Birth Control & the Early Church Fathers

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Catholig

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Hello everyone,

I decided to look for quotes by the early Church Father’s regarding contraception today to talk with a Girl at school. I spent quite a bit of time today doing this - and I feel that I haven’t really found too much. It is possible that looking at some of the sources tomorrow will help, but right now I have found two inconsistencies that I wanted to share.

The first is Saint John Chrysostom’s Homily XXIV on Romans - ccel & New Advent quote it as “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?”
While Seminarians from Life, and Catholic Answers quote it as: “Why do you sow where the field is eager to destroy the fruit, where there are medicines of sterility [oral contraceptives], where there is murder before birth?”

The second is from Jerome’s 22nd letter to Eustochium. At ccel and Catholic Culture (there’s a typo at CC) it is quoted as “Some go so far as to take potions, that they may insure barrenness, and thus murder human beings almost before their conception.” While, presumably, it is quoted as “Others, indeed, will drink sterility and murder a man not yet born.” at the Seminarians for Life site.

In any case, I’m tired so I’ll check back tomorrow.

Catholig
 
"Because of its divine institution for the propagation of man, the seed is not to be vainly ejaculated, nor is it to be damaged, nor is it to be wasted" Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor of Children 2:10:91:2 (A.D. 191).

“[Christian women with male concubines], on account of their prominent ancestry and great property, the so-called faithful want no children from slaves or lowborn commoners, [so] they use drugs of sterility or bind themselves tightly in order to expel a fetus which has already been engendered." Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 9:12 (A.D. 225).

“You may see a number of women who are widows before they are wives. Others, indeed, **will drink sterility **and murder a man not yet born, [and some commit abortion].” Jerome, Letters 22:13 (A.D. 396).

“I am supposing, then, although you are not lying [with your wife] for the sake of procreating offspring, you are not for the sake of lust obstructing their procreation by an evil prayer or an evil deed. Those who do this, although they are called husband and wife, are not; nor do they retain any reality of marriage, but with a respectable name cover a shame. Sometimes this lustful cruelty, or cruel lust, comes to this, that they even procure poisons of sterility…Assuredly if both husband and wife are like this, they are not married, and if they were like this from the beginning they come together not joined in matrimony but in seduction. If both are not like this, I dare to say that either the wife is in a fashion the harlot of her husband or he is an adulterer with his own wife.” Augustine, Marriage and Concupiscence 1:15:17 (A.D. 419).

“Who is he who cannot warn that **no woman may take a potion so that she is unable to conceive **or condemns in herself the nature which God willed to be fecund? As often as she could have conceived or given birth, of that many homicides she will be held guilty, and, unless she undergoes suitable penance, she will be damned by eternal death in hell. If a woman does not wish to have children, let her enter into a religious agreement with her husband; for chastity is the sole sterility of a Christian woman.” Caesarius of Arles, Sermons 1:12 (A.D. 522).

Hope those help! 🙂
 
ryanoneil said:
"Because of its divine institution for the propagation of man, the seed is not to be vainly ejaculated, nor is it to be damaged, nor is it to be wasted" Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor of Children 2:10:91:2 (A.D. 191).

“[Christian women with male concubines], on account of their prominent ancestry and great property, the so-called faithful want no children from slaves or lowborn commoners, [so] they use drugs of sterility or bind themselves tightly in order to expel a fetus which has already been engendered." Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 9:12 (A.D. 225).

“You may see a number of women who are widows before they are wives. Others, indeed, **will drink sterility **and murder a man not yet born, [and some commit abortion].” Jerome, Letters 22:13 (A.D. 396).

