Reincarnation was also a percept of the early Christians, as expressed by Origen, an early Christian scholar, ascetic, and theologian. Origen has been described as the greatest genius the early church ever produced. He is widely regarded as one of the most important Christian theologians of all time. Origen clearly understood the essential nature of reincarnation:

“Every soul comes into the world strengthened by the victories and weakened by the defeats of its previous life. It can be shown that an incorporeal and reasonable being has life in itself independently of the body…then it is beyond a doubt bodies are only of secondary importance and arise from time to time to meet the varying conditions of reasonable creatures. Those who require bodies are clothed with them, and contrariwise, when fallen souls have lifted themselves up to better things their bodies are once more annihilated. They are ever vanishing and ever reappearing.” —Origen (CE 184–CE 253)

In CE 543, the Roman Emperor Justinian I manipulated the 5th Ecumenical Council, and the pope refused to attend as a gesture of protest. The emperor condemned Origen as a heretic and ordered that all his writings be burned. This condemnation caused teachings on reincarnation to be banned by the Church.