Bunk or Debunk - Early Christian Reincarnation cover-up

[Cybernetic_Jazz]

FYI,

I'm going to be digging into this one today. Have about a week before my next job starts and at least one of the orders I've joined blithely declares, often, that prior to the Second Council of Constantinople in 553 AD. I won't say the claim bothers me, just that I've wanted to fact-check this myself from the standpoint that the bible doesn't easily edify this and certain quotes from some of the supposed early church father proponents don't bode well for the argument (unless they've been cherry-picked something awful). Regardless of whether a claim edifies my current beliefs or not I hate taking anything on credulity or emotive preference, especially something as blunt as history and even more so something claimed to be so pervasive that no Emperor nor Pope could have stamped out all of it's footprints nor swabbed up all of it's fingerprints and DNA.

The question and parameters: Was there a mainstream tenet of reincarnation within Christianity (ie. non-Gnostic) that was wiped away by certain ecumenical councils? Status quo answer to this by and large is no. Goal: either uphold or overturn status quo.

If anyone wants to add links to this thread feel free - either in support of the notion or against the notion of early Christianity and reincarnation. I'll try to see what I can find in any particular direction that has proper meat on it and post that as I go.

[Cybernetic_Jazz]

I had the chance to sit down and really familiarize myself with:

The Fifth Ecumenical Council or 2nd Council of Constantinople (553 AD)

and

The Eighth Ecumenical Council or 4th Council of Constantinople (869 AD)


Both were really a fascinating read for their own reasons. In the first case the story revolving around Constantinople and Justinian I as well as his wife Theodorus. This was a little over a century after the Arian conflict had been dealt with and now there were four or five major heresies to take it's place - resurgence of Origenism, Nestorianism, Monophysitism, Pelagianism, and Apollinarianism. The previous two Emperors of Constantinople including Zeno had Monophysitist leanings (all of these were debating how much of Christ was human vs. divine - this argues all divine not human) and as well Theodorus was stridently Monophysitite. From the outlook of the Fifth Ecumenical Council (553) it was an issue mostly revolving around the key note of the 'Three Chapters' which were centrally an attempt to anathematize the writings of three famous Nestorians - Theodore of Mopsuestia, Ibas, and Theodoretus. I didn't find a copy of The Three Chapters but I'll keep looking.

Overall it seemed like Justinian I did uphold the church but mostly to keep the Vatican on a string. From reading various sources on him and Theodorus it seemed like they desired to reconstitute Rome from Constantinople and their real concern was really religious disunity and the effect that it had on empire building and solidarity with the people (or at least in Justinian's case) with perhaps some acquired religious interest by Justinian for gloss. The Fifth Ecumenical Council was also very one-sided. He'd controlled the situation and even was coercing the Pope to essentially revoke the turnout of the decision of the Council of Chalcedon of 451, Rome and the western bishops did not want to go along with that, and in the proceedings Justinian oversaw the whole thing with most of his bishops in attendance but only six from the districts of Rome. Apparently he did something to the effect of vote-by-mail for the Vatican, he was able to do this largely because Constantinople was the seat of power at that time and Rome needed their protection or at least non-existent protection from them (which would no longer be the case in the eighth ecumenical council).

Where people try to claim that reincarnation was hammered down at the 2nd Council of Constantinople it seems like the issue is more about an alleged condemnation of Origen and his doctrines that occurred there. One of the most interesting things however about how the Council came together was that there were two prolific Origenists by the names of Domitian (not to be confused with the Roman Emperor) and Theodore Askidas. Part of the issue was that there was a nasty rivalry between the Origenists and the Nestorianists. Theodore Askidas actually had a direct hand in persuading Justinian I to have a council around The Three Chapters. It's noted also that Origen had died in good standing with the church and the post-mortem excommunication or anathematizing of someone who had died in good standing with the church supposedly hadn't been dealt with before (or at least at that level).

