INTRODUCTION

As Chesterton once said, the world is full of Christian virtues that have gone mad. Among them is the great gift of distrust. But people use this gift in a very one-sided way. They usually do not trust those ideas, social institutions, preachers who offer people work - the difficult work of humanization. From the one who calls for life seriousness, the listener demands no less meticulous substantiation of conclusions than is required of the candidate for a doctoral degree. But this same person gladly trusts those ideas, those publications and preachers behind which he feels a call for hedonistic indulgence.

Much has been said about the fact that modern civilization is radically hedonistic.a And she even perceives religion as another sphere for refined pleasure. As they wrote in the ever-memorable publications of the era of "scientific atheism," the task of the church was "to satisfy the religious needs of believers." Today, people are no longer ashamed to admit that it is desirable for them not to awaken, but only to "satisfy" these very "religious needs". But the conditions for relieving one's spiritual needs, of course, prefer the most comfortable ones: "Knowledge through Joy and Comfort".b

As a result, those ideas and symbols that in the old days deprived the philistine of comfort, stirred his conscience, are now reinterpreted in such a way as to give moral sanction for an essentially materialistic way of life. The religion of the Sufferer Crucified on Golgotha becomes the reason for writing brochures on the topic of "Business and the Gospel" with the simple idea that only the true evangelical faith of the American rite can make your business successful. The idea of transmigration of souls and repeated return to this world, which frightened and disciplined people of those traditional cultures that accepted it, today is perceived more as a joyful indulgence: if I have many more lives, it means that I still have many attempts to correct myself, and therefore it is better to postpone a serious attempt at systematic spiritual and moral growth until the next reincarnation...

It is clear that Christianity, with its postulate of a single life, and, accordingly, the absolute responsibility of man for its quality, seems to be a religion more disturbing and less convenient. But the moral authority of the Gospel is so high that it is somehow inconvenient to simply put this Book aside. Accordingly, the instinct of conscientious comfort requires that the Gospel be reinterpreted so that it is in tune with today's fashion. If today there is a fashion for reincarnation, then it is necessary to find this idea in Christianity as well...

So again about distrust. Once a young man stopped me in the passage of the subway with a question: "Tell me, do you have anything to do with the Church?" I said yes. He wisely insisted, "To what church? To the Orthodox?" And here I gave an affirmative answer. "Then I have a question for you. I was recently told that in ancient times, Christians, like Hindus, recognized the transmigration of souls, and only then at some council did they abolish this faith. Is it true?" Strangely, I was just finishing work on this book, which was devoted to this very issue. So his question could not have been at the right place. And distrust is just praiseworthy.

But many, many people (I'm afraid they are in the millions today) are incomparably more trusting of the postulates of occult propaganda. As a matter of course, tabloid newspapers write: "The concept of reincarnation was recognized by the Christian Church. Later, in the sixth century, at the Council of Jerusalem, the hierarchs of the church removed from Christian doctrines the postulate of the transmigration of souls, which survived only in Hinduism.

I hope that there is still a tendency in intelligent people who are interested in questions of religious philosophy to listen to both sides in any dispute before making a personal choice. Arguments in favor of the karmic worldview are easily available today: "introductions to esotericism" and instructions for "diagnosing karma" are simply littered with all the book trays. The Christian answer is still barely audible. Strangely, people prefer to trust the interpretations of Christianity given by non-Christians, stubbornly refraining from studying the understanding of Christianity given by the bearers of this tradition themselves.

Of course, it can be assumed that modern Christians have lost the wisdom and spirituality of the early Christians. I would not even dispute this thesis. It is not customary for Christians to justify oneself when one is accused of sin.c But on this particular issue, the question of the transmigration of souls, the Christian tradition can be traced from decade to decade through all twenty centuries. And it will be found that, contrary to the assurances of occult propaganda, our rejection of reincarnation is not a betrayal of ancient Christianity.

The theosophy of Blavatsky, the Roerichs and many other occult teachers claims to be, on the one hand, a synthesis of all religions, and on the other hand, a synthesis of religion and science. And claiming to be the "new science," the occult doctrine penetrates into schools and government agencies, into universities and into the press. Since the field of my professional scientific activity is the study of the history of Christian thought and the history of religion, I decided to see how scientifically the "synthesis" proclaimed by occultists is carried out in a field with which I am familiar firsthand.

There is a completely understandable line between religious conviction and scientific conclusion. To say "I believe in the resurrection of the dead" or "I believe in reincarnation" is to express a religious view. To say that "the Christians of the first centuries believed (or did not believe) in the transmigration of souls" means to express a judgment about a certain historical fact. This fact can be established and verified. In this book, quite ordinary scientific work is carried out with historical sources, that is, such work, each step of which can be checked and understood by a person of any religious views.

On the whole, the proposed work does not aim at comparing occult-theosophical and Christian ideas about man, his fate and death. I am not raising the question here whether there is really a transmigration of the human soul into many bodies, or whether what is promised in the Gospel will take place: the resurrection of the dead. I do not enter into a detailed consideration of the karmic doctrine, just as I do not try to substantiate the Gospel proclamation.

I have simply tried to consider as historical, and not as religious, the already mentioned extremely fashionable belief. Helena Roerich formulated it as follows: "The doctrine of reincarnation was abolished only in 553 A.D. at the Second Council of Constantinople. Thus, the doctrine of the pre-existence of the soul and its successive returns to Earth did not become a "heresy" among official Christianity until the sixth century A.D.; Up to that time it had been tolerated and accepted by those churchmen who were especially close to the Gnostics... But the spiritual fathers are carefully silent about this. After all, they cannot but know that the law of reincarnation was abolished only in the sixth century at the Council of Constantinople!" 2. Nicholas Roerich expresses himself even more radically: "As for reincarnation in general, one could say to a poor pastor that in the Philokalia one can hear about reincarnation from the time of Anthony the Great. After all, this truth was abolished only at the Council of Constantinople in the five hundredth years of our era. This means that all the holy ascetics who lived in the first half of the millennium seemed to understand nothing, and yet among these founders were the most remarkable figures. Suffice it to recall Anthony the Great."3