Reincarnation
Members of what is commonly called the "New Age"
movement often claim that early Christians believed in reincarnation. Shirley
MacLaine, an avid New Age disciple, recalls being taught: "The theory of
reincarnation is recorded in the Bible. But the proper interpretations
were struck from it during an ecumenical council meeting of the Catholic
Church in Constantinople sometime around A.D. 553, called the Council of
Nicaea [sic]" (Out on a Limb, 234–35).
Historical facts provide no basis for this claim.
In fact, there was no Council of Nicaea in A.D. 553. Further, the two ecumenical
councils of Nicaea (A.D. 325 and A.D. 787) took place in the city of Nicaea
(hence their names)—and neither dealt with reincarnation. What did take
place in A.D. 553 was the Second Ecumenical Council of Constantinople.
But records from this Council show that it, too, did not address the subject
of reincarnation. None of the early councils did.
The closest the Second Council of Constantinople
came to addressing reincarnation was, in one sentence, to condemn Origen,
an early Church writer who believed souls exist in heaven before coming
to earth to be born. New Agers confuse this belief in the preexistence
of the soul with reincarnation and claim that Origen was a reincarnationist.
Actually, he was one of the most prolific early writers against
reincarnation! Because he is so continually misrepresented by New Agers,
we have included a number of his quotes below, along with passages from
other sources, all of which date from before A.D. 553, when the
doctrine of reincarnation was supposedly "taken out of the Bible."
The origin of Shirley MacLaine’s mistaken notion
that Origen taught reincarnation is probably Reincarnation in Christianity,
by Geddes MacGregor—a book published by the Theosophical Publishing House
in 1978. The author speculates that Origen’s texts written in support of
the belief in reincarnation somehow disappeared or were suppressed. Admitting
he has no evidence, MacGregor nonetheless asserts: "I am convinced he taught
reincarnation in some form" (58). You may judge from the
passages below whether this seems likely.
Irenaeus
"We may undermine [the Hellenists’] doctrine as
to transmigration from body to body by this fact—that souls remember nothing
whatever of the events which took place in their previous states of existence.
For if they were sent forth with this object, that they should have experience
of every kind of action, they must of necessity retain a remembrance of
those things which have been previously accomplished, that they might fill
up those in which they were still deficient, and not by always hovering,
without intermission, through the same pursuits, spend their labor wretchedly
in vain. . . . With reference to these objections, Plato . . . attempted
no kind of proof, but simply replied dogmatically that when souls enter
into this life they are caused to drink of oblivion by that demon who watches
their entrance, before they effect an entrance into the bodies. It escaped
him that he fell into another, greater perplexity. For if the cup of oblivion,
after it has been drunk, can obliterate the memory of all the deeds that
have been done, how, O Plato, do you obtain the knowledge of this fact
. . . ?" (Against Heresies 2:33:1–2 [A.D. 189]).
Tertullian
"Come now, if some philosopher affirms, as Laberius
holds, following an opinion of Pythagoras, that a man may have his origin
from a mule, a serpent from a woman, and with skill of speech twists every
argument to prove his view, will he not gain an acceptance for it [among
the pagans], and work in some conviction that on account of this, they
should abstain from eating animal food? May anyone have the persuasion
that he should abstain, lest, by chance, in his beef he eats some ancestor
of his? But if a Christian promises the return of a man from a man, and
the very actual Gaius [resurrected] from Gaius . . . they will not . .
. grant him a hearing. If there is any ground for the moving to and fro
of human souls into different bodies, why may they not return to the very
matter they have left . . . ?" (Apology 48 [A.D. 197]).
Origen
"[Scripture says] ‘And they asked him, "What then?
Are you Elijah?" and he said, "I am not"’ [John 1:21]. No one can fail
to remember in this connection what Jesus says of John: ‘If you will receive
it, this is Elijah, who is to come’ [Matt. 11:14]. How then does John come
to say to those who ask him, ‘Are you Elijah?’—‘I am not’? . . . One might
say that John did not know that he was Elijah. This will be the explanation
of those who find in our passage a support for their doctrine of reincarnation,
as if the soul clothed itself in a fresh body and did not quite remember
its former lives. . . . [H]owever, a churchman, who repudiates the doctrine
of reincarnation as a false one and does not admit that the soul of John
was ever Elijah, may appeal to the above-quoted words of the angel, and
point out that it is not the soul of Elijah that is spoken of at John’s
birth, but the spirit and power of Elijah" (Commentary on John 6:7
[A.D. 229]).
"As for the spirits of the prophets, these are
given to them by God and are spoken of as being in a manner their property
[slaves], as ‘The spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets’
[1 Cor. 14:32] and ‘The spirit of Elijah rested upon Elisha’ [2 Kgs. 2:15].
Thus, it is said, there is nothing absurd in supposing that John, ‘in the
spirit and power of Elijah,’ turned the hearts of the fathers to the children
and that it was on account of this spirit that he was called ‘Elijah who
is to come’" (ibid.).
"If the doctrine [of reincarnation] was widely
current, ought not John to have hesitated to pronounce upon it, lest his
soul had actually been in Elijah? And here our churchman will appeal to
history, and will bid his antagonists [to] ask experts of the secret doctrines
of the Hebrews if they do really entertain such a belief. For if it should
appear that they do not, then the argument based on that supposition is
shown to be quite baseless" (ibid.).
