Jesus tells the old Pharisee Nicodemus that he must be reborn in the womb so that he can live by Jesus’ teachings. (John 3) This is the only logical explanation for the core concept of Christianity – restoration only through Jesus.
Of course, this was taught by the early Christians. This was the Good News of Jesus. Even someone like Nicodemus, who helped lead the Jews astray, could have a second chance.
The most compelling evidence for reincarnation teaching in early Christianity comes from the emperor Justinian. It was the emperor who declared reincarnation heresy in 543 AD, and the church needed 10 years to ‘correct the texts’ and ratify his declaration.
Whoever says or thinks that human souls pre-existed, i.e., that they had previously been spirits and holy powers, but that, satiated with the vision of God, they had turned to evil, and in this way the divine love in them had died out (ἀπψυγείσας) and they had therefore become souls (ψυχάς) and had been condemned to punishment in bodies, shall be anathema. (Weblink)
300 years after Origen died, the emperor declared him and his teaching anathema (heresy). Anyone who believed or taught this was now an enemy of Rome and a subject of the Inquisition. This is why all traces of reincarnation in Christianity were eliminated, and this is what fragmented Christianity into thousands of sects.
Why do Christians not believe in the concept of reincarnation? (on Quora)
Only within the last 50 years has this threat of heresy subsided, and theologians are only now starting to re-examine the early Christian teachings. Ronald Heine does the English-speaking world a wonderful service by translating the fragments of Origen’s original Greek commentaries on the Gospel of John. In my mind, this book does three important things for the modern world:
- It gives us a glimpse into the sweet wisdom of Origen, the only person in history to perform a scientific study of all the early versions of the Old Testament.
- The knowledge and wisdom he gained from the Hexapla shines through, especially in his work on John.
- Books one and two provide the clearest distinction between Jesus and God, as these books concentrate only on John 1:1. This shows the opposition that early Christians had to the trinity dogma and Constantine.
- For me, the most important thing about these fragments is what is missing. The first ten books went from John 1:1 to 2:25, but what was destroyed by the Roman Empire was John 1:8-14, 1:30-51, and 2:1-11. We have enough evidence of Origin’s unique insight to know that what he wrote about the baptism of Jesus, the second coming of Elijah, and Jesus’ turning water into wine in Cana posed grave danger to the dogma created by the emperor Justinian to further his rule of the Roman Empire.
Ronald Hein continues his valuable work on the second half of Origen’s Commentary on John. As one of the last of Origen’s works, it is, in my opinion, the most important for our world today. This book is rare since it is translated from his original Greek and not from a Latin dogma-adjusted summary.
This book provides great insight into the logic that Origen used in his analysis of the entire text of the bible – comparing the same phrase’s meaning at each occurrence and weighing the most reasonable meaning, while providing the reader with his analysis. Thanks to Mr. Heine, modern researchers have access to the enlightened period that existed before the Dark Ages.
Again, the second half of the fragments provides a clear picture as to what the materialistic rulers of Rome feared in Origen. The commentaries on the most controversial chapters were destroyed – chapters 3,4,6,7,9,10,12. In addition, the following sections are also missing 4:1-12, 8:1-18, 8:26-36, and 11:1-38.