Introduction:
Most studies begin with the oldest scriptural references to a topic or concept, known in biblical interpretation as the “first mention principle.” Instead, we feel it’s better to work backwards from the early foundations of Christianity to verify what is the historically correct, orthodox stance a “Christian” should take on the global issue of abortion.
Contrary to modern assumptions, abortion in the Roman Empire was a common practice before and during the 1st century, even through to the 4th and 5th, especially among the societal elites. The early followers of Jesus also had a good deal to say about the issue. Letters, teachings, and apocalyptic visions addressing abortion that left nothing to doubt, were either written by or attributed to the Apostles themselves. Unlike Christianity today, the Apostles didn’t consider their view on abortion to be a personal one, but the position of their king and all who became part of his kingdom.
So then, let’s begin with the inauguration of the Kingdom of God; the generations of believers that immediately followed the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ as we consider him to be the key that unlocks the truth of Scripture, and the fundamental, unifying principle to understand all that pertains to the Christian life.
Both the Scriptures and historical accounts describe the extraordinary impact he had upon the first century Greco-Roman world (and beyond). Fishermen and tax collectors became known as “the men who have turned the world upside down.” The first century was ground zero for this inverted world, where our journey into history will start. But first, we’ll need to discuss a few things.
Cultural Similarities and Differences
One of the lies contemporary society has bought into is that we are more civilized and enlightened than cultures that came before us. Technological and scientific advancement has deluded us to consider ourselves superior in every way. Yet it’s surprising that many modern day “Christians” see striking similarities between the current practices of abortion and its 1st century Greco-Roman counterparts. While there are subtle differences, overall, the methodology, as well as the individual and societal logic surrounding it, are practically the same. In fact, the present-day perspectives on abortion, while more informed, are far more dehumanizing. We’ll have more to come on that.
The ancient practices of abortion in the Greco-Roman world are fairly well-documented. Michael J. Gorman in his book Abortion & the Early Church: Christian, Jewish, & Pagan Attitudes in the Greco-Roman World, provides a thorough analysis from available source material. Throughout the articles in this series, we’ll be interacting with his book.
According to Gorman’s research, the motives for and methods of abortion in the ancient world were as varied then as they are today. He states that:
“From the earliest days of ancient Greece and Rome to the time of Augustine, abortion was practiced frequently by pagans and occasionally by Jews and Christians. It seems to have been more common among the wealthy than among the poor: Juvenal wrote of how seldom a “gilded bed” contained a pregnant woman because abortion was so readily available to the rich. But the poor aborted too, as did married and unmarried, chaste and prostitute. Other people besides pregnant women were involved in abortion. A husband or lover might force a woman to abort. Certain doctors performed nontherapeutic as well as therapeutic abortions. Amateur and paid abortionists and dealers in abortifacient drugs were available.”
What should be noted are the similarities between the motivation for abortion in the 1st century and those of the 21st century. Gorman continues:
“By far the most frequent reason was to conceal illicit sexual activity. Rich women did not want to share their wealth with lower-class children fathered illegitimately. Another reason was to preserve “sex appeal,” for many women, especially the rich, did not enjoy the effects of pregnancy on their figures, preferring not to “get big and trouble the womb with bouncing babes.” [It was] said of prostitutes, they had “a view of drawing more money by being agreeable and an object of longing to [their] lovers.” Both Plato and Aristotle recommended family limitation by abortion (if necessary), and the declines in population of the Roman Empire at the time of Augustus and again after Hadrian were probably due in part to such action by both rich and poor. The wealthy did not want to share their estates with many offspring, while the poor felt unable to support large families. Justinian’s Digest mentions a woman who aborted after a divorce in order not to have a child by the man she then hated. Abortion was also a corrective to the many inefficient means of contraception. Finally, abortions for therapeutic reasons were performed.”
If we simply replace names and make some grammatical updates, it would be difficult to tell the difference between the 1st century Greco-Roman world or the modern West.
Along with the motivations, the methods of abortion in the ancient world were varied as well. Gorman explains,
“women who wanted abortions, for whatever reason, had a great variety of means available to them. Most of the techniques can be classified as either chemical or mechanical.”
He then goes on to list the different varieties of chemical and mechanical abortions that were available, all of which carried inherent risk to the lives of the women who sought them, mechanical being the most dangerous.¹
In Gorman’s estimation,
“abortion two thousand years ago was more dangerous for the woman than it is in today’s well-equipped clinics, [however] it was nevertheless readily available and widely practiced at the time the Christian church was born.”
