An Open Letter to Fr. Aidan Kimel regarding Universalism

An Open Letter to Fr. Aidan Kimel

regarding Universalism

by Dr. David C. Ford

June 22, 2020

St. Alban of Britain

Dear Fr. Aidan,

Glory to Jesus Christ!

I do want to thank you for giving me the courtesy of letting me know ahead of time about your response to my response to Fr. Plekon’s review of David Bentley Hart’s book, That All Shall Be Saved.

And I suppose I should thank you for giving my document such close attention, despite thinking it’s “drivel”!  I guess that’s a compliment of some sort!

By way of contrast, here’s what a retired Assistant District Attorney wrote to his priest about my response to Fr. Plekon’s review:

I read Dr. David Ford’s review of the review of Hart’s book on universal salvation.
It was an excellent piece - very well written. He writes like a good lawyer.
I believe it informed me of just about everything I probably want to know about the book, and seemed to confirmed a suspicion of mine that Hart may have become too “smart” for his own good.

To address your response to my response, I’m sure we completely agree that it would be truly wonderful indeed if every single human being, and every single angelic being including every demon and even Satan himself, were to repent and beg Christ for forgiveness before the Last Judgment occurs, or even afterwards (if that proves to be possible), leaving hell utterly empty if not totally annihilated.  Those with big enough hearts may well be praying for that!  That’s the hope we all are welcome to have.

But not the certainty.  For as you well know, for all the Scripture verses and passages that might possibly be taken in a Universalist way, there are many others that strongly imply what the Church as a whole has always taught against that speculation.  And who has the authority and the certain knowledge of the future to declare unequivocally that everyone, including the Devil and all his hosts, will repent and be saved in the end?  And of those who dare to declare this as a certainty, which of them will be willing to bear all the consequences if they are mistaken – especially if they’ve misled others to the extent of their living without repentance in this life because they got convinced they could just wait and repent in the next life?

Also, I’m very sorry that you don’t seem to understand how the issue of authority is indeed at the very heart of the matter.  For no matter what any of our speculations might be, no matter how well-thought out and well-intentioned they are, if they’re not informed by, aligned with, and centered in the received Tradition of our Orthodox Church, they simply can’t be correct!  This is especially true when the issue at hand is an important one, and when it has already been decided by the Church as a whole, with virtually every Saint and Church Father and holy elder in agreement.

Either our Church, Christ’s Body, has preserved Christ’s Truth in all its fullness, or our Lord has not protected His Body from “the gates of hell” as He promised He would.  And the Spirit of Truth, Whom Christ promised would lead His Church into all the Truth, must have failed to do that very thing.

Concerning the claim that some Christians in the early centuries were apparently Universalists, if we are faithful Orthodox Christians and not crypto-Protestants, we trust our Church to have made the correct decision in eventually rejecting Universalism, even if some unknown number of Christians believed it in the early centuries.  The historical record is that the Church as a whole rejected it; and after about the middle of the 6^th century it rightly disappears, under the guidance of the Spirit of Truth Who was indeed leading the Church into all Truth – as all faithful Orthodox Christians believe. 

By that same guidance of the Holy Spirit of Truth, speaking in unknown tongues and the interpretation of tongues, though apparently endorsed by St. Paul himself (1 Cor. 14), as well as the office of the traveling prophets, also dissipated and disappeared, probably by about the beginning of the third century.  And also, the early belief, held by many rigorist Christians, that repentance and restoration to the Church were not possible even after deep repentance for those having committed the worst sins – adultery, apostasy, and murder – similarly was overturned by the Church as a whole, by the end of the 4^th century.

You’re asking our Church to view our Orthodox Faith “through Universalist spectacles.”  When I attempt to do so, I see very serious and potentially disastrous pastoral and intellectual problems.

For instance, concerning the pastoral repercussions of Universalism, through our Church's rejection of Universalism She has recognized it as a misleading speculation that could very well undermine our people's incentive to live a life of ongoing repentance, which is so important in our Orthodox spiritual life, and which has direct relevance for our future state in the next life.  For if I can just plan on repenting in the next life, what does it matter how dissolutely I live, or how blasphemously I think, or how recklessly I believe, in this life?  I’m surprised you don’t seem to recognize this very real danger.

Really, with the Universalist claim, where is the incentive to take the Last Judgment seriously, if it’s believed that God absolutely will save everyone from hell the moment they finally repent?  And why are the prayers and hymns of our Church, as well as the Book of Psalms, filled to overflowing with calls and entreaties for the Lord to save us and have mercy on us, if He’s going to do that anyway the moment hell gets too hot for us and we finally repent then?

And what about for people who are in deep depression and struggling to resist suicidal thoughts?  If they’ve become convinced that Universalism is true, what would stop them, in a particularly excruciating moment of temptation, to give in to the temptation and take their own life in the expectation that they’ll be able to repent and be saved in the next life?  It seems clear that it’s not without deep pastoral wisdom, based in deep experience with spiritual warfare, that our Church, in order to provide an additional incentive for those dealing with suicidal thoughts to resist them, has traditionally denied a full Christian funeral to those taking their own life.

In addition, how would it not be deleterious to people's life in the Church if they get swayed by Hart's rhetoric into doubting the wisdom and trustworthiness of the great Saints and Church Fathers through the centuries?  People might ask themselves, If the Fathers are wrong on this issue, what else might they be wrong about?  And I wonder, how can people venerate the Saints and Fathers and ask for their prayers with fullness of reverence, esteem, and confidence if they get convinced that the Fathers were wrong on such a crucial issue?

Concerning the Universalist logic itself, granted that it may very well be extremely well-intentioned, compelling, and driven by the highest of motivations, yet it remains another attempt to reduce the mysteries of the Faith to the level of human reasoning.  It’s another example, as we see with every heresy, of the human mind staggering at some aspect of the mystery of our Lord’s inscrutable Being and Providence. 

According to human reasoning and conceptualizing, it might very well be true that knowing that God is Pure, Divine Love is logically incompatible with the fact that there may well be rational beings, demons as well as human beings, created by Him yet existing in an eternal state of separation from Him because “men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19).  Such a scenario may very well not seem to us to be something our All-Loving God could ever allow.  But we can only make such a judgment according to our own very limited definitions and concepts of what God’s love must be like. 

And the very foundations of our Faith are wrapped in logically inconsistent paradox and mystery.  How can Three be One?  How can One be Three?  How can God become man?  How can a man be God?  How can our Lord be completely inaccessible to humans, and yet simultaneously be completely accessible?  How can our salvation depend entirely upon our Lord and His saving work, and also entirely upon ourselves to freely accept that work for ourselves?  How can our Church contain the perfect fullness of Truth, yet consist of members who all fall short of being perfectly filled with Truth?  These are paradoxes, antinomies, mysteries, all of which defy human logic, with which they indeed are entirely inconsistent. 

Speaking broadly, I think it reflects a Scholastic mindset to wish to reduce the mystery, the paradox, to the level of logical consistency.  But for the Orthodox, knowing our Uncreated Lord is infinitely beyond our created capacities for reasoning, infinitely beyond the reasoning capacities of even the most intellectually brilliant among us, we calmly accept the paradoxes, the antinomies, the mysteries of our Divinely-revealed Faith.  As St. Gregory Palamas says so well, “The antinomy is the touchstone of Orthodoxy.”

I think we can say that the mysteries that permeate our Faith are in a sense intended by our Lord to defy human reasoning, as one of His ways to keep us humbly reliant upon Him in all things. 

We can also be reminded of the Orthodox understanding of the difference between the apophatic and kataphatic traditions in our Orthodox theology.  As St. Dionysius the Aeropagite says so well, God is Love and yet He is also Not-Love, because His Love is both similar to human concepts of love, yet at the same time His Love is infinitely beyond our human concepts of love.

It’s indeed admirable that Universalists are so concerned to defend and protect the understanding of God as Complete and Total Love.  But in Orthodoxy, we know this already; we’re always saying, “for He is the Good God Who loves mankind.”  I’m reminded of how the erroneous and divisive Filioque clause was added to the Nicene Creed to try to reinforce the full Deity of the Son in the face of continuing Arianism in late 6^th century Spain; but the Nicene Creed had already established His full Deity with the use of the word homoousios.  Similarly, the Universalist attempt to reinforce the fullness of God’s Love by removing the possibility of eternal separation from Him leads to divisiveness and confusion, and distrust of the Tradition as a whole.

And in the end, of course, despite all its emphasis on God’s Love, Universalism always boils down not to love, but to power.  As Hart says, “Insofar as we are able freely to will anything at all, therefore, it is precisely because He is making us to do so: as at once the source of all action and intentionality in rational natures and also the transcendental object of rational desire that elicits every act of mind and will towards any purposes whatsoever” (TASBS, p. 183; his emphasis).  Besides, this claim is false because it would make God the ultimate author of every evil intention, decision, and action that’s ever occurred, and we all know that He is not the originator of evil.

