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Classical Studies
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The Debate on Apokatastasis in Pagan and Christian Platonists:
Martianus, Macrobius, Origen,
Gregory of Nyssa, and Augustine
ILARIA L. E. RAMELLI
1
This article is the revised and expanded version of a paper I presented at the
session on Martianus Capella at the International Mediaeval Congress, Leeds, July
1217, 2009. I am very grateful to the participants for discussion. Special thanks to
Danuta Shanzer for her invitation to the session and to submission to ICS, and to the
anonymous readers of ICS for helpful comments.
201
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202 Illinois Classical Studies 3334 (20082009)
out), and I shall draw a parallel with Macrobius, who has a doctrine of
universal apokatastasis, which he ascribes to Plato. I shall then consider the
relationship between this pagan theory and the Christian doctrine of
apokatastasiswhich was subsequently considered to be hereticalin two
contemporaries of Martianus and Macrobius: Gregory of Nyssa and the early
Augustine. The latter, as I shall argue, initially embraced this doctrine along
with other tenets of Origens thought.
I start from the fundamental premise that Neoplatonism, just like Middle
Platonism, was compatible both with paganism and with Christianity.2 Since
true Platonism is not pagan Platonism (for both pagan and Christian
Platonism are equally Platonic and equally well attested historically), it
makes no sense even to ask whether Platonism is reconcilable or
irreconcilable with Christianity, since this very question presupposes the
identification of Platonism with pagan Platonism, which is to beg the
question. This, of course, is an important debate that I shall not enter here.3
Some think that speaking of Christian Platonism, or patristic Platonism,
makes no sense, in that only a heretical Christian could be a Platonist. This is
because they consider Platonism as necessarily pagan and increasingly a
religion, and a pagan religion at that. It is of course true that pagan
Neoplatonism exhibited this development, but a Plotinus, for instance, would
probably have abhorred Iamblichus pagan mysteriosophywhich
nevertheless is regarded as Neoplatonicno less than, say, Gregory of
Nyssas Christian Neoplatonism.
In fact, both Middle and Neoplatonism had pagan and Christian sides, the
latter represented, for example, by Justin, Athenagoras, Clement, Origen,
Gregory of Nyssa, and the whole of patristic philosophy, which was
prevalently Platonic.4 In this connection, I set out to investigate here how the
2
See my Origen, Patristic Philosophy, and Christian Platonism: Re-thinking the
Christianization of Hellenism, VigChr 63 (2009) 21763.
3
I have discussed it in Gregorio di Nissa SullAnima e la Resurrezione (Milan
2007), second integrative essay.
4
There was even a Jewish Middle Platonism with Philo of Alexandria, who was a
precursor of the Christian Middle Platonism insofar as he realized the first synthesis
between Platonism and the Bible thanks to the powerful instrument of allegory, which
was used by both pagan Middle and Neoplatonists, who applied it to myths (Plutarch,
Porphyry), and Christian Middle and Neoplatonists, who applied it to the Bible. See
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Ilaria Ramelli 203
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204 Illinois Classical Studies 3334 (20082009)
*"+% and !(&","#, and, as such, a -'.&'#a notion that was common to
both pagan and Christian Neoplatonism.7 He undoubtedly has a doctrine of
some souls apokatastasis, but he is not at all explicit concerning the
possibility of all souls returning. I shall show that Macrobius, who has so
much in common with him, including pagan Neoplatonism, is much more
interested in the universalistic issue and closer to contemporary Christian
Neoplatonists who supported the doctrine of apokatastasislater on
condemned as heretical by the churchin the form of universal salvation
famously in Origen for the devil himself.8
Martianus work revolved around the elevation of the wise soul,
represented by Philologia, who loves the Logos, to heaven, to marry
Mercury, that is, Hermes the Logos, according to an ancient allegorical
tradition. The Logos is not only the word, but also, and above all, reason; the
soul who loves it is the philosophical soul, who must get rid of all mundane
learning in order to access free wisdom. Philologia is not only love for words
and thus our discipline of philology, but it is the love of the soul for wisdom,
rationality, thought, and knowledge. This is why Martianus emphasizes
Philologias vast knowledge, which embraces all human knowledge.
Philologia symbolizes the human soul that is divinized through philosophy.
According to Remigius of Auxerre,9 Mercury represents sermo, rhetorically
crafted speech, and Philologia human reason and the knowledge that it
acquires. According to Lenaz,10 Mercury represents God, and Philology the
human soul: their marriage symbolizes the union between the human and the
divine. Martianus identifies Mercury with the Neoplatonic Intellect (De nupt.
1.92), the hypostasis derived from the One and prior to the third hypostasis,
the Soul.
Philosophy, broadly conceived, including all human knowledge and
behavior, leads to the divinization of the human soul. The gods decree, of
which Martianus speaks in the narrative frame, concedes immortality to those
human beings who have deserved it with their conduct and study. The model
7
See my Divinization/Theosis in the Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception
(Berlin 2011).
8
See below 21517.
9
Edition, translation, and commentary in my Commentari.
10
Preface to Martiani Capellae de nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii liber secundus,
ed. L. Lenaz (Padova 1975) 117.
