Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!cs.utexas.edu!bcm!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: haskell@acsu.buffalo.edu (william w haskell) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Reincarnation and Christianity Message-ID: Date: 20 Mar 91 08:39:51 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: SUNY Buffalo Lines: 32 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu >In article , sucram@cat.de (Marcus Halbe) writes: >> Hi! >> >> We're having a controversial discussion here in Germany whether >> there has been the concept of cyclic reincarnation of the soul >> through several physical bodies at sometime in christianity. >> >> Some here state that this was so and that at some time during >> the 8th or 9th century, during some convent, this was abolished. >> >> I would be grateful for information. > There was a sect of the Catholic Church at one time around the fourth or fifth century A.D. that believed in reincarnation. This sect was primamrily in France, where the Pope of the Catholic Church was located at that time. ( I may have my timetable off a bit on this, but otherwise the information is correct. ) At the time when the Catholic Church called together a council to amass the New Testament from all the books which had been written since the birth of Christ, this sect was not invited. The rest of the Catholic Church in Europe did not accept the concept of reincarnation. There had been some books that had been written that the French Sect of the Catholic Church would likely have tried to include in the New Testament that alluded to things that the Church as a whole did not want taught. Two of these are the book of Enoch and the Gospel of St. Thomas, but there are many more. Because of the absence of the Pope from this convention, the New Testament was not cannonized until later on. It would be interesting to see what the Bible would have looked like if the Sect from France had been there, eh? ...wildy