The understanding of rebirth was widespread throughout the Graeco-Roman world of classical antiquity and during the time of Jesus. From Pythagoras, to Plato, Virgil and Plutarch. The Jew’s called the ‘Doctrine of the Transmigration of Souls’, Gilgal (‘Wheel’, ‘Cycle’).
The Old & New Testaments contain clear examples of a belief in the rebirth of the soul in another body. Jesus himself states that John the Baptist was Elijah/Elias: “For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John. And if ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come.” (Matthew 11:13-14)
Orthodox Church doctrine was based on the work of early Gnostics residing in Alexandria, Clement and Origen (185-254), both proved to be familiar with Indian spirituality and the teachings of Buddha. Clement wrote:
‘For as each such birth follows the previous one, we are led in gradual progression to Immortality.’
“The Emperor Justinian had already declared war on the teachings of Origen in AD 543 when, without bothering to consult the Pope, he had them condemned as heretical by a specially convened synod.”
Some say this was due to his favourite courtesan who became his wife and Empress, wanting to erase the karma of her past by royal decree.
“Ten years later he assembled a Council in Constantinople, only afterwards to become known as the Fifth Ecumenical Council. Hardly ‘ecumenical’, for it was little more than an ego-trip for Justinian, who saw himself as the head of the Eastern Church and was trying to consolidate this claim to power in relation to the Bishop of Rome in the West.
Of the 165 bishops present, a mere dozen were from Roman dioceses; all other Western bishops specifically refused to take part in the Council.”
And so it was decreed, “Eternal damnation to anyone who preaches the spurious pre-existence of the soul and its unnatural rebirth” – this was part of the Council’s resolutions which became lodged in ecclesiastical lore.
The formal procedures, however, required the resolutions to be ratified by the Pope. Constrained by the Emperor, the ambitious Pope Vigilius (who had only been made Pope at the insistence of the Empress in AD 537) finally wavered.