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Ilaria Ramelli 205
is Philologia herself, who, as Martianus says, had her birth on earth, but the
intention to tend to the stars (sed cui terreus/ortus, propositum in sidera
tendere; De nupt. 1.93). She ascends to heaven thanks to her efforts in study
and the exercise of reason. Philosophical culture, including the liberal arts, is
conceived by Martianus as an instrument of elevation and a means to attain
immortality. The interest in humans eternal destiny and in prizes or
punishments in the other world according to ones conduct in this one is
shared by Martianus and his possible contemporary Macrobius; both of them
were influenced by Neoplatonism and by Ciceros Somnium Scipionis.
The deities are represented as having a heavenly abode, around the zodiac
circle (De nupt. 1.4560), at different levels, from the sphere of fixed stars to
the circles comprised between this and the sun, then those between the sun
and the moon, and finally the sublunary region down to earth. Human souls,
which have a fiery nature, after leaving the body, can be lifted to different
planes of this celestial hierarchy. Of course, the idea of the bodys liberation
and the souls return to its original place owes much to (Neo)platonic and
(Neo)pythagorean asceticism, which deeply influenced Martianus.
Martianus conception of the apokatastasiswhether or not universal
comes close to what Marrou called the religion of culture in his Histoire de
lducation dans lantiquit: eternal beatitude is the fruit of culture, of a
moral and intellectual elevation, pursued through philosophy and the liberal
arts, the symbol of which is the marriage between Philologia and Mercury.
The latter, indeed, assumes the characteristics of Hermes Psychopompus,
who guided the souls of the dead to the other world, in particular those
destined to beatitude. Indeed, the theory that underlies Martianus work and
is only cursorily described therein is that humans are endowed with a fiery
soul that comes from heaven and there must return. This is also close to the
doctrine of astral immortality already described in Ciceros Somnium
Scipionis, and hence in Macrobius commentary on it, where Macrobius
expounds his apokatastasis theory. Humans must tend to eternal beatitude
through the attainment of wisdom.
Martianus ethical intellectualism is typical of Neoplatonists, both pagan
and Christian, and it is especially clear in Gregory of Nyssa and in the other
patristic philosophers who supported the doctrine of apokatastasis. Medieval
commentators highlight this trait and make it even more pronounced.
Intellectual engagement in philosophy (which tends to include all
knowledge and virtues) is the key to eternal beatitude. Philosophical study
can reach the whole cosmos and the divine sphere (De nupt. 1.22), which is
the end of the apokatastasis.
Another conception that, against a typical Platonic backdrop, Martianus
shares with Macrobius and is related to the apokatastasis of the soula
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206 Illinois Classical Studies 3334 (20082009)
11
See my Apokatastasis (forthcoming).
12
See my Marziano Capella (Milan 2001) and commentary ad loc.
13
All Latin Medieval commentators on Martianus are found, with critical essays,
translations, editions, and commentaries, in my Tutti i commenti a Marziano Capella:
Scoto Eriugena, Remigio di Auxerre, Bernardo Silvestre e anonimi (Milan: Istituto
Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici, 2006).
14
In the Oxford manuscript: sectam Platonicam antiquissimorum Graecorum de
lapsu et apostrophia animarum. I accept Liebeschtzs integration <secundum>
sectam Platonicam; H. Liebeschtz, Zur Geschichte der Erklrung des Martianus
Capella bei Eriugena, Philologus 104 (1960) 131n1.
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Ilaria Ramelli 207
apokatastasis of the soul, and this is hardly surprising, for Eriugena himself
was one of the few Latin supporters of the doctrine of apokatastasis. Indeed,
what he describes, the original unity of all beings in God and their return to
this condition in the end, is the Origenistic-Evagrian doctrine that Eriugena
himself was to develop and reinterpret in his Periphyseon, even though both
the Origenian authors and Eriugena dropped the astral doctrine of descent
and purification through the planetary orbits. This is the most important
section of this treatment:
And since they [sc. the Platonists] thought that there was nothing outside
the universe, they were convinced that the souls return to the same orbits
of the planets through which they imagined that they had fallen into the
bodies, and that thus they find again their original and natural abode.
However, since they had been contaminated by the stains of the body,
they could not return without the purification that they call !!"-'.&'#,
that is, redivinization. Because at the beginning they [sc. the souls]
were linked to the divinity in unity, in their [sc. the Platonists] opinion,
and then they return to it after purification; therefore, they [sc. the
Platonists] thought that souls are purified in the planetary orbits . . . and
they assigned a particular space to each single soul, according to the
quality of their merits. And they called the orbit of Saturn Styx, which
means sadness . . . that of Mars, on the other side, was called
/0()123'-.+ [sic], that is, flaming fire. In these two orbits the impious
souls are either tormented eternally, if characterized by an excessive
15
wickedness, or purified, in order to return, at a certain moment, to
peace. And they [sc. the Platonists] thought that this peace was found in
the orbit of Jupiter and Venus, where they thought that the Elysian Fields
were found, the fields of $1(&2"# [sic], that is, of liberation from pains
. . . even after purification some of them [sc. the souls] wish to return
again to some bodies; others, on the contrary, completely despise bodies
and reach their natural abodes among stars, from which they had fallen.
