A Larger Hope?, Volume 1 (Hardback or Cased Book)

In the minds of some, universal salvation is a heretical idea that was imported into Christianity from pagan philosophies by Origen (c.185-253/4). Ilaria Ramelli argues that this picture is completely mistaken. She maintains that Christian theologians were the first people to proclaim that all will be saved and that their reasons for doing so were rooted in their faith in Christ. She demonstrates that, in fact, the idea of the final restoration of all creation (apokatastasis) was grounded upon the teachings of the Bible and the church's beliefs about Jesus' total triumph over sin, death, and evil through his incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. Ramelli traces the Christian roots of Origen's teaching on apokatastasis. She argues that he was drawing on texts from Scripture and from various Christians who preceded him, theologians such as Bardaisan, Irenaeus, and Clement. She outlines Origen's often-misunderstood theology in some detail and then follows the legacy of his Christian universalism through the centuries that followed. We are treated to explorations of Origenian universal salvation in a host of Christian disciples, including Athanasius, Didymus the Blind, the Cappadocian fathers, Evagrius, Maximus the Confessor, John Scotus Eriugena, and Julian of Norwich.

Ilaria Ramelli earned two MAs (Classics with specialization in Early Christianity and Philosophy with specialization in History), a PhD (Classics and Early Christianity) a Doctorate honoris causa, a postdoctorate (Late Antiquity and Religion), and some Habilitations to Full Professor - Ordinarius (History of Philosophy, Classics, Greek Language and Literature). In the last twenty years, Ramelli has been Professor of Roman Near Eastern History, Onassis Senior Visiting Professor of Greek Thought (Harvard; Boston University), of Church History (Columbia), of Religion (Erfurt University, Max Weber Center), and Senior Research Fellow (Durham University; Oxford Corpus Christi; Catholic University, Milan; Princeton University).
Ramelli is Full Professor of Theology and K.Britt endowed chair at the Graduate School of Theology, SHMS "Angelicum" University, the director of international research projects, and Senior Research Fellow (Oxford University Christ Church; Durham University, for the second time; Erfurt University, MWK, within a Forschungspreis of the Humboldt Foundation).
She received, among other prizes, two Agostino Gemelli Awards (1996; 1997), the Marcello Gigante Classics International Award sponsored by the President of the Italian Republic (2006), ten SBL Mentions for for Distinguished Scholarly Service (2009-19), the inclusion in Great Minds of the 21st Century (2011) and in 2000 Outstanding Intellectuals of the 21st Century (2011 & 2014), a Marie Curie Prize from the European Commission (2016), a Research Award from the Humboldt Foundation (2017), and many other grants, awards, and nominations.
Besides delivering lectures and seminars, including many invited and main lectures, and and directing editorial endeavours, workshops, seminars, and research projects, Ramelli has authored numerous books, articles, and reviews in leading scholarly journals and series, on ancient and patristic philosophy, especially Platonism and Stoicism, first-millennium Christianity, the New Testament, the reception of Scripture, ancient Religions, Classics, and the relationship between Christianity and classical culture.