Reincarnation & Past Lives

(The Lost Chord of Christianity)

Reincarnation is assumed in the Bible teaching

(DICTIONARY OF ALL SCRIPTURES AND MYTHS)

'Put not off from day to day and from cycle to cycle, in the belief that ye will succeed in obtaining the mysteries when ye return to the world in another cycle'

The Lord Jesus Christ - from the Gnostic Scripture, PISTIS SOPHIA

Rebirth was accepted among the persecuted Christians

Everyone knows the annals of religious history are stained with blood and corruption.Few appreciate, however that the ruthless expulsion of Reincarnation from Christian thought and theology has left some of the deepest and most shameful stains of all

Time has since worked its healing of forgetfulness and today most Christians are unaware that Reincarnation was ever considered seriously by the church. But the fact remains that before Christianity became a vehicle for the imperial ambitions of Roman Emperors, rebirth was widely accepted among the persecuted faithful

Taught by a number of early church fathers and treasured by the Christian Gnostics, a movement in the Apostolic Tradition dedicated to preserving and promulgating the esoteric teachings of Jesus Christ, reincarnation was seen to be consistent with 'Old' and 'New' Testament scripture and complementary to the idea of personal salvation through Jesus Christ

Repeated Earthly Existence were a Fact of Life

From the earliest days of primitive Christianity, repeated earthly existences were a fact of life to many supplicants so long as they soldiered on in the quest for Enlightenment.Yet they also believed that the monotonous cycle of birth and death could be transcended through the inspiration of Jesus Christ whose promptings towards Spritual Perfection were able to exalt the individaul to reconciliation with God and relief from the burden of the body

The principal architect of this theological edifice was Origen, called 'prince of Christian learning in the 3rd century' by St.Gregory of Nyssa, and hailed by the Encyclopaedia Britannca as 'the most prominent of the church fathers with the possible exception of Augustine'

While devoted to scriptural authority, Origen was also very much inclined towards the Platonic philosophy that had prevailed in Alexandria, the city of his birth, for more than 400 hundred years.He emphatically agreed with Plato that the divine eternal soul is cast into the corruptible body in order to prove itself superior to the inclinations of the flesh

Thus he wrote in a letter published in A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church:

'If it can be shown that an incorporeal and reasonable being has life in itself independently of the body and that it is worse off in the body than out of it, then beyond a doubt bodies are only of secondary importance and arise from time to time to meet the varying conditions of reasonable creatures.Those who require bodies are clothed with them, and contrariwise, when fallen souls have lifted themselves up to better things, their bodies are once more annihilated.They are thus ever vanishing and ever reapearing'

In De Principiis, his major work and the first systematic theology of Christianity, Origen declared

'Every soul comes into this world strengthened by the victories or weakened by the defeats of its previous life.Its place in this world as a vessel appointed to honor or dishonor, is determined by its previous merits or demerits.Its work in this world determines its place in the world which is to follow this'

For Origen, whose faith brought him torture and imprisonment at the hands of the Romans in the last years of his life, and for other church fathers such as Justin Martyr, founder of the first Christian school in Rome, the scriptures were to be interpreted in the most expansive, allegrical way. The visionary breadth of Origen's Cosmic Theology was not always appreciated by fundamentalists who cherished a narrow, literal reading of the scriptures. But the most telling opposition to the doctrine of Reincarnation in Christian theology only developed once the church had evolved, in the 4th century, from harried bands of secret worshippers to an institution that could be exploited for politcal advancement and control

The Abuse of Christianity

Roman Emperor - Constantine The Great

The seeds of Reincarnation's banishment were sown when Constantine the Great, the first Roman Emperor to become a Christian, perceived his faith as the reason for his military supremacy. Before triumphing over the mightier forces of Maxentius at the Battle of Milvian Bridge in 3112, he saw a cross of light super-imposed on the sun, a vision that led him to believe he was Christianity's chosen defender

The Official Religion of the Empire

As an expression of gratitude for this success, religious freedom was granted to all for the first time. And just as bemused Christians were beginning to accept that they were at last being tolerated by the authorities, Christianity had progressed from an illegal cult, whose members were hounded, abused and exterminated, to the official religion of the Empire.Yet there was a high price to be paid for the gifts and favors Constantine lavished on the church, the ecclesiastical rock was to be sculpted strictly according to the Emperor's political designs

Ethics, faith and devotion became subordinate to the allure of personal interest and political power. Bishops were appointed not for their Spiritual leadership - but for what they could do not further Constantine's aim of unifying the Empire. For the first time time in history, the church began to attract nominal Christians, those who attended for social, economic or political reasons rather than for the pursuit of righteousness

The Council of Nicea (325)

