Augustine against metempsychosis

"In the City of God, however, Augustine ultimately rejects the doctrine of metempsychosis. One of the chapters is devoted to Plato's views on reincarnation and the "corrections" of his system as they were suggested by Porphyry, the author of the Life of Plotinus. In contrast to Plato and Plotinus, Porphyry did not believe in regressive reincarnation, but he accepted the idea of lateral reincarnation, maintaining that 'human souls return into human bodies; not the ones left behind, but into new bodies.' These concepts are not longer acceptable to Augustine. He refutes the idea of metempsychosis and instead ardently advocates the doctrines of the Christian Church, strongly emphasizing the role of God in the destiny of man and his soul and the significance of the resurrection: 'It is surely more respectable to believe what the true and holy angels have taught us, what the prophets inspired by the Spirit of God...have told us, namely, that souls return once and for all into their own bodies, not that they go on returning into one body after another.'"

Continued Existence, Reincarnation, and the Power of Sympathy in Classical Weimar, Lieselotte E. Kurth-Voigt, 1999. P. 33.