All the same, here and there we come across a few pa.s.sages that point in this direction. For instance, we read in _Genesis_, chapter 25, regarding the birth of Jacob and Esau:
"And the children (of Rebecca) struggled together within her.
"And the Lord said unto her: Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels, and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger.
"And when her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold there were twins in her womb."
This pa.s.sage has been the occasion of lengthy commentaries on the part of certain Fathers of the Church--more especially of Origen. Indeed, either we must acknowledge divine injustice, creating, without any cause, two hostile brothers, one of whom must submit to the rule of the other, and who begin to strive together even before birth, or we must hark back to the pre-existence of the human soul and to a past Karma which had created inequality in condition.
David begins the ninetieth _Psalm_ with a verse which only a belief in reincarnation can explain:
"Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations...."
The dwelling-place of the soul, at death, is in heaven, whence it returns to earth when the hour of rebirth has struck; thus, in all generations, that is, from life to life, "the Lord is our dwelling-place."
In Chapter 8 of the _Book of Wisdom_, Solomon says in more explicit language:
"For I was a witty child, and had a good spirit, yea, rather, being good, I came into a body undefiled."
This clearly points to the pre-existence of the soul and the close relation that exists between the conditions of its rebirth and the merits or demerits of its past.
Verse 5 of the first chapter of _Jeremiah_ is similar to verse 23 of the twenty-fifth chapter of _Genesis_:
"Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee, and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations...."
It is the deeds done in the past lives of Jeremiah that accompany him on his return to earth; G.o.d could not, in an arbitrary fashion, have conferred on him the gift of prophecy had he not acquired it by his efforts in a past life; unless, here too, we altogether abandon reason and go back to a capricious or unjust--consequently altogether impossible--G.o.d.
THE KABALA.
Contact with the Babylonians, during the Captivity, brought about a rapid development in the Hebrews, who were at that time far more advanced souls than those that animated the bodies of their fathers,[156] and taught them many important details of religious instruction. It was then that they learned the doctrine of rebirth and that the Kabala came into being.[157]
In it the cycle of rebirths is called Gil"gool"em[158] or the "revolving of the Incorporeal" in search of the "promised land." This promised land, the Christian Paradise, or Buddhist Nirvana, was symbolised by Palestine; the soul in its pilgrimage was brought to this abode of bliss,[159] and, according to the allegory, "the bodies of Hebrews buried in a foreign land contained an animistic principle which only found rest when, by the "revolving of the Incorporeal," the immortal fragment had returned to the promised land."[160]
There are other aspects from which this "revolution of souls" may be regarded. Certain Kabalists speak of it as a kind of purgatory in which, by means of this "revolving," the purging of the soul is brought about before it enters paradise.
In this connection, H. P. Blavatsky states that in the language of the Initiates the words "soul" (_ame_) and "atom" were synonyms, and were frequently used for each other. She says that the "revolution of souls" was in reality only the revolving of the atoms of the bodies which are continually transmigrating from one body to another throughout the various kingdoms of nature. From this point of view, it would seem that "Gil"gool"em" is more especially the cycle of atomic transmigration: _Resurrection_.
The doctrine of the reincarnation of the human soul, however, is clearly set forth in the _Zohar_:
"All souls are subjected to the tests of transmigration; men know not the designs of the Most High with regard to them; they know not how they are being at all times judged, both before coming into this world and when they leave it; they have no knowledge of the mysterious transformations and sufferings they must undergo, or how numerous are the spirits who coming; into this world never return to the palace of their divine King; they are ignorant of the revolutions to which they are subjected, revolutions similar to those of a stone when it is being hurled from a sling. And now the time has come when the veil shall be removed from all these mysteries.... Souls must in the end be plunged back into the substance from which they came. But before this happens, they must have developed all the perfections the germs of which are implanted within them; if these conditions are not realised in one existence, they must be born again until they reach the stage that makes possible their absorption in G.o.d."[161]
According to the Kabala, incarnations take place at long intervals; souls completely forget their past, and, far from being a punishment, rebirth is a blessing which enables men to develop and to attain to their final goal.
The Essenes taught reincarnation and the immortality of the soul.
Ernst von Bunsen,[162] speaking of this sect, says:
"Another marked peculiarity of the doctrine of the Essenes was the doctrine concerning the pre-existence of souls. They exist originally in the purest ether, which is their celestial home. By a natural attraction they are drawn towards the earth and are enclosed in human bodies, as in a prison. The death of the body causes the return of the soul to its heavenly abode. The Essenes can, therefore, not have believed in the resurrection of the body, but of the soul only, or, as Paul says, of the "spiritual body." This is positively a.s.serted by Josephus."[163]
ROME.
