Reincarnation

79 2.7.3 The Imperial Church after Constantine the Great (Karl Baus, Hans-Georg Beck, Eugen Ewig, Hermann Josef Vogt, Zweiter Halbband, 1975, Herder-Verlag, Freiburg.) On page 36 it states: With Justinian, an era of Church history came to an end. From his own political point of view within the arena of the Church, his actions may have been logical as far as Church history goes; it started promisingly orthodox, later it deviated “theopathically” to appear like downright papal devotion, around the year 536 A.D. But then the path leads to the Three Chapters and he s a c r i f i c e s a n o l d , s e n s i b l e a n d p r e c i o u s t h e o l o g i c a l i n h e r i t a n c e on the altar of politics, which in itself was hopeless. The fact, that large sections of the Church followed him down this dangerous, dilettantic path, brought about a t h e o l o g i c a l i m p o v e r i s h m e n t , which couldn’t be reversed for a long time, apart from the fact, that it didn’t leave a good impression of the theological steadfastness of the bishops. What was truly remarkable was t h e s t y l e Caesar used to enforce his ideas. The way he handed dogma and faith, without regards to the authority of the Church over its doctrine, no Caesar had done so before him and hardly anyone after him - with the possible exception of Manuel 1. in the 12th century.