Eager to safeguard what he understood to be the authentic Christian message, Constantine kept up the political pressure by calling the Council of Nicea in 325 to determine and define Christian orthodoxy. From then on, the powerful union of church and state, always dominated by the Emperor's wishes, decreed what was acceptable and what was heretical. Two lives were all that orthodoxy allowed, one life in the natural body and one hereafter in the form of resurrection. Bishop's who disagreed with the council's findings, and there were some notable renegades, were quickly deposed

Preservation of Pure Christianity

Meanwhile those Christians who were disenchanted with the secularization of the church initiated their own Monastic Movement. Tending to settle in the deserts not so much to get away from the world as to escape the worldy church, they set themselves the task of trying to preserve the Christian prototype, a religion as pure and simple as the Savior's life

The Edict of Thessalonica

This cleaving of the early church was accentuated in 380 when the establishment acted to outlaw and chastise freethinking Christians. The Edict of Thessalonica, decreed by Emperor Theodosius without consultation with the ecclesiastical authorities, vowed that 'all peoples who fall beneath the sway of our imperial clemency should profess the faith which we believe to have been communicated by the Apostle Peter to the Romans and maintained in its traditional form to the present day. ' The edict went further still....

'And we require that those who follow this rule of faith should embrace the name of Catholic Christian adjudging all others madmen and ordering them to be designated as heretics, condemned as such in the first instance to suffer divine punishment and therewith the vengeance of that power which we, by celestial authority, have assumed'

In other words, heresy was no longer merely sinful, it was a crime, punishable by death. Ironically the word 'heretic' means at root, nothing more pernicious than one who is 'able to choose'. In 385 the first of a long line of Reincarnationist martyrs fell to the barbarism of the church-state alliance when 7 Spanish adherents of the Priscillian Sect were found guilty by a Christian magistrate of erroneous belief

Yet for another one hundered and fifty years or more, there was no official edict condemning the doctrine of Reincarnation across the empire. These desert Christians, many of them Gnostics or, at least, subscribers to Origen's interpretation of the scriptures, led their lives with little interference from the prime movers of church policy

In the 6th century, the Emperor Justinian condemned the idea of Reincarnation - The Christian church has shunned the doctrine of Rebirth ever since

In the 6th century, however, increasing hostility towards Origen's teaching culminated in the Emperor Justinian being asked to adjudicate in a dispute between Origenist and anti-Originist factions in Palestine.Justinaian gave his answer by convening a synod at Constantinople in 543 which condemned the teachings of Origen. (There must have been little doubt as to the outcome because Justinian had, in 529, closed the University of Athens, the last stronghold of Neoplatonism and, as such, a centre of Reincarnational study.) The Emperor later issued fifteen, 'anathemas' formal ecclesiastical curses involving excommunication - against Origen, four of which were aimed directly at pre-existence, and by implication, Reincarnation. The first read:

If any one assert the fabulous pre-existence of souls, and shall assert the monstrous restoration which follows from it: let him be anathema

It is thought that Justinian submitted these official curses to a preliminary session of the unconstitutional Second Council of Constantinople in 553.Pope Vigilius, who had been Justinian's prisoner for 8 years, refused to participate in the deliberations and it was left to the attending bishops (representing, overwhelmingly,the Eastern Church) to sanction the autocratic emperor's wishes.Although there is no evidence that the curses against Reincarnation were even discussed at the full ecumenical gathering, historians have for centuries mistakenly assumed that the Second Council proceeded to adopt them. In a sense however, the question of official ratification is irrelevant.What matters is that ever since the ecumenical council in 553, the church has shunned the doctrine of Rebirth

Just why belief in Reincarnation incurred the wrath of institutional authority is open to interpretation It seems likely that reincarnationists caused greatest offence by their self-reliance, which had the effect of minimizing the sway of their totalitarian masters.Believers in Reincarnation were neither to be induced by promises of heavenly bliss nor intimidated by threats of hellfire, they didn't need priests and ritual devices such as the confessional to guide them along the straight and narrow path to God.In toiling for their won salvation, they looked upon the church's cultivated dependence of the masses as unnecessary.And this left the church fiercely intolerant of professing Christians whose subservience could not be guaranteed. Hans Holzer writes in 'Patterns of Destiny'

'The church needed a whip of Judgement Day to keep the faithful in line.It was therefore a matter of survival for the church not to allow belief in Reincarnation to take hold among her followers'

The Catharism - Religion of Purification

So it was that any depature from the official line was brutally punished by the guardians of Orthodox. And yet, despite the menace of the most severe reprisals, including mass torture and execution, Christian sects clinging to their 'heretical beliefs' proved themselves irrepressible.These sects were grouped together under the umbrella of Catharism - the religion of Catharisis or purification, a term originallay applied by St. Augustine to the Reincarnationist Manicheans of Mesopotamia