Universalism staggers at the idea that any human or demonic will could ever eternally override the will and desire of our All-Powerful God for every demon and every person to repent and be saved from hell.  But that’s part of the mystery – God, in His humble Love, allows this.  He always just knocks at the door of our heart (Rev. 3:20); He never pushes open that door.  It’s this humble dimension of the way God loves that Universalism doesn’t seem to understand. 

In addition, by the logic of Universalism, if it’s morally absurd, if it’s cruel, if indeed it’s evil for God to allow demons and humans to reject His love forever and hence to experience hell forever, then it must have been morally absurd and cruel and evil for Him to have created angels and humans in the first place with the capacity to reject His will for them in anything.  For every time we sin, we reject and override His will for us to live without sin; and every time we sin, we plunge ourselves into a certain kind of hell.  Pressing the logic of Universalism to a logical conclusion, how could a fully loving God allow even one of His creatures to experience any form or degree of hell even for a moment? – for that would be cruel, according to the humanistic logic of Universalism.

But in the end, who would ever think that any 21^st century scholar, no matter how intellectually brilliant, is more trustworthy than St. Athanasius the Great, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. John Chrysostom, St. Gregory the Theologian, St. Basil the Great, St. Cyril of Alexandria, St. Vincent of Lerins, St. Augustine of Hippo, St. John of Damascus, St. Maximus the Confessor, St. Photius the Great, St. Symeon the New Theologian, St. Gregory Palamas, St. Nicholas Cabasilas, St. Nicodemus the Hagiorite, St. Silouan the Athonite, St. Paisius the Athonite, and countless other saints and elders? 

Is David Bentley Hart really living closer to God than they did?  Is he really more filled with God’s love and truth than they were?  Is it really possible that all those Saints were wrong about Universalism, and that you and David Bentley Hart are correct?  Do you really think the Head of His Church, Jesus Christ Himself, would have allowed His Church to go into error on this crucial point for all these centuries?  Has He really been waiting all this time for the truth to be finally discovered in the early 21^st century by a handful of intellectuals? – with David Bentley Hart even daring to imply that all these Fathers and Saints were “moral idiots” for not believing in Universalism!

Of course, we’re all free to choose whom to trust, and whom to believe.  May we all choose wisely!

So, dear Fr. Aidan, please prayerfully consider my words, even if they are not brilliant.  And let’s all remember our Lord’s sobering words about being a stumbling block to any one of His little ones: “Better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he be drowned in the sea.”

With love and prayers,

Dr. David C. Ford

Professor of Church History

St. Tikhon’s Orthodox Seminary

South Canaan, PA

Review: The Unquenchable Fire: The Traditional Christian Teaching about Hell

The heresy of universalism has experienced a revival in recent years. The idea that a Holy God would hold those who reject Him accountable, and that this has everlasting consequences, does not appeal to the worldly mindset of our time. We even will soon have a new book by the "Orthodox Theologian" David Bentley Hart, in which he will no doubt repeat his expressions of disdain for the Fifth and Sixth Ecumenical Councils, proclaim Origen the greatest saint and theologian of the Church, and assure us that contrary to the clear teachings of Christ, the undying worm will die, and the unquenchable fire will be quenched. But the Truth is not subject to opinion polls, and it really doesn't matter whether we like it or not -- this is what Christians have always believed, and in fact what Christ Himself taught in the most clear and striking terms possible.

Opposing this rising tide of heresy, is the book The Unquenchable Fire: The Traditional Christian Teaching about Hell, by Fr. Lawrence Farley. Fr. Lawrence provides a thorough study of the teachings of Christ, their background in the Old Testament, the intertestamental period, as well as in the light of the rest of the New Testament, and the understanding of the early Church, and the Church Fathers. He goes into some depth on the teachings of Origen, and his subsequent condemnation by the Fifth Ecumenical Council. He explores the meaning of some of the key words and phrases that are relevant to properly understanding of Christ's teachings on this subject, and he also examines what we can learn from the hymns of the Church. He then engages the common arguments made today by those who either advocate universalism or annihilationism (the view that those who are not save simply cease to exist).

If you have struggled with these questions yourself, or want to be better equipped to answer those who either are sowing confusion in the Church, or who sincerely struggle with the questions these people have raised, this book is an excellent resource.

One might hope David Bentley Hart's bishop will read it.

The Hart Idiosyncratic Version

David Bentley Hart Jumping the Shark

David Bentley Hart is usually referred to as an "Orthodox theologian." While he is undoubtedly a highly intelligent and well educated man, he is not an "Orthodox theologian" in any traditional sense. He qualifies as a theologian in a purely academic sense; however, his theology is hardly Orthodox. He feels free to pick and choose which Ecumenical Councils he personally accepts, to hold views that the Church formally condemns, and I have not heard or read anything that he has said that would demonstrate that his conversion to Orthodoxy has had any discernible impact on his theology. He still speaks and writes like a somewhat eccentric Anglican who has his own opinions about the Faith, and feels free to take or leave any particular teachings or traditions of the Church. In fact, were he a more conservative Anglican, he would more often come down on the Orthodox side of many of the controversial issues that he has taken a vocal position on [For specific examples of what I mean, see: The Strange Theology of David Bentley Hart].

DBH's recently published translation of the New Testament (entitled "The New Testament: A Translation," but which I will refer to hereafter as the "Hart Idiosyncratic Version," or "HIV" for short) would have been vastly improved, in fact, if he had taken a few cues from his Anglican forebears. Here are some of the more important instructions King James issued to the translators that produced the King James Version:

"The names of the prophets and the holy writers, with the other names in the text, to be retained, as near as may be, accordingly as they are vulgarly used."

Which means that you should stick with the form of the names in English that are most commonly used, and thus you would not end up with a New Testament book entitled in his version "The Letter of Judas". You would stick with Jude, though you might note in a footnote or introduction that the names "Jude," "Judas," and "Judah," are all variant forms of the same name.

"The old ecclesiastical words to be kept, as the word church, not to be translated congregation."

You should keep the terms that the Church has been using, and so ekklesia should be translated as "Church," and not as "congregation" or "assembly," and so you would not end up with such monstrosities as:

"And to you I also say, You are Peter [Rock], and upon this rock I will build my assembly, and the gates of Hades shall have no power against it" (Matthew 16:18 HIV).

Now DBH argues that his readers should read the text as the early Church would read it, and so read the word "ekklesia" as a common word with no preconceived significance. But for some reason, he sticks with words like "baptism," and "baptize," which he could just as easily have translated as "immersion," and "immerse," and so he could have ended the Gospel of Matthew with a command to go and immerse all nations (Matthew 28:19). Why the difference? These are the whims you are in for when you read a translation from a single translator, who has his own axes to grind.

His axe grinding is particularly in evidence whenever the text touches on the question of eternal damnation, which he denies, in favor of the universalist heresy long condemned by the Church. And so he has the parable of the sheep and the goats ending with:

"And these shall go to the chastening of that Age, but the just to the life of that Age" (Matthew 25:46 HIV).

There is not a single commentary by a Father of the Church that would support translating this passage in this manner, nor is there a single major English translation that has translated it this way. For more on that, I would recommend Fr. Lawrence Farley's reviews of the HIV, here:

The Deep Melancholy of David Bentley Hart

Hart’s “The New Testament: a Translation”

A Brief Word about Eternal Punishment

 And here is a particularly important rule King James laid out:

" When any word hath divers significations, that to be kept which hath been most commonly used by the most eminent fathers, being agreeable to the propriety of the place and the analogies of faith."

So in other words, when a word, or a phrase could be translated in more than one way, just in terms of the rules of Greek grammar and the meaning of the words in question, we should translate them in a way that is consistent with how they were understood by the most important Church Fathers. A good example of this in action is in the case of John 5:39. DBH (and in this instance, most modern translations) translate this as saying something along the lines of "You search the Scriptures..." Which would have Christ simply acknowledging that the Pharisees were already doing this. The King James Version, however, translates this verse as a command: "Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me." Both are possible translations of the Greek. So why did the KJV translate it this way? Because that is how the most important Fathers of the Church understood it. There are a great many other errors that DBH could have avoided had he taken this approach, but we will talk about more examples shortly.

Another important aspect of the rules laid out by King James for his translators was that he established that they should do their translations in 6 teams, composed of a total of 47 scholars, with 3 general editors. And when there was an issue of disagreement, there was a system for resolving it, which often resulted in margin notes that presented the minority opinion, when consensus was not finally achieved. This resulted in not only the most beautiful English translation that has ever been done, but translations driven by individual pet peeves were weeded out, while in the HIV, pet peeves shape the entire text. This is also why every major translation has followed a similar model ever since.

