Posted on 06/15/2009 2:07:35 PM PDT by wagglebee
June 15, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - This article presents the Christian attitude toward abortion before the first ecumenical council, that is, until A.D. 325. Because the New Testament does not comment on the morality of abortion, this article considers the writings of the first generations of Christians after the apostles, for they indicate that opposition to abortion (1) was shared at a time when the writers — or Christians not many generations earlier — personally knew the apostles or their first disciples and thus benefited from their unwritten teachings and interpretations of Scripture, (2) comes from a date so early that there was no likelihood for the original gospel to have been corrupted, and (3) is not based on only one interpretation of the Bible among many but was the interpretation of Christians who were personally familiar with the New Testament writers or their early followers.
With the exception of one author who wrote at length on the subject, early Christian writings do not discuss abortion in depth but merely state in a few words or phrases that it was forbidden to Christians. Most of the authors of the period do not touch on the subject but those who did considered it among the worst of sins.
The earliest source is an anonymous church manual of the late first century called The Didache. It commands “thou shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill that which is begotten.” (at 2.2)
The Epistle of Barnabas contains a similar guide to Christian morality. It was composed sometime between A.D. 70 and 132 and was included in some early versions of the New Testament. In the midst of several chapters of instructions on ethics, it states: “Thou shall not slay the child by procuring abortion; nor, again, shalt thou destroy it after it is born.” (19.5) The latter phrase refers to the ancient Greek and Roman practice of abandoning newborns to die in unpopulated areas if the baby was the “wrong” sex or suspected of health problems. To the author of Barnabas, this practice and abortion were equal in sinfulness.
Dating from just before A.D. 150, the Revelation of Peter was still read in church services in fifth-century Palestine. It describes in detail the various punishments in hell according to different types of sin. The punishment for women who induced miscarriage was to sit up to their necks in blood and dirt while the aborted children shot sparks of fire into their eyes (Chapter 25). Clement of Alexandria, the principal of Christendom's foremost Christian educational institution at the end of the second century, accepted these statements as an accurate exposition of the Faith (Extracts from the Prophets 41; 48; 49).
In Paedagogus 2.10.96 Clement spoke negatively of women who “apply lethal drugs which directly lead to death, destroying all humane feeling simultaneously with the fetus.”
Clement and other early Christian writers often quoted from the Sibylline Oracles as the work of a pagan prophet who had predicted the coming Christ like the Jewish ones. Later, the Sibyllines were rewritten to increase the proportion of Christian ethical teaching. Oracle 2 describes abortion as contrary to God's law, while Oracle 3 commands people to raise their children instead of angering God by killing them.
A Plea for the Christians was written around A.D. 177 by “Athenagoras the Athenian, Philosopher and Christian”, partly to convince the Roman Emperor that there was no truth in the rumor that Christians ritually murdered and ate babies. In declaring that such a practice was contrary to Christian ethics, Athenagoras emphasized the sacredness of unborn life:
And when we say that those women who use drugs to bring on abortion commit murder, and will have to give an account to God for the abortion, on what principle should we commit murder? For it does not belong to the same person to regard the very foetus in the womb as a created being, and therefore an object of God's care, and when it has passed into life, to kill it; and not to expose an infant, because those who expose them are chargeable with child-murder. (Chapter 35)
To Athenagoras, abortion was the same as abandoning a newborn and other murder.
The Octavius of Minucius Felix was composed sometime between A.D. 166 and 210, in part to prove that Christians had a higher morality than pagans. In condemning pagan practices, Chapter 30 deplores the fact that “There are some women who, by drinking medical preparations, extinguish the source of the future man in their very bowels, and thus commit [murder] before they bring forth.”
Our next author is Tertullian, a lawyer who became a Christian and a theological writer. He wrote a large number of books on Christianity, three of which mention abortion: Apologeticum (A.D. 197), An Exhortation to Chastity (around A.D. 204) and On the Soul (between A.D. 210 and 213). The Apologeticum was an introduction to Christianity for inquirers who wished to learn about it. Chapter 9 acquaints readers with the Christian position on abortion:
murder being once for all forbidden, we [Christians] may not destroy even the foetus in the womb, while as yet the human being derives blood from other parts of the body for its sustenance. To hinder a birth is merely a speedier man-killing; nor does it matter whether you take away a life that is born, or destroy one that is coming to the birth.
