Just because Leo was wrong first does not change the fact that Justinian declared it so that he could declare the Arians as heretics. But that is not the point. There is strong forensic evidence of past lives. So what do Christians do when scientific evidence of the God’s creation conflicts with man-made doctrines?
Your idea that Justinian condemned the pre-existence of souls in order to declare the Arians heretics presents a serious chronological problem to put it mildly: Arianism had already been formally condemned by ecumenical councils more than two centuries before Justinian.
Also, there is substantial historical evidence that the fathers rejected the pre-existence of souls even long before Pope Leo the Great’s condemnation in AD 447, and centuries before Emperor Justinian.
1. Tertullian — De Anima, Chapter 27 (c. AD 210)
The chapter is entitled Soul and Body Conceived, Formed and Perfected in Element Simultaneously.
Tertullian writes: “We indeed maintain that both are conceived, and formed, and perfectly simultaneously, as well as born together.”
Tertullian’s position is clear: the individual soul does not temporally precede the body.
His explanation of the soul’s origin does not correspond in every respect to later Catholic theological teaching. Nevertheless, his rejection of the soul’s pre-existence is unmistakable.
This testimony predates Leo the Great by more than two centuries.
Primary source: Tertullian, A Treatise on the Soul, Chapter 27
2. Methodius of Olympus — On the Resurrection (late third or early fourth century, before AD 311)
Methodius is a particularly important witness because he directly challenges doctrines attributed to Origen.
He discusses the theory that souls existed without bodies before their fall and were subsequently imprisoned in material bodies.
His argument explicitly rejects this conception, concluding: “nor was the soul clothed in it for the first time after the fall.”
Methodius here is specifically challenging the Origenist conception of the pre-existence of souls and their subsequent embodiment as a consequence of a primordial fall.
His testimony demonstrates that opposition to this doctrine existed within Christianity long before the sixth-century controversies.
Primary source: Methodius, From the Discourse on the Resurrection, Part III, Sections II–III
3. Gregory of Nyssa — De Hominis Opificio, Chapters 28–29 (c. AD 379)
Gregory of Nyssa provides one of the clearest and most philosophically developed early Christian arguments against the pre-existence of souls.
He examines two competing positions:
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The claim that souls exist before their bodies.
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The claim that bodies exist before their souls.
He rejects both.
For Gregory, the human being possesses a single beginning of existence, common to both soul and body.
His conclusion is explicit: “neither the soul before the body, nor the contrary”
In Chapter 28, Gregory also discusses the theory that souls previously existed in a separate spiritual community and subsequently entered bodily existence as a consequence of falling away from goodness.
He is therefore addressing the pre-existence of souls itself.
And Gregory was one of the most significant Greek theologians of the fourth century.
Primary source: Gregory of Nyssa, On the Making of Man, Chapters 28–29
4. Augustine of Hippo — De Civitate Dei, Book XI, Chapter 23 (early fifth century)
Augustine provides an even more direct testimony because he explicitly criticizes a doctrine he attributes to Origen, decades before Leo the Great and more than a century before Justinian.
The chapter is entitled: Of the Error in Which the Doctrine of Origen is Involved.
Augustine discusses the theory that souls existed before their earthly lives, sinned in that previous state, and consequently received different bodies according to the gravity of their sins.
He then states: “Origen is justly blamed for holding this opinion.”
The context is everything here..
Augustine is criticizing the conception that souls were assigned material bodies as a consequence of sins committed during a previous spiritual existence.
He is not merely discussing reincarnation. He is directly criticizing the doctrine of the pre-existence and fall of souls.
This makes his testimony particularly difficult to dismiss in any discussion of whether opposition to the pre-existence of souls originated with Justinian.
Primary source: Augustine, The City of God, Book XI, Chapter 23
5. Pope Leo the Great — Letter 15 to Turribius (AD 447)
Finally, we have Pope Leo the Great, whose condemnation predates Justinian’s reign by almost a century.
In his letter to Bishop Turribius, dated July 21, 447, Leo explicitly rejects the belief that souls existed before entering human bodies, particularly in connection with the theory that they had sinned in a previous spiritual existence.
The relevant passage appears in Letter 15, Section 10.
Primary source: Leo the Great, Letter 15, Section 10
So your point kind of collapses.
Thank you for the history lesson. It does not negate the fact that Justinain committed genocide on the Arians in 533 - 534 AD, after his declaration.
