Wil: It is my understanding that prior to the canon being developed, reincarnation was largely discussed and entertained as part of Christianity.
Thomas said:
No, it never was. It's not part of Judaic orthodoxy – but there may well have been some speculation among Hellenised Jews – but the Book of Wisdom was written by one such an author less than a century before Christ, and it is not touched on there. Its ruled out by Christians, Jews and Moslems. There's a lot of misinformation around about it, classically that Origen was a reincarnationist, when he has penned a total rebuke of the doctrine as proposed by Celcus – scholars have traced the original erroneous thesis, which gets trotted out regularly as a 'proof' that the Fathers believed in reincarnation.
Now this is just dead, flat WRONG. Thomas, YOU should know better! For shame!
Reincarnation was
so well known among the Jews of the time, that Christ scolded Nicodemus, saying
"Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?"
Again, we see Herod
terrified that Jesus is
John the Baptist, come again to punish Herod for his great crimes against his own people. This HOUNDS him!
Thomas said:
Jews and Christians were conscious of the Spirit, so when they talk of Elijah come again, they infer that the Spirit of God that moved Elijah is moving another person, or rather that such-and-such is a continuation of the mission of Elijah ...
You may interpolate your own meaning if you like, but the truth of this episode is too clear here, I'm afraid. Inconvenient, perhaps, for Catholic DOGMA - but that is all.
Christ taught the Apostles a great deal regarding the Law of Rebirth, as this does not really even constitute one of the
lesser mysteries of being! It is SO basic a teaching, that we may only consider it a work of great cunning indeed, that the ecclesiastical authorities have excised it so well from their theology ... as if it were only so much unfortunate foreskin.
As an American Great once said,
"You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time."
As for Origen, remember, the Catholic Church declared his teachings
heresy, and like so many other things historical ...
Origen's teachings have been heavily "sanitized."
Naturally then, we will find Origen espousing all the harmless philosophy of the pre-Christian Pagans (Plotinus, Plato, etc.), UNTIL he comes to something the Chuch has pronounced heretical ... and then, strangely, he speaks in symbols, or else is made to agree wholeheartedly with the good word of
Authority.
ONE quote alone - and YOU decide for yourself what Origen KNEW to be true:
"The soul has neither beginning nor end… [They] come into this world strengthened by the victories or weakened by the defeats of their previous lives" (Origen, de Principiis)
Well we see that in using phrases like "gets trotted out regularly as proof that the Fathers believed in reincarnation" (although this isn't even the one, gee, guess you'll hafta nix
this one too), Thomas would like to dismiss the matter entirely. It is - inconvenient to him, brings a bad taste to his mouth, for whatever reason. Could it be, that like all of us, you wonder how the sacrifice of a Bodhisattva is possible ... to look dear Christ-God-Spirit square in the eye and say,
No sir, I shall not enter in,
while I yet may serve to Liberate even one, single human soul, from the confusion of samsara (?)
"No, I don't want to come back." This is the objection often raised. Don't worry about it. Did you remember much about it THIS time, from last? Ah no, well then, unless you dropped a bit too much LSD back in the hippie revolution and caught on to the song
Deja Vu by CSNY, fageddaboudit!
Oh, Deja Vu? My bad, sorry, we'll just pretend we don't have those, either.
Thomas, you are very wily, and clever with the straw-manning. But you can either just own up to being duped by all manner of dubious
`scholars' posing as the latest-greatest expert on
whatever it is that doesn't fit your worldview ... or you can pass the buck, and admit that the Catholic Church has just whitewashed this along with so much
dirty laundry. Oh, is that not clear? Ok, how about this, then.
Hypatia was perhaps
THE last authority of the ancient world who stood up to the RCC and challenged the PURE BUNK that it was shoveling out there to fertilize the masses. She most definitely would have been teaching the Law of Rebirth, as would have Origen, since both KNEW it to be true, and knew it be part 'n parcel of the Mystery Traditions ... the ABC of God's Timeless Truths,
Cause and Effect, Cosmic LAW.
