) 73
philosophical integument.22 The rhetorical and philosophical trope of 
the integument had by Julian’s day an ancient pedigree. It first arose in 
the Hellenistic centuries of Antiquity, as the grammarians of Ptolemaic 
egypt or Seleucid Antioch struggled to read the Homeric corpus and the 
stories of the gods collected by archaic Greek mythographers in a way that 
remained edifying in their very different world. This Hellenistic interpre-
tive practice contributed mightily, on the one hand, to the development of 
the spiritual exegesis of the Scriptures within the so-called Alexandrian 
school of patristic Christianity. On the other hand, latin schoolmasters 
of the twelfth century found themselves in a situation parallel to that of 
the Hellenistic grammarians and so found their interpretive strategies as 
helpful as had the Alexandrian fathers. Twelfth-century schoolmasters 
faced the authoritative survival of a disparate body of pagan mythogra-
phies and the many stories they preserved. They responded by further 
elaborating protocols of integumental reading whereby they sought to 
open up pagan narratives to properly Christian meaning. Pagan narra-
tives were read as stories providentially preserved from the wreck of the 
ancient world because they hid within themselves significance that was 
appropriate to Christian edification.23 The Christian reader accessed the 
edifying kernel hidden below the narrative surface by attending to the 
narrative surface in all its many details. Collative meditation upon the 
narrative details brought hidden meaning to the surface much as exami-
nation of one’s memory-image called to the surface the mnemonic units 
attached to the image’s significant features, or, for that matter, as spiritual 
reflection upon the parables, metaphors, and poetic utterances of the 
Scriptures gave rise to a deeper significance pointing beyond themselves 
to Christ, the soul, or the world-made-right. It seems to me, then, that 
Julian understood her vision of the lord and the servant integumenta-
lly. She approached it meditatively in order to call to mind the units of 
meaning hidden within it so as to collate and recollate those units via the 
rhetorical process of invention into a coherent and edifying discourse.24 
22. The significance of the integument and of integumental reading is well brought 
out in Jeauneau, “l’usage de la notion d’integumentum”; Dronke, Fabula; Dronke, ed., 
History of Twelfth-Century Western Philosophy; Stock, Myth and Science in the Twelfth 
Century.
23. This cultural ethos is brilliantly sketched in the introduction of Southern, 
Scholastic Humanism and the Unification of Europe, 1–10.
24. For invention and its attendant actsboth discursive and cultural, see Carruthers, 
The Craft of Thought.
“All SHAll Be Well”74
As such, Julian’s integumental treatment of the vision of the lord and his 
servant constituted simultaneously an instance of the spiritual exegesis 
of divine revelation, in this instance, the private revelation or “showing” 
granted her.
Julian and the Riddle of Evil
The passage from chapter 50 that we have just tarried over follows upon 
two antecedent meditations that together articulate a central tension of 
the Showings as a whole. In chapter 49 Julian reflects upon the love of 
God and its implications for God’s posture towards creatures. In her view 
human life is rooted in love, and there is no life for us apart from love’s 
grounding.25 This “showing” entails that “it is absolutely impossible that 
God should be angry. Anger and friendship are mutually opposed.”26 She 
contrasts this divine posture with our own posture towards ourselves in 
this life: “and I know Þat we . . . be moch blame worthy.”27 The disjunction 
causes her to wonder. She can neither deny the knowledge of self-blame 
taught by the church and confirmed by her own experience, nor deny 
the blame-free revelation of her “showings.” “How may this be[?]”28 she 
wonders. Her marveling, in turn, brings her to anguish as she struggles, 
suspended upon the horns of her dilemma: “It was the more surprising 
that I should see the lord God regard us with no more blame than if 
we had been as pure and holy as his angels in heaven. Between these 
two opposites my mind was extremely perplexed. I could not see how 
to reconcile them, nor could I relax for fear that I might lose sight of 
his blessed presence and be left ignorant of how he could be thought to 
regard us in our sin.”29 
25. College and Walsh, Showings, 505.
26. Julian, Revelations, 137. “[I]t is the most vnpossible that may be that god shulde 
be wrath, for wrath and frendschyppe be two contrariese” (College and Walsh, Showings, 
505).
27. College and Walsh, Showings, 510.
28. Ibid.
29. Julian, Revelations, 140. “Then was this my merveyle that I saw oure lord god 
shewyng to vs no more blame then if we were as clene and as holy as angelis be in hevyn. 
And between theyse two contraryes my reson was grettly traveyled by my blyndnes, 
and culde haue no rest for drede that his blessed presens shulde passe fro my sight, 
and I to be lefte in vnknowyng how he beholde vs in oure synne” (College and Walsh, 
Showings, 510–11).
Sweetman / Julian of Norwich (c.1342–c.1416) 75
In her travail, Julian is given the vision of the lord and his servant 
as an integument. She in turn patiently contemplates it until she is able 
to grasp and collate inventively the bits of revelation hidden within the 
integument’s striking features and so discover its deeper divine signifi-
cances. We will return to the story before we are done, but first we need 
to consider Julian’s dilemma and her struggle with it in the course of her 
Showings as a whole.
Julian Embracing the Horns of Her Dilemma
let me recall for us the dilemma Julian was struggling with. If we are 
blameless despite our sin and evil, she fails to see how this can be in 
accordance with her revelation, and must account this failure as blame-
worthy. If, on the other hand, we are blameworthy by our sin and the evil 
it makes present, she wonders “how is it that I cannot see this truth in 
you, my God and Creator, in whom I long to see all truth?”30 
This dilemma wends its way from beginning to end of Julian’s 
Showings. Already in chapter 11 of the long text Julian asks: “What is 
synne?”31 She asks because the sight of God as a point, taking up no place 
and hence present in every place, led her to conclude, “Indeed, nothing 
happens by luck or chance, but all is through the foresight and wisdom 
of God.”32 Indeed, her conclusion is even much stronger: “Hence it fol-
lows that we must admit that everything that is done is well done, for it 
is our lord God who does it.”33 
The question of sin and of its relationship to weal and woe recurs 
again in chapter 27 when Julian begins to discuss her thirteenth show-
ing. There, she re-examines her longing for her lord. longing in this 
life is predicated upon absence of the subject of one’s longing. She notes 
that “nothing hindered me but sin. And this I saw to be true in general 
of us all.”34 This observation led to a preliminary conclusion: “I thought 
30. Ibid. “[H]ow may it than be that I can nott see this truth in the, which arte my 
god, my maker in whom I desyer to se alle truth” (College and Walsh, Showings, 512).
31. College and Walsh, Showings, 336.
32. Julian, Revelations, 80. “[T]hat nothyn is done by happe ne by aventure, but all 
by the for(eseing) wisdom of god” (College and Walsh, Showings, 337).
33. Ibid. “[W]herfore me behovyd nedes to grant that alle thynges that is done is 
welle done, for our lord god doth alle” (College and Walsh, Showings, 338).
34. Ibid., 103 “[n]othing lettyd my but synne, and so I behelde generally in vs alle” 
(College and Walsh, Showings, 404).
“All SHAll Be Well”76
to myself that if there had been no sin we should have been clean and 
like our lord, as when we were made. In my foolish way I had often 
wondered why the foreseeing wisdom of God could not have prevented 
the beginning of sin, for then, thought I, all would have been well.”35 
Upon later reflection, such a conclusion appeared to her to lack reason 
and discretion. But her lord took her seriously and gave her what she 
needed in the promise: “Sin has its place—but it is all going to be all 
right; it is all going to be all right; everything is going to be all right.”36 
Juxtaposition of the claims “that sin has its place” and “but all shall be 
well” only raises more questions: how could woe produce well, for only 
like came from like?
Chapter 32 reiterates the promise of chapter 27 several times, con-
textualizing it differently with each iteration. First, the promise is to all 
that exists, the lowly as well as the grand. Second, the promise replaces 
sight in the context of our present blindness. Third, it is itself a mystery 
hid in the Trinity. Fourth, it is to be affirmed even in the impossibility 
created by concomitant and seemingly opposite teachings of our com-
mon faith and of holy church. 
And still, she cannot leave the matter alone. In chapter 33 she 
wants a sight of purgatory and hell, not as a test of the truth of com-
mon faith and holy church, but because she wants to see all of reality in 
and through the revelation of God, while sin and its effects have either 
been hidden from her as in the third showing or accompanied with the 
promise that all shall be well as in the thirteenth showing. In chapter 35 
she contextualizes the extension of the promise—it is a promise uttered 
in general rather than with a specific creature in mind.
In chapter 38 she discusses how weal comes from woe, so that “sin 
shall be not shame to a person, but participatant in a person’s worth. For 
just as every sin has its corresponding suffering in the context of [divine] 
35. Ibid. “[A]nd me thought yf synne had nott be, we sulde alle haue be clene and 
lyke to oure lorde as he made vs. And thus in my foly before thys tyme often I wondryd 
why, by the grete forsey(ng) wisdom of god, the begynnyng of synne was nott lettyd. For 
then thouct me that alle shulde haue be wele” (College and Walsh, Showings, 404).
36. Ibid., 103. Translation altered: “Synne is behovely, but alle shalle be wele, and alle 
shalle be wele, and all maner of thynge shalle be wele” (College and Walsh, Showings, 
405). The word “behovedly” by itself does not connote necessity but fittingness or of 
contingent ought. Only when accompanied by the word “nedys” or need does it par-
ticipate in the sense of necessity. It is then the english equivalent of the latin term 
convenientia.
Sweetman / Julian of Norwich (c.1342–c.1416) 77
truth, so every sin can occasion in the soul a blessing in thecontext of 
[divine] love.”37 In the same chapter she gives us a number of stories that 
illustrate instances of health emerging from the hellish circumstances 
of life as we live it here and now. In each narrative “the token of synne 
is turnyd to worshyppe.”38 These stories are gathered from Old and new 
Testaments, to be sure, but also from the stories of english saints, which 
would make up part of the religious patrimony of her contemporary 
english believers.
In chapter 45, commenting on the fourteenth showing, Julian 
struggles with what she calls a high and low judgment. The high judg-
ment she received in her “showings” whereas the low judgment she re-
ceived from mother church. In the high judgment she does not see God 
assigning any manner of blame. And this has made her uneasy, for she 
had previously learned from holy church “that I must recognize myself 
as a sinner.”39 This led her back to her dilemma: “For the higher judge-
ment God himself showed me, and I had necessarily to accept it: the 
lesser judgement had been taught me previously by Holy Church, and 
for that reason I could not dismiss it.”40 
God’s response to this latest iteration of Julian’s dilemma is to offer 
her another story, the very story of the lord and his servant we have 
already considered above. nevertheless, it seemed that, on some level, 
she found it a disappointment: “And to all this I had no other answer 
than a wonderful exemplum of a lord and his servant, which I will tell 
later, and that was shown me with much left hidden.”41 As she chews on 
her dilemma into chapter 46 she acknowledges that something central 
remains hid and is likely to continue to lie hid. She chooses to consider 
37. Translation mine. “synne shalle be no shame, but wurshype to man, for right as 
to every synne is answering a payne by truth, ryght so for every synne to the same soule 
is gevyn a blysse by loue” (College and Walsh, Showings, 445).
38. College and Walsh, Showings, 447.
39. Julian, Revelations, 131. “[T]hat me behovyth nedys to know my selfe a synner” 
(College and Walsh, Showings, 487).
40. Ibid., 131. “For the higher dome god shewed hym selfe in the same tyme, and 
therfore (m)e behovyd nedys to take it. And the lower dome was lernyd me before tyme 
in holy chyrche, and therfore I might nott by no weye leue the lower dome” (College 
and Walsh, Showings, 488).
41. Translation mine. “And to alle this I nee had no nother answere but a marvelous 
example of a lorde and of a seruannt, as I shall sey after, and that full mystely shewed” 
(College and Walsh, Showings, 488).
“All SHAll Be Well”78
this fair, to abide in the mystery and to yield to her mother, holy church, 
as a simple child ought.42 And so the dialectic continues.43
eventually we make our way back to “the wonderful exemplum” of 
the lord and his servant and Julian’s long meditation upon it. In that con-
text, the mixed state of our lives here and now is underlined yet again44 
demanding of us a trust that Christ is there with us in the muddle of all 
our days.45 And still she questions on, wondering about why the saints 
fall and fail their beloved lord.46 This wondering too is answered by yet 
another iteration of the promise: all shall be well.47 But then she consid-
ers a new and fifteenth showing and her wonderings start again:48 really 
now, why do the saved fall and fail? And again we hear the promise and 
an admonition to trust and hope.49 And then a last time, in the context of 
her sixteenth, and final, vision.50 Here too the promise is uttered and this 
time its grounding in love affirmed. In fine, the Showings when viewed 
from the vantage point of her dilemma comes to assume the shape of a 
spiral circling ever round the same deep mystery, bringing in ever new 
elements and then circling back to see what effect they may have.
Julian and the Limits of Understanding
Julian’s Showings is a work of many consolations and reassurances. Her 
visions emphasize God’s unwillingness to blame us for our sin. This occurs 
either through the sin’s invisibility, as in the third of Julian’s “showings,” 
or, as in the thirteenth, because sin is the pretext for God’s saving work 
in Christ, who undoes harm via acts of mercy and grace. One might be 
tempted to conclude from these “showings” that our blameworthiness 
in sin is a mirage; we do well to set it aside along with its concomitant, 
drede. In other words, if one accepts Julian’s “showings” as a true and suf-
ficient revelation, one would tend to draw conclusions about the nature 
42. College and Walsh, Showings, 494.
43. Ibid., 498–99.
44. Ibid., 548.
45. Ibid., 549.
46. Ibid., 603.
47. Ibid., 618.
48. Ibid., 625.
49. Ibid., 627–28.
50. Ibid., 693–94.
Sweetman / Julian of Norwich (c.1342–c.1416) 79
and reality of sin, of punishment, and blame that push one in a univer-
salist direction. Of course, such a direction would entail setting aside the 
pastoral and ascetic emphases within Julian’s ecclesiastical and religious 
context. Above all, she would have had to ignore the central spiritual 
axis of contrition, confession, and humble, ameliorative satisfaction for 
which she was well known in her day, an axis presupposing the contrary 
expectation of our blameworthiness.51 This setting aside or ignoring was 
not something Julian herself was minded to do. Rather, throughout the 
Showings she articulates a number of limits to the validity and extension 
of the understanding produced by her revelations, limits that leave room 
for a coming together (convenire) of her “showings,” the teaching of holy 
church, and of her own feeling or experience. 
Already in introducing the thirteenth showing in chapter 1 Julian 
claims that we should keep ourselves within the faith and truth of holy 
church, only willing to know the divine secrets to the degree that such 
knowledge belongs to us in this life.52 Indeed, her showings are con-
formed to and respect the limits of what she calls our present blindness.53 
Moreover they only underline the mysteriousness and hiddenness of the 
things they reveal.54 Consequently, they do not command the weight 
necessary to impose themselves fully upon other conflicting sources 
of understanding. When Julian reflects upon her “showings” in light of 
the faith proclaimed by the teaching of holy church, and the specter 
of hell and damnation encountered in that teaching, she is brought to 
a conceptual state a Derridean would associate with “the undecidable” 
and “the im/possible”: “This being so I thought it quite impossible that 
everything should turn out well, as our lord was now showing me. But 
I had no answer to this revelation save this: ‘What is impossible to you 
is not impossible to me. I shall honour my word in every respect, and 
I will make everything turn out for the best.’”55 In these ways, Julian 
51. Cf. the summary of Julian’s advice to Margery Kempe included in the The Book 
of Margery Kempe, ch. 18, 77–79.
52. College and Walsh, Showings, 284.
53. Ibid., 423.
54. Ibid., 424.
55. Julian, Revelations, 110–11. “And stondyng alle thys, me thought it was vnpos-
sible that alle maner of thing shuld be wele, as oure lorde shewde in thys tyme. And as 
to thys I had no other answere in shewyng of oure lorde but thys: That þat is vnpossible 
to the is nott vnpossible to me. I shalle saue my worde in alle thyng, and I shalle make 
althyng wele” (College and Walsh, Showings, 425–26).
“All SHAll Be Well”80
emphasizes the limits upon understanding entailed by the receiver, 
as if adhering to that much iterated principle of Aquinas: res recipitur 
secundum modum recipientis, that is, “a thing is received in a manner 
appropriate to the receiver.” 
The “showings” themselves are also limited in that they do not 
extend to illumine things in their full concretion. Indeed, this limit is 
God-willed. When Julian wanted to know the destiny of a certain loved 
one, she is answered by a friend’s advice: “Interpret it in a general sense 
. . . for it does greaterhonor to God to behold him in everything than 
in any specific thing.”56 Her way of articulating this general perspective, 
however, is not in terms of universalia as they functioned in scholastic 
discourse. Rather, her meaning is articulated in a literary way via a lin-
guistic trope, that extreme metonymy in which the part is the whole, 
namely, synecdoche. Thus, the God-man is the Trinity (the divine 
whole),57 Julian is the company of the saved,58 and that company in turn 
is the human race.59 each representative is the whole that she or he rep-
resents. Thus, via synecdoche we see a collective whole acting and being 
acted upon; we behold the drama of the Creator in his dealings with the 
creation as a whole and in its wholeness. Such a vision does not extend 
below the whole to any of its parts, even the representative part when 
considered qua part.
Julian, of course, had a model for her deployment of synecdoche. 
She was imitating the Scriptures, in particular, the Pauline motif of the 
first and second Adam. I should add that Julian’s deployment of synec-
doche simultaneously discloses to the visionary her proper attitude in 
the face of her own limits as receiver, as well as the limits God sets upon 
the revelations themselves. She is to acknowledge these limits with joy-
ful acceptance “for alle that he shewyth and for all that he hydyth.”60 One 
can see here one of the elemental spiritual exercises that have their roots 
in ancient philosophy, and that continues to be deployed throughout the 
56. Translation mine. “frendfulle mene: Take it generally, . . . for it is more wors-
hype to god to beholde hym in alle than in any specyalle thyng” (College and Walsh, 
Showings, 432).
57. College and Walsh, Showings, 295.
58. Ibid., 319–20.
59. Ibid., 322.
60. Ibid., 438.
Sweetman / Julian of Norwich (c.1342–c.1416) 81
subsequent centuries, finding for example a distant echo in the notion of 
amor fati of Friedrich nietzsche.61
Julian and the Place of Stories
The upshot of these limitations was that Julian felt her understanding of 
the coincidence of divine love and human sin or evil to remain invinci-
bly incomplete. The sight lines are blurred and constantly, frustratingly 
interrupted. What appears does so in full chiaroscuro62 and thus as a 
confusing interplay of the luminous and the opaque that defeats our 
gaze even as it invites its deployment. Much that we would see remains 
unavailable and out of reckoning. As a result, it is not via intellective ca-
pacities alone that Julian coped with her deep existential dilemma. even 
still, though she acknowledges that even the visionary sees in aenigmate, 
she, and we following her, is not wholly without resources. We are, one 
could say, legally blind, but not fully sightless.
What Julian’s visions provide her is the promise—all shall be well. 
Its force is futural. It is also contingent, for its subject—the world of 
creatures—is contingent to its core. As a result, the promise can only be 
properly expressed linguistically here and now in the subjunctive mood, 
even if, at the same time, a jussive. A promise is not a present fact, and 
yet it need not be a bald or groundless assertion. There is evidence to be 
had all around us. Or at any rate, such is Julian’s sense. 
We begin to see as she saw by examining her response to her first 
“showing.” The sight of the bleeding crucifix stirred her to charity for her 
fellow Christians, for she wanted them to see what she was given to see. 
And she had good reason for this want; such a general seeing would fit 
the sight itself: “for alle this syght was shewde in generale.”63 Her desire 
caused her to speak to those who were gathered round her deathbed: 
“Today is the Day of Judgement for me.”64 Her intent for this utterance is 
61. For the philosophical spiritual exercise and its place within the history of 
Western philosophy see Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life.
62. The term “chiaroscuro” comes from the world of painting and names an artistic 
convention developed in the Renaissance in which the painter plays with light, exag-
gerating the luminescence of light and obfuscation of shadow so as to juxtapose the 
resultant exaggerations to striking effect, suggesting presences and absences that ask 
questions of an onlookers’ “realist” expectations. 
63. College and Walsh, Showings, 319.
64. Julian, Revelations, 74. “It is this daye domys day with me” (College and Walsh, 
Showings, 319).
“All SHAll Be Well”82
significant in the present context: “I said this because I wanted them to 
love God, and to remind them who had an exemplum in me, that life is 
short. I was sure I was dying, and this to me was a cause both of wonder 
and disquiet, for I thought the vision was meant for those who were 
going on living.”65 
A “general vision” is given to her who is dying. Surely, she thought, 
it must be given to her on behalf of others for such a vision can only be 
given to the living, indeed, the whole community of living addressed by 
the vision. By implication, Julian is, in the mode of representation, the 
very community of the living addressed by her vision. She takes this on 
in her utterance, by underlying herself as exemplum. We will come back 
to the nature of an exemplum shortly. For now we note that she goes on to 
elaborate the implications of her assumption of her representative office.
And though I speak of myself I am really speaking of all my fellow 
Christians, for I was taught by the inner meaning of this revelation 
that God intends this. So I beg you all for God’s sake, and advise 
you for your own, to stop thinking about the poor wretch who was 
shown these things, and with all your strength, wisdom, and hu-
mility look at God, that in his loving courtesy and eternal goodness 
he may be willing to show it to all and sundry, to our own great 
comfort. For it is God’s will that you should receive it with great joy 
and pleasure, as if Jesus himself had showed it to you all.66
She is, in point of fact, a synecdoche of the community of Chris-
tians she addresses. She is, qua representative, the whole in which she 
participates. She is, at one and the same time, singularity and generality. 
Moreover, all her importance is as representative, as synecdoche; her 
singularity by contrast is a wretched thing to be moved beyond. In other 
words, she is, in her singularity, an integument that the community of 
65. Ibid. “This I sayde for I wolde they schulde loue god the better, for to make 
them to haue mynde that this lyfe is short, as they mygt se in exsample. For in all thys 
tyme I wenyd to haue dyed, and that was marveyle to me and wonder in perty, for 
my thought this avysion was schewde for them that shuld lyue” (College and Walsh, 
Showings, 319).
66. Ibid. “Alle that I say of me I mene in person of alle my evyn christen, for I am 
lernyd in the gostely shewyng of our lord god that he meneth so. And therefore I pray 
yow alle for gods sake, and counceyle yow for yowre awne pro(f)yght, þat ye leue the 
beholding of a wrech that it was schewde to, and myghtely, wisely and meekly behold 
in god, that of hys curteyse loue and endlesse goodnesse wolld shew it generally in 
comfort of vs alle. For it is goddess wylle that ge take it with a grete ioy and lykyng, as 
Jhesu hath shewde it to yow (College and Walsh, Showings, 319–20).
Sweetman / Julian of Norwich (c.1342–c.1416) 83
Christians she represents (and so makes real) is to examine, with her 
help, and so discover the general significance just below the surface. 
One can make this point in another way. Julian writes herself into the 
Showings. The literary form she takes is as synecdoche. However, she not 
only is the whole in which she participates (the community addressed by 
her visions); she addresses the other participants in that same whole. The 
text then has a pedagogical intent. The pedagogical form she takes in the 
Showings is as exemplum, i.e., as a narrative mediating understanding of 
a kind.Throughout the Showings, exempla confirm the promises imparted 
by Julian’s visions. The life of the Virgin Mary has that function, for 
example,67 modeling for Julian her own role as receptor of the divine 
word via the revelations she received. In the context of Julian’s dilem-
ma, she is able to point to a variety of stories from the Old and new 
Testament in which weal resulted from woe—David, Mary Magdalene, 
Peter, Paul, and Thomas.68 These would be stories she could count on 
her english readers and hearers knowing, of course. She also cites an-
other example they would have known: an english saint whose sanctity 
was first advertised by Bede. She alludes to a number of the stories of 
dire sin and subsequent spectacular penances of the Anglo-Saxon saint 
John of Beverly, stories belonging to a version of the saint’s life that dif-
fers rather colorfully from the pastel narrative penned by Bede.69 The 
paradigm for all of these stories is the doubled story alluded to by St. 
Paul—the story of the first and second Adam. Indeed, the second Adam 
tells Julian of the magnitude of woe undergone by the first Adam and the 
excess of weal that marks his own divine response. The harm entailed 
by Adam’s sin “was the most harme that evyr was done or evyr shalle in 
to the worldes end.”70 On the other hand, Christ’s work of atonement is 
described as “more plesyng,” and “more wurschypfulle . . . than evyr was 
the synne of Adam harmfulle.”71 The comparison sets up a reiteration 
of the promise that all shall be well, here contextualized by the biblical 
exemplum par excellence: “Since I have now made the greatest wrong 
67. College and Walsh, Showings, 400–401.
68. Ibid., 446.
69. See, Deighton, “Julian of norwich’s Knowledge of the life of St. John of Beverly.”
70. College and Walsh, Showings, 412.
71. Ibid., 413.
“All SHAll Be Well”84
good, I want you to know by this that I shall make good all wrongs of 
whatever degree.”72 
This example of examples, the doubled story of the first and second 
Adam, is of course the hidden meaning of yet another pertinent nar-
rative, the climactic vision of the lord and the servant. I say that this 
vision-narrative has a climactic force because the story is adumbrated 
at a number of points in the course of the Showings73 as is the doubled 
story of the first and second Adam embedded within. Indeed, one can 
speculate that the long text represents a complete reworking of the 
Showings occasioned by her long struggle to understand just this story. 
Consequently, it deserves our special attention.
In the fourteenth “showing” Julian sees a loving lord sending his 
faithful servant on an errand. The servant is so excited to be able to serve 
his lord in some action that he bolts from his lord’s presence, running at 
top speed, with his head full of his master’s wants, to the exclusion of all 
else. So rendered unaware, he falls into a ditch and is woefully injured. 
Julian identifies fully seven ways in which the servant was wounded. 
The servant suffers alone, as far as he knows, though this is not in fact 
so. The lord is near, knows the circumstances of his servant’s travail, 
and determines to lift him up and reward him for his faithful intent. 
Consequently, the lord lifts him up and exchanges his servant’s togs for 
the apparel suitable to a member of the lord’s family, henceforth to eat 
at the lord’s table.
Julian reads the lord as the Father God and the servant as both the 
first and the second Adam. In this, she understands there to be a tight 
isomorphism at play in the life-patterns of the Scriptures’ two human 
archetypes—an isomorphism so tight that their stories can be embed-
ded within the exact same integument. 
The first Adam’s fall is cast not as corruption but as unbridled en-
thusiasm to serve his lord in love. His suffering is very real, and it pro-
foundly distorts his view of the world and his relationship to his lord. 
His ditch becomes a hell of pain and sorrow, but it is a hell entered in 
stumbling innocence through a child’s devil-may-care enthusiasm. We 
might think of her vision as mirroring from afar and daringly developing 
72. Julian, Revelations, 106. “For sythen that I haue made welle the most harm, than 
it is my wille that thou know ther by that I shalle make wele all that is less” (College and 
Walsh, Showings, 413).
73. e.g., College and Walsh, Showings, 313, 408–9.
