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Rh APOCRISIARIUS

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APOCRISIARIUS

sinner. All souls, all inttllisent beings that have gone astray, shall, therefore, be restored sooner or later to God's friendship. The evolution will be long, incalculably long in some eases, but a time will come when Gocl shall be all in all. Death, the last enemy, sliall be destroyed, the body shall be made spiritual, the world of matter shall be trans- formed, and there shall be, in the universe, only peace and unity" [Tixeront, Histoire des dogmes, (Paris, 190.')), I, 304, 305], The palmary text of Origen should be referred to "De principiis", III, fi, 6; (P. G., XI, col. 33.S-340). For Origen's teach- ing and the passages wherein it is expressed consult Huet. "Origeniana", II, qu. 11, n. 16 (republished in P. G., XVII, col. 1023-26) and Petavius, "Theol. dogmat., De Angelis", 107-109; also Har- nack ["Dogmengeschichte" (Freiburg, 1894), I, 645, 646], who connects the teaching of Origen on this point with that of Clement of Alexandria. Tixeront also writes very aptly concerning this matter: "Clement allows that sinful souls shall be sanctified after death by a spiritual fire, and that the wicked sliall, likewise, be punished by fire. Will their cliastisement be eternal? It would not seem so. In the Stromata, VII, 2 (P. G., IX, col. 416), the punishment of which Clement speaks, and which succeeds the final judgment, constrains the wicked to repent. In chapter xvi (col. 541) the author lays down the principle that God does not punish, but corrects; that is to say that all chastisement on His part is remedial. If Origen be supposed to have started from this principle in order to arrive at the avoKaTiaTaaii — and Gregory of Nyssa as well^ " it is extremely probable that Clement of Alexan- dria understood it in the same sen.se " (Histoire des dogmes, I, 277). Origen, however, does not seem to have regarded the doctrine of the diro/caTdo-- Toffis as one meant to be preached to all, it being enough for the generality of the faithful to know that sinners will be punished. (Contra Celsum, VI, 26 in P. G., XI, col. 1332.)

The doctrine, then, was first taught by Origen, and by Clement of .\lexandria, and was an influence in their Christianity due to Platonism, as Petavius has plainly shown (Theol. dogmat. De Angelis, 106), following St. Augustine " De civitate Dei", XXI, 13. Compare Janet, " La philosophie de Platon " (Paris, 1869), I, 603. It is evident, moreover, that the doctrine involves a purely natural scheme of divine justice and of redemption. (Plato, Republic, X, 614''.)

It was through Origen that the Platonist doctrine of the airoKaTddTaais pas.sed to St. Gregory of Nyssa, and simultaneously to St. Jerome, at least during the time that St. Jerome was an Origenist. It is certain, however, that St. Jerome understands it only of the baptized: "In restitutione omnium, quando corpus totius ecclesiffi nunc dispersum atque laeeratum, verus medicus Christus Jesus sanaturus advenerit, unusquisque secundum mensuram fidei et cognitionis Filii Dei . . . suum recipiet locum et incipiet id esse quod fuerat" (Comment, in Eph., iv, 16; P. G., XXVI, col. 503). Everywhere else St. Jerome teaches that the punishment of the devils and of the impious, that is of those who have not come to the Faith, shall be eternal. (See Peta- vius, Theol. dogmat. De Angelis, 111, 112.) The ".Xmbrosiaster" on the other hand seems to have extended the benefits of redemption to the devils, (In i;ph., iii, 10; P. L., XVII, col. 382), yet the interpretation of the " .Vmbrosiaster" on this point is not devoid of difFiculty. [See Petavius, p. Ill; also, Tunnel, Histoire de la tli^ologie positive, depuis I'ongine, etc. (Paris, 19t)4) 1,S7.]

