apocatastasis

plural apocatastases · alternative apokatastasis

1. Restoration, renovation, reestablishment
   1. countableespeciallyrareuncountablelifestyleAn apocalypse leading to the remaking of the world rather than a Final Judgment, (Christianity) an Origenist doctrine condemned by the 543 C.E. Synod of Constantinople.

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      The Egyptians were the first assertors of the soul's immortality, and of its transmigration, after the death and corruption of this body, into the bodies of other animals successively, viz. until it have run round through the whole circuit of terrestrial, marine, and volatile animals, after which, they say, it is to return again into a human body; they supposing this revolution or apocatastasis of souls to be made in no less space than that of three thousand years.

      1678, Julius Firmicus, translated by Ralph Cudworth, The true intellectual system of the universe, I iv 328

      If anyone shall say that all reasonable beings will one day be united in one, when the hypostases as well as the numbers and the bodies shall have disappeared,... moreover, that in this pretended apocatastasis, spirits only will continue to exist... let him be anathema. A Tradition...concerning the Apocatastasis of the World...partly by Inundation and partly by Conflagration.

      1885, Philip Schaff translating the anathemas confirmed by the 553 C.E. Second Ecumenical Council in The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers

      The Stoic idea was based upon an astronomical doctrine according to which the return (apokatastasis) of the planets to their proper "celestial signs" initiates the conflagration (ekpurôsis), which is the reduction of the entire cosmos to its primal element (fire), after which follows the rebirth of all existing things.

      2003 January, Edward Moore, Origen of Alexandria and apokatastasis: Some Notes on the Development of a Noble Notion

   2. countablerareuncountablelifestyleThe doctrine that all souls will enter heaven or paradise, (Christianity) an Origenist doctrine condemned by the 543 C.E. Synod of Constantinople.

      No doctrine...contradicts the Holy Scripture in a more unwarrantable manner than that of the so-called Apokatastasis.

      1867, R.E. Wallis translating F.J. Delitzsch, A system of Biblical psychology, VII 552

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      Apocatastasis, A name given in the history of theology to the doctrine which teaches that a time will come when all free creatures will share in the grace of salvation.

      1907, Pierre Batiffol, The Catholic Encyclopedia

   3. countablerareuncountablemedicineReturn to an earlier condition.

      We read of Apocatastasis or urine...of tumours, and other diseases.

      1753, A supplement to Mr. Chambers's Cyclopædia

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      Apocatastasis, The subsidence of a tumour, or the re-establishment of an exudation or secretion.

      1880, The New Sydenham Society's lexicon of medicine and the allied sciences

   4. countablerareuncountableastronomyReturn to the same apparent position, as after a revolution.

      The accurate apocatastasis (i.e. regression to the same sign) of the moon, and in a similar manner of the sun.

      1822, Apuleius, translated by Thomas Taylor, Metamorphosis, or Golden Ass, I 33