This, however, like much of the Wisdom of the day, did not coincide with the Church's
agenda ... especially a FEMALE Voice of Wisdom and Truth (one of Love's many expressions in this world, even if She is all-but-strangled at times). What did the dear
Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria, do? He had Hypatia DRAGGED through the streets, behind a chariot! Now let us see how HISTORY records this event, via Socrates Scholasticus, in his
Ecclesiastical History:Yet even [Hypatia] fell a victim to the political jealousy which at that time prevailed. For as she had frequent interviews with Orestes, it was calumniously reported among the Christian populace, that it was she who prevented Orestes from being reconciled to the bishop. Some of them therefore, hurried away by a fierce and bigoted zeal, whose ringleader was a reader named Peter, waylaid her returning home, and dragging her from her carriage, they took her to the church called Caesareum, where they completely stripped her, and then murdered her with tiles. After tearing her body in pieces, they took her mangled limbs to a place called Cinaron, and there burnt them. This affair brought not the least opprobrium, not only upon Cyril, but also upon the whole Alexandrian church. And surely nothing can be farther from the spirit of Christianity than the allowance of massacres, fights, and transactions of that sort. (emphasis mine)
But wait! Harken to the
new and improved, SANITIZED version, as we find in the
Catholic Encyclopedia:
In one of these riots, in 422, the prefect Callistus was killed, and in another was committed the murder of a female philosopher Hypatia, a highly-respected teacher of neo-Platonism, of advanced age and (it is said) many virtues. She was a friend of Orestes, and many believed that she prevented a reconciliation between the prefect and patriarch. A mob led by a lector, named Peter, dragged her to a church and tore her flesh with potsherds till she died. This brought great disgrace, says Socrates, on the Church of Alexandria and on its bishop; but a lector at Alexandria was not a cleric (Scr., V, xxii), and Socrates does not suggest that Cyril himself was to blame. (emphasis mine, noting that even here, the RCC subtly hints that perhaps this was not true! for shame!)
Notice that every effort has been made to
exonerate all blame from Cyril and the RCC, and you DARN WELL SKIPPY better believe it, if the latter still thinks it can prove ol' Abe Lincoln wrong, and have folks swallowing this "God's instrument on earth" business.
I like to present
these inconvenient little inconsistences ... Thomas, not to see you squirm (I am outwitted, as I will point out later). It is, hopefully, to get people to THINK. And if any person has a SHADOW of a doubt, that s/he cannot do it for him or herself, and needs the Church to do it instead (Priest, Prelate, Pope or Pontiff) ... then put on your headphones and give Rush's
Tom Sawyer a spin or two. Oh, that terrible
rock music ... yet you'll find your Buddhist Wisdom there, your Zen, and the same Christian Love you
Preach, preacher.
Dare to THINK, Dare to be a Tom Sawyer. If it aggravates you, chances are, there's a lesson there in it for you, somewhere. People stepping in and saying things like,
"No, [reincarnation] never was [a part of early Christianity]," well YES, that does aggravate me!!!
This is the SAME as me asking,
"Do you suppose the Earth actually revolved around the Sun BEFORE we found out about it?" And someone coming along and saying,
"NOPE. It didn't, and besides, that bugger Galileo was just a looney."
So help me, I'd as soon look straight in the eye of the biggest lightning bolt your ol' Jehovah-Zeus Deity has to dish out, if I'm wrong on this one. Zap me, Smite me, whatever it was Jim Carrey said, you mighty Smiter!!! I love how Morgan Freeman handles all that, too.
Dead, square, 100%, pure and simple WRONG. You don't have to believe it if you don't want to. That's your call. No one can make up your mind but YOU. As for
Did Christ teach it? And
Did people believe it back then, Christians and Jews included? Like I said, go ahead with the zappity-zap lightning bolts if I'm wrong.
