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Home , Clement of Alexandria, Ensoulment, Eusebius, Modes of persuasion, Tertullian, Vulgate

Tertullian’s Attitude towards the Human Foetus and Embryo Andrew Barr

BA, Honours (Class 1)

A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at

The University of Queensland in 2014.

School of History, Philosophy, Religion and

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Abstract

Much of the current scholarship on ’s attitude towards offspring in utero has examined the issue in light of the modern debate. Traditionally, modern commentators on the have discussed passages from Tertullian concerning the unborn child in isolation, paying no attention to their original context. Such reductionism has resulted in a diminution of Tertullian’s attitude towards the unborn child to a simplified . Scholars have frequently constructed Tertullian as an absolutist opponent of abortion at all stages of pregnancy, overlooking the finer subtleties of his views. This thesis provides a more accurate picture by examining Tertullian’s rhetorical aims, his deft use of Greco-Roman medical sources, and his engagement with Christian and Roman cultural preconceptions regarding the foetus and embryo. Tertullian’s views on the unborn child should be considered in the context of his aims and methods as a writer of . When Tertullian’s treatises are analysed in terms of their rhetorical structure, it becomes clear that abortion was never an over-riding concern for him. Rather, he used abortion and the figure of the unborn child to help prove or disprove specific arguments, none of which related to abortion directly.

This study also considers the context of previous Christian writing on the status of the human embryo and foetus. When placed alongside earlier patristic authors, it is clear that Tertullian borrowed his denunciation of abortion as a form of from a pre-existing Christian tradition. Several Christian sources to Tertullian, such as the , Clement of , and Athenagoras had denounced abortion as an act of homicide on the basis of Scripture. Tertullian was innovative, however, in that he was the first Christian writer to construe abortion explicitly as for the entire duration of gestation. Though Tertullian was not the first Christian writer to argue against abortion, he was the first to incorporate ideas from medical authors in his rhetoric, especially Soranus of . Yet Tertullian did not consistently follow any particular paradigm of . Instead, he alternately borrowed, adapted, and rejected embryological theories according to their usefulness to support his arguments. At times, he freely borrowed from ’s theory of generation, arguing on this basis that the embryo only gained during the process of gestation.

Finally, the thesis argues that Tertullian’s condemnation of abortion owed something to the pagan as well as Christian world. As a Roman author, Tertullian wrote in a literary culture whose attitude towards abortion was overwhelmingly negative. Although Tertullian presented himself as being hostile towards Roman tradition, he often borrowed the trope where women who defied 2 their husbands were characterised as practitioners of abortion. Moreover, Stoic opposition to abortion perhaps influenced Tertullian. It is also highly unlikely that Tertullian influenced the emperors and Caracalla regarding the legality of abortion. This study thus demonstrates that, in order to understand Tertullian’s attitude towards unborn children fully, his works must be analysed in context and against the backdrop of Roman family tradition.

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Declaration by author

This thesis is composed of my original work, and contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference has been made in the text. I have clearly stated the contribution by others to jointly-authored works that I have included in my thesis.

I have clearly stated the contribution of others to my thesis as a whole, including statistical assistance, survey design, data analysis, significant technical procedures, professional editorial advice, and any other original research work used or reported in my thesis. The content of my thesis is the result of work I have carried out since the commencement of my research higher degree candidature and does not include a substantial part of work that has been submitted to qualify for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university or other tertiary institution. I have clearly stated which parts of my thesis, if any, have been submitted to qualify for another award.

I acknowledge that an electronic copy of my thesis must be lodged with the University Library and, subject to the General Award Rules of The University of Queensland, immediately made available for research and study in accordance with the Copyright Act 1968.

I acknowledge that copyright of all material contained in my thesis resides with the copyright holder(s) of that material. Where appropriate I have obtained copyright permission from the copyright holder to reproduce material in this thesis.

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Publications during candidature

Barr, J. 2012. ‘: Corrupt Politician and .’ Crossroads 6: 58-63.