The Cathars, always believed themselves to be the true Christians, included the Paulicians of Thrace, the Bogomils of Bulgaria, the Patarenes of the Balkans and the Albigensians of southern France, while other groups flourished in northern Italy and Germany.Despite the fearsome vengeance of the Inguisition, which spared no effort to root out rebels, Catharism ' spread so rapidly and resisted so stubbornly the sternest efforts of suppression that at one time it may be fairly saisd to have treatened the permanent existence of Christianity itself.Henry Lea comments in his 'History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages'

Knights Templars - Christian Military Order

'Linked with the Cathars were the Knights Templars, a Christian military order founded to protect pilgrims visiting the Holy Land, and the troubadours - traveling minstrels who wandered around Europe between the 11the & 13th centuries, popularizing the doctrine of Reincarnation in their ballades.Simple love songs acted as lyrical disguises for tales of how well-spend lives were rewarded by rebirth in bodies suitable for further spiritual development

Church Crusade of Terror & Slaughter

As the church's crusade of terror and slaughter was pursued to its bloody finale, the next life was increasingly all that was left to sing about. In 1244 the Albigensians, were massacred to the last man, woman ,child at their fortress of Montsegur in the Pyrenees.The church councils of Lyons in 1274 and Florence in 1439 drove home Justinian's anathemas by affirming that souls go immediately to heaven, purgatory or hell. So thorough was the destruction of heretical works that most of what remain of Origine's disputed discourses in only available because it was quoted in the arguments of his opponents.And much of that was first 'smoothed' by his Latin translator, Rufinus, who admitted that he didn't want to offend the church authorities

By the 16th century, Reincarnation thinking had been routed from the public consciousness and the responsibility for smuggling the belief forward to the modern ages was left to mystical groups such as Alchemists as the Rosicrucians

BIBLICAL TESTIMONY OF RE-INCARNATION

Confirmation that Reincarnation is indeed 'the lost chord of Christianity' can be found in the pages of the Bible. While the Old & New Testaments hardly trumpet the belief from the rooftops, there are numerous references to rebirth in both books.

James M. Pryse asserts in 'Reincarnation in the new Testament-1900'

'that to dispute that the doctrine is distinctly taught in the New Testament is to deny that the authors of that collection of writings meant what they said in unmistakable language'

The Lord Jesus Christ

Several of the most excplicit statements are made by the Lord Jesus Christ who affirmed his own pre-existence with the words 'Before Abraham was, I am (John8:58)

In the presence of a man who was born blind, Jesus was asked by His disciples: 'Master, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?' Jesus answered 'Neither hath this man sinned nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him (John9:1-3) Although the disciples were clearly attributing prenatal existence to the blind man, Christ does nothing to correct or dispel this presupposition as he goes on to prepare a salve that restores the man's sight. By refusing to challenge the disciples' thinking, Jesus acknowledge the fact of pre-existence undeniable implication of Reincarnation

John The Bapstist - Elijah Reborn

In the Gospel according to (Matthew, chapter 7), Jesus identifies John the Baptist as being Elijah reborn. Referring to the Old Testament prophecy that Elijah would appear before the coming of the Messiah, Jesus said 'This is he of whom it is written.....For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John.And if ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come.He that hath ears let him hear'. Futher on in the gospel account, Jesus underlines this assertion by declaring that 'Elias has come already.' The disciples, Matthew points out, 'understood that he had spoken of John the Baptist.' Both men, being big, boisterous and frenetically inspired, not only looked and dressed alike but also possessed the same character traits. Certainly, anything less than the absolute fusing of Elijah's identity with John the Baptist undermines Christ's claims to be the Messiah

The poet Robert Graves commented in an article in December 1967:

'No honest theologian can therefore deny that his acceptance of Jesus as Christ logically binds every Christian to a belief in Reincarnation -in Elijah's case, at least'

St.Paul's Statement

St.Paul's statement in his Epistle to the Galatians: (Galations6:7) hints strongly at rebirth because one life is plainly insufficient for a perfect balancing of accounts. Likewise, (verse ten in chapter 13 of Revelations) indicates Karmic reprisal with all the portentousness of Hindu & Buddhist scripture 'He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword.' Given that many soldiers die quietly in their beds, these words suggest that retribution must be experience in a future life

The rebirth of Jacob & Esau is mentioned several times in both the Old & New Testaments.Before the children were born 'neither having done any good or evil,' God declares in (Romans9:13) 'As it is written, Jacob have I loved but Esau have I hated'

