I’ve had people tell me that in the early years of the church they taught and believed in reincarnation. I have not found any evidence that this is true. Is there any truth to it?
The simple answer is, no. The Church has never taught or believed in reincarnation, and that was never an acceptable belief in Judaism, either.
Of course, that doesn’t mean there haven’t been numerous Christians and Jews who believed in such things. People have long been comfortable mixing and matching contrary beliefs from different religions. So, if Christian missionaries taught their beliefs to a pagan race that DID believe in reincarnation, well, some of those pagans may well have retained many of their old beliefs, even if they had embraced Christianity.
The same hold for ancient Jews. Paganism is a mindset, one that’s hard to wipe out. In the Old Testament, we read constantly about resurgences of pagan practices, practices that prophets like Elijah and kings like Josiah were constantly trying to snuff out.
Hence, when Jesus asks his followers “Who do people say I am,” they tell him, “Some say you are Elijah, some say Moses or one of the prophets.” JESUS didn’t tell anyone that reincarnation was real, but reading between the lines, you can tell that more than a few Jews of Christ’s time DID think he was the reincarnation of some prophet.
Others may have better info, but IIRC, I think the Templars in southern France were also reincarnation-friendly. They were at odds with THE Church in many ways and were eventually crushed, but that’s a pretty significant subset of Christianity.
Anthroposophists believe in re-incarnation.
Maybe your sources mistake the belief that people will get physical bodies after the Judgment with the belief in reincarnation? They’re completely different animals.
Liberal Catholic Church. They’re sort of a hippie sect.
Perhaps you mean the Cathars.
Paganism is a mindset? “Pagan” means, in its narrowist sense, non-Judeo-Christian-Islamic, and, in its broadest sense, non-Christian. To the extent that it corresponds to “mindsets”, it encompasses a lot of different mindsets. So does Christianity. A fundamental division of the world into Pagan and non-Pagan is a Christian-centric point of view. A Buddhist might say “<somewhat derogatory term for non-Buddhism> is a mindset.”
The mindset of early Israelite religion, however purely Yahwistic, appears to be quite similar to that of the surrounding cults. It resembled them much more than it resembles modern Judeo-Christianity (sacrificed any animals lately?).
The “wipe out” remark also bothered me. I’m not sure how you meant it, but if I had posted “Chritianity is a mindset, one that’s hard to wipe out”, I would expect to hear complaints.
(Note: I am not a neo-pagan; far from it.)
Well, Christianity IS a mindset, even if it’s also the religion I practice.
But I’ll be cooperative- if you don’t like the way I phrased things, let’s try another approach.
The beliefs we’re raised with, the beliefs we’ve gotten used to, are VERY hard to shed, sometimes. If you’ve been raised as a pagan, you probably believe in multiple gods and goddesses, and you’re likely to believe in reincarnation.
Along comes an army of colonizers and Christian missionaries, who teach you all about their faith. You don’t fully follow what they’re teaching, but you get a few basics: Jehovah is the big god. He sems to correspond to Zeus/Odin/Crom/Whoever-was-the-big-god-in-your-old-religion. You figure Mary is like the consort goddess (Hera, Freya, whoever).
Get the idea? A pagan doesn’t stop THINKING like a pagan just because he’s embraced (or been forced to embrace) the new religion the missionaries have taught him. He starts to interpret Christianity in pagan terms. He tries to fit jesus, Mary and Jehovah into his pre-existing pantheon.
He may start to think of the Christian saints the way he thinks of minor gods and goddesses. and he may carry on with older rituals and superstitions, but try to put a Christian gloss on them.
Hence, a newly Christianized pagan may still carry on with all kinds of beliefs and practices that are most definitely NOT compatible with Christianity. And if nobody sets him straight? He may teach his kids the same mish-mash of Christianity and paganism, and such practices may even come to represent a tradition. His supposedly Christian descendants may keep on practicing astrology or believing in reincarnation.
The idea of Christmas in late December and the Christmas tree came from beliefs people had before they were Christian. It’s a carry over from the winter solstice ceremonies.
Early Christians qua Christians might not have precisely believed in reincarnation, but there’s some sense in which Old Testament passages about Elijah are interpreted as being about John the Baptist.
Ah yes, that’s what I was thinking of.
Imho, technically yes. What is heaven other than a form of rebirth?
The Rapture should also count.
Superficially similar, but totally different. Proper reincarnation is that you (your soul) become someone else.
On a related note, isn’t the whole “you go to heave when you die” one of those christian memes that has no bearing in the bible? The order is you die > you rot in the ground (just like every atheist imagines) > you are resurrected. Saying you go to heaven immediately is more of an abstraction, considering you don’t feel the years pass as you rot in the ground. This may be where the ‘early church’ vs today’s common perception differ.
The incarnation part specifically refers to existence “in the flesh” (as in carnal, or carne (=meat in Spanish)).
There is a passage in the NT where Jesus mentions seeing some one under a BO Tree, I remember some one telling me He was referring to Buddah who had some vision under a Bo tree, but have never checked the passage so do not know where they got the idea that it was Buddah in a different life. I didn’t understand it to mean that!
That was Nathaniel. You’ll find the passage very early in the Gospel of John.
Nathaniel was NOT the Buddha. He was a wisecracking Jew.
The origin of the belief that Christians supposedly believed in reincarnation, but that it was suppressed, is a misunderstanding of the ideas of Origen, a 3rd century theologian. He believed in the pre-existence of souls in heaven, whereas the Church believed souls were created on earth during conception. This is a idea similar to the Mormon Church’s spirit children. He actually wrote against the transmigration of the soul, which is similar to reincarnation, but without the memories and no end.
Not true. I’d say that most Orthodox Jews today believe in gilgul, reincarnation.
The idea of gilgul really took hold with the kabbalist movement in the 1600’s. Transmigration was an essential part of the doctrine- just just being reborn as a person, but even reincarnation into plants, animals, and inanimate objects (although the latter three were a type of punishment). Even before then, mystical works talked about rebirth, although it wasn’t as widespread.
Wait, what? Most Orthodox jews believe in Buddhist-style reincarnation?