DBH claims that committee translations are flawed because in such committees of scholars

"...novel approaches to the text are generally the first to perish, and only the tried and trusted survive" (HIV, p. xiv). 

And he says that like novelty is a good thing, and the tried and trusted are bad. In fact, the Fathers of the Church used the term "novelty" as a synonym for heresy. As the saying goes, "All that's old might not be gold, but if it's new, it can't be true." That's not true of technology, but when it comes to the revealed truths of the Christian Faith in general, and to the Scriptures in particular, it is certainly true.

DBH is so sure that only he has properly understood the New Testament that he asserted in an interview:

"The first thing I would say to anyone who doesn't read Greek is don't buy or read any modern translation... in English. None of them is any good" (Crackers and Grape Juice Podcast, episode 103, July 13, 2017, beginning at about the 3:00 mark).

And this advice narrows the options quite a bit, because obviously those who don't know Greek can only read the New Testament in translation, and apparently this leaves them only with the HIV as a viable option.

An Acid Test

In DBH's opinion, here is the primary problem with committee translations:

"And this can result in the exclusion not only of extravagantly conjectural readings, but often of the most straightforwardly literal as well. (A sort of "acid test" for me is Judas [or Jude] 1:19, a verse whose meaning is startlingly clear in the Greek but which no collaborative translation I know of translates in any but the vaguest and most periphrastic manner.)" (HIV, p. xiv).

DBH elaborated on what he thinks Jude 1:19 really means in an interview he did with the Crackers and Grape Juice Podcast:

"Now, every good scholar knows what... what... I mean, this is a reference to a distinction... we don't understand the distinction fully, because it's... you know... all of the early schools of Christian thought shared it in one form or another, both Orthodox or heterodox, or what we would call "Gnostics" now, but there was a distinction between the "psychical" and the "pneumatical"... between "psychics" and "pneumatics." Now, in Paul it seems... and he uses these terms too, but they get hidden from view in those translations, but you assume that the "pneumatics" are those who have been formed by, instructed by, filled by the Holy Spirit in a special way, and so therefore their spirits are now alive in God. But it's also a distinction in... you know... ranks, in a sense, or in degrees of spiritual attainment, and what the letter of Jude, or Judas, as I translate it in my translation, is that they're... you know... "psychical" men, who really... and... In every translation I can think of... that I consulted, in modern translations... Spirit then becomes the Holy Spirit -- which it clearly isn't in the original, or at least not in any straight forward way. And "psychical" is translated as... you know... as things like "men of sensual proclivity"... or "men who live according to the flesh" -- all the things it's not actually saying... it's a distinction... they know what it means. These sorts of small divergences become catastrophic at various places in the text... they alter the meaning" (Crackers and Grape Juice Podcast, episode 103, July 13, 2017, beginning at about the 4:38 mark).

So since he has declared this verse to be his acid test, I propose we apply this acid test to his own translation. And note that he begins by suggesting that all scholars -- at least all good scholars -- agree with him on this. And what he is asserting is that all early Christian groups had two levels of membership, psychics and pneumatics, but then says that this is a distinction we don't really understand, and so apparently the real meaning is lost to the Church. But as we will see, it is in fact only the Gnostic and Proto-Gnostic groups that made the kind of distinction (of a two tiered membership) that he is suggesting here.

Here is how DBH translates the text:

"These are those who cause divisions, psychical men, not possessing spirit" (Judas 19 HIV).

And he provides the following footnote to his odd, and not particularly illuminating choice of words here:

"Despite its long history of often vague and misleading translations, this verse clearly invokes the distinction between psyche and pneuma (soul and spirit) as principles of life, and between "psychics" and "pneumatics" as categories of persons. There is most definitely no reference here to the Holy Spirit: given the construction of the sentence, the absence of the definite article alone makes this certain; and the reasoning of the sentence makes it all the more so" (HIV, p. 495).

First off, just looking at the text itself here. Does it seem likely that if St. Jude saw "psychical men" as a legitimate class of members in the Church, that he would make such a sweeping statement about people of that class causing divisions in the Church? Furthermore if you look at the context of this verse in the entire epistle, it is clear that these "psychical men" are apostates to be shunned, not simply lower men on the totem pole.

And while he asserts that all good scholars agree with his understanding of the meaning of these two terms (psychikoi and pneumatikoi), and so would understand how they are functioning in this text, apparently every Greek scholar who worked on every major translation of the Bible is not a good scholar, because they clearly did not understand the absence of the definite article in this instance to mean that it cannot possibly be referring to the Holy Spirit. Obviously, how definite articles may work in one language will not always correspond with how they work in another, and I think that the many centuries of Greek scholars who have worked on translations of this passage knew Greek at least as well as DBH does.

In DBH's postscript he elaborates further on this verse:

"Precisely how Jude or his readers would have understood this distinction ["psychics" and "pneumatics"] is uncertain, but it is there in the text all the same. Today we tend to think that such divisions among persons, or even among Christians within the church, were among the more exotic eccentricities of the para-Christian or "gnostic" movements of the second century and after. But, even if the word "gnostic is useful as a general designation for groups outside of the ecclesial maintstream, their language on this matter was in continuity with language used by early Christians of just about every stripe. Jude may not have conceived of such a distinction as some sort of ontological division between different kinds of human beings, but he certainly did see it as a division between different states of sanctification or "spiritual" progress, and he may well have believed that "spirit" is a special property acquired by progressive sanctification. (And, frankly, we cannot be certain that all the so-called gnostics saw the matter much differently.) (HIV, p. 562f). 

I could go on with quoting his comments, but suffice it to say that he continues to make the case that early Christian thought and gnostic thought were far closer than the Church has acknowledged, and that St. Jude is not distinguishing between immoral heretics and Christians, but between different levels of sanctification among Christians within the Church.

Let's look at what a very prominent New Testament scholar, Richard Bauckham (also an Anglican), has to say in his commentary on the Epistle of St. Jude, verse 19:

"ψυχικοί, Πνεῦμα μὴ ἔχοντες, "who follow mere natural instincts, and do not possess the Spirit." ψυχικός (pertaining to ψυχή, "soul" or "life" is used in 1 Cor 2:14; 15:44, in a contrast with πνευματικός (pertaining to πνεῦμα, the Spirit"): it refers to merely physical life, the life of this world, without the eschatological gift of the Holy Spirit. In Jas 3:15 (the only other NT occurrence) ψυχικός has a similar but even more sharply negative sense: the God-given wisdom "from above" is contrasted with the wisdom that is "earthly unspiritual, devilish" (ἐπίγειος, ψυχική, δαιμονιώδης).

Although Paul's use of πνευματικός and ψυχικός in 1 Cor 2:14-15 is widely, though not universally, regarded as echoing the terminology of his opponents at Corinth, no fully convincing source for this terminology has yet been demonstrated. The second-century gnostic use of πνευματικός and ψυχικός (B. A. Pearson, The Pneumatikos-Psychikos Terminology in 1 Corinthians [SBLDS 12; Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1973] chap. 6) derives from their exegesis of Paul (Pagels, Paul, 59, 163-64).

Hellenistic-Jewish Wisdom theology is a more promising source (Pearson, Pneumatikos-Psychikos), but not only is the terminology πνευματικός and ψυχικός itself unattested; there is not even a regular anthropological distinction between πνεῦμα ("spirit") as the higher element and ψυχή ("soul") as the lower element in man (R. A. Horsley, "Pneumatikos vs. Psychikos," HTR 69 [1976] 270-73, criticizing Pearson). Although some Hellenistic anthropology did distinguish the ψυχή ("soul") as a lower element from the νοῦς ("mind") as the higher element, the devaluation of ψυχή  ("soul") by comparison with πνεῦμα ("spirit") must result from the early Christian belief in the Spirit not as a constituent of human nature, but as the gift of God to the believer.

Since the background to Paul's use of πνευματικός and ψυχικός is so uncertain, we cannot draw firm conclusions as to Jude's relationship to it: whether that Jude borrowed the term ψυχικός from Paul, or that Jude's opponents borrowed it from Paul, or that Jude's opponents shared it with Paul's opponents. It is safer to interpret Jude's words in their own context.

