Though in the west today, we consider reincarnation an Eastern philosophical and theological issue, it has not ever been thus.
"And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man who was blind from his mother's womb. And his disciples asked him, saying, 'Teacher, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?'"
John 9:1-2 – The point being that since the man was blind since the womb, he could not have committed any crime in this life – implicitly reincarnation.
"When Jesus came into the country of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples saying, 'What do men say concerning me, that I am merely a son of man?' They said, 'There are some who say John the Baptist, others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah, or one of the prophets."
Matthew
Though strictly speaking this is re-animation, the distinction is an extremely small one. The underlying principle is that spirit control the body; not the body controlling the spirit.
Lazarus, who having died comes back to life again. Without relating the whole story, the reference ends at “And he that was dead came forth” John
Prior to 553, a few groups, including some Origenists, had been quite happily putting a Christina façade over a religion that resembled Hinduism and very closely Platonism; allowing both class structures and re-incarnation. However, one woman got in the way of this potential link up. Her name was Theodora. She was wife of Emperor Justinian.
Theodora could not stand the various rumours that abounded that she might come back as some lower animal in the next life because of her misdeeds and murders. Perhaps not surprisingly as she had started out pretty lowly in that life she sought to avoid going down any notches on the social ladder. Thus she wanted Christianity changed and those who spoke of reincarnation declared heretics.
Using her influence with Justinian, she had doctrine changed in order to prevent any further links with Karma. By the Fifth Ecumenical Council 553, the soul was deemed to be part of the body, which only came into existence once the foetus had been conceived.
One can only wonder what people presented with this doctrine might have thought happened to their souls once the body died, with this change to church philosophy. Anyone who did not abide by this doctrine was considered a heretic and would die as such.
a) continues to inform the abortion debate without people being aware of it.
b) prevented a more unified approach with the East and a faster exchange of information between our cultures.
c) causes considerable muddiness of thinking surrounding issues of the life force in human beings and where it comes from.
(my thanks to for the picture of Yin Yang energies. http://www.healingtherapies.info/images/Yin__Yang.gif)
10 comments:
Wow, that's rather interesting.... I never realised that reincarnation was a part of Christianity!
But then again, about the quote from John 9:1-2 - don't you think that Jesus might have been implying that no sin had been committed at all, and that the man was just born that way because he was?
No time to talk (exam! Ah!) but I agree with A and B but not with C. No term to argue properly but this is the basis: no soul, neither A nor b are a problem.
Dantares. (in minibite form.)
Autumn Blake, on the subject of the Gospel of John specifically, if Reincarnation was such a no no, why does Christ explicitly not say that is wrong here? This would have been an ideal opportunity. A rather extreme position on the Gospel is that it may have been written as a rebuttal to the Gosple of Thomas, for more on that see Elaine Pagels, or perhaps a future blog.
More generally, if reincarnation were not part of the ideas of Christ's philosophy, it would have been important for him to say so, as reincarnation was an idea knocking about in the kind of Jewish mystical circles with which he would have talked. For example, the Jewish tradition has the author Zohar, who wrote in the 1st century about reincarnation.
In the view of Bart. D. Ehrman Jesus was probably a Jewish apocolypticist: a person who believed the world would end any day soon. For this reason, talk of reincarnation during his life time would have been at most side show; since the end of days was going to happen very soon - possibly today.
Regarding reincarnation in Christianity before the 4th century, it is anachronism to see the naissant mystical sects in of the 1st and 2nd centuries as a basically unified Christian body or Jewish body. A more accurate picture would be to imagine a melting with all sorts of weird and wonderful doctrines floating about. Consider for example the 4 groups, at least, that made up Jews in the Holy land during the time of Christ: Pharisees, Sadducees., Essenes and the Apocolyptacists. Within each of these broad camps there were then radical trains of thought from small subgroups.
Some of these subgroups toyed with Eastern ideas. The Christians who were most like Eastern people sometimes were called Gnostics. To a modern Western reading many of the Gnostics can sound distinctly Buddist but with a Christian point of reference as well.
To briefly answer Mr. Dantares, C is a problem when talking within Christian philosophy, since it requires one to make some very hard, if not impossible, conceptions. Specifically, one has to allow for a spiritual world that triumphs over the material, but, which requires the material world to come into being. In this point of Doctrine, furthermore, Christianity is rather out of line with other world religions. Owing to its cultural dominance in the West, however, these terms are still the ones many people default to.
So, for someone who does not believe in the soul, C is a matter of historical interest only; it does not stop it being very much present for many people - not all of them aware of where the idea comes from: Theodora.
NB: as this post has generate more interest than I expected, I may do one on something in this comment.
I've heard about this too, although only briefly. Some believe that the slight Indian influence on the Near East via the Greeks may have led to certain Buddhist and Hindu ideas catching on in the area, and certainly Buddhists believe in rebirth. Was reincarnation a popular idea in Greek, Roman and Middle Eastern paganism?
Ah! interesting. I have taken this is quite different terms than what you have. I understand muddy thinking around the matter to imply incomplete understanding or mistaken understanding - in short a lack of clarity. I agree with that. Its even harder to agree with something if you are actually unsure what "it" is.