It also does not negate the fact that decades of forensic evidence exists for the preexistence of the soul, which makes the whole historical debate mute.
Hello, we actually can’t lean in our darken understandings to question any of the Church’s revelation. Examination needs biblical grounding for our own spiritual safety.
“See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. ”
Colossians 2.v8-10
There isn’t, unless you adopt an extraordinarily broad definition of “forensic evidence.”
Your question makes me realize that you aren’t aware that the Church Fathers had already addressed reports of people apparently remembering past lives.
Here are two Christian authors who explicitly address the question of how people might appear to remember previous lives without reincarnation actually having occurred.
1. St. Augustine of Hippo (354–430)
Work: De Genesi ad litteram (The Literal Meaning of Genesis), Book VII, chapter 11, §16.
Augustine directly considers reports of individuals who supposedly remember previous incarnations. He proposes that such experiences may result either from false accounts or from demonic deception.
His Latin is explicit: “aut falsa narrantur, aut ludificationibus daemonum hoc in eorum animis factum est.”
English translation (translated directly from the Latin): “Reports that certain people seem to remember which animals’ bodies they had previously inhabited are either false, or such impressions have been produced in their minds through the deceptions of demons. For if someone can, while dreaming, experience a deceptive memory and believe that he remembers having been something he never was, or having done something he never did, why should it be surprising if, by a just but hidden judgment of God, demons are permitted to produce something similar even in the minds of those who are awake?”
Sources:
For academic citation: Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram VII.11.16, ed. Joseph Zycha, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 28.1 (Vienna, 1894).
de Genesi 1000
What Augustine is actually arguing: He recognizes that apparent autobiographical memories need not correspond to things the person actually experienced. He uses the phenomenon of deceptive memories during dreams to establish the intelligibility of similar experiences while awake, potentially arising from demonic influence.
There is one important contextual qualification: Augustine is specifically discussing alleged memories of previous lives as animals. His explanation should not be misrepresented as a discussion of modern investigations into children’s memories of deceased human beings.
2. Tertullian (c. 155–220)
Work: De anima (On the Soul), chapter 28.
English translation: Edwin A. Quain, S.J., in Tertullian: Apologetical Works; Minucius Felix: Octavius, The Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1950), pp. 246–247.
https://web.english.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Tertullian_On_the_Soul.pdf
Tertullian discusses the claim that Pythagoras remembered having previously lived as Euphorbus, a warrior of the Trojan War.
The alleged evidence was that Pythagoras recognized a shield associated with Euphorbus, identifying details that were supposedly not generally known.
Tertullian considers explanations involving access to obscure historical information, deception and supernatural influence.
He explicitly asks: “Might he not have been possessed of the same demon which in Euphorbus did such bloody deeds?”
Exact location: On the Soul 28.5, p. 247 of Quain’s English translation.
This is particularly relevant to the modern discussion.
Tertullian’s argument is not merely that reincarnation contradicts Christian doctrine. Rather, he challenges the inference from apparently inaccessible information to personal identity.
In other words, even if Pythagoras genuinely possessed accurate knowledge of Euphorbus’s life, this would not necessarily establish that the two were the same person.
Tertullian considers both natural and supernatural (or better yet: preternautal) explanations for how such knowledge could have been obtained.
Furthermore, knowledge of the unknowable is one of the most important signs, if not the most important alongside hatred for the sacred, used even today to determine whether someone is experiencing demonic possession or demonic influence.
There is also something inherently problematic about treating alleged memories of past lives as compelling evidence for reincarnation while overlooking the far more widespread reports of encounters with deceased individuals who appear to retain their personal identities.
It looks suspiciously like cherry-picking: accounts that seem to contradict Christian orthodoxy are taken at face value, without seriously considering alternative natural or preternatural explanations, while accounts that are consistent with Christian orthodoxy are dismissed, ignored, deemed less significant, or conveniently reinterpreted.
It’s hard not to see in this a fundamentally rebellious attitude, whereby the more a doctrine contradicts the teachings of the Church, the more authoritative it somehow seems to become.
As I said, the very same “forensic evidence” you invoke in support of the preexistence of the soul can also be used—and arguably with a far greater body of supporting testimony—to argue for the continued existence of personal identity after death, rather than successive lives as different individuals.
