apocatastasis

Definition

Restoration, renovation, reestablishment

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin apocatastasis, itself from Ancient Greek ἀποκατάστασις (apokatástasis, “restoration, reëstablishment”), from ἀποκαθίστημι (apokathístēmi, “to stand up again”), from ἀπό- (apó-, “back again”) + καθίστημι (kathístēmi, “I set, place, constitute, appoint”), from κατά- (katá-, “down, for”) + ἵστημι (hístēmi, “I set, stand, establish”).

Example Sentences

• "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."
• "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."
• "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."