Publications included in this thesis

“No publications included”

Contributions by others to the thesis

“No contributions by others”

Statement of parts of the thesis submitted to qualify for the award of another degree

“None”

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Acknowledgements

I wish to acknowledge the assistance and support of several people. Firstly, I’d like to thank my advisor, Dr. Janette McWilliam, who introduced me to the idea of studying Roman childhood, and has patiently supervised my research over the past three years. Thanks are also due to all the Classics staff at the University of Queensland. My associate advisor, Dr. Tom Stevenson, first suggested that Tertullian might be an appropriate focus for my research, for which I am very grateful. Dr. Amelia Brown, Dr. Caillan Davenport, Mr. Denis Brosnan, Mr. Murray Kane, Dr. Pritchard, and Dr. Luca Asmonti have also been very generous with their time and expertise, broadening and deepening my understanding of ancient languages as well as many other aspects of antiquity. What’s more, it has been an absolute pleasure to be part of the postgraduate community at UQ’s School of History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics. I thank each and every one of its members for providing such a great working environment. Special thanks are also due to Prof. Bob Milns, Prof. John Whitehorne, Dr. Sonia Puttock, and Prof. Rick Strelan, whose advice has proven invaluable.

I deeply appreciate the financial support I have received through the Australian Postgraduate Award, the UQ Grad School’s startup grant, and the Queensland Friends of the Australian Archaeological Institute at .

I have also had the pleasure of corresponding with Dr. Zubin Mistry of University College London about Tertullian’s impact upon medieval thought, in anticipation of his forthcoming book. I have also enjoyed my correspondence with Dr. Tommy Heyne (MD) about Tertullian’s approach to medicine. Dr. Heyne very kindly provided me a copy of his 2011 article on the subject, which has proven very helpful for this thesis.

The diligent proofreading efforts of my friends, Mr. Chris Spensley, Dr. Hollie Thomas, and Dr. Katherine Harper, have helped me enormously. I would also particularly like to thank Ms. Johanna Qualmann for her outstanding support over the last eighteen months. She is an excellent proofreader, babysitter, and friend.

Finally, I would like to acknowledge the support and fortitude of all my friends and family. Not one but two sets of parents have provided me endless encouragement as well as practical assistance. But without my beloved wife, Kelly, none of this would have been possible—you are my inspiration.

Mischief managed!

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Keywords

Tertullian, , abortion, medicine, unborn, foetus, embryo, , rhetoric

Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classifications (ANZSRC)

ANZSRC code: 210306, Classical Greek and Roman History, 100%

Fields of Research (FoR) Classification

FoR code: 2103, Historical Studies, 100%

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Table of Contents

List of Abbreviations Used in the Thesis ...... 9 Introduction ...... 10 Chapter I: Rhetoric and the Unborn ...... 37 Chapter II: The Christian Context ...... 102 Chapter III: Tertullian’s Understanding of Prenatal Biology ...... 152 Chapter IV: The Pagan Context ...... 172 Conclusion ...... 211 Bibliography ...... 214

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List of Abbreviations Used in the Thesis

Generally, this thesis employs the abbreviations used in the Oxford Classical Dictionary. Biblical texts are abbreviated according to the Chicago Manual of Style, 16th Edition. Abbreviations of texts not listed in the Oxford Classical Dictionary are as follows:

