Preëxistent

If the individual spirit is a preëxistent and eternal reality, why should not the normal self have more concrete and specific memories of its preëxisting states of being?

Wisdom was preëxistent; the Messiah was preëxistent; wisdom was the Law. With this set of ideas Paul started on his prologue to the life of Jesus. But he introduces into it one significant change. In the then current Jewish belief, the preëxistent wisdom and the preëxistent Messiah were two distinct incorporeal beings, the former being the preëxistent Law to be revealed through Moses and the latter the preëxistent redeemer to be born of the house of David.