. . . The souls free examination, with which they decide whether to
return back to the body or to despise any corporeal abode and to return
to their original place, is indicated by the peregrination of the Fortunae
from river to river and their return from river to river in the opposite
direction.
15
In my edition I have corrected quandam, p. 132 l. 1 Jeauneau, into quondam,
which is the perfect pendant to semper, eternally, in the preceding line.
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208 Illinois Classical Studies 3334 (20082009)
16
Some aspects of these interpretations are taken up by Eriugena in several points
of his Commentary on Martianus as well, for instance in 68.16 and 69.2. This
philosophical discourse is less developed in Remigius of Auxerres commentary,
which nevertheless has some traces of these exegeses, especially in 13.6 (15.8) and
69.1 (166.49). The anonymous Berlin-Zwettl commentary, too, written by an author
who was close to the Platonic School of Chartres, takes over the Platonic-Pythagorean
exegesis reflected in Martianus and locates the true hell on earth as the place of the
incarnation of the souls.
17
Mireille Armisen Marchetti, Macrobe: Commentaire au Songe de Scipion (Paris
2001) vii ff.; Averil Cameron, Macrobius, Avienus, and Avianus, CQ n.s. 17 (1967)
38699; Nicola Marinone, Per la cronologia di Servio, AAT 104 (1970): 181211 =
idem, Analecta Graecolatina (Bologna 1990) 26586; J. Flamant, Macrobe et le no-
platonisme latin la fin du IVe siecle (Leiden 1977) 91141; S. Dpp, Zur Datierung
von Macrobius Saturnalia, Hermes 106 (1978) 61932; Silvio Panciera, Iscrizioni
senatorie di Roma e dintorni 38, in Epigrafia e ordine senatorio: Atti del Colloquio
internazionale AIEGL, Roma, 1420 maggio 1981 (Roma 1982) 2.65860; Joan M.
Norris, Macrobius, AugStud 28 (1997) 81100.
18
Santo Mazzarino, La politica religiosa di Stilicone, RIL 71 (1938) 23562; and
Averil Cameron, The Date and Identity of Macrobius, JRS 56 (1966) 2538.
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Ilaria Ramelli 209
on the Somnium Scipionis after A.D. 410 or 430;19 some, however, with
Courcelle, Georgii, Dpp, and others, advocate a date toward the end of the
fourth century.20
Just like Martianus, Macrobius was a pagan and probably also had some
anti-Christian points. In his Saturnalia, the name Evangelus, designating a
very unpleasant character, ignorant and arrogant, who offends people and
sows hatred, might be significant. This is a person with whom a serene
conversation is impossible.21 His identification with the historical person
mentioned by Symmachus in Ep. 6.7 is uncertain. Evangelus name, together
with his designation of Virgil as vester rather than noster, suggests an
allusion to Christianity as well,22 and a negative allusion at that. Moreover,
the three major characters who make their houses available for conversation
are among the most illustrious pagan figures of that time: Symmachus is the
orator who asked for the restoration of the Altar of Victory to the Senate and,
to defend paganism, developed the motif of religious relativism that had
already been adduced by Themistius in support of religious freedom; his
famous opponent was Ambrose of Milan.23 Flavianus favored Eugenius
19
See, e.g., Marinone, La cronologia; Flamant, Macrobe et le no-platonisme
latin, 8081; Armisen Marchetti, Macrobe: Commentaire, xviii.
20
H. Georgii, Zur Bestimmung der Zeit des Servius, Philologus 71 (1912) 518
26, proposed 395410; Pierre Courcelle, Nouveaux aspects du Platonisme chez S.
Ambroise, REL 34 (1956) 22039, thought that the Commentary was earlier than
Ambroses Hexameron, of the years 38687; against M. Fuhrmann, Macrobius und
Ambrosius, Philologus 10 (1963) 3018. End of century: Dpp, Zur Datierung; R.
Cristescu-Ochesanu, Controverse recente cu privire la cronologia di lui Macrobius,
StudClas 14 (1972) 23137.
21
This is his characterization from his very first appearance in 1.7.12: Dum ista
narrantur, unus e famulitio, cui provincia erat admittere volentes dominum convenire,
Evangelum adesse nuntiat cum Disario, qui tunc Romae praestare videbatur ceteris
medendi artem professis. Conrugato indicavere vultu plerique de considentibus
Evangeli interventum otio suo inamoenum minusque placido conventui congruentem.
Erat enim amarulenta dicacitate et lingua proterve mordaci, procax ac securus
offensarum quas sine delectu cari vel non amici in se passim verbis odia serentibus
provocabat.
22
See my review of Fuhrer, Die christlich-philosophischen Diskurse, in BMCR
2009.
23
See my Vie diverse allunico mistero: la concezione delle religioni in
Temistio ed il suo atteggiamento verso il Cristianesimo, RIL 139 (2005) 45583; and
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210 Illinois Classical Studies 3334 (20082009)
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Ilaria Ramelli 211
26
Imitatione Platonis Cicero de re publica scribens locum etiam de Eris
Pamphylii reditu in vitam . . . commentus est.