Being an atheist however turns this on its head. That understood doctrine has been changed at the flip of a womans vanity switch proves rather neatly that it is in my understanding neither mystical or religious. It is therefore an illuminating statement - it to an extant clarifies part of my reasons for atheism.
A and B are easy to accept on the problem of cultural reasoning, which I agree with you analysis of.
Dantares.
There are no indications of Babylonian beliefs in reincarnation.
The Sethians and followers of the Gnostic Church of Valentinus, two of the earliest Christian sects, were persecuted by the Romans for believing in reincarnation. Caesar explained the contempt for death of the Celtic warriors by their belief that their soul wouldn’t die, but would return in another body (Passian 1985).
The Greek did believe in reincarnation and their views come from the Orphic mysteries -which like the classical Indian philosophy teach the idea of the wheel of birth and death-, and the Pythagoreans. Pythagoras recalled his past lifes; two of them were Aethalides and Euphorbus, who fought at Troy.
Both Socrates and Plato taught reincarnation under Orphic and Pythagorean influence; Aristotle did so in his early work Eudemus.
In the last century before Christ, Stoic and Epicurean views were the predominant doctrines; Cicero, converting from agnosticism to Platonism, later re-embraced reincarnation, seeing life as a punishment for sins in past lifes. The legendary Apollonius of Tyana learned the doctrine from Iarchas in Kashmir.
Finally, two other significant characters related to classical belief in reincarnation are Plutarch and Plotinus (204-270), the architect of a Neoplatonism that resembles Christian ideas, who said: 'Souls have free choice. They pass through different existences. What we come across today is the result of what we did yesterday. This is the law of development, the only law that explains divine providence'. According to him, lost and imprisoned in the sensual limitations of physical existence we tend to pursue lower desires and to wield power; however, in doing so, we gain experience and develop talents we can only develop in physical existence, eventually returning to our original state but now with all the experience and knowledge we acquired while incarnated.
Thank you Miss Moto! Given the time limitations I am working under at the moment, you answered Tozznok much better than I would have been able to have done.
I don’t know much about Middle Eastern Paganism in the Roman Empire – or whatever religions were in place at that time - but I will endeavour to find out post exams.
To answer Dantares, you have demonstrated the phenomenon of which many scientists (including Psychologists) which is perhaps through the baby out with the bath water. Although one of doctrine, listed above is clearly very dubious in its provenance and causes hardship. This does not mean, however, that there are not considerable advantages for believers in some kind of mystical experience and followers of religions. To name a few of them:
People interested in spirituality or religion or both live longer than non-believers on average. (see Argyle 1997 Psychology of Happiness)
Are better able to handle crises because, on personality scales at least, they come up as more secure than the average non-believer. (Argyle 1997) again, and probably Seligman (2003)
May very possibly reduce prejudice. A popular misconception is that religion causes prejudice, whereas, on the whole there is little evidence to support this compared with the evidence that prejudiced and isolated people may seek out a particular sect that caters for their needs. (Cinnerella, 1997 - I think)
Equally many religions, preach tolerance and the absence of killing, which makes it hard, though not impossible, for groups to sound convincing when they attack others. Soviet Russia by contrast, was a secular society and we all know what happened there.
To get to the point again, a disagreement over a point of doctrine should not, by itself, render a spiritual or religious outlook null and void. Dare I invite to list some of your objections to religion?
Thanks for the replies there, I was quite curious. I certainly agree with your statement that secular societies are not always the most egalitarian ones in which to live. If a nation has secularism thrust upon them, like the USSR or Albania did, then a fundamental liberty, that of freedom of religion, has been negated. Secular states like the United States, which is certainly not a secular society, are usually fine though. Atheists do occasionally forget what their problem with religion was in the first place, and start to do exactly the same things that they reacted against. The problem with the USSR was that the Communists started to behave like a religion at its most paranoid, by purging the heretical - i.e. anyone not loyal to Communism (or just not loyal to Stalin). No ideology justifies such a thing.
Also, do you mind if I link to your blog on mine, Moto Fitzroi?
Please do link to my blog. I will return the compliment next time I do a post.
On the subject of secular states, the thought that occurs that really you are saying that as long as it is by popular consent its ok. That seems reasonable enough; though I will also say that that is quite a western view of how states should be organised, since it implicitly assumes that people are in a position to give a reasonable answer. That may not be the case in all parts of the world today. Still, a pretty good starting point I think.
I can't help wondering if the need for meaning is a human drive: usually provided by religion but which may take other forms. Your comments about Stalinist Russia resembling religions at their worst made me rather think that perhaps the drive towards to a body which transcends every day life and provides a 'feeling' that whatever project a person is engaged in, it is part of larger process. Certainly, its absence seems to reduce the well being people without. In addition among many materialists their views become a religion in itself; requiring them to attempt regular evangelism of the superstitious - it sounds rather like the Protestant reformation does n't it?
Truly secular states IE states which have a moral system that is not based an inheritance from another religions seem very rare - I am not sure I can think of any at all. Certainly the USA and UK are often called secular states, but really their values are essential that of a Christian heritage. I wonder if the future will hold a privately spiritual moral system, rather than a secular or religious state.
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