Is it true that transmigration of the soul was the prevalent view within the early Christian Church?
No, the early Church rejected the idea of the transmigration of souls. Central to Christianity was from the start the message of Christ’s rising from the dead as a hope of the resurrection of all humans. This in itself excluded reincarnation, an idea more consonant with Platonic dualism, which seemed to envisage the body as a prison or a coat to be cast aside and changed when outworn.
