"Whosoever teaches the doctrine of a supposed pre-birth existence of the soul, and speaks of a monstrous restoration of this, is cursed."

A new book in German, Jenseits von Einstein by author Peter Andreas, claims that in 553 AD, the Emperor Justinius had teachings on reincarnation banned. (And looking into the politics it took to accomplish this, I may have found a past life for Senator Mitch McConnell.) According to this new book:

In the year 553, quite independently of the Pope, Justinius had the teachings of the church father Origen (185-253) banned by a synod. Origen had spoken out in unmistakable terms on the question of the repeated incarnations of the soul:

‘Each soul enters the world strengthened by the victories or weakened by the defects of its past lives. Its place in this world is determined by past virtues and shortcomings.’    

De Principalis.

(In an interesting sync, I started this blog with a different version of this quote from Origen.)

Apparently Emperor Justinius did an end run around the 5th Ecumenical Council and got Origen and his teachings banned. I don’t know if the author Andreas states this, but previous research had pointed out that the concept of reincarnation was in conflict with the teachings of eternal damnation. It was deemed easier to keep people in line and coming to church on Sundays (plus keeping the donations flowing) by threatening them with never ending hellfire as punishment for their “sins.” Andreas’ research points out that it wasn’t even the Church itself that took this massive shift away from its own ancient teachings:

"Thus it seems right to conclude that the ban on the teaching of reincarnation is based on historical misrepresentation and has no ecclesiastical authority. It was in fact a fait accompli, brought about by Justinius, which no-one within the Christian church has dared to challenge in the course of some 1500 years. What is worse is that the subject has been totally ignored, as a glance at any encyclopaedia will show." 

Interesting, the use of that phrase “has no ecclesiastical authority,” which may be why I feel empowered rather than cursed by my past lives work. This book shows that it was politics, and not religious philosophy, that removed reincarnation from established Church doctrine.

https://share-international.org/archives/AgelessWisdom/aw_bannned.htm