UNIVERSALISM (from universal, from Lat. universa/is, relating to all or the whole, from universus, OLat. oinovorsus, gonvorsus, all, whole, entire, turned into one, from onus, one vcrtere, to turn). The name given to the religious faith of those who believe in universal salvation, or the doctrine that the Holy Scriptures declare it to be the purpose of God to make His grace, revealed through the Lord Jesus Christ, as extensive as sin is or can be; to make an end of everything averse to God and His law; to bring in everlasting righteous ness and reconcile all souls to God that God may be all in all. Universalists claim for this in terpretation of the Bible great Christian an tiquity, citing in proof thereof the Sibylline Oracles (e.150), and the teaching of Clement of Alexandria (e.195), that man was created to be educated and not for a limited trial, that his op portunity for education is as lasting as his be ing, and that punishment is remedial. They find it in the teachings of Origen (e.185-e.254), and in the common belief among Christians of all sects in the second and third centuries that between the death and the resurrection of Jesus he went to the underworld and there taught the souls that had sinned in the days of Noah; these, argued Clement, included all who there or else where need salvation. Universalists also believe that their faith was extensively held in the fourth century and that of the six theological schools then established in the Christian world, four (the schools of Alexandria, Ciesarea, Antioch, and Eastern Syria) taught it; that it was also fundamental in the fifth century in the teachings of Theodore of Mopsuestia, the founder of the Nestorian Church, in whose Confession, of Faith and Sacramental Liturgy it is plainly declared that Maximus the Confessor (580-663) also taught and defended it in the sixth and seventh centuries, that Pope Gregory's instructions to his missionaries show its existence in the eighth century. and that in the ninth it was ably advo cated by John Scotus Erigena. The subsequent
period until the Lutheran Reformation was not favorable to any expression of thought that an tagonized the Latin theology. The Church si lenced by force all voices that repudiated its teachings and burned all books contaminated by so-called heresies. But, in spite of all this, Uni versalism was manifest in the teachings of such thinkers as Raynold, Ahnarie, Albertus Magnus, Solomon, Bishop of Bosra, Ruyshroek, Tauler, and John of Goa, and in the societies of the Lollards, Brethren of the Common Life, Brethren and Sisters of the Free Spirit, and the Men of Understanding. With the Reformation Univer salism revived. The original 42 articles of re ligion. drawn up by the Reformers in England in 1552, declare: "They also deserve to be con demned who endeavor to restore that pernicious opinion that all men (though never so ungodly) shall at last be saved; when for a certain time, appointed by the Divine Justice, they have en dured punishment for their sins committed." When the articles were reduced to 39 in 1571 this condemnatory article was omitted. Many of the Mystics, the German Baptists, the Men nonites in Holland, the French Protestants, the Moravians, and various smaller sects in the Old IVorld, advocated Universalism.
It was not, however, until about 1750 that an organization called Universalist was created. Before that time the believers in universal sal vation were affiliated with sects bearing various names and were spoken of as 'Origenists,"Merei ful Doctors.' and by other names indicating their dissent from the dogma of the never-ending misery of the wicked; but at the date first given Rev. James Belly (q.v.) became a Universalist and organized a Universalist church in London, to which lie ministered with his death, about thirty years later. At the present time very few churches in Europe bear the Universalist name, but the doctrine of Universalism finds favor, and in some instances open advocacy, in churches of various names. The Unitarians abroad are avowed Universalist s.