On the Soul was the longest work related to abortion in the first three centuries of Christianity. According to Chapter 37, “The embryo therefore becomes a human being in the womb from the moment that its form is completed. The law of Moses, indeed, punishes with due penalties the man who shall cause abortion, inasmuch as there exists already the rudiment of a human being.”
In An Exhortation to Chastity Tertullian mentioned that there were many difficulties in raising children but he asked: “Are you to dissolve the conception by aid of drugs?” and answers his own question with “I think to us [Christians] it is no more lawful to hurt a child in the process of birth, than one already born.” He recommended that life-long celibacy makes life freer because it relieves a Christian from the burdens of raising children; there is no alternative because, after a child is conceived, it is forbidden to kill it.
In the early decades of the third century, Hippolytus was a bishop in central Italy. Later, his followers purported to elect him bishop of Rome in opposition to another candidate, thus becoming the first “antipope.” For a few years Hippolytus and his rival operated competing church organizations. In his Refutation of All Heresies he made many accusations of lax morality against the opposing side in an attempt to maintain that it had departed from the standard of behavior commanded by the gospel. Among other practices, he charged that in the opposite camp,
women, reputed believers, began to resort to drugs for producing sterility, and to gird themselves round, so to expel what was being conceived on account of their not wishing to have a child either by a slave or by any paltry fellow, for the sake of their family and excessive wealth. (9.7)
Whatever the truth in these allegations against Hippolytus’ opponents, this passage indicates common disapproval of abortion, sexual promiscuity and placing material considerations above the life of unborn children.
A generation after Tertullian, Cyprian, the bishop of his city, listed abortion among the sins of a Christian who was causing a deep rift in the universal Church (Letter 52.2). By including the reference, he indicated that it was impermissible among Christians.
The Apostolic Church Order or Ecclesiastical Canons of the Apostles were composed around A.D. 300 as a short law-book for Christians, ostensibly by eleven apostles. Its wide popularity is evidenced by the fact that it was translated into several languages. Included in Chapter 6 is a prohibition that Christians shall not kill a child, at birth or afterward.
After Christianity was legalized, congregations in various regions held conferences to regulate the affairs of the Church. One objective was to standardize the practices of excommunication. About time of Constantine’s conversion, or perhaps a few years before, the Council of Elvira in Spain decreed that anyone who committed abortion was to be given the Eucharist only when in danger of death (Canon 63). This was the same penalty as for repeated adultery and child-molesting (Canons 47 and 71). The more lenient Council of Ancyra in Turkey (A.D. 314) enacted a ten-year suspension for women who caused abortion and for makers of drugs that induced miscarriage (Canon 21). The first ecumenical council, held at Nicaea in A.D. 325, did not itself condemn abortion but the third ecumenical council (Chalcedon, A.D. 451) adopted the decrees of Ancyra, including those against abortion.
In short, in the first three centuries after Jesus all Christian authors who mentioned abortion considered it a grave sin. This opposition was not merely local: Christian sources in Spain, Italy, Tunisia, Greece, Egypt, Turkey and Syria recognized abortion as forbidden by God and in the same category as any other murder. The condemnation was universal and unanimous.
Scripture alone, but Scripture is never alone.
Indeed; +Clement and +Cyprian, two of the finest of their age, with an ageless and timeless wisdom.
Aye--Church precedes and defines Canon.
Those poor early Christians really did not understand God as well as liberals in modern times.
For some rationalization aficionados, if they can't double-click on a black and white commandment to reveal more selfishly advantageous gray details, then they err on the side of personal convenience.
I love discussions/writings that dig deep whether for the purpose of upending assumptions or for revealing additional support leading from already concrete foundations.
So, I enjoyed the post.
But, I've gotta say that I find it difficult to believe any reasonable Christian, even when limited to strictly biblical text, could NOT be convinced that abortion is sin.
God names and speaks of knowing, communicating with and making future plans for unborn children - old testament and new. And, quite clearly, He is speaking of humans beings not non-viable tissue masses.
My favorite has to be in Luke. That is where the prophesied and promised (to his parents) John the Baptist was still what liberals would call a "choice", yet he excitedly acknowledges the presence of the recently conceived Jesus Christ while the newly pregnant Mary visits the six months showing Elisabeth.