The problem is that one body of evidence resonates with your personal beliefs and intuitions, so you treat it as compelling proof. Meanwhile, the much broader body of testimony that challenges those intuitions and is consistent with the teachings of the Church is somehow dismissed, disregarded, or stripped of its evidential value.
The arbitrariness of this approach, and the double standard it entails, are not particularly difficult to see.
You could argue that I’m applying a double standard as well, since I interpret the cases you’ve mentioned differently, much as the Fathers of the Church did. But there is a fundamental difference: I have a reason for doing so that goes far beyond my own personal judgment or preferences. That reason is my belief that Christ founded a Church and promised her the Spirit of Truth (John 16:13)
You, on the other hand, seem to be applying a double standard based on your own theological conclusions, dismissing the Church’s authoritative teaching whenever it conflicts with your personal interpretation.
My approach is rooted in the promises of Jesus Christ, who does not lie, and who would hardly promise His Church the Spirit of Truth only to abandon her to the teaching of falsehood for centuries or even millennia. Yours, by contrast, appears to rest ultimately on your own personal preferences and doctrinal judgments. My approach is also rooted in Scripture’s unmistakable condemnation of factions and divisions among Christians, its repeated calls for unity of mind and thought, and its insistence on preserving sound doctrine. It would make absolutely no sense for Scripture to condemn disunity among Christians if God had not established a means by which the unity of the faith could be preserved. That would be rather like condemning human beings for being unable to fly.
That is a rather significant difference in our approaches.
This doesn’t look like a post made by some-one who never makes matters personal.
There is a rather serious problem with your argument, and I think we need to get the historical facts straight before going any further.
You previously wrote: “Just because Leo was wrong first does not change the fact that Justinian declared it so that he could declare the Arians as heretics.”
You were referring to Justinian’s condemnation of the preexistence of souls, which you explicitly claimed was intended to provide a justification for declaring the Arians heretics.
But that is historically impossible.
First, Arianism had already been condemned at the Council of Nicaea in 325, and again at the Council of Constantinople in 381. Both councils took place more than two centuries before Justinian’s reign.
Second, the condemnation of Arianism concerned its Christology, particularly its denial of the Son’s full consubstantiality with the Father. The controversy over the preexistence of souls concerned an entirely different theological question.
Third, and perhaps most importantly, Justinian’s edict condemning the Origenist doctrine of the preexistence of souls dates to 543.
Now you write: “Justinian committed genocide on the Arians in 533 - 534 AD, after his declaration.”
After which declaration, exactly?
If you mean the condemnation of the preexistence of souls, as your previous comments strongly suggest, you have the chronology completely backwards.
The Byzantine conquest of the Vandal kingdom took place in 533–534, nearly a decade before Justinian issued his anti-Origenist edict.
You are also conflating the Byzantine military conquest of North Africa, which was ruled by the Arian Vandals, with an alleged genocide specifically directed against Arians as a religious group.
I am not denying that the conquest involved violence or that Justinian subsequently imposed severe restrictions on Arians., but if you are going to make the much more specific accusation of genocide against Arians in 533–534, you need to establish it with historical evidence, otherwise it’s just hot air.
More importantly, none of this establishes the causal relationship you originally proposed between the condemnation of the preexistence of souls and the condemnation of Arianism.
That relationship is contradicted by both the chronology and the actual doctrinal content of the two controversies.
I think you might want to be a little more certain of your facts before making further claims you can’t substantiate.
The problem, as even St. Raymond pointed out, is that he assigns completely arbitrary meanings to words. Somehow, quoting Origen’s own words from his own theological writings to demonstrate what he actually believed qualifies as “arrogance.”
If that isn’t assigning an entirely arbitrary meaning to the word “arrogance,” then I honestly don’t know what is.
If what I put was a caricature then you must know where it was based. Try reading back your own assertions from the view of those who you are rejecting.
Your faith in God is second hand. You believe the people and sources of what has been indoctrinated in you. And when you assert them you do not realise that what you claim contradicts the very words of Scripture that you quote.
You have not thought it through at all. You just follow the teaching of your church.
If there is division in Christianity it was made by the Catholic Church, and it can only be healed by them.
Richard
On your own confusion. You don’t know what you are talking about, and you rarely miss a chance to show it off.
Stercus Equinum. Again you don’t know what you are talking about.
Another unsubstantiated claim.