Sweetman / Julian of Norwich (c.1342–c.1416) 85
the view of Adam and “original sin” articulated by Irenaeus of Antioch 
at the dawn of the Christian theological tradition.74
As already noted, Julian sees the servant with double vision. every 
detail of his being and doing applies equally to the first and the second 
Adam. For both, there is an overpassing love for their lord, a calamity 
and resultant separation to be overcome, an enabling so that the suffer-
ing servant can receive the glorious reward for his efforts, a reward given 
in an excessive magnanimity that lifts him beyond his original station, 
servant become Son. The doubling of vision accomplishes two things 
simultaneously. First, it shows Julian and us at last what sin is. Sin comes 
to name the excessive love that transforms all measured orders bringing 
chaos and the suffering chaos lets loose in its wake. Christ’s love is viewed 
as isomorphic with original sin, for it too is, from the fallen creaturely 
perspective, excessive; it too wreaks havoc on an order of sorts, entailing 
a suffering let loose in his love’s “chaotic” wake. In Julian’s understanding 
then the story of the lord and the servant is an integument that brings to 
the surface the hidden meaning of St. Paul’s claim that Christ, who knew 
no sin, took on the form of sin so that in him we might become the righ-
teousness of God (2 Cor 5:21). Secondly, it allows us to see how it is that 
God beholds us in our sin, confirming thereby that there is no blame, as 
if we were as blameless as the angels that are in heaven. After all, if our 
suffering is a result of the excess of love, how are we to be blamed by the 
God who reveals Godself to be love?
Exempla are stories with pedagogical intent and virtue.75 They point 
to things so that their recipients can turn and see them for themselves. 
Julian uses exempla to point pedagogically to the promises in the con-
text of her acknowledgement of the dilemma posed by her visions and 
the common teaching of holy church. It is as if she acknowledges the 
limits placed on all our capacity to see how these two contrary sources 
of understanding can be resolved and says, However impossible it is to 
understand: woe turns to weal; health emerges from heat of hell. Do not 
fear to trust Christ’s promise—wonders such as this happen all the time. 
In this she was using exempla exactly as they had evolved in the rhetori-
cal theory of her day to be used. 
74. Irenaeus’ view is to be found in his much-commented-upon Against Heresies.
75. See Moos, Geschichte als Topik for the philosophical and cognitive dimensions 
of the rhetorical exemplum.
“All SHAll Be Well”86
Exempla as a Mode of Understanding
Roman rhetors had taught that exempla were designed to convince 
magistrates operating in a judicial process of the appropriate motivation 
of a particular person. The orator established thereby the ethos of the 
person in question. The forms such persuasive narratives were to take 
were highly stereotypical. Here is an example expressed in abstract form: 
Great hero “x” in circumstances “y” acted in manner “z” for lofty reasons 
“a,” “b,” “c.” Just so I, or my client, when placed in similar circumstances, 
have acted similarly and for similarly lofty reasons. you, sir, are wise; by 
all means, do the math.76
What gave such a discursive figure its power to persuade, was the 
pattern of ancient paideia. Great prestige was accorded to a heroic past 
and to the heroes that authoritative narratives of the past preserved. The 
heroic past and its heroes existed in temporal suspension betweenthe 
morally hazy, ever youthful, once-upon-a-time myths of the gods, on the 
one hand, and the senescent stories of moral senility and failure char-
acteristic of merely human history, on the other. Heroes existed some-
where between Hesiod’s world and Thucydides’, somewhere between 
Virgil’s and Seutonius’.77 
Heroes were in touch with the inspiring nobility and grandeur of 
the gods in a way that was, at the same time, not so elevated as to be 
beyond human likes and dislikes, or, more importantly, beyond a human 
sense of what is morally noble or base. Consequently, heroes made the 
norms of an elevating and godly nobility accessible to human beings 
in a way that was inviting and thereby effective. Moral instruction was 
centered upon a wide selection of such heroic exempla that were to fill 
the student with wonder and a consequent longing to relive or imitate 
76. The thirteenth-century Dominican Johannes Balbi of Genoa alludes to this 
form of argumentation in his Catholicon: “Item exemplum est quedam species argu-
mentationis et secundum hoc exemplum est quando fit processus ab uno particulari 
ad aliud, ut Athenienses pugnare Thebanos est malum, ergo Thebanos pugnare contra 
Focenses est malum.” (likewise, an exemplum is a certain species of persuasion and 
consequently is constituted by a moving from one particular to another; for example, it 
is bad for Athenians to attack Thebans, so it is bad for Thebans to attack Phocians). See 
Catholicon, no pagination—material organized alphabetically, in this instance, under 
the lemma exemplar.
77. The between-character of the world of heroes comes out even in the rationalist 
reading given the heroes by W. K. C. Guthrie in his The Greeks and Their Gods (espe-
cially pp. 231–53). 
Sweetman / Julian of Norwich (c.1342–c.1416) 87
the hero in question. Thus, the actions of these heroes could be said to 
have hovered over the ancient Greeks and Romans as hallowing spirits 
over the void. To give but one example, both Alexander the Great and 
Pyrrhus of epirus were reported to have thought and dreamed of him-
self as a new Achilles and to have deliberately acted accordingly.78
Patristic writers and educators brought the rhetorical exemplum 
of ancient paideia into Christian spiritual formation. Medieval pastors 
and spiritual counselors in turn inherited use of the term, its association 
with persuasion, and its identification either with a particular person or 
deed (alternatively with a narrative about a particular person or deed 
who or which inspired wonder and called for imitation). Indeed, the 
mimetic effect of exempla was assumed to be intrinsic to them. It could 
be assumed and deployed in a rhetorical ductus or associative chain 
pointing the reader or hearer beyond itself toward something noble and 
alluring. For Christian pastors and spiritual counselors the point was 
not so much to form the understanding of the reader or hearer, as it was 
to redirect whole persons in their subsequent living toward their most 
noble exemplar. 
The late thirteenth-century Dominican Johannes Balbi of Genoa 
sums up the multiple layers of meaning that had accrued to the term 
exemplum in the long centuries of its use and in relation to its correlative 
term, exemplar.
There is the exemplar to which the exemplum is a likeness, whence 
exemplum is an active word [strives toward its correlate as if going 
out toward an end—sw]. Whence an exemplar is the genus, an 
exemplum something contained in it. Alternatively, an exemplar 
is a book, an exemplum something contained in it. In addition, 
an exemplum is a narration of a past saying or deed joined to the 
name of its trustworthy author, e.g., “we all ought to labour for 
heaven as did the apostle who suffered so many blows.” likewise, 
an exemplum is a certain species of persuasion and consequently 
is constituted by a moving from one particular to another, e.g., it 
is bad for Athenians to attack Thebans, so it is bad for Thebans to 
attack Phocians.79
78. For the imitation of the heroes as pedagogical end, see Marrou, History of 
Education in Antiquity, 33–34.
79. See note 43 above for reference. The latin text reads: “Unde hoc exemplar,—
aris, ad cujus similitudinem sit. Unde exemplo,—plas, verbum activum. Unde siquidam 
exemplar genus est exemplum quod trahis inde. Vel exemplar liber est exemplum quod 
“All SHAll Be Well”88
Exempla then are signs referring beyond themselves to a sign-
transcending exemplar. The exemplar was to be thought of as “beyond,” 
but that did not entail absolute difference. Rather, Johannes understood 
exemplar and exemplum to relate as genus and one of its species, or, even 
more pregnantly, as a book and one of its contents. Both metaphors as-
sumed that the relationship between exemplar and exemplum is realized 
in relation to a third party. In other words, both relationships could be 
thought of as construals. The one demanded a dialectician and the other 
a reader, for the exemplar existed here and now only in its exemplum as a 
genus existed within one of its species. Moreover, an exemplum only re-
ferred to its exemplar when read. In addition, exempla are authorities, by 
which is meant trustworthy literary places to start to think about things, 
places authorized by those who articulated them authoritatively. Finally, 
exempla constitute a mode of persuasion deployed argumentatively, a 
discursive movement or ductus creating an impression of plausibility as 
it passes from and connects particular to particular.
Such a ductus is argumentatively persuasive without being either 
deductive or inductive in its movement. That is, it is neither a valid 
movement of thought from a universal principle to some necessary or 
probable conclusion, nor is it a valid movement from particulars to a 
universal reality implicit within them. Rather, the exemplum remains 
at the level of particulars, moving from one to the other plausibly via 
analogies triggered by experiential connection. The triggers are ulti-
mately mnemonic and were listed by Thomas Aquinas as three: likeness, 
contrariety, and propinquity.80
In Johannes Balbi’s telling, then, the cognitive advance involved in 
arguing via narrative is cashed out in the currency of plausibility. Stories, 
in their focus on what is particular in contradistinction to the universal, 
can never move the mind beyond the plausible. even so, mere plausibil-
ity already bespeaks a kind of understanding—conjecture. It is lowly in 
contrast to scientia, but it has its place in human living. Indeed, most of 
us live most of our lives making decisions on the basis of conjecture. We 
do so because there is a gap that would need to be filled were conjecture 
trahis inde. et est exemplum alicuius dicti vel facti praeteriti propositio, cum certi auc-
toris nomine, ut omnes pro superna laborare debemus sicut fecit apostolus qui tot ver-
bera passus est. Item exemplum est quedam species argumentationis et secundum hoc 
exemplum est quando fit processus ab uno particulari ad aliud, ut Athenienses pugnare 
Thebanos est malum, ergo Thebanos pugnare contra Focenses est malum.”
80. Aquinas, In Aristotelis libros, 5.363–64.
Sweetman / Julian of Norwich (c.1342–c.1416) 89
to be replaced by more substantial understandings, a gap we are unable 
to fill because time, immensity of object, paucity of imagination, or cog-
nitive acuity somehow limits us invincibly.
When one arrives at or subsequently judges in accordance with 
conjecture, one is forced to acknowledge the gap. One must either ac-
knowledge the need to traverse the gap or the fact of having done so. 
Moreover, one must acknowledge that one’s warrant for doing so is less 
secure than one would like. Conjecture, then, demands trust; indeed, 
trust is embedded within the plausibility that conjecture produces. In 
this light, it is significant that Julian invariably identifies the iterations of 
the promise—all shall be well—with trust.
In commenting on her second showing, forat Willamette 
University and the author of The Inescapable Love of God (Universal 
Publishers, 1999). He also contributed four chapters to Universal 
Salvation? The Current Debate (Paternoster, 2003), wrote the entry on 
universalism for The Oxford Handbook of Eschatology (OUP, 2010), 
and has argued in several journal articles that the traditional under-
standing of hell is inconsistent with the Christian concept of God.
1
1 
Introduction
Between Heresy and Dogma
Gregory MacDonald
At the most simple level Christian universalism is the belief that 
 God will (or, in the case of “hopeful universalism,” might) re-
deem all people through the saving work of Christ. Within the history 
of Christianity such a belief has been a minority sport, and those who 
have embraced it have been, with some notable exceptions, not very 
well known. Indeed, it would probably be true to say that for most of 
Christian history the majority of Christians have thought that such a 
belief was outside the bounds of orthodoxy. In the minds of the major-
ity it was simply a given that Christianity taught that the unsaved were 
consigned to suffer the never-ending torments of hell. But there were 
always Christian voices that sang a different song—a song in which, one 
day, all God’s creatures would be redeemed.
The main goal of this volume is that of listening to and understand-
ing these discordant voices. The book is intended as an exploration of 
their views rather than as a defense of them. Some of the authors of this 
book are universalists, but others are agnostic on the issue, and some of 
them think that universalism is just plain mistaken. So if you are looking 
for a book on “the case for universalism,” or, alternatively, one on “why 
universalists are wrong,” then you will be disappointed. If, however, your 
goal is to understand and to think afresh then our hope is that this vol-
ume will provide a unique and fascinating opening into the little-known 
worlds of Christian universalism.
“All SHAll Be Well”2
This book, however, is not merely a descriptive exercise that out-
lines what various individual Christian thinkers have thought about 
universal salvation. each of our authors was invited to offer some brief 
assessment of the strengths and/or weaknesses of their subject’s theol-
ogy, and these brief evaluations are offered in order to further stimulate 
the theological engagement of readers with the issues.
Before launching into the studies themselves it is important, in light 
of the common perception of universalism as “dangerous” and “hereti-
cal,” to take some time to locate these explorations in relation to orthodox 
Christian faith. It is also useful to get some appreciation of the diversity 
of Christian universalisms before plunging into the depths of specific 
theologies. This introduction seeks to perform these two tasks.
Universalism between Heresy and Dogma
While attending the Baptist Association meeting in Philadelphia in 1779 
elhanan Winchester (see chapter 7), a twenty-eight-year-old Baptist pas-
tor and revivalist preacher, was invited to lead the First Baptist Church 
in the city. Winchester accepted. He quickly became a very popular 
preacher in Philadelphia and preached, in his words, “to many thou-
sands of different people.”
What those who invited Winchester did not realize was that, 
though he had a reputation for hyper-Calvinism, for some while he had 
been pondering the theology of universal restoration. In 1778 he had 
skimmed a book by Paul Siegvolk called The Everlasting Gospel, which 
defended universalism. This book slowly began to unsettle his theologi-
cal thinking. He found its arguments to be powerful and discussed them 
in private with friends when opportunity arose. These private theologi-
cal explorations continued when he moved to Philadelphia, but there 
his conversation partners reported him to another minister—a man 
Winchester considered his best friend. This “best friend” denounced 
him as a heretic and never spoke to him again, refusing all Winchester’s 
attempts at reconciliation.
He saw the storm coming! Ironically it was this anticipated resis-
tance that compelled him in 1780 to focus intensely on the Bible and 
clarify for himself what he thought about universalism. He wrote, “I 
became so well persuaded of the truth of the Universal Restoration, that 
I was determined never to deny it, let it cost me ever so much, though all 
MacDonald / Introduction 3
my numerous friends should forsake me, as I expected they would, and 
though I should be driven from men . . . and suffer the loss of all things, 
friends, wealth, fame, health, character, and even life itself.”1
But while not denying the doctrine, he never proclaimed it in public 
and rarely in private. In 1781 some of his church members, learning of 
his views, asked him never to speak of them. He agreed never to preach 
them, nor to bring them up in conversation, but insisted that if he was 
asked about the subject he could not deny his beliefs. This compromise 
satisfied them. But, of course, the lid could not be kept on the box—word 
got out and people did come and ask him about his unusual theology. 
Some were persuaded, others resisted, and a “situation” developed.
not long later, some of his opponents took advantage of his absence 
on a trip to visit George De Benneville (see later) in nearby Germantown 
to try to discredit him. The attempt backfired on them, however, when 
he returned before they expected him to. The opponents then demanded 
that the congregation get a new minister; but such issues were decided in 
Baptist churches by majority vote and the majority supported Winchester. 
So the opponents were compelled first of all to put pressure on church 
members to change their allegiance (threatening to excommunicate all 
who did not do so) and secondly to take the matter to law. They argued 
that the votes of Winchester’s supporters did not count because their 
“heterodox” views placed them outside of membership of the Baptist 
Society because the universalists denied the confession of faith.2 The 
minority prevailed and in this way they were able to take control of the 
church property and expel Winchester and his followers.3
The reactions both of Winchester’s ministerial “best friend” 
and of his opponents within the Baptist church itself are not unusual. 
Universalism has often been labeled as heresy. It is considered by many 
to be unbiblical, unorthodox, unsavory, unhelpful, and unchristian—
something to be avoided! Some universalists have attempted to strike 
back by arguing not only that their views are consistent with the Bible 
but also that universal restoration was the prevailing view of the church 
in its first five hundred years. The view that hell is an everlasting punish-
ment is, they maintain, a theology that arose as pagan thinking infected 
1. “Preface” to 1792 edition of Winchester, The Universal Restoration.
2. Presumably the Second london Confession of 1677.
3. On this incident see Stone, Biography, 46–57. Stone includes both Winchester’s 
account and also an account from the perspective of the non-universalist group.
“All SHAll Be Well”4
the church!4 So the purer, more original Christianity is universalist, and 
those who affirm everlasting hell are the true heretics. The claim that all 
will be saved was believed by some universalists to be the gospel itself—
the true heart of Christian faith.
I think that both of these approaches are unhelpful and that if we 
are to be true to the historic faith we need eschew both of these extremes 
and to relocate universalism somewhere between heresy and dogma.
Is Universalism Heretical?
One not infrequently hears the claim that universalism is heretical. More 
often than not those making such claims simply mean that the doctrine 
is, in their opinion, both wrong and dangerous. But sometimes they mean 
that an ecumenical church council formally condemned the doctrine as 
heretical. As the declarationsexample, Julian identi-
fies three things that God wishes us to have. The third of these things is 
that we trust God with all our might. “He works in secret, yet he wills 
to be seen. His appearing will be delightful and unexpected. His will is 
that we trust him, him who is utterly kind and unassuming. Blessings 
on him!”81 Commenting on the thirteenth showing, she distinguishes 
what pertains to our Savior and salvation and what does not. The latter 
matters she identifies as “completely hidden from us.”82 Awareness of 
these mysteries brings her back to trust: “Here it was that I was taught 
to trust and rejoice only in our blessed Saviour, Jesus, and in whatever 
circumstances.”83 Commenting on the fourteenth showing, she empha-
sizes the mixed character of the time in which we live our lives: “a won-
derful mixture of both weal and woe.”84 In that context Christ wills that 
“we trust that he is lastingly with us.”85 Our trust however never appears 
alone. It mediates between “fulle and tru feyth,”86 to which trust belongs, 
and hope which it produces: “For God wills that we should hold on in 
81. Julian, Revelations, 79. “For his workyng is prevy, and he wille be perceyved, and 
his aperyng shalle be swet(h)e sodeyn. And he wylle be trustyd, for he is fulle homely, 
curteyse, blessyd mott he be” (College and Walsh, Showings, 335).
82. Ibid., 107. “[H]yd and sparryd fro vs” (College and Walsh, Showings, 415).
83. Ibid. “And here was I lernyd Þat we shulde onely enjoye in oure blessyd sauioure 
Jhesu, and trust in hym for alle thyng” (College and Walsh, Showings, 416).
84. Translation mine. “a mervelous medelur both of wele and of woo” (College and 
Walsh, Showings, 546–47).
85. College and Walsh, Showings, 549
86. Ibid., 335
“All SHAll Be Well”90
trust to this so that here below we may be as sure of our hope of heavenly 
bliss as we shall be absolutely certain of it when we are there above.”87 
Teaching by example produces plausibility that produces trust that 
produces hope. And that hope is a conjecture pointed surely at the very 
heart of the promise. As Julian put the matter: “Trew hope was in the 
endlesse loue, that I saw that I shulde be kepte by hys mercy and brought 
to the blysse.”88 In the context of a mixed world in which its heart is 
both illumined and yet hid, even in the light of divine revelation, hope 
is not sight. What it is, however, is a trustworthy sense of God’s promise, 
enabling us to negotiate our way in the difficulties of our present life.
This word, “you will not be overcome,” was said very distinctly and 
firmly to give us confidence and comfort for whatever troubles 
may come. He did not say, “you will never have a rough passage, 
you will never be over-strained, you will never feel uncomfort-
able,” but he did say, “you will never be overcome.” God wants 
us to pay attention to these words, so as to trust him always with 
strong confidence, through thick and thin. For he loves us, and 
delights in us; so he wills that we should love and delight in him in 
return, and trust him with all our strength. So all will be well.89
Stories then make plausible our hope in the promises of God. They 
illustrate the fact that something analogous to what God promises hap-
pens all the time. The plausibility of God’s promises that these stories 
confirm, builds trust which in turn produces hope that directs us back 
to the promises, now taken on as the very meaning of our lives. It is in 
hope that we accept the promise that all shall be well, and that despite 
our sense—both habitual and experiential—of the hellish reality of evil. 
What Julian shows us, in her fetching fourteenth-century way, is how 
one might understand the position the late John Paul II was said to have 
come to on the reality of hell. The reality of hell is deeply rooted in the 
87. Julian, Revelations, 179. “For he wylle we kepe this trustly, Þat we be as seker in 
hope of the blysse of hevyn whyle we are here as we shalle be in suerte when we ar there” 
(College and Walsh, Showings, 627).
88. College and Walsh, Showings, 498.
89. Julian, Revelations, 185. “And this worde: Thou shalt nott be ovyrcom, was seyde 
fulle sharply and full myghtly, for sekernesse and comfort against all trybulacyons that 
may come. He seyde nott: Thou shalt not be trobelyd, thou shalt not be traveyled, thou 
shalle not be dyssesyd; but he seyde: Thou shalt not be ovyrcom. God wylle that we take 
hede at this worde, and Þat we be evyr mighty in feytfull trust, in wele and wo, for he 
louyth vs and lykyth vs, and so wylle he that we loue hym and lyke hym and myghtely 
trust in hym, and all shall be welle (College and Walsh, Showings, 646–47).
Sweetman / Julian of Norwich (c.1342–c.1416) 91
traditional understanding of God’s revelation and its implications for 
our lives and destinies. nevertheless, we can hope, indeed, we have a 
Christian obligation to live in the hope that it is or shall be an empty 
place, so that in the end, as Julian never tired of saying—all shall be 
well. Was Julian a universalist? It would seem not, if the term is used 
to name an intellectual position validly assumed as a result of careful 
logical analysis. On the other hand, if one were to speak not of an order 
of reasons but instead of an “order” of hope, one would have to come 
to a different conclusion. Hope must be universal in its encompass. To 
Julian’s way of thinking, such a position has a great deal of plausibility; it 
is something one could trust with a trust aimed in love at the God who 
is love and who has made us the most marvelous promises. 
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SeVenTeenTH 
TO nIneTeenTH 
CenTURIeS
95
5 
Love Is All and God Is Love
Universalism in Peter Sterry (1613–1672) 
and Jeremiah White (1630–1707)
louise Hickman
Background and Context
Universalism was a doctrine not widely espoused in seven-
teenth-century england. That hell is eternal was orthodox belief1 
and any suggestion to the contrary was viewed with grave suspicion as 
1. See, e.g., Calvin Institutes, III, xxv, 12; Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, bk. III, 
ch. cxliv.
“All SHAll Be Well”96
a “detestable and damnable” doctrine of the Arminians;2 an opinion be-
lieved to give rise to ethical anarchy and antinomianism. If hell is finite, 
what sort of deterrent is it against misbehaving in this life? What use is 
Christ’s death if God can cancel the debt of human sin by will alone? 
Despite general denigration, however, arguments that God’s salvation 
has universal scope gradually gathered momentum throughout the 
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. A brief relaxing of the censorship 
laws between 1641 and 1660 and the relatively cheap cost of a printing 
press meant that many unorthodox and sometimes eccentric theologi-
cal views were able to be aired, giving rise to an atmosphere of increas-
ing tolerance and debate. The first public defense of Origen’s theology, 
the anonymous Letter of Resolution concerning Origen, was published 
in 16613 and by the close of the seventeenth century universalism was 
embraced by many dissenting radical groups of thinkers including the 
Socinians, levellers, and Quakers.4
Peter Sterry (1613–1672) and Jeremiah White (1630–1707) were 
two notable thinkers who argued for the infinite scope of God’s love and 
salvation and, therefore, for the ultimate redemption of all. Sterry al-
ludes to universal salvation in his posthumously published Discourse of 
the Freedom of the Will (1675) and in The Rise, Race, and Royalty of the 
Kingdom of God in the Soul of Man (1683), but it is more pronounced 
in his manuscript That the State of Wicked Men after This Life Is Mixt of 
Evill, & Good Things. Here he wrote that redemption “is confirmed to be 
most Universall” and will include “the falne Angells as well as the elect 
Ones.”5 White’s commitment to this doctrine in his published works is 
more explicit, and it is the central theme of The Restoration of All Things, 
published in 1712. Both writers published anonymously, posthumously, 
or both (most likely because of the general abhorrence felt towards 
2. Patrides, “The Salvation of Satan,” 46–78. Patrides draws attention to the fact 
that although the doctrine was often associated with Arminianism, many defenders of 
universalism were not themselves Arminian. 
3. The letter is widely accepted as written by George Rust, a friend of the Cambridge 
Platonist Henry More.
4. Christopher Hill provides an excellent overview of the radicals who embraced 
unorthodox ideas of hell and punishment at this time; Hill, World Turned Upside Down, 
see esp. 133–39. Gerrard Winstanley, John Biddle, Thomas Tany, Sir Henry Vane, 
and Anne Conway were other influential defenders of universalism. See also Walker, 
Decline, 8–9.
5. Sterry, cited in Walker, Decline, 109.
Hickman / Sterry (1613–1672) and White (1630–1707) 97
such unorthodox views) yet the development away from a static under-
standing of the afterlife was one of the most significant developments 
regarding ideas of life after death in the seventeenth century,6 and both 
thinkers were certainly important in this development while also having 
a not insignificant influence on later eighteenth-century developments 
of universalist thought.7 
Both Sterry and White were mystics who advocated a scriptural 
theology informed by neo-Platonic philosophy.8 Sterry in particular 
had a close association with the Florentine Platonism that flourished 
in Cambridge in the mid to late seventeenth century and it is likely he 
had a notable role in inspiring a general platonizing tendency in english 
philosophy in the late 1630s and early 1640s.9 He became a Fellow of 
emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1637, where he came to associate with 
many of the Cambridge Platonists, including Benjamin Whichcote, Ralph 
Cudworth, and John Smith. His friendship with Whichcote was particu-
larly warm but he left Cambridge and became one of Oliver Cromwell’s 
closest chaplains in 1649. This secured his status as a figure “to whom 
writers and ministers as far away as Wrexham and Dublin turned for bib-
lical guidance.”10 White was also at Cambridge, being a Fellow of Trinity, 
and he also became a chaplain to Cromwell. He referred to Sterry in 
nothing less than reverential terms, describing him as a “saint” who im-
parted a legacy in the form of an unshakeable conviction that “the Spirit 
6. Almond, Heaven and Hell, 75–76.
7. ludlow, “Universal Salvation,” 449–71.
8. With regard to Origen, there is evidence that Sterry had some of Origen’s works 
in his library (see Pinto, Peter Sterry, 58) and his critics often viewed his universalism as 
informed by Origen’s conception of the doctrine (Pinto, Peter Sterry, 88). Richard Roach, 
who wrote the preface to the first edition of White’s Restoration, sees White’s universalism 
as influenced by Origen, while ludlow (“Universal Salvation,” 455) sees White’s scheme 
as an adaptation of Origen’s. David Thom, who wrote the preface for the third edition of 
White’s Restoration, does have a point, however, when he suggests that Sterry and White 
have a distinct argument from that of Origen because they rely primarily on Scripture 
rather than reason. Their arguments certainly focus on an exploration of the meaning of 
Scripture and they treat the Bible as authoritative. They are, however, clearly influenced 
by the philosophies of Origen, Clement of Alexandria, and the neoplatonists. 
9. Teply and Taliaferro state this in their Cambridge Platonist Spirituality, 52. They 
include Sterry as a Cambridge Platonist, as does Sarah Hutton in her introduction to 
Ralph Cudworth’s Treatise (p. x), yet Teply and Taliaferro acknowledge that some stud-
ies of the Cambridge Platonists do not include Sterry, predominantly because of his 
commitment the doctrine of predestination.
10. Matar, “Peter Sterry and Jacob Boehme,” 33–36.
“All SHAll Be Well”98
is love.”11 In fact, the influence of Sterry abounds through all of White’s 
theology12 and the root of their universalism is the shared insistence that 
this love should know no limits, and embrace all. Both thinkers recog-
nized the fact that any debate about the eternity (or not) of hell is more 
fundamentally a debate about the extent of God’s love.
Love as the Foundation of Justice: Punishment, Reform, and 
the Nature of God
White’s Restoration begins and ends with a passionate assurance, inspired 
by John’s Gospel, that God’s supreme nature is love: “love is All: AndGod is love”; one can no more separate love from God than can God’s es-
sence be separated from God’s nature.13 For Sterry too, the starting point 
of theological reflection is the nature of God as love: “God alone is love 
it self, in an abstracted eternal Divine Essence and Substance, pure love, 
altogether unmixt, having nothing in it self different, or divers from it 
self; thus is an infinite Love.”14 God’s works are simply different “modes” 
of divine love,15 and love is the most fundamental attribute by which all 
of the other divine attributes must be understood, including justice and 
power. If God punishes, therefore, this must be a manifestation of love. 