Where would we be today if either of these fine women had succumbed to an evil thought and terminated what God so clearly considered identifiable individuals? Particularly, since one was actually His Son, I think God might not have approved the "choice".
The Father also actually "hated" Esau while he was yet in the womb, but He still did not drive Esau's mother to Planned (de)Parenthood so that she could concentrate on her career.
**in the first three centuries after Jesus all Christian authors who mentioned abortion considered it a grave sin. This opposition was not merely local: Christian sources in Spain, Italy, Tunisia, Greece, Egypt, Turkey and Syria recognized abortion as forbidden by God and in the same category as any other murder. The condemnation was universal and unanimous.**
If only this were really true today.
I just finished reading a series of books about life in Rome — novels by Francine Winters. One of the characters asks the Christian (not then revealed) slave to put the baby on the rocks to die.
Instead the slave girl takes him to a St. John’s community — yes, in Epesus.
Very true, no reasonable person could ever read the Bible and conclude that abortion was permissible.
Even Romans 1 highlights how people suppress the truth evident in nature.
Anybody who believes in a Creator -- and that's a high % of Americans -- to turn around & then conclude that He started to create you only to be dismembered in what's supposed to be one of the safest places on earth (the womb)...is suppressing truth already there in one side of their brain.
Since the object has no value to them, "thou shalt not steal" apparently would not be the prosecuting precedent. And since "thou shalt not commit involuntary and unnecessary surgery to remove not-yet-human cell collections" is not specifically mentioned as prohibited by God, then it must be OK.
The Ten Commandments are very clear, “Thou shalt not kill.”
Unless I am mistaken, EVERY time a woman in the Bible is pregnant, the baby is referred to as a baby or child, the baby is NEVER called a “fetus” or “embryo” or “clump of cells” or whatever else the left would like us to believe.
There is this view that immediately after St. Paul died the church became heretical and corrupt. The result of this view is that the Scriptures are pitted against the Church. This explains one of the many reasons for the growth of so many heresies and cults that claim to be following Scripture alone. The Scriptures were written by the church, for the church, and in the church. The Bible is truly the Church’s book. Because it is the Church’s book, all the teachings of the Church must conform to it.
Deliberate obfuscation.
Consider the Hebrew Bible, in which you are not even supposed to spill your seed on the ground.
Some believers assume God is directly involved in "creating" each and every embryo. Some just assume nature itself is His "creation" and various reproductive functions are just the work of amoral body fluids and genetic programming. Either way, abortions are a cancer on His designs.
There is a reason why "Don't commit adultery" ranks right up there with "Don't commit murder" in seriousness. Because the words "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh" is not just some common sense tips on family planning that accidentally left out the in-case-of-career exceptions.
Rather it is a brief though, for some, unfathomably deep description of our holy commission as currently physically reigning fleshly replicas of the Creator Himself and of His eternal spiritual family.
The quote above from Genesis might seem, to some Christians, like God's version of a romantic Hallmark moment. It's NOT!
When He says the two "shall be one flesh", that is His way of explaining to the DNA-ignorant, no-clothes-wearing, fruit eating Adam and Eve that they have divinely complimentary roles to play in His majestic plan. (And, by the way, while avoiding the gory details, He is quite clear that His plot will completely fall apart if casting gives the roles to Adam and Steve.)
Two people become one flesh. One new unique "creation". As designed. Perhaps the final blessing on one branch of the millions promised to Abraham. Perhaps a new pinnacle of a pyramid of blessings as numerous as "the sand which is upon the sea shore." We don't know. He does.
All WE know for sure is that the dead branch of abortion violates His glorious design and that its perpetrators inform Him that their section of His main avenue of blessing is not reliably open for traffic.
FANTASTIC ARTICLE!!!!
Of course the texts include symbolic, analogous and allegorical references. A chapter after the 10 commandments are revealed the OT includes the description of the penalty for causing the death of a pregnant woman's kid. It uses, for example, both "child" and "fruit" to describe the unborn victim.
Other words are used elsewhere, but the subject is:
ALWAYS alive.
And NEVER a choice.
Babies and toddlers were abandoned all the time before Christian values became dominant.
Now that so many Christian churches have gone awry, the old barbarisms are back, including the devaluing of the lives of innocent children.
Great article, thank you. I’ll likely cut some pieces out of this and send it off to some of my “social justice” leaning friends.
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