Catholic reincarnation?

[Borealis]

My mother is reading a book on reincarnation, and the author (Bryan L. Weiss) claims that reincarnation was a Christian belief up until 335 AD, when Constantine ordered it excised in order to consolidate power or something. Has anyone heard anything about this? Where would I find evidence to refute this claim?

 

[VociMike]

Never heard of it. The response is simple: tell the person making this claim to provide evidence that the Church taught this doctrine before 335AD. Obviously the person must know of such evidence to have made the claim in the first place, so have them produce it.

 

[Verbum]

Hi Borealis,

The Church never believed in re-incarnation and can never believe in it. Why? Because our eternal destiny is determined at the moment of our death and because we shall resurrect on the last day as the individuals that we are today. Catholic Answers has an article on this at catholic.com/library/Reincarnation.asp

The closest the Second Council of Constantinople came to addressing reincarnation was, in one sentence, to condemn Origen, an early Church writer who believed souls exist in heaven before coming to earth to be born. New Agers confuse this belief in the preexistence of the soul with reincarnation and claim that Origen was a reincarnationist. Actually, he was one of the most prolific early writers against reincarnation! Because he is so continually misrepresented by New Agers, we have included a number of his quotes below, along with passages from other sources, all of which date from before A.D. 553, when the doctrine of reincarnation was supposedly "taken out of the Bible

Verbum