“I am supposing, then, although you are not lying [with your wife] for the sake of procreating offspring, you are not for the sake of lust obstructing their procreation by an evil prayer or an evil deed. Those who do this, although they are called husband and wife, are not; nor do they retain any reality of marriage, but with a respectable name cover a shame. Sometimes this lustful cruelty, or cruel lust, comes to this, that they even procure poisons of sterility…Assuredly if both husband and wife are like this, they are not married, and if they were like this from the beginning they come together not joined in matrimony but in seduction. If both are not like this, I dare to say that either the wife is in a fashion the harlot of her husband or he is an adulterer with his own wife.” Augustine, Marriage and Concupiscence 1:15:17 (A.D. 419).

“Who is he who cannot warn that **no woman may take a potion so that she is unable to conceive **or condemns in herself the nature which God willed to be fecund? As often as she could have conceived or given birth, of that many homicides she will be held guilty, and, unless she undergoes suitable penance, she will be damned by eternal death in hell. If a woman does not wish to have children, let her enter into a religious agreement with her husband; for chastity is the sole sterility of a Christian woman.” Caesarius of Arles, Sermons 1:12 (A.D. 522).

Hope those help! 🙂
Click to expand...
Ryanoneil,

I’ve seen all of these quotes before. And it’s starting to get annoying.

#1 possibly useful
#2 Male concubines? Wow, that’ll just bring up more issues. And besides that it seems to be a statement of what is happening, not a condemnation or judgment regarding it.
#3 “You may see many women widows before wedded, who try to conceal their miserable fall by a lying garb. Unless they are betrayed by swelling wombs or by the crying of their infants, they walk abroad with tripping feet and heads in the air. Some go so far as to take potions, that they may insure barrenness, and thus murder human beings almost before their conception.” This is talking about abortion.
#4 I looked at Marriage & Concupiscence 1:15 but it didn’t have that quote. And Marriage & Concupiscence 1:17 had a quote that - while may be pertinent could be talking about abortion rather that contraception if you consider Jerome’s use of the word “barrenness”.
#5 Possibly useful.

Catholig
 
P.S.

Part of the reason this is getting so annoying is that after seeing basically the same quotes on three or four sites (some on one, some on the other, some on both) it seems almost like the countless protestant sites listing quotes from theologians or popes that you can tell the people who assembled the site didn’t find themselves, or even research, but rather just lifted from another site.

Catholig
 
Keep in mind the limited scientific understanding of the day. While the church cannot err in moral teachings, her explanations can sometimes be muddied by limited scientific understanding.

In the world before modern medical understanding it was thought that a man’s semen was literally like a seed. They did not know that the woman produced an egg and that sperm and egg combined to create a new life. Thus, they had difficulty in figuring out when new life began. Was it the moment of ejaculation? Was it sometime AFTER the man’s ‘seed implanted’ in the woman’s womb?

Once you place yourself in their scientific mindframe, you read the passage differently! What you take to be quotes about abortion apply equally to chemical contraception and IUD-like methods (which, contrary to popular pro-life belief, USUALLY - not always- operate by altering the chemistry in the womb such that sperm die before reaching the egg).

Some theologians have theorized that it was faulty science that caused the early fathers to believe that all contraceptives operated by killing tiny humans in the man’s seed. Since modern science now knows that sperm is NOT a tiny human being, then non-abortive contraceptives are not sinful! To me, this kind of theologian has abandoned belief in a God who has revealed himself to us through His Church and instead placed his faith entirely in human reason instead. As you can see, I’m not a fan of that approach.

The PROPER approach is to look closer at the issue and see what ELSE might be the underlying reason for the revelation behind the Tradition. In this case, theologians discovered that sex was not just a physical behavior that made babies, but a bonding behavior. Furthermore, they observed that purposely sterilizing the sex act is an action that fundamentally ruptures the unitive nature of the married sex in the first place. Thus, the Fathers had it right by revelation even though they didn’t have the science part correctly. Because they had a conclusion based on (faulty) science, they don’t seem to have contemplated the effects of contraceptives on the unitive nature of sex. Why would they, they thought they had reasoned definitively?

That doesn’t make for a sound bite argument, but much of truth is that way, isn’t it?
 
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