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Originally posted by ReasonableDoubt

Divine ensoulment has always been a point of controversy throughout church history...it's only been now, w/ modern technology, that most christians believe ensoulment occurs at conception - with the great medical technology we possess, we are far more clearly able to make the statement.

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Originally posted by DLW

How do you explain Thomas Aquinas' view that human life began in the third trimester?

Was he also knee-deep in heresy?
dlw

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Basil (c. 329-379) -First Letter 2 (To Anfilochius, Bishop of Iconia):
She who has intentionally destroyed [the fetus] is subject to the penalty corresponding to a homicide. For us, there is no scrutinizing between the formed and unformed [fetus]; here truly justice is made not only for the unborn but also with reference to the person who is attentive only to himself/herself since so many women generally die for this very reason.

Let her that procures abortion undergo ten years' penance, whether the embryo were perfectly formed, or not.

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Basil (c. 329-379) -First Letter 8
…those who give the abortifacients and those who take the poisons are guilty of homicide.

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• 74 AD The Letter of Barnabas "The way of light, then, is as follows. If any one desires to travel to the appointed place, he must be zealous in his works. The knowledge, therefore, which is given to us for the purpose of walking in this way, is the following. . . . Thou shalt not slay the child by procuring abortion; nor, again, shalt thou destroy it after it is born" (Letter of Barnabas 19).



• 137 AD The Apocalypse of Peter "And near that place I saw another strait place . . . and there sat women . . . And over against them many children who were born to them out of due time sat crying. And there came forth from them rays of fire and smote the women in the eyes. And these were the accursed who conceived and caused abortion" (The Apocalypse of Peter 25).



• 150 AD Didache "The second commandment of the teaching: You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not seduce boys. You shall not commit fornication. You shall not steal. You shall not practice magic. You shall not use potions. You shall not procure [an] abortion, nor destroy a newborn child" (Didache 2:1)



• 170 AD Mark Felix "There are some women among you who by drinking special potions extinguish the life of the future human in their very bowels, thus committing murder before they even give birth." (Mark Felix, Christian Lawyer, Octavius chap. 30)



• 177 AD Athenagoras "What man of sound mind, therefore, will affirm, while such is our character, that we are murderers? . . . [W]hen 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 fetus 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, and on the other hand, when it has been reared to destroy it" (A Plea for the Christians 35, Embassy chap. 5).



• 177 AD Athenagoras, "What reason would we have to commit murder when we say that women who induce abortions are murderers, and will have to give account of it to God? For the same person would not regard the fetus in the womb as a living thing and therefore an object of God's care, and at the same time slay it, once it had come to life." (Athenagoras Plea, ch.35)



• 210 AD Tertullian "Among surgeons' tools there is a certain instrument, which is formed with a nicely-adjusted flexible frame for opening the uterus first of all and keeping it open; it is further furnished with an annular blade, by means of which the limbs [of the child] within the womb are dissected with anxious but unfaltering care; its last appendage being a blunted or covered hook, wherewith the entire fetus is extracted by a violent delivery. "There is also [another instrument in the shape of] a copper needle or spike, by which the actual death is managed in this furtive robbery of life: They give it, from its infanticide function, the name of embruosphaktes, [meaning] "the slayer of the infant," which of course was alive. . . ." [The doctors who performed abortions] all knew well enough that a living being had been conceived, and [they] pitied this most luckless infant state, which had first to be put to death, to escape being tortured alive" (The Soul 25).



• 210 AD Tertullian "In our case, a murder being once for all forbidden, we may not destroy even the fetus in the womb, while as yet the human being derives blood from the 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 birth. That is a man which is going to be one; you have the fruit already in its seed" (Apology 9:8).



• 210 AD Tertullian "Now we allow that life begins with conception because we contend that the soul also begins from conception; life taking its commencement at the same moment and place that the soul does" (Apology 27).



• 210 AD Tertullian "The law of Moses, indeed, punishes with due penalties the man who shall cause abortion [Ex. 21:22]



• 226 AD Minucius Felix "There are some [pagan] women who, by drinking medical preparations, extinguish the source of the future man in their very bowels and thus commit a parricide before they bring forth. And these things assuredly come down from the teaching of your [false] gods. . . . To us [Christians] it is not lawful either to see or hear of homicide" (Octavius 30).



• 228 AD Hippolytus "Women who were reputed to be believers began to take drugs to render themselves sterile, and to bind themselves tightly so as to expel what was being conceived, since they would not, on account of relatives and excess wealth, want to have a child by a slave or by any insignificant person. See, then, into what great impiety that lawless one has proceeded, by teaching adultery and murder at the same time!" (Refutation of All Heresies).



