Theos-Talk Archives (July 2002 Message tt00294)

July 31 2002

Reincarnation and Early Christianity
Origen and the Church Anathemas (Tertullian)

Dear C and Friends:

The Church Anathemas were hurled against the teachings of
Origen, an early Bishop of Alexandria, who was also a
Neo-Platonist and a friend of Hypatia, (on the subject of
pre-existence of the human Soul.)

REFERENCES:

[ ORIGEN :

ISIS UNVEILED II 334, I 12, 26, 316-7, II 13, 238,
285,
Judge Articles : I 78, 87-1
H P B Articles : II 153-4, 156-8, 288; III 226-7 ]
SECRET DOCTRINE I 445-6
THEOSOPHY Magazine, Vol. 25, pp. 529-35 (Article on the
Anathemas, Origen)

[ PRE-EXISTENCE:

ISIS UNVEILED I xiii-iv, 170, 251, 316-7, 345, 420; II
280

[ METEMPSYCHOSIS / REINCARNATION:

ISIS UNVEILED I xxxvi-vii, 8, 12, 276-7, 289-90, 291, 346,
II 279, 286
H P B Articles: I 27, 29, 346, II 253-4, 275 ]

[ Neo-Platonists :

ISIS UNVEILED I 33, 262, 407, 436, II 41, 84, 253-4
(doomed)
H P B Articles : 41, 50, 426; II 82, 324, III 99, 212-4,
226-7 ]

[HYPATIA:

ISIS UNVEILED II 28, 53-4, 98, 249, 252-3, ]



I hope these references will help, they make very
interesting reading.

If one goes through the references to Church, Christianity,
Jesus, Christ, Christos, Chrestos, Gnostics, Neo-Platonists
in the INDEX to ISIS UNVEILED one gets a pretty good picture
of how the R C Church changes and embedded in the
Scriptures, eliminating those aspects that might free the
minds of the "Christians" and installing in their stead (in
the many devotees whom they considered unable to think)
"faith," "belief," ignorance, and fear. Only the fearless
were able to shake this yoke.

The early Gnostics desired to retain the pure teachings of
Jesus. The Church already organized to a obscure and
shackle the minds of their members, resisted and then
destroyed. FREEDOM OF THOUGHT is the antithesis of
Churchianity. If Churchianity were true then why should
they fear such a freedom ? THEOSOPHY, per contra invites
checking, testing, criticizing, and research in a free and
independent manner.

Best wishes,

Dallas

=================

-----Original Message-----
From: c
Sent:	Tuesday, July 30, 2002 9:05 PM
To:
Subject:	[Christianity -- Anathemas vs. Origen

Wasn't reincarnation something that the church made
anathema? Is it not
a well known fact, that the church selectively eradicated
what it
didn't like from Christian doctrine as professed by some?
[please
correct me if I am incorrect on any of this].

Even though they got rid of most references, the writers of
the sacred
texts somehow knew that the wise would read between the
lines, and still
be able to recognize the doctrines of reincarnation and the
soul's
pre-existence.

Reincarnation in the Old testament, as per WQJ:

"These demonstrations hold, as do the traditions of the old
Jews, that
the soul of Adam reincarnated in David, and that on account
of the sin
of David against Uriah it will have to come again in the
expected
Messiah. And out of the three letters ADM, being the name of
the first
man, the Talmudists always made the names Adam, David and
Messiah. Hence
this in the Old Testament: "And they will serve Jhvh their
God and David
their king whom I shall reawaken for them." That is, David
reincarnates
again for the people. Taking the judgment of God on Adam
"for dust thou
art and unto dust thou shalt return," the Hebrew
interpreters said that
since Adam had sinned it was necessary for him to
reincarnate on earth
in order to make good the evil committed in his first
existence; so he
comes as David, and later is to come as Messiah. The same
doctrine was
always applied by the Jews to Moses, Seth, and Abel, the
latter spelt
Habel. Habel was killed by Cain, and then to supply the loss
the Lord
gave Seth to Adam; he died, and later on Moses is his
reincarnation as
the guide of the people, and Seth was said by Adam to be the
reincarnation of Habel. Cain died and reincarnated as
Yethrokorah, who
died, the soul waiting till the time when Habel came back as
Moses and
then incarnated as the Egyptian who was killed by Moses; so
in this case
Habel comes back as Moses, meets Cain in the person of the
Egyptian, and
kills the latter. Similarly it was held that Bileam, Laban,
and Nabal
were reincarnations of the one soul or individuality. And of
Job it was
said that he was the same person once known as Thara, the
father of
Abraham; by which they explained the verse of Job (ix, 21),
"Though I
were perfect, yet would I not know my own soul," to mean
that he would
not recognize himself as Thara.

