104 Apokatastasis: Four Meditations
other set refers to that final horizon of all horizons, "beyond all
ages," where even those who have traveled as far from God as it
is possible to go, through every possible self-imposed hell, will
at the last find themselves in the home to which they are called
from everlasting, their hearts purged of every last residue of
hatred and pride. Each horizon is, of course, absolute within
its own sphere: one is the final verdict on the totality of human
history, the other the final verdict on the eternal purposes of
God- just as the judgment of the cross is a verdict upon the
violence and cruelty of human order and human history, and
Easter the verdict upon creation as conceived in God's eternal
counsels. The eschatological discrimination between heaven
and hell is the crucifixion of history, while the final universal
restoration of all things is the Easter of creation. This way of
seeing the matter certainly seems, at any rate, to make particu-
larly cogent sense of the grand eschatological vision of 1 Corin-
thians 15. At least, Paul certainly appears to speak there, espe-
cially in verses 23-24, of three distinct moments, distributed
across two eschatological frames, in the process of the final
restoration of the created order in God:
''E KUGTO<; OE '-''' EV T'{) ~''-'' lOl<tJ TUYf,lUTl· I a1rapxYJ , 'X pWTO<;, I
E7TELTa o[ TOV XpiaTov Jv rfj 1rapova{q., avTov, EiTa
TO TEAO<;, omv 1rapaoio<j) T~V (3aaiAEtav T<j) 0E<j}
\ I ti I ,.. , \ \
KUl 7TUTpl, OTUV KUTapyYJGTJ 1Taaav apxYJV KUl
miaav Jtova{av Kai ovvaf-1,LV. (And each in the
proper order: the Anointed as the firstfruits, there-
after those who are in the Anointed at his arrival,
then the full completion, when he delivers the
Kingdom to him who is God and Father, when he
renders every Principality and every Authority and
Power ineffectual.)