• 250 AD Diognetus (a likely reference to both exposure of infants to die and abortion): "(Christians) marry, like everyone else, and they beget children, but they do not cast out their offspring." (Letter of Diognetus (late 2nd or 3rd century; ch.5, vs.6)



• 307 AD Lactantius "When God forbids us to kill, he not only prohibits us from open violence, which is not even allowed by the public laws, but he warns us against the commission of those things which are esteemed lawful among men.. Therefore, let no one imagine that even this is allowed, to strangle newly-born children, which is the greatest impiety; for God breathes into their souls for life, and not for death. But men, that there may be no crime with which they may not pollute their hands, deprive [unborn] souls as yet innocent and simple of the light which they themselves have not given. "Can anyone, indeed, expect that they would abstain from the blood of others who do not abstain even from their own? But these are, without any controversy, wicked and unjust" (Divine Institutes 6:20).



• 314 AD Council of Ancyra "Concerning women who commit fornication, and destroy that which they have conceived, or who are employed in making drugs for abortion, a former decree excluded them until the hour of death, and to this some have assented. Nevertheless, being desirous to use somewhat greater lenity, we have ordained that they fulfill ten years [of penance], according to the prescribed degrees" (canon 21).



• 374 AD Basil the Great "He that kills another with a sword, or hurls an axe at his own wife and kills her, is guilty of willful murder; not he who throws a stone at a dog, and unintentionally kills a man, or who corrects one with a rod, or scourge, in order to reform him, or who kills a man in his own defense, when he only designed to hurt him. But the man, or woman, is a murderer that gives a philtrum, if the man that takes it die upon it; so are they who take medicines to procure abortion; and so are they who kill on the highway, and rapparees" ((First Canonical Letter, canon 8).



• 374 AD Basil the Great "Let her that procures abortion undergo ten years' penance, whether the embryo were perfectly formed, or not" (First Canonical Letter, canon 2).



• 391 AD John Chrysostom "Wherefore I beseech you, flee fornication . . . Why sow where the ground makes it its care to destroy the fruit?--where there are many efforts at abortion?--where there is murder before the birth? For even the harlot you do not let continue a mere harlot, but make her a murderess also. You see how drunkenness leads to prostitution, prostitution to adultery, adultery to murder; or rather to a something even worse than murder. For I have no name to give it, since it does not take off the thing born, but prevents its being born. Why then do thou abuse the gift of God, and fight with His laws, and follow after what is a curse as if a blessing, and make the chamber of procreation a chamber for murder, and arm the woman that was given for childbearing unto slaughter? For with a view to drawing more money by being agreeable and an object of longing to her lovers, even this she is not backward to do, so heaping upon thy head a great pile of fire. For even if the daring deed be hers, yet the causing of it is thine" (Homilies on Romans 24).



• 396 AD Jerome "I cannot bring myself to speak of the many virgins who daily fall and are lost to the bosom of the Church, their mother . . . Some go so far as to take potions, that they may insure barrenness, and thus murder human beings almost before their conception. Some, when they find themselves with child through their sin, use drugs to procure abortion, and when, as often happens, they die with their offspring, they enter the lower world laden with the guilt not only of adultery against Christ but also of suicide and child murder" (Letters 22:13).



• 400 AD The Apostolic Constitutions "Thou shalt not use magic. Thou shalt not use witchcraft; for He says, 'You shall not suffer a witch to live' [Ex. 22:18]. Thou shall not slay thy child by causing abortion, nor kill that which is begotten; for "everything that is shaped, and has received a soul from God, if it be slain, shall be avenged, as being unjustly destroyed." (Apostolic Constitutions 7:3).



• "The law, moreover enjoins us to bring up all our offspring, and forbids women to cause abortion of what is begotten, or to destroy it afterward; and if any woman appears to have so done, she will be a murderer of her child, by destroying a living creature, and diminishing humankind." (Josephus, Flavius, The Works of Josephus, Flavius Josephus Against Apion, Book II, 25)



• "Thou shalt not slay the child by procuring abortion; nor, again, shalt thou destroy it after it is born." (Ante-Nicene Fathers: Volume I, The Epistle of Barnabas, chap. XIX, The Way of Light)



• "Who does not reckon among the things of greatest interest the contests of gladiators and wild beasts, especially those which are given by you? But we, deeming that to see a man put to death is much the same as killing him, have abjured such spectacles. How, then, when we do not even look on, lest we should contract guilt and pollution, can we put people to death? 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?" (Ante-Nicene Fathers: Volume II, The Epistle of Barnabas, Chapter V.-The Christians Condemn and Detest All Cruelty., Answering the charge that Christians murder and eat human flesh)



