people would have to go to heaven via hell. he believed that even at the end of the day there would be some on whom the scars remained. therefore, he did not believe in eternal punishment, but he did see the possibility of eternal penalty.” origen believed this process would, in the end, produce universal salvation. after the church decided augustine had sufficiently proven the existence of an eternal hell for them to adopt it as official dogma, the synod of constantinople met in 543, and excommunicated the long dead origen on 15 separate charges of anathema. alice k. turner says "to make sure that he was properly serving his time, subsequent synods in 553, 680, 787 and 869 damned him to eternal flames over and over again. nevertheless, origen's ideas persisted".: 82 richard bauckham writes that, "until the nineteenth century, almost all christian theologians taught the reality of eternal torment in hell... since 1800, this situation has entirely changed, and no traditional doctrine has been so widely abandoned as that of eternal punishment. among the less conservative, universal salvation, either as hope or as dogma, is now so widely accepted that many theologians accept it virtually without argument." marcionism and supersessionism as the early christian church began to distinguish itself from judaism, the "old testament" and a portrayal of god in it as violent and unforgiving were sometimes contrasted rhetorically with certain teachings of jesus to portray an image of god as more loving and forgiving, which was framed as a new image. marcion of sinope, in the early second century, developed an early christian dualist belief system that understood the god of the old testament and creator of the material universe, who he called the demiurge, as an altogether different being than the god about whom jesus spoke. marcion considered jesus' universal god of compassion and love, who looks upon humanity with benevolence and mercy, incompatible with old testament depictions of divinely ordained violence. accordingly, he did not regard the hebrew scriptures as part of his scriptural canon. marcion's teaching was repudiated by tertullian in five treatises titled "against marcion" and marcion was ultimately excommunicated by the church. supersessionism according to michael vlach, "it is undeniable that anti-jewish bias has often gone hand-in-hand with the supersessionist view.": 5, 6 supersessionist thought is defined by "two core beliefs: (1) that the nation of israel has forfeited its status as the people of god through disobedience; and (2) the new testament church has therefore become the true israel and inheritor of the promises made to the nation of israel.": 12 it has three forms: punitive, economic, and/or structural supersessionism.: 12 punitive supersessionism is the 'hard' form of supersessionism, and is seen as punishment from god.: 13 economic supersessionism is a moderate form concerning god's economy: his plan in history to transfer the role of the "people of god" from an ethnic group to a universal group.: 15 the third form involves the new testament having priority over the old testament by ignoring or replacing the original meaning of old testament passages.: 17 for example, within the early church, the rise of the use of greek philosophical interpretation and allegory allowed inferences to be drawn such as the one tertullian drew when he interpreted the statement "the older will serve the younger," (concerning the twin sons of isaac and rebekah (genesis 25.23)), allegorically to mean that israel would serve the church.: 32, 33 there is no agreement on when supersessionism began.: 27 tracing the roots of supersessionism to the new testament is problematic since "there is no consensus" that supersessionism is a biblical doctrine at all.: 1 vlatch says one's position on this is determined more by one's beginning assumptions than it is by any biblical hermeneutic.: 1 scholars such as w. c. kaiser jr. see the fourth century, after constantine, as supersessionism's true beginning, because that is when a shift in christian thought on eschatology took place.: 133 the church took its universally held traditional interpretation of revelation 20:4-6 which is called millennialism, and its hope of the thousand-year reign of the messiah on earth, centered in jerusalem, ruling with the redeemed israel,: 3 and replaced it with a "historicized and allegorized version, that set up the church" as the metaphorical israel instead.: xi, 12 many jewish writers trace anti-semitism, and the consequences of it in world war ii, to this particular doctrine among christians.: 169 : 8, 9 twentieth-century jewish civil rights leader leonard p. zakim asserts the accuracy of what theology professor padraic o'hare writes: "despite the many possible destructive consequences of supersessionism, supersessionism alone is not yet anti-semitism". john gager makes a distinction between nineteenth century anti-semitism and second century anti-judaism, and many scholars agree, yet there are also many who see early anti-judaism and later anti-semitism as the same.: 2, 4 anders gerdmar sees the development of anti-semitism as part of the paradigm shift that occurred in early modernity when the new scientific focus on the bible and history replaced the primacy of theology and tradition.: 25 christopher