Early Christianity and transmigration of souls

1. Entity type Lemma
2. Original titleРаннее христианство и переселение душ
3. Language term Russian
4. lemma author Saprykin, Dmitry
5. lemma category Scientific theories and disciplines > Religious studies
6. Publication date 1998
7. lemma work Кураев Андрей диакон [Author]. Early Christianity and transmigration of souls.
8. lemma manifestations Раннее христианство и переселение душ : Early Christianity and transmigration of souls.
9. Keywords Theosophy - Origen
10. Citations
    1. http://predanie.ru/kuraev-andrey-protodiakon/book/71887-rannee-hristianstvo-i-pereselenie-dush/
11. Lemma body

    1. The author of the monograph, PhD in theology and philosophy, examines from the historical point of view the Theosophical leaders’ conviction that the doctrine of soul pre-existence and successive returns to earth became a "heresy" in official Christianity only in the 6th century AD. The Blavatsky’s, Roerichs’ and many other occult teachers’ theosophy, writes Kuraev, claims to be, on the one hand, a synthesis of all religions, and on the other hand, a synthesis of religion and science.  Declaring itself as a "new science", the occult doctrine penetrates into schools and state institutions, universities and the mass media.

       Five theses are considered by the author in this work: the first - is the reincarnation theory truly universal, general for all religions and ancient, as the Theosophists assert. The second - was the reincarnation idea recognized by the Old Testament prophets? The third is whether there is any idea of soul transmigration in the New Testament books. The fourth is whether early Christian writers recognized the reincarnation idea before the 5th Ecumenical Council. The fifth is whether Origen really taught the transmigration of souls and whether this doctrine was "abolished" in the 6th century Council of Constantinople.

       In the course of historical research and the Scripture texts’ analysis, the author proves that Christianity never shared karmic philosophy. The tradition from which the New Testament grows did not know reincarnation. None of the evangelical texts needs to be understood in the space of reincarnation context. The whole early Christian tradition is in opposition to the idea of transmigration of souls.

       The Theosophists' reference to "esoteric teaching" is not an attempt to restore historical lacunae, the author claims, but an attempt to escape from clear historical evidence, a decisive runaway from the field of scientific provability and academic dialogue.