Reincarnation

71 2.5.3 The doctrine of reincarnation brakes the power of the Church If the Christians had continued to believe in reincarnation, the Church would have been stripped of all secular power. The Hindu and Buddhist “Churches” show this, they never possessed anywhere near such fullness of power. Apart from that, everyone knew that eternal damnation d o e s n ’ t e x i s t and that e v e r y person will sometimes return to GOD and that in reality, no Church in the world can block the way to GOD and ask for a road toll. During the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church decided how much the belief in the redeemer and the ticket to enter paradise would cost. They decided what amount of money would give them absolution for the sin of fraud, adultery or even worse. During the V. General Council of Constantinople (553 A.D.) the person and the doctrine of Origen was condemned. Affected by this was also pre-existence, transmigration of the soul and reincarnation. The condemnation of Origen was preceded by Christological arguments (Arianism, Monophysitism) and other intrigues, into those we cannot enter into here. 28 The 15 anathemas from the year 553 A.D. are as follows: The 15 clauses of the 165 holy fathers of the 5. Holy Council of Constantinople. 1 If anyone asserts the fabulous pre-existence of souls, and shall assert the monstrous restoration which follows from it: let him be anathema. 2 If anyone shall say that the creation of all reasonable things includes only intelligences without bodies and altogether immaterial, having neither number nor name, so that there is unity between them all by identity of substance, force and energy, and by their union with and knowledge of God the Word; but that no longer desiring the sight of God, they gave themselves over to worse things, each one following his own inclinations, and that they have taken bodies more or less subtle, and have received names, for among the heavenly Powers there is a difference of names as there is also difference of bodies; and thence some became and are called Cherubim, others Seraphim, and Principalities, and Powers, and Dominations, and Thrones, and Angels, and as many other heavenly orders as there may be: let him be anathema. 3 If anyone shall say that the sun, the moon and the stars are also reasonable beings, and that they have only become what they are because they turned towards evil: let him be anathema. 4 If anyone shall say that the reasonable creatures in whom the divine love had grown cold have been hidden in gross bodies such as ours, and have been called men, while those who have attained the lowest degree of wickedness have shared cold and obscure bodies and are become and called demons and evil spirits: let him be anathema. 5 If anyone shall say that a psychic condition has come from an angelic or archangelic state, and moreover that a demoniac and a human condition has come from a psychic condition, and that from a human state they may become again angels and demons, and that each order of heavenly virtues is either all from those below or from those above, or from those above and below: let him be anathema. 6 If anyone shall say that there is a twofold race of demons, of which the one includes the souls of men and the other the superior spirits who fell to this, and that of all the number of reasonable beings there is but one which has remained unshaken in the love and contemplation of God, and that that spirit has become Christ and the king of all reasonable beings, and that he has created all the bodies which exist in heaven, on earth, and between heaven and earth; and that the world which has in itself elements more ancient than itself, and which exists by themselves, viz.: dryness, damp, heat and cold, and the image (icon) to which it was formed, was so formed, and that the most holy 28 Funk, Frank Xaver / Bihlmeyer, Karl: “Kirchengeschichte”, Ferdinand Schöningh Verlag, Paderborn, 1926, Erster Teil: Das christliche Altertum. (Christain Antiquity)