According to both thinkers, those who argue for eternal punishment on 
the grounds of justice have misunderstood the nature of God.
There are two interrelated issues at stake here: the attributes of God 
and the purpose of punishment. If human beings have sinned, then 
some sort of punishment seems warranted given a universal law of jus-
tice (an assumption neither seventeenth-century universalists nor their 
opponents questioned). This gives rise to a dilemma: could God forgive 
human sin before punishment has been endured if God so wished? 
Orthodox defenders of hell’s eternity said, absolutely not: if justice re-
quires punishment, it must be imposed or the very nature of morality is 
11. White, Restoration, 133–34. Walker makes the case that it is Sterry who is being 
referred to here; Walker, Decline, 105.
12. Walker is correct to say that although there are differences between them in 
terms of what they focused on in their writings (e.g., Sterry more on the pre-existence 
of the soul and White on a more full discussion of the eternity of hell), these do not 
amount to a difference of opinion; Walker, Decline, 107.
13. White, Restoration, 2, 151.
14. Sterry, Discourse, 41.
15. Ibid., “Preface,” vi.
Hickman / Sterry (1613–1672) and White (1630–1707) 99
subverted. Justice requires that some souls, particularly Satan, may never 
be saved, and so salvation can never be universal.16 Added to this was the 
belief, adopted by many orthodox thinkers of the time, that offending 
an infinite God necessitates infinite punishment.17 Anselm (1033–1109) 
was the source of this tradition and perhaps its clearest exponent. In 
discussing whether God could just forgive sins without due satisfaction, 
he insisted that restoration must be made or God is no longer the con-
troller of sin or the fount of universal justice.18 Justice is thus made the 
most fundamental attribute of God and if God does not enforce the law 
of justice, God contradicts God’s own nature. John Calvin (1509–1564) 
developed this position and emphasized the vindication of God’s law as 
paramount.19 It was this tradition of thought that shaped seventeenth-
century orthodoxy, with those defending the eternity of hell tending to 
see it as a matter of God’s justice.20 
Such a conviction, however, inevitably sets up a tension between 
concepts of justice and mercy: any mercy shown by God in forgiving 
sinners seems to go against the principle of justice, and there is a dan-
ger that God becomes wrathful and vengeful. It was dissatisfaction with 
this concept of God that motivated Sterry and White’s rejection of God’s 
justice as the foundation for an account of punishment.21 They insisted 
that any prioritizing of justice leads to a perversion of the understand-
ing of divine nature. The whole of White’s Restoration is an attempt to 
argue that justice and wrath are subservient to love and that God always 
acts for the end of love. Too much emphasis on God’s justice will bring 
into question the goodness of God. It is easy for us today to forget how 
unusual Sterry and White were in their day in emphasising love as God’s 
16. Patrides points out that this was the reason why Reformed Protestant theolo-
gians rejected universalism; Patrides, “Salvation of Satan,” 471.
17. Aquinas uses this argument in the Summa Theologiae, Suppl., q. 99, 1. But 
elsewhere he criticizes the argument for making all sins equal (Ia2ae q. 87, 4). White 
certainly saw this position as one adopted by those who argued for an eternal hell; 
White, Restoration, 45.
18. Anselm, “Why God Became Man,” bk I.12. This is often defined as an “objective” 
theory of atonement because justice is enforced (and satisfaction given) for the sake of 
God alone. See, e.g., Gorringe, God’s Just Veneance, 93ff., for a discussion of Anselm’s 
position.
19. Gorringe, God’s Just Vengeance, 139.
20. Almond, Heaven and Hell, 151.
21. See, e.g., White, Restoration, 5.
“All SHAll Be Well”100
supreme attribute,22 yet White challenges the orthodox: “Who can set 
bounds to this unbounded, this unlimited, this uncontroulable, this 
super-abounding Grace?” “Shall Infinite eternal love ever fail? Shall the 
Wrath of Severity of God out live his love, his Grace, his Sweetness? Is 
his Wrath greater than his love?”23 “Wrath is but for a moment,” Sterry 
tells us, but “eternity is for love.”24 Although neither disputed that sin will 
arouse the wrath of God, they insisted that love is the attribute through 
which justice should be understood. True justice, White went as far as to 
suggest, is not punishment at all but the prevention of all the evils that 
harm both ourselves and others. 
Underpinning this debate about the love and justice of God is a 
conflict between two different theories of justice. What is the purpose of 
punishment? Is it to satisfy the laws of justice (as the more Anselmian 
or Calvinist position would have it) or is it to reform the one punished? 
The priority given to God as upholder of the law of justice meant that the 
more orthodox seventeenth-century accounts about hell were shaped 
primarily by retributive ideas of punishment. Sterry and White’s priori-
tizing of God’s attribute of love led them, however, to a more reforma-
tive concept of punishment and, inevitably, to the logical conclusion that 
hell, if it is reformative, cannot be eternal: “And if sin and punishment be 
but instrumental in God’s design and subordinate to an higher and more 
ultimate project and end, then it must be bounded and circumscribed 
within a certain space and time.”25 All punishment gets its justification 
from the law (it is right and proper according to the moral law that sin 
should meet with punishment) but the end of the law is love and the 
purpose of punishment is to destroy the sin but not the sinner; Sin is the 
object of divine hatred against which God ‘shoots his burning arrows.’”26 
The fires of hell themselves are identified less with an instrument of tor-
ture and more with the love of God.27 Both Sterry and White recognized 
that if divine punishment is to be anything more than purely retributive 
22. Walker points out that the dominance of Augustine made it highly unusual to 
make love the supreme attribute of God at the time they were writing; Walker, Decline, 
110.
23. White, Restoration, 241.
24. Sterry, Rise, 385.
25. White, Restoration, 6.
26. Ibid., 187.
27. Sterry, Rise, 52.
Hickman / Sterry (1613–1672) and White (1630–1707) 101
(which makes it vindictive), it must have a reformative element, and if 
this reformative aspect is foundational, punishment must come to an 
end once the work of restoration is done. 
In their account of the nature and purpose of punishment, both 
thinkers had much in common with the radical dissenters of their day 
who tended to see punishment as part of a process of education and 
redemption, an account that shaped a more reformative understanding 
of penal theory throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.28 
The reformative purpose of punishment for Sterry and White inevitably 
means that hell is seen as the instrument of the inner transformation of 
the sinner, which gives it a significant psychological aspect. This marks 
an important contribution by both thinkers to the gradual internaliz-
ing of hell throughout the seventeenth and eighteenthcenturies.29 Hell 
involves a little less being eaten alive by worms and a little more being 
eaten up by a guilty conscience. Thus Sterry envisaged the damned see-
ing heaven as in a dream as a light at a great distance at which point 
sinners become full of remorse on acknowledging the “contrarietie of 
their life past in Sin unto this Heavenly Image.”30 This is how the sinner 
is subject to the “refiner’s fire,” which results in a transformation into the 
form of the love of God by “burning up the Dross and bringing forth the 
pure Gold to shine more beautifully, transforming every thing into one 
Glorious, Heavenly Immortal nature with it self melting and uniting the 
Gold until it all run into one undivided Mass.”31 Regret leads to restora-
tion and, if this is the case, it has to be a conversion of the heart and 
mind, involving more than just the infliction of fire and brimstone. The 
link between reformative punishment and a more psychological concep-
tion of hell seems inevitable: reform must involve inner change.
Why then did Sterry and White place such emphasis on God as 
love at a time when it was relatively unusual to do so? The single most 
28. Gorringe, God’s Just Vengeance, 44.
29. Almond sees a gradual change in conceptions of hell throughout the seven-
teenth and eighteenth centuries, with hell becoming more of a place where spiritual 
progress can be made; Almond, Heaven and Hell, 110. Hill’s World Turned Upside Down 
charts the emergence of a more internalized (and psychological) hell. The Cambridge 
Platonists were an important part of this development: Patrides, “Renaissance and 
Modern Views on Hell,” points out that the Cambridge Platonists tend to see hell more 
as a state of mind than a place.
30. MS, 107–9, cited in Walker, Decline, 114.
31. White, Restoration, 181.
“All SHAll Be Well”102
significant influence here is that of Cambridge Platonism. That God’s 
“justice is the justice of goodness, and so cannot delight to punish” was 
a common theme of the other Cambridge Platonists for whom punish-
ment was not an end in itself but only the means to promote the good of 
the offender; an insight they believed stems from an understanding of 
the attribute of love.32 Rather than being busy preparing “hell for the in-
quisitive” before creation, God occupied Godself with rather more tender 
pursuits by “contriving how to be merciful.”33 Such an emphasis on love 
sprang partly from a neo-Platonic emanationist metaphysics, which col-
ored the Cambridge Platonists’ interpretation of Scripture. God (love) 
is the essence upon which everything else depends.34 Both Sterry and 
White adopted an emanationist theology to explain how the nature of 
justice is love, as everything in existence emanates from love. Ultimately, 
this means all will be restored to unity with the divine.35 Goodness, they 
believed, is by its very nature diffusive; and the divine, which is goodness 
itself, overflows in creative activity: “every Creature is an emanation or 
stream from the Divine essence, the emanation of a moment.”36 The be-
ginning and end of all things are the same because all things emanate 
from the divine and will return to the divine: God is the cause of all 
things and is the telos of all. emanation envisages an inherent harmony 
and order in all created things which gives them beauty and perfection, 
which, for Sterry and White, means that sin cannot permanently disrupt 
this harmony and cannot thwart the final realization of the gathering 
up of all things into the divine: “every thing in its Ultimate end gaineth 
its perfection, its true and proper self. . . . This is the sweet and musical 
close. This is the bright and beautiful crown of all things, the beginning 
and the end meeting in one.”37 The glory of God is the ultimate end of 
everything and it is for this end that God has made all things, including 
32. John Smith, Select Discourses, 155. See also Whichcote, Select Sermons, 120–21. 
Patrides makes the argument that this theme is common to the Cambridge Platonists; 
Patrides, Cambridge Platonists, 36.
33. The quote is from John norris from the Introduction of Patrides, Cambridge 
Platonists, 37. Patrides reports that norris was heavily influenced by the Cambridge 
Platonists and this led him to rethink Augustine’s account of God’s employment before 
the creation.
34. See, e.g., Smith, Select Discourses, 148.
35. Sterry claimed he was influenced here by Proclus; Sterry, Discourse, 105.
36. Sterry, Discourse, 63.
37. Ibid., 168.
Hickman / Sterry (1613–1672) and White (1630–1707) 103
sinners. Having refined the souls of sinners in the purifying fires of hell, 
God will “restore the Creature to that placid and quiet rest, it had in his 
Bosom before it went forth from thence.”38 The glory of God includes 
the perfection of everything and any talk of the wrath of God should be 
viewed in this context; “For love is the end of Wrath.”39 The imagery of 
emanation gives substance to Sterry and White’s insistence that the love 
of God cannot fail and will ultimately reform all. 
Both writers, like many of the other Cambridge Platonists, see each 
created creature as a microcosm of the whole, which means that they en-
visage an intrinsic connectedness between all things and their ultimate 
fates.40 God, the supreme unity, is present in every person, and each of 
us mirrors the divine. Just as the soul is present in every part of the 
body (so when one part of the human body is in pain, the whole person 
suffers), so it is, White said, in the “mystical body”: if just one part of 
it is suffering, the whole suffers. even the elect who are saved “do with 
the Creation groan within themselves, waiting for the Adoption, not 
Redemption of their own particular Bodies only: But the Redemption 
of the Universal Body, else they should come short of the Creation.”41 
If each soul is a shadow of the supreme unity, “no such Individual Soul 
can be forever abandoned” or the whole nature of things will suffer.42 If 
this is true of one soul, White asked, can we think of whether millions 
of souls, “each of which is an intire World, each of which is more Worth 
than the whole World of Inferiour beings, should be deemed such vile 
and abject Things as to be eternally abandon’d of God and lost for ever, 
never to be visited, never to be recovered to the glory of the Creator 
that made them?”43 Obviously, he thinks not, which leads him to assert 
that no matter how unlikely it sounds, Satan himself can be changed 
from a devil to an angel of light, just as the wolf will eventually lie down 
with the lamb. Any other outcome would mean grace is destroyed by 
its own vengeance. A theology that urges such an interconnectedness 
38. White, Restoration, 157.
39. Sterry, Discourse, 171.
40. Smith, Select Discourses, 156–57; Ralph Cudworth, “The Digression concerning 
the Plastick life of nature, or an Artificial, Orderly and Methodical nature,” reprinted 
in Patrides, Cambridge Platonists, 316.
41. White, Restoration, 147.
42. Sterry, Discourse, 101; White, Restoration, 147.
43. White, Restoration, 146.
“All SHAll Be Well”104
of the whole—of all creatures with each other and of God with God’s 
creation—leads to the conclusion that either restoration is limited and 
that therefore part of the divine being itself is in some sense incomplete, 
suffering, or somehow unresolved, or all is harmonized again, in which 
case restoration must be universal. evil, White insisted, cannot outlive 
love, which means that it must ultimately be vanquished. 
Love as the Beginning and the End: Free Will 
and Predestination 
The reason for the attractiveness of this theology of emanation for the 
Cambridge Platonists (including Sterry and White) can be found in the 
largely negative influence of Calvinism.44 Calvinism, which informed 
the orthodox picture of hell and punishment, predestined countless 
souls to the “unextinguishable fire” and “ever-gnawing worm.”45 Infinite 
punishment is a daunting conceptto contemplate at the best of times 
even if there is something one can do to avoid it, but if the vast majority 
of souls are predestined before time to suffer for eternity, obvious ques-
tions need to be raised about the supposed beneficence of the architect 
of this scheme. With no hope of intercession from the saints and no 
doctrine of purgatory (both were banished Roman Catholic ideas) the 
thought of eternal damnation had led many to “melancholy,” despair, 
and even suicide by the time Sterry and White were writing.46 Thomas 
Helwys put it succinctly in 1611: predestination “makes some despair 
utterly as thinking there is no grace for them and that God hath decreed 
their destruction. And it makes others desperately careless, holding that 
if God have decreed they shall be saved then they shall be saved, and if 
God hath decreed they shall be damned they shall be damned.”47 Such 
despair was often followed by conversion (to the doctrine of free grace) 
but not always, and it left many challenging the compatibility of belief 
in an omnipotent and good God together with the idea of eternal pun-
ishment. Calvinism, therefore, sparked philosophical debate about the 
44. Frederick C. Beiser goes as far as to argue that the primary motivating factor for 
at least the early Cambridge Platonists was their desire to combat the atheism they saw 
as implicit in Calvinism. See his Sovereignty of Reason, 148.
45. Calvin Institutes, III, xxv, 12.
46. Hill, World Turned Upside Down, 137–40.
47. Quoted by Underwood, History of the English Baptists, 134. 
Hickman / Sterry (1613–1672) and White (1630–1707) 105
attributes of God, and their compatibility, over a hundred years before 
David Hume reconsidered the epicurean question, and the challenge 
that Calvinist theology posed for a belief in God’s goodness was keenly 
felt, not least by Sterry and White.48 If God is good, then either we can-
not be predestined to suffer in hell (we must have free will so that if we 
end up there forever, it is of our own doing), or hell cannot be eternal. 
The orthodox Reformers were not without a response to the ques-
tion of God’s goodness, as it could be argued—as it was by Augustine, 
Calvin, and also luther—that evil and eternal damnation are not a 
“problem” because evil is part of the unfathomable mystery of God’s 
will.49 The debate here has much in common with contemporary debates 
about theodicy and involves a wider question about the reach of human 
reason.50 For all the Cambridge Platonists, including Sterry and White, 
an appeal to the will of God cannot safeguard the goodness of God if hell 
is eternal. Important here is a consideration of a question about the na-
ture of goodness: is it dependent on God’s will so it could change if God’s 
will changes? This dilemma is first posed by Plato’s Euthyphro,51 and the 
Cambridge Platonists, including Sterry and White, were unanimous in 
their answer: the nature of goodness is eternal, it is part of God’s very 
nature, and this means that God could not turn good into evil by an act 
of will. God’s will is not arbitrary but is the highest law of all wisdom 
and goodness, and so vindictive eternal punishment will never be mor-
ally good.52 These thinkers highlighted astutely the unpalatable taste of a 
theological scheme in which a supposedly merciful God condemns the 
vast majority of souls to eternal hell for sinful actions that they seemingly 
could not help doing because they were predetermined to do them.
All the Cambridge Platonists (including Sterry and White) there-
fore rejected belief in the predestination of souls to eternal hell in order 
to maintain belief in God’s goodness. There is still a theodicy problem 
48. Winstanley is one who perhaps most explicitly raises the compatibility issue: 
see Hill, World Turned Upside Down, 142. Hobbes also points to the incompatibility 
between divine retributive justice and God’s goodness and mercy in Leviathan, pt. 4, 
ch. 44, 431–32. 
49. Almond, Heaven and Hell, 28.
50. See, e.g., Surin, Theology and the Problem of Evil; and Tilley, Evils of Theodicy.
51. Plato asked: “Do the gods love what is pious because it is pious, or is it pious 
because it is loved by the gods?” Euthyphro, 10a.
52. White, Restoration, 203; John Smith, “excellency of True Religion,” in Patrides, 
Cambridge Platonists, 149.
“All SHAll Be Well”106
to be faced, however, if an appeal to God’s mysterious capricious will 
is dismissed. For Whichcote, Smith, Cudworth, and Henry More, any 
problems in theodicy raised by human suffering in hell were accounted 
for by an assertion of the absolute freedom of the will: if we end up in 
hell, for an eternity or not,53 it is of our own doing and does not impact 
upon the goodness of God. Sterry and White, however, rejected belief in 
libertarian free will and adopted a belief in predestination: this marked 
the central difference between them and the other Cambridge Platonist 
writers. The reason for their divergence here is not obvious. Walker re-
ports that they were brought up as Calvinist predestinationists,54 but so 
too were Cudworth, Whichcote, and More, all of whom reacted against 
their puritan backgrounds. The reasons were perhaps several but most 
important were a philosophical objection to the logic of free human 
action, their mystical theology, and a pertinent question about univer-
salism: if every soul will inevitably be saved, and if being saved means 
being reformed, are we free to reject the reforming process and remain 
unsaved? Sterry and White had to answer in the negative: in order to be 
a universalist, it seems that a commitment to some form of “predestina-
tion” is necessary; God’s love cannot fail in the end.
The predestination that Sterry spoke of was very much informed 
by his emanationist philosophy. He was at one with the rest of the 
Cambridge Platonists in holding that the essential inclination of the 
soul is to the good.55 All the Cambridge Platonists insisted that we are 
most free when we do good and if we err it is because we are not truly 
free;56 and for Sterry, liberty could be thought of as harmony between the 
essence or nature of each thing, and its actions.57 The essence of the soul 
53. It is unclear whether the other Cambridge Platonists were universalists or not. 
Patrides is correct to point out that Cudworth and Smith implicitly imply that Satan will 
be forgiven: Introduction, in Patrides, Cambridge Platonists, 37. See Ralph Cudworth, 
“A Sermon Preached before the House of Commons, March 31, 1647,” reprinted in 
Patrides, Cambridge Platonists, 107; and Smith “The excellency and nobleness of True 
Religion,” excerpts reprinted in Patrides, Cambridge Platonists, ch. 11, 195. Patrides 
suggests that Henry More was enthusiastic about Rust’s argument for universalism but 
his writings are ambiguous; see, e.g., Walker, Decline, 127–31.
54. Walker, “eternity and the Afterlife,” 247.
55. Sterry, Discourse, 7.
56. Cudworth, “Treatise of Freewill,” in Treatise, 196–97. See also Smith, Discourse, 
138; Muirhead, Platonic Tradition, 30; Roberts, From Puritanism to Platonism, 224; 
Whichcote, Works, II, 385; Religious Aphorisms, 62, 327. 
57. Sterry, Discourse, 2.
Hickman / Sterry (1613–1672) and White (1630–1707) 107
is good and so it is free when it acts in accordance with the good. This 
is true liberty and is no different from “determined liberty,” which is 
consistent with the harmony of creation.58 This view of freedom is essen-
tially Plotinian because true freedom entails being self-determined and 
acting in accordance with what is good.59 What this means for Sterry’s 
reformist conception of hell is that although we may have no choice in 
being refined in hell’s purifying fires, it is a choice we will come to realize 
in the end that we actually want. It essentially echoes the Pauline theol-
ogy that it is sin that makes us slaves; becoming a slave of righteousness 
will grant us our freedom.60
Sterry (and White followed him here)went further than the rest 
of the Cambridge Platonists, however, in rejecting the logic of any free 
human action. Whereas the Cambridge Platonists allowed for a free 
will that can choose against the good, Sterry insisted that if the will is 
“undetermined” it would be totally random, and random action is no 
more free than determined action.61 Although he was limited by a sim-
plistic understanding of the psychology of human action,62 Sterry did 
appreciate the philosophical problem of attaching moral approbation to 
any action that is “free” because it has not been determined: if it is ran-
dom, it cannot be considered any more good than a determined action. 
Sterry also raised an objection to the positing of free will as a theodicy. 
Free will, he proposed, is no better than predestination in defending the 
goodness of God: if God is both omnipotent and omniscient, and if the 
will is free enough for us to choose sin, God would have known that the 
vast majority of created creatures would fall into sin and would suffer 
punishment anyway.63 An appeal to free will does not get God “off the 
hook” and does not offer any defense of God’s vindictive justice.64 This 
58. Ibid., 124.
59. Plotinus in Ennead 6.8.3 describes how the gods are truly free because they de-
termine themselves by their nature, i.e., by that which is good.
60. Rom 6:14–19.
61. Sterry, Discourse, 187.
62. The seventeenth-century debate was framed in terms of the connection between 
beliefs, desires, reason, and the will. Sterry’s argument is less convincing in the light of 
contemporary accounts such as Gary Watson’s. Watson argues for the possibility of self-
determined action, in which the self can freely determine itself; Watson, “Free Agency,” 
in Watson, ed., Free Will, 96–110.
63. Sterry, Discourse, 149.
64. Walker, Decline, 47.
“All SHAll Be Well”108
was why neither Sterry nor White could ever accept Arminianism de-
spite the common commitment to universalism and common concern 
with the Calvinist capricious God: it insists on absolute human free will, 
giving human beings too much independence, yet it still fails to provide 
a satisfactory account of human action and God’s goodness.65 
Sterry proposed instead an emanationist account of predestina-
tion, which cohered with his universalist commitment to the undefeat-
able love of God. That the divine emanates through all creation means 
that God is the first cause of action and God can be said to have fore-
knowledge of the actions of the will: “The will of man then in every 
motion, act, and determination of it, is from eternity predetermined in 
the Divine Understanding, as in its first cause and Original form.”66 God 
knows God’s creatures because God contains them and comprehends 
them intimately within Godself as the originator of everything in be-
ing. Sterry’s God is not a detached observer predetermining events but 
has an intimate knowledge of a creation that emanates from God’s very 
Being. The neo-Platonic idea of emanation means that, for both Sterry 
and White, the end is as certain as the beginning: love and goodness 
emanate to the end and this cannot be otherwise. Universalism is in this 
sense predestined because of the power of love. Or as White put it: it is 
certain that sin and death shall not be the end, “for Grace is the begin-
ning of all; and the end must be the same thing.”67 Given, therefore, their 
commitment to an emanationist philosophy and a Plotinian account of 
freedom, together with their reservations about the possibility of free 
will, it seems logical to suggest that Sterry and White believed in predes-
tination largely because they were universalists. They presented a very 
different account of predestination from that proposed by Calvinism. 
For them, love is the all in which everything moves and has its being, 
and to which everything will return.
Although free will might be no better as a theodicy than predestina-
tion, Sterry and White still had to answer a question about why humans 
65. White, Restoration, 4. Important too for Sterry and White’s rejection of free will 
was their belief in a timeless God. Walker presents a good case that this belief was just as 
much the result of mystical experience as philosophical reasoning: in his manuscripts, 
Sterry made the experience of eternity an important part of his argument for the pre-
existence of the soul, and a commitment to predestination would conceivably have fitted 
with the “given” quality of mystical experience; Walker, “eternity and the Afterlife,” 247.
66. Sterry, Discourse, 40.
67. White, Restoration, 245.
Hickman / Sterry (1613–1672) and White (1630–1707) 109
sin if a good God created and predetermined them. libertarian free 
will might be a mirage but this does not avoid the problem of theodicy. 
Where does evil come from if everything emanates from that which 
is good? Sterry made more of an attempt to answer this question than 
White, and his suggestion was that human nature is created imperfect: 
we will fall into sin, he asserts, unless supported by God’s grace (which 
God refuses to most of us), thus making the fault lie in our fallen nature 
rather than in God. There are major difficulties with this theodicy. Did 
God deliberately make (nearly all of) us imperfect? His answer here 
rested on his conception of evil as non-being or privation: when God’s 
grace is withdrawn, God “maketh privations, as the Sun maketh dark-
ness and night, after a negative manner by his absence, by a drawing in 
his power, and binding up his sweet influence.”68 
This answer inevitably results in God having to take ultimate re-
sponsibility for the darkness and sin in the world, and Walker points 
out that he came close to a Manichean picture of God here, making sin 
part of God’s plan.69 Despite these problems, Sterry was at least astute 
enough to put his finger on the intractable problem of the nature of free 
will. If God is omnipotent and omniscient, God is responsible for evil 
either way: by creating us free (enabling us to sin and knowing that we 
would do so), or by predetermining us to sin. Whether or not Sterry 
and White’s predetermined universalism actually helps to overcome the 
problem of theodicy that any account of divine punishment must face is 
open to question. The problem may well be mitigated if everything is all 
right in the end, but both writers painted such a colorful picture of hell’s 
miserable and long-lasting torments, that their God who condemns to 
the fate of ages upon ages of “weeping, & wailing, and gnashing of teeth”70 
seems only marginally less vindictive than the God who condemns to 
eternal hell. They were both so keen to describe the torments of hell 
that it becomes doubtful whether the sheer amount of suffering is not 
excessive for any reformative account of punishment.71 It is more than 
likely, however, that they felt considerable pressure to underscore the 
68. Sterry, Discourse, 151.
69. Walker, Decline, 120. However, it must be acknowledged that many Calvinists 
do see the Fall and sin as part of God’s plan.
70. Sterry, MS, 107–9, cited in Walker, Decline, 114. Walker raises the point against 
William Whiston but it could also be raised against Sterry and White.
71. ludlow raises a similar point; ludlow, “Universal Salvation,” 465.
“All SHAll Be Well”110
nastiness of hell out of a concern to defend the now rather questionable 
deterrent aspect of punishment: had they been aware, as we now are, of 
the fact that severity of punishment does not deter crime, they may not 
have been so enthusiastic about the longevity of hell.
Love and Universal Atonement
The question of the nature and purpose of punishment and the debate 
about God’s attributes of justice and love has an important connection 
to the theology of atonement. The more legalistic theory of justice ad-
opted by the Protestant Reformers meant that they tended to envisage 
the atonement in terms of a contract in which Christ’s death satisfies 
the violationof God’s honor brought about by human sin.72 Timothy 
Gorringe points out the historical link between retributive theories of 
justice (and punishment), satisfaction theories of the atonement, and 
the english penal code. Furthermore, he draws attention to the irony 
that the image of the suffering Christ, itself an image of lawful capital 
punishment, should have been used (and still is used) as a moral and 
metaphysical justification for often the most violent forms of retributive 
punishment.73 Within the framework of a satisfaction theory, the God of 
justice has functioned as a God of violence, demanding the blood of a 
vicarious victim who takes upon himself (for the sake of humankind) a 
death that was both required and anticipated.74 God demands satisfac-
tion because God cannot simply forgive (God’s nature and God’s justice 
will not permit it). 