Clearly Πνεῦμα μὴ ἔχοντες (not possessing the Spirit") explains ψυχικοί: the false teachers do not posses the Spirit of God, but live purely at the level of the natural, earthly life. As most commentators recognize, it is likely that Jude here contradicts his opponents' claim to possess the Spirit. Probably they connected this claim with their visionary experiences and the revelations they received in their visions (v 8). The Spirit of prophetic inspiration inspired them, and as men of the Spirit they claimed to be free from moral restraint and superior to moral judgments. Jude's denial of this claim rests on their immoral behavior, which shows that they cannot be led by the Spirit of God, but merely "follow their own desires for ungodliness" (v 18). Such people are merely ψυχικοί, devoid of the Spirit. Whether ψυχικοί was the false teachers' own term for other Christians, who did not share their charismatic experience and moral freedom, is less certain. It is possible that Jude turns the tables on them in this way, but equally possible that ψυχικοί is simply his own judgment on them" (Word Biblical Commentary: Jude - 2 Peter, vol. 50 (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1983), p. 106f).

St. Bede, an Orthodox Englishman who predated Baukham by twelve centuries, had this to say about this verse:

"The condemned separate themselves this way from the lot of the righteous, they are physical, that is they follow the cravings of their own soul, because they have not deserved to have the Spirit of unity by which the Church is gathered together, by which it is made spiritual. Therefore they spread apart, because they do not have the glue of charity" (Bede the Venerable: Commentary on the Seven Catholic Epistles, trans. Dom David Hurst O.S.B., Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publication, 1985), p. 250f).

You have less detail here, but an entirely compatible interpretation with Richard Baukham.

St. Augustine has this to say:

"The enemy of unity has no share in God's love. Those who are outside the church do not have the Holy Spirit, and this verse is written of them (Letters 185:50, quoted in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: New Testament, Vol. XI, Gerald Bray, ed. (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 200) p. 256).

And let's look at what several Greek speaking Fathers (who knew Greek far better than DBH) had to say about this passage:

"These are people who separate believers from one another, under the influence of their own unbelief. They cannot distinguish between holy things on the one hand and dogs on the other (St. Clement of Alexandria, Adumbrations, quoted in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: New Testament, Vol. XI, Gerald Bray, ed. (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 200) p. 256).

"The Nestorians are sensual men, not having the Spirit, because they divide the one Christ and Son and Lord into two sons... For they pretend to confess one Christ and Son and say that his person is one, but by dividing him into two separate hypostases they completely sweep away the doctrine of the mystery (St, Cyril of Alexandria, Letters 50, quoted in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: New Testament, Vol. XI, Gerald Bray, ed. (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 200) p. 257).

 "Here we see yet another crime which these awful heretics have committed. Not only are they perishing themselves; they have raided the church and taken people away from it, which means that they have taken them outside of the faith into their own assemblies, which are dens of thieves. Such people behave as as if they were animals according to the pattern of the world and the demands of their instincts" (Oecumenius, Commentary on Jude, quoted in Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: New Testament, Vol. XI, Gerald Bray, ed. (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 200) p. 257).

It is rather obvious that none of these fathers read Jude 19 as DBH does. None of them think St. Jude is speaking merely of different levels of sanctification within the Church, but rather of people who are heretics, who live according to the flesh, and who are outside of the Church, not having the Holy Spirit.

Obscuring the Text for the Sake of Political Correctness

In 1 Corinthians 6:9, there are two types of people (among several others) that St. Paul tells us will not inherit the Kingdom of God: the malakoi and the arsenokoitai... and so knowing who these types of people actually are is a rather crucial point. DBH translates these two types of people as "feckless sensualists" and "men who couple with catamites". These translations sounds rather "vague and periphrastic" to me.

With regard to his translation of malakoi, he provides a footnote which says:

"A man who is malakos is either "soft" -- in any number of opprobrious senses: self-indulgent, dainty, cowardly, luxuriant, morally or physically week -- or "gentle" -- in various largely benign senses: delicate, mild, congenial. Some translators of the New Testament take it here to mean the passive partner in male homoerotic acts, but that is an unwarranted supposition" (HIV, p. 327).

DBH is simply wrong here. Let me cite Anthony C. Thiselton's highly respected commentary on 1 Corinthians:

"[Robin] Scroggs allows [in his book The New Testament and Homosexuality] that while μαλακός may mean unmanly in general terms, more characteristically it is used of "the youth who consciously imitated feminine styles and ways." This all too readily slips into "passive homosexual activity" whether for pleasure or for pay.  From the classical period to Philo extreme distaste is expressed in Greek and hellenistic literature for the effeminate male who uses cosmetics and the coiffuring of the hair, for which Philo sometimes uses the term ανδρόγυνος, male-female (e.g. De Specialibus Legibus 3.37). These Issues lie behind the astonishing array of English translations in our versions.

In general there is broad (but not unanimous) agreement that μαλακοὶ in 1 Cor 6:9-10 denotes "the passive... partner... in male homosexual relations" (Barrett), but whereas Scrogg argues that it refers to the call boy who prostitutes his services to an older male, usually for pay, many others tend to regard the evidence for restricting the term to pederasty linked with male prostitution as at best indecisive and at worst unconvincing. Scroggs depends for his view on the background of pederastic practices in Graeco-Roman society (whether voluntary, or for payment) and the impact of this culture for the pejorative reactions in hellenistic Judaism (especially Philo)"  (The New International Greek Testament Commentary: The First Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmanns Publishing Company, 2000) p. 448f).

Robert Gagnon's book, The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics, (which was endorsed by both Brevard Childs and Bruce Metzger (certainly among the most influential scholars in their fields (Old Testament and New Testament, respectively)), after discussing the conclusions of other scholars on this word, says this:

"In my own reading, the meaning of malakoi in 1 Cor 6:9 probably lies somewhere in between "only prostituting passive homosexuals" and "effeminate heterosexual and homosexual males." Because the word has a broad range of meaning in Greek literature, what it specifically means for any given writer will vary. However, here, Paul places this vice alongside a list of offenses that lead to exclusion from the kingdom. This suggests he refers to an offense more serious than simply a "limp wrist" (contra Martin).... Immoral sexual intercourse, then, would appear to be an identifying mark of the malakoi. Furthermore, the epithet "soft" itself suggests males playing the female role in sexual intercourse with other males" (The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2001), p. 307f, he discusses the term extensively, especially in pp. 306 -312).

And so there is more than a little bit of warrant for understanding this term to be in reference to feminizing males engaged in homosexual acts, the debate is more a matter of the exact context and circumstances in which this group of people engaged in such behavior, but the general idea is fairly clear.

With regard to his translation of arsenokotai, DBH provides a footnote which says:

"Precisely what an aresenokoites is has long been a matter of speculation and argument. Literally, it means a man who "beds" -- that is "couples with" -- "males." But there is no evidence of its use before Paul's text. There is one known instance in the sixth century AD of penance being prescribed for a man who commits arsenokoiteia upon his wife (sodomy, presumably), but that does not tell us with certainty how the word was used in the first century (if indeed it was used by anyone before Paul). It would not mean "homosexual" in the modern sense of a person of a specific erotic disposition, for the simple reason that the ancient world possessed no comparable concept of a specifically homoerotic sexual identity; it would refer to a particular sexual behavior, but we cannot say exactly which one. The Clementine Vulgate interprets the word arsenokoitai as referring to paedophiles; and a great many versions of the New Testament interpret it as meaning "sodomites." My guess at the proper connotation of the word is based simply upon the reality that in the first century the most common and readily available form of male homoerotic sexual activity was a master's or patron's exploitation of young male slaves" (HIV, p. 327f).

DBH translates this word with the phrase "men who couple with catamites" Now "catamite" is not a word you run across every day, but it means "a boy kept for homosexual sex." If that were the real meaning of the term, there is a perfectly good English word for men who have sex with boys, and that would be "pederast," but that would raise the question of why St. Paul did not use the Greek word that "pederast" comes from (παιδεραστής), because if that was what he meant, that would have been the logical word to use. As DBH points out, the term arsenokotai has no prior non-Christian or non-Jewish usage, and it is clear that word was coined from the Septuagint text of Leviticus 18:22 ("καὶ μετὰ ἄρσενος οὐ κοιμηθήσῃ κοίτην γυναικός· βδέλυγμα γάρ ἐστιν." "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination"). This term is paralleled in a phrase from rabbinic literature: "mishkav zakur" ("lying with a male"), which is "the term most often used to describe male homosexuality" (Scroggs, p. 107f, quoted in Thiselton, p. 450). Robert Gagnon also discusses this term extensively, in pages 312-336 of his book.

Neither of these words are mysterious. The Greek speaking Church has used them since the time of St. Paul, and there is no real doubt about them. If the words were mysterious, the Greek Fathers that comment on this passage would have felt a need to explain what they thought they meant, but I have not seen any that did not assume the meanings of these words to be obvious.

Note also that DBH is using what Gagnon calls "the new knowledge argument," which is that the people of St. Paul's time did not understand homosexuality to be what we understand it to be now. This is a common argument made by homosexual apologists, but in the following video, Robert Gagnon takes that argument apart, in great detail:

For more on this issue, I would recommend Robert Gagnon's book, as the most thorough treatment of the subject available in print.

