No Maam Thats Not History
No Ma’am, That’s Not History! Shirley Maclaine, Reincarnation and Scholastic Dishonesty
by Stephen F. Cannon
The final credits are rolling on Late Nite with David Letterman. Yawning, I decide to hang on a few more minutes and see who Bob Costas is interviewing on his NBC talk show Later. All thoughts of sleep vanish instantly when I see that his guest is Ms. New Age herself, Shirley MacLaine.
I make a mental wager with myself that as surely as night follows day, before this half hour is over, she will find a way to denigrate Christianity while touting the glories of reincarnation and Eastern mysticism. And voila! About halfway into the show she proves that I have prognosticated correctly (even without benefit of psychic powers). Under the questioning of the host I am treated to this “scholarly” exchange.
Costas: You get a lot of negative feedback from people who feel strongly about Christianity or a more Western view of religion, which basically states that we go through this life and that our soul finds its way to Heaven; so in that sense the experience is finite. And if people were to explore what you are suggesting they would be untrue to their own religious belief.
MacLaine: Yeah, but, Bob, remember that in 553 A.D. there was an ecumenical council meeting in Constantinople where the teachings of Origen, which are the teachings of the physical re-embodiment of the soul, were struck from the Bible by the Emperor ah, Constan….; by the Emperor Justinian and ah, his Empress Theodora. So the Bible has been written and rewritten many, many times by people like you and me, by folks who have their meetings and they decide that this is maybe not a good idea.
Now the reason that Theodora and Justinian, by the way, the word justice comes from his particular reign in Rome. Ah, the pope boycotted that ecumenical council meeting because the whole thing was stacked, ah, by bishops who were appointed by the Empresss Theodora, in order to strike the teachings of Origen, which the early Christian Fathers were teaching from the Bible; because she wanted complete control over the human soul. Whereas the teachings of Origen were talking about men and women — men and women are responsible for their own destiny through time.
So when you say Christian doctrine, what year are you talking about? You see, that’s why all of this business of people who object to someone else’s view of time, view of God, view of reality, view of life and death, it’s all relative. It all really depends on what you see as true for you. What is difficult, is when some very strict, narrow , limited fundamentalist point of view is so harsh that it makes no room and no freedom and no democratic allowance for anyone else’s point of view. That can be very hard on the world; that’s what causes war! (1)
And just as voila!, the old adrenaline starts pumping. I have heard this accusation made repeatedly in my conversations with and research on New Age adherents. But, as I hear America’s most vociferous missionary of New Age philosophy repeat this old saw, I decide to respond with a resounding, “No ma’am, that’s not history!”
The Advocates
The ideas expressed by Maclaine above are not new ones. I believe that she was only repeating supposed facts written by other New Age advocates.
In his book, bashing historic biblical Christianity, liberal English clergyman and quasi-reincarnationist Leslie D. Weatherhead states:
“It is important, as we examine the idea of reincarnation, to realize the immense support for what I have written above which is provided by the fact that it was excepted by the early church for the first five hundred years of its existence. Only in A.D. 553 did the second Council of Constantinople reject it, and only then by a narrow majority. If some view of reincarnation had not been held in the early church it would have been pointless to discuss it in a church council… . Origen, a great scholar of the church (A.D. 185-254) accepted it. Augustine (A.D. 354-430), an even greater authority, accepted it, and speaks of his infancy that “succeeded another age of mine that died before it”. St. Jerome supported it in his “Letter to Avitus.” Reference to “The Catholic Encyclopedia” informs me that St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226) accepted it. And belief in reincarnation, according to a priest writing in “The Liberal Catholic” is accepted by many Roman Catholics and has never been declared heretical by any Ecumenical Council.”(2)
Theosophist Anna Winner: “It was not until some five centuries after the origin of Christianity, when it had long been the state religion of Rome, that the belief in reincarnation was formally declared to be not according to orthodox dogma.” (3)
Authors Head and Cranston muse: “That Origen taught the preexistence of the soul in past world orders of this earth and its reincarnation in future worlds is beyond question.” (4)
In her book, Out on a Limb, Maclaine reports a conversation with her friend and spiritual mentor David who states: “The theory of reincarnation is recorded in the Bible. But the proper interpretations were struck from it during an ecumenical council meeting of the Catholic Church in Constantinople sometime around 553 A.D., called the Council of (sic) Nicea. The council members voted to strike those teachings from the Bible in order to solidify Church Control.”(5)
The problem with the above accusations of editing the Bible and eradication of reincarnation from the doctrine of the early church would be laughable if Christians in general knew a little church history. However, because of widespread historical ignorance, many are unfortunately confounded by such statements.