Their emphasis on God’s love should have led Sterry and White to 
reconsider the satisfaction theory of the atonement, as this is the logi-
cal conclusion of their theology, even though they never explicitly do 
this. As suggested above, they were certainly sensitive to some of the 
shortcomings of seeing sin as the violation of honor: it tends to lead to 
an account of a wrathful God whose anger has to be appeased. Some of 
their critics certainly felt that they were inevitably distancing themselves 
from an orthodox position of the atonement. One was a fellow chaplain 
72. Patrides, “Salvation of Satan,” 471–72. This is essentially based on the Anselmian 
idea of sin as an infringement of honor that demands the satisfaction of retributive 
justice; Gorringe, God’s Just Vengeance, 93.
73. Gorringe, God’s Just Vengeance, see esp. 12, 23. 
74. Ibid., 81.
Hickman / Sterry (1613–1672) and White (1630–1707) 111
to Oliver Cromwell, John Owen (1616–1683). Walker argues that his 
thesis, Diatriba de Justitia Divina, although explicitly written against the 
Socinians, was also probably targeted against Sterry and White. Owen 
insisted that a retributive account of justice is intrinsically connected to 
the orthodox doctrine of redemption.75 A less orthodox understanding 
of the divine nature certainly led more radical thinkers to a heterodox 
account of the atonement. Socinus, using the same argument as Sterry 
and White, saw satisfaction theory as pitting the mercy and justice of 
God against one another and, like them, he insisted on understanding 
God’s attributes as one.76 Rust, too, ended the Letter of Resolution by em-
phasizing the love of God instead of what he saw as an over-emphasis 
on a legalistic theory of the atonement proposed by the opponents of 
universalism. The same argument carries through into the eighteenth 
century: William law (1686–1761), influenced by Jacob Boehme (as, 
incidentally, was Sterry), was one example; those who say that God can-
not forgive the sinner till God’s justice or religious wrath has satisfaction 
he called “dividers of the divine nature.”77 The question then to be faced 
is that if Christ’s death does not need to satisfy divine wrath, what is 
the purpose and meaning of Christ’s mission on earth? This question 
leads to a reconsideration of Christology, most notably for Socinus who 
denied even the pre-existence and divinity of Christ. The figure of Jesus 
became for Socinians an exemplary inspirational moral figure, and more 
emphasis was placed upon the importance of free individual moral ac-
tion in attaining salvation.
Although they prioritized God’s love and rejected an orthodox 
understanding of justice, Sterry and White never fully reconsidered 
this Reformed doctrine of atonement. Their concern with reformative 
punishment and love meant that they adopted aspects of a subjectivist 
account of atonement78 but they desired to retain a theory that Christ 
in some sense “satisfies,” although it is never clear why this satisfaction 
is strictly necessary. They are alert to the fact that Socinianism has little 
75. Walker, Decline, 27.
76. Gorringe, God’s Just Vengeance, 145. 
77. Quoted in ibid., 184. Gorringe suggests that many of those in the eighteenth 
century who opposed satisfaction theory also insisted that the divine nature cannot be 
split into love and justice. 
78. Beilby and eddy define the subjective theory of atonement as centered on hu-
man nature: the atoning work of Christ is to change human beings; “The Atonement: 
An Introduction,” in Beilby and eddy, eds. Nature of the Atonement, 18.
“All SHAll Be Well”112
room for a theology of grace, and White in particular is keen to state 
that Christ is a “ransom”79 whose satisfaction is infinite (and is therefore 
universal), and he slips into speaking of Christ as drawing the power of 
wrath upon himself.80 
There is no reason why, as a universalist, White would have had to 
abandon the satisfaction theory, as it would be coherent to hold both. 
He seems to do just this when he insisted that Christ’s satisfaction is for 
all rather than just for the elect: if Christ did not die for all, his power is 
limited. Added to this, he used the argument, repeated today, that un-
less atonement is universal, it makes no sense that all nations should be 
baptized or that the gospel should be preached to all.81 White’s emphasis 
on love, however, makes the tensions in his position pronounced, and he 
unconsciously felt his way towards an approach more akin to Abelard’s 
position when he suggested that the proper work of Christ’s power is 
not so much satisfying God’s wrath as healing born of love, involving 
the restoration of human nature to the image of God.82 “The lord Jesus 
hath a comprehensive Person,” he stated; “he contains in himself the 
Principles of Time and eternity, this World and that which is to come . . . 
he bears in his Person the Image of God and Man, Heaven and earth.”83 
This mission unifies the divine and human nature and this affects God’s 
salvation: Christ brings down divine life to dwell in the flesh, and this 
brings the flesh into the glory of the divine life.84 When he writes of the 
wrath Christ supposedly carried on our behalf, he is never clear as to 
whether it is God’s wrath we are saved from, or whether this wrath rep-
resents the darkness of sin that governs this world as a result of corrupt 
human nature. What Christ satisfies and what ransom is paid to whom is 
never properly explored, but given his theology of love and reformative 
punishment, it would have made sense for him to develop his idea of 
atonement informed by Abelard’s soteriology. This tradition would help 
to develop a theology of the atonement that is loving but not as vindic-
tive, while still maintaining a role for grace.
79. White, Restoration, 37.
80. Ibid., 45, 77, 164.
81. Ibid., 36. For a contemporary version of this part of White’s argument see Shultz, 
“Why a Genuine Universal Gospel Call,” 111–23. Schultz goes on to argue that it is logi-
cal to hold that Christ atoned for all, even if not everyone will be saved.
82. Ibid., 131, 170.
83. Ibid., 171; cf., Sterry, Discourse, 163–64.
84. White, Restoration, 166.
Hickman / Sterry (1613–1672) and White (1630–1707) 113
Tensions in White’s position with regard to the satisfaction theory, 
however, were symptomatic of the growing tension Gorringe notes 
between Socinianism and Calvinism that became apparent in the sev-
enteenth century and which dominated so much of eighteenth-century 
theology. These tensions have gone on to shape many of the contempo-
rary categories that Christians use to deal with the theological issues of 
salvation and atonement. In their defense of a substitution approach to 
atonement, Colin Gunton, Richard Swinburne, and Thomas Schreiner 
emphasize God’s justice and adopt a retributive account of punishment: 
the wrath of God is appeased by Christ’s sacrifice.85 These theologians 
can be contrasted with those who adopt a more “Aberlardian” soteriol-
ogy, such as Timothy Gorringe or Bruce Reichenbach.86 The reasons giv-
en for dissatisfaction with thesubstitution view by these contemporary 
thinkers echo those raised by Sterry and White: a vengeful God seems 
to demand a legalistic violent sacrifice born out of too much concern for 
justice and not enough consideration of love. White’s conception of the 
atonement might best be developed, and some of his tensions resolved, 
through a consideration of an approach like Reichenbach’s, in which 
Jesus is more than just an exemplary moral figure, because he brings 
about a restoration of the image of God by healing both body and spirit. 
Such a reworking of the doctrine of atonement through the centrality of 
love has considerable scope but has not yet been taken seriously enough. 
Whether or not this approach is found to be theologically satisfying, it 
is clear that Sterry and White were grappling with much the same is-
sues concerning soteriology in the seventeenth century that continue to 
shape contemporary theological discussions of atonement, punishment, 
justice, and love.
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Hickman / Sterry (1613–1672) and White (1630–1707) 115
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116
6 
Union with Christ
The Calvinist Universalism of James Relly 
(1722–1778)
Wayne K. Clymer1
Life and Influence
In 1770 John Murray came to America,2 and in a few years was recog-
nized as the foremost advocate of universalism in that country. Today 
he is heralded by many as “the Father of [denominational] Universalism.” 
1. Originally published as Wayne K. Clymer, “The life and Thought of James Relly,” 
Church History 11 (1942) 193–216. Reprinted here (with minor changes) with permis-
sion from Cambridge University Press.
2. Cole and Skinner, Life of John Murray, 69.
Clymer / James Relly (1722–1778) 117
The Universalist Church is well aware of its debt to this apostle, but the 
indebtedness of John Murray to James Relly is not seldom overlooked. 
Murray claimed no originality for the framework of his theology, and 
unhesitatingly admitted that his doctrines were those preached and 
published by his Welsh friend whose acquaintance he had made sev-
eral years before coming to America. When the news of Relly’s death 
reached Murray, he wrote that his “reasons for attachment [to Relly], 
for homage, were similar to those which actuated Timothy in his devo-
tion to the Apostle Paul,”3 and although he was constantly drawn into 
controversy, John Murray held unswervingly to Rellyan theology to the 
last days of his life.
James Relly deserves consideration, however, not merely because 
he was the intellectual father of John Murray, but also because he was 
a man of imagination and originality. Although he was not a first-class 
mind, his bizarre theology represents one of the most extreme modifica-
tions of Calvinism in either the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries. At 
times his arguments are more worthy than is his presentation of them, 
and very often his conclusions are not worthy of the logic by which they 
are supported; but through it all there can be felt the bold adventurer 
following out what he feels to be implicit in Pauline theology. He wasnot a liberal and would have been willing at any time to sacrifice his 
doctrine of universal salvation for the general tenets of orthodoxy. But 
whatever his intentions, he was a liberating influence and was no small 
factor in giving rise to a movement that bore only the slightest resem-
blance to his thought.
James Relly was born in the county of Pembroke, north Wales, in 
the year 1722. The details of his life have been lost from the records of 
history, and had it not been for Walter Wilson, we would know even 
less than we do. Fortunately, when Wilson was writing his History and 
Antiquities of Dissenting Churches and Meeting Houses in London, he 
interviewed a man who had been a member of Relly’s congregation and 
from him learned a few facts concerning Relly’s life.4 From this work, 
plus the information given us in John Murray’s autobiography, the jour-
nals of Wesley and Whitefield, and the scant references in Relly’s books, 
we are able to piece together the outline of his life and to learn something 
of his temperament.
3. Murray, Life John Murray, 177. 
4. Wilson, History and Antiquities of Dissenting Churches, I, 358.
“All SHAll Be Well”118
Relly received a grammar school education at Pembroke,5 or at 
least attended the school for a time. This was the extent of his formal 
education. In later years he was aware that a knowledge of letters and a 
beautiful style of writing were often mistaken for wisdom and insight, 
but he keenly felt his lack of training and was often chided by his crit-
ics for using such poor grammar. In self-defense he often took several 
paragraphs in his books to point out that it was the content and not the 
form which he urged his readers to consider seriously.6 Whether or not 
as a boy Relly was hindered from going to school we do not know, but 
it is likely that he was not interested in studies, for he is described as 
a reckless and strong-tempered youth of great bodily strength.7 At the 
usual age he became an apprentice to a cow farrier, an occupation for 
which he was physically well suited.8 It is improbable that he had any in-
tensive religious training, or at least any effective training, for at the age 
of nineteen9 he accompanied a group of boys who were intent upon dis-
turbing a religious service conducted by George Whitefield.10 The means 
these boys planned to employ can be only conjectured, but from the 
diaries of Wesley and Whitefield we learn that very often the preachers 
received harsh treatment at the hands of such groups. On one occasion 
Whitefield came near losing his life as the result of a stoning.
As was scheduled, the party met at the scene of the service, but 
once Whitefield ascended the pulpit and began to speak in his singularly 
powerful voice, Relly forgot his original purpose in attending the meet-
ing. The memories of that day were never lost from his mind. When in 
the year 1770 the news reached him of Whitefield’s death, he wrote a 
poem in which he recalled this first impression:
Remember’d be the Day, when first I saw
In thee, what smote the hostile mind with awe: 
In the midst of thousands, I beheld thee stand 
Preaching Salvation to a guilty land:
Thy face confess’d the presence of the lord,
While from thy tongue flow’d his annointed Word; 
5. Ibid.
6. e.g., Relly, Eunuch, 58; Relly, Preface to The Sadducee; Relly, Preface to Union. 
7. Wilson, History and Antiquities of Dissenting Churches, I, 359.
8. Ibid.
9. Assuming that this was Whitefield’s first visit to Wales, which was in 1741.
10. Wilson, History and Antiquities of Dissenting Churches, I, 359.
Clymer / James Relly (1722–1778) 119
Unctious, and pointed with such heavenly Art,
As ev’n to penetrate the flinty Heart.
‘Tis true, thou plantedst Terrors in my Breast, 
Which still pursued me ‘til I found the Rest, 
The Rest remaining for the sons of God, 
Procur’d and guaranteed’d by Jesus’ Blood.11
not many days after this first meeting Relly was “converted” and 
became deeply interested in the work Whitefield was doing.12 This was 
probably in 1741 when Whitefield was making his first tour of Wales and 
marks the beginning of Relly’s ministry under the great evangelist. Relly 
appears to have impressed Whitefield so much that he selected James and 
his brother John (whom James had converted) as preachers to do mis-
sionary work in Wales. Probably Whitefield instructed them for some 
months before sending them out to work independently. We hear noth-
ing more of John Relly after this commission except that he collaborated 
with James in the writing of a volume of hymns and songs.
James Relly’s first charge was at Ridllaniregg,13 where he remained 
for several years enjoying much popularity. Of the few following years 
we know only that he was active and apparently successful in his work, 
and that he was transferred to england. In June 1747 he reported to 
Whitefield the results of his missionary endeavors: “I examine the whole 
society in Bristol once a week, the brethren on Sunday evening, and 
the sisters on Wednesday evening; and our Savior has blessed it to the 
quickening of many. There seems also to be a good report at Bath!”14 In 
December 1747 he wrote again to Whitefield: “I formed twenty or more 
into a society at Birmingham; and on examining them, was satisfied of 
the spirit of grace working in their hearts. yesterday many assembled to 
hear the Word of God at Tewkesbury, but we were assaulted by such a 
furious mob, that all was turned into confusion. They flapped the tables, 
stamped on the floor, pushed the people, swore, cursed, laughed, pricked 
with pins, threw handfuls of snuff, and brickbats, and dirt. I discoursed 
about an hour; but the noise still increasing I left off.”15
11. Relly, Death of George Whitefield, (a broadside).
12. Relly speaks of Whitefield instilling “Terror” in his heart that “pursued” him. 
Relly evidently did not become a convert on the occasion of this first meeting.
13. Wilson, History and Antiquities of Dissenting Churches, I, 360.
14. Tyerman, Life of George Whitefield, II, 161.
15. Ibid., II, 161.
“All SHAll Be Well”120
Six years as an evangelist, opposed by both the organized church 
and mobs, had not discouraged Relly, and in his reports there is noth-
ing to indicate that he was out of harmony with Whitefield’s doctrines 
and methods. nevertheless he must have faced serious problems and 
done thinking on his own account, for three years later he broke with 
Whitefield.16
Whitefield makes no mention of Relly leaving his band of preach-
ers, nor does Relly record the incident in any of his books. Hence there 
has been some question as to what occasioned the breach. It has gen-
erally been assumed that doctrinal differences were at the root of the 
matter. This assumption is confirmed by the much-neglected broadside 
which has already been mentioned in footnote 11.
yet from that moment I thy name Rever’d, 
And to thy doctrine faithfully adher’d. 
nor did the difference, which at last,
Respecting Freeness, and extent of Grace, 
ere make me treat irrev’rently thy name,
Or wish to blast thy Apostolic Fame,
But still retained for thee, when I withdrew, 
The love, the Rev’rence, to a father due.17
It thus appears clear that by 1750 Relly had arrived at the notion 
of universal salvation on a basis that he thought was consistent with the 
doctrines of Whitefield, except for the “Freeness” and “extent of Grace.” 
There is no reason to suppose that the differences between the two men 
were of any other nature than doctrinal. However, Relly was simplifying 
the matter somewhat when he said they differed only on the freeness of 
grace. It is quite probable, as we shall have occasion to consider later, 
that the notion of the extent of grace grew out of a more fundamental 
theological problem, though it was probably the matter of universalism 
that Whitefield could not tolerate.
Despite this break, however, Whitefield had made an indelible 
impression on the thought of Relly. Faith in the Bible asthe literally in-
spired word of God remained with him; the broad outlines of Calvinism 
were never lost, especially the Calvinistic legalism. From Whitefield he 
16. Whitley, History of British Baptists, 229. The author does not give his source for 
the date, but it is likely in view of other circumstances which followed. Whitley says that 
the break occurred in 1750.
17. Relly, Death of George Whitefield.
Clymer / James Relly (1722–1778) 121
also inherited a strong prejudice against every form and claim of human 
perfection and human merit. The inherent and ineradicable sinfulness 
of man is a theme that runs through each of his books. Calvinism is a 
logical system and to modify it at one point entails modification at other 
points. By the time Relly had completed his own system he had dis-
cussed several important doctrines, but to the very end the Calvinistic 
background remained. It is for this reason that Relly’s system is called a 
modification. His debt to Whitefield is great. To make the break must 
have given him much concern, for universalism was a common foe of 
both the Calvinists and the Arminians—and religious hatred knows no 
mercy. That he took the step reveals his honesty and conviction.
After leaving Whitefield, Relly continued from city to city preach-
ing his gospel of the universal grace of God, and, according to Murray, 
sent out some converts as preachers.18 In 1756 he was in Carrickfergus, 
Ireland, preaching against John Wesley, whom he characterized as a 
“hireling and false prophet.”19 Wesley seems not to have been impressed 
with Relly and said on the abovementioned occasion that Relly could 
not say anything of significance. Some years later Wesley wrote of him as 
being among the “wretches” who “call themselves ‘Methodists,’ and who 
abhor true Methodists as much as they do the Pope; and ten times more 
than they do the devil.”20
At about this time Murray came into contact with Relly. Some elab-
oration of the friendship between the two men is necessary, for it throws 
light upon Relly’s life and reveals his influence on his better-known 
disciple. Circumstantial evidence makes it appear that Relly settled in 
london about 1757.21 Murray had also drifted into london a few years 
before and had become a regular attendant at Whitefield’s Tabernacle 
18. Murray, Life of John Murray, 72.
19. Tyerman, Life of John Wesley, II, 240.
20. Ibid.
21. The real difficulty in settling dates is that Murray’s autobiography, which should 
give the clues to Relly’s work in london, does not date any of the important events. 
In 1759 Relly published his book entitled Union. Two years later he wrote Antichrist 
Resisted, a reply to a Mr. Mason who had criticized his book in a pamphlet. Before 
publication, Mason gave the latter to Murray to read. This was probably in 1760. In 
speaking of the pamphlet, Murray says that he had been curious to hear Relly who had 
been in london “many years.” Thus, if in 1756 Relly was preaching in Ireland, and if in 
writing of events in 1760 Murray could say that Relly had been in london for “many 
years,” he must have settled at Coachmaker’s Hall very near the year 1757.
“All SHAll Be Well”122
where he found Calvinism more to his taste than Wesley’s Arminianism. 
His father, whom Murray greatly admired, had been a Calvinist despite 
his close friendship with and admiration for John Wesley. Murray had 
also been a class leader under Wesley’s appointment, but he had never 
forgotten the stern faith of his father. Among Whitefield’s followers Relly 
was extremely unpopular. years later when Murray wrote the story of his 
life, he said that when he first heard one of Relly’s preachers he would 
have considered himself “highly favored to have been an instrument in 
the hand of God, for the taking the life of a man whom I had never seen; 
and in destroying him I should have nothing doubted, that I had rendered 
essential service both to the Creator and the created.”22 It is difficult to 
appreciate the bitterness that existed among these religious sects. name-
calling was only one mode of defaming an opponent. Wilson attributes 
Relly’s being called “antinomian” more to bitterness than to the doctrines 
that he proclaimed. “It is not an uncommon thing,” he writes, “in con-
troversies concerning the doctrines of grace; even where the differences 
have been much smaller than between Relly and his opponents, for one 
party to brand the other with the opprobrious epithet of Antinomian or 
Arminian.”23 The term “antinomian” was mild. Murray says:
Relly was described, as a man black with crimes; an atrocious of-
fender, both in principle and practice. He had, it was said, abused 
and deserted an amiable wife; and, it was added, that he retained 
in his house an abandoned woman; and that he not only thus 
conducted himself, but, publicly, and most nefariously taught his 
hearers to dare the laws of their country, and their God. Hence, 
said my informers, the dissipated and unprincipled of every class, 
flock to his church; his congregation is astonishingly large, the 
carriages of the great, block up the street, in which his meeting 
house stands, and he is the idol of the voluptuous of every de-
scription. All this, and much more was said, industriously propo-
gated, and credited in every religious circle. Denominations at 
variance with each other, most cordially agreed in thus thinking, 
and thus speaking of Relly, of his preaching or of his practice.24
When finally Murray got up enough courage to visit Coachmaker’s 
Hall, where Relly preached, he found that the main charges were false: 
22. Murray, Life of John Murray, 72.
23. Wilson, History and Antiquities of Dissenting Churches, I, 358.
24. Murray, Life of John Murray, 85–86.
Clymer / James Relly (1722–1778) 123
“no coaches thronged the street, nor surrounded the door of this meet-
ing house; there was no vestige of grandeur either within or without. The 
house had formerly been occupied by Quakers; there were no seats, save 
a few benches; and the pulpit was framed of a few rough boards, over 
which no plane had ever passed. The audience corresponded with the 
house. They did not appear very religious; that is, they were not melan-
choly; and I therefore suspected they had not much piety.”25
Undoubtedly most of the charges were the result of malicious gos-
sip. Relly is described as a man of rough manners and probably would 
not have attracted the wealthier classes. His natural ability as a preacher, 
however, did gain for him a large following for several years. Were it 
not for evidence presented by Tyerman,26 we could dismiss all charges 
brought against Relly as the outgrowth of religious intolerance. For his 
story Tyerman refers to the London Monthly. It is to be remembered 
that the biographer of Wesley was not a friend of Relly and speaks most 
disparagingly of him. nevertheless the story is worthy of note. In 1764 
a chancery action was brought against Relly by a yorkshire lady who 
accused him of fraudulently obtaining from her, while in a religious 
frenzy, a deed securing to himself an annuity of five pounds. She also 
declared that at another time a considerable sum of money had been 
obtained under similar circumstances. The court ruled that the deed 
should be canceled and the money refunded. What all the facts were in 
the case we do not know. It may be that Relly was more innocent than 
the account shows, but the record casts a shadow that we could well 
wish were not there.
But to return to 1760. Murray had become a well-known and re-
spected member of Whitefield’s congregation. Hence it was not unnatu-
ral that he should be approached to bring back into the fold one who had 
departed from the faith. A young lady of the congregation was reported 
to have become attached to Rellyan universalism. To this lady Murray 
was instructed to go with two or three of the brethren and show her the 
error into which she had fallen. With much confidence Murray went to 
the homeof early ecumenical councils were taken 
as binding by both eastern and Western churches, they set the stan-
dard for orthodoxy in all mainstream Christian churches—Orthodox, 
Roman Catholic, and Protestant. If such a council formally condemned 
universalism, then it is, strictly speaking, unorthodox—not merely un-
orthodox in the sense of “unusual” but in the sense of “not conforming 
to Christian faith as understood by the church.” That might not worry 
some Christians, but it is a genuine concern to Christians who seek to 
remain within the bounds of orthodox Christian faith. even Protestants, 
though they do not see the decisions of the councils as beyond question,5 
will still seek to take them very seriously. So the issue does matter. now I 
am not (by any stretch of the imagination!) a patristics scholar, but I will 
say a few words about how I currently see the issue.
The worry concerns the fifth ecumenical council—the second to be 
held in Constantinople—in 553. The council of one hundred and fifty-
seven eastern bishops and eleven Western bishops was primarily called 
together to try and form an official consensus position on Christology—
one that would continue to affirm the Chalcedonian definition, but do it 
4. The internet is awash with such claims (which can be traced back at least to the 
nineteenth century, if not earlier).
5. The fifth ecumenical council, for instance, declared Mary to be Aeiparthenos (ever-
Virgin) fixing her perpetual virginity in church dogma. Few Protestants feel any obliga-
tion to affirm that proposal because they consider it (a) prima facie unbiblical (or, at very 
least, going beyond Scripture’s claims), and (b) theologically unnecessary. My point is 
simply that most Protestants are willing to reject a decision by an ecumenical council.
MacDonald / Introduction 5
in terms that would be more acceptable to those who were uncomfort-
able with it: affirm it as emphasizing the personal, divine unity of subject 
in the two natures of the incarnate Word. There is no doubt that the 
council condemned Origen by name in its eleventh anathema:
If anyone does not anathematize Arius, eunomius, Macedonius, 
Apollinaris, nestorius, eutyches, and Origen,6 as well as their 
impious writings, as also all other heretics already condemned 
and anathematized by the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, 
and by the aforesaid four Holy Synods and [if anyone does not 
equally anathematize] all those who have held and hold or who 
in their impiety persist in holding to the end the same opinion as 
those heretics just mentioned: let him be anathema.
But no mention of apokatsatasis is connected with this condemnation, 
nor does it appear in any of the other thirteen anathemas. Indeed, when 
read in the context of the other anathemas, the concern with Origen 
is quite possibly christological (by this time Origen’s Christology was 
thought to be problematic).7
Outside the main sessions of the council, however, it appears that 
some fifteen additional anathemas against Origen were quite possibly 
appended.8 We should also note that ten years earlier, in 543, a local 
council called by the emperor Justinian had produced nine anathemas 
6. Interestingly Origen is listed out of chronological order.
7. And it was indeed inadequate in the light of later clarifications. However, we need 
to be cautious here: Henri Crouzel warns against reading Origen “in the context of her-
esies other than the ones he had in mind: as he had not foreseen these, some of his ex-
pressions or speculations could, with a bit of a push, be made to look as if he embraced 
these heresies, especially when no trouble was taken to look in other parts of his work 
for the key to his assertions. The main one was Arianism. Origen, whose trinitarian 
vocabulary was not yet sufficiently precise, might seem opposed to the unity of nature 
defined at nicaea, although he held its equivalent in a dynamic rather than ontological 
mode. Some expressions could draw his subordinationism, which is in terms of origin 
and ‘economy,’ towards the Arian subordinationism of inequality using texts which as-
sert nothing more than a hierarchy of origin. Besides, he is constantly accused, for 
reasons of vocabulary . . . of making the Son and the Holy Spirit creatures of the Father. 
In this detractors take no account of his speculations on the eternal generation of the 
Word in the Treatise on First Principles itself and of the celebrated formula attested as 
being in Origen by Athanasius himself: ‘ouk en hote ouk en—there was not a moment 
when He (the Word) was not.’” Crouzel, Origen, 171–72.
8. Although there is some debate as to whether these really did originate with the 
council or were added later. See chapter 16 and http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf214 
.xii.viii.html.
“All SHAll Be Well”6
against Origen. Both lists, which overlap considerably, concern a range 
of supposed teachings of Origen that by then were considered risky or 
misleading. The idea of apokatastasis—that at the end of history, all cre-
ated intellects will be restored to their original condition of union with 
God—was one of these.
It is useful to look at the relevant anathemas. From the council’s 
fifteen anathemas, consider I, XIV, and XV:
I. If anyone asserts the fabulous pre-existence of souls, and shall 
assert the monstrous restoration (apokatastasis) which follows 
from it: let him be anathema.
XIV. If anyone shall say that all reasonable beings will one day 
be united in one, when the hypostases as well as the numbers 
and the bodies shall have disappeared, and that the knowledge 
of the world to come will carry with it the ruin of the worlds, 
and the rejection of bodies as also the abolition of [all] names, 
and that there shall be finally an identity of the gnōsis and of the 
hypostasis; moreover, that in this pretended apokatastasis, spirits 
only will continue to exist, as it was in the feigned pre-existence: 
let him be anathema.