Anyone familiar with pro-abortion talking points will notice immediately the parallels between the motivations behind abortion in 1st century society and those of today. The mantras shouted by the contemporary pro-choice movement ring with a haunting echo of their ancient predecessors. The worries of the poor, the entitled narcissism of the elite, the fears and concerns of the adulterous and sexually indulgent; they all have their modern-day equivalents.
The methods, while much more scientifically sophisticated, do as well. Chemical and mechanical abortions are available at the touch of a button. Abortifacients such as mifepristone can be ordered online and delivered via mail. Abortion providers are all over the West. Institutions like Planned Parenthood and smaller medical offices conduct at-will abortion procedures. The spread of abortion throughout Western society is due, in no small part, to scientific advancement in “medical” technology, as well as ever increasing governmental promotion and societal acceptance of it.
Near 1:1 Equation
Knowing all this, it’s not surprising that abortion is one of the few issues whose reasoning is virtually identical to that of the ancient cultures that produced the Scriptures. However, what makes present-day pro-abortion positions worse is also what makes it more readily available. Scientific advancement is a double-edged sword, and it’s that understanding that has conclusively determined that personhood, and therefore “life”, begins at conception. Many pro-abortionists attempt to debate or discard this fact, but it is a fact nonetheless.
[The next two paragraphs are going to get a bit technical but bear with us, we’ll summarize it.]
The basic “blueprint” of the human-being is contained in what Erwin Schrödinger calls the hereditary code-script, in which chromosomes contain a code—an aperiodic solid—that dictates an organism’s development. His concept predicted that molecular, non-repetitive structures in genes store information controlling its development. Schrödinger explained that,
“…the chromosome structures are at the same time instrumental in bringing about the development they foreshadow. They are law-code and executive power – or, to use another simile, they are architect’s plan and builder’s craft – in one.”
What Schrödinger’s discovery, and those that followed it, proved was that at the moment of conception, the hereditary code-script/law begins to develop the human being. Conception, then, is the first stage of human development. This means that the developing human embryo must be alive for the code-script/law to activate and remain active. Life produces growth and growth requires life.
Life does, in fact, begin at the moment of conception.
All of this knowledge is publicly available. Many are aware of it and choose to disregard it. Some are truly ignorant of it. However, all medical practitioners and most pro-abortion advocates know this to be true. Many have even stated that, although they know it is a baby, they still support the legality of abortion-on-demand. It’s this societal attitude, sadly shared by many Christians and non-Christians alike, that makes the modern cultural position on abortion worse than its ancient comparative. We know better.
Recontextualization
One of the biggest challenges when looking at ancient writings and their cultures for relevant information on our modern day take on the issues, is about re-contextualization, which is defined as: the subconscious impulse to see ancient viewpoints through modern eyes. Re-contextualization brings to those writings all manner of interpretations that rarely match the ancient’s societal meanings.
New Testament scholar, noted for integrating the study of anthropology and sociology in biblical interpretation, Dr. Bruce Malina, in his social-science commentaries on the New Testament, thoroughly defines this huge error in interpretation:
“The mention of American readers reading ancient Mediterranean documents requires us to clarify the situation one step further. We have already suggested that each time a document is read by a new reader, the fields of reference tend to shift and multiply because of the reader’s rather different cultural location. Among some literary theorists, this latter phenomenon is called “re-contextualization.” This term refers to the multiple ways different readers may “complete” a document as a result of reading it from within their different social contexts. (Documents may also be “de-contextualized” when read ahistorically for their aesthetic or formal characteristics.)”
Malina continues:
“We insist that meanings realized through reading documents inevitably derive from a social system. Reading is always a social act. If both reader and writer share the same social system, the same experience, it is highly probable that reading will provide adequate communication. But if either reader or writer come from mutually alien social systems, then nonunderstanding, or at best misunderstanding, will be the rule.”
Basically, recontextualization retrofits a text to “work” in a context that looks nothing like the society that produced it. Because we don’t share the same social system or context found in the 1st century ancient Mediterranean world, it is extremely important to gather as much data as we can to understand documents produced at that time. Otherwise, we run the risk of not only misunderstanding both explicit and implicit meaning, but also the theological messaging.
Theological Messaging
In one such misunderstanding with no direct modern day cultural equivalent, Biblical scholar Dr. Michael Heiser illustrates this point in his book Reversing Hermon: Enoch, the Watchers, and the Forgotten Mission of Jesus Christ by citing a misunderstood passage in 1 Corinthians 11.
