Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!ncar!asuvax!ukma!seismo!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: conan@wish-bone.berkeley.edu (David Cruz-Uribe) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Reincarnation and Christianity Message-ID: Date: 22 Mar 91 03:18:44 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: U.C. Berkeley Math. Department. Lines: 36 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article haskell@acsu.buffalo.edu (william w haskell) writes: > 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. You seem to have a lot of things off. The only time the papacy was in France was during the "Babylonian Captivity" of the Avignon Papacy in the 14th century, about 1000 years after the canon of the New Testament was set. Further, though my knowledge is far from complete, I know of no sects, in either the medieval or the patristic period, that believed in reincarnation. I do recall, however, that Shirley Maclaine advanced this (or a similar theory) in one of her books. I don't think she is a reliable source on this subject. Can anyone add anything further on this? Yours in Christ, David Cruz-Uribe, SFO [There were certainly heretics in France, some of whom used apocryphal books, e.g. the Priscillianists. However this account does seem garbled. Certainly decisions such as the canon were made over considerable periods of time with lots of discussion. There had been lists of books of various kinds for centuries before the "final" decision. The presence or absence of one person at one meeting is unlikely to have had much effect. --clh]