apocatastases

Noun

apocatastasis (countable and uncountable, plural apocatastases)

1. (especially, rare) An 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.
   • 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...1678, Julius Firmicus, translated by Ralph Cudworth, The true intellectual system of the universe, I iv 328
2. (rare) The 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
3. (rare) Return to an earlier condition.
   • We read of Apocatastasis or urine...of tumours, and other diseases.1753, A supplement to Mr. Chambers's Cyclopædia
4. (rare) Return 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