Yeah sure, claiming that the babelic nature of modern Christianity (fostered by the principle of sola Scriptura which is conducive to division by its very nature) goes against the biblical commands regarding Christian unity in mind, thought and faith shows that my claims contradict the very words of the Scripture that I quote.
But then again, you employ words without knowing what they mean. You call me arrogant because I show what Origen actually wrote and believe (this is what you wrote: “Such arrogance and certainty, not only of the correctness and authority of the Chrurch, but also that others would, even must acede to it.” Despite the fact that Origen himself shown the highest degree of respect for the Church founded by Christ as I have shown with his own writings)Z
Which goes to show that you don’t know what that term means or the you arbitrarily change its meaning.
You can’t be reasoned with, plain and simple.
Yet another lie, and another completely unsubstantiated judgment.
Which only goes to show that the real problem here is PRIDE AND ARROGANCE. You seem to believe that those who follow the Church founded by Christ Himself are nothing more than brainless sheeple, incapable of thinking critically about what they are taught and willing to accept absolutely everything without a second thought.
That way, you get to feel intellectually superior and “free,” all while basking in your own cluelessness and unbridled, irrational subjectivity, so much so that you cannot even bring yourself to respect the actual meaning of words.
How so? The Catholic Church certainly isn’t in a state of constant fragmentation, continually splintering into rival denominations, each with its own competing and incompatible interpretation of the Christian faith.
We’re talking about a worldwide Church with more than 1.4 billion baptized members, united under a common faith and common beliefs.
If what you’re saying were true, how would you explain the fact that such an enormous and diverse communion has managed to preserve its institutional and doctrinal continuity across centuries, despite countless theological controversies and disagreements?
Compare that situation to the situation within Protestantism.
Temper, temper. It’s ot me telling you what to believe, or rejecting as heresy what I believe, let alone claiming tjhe inability to use language.
I did not say the forefathers were ignorant sheep, i implied that you are. They thought it through, you clearly haven.
I believe what I believe, not what I am told to.
You don’t reason, you argue, assert and demand. I have no reason to accept you views over mine, which includes a faith in historic beliefs.
Richard
Which again is an unsubstantiated assessment that has the only purpose to make you feel superior.
That is demonstrated. You assign an arbitrary meaning to words.
On what basis you believe what you believe? Since I’m a brainless sheeple, tell me your criteria. Do you have criteria beyond the “it makes sense to me”? Have you studied the history of the Church and why and how certain beliefs were established?
No, you haven’t. You bask in your own irrational subjectivity and then you claim that you are a free thinker while I’m a sheep. Discussing with your is like playing chess with a pidgeon. There is no ryme and reason, only arrogance, lack of logical and philosophical rigor and the “me” cult that trumps anything else.
You aren’t worth discussing with, like I said: it’s like playing chess with a pidgeon. Literally.
What are you views? Can you even tell me?
Let’s just look at what you did the other day.
I wrote
You, on the other hand, being no brainless sheep like me, went on with your usual irrational ramblings.
How does the fact that the statement “God exists” is not unique to Christianity somehow refute my point that it is something all Christians agree on? It doesn’t. You should have at least the most basic level of rationality and intellectual honesty to recognize that.
Except I wasn’t describing the Trinity. I was making a statement about Christ’s divine nature, which is a belief shared by the overwhelming majority of Christians today. The triune nature of the one God is another belief that unites Christians, but it wasn’t what I was discussing in that particular instance.
Once again, you demonstrate that you either have no idea what you’re talking about, possess absolutely no reading comprehension, or are so incredibly intellectually dishonest that you’re willing to contradict me simply for the sake of contradicting me.
You have failed to explain why the persistent fragmentation of Christianity into rival denominations, teaching mutually contradictory doctrines on important matters of faith and morals, would not fall under the Bible’s explicit condemnation of divisions and factions as works of the flesh.
Once again, you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. None whatsoever. Yet you have the audacity to call me a “brainless sheep” (“ I did not say the forefathers were ignorant sheep, i implied that you are” who blindly accepts what he believes without reason, critical thought, or serious reflection.
You ought to be ashamed of yourself, but you’re so consumed by your own blinding pride that you can’t even recognize it.
I am wondering who is the one not understanding plain English. I have never claimed superiority over anyone here.
It is you assigning value to belief not me. And I am not dismissing your beliefs or claiming you do not know or have them either.
So, either calm down and be civil or psss off.
Richard
Who do you think you are fooling, exactly? 
Let me know when you are ready for another game of chess.