THE CHRISTIAN MEANING
OF “HOMICIDE”
If this desire to protect life is understood, the significance
of the terms in which the Christian writers criticize contraception is illuminated.
It will be found that the words applied to contraception are “parricide,” “rose
than murder,” “killing a man-to-be.” One might think that these terms either
reflect an erroneous biology which identifies man with the seed, or show that
he writers are not speaking of contraception at all. Neither alternative is correct.
The Christian writers are using this language rhetorically and morally, just as
rhetorically and morally, they attacked abortion as homicide or parricide. A
review of (a) the relevant theories of classical biology, (b) the leading
theories on ensoulment of the fetus, and (c) Roman legal terminology confirms
this conclusion.
Classical biology. Three
theories of procreation existed, all of them assigning the major role in
procreation to the male seed. According to Aristotle, the male seed was the active
form; the female menses provided the passive matter on which the form worked (Generation
of Animals 1.20, 9729a, 2.3, 737a). The view was general in the Roman world
that the male seed combined with the female menses to make a fetus. It is
asserted by Jerome (On Ephesians 5.30) and by the Book of Wisdom (Wis
7:2), and of Lactantius (The Worker of God 12.5). The theory is
assumed by Clement of Alexandria (Pedagogus 1.6.39; GCS 12:113).
The theory in its strict Aristotelian form gives the male seed the shaping
role. In the looser way in which it became popular in the classical world, the theory
drops the philosophical contrast between form and matter, and the female
contribution seems more important. But the male seed has a kind of primacy.
A second theory, held by many Stoics, was that the male
sperm contains moisture and “pneuma.” In the uterus this pneuma combines with
the pneuma of the woman, so that the soul of the embryo springs from both
parents, but the body only from the father’s seed. A third theory omits any reference
to the pneumatic contribution of the woman. The uterus is merely a depositary
for the male seed. This appears to be the view of Soranos, who defines “conception”
as “the prolonged hold on the seed or an embryo or embryos in the uterus from a
natural cause (Gynecology 1.12.43). This theory accords with Soranos’
frequent comparisons of the act of procreation to the sowing a field (e.g., ibid.
1.35.6, 1.36.1): a seed is deposited, which gets nourishment from the soil or
mother, but which is only being fed, not taking substance form its depository.
The Stoic agricultural metaphor on intercourse, adopted by Philo and later
Christian writers, reflects this theory.
If a Christian writer adopted Soranos’ view, as
Tertullian does in The Soul, he would have reason to invest the male
seed with special significance. Under the other theories he would have had a
general notion that male seed as important. But under no theory was the male
seed itself equal to a “man,” for under no theory was it maintained that the
seed already had a soul.
Theory on ensoulment.
That no classical writer literally identified semen with man is clear from a
consideration of the leading theories on ensoulment.
In Aristotle, a fetus becomes human forty days after conception
if the fetus is male, ninety days after conception is the fetus is female (History
of Animals 7.3). A similar view may underlie the prescription in Leviticus
12:1-5 that a woman must spend forty days in becoming purified if she has given
birth to a boy, eighty days if she has given birth to a girl.
Divergent theories apparently underlie two versions of an
Old Testament verse. In Exodus 21:22, according to the Hebrew text, is a man
accidentally causes an abortion, “life is given for life” only I the mother
dies; the death of a fetus is not treated like the killing of an adult human
being. It seems to be supposed that the fetus is at no point a man. In the
Septuagint version of Exodus 21:22, the text prescribes the penalty of “life
for life” if the embryo is “formed.” By “formed” may be meant what Aristotle
means. This view is adopted by Philo. A third theory appears in Tertullian. He
argues that the embryo after conception has a soul, and that it is a man (homo)
when it attains its final form (Tertullian, The Soul 25.2, 37.2).
Jerome’s translation of the Old Testament followed the Hebrew
in Exodus 21:22 and opened the possibility of treating the fetus as at no point
of development human. The prevailing Christian understanding, however, seems to
have followed the Septuagint in distinguishing between an unformed and formed
stage. This view was evidently held by Jerome himself. Writing on another
question to Algasia, one of his many female questioners, he notes, “ . . .
seeds are gradually formed in the uterus, and it is not reputed homicide until
the scattered elements receive their appearance and members” (Epistles 121.4;
CSEL 56:16).
Augustine reflects the continuing controversy among Christians;
commenting on Exodus 21 in a version based on the Septuagint, he says,
Here the question of the soul is usually raised: whether
what is not formed can be understood to have no soul, and whether for that
reason it is not homicide, because one cannot be said to be deprived of a soul
if one has not yet received a soul. The argument goes on to say, “But if it has
been formed, he shall give soul for soul” . . . If the embryo is still
unformed, but yet in some way ensouled while unformed . . . the law does not
provide that the act pertains to homicide, because still there cannot be said
to be a live soul and in a body that lacks sensation, if it is in flesh not yet
formed and thus not yet endowed with senses.
(On Exodus 21.80,
CSEL 282:147)
It is abundantly clear from these discussions that the
most anyone contends is that ensoulment occurs at conception: the dominant view
is that the fetus becomes a man only when “formed.” The moment of formation
appears to be the forty-day period set by Aristotle for males, and the
eighty-day period suggested by Leviticus for females. In the light of such
views on the fetus, no one could have confused the seed with a man or meant to
say that the destruction of the seed was literal homicide.
The Roman terms for murder. In
the second and third centuries, purricidium was the aptest word to use
if intentional unlawful killing of a relative was being alleged. Paricidium
was the specific term for the unlawful killing of a close relation such as a
parent or brother. IT did not apply to the killing of a fetus or newborn infant
by its parent.
When the second- and third-century Christians apply the
term “parricide,” then they do so in a conscious effort to enlarge the legal
meaning to condemn what they believe is morally wrong. Thus Tertullian, who is
particularly sensitive to legal nuances, does not hesitate to call parricides
parents who kill their own infants (Apology 9, CSEL 69:23-27). Similarly
Lactantius treats parents abandoning their infants as parricides (Divine Institutes 6.23.10,
CESL 192:556). It is entirely in keeping with this approach to
treat the users of contraceptives and abortifacients as parricides or
homicides. The description is neither biological nor legal, but moral. The essential
Christian position is put by Tertullian in an attack on pagan abortion: “To
prohibit birth is to accelerate homicide, nor does it matter whether one
snatches away a soul after birth or disturbs one as it is being born. He is a
man who is future man, just as all fruit is now in the seed.” (Apology
9.8, CESL 69:24) The protection of life leads to the prohibition of
interference with life at the fetal stage. It is only one stop to extend this
protection to the life-giving process.
The need to protect life, the need to defend procreation—these
are the needs which guide the development of Christian thought on contraception.
The impetus which leads to the adoption of the Stoic-Jewish rule on procreative
purpose and the impetus which leads to the treatment of destruction of the
fetus as homicide or parricide produce the condemnation of contraception. (John T. Noonan, Jr., Contraception: A History of
Its Treatment by Catholic Theologians and Canonists [New York:
Mentor-Omega, 1965], 116-19)
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