All this is to be had in mind in reading Jeremiah, "Before I
formed thee
in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest out of the
womb I
sanctified thee"; or in Romans ix, v, 11, 13, after telling
that Jacob
and Esau being not yet born, "Jacob have I loved and Esau
have I hated";
or the ideas of the people that "Elias was yet to first
come"; or that
some of the prophets were there in Jesus or John; or when
Jesus asked
the disciples "Whom do men think that I am?" There cannot be
the
slightest doubt, then, that among the Jews for ages and down
to the time
of Jesus the ideas above outlined prevailed universally."

"Let us now come to the New Testament.

St. Matthew relates in the eleventh chapter the talk of
Jesus on the
subject of John, who is declared by him to be the greatest
of all,
ending in the 14th verse, thus:

And if ye will receive it, this is Elias which was for to
come.

Here he took the doctrine for granted, and the "if" referred
not to any
possible doubts on that, but simply as to whether they would
accept his
designation of John as Elias. In the 17th chapter he once
more takes up
the subject thus:

10. And his disciples asked him saying, Why, then, say the
scribes that
Elias must first come? And Jesus answered and said unto
them; Elias
truly shall first come and restore all things. But I say
unto you that
Elias is come already, and they knew him not but have done
to him
whatsoever they listed. Likewise shall also the Son of Man
suffer of
them. Then the disciples understood that he spake unto them
of John the
Baptist.

The statement is repeated in Mark, chapter ix, v. 13,
omitting the name
of John. It is nowhere denied. It is not among any of the
cases in which
the different Gospels contradict each other; it is in no way
doubtful.
It is not only a reference to the doctrine of reincarnation,
but is also
a clear enunciation of it. It goes much further than the
case of the man
who was born blind, when Jesus heard the doctrine referred
to, but did
not deny it nor condemn it in any way, merely saying that
the cause in
that case was not for sin formerly committed, but for some
extraordinary
purpose, such as the case of the supposed dead man when he
said that the
man was not dead but was to be used to show his power over
disease. In
the latter one he perceived there was one so far gone to
death that no
ordinary person could cure him, and in the blind man's case
the incident
was like it. If he thought the doctrine pernicious, as it
must be if
untrue, he would have condemned it at the first coming up,
but not only
did he fail to do so, he distinctly himself brought it up in
the case of
John, and again when asking what were the popular notions as
to himself
under the prevailing doctrines as above shown. Matthew xvi,
v. 13, will
do as an example, as the different writers do not disagree,
thus:

When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi he
asked his
disciples, Whom do men say that I am? And they said, Some
say that thou
art John the Baptist, some Elias, and others Jeremias or one
of the
prophets.

This was a deliberate bringing-up of the old doctrine, to
which the
disciples replied, as all Jews would, without any dispute of
the matter
of reincarnation; and the reply of Jesus was not a
confutation of the
notion, but a distinguishing of himself from the common lot
of sages and
prophets by showing himself to be an incarnation of God and
not a
reincarnation of any saint or sage. He did not bring it up
to dispute
and condemn as he would and did do in other matters; but to
the very
contrary he evidently referred to it so as to use it for
showing himself
as an incarnate God. And following his example the disciples
never
disputed on that; they were all aware of it; St. Paul must
have held it
when speaking of Esau and Jacob; St. John could have meant
nothing but
that in Revelations, chap. iii, v. 12.

Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my
God and he
shall go no more out.

Evidently he had gone out before or the words "no more"
could have no
place or meaning. It was the old idea of the exile of the
soul and the
need for it to be purified by long wandering before it could
be admitted
as a "pillar in the temple of God." And until the ignorant
ambitious
monks after the death of Origen had gotten hold of
Christianity, the
doctrine must have ennobled the new movement. Later the
Council of
Constantinople condemned all such notions directly in the
face of the
very words of Jesus, so that at last it ceased to vibrate as
one of the
chords, until finally the prophecy of Jesus that he came to
bring a
sword and division and not peace was fulfilled by the
warring nations of
Christian lands who profess him in words but by their acts
constantly
deny him whom they call "the meek and lowly."

W.Q.J.

Path, February, 1894
Read more on the subject here:
http://www.blavatsky.net/topics/bible/bible.htm
cut