Reincarnation

During the controversial second synod in Constantinople in the year 553, the Emperor Justinian succeeded in imposing a damnation of the reincarnation teaching. This has made it terribly difficult for the Christian adherents of this teaching to state their views up until today. Pope Vigilius had actually been imprisoned by Justinian for eight fully years, when the latter decided to call in a synod. Except from the six western bishops from Africa all the participating bishops were from the Eastern Church. There were no represents from Rome present, and even though the now free Vigilius was in Constantinople, he did not want to participate in the meeting. This was due to the circumstance that Justinian refused to comply with a request that bishops from the Eastern and Western churches should be equally represented. In spite of the synod's invalid nature it has still had influence in posterity, and it has thus been held that a condemnation of a.o. Orignes and his reincarnation faith was good Christianity.

The wording of one of the excommunications was directly: "If anyone asserts the unbelievable teaching of the souls' pre-existence and the thereby succeeding outrageous re-formation, he shall be excommunicated." With excommunication was meant a public church curse, which implied excommunication, i.e. exclusion from the church. And as salvation at that time was considered inseparable with annexation of the Church of Christ, excommunication meant in other words that you were left to damnation. Thus it has called for both courage and integrity to stick to your "heretical" views.

Still the faith in the soul's pre-existence and future development has survived on a limited scale within several Christian churches. It has been risky to express your conviction loudly, but nevertheless some did. You cannot claim that our own hymn writer B.S. Ingemann believed in reincarnation in a current sense, but there is no doubt that he tended to extraordinarily indogmatic conception. He believed firmly that the soul existed before conception, and that it fully consciously raised itself from the earthly connexion upon death and did not fall into a deep sleep of the soul until the Day of Judgment, which many of the Christians at that time meant. This can be seen in his expressive description of heaven:

"There is my home, from which I come, where the spirit has listened to the song of seraphs, and dreamed of salvation before I was born. There is my home, whereto the spirit turns when it raises itself on eagle's wings from grave and death." That Ingemann really pushed the limits of death and the established theology can be emphasized by the following statement: "But if the soul does not attain under the sun what it wants - then there are other suns and other stars". There is nothing surprising about the disputes between Ingemann and the church representatives at that time. Still he has for a long time been one of the most loved hymn writers in Denmark. But also many other representatives for Christianity have dared to adhere to their diverging views despite of potential costs. Let us therefore give a number of examples that may illustrate the recurring topicality of the subject.