, 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