27
Cf. M. L. McPherran, Socrates on the Immortality of the Soul, JHPh 32
(1994) 122; F. Karfik, Die Beseelung des Kosmos: Untersuchungen zur Kosmologie,
Seelenlehre, und Theologie in Platons Phaidon und Timaios (Leipzig/Mnchen
2004) 5784; H. Bonitz, Platonische Studien (Hildesheim 1968) 293323; E. A.
Brown, A Defense of Platos Argument for the Immortality of the Soul at Republic
X 608C611A, Apeiron 30 (1997) 21138; G. R. F. Ferrari, City and Soul in Platos
Republic (Sankt Augustin 2003); Z. Planinc, ed., Politics, Philosophy, Writing:
Platos Art of Caring for Souls (Columbia, MO 2001); J. D. Evans, Souls,
Attunements, and Variation in Degree, IPQ 34 (1994) 27787; C. Quarch, Sein und
Seele (Mnster 1998). A. S. Mason, Immortality in the Timaeus, Phronesis 39
(1994) 9097. D. Apolloni, Platos Affinity Argument for the Immortality of the
Soul, JHPh 34 (1996) 532.
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212 Illinois Classical Studies 3334 (20082009)
all the stars to their initial position.28 It was Plato who, on the contrary, had
demonstrated the immortality of the soul, which he considered to be
immaterial. But Platonic elements had infiltrated Middle and Neostoicism.
Thus, Scipio Senior, in Macrobius, directly asserts that the soul is immortal
and will never perish, as it never had a beginning. Souls must therefore be
educated to immortality, not be immersed in sense perception. The soul must
be trained in what is best, detached from the body bent on the contemplation
of eternal realities. Those who, on the contrary, indulge their souls in bodily
pleasures make it a slave to the body. Thus, after death, such souls shall be
unable to return to the place where Scipio Senior is, but will have to wander
for many aeons before returning to their homeland. Macrobius, however,
does not mention the case of souls that never return to their original place.
But in Cicero there was no precise universalistic assertion about the beatitude
of souls. It is Macrobius who stresses this, as I shall point out, and I shall
hypothesize that this may be due to the influence of the Christian doctrine of
apokatastasis that had developed meanwhile.
Macrobius, like Plato, posits the Good, i.e., the first Cause, at the top of
the hierarchy of beings. The Nous or Intellect (mens, animus) comes
immediately after; it derives from God and contains the models of all
realities. These are the Ideas, which already in Middle Platonism were
conceived as thoughts of God. Alcinoous in Didaskalikos 9 described them as
+"%&2'#4 -2")4 $*.++"0 (thoughts of the eternal God), which are eternal in
turn. Only in the Platonic tradition does $*,+'"# means eternal in the sense
of atemporal.29 When the Nous turns to itself instead of turning to the Good,
it produces the Soul (anima), the third Plotinian hypostasis. In it, all
individual souls are comprised, but some separate themselves from it, falling
into a body in that they abandon the contemplation of superior realities.
Bodies are Platonically described as tombs to souls, and the latters
liberation from matter and its plurality and dispersion is Platonic as well:
reminiscencewhen souls can finally remember their origin and true nature.
This return to their origin and the attainment of unity is the apokatastasis.
28
For the meanings of !!"#$%"&%$&'# in classical Greek, see my Apokatastasis
(forthcoming).
29
See Ilaria Ramelli and David Konstan, Terms for Eternity (Piscataway, NJ
2007).
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Ilaria Ramelli 213
Thanks to its very nature and derivation, the soul can never completely
detach itself from its origin. In its upper, rational and intellectual part, it
keeps an innate knowledge of the divine and can join it again thanks to its
virtues. In this way, the role of ethics is mainly that of metaphysical bridge.
This perfectly fits in Platonic ethical intellectualism (which also functioned in
Christian Platonism and significantly contributed to the construction of the
Christian doctrine of apokatastasis). Plato and the Neoplatonists were the
main sources used by Macrobius.30
In book 1, chap. 4, Macrobius makes clear the skopos (a technical term of
Neoplatonic allegorical interpretation) of Ciceros allegory in the Somnium. It
is aimed at teaching that animas bene de re publica meritorum post corpora
caelo reddi et illic frui beatitatis perpetuitate. The theme is ethical and
eschatological. The reward for virtue will be eternal beatitude: omnibus qui
patriam conseruarint adiuuerint auxerint, certum esse in caelo definitum
locum ubi beati aeuo sempiterno fruantur. Cicero focused on civic virtues,
whereas Macrobius expands his interpretation to all virtues: all of them pave
the way for the attainment of eternal bliss. This is Scipio Seniors
recommendation, in which the doctrine of astral beatitude is transparent:
iustitiam cole et pietatem . . . ea uita uia est in caelum et in hunc coetum
eorum qui iam uixere et corpore laxati illum incolunt locum quem uides
significans galaxian. Indeed, the promise of eternal bliss to virtuous people
is commented on by Macrobius in chap. 8. He resumes a typical Stoic and
Platonic ethical tenet: solae faciunt uirtutes beatum. In particular, he
indicates the four cardinal virtues, already theorized by Plato in his Republic,
and then preached by the Stoics. Macrobius also cites Plotinus on this score;
he assigns him the first place in philosophy together with Plato: Plotinus
inter philosophiae professores cum Platone princeps.
