Mystic Christianity; Or, The Inner Teachings of the Master

by William Walker Atkinson

And not only Origen takes this stand, but Jerome also, for the latter says: "If we examine the case of Esau we may find he was condemned because of his ancient sins in a worse course of life." (Jerome's letter to Avitus.) Origen says:

"It is found not to be unrighteous that even in womb Jacob supplanted his brother, if we feel that he was worthily beloved by God, according to the deserts of his previous life, so as to deserve to be preferred before his brother."

Origen adds, "This must be carefully applied to the case of all other creatures, because, as we formerly remarked, the righteousness of the Creator ought to appear in everything." And again, "The inequality of circumstances preserves the justice of a retribution according to merit."

Annie Besant (to whom we are indebted for a number of these quotations), says, concerning this position of Origen:

"Thus we find this doctrine made the defense of the justice of God. If a soul can be made good, then to make a soul evil is to a God of justice and love impossible. It cannot be done. There is no justification for it, and the moment you recognize that men are born criminal, you are either forced into the blasphemous position that a perfect and loving God creates a ruined soul and then punishes it for being what He has made it, or else that He is dealing with growing, developing creatures whom He is training for ultimate blessedness, and if in any life a man is born wicked and evil, it is because he has done amiss and must reap in sorrow the results of evil in order that he may learn wisdom and turn to good."

Origen also considers the story of Pharaoh, of whom the Biblical writers say that "his heart was hardened by God." Origen declares that the hardening of the heart was caused by God so that Pharaoh would more readily learn the effect of evil, so that in his future incarnations he might profit by his bitter experience. He says:

"Sometimes it does not lead to good results for a man to be cured too quickly, especially if the disease, being shut up in the inner parts of the body, rage with greater fierceness. The growth of the soul must be understood as being brought about not suddenly, but slowly and gradually, seeing that the process of amendment and correction will take place imperceptibly in the individual instances, during the lapse of countless and unmeasured ages, some outstripping others, and tending by a swifter course towards perfection, while others, again, follow close at hand, and some, again, a long way behind."

He also says: "Those who, departing this life in virtue of that death which is common to all, are arranged in conformity with their actions and deserts—according as they shall be deemed worthy—some in the place called the 'infernus,' others in the bosom of Abraham, and in different localities or mansions. So also from these places, as if dying there, if the expression can be used, they come down from the 'upper world' to this 'hell.' For that 'hell' to which the souls of the dead are conducted from this world is, I believe, on account of this destruction, called 'the lower hell.' Everyone accordingly of those who descend to the earth is, according to his deserts, or agreeably to the position that he occupied there, ordained to be born in this world in a different country, or among a different nation, or in a different mode of life, or surrounded by infirmities of a different kind, or to be descended from religious parents, or parents who are not religious; so that it may sometimes happen that an Israelite descends among the Scythians, and a poor Egyptian is brought down to Judea." (Origen against Celsus.)

Can you doubt, after reading the above quotation that Metempsychosis, Re-incarnation or Re-birth and Karma was held and taught as a true doctrine by the Fathers of the Early Christian Church? Can you not see that imbedded in the very bosom of the Early Church were the twin-doctrine of Re-incarnation and Karma. Then why persist in treating it as a thing imported from India, Egypt or Persia to disturb the peaceful slumber of the Christian Church? It is but the return home of a part of the original Inner Doctrine—so long an outcast from the home of its childhood.

The Teaching was rendered an outlaw by certain influences in the Church in the Sixth Century. The Second Council of Constantinople (A.D. 553) condemned it as a heresy, and from that time official Christianity frowned upon it, and drove it out by sword, stake and prison cell. The light was kept burning for many years, however, by that sect so persecuted by the Church—the Albigenses—who furnished hundreds of martyrs to the tyranny of the Church authorities, by reason of their clinging faith to the Inner Teachings of the Church concerning Reincarnation and Karma.