In the first five or six centuries of Christian history, the majority of theological schools in the East taught Universalism.
[8] The most important such school was the
Didascalium in Alexandria, Egypt, which was founded by
Saint Pantaenus ca. 190 C.E.
[9] Alexandria was the center of learning and intellectual discourse in the ancient Mediterranean world, and was the theological center of gravity of Christianity prior to the rise of the imperial Roman Church.
[10] Alexandrian Christianity emphasized
apocatastasis and
theosis as its main teachings.
Saint Clement of Alexandria succeeded Pantaenus as the second head of the Didascalium in the late 2nd century. He was a prolific writer who combined Bible scholarship with
Greek philosophy to present a systematic theology based on Christian Universalist beliefs.
[11]
Origen was the student and successor of Clement of Alexandria. This 3rd century theologian is generally regarded as the most significant of all the ancient teachers of Christian Universalism. He wrote over 6,000 works including commentaries on almost every book of the Bible, sermons, treatises, letters, apologies, and the
Hexapla, a scholarly translation of the Old Testament.
[12]
Saint Gregory of Nyssa and
Saint Macrina the Younger, who were brother and sister, were both prominent Christian Universalists of the 4th century in the Alexandrian tradition of Clement and Origen.
[13][14] Gregory of Nyssa was a
bishop and theologian. Macrina the Younger was the leader of a
convent of
nuns.
Another branch of Christian Universalism in the ancient church, separate from the Alexandria school, was the
Nestorian movement which later became the
Assyrian Church of the East. Nestorianism originated in the 5th century in Constantinople and Antioch.
Theodore of Mopsuestia was an influential bishop who introduced universal reconciliation into the
liturgy of the Nestorians, and who is still honored in the Nestorian tradition as the "Interpreter" of the faith.
[15]