The Prayer of Moses

To complete this Biblical selection is a prayer of Moses, evocative of cosmic timelessness as well as the recurring cycles of human beings and nature

'Thou turnest man to destruction, and sayest, Return ye children of men.For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.Thou carriest them away as with a flood, they are as a sleep, in the morning they are like grass which groweth up' (Psalm 90:3-5)

Gnostic Gospel - Pistis Sophia

If the Bible does little more than assume Reincarnation this is because its contributors 'might just as well give information regarding the digestive process, sleep or any other natural vital function,' according to G.A.Gaskell's Dictionalry of All Scriptures and Myths.More straightforward in its approach is the Gnostic gospel Pistis Sophia (meaning knowledge-wisdom' and claiming to be the secret teachings of Jesus to Mary Magdalene) which quotes Jesus as saying that 'souls are poured from one into another of different kinds of bodies of the world'

The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus Christ

The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus The Christ, having been transcribed from the Akashic Records during the last century by Levi, a pastor and medical doctor of Belleville,Ohio, cannot be classed as having the same scriptural authority as gospels with historical pedigrees.Nevertheless, the authenticity conveyed by the pages of this psychically transmitted work extended to a Reincarnational passage in which Jesus, after listening to a group of youthful singers and musicians in Lahore, makes the following comment

'These people are not young.A thousand years would not suffice to give them such divine expressiveness, and such purity of voice and touch.Ten thousand years ago these people mastered harmony.In days of old they trod the busy thoroughfares of life, and caught the melody of birds, and played on harps of perfect form.And they have come again to learn still other lessons' (Chapter 37:13-15)

The Protestant & Roman Catholic Churches - Today

Today's leadership of the Protestant and Roman Catholic churces, although by no means eager to consider Reincarnational belief for Christian adoption, must be well aware of the growing empathy it generates in Ecclesiastical Circles Perhaps this warmingtrend harks back to the conversion of the Reverend William Alger in the second half of the last century.An energetic Unitarian minister who devoted half his lifetime to a work on immorality called ' A Critical History of he Doctrine of a Future Life, Alger dismissed reincarnation as a plausible delusion in the book's first edition, published in 1860.But after futher concentrated study he was so overpowered by the 'peerless sublimiity ' of the doctrine that he gave rebirth his heartiest endorsement in the final edition - published in 1878.More recently, a number of leading clerics have spoken out in favor of Reincarantion.In a 1957 lecture titled The Case For Reincarnation, Dr.Leslie Weatherhead, a former president of the Methodist Conference of Great Britain declared:

The Intelligent Christian

The intelligent Christian asks not only that life should be just, but that it shall make sense.Does the idea of Reincarnation help here ? Does it not make sense that if one fails to pass those examinations in life which can only be taken while one dwell in a physical body, shall one not have to come back and take them again?

A 1979 survey by the University of Surey sociology department on attitudes among Britain's Roman Catholics reported that an astonishing 27% of Catholics believe in Rebirth. An indication of the seriousness with which the establishment viewed this resurgence of the old heresy was the subsequent publication by the London-based Catholic Truth Society of a pamphlet titled simply 'Reincarnation' by Father Joseph Crehan.He states 'our faith has no room for theories or Reincarnation.Nor it must be said, has the faith of fundamentalist Christians who,according to a Sept.1982, editorial in the American magazine Reincarnation Report, are using the same age-old manipulative fear-guilt-superstition formula to control the masses and perpetuate their own power

The battlements of the old guard will always be vigorously defended.But there's no denying the undercurrent of partiality for Reincarnation that could, unless confronted sympathetically, create quite a disruption in the halls of conformity

Pascal Kaplan - Californian Theology Professor

Californian Theology Professor Dr. Pascal Kaplan, who in 1972 was refused permission to write his Harvard Doctoral dissertation on Rebirth because, in the words of his rejecter, 'no-one connected with Theology in the West since the 3rd century has taken Reincarnation seriously' - is fascinated by the recent surge of Reincarnation interest

Threre is a Growing Network of those who accepts - Reincarnation

He points out that there is a growing network of priests,nuns and ministers who, in accepting Reincarnation, believe that an understanding of Rebirth 'provides a framework for a deeper, truer understanding of their religion and of the essence of Christian Spirituality

The Lost Chord awaits its Rehabilitation

According to Kaplan, many advocates play 'very significant' roles within the church hierarchy.It may be just a matter of time before one of these individuals argues his or her position too loudly to be ignored by the establishment church, thus precipitating the public airing this bottled-up issue has long demanded.Meanwhile, the lost chord awaits its rehabilitation in the symphony of the ages

info source:

The Case for Reincarnation - Joe Fisher

Preface by The Dalai Lama