• "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, which has imputed to it even now the condition of life and death, since it is already liable to the issues of both, although, by living still in the mother, it for the most part shares its own state with the mother." (Ante-Nicene Fathers: Volume III, Tertullian, A Treatise on the soul, Chapter VII.-On the Formation and State of the Embryo)



• Exodus 21:22-23: "If men fight, and hurt a woman with child, so that she gives birth prematurely, yet no harm follows, he shall surely be punished accordingly as the woman's husband imposes on him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. But if any harm follows, then you shall give life for life"



• "And now I should wish to meet him who says or believes that we are initiated by the slaughter and blood of an infant. Think you that it can be possible for so tender, so little a body to receive those fatal wounds; for any one to shed, pour forth, and drain that new blood of a youngling, and of a man scarcely come into existence? No one can believe this, except one who can dare to do it. And I see that you at one time expose your begotten children to wild beasts and to birds; at another, that you crush them when strangled with a miserable kind of death. There are some women who, by drinking medical preparations, extinguish the source of the future man in their very bowels, and thus commit a parricide before they bring forth." (Ante-Nicene Fathers: Volume IV, The Octavius of Minucius Felix, Chapter



• Argument: the Story About Christians Drinking the Blood of an Infant that They Have Murdered, is a Barefaced Calumny. But the Gentiles, Both Cruelly Expose Their Children Newly Born, and Before They are Born Destroy Them by a Cruel Abortion. Christians are Neither Allowed to See Nor to Hear of Manslaughter.)



• "1. And the second commandment of the Teaching; 2. Thou shalt not commit murder, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not commit paederasty, thou shalt not commit fornication, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not practise magic, thou shalt not practise witchcraft, thou shalt not murder a child by abortion nor kill that which is begotten." Ante-Nicene Fathers: Volume VII, Apostolic Teachings and Constitutions, Chapter II. -The Second Commandment: Gross Sin Forbidden.)



• "III. Thou shalt not use magic. Thou shalt not use witchcraft; for He says, "Ye shall not suffer a witch to live." Thou shall not slay thy child by causing abortion, nor kill that which is begotten; for "everything that is shaped, and has received a soul from God, if it be slain, shall be avenged, as being unjustly destroyed." (Ante-Nicene Fathers: Volume VII, Constitutions of the Holy Apostles, Book VII, Moral Exhortations)



• "25. And near that place I saw another strait place into which the gore and the filth of those who were being punished ran down and became there as it were a lake: and there sat women having the gore up to their necks, and over against them sat many children who were born to them out of due time, crying; and there came forth from them sparks of fire and smote the women in the eyes: and these were the accursed who conceived and caused abortion." Ante-Nicene Fathers: Volume X, The Apocalypse of Peter)


www.bible.ca/H-Abortion.htm

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...we profess that all life comes from God. The fetus growing inside its mother's womb is an individual genetically distinct from that of its mother. The fact that the mother carries this unborn person in her body does not make it her property to do with whatever she wants. Remember, all life comes from God. That being the case, God bestows upon us a trust to take care of all unborn life, as the growth of a child in a mother's womb is a gift from God.

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The origin of each individual human being's soul is not fully revealed in Sacred Scripture. This is "a mystery," according to the words of St. Cyril of Alexandria, "known to God alone." . . .

the Church. . .decisively rejected the view of Origen who inherited from the philosophy of Plato the notion that souls pre-exist before conception of the foetus. This teaching of Origen and his followers was condemned by the Fifth Ecumenical Council. . . .

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each life is created by God, that human life is the supreme gift of the Creator. Human life, according to the Church's teaching, is not given unconditionally by God, but is given to man under the condition that he will be responsible for preserving it. The testimony that God respects life above all else is contained in the words of the Gospel:

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

. . .

Orthodox Christians are called to become like God, as far as is possible. This is known as Theosis, or deification. In so far as God's perfection is beyond our understanding, this process of becoming like God, the process of developing our person, is unending. It begins from the moment of conception and continues until the very hour of death. In this way, no one can say that he is a "person" or that he has become fully man, in the full spiritual sense of the word, so long as he has not attained the complete Divine Likeness. But each man possesses the potential to become a Godlike person at whatever stage of physical development he is found in his mother's womb, in the prime of life, or on his deathbed.

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[size=2]We can be certain that the potential is present in the embryo to become a person to the fullest extent, not only by proceeding from the Church's concept concerning psychosomatic unity, but likewise if we turn to Sacred Scripture. The Church teaches that Christ became flesh at the moment of conception; and the Virgin Mary's relative, Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, testified to the Virgin Mary,

“For, lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in me for joy” (Luke 1:44).
In other words, the fruit of Elizabeth's womb sensed the approach of the Divine Foetus in the womb of the Virgin Mary and reacted to this approach with a joyful leap.

