from the knowledge of God, and devising and regarding that which was evil, incurred the threatened condemnation of death.... By transgression they reverted to their native condition; so that, as from non-existence they began to be, they must now in due time suffer the loss and destruction of their being.... For man is by nature mortal, seeing he was created from non-being. Yet, as made in the likeness of the true Being, to be preserved by the knowledge of him, he might have escaped the force of corruption and remained immortal.” (De Incarnatione Verbi, c. 4.)

In the fifth century, Nemesius, a Neoplatonist, became a Christian and bishop of Emesa. He is a Restorationist. But he says: "Since the soul is not yet known in its essence, it is not suitable to determine respecting its energy. The Hebrews say that originally man was made evidently neither mortal nor immortal, but on the confines of either nature; so that, if he should yield to the bodily affections, he would share also the changes of the body; but if he should prefer the nobler affections of the soul, he should be deemed worthy of immortality." (De Naturâ Hominis, c. 1.)

I would call special attention to this passage, both as testimony of Hebrew doctrine needing special explanation in the New Testament if it was not to be strictly taken, and also as coming from a Restorationist.

Nicholas of Methone, of the twelfth century, is regarded by Neander as the most learned theologian of his age. He says: "It is not every soul that neither perishes nor dies, but only the rational, truly spiritual, and divine soul, which is made perfect through virtue by participating in the grace of God." (See Hagenbach, History of Doctrines, § 174.) I do not know his opinion on the main question.

Deferring the opinions of Irenæus and of Arnobius for a moment, I come back to Athenegoras, the first of the postapostolic Fathers who does not recognize the intermediate nature of man. We know little of his history, but we are told he was a catechist at Alexandria, before Clement. In the strength of his expressions, though not in their frequency, he

makes very free of immortality, and he presses his argument for the resurrection as completing the being of man whose soul is immortal. The body, he says, was made originally immortal, yet continuing by the sole will of the Creator. But man has an unchangeable continuance with respect to the soul. (De Resur. Mort. c. 16.) I can not give all my reasons for calling him a Restorationist. Some of his expressions might be taken as orthodox. Professor Hovey claims him as such. But he cites no expression strong enough, I think, to overrule the general tenor of his doctrine of man, and especially his argument that as man is an end in and to himself, no reason can ever occur why he should cease to be. (c. 12.) No orthodox view of the economy of eternal woe is at all admissible by the side of this statement. It is all that any Universalist can ask, unqualified as it is left. Hence I conclude that if Athenagoras was not consciously a Restorationist, he at least laid broad the foundations for the restorationism of the Alexandrian School.

I have spoken of a claim made by Universalists that there was restorationism before the time of Clement. This is done by Dr. Ballou, in the Expositor, May, 1834, p. 189, where he cites a passage in the second book of the Sibylline Oracles, of which, however, he makes little account. Dr. B. relies upon the date which had been usually assigned to this work; namely, the middle of the second century. But the critical labors of Friedlieb, who has edited the work, give the following results: Of the twelve books of these Oracles, the oldest was written about the year 160 before Christ; the latest towards the year 300 of the Christian era. The second is assigned to the beginning of the third century. Alexandre, another editor, agrees with Friedlieb in the main. My information is derived from a very able article on the subject in the Methodist Quarterly, 1855, pp. 510, 512.

The restorationism of Clement is not very explicit, though indubitable. He does not call the soul immortal, perhaps because this was a Gnostic style of speech, of which the Christians were somewhat shy. In one instance he speaks of the soul as saved, by present grief, from "eternal death;" but he uses the word

“eternal” much as Maurice takes it, - as referring, not to duration, but to kind; death in sin and ignorance. He held all punishment to be chastening and reformatory, and speaks of a certain "discreet fire," or ignis sapiens, in a style suggesting the notion of purgatory, which was now taking its rise.

I need not tell my Universalist friends that Origen," the Adamantine," was one of themselves. And I freely concede he was as adamantine for his virtues as for the power of his learning. I only ask that some regard should be had to all his opinions bearing on the question in hand. Neander speaks of him as attaching great importance to the natural immortality of the soul, as related to God. He is well known also to have held its preëxistence. He made much of the doctrine of free will, supposing that not only the lost, including Satan, might be saved, but that the saved might be lost again; in other words, he made evil an eternal vicissitude. A passage cited by Tholuck on Rom. v. 18, confirms the common belief that he regarded the doctrine of universal salvation as an arcanum, not to be generally published. And a passage in what may be called his Confession of Faith is remarkable for two reasons: it is the first in which the nature and destiny of the soul are told in extra-scriptural language; and it is hypothetically orthodox. He says: "Now that the soul hath its own substance and life, it shall receive according to its merits when it departs from this world; to possess eternal life and blessedness, if its deeds have secured this inheritance, or to be given over to eternal fire and punishments, if the guilt of its sins shall bring it to this doom." (De Principiis, Præf. apud Rufinum.)