XV. If anyone shall say that the life of the spirits shall be like to 
the life which was in the beginning while as yet the spirits had 
not come down or fallen, so that the end and the beginning shall 
be alike, and that the end shall be the true measure of the begin-
ning: let him be anathema.
Of Justinian’s earlier nine anathemas (which are clearly not part of the 
output of an ecumenical council) the directly relevant ones are VII and 
IX:
VII. If anyone says or thinks that Christ the lord in a future 
time will be crucified for demons as he was for men, let him be 
anathema.
IX. If anyone says or thinks that the punishment of demons and 
of impious men is only temporary, and will one day have an end, 
and that a restoration (apokatastasis) will take place of demons 
and of impious men, let him be anathema.
Before considering the implications of these anathemas for uni-
versalism we need to say a word about how accurately they represent 
Origen’s thought (see chapter 2). Origen’s ideas were always controver-
sial, but to understand both sets of anathemas we need to understand 
MacDonald / Introduction 7
that in the three hundred years between his death and the fifth ecumeni-
cal council his ideas had been picked up and developed in more radi-
cal directions than one finds in Origen’s own work.9 Indeed, arguably, 
Origen himself would have agreed with some of these anathemas.10 In 
part it was the theology of these Origenists—people such as evagrius 
of Pontus (346–399), rather than that of Origen himself, that was con-
demned by Justinian and the council. But neither the council nor the 
later church made this distinction between Origen and Origenism—he 
was the seed from which the plant had grown, even if it had mutated as 
it developed—and thus he was condemned, in part, for the theological 
views of his heirs.11
9. In the late third and early fourth centuries (until nicea), Origen’s theology divided 
Christians into supporters (e.g., Gregory of nyssa) and critics (e.g., Methodius).of the erring one and began the conversation by quoting the 
Scripture, “He that believeth not, shall be damned.” The dialogue that 
followed, as recorded by Murray, is of special interest not only because 
it marks the beginning of Murray’s interest in Rellyan theology, but also 
25. Ibid., 36.
26. Tyerman, Life of John Wesley, II, 400.
“All SHAll Be Well”124
because it is no doubt characteristic of the method Relly and his dis-
ciples followed in arguing with their opponents. The argument may also 
give us a clue as to what gave rise to Relly’s early doubts when he was a 
preacher under Whitefield. The conversation proceeded thus:
“And pray sir,” said the young lady, with great sweetness, “Pray 
sir, what is the unbeliever damned for not believing?”
What is he damned for not believing? Why he is damned for 
not believing!
“But my dear sir, I asked what was that, which he did not 
believe, for which he is damned?”
Why, for not believing in Jesus Christ, to be sure.
“Do you mean to say, that unbelievers are damned, for not 
believing there was such a person as Jesus Christ?”
no, I do not; a man may believe there was such a person, and 
yet be damned.
“What then, sir, must he believe, in order to avoid damnation?” 
Why he must believe that Jesus Christ was the complete Savior.
“Well, suppose he were to believe, that Jesus was the complete 
Savior of others, would this belief save him?”
no, he must believe for himself, that Jesus Christ is his com-
plete Savior. 
“Why, sir, is Jesus Christ the Savior of any unbelievers?”
no, Madam.
“Why then, should any unbeliever believe that Jesus is his 
Savior, if he is not his Savior?”
I say he is not the Savior of any one, until he believes.
“Then, if Jesus be not the Savior of the unbeliever, until he 
believes, the unbeliever is called upon to believe a lie. It appears 
to me, sir, that Jesus is the complete Savior of unbelievers; and 
the unbelievers are called upon to believe the truth; and that, by 
believing they are saved, in their own apprehension, saved from 
all those dreadful fears, which are consequent upon a state of 
conscious condemnation.”
no madam; you are dreadfully, I trust fatally misled. Jesus 
never was, never will be, the Savior of any unbeliever.
“Do you think that Jesus is your Savior, sir?”
I hope he is.
“Were you always a believer, sir?”
no madam.
“Then you were once an unbeliever, that is, you once believed 
that Jesus was not your Savior. now, as you say, he never was nor 
never will be, the Savior of any unbeliever; as you were once an 
unbeliever, he cannot be your Savior.”
Clymer / James Relly (1722–1778) 125
He never was my Savior till I believed.
“Did he die, for you, till you believed, sir?”27
At this point Murray says that he was extremely embarrassed and look-
ing at his watch discovered that it was late and conveniently remembered 
that he had another engagement.
This encounter did Murray’s pride no good, and it threw his 
thinking into a whirl—“I felt her remarks were indeed unanswerable.” 
nevertheless he continued to oppose Rellyan doctrines, and even after 
visiting Relly’s meeting house he thanked God that he was none of them 
that followed the heretic. About this time Murray joined a certain Mr. 
Mason, a Methodist layman “of high standing in the religious world.” Mr. 
Mason had gathered about him a group of men who came together to 
study the Scriptures. One evening Mason asked Mr. Murray to remain af-
ter session. He gave Murray a copy of his rebuttal to Relly’s Union, later to 
be discussed. Murray had not forgotten his encounter with the lady who 
had so thoroughly beaten him in argument. At last, he thought, he would 
see her arguments met. Much to his disappointment Mason seemed to 
fail in his endeavor to overturn Relly’s arguments. It was not until some 
months afterward that a copy of Relly’s Union fell into his hands. After 
reading it, and going once more to hear Relly, he was convinced that Relly 
correctly interpreted the Scriptures. He went through a trying struggle 
before he could emotionally accept this new creed, but afterwards the 
intellect and emotions joined in embracing the doctrine of Christ’s union 
with all men. This decision was soon known and Murray was excom-
municated from Whitefield’s congregation. Murray makes no mention of 
Whitefield in his record of the ordeal. It is possible that Whitefield was on 
one of his preaching missions at the time of these proceedings.
In the years that followed Murray found his new friend to be of 
much consolation to him. Murray faced hardship and disappointment 
from early life until his death, and although the doctrines of Relly were 
not accepted for consolation, they did prove a comfort to him. Time 
and again Murray turned to Relly for inspiration to carry him through 
his suffering. looking back upon those troublesome years in england, 
Murray wrote that “through all these sad scenes of sorrow, I had one 
friend, from whom I derived real consolation. This friend was James 
Relly. . . . This kind friend often visited me; and in conversing with him 
27. Murray, Life of John Murray, 84–85.
“All SHAll Be Well”126
I found my heart lightened of its burden.”28 On these occasions Relly 
urged Murray to become a minister, but Murray consistently declined. 
little did Relly realize that posterity would remember him only by the 
fame of this sorrowing man who believed in him, but who showed no 
inclination to propagate the doctrines to which he adhered. On July 21, 
1770—the year of Whitefield’s death—Murray sailed for America.29 He 
never saw James Relly again, but he made his books popular and was 
influential in having them published in America.30
In 1764, or shortly thereafter, Relly moved his place of meeting 
from Coachmaker’s Hall to Bartholomew Close (formerly Presbyterian), 
where he remained until mid-summer 1769, after which he secured the 
old meeting house in Crosby Square. Here he continued to preach until 
his death, April 25, 1778. Although he was only fifty-six, it appears that 
his work was finished. Already he had lost much of his popularity, ow-
ing somewhat to the stigma of antinomianism and the odium attached 
to the report that his opinions led to immorality. His body was interred 
in the Baptist burial ground, Maze Pond, at Southwark, where a monu-
ment was erected to his memory. Two elegies were written by his admir-
ers and two engravings have been made of his portrait, one by June and 
the other by Sylvestre Harding. There appears to be no descendant now 
living. At his death he left one daughter and a widow who was still 
living in 1808.
For three years the congregation that Relly had founded continued 
to struggle along. [. . .] Soon afterwards the congregation dispersed and 
it never revived.
Relly was soon forgotten in england by both his friends and en-
emies, and despite Murray’s influential work in America, Relly and his 
thought were soon forgotten here. The cause of universalism flourished 
in America, but Murray was unsuccessful in converting the later leaders 
of the movement to Rellyan theology. like Relly, Murray did not cleave 
to universalism for mere sentimental reasons, and it gave him no little 
concern that universalism was being proclaimed upon a different basis 
28. Ibid., 108.
29. Cole and Skinner, Life of John Murray, 177.
30. [editor: though we should note that copies of Relly’s Union had preceded John 
Murray to America and a small Rellyan group was meeting in Gloucester, Massachu-
setts, before he arrived. Murray, when he did arrive, was invited to teach and lead 
this group.] 
Clymer / James Relly (1722–1778) 127
from that which Relly had taught. He believed whole-heartedly in the 
scriptural interpretations of his spiritual father. It was with sadness that 
he saw at the end of his life that the message to which he had given his 
life helped to initiate a movement that had other bases than those of his 
preaching. During the last days of his life Murray wrote to afriend, “I do 
not know a single preacher in this country, if I except Rev. John Tyler, 
of Connecticut, who is with me in sentiment respecting gospel truth, 
although there are many private Christians who are happy in the belief 
of those glad tidings.”31 Murray’s wife, Judith Sargent-Murray, who com-
pleted the autobiography of her husband after his death, concluded in a 
similar strain that “if we except the Rev. John Tyler, episcopal Minister in 
norwich, Connecticut, and the Rev. edward Mitchell in the city of new 
york, we do not know that the sentiments of any preacher of universal-
ism now upon this continent are exactly in unison with the departed 
promulgator.”32 In 1805 Tyler published anonymously six discourses, 
Universal Damnation and Salvation, Clearly Proved by the Scriptures of 
the New and Old Testament, based on Rellyan principles. But the name 
of Relly is conspicuously absent. Tyler presents his doctrine in a way that 
is clearly his own, though he was undoubtedly acquainted with Relly’s 
ideas. Mitchell published The Christian Universalist in 1835. This was a 
church discipline to be used by the society that he had helped to found 
in new york. It contained a catechism, marriage ceremony, inspirational 
letters, etc. neither man added anything of significance to the basic te-
nets of Murray and Relly. There has never been a revival of universalism 
on Rellyan principles. Other theologians have taken seriously the con-
cept of humanity’s union with Christ, and developed it, but they were 
not under Relly’s influence.
Relly’s Thought 
Relly wrote that he separated from Whitefield as a result of their differ-
ence of opinion respecting “Freeness and extent of Grace.” This state-
ment may be taken at face value. Whitefield could tolerate differences of 
viewpoint, as he demonstrated in certain of his relationships with John 
Wesley, but there was a limit. A doctrine that led to universal salvation 
was beyond that limit. The important consideration, however, is not so 
31. Murray, Life of John Murray, Appendix, 251.
32. Ibid., 237.
“All SHAll Be Well”128
much what occasioned Relly’s break with Whitefield, but rather how 
Relly arrived at his final position, and what was the theological frame-
work that supported this position. Relly rarely mentioned the names of 
his antagonists or of those whose opinions he shared. The only mention 
of Whitefield is in the elegy written upon the death of Whitefield. Two of 
his books33 are based upon the works of others, but these were both writ-
ten in defense of his established theology. His own claim is that it was 
after he had laid aside all books and turned exclusively to the Scriptures 
that he evolved his doctrine of union with Christ. Such assertions are 
justly treated with caution, but aside from a strong Calvinistic influence, 
Relly is alone in his justification for belief in universal salvation. It is 
clear, however, that certain presuppositions and demands led him to 
his final theory.
In the preface to Union he tells of the experiences that stimulated 
him to reconsider his theology:
I was for a long season after satisfied of the redemption which is 
in Christ; very uneasy at times, concerning the equity thereof: 
. . . at length I met with one, who (though his zeal, and self-
sufficiency, bare no proportion to mine,) was far my superior 
in understanding: after he had with coolness heard what I had 
to say, he asked me wherein was the justice, and equity, of one 
Man’s suffering Death, yea even the torments of Hell, for another: 
so contrary to reason and also the testimony of scripture, which 
often declares, that the Righteous shall not suffer for the Wicked; 
but that every man’s sin should be charged upon his own head, 
&c. I was not prepared for such a question as this and was there-
fore involved in a difficulty, which I could not obviate. I appealed 
to the Sovereignty of God, it was granted that God was Sovereign, 
and that from his Sovereign pleasure, he created us, redeemed us, 
&c. having nothing to move him to it, but his own will: yet he 
wills nothing but that what is just, and equitable, because he is 
just when he judgeth, and justifieth. I would then have urged, 
that as God is infinitely above us; his tho’ts, and ways above ours; 
we are not to conceive of him, his Justice and equity, according to 
our low, and scanty notions thereof. It was answered, if I granted 
that mankind had any true notion of Justice, and equity, though 
but in the smallest degree, then what is contrary to this, must be 
much more so to God, whose Justice and Truth, is infinite, pure, 
and eternal. I urged other matters, to as little purpose, and though 
33. Relly, Antichrist Resisted; Relly, The Sadducee.
Clymer / James Relly (1722–1778) 129
I confidently continued in my former assertion, yet I was forced 
to abate much of my self-importance, and very often afterwards, 
was greatly disturbed in my mind, on account of these things. As 
far as my capacity would admit, I applied myself to reading; and 
read a great many Books, treating of redemption by Jesus Christ; 
and found them all run in one channel, viz. that Man being a 
debtor, and transgressor, and unable to save himself, Jesus Christ 
became his surety, under an engagement to pay his debts, and to 
bear his punishment: The equity of which, is generally resolved 
into the Sovereignty of God, or accounted for, from the willing-
ness of Christ (as an independent Divine Person) to suffer, in 
the sinners stead: whilst others satisfy themselves, with the bare 
positive assertion, that it is equitable, for one person to be surety 
for another, not only in case of Debt ; but even in capital offences. 
Those resolutions, I read, over and over, but rather more per-
plexed than satisfied thereby. In vain it was, that the most pious 
and orthodox writers, and preachers, explained the matter thus: I 
was constrained to despise all human authority, in things of this 
nature, especially where there was not the shadow of Reason and 
equity. I applied myself more carefully, to the reading and study 
of the Scripture; as without notes, or expositions: submitting in 
spirit, unto Him, who first dictated, and hath taken it upon him 
to make us understand them. And thence it was, I discerned ac-
cording to that scanty measure I have attained, what I conceive 
to be the harmony of divine Truth, viz. the Union of Christ and 
the Church.34
It is evident from this account that Relly’s problem was the search for 
justice in the atonement. This was no secondary issue, and his question 
struck at the heart of the Christian faith. He was not one of the liberal 
minds who were challenging the very idea of atonement; he wanted to 
know how Christ atoned for sin, and wherein was the equity of the deed. It 
would have been easy for him to have taken refuge in the sovereignty of 
God as did many of his Calvinistic friends, but Relly was more Catholic 
than Reformed in his faith in human reason. He believed that there was 
a continuity between human and divine attributes: “This simple voice 
of nature, differs from revelation only as the lesser light which rules the 
night, differs from the greater which rules the Day: and what is discov-
erable by the lesser light [reason] is much more so by the greater. For 
revelation reflecting upon those innate principles, throws such a light 
34. Relly, Union, xii–xv.
“All SHAll Be Well”130
around us, that we can come much farther, see more clearly, and deter-
mine with greater certainty.”35 Hence that which is unjust to the human 
mind would be all the more so to the divine. 
Relly had once and for all abandoned any theory of the atonement 
that would not satisfy the demands of justice. He was ready enough to 
admit the sovereignty of God: “yet this hinders not the Method and 
execution of this Grace, its being according to equity, and that such as 
We, by Reason and Revelation may properly conceive of. But when sov-
ereignty is introduced from firstto last; to the utter exclusion of equity, 
which is often done (as a palliative for man’s ignorance in divine things) 
the consequences attending are dangerous.”36 Sovereignty must never be 
understood as mere arbitrariness; God acts only according to the man-
dates of justice. This position cannot be emphasized too strongly, for it 
determines Relly’s whole framework. It was because the Universalists 
who followed took love as the normative category that they could not 
follow Relly. For them justice was conditioned by love; for Relly love was 
conditioned by justice. God is first of all just.
It is contrary to Justice to afflict the Innocent: to punish and de-
stroy him, is cruelty and injustice. . . . Where is the Justice of 
charging the black rebellion and crying guilt of Man upon the 
pure and spotless head of Jesus? . . . To say that the undertaking 
on Christ’s part was voluntary, neither proves nor implies, his 
right to suffer: because it is not his willingness, but the approba-
tion of divine Justice, which proves His right to taste the Death 
of the Cross. And, as the nature and property of Justice, is always 
its own rule of acting; it can not admit the Innocent’s being pun-
ished, nor the Transgressor’s being aquitted.37
When asked about the love and mercy of God, he replied that it would 
be a defect in love and mercy, as well as justice, for God to punish his 
innocent Son.38
It is clear that if Relly wished to evolve a theory of the atonement 
to satisfy the demands of a rather crude justice, there are certain prereq-
uisites. Jesus must have suffered justly, and since to suffer justly implies 
guilt, Jesus must have died guilty of sin. yet it was not merely for his sins 
35. Ibid., 102.
36. Ibid., 2, note.
37. Ibid., 7.
38. Ibid., 11.
Clymer / James Relly (1722–1778) 131
that he died, for the Scriptures teach that, “Christ died for us.” This raises 
another problem, for as Jesus must not suffer unjustly, so we must not be 
permitted to escape suffering for our sin. We have sinned, and sin must 
be punished. How can it be that the Christ who lived so perfectly should 
die and in that death atone for our sin, and this act be just both for Christ 
and for us? This was Relly’s question and he went to the Bible for an 
answer. If there is any justice in this transaction, and Relly never doubts 
that there is, there obviously must be some kind of union between Christ 
and the race whereby Christ shares the guilt of man, and man shares the 
virtue of Christ. Only thus could Christ be worthy of death and man be 
made righteous. Relly found a figure that fitted his needs perfectly—“He 
is the head of the body, the church” (Col 1:18). To this passage he added 
other sayings of Paul that refer to the church as the body of Christ. If in 
some way we are members of Christ’s body, our sin would fall upon him, 
and if he should be punished, we too should be punished. likewise we 
might partake of his righteousness.
The garments of his arguments are, [to non-conservatives,] rather 
absurd, and he very often garbles passages of Scripture, but behind his 
symbolic language runs a hard logic. He was a conservative speaking to 
conservatives, and in this circle it was not doubted that there was some 
kind of union between Adam and the race that rendered his sin ours. 
The very heart of Relly’s argument is that:
If it be granted that there was such an Union between Adam and 
his Offspring, as render’d his sin theirs, why should it be thought 
a thing incredible, that the like Union, subsisting between Jesus 
and his Seed renders his Condition theirs? especially as the 
Apostle hath stated the matter thus: As by one Man’s disobedi-
ence, many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one, 
shall many be made righteous, the scriptures here showing the 
method of Sin in Adam, and of Grace in Christ, takes an occasion 
to illustrate the latter by the former: intimating, that as sin came 
upon all Adam’s posterity, by his single act; before they had any 
capacity of sinning, after the similitude of his transgression; or 
of personal concurrence with him in his iniquity: it must have 
been from such an Union to him, such an inclusion of the whole 
in him, as render’d his condition theirs in whatever state he was: 
hence, his Sin, its Curse and Fruit, was theirs, before they felt, 
knew it, or ever were conscious of existence. Thus, by one Man’s 
disobedience, many were made sinners. In like manner, Christ’s 
righteousness is upon all his seed; by his single act, before they 
“All SHAll Be Well”132
had any capacity of obeying, after the similitude of his obedience; 
or of assenting to what he did, or suffered: This manifests such 
an Union to him, such an inclusion of the whole seed in him, 
as renders his condition theirs, in every state which he passes 
through; insomuch that his righteousness, with all the blessings 
and fruits thereof, is theirs; before they have known it, believed 
it, or ever were conscious of existence. Thus by the obedience of 
one are many made righteous. For as in Adam all die, even so 
in Christ shall all be made alive: . . . Why may not our salvation 
in Christ, from union with him, in his obedience, and death, be 
judged as reasonable as our condemnation in Adam, from union 
with him, in His sin and Misery? I acknowledge the latter is more 
familiar, when I would do good evil is present with me; Whilst 
the former is more remote from our senses, and only manifest 
when we look not to the things which are seen but to the things 
which are not seen.39
Relly is writing only to those who grant that through the sin of 
Adam the race became sinful, hence he does not need an elaborate proof 
as to how this union between Christ and the race is possible. If he is 
pressed at this point, he need only ask his opponents how such a union 
was possible in Adam, and this question would either undermine the 
whole theological framework of his antagonists or make reasonable the 
establishment of his own. Relly insisted that the influence of the “second 
Adam” was coextensive with that of the “first Adam.” However odd these 
arguments [may seem] to [many] modern people, they were of ultimate 
significance to the evangelical movement of the eighteenth century. Relly 
was using a piece of dialectic that was driving his opponents to a consid-
eration of doctrines long neglected. To refute Relly, they were led to ask 
fundamental questions about their own beliefs.
That it is evident that men are fallen, but not so evident that all men 
are redeemed, does not concern Relly. He is admittedly not concerned 
with the practical application of doctrines. He is interested only in bald 
logic, whether it has any relation to life or not. The death of Christ must 
be justified and he sees no other way of doing this other than framing a 
doctrine of union.
With this doctrine as background he considers many of the ortho-
dox dogmas. The historical life and death of Jesus are of inestimable 
importance. The cross is no mere symbol of the contending forces of 
39. Ibid., 25–28 passim.
Clymer / James Relly (1722–1778) 133
good and evil. The death of Jesus effected salvation for the entire race. 
Two conditions were necessary for humanity to be saved. In the first 
place their sin must be punished—“the soul that sinneth, it shall die,” 
and secondly, the moral law must be kept perfectly. Obviously humans, 
being sinners, were helpless to fulfill these demands. But in Christ both 
conditions were met. By his sinless life he fulfilled the moral law, and 
by his death the race, the members of his body, were punished. By vir-
tue of this union all people have lived the perfect life in Christ and all 
have suffered for their sins. Our union with Christ gives us the benefit 
of his perfect life; Christ’s union with us brings our sin upon his head. 
Relly found this a convenient theory to solve the problem that perplexed 
him. The fact that from this hypothesis many absurdities [appear to] 
followdid not bother him. According to this doctrine of union, salva-
tion is acquired once and for all, and God is justified in erecting the 
cross. nothing that man has done or can do is a factor in his redemption. 
When Christ died, the race was saved: “He put himself in our condition, 
and was accepted as a law-fulfiller; and as a punished sinner, in lieu of 
the people. . . . The equity and reason, and basis for this; is the union 
subsisting between Christ and, the Church.”40 
Once Christ had died salvation was complete—“We were recon-
ciled to God by the death of his Son.” If Christ died for our sins, the 
matter is ended, and there is nothing that humans can do about it. “If my 
sins are not forgiven now, upon what condition will they be forgiven in 
the future, if at all? Must Jesus die again?”
Justification is neither of works nor of faith. nothing that we can 
do has anything to do with our salvation, all that was needed has been 
done by Christ. Relly felt that if justification were dependent either upon 
works or faith, humanity would be then capable of justifying itself, and 
Christ would not have completed the atonement. Justification indepen-
dent of faith was a bombshell to the evangelical movement. Relly admit-
ted that some doctrine of union with Christ had always been held in the 
church, and although the nature of this union had not been made clear, 
it was more or less dependent upon faith. For him nothing could be 
more absurd. How could believing a thing to be true make it true? “The 
matter proposed in the gospel to be believed is true: And relates to the 
Person of Christ, and his benefits. . . . Because this is a truth, therefore it 
is to be believed, and as it is not made a truth by believing; but is in itself 
40. Relly, The Life of Christ, 15. Relly consistently identified the church with the race.
“All SHAll Be Well”134
a truth, a perfect, and permanent, whether believed or not.”41 He then 
added rather cleverly,
Indeed the Apostle says, through faith we understand the worlds 
were framed by the word of God, but it doth not say that Faith 
made the worlds. So truly through faith we understand our 
Union with Christ; yet it is not our Faith that makes it.
But if it is not true until our believing, and by means thereof; 
then doth believing make that a truth, which was not a truth, 
and faith creates its own object, and then embraces it. This looks 
like the heathen Idolatry, first making their gods and then em-
bracing them.42
In much the same vein he criticized Mr. Mason, a Methodist layman, 
for making everything “depend upon believing rather than the truth 
believed!”43
It may be that Relly never comprehended what Wesley understood 
by “saving faith,” but it is true that many of Wesley’s followers seem to 
have made a certain type of emotional experience the basis of assurance. 
Relly discouraged his hearers from thinking that any sensation or set of 
feelings was the evidence of their salvation. The evidence of salvation is 
not something subjective; rather it is the historical and objective fact of 
Christ’s death, and the divine revelation of our union with him.
Of what value then is faith if it plays no part in our redemption? 
Faith is of value in that it relieves the believer of the fears of the judg-
ment and wrath of God which are consequent if the report of the gospel 
is not believed. Faith is the acceptance of objective facts and no more.
It is evident that a doctrine of works could have no place in this 
framework. There is nothing for which to work, all has been done. The 
ethical life is commended only because we are members of the same 
social body and by such a life we “mutually bless each other.” For this 
reason Relly was often accused of being an enemy of good works. This 
was really not true, and Relly argued in turn that the theories of elec-
tion were a greater enemy to good works, for they encouraged people to 
think of themselves as especially favored of God over their neighbors.44 
41. Relly, Union, 65–66.
42. Ibid., 70.
43. Relly, Antichrist Resisted, 24–25.
44. Relly, Union, preface, xx.
Clymer / James Relly (1722–1778) 135
Relly was always suspicious of anyone who emphasized ethics, for he felt 
that this was an attempt to make good works a means to salvation.
For the same reason he objected to ordinances and sacraments. He 
was never an extremist on this matter, and did not attempt to impose 
his views upon others.45 But he did feel that rites were superfluous in-
somuch as salvation had already been procured.46 Ordinances hint that 
there is still something for us to do, that Christ did not complete the 
work. It is true that the apostles baptized, but Relly believed that when 
they did this, they were inconsistent with their doctrine,47 just as were, 
[in his opinion,] those Jewish Christians who continued circumcision. It 
is more important that we follow the teachings of the apostles than it is 
that we follow their example.
Wesley was preaching that through the influence of the Holy Spirit 
life could be purified. Sanctification was to be sought here and now. 
Relly hated this doctrine “ten times more than the devil,” as Wesley put 
it. People were to be considered justified and sanctified, but this claim 
could be made only by virtue of union with Christ. Actually a person 
remains as much a sinner after his or her redemption as before; the qual-
ity of life was unchanged. Moreover it is not the person, but Christ, who 
is to have the glory of perfection. 
Relly shared the traditional low estimate of humanity: “There is not 
one action of our lives, however, disinterested and generous it may seem; 
but what we promise some advantage, some consolation or pleasure to 
ourselves by it.”48 He says, “To such who know mankind, it is sufficiently 
notorious, that all friendship, love, goodwill, and kindness, subsist-
ing among men, have their foundation in self only. In strict propriety, 
mankind know no other love than love for themselves.”49 If the human 
person is a hopeless sinner, why did Jesus and his apostles keep before 
humanity the standard of perfection and command believers to live ac-
cordingly? Relly’s answer is that the “intention . . . was to keep low the 
spirit of conceit and self-importance; and that they might themselves 
be under the necessity of a continual looking to Jesus.”50 There is really 
45. Relly, Salt of the Sacrifice, Preface, ii.
46. Relly, Christian Liberty, 77.
47. Relly, Salt of the Sacrifice, 53.
48. Relly, The Sadducee, 30–31.
49. Relly, Christian Liberty, 41.
50. Relly, Salt of the Sacrifice, 75–76.
“All SHAll Be Well”136
nothing people can do about their depraved state. At best they can only 
recognize the fact and content themselves in that in Christ they are justi-
fied and made righteous.51 Of course, being sinners they can never quite 
do this.52 no one can be perfect, and those who think they can are the 
greatest sinners, for they rebel against God who would have all men to 
glory in the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
Relly found difficulty in dealing with the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. 
