John Wesley Hanson on universalism in the earliest church, and my comments
“In one word, a careful study of the early history of the Christian religion, will show that the doctrine of universal restoration was least prevalent in the darkest, and prevailed most in the most enlightened, of the earliest centuries–that it was the prevailing doctrine in the Primitive Christian Church.”–John Wesley Hanson (quoted in this blogpost on the blog "Mercy upon all")
My comments: John Wesley Hanson (1823-1901) was an American Unitarian Universalist minister, theologian and church historian, who did much to enlighten the world about universalism, and who even published his own New Testament, where he correctly translates many verses that have before been used to defend the traditional hell dogma. His thoughts on universalist history, mirrored in the quote above, have been defended by so learned people as Ilaria Ramelli (b.1973), "an Italian-born historian, academic author, and university professor who specializes in ancient, late antique, and early mediaeval philosophy and theology." (says Wikipedia) This is a very notable and important fact, and a very joyful one. Few are so learned in universalism today as Ramelli.
In 2013 Ramelli published a book on early universalist history "The Christian Doctrine of Apokatastasis: A Critical Assessment from the New Testament To Eriugena", Brill, 2013 (892 pages long, this is really an academic heavyweight on the issue. I wonder if anyone else has such merits in universalist history today?).
In 2019 she published the book "A Larger Hope?" , prefaced by Richard Bauckham, Cascade Books, 2019 (314 pages long). Not long after she coauthored the book "