So in short, while DBH claims that his translation presents us with the unvarnished meaning of the text, here, for some reason, he goes to great lengths to obscure and explain away the clear meaning of the text.

Holy Ground

One could write several volumes on all the problems with this translation, but rather than to continue to cite examples of bad translations, I will simply close with the observation that DBH shows no signs of an appreciation of the holy ground that he is trespassing on here. If you listen to his entire interview on the Crackers and Grape Juice Podcast (Crackers and Grape Juice Podcast, episode 103, July 13, 2017), you will hear him speak of the bad writing of the New Testament authors -- a judgment made in comparison with classical Greek usage. This is an entirely anti-Orthodox way of approaching the text of Scripture.

We should consider for a moment what we believe about the inspiration of Scripture. We believe that God inspired the Scriptures, but we do not believe that he dictated them to the human authors, but rather that the Holy Spirit spoke through them, and used their own dialect and manner of speaking to convey divine Truth. And so if God had inspired a Louisiana Cajun to write Holy Scripture, we would not expect Thurston Howell III's voice or style to be the result, but rather that we would have a text written in the Cajun dialect of the author. Likewise, God spoke through Jewish apostles who spoke Greek in a Semitic dialect, and so we should not expect to read Homer... we should expect a text written in the dialect of these Jewish authors. and unless you are an elitist, you should not assume local dialects are somehow inferior to more common or more standard dialects in any case. In fact, we should expect that the God who "hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree" (Luke 1:52) might prefer Louisiana Cajuns and Jewish fisherman over many of the more sophisticated alternatives.

Now in terms of translation, the Church has translated these texts into elevated forms of the languages they have been translated into, but so long as these translations faithfully convey the meaning of the text, there is no violence to Truth in doing so. This is in fact a way of showing reverence for the text. I would suggest that using elevated translations is the best way possible to substitute for the experience of reading the very words of the Apostles as they actually wrote them, and hearing their voices in a more direct way -- a privilege reserved for those able to read it without translation.

You never hear any of the Fathers denigrating the texts of Scripture, or mocking their style. They may sometimes note the simplicity in the style of some authors, but not in a way that is disrespectful, because it is the rich truth of Scripture that is conveyed that is important,  not how close various authors may or may not have come to writing in classical Greek or the style of Homer.

Conclusion

So to sum things up, save your money, and do not buy this text, or encourage anyone else to do so. In fact, I would not have bought a copy myself, just based on what I had seen from previous reviews, however, someone sent me a free copy, and asked me to write a review. So having fulfilled my obligations to the donor, I will now place this text next to my Jehovah's Witness Bible, and probably not use it again, unless the sudden need for a door stop should come upon me.

Update: Someone drew my attention to this howler of a translation:

"And we have the still firmer prophetic word of which you do well to take heed, as to a lamp shining in a dreary place, till day should dawn and Phosphoros arise in your hearts" (2 Peter 1:19 HIV).

As Bauckham points out, "as a substantive φωσφορος [phosphoros] normally refers to the morning star, Venus (TDNT  9,312); Spicq, Lexicographie 954), which accompanied the first glimmerings of dawn and could therefore be thought of as introducing daylight into the world" (Word Biblical Commentary: Jude - 2 Peter, vol. 50 (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1983), p. 225). Bauckham goes on to point out that most commentators agree that there is an allusion to Numbers 24:17 ("there shall come a Star out of Jacob"), which was understood as a Messianic prophesy by Jews and Christians alike.

As DBH translates it, what is fairly clear in just about any other translation, is obscured, and conjures images of phosphorus grenades, rather than what the word is actually intended to convey.

For more information, see:

An Orthodox Look at English Translations of the Bible

The New Testament in the strange words of David Bentley Hart, a review by N.T. Wright (an Anglican Bishop who is also an actual Biblical Scholar of some note)

The Strange Theology of David Bentley Hart

David Bentley Hart has done a lot of good work in response to the "new atheists," and he is described as an "Orthodox theologian and philosopher," but having read his recent comments in defense of universalism, I think he would be more accurately referred to as a theologian and philosopher who happens to be a member of the Orthodox Church... because he clearly has an approach to Scripture, Tradition, and the Church that is not at all Orthodox.

I would have responded to his comments on that blog, but Fr. Aidan Kimel, the owner of the blog "Eclectic Orthodoxy," while he allowed two of my comments back in December, has deleted all of my comments ever since. The title of the blog alone is a tip-off that what is contained therein is not Orthodox in any traditional sense of the term. One of the primary themes of this blog is the promotion of the heresy of universalism.

Expressing his opinion of the Fifth Ecumenical Council, as well as St. Justinian, Dr.. Hart wrote:

"If you consult the (very dubious) records of the council, you will find something called Origenism condemned. But no authentic finding of the council condemns universalism as such."

Here we have repeated the argument that the universalism of Origen was condemned, but not universalism per se. The problem with this argument is that if universalism was OK in general, why would it be mentioned at all in the anathema's against Origen. Why not just condemn the other objectionable parts of Origen's teachings? The problem is not that the Fifth Ecumenical Council was unclear in its rejection of universalism -- the problem is that universalists will not be swayed by what the Fifth Ecumenical Council taught:

"Not that I would care if it did. That very imperial “ecumenical ” council is an embarrassment in Christian history, and I sometimes think it a mercy that such a hash was made of its promulgation that we literally do not know what was truly determined there. For my money, if Origen was not a saint and church father, then no one has any claim to those titles. And the contrary claims made by a brutish imbecile Emperor are of no consequence."

So DBH not only disputes what the Fifth Ecumenical Council taught on universalism... he explicitly does not care what it taught. Contrary to the judgment of the Church, which does not number Origen among the saints or fathers of the Church, he believes he is not only both, but chief among them. And having canonized Origen, and removed the Fifth Ecumenical Council from the Seven Ecumenical Councils, he calls a great saint of the Church (St. Justinian) a "brutish imbecile."

This is not how Orthodox Christians approach such things. The Orthodox Church teaches that the Ecumenical Councils are infallible, and so such a cavilier attitude towards them is entirely alien to Orthodox thought.

Then when asked about the fact that every year, throughout the Orthodox Church, we anathematize Origen's teaching, and universalism in particular, DBH opines:

"The Synodikon is just a compendium, and at times a converses, and possesses only as much authority as what it is quoting at any point. In itself it is no more binding on the conscience of an Orthodox than the Baltimore Catechism or a Thomist manual is on the conscience of a Catholic."

The Synodikon of Orthodoxy states:

"To them who accept and transmit the vain Greek teachings that there is a pre-existence of souls and teach that all things were not produced and did not come into existence out of non-being, that there is an end to the torment or a restoration again of creation and of human affairs, meaning by such teachings that the Kingdom of Heaven is entirely perishable and fleeting, whereas the Kingdom of Heaven is eternal and indissoluble as Christ our God Himself taught and delivered to us, and as we have ascertained from the entire Old and New Testaments, that the torment is unending and the Kingdom everlasting, to them who by such teachings both destroy themselves and become agents of eternal condemnation to others, Anathema! Anathema! Anathema!"

Those who advocate for universalism argue that this is only a condemnation of Origen's universalism, not the universalism supposedly expressed by other Fathers, because they had different theological and philosophical reasons for their universalism. But that is a bit like arguing that the Church hasn't anathematized Jehovah's Witness Christology, because they have different theological reasons for denying the divinity of Christ than the Arians did. This anathema states, without equivocation, that "we have ascertained from the entire Old and New Testaments, that the torment is unending and the Kingdom everlasting..." and there is no indication that we would ascertain anything differently if people were universalists because they saw a documentary on the history channel, read pseudo-Isaac's writings, and agreed with it, or agreed with Origen.

Anyone who has ever had an Orthodox thought in their life knows that we believe what we say in the services of the Church (lex orandi lex credendi), and when what we say ends with "Anathema!", we mean it in no uncertain terms.

Then in response to my own comments on that blog, DBH wrote:

"Dear me, you really think [the statements taken in support of universalism by St. Gregory of Nyssa] are interpolations? That is something of a joke in scholarly circles. Especially since it would basically mean that Gregory’s whole theology, from the ground up, as unfolded in De anima et resurrectione and De hominis opificio and the Great Oration and the Psalms commentary is an interpolation. Maybe Gregory never really wrote anything (rather like the Oxfordian hyposthesis about Shakespeare)."