He cannot deny that Pentecost changed the lives of those upon whom 
the Spirit came, but there was no place in his system for changed people. 
At one place he toys with the idea that the Holy Ghost was the ghost of 
Christ. What he really wanted to avoid was any idea of the Holy Spirit as 
an active agent affecting the hearts and lives of believers. He explained 
that Pentecost was an extraordinary event and was peculiar to the early 
days of Christianity and did not “extend beyond that age.”53 In his Letters 
he dealt with the problem again, but with as little success. He finally 
resolved the matter into his convenient theory of union.
It is particularly interesting that although the doctrine of universal 
salvation is implicit in the doctrine of union—in that all people are mem-
bers of the body of Christ insomuch as the union of the race with the 
second Adam is coextensive withthat of the first Adam—Relly denies 
that he is a universalist. When Mr. Mason charged him with the doc-
trine, he answered, “except Mr. Mason may be supposed to know what 
I believe, better than I do myself, I here tell the public, and him, also, 
that he hath lied against the truth in accusing me of this.”54 He wanted it 
clearly understood that “It is the method of salvation only, which I treat 
in the doctrine of union, and not the number of its subjects.”55 Relly 
knew well enough that his doctrines led to universalism, but this was 
not his main interest, and he grew impatient when his critics refused 
to deal with his doctrine of union, and instead leveled their criticisms 
at the universalism which resulted. He was not vitally concerned about 
the extent of salvation; his problem was primarily that of the atonement. 
Of course, he believed in universal salvation if it was arrived at by his 
doctrines: “That person who hath no other witness, or knowledge of 
51. Relly, Salvation Compleated, 29.
52. Ibid., 28. The same idea is in Relly, Eunuch, 72.
53. Relly, Salt of the Sacrifice, 90.
54. Relly, Antichrist Resisted, 18.
55. Ibid., 17.
Clymer / James Relly (1722–1778) 137
salvation, but the opinion that it is universal; we respect in the same 
light as we do those, who from a supposition of their having some good 
in them, imagine themselves the predestined, and from thence conclude 
their safety.”56
In 1773 a congregation, presumably his own, pressed him for his 
opinion regarding the matter of universal salvation.57 The inference was 
that Relly had shied away from making his views on the question explic-
it. Had Relly’s central interest been universalism his congregation would 
have known his view before this late date. In answer to this request Relly 
wrote a series of letters in which he gave a frank exposition of his views. 
At the outset he makes it clear that he does not consider this question of 
supreme importance. It is a question among Christians
of curiosity [rather] than of necessity. Hence I declare, that the 
rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus, neither depends on, nor 
connects with, either side of the question; but has its support, in 
the report and testimony of the Spirit speaking by the prophets 
and apostles concerning Jesus Christ, and his free and full salva-
tion. Therefore should I be mistaken in my ideas, respecting the 
extent of the salvation of Christ, yet, this mistake can not in the 
least affect my own interest or rejoicing in that salvation; nor can 
I be distressed, or disappointed at the detection of error in such 
opinions, as I neither derived or expected comfort from.58
Having premised these opinions he proceeds to give a clear picture 
of his ideas of last things. He begins by giving two meanings to the word 
“salvation.” It may refer to salvation from fear of judgment and punish-
ment, in which case salvation depends upon believing the testimony of 
the Scripture that Christ died for us.59 All do not have this faith; those 
who do are the elect. God chooses those to whom this faith is given.60 
In the second place salvation may mean eternal salvation, or everlasting 
bliss in heaven.
56. Ibid.
57. Relly wrote his answer, his Epistles, in 1773. The incident may have occurred 
the year before.
58. Relly, Epistles, 6–7. In the preface he says that, “the manuscript has lain by me 
these three years.” The time of writing was then in 1773.
59. Ibid., 13.
60. Ibid., 27–28.
“All SHAll Be Well”138
At the end of the world there will be a resurrection unto life and a 
resurrection unto damnation. The former is for those who are saved by 
faith in their union in Christ; the latter is the state of the unbeliever, a 
fearful looking forward to judgment. “The state of unbelievers after death, 
is a state of suspence: oppressed with guilt and fear, they are compassed 
about with doubtfulness, and uncertainty respecting the final period!”61
This period, a kind of purgatory, is owing wholly to ignorance and 
unbelief. There is no more punishment for sin, for Christ has suffered 
once and for all. Finally Christ will come to these fearful subjects and 
reveal himself as their savior and as united with them as the head of the 
body. These shall then join those who entered immediately into paradise. 
Just how long these unbelievers will be permitted to remain in ignorance 
of their salvation, Relly does not claim to know, but he speaks of “ages” 
and “eternities.”62 At any rate the period will not be a short one. Relly 
wants to make sure that the believer has some advantage, for he concedes 
that there is little advantage in being a believer on earth—one may be 
freed from fear, but one is also scornfully treated for accepting Christ.
Whenever Relly denies that he is a universalist, it is on the ground 
that he does not believe that unbelievers enter immediately into bliss, 
although every man will ultimately benefit from Christ’s sufferings. In 
The Sadducee he wages a long sham battle of this kind, and even goes so 
far as to list the reasons why universal salvation is unreasonable.63 The 
objections that he has to universalism, however, are all obviated when he 
introduces a period of suffering into his own scheme.
For Relly the drama of human existence is summed up in two great 
acts, neither of which is enacted by humanity. In Adam all sinned; in 
Christ all are redeemed. The fall left humanity as sinners; the cross leaves 
them righteous, though unchanged. Humanity is saved for heaven, but 
not from its sins. This kind of doctrine immediately raises the question, 
Why damn all people and then save all people? God is sovereign, so why 
was this way taken? Why not save all from the beginning? Although 
this question is never posited, Relly attempts to answer it in his The 
Cherubimical Mystery. He calls attention to the fact that it is generally 
assumed “that if Adam had observed the precept, he and his posterity 
would have been saved by his obedience: and that Adam, being a free 
61. Ibid., 148.
62. Ibid., 152.
63. Relly, The Sadducee, 78–86.
Clymer / James Relly (1722–1778) 139
agent, instead of transgressing as he did, might have continued in his 
righteousness and thereby secured life to himself and his offspring.”64 
Hence it is inferred that the whole plan of salvation is to bring humanity 
once more into its original righteousness before the fall. Against this 
theory Relly rebelled. The death of Christ, he maintained, was no mere 
afterthought. Over against this generally accepted theory Relly placed 
his own: in the Scripture which says that humanity was made “subject 
to vanity,” he saw the inference that humanity was created prone to sin, 
rather than in a state of perfection. Had this not been true humanity 
would have gone on living a good life and thereby obtained its own 
justification. But this, in Relly’s opinion, would have achieved a result 
opposite to that desired by God. All things were created for Christ. It was 
therefore necessary that humanity be subject to vanity so that we might 
realize our dependence upon Christ for righteousness. Humanity is not 
the end of creation, hence its return to original righteousness would not 
be the highest good. God is seeking primarily not the redemption of 
humanity, but the exaltation of his Son. Humans, fallen and helpless, 
find that their own faith, repentance, tears, and obedience cannot help 
them in their misery. Only in Christ dare they look for salvation. This 
is the good, the end of all creation, viz., the glorification of Jesus Christ, 
and Relly saw this achieved not through a doctrine of universalism, but 
in the doctrine of union with Christ. For him universalism was a subor-
dinate doctrine.
Universalism has traveled far since Relly pieced together his strange 
doctrine. Today it rests upon reverence for human personality, the ulti-
mate worth of the individual, and the love of God. Strangely enough the 
“Father of Universalism in America”—John Murray—came withRelly’s 
low conception of humanity and with justice as the normative category.65 
The universalism that Relly discovered to be the dome of his structure 
was made the foundation by those who followed.
64. Relly, Thoughts on the Cherubimical Mystery, 15.
65. [editor: Whilst John Murray is often remembered as the father of American 
(denominational) Universalism, he was not the only, nor the first, influential universal-
ist preacher in America. He would be more accurately thought of as one of the fathers of 
American universalism (and his wife, Judith Sargent Murray, was one of its mothers). 
And, as this chapter makes clear, John Murray’s Calvinist universalism, forged under 
the teaching of Relly, never really took root in the movement.] 
“All SHAll Be Well”140
Bibliography
Cole, Alfred S., and Clarence R. Skinner. Hell’s Ramparts Fell: The Life of John Murray. 
Boston: Universalist, 1941.
Murray, John. The Life of Rev. John Murray, Preacher of Universal Salvation. Boston: 
Trumpet Office, 1833.
Relly, James. Antichrist Resisted: In a Reply to a Pamphlet, Wrote by W. Mason, En-
titled Antinomian Heresy Exploded: In an Appeal to the Christian World; against the 
Unscriptural Doctrines, and Licentious Tenents of Mr. James Relly, Advanced in His 
Treatise of Union. london: n.p., 1761.
———. Christian Liberty; or, The Liberty Wherewith Christ Hath Made Us Free. london: 
n.p., 1775.
———. Epistles; or, The Great Salvation Contemplated; in a Series of Letters to a Christian 
Society. london: n.p., 1776.
———. Eunuch for the Kingdom of Heaven’s Sake. In Remarks on the Works of Richard 
Coppin. london: n.p., 1764.
———. The Life of Christ; The Perseverance of the Christian. london: n.p., 1762.
———. The Sadducee Detected and Refuted. In Remarks on the Works of Richard Coppin. 
london: n.p., 1764.
———. Salt of the Sacrifice; or, The True Christian Baptism Delineated according to Reason 
and Spirit: As Gathered from Sundry Discourses on That Subject. london: n.p., 1776.
———. Salvation Compleated: And Secured in Christ, as the Covenant of the People. 
Considered in a Discourse on That Subject. london: n.p., 1760.
———. Thoughts on the Cherubimical Mystery; or, An Attempt to Prove That the Cherubims 
Were the Emblems of Salvation by the Blood of Jesus. london: n.p., 1780.
———. Union; or, A Treatise of the Consanguinity and Affinity between Christ and His 
Church. london: n.p., 1759.
———. Written on Hearing of the Much-Lamented Death of the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield. 
london: n.p., 1770.
Tyerman, luke. Life and Times of the Rev. John Wesley. london: Hodder & Stoughton, 
1872.
———. The Life of the Rev. George Whitefield. london: Hodder & Stoughton, 1877.
Whitley, W. T. A History of British Baptists. 2nd ed. london: Kingsgate, 1932.
Wilson, Walter. History and Antiquities of Dissenting Churches and Meeting Houses in 
London, Westminster, and Southwark. london: n.p., 1933.
141
7 
Between Calvinism and 
Arminianism
The Evangelical Universalism 
of Elhanan Winchester (1751–1797)
Robin Parry
And if I should be lifted up,
And suffer on the tree;
And become the ground of hope,
And draw all men to me.
“All SHAll Be Well”142
This is my heav’nly Father’s will,
That all should be restor’d;
For this my blood I freely spill:
So spake our loving lord.
How sweet and blessed news is this,
That Christ for all did die!
The lord will not his purpose miss,
But all will justify!
The travail of his soul shall see,
And shall be saisfy’d;
And all mankind at last shall be
Restor’d by Christ who dy’d.1
Biography
elhanan Winchester was born on September 30, 1751, in Muddy 
 Water Village (later renamed Brookline) outside of Boston, new 
england—a fifth-generation American colonist. As a boy elhanan re-
ceived a common education and did not go to university but he was 
blessed with a good memory and a capacity for languages. He mastered 
Hebrew, Greek, latin, and French, all of which he put to use in his later 
ministry. He grew up imbibing moderate Calvinist theology in the local 
Congregational church and while he later came to repudiate aspects of 
this theology, it continued to inform his Christian thinking until the day 
that he died.
In 1769 Winchester, influenced by a “new light” revival, had a 
conversion experience that shaped his spirituality for the rest of his life 
and even sowed some seeds that only flowered in his subsequent uni-
versalism. He later wrote, “I saw the fullness, sufficiency, and willing-
ness of Christ to save me and all men, in such a manner as constrained 
me to venture my soul into his arms; and if I had ten thousand souls, 
I could have trusted them all into his hands. And O how did I long 
that every soul of Adam’s race might come to know the love of God in 
Christ Jesus.”2 But he suppressed such “experiential knowledge” to fit 
a theological “system” and he became, for a while, hyper-Calvinistic 
1. Winchester, Universalist’s Hymnbook, Hymn ClXXII, 229–30. The hymn is based 
on John 12:32 with allusions to Isa 53:11 and Rom 5:19.
2. Preface to the 1792 edition of The Universal Restoration.
Parry / Elhanan Winchester (1751–1797) 143
in his theology. That theology manifested itself in Winchester’s refusal 
to call sinners to salvation in his gospel preaching. The logic was that 
if sinners were morally incapable of responding to the gospel without 
divine assistance, and if Christ had died for only a small part of human-
ity (the elect), then it was both futile and wrong to invite all people 
indiscriminately to enjoy salvation.
1774 marked a significant move to Welsh neck, South Carolina, 
where Winchester took up the pastorate at the Baptist church where he 
remained until 1779. There he took the step of not simply preaching 
to the white people but also to the slaves—something highly unusual 
in South Carolina.3 Because he was a known opponent of slavery,4 the 
slaves had no prejudice against his Christianity, and during a revival in 
the summer of 1779 over 100 were baptized along with 139 white people. 
It was, in his words, “a summer of great success.”
It was while in Welsh neck that Winchester’s journey towards uni-
versalism began. In 1778 he skim-read The Everlasting Gospel by Paul 
Siegvolk (a pseudonym of George Klein-nicolai, a German universalist).5 
This book was to play a key role in his “conversion”; but at first, while he 
was impressed by some of the arguments, he dismissed it without much 
thought. Some time later a second copy came into his hands, and he 
read it again, “yet had not the least thought that ever should I embrace 
its sentiments.” It was only on a third read two years later that he took it 
seriously. At the same time he found his hyper-Calvinistic opposition to 
calling sinners to repentance being challenged by his own evangelistic 
experiences. He found that preaching a general call to salvation yielded 
good results! And he gradually moved to a position in which he em-
braced the hope that the number of the saved would exceed the number 
of the lost.
late in 1779 he left Welsh neck on a journey north to new england, 
preaching as he went. The universalist ideas of Siegvolk continued to 
slowly burrow their way into his thinking, and as he travelled he would 
3. On which see lewis, American Colonies, 231.
4. In london in 1788 he published a sermon entitled The Reigning Abominations, 
Especially the Slave Trade, Considered as Causes of Lamentations. The sermon was 
preached in Virginia on December 30, 1774, and provides a fascinating insight into the 
practice of slavery and Winchester’s hatred of it.
5. The book was published in German in 1700 and translated into english in 1753 
by George De Benneville. Winchester himself published an edition of it in london in 
1792.
“All SHAll Be Well”144
engage many ministers in conversations about this peculiar theology. He 
would present the arguments in its favor and was surprised to discover 
that even the best minds had little of substance to say against it. Thus his 
doubtsabout traditional theology grew; but he did not yet feel able to 
embrace such a theology and describes himself as “half a convert.” 
His time in new england was spent leading a revival. On his 
way back down to South Carolina he went to the Baptist Association 
in Philadelphia and was invited to lead the First Baptist Church in 
Philadelphia. As recounted in chapter 1, it was while serving as minister 
there that Winchester became a convinced universalist and was expelled, 
along with a section of the congregation, from the church.
The expelled group of about one hundred, led by Winchester, 
then set up the Society of Universal Baptists, meeting in the Hall of 
the University of Pennsylvania for four years until they acquired their 
own building. This severance led to Winchester feeling the freedom 
to preach universal salvation from the pulpit when he judged it appro-
priate.6 Two influential universalist sermons from his early days of the 
Philadelphia church were The Seed of the Woman Bruising the Serpent’s 
Head (1781)—which became his first universalist publication and stands 
out as atypical of his work in its somewhat theologically speculative ap-
proach to biblical texts—and The Outcasts Comforted (1782)—a sermon 
that sets the tone for all his subsequent thinking and writing on the issue. 
What is clear is that Winchester had invested a lot of time in reflecting 
on the Bible prior to his universalist conversion and so the basic shape 
of his newly configured faith and his interpretations of a wide range of 
texts were largely in place right from the start.
In 1787, feeling a call of God, elhanan Winchester and his wife 
Maria traveled to london. He preached in various places and was even-
tually asked to supply the pulpit at the General Baptist meeting house 
in Worship Street in the mornings, and in the chapel in Glass-House 
yard in the evenings. By the end of 1792 he had acquired a building in 
Artillery lane and thus founded the Parliament Court congregation—
a universalist “Baptist” church.7 Winchester was invited to speak at an 
6. Winchester himself explained that he did not directly preach universalism very 
often. Most of his discussion of the issue was in print rather than from the pulpit. His 
reasoning can be found in the 1792 edition of The Universal Restoration, at the end of 
Dialogue IV.
7. It was not formally part of the General Baptist Assembly until 1803. The con-
gregation moved to South Place in Finsbury in 1824. The Artillery lane building used 
Parry / Elhanan Winchester (1751–1797) 145
increasing number of British churches as his influence spread but the 
most significant aspect of his time in london was his prolific publish-
ing. From 1788 until 1794 he published nineteen works including the 
massive, multi-volume work, A Course of Lectures on the Prophecies that 
Remain to be Fulfilled (1789).8 The most influential of all these books was 
his classic defense of universalism, The Universal Restoration (1788),9 
which is presented in a dialogue format between a universalist minister 
and an inquirer who is open-minded yet who refuses to believe universal-
ism until he can have every “i” dotted and every “t” crossed. The inquirer 
presents countless objections to universal restoration and the minister 
answers them all. While the conversation is fictional, all the questions 
are actual questions that Winchester had encountered and the fictional 
minister clearly represents Winchester both in theology and personality.
On 12 July, 1794, Winchester left london without warning and 
sailed to Boston. It seemed that he was struggling with what he per-
ceived as his wife’s hot temper, and he felt that he had to get away.10 In 
1795 she followed him and they were reconciled (quite how reconciled 
we shall never know). Winchester’s disappearance was a shock for his 
congregants, but William Vidler, Winchester’s co-pastor, took over 
leadership of the Parliament Court church. In 1797, after Winchester’s 
had left, Vidler was converted to Unitarianism by Richard Wright, and 
he led the Parliament Court Church in such directions, splitting the 
by Winchester is still standing and is now Sandys Row Synagogue. On the General 
Baptists (both the General Assembly and the new Connexion) see Brown, English 
Baptists, ch. 6.
8. Before moving to england Winchester published twelve works and on his return 
to the USA a further six (with Vidler publishing a further collection of Winchester’s ser-
mons in london after his death). Most of these publications were sermons but there are 
also hymns, poems, patriotic material, a political catechism, and apologetic works (e.g., 
a response to Thomas Paine’s The Age of Reason). Winchester was deeply committed to 
the new political vision of the United States as can be seen in Thirteen Hymns (1776) 
celebrating the American project, a private letter he wrote to George Washington; A 
Century Sermon on the Glorious Revolution (1788), which compares the events of 1588 
(defeat of the Spanish Armada), 1688 (the landing of William of Orange), and 1788 (the 
adoption of the United States constitution); An Oration on the Discovery of America 
(1792); and A Plain Political Catechism (1796), intended for use in US schools.
9. As page numbers for The Universal Restoration will differ depending on the edi-
tion (the book went through several), I shall indicate the points by referring to the 
Dialogue number and then the question or answer number. For instance, UR.I.Q1 or 
UR.III.A1.
10. Stone, Biography, ch. 13.
“All SHAll Be Well”146
congregation and losing it many members.11 He remained, however, an 
influential and vocal defender of universalism.
On arriving in Boston in 1794, Winchester engaged in a very suc-
cessful preaching tour of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and 
parts of new Hampshire. He also presided over the second Universalist 
Convention in Oxford. In 1795 elhanan and Maria returned to Philadel-
phia and ministered for about eighteen months in their old congregation. 
But Winchester’s health, which had never been good, was deteriorating. 
In April 1797, after preaching in new york and Hartford, he took ill and 
died, aged forty-five.
Theology
The Shape and Place of Winchester’s Universalism
Before examining Winchester’s case for universal restoration it will be 
helpful to outline his beliefs about the shape of the future. This will al-
low us to see the place of universal salvation in the grander scheme of 
things. Winchester’s beliefs about the future are spelled out in great de-
tail in his Lectures on the Prophesies That Remain to be Fulfilled (1789), 
and more briefly, and in third-rate poetic form, in his The Process and 
Empire of Christ (1793), as well as in discussions scattered across various 
other works.
Winchester was a premillennialist, fascinated with unfulfilled pro-
phetic promises. He was expecting the future times of restitution to pan 
out in something like the following way: everything will kick off when 
the Jewish people return to their Promised land and are re-established as 
a nation. Israel’s enemies will then arise and attack Jerusalem but before 
they can complete their destruction Jesus will return, descending upon 
the Mount of Olives, and stop them. At that point dead believers will be 
raised and the living saints will be changed—the first resurrection—and 
11. Winchester’s attitude towards Unitarianism is interesting. He was a Trinitarian 
to the day that he died. His book-length defense of the deity of Christ (The Divinity of 
Christ) argues against both Socinian and Arian Christologies (two modes of Unitarian 
Christology) and in defense of what is essentially a Chalcedonian Christology. yet he 
had a very irenic temperament, hating controversy, and did not disassociate himself 
from those who took different views. Thus he counted as friends both Socinians (such 
as Joseph Priestley) and Arians even while taking issue with their theology.
Parry / Elhanan Winchester(1751–1797) 147
they shall rule with Christ.12 The second advent of the Messiah will lead 
the Jewish people to repent and accept him as their lord. Christ’s millen-
nial kingdom of peace will then be set up. Satan will be bound and Jesus 
and the saints will rule from a rebuilt Jerusalem for a thousand years: 
there will be global peace—nations will come to worship at Jerusalem 
and will no longer make war against each other.13 
After the millennium, Satan shall be released to deceive the nations 
and lead them in a futile rebellion against Jesus. The lord will easily 
crush the rebellion, and the day of the final judgment will then dawn. 
All the dead shall be raised (the second resurrection) and judged accord-
ing to their deeds. The saints shall ascend to heaven with their lord as 
the whole earth is destroyed by flame. The entire planet will be turned 
into a volcanic lake of fire inhabited by unredeemed sinners—hell.14 
Winchester considers this fate to be unimaginably terrible.
After many ages, when the lake of fire has done its work of hum-
bling sinners and drawing them to repentance, the time will arrive when 
Jesus shall return to earth (again) and all God’s enemies—lucifer and 
his demons included15—will be reconciled to God through Christ’s aton-
ing blood. Thus shall all creation be saved.
At that point the new creation takes place—God makes all things 
new.16 Against some popular views at the time Winchester argued that 
the new creation is not a timeless eternity totally distinct from this cre-
ation. On the contrary, the new creation is in fact this earth and heaven 
renewed after its destruction by fire.17 elhanan Winchester reached this 
12. Winchester envisaged graded levels of glory in future ages for the redeemed 
depending on how they lived—rewarded according to their obedience to Christ. Those 
who suffered for Christ, the overcomers, will reign with him—those later saved from 
hell will not have that honor (UR.IV.A13).
13. On this see Winchester, Process and Empire, books 8 and 9.
14. Winchester saw the lake of Fire as “probably the earth in its melted state” (UR.
II.A3) prior to new creation. See Winchester, Process and Empire, book 10, line 721ff. for 
extended, vivid descriptions of the volcanic earth. The number of the unredeemed he 
poetically, and somewhat pessimistically, described as “ten hundred thousand millions” 
(Process and Empire, book 10, line 17).
15. For extended imaginative descriptions of Satan’s repentance and salvation see 
Winchester, Process and Empire, books 10 and 11.
16. Winchester, Process and Empire, book 10.
17. He also argued at length that the new creation is not identical with the mil-
lennium but follows on from it; is not metaphorical but literal; and is not heaven. 
Winchester, Letter to De Coetlogon, 9–15.
“All SHAll Be Well”148
“materialistic” conclusion long before the idea caught on in mainstream 
evangelicalism.
Once all Christ’s enemies have been placed under his feet, his role 
as Mediator—namely that of reconciling creation to God—shall be com-
pleted. So he will hand his kingdom over to the Father. Here Winchester 
is drawing on an unusual, though not unique,18 interpretation of 1 
Corinthians 15:24–28.19 Against the more traditional view, he main-
tains that the time at which all things are placed under Christ’s feet and 
handed over to the Father is not at the return of Christ but much, much 
later. Also, and even more idiosyncratically, Christ’s handing over his 
kingdom to the Father marks the end of Christ’s mediatorial kingdom and 
the start of a new era in God’s economy.20 It is at this moment—far, far in 
the future when Christ hands the kingdom over to God the Father—that 
God will be all in all. On occasion Winchester expresses this view of 1 
Corinthians 15:24–28 tentatively21 but at other times seems certain of 
its truth.22
18. Charles Chauncey defended this interpretation at length in Chauncy, The 
Mystery Hid from Ages, 197–237.
19. See Winchester, Lectures, lecture 42.
20. Here again he differed from Siegvolck who thought Christ’s kingdom eternal 
(Siegvolk, Everlasting Gospel, 63–64). But the difference may be superficial—it is im-
portant to see that Winchester was very careful to qualify this claim about the end 
of Christ’s kingdom in such a way as not to compromise his Trinitarian theology. In 
Process and Empire, Poem 12, lines 264–71 of after the Son has handed over the king-
dom, the Father says to him:
. . . behold, I give command
To all my subjects, still to honour Thee,
not as the Mediator, but my Son.
My Son thou wast in whom I did rejoice,
long ere thou Mediator didst become;
And though no more thou Mediator art,
yet Thou shalt still remain my darling Son,
The Part’ner of my throne, my soul’s delight
In a similar qualification in his Letters to Dan Taylor, he writes, “His kingdom is an aion-
ion kingdom [n.B.: not an ‘eternal kingdom’], a dominion of ages . . . the Son of God 
must reign . . . ‘Until all his enemies are put under his feet. . . . Then cometh the end when 
he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father.’ . . . yet Christ shall never 
cease to be, but I believe that he, with the Father, and the Holy Ghost, shall ever reign one 
God, world without end” (pp. 7, 9). It is only the mediatorial kingdom that ends.
21. Winchester, Letter to De Coetlogon, 16. Was his hesitation for rhetorical reasons?
22. Winchester, Letters to Dan Taylor, 8.
Parry / Elhanan Winchester (1751–1797) 149
Winchester’s Case for Universalism
Affirming the Promises and the Threats
For Winchester, theology was biblical exegesis. As an evangelical his oft-
repeated conviction was that if the idea of the restitution of all things 
was unbiblical then it must be rejected (and he often said that he would 
drop it instantly if any could convince him that it was not scriptural). 
He even urged caution on the part of those considering it, calling them 
to weigh the biblical teachings very carefully before affirming Christian 
universalism.23 So the bulk of his work is an attempt to show that the 
diverse texts of the Bible were consistent with—indeed some positively 
taught—universal restoration. 
The heart of Winchester’s hermeneutic is an attempt to find a way of 
holding firmly to all the diverse teachings of the Bible—not “in any wise 
to explain away or weaken, the force of either the threatenings or prom-
ises, set forth in this wondrous book” (UR.IV.A14). The Bible speaks 
both of some in hell and of universal restoration so, reasons Winchester, 
both those teachings must be true. Therefore any understanding of hell 
that excludes the promise of universal salvation cannot be accepted. But 
Winchester was well aware that this was the heart of the disagreement 
between himself and more traditional Protestants. Those who took issue 
with him felt that the hell texts were so clear that the promises must 
be interpreted in the light of them. Winchester, however, felt that the 
situation was exactly the reverse.24 everything hinges on which way one 
attempts to hold the biblical teachings together.
