In Greece, the doctrine of transmigration—or, as it is there called, metempsychosis— did not become the belief of the people, but was confined to the teaching of the mysteries and the tenets of philosophers, who probably derived it, either directly or indirectly from Egypt or India. According to some, Thales (q.v.) was the first Greek philosopher who propounded it; according to others, Pherecydes (q.v.) the teacher of Pythagoras (q.v.) but its importance in Greek philosophy it first obtained through the system of Pythagoras, who, it seems, became acquainted with it through Egyptian sources. After him, it was Plato (q.v.) who assigned to it a prominent place in his philosophy; and lie probably was indebted to Hindu writers for his views on metempsychosis, as ex plained in his dialogues, especially in Plaedros. Plato's doctrine was refuted by Aristotle, but revived, though in a modified shape, by the Neoplatonists.
Since a belief that the consequences of the acts of man must follow their inevitable course, and can neither be averted nor stopped by the intercession of a divine power, is incompatible with a belief in divine grace, the doctrine of transmigration or metempsy chosis could never gain a firm ground in the religion of the.Jews and Christians. It deserves notice, however, that in both these religions it found adherents as well in an cient as modern times. Among the Jews the doctrine of transmigration—the Gilyal Neshamoth—was taught in the mystical system of the Cabbala, which pretends to divulge the secrets of creation and those of the nature of the divine and human soul. "All the souls," the Sohar, or the book of "light," the spiritual code of this system, says, "are subject to the trials of transmigration; and men do not know which are the ways of the Most High in their regard. They do not know how they are judged in all times, as well before they come to this world as after they leave it. They do not know how many transformations and mysterious trials they must undergo: how many souls and spirits come to this world without returning to the palace of the divine king." The principle, in short, of the Cabbala is the same as that of Brahmanism. The souls, like all other existences of this world, it teaches, must re-enter the absolute substance whence they have emerged. But to accomplish this end, they must develop all the perfections the germ of which is planted in them; and if they have not fulfilled this condition during one life, they must commence another, a third, and so forth, until they have acquired the condition which fits them for their reunion with God. On the ground of this doc trine, which was shared in by rabbis of the highest renown, it was held, for instance, that the soul of Adam migrated into David, and will come into the Messiah; that the soul of Japhet is the same as that of Simeon, and the soul of Terah migrated into Job. Generally, it was supposed by writers of this school, the souls of men are reborn in men, and those of women in women; but also the reverse takes place, as in the case of Thamar, who had the soul of a man, and in that of Judah, whose soul was in part that of a woman. And because Ruth had the soul of Thamar, she could not bear children until God imparted to her sparks of a female soul. If the soul of a man, however, is reborn in a woman, such a migration is held by some to be a punishment for the committal of great sins, as when a man refuses to give alms, or to communicate to others his wisdom. And it is by way of punishment, too, that the soul of a Jew is reborn in a heathen or in an animal—a clean or unclean beast, a bird, a fish—or even in an inanimate object. Of all these transmigrations, biblical instances are adduced—according to their mode of interpretation—in the writings of rabbi Manasse ben Israel, rabbi Naphtali, rabbi Meyer ben Gabbi, rabbi Ruben, in the Jalkut Khadash, and other works of a similar character.
Modern Cabbalists—for instance, Isaac Loria—have imagined that divine grace some times assists a soul in its career of expiation by allowing it to occupy the same together with another soul, when both are to supplement each other, like the blind and the lame. Sometimes only one of these two sauls requires a supplement of virtue, which it obtains from the other soul, better provided than its partner. The latter soul then becomes, as it were, the mother of the other soul, and bears it under her heart like a pregnant woman. Hence the name of gestation or impregnation is given to this strange association of two souls. That all these wild fancies have for their main object the ex planation of obscure or mystical passages of the Bible, and the reconciliation of such as arc or may seem contradictory, requires no remark; the philosopher, however, must look to their basis, which is purely ethical.
Among the early Christians, St. Jerome relates, the doctrine of transmigration was taught as a traditional and esoteric one, which was only communicated to a selected few; anti Oritsenes, like the Kabbalists, considers it as the only means of explaining souse biblical traditions, as that of the struggle of Jacob and Esau before their birth, or the selection of Jeremiah when he was not yet born, and many more events which would throw discredit on divine justice, unless they were justified by good or bad acts done in a former life. Of Christian sects the Manichseans (q.v.) especially adhered to this belief, but the church always rejected it as a heresy.
In concluding, at least one great philosopher of modern times may here be named as one whose views of the progress of mankind are based on the same doctrine; it is the celebrated German critic, G. E. Lessing, who endeavored to establish it on metaphysical grounds. His arguments are briefly these: The soul is a simple being, capable of infinite conceptions. But being a finite being it is not capable of such infinite coneep, thins at the same time; it must obtain them gradually in an infinite succession of time. If, however, it obtain them gradually, there must be an order in which and a degree to which these conceptions are acquired. This order and this measure are the senses, At present the soul has of such senses five; but neither is there any ground to assume that it has commenced with having five senses, nor that it will stop there. For, since nature never takes a leap, the soul must have gone through all the lower stages before it arrived at that which it occupies now . . . and since nature contains many substances aud powers which are not accessible to those senses with which it is now endued, it must be assumed that there will be future stages at which the soul will have as many senses as correspond with the powers of nature. And " this my system," lie concludes his little but important essay, Data meter als funf Singe far den 1Ienschen sein ktinnen—in a frag mentary note discovered after his death—" this my system is certainly the oldest of all philosophical systems; for it is in reality no other than the system of the pre-existence of the soul and metempsychosis, which did not only occupy the speculation of Pythag eras and Plato, but also before them of Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Persians—in short, of all the sasses of the east; and this circumstance alone ought to work a good prejudice in its favor, for the first and oldest opinion is in matters of speculation always the most probable, because common sense immediately bit upon it."