leighton associates anti-judaism with the origins of christianity, and anti-semitism with "modern nationalism and racial theories". supersessionism has never been an official doctrine of the church, and has never been universally held. millennialism was the traditional and more universally held view of the first two centuries, and has remained an aspect of christian thought throughout its history.: 3 theologian steven d. aguzzi says supersessionism was considered a "normative view" in the writings of the early church fathers, such as justin, barnabas and origen, and has been a part of christian thought for much of the church's history.: 5, 25 some supersessionist christians have sometimes focused on violence in the hebrew bible while ignoring or giving little attention to violence in the new testament. sociological reflections and responses jože krašovec describes the ancient near eastern (ane) context in which the stories and text of the hebrew bible originated, in which gods were identified with peoples, and the flourishing or destruction of a people were a reflection of the power of its god or gods. while the ancient israelites conceived of their deity as one being in contrast to the polytheistic conception of its neighbors, they remained like other ane peoples in considering themselves a single whole unit in relationship with god. from this foundation arose notions of the nation flourishing or failing together as a whole rather than individually, and the view that individual sin leads to communal suffering and collective punishment. rené girard, historian, literary critic, and philosopher of social science says that, "desire is mimetic (i.e. all of our desires are borrowed from other people), that all conflict originates in mimetic desire (mimetic rivalry), that the scapegoat mechanism is the origin of sacrifice and the foundation of human culture, and religion was necessary in human evolution to control the violence that can come from mimetic rivalry, and that the bible reveals these ideas and denounces the scapegoat mechanism." jacques ellul says: "i believe that the biblical teaching is clear. it always contests political power. it incites to "counterpower," to "positive" criticism, to an irreducible dialogue (like that between king and prophet in israel), to antistatism, to a decentralizing of the relation, to an extreme relativizing of everything political, to an anti-ideology, to a questioning of all that claims either power or dominion (in other words, of all things political)...throughout the old testament we see god choosing what is weak and humble to represent him (the stammering moses, the infant samuel, saul from an insignificant family, david confronting goliath, etc.). paul tells us that god chooses the weak things of the world to confound the mighty..." genocide scholar nur masalha writes that the "genocide" of the extermination commandments has been "kept before subsequent generations" and served as inspirational examples of divine support for slaughtering enemies. scholar leonard b. glick states that jewish fundamentalists in israel, such as shlomo aviner, consider the palestinians to be like biblical canaanites, and that some fundamentalist leaders suggest that they "must be prepared to destroy" the palestinians if the palestinians do not leave the land. arthur grenke quotes historian, author and scholar david stannard: "discussing the influence of christian beliefs on the destruction of the native peoples in the americas, stannard argues that while the new testament's view of war is ambiguous, there is little ambiguity in the old testament. he points to sections in deuteronomy in which the israelite god, yahweh, commanded that the israelites utterly destroy idolaters whose land they sought to reserve for the worship of their deity (deut 7:2, 16, and 20:16–17). ... according to stannard, this view of war contributed to the ... destruction of the native peoples in the americas. it was this view that also led to the destruction of european jewry. accordingly, it is important to look at this particular segment of the old testament: it not only describes a situation where a group undertakes to totally destroy other groups, but it also had a major influence on shaping thought and belief systems that permitted, and even inspired, genocide. arie versluis says, "...indigenous populations have also appealed to the command (in deut.7) in order to expel their colonizers. this is shown by the example of te kooti...in the nineteenth century who viewed the maori as the israelites and the colonizers as the canaanites." sociologists frank robert chalk and kurt jonassohn question "the applicability of the term to earlier periods of history, and the judgmental and moral loadings that have become associated with it." since most societies of the past endured and practiced genocide, it was accepted as "being in the nature of life" because of the "coarseness and brutality" of life.: 27 chalk and jonassohn say the old testament contains cases they would consider genocide (if they were factual).: 64 historian and author william t. cavanaugh says that every society throughout history has contained both hawks and doves. cavanaugh and john gammie say that laws like those in deuteronomy probably reflect israel's internal struggle over such differing views on how to wage war.