From the moment, however, that anti-Origenism /)revailed, the doctrine of the djroKaTdffTairis was definitely abandoned. St. Augustine protests more -rrongly than any oilier writer again.st an error so

contrary to the doctrine of the necessity of grace. See, especially, his " De gestis Pelagii", I; "In Origene dignissime detest at ur Ecclesia, quod et iara illi quos Dominus dicit .'terno supplicio puniendos, et ipse diabolus et angeli eius, post tempus licet prohxum purgati liberabuntur a poenis, et Sanctis cum Deo regnantibus societate beatitudinis ad- h.Trebunt." Augustine here alludes to the sentence pronounced against Pelagius by the Council of Diospolis, in 415 (P. L., XLIV, col. 325). He moreover recurs to the subject in many passages of his writings, and in Book XXI "De Civitate Dei" sets himself earnestly to prove the eternity of punishment as against the Platonist and Origenist error concerning its intrinsically purgatorial char- acter. We note, further, that the doctrine of the dTTOKardo-Tao-is was held in the East not only by St. Gregory of Nyssa, but al.so by St. Gregory of Nazianzus as well; " De .seipso ", 566 (P. G., XXXVII, col. 1010), but the latter, though he asks the question, finally decides neither for nor against it, but rather leaves the answer to God. Kostlin, in the "Real- encyklopadie f iir protestantische Theologie " (Leipzig, 1896), I, 617, art. "Apokata stasis", names Diociorus of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia as having also held the doctrine of cnroKaTiaTaais, but cites no passage in support of his statement. In any case, the doctrine was formally condemned in the first of the famous anathemas pronounced at the Council of Constantinople in .543; Harduin, Coll. Cone. Ill, 284; — Ei' ris tt]v Tepardidt] diroKaTd^raatv Trpea^edei^ avadtixa ecrru. [See, also, Justinian, Liber adversus Originem, anathemas 7 and 9 (P. G., LXXXVI, col. 989).] The doctrine was thenceforth looked on as heterodox by the Church.

It was destined, nevertheless, to be re^'ived in the works of ecclesiastical writers, and it would be in- teresting to verify Kostlin's and Bardenhewer's state- ment that it is to be traced in Bar Sudaili, Dionysius the Areopagite, Maximus the Confessor, Scotus Erigena, and Amalric of Bena. It reappears at the Reformation in the writings of Denk (d. 1527), and Harnack has not hesitated to assert that nearly all the Reformers were apocatastasists at heart, and that it accounts for their aversion to the tra- ditional teaching concerning the sacraments (Dogmen- geschichte, III, 601). The doctrine of dronaTdaTaais viewed as a belief in a universal salvation is found among the Analiaptists, the Moravian Brethren, the Christadelphians, among rationalistic Protestants, and finally among the professed I'niversalists. It has been held, also, by such philosophic Protestants as Schleiermacher, and by a few theologians, Farrar, for instance, in England, Eckstein and Pfister in Germany, Matter in France. Consult Kostlin, art. cit., and Gr^tillut, "Expos6 de theologie syst^ma- tique" (Paris, 1890), IV, 603.

Pierre B.a.tiffol.

Apocrisiarius (Gr. dirbxpian, an answer; cf. Lat. responsalis, from rrsponsuw). — This term indicates in general the ecclesiastical cnvoj's of Christian antiq- uity, whether permanent or .sent temporarily on .spe- cial missions to high ecclesiastical autliorities or royal courts. In the East the patriarchs had their apo- erisiarii at the imperial court, and the metropolitans theirs at the courts of the patriarchs. The popes also frequently deputed clerics of the Roni.an Church as cnvoj's, either for the adjustment of important ques- tions affecting the Church of Rome, or to settle points of discipline in local dioceses, or to safeguard the in- terests of the Church in religious controversies. In the letters of St. Gregory the Great (590-004) very frequent mention is made of such envoys (resmn- salcs). In view of the great importance attaciiinfc to the relations between the popes and the imperial court of Constantinople, especially after the fall of