I don't know if Origenism was actually condemned there, just from what I'm reading it sounds like that's been more of a speculation. Justinian not unsuprisingly died an Apollinarianist, passed away just before he could get legislation finished to weave Apollinarianism into Eastern Orthodoxy. Regardless, with respect to Origen, his reincarnation-like import was not a result of a mainstream exoteric belief in 2nd, 3rd, or 4th century Christianity in metempsychosis but rather it was a product of his philosophical musings on Plato, Socrates, and the like. It seems like any time I see that come up in the research it's almost always either Gnosticism or Neoplatonism, the first really just being a creole of the second.


I won't go on too far about the Fourth Ecumenical Council (869) but to just leave it with this:

For some perspective this was roughly 70 years after Charlemaign and his dynasty had been accepted as the protectors of Rome and from that sense Rome was finding more independence from Constantinople. Michael III of Constantinople was taking opposition from the regional church patriarch Ignatius. He deposed Ignatius and replaced him with Photios who was a very learned nobleman but wasn't a priest. They made him patriarch and assigned him several other titles within a week, a Vatican envoy came and saw him 'well-ensconced' went back and told Pope Nicholas I what had happened only to find out that they were suppose to put Ignatius back in. Photios was thrown out in 867, anathematized by Ignatius in 869, and reinstated as patriarch in 877 after which he served several years until more intrigue posited another Emperor not aligned with the forces that had put him in power both times. The only thing here that some people have claimed, that there was an issue - proposed by Photios - of man having two souls (a higher or internal vs. a lower and one-life, something like astral/etheric shells) was anathematized. What's still unclear to me is a) Was this Photios's teaching? b) If so where did he get it? If not, who believed it at the time? Seems like there's one Anthroposophist outspoken on this issue but I'd rather triangulate what he's saying to some other information before asserting that he or Steiner are right on it.


Overall reading this stuff today just helped serve as a reminder of what a cluster-wipe organized religion was early on and how the political mud-slinging was filled with murder, assassination, extortion, but also constant playing of games with excommunications, anathematizing, and half the time the last guy to be excommunicated might be a archbishop or cardinal as soon as whoever excommunicated him came back to power or whenever the provincial ruler was getting annoyed by the church he'd bring the exiles back to stir up trouble.

Regardless - so far I'm mostly finding what I thought I would; ie. no exoteric reincarnation in Christianity.

[Nepthys]

While not as deeply researched as it appears you're becoming, I do know a few tidbits that might help give some weight to the "there was no exoteric belief in reincarnation in the Early Church" theory.

Firstly, you mention the question of post-mortem anathematization of Origen at the Fifth Ecumenical Council. I cannot recall the date, but the reason Origen died in full communion with the Church is because a) his heretical beliefs had already been anathematized, and b) he had renounced any and all belief in them and returned to preaching the orthodox version of Christianity at the time. Therefore, it wasn't hard for the Fifth Ecumenical Council to denounce him again simply because it had already been done. (Similarly, it should really come as no shock when the Catholic Church today says "evolution is cool, yo" since they've been saying it since the 1890's, only nobody seems to remember that)

Secondly (and this is my understanding of it from a purely anthropological/historical perspective), one of the big issues in the earliest years of the Church (post Apostolic Age, of course) for which we have records was this notion of "salvation"--how are you saved, what must you believe to be saved, etc. etc. etc. These questions are the very reason a Christian canon came into being and why the Apostle's Creed, Athanasian Creed, and Nicene Creed (both with and without the filioque) exist. It was because, for early Christians, all of their questions of salvation were presupposed upon the assumption that you had one soul and one shot at this whole "being a good person" thing. If there was an exoteric belief in reincarnation in the early Church, the themes of salvation, the messianic mission, concepts of atonement and original sin from the Jewish Rabbinical Tradition, etc. would not exist. There would be more cyclical themes, salvation would hinge more on ritual piety rather than practical piety (read St. Francis, St. Augustine, and St. Thomas Aquinas for some nice rundowns on ritual vs. practical piety), and cosmologically Christianity would probably look a lot more like Hinduism or Buddhism. The very nature of Christian salvation theology hinges on a single incarnation of the soul. Islamic cosmology likewise hinges on this same single incarnation, which is why they are able to believe Christ was a great prophet but not the son of God, therefore Muhammad is just another prophet, not another incarnation.