In chap. 9 Macrobius explains in which sense Scipio says that souls come
from heaven and return to heaven.31 Those who philosophize in the right way
30
For the problem of Macrobius sources, and whether he read Plato directly, see
my Macrobio allegorista neoplatonico.
31
It has been noted long since that chaps. 910 in the Somnium Scipionis
constitute a particular section, characterized by a great many Latin quotations, from
Virgil, Persius, Juvenal, and even the ancient Accius. Another oddity is given by the
story of Damocles, which does not fit well in the context. Hence the hypothesis of
Bitsch and other scholars, among whom Courcelle and Hadot, that Macrobius was
using a Neoplatonic commentary on Virgil, perhaps by Marius Victorinus. Pierre
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214 Illinois Classical Studies 3334 (20082009)
do not doubt that the origin of the souls is in heaven and these, while they
make use of the body, can reach the highest wisdom if they recognize their
origin. He also expounds the doctrine of the transmigration of souls. Two
points ought to be stressed in this connection:
1. This Orphic-Pythagorean doctrine was described by Platonot,
however, as a theoretical statement, but only as a myth.
2. Pagan Neoplatonists received it to different degrees, some even
admitting of a reincarnation of human souls in animals or plants, others
accepting only a reincarnation in human bodies. But Christian
Neoplatonists who adopted the doctrine of apokatastasis and, like
Origen, were accused of professing the reincarnation of souls in fact did
not adhere to it at all; Origen and Gregory of Nyssa even openly refuted
it.32 Macrobius envisaged a more or less long series of reincarnations at
the end of which came the definitive liberation from the body (which is
physically located in the Milky Way, in the sky of fixed stars, the
firmament). The virtuous attain this liberation at once, whereas the
wicked reach it much later, but all will gain access to it in the end.
In chap. 10 Scipio Africanus Senior declares that those who have got rid of
the body as of a prison are really alive, whereas life on earth is a death,
according to the Orphic-Pythagorean-Platonic tradition in Martianus and his
commentators. Macrobius continues along these lines and states that Hades
and its torments are the imprisonment experienced by the soul during its stay
in the body. Therefore, according to an interpretation also present in
Martianus, the river Lethe is the error of the soul that forgets its origin and
preceding life; Styx is hatred, Cocytus sorrow; Titius legendary vulture
remorse; Tantalus thirst desire, and so on. Lucretius famously identified
punishments in Hades with the torments that people experience on earth
because of empty fears and desires;33 Macrobius calls theologi those who
Courcelle, Les Pres de lglise devant les enfers virgiliens, AHMA 30 (1955) 574;
Pierre Hadot, Marius Victorinus: Recherches sur sa vie et ses uvres (Paris 1971)
21531, who also draws parallels between Macrobius, Servius, and Favonius
Eulogius; Flamant, Macrobe et le neo-platonisme, 580.
32
Origen in several passages and Nyssen in De anima; see my Gregorio di Nissa
sullAnima.
33
See my Allegoria, vol. 1: Let classica (Milan 2004) chap. 5.
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Ilaria Ramelli 215
34
Porphyrii Fragmenta, ed. A. Smith (Leipzig 1993).
35
Ideo corpus demas hoc est uinculum nuncupatur, et soma quasi quoddam sema
id est animae sepulcrum.
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216 Illinois Classical Studies 3334 (20082009)
36
Cf. D. J. Johnson, God as the True Self: Platos Alcibiades I, AncPhil 19
(1999) 120.
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Ilaria Ramelli 217
Now, it is notable that Macrobius affirms that, according to Plato, all souls
will return to their original place, some sooner and others later, but all of
them will eventually return. Even those souls that have erred most of all, after
a very long stay in Tartarus, will return, purified, to their seats. In fact, Plato
admitted of some exceptions, for souls who are absolutely irrecoverable.
According to him, these will remain in Tartarus forever. For he thought that
pains were therapeutic and cured the souls, but that some were incurable
because the crimes they committed were too extreme; therefore, they would
never leave Tartarus, where they undergo an eternal punishment. This is
stated by Plato in several passages, in particular in Phaedo 113E, Gorgias
525C, and Republic 10.615C616A, where the worst pains are those suffered
by tyrants, even though in his Phaedrus the law of Adrasteia (248C2)
prescribes that, after migrations and purifications, souls return to their
original place, after three thousand years for the souls of philosophers, which
become winged again at that time, or after ten thousand years for common
souls. This is the only passageagainst several othersthat might suggest
that apokatastasis for Plato was universal.
Whereas Plato repeatedly stated that some souls would not return to their
original place, Macrobius, just like his contemporary Gregory of Nyssa, the
Christian Neoplatonist and follower of the Christian Platonist Origen of
Alexandria,37 thought that all the souls, without exception, would return to
their homeland. Those who had erred the most would take a very long time
to do so, but nevertheless would return. For Macrobius, apokatastasis would
really be universal. He interprets Plato by radicalizing his thought and giving
priority to ontology over ethics. Indeed, it is true that souls quae corpus
tamquam peregrinae incolunt, cito post corpus uelut ad patriam reuertuntur,
37
See my Gregorio di Nissa: sullanima e la resurrezione (Milan 2007); and
Apokatastasis.