Although Rome, above all else, was a warlike republic, and religion princ.i.p.ally a State cult, that allowed but slight opportunity for the outer expression of spirituality, none the less did it inherit the beliefs of Egypt, Greece, and Persia; the Bacchic mysteries, previous to their degradation, were a copy of the Orphic and Eleusinian mysteries. In the reign of Pompey, Mithraism, a cult borrowed from Persia, was spread throughout the empire. Consequently, we need not be surprised at finding the doctrine of Rebirth mentioned by the great Latin writers.
We will quote only from Virgil and Ovid.
In the speech addressed by Anchises to aeneas, his son, the Trojan prince deals with the life beyond death, the tortures endured by souls in expiation of their misdeeds, their purification, their pa.s.sing into Tartarus,[164] into the Elysian Fields,[165] then their return to earth after having drunk of the river of forgetfulness. In Book VI. of the _aeneid_, we find aeneas visiting the lower regions:
"After having for a thousand years turned the wheel (of existence), these souls come forth in a mighty troop to the Lethean stream to which G.o.d calls them that they may lose the memory of the past, see the higher regions,[166] and begin to wish to return into bodies."
Ovid, in his _Metamorphoses_ also deals with the teaching of Pythagoras, his master, on the subject of palingenesis:
"Then Death, so-called, is but old matter drest In some new figure, and a varied vest; Thus all things are but alter"d, nothing dies, And here and there th" embodied spirit flies, By time, or force, or sickness dispossest, And lodges, when it lights, in man or beast.
Th" immortal soul flies out in empty s.p.a.ce To seek her fortune in some other place."
NEW TESTAMENT.
The _New Testament_ is far more explicit than the _Old_, even though we find the teachings of reincarnation indicated in only a vague, indirect fashion. All the same, it must not be forgotten that the canonical Gospels have suffered numerous suppressions and interpolations. On the other hand, there can be no doubt that the early Fathers of the Church made use of gospels that are now either lost or have become apocryphal.[167] It has been proved that neither Jesus nor his disciples wrote a single word, and that no version of the Gospels appeared earlier than the second century.[168] It was at that time that religious quarrels gave birth to hundreds of gospels, the writers of which signed them with the name of an apostle or even with that of Jesus, after forging them in more or less intelligent fashion.
Celsus, Jortin, Gibbons, and others have shown that Christianity is directly descended from Paganism; it was by combining the doctrines of Egypt, Persia, and Greece with the teachings of Jesus that the Christian doctrine was built up. Celsus silenced all the Christian doctors of his time by supplying evidence of this plagiarism; Origen, the most learned doctor of the age, was his opponent, but he was no more fortunate than the rest, and Celsus came off victorious.
Thereupon recourse was had to the methods usual in those days; his books were burnt.
And yet it is evident that the author of the _Revelation_ was a Kabalist; and the writer of the _Gospel of Saint John_ a Gnostic or a Neoplatonist. The _Gospel of Nicodemus_ is scarcely more than a copy of the _Descent of Hercules into the Infernal Regions_; the _Epistle to the Corinthians_ is a distinct reminiscence of the initiatory Mysteries of Eleusis; and the Roman Ritual, according to H. P.
Blavatsky, is the reproduction of the Kabalistic Ritual.
One gospel only was authentic, the secret or Hebrew _Gospel of Matthew_, which was used by the Nazareans, and at a later date by Saint Justin and the Ebionites. It contained the esoterism of the One-Religion, and Saint Jerome, who found this gospel in the library of Caesarea about the end of the fourth century, says that he "received permission to translate it from the Nazareans of Beroea."
These considerations prove that interested and narrow-minded writers selected from the ma.s.s of existing traditions whatever seemed to them of a nature to support their spiritual views as well as their material interests, and that they constructed therefrom not only what has come down to us as the four canonical gospels, but also the whole edifice of Christian dogma.
Consequently, we need not be surprised to find in the _New Testament_ only unimportant fragments dealing with reincarnation; but even these are not to be despised, for they prove that the doctrine was, to a certain extent at all events, known and accepted in Palestine.
_Reincarnation in the Gospels._
_Saint Mark_, Chapter 6.
v. 14. And King Herod heard of him; and he said, That John the Baptist was risen from the dead....
v. 15. Others said, That it is Elias; and others said, That it is a prophet, or as one of the prophets.
v. 16. But when Herod heard thereof, he said, It is John whom I beheaded; he is risen from the dead.
_Saint Matthew_, Chapter 14.
v. 1. At that time, Herod the tetrarch heard of the fame of Jesus.
v. 2. And said unto his servants, This is John the Baptist; he is risen from the dead....