To summarize, Heiser explains that the only option that makes sense of the passage is that Paul is addressing an issue of sexual impropriety, which may seem strange to modern understanding, is about how ancient science thought that the hair was where sexual fertility was thought to reside in both male and female. The foundation for that perspective is found in Second Temple material that elaborates on Genesis 6:1-4, more commonly referred to as the Watchers/Sons of God story. Paul is concerned that the event described Gen. 6 is at risk of happening again due to the sexual immodesty of the members of the Corinthian Ekklesia. Because of the great contextual distance between modern readings and ancient authors such as Paul, most interpreters have preferred to re-contextulize the passage instead.
The instructions concerning hair length and head coverings, while strange to us, have a direct correlation to what was considered medical science in the 1st century. Heiser quotes New Testament scholar Troy Martin who, using Euripides and Hippocrates as his sources, demonstrates that hair was thought to be part of the reproductive system. Martin states:
“Since peribolaion is contrasted with hair, which is part of the body, the physiological semantic domain of peribolaion in 1 Cor[inthians] 11:15b becomes particularly relevant. Euripides (Herc fur 1269) uses peribolaion in reference to a body part. He casts Hercules as complaining, “After I received [my] bags of flesh, which are the outward signs of puberty, [I received] labors about which I [shall] undertake to say what is necessary.”… A dynamic translation of the first clause would be: “After I received my testicles (peribolaia), which are the outward signs of puberty.” In this text from Euripides, the term peribolaion refers to a testicle.”
As Heiser makes clear, Martin “is suggesting that Paul is comparing a woman’s hair to a testicle.” A bold claim. However, he then backs it up with a lengthy quote from the Hippocratic test for sterility found in Hippocrates Aphorisms.
Because of the great contextual distance between modern interpreters and ancient authors such as Paul, Martin’s interpretation of 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 is unique. Most interpreters have preferred to re-contextulize the passage instead. Yet even if we accept Martin’s premise—and there is no good reason not to—we’re still left with the question of modern relevance. Since we know that hair is not part of the reproductive system, there is no direct present-day equivalent. Here is an instance where theological messaging becomes appropriate. Bear in mind, however, that this is only appropriate now that we’ve arrived at the original meaning.
As stated above, though shrouded in cosmological nuance, Paul is instructing the Corinthians regarding sexual modesty. If hair was considered part of the reproductive/sexual system (comparative to a peribolaion: testicle) what the passage is describing is the standard for proper/modest attire among the early Ekklesias. What’s more, Paul appears to be correcting what was deliberate sexual immodesty, seeing as the idea of hair as a reproductive/sexual component would have been common cultural knowledge. Paul’s emphasis, when understood in context, is clear: do not be deliberately sexually immodest.
The Myth of Amorality
What we’ve shown in this article is that abortion was common within the 1st century period of the New Testament. We’ve seen that it is among the few issues where there is a cross-cultural near 1:1 equation. We’ve demonstrated the importance of context when seeking to address topics in a modern setting using ancient material. We’ve also given an example of the importance of context with regard to biblical interpretation and theological messaging.
What we will be exploring throughout the series of articles that follows is how early Christian society addressed the issue of abortion. In a culture where abortion was rampant, the early Ekklesia was not silent on the matter. Working our way back from the documents produced by the early Christians, we’ll track both the direct and indirect references to the issue of abortion through the Post-apostolic writings, New Testament documents, Second Temple material, and Old Testament texts.
What we’ll demonstrate is that a self-declared follower of Jesus Christ could not have been completely indifferent on abortion. The early apostles, disciples, and Ekklesias of Jesus were neither passive nor neutral when it came to societal injustice and immorality. They did not consider themselves an isolated subculture or a fringe political group within the greater Roman Empire. The gospel they believed and heralded stated that Jesus was king of the cosmos, and they proclaimed the standards of his universal kingdom throughout the ancient world! They were “the men who turned the world upside down.”
It is disheartening to see that modern “Christianity” (in the United States, at least) has drifted from its ancient roots. Compromise with evil is celebrated as compassion and loving inclusion. Tolerance of injustice is encouraged as mercy. Worst of all, the murdering of the unborn sickening numbers is viewed with passivity by many, and defended by a staggering majority. Yet no matter how well spoken the argument may be, these positions contradict those of the first four centuries of believers and the biblical witness as a whole.
First century Christianity did not tolerate amorality. 21st century Christianity can no longer tolerate it either. It is a stance foreign to the Kingdom of God.