. . .

Another difficult question is when the foetus will be born deformed or retarded. In this instance, the Church teaches that such children are also created in the image and likeness of God and, therefore, it is not allowed to terminate their life.

home.it.net.au/~jgrapsas/pages/abortion2.htm/size=2]

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Originally posted by ReasonableDoubt

From religioustolerance.org:

5th TO 17th CENTURY CE (Various beliefs on whether abortion is murder):
St. Augustine (354-430 CE) reversed centuries of Christian teaching, and returned to the Aristotelian concept of "delayed ensoulment". He wrote 7 that a human soul cannot live in an unformed body. Thus, early in pregnancy, an abortion is not murder because no soul is destroyed (or, more accurately, only a vegetable or animal soul is terminated). He wrote extensively on sexual matters, teaching that the original sin of Adam and Eve are passed to each successive generation through the pleasure generated during sexual intercourse. This passed into the church's canon law. Only abortion of a more fully developed "fetus animatus" (animated fetus) was punished as murder.

St. Jerome wrote in a letter to Aglasia: "The seed gradually takes shape in the uterus, and it [abortion] does not count as killing until the individual elements have acquired their external appearance and their limbs" 8

Starting in the 7th century CE, a series of penitentials were written. These listed an array of sins, with the penance that a person must observe as punishment for the sin. Certain "sins" which prevented conception had particularly heavy penalties. These included:

practicing a particularly ineffective form of birth control, coitus interruptus (withdrawal of the penis prior to ejaculation)
engaging in oral sex or anal sex
becoming sterile by artificial means, such as by consuming sterilizing poisons.

Abortion, on the other hand, required a less serious penance. Theodore, who organized the English church, assembled a penitential about 700 CE. Oral intercourse required from 7 years to a lifetime of penance; abortion required only 120 days.

Pope Stephen V (served 885-891) wrote in 887 CE: "If he who destroys what is conceived in the womb by abortion is a murderer, how much more is he unable to excuse himself of murder who kills a child even one day old." "Epistle to Archbishop of Mainz."

Pope Innocent III (?-1216) wrote a letter which ruled on a case of a Carthusian monk who had arranged for his female lover to obtain an abortion. The Pope decided that the monk was not guilty of homicide if the fetus was not "animated."

Early in the 13th century, Pope Innocent III stated that the soul enters the body of the fetus at the time of "quickening" - when the woman first feels movement of the fetus. After ensoulement, abortion was equated with murder; before that time, it was a less serious sin, because it terminated only potential human life, not human life.

St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) also considered only the abortion of an "animated" fetus as murder.

Pope Sixtus V issued a Papal bull "Effraenatam" in 1588 which threatened those who carried out abortions at any stage of gestation with excommunication and the death penalty. Pope Gregory XIV revoked the Papal bull shortly after taking office in 1591. He reinstated the "quickening" test, which he said happened 116 days into pregnancy (16½ weeks).



17th TO 19th CENTURY CE (Abortion becomes murder again):
In the 17th century, the concept of "simultaneous animation." gained acceptance within the medical and church communities. 9 This is the belief that an embryo acquires a soul at conception, not at 40 or 80 days into gestation as the church taught. In 1658 Hieronymus Florentinius, a Franciscan, asserted that all embryos or fetuses, regardless of its gestational age, which was in danger of death must be baptized. However, his opinion did not change the status of abortion as seen by the church.

Pope Pius IX reversed the stance of the Roman Catholic church once more. He dropped the distinction between the "fetus animatus" and "fetus inanimatus" in 1869. Canon law was revised in 1917 and 1983 and to refer simply to "the fetus." The tolerant approach to abortion which had prevailed in the Roman Catholic Church for centuries ended. The church requires excommunication for abortions at any stage of pregnancy.


"Everyone who believes in God at all believes that He knows what you and I are going to do tomorrow." - C. S. Lewis

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Originally posted by ReasonableDoubt

I'd also note that conception was difficult to pinpoint, as most people did not necessarily notice they were pregnant for several weeks (or months) after it. Quickening was viewed as a point to use in early american history- when of course nowadays we know that far before "Quickening", a human being can be saved outside the womb.

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Originally posted by ReasonableDoubt

Augustine and Thomas Aquinas had differing theories. The point is that it wasn't like everyone 100% believed in divine ensoulment at conception and that DLW is "changing theology".

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Children of the heav’nly Father
Safely in His bosom gather;
Nestling bird nor star in heaven
Such a refuge e’er was given.