Of his allegorical method of interpretation I shall say nothing. He thought and spoke very much as I might have done, holding in one hand the doctrine of an indefeasible immortality, and in the other a Bible very infallibly true, and as of very elastic interpretation.

Origen lived about A.D. 225. His Universalism, with all its modifications, was obviously a late and incomplete development of the doctrine if true. I think the history shows what I proposed, that it was due more to Platonic philosophy than

to exegesis; or to the doctrine of the soul's immortality superadded to the Scriptures.

Some of my orthodox

I need not trace its history further. friends may need to know that more than half the Fathers of the Eastern Church were Restorationists; and Gieseler tells us that "the belief in the unalienable power of amendment in all intelligent beings, and in the limited duration of future punishment, was so general even in the West, and among the opponents of Origen, that it seemed entirely independent of his system, to which, doubtless, its origin must be traced." I need only show, in conclusion, that besides the orthodox opposition, two strong protests were made from the position I hold; one during the process of the change, and the other at a later date.

Irenæus, bishop of Lyons, was a disciple of Polycarp, who had personally known the beloved disciple, John. He suffered martyrdom in A.D. 202. His principal work is a refutation of existing heresies, principally the Gnostic; and with Gnostic views the soul's strict immortality is associated in his book. Of his general merits of character the Restorationist Eusebius shall be our witness. Irenæus says: The Scripture “saith o the salvation of man, 'He asked of thee life, and thou gavest him length of days for ever and ever;" the Father of all making a grant of continuance for ever and ever to those who are saved. For life is not of ourselves, nor of our own nature, but a gift of God's favor. And therefore he who preserves the grant of life, and renders thanks to Him who bestows it, shall receive length of days for ever and ever. But he who rejects it, and proves unthankful to his Maker for creating him, and will not know Him who bestows it, deprives himself of the gift of duration to all eternity. And therefore the Lord speaks thus to such ungrateful persons: If you have not been faithful in that which is least, who will commit much unto you?' signifying that they who are unthankful to Him for this short temporal life, which is His gift, shall justly fail to receive from Him length of days for ever and ever. . . . Souls therefore receive their life and their perpetual duration as a donative from God, continuing in being from non-existence

because God wills them to exist and to subsist. For the will of God should have rule and lordship in all things; all else should yield and be subservient thereto. And of the creation and duration of the soul let so much be said." (Adv. Hær. 1. 2, c. 34, §§ 3, 4.)*

The second protestant was Arnobius, A.D. 303. He had been a rhetorician of Sicca, in Numidia, and so bitterly opposed to the Christian faith that the sincerity of his conversion was

* Prof. Hovey (p. 141) raises a doubt whether Irenæus really held the opinion for which this passage is offered, and cites two authorities. I have not in my book ignored this doubt. But I have found the same doubt respecting Arnobius by one of his editors, which is as plausible as if he had said that daylight is green. I have found one editor of Irenæus remarking that such a passage favors "the error of Arnobius." Cotelerius also, encountering the same error in the Clementines, says it is best explained by the passages in Justin, Irenæus, and Arnobius. And I have met a very intelligent member of the Catholic clergy who remarked that Irenæus had been criticized for the view. I may at some time present more fully the expressions of Irenæus and the opinions of the critics. Of the two writers referred to by Prof. H., one takes no notice of § 3, above quoted; and the other - and he not alone takes the significant expressions in the entire passage as meaning "eternal happiness," but without argument.

Prof. H. closes his "survey "with the following italicized statement: "The records of the primitive church, prior to A.D. 200, afford no evidence that a belief in the endless existence of the soul was brought over from pagan philosophy into the creed of the church." In his "survey " he ignores the entire history of opinion respecting man's intermediate nature, which Athenagoras alone did not hold. He ignores the suspicions of Justin's orthodoxy. He regards Tatian, whom nobody wants, as the first and only annihilationist; though I must think his orthodox expression even without note or comment stronger than that of Athenagoras, which he quotes. And he says nothing of the third century, in which was ripened the seed sown in the second.

Here I am tempted to add a word from Hagenbach, who, after stating the opinions of the soul's intermediate nature in the second century, says: "On the contrary, Tertullian and Origen, whose views differed on other subjects, agreed in this one point, that they, in accordance with their peculiar notions concerning the nature of the soul, looked upon immortality as essential to it." (Hist. of Doctrines, § 58). Tertullian was the great defender of the orthodox view, as Origen was distinguished for the restorationist view.