I didn't believe in reincarnation when I first heard about it.  I wondered how people could believe in it in this modern, industrial, scientific age.  The more that I read about it, however, the more evidence I found for it.  I now believe in reincarnation because the evidence and the reasons for it are so great.  I would like to share some of this evidence and some of these reasons with you.

     First, the religious evidence.  Today's Christians don't believe in reincarnation because it is not in the Bible.  They don't know, however, that some early Christians believed in reincarnation and that references to reincarnation were removed from the Bible.

     According to St. Jerome, "the transmigrations (reincarnation) of souls was taught for a long time among the early Christians as an esoteric and traditional doctrine which was to be divulged to only a small number of the elect."1  The elect included some of the early Church Fathers.  St. Gregory of Nyssa believed that "it is absolutely necessary that the soul should
be healed and purified, and that if it does not take place during its life on earth, it must be accomplished in future lives".2  St. Clement of Alexandria also held the belief, but perhaps the  person most associated with the principle of reincaranation was his pupil, Origen.

     "The Encyclopedia Britannica states that Origen was 'the most prominent of all the Church Fathers with the possible exception of Augustine', while St. Jerome at one time considered him as 'the greatest teacher of the Church after the apostles'.  St. Gregory of Nyssa called him 'the prince of Christian learning in the third century.' "3    Indeed, Origen's scriptural expertise was unequaled.  In his writing, Origen comments on every book, almost every word, of scripture.  First and foremost a Christian philosopher, Origen synthesized his scriptural analyses and was the first to form a system of Christian doctrine.  And his system includes the doctrine of reincarnation.  In his book, On First Principles, one finds expression of his
belief in reincarnation and the law of karma:  "Every soul . . . comes into this world strengthened by the victories or weakened by the defeats of its previous life . . . Its work in this world determines its place in the world (on earth) which is to follow this . . .".

     Though Origen was considered to be one of the most prominent of all the Church Fathers, there were those in the Church who did not believe in the doctrine of reincarnation, and after Origen's death they vehemently attacked his doctrines creating a controversy which was not officially settled until the Fifth Ecumenical Council of Constantinople in 553 A.D, more than a century and a half later.  The Council supposedly decided against Origen and declared the doctrine of pre-existence (and, by implication, reincarnation) to be heretical.  I say "supposedly"   because there is some question about whether Origen was actually condemned.  Ecclesiastical historians of all centuries have been divided on this clouded issue.

1. The Kabbalah, Adolph Franck, 1967, p. 133
2. Reincarnation, an East-West Anthology, Head and Cranston, 1967, p. 36
3. ibid, p. 35
 
 

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