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218 Illinois Classical Studies 3334 (20082009)
38
See demonstration in my Gregorio di Nissa, integrative essay I. For Origen see
also my Origen and the Apokatastasis: A Reassessment, lecture at the Origeniana
X, Cracow, August 31September 4, 2009, forthcoming in the proceedings, ed.
Henryk Pietras (Leuven).
39
In fact he may have been preceded by Bardaisan of Edessa; see my Origen,
Bardaisan, and the Origin of Universal Salvation, HTR 102.2 (2009) 13568.
40
See Ilaria Ramelli, The Philosophical Stance of Allegory in Stoicism and Its
Reception in Platonism, Pagan and Christian: Origen in Dialogue with the Stoics and
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Ilaria Ramelli 219
Likewise, in Resp. 615E3 Plato remarks that tyrants, the worst sinners in his
opinion, and other people who committed dreadful sins are incurable and
thus will never be allowed to leave their place of torment:
We suddenly saw him down there, and othersmost of them tyrants, but
there were also some private citizens who had committed terrible sins
who believed they were finally about to go up, but whom the opening
did not receive, but it mooed every time one of these people who were in
such a situation of incurability ["/%.#4 !+'"%.#4 $6&+%.+] in respect to
wickedness, or one who had not paid enough, attempted to go up.
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220 Illinois Classical Studies 3334 (20082009)
Here Plato, piling up therapeutic and debt metaphors, distinguishes those who
finish paying their debt to justice and can exit the place of punishment at a
certain point, in that they have been cured, and those who are utterly
incurable and will never finish paying; in this way, they will never leave
their place of punishment.
Moreover, after remarking that only through suffering is it possible to be
purified from evil, in Gorg. 525C2 Plato claims that those who committed
extremely serious sins have become incurable, and their torments, which
are expressly described as eternal, do not purify them, but are simply
retributive and useful for other people, as a paradigm, and not for these
sinners themselves:
As for those who commit the most extreme kinds of injustice and
because of such crimes become incurable [!++$%"'4 3'+.+%$'], these
people provide examples to others. They are no longer useful to
themselves in anything, precisely because they are incurable [5%24
!++$%"'4 6+%2#], but they are useful to others, who see them endure the
greatest and most painful and dreadful sufferings perpetually [%0+4 !274
6(&+"+], due to their sins.
Besides these passages, there are several others in which sin is depicted by
Plato as an illness of the soul that may become incurable, likewise in contexts
in which he is speaking of human justice.
Faced with Platos conviction that some sinners are incurable, Origen
decided to correct Plato on this point by stating that no being is incurable
for its creator. His argument is based on Christian revelation, which was
unknown to Plato. In Origens view, Christ-Logos, who is God, having
created all creatures, will be able to heal all of them from the illness of evil:
Nihil enim omnipotenti impossibile est, nec insanabile est aliquid factori
suo (De princ. 3.6.5). Origen, who inserts this declaration in the context of a
discussion of the eventual conversion and salvation of the devil on the
grounds that he is creature of God, is in fact arguing on the basis of Gods
omnipotence, which comes, not from Greek philosophy, but from Scripture
(e.g., Matt. 19.2526; Mark 10.2627). His conclusion is that those who are
incurable by man or by themselvesthose whom Plato labeled incurable
are not incurable for God. The consequence of such a position is that, in
Origens view, universal apokatastasis, which would be humanly impossible,
will in fact be a miracle performed by the Godhead in its omnipotence.
It is possible that Macrobius, who had a very good command of Greek
(and in whose day, moreover, Latin translations of Origen were available),
may have been influenced by Origens correction of Platos postulated
incurable souls. If this is the case, this would be a further, extremely
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Ilaria Ramelli 221
41
For all this see my Apokatastasis.
42
See my Slavery as a Necessary Evil or as an Evil That Must Be Abolished?
lecture delivered at the Annual Meeting of the SBL, Boston, November 2125, 2008.
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222 Illinois Classical Studies 3334 (20082009)
since all that is found in Christ will be saved, and the body of Christ is the
whole of humanity, which Christ has taken up in both his incarnation and his
resurrection, then the whole of humanity will be found in Christ and therefore
will be saved in the end, when all evil will perish, according to its nature,
because it has no ontological existence (this is a Platonic tenet as well, but
Christian Platonists also grounded it in the fact that evil, like death, is not a
creature of God: this is why it has no ontological substance; it is only a
negation, and will have to disappear).43 The dependence of universal
apokatastasis on Christ is one of the very many features that Gregory
inherited from Origen.44 It rests on a Nicene understanding of the Trinity and
an antisubordinationistic view that was already present in Origen, as an anti-
Arian tendency ante litteram, that became explicit in Gregory of Nyssa who
in In illud grounded the doctrine of apokatastasis in his anti-Arian
interpretation of 1 Cor. 15.28.45
But in the Latin landscape too, that of Martianus and Macrobius, this
doctrine emerges in Late Platonism, perhaps in Victorinus, and surely in the
early Augustine, in addition of course to Rufinus and (for a long time)
Jerome.46 Here I shall briefly concentrate on the young Augustine, probably
a contemporary of Macrobius. For intellectual depth in ancient philosophy,
and especially in Platonism, Augustine is comparable to the most important
patristic philosophers, that is, Origen and Gregory of Nyssa. At a later date,
however, just when he was losing his confidence in philosophy, he also
rejected the doctrine of apokatastasis, which he had formerly embraced.