There are several questioned that must be asked to determine if there is scholastic dishonesty on the part of the advocates cited above. Was there a widespread belief of reincarnation in the early church and did many of the church fathers, especially Origen, teach this doctrine? Was the Bible edited to remove verses that taught reincarnation? Was all of this concocted in the Church Councils of the third through the fifth centuries?
Before we attempt to answer those questions, it would be helpful to examine:
The Formulation of Christian Doctrine
The benchmark of all doctrine is the revealed Word of God in the Bible. Under the tutelage of the Holy Spirit, Jesus and the Apostles clarified the message of the Old Testament. It was revealed through them that the entire plan of God is centered in the person and work of Jesus Christ. This revelation is the New Testament.
As this revelation was written and began to be disseminated throughout the known world, it began to be interpreted and misinterpreted. Because of its broad appeal and success in winning converts, many pagan religions incorporated parts of the Bible into their own belief systems. This gave rise to many counterfeit Christian sects and spurious gospels.
As the early church grew, it was constantly having to confront pseudo-Christian Churches. The early Christian scholars — the church Fathers — wrote entire volumes refuting false claims and exposing their heretical beliefs. These apologetic writings became the first step in the formulation of doctrine for historic, orthodox, biblical Christianity.
This dialectic began soon after the birthing of the church and has continued since. A biblical truth would be proclaimed, it would be assaulted and reinterpreted to fit some preconceived ideas (usually of pagan origin, such as Gnosticism) and then Christian scholars would have to answer that assault and bring the teaching back to what the Scriptures actually said.
Eerdmans’ Handbook to the History Christianity points out on page 107, “The pioneering challenge of heresy did much to shape Christian orthodoxy- a rounded, systematic exposition of the implications of basic Christain convictions.”
As the church became more organized, the writings of these Christian scholars would be appealed to in connection with the Scriptures, and certain doctrines would be established. Those who where in general agreement with the established doctrines were considered orthodox, those not were condemned as heretics.
It must be understood, also, that while the early Christian scholars had the benefit of being closer to the direct teaching of the Apostles, these men were not inspired as were the biblical authors. Any doctrine, whether it be of a Church Father or a modern-day theologian, must be compared diligently with Scripture. Where their writings meet with the benchmark, they are good. Where not, they must be abandoned. This applies doctrines from Calvin, Luther, Augustine or Origen.
Origen an His Doctrine
One cannot undertake a study of the history of the Christian Church without encountering the theology and ideas of Origen. Born in Alexandria, Egypt, in 185 A.D. to Christian parents, Origen was taught a respect for the Scriptures from his youth that would never fade. (6) Not only was there Christian instruction, but Origen’s father also taught him the Greek philosophies. After his father’s martyrdom, Origen, then 17, even made his living for a while by teaching Greek literature. (7)
Possessor of a keen and eager mind, a strict ascetic lifestyle, and an indefatigable constitution, Origen wrote profusely. His works include Bible translations, commentaries on Scripture, apologies, and theological treatises. Unfortunately, “Today we possess only some portions of his immense work, and the greater part of it has come down to us only by means of translations, the accuracy of which is by no means certain”. (8) We do, however possess enough of his works to chart a clear course of his theology and unfortunately for New Agers it leads directly away from reincarnationist thought.
That Origen took a very high view of the inspiration of the Scriptures is undeniable. His monumental parallel Bible Hexapla took years to compile. This work gave in parallel columns the Hebrew Old Testament, a Greek transliteration of the Hebrew, the Septuagint, and three other Greek versions. Origen’s love for Holy Writ lead church historian Williston Walker to state: “The vast majority of his writings took the form of commentary on Scripture, And even his occasional ‘systematic’ writings proceeded by a method which was largely exegetical. … Perhaps Origen’s most significant gift to the churches was the principle by which he lived, of sola scriptura.” (9) It is also true that this complex thinker brought to his Christianity elements of Greek Philosophy — Middle Platonism — that was prevalent in his day. It was speculative theology formed from a synthesis of Hellenistic and Christian thought that prompted Origen to formulate a doctrine of the pre-existence of the soul. This doctrine would earn him church condemnation several hundred years after his death. It would also provide, albeit mistakenly, a basis for reincarnationists to assert that their belief was taught in the early church.
Pre-existence vs. Transmigration
Briefly, reincarnation (Greek metempsychosis; English transmigration) is the belief that the soul of man is divine and eternal and is ever evolving back into an absolute oneness with God through a system of cause and effect (law of karma) lifetimes. Because man is so mistaken in his thinking and because of this is so far removed from God, it will take many, many lifetimes to progress to the point of being released from these multiple births. As one body dies, the soul transmigrates into another and so on until release.
