A.D. 381 heretics, pagans, and the dawn of the monotheistic state ( PDFDrive )

that in Christ I am as submissive to him as to all my Christian brothers.’ 10 It is
one of the few moments when one feels compassion for the cantankerous old
scholar. Some of the details of the reconciliation that followed are obscure, but it
did take place. Paulinus was welcomed as a member of John’s clergy and the
excommunication was lifted from Jerome’s monastery. Jerome and Epiphanius
no longer attacked John for Origenist heresy.
This conflict had only occurred because an orthodoxy had been proclaimed to
which earlier thinkers, long since dead, were now expected to conform. An
opening had been provided for unscrupulous men such as Epiphanius to exploit
to the confusion and upset of all. With the rejection of Origen, one was also, of
course, rejecting the tradition of free and creative scholarship of which he was
such an excellent example. If Epiphanius had not intervened, scholars would
have been able to continue to study Origen’s works, drawing out their treasures
and ignoring what they felt unable to support, just as any scholar does of his
forebears. Although Origen continued to find his supporters, he was finally
condemned as a heretic at the Council of Constantinople in 553. 11
If Origen had been restored to the status he deserved, then so might have been
his belief that a forgiving Father would hardly condemn human beings to eternal
hell fire. Greek and Roman religion placed relatively little emphasis on the
afterlife; it was concerned with life in the here and now. This did not preclude
speculation on whether the soul survived as an independent entity, as Plato had
argued, or a discussion on the nature of the underworld (Hades), but Christians
gave far greater prominence to life after death. 12 Their powerful emphasis on
reward or punishment was a significant development. There were of course
references in the gospels to suffering in the hereafter for those who rejected God,
but early Christians had rarely mentioned hell. Instead they concentrated on the
rewards of their faith in Christ. According to The Shepherd of the Roman
Hermas, written in about AD 140, all Christians would go straight to heaven.
Others, such as Tertullian, writing some fifty years later, distinguished between
martyrs, who would be rewarded in heaven, and the rest, who would remain in a
waiting place underground until the Last Judgement. There are only very few
references in other texts to a hell where burning takes place, and at the time
Origen was writing, ideas of the afterlife were still centred on rewards for
Christians rather than punishment. 13
An important development is recorded in On Mortality, written by Cyprian,
Bishop of Carthage, in 252. Plague had broken out in Carthage and Cyprian