Origenes Vindicatus vel Rufinus Redivivus ? A Review of Ilaria Ramelli’s The Christian Doctrine of Apokatastasis (2013)

Abstract

Against a backdrop of surging interest in the topic of universal salvation (or universalism, apokatastasis), Ilaria Ramelli’s major tome places Origenian and Origenist universalism at the center of Christian theologizing during the first nine centuries. She claims that Origen was misunderstood rather than rejected, that textual interpolations have distorted the ancient record, and that the young Augustine was a universalist. Historiographic problems abound in this book, which does not clearly distinguish Origen from Gregory of Nyssa and others, nor account for the countervailing views of early nonuniversalists.