God His own doth tend and nourish;
In His holy courts they flourish;
From all evil things He spares them;
In His mighty arms He bears them.

Neither life nor death shall ever
From the Lord His children sever;
Unto them His grace He showeth,
And their sorrows all He knoweth.

Though He giveth or He taketh,
God His children ne’er forsaketh;
His the loving purpose solely
To preserve them pure and holy.

Lo, their very hairs He numbers,
And no daily care encumbers
Them that share His ev’ry blessing
And His help in woes distressing.

Praise the Lord in joyful numbers:
Your Protector never slumbers.
At the will of your Defender
Ev’ry foeman must surrender.

On either side of the "triumphal arch" we find the angel Gabriel and Mary, separated by the archway itself. Above Giotto depicted the sending of the Gabriel. Mary's stoical acceptance reflects the seriousness of her situation, as one not yet wed, and apart from her betrothed. It also reflects the high nature her Son was to have, as taken from the words of the Gospel of Luke 1:32
He shall be great and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David. And He shall reign over the House of Jacob forever.

The Visitation of Mary to her cousin Elizabeth, mother to be of John the Baptizer, completes the cycle leading up to the Nativity of Christ. Elizabeth's advanced age is represented by her darker skin, wrinkled face and stooped posture, making her pregnancy all the more amazing.

And Mary arose in those days, and went into the hill country with haste, into a city of Juda; And enterd the house of Zacharaias, and saluted Elizabeth. And it came to pass, that, when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leapt in her womb. (Luke 1:39-41)

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Originally posted by PotOnWheel

One "zygote"


.


.


Two Natures


One Person


Fully God


Fully Human






"uncircumscribable," yet contained in a womb


"He who is everywhere" takes up residence in a virgin

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Originally posted by PotOnWheel

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Originally posted by DLW

How do you explain Thomas Aquinas' view that human life began in the third trimester?

Was he also knee-deep in heresy?
dlw

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Aquinas was Western, and many Western theologians made a distinction between "formed" and "unformed."

BUT, David, do YOU claim that human life only begins in the third trimester. Else, where is your integrety. Where is it?

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I'll not use the "h" word, but it is obvious that Aquinas is FALSE.

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What St. Basil said is quite different (from the 8th Canon): "Those who give potions for the destruction of the child conceived in the womb are murderers; as are they who take the poisons which kill the child." Canon 91 of the Quinisext Council of 691 A.D. also clearly affirms St. Basil’s 8th Canon.

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Basil (c. 329-379) -First Letter 2 (To Anfilochius, Bishop of Iconia):
She who has intentionally destroyed [the fetus] is subject to the penalty corresponding to a homicide. For us, there is no scrutinizing between the formed and unformed [fetus]; here truly justice is made not only for the unborn but also with reference to the person who is attentive only to himself/herself since so many women generally die for this very reason.

Let her that procures abortion undergo ten years' penance, whether the embryo were perfectly formed, or not.

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Basil (c. 329-379) -First Letter 8
…those who give the abortifacients and those who take the poisons are guilty of homicide.

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HERE ARE SOME OTHER QUOTES:

• 74 AD The Letter of Barnabas "The way of light, then, is as follows. If any one desires to travel to the appointed place, he must be zealous in his works. The knowledge, therefore, which is given to us for the purpose of walking in this way, is the following. . . . Thou shalt not slay the child by procuring abortion; nor, again, shalt thou destroy it after it is born" (Letter of Barnabas 19).



• 137 AD The Apocalypse of Peter "And near that place I saw another strait place . . . and there sat women . . . And over against them many children who were born to them out of due time sat crying. And there came forth from them rays of fire and smote the women in the eyes. And these were the accursed who conceived and caused abortion" (The Apocalypse of Peter 25).



• 150 AD Didache "The second commandment of the teaching: You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not seduce boys. You shall not commit fornication. You shall not steal. You shall not practice magic. You shall not use potions. You shall not procure [an] abortion, nor destroy a newborn child" (Didache 2:1)



• 170 AD Mark Felix "There are some women among you who by drinking special potions extinguish the life of the future human in their very bowels, thus committing murder before they even give birth." (Mark Felix, Christian Lawyer, Octavius chap. 30)



• 177 AD Athenagoras "What man of sound mind, therefore, will affirm, while such is our character, that we are murderers? . . . [W]hen 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 fetus 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, and on the other hand, when it has been reared to destroy it" (A Plea for the Christians 35, Embassy chap. 5).