"Someone might say, however, that Herod and some
of those of the people held the false dogma of the transmigration of souls
into bodies, in consequence of which they thought that the former John
had appeared again by a fresh birth, and had come from the dead into life
as Jesus. But the time between the birth of John and the birth of Jesus,
which was not more than six months, does not permit this false opinion
to be considered credible. And perhaps rather some such idea as this was
in the mind of Herod, that the powers which worked in John had passed over
to Jesus, in consequence of which he was thought by the people to be John
the Baptist. And one might use the following line of argument: Just as
because the spirit and the power of Elijah, and not because of his soul,
it is said about John, ‘This is Elijah who is to come’ [Matt. 11:14] .
. . so Herod thought that the powers in John’s case worked in him works
of baptism and teaching—for John did not do one miracle [John 10:41]—but
in Jesus [they worked] miraculous portents" (Commentary on Matthew
10:20 [A.D. 248]).
"Now the Canaanite woman, having come, worshipped
Jesus as God, saying, ‘Lord, help me,’ but he answered and said, ‘It is
not possible to take the children’s bread and cast it to the little dogs.’
. . . [O]thers, then, who are strangers to the doctrine of the Church,
assume that souls pass from the bodies of men into the bodies of dogs,
according to their varying degree of wickedness; but we . . . do not find
this at all in the divine Scripture" (ibid., 11:17).
"In this place [when Jesus said Elijah was come
and referred to John the Baptist] it does not appear to me that by Elijah
the soul is spoken of, lest I fall into the doctrine of transmigration,
which is foreign to the Church of God, and not handed down by the apostles,
nor anywhere set forth in the scriptures" (ibid., 13:1).
...
"But if . . . the Greeks, who introduce the doctrine
of transmigration, laying down things in harmony with it, do not acknowledge
that the world is coming to corruption, it is fitting that when they have
looked the scriptures straight in the face which plainly declare that the
world will perish, they should either disbelieve them or invent a series
of arguments in regard to the interpretation of things concerning the consummation;
which even if they wish they will not be able to do" (ibid.).
Lactantius
"What of Pythagoras, who was first called a philosopher,
who judged that souls were indeed immortal, but that they passed into other
bodies, either of cattle or of birds or of beasts? Would it not have been
better that they should be destroyed, together with their bodies, than
thus to be condemned to pass into the bodies of other animals? Would it
not be better not to exist at all than, after having had the form of a
man, to live as a swine or a dog? And the foolish man, to gain credit for
his saying, said that he himself had been Euphorbus in the Trojan war,
and that when he had been slain he passed into other figures of animals,
and at last became Pythagoras. O happy man!—to whom alone so great a memory
was given! Or rather unhappy, who when changed into a sheep was not permitted
to be ignorant of what he was! And [I] would to heaven that he [Pythagoras]
alone had been thus senseless!" (Epitome of the Divine Institutes
36 [A.D. 317]).
Gregory of Nyssa
"[I]f one should search carefully, he will find
that their doctrine is of necessity brought down to this. They tell us
that one of their sages said that he, being one and the same person, was
born a man, and afterward assumed the form of a woman, and flew about with
the birds, and grew as a bush, and obtained the life of an aquatic creature—and
he who said these things of himself did not, so far as I can judge, go
far from the truth, for such doctrines as this—of saying that one should
pass through many changes—are really fitting for the chatter of frogs or
jackdaws or the stupidity of fishes or the insensibility of trees" (The
Making of Man 28:3 [A.D. 379]).
Ambrose of Milan
"It is a cause for wonder that though they [the
heathen] . . . say that souls pass and migrate into other bodies. . . .
But let those who have not been taught doubt [the resurrection]. For us
who have read the law, the prophets, the apostles, and the gospel, it is
not lawful to doubt" (Belief in the Resurrection 65–66 [A.D. 380]).
"But is their opinion preferable who say that our
souls, when they have passed out of these bodies, migrate into the bodies
of beasts or of various other living creatures? . . . For what is so like
a marvel as to believe that men could have been changed into the forms
of beasts? How much greater a marvel, however, would it be that the soul
which rules man should take on itself the nature of a beast so opposed
to that of man, and being capable of reason should be able to pass over
to an irrational animal, than that the form of the body should have been
changed?" (ibid., 127).
John Chrysostom
"As for doctrines on the soul, there is nothing
excessively shameful that they [the disciples of Plato and Pythagoras]
have left unsaid, asserting that the souls of men become flies and gnats
and bushes and that God himself is a [similar] soul, with some other the
like indecencies. . . . At one time he says that the soul is of the substance
of God; at another, after having exalted it thus immoderately and impiously,
he exceeds again in a different way, and treats it with insult, making
it pass into swine and asses and other animals of yet less esteem than
these" (Homilies on John 2:3, 6 [A.D. 391]).
Basil the Great
"[A]void the nonsense of those arrogant philosophers
who do not blush to liken their soul to that of a dog, who say that they
have themselves formerly been women, shrubs, or fish. Have they ever been
fish? I do not know, but I do not fear to affirm that in their writings
they show less sense than fish" (The Six Days’ Work 8:2 [A.D. 393]).
NIHIL OBSTAT:
I have concluded that the materials
presented in this work are free of doctrinal or moral errors.
Bernadeane Carr, STL, Censor Librorum, August 10, 2004
IMPRIMATUR:
In accord with 1983 CIC 827
permission to publish this work is hereby granted.
+Robert H. Brom, Bishop of San Diego, August 10, 2004
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