This belief system and elements of it have been traced to almost every ancient culture. Greece was no exception. From the Orphic Mystery Schools through Pythagoras, Empedocles and down to Plato and beyond transmigration was widely held in Hellenistic thought. (10) As mentioned above, it was the influence of Hellenism coupled with certain Scriptures that led Origen to develop his doctrine of pre-existence. Latourette writes: “Inevitably, like so many of the early Christian thinkers, nurtured as they were in Greek philosophy, and indeed, like still others in succeeding centuries who were familiar with Greek thought, in his writings and in the formulations of his religious beliefs Origen bore the unmistakable impress of the Greek heritage. Yet Origen believed that he found the truth primarily in the Scriptures and in what had been transmitted in orderly succession from the Apostles.”(11)
And the truth that he found both in these Scriptures and the teachings of the Apostles did not include reincarnation.
“He did of course reject the Pythagorean metempsychosis, which teaches that human souls pass into the bodies of animals (Contra Celsum V, xlix; VII, xxx), he also set aside Plato’s hypothesis of a transference of souls from one human to another (Contra Celsum IV, xvii).” (12) Further, in his commentary on Matthew, under the heading entitled Relation of John the Baptist to Elijah -the Theory of Transmigration Considered we read: In this place, it does not appear to me that by Elijah the soul is spoken of, lest I should fall into the dogma of transmigration, which is foreign to the Church of God and not handed down by the Apostles, nor anywhere set forth in the Scriptures. For observe (Matthew) did not say, in the ‘soul’ of Elijah, in which case the doctrine of transmigration might have some ground, but ‘in the spirit and power of Elijah”. (13)
The above is most understandable. Although Origen did teach the pre-existence of the soul, and even though he did derive that doctrine from the influence of Greek thought, he never held to the doctrine of reincarnation. A short examination of the extant works of this scholar, or a cursory examination of various histories of the early church show the contrary to be true. To continually make assertions to the contrary is nothing short of scholastic dishonesty!
The pre-existence that Origen taught more closely resembles some aspects of Mormonism than those of reincarnationists. “Finally, Origen accepted an old tradition of interpretation, already exploited by Philo, which held that the two accounts of creation in the opening chapters of Genesis reflected, in fact, two stages of divine creation, the first concerned with the appearance of the immaterial, intelligible order and the second with the formation of the visible cosmos. Accordingly, it was Origin’s conviction that God’s original creation was a society of immaterial’ spirits’, finite because created, self-determining because rational. … Evil intruded when these spirits, becoming satiated with the vision of God, chose to fall away from their own happiness, God, into a self-willed state of separateness, variety, and multiplicity. Some became demons and others angels and yet others the souls of human beings, but all, to one degree or another, fell from their original focused identity into distraction and alienation. As a consequence and symbol of their altered state, God then brought into being the physical, visible cosmos, to be for these creatures a second-best world — a world in which harmony was imposed on disorder and in which the fallen spirits could be ‘schooled’ back to their original glory.” (14) This doctrine was only one of several that brought the wrath of the Roman emperor Justinian (A.D. 482-565) on Origen.
The second Council of Constantinople that was mentioned by Maclaine above was convened to deal primarily with reconciling those in the church who held that Christ had only one nature (Monophysites), with those that believed He had two (Chalcedonians). The condemnation of Origin as a heretic was primarily a political move to appease the Chalcedonians. (15) Absolutely no scriptural editing took place. This council did not even concern itself with the canon of the Scriptures.
Origen did not believe in reincarnation. He was not anathemized because of reincarnation: ” If anyone maintains the fabeled preexistence of souls and the monstrous restoration that follows from it; let that one be anathema!” (16) And to Maclaine’s statement regarding the second Council of Constantinople: “where the teachings of Origen (which are the teachings of the physical reembodiment of the soul were struck from the Bible by the Emperor Justinian and his Empress Theodora,” we must send a resounding “No ma’am, that’s not history!”
To Head and Cranston we respond: Yes, Origen clearly taught the pre-existence of the soul, but as we have seen, it was not in the “past world orders of this earth” but in the spirit world before the creation of this earth! And the assertion that he taught “its (soul) reincarnation in future worlds” is at best poor scholarship, and at the worst scholastic dishonesty!
In light of the above, Leslie Weatherhead’s statement, “Only in A.D. 553 did the second Council of Constantinople reject it (reincarnation)… . Origen, a great scholar of the church (A.D. 185-254) accepted it,” is shown to be false. One must wonder that if he could be so wrong in his assertion about Origen, what of his assertions about the other church fathers mentioned. Was there a widespread belief in reincarnation in the early church?
Gnosticism, Reincarnation, and Christianity
As mentioned above, the writings of the first- and second-century Christian Fathers were penned to refute the claims of pseudo -Christian sects. The lion’s share of this theological warfare was directed against a wide-ranging world view known as “Gnosticism”. Early thought to have been established by Simon the magician mentioned in the book of Acts (17), it is now known to have had a much earlier genesis, and was not confined to the Christian church. (18) However, into the growing church it came in crisis proportions.