• 177 AD Athenagoras, "What reason would we have to commit murder when we say that women who induce abortions are murderers, and will have to give account of it to God? For the same person would not regard the fetus in the womb as a living thing and therefore an object of God's care, and at the same time slay it, once it had come to life." (Athenagoras Plea, ch.35)



• 210 AD Tertullian "Among surgeons' tools there is a certain instrument, which is formed with a nicely-adjusted flexible frame for opening the uterus first of all and keeping it open; it is further furnished with an annular blade, by means of which the limbs [of the child] within the womb are dissected with anxious but unfaltering care; its last appendage being a blunted or covered hook, wherewith the entire fetus is extracted by a violent delivery. "There is also [another instrument in the shape of] a copper needle or spike, by which the actual death is managed in this furtive robbery of life: They give it, from its infanticide function, the name of embruosphaktes, [meaning] "the slayer of the infant," which of course was alive. . . ." [The doctors who performed abortions] all knew well enough that a living being had been conceived, and [they] pitied this most luckless infant state, which had first to be put to death, to escape being tortured alive" (The Soul 25).



• 210 AD Tertullian "In our case, a murder being once for all forbidden, we may not destroy even the fetus in the womb, while as yet the human being derives blood from the 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 birth. That is a man which is going to be one; you have the fruit already in its seed" (Apology 9:8).



• 210 AD Tertullian "Now we allow that life begins with conception because we contend that the soul also begins from conception; life taking its commencement at the same moment and place that the soul does" (Apology 27).



• 210 AD Tertullian "The law of Moses, indeed, punishes with due penalties the man who shall cause abortion [Ex. 21:22]



• 226 AD Minucius Felix "There are some [pagan] women who, by drinking medical preparations, extinguish the source of the future man in their very bowels and thus commit a parricide before they bring forth. And these things assuredly come down from the teaching of your [false] gods. . . . To us [Christians] it is not lawful either to see or hear of homicide" (Octavius 30).



• 228 AD Hippolytus "Women who were reputed to be believers began to take drugs to render themselves sterile, and to bind themselves tightly so as to expel what was being conceived, since they would not, on account of relatives and excess wealth, want to have a child by a slave or by any insignificant person. See, then, into what great impiety that lawless one has proceeded, by teaching adultery and murder at the same time!" (Refutation of All Heresies).



• 250 AD Diognetus (a likely reference to both exposure of infants to die and abortion): "(Christians) marry, like everyone else, and they beget children, but they do not cast out their offspring." (Letter of Diognetus (late 2nd or 3rd century; ch.5, vs.6)



• 307 AD Lactantius "When God forbids us to kill, he not only prohibits us from open violence, which is not even allowed by the public laws, but he warns us against the commission of those things which are esteemed lawful among men.. Therefore, let no one imagine that even this is allowed, to strangle newly-born children, which is the greatest impiety; for God breathes into their souls for life, and not for death. But men, that there may be no crime with which they may not pollute their hands, deprive [unborn] souls as yet innocent and simple of the light which they themselves have not given. "Can anyone, indeed, expect that they would abstain from the blood of others who do not abstain even from their own? But these are, without any controversy, wicked and unjust" (Divine Institutes 6:20).



• 314 AD Council of Ancyra "Concerning women who commit fornication, and destroy that which they have conceived, or who are employed in making drugs for abortion, a former decree excluded them until the hour of death, and to this some have assented. Nevertheless, being desirous to use somewhat greater lenity, we have ordained that they fulfill ten years [of penance], according to the prescribed degrees" (canon 21).



• 374 AD Basil the Great "He that kills another with a sword, or hurls an axe at his own wife and kills her, is guilty of willful murder; not he who throws a stone at a dog, and unintentionally kills a man, or who corrects one with a rod, or scourge, in order to reform him, or who kills a man in his own defense, when he only designed to hurt him. But the man, or woman, is a murderer that gives a philtrum, if the man that takes it die upon it; so are they who take medicines to procure abortion; and so are they who kill on the highway, and rapparees" ((First Canonical Letter, canon 8).



• 374 AD Basil the Great "Let her that procures abortion undergo ten years' penance, whether the embryo were perfectly formed, or not" (First Canonical Letter, canon 2).



• 391 AD John Chrysostom "Wherefore I beseech you, flee fornication . . . Why sow where the ground makes it its care to destroy the fruit?--where there are many efforts at abortion?--where there is murder before the birth? For even the harlot you do not let continue a mere harlot, but make her a murderess also. You see how drunkenness leads to prostitution, prostitution to adultery, adultery to murder; or rather to a something even worse than murder. For I have no name to give it, since it does not take off the thing born, but prevents its being born. Why then do thou abuse the gift of God, and fight with His laws, and follow after what is a curse as if a blessing, and make the chamber of procreation a chamber for murder, and arm the woman that was given for childbearing unto slaughter? For with a view to drawing more money by being agreeable and an object of longing to her lovers, even this she is not backward to do, so heaping upon thy head a great pile of fire. For even if the daring deed be hers, yet the causing of it is thine" (Homilies on Romans 24).