Augustines first attack on it seems to stem from A.D. 413, in De fide et
operibus 15.24, where he criticized the supporters of this doctrine for
43
See my In Illud: Tunc et Ipse Filius . . . (1 Cor 15,2728): Gregory of Nyssas
Exegesis, Its Derivations from Origen, and Early Patristic Interpretations Related to
Origens, seminar paper at the 2007 Oxford Patristic Conference, in Studia Patristica
44, ed. J. Baun, A. Cameron, M. Edwards, M. Vinzent (Leuven 2010) 25974.
44
Demonstration in my The Universal and Eternal Validity of Jesuss High-
Priestly Sacrifice: The Epistle to the Hebrews in Support of Origens Theory of
Apokatastasis, in A Cloud of Witnesses: The Theology of Hebrews in Its Ancient
Contexts, ed. Richard J. Bauckham, Daniel R. Driver, Trevor A. Hart, and Nathan
MacDonald (London 2008) 21021.
45
I have argued this in Origens Anti-Subordinationism.
46
For hints of this doctrine in Victorinus and for Rufinus and Jerome, see my
Apokatastasis.
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Ilaria Ramelli 223
47
PL 42.66978.
48
See the section devoted to Basil in my Apokatastasis, with demonstration and
full documentation.
49
Demonstration in Ramelli and Konstan, Terms for Eternity.
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224 Illinois Classical Studies 3334 (20082009)
50
This is maintained today by Lisa R. Holliday, Will Satan Be Saved?
Reconsidering Origens Theory of Volition in Peri Archon, VigChr 63 (2009) 123,
on the basis of the importance of free will for Origen, but without considering that still
in Commentary on Romans 5.10.21222 Origen excluded that human free will may
prevent universal apokatastasis: si haec omnia quae enumerauit apostolus separare
nos non possunt a caritate Dei . . . multo magis libertas arbitrii nos ab eius caritate
separare non poterit. Moreover, he thought that the devil will be saved not as devil,
enemy, and death (this is why ibid. 8.8 he says that of Satan nec in fine saeculi erit
ulla conversio), but as a creature of God, when he will be no longer an enemy. And
still in his Commentary on John 32.3 Origen identifies the telos with the apokatastasis
even of the devil: for even Satan will be among those who will submit to Christ,
conquered because he will have yielded to the Logos and will have submitted to the
Image of God, becoming a stool to his feet.
51
See Vittorino Grossi, Il termine praedestinatio tra il 420 e il 435,
Augustinianum 25 (1985) 2764.
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Ilaria Ramelli 225
each of them the same people will live, and the same things will take place.
Also, Augustine does not consider that in Origens view the justice of God
would certainly be satisfied by the purifying suffering of sinners before the
eventual apokatastasis, since their suffering would be commensurate with
their sins. Likewise, in De haeresibus 43 Augustine accused Origen of
teaching an infinite sequence of aeons in which the devil would be purified
and rational creatures would fall again and again, in an infinite repetition:
Sunt huius Origenis alia dogmata quae catholica ecclesia omnino non
recipit . . . de purgatione et liberatione, ac rursus post longum tempus ad
eadem mala revolutione rationalis universae creaturae . . . ipsum etiam
postremo diabolum atque angelos eius, quamvis post longissima
tempora, purgatos atque liberatos, regno Dei lucique restitui, et rursus
post longissima tempora omnes qui liberati sunt ad haec mala denuo
relabi et reverti, et has vices alternantes beatitudinis et miseriarum
rationalis creaturae semper fuisse, semper fore?
Augustine does not grasp, or know, that for Origen this succession would
eventually come to an end, and all rational creatures would be united in love
and unable to fall again, because in Pauls words that Origen quotes, love
never falls.52
Augustine criticizes Origens doctrine of the origin of the rational
creatures and their fall and eschatology,53 or rather what he regards as
Origens, in his intent to prove the eternity of punishment against what he
considers to be the Platonic and Origenian error of deeming otherworldly
suffering purifying, therapeutic, and limited (CD 21.17, 23). Similarly, in
A.D. 417, in De haer. 43, Augustine denounced what he thought to be the
Platonic roots of Origens mistakes: a quibus [sc. Platonicis] ista didicit
Origenes. Like Macrobius, Augustine too overlooks, or does not know, that
Plato did not support universal apokatastasis. Augustine may have used
Orosius Commonitorium, which offered a very imprecise account of
Origens doctrine of apokatastasis.54 At any rate, Augustines source in this
52
See my Gregorio SullAnima, integrative essay I, with demonstration.
53
Giulia S. Gasparro, Origene e la tradizione origeniana in occidente (Roma
1998) 12350.
54
PL 31.121116 = CSEL 18.15157, in which he also presented Origens
presumed doctrine of the rational creatures fall and on the creation of this world as a
place of expiation.