Central to Winchester’s case was what he took to be positive prom-
ises of universal salvation.25 For instance, ephesians 1:9–10 pictures 
the goal of creation as the gathering together of “all things” in Christ; 
Colossians 1:19–20 speaks of Christ reconciling “all things” (and in con-
text this means all things that have been created) to God, making peace 
through his blood shed on the cross;26 Revelation pictures “every creature 
23. Something he claimed had been his own procedure (UR.III.A6).
24. Winchester, Letter to a friend, 43.
25. Winchester listed these texts in An Attempt to Collect the Scripture Passages, and 
surveys these, and other such texts, in The Universal Restoration; Letter to De Coetlogon, 
26–31; Letters to Dan Taylor, 45–50.
26. Winchester discusses at some length whether “all” literally means “all” (UR.I.A9). 
He argues that “all” means “all without exception”except when the context indicates 
that it does not (e.g., 1 Cor 15:27). He is, in my judgement, correct.
“All SHAll Be Well”150
in heaven, on earth, and under the earth” worshipping the Father and 
the Son—the creating and redeeming God (Rev 5:13); Romans 5:18–20 
claims that all those who died in Adam (i.e., every human being) will 
be made alive in Christ and that grace will undo all the damage that sin 
has done. From Philippians 2:9–11 and 1 Corinthians 12:3 Winchester 
proposed a syllogism:
1. If all people (every tongue in creation) shall confess Jesus as 
lord (Phil 2:11); and
2. if no one can confess Jesus as lord apart from by the Spirit 
(1 Cor 12:3); then
3. the Spirit must work effectually in all people leading them to 
confess Christ as lord.
He took this confession to be salvific (and not one of forced subjugation) 
in light of the OT text Paul used—Isaiah 45:23, which has a clear global-
salvation context (“turn to me you ends of the earth and be saved”)—and 
in light of general Pauline teaching on the link between confessing Jesus 
as lord and salvation (UR.I.A7). Critically, in terms of his hermeneutic, 
he wrote, “As endless damnation appears to me to be against the promises, 
I cannot hold to it as an article of my faith; but were there no promises 
or intimations to the contrary in Scripture, I should not require it to be 
threatened in any stronger terms than it is . . . my difficulty arises from 
these express promises of God” (UR.I.A7).27
One interesting argument of Winchester’s that he deployed in sev-
eral publications is based on his reading of John’s Gospel.28 It is worth 
repeating because it is an argument that has not made it into the popular 
universalist literature. It can be set out as follows:
1. Major premise: the Father has given all into the hands of the Son 
(John 13:3, cf. Matt 11:27; luke 10:22).
2. Minor premise: all that the Father has given to the Son will come to 
him and will not be cast out (John 6:37) but will be raised up at the 
last day (John 6:39–40).
3. Therefore, all will come to the Son, and will not be cast out but will 
be raised up at the last day.
27. Similar sentiments are expressed in Winchester, Letter to a Friend, 41–42.
28. A slightly different version is found in ibid., 53.
Parry / Elhanan Winchester (1751–1797) 151
One aspect of this argument open to dispute is the interpretation of the 
texts in the minor premise in the light of the text in the major one. The 
texts in the minor premise had often, as Winchester was well aware, been 
used as an argument for a Calvinist theology. It is the major premise 
that allows one to suppose that those given by the Father to the Son are 
not a limited group, as Calvinists supposed, but all people (UR.IV.A2). 
Winchester saw his argument brought together in John 17:2–3: “For thou 
[the Father] hast given him [the Son] power over all flesh, that he should 
give eternal life to all that thou hast given him.” He further reinforces his 
case by appeal to John 6: “If all shall be taught of God [John 6:45]; and 
all that are taught shall come to Christ [John 6:45]; and none that come 
to him shall be cast out or rejected [John 6:37]; if all these premises are 
true . . . how very naturally the conclusion follows, viz. that all shall be 
finally brought home to God” (UR.IV.A2). As further support he brings 
in John 12:32: “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth [on the cross], will 
draw all unto me.” Christ will see the travail of his soul and be satisfied 
(Isa 53:11).29
Winchester saw the positive case for universal restoration as 
founded on several theological principals (UR.III.A1). First, God is the 
universal and only creator of all—all creatures are made by him and for 
him. Second, the universal love of God—he loves all that he has created 
(Wis 11:24). Third, Christ died for all (Heb 2:9; 1 John 2:1–2; 1 Tim 
2:5–6; 2 Cor 5:14–15). Fourth, God is unchangeable and so his love for 
his creatures cannot waver, no matter how heinous their sins may be 
and no matter how much he may hate that sin. Fifth, God’s purposes 
are unchanging and those purposes are to gather all things together in 
Christ (eph 1:8–11).30 
But what about the biblical teachings on hell? Dialogue I of The 
Universal Restoration opens with an issue right at the heart of the de-
bate—the meaning of the words translated as “eternal”/“everlasting” as 
applied to the eschatological punishment of the wicked. In the context 
of the eighteenth century, more or less every attempt to defend or attack 
29. Dan Taylor, the founder of the new connexion of General Baptists, criticized 
Winchester’s interpretation of John here (Taylor, The Eternity of Future Punishment), 
and Winchester responded (Winchester, Letters to Dan Taylor, 56–59). On Taylor see 
Rinaldi, The Tribe of Dan.
30. He also added a sixth (the argument from John’s Gospel discussed above) and a 
seventh (that the Scriptures cannot be broken and they promise universal salvation) 
principle.
“All SHAll Be Well”152
universalism was compelled to engage this issue. A few Scriptures de-
scribe the punishment of the wicked as “eternal” (Isa 33:14; Dan 12:2; 
Matt 18:8; 25:41, 46; Mark 3:29; 2 Thess 1:7–9), and such verses were 
foundational for traditional theology. Winchester’s response, which was 
partly inspired by his reading of Siegvolck,31 was to argue (a) that the 
word “eternal” is only rarely used of the punishment of the wicked in 
the Bible (eight times in total), (b) that the Hebrew and Greek words 
translated “eternal” are often applied in the Bible to things which have 
an “end.” For instance, the “everlasting hills” in Canaan (Gen 49:26), 
Aaron’s “everlasting” high priesthood (exod 40:15), Phinehas’ “everlast-
ing” priesthood (num 25:11–13), “everlasting” atonement rituals for 
the Israelites (lev 16:34), etc. But, said Winchester, these “everlasting” 
ordinances were only until the time of Christ (Heb 9:10) and are now no 
more. The Hebrew and Greek words only indicate “an age”—a complete, 
albeit long, period of time—and not eternal duration.32 He lists over fifty 
cases where the Hebrew lĕôlām does not mean “forever” (UR.I.A1).33 
Winchester thus established his principle that the meaning of aiōnios in 
any specific instance must be determined by its subject—the meaning 
is not the same on all occasions.34 even spiritual things which are said 
to be “forever and ever”—such as the kingdom of Jesus (Heb 1:8)—are 
declared by the Bible to have a limited duration (here Winchester refers 
to his unusual interpretation of 1 Cor 15:24–28, on which see earlier) 
(UR.I.A3). However, Winchester’s main reason for resisting an endless 
torment interpretation of these verses was that he believed such an in-
terpretation to contradict the plain teaching of various other texts that 
31. Siegvolck, Everlasting, ch. 7.
32. Winchester also pointed out that the Greek word for “punishment” in the phrase 
“eternal punishment”—kolasis—means “chastisement” or “correction” in classical lit-
erature. This suggests that the punishment in question is not merely retributive but 
also intended to correct (Wincester, Letter to De Coetlogon, 6–8). On aiōnios see also 
Winchester, Letters to Dan Taylor, letters 1 and 2, which, if anything, presents a better 
case than The Universal Restoration for resisting “eternal” as a translation.
33. Concerning the expression “forever and ever” (eis tous aiōnas ton aiōnōn), 
which is used in Revelation of the punishment of the wicked (Rev 14:11; 19:3; 20:10): 
Winchester admited that it is very strong—literally meaning “for an age of ages”—but it 
is consistent, he says, with a very long yet limited period (UR.I.A2). Winchester listed 
some uses of the Hebrew expression “forever and ever” in which he thought a limited 
period was intended (Isa 30:8; Jer 7:7; Jer 25:5; Ps 148:6, cf. Ps 102:25–26). Winchester, 
Letters to Dan Taylor, 13–14.
34. Winchester, Letter to De Coetlogon, 8.
Parry / Elhanan Winchester (1751–1797)153
he believed promise universal salvation (UR.I.A2). In sum, Winchester 
argued that the final punishment of the lost is certainly “for an age” but 
not obviously “for ever.”35 So we cannot found a doctrine of eternal pun-
ishment on the words aiōnion or lĕôlām (UR.I.A6). 
And it is not simply a matter of the terminology used but of theology 
—the life of the saints arises from their union with Christ. Union with the 
ever-living Lord is the ground of eternal life (Heb 7:16; Col 3:4). The doc-
trine of the eternal duration of hell has no such theological foundation 
(UR.I.A7). Indeed, Winchester worried that a theological foundation 
for everlasting hell appears to require an eternal moral dualism between 
light and darkness—a pagan and not a Christian notion (UR.I.A8).
But the traditional theology of hell was not simply founded on the 
use of the word “eternal” but also upon certain descriptions of judgment. 
For instance, gehenna is described as a place where the worm does not 
die and the fire is not quenched (Mark 9:43–49). Winchester drew at-
tention to various fires in the Bible that are described in just as strong 
terms as the fire of gehenna but which went out long ago. For instance, 
Jeremiah 17:27 speaks of an unquenchable fire in the gates of Jerusalem 
(cf. ezek 20:42–48); and Isaiah 34 speaks of edom being consumed by 
an unquenchable fire that burns unceasingly, day and night, with smoke 
that rises forever. To take the texts literally would require us to say that 
the prophets were wrong, but this is to misunderstand the language. It 
indicates a fire that will not be quenched until it has completed its task 
rather than a fire that will not ever be quenched. We should, he believed, 
hear Jesus’ words similarly. In fact, Jesus himself mitigates the strong 
words on gehenna’s fire by describing its function as that of “salting with 
fire” (Mark 9:49), which suggests that the purpose of the fire of hell is 
that of preservation and purification and not simply of retributive tor-
ment (UR.II.A1).36
35. note that Winchester’s conclusion is modest—not that the biblical language 
cannot mean that hell is everlasting, but merely that it need not (Winchester, Letter to 
De Coetlogon, 26; Winchester, Letters to Dan Taylor, 6).
36. Winchester suggested that “furnace” language has similar implications. Regarding 
the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, which will not be forgiven (Matt 12:31–32; luke 
12:10): Winchester saw it as the same as the sin of apostasy in Hebrews (6:5–6; 10:26–29; 
12:15–17) and the sin unto death in 1 John (5:16). He wanted to take the threat very 
seriously. This sin, he said, cannot be pardoned but must be punished with the second 
death. That fate is sealed. But, as Winchester believed that there would come a time 
when the lake of fire will cease to exist (on the grounds that Christ’s victory over sin and 
death—1 Cor 15:26—requires him to defeat the second death, as it is far more an enemy 
“All SHAll Be Well”154
Winchester’s discussion of the parable of the rich man and lazarus 
in luke 16—a classic text used to support traditional views of hell—is 
interesting. Here a great gulf separates hades from paradise and no one 
can cross it. But Winchester deployed a theological trump card: Christ 
can pass the impassible chasm. “With man is it impossible; but with God 
all things are possible. And I believe, that Jesus Christ was not only able 
to pass, but that he actually did pass that gulph, which was impassable to 
all men, but not to him” (UR.II.A5). He went on to employ the theologi-
cal motif of Christ’s “descent into hell” to support this claim (discussing 
at length the biblical foundations of the motif along the way, e.g., 1 Pet 
3:18–20; 4:5–6). 
“For to this end Christ both died, rose, and revived, that he might 
be lord, both of the dead and living.” Rom xiv.9 . . . It seemed 
necessary, that our Saviour should visit men in all situations, 
that he might redeem them . . . It was not only necessary that he 
should die, to vanquish death, and to redeem us from its power; 
but it was equally needful for him to go into those places, where 
spirits were confined in the regions of darkness, that he might 
gain universal dominion, spoil principalities, and redeem the 
captives whom he had bought with his blood. (UR.II.A5)
So the gulf in luke 16 can be crossed through union with Christ. It might 
indeed be “impossible” for the rich—like the man in luke 16—to enter 
the kingdom; but with God nothing is impossible (Mark 10:27).37
Winchester’s reading of the Judas story is also suggestive. Jesus said 
of his betrayer that it would have been better for him if he had never 
been born (Mark 14:21). Does this rule out any future hope for him? 
One must understand the rhetoric being used. It was, wrote Winchester, 
a common proverb among the Jews, if a great misfortune befell a man, 
to say that it would be better that he had not been born. He looked at 
Job’s extensive cursing of the day of his birth in light of his misfortunes 
(Job 3:2–19). Job felt that it would have been better for him never to have 
been born than to face the calamities that had come upon him. Jeremiah 
had similar sentiments (Jer 20:11–18). Postmortem punishment is not 
than the first death) there is still hope for such sinners. In the end, grace must abound 
more than sin (Rom 5:20).
37. It is interesting to contrast this interpretation with John Murray’s universalist 
interpretation of luke 16 (Murray, Letters and Sketches, vol. 1, letter 1). Winchester was 
inclined to see the story not as a parable but as a literal account of a real event. Murray 
read the story, equally implausibly, as an allegory.
Parry / Elhanan Winchester (1751–1797) 155
even in sight in these texts. The expression is not theological doctrine 
but a powerful way of expressing the emotions of horror people have in 
the face of dire circumstances. Judas would feel the dreadful remorse—
a remorse that drove him to suicide—of having betrayed the lord he 
loved. That is all that Jesus’ words require (UR.II.A6).38 
Winchester developed his theology of hell in light of the wider 
scriptural pattern of punishment followed by restoration—a regular mo-
tif across the Bible. He noted that “God frequently threatens the great-
est judgements, and promises the greatest mercies, to the same people 
and persons” (UR.IV.A3). Indeed over and over again we see those 
who are living under divine wrath, in what seems a hopeless state, be-
ing redeemed. “I could justify this observation by hundreds of passages 
wherein God threatens his people with judgements the most severe, 
and declares—that his eyes shall not pity, nor his arm save; that he will 
visit their transgressions upon them, will utterly cast them off, and will 
not have compassion on them at all; and then such promises of mercy 
break out as are sufficient to astonish every one with their greatness” 
(UR.IV.A3). even the judgment that serves as a paradigm of hell itself—
Sodom, which was destroyed with eternal fire (Jude 7)—was to be re-
stored (ezek 16:44, 53–63).39 Punishment is indeed “a just retribution” 
but it is also intended as a corrective for the good of the one punished 
(UR.IV.A16).
Winchester maintained that the burden of proof lies with tradi-
tionalists who claim that there is a radical distinction between God’s 
purposes in judgment in the present age (where they allow it a corrective 
function) and in the age to come (where they do not).40
Of course, divine punishment might not yield an immediate result: 
“punishment to a certain degree, inflames and enrages, in a most amaz-
ing manner; but continued longer, and heavier, produces a contrary 
effect—softens, humbles, and subdues. . . . God knows how to correct 
38. Also Jesus said that his twelve apostles—Judas among them—would sit on twelve 
thrones (Matt 19:28), which perhaps suggests a future for Judas. Peter did indeed quote 
Ps 69:25 when seeking another to replace him (Acts 1:20),In the 
latter part of the fourth century, groups of ascetic monks in the egyptian desert took 
Origen’s speculations further. Their thinking was represented by Didymus the Blind 
(313–398) and evagrius of Pontus (346–399). In 400 Theophilus, bishop of Alexandria, 
convened a council and condemned as heretical a number of doctrines that the partici-
pants thought that they found in Origen’s work. The doctrines that they condemned 
were indeed taught by evagrius and Didymus but not obviously by Origen himself. 
This evagrian, neo-Origenist eschatology was revived in the sixth century by the likes 
of Philoxenus (440–523) and, in an even more radical pantheistic form, by Stephen Bar 
Sudaili (c. 480–c. 543). In the 530s a group of Palestinian monks of evagrian persuasion 
became influential and so in 543, ten years before the fifth ecumenical council, the em-
peror Justinian I (emperor from 527–565) convened a local Synod in Constantinople 
condemning Origen’s heresies in nine anathemas. See Daley, The Hope of the Early 
Church, 47–64, 89–91, 176–78, 188–90. While the council’s conclusions and anathemas 
(assuming that they actually come from the council) have a clear authority amongst 
orthodox Christians, the status of Justinian’s nine anathemas is somewhat ambiguous. 
Presumably they do not have the status of the pronouncement of an ecumenical council. 
Although the later council’s anathemas did vindicate most of what Justinian wrote they 
do qualify his apparent blanket condemnation of apokotastasis (see the main text).
10. For instance, while it is often said that Origen taught the salvation of Satan and 
demons (e.g., Augustine, City of God, 21.17), in fact, he explicitly denied it (see norris, 
“Universal Salvation in Origen and Maximus,” 47–50). Part of the problem is that 
Origen’s work was sometimes ambiguous and, right from the start, was misunderstood 
by some readers. It also had the potential to be developed in questionable directions. 
On top of that some of his readers and translators felt at liberty to change his texts—
even during his own lifetime. We must also remember that Origen lived prior to the 
flowering of orthodox theology and so some of his speculations did turn out to be 
dead ends but it would be anachronistic to suggest that he was teaching contrary to the 
established doctrine of his day. On the contrary, he was insistent that Christian theol-
ogy must conform to “the rule of faith” and his theological speculations endeavoured to 
move within those constraints. See norris, “Origen.”
11. See also norris, “Universal Salvation in Origen and Maximus.”
“All SHAll Be Well”8
That aside, the critical question is: what did the council intend to 
condemn? Universalism per se or a specific kind of universalism? let us 
consider the options:
1. All forms of universalism? It seems that many thought that this was 
so. The fact that a lot of medieval theologians were very cautious 
about any affirmations of universal salvation suggests that the gen-
eral opinion was that the church had condemned universalism.
2. The proposal that one can assert that all will definitely be saved? Some 
insist that all that the council rejected was the notion that we can 
assert universal salvation with absolutely certainty. They argue that 
while one may hope all will be saved, certainty is not permitted.
3. A version of universalism that taught a universal return of pre-
existent souls to an original state? This was arguably Origen’s view, 
but its exclusion does not rule out different versions of apokatasta-
sis. This interpretation of the anathemas was defended by Sergius 
Bulgakov (see chapter 12).
In defense of view 3, let me make the following observations: First, 
it is clear that when apokatastasis is condemned in the fifteen canons it 
is always done so in association with other, problematic, ideas. Thus in 
anathemas I and XV the concern is with apokatastasis as linked with the 
idea of the pre-existence of souls and an eschatology that sees a simple 
return of souls to an original unity. In anathema XIV it is apokatastasis 
as associated with an immaterial, pantheistic eschatology. But this is not 
a condemnation of universalism as such. Rather, it is a condemnation of 
universalism as linked into a wider, theologically problematic, system of 
thought. even Justinian’s anathema IX—an anathema the status of which 
is ambiguous given that it was not a product of the ecumenical council—
which looks like a blanket condemnation of all universalism, might, in 
context,12 be taken as a condemnation of Origenist universalism.13 It 
12. By “context” I refer to Justinian’s other anathemas, which, like the council’s fifteen 
anathemas, are concerned with the pre-existence of souls, the nature of the resurrec-
tion, deviant Christology, etc. The question is whether Justinian’s anathema IX should 
be interpreted as a stand-alone condemnation or interpreted in the light of the other 
anathemas.
13. We might also add that universalists do not need to teach that Christ will die 
again for demons as per Justinian’s anathema VII. I have never come across a universal-
ist who believed this.
MacDonald / Introduction 9
seems that when the fifth ecumenical council turned Justinian’s earlier 
anathemas against Origen into fifteen approved anathemas they nuanced 
it in that way. If Justinian intended a blanket condemnation of universal-
ism it is not at all obvious that this is what the council agreed to.
Second, in support of this interpretation we may note that Gregory of 
nyssa (see chapter 3) was known to teach a version of universal salvation 
that denied the problematic notion of the pre-existence of souls. neither 
Gregory nor his teachings were ever condemned. Gregory was highly re-
vered as an orthodox theologian—named the “Father of the Fathers” by 
the seventh ecumenical council in 787—and remains so to this day.
Third, when the fifth ecumenical council condemned Origen by 
name in canon XI, the context suggests that Christology, and not apoka-
tastasis, was the primary concern.
Finally, we might add that none of the central claims of orthodox 
Christianity, as embodied in the rule of faith or the ecumenical creeds, 
are incompatible with universalism.14 Universalism is, at very least, not 
unorthodox in the sense of being contrary to essential dogma, nor in the 
sense of entailing beliefs that are contrary to such dogma. Indeed some 
universalists have embraced universalism precisely because they feel 
that it enables them to better hold together important Christian beliefs 
that stand in awkward tension on more traditional notions of hell (e.g., 
divine love for creation and divine providence over creation).
So it seems to me plausible to suppose that theologically orthodox 
versions of universalism can exist.
However, one result of the ambiguity about whether the council 
had condemned all forms of universalism or simply Origenist apokatas-
tasis was that from this point on Christians avoided anything that looked 
remotely Origenist. In the Western church this impulse was reinforced 
by the enormous influence of Augustine’s theology, which was emphatic 
about the eternal conscious torment of the lost.
Some, such as Maximus the Confessor (580–662), seemed to fly 
close to the wind at times but always pulled away before getting too 
close to the “dangers” of apokatastasis. Those, like Julian of norwich 
(1342–1416), who seemed to incline towards universalism did so very 
circumspectly (see chapter 4). The thinker who came closest to a version 
14. It is interesting that no creed makes any reference to the punishment of the 
damned. While “the life of the age to come” is a matter of creedal orthodoxy, the precise 
fate of the lost is not.
“All SHAll Be Well”10
of universalism was Irish Christian neo-Platonist John Scotus eriugena 
(815–877), but even here it is not totally clear that he went all the way. 
Thus it was that universalism more or less disappeared from the scenebut Winchester pointed out 
that Paul uses Ps 69 to speak of the Jews (Rom 10:9–10) and yet they will be restored, so 
the use of Ps 69 does not rule out restoration (UR.II.A6).
39. Winchester defended this reading of the ezekiel text in UR.IV.A2, A15. See too 
Winchester, Letters to Dan Taylor, 11–12.
40. Winchester, Letters to Dan Taylor, 71–72.
“All SHAll Be Well”156
men, in such a manner as to bring them to submit to him, in due time” 
(UR.IV.A11).41 Winchester also assured his readers that 
. . . so amazing is God’s boundless love
And tenderness towards the human race,
That none shall drink this dreadful cup of woe,
And feel the torments of the lake of fire,
Whom any gentler methods could reclaim.42
yet the concern for modern readers here is that Winchester gives the 
impression that God tortures people into submission.
How long would hell last? Winchester thought that the nT lan-
guage of “an age” or even of “an age of ages” indicates that, for some at 
least, it will endure for a very long time indeed. He speculated on one 
occasion that the time from the creation of the world to the final res-
toration would be one grand jubilee, of perhaps fifty thousand years.43 
As Winchester believed the world to be six thousand years old and the 
millennium about to dawn we might imagine that he is supposing hell 
to last about forty three thousand years! On another occasion he specu-
lated that it might “last fifty thousand years, or fifty thousand times 
that number . . . 2,500,000,000 years.”44 even though he was fending 
off those who accused him of making light of hell and was possibly 
overstating things, it is nevertheless clear that he did envisage hell as 
lasting a long while.
And Winchester did take the warnings of hell very seriously.45 His 
evangelistic address to the youth of Philadelphia (1785) is telling in this 
regard. He pleaded earnestly with them to take the fate of their souls 
seriously in light of “the shortness of time, the uncertainty of life, the 
41. Winchester appeared to hold libertarian views of freedom. Thus he argued that 
the reason that God does not save everyone immediately is that “God dealeth with us 
as intelligent and moral agents; and therefore, though he will have us be saved, yet our 
wills must choose salvation before we can be happy; . . . in short, we must be holy by 
choice, in order to be happy” (Winchester, Letter to De Coetlogon, 33).
42. Winchester, Process and Empire, book 10, lines 605–9.
43. Winchester, Letter to De Coetlogon, 18.
44. Winchester, Letter to a Friend, 50–51.
45. Some objected that if one could be redeemed from hell then one does not take 
hell seriously. Winchester had little time for this: If a man said, “earthly punishment 
must come to an end, so I can see no difference between being made an heir to the king 
and being hanged, drawn, and quartered for high treason,” we would think that man 
insane (UR.IV.A14).
“All SHAll Be Well”158
As Winchester saw it, the problems generated within both the 
Calvinist and Arminian systems stem from the conviction of those on 
both sides of that divide that a belief in eternal torment is non-negotia-
ble. Making eternal hell a first principle requires them to sacrifice other 
doctrines to accommodate it. Thus Calvinists must surrender the beliefs 
that God loves all people, desires to save them, and that Christ died for 
them. And Arminians must surrender the belief that in the end God will 
achieve all his purposes for creation, believing instead in God’s partial 
victory over sin (UR.III.A6). Indeed, the universalist system understood 
as a theological via media seemed to Winchester, perhaps somewhat 
naïvely, to have some ecumenical potential in bringing Calvinists and 
Arminians together.48
A Place for “Experimental Knowledge”
While maintaining that theology must conform to Scripture, Winchester 
could not but be influenced by the currents of enlightenment thought 
that flowed in both America and in england. As such he took seriously 
both reason and experiential evidence as having a role in theological 
reflection. For instance, he has an interesting argument from conversion 
experience for his universalist doctrine.49 evangelical conversion had a 
very particular shape in the eighteenth century. One first experienced 
oneself as a dreadful sinner in the sight of God, worthy of wrath, and un-
able to save oneself. After a period of wrestling with this dreadful truth 
the gospel word broke through into one’s heart as a word of great release 
and one abandoned oneself to Christ with joy and gratitude. This was 
Winchester’s own experience. And in that moment of conversion he felt 
“the fullness, the sufficiency, and willingness of Christ to save me and 
all men . . . and O how did I long, that ever soul of Adam’s race might 
come to know the love of God in Christ Jesus! And I thought I could 
not be willing to live any longer on earth, unless it might please God to 
make me useful to my fellow creatures” (UR.III.A2). This “experimental 
knowledge” many evangelicals found as an almost spontaneous aspect 
of their conversion. They felt that Christ can save all and they earnestly 
desired that he do so. Do we, asked Winchester, have more compassion 
48. See his Preface to his edition of Paul Siegvolck’s book, The Everlasting Gospel 
(1792); and Winchester, The Outcasts Comforted (1782).
49. A version of the argument is also found in Winchester, Letter to De Coetlogon, 
33–34.
Parry / Elhanan Winchester (1751–1797) 159
for creatures than God himself? Surely not! Do not these feelings come 
from the Holy Spirit and express God’s own desires? And who could 
imagine the Spirit inspiring someone to pray against the salvation of 
all people? Such a prayer seems blasphemous even to those who deny 
universalism and this, he thinks, ought to give them pause for thought 
(UR.III.A2). 