• 396 AD Jerome "I cannot bring myself to speak of the many virgins who daily fall and are lost to the bosom of the Church, their mother . . . Some go so far as to take potions, that they may insure barrenness, and thus murder human beings almost before their conception. Some, when they find themselves with child through their sin, use drugs to procure abortion, and when, as often happens, they die with their offspring, they enter the lower world laden with the guilt not only of adultery against Christ but also of suicide and child murder" (Letters 22:13).



• 400 AD The Apostolic Constitutions "Thou shalt not use magic. Thou shalt not use witchcraft; for He says, 'You shall not suffer a witch to live' [Ex. 22:18]. Thou shall not slay thy child by causing abortion, nor kill that which is begotten; for "everything that is shaped, and has received a soul from God, if it be slain, shall be avenged, as being unjustly destroyed." (Apostolic Constitutions 7:3).



• "The law, moreover enjoins us to bring up all our offspring, and forbids women to cause abortion of what is begotten, or to destroy it afterward; and if any woman appears to have so done, she will be a murderer of her child, by destroying a living creature, and diminishing humankind." (Josephus, Flavius, The Works of Josephus, Flavius Josephus Against Apion, Book II, 25)



• "Thou shalt not slay the child by procuring abortion; nor, again, shalt thou destroy it after it is born." (Ante-Nicene Fathers: Volume I, The Epistle of Barnabas, chap. XIX, The Way of Light)



• "Who does not reckon among the things of greatest interest the contests of gladiators and wild beasts, especially those which are given by you? But we, deeming that to see a man put to death is much the same as killing him, have abjured such spectacles. How, then, when we do not even look on, lest we should contract guilt and pollution, can we put people to death? 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?" (Ante-Nicene Fathers: Volume II, The Epistle of Barnabas, Chapter V.-The Christians Condemn and Detest All Cruelty., Answering the charge that Christians murder and eat human flesh)



• "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, which has imputed to it even now the condition of life and death, since it is already liable to the issues of both, although, by living still in the mother, it for the most part shares its own state with the mother." (Ante-Nicene Fathers: Volume III, Tertullian, A Treatise on the soul, Chapter VII.-On the Formation and State of the Embryo)



• Exodus 21:22-23: "If men fight, and hurt a woman with child, so that she gives birth prematurely, yet no harm follows, he shall surely be punished accordingly as the woman's husband imposes on him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. But if any harm follows, then you shall give life for life"



• "And now I should wish to meet him who says or believes that we are initiated by the slaughter and blood of an infant. Think you that it can be possible for so tender, so little a body to receive those fatal wounds; for any one to shed, pour forth, and drain that new blood of a youngling, and of a man scarcely come into existence? No one can believe this, except one who can dare to do it. And I see that you at one time expose your begotten children to wild beasts and to birds; at another, that you crush them when strangled with a miserable kind of death. There are some women who, by drinking medical preparations, extinguish the source of the future man in their very bowels, and thus commit a parricide before they bring forth." (Ante-Nicene Fathers: Volume IV, The Octavius of Minucius Felix, Chapter



• Argument: the Story About Christians Drinking the Blood of an Infant that They Have Murdered, is a Barefaced Calumny. But the Gentiles, Both Cruelly Expose Their Children Newly Born, and Before They are Born Destroy Them by a Cruel Abortion. Christians are Neither Allowed to See Nor to Hear of Manslaughter.)



• "1. And the second commandment of the Teaching; 2. Thou shalt not commit murder, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not commit paederasty, thou shalt not commit fornication, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not practise magic, thou shalt not practise witchcraft, thou shalt not murder a child by abortion nor kill that which is begotten." Ante-Nicene Fathers: Volume VII, Apostolic Teachings and Constitutions, Chapter II. -The Second Commandment: Gross Sin Forbidden.)



• "III. Thou shalt not use magic. Thou shalt not use witchcraft; for He says, "Ye shall not suffer a witch to live." Thou shall not slay thy child by causing abortion, nor kill that which is begotten; for "everything that is shaped, and has received a soul from God, if it be slain, shall be avenged, as being unjustly destroyed." (Ante-Nicene Fathers: Volume VII, Constitutions of the Holy Apostles, Book VII, Moral Exhortations)



• "25. And near that place I saw another strait place into which the gore and the filth of those who were being punished ran down and became there as it were a lake: and there sat women having the gore up to their necks, and over against them sat many children who were born to them out of due time, crying; and there came forth from them sparks of fire and smote the women in the eyes: and these were the accursed who conceived and caused abortion." Ante-Nicene Fathers: Volume X, The Apocalypse of Peter)


www.bible.ca/H-Abortion.htm

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By and large, these are Latin/Western theologians -- many of whom would hold the unborn tp be subject to damnaion when they die prematurely.