I did not say that those statements were interpolations. Fathers of the Church, like St. Mark of Ephesus did. But Metropolitan Hierotheos (Vlachos), makes a very different argument. He devotes an entire chapter to this subject in his book "Life After Death (Chapter 8, The restoration of all things, pp. 273-312), affirms that this heresy was condemned by the Fifth Ecumenical Council, and goes to great lengths to make the case that St. Gregory of Nyssa did not in fact teach it, but rather taught that hell (gehenna) and its punishments are unending, and that those who attribute this teaching to him are simply failing to understand them in the context of his complete teachings on the subject. If one rejects the argument that St. Gregory of Nyssa did not teach this doctrine, that would only prove St. Gregory to be in error, because Ecumenical Councils are infallible, whereas no Church Father, as an individual, is. However, it certainly is interesting that in the one instance in which, if he was a universalist, you would expect him to put that on display, St. Gregory of Nyssa not only does not affirm universalism in his treatise on the death of unbaptized infants, but directly refutes it when speaking of Judas as an example of one who died in his sins:

"Certainly, in comparison with one who has lived all his life in sin, not only the innocent babe but even one who has never come into the world at all will be blessed. We learn as much too in the case of Judas, from the sentence pronounced upon him in the Gospels; namely, that when we think of such men, that which never existed is to be preferred to that which has existed in such sin. For, as to the latter, on account of the depth of the ingrained evil, the chastisement in the way of purgation will be extended into infinity..." (On Infants' Early Deaths).

DBH:

"Something similar is true in Isaac’s case. And those two are far from being the only patristic universalists; both of the very distinct Alexandrian (including Cappadocian) and Antiochene tradition are full of them, from the days of Pantaenus to the 13th century writings of Solomon of Bostra. Goodness, there are almost overwhelming reasons to believe Gregory Nazianzen, and even Athanasius and Cyril of Alexandria, were so disposed (Gregory unquestionably, really)."

What he says here is simply not the case. For example, St. Cyril of Alexandria, commented on 1 Peter 3:19 as follows:

"Here Peter answers the question which some objectors have raised, namely, if the incarnation was so beneficial, why was Christ not incarnated for such a long time, given that he went to the spirits which were in prison and preached to them also? In order to deliver all those who would believe, Christ taught those who were alive on earth at the time of his incarnation, and these others acknowledged him when he appeared to them in the lower regions, and thus they too benefited from his coming. Going in his soul, he preached to those who were in hell, appearing to them as one soul to other souls. When the gatekeepers of hell saw him, they fled; the bronze gates were broken open, and the iron chains were undone. And the only-begotten Son shouted with authority to the suffering souls, according to the word of the new covenant, saying to those in chains: "Come out!" and to those in darkness: "Be enlightened." In other words, he preached to those who were in hell also, so that he might save all those who would believe in him. For both those who were alive on earth during the time of his incarnation and those who were in hell had a chance to acknowledge him. The greater part of the new covenant is beyond nature and tradition, so that while Christ was able to preach to all those who were alive at the time of his appearing and those who believed in him were blessed, so too he was able to liberate those in hell who believed and acknowledged him, by his descent there. However, the souls of those who practiced idolatry and outrageous ungodliness, as well as those who were blinded by fleshly lusts, did not have the power to see him, and they were not delivered." (Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, New Testament, Vol. XI, James, 1-2 Peter, 1-3 John, Jude, Gerald Bray, ed. (Downers Grove, IL: Intervasity Press, 2000) p. 107f).

DBH:

"And, had our our Lord spoken of everlasting punishment, that would be an interesting argument. But he did not speak English, and in fact did not speak Greek; and the Greek text of Matthew 25:46 (which is the only one you can have in mind) has been read by a great many Greek-speaking and Syriac-speaking fathers, from the earliest days, as saying nothing of the sort."

First off, I don't know that it is a fact that Christ did not speak Greek, In fact, it is hardly likely that Pilate spoke Aramaic or Hebrew, and so Greek would have been the most likely language that they would have spoken with each other. And secondly, I would like to see the evidence that many Greek or Syriac speaking fathers did not interpret Matthew 25:46 as speaking of eternal punishment. I doubt DBH can produce one commentary that asserted that it was not speaking of eternal punishment. The same word is used with reference to eternal life, and so if the punishment is temporal, how can he be sure that the life of the righteous is not temporal also?

St. John Chrysostom spoke Greek pretty well, and here is what he had to say about whether or not the torments of gehenna are temporal:

"There are many men, who form good hopes not by abstaining from their sins, but by thinking that hell is not so terrible as it is said to be, but milder than what is threatened, and temporary, not eternal; and about this they philosophize much. But I could show from many reasons, and conclude from the very expressions concerning hell, that it is not only not milder, but much more terrible than is threatened. But I do not now intend to discourse concerning these things. For the fear even from bare words is sufficient, though we do not fully unfold their meaning. But that it is not temporary, hear Paul now saying, concerning those who know not God, and who do not believe in the Gospel, that “they shall suffer punishment, even eternal destruction.” How then is that temporary which is everlasting? “From the face of the Lord,” he says. What is this? He here wishes to say how easily it might be. For since they were then much puffed up, there is no need, he says, of much trouble; it is enough that God comes and is seen, and all are involved in punishment and vengeance. His coming only to some indeed will be Light, but to others vengeance" (Homily 3, 2nd Thessalonians).

I think it is a safe bet that when Dr. Hart was received into the Orthodox Church, he was probably not asked to make the customary renunciations and affirmations found in the service book for the reception of converts. Had he done so, he would have been asked the following questions (among others):

"Priest: Hast thou renounced all ancient and modern heresies and false doctrines which are contrary to the teachings of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Church?

Answer: I have."

"And again the Bishop saith:

Dost thou accept the Apostolical and Ecclesiastical Canons framed and established at the Seven Holy Universal and Provincial Councils, and the other traditions and ordinances of the Orthodox Church?

Answer: I do.

Bishop: Dost thou acknowledge that the Holy Scriptures must be accepted and interpreted in accordance with the belief which hath been handed down by the Holy Fathers, and which the Holy Orthodox Church, our Mother, hath always held and still doth hold?

Answer: I do."

If it should turn out to be the case that God has a surprise for us, and that in the end all will be saved, failure to promote that idea will not keep it from happening. However, if it is not true, hoping it will be, no matter how hard you may hope, will not make it so. But promoting that teaching might well delude some into a false hope that will leave them eternally ashamed. And those who have enabled their delusion will have to answer for it, because as the Synodikon says of such people, "...by such teachings [they] both destroy themselves and become agents of eternal condemnation to others..."

For More Information:

The Hieromarty Daniel Sysoev wrote a very interesting article on this question: The Fifth Ecumenical Council and the New Origenism.

Stump the Priest: Is Universalism a Heresy?

Stump the Priest: Prayers for the Dead in the Bible and in Tradition

Holy Scripture and the Church, by the Holy New Martyr Hilarion (Troitsky)

David Bentley Hart and Marcionism

David Bentley Hart and the Toll Houses

The Hart Idiosyncratic Version

Update:

Dr. Hart has responded to some of my points. I see now why Stephen H. Webb observed:

"Hart has created one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary theology: a reluctant curmudgeon feigning weariness for being forced by so much foolishness to state the obvious. He is, it seems, our Christian Zarathustra, a bit annoyed for being called down from his mountain top, where he blissfully experiences the peak of divine unknowing, in order to correct “the rather inane anthropomorphisms that proliferate in contemporary debates on the matter, both among atheists and among certain kinds of religious believers.”

I had asked him to provide one commentary from any Church Father, on Matthew 25:46 that suggested Christ was not saying that the wicked would be punished eternally. His response was:

"...send him to fathers like Gregory of Nyssa or Isaac of Ninevah, who fully reveal how they understand such terms as “αιωνιος” or “le-alma” in the course of their expositions."

This is not what I asked for. As I figured, he cannot produce such commentary as I asked for, because there is none. I say this, not because I can claim to have read every comment from every Church Father on this subject, but because if such a comment did exist, universalists like DBH would quote it with regularity.

As for how we know what "aionios" means, we can look to the definitive lexical resource for the Greek New Testament, which is Kittel's Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. It discusses how words were used in ancient pagan Greek writings, how they were used in the Greek Septuagint, and what the Hebrew background of the words the translate are, it discuss the New Testament usage, and then the usage beyond the New Testament. In the entry for this word, the one word definition is simply "eternal". It points out that Plato used the related word "aion" in reference to "timeless eternity in contrast to chronos. It says of "aionios": "An adjective meaning "eternal"..." And beyond that, I think Metropolitan Hierotheos (Vlachos) knows Greek pretty well, and he takes that word in the same sense.

DBH:

"The thing to recall is that, outside the Seven Councils, the licit range of theological opinion is far larger than these self-appointed rigorists know. They do not get to say whether, for instance, Evdokimov, or Olivier Clement, or Bulgakov (etc.) are less truly Orthodox than they."

