Editing Reincarnation (section)

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Some evidence<ref>''The Big Book of Reincarnation'', by Roy Stemman, p. 14</ref><ref name="autogenerated1"/> suggests that [[Origen]] ( ({{circa | 185}} – {{circa | 253}}), sometimes regarded as an early [[Church Father]], taught reincarnation in his lifetime but that when his works were translated into Latin these references were concealed. One of the epistles written by [[St. Jerome]], "To Avitus" (Letter 124; Ad Avitum. Epistula CXXIV),<ref name="mlat.uzh.ch">{{Cite web |url=https://mlat.uzh.ch/browser?path=MLS/text.php |title=Corpus Corporum |website=mlat.uzh.ch}}</ref> asserts that Origen's ''[[On the First Principles]]'' ({{langx | la |De Principiis}}; {{langx | grc | Περὶ Ἀρχῶν}})<ref name="Cross">Cross, F. L., and Elizabeth A. Livingstone. ''The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church'' (Second Edition). New York: Oxford University Press, 1984. p. 1009.</ref> was mistranscribed:

{{Blockquote| About ten years ago that saintly man [[Saint Pammachius|Pammachius]] sent me a copy of a certain person's [ [[Tyrannius Rufinus|Rufinus]]'s<ref name="mlat.uzh.ch"/> ] rendering, or rather misrendering, of Origen's ''First Principles''; with a request that in a Latin version I should give the true sense of the Greek and should set down the writer's words for good or for evil without bias in either direction. When I did as he wished and sent him the book, he was shocked to read it and locked it up in his desk lest being circulated it might wound the souls of many.<ref name=autogenerated1>{{Cite web |url=https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3001124.htm|title=Church Fathers: Letter 124 (Jerome) |website=www.newadvent.org}}</ref>}}

Under the impression that Origen was a heretic like [[Arius]], St. Jerome criticizes ideas described in ''On the First Principles''. Further in "To Avitus" (Letter 124), St. Jerome writes about "convincing proof" that Origen teaches reincarnation in the original version of the book:

{{Blockquote|The following passage is a convincing proof that he holds the transmigration of the souls and annihilation of bodies. 'If it can be shown that an incorporeal and reasonable being has life in itself independently of the body and that it is worse off in the body than out of it; then beyond a doubt bodies are only of secondary importance and arise from time to time to meet the varying conditions of reasonable creatures. Those who require bodies are clothed with them, and contrariwise, when fallen souls have lifted themselves up to better things, their bodies are once more annihilated. They are thus ever vanishing and ever reappearing.'<ref name=autogenerated1 />}}

The original text of ''On First Principles'' has been almost completely lost. It remains extant as ''De Principiis'' in fragments faithfully translated into Latin by St. Jerome and in "the not very reliable Latin translation of [[Tyrannius Rufinus|Rufinus]]".<ref name=Cross />

However, Origen's supposed belief in reincarnation is controversial. Christian scholar [[Dan Schlesinger|Dan R. Schlesinger]] has written an extensive monograph in which he argues that Origen never taught reincarnation.<ref>{{Cite thesis |title= Did Origen teach reincarnation? a response to neo-Gnostic theories of Christian reincarnation with particular reference to Origen and to the Second Council of Constantinople (553) |url= https://eleanor.lib.gla.ac.uk/record=b3269054 |publisher= University of Glasgow |date= 2016 |place= Glasgow |first= Dan R. |last= Schlesinger}}</ref>

Reincarnation was taught by several [[Gnostics]] such as [[Marcion of Sinope]] ({{circa | 85}} – {{circa | 160).<ref name="Bjorling 2013 p. 96">{{cite book | last= Bjorling | first= J. | title= Reincarnation: A Bibliography | publisher= Taylor & Francis | series= Sects and Cults in America | year= 2013 | isbn= 978-1-136-51133-2 | url= https://books.google.com/books?id=mdeAAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA96 | language= de | access-date=2023-06-27 | page= 96}}</ref> Belief in reincarnation was rejected by several Church Fathers, including [[Augustine of Hippo]] in ''[[The City of God]]''.<ref>{{cite book | author = Augustine of Hippo |translator= Marcus Dods |translator-link= Marcus Dods (theologian born 1834) | url = https://archive.org/details/cityofgodtransla01auguuoft | title = The Works of Aurelius Augustine, Bishop of Hippo |volume= I: The city of God | via = [[Internet Archive]] | location = Edinburgh |publisher= T. & T. Clark | year = 1913 | pages = [https://archive.org/details/cityofgodtransla01auguuoft/page/508 508]–509 | archive-url = https://archive.today/20181225012037/https://archive.org/stream/cityofgodtransla01auguuoft/cityofgodtransla01auguuoft_djvu.txt | archive-date = 25 December 2018 | url-status = live | access-date = 25 December 2018 }}</ref>{{request quotation|date=April 2025}}<ref>{{Cite web |title= Reincarnation – Did The Church Suppress It? |url= https://www.issuesetcarchive.org/issues_site/resource/archives/gudel.htm |access-date= 2024-05-13 |website=www.issuesetcarchive.org}}</ref><ref name=":5" />