apocatastasis

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
   • 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
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
   • 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. (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
   • 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. (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