So he says, but according to DBH, it doesn't matter what the Fifth Ecumenical Council says, and so in what sense is he bound by anything other than his own opinion?

And as for Bulgakov, the Russian Church condemned his sophiology as a heresy -- in fact the Moscow Patriarchate and ROCOR both came to that conclusion, separately.

On the subject of St. Gregory of Nyssa, DBH says:

"...he quotes a bad translation of Gregory’s De infantibus too. Fr John, read the Greek, in the Gregorii Nysseni Opera of Jaeger et al."

And then further on, he wrote:

"But, really, no citing if [sic] crucial texts in dubious translations–that must be a rule. If Gregory of Nyssa talks of Judas suffering “eis ton aiona,” then quote him as doing so, as well as the many instances where he makes clear how he understands that biblical phrase. “Unto infinity” forsooth. One of the first things to learn about Gregory is that every version of “infinite” in Greek–apeiron, aperilepton, eyc–is a privileged name for the divine nature. Die Unendlichkeit Gottes bei Gregor von Nyssa (E. Mühlenberg) might have been one of the earliest books I read on Gregory’s metaphysics, flawed though that book is."

So based on what we have read in the TDNT, a fair translation would be "into eternity," which is not much different from "into infinity".

But let's consider an example of Christ using more concrete terminology in reference to the eternality of gehenna:

"And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell [gehenna], into the fire that never shall be quenched: where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire: where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched (Mark 9:43-48).

When Christ speaks of gehenna in these terms, he is probably alluding to Isaiah 66:24: "And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcasses of the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh"; and Judith 16:17: "Woe to the nations that rise up against my people! The Lord Almighty will take vengeance on them in the day of judgment; he will send fire and worms into their flesh; they shall weep in pain forever."

But Dr. Hart would have us believe that the worm will die, and the fire will be quenched. Should we believe him, or Christ?

Then we have St. Paul, who says: "Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God" (1 Corinthians 6:9-10).

But Dr. Hart would have us believe that it was St. Paul who was deceived, because he believes that everyone, along with the devil and the demons, will inherit the Kingdom of God.

St. Paul also wrote: "since it is a righteous thing with God to repay with tribulation those who trouble you, and to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power" (2 Thessalonians 1:6-9).

But Dr. Hart would have us believe that what St. Paul really meant was that they would punished for a really long time, and then inherit the Kingdom of God. However, St. John Chrysostom, who spoke Greek pretty well, said (as referenced above) that this clearly teaches that torments are not temporal, but eternal.

And as converts are admonished, we must "acknowledge that the Holy Scriptures must be accepted and interpreted in accordance with the belief which hath been handed down by the Holy Fathers, and which the Holy Orthodox Church, our Mother, hath always held and still doth hold." And the fact that every year, on the Sunday of Orthodoxy, the entire Orthodox Church affirms that "we have ascertained from the entire Old and New Testaments, that the torment is unending and the Kingdom everlasting," we have obviously not always held, nor do we hold that the torments are temporal.

Update II:

Someone brought this chapter from St. John of Damascus' "And Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith," Book II, Chapter 1:

"He created the ages Who Himself was before the ages, Whom the divine David thus addresses, From age to age Thou art [Psalm 89[90]:2]. The divine apostle also says, Through Whom He created the ages [Hebrews 1:2].

It must then be understood that the word age has various meanings, for it denotes many things. The life of each man is called an age. Again, a period of a thousand years is called an age. Again, the whole course of the present life is called an age: also the future life, the immortal life after the resurrection [Matthew 12:32; Luke 7:34], is spoken of as an age. Again, the word age is used to denote, not time nor yet a part of time as measured by the movement and course of the sun, that is to say, composed of days and nights, but the sort of temporal motion and interval that is co-extensive with eternity. For age is to things eternal just what time is to things temporal.

Seven ages of this world are spoken of, that is, from the creation of the heaven and earth till the general consummation and resurrection of men. For there is a partial consummation, viz., the death of each man: but there is also a general and complete consummation, when the general resurrection of men will come to pass. And the eighth age is the age to come.

Before the world was formed, when there was as yet no sun dividing day from night, there was not an age such as could be measured, but there was the sort of temporal motion and interval that is co-extensive with eternity. And in this sense there is but one age, and God is spoken of as αἰώνιος [eternal] and προαιώνιος [pre-eternal, or before time], for the age or æon itself is His creation. For God, Who alone is without beginning, is Himself the Creator of all things, whether age or any other existing thing. And when I say God, it is evident that I mean the Father and His Only begotten Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ, and His all-holy Spirit, our one God.

But we speak also of ages of ages, inasmuch as the seven ages of the present world include many ages in the sense of lives of men, and the one age embraces all the ages, and the present and the future are spoken of as age of age. Further, everlasting (i.e. αἰώνιος) life and everlasting punishment prove that the age or æon to come is unending [Matthew 25:46]. For time will not be counted by days and nights even after the resurrection, but there will rather be one day with no evening, wherein the Sun of Justice will shine brightly on the just, but for the sinful there will be night profound and limitless. In what way then will the period of one thousand years be counted which, according to Origen, is required for the complete restoration? Of all the ages, therefore, the sole creator is God Who hath also created the universe and Who was before the ages."

Update III:

As to the question of whether or not the 5th Ecumenical Council anathematized Origen, the 1st Canon of the Quinisext Council settles that question:

"We take the pious utterances of the one hundred and sixty-five God-bearing Fathers who assembled upon the ground of this Imperial City in the reign of Justinian, who became our Emperor and who passed away at the termination of his pious career, and, recognizing them to have been inspired and uttered by the (Holy) Spirit, we teach them outright to our posterity; which Fathers indeed as a Council anathematized and consigned to abomination Theodore of Mopsuestia, the teacher of Nestorius, and in addition Origen and, Didymus and Evagrius, who joined hands in refashioning the Greek myths and recounting to us periods and mutations of certain bodies and souls, prompted by raptures and hallucinations of the mind, and in drunken revelry impiously exulting over the resurrection of the dead; as well as what had been written by Theodoret against the right faith and correct belief and against the twelve heads (or chapters) of blissful Cyril; and also the so-called letter of Ibas" (D. Cummings, trans., The Rudder of the Orthodox Catholic Church: The Compilation of the Holy Canons Saints Nicodemus and Agapius (West Brookfield, MA: The Orthodox Christian Educational Society, 1983), p. 291).

And it should be noted that the canons of this council were specifically affirmed by the 7th Ecumenical Council.

Stump the Priest: Is Universalism a Heresy?

Question: "Is the teaching that ultimately all men will be saved (the apokatastasis) a heresy, or is it an acceptable theological opinion within the bounds of Orthodoxy?"

Origen taught the heretical doctrine of the apokatastasis, that ultimately everyone, even the devil, would be saved. The Church condemned this teaching at the Fifth Ecumenical Council. The Church has ever taught this as a fact since that time. However, in recent times we have had a rebirth of this heresy, and have many who try to argue that the Fifth Ecumenical Council did not condemn this teaching.

Did the Fifth Ecumenical Council Anathematize this Heresy?

To cite some examples of trustworthy theologians who state this in no uncertain terms, Fr. Michael Pomazansky wrote:

"The Church, basing itself on the word of God, acknowledges the torments of gehenna to be eternal and unending, and therefore it condemned at the Fifth Ecumenical Council the false teaching of the Origenists that the demons and impious people would suffer in hell only for a certain definite time, and then would be restored to their original condition of innocence (apokatastasis in Greek). The condemnation at the Universal Judgment is called in the Apocalypse of St. John the Theologian the "second death" (Apoc. 20:14).

An attempt to understand the torments of gehenna in a relative sense, to understand eternity as some kind of age or period — perhaps a long one, but one still having an end — was made in antiquity, just as it is made today; this view in general denies the reality of these torments. In this attempt there are brought forward conceptions of a logical kind: the disharmony between such torments and the goodness of God is pointed out, as is the seeming disproportion between crimes that are temporal and the eternity of the punishments for sin, as well as the disharmony between these eternal punishments and the final aim of the creation of man, which is blessedness in God.

But it is not for us to define the boundaries between the unutterable mercy of God and His justice or righteousness. We know that the Lord "will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth" (1 Tim. 2:4); but man is capable, through his own evil will, of rejecting the mercy of God and the means of salvation. Chrysostom, in interpreting the depiction of the Last Judgment, remarks: "When He (the Lord) spoke about the Kingdom, after saying, ‘Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the Kingdom,’ He added, ‘which is prepared for you from the foundation of the world’ (Matt. 25:34), but when speaking about the fire, He did not speak thus, but He added: which is ‘prepared for the devil and his angels’ (Matt. 25:41). For I have prepared for you a Kingdom, but the fire I have prepared not for you but for the devil and his angels. But since you have cast your own selves into the fire, therefore accuse yourself for this" (Homily 70 on Matthew).