Thomas, you refuse to consider ANY evidence that is contrary to your belief (and poor scholasticism) ... by leveling your
canons against anyone and EVERYONE who dares to challenge the Infallable Papal BULL on the matter ... and by making a DIRECT attack on the
character of the person or persons involved, rather than actually reading their contributions, considering their arguments, and weighing the evidence on the scale of Good Reason and common sense (not to mention sound, philosophical argument supported by direct experience). Were you to step even ONE INCH in this direction, the scale would tip, and the weight of truth on this matter would come to bear as a trillion neutron stars against a feather.
Maat, yes, I know of that feather too.
What about this, then? Teilhard spoke, in his writings, about the very
heavy things in nature ... how he felt God revealed Himself even through the metals, and the neutron stars, for example. Perhaps these ideas, like his geological evidence of evolution, were a bit too much for the
RCC, but I think the inquiring, God-seeking mind (and heart) must and will contemplate them, from time to time.
What you then must do, and I do believe you understand me, is to stand, and bear all -
however precious you know some teachings, some ideas, some pearls to be ... and if you aren't very damn careful - you must watch them torn from your grasp, and witness the ravages of the mob.
A word spoken in kindness, has more value than a whole sermon delivered with condescension. I could not hope to have all the same gifts as your scholarly background and training, Thomas, or your philosophical ability. In both cases, I haven't the same aptitude. But one thing I do have, is the gift of Understanding. I struggle to put this into words, at times, but it genuinely irks me when a person attempts to dismiss - with a casual wave of the hand -
any one of history's heroines, or God's own Messengers.
If we do this, we not only deny ourselves their contributions (meant for us, meant for all), but we also confuse the many genuine seekers, who are equally deserving of God's Grace, Wisdom and Love - no matter
what their station in life. It is one thing to confuse the finger for the moon (or the Star), but it is another entirely to speak ill of S/He who gives so much, to afford
each one of us a glimpse of the Heavenly Splendor, and so draw us nearer to God's Bosom.
Such a creature was Hypatia, and she was silenced for speaking the Truth - unpopular, inconvenient. It is so today, though some things, at least, have changed in 125 years. Let us remember:
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.
And this is why (we have)
Lucifer, and
Lucis
, though few will understand, and the myth will eclipse the reality.
Demon est deus inversus. If you can start nowhere else, start
here. Is it God's word? YES!
Neither was John the Light, nor was his
finger the Light, nor did he wish recognition of any sort, nor a shrine for his
finger, not even that Light alone should be recognized ... unless we have misunderstood the Nature, and the Purpose, of Light,
altogether.
Is not Christ the Lord of Light
and LOVE? To me, He is both, while yet Light, as Love, has many forms ... hence the phrase,
"see something in a greater light," or
"Lift it into the Light of Understanding." And this has *everything* to do with the Holy Spirit.
I would only bear witness, since I have worn out my welcome ... that John has come, and comes yet today, his influence can be felt the world over. Many here, I do hope, would agree. Whether he was Elijah, I do not know for certain (at the moment), nor whether he is in incarnation again (at the moment). That there is a Great Law of
sowing and reaping, called
Cause and Effect, which humanity experiences via the cycles of birth and death, repeated as we gradually RE-enter God's House, whence we emerged ... THIS, I do know (now, and always).
In uncertainty, I look to the words of the Apostle:
"Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out" (Rev. 3:12)
I hope this day will speedily come ... but meanwhile, there is always Ben Franklin's epitaph to consider:
The Body of
B. Franklin, Printer,
Like the Cover of an old Book,
Its Contents torn out,
And stript of its Lettering & Gilding,
Lies here, Food for Worms.-
But the work shall not be lost;
For it will, as he believd, appear once more
In a new and more elegant Edition
Corrected and improved
By the Author.
Thus have I heard,
~Zagreus