Like I said, this is not nearly as well researched as your stuff is going to be. My second paragraph stems from doing a lot of research into the early Gnostics and the battles they faced and the questions they were asking. Even the Gnostics, who (with a BIIIIIIIIIIIIG stretch and a leap of faith) could be argued to support some sort of reincarnation held a lot of similar beliefs as orthodox Christians of the time, and these beliefs (especially amongst the Valentinian Gnostics) were entirely presupposed on the single incarnation of the soul. Where you get the weird Gnostic stuff is when the presuppositions shift, but their dodgy cosmology is probably why Valentinian Gnostics came to dominate the historical record and the dodgy guys didn't.

[Cybernetic_Jazz]

I tend to think that it's the best they could summon up from putting Christ in context with Judaism as it was taught as well as in the context of being Yahweh's son (and for what it's worth there was plenty of reason for them to see it that way as so much was done to fulfill old testament prophecy, Jesus himself said no shortage of things to edify the connection). At the same time I don't think that was the best way an understanding could ever be assembled or that which clearly held back - ie. the milk for babes, meat for men, or the speaking in parables - simply left off at the slightly deeper explanation given in the bible because even that seems awfully shallow. As being fully man but also fully God I would trust that whatever he said - no matter how simple it seems - was only the tip of the iceberg at surface layer. Like any time there's an attempt to hold a great deal of esoteric information in exoteric speech, so many of his teachings seem to be under a remarkable amount of compression. If that weren't the case he'd quite often have partaken in a combination of repeating himself and made declaration of the obvious in what was already in Judaic law - the essence of God itself coming down to highlight the obvious, even if truly hidden by overfamiliarity, with no further extrapolation doesn't really sit well with the events.

It's not to say that his teachings can't be used in a nominal exoteric way, just that any of them tunnel inward on higher and higher archs - one of the favorite of many occultists being the parable of the prodigal son as our reincarnational foray into matter. Edward Reaugh Smith's Burning Bush seemed to touch base on a lot of what RS and Anthroposophy liked to refer to as the esoteric 'Fifth Gospel' which is really just a deciphering of that higher arc information believed to be held in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. A couple things I have some difficulty on with Burning Bush in comparing to the bible - interpreting Elijah the Tishbite as a floating spirit of prophecy that inhabited different people at different times doesn't sit easily with a reading of Kings, similarly it's out on a limb for the rarity of women in the Essene sect for there to have been two couples, two Jesuses, etc. - not impossible but while the Solomon-Jesus/Nathan-Jesus theory seemed like as good a shot as any for attempting to bridge some colossal disparities between Matthew and Luke in nativity and genealogy, positing Christianity as an Essene production is a tough one to take at face values without at least a little more info about who they were or whether they were in fact something in line of depth with the Egyptian mystries and could have, by their volition and planning, pulled off a collaboration with the cosmic consciousness in embodying a being who was fully higher-self.

In that case everything he said about being the son of God and everything he said about being the true vine would be as true as ever but placed in that context it would offer a very different understanding of him being the only way, truth, and light (ie. not salvation/perdition on technicality of creed) and as well the salvation he came to offer wouldn't be eradicated, nullified, or made weak by such a thing coming up as a blunt fact of reincarnation because the context of salvation's worth would be far less brittle. Then again, to say it in the other direction - when one has to worry about a God who gave satan such carte blanch with creation to fabricate and plant dinosaur bones, to alter matter to make a 6,000 year old world look like it's between 4.5 and 6 billion years old, to give satan the ability to deceive people of all stripes with faulty near death experiences or faulty apparitions of a deified Mary, that would be a God who heaped the entire bowl of wrath on his son, of which 90 to 95% of it would be known to be redundant and hence the overwhelming bulk of Christ's suffering on the cross would have been purposeless. So, in that analysis to consider which of these two routes sounds more like it blasphemes the perfect love and justice of God as well as the message of Christ - I'd have to argue it's the 'God of entrapment' so many fundamentalists today follow who they believe per 2 Thessalonians 2:11 will throw as many people as possible on a slip-n-slide to hell for the sake of fulfilling a seven-year tribulation. It's also why I have an increasingly amillenial take on the Apocalypse of John.