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226 Illinois Classical Studies 3334 (20082009)
55
See Vittorino Grossi, Lorigenismo latino negli scritti agostiniani,
Augustinianum 36 (2006) 5188 at 55; also G. Heidl, Origens Influence on the Young
Augustine: A Chapter of the History of Origenism (Louaize/Piscataway 2003). Cf.
idem, Did the Young Augustine Read Origens Homily on Paradise? in Origeniana
VII 597604; B. Altaner, Augustinus und Origenes: Eine quellenkritische
Untersuchung, Historisches Jahrbuch 70 (1951) 1541 = idem, Kleine patristische
Schriften (Berlin 1967) 22452; Agostino Trap, Nota sul giudizio di s. Agostino su
Origene, Augustinianum 26 (1986) 22327.
56
According to Pierre Courcelle, Les lettres grecques en Occident (Paris 19482)
18587, Augustine knew Origens eschatological theories from the controversy
between Jerome and Rufinus in A.D. 397 and by consulting Orosius in A.D. 414; after
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Ilaria Ramelli 227
about ten years, he read the translation of Origens Homilies on Genesis and probably
of his De principiis.
57
Cf. Caroline P. Hammond Bammel, Justification by Faith in Augustine and
Origen, JEH 47 (1996) 22335.
58
Ambrose reproached this to Origen in De Abr. 2.8.54: etiam ipsum plurimum
indulgere philosophorum traditioni pleraque eius scripta testantur.
59
Augustines teaching method in his first works also seems to have been inspired
by Origen: Heidl, Origens Influence, 3761.
60
Jean Ppin, Saint Augustin et le symbolisme noplatonicien de la vture, in
Augustinus Magister (Paris 1954) 1.293306; cf. Roland J. Teske, Origen and St
Augustines First Commentaries on Genesis, in Origeniana V (Leuven 1992) 179
86.
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228 Illinois Classical Studies 3334 (20082009)
61
See my chapter on Eriugena in Apokatastasis.
62
For this passage it is possible to draw a parallel with Origens Selecta in
Genesim PG 12.93, and with Tractatus Origenis 1.13, 56: Heidl, Origens
Influence, 10510. Cf. Teske, Origen and St Augustines First Commentaries, 180
86.
63
PL 32.130978, then ed. J. B. Bauer (CSEL 90, 1992); commentary by K. Coyle
(Palermo 1991).
64
1.1: Hoc enim maxime esse dicendum est, quod semper eodem modo sese
habet, quod omnimodo sui simile est, quod nulla ex parte corrumpi ac mutari potest,
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Ilaria Ramelli 229
quod non subiacet tempori . . . cui si contrarium recte quaeras, nihil omnino est. Esse
enim contrarium non habet nisi non esse. Nulla est ergo Deo natura contraria.
65
Gabriel Bunge, Cr pour tre, BLE 98 (1997) 2129; Ilaria Ramelli, La
coerenza della soteriologia origeniana: dalla polemica contro il determinismo gnostico
alluniversale restaurazione escatologica, in Pagani e cristiani alla ricerca della
salvezza (Roma 2006) 66188; eadem, Christian Soteriology, 337.
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230 Illinois Classical Studies 3334 (20082009)
exemplaribus sic scriptum est: Ego facio bona et condo mala. Facere
enim est, omnino quod non erat; condere autem, ordinare quod
utcumque iam erat, ut melius magisque sit. Ea namque condit Deus, id
est ordinat, cum dicit: Condo mala quae deficiunt, id est ad non esse
tendunt. . . . Nihil per divinam providentiam ad id ut non sit pervenire
permittitur . . . quidquid est, in quantum est, ex Deo sit, in quantum
autem ab essentia deficit, non sit ex Deo, sed tamen divina providentia
semper sicut universitati congruit ordinetur.
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Ilaria Ramelli 231
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232 Illinois Classical Studies 3334 (20082009)
latter denied that they were his. In fact, they probably are a Latin translation
of exegetical passages from Origen, whose interpretation of the Lords Prayer
was taken up by Augustine in his commentary on the Sermon on the Mount,
which he began in A.D. 393/394.66 The other example is provided by
Pamphilus, who in Apol. 12 attests that already toward the beginning of the
fourth century manuscripts containing works of Origen circulated, which did
not bear the name of their author. Pamphilus was denouncing Origens
detractors, who often did not even read his works and yet deemed them
heretical:
Accidere solet, vel casu vel interdum studio, ut nomine in codice non
praetitulato legatur aliquid ipsius [sc. Origenis] in auribus obtrectatorum
quasi alterius tractatoris; quod tam diu placet et laudatur atque in omni
admiratione habetur quam diu nomen non fuerit indicatum. At ubi
Origenis cognita fuerint esse quae placebant, statim displicent, statim
haeretica esse dicuntur!
66
Other intermediate sources can be excluded, as Tertullian, Cyprian, and
Ambrose have different interpretations. See Heidl, Origens Influence, 21935.
67
Argument in the section on Victorinus in my Apokatastasis.
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Ilaria Ramelli 233
68
Documentation in Ramelli, Apokatastasis.
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234 Illinois Classical Studies 3334 (20082009)
69
Demonstration in Ramelli, Apokatastasis, especially the conclusions.
70
See my The Trinitarian Theology and, with further arguments, Origens
Anti-Subordinationism and Its Heritage in the Nicene and Cappadocian Line, VigChr
65 (2011) 2149.
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