Zack Wilson’s Reviews > Universalism, the Prevailing Doctrine of the Christian Church During Its First Five Hundred Years: With Authorities and Extracts > Status Update

“What the church cannot pardon, God may. The sin which has no forgiveness in this aeon orthe aeon to come may be atoned for in some of the countless aeons of the vast hereafter.”

“The idea that justice and love are distinct attributes of God, differing widely in their operation, is regarded by Clement [of Alexandria] as having its origin in a mistaken conception of their nature.”

Gnosis is one of those Greek words that seems to have found itself all over the place in early Christianity.

This could range from the Gnostics, who believed wacky stuff about the nature of God (demiurge, etc.) to Clement, who used gnosis and syneidesis to refer to reason and spiritual knowledge/consciousness.

My favorite recurring argument from this book boils down to this:

“The three main branches of gnosticism preached universal salvation.

The church fathers LOVED shit-talking gnostics; it was basically their favorite pastime.

If the early church fathers were not universalists, they would have been specific to criticize the gnostics for being universalists.”