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Originally posted by PotOnWheel

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Originally posted by ReasonableDoubt

I'd also note that conception was difficult to pinpoint, as most people did not necessarily notice they were pregnant for several weeks (or months) after it. Quickening was viewed as a point to use in early american history- when of course nowadays we know that far before "Quickening", a human being can be saved outside the womb.

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RD, simply because it might be difficult for some to know whether God has created new life in the womb DOES NOT bear on the createdness or the calling that belongs to that new human person. (Whether "early american history" or "old stone age," life in the womb has not changed much.) Are you going off track intentionally?

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Originally posted by PotOnWheel
It is obvious that many different views have been considered. But that is not what DLW should consider. DLW asks theology to change with his political strategy. He has the "cart before the horse."

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Besides, RD, the "theology" that seems "up for grabs" with DLW is Christology; not definitions as to "when" the soul "joins" the body.

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He has made comments that indicate that he considers theology to be a tool one can shape and reshape any which way just to make as many pieces of any conglomeration fit together as one will, and then call it enough. (And he also patronizes those in history as having a crutch that requires them to have a center and with it expect other things to be consonant with that center. He said as much in a post of his in the last week.)

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In Christian Theology "Christology" is that center. The doctrines of the Trinity grew out of Christology, as did those concerning the Holy Spirit. Etc.

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I think that any idea of Anthropology that we might have needs to be firmly grounded in Christology also. The First Adam was modeled on the Second Adam. The entirety of anthropology, then, and not just small parts of it must be considered together.

The pagan Greeks said that, "I HAVE a body." The Hebrew's said, "I AM a body." Biblical anthropology, Christologically based anthropology recognizes that the "soul" is NOT something separate-from-but-added-to the body!

Anyone who says other wise should say so clearly.

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And as to "God as a Zigote" -- that follows clearly as an integral part of Christology. There NEVER was a time when Jesus was not also the Eternal Son.

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The soul is not given to cells. The human soul is spirit and body. It is not a merit thing. It is given; and it (humanity and personhood) has a calling. It is a potential -- and remains so all life long. (Irregardless of whether one does not make it full term, or whether one gets a PhD.) Personhood is a potential. And in that way it is immediately a RELATIONSHIP. Personhood is not an autonomous ability.

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There is a long ladder (a slippery slope too) of "standards" of personhood. At one end it the standard that allows new born or even recetnly born infants to be refused community and disposed of. Whole cultures, groups of "intellectuals" and particularly the Romans (This abortion issue is treated as though earlier Christians were so "naive.")

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Christians rail against that "standard." The Christian standard is personhood. Not movement in the womb, not electrical pathways. God given potential and participation in the community between God and man IS personhood. Persons in the "image of God," created for fellowship with God. Those born without the higher level portions of their brains and subject to death upon birth are every bit as much a part of the family of God as ANYONE else! And Christians have always known that.

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The "Latin West" theologians quoted worked their theology out of a perspective of Juridical principles, not mercy. Many of them considered a still born infant to be subject to the torment of hell. Their conceptions as to "ensoulment" (a misguided word in itself, as the soul does not exist without a body) were rooted in this juridical matter, and a juridical way of thinking. The matter being considered, then, did not grow out of love for God's creation and community, but out of 'avoiding failure' (which often dooms).

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The legacy of Christian thought concerns itself with the relationship of God and mankind, and the community of Image-bearers (Which again is those who can be in God's image by being in community -- not pass some intelligence test.)

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Sure, after Origin they tried to figure out the mechanics of whether the soul was created from both parents along-side of the co-production by same parents of the body. That was mechanics. But what runs through all their thoughts is this regard for the SPECIAL CALLING which is bestowed on mankind by God's word. And the unity of that focus made those who might have some alteration of mechanical concepts all unite in regarding anyone who has been conceived to be fully a person in the image of God.

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It is the diversity that proves the unity. That's much the same as what Irenaeus said of the diversity of worship forms that all centered on Christ all proving the truth of the Gospel. Sometimes the diversity just gives evidence of the power of the center to hold. That is true of diverse liturgies. And it is true of diverse mechanics. But the center is the CALLING and the COMMUNITY of mankind, even from the one-cell stage of development.

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