Introduction
Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335–395 CE) stands as a pivotal figure in the development of Christian eschatology and metaphysics. As a Cappadocian Father deeply influenced by Origen, Plotinus, and Scripture, Gregory constructed a profoundly hopeful vision of the human soul's destiny. Central to this vision is the conviction that all souls, even the unsaved, will ultimately be restored to communion with God. Unlike Origen, Gregory does not teach the necessity of re-embodiment for post-mortem purification. Instead, he offers a non-reincarnational eschatology in which evil is overcome not through eternal punishment or multiple lifetimes, but through the soul’s progressive purification in the divine presence.
A crucial element of this system is Gregory’s metaphysical understanding of evil as privation or non-being (μὴ ὂν). This Neoplatonic conception undergirds his belief that evil cannot endure eternally, and that the soul, being created in the image of God, will inevitably be healed of its corruption and return to its source. Gregory’s vision of post-mortem salvation thus rests on a coherent theology of the soul, divine justice, and the annihilation of evil as an ontological impossibility.
1. Gregory’s Metaphysical Anthropology: The Image of God and the Soul’s Orientation
Gregory affirms, with Genesis 1:26, that human beings are created in the image and likeness of God. For him, this means that the soul bears an inbuilt tendency toward the Good and a natural orientation to return to the divine likeness, which sin obscures but does not erase. As he writes in On the Soul and the Resurrection:
“The soul, being created in the image of God, possesses the principle of its being from Him who is imperishable and unchangeable, and therefore it has an affinity with Him.” (PG 46.93B)
This ontological affinity implies that the human soul is not intrinsically evil and cannot be permanently corrupted. Its true nature is divine likeness, and its destiny is to be conformed to that likeness through the transformation of the will. The spiritual life, both now and after death, is the unfolding of this latent capacity.
2. Evil as Privation: The Non-Substantial Nature of Sin and Corruption
A distinctive feature of Gregory’s metaphysics is his Platonic-Christian synthesis of evil as privation (stéresis)—a non-being rather than a substantive force. Drawing on Plotinus and Origen, Gregory insists that evil has no positive existence. In On the Making of Man, he writes:
“Evil is not a self-existent substance; it is a deviation of the mind from virtue, and nothing more. It exists only as the absence of good.” (De Hominis Opificio 21; PG 44.228A)
Because evil is not a real “thing” but a lack, it cannot exist eternally. God alone is Being itself (to on), and only what participates in God has true reality. Hence, evil—being non-being—must be transient. This metaphysical insight carries enormous soteriological implications: since hell and sin are rooted in non-being, they are by nature self-limiting and destined to be overcome.
This logic makes eternal damnation metaphysically incoherent. As Gregory puts it:
“That which is not by nature eternal must cease to exist; and evil, being unnatural and without real substance, cannot be eternal.” (In Illud: Tunc et Ipse Filius, PG 44.1320C)
Thus, the torment of hell is not unending punishment but a temporary process whereby the soul is purged of what is unreal and returns to what is real—God.
3. Post-Mortem Purification Without Re-Embodiment
In contrast to Origen, who taught that unrepentant souls may need to be re-embodied in order to continue their moral formation, Gregory maintains that the soul can be purified in a disembodied state after death. Death, for him, is not an end but a transition into a state where the soul confronts divine truth more directly, and in that confrontation, is painfully but ultimately redemptively transformed.
In The Great Catechism, he uses the analogy of gold refined in fire:
“The separation of the soul from evil becomes a necessity; and just as in the case of gold, if it be mixed with dross, the purifying fire must be applied to it... so it is here. The fire is the process of the healing.” (Oratio Catechetica Magna 8; PG 45.28A)
This “fire” is not an external torment but the encounter with the holiness of God, which burns away the soul’s impurities. It is therapeutic, not retributive.
He makes this even more explicit in On the Soul and the Resurrection:
“When evil has been removed, and when the soul, through suffering and correction, has been purified of its defilement, then it will return to the blessedness from which it fell.” (PG 46.96A)
No re-embodiment is necessary; the purgation takes place in the spiritual realm, guided by divine providence and love.
4. The Victory of Divine Love and the Apokatastasis of All Souls
Gregory’s eschatology culminates in the doctrine of apokatastasis, or universal restoration. For Gregory, God’s justice and love are not in competition. Divine punishment exists, but only as a means to ultimate healing. The final judgment results not in permanent division but in universal reconciliation.
In On the Making of Man, he declares:
“For one must believe that after the evil has been destroyed in long cycles of time, nothing opposed to the good shall remain, but the divine life shall pervade all things, and every creature shall be harmoniously united with one another.” (De Hominis Opificio 26.3; PG 44.233B)
Even the most recalcitrant souls are not beyond the reach of God’s grace. God’s will is to be “all in all” (1 Cor. 15:28), and for Gregory this means the inclusion of every rational soul in the beatific vision. He thus spiritualizes Paul’s eschatology in a way that is consistent with his ontological optimism: evil will be extinguished, not by annihilation of persons, but by the transformation of the will through the fire of divine love.
5. Freedom, Healing, and the Irresistibility of the Good
Gregory is sometimes criticized for diminishing human freedom in his insistence that all will be saved. But for him, true freedom consists not in the mere capacity to choose, but in the liberty to actualize one’s true nature, which is the image of God. As he writes:
“The end will be like the beginning, when all things existed in God, and there was no evil. Since the Good is more powerful than evil, the final condition must reflect the original harmony.” (In Cantica Canticorum, Homily 15; PG 44.1116B)
In this way, divine love does not coerce, but heals. Gregory’s God does not violate the will but gradually reforms it, drawing all creatures to Himself through correction, illumination, and mercy.
Conclusion
Gregory of Nyssa articulates a profound eschatology in which evil, being a privation of the good, is necessarily impermanent. The human soul, created in the image of God, cannot be forever alienated from its source. Gregory rejects the necessity of re-embodiment, insisting instead that post-mortem purification in a spiritual state suffices to transform the soul. Hell is not eternal punishment but a purifying encounter with divine love, painful but healing. In the end, the God who is Goodness itself will be “all in all,” and all rational creatures will be restored to Him, not by force, but through the liberating fire of truth. Gregory’s theology thus offers a compelling Christian vision of hope beyond death, one in which justice and mercy are not opposed but united in the radiant triumph of divine love.
References
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Gregory of Nyssa, On the Soul and the Resurrection, trans. Catharine P. Roth (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1993).
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Gregory of Nyssa, The Great Catechism (Oratio Catechetica Magna), in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 5, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace.
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Gregory of Nyssa, On the Making of Man, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 5.
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Gregory of Nyssa, Homilies on the Song of Songs, trans. Richard A. Norris (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2012).
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Ilaria Ramelli, The Christian Doctrine of Apokatastasis: A Critical Assessment from the New Testament to Eriugena (Leiden: Brill, 2013).
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Brian E. Daley, “Apokatastasis and the Return to Unity: Gregory of Nyssa and Origen on Universal Salvation,” in The Hope of the Early Church: A Handbook of Patristic Eschatology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).
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