“At some time the nature of evil shall pass to extinction, being fully and completely removed from existence; and divine unmixed goodness shall embrace in itself every rational nature, nothing that has been made by God falling away from the kingdom of God: when all the evil that is blended with existence being consumed by the melting action of the cleansing fire, everything that has had its being from God shall become such as it was at first, when as yet untainted by evil.”
Where it is said that God’s enemies shall be subjected to God…
“This is meant that the power of evil shall be taken away, and they who, on account of their disobedience, were called God’s enemies, shall by subjection be made God’s friends. When, then, all who once were God’s enemies, shall have been made his footstool, because they shall receive in themselves the divine imprint, when death shall have been destroyed . . . in the subjection of all, which is not servile humility, but immortality and blessedness, Christ is said, by St. Paul, to be made subject to God.”
“By which God shows that neither is sin from eternity, nor will it last to eternity. For that which did not always exist shall not last for ever . . . [The Lord] will . . . in his just judgment, destroy the wickedness of sinners, not the nature. . . . Wickedness being thus destroyed and its imprint being left in none, all shall be fashioned after Christ, and in all that one character shall shine, which originally was imprinted on our nature.”
For it is evident that God will in truth be all in all when there shall be no evil in existence, when every created being is at harmony with itself and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord; when every creature shall have been made one body.
Whoever considers the divine power will plainly perceive that it is able at length to restore by means of the aionion purging and atoning sufferings, those who have gone even to this extremity of wickedness.
Wherefore, that at the same time liberty of free-will should be left to nature and yet the evil be purged away, the wisdom of God discovered this plan; to suffer man to do what he would, that having tasted the evil which he desired, and learning by experience for what wretchedness he had bartered away the blessings he had, he might of his own will hasten back with desire to the first blessedness …either being purged in this life through prayer and discipline, or after his departure hence through the furnace of cleansing fire.
When a baser metal is mixed with gold, refiners restore the more precious metal to its natural brightness by consuming the alien and worthless substance with fire. . . . In the same way, when death, corruption, darkness, and other offshoots of vice have attached themselves to the author of evil, contact with the divine power acts like fire and effects the disappearance of what is contrary to nature. In this way the nature is purified and benefitted, even though the process of separation is a painful one.”