Responding to Objections
One common eighteenth-century objection to universalism was that it 
encouraged licentiousness. The fear of eternal torment, it was felt, was 
needed to motivate people to avoid sinful living. Remove that threat and 
society would degenerate. Winchester denied the logic. The theological 
principals that undergird universalism—the God created all people to 
“glorify his name, and enjoy him forever,” the love of God for his crea-
tures, the death of Jesus for all, the unwavering love of God even in the 
face of our rebellion—in no way encourage sinful living (UR.III.A1). On 
the contrary they encourage lives of holy devotion and gratitude. After 
all, who would reason as follows? “I know that God created me, seeks to 
do me good, sent his Son to die for me, and that he will always love me 
. . . so I must hate him!” On the contrary, the revelation of divine love 
solicits our loving response (1 John 4:19). Winchester said that in his 
own experience over the years of knowing universalists they were not at 
all ungodly people. He felt that universalist belief “causes benevolence, 
meekness, humility, forbearance, forgiveness, charity, and all goodness 
to abound and increase”50 (UR.III.A2). Rather than denial of eternal tor-
ment undermining holiness, Winchester suspected that belief in eternal 
torment was actually a chief reason that many reject Christianity. And, 
he wrote, the belief in eternal torment does not seem to have restrained 
evil very well over the centuries in which it has been the dominant belief 
(UR.III.A3). 
In fact, Winchester argued, the cause of practical godliness is po-
tentially undermined by the denial of universal restoration. How so? 
Consider the following divine commands: (a) love all people, even your 
enemies, so that you may be perfect like your heavenly Father (Matt 
5:44–48), (b) do good to all people (1 Thess 5:15), (c) forgive those who 
sin against you (Matt 6:12; luke 11:4, etc.), (d) pray for all people so that 
50. Obviously this is a somewhat idealized account!
“All SHAll Be Well”160
they might be saved (1Tim 2:1, 8; 4:9–11).of orthodox Christianity until after the Protestant Reformation. The 
Reformers opened the door for individual believers to interpret the Bible 
for themselves and, amongst those that did, a few came to affirm some 
kind of universal salvation.
Is Universalism the True Christian Faith?
We do not know what ordinary Christian believers in the early church 
thought about issues such as universalism—probably all sorts of differ-
ent things. Augustine, however, offers us a clue that universalism was 
popular amongst certain sections of Christians. He wrote:
In vain, then, that some, indeed very many, moan over the eternal 
punishment, and perpetual, uninterrupted torments of the lost, 
and say that they do not believe it shall be so; not, indeed, that 
they directly oppose themselves to Holy Scripture, but at the sug-
gestion of their own feelings, they soften down everything that 
seems hard, and give them a milder turn to statements which 
they think are rather designed to terrify than to be received as 
literally true. For “Has God,” they say, “forgotten to be gracious? 
Has He in anger shut up his tender mercies?”15
notice that the number of those who rejected an everlasting hell are said 
to be “very many.” note also that this rejection is not understood to be a 
rejection of the Bible but rather of a particular interpretation of it (one 
Augustine thinks has been led astray by sentimentalism). elsewhere he 
writes that he must “have a gentle disputation with certain tender hearts 
of our own religion, who think that God, who has justly doomed the 
condemned into hell fire, will after a certain space, which his goodness 
shall think fit for the merit of each man’s guilt, delver them from that 
torment.”16
These “very many” tender-hearted Christians were clearly univer-
salists. So was J. W. Hanson correct in arguing that universalism was 
the prevailing doctrine of the early church?17 Is universalism in fact the 
15. Augustine, Enchiridion, 112.
16. Augustine, The City of God, 21.17.
17. Hanson, Universalism.
MacDonald / Introduction 11
more original, purer Christian doctrine, and are Augustine and his heirs 
the real heretics? no.
First of all, Christian doctrine is not decided by a vote of believers 
at a particular moment in time—if it were so there then Arianism would 
have some claim to be Christian dogma rather than heresy. Second, it 
is simply wrong to claim that universalism was the prevailing belief for 
the first five hundred years of the Christian church. Setting aside the 
Bible itself (the interpretation of which is part of the disagreement), we 
have plenty of evidence for Christian belief in eternal torment and in 
annihilation from the second century onwards.18 Aside from a couple 
of hints in an early belief in the possibility of salvation from hell,19 
the first fairly clear evidence of universalism comes from Clement of 
Alexandria (c. 150–c. 215).20 And even once universalism appeared on 
the Christian scene and was embraced by several prominent believers 
it was never the majority view of the leaders of the church. To claim 
that universalism is the purer, original Christianity from which later 
Christians, under the influence of paganism, deviated is absurd. And 
when one considers the history of the church as a whole, universalism 
has clearly been a minority view even in its “popular” phases. It has 
never had the status of a fundamental Christian teaching—not even for 
those who, like Origen and Gregory of nyssa, believed it! Consequently 
to suggest that non-universalists are rejecting an important Christian 
dogma is just plain bonkers!21
Universalism as Theologoumena
Universalism, I suggest, occupies a middle ground between dogma and 
heresy. It is neither a teaching that all orthodox believers are expected 
to adhere to (in the way that the Trinity, or the union of deity and hu-
manity in the one person of Christ are), nor one that they must avoid 
at all costs. Perhaps the most appropriate category to employ is that of 
theologoumena. Theologoumena are pious opinions that are consistent 
18. A read of Brian Daley’s survey of eschatology in the early church should be 
enough to settle this issue. See Daley, The Hope of the Early Church.
19. Sibylline Oracles II.404–15; Apocalypse of Peter 15.1 (Rainer fragment).
20. See Harmon, Every Knee Should Bow, chapter 2.
21. This is not to say that a universalist is not at liberty to argue that non-univer-
salists might hold beliefs about hell that appear to be inconsistent with fundamental 
Christian teachings about, for instance, God’s love, justice, or providence.
“All SHAll Be Well”12
with Christian dogmas. They are neither required nor forbidden. To see 
universalism in the category of theologumena means that one cannot 
preach universalism as “the Christian view” or “the faith of the church,” 
but it also means that one may believe in it and one may also develop a 
universalist version of Christian theology.
It is not uncommon for theologians to suggest that if apokatastasis 
is a matter of theologumena then, although one is permitted to hope that 
God will save everybody, one must not go beyond this tentative faith 
to assert that God certainly will save all. Several of the authors in this 
book take the view that a convinced universalism22 is not appropriate. 
My purpose here is not to evaluate the case for the view that “hopeful 
universalism” is theologically legitimate while “convinced universalism” 
is not. That is a theological discussion that needs to be undertaken in its 
own terms (and, for what it is worth, I confess to finding the theologi-
cal case against “convinced universalism” to be unpersuasive). My focus 
here is on the more limited question of whether the status of universalism 
as theologumena entails that confident universalism is out of place. If I 
may be permitted to speak for myself (and not on behalf of all the other 
authors in this book), I can see no reason at all to think that it does. 
There are plenty of matters that are theologumena about which a believer 
may hold strong convictions. For instance, if universalism is theologu-
mena then so is its denial, yet it is rarely suggested that a firm convic-
tion that some people will be lost forever is in some way unorthodox 
(though one may argue that it is theologically inappropriate23). Indeed 
most Christians throughout history have had precisely such a conviction 
and have felt at perfect liberty to preach it. When I say that universalism, 
like its denial, is theologumena I mean simply that it is an issue about 
which Christians can legitimately disagree within the boundaries of or-
thodox Christianity. So while I have no problem with some universalists 
22. I now prefer the terminology of “convinced universalism” to that I used previ-
ously of “dogmatic universalism” (see the introduction to Parry and Partridge, Universal 
Salvation?) simply because the word “dogma” has certain associations in discussions of 
orthodoxy that I do not intend to apply to universalism.
23. As chapter 16 makes clear, Hans Urs von Balthasar did think that both a strong 
declaration of universalism and of its denial were presumptuous. In this he was con-
sistent but even Balthasar, so far as I am aware, did not think that a strong declaration 
of the denial of universalism was outside the bounds of orthodoxy. If he had then the 
vast majority of Christians, past and present, would be not simply mistaken but also 
unorthodox.
MacDonald / Introduction 13
affirming no more than a hopeful universalism I can see no good reason 
to suppose that Christian orthodoxy per se demands such hesitancy. It 
seems to me that the question of whether universalists may be “con-
vinced universalists” or must restrict themselves to being merely “hope-
ful universalists” is itself a matter of theologumena. There is a case to be 
made both ways, but even though one view may be more theologically 
appropriate than the other—and which view that is an issueon which the 
authors of this book do not agree—neither view is outside the bounds 
of orthodoxy. Speaking for myself, I have no qualms about saying that I 
am a convinced universalist. I do believe that the proposition “God will 
save everyone through Christ” is a true proposition and consequently I 
think that those who disagree with it are mistaken. However, what I do 
not believe is that those who disagree with it (i.e., almost everybody) are 
unorthodox, unchristian, unkind, unspiritual, or . . . unclever. Similarly, 
while I have never preached or taught universalism in a church context, 
if I were to do so I would not claim, “This is the Christian teaching,” 
or “This is fundamental doctrine,” or “This is the faith of the church.” 
I would say, “This is an issue on which devout Christians disagree, but 
here is what I believe and this is why I believe it. you must judge for 
yourselves, before God.”
none of this is to suggest that the issue is a matter of indifference, 
nor that Christians should not debate about the issue—even vigorously. 
It is simply to relocate the discussion from being a debate between “the 
orthodox” and “the heretics,” and to see it as an in-house theological dis-
agreement; indeed to see it as an issue that Christians, while they might 
disagree about it, should not divide over.
The Variety of Christian Universalisms
elhanan Winchester and John Murray were contemporaries—both 
universalists and both living relatively close to each other in eighteenth-
century America. So it is no surprise that they had some contact with 
each other; first through letters and then meeting face to face. At first 
Murray was thrilled by Winchester but he began to have his doubts. 
Their universalisms had different theological roots and consequently 
took different shapes. As time went on some tensions began to show. 
For instance, Murray, being a good disciple of James Relly (see chapter 
6), believed that Christ had taken all the eschatological punishment of 
“All SHAll Be Well”14
all humanity upon himself at Calvary. Consequently, nobody would go 
to hell.24 Winchester, on the other hand, made much of the fate—albeit 
a temporary fate—of the lost in hell. He felt that the biblical warnings 
of eschatological judgment were “an insuperable bar to the opinions of 
those who deny a future state of retribution, which I think impossible for 
them to answer fairly.”25 Was he thinking of John Murray?
They continued to work together but at something of a distance. 
Murray had some periodic input to Winchester’s congregation in Phila-
delphia while Winchester was away in london. yet when Murray visited 
his mother in london during the time that Winchester was leading a 
church there, the evidence suggests that he did not go to see him.26
This story neatly illustrates the fact that universalism is not a single 
system but can take different shapes, and it raises the issue of the diverse 
genealogies of universalism. let me make some observations about this.
Winchester and Murray were two of the leaders of churches that 
were officially universalist and were part of the foundation for what soon 
became a universalist denomination. For the first time in Christian his-
tory we see the denominational institutionalization of universalism.27 The 
universalist churches provided structures for passing on universalist the-
ologies from generation to generation. However, prior to the eighteenth 
century—and still now in mainstream Christianity—universalism has 
had a more precarious existence. There have been no reliable channels 
to secure its passing on from one generation to another. Consequently, 
we observe two things about its perpetuation: its constant “spontaneous” 
reinvention, and its sometimes complex genealogical lines of descent.
24. John Murray never set out his view systematically in writing. But the patient 
reader can easily glean them from reading through his Letters and Sketches of Sermons.
25. Winchester, Universal Restoration, Dialogue IV, Answer 10. Similarly, he later 
objects to “those who suppose that all the human race shall be admitted into the king-
dom of heaven on the day of judgement” (UR.DIV.A13).
26. Our evidence on Winchester’s side for this period is very thin but Murray left 
a detailed account of his visit to england and it makes no mention of Winchester (see 
Murray, Life of John Murray).
27. I ought to add that, from the start, denominational universalism was theologi-
cally heterodox, embracing not merely universalism but also unitarianism.
MacDonald / Introduction 15
Reinventing Universalism
Throughout Christian history, but most especially since the seventeenth 
century, universalism keeps being “reinvented.” We can illustrate this 
from the eighteenth century again. Here I will introduce three different 
people who all appear to have come to universalist convictions without 
having been taught them by anyone else.
George De Benneville (1703–1793)
George De Benneville, the son of Huguenot refugees from France, was 
born and brought up in the royal court in london. After a period of 
mental anguish over his sinful state, he had a profound conversion ex-
perience—a revelation of God’s love and grace in Christ. This experience 
made him both an avid evangelist and a universalist.
His expansive views of divine grace set him at odds with the 
Huguenot community he had grown up in and as a result he was cast 
out. So, aged seventeen, he travelled to France and later to Germany and 
Holland to preach the gospel. He joined with like-minded believers set-
ting up pietistic communities, was thrown into prison on several occa-
sions, and once was only saved from execution by a literally last-minute 
reprieve from louis XV.
At the age of thirty-seven (c. 1740) De Benneville had a vivid and 
profound near-death visionary experience. He “became sickly of con-
sumptive disorder” resulting from his deep anguish over the fate of 
the unsaved. The sickness brought him to death’s door and then to his 
life-changing universalist vision.28 Here we have an example of a man 
that became a universalist on the basis of a couple of profound religious 
experiences that ran counter to his religious upbringing.
Charles Chauncey (1705–1787)
Charles Chauncy, the son of a prosperous Boston merchant, went to 
Harvard College—of which his great-grandfather had been the second 
president—at the age of twelve to study theology. In 1727 he was or-
dained and installed as co-pastor of Boston’s First Church, where he 
remained until he died in 1787. He obtained a reputation through his 
28. De Benneville’s testimony, written in 1782, was translated from French into eng-
lish by elhanan Winchester and published in london in 1791 (against De Benneville’s 
wishes). Winchester considered De Benneville a man of “piety, humility, benevolence, 
and universal good character.”
“All SHAll Be Well”16
controversial writing. The topics he wrote on included (a) criticizing 
what he saw as the extravagancies of the Great Awakening, (b) defend-
ing congregational forms of church government, and (c) affirming cer-
tain “unorthodox” theological convictions (amongst them universalism 
and doubts concerning the doctrine of the Trinity). His universalism 
was first made public in a sermon in 1762 titled “All nations Blessed 
in Christ,” but it was not until 1784 that his book-length defense of 
universalism—The Salvation of All Men—was published. It is the most 
scholarly of all eighteenth-century defenses of universalism and remains 
worthy of serious reflection. The heart of Chauncey’s case is composed 
of arguments for what he sees as key biblical-theological principles 
that establish universalism (in the process, offering very detailed and 
scholarly—though sometimes idiosyncratic—exegetical studies of Rom 
5:12–21; 8:19–23; and 1 Cor 15:24–28). The final section of his book 
considers standard objections and offers responses.
What led Chauncy to reject eternal conscious torment in favorof 
universalism? Clearly the influence of the enlightenment freed him up 
to be prepared to challenge tradition; but he was no Bible-rejecting lib-
eral. In fact, he took the normative role of Scripture as a given and his 
book was simply an attempt to expound what he saw as the real teaching 
of the Bible; teaching that he believed had been obscured by tradition. 
So which Bible teachers guided Chauncy to this view? According to his 
own testimony it seems that he was led to universalism simply through 
his own Bible studies on the issue.29 The distinctive shape of his argu-
ments makes this claim plausible. So in Chauncy’s case we have another 
spontaneous eruption of universalist thinking but one with a quite dif-
ferent foundation.
James Relly (1722–1778)
Finally, consider James Relly. As Relly is the subject of chapter 6 I shall 
be brief. Relly was one of George Whitfield’s converts and evangelistic 
preachers. It appears that he was troubled by theological difficulties with 
the popular evangelical accounts of penal substitutionary atonement. 
The standard objection to the idea that God punished Christ for our sins 
29. He tells us, in the preface of The Salvation of All Men, that he was influenced 
in his thinking by the Rev. John Taylor of norwich; but this was more at the level of a 
general approach to the interpretation of Scripture rather than in a direct influence on 
his universalism. Rev. Taylor, Chauncy tells us, explicitly denied universalism.
MacDonald / Introduction 17
was that (a) punishing an innocent person for the crimes of someone 
else and (b) failing to punish the guilty person were quite simply unjust. 
Relly came up with a solution to this problem, and it involved a strong 
doctrine of union with Christ. Christ unites himself with humanity in 
such a way that he really takes our sins upon himself and is not “innocent” 
of them. And humanity is united to Christ in such a way that when he 
dies, we really die “in him.” This, to Relly’s mind, solved the problem of di-
vine justice and the atonement. One implication of his system, however, 
was that all humanity was already saved—they simply did not yet realize 
it. So we find universalism spontaneously “reinvented” again. This time 
not on the basis of religious experiences (as with De Benneville), nor on 
the basis of rigorous exegetical biblical studies (as with Chauncy), but on 
the basis of basis of systematic theological reflections (albeit ones with 
biblical roots).
I would suggest that one of the reasons that universalism seems 
able to keep spontaneously reappearing, even when it is not taught, is 
that it is rooted in some fundamental Christian and biblical convic-
tions. I am not claiming that Scripture or Christian theology require 
people to be universalists—far from it—but I would suggest that certain 
Christian beliefs and certain biblical texts seem to point in that direction 
and thus the potential for some form of universalism to burst forth is 
ever-present. Christian universalism is most fundamentally motivated 
not by mere sentimentalism nor by pagan philosophy (though both have 
had influence on some versions of universalism) but by currents within 
Christian Scripture, tradition, praxis, reason, and experience.30 Whether 
such currents are best followed to universalist conclusions is another 
matter, but that they sometimes have been and probably will continue 
to be seems clear.
Genealogies of Universalism
Another feature of universalism is the creation of different “family lines” 
through the passing on of the teaching (whether through books, sermons, 
informal discussions, or formal church structures). We can illustrate this 
using a couple of the characters mentioned above.
30. To take Clement, Origen, and Gregory of nyssa to illustrate the point: while 
Stoicism and neo-Platonism clearly influenced their theologies, the Bible played a 
decisive role in shaping their universalisms. On this claim see Harmon, Every Knee 
Should Bow.
“All SHAll Be Well”18
The De Benneville “Family Tree”
At the age of thirty-eight De Benneville moved to America and lived 
in Germantown, near Philadelphia, where he worked as a physician. 
Alongside his medicine he continued on preaching tours in Pennsylvania 
and new Jersey until he died of a stroke in 1793.
De Benneville transmitted the heritage of German Pietist religious 
communities and the european Radical Reformation (of the Schwen-
kfelder tradition) to a wider American public. He also translated Paul 
Siegvolk’s book The Everlasting Gospel into english. This book, as I have 
already mentioned, fell into the hands of elhanan Winchester and it 
played a key role in his conversion to universalism. Winchester’s sub-
sequently made contact with De Benneville and they shared fellowship 
between 1781 and 1787. The shape of Winchester’s theology owed a lot 
to this pietistic version of universalism (chapter 7). Winchester himself 
then went on to publish on the topic and his books, in turn, converted 
William Vidler (1758–1816)—an english Particular Baptist minister—
to the cause. Vidler then went on to be an influential universalist teacher 
in england continuing the “family line.”
The Relly “Family Tree”
As chapter 6 makes clear, James Relly’s most celebrated convert was 
John Murray (1741–1815). Murray had grown up as a boy in the heart 
of evangelical Methodism, knowing both George Whitfield and John 
Wesley personally. He ended up worshipping at Whitfield’s tabernacle 
in london and, while there, converted to Rellyism, being persuaded 
by Relly’s biblical and theological arguments. eventually Murray left 
england for America and, against his intentions, became a preacher of 
universalism. Over many years he worked tirelessly and against much 
opposition, to the detriment of his health, becoming the pastor of the 
first universalist church in America (in Gloucester, Massachusetts).31 
Murray never claimed to have rediscovered universalism but simply to 
have transmitted the teachings of his mentor. His gospel message was 
a faithful development of Relly’s own thought. As it happens, while his 
ministry bore fruit for a while and he left his mark on American univer-
salism, his distinctive Calvinist mode of universalism quickly faded and 
that short-lived informal “family tree” was extinguished.
31. Murray’s autobiography is a truly fascinating insight into eighteenth-century 
evangelicalism and his own universalist ministry.
MacDonald / Introduction 19
And these are just two traditions within universalism. Another 
recurring tradition is that of the neo-Platonic Christianity of the Alex-
andrian school. Throughout Christian history, but especially since the 
seventeenth century, whenever neo-Platonism and/or Clement, Origen, 
or Gregory of nyssa are “rediscovered” one finds them having some lev-
el of influence on small-scale “revivals” of Christian universalism. That 
neo-Platonic influence might be strong (as was the case with Cambridge 
Platonists Peter Sterry and Jeremiah White—see chapter 5) or weak (as 
was the case with various nineteenth-century universalists).
And the above simply illustrates the neater side of the lines of trans-
mission for universalist theology. Often, the picture was much more 
complex, as is clear from, for instance, chapter 9. There Don Horrocks 
traces the different threads that influenced Thomas erskine’s universal-
ism and, in turn, the way in which his thinking became one of several 
different interweaving influences on late nineteenth-century universal-
ism. The role of literature—both ancient and modern—and personal 
friendships and acquaintances played their part in both the perpetuation 
and the transformation of universalist theologies.
The Diversity of Universalism
The different roots and family trees of universalism inevitably mean that 
Christian universalists, while having much in common, will often dis-
agree on a whole range of issues. Consider the following:
Biblical Interpretation
The interpretationof key biblical texts relating to the issues of hell and 
universalism have been handled differently by different universalists. 
Take the “hell texts.” How should they be handled?
1. Try to show how they are compatible with universalism? This is the 
classical approach of Christian universalists, although it has been 
done in various ways. For instance:
(a) The hell texts are argued to be consistent with a temporary fire 
from which all will eventually exit. This is the mainstream historic 
view. But even here some would see the fire as purgative suffering, 
while others would see it as more “educative” suffering that has 
no salvific power in itself, but instead exposes the reality of sin 
and leads people towards divine grace. The idea that suffering in 
“All SHAll Be Well”20
hell is a mode of divine education, motivated by love, was espe-
cially prominent amongst nineteenth century universalists. Some 
would see retribution as part of the reason for the punishment, 
while others would deny retribution any role.
(b) The hell texts are not about a postmortem hell at all but about 
historical divine judgments on Jerusalem.32
(c) The hell texts describe not the fate of individuals, but of the sinful 
nature within each individual.
2. Hold them in tension with universalist texts? This is a more modern 
strategy, and quite how that creative tension will work might vary. 
Consider the following:
(a) John A. T. Robinson (see chapter 15) believed that the Bible-
reader is not called to harmonize the universalist passages with 
the eternal hell passages (they are not consistent). But nor are 
readers free to reject one teaching or the other. Both are essential 
to vital Christianity. The hell texts confront people with a real 
existentially possible fate in their moment of decision even if, in 
the end, none will experience that fate.
(b) Several universalists use the tension as one reason for being 
“hopeful” rather than “confident” universalists. The hell texts stop 
one from asserting with certainty that all will definitely be saved. 
Universal salvation can therefore only be asserted as a possible, 
and hoped-for, outcome.
3. Reject them as sub-Christian? This is a much more recent strategy by 
some universalists who feel that certain biblical texts really do teach 
eternal conscious torment but that we are not bound to agree with 
them.
Exclusivism / Inclusivism / Pluralism
Christian universalists will agree that the salvation of all people is 
achieved through Jesus Christ, but they will not agree on how people 
might be saved through Jesus. Some will be exclusivists and will main-
tain that a person can only experience salvation through Jesus if they 
have explicit faith in him and thus belong to the church. (Obviously this 
scheme requires that many come to God through Christ after death.)
32. As this view is not represented by the case studies in this book, see Ansell, “Hell: 
The nemesis of Hope?”
MacDonald / Introduction 21
Others will be inclusivists and will allow that a person might be 
saved through Christ’s atoning work without explicit faith in him—
indeed, they may not even have heard of him. So long as they respond 
with faith and humility to the true, even if very limited, revelation that 
they have received then God’s grace can reach them.
One of the subjects of this volume—John Hick (chapter 17)—is a 
pluralist and believes that “God” will “save” people through all religious 
traditions and that Christ is only one route of salvation (he is the “savior” 
of Christian believers). Hick’s universalist explorations began within the 
bounds of Christian theology and were originally justified in part on the 
basis of Christian theological criteria;33 but his move towards pluralism 
took him beyond Christian universalism into something incompatible 
with orthodox Christian theology.
The Atonement
Christian universalists will typically agree that Jesus died for all and that, 
on this foundation, all will be saved.34 However, bearing in mind the 
different views of the atonement within Christianity in general, it should 
not surprise us that there is no agreed account of how it is that Christ’s 
atoning work saves.
Some universalists really say very little about how the cross-resur-
rection of Christ might relate to the issue of universalism. Some make 
much of the cross-resurrection as the basis for universalism but have no 
clear account of how it works or why it is necessary (although, to be fair, 
the Bible is not unambiguous on this matter either). Some have made 
a specific doctrine such as penal substitution central to their account 
of universalism while others have fiercely rejected penal substitutionary 
accounts of atonement.
33. Though we should note that, even in his earliest work, Hick’s Christian the-
ology was underpinned by a more fundamental Kantian philosophy that, in the end, 
eroded the Christian parts of his theology. See chapter 17 and Sinkinson, The Universe 
of Faiths.
34. Although, in the case of Origen’s universalism, the incarnation seems to play a 
more important role than the cross (see chapter 2). Precisely how the cross functioned 
in his universalist scheme is not clear, and the fact that so much of his work is no 
longer extant makes it impossible to be sure whether or not he ever explored the issue 
more fully.
“All SHAll Be Well”22
Divine Justice
Related to this is the issue of how we think of divine justice. Is it primar-
ily retributive, punishing sin because that is what sin deserves? Or is it a 
saving and restorative justice punishing sin in order to redeem people 
from it? Or is it perhaps both?35
Satan’s Salvation
On the issue of the salvation of demonic powers we also see disagree-
ment. Some universalists deny that Satan and his demons will be saved; 
others affirm that they shall be; others are agnostic. Still others do not 
believe that Satan and demons are individual persons that can be either 
lost or saved.
The Certainty of Universalism
Some universalists—indeed the majority—believe that the salvation of 
all is a certain outcome, while others believe that it is a possible outcome 
but not one that can be affirmed with confidence. They maintain that we 
must always be careful to allow for the “impossible possibility” that some 
may, in the end, reject God (this view is especially helpfully presented in 
chapters 4, 12, and 16).36
Freedom
All universalists believe that humans have free will, but they disagree 
on how this is compatible with God getting his saving will done in the 
end. Some simply do not address the issue and leave it as an unresolved 
tension for God to sort out. Others believe that human freedom is 
35. note that, as an aside, it is perhaps worth pointing out that, while most univer-
salists—both those who see justice as retributive and those who do not—have rejected 
the idea of hell as eternal, conscious torment, it is not essential for a universalist to do 
so. It is perfectly possible for a universalist who (a) took a retributive view justice and 
punishment, and (b) was persuaded by the arguments for the justice of eternal punish-
ment and of (c) a penal substitutionary account of the atonement, to argue as follows: 
1. Sin deserves to be punished by eternal torment; and
2. Christ bore that infinite penalty on the cross, so nobody else will ever suffer 
that fate.
36. The reasons for avoiding certainty typically include reasons such as the follow-
ing: (a) the biblical texts do not speak with sufficient clarity to allow certainty; (b) we 
must not infringe on God’s sovereignty and we must therefore allow him space in our 
theology not to save all; (c) to protect human freedom we cannot have a theology that 
says that all will inevitably choose salvation.
MacDonald / Introduction 23
compatible with divine determinism and thus freedom is no obstacle 
for God getting his will done. Many others would believe that human 
freedom is not compatible with determinism (divine or otherwise)