Reincarnation as an Interpretation of Purgatory

Abstract

We have seen that from early times some Christian thinkers found pre-existence and rebirth to be concepts at least worthy of serious consideration and that a tradition prospered within Christian thought that was hospitable to such an element in human history and destiny. We have seen, too, some of the reasons why such a tradition was forced underground and how, despite persecution and the terrors of the Inquisition, it kept re-appearing within the Christian fold, being a concept favoured by some of the most eminent luminaries of Western thought and of its most creative writers. It seems plausible to some, perhaps even incontestable, that it is at least not fundamentally incompatible with a Christian view of our pilgrimage. How, then, precisely might we propose to fit it into a Christian vision of our destiny and hail it as an aspect of our Christian hope?

The training that men call punishments. Clement of Alexandria, Stromaters