“It was not so much that the Christians toyed with Gnosticism as that the Hellenistic world was trying to integrate Christ into its thinking without being profoundly changed by him, and proposed Gnosticism to the church as a means to this end. Jesus and his first disciples made such an overwhelming impact on the Mediterranean world that it could not be ignored, but his message was so contrary to Hellenistic culture that it could not simply be accepted, and so the effort was made to adapt it to the culture.” (19) The church, of course, rightly rejected these overtures.
It is impossible in the space alloted to define or even adequately summarize Gnostic beliefs because they represented “less a specific set of teachings than a religious mood of world rejection coupled with what might best be called a transcendentalist state of mind.” (20) Suffice to say, that in the writings of the Fathers (who quoted Gnostic sources extensively), the recent archeololgical finds of the Nag Hammadi Library and extant Gnostic literature, we have abundant evidence that reincarnation was a prevalent belief among the Gnostics, not the New Testament Church! (21)
As to the assertions by Weatherhead that Jerome, Augustine and other church fathers taught the doctrine: “No sir, that’s not history!”
Justin Martyr (A.D. 100-165): In his dialogue with Trypho the Jew, in chapter IV while discussing “souls”, this conclusion is reached.
Trypho: “Therefore, souls neither see God nor transmigrate into other bodies… Justin: “You are right, I replied.” (22)
Irenaeus (A.D. 135-202): In his Against Heresies, Irenaeus condemns Carpocrates and his followers, calls them mad, irreligious, and impious because “They deem it necessary, therefore, that by means of transmigration from body to body, souls should have experience of every kind of life as well as every kind of action…”(23) In the same volume, he devotes an entire chapter to the refutation of transmigration. The chapter title says it all: “Absurdity of the Doctrine of the Transmigration of Souls.” (24)
Jerome (A.D. 331-420): It has been charged that Jerome’s letter to Avitus shows his belief in transmigration. Albrecht cites, “Actually Jerome’s letter to Avitus severely criticizes Origen for his Platonic ideas and nowhere condones the teaching of reincarnation. In his Letter to Demetrius he also refutes Origen’s teaching on pre-existence…” .(25)
Augustine (A.D. 354-430): Because he was in a Gnostic Sect and steeped in Platonic thought prior to his conversion to Christianity, Augustine was certainly in a position to tout reincarnationism. However, he never did. In fact in his letter to Optatus he wrote, “For it is impossible that you should hold the opinion that it is for the deeds in a former life that souls are confined in earthly and mortal bodies.” (26)
Once again it is seen from the writings of those that are supposed to be reincarnationists, that they thoroughly opposed the doctrine. And once again we are forced to ask the question: Poor scholarship or scholastic dishonesty?
An Edited Bible?
The last question to be asked, and the one most easily dealt with, is: Was he Bible edited to excise the teaching of reincarnation ? The first negative to this question comes from biblical textual criticism.
There is in existence today multiplied thousands of whole and partial manuscripts of the New Testament that go back to within 100 years of the events of the Gospel. Some of these were found only recently. It takes a real stretch of the imagination to believe that with all of these there would not have been at least one manuscript found that would contain the verses that were supposed to have been edited out.
Also, if the church took such great pains to edit out references to reincarnation, where are references to that effect in the edicts of the different church councils that we have today? We have seen that early Christian scholars were not shy about naming names when it came to heresy. I have given ample evidence that transmigration was adressed and rejected by the ante- and postNicene Fathers and the church at large. However there exists no literature from the early ecumenical councils that indicates reincarnation was widespread in the church and needed to be dealt with. Gnosticism was the deadly foe; the doctrine of transmigration was only a corollary to that movement.
The burden of proof of for extensive editing of reincarnation out of Holy Writ falls squarely on the shoulders of those making this charge. To date that proof is sadly lacking.
What are we to say then regarding the scholarship of those advocating the teaching of reincarnation by Jesus, the Apostles and the early Christian church? It somewhat stretches the bounds of credulity to think that these writers and speakers make their assertions without benefit of research. I would like to believe that the worst accusation that we can level against them is ignorance of the subject. If these advocates did investigate the writings of the Fathers and church history and still make their statements, then the only conclusion that can be drawn is that they have a hidden agenda and are being deliberately deceitful.
It is imperative that Christians, in these perilous times, become more aware of the history of our beliefs. We desperately need to know from whence we have come so that we are not defeated by the mistakes and the deceits of the past.
End Notes:
- “Later” with Bob Costas; NBC Talk Show, videotape on file.
- Leslie D. Weatherhead, The Christian Agnostic, (New York; Abingdon Press, 1965) pp. 296-297.
- Anna K. Winner, The Basic Ideas of Occult Wisdom, (Wheaton, Ill.; Theosophical Publishing House, nd) pg. 56. ð3Ð/