We have no right to understand the words of the Lord only conditionally, as a threat or as a certain pedagogical means applied by the Saviour. If we understand it this way we err, since the Saviour does not instill in us any such understanding, and we subject ourselves to God’s wrath according to the word of the Psalmist: "Why hath the ungodly one provoked God? For he hath said in his heart: He will not make enquiry" (Ps. 9:34) (Orthodox Dogmatic Theology (Platina, CA: St. Herman Press, 1984, p. 349f).

Metropolitan Hierotheos (Vlachos) devotes an entire chapter to this subject in his book "Life After Death (Chapter 8 The restoration of all things, pp. 273-312), affirms that this heresy was condemned by the Fifth Ecumenical Council, and goes to great lengths to make the case that St. Gregory of Nyssa did not in fact teach it, but rather taught that hell (gehenna) and its punishments are unending, and that those who attribute this teaching to him are simply failing to understand them in the context of his complete teachings on the subject. If one rejects the argument that St. Gregory of Nyssa did not teach this doctrine, that would only prove St. Gregory to be in error, because Ecumenical Councils are infallible, whereas no Church Father, as an individual, is. However, it certainly is interesting that in the one instance in which, if he was a universalist, you would expect him to put that on display, St. Gregory of Nyssa not only does not affirm universalism in his treatise on the death of unbaptized infants, but directly refutes it when speaking of Judas as an example of one who died in his sins:

"Certainly, in comparison with one who has lived all his life in sin, not only the innocent babe but even one who has never come into the world at all will be blessed. We learn as much too in the case of Judas, from the sentence pronounced upon him in the Gospels; namely, that when we think of such men, that which never existed is to be preferred to that which has existed in such sin. For, as to the latter, on account of the depth of the ingrained evil, the chastisement in the way of purgation will be extended into infinity..." (On Infants' Early Deaths).

Anathemas? What Anathemas?

The advocates of Universalism try to argue that, despite the fact that the Church has consistently stated that the Fifth Ecumenical Council anathematized this heresy, that there are reasons to doubt whether the council formally issued the anathemas ascribed to it.

St. Justinian issued his anathemas against Origen before the Council, which he convoked, and the last of those anathemas is as follows:

"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 (ἀποκατάστασις) will take place of demons and of impious men, let him be anathema."

The first of the Council's anathemas states:

"If anyone asserts the fabulous pre-existence of souls, and shall assert the monstrous restoration (ἀποκατάστασις) which follows from it: let him be anathema."

Now, for the sake of argument, let's assume that there is some ambiguity about whether or not these anathemas were endorsed by that council. All one has to do to settle the question is to consider the Synodikon of Orthodoxy which is recited every year, throughout the Orthodox Church, on the Sunday of Orthodox (the first Sunday of Lent):

"To them who accept and transmit the vain Greek teachings that there is a pre-existence of souls and teach that all things were not produced and did not come into existence out of non-being, that there is an end to the torment or a restoration again of creation and of human affairs, meaning by such teachings that the Kingdom of Heaven is entirely perishable and fleeting, whereas the Kingdom of Heaven is eternal and indissoluble as Christ our God Himself taught and delivered to us, and as we have ascertained from the entire Old and New Testaments, that the torment is unending and the Kingdom everlasting, to them who by such teachings both destroy themselves and become agents of eternal condemnation to others, Anathema! Anathema! Anathema!"

Those who advocate for universalism argue that this is only a condemnation of Origen's universalism, not the universalism supposedly expressed by other Fathers, because they had different theological and philosophical reasons for their universalism. But that is a bit like arguing that the Church hasn't anathematized Jehovah's Witness Christology, because they have different theological reasons for denying the divinity of Christ than the Arians did. This anathema states, without equivocation, that "we have ascertained from the entire Old and New Testaments, that the torment is unending and the Kingdom everlasting..." and there is no indication that we would ascertain anything differently if people were universalists because they saw a documentary on the history channel, read pseudo-Isaac's writings, and agreed with it, or agreed with Origen.

Anyone who has ever had an Orthodox thought in their life knows that we believe what we say in the services of the Church (lex orandi lex credendi), and when what we say ends with "Anathema!", we mean it in no uncertain terms.

What Saith the Scriptures?

If one believes Christ's teachings carry any weight, He affirms the unending character of the torments of hell repeatedly:

In Mark Chapter Nine, he states that the fires of hell (gehenna) will not be quenched five times, and speaks of the worm that will not die three times:

"And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell [gehenna], into the fire that never shall be quenched: where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire: where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched (Mark 9:43-48).

When Christ speaks of gehenna in these terms, he is probably alluding to Isaiah 66:24: "And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcasses of the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh"; and Judith 16:17: "Woe to the nations that rise up against my people! The Lord Almighty will take vengeance on them in the day of judgment; he will send fire and worms into their flesh; they shall weep in pain forever."

In the parable of the Sheep and the Goats, Christ addresses the wicked (the goats) and said: "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels" (Matthew 25:26); and he concludes the parable by saying: "And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal (Matthew 25:46).

St. Paul wrote: "since it is a righteous thing with God to repay with tribulation those who trouble you, and to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power" (2 Thessalonians 1:6-9).

Commenting on these verses, St. John Chrysostom wrote:

"There are many men, who form good hopes not by abstaining from their sins, but by thinking that hell is not so terrible as it is said to be, but milder than what is threatened, and temporary, not eternal; and about this they philosophize much. But I could show from many reasons, and conclude from the very expressions concerning hell, that it is not only not milder, but much more terrible than is threatened. But I do not now intend to discourse concerning these things. For the fear even from bare words is sufficient, though we do not fully unfold their meaning. But that it is not temporary, hear Paul now saying, concerning those who know not God, and who do not believe in the Gospel, that “they shall suffer punishment, even eternal destruction.” How then is that temporary which is everlasting? “From the face of the Lord,” he says. What is this? He here wishes to say how easily it might be. For since they were then much puffed up, there is no need, he says, of much trouble; it is enough that God comes and is seen, and all are involved in punishment and vengeance. His coming only to some indeed will be Light, but to others vengeance" (Homily 3, 2nd Thessalonians).

Conclusion

Those who advocate for this heresy are forced to place all their weight on the supposed advocacy of a few saints of the Church, while ignoring the clear and unambiguous teachings of all the other Fathers, the Councils, the Apostles, and even Christ Himself. This is not how Orthodox Christians approach such matters. We affirm that which the Church has consistently taught -- we do not go hunting for theological exotica. And if it happens that God has a surprise for us in eternity, and that despite all the talk of the unquenchable fire and the undying worm, He will ultimately save even the devil, then we have nothing to worry about. However, if Christ, the Apostles, the vast majority of the Fathers and saints of Church, the Councils, and the Synodikon of Orthodoxy are correct, then it is a very dangerous thing to give unrepentant sinners false hope -- because those who teach such a heresy will "both destroy themselves and become agents of eternal condemnation to others" (the Synodikon of Orthodoxy). This is not a question of what we may wish to be true -- it is a question of what Christ, who is Himself the Truth, assures us to be true, in the most emphatic terms.

Update: Here is an interesting comment from St. Cyril of Alexandria, on 1 Peter 3:19:

"Here Peter answers the question which some objectors have raised, namely, if the incarnation was so beneficial, why was Christ not incarnated for such a long time, given that he went to the spirits which were in prison and preached to them also? In order to deliver all those who would believe, Christ taught those who were alive on earth at the time of his incarnation, and these others acknowledged him when he appeared to them in the lower regions, and thus they too benefited from his coming. Going in his soul, he preached to those who were in hell, appearing to them as one soul to other souls. When the gatekeepers of hell saw him, they fled; the bronze gates were broken open, and the iron chains were undone. And the only-begotten Son shouted with authority to the suffering souls, according to the word of the new covenant, saying to those in chains: "Come out!" and to those in darkness: "Be enlightened." In other words, he preached to those who were in hell also, so that he might save all those who would believe in him. For both those who were alive on earth during the time of his incarnation and those who were in hell had a chance to acknowledge him. The greater part of the new covenant is beyond nature and tradition, so that while Christ was able to preach to all those who were alive at the time of his appearing and those who believed in him were blessed, so too he was able to liberate those in hell who believed and acknowledged him, by his descent there. However, the souls of those who practiced idolatry and outrageous ungodliness, as well as those who were blinded by fleshly lusts, did not have the power to see him, and they were not delivered." (Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, New Testament, Vol. XI, James, 1-2 Peter, 1-3 John, Jude, Gerald Bray, ed. (Downers Grove, IL: Intervasity Press, 2000) p. 107f).