August. Haer. Augustine, De Haeresibus Liber Unus Clem. Al. Ecl. Clement , Eclogae Festus De Sign. Verb. Festus, De Verborum Significatu Hippoc. Ius. Hippocrates, Ius Iurandum (Oath) Jer. Apolog. Adv. Ruf. , Apologeticum Adversus Rufinum Juv. Sat. , Saturae Mart. Epigr. , Epigrammata Pass. Perp. Passio Perpetuae Pass. Scil. Passio Sanctorum Scilitanorum Spec. Leg. Philo, De Specialibus Legibus Tert. Adv. Prax. Tertullian, Adversus Praxean Tert. An. Tertullian, De Anima Tert. Carn. Tertullian, De Carne Christi Tert. Cor. Tertullian, De Corona Tert. Cult. Fem. Tertullian, De Cultu Feminarum Tert. Ex. Cast. Tertullian, De Exhortatione Castitatis Tert. Jej. Tertullian, De Ieiunio Tert. Mart. Tertullian, Ad Martyras Tert. Or. Tertullian, De Oratione Tert. Pall. Tertullian, De Pallio Tert. Pud. Tertullian, De Tert. Res. Tertullian, De Resurrectione Mortuorum Tert. Ux. Tertullian, Ad Uxorem Tert. Virg. Vel. Tertullian, De Virginibus Velandis

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Introduction

Scholars of Greek and Roman history have long adhered to the idea that attitudes towards children are not constant throughout history.1 Rather, the attitudes towards children that ancient authors express in their literature are subject to numerous factors, such as rhetorical precepts, religious concerns, medical theories, as well as social mores and ideas of family. It is particularly important for to recognise the mutability of views concerning children over time when studying ancient authors’ attitudes towards foetal and embryonic life. In any , the degree to which a foetus or embryo possesses human identity is largely subjective. The foetus or embryo is incapable of defining or justifying its own identity. Therefore, the extent to which the offspring in utero can or should be viewed as a human being is inevitably determined by others, as is its value to society. The process of assigning value to an embryo or foetus is also inherently influenced by cultural perceptions of the body, the soul and the relationship between them.

The literary works of Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus (c. AD 160–c. 225) represent an important epoch in the history of ancient attitudes towards the foetus and embryo. Though his ideas as presented on the page were far from consistent, Tertullian of was the first Christian writer to argue rigorously that human existence began at conception, and that abortion was therefore homicide for the entire duration of pregnancy. Moreover, he was the first surviving Latin writer to examine the unborn child at length. Despite the clear significance of this turning point in the history of the family, classical scholars have paid surprisingly little attention to Tertullian’s attitude towards the child in utero. The issue has hitherto mostly been addressed by theologians, and often with a view

1 This theory finds its origins in the French historian Philippe Ariès’ 1960 book, L’Enfant et la vie familiale sous l’ancien regime, and in its 1962 English , Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life. Ariès (1962: 125) went so far as to suggest that the concept and experience of childhood is a product of the modern period, and did not exist beforehand. Here he writes: ‘In medieval society, the idea of childhood did not exist.’ Lloyd deMause in 1974 picked up Ariès’ theory in his History of Childhood, arguing that parents of antiquity regarded their children without sentiment, and with an attitude of callous self-interest. In this work, deMause (1974: 1) summarised his viewpoint: ‘The history of childhood is a nightmare from which we have only recently begun to awaken. The further back in history one goes, the lower the level of child care, and the more likely children are to be killed, abandoned, beaten, terrorized, and sexually abused. It is our task here to see how much of this childhood history can be recaptured from the evidence that remains to us.’ The studies of Ariès and deMause sparked a new interest in the concept of childhood in antiquity, prompting subsequent generations of classical scholars to argue that childhood was indeed a concept known in antiquity, though the Greeks and Romans did approach their children with attitudes particular to their times and places, e.g. Néraudau 1984: 13-18; Golden 1988: 152-163; Wiedemann 1989: 1-3; Dixon 2001: 9-11; Minten 2002: 9-12; Rawson 2003: 1-13; Bakke 2005; 1-14; Laes 2010: 13-19; Beaumont 2012: 7-9; and Evans Grubbs 2013: 1-17.

10 towards swaying contemporary abortion policies in Western nations. The vast majority of current scholarship related to the topic concerns historical Christian attitudes towards abortion.2

Inevitably, these discussions are heavily politicised, since historical attitudes towards abortion frequently play a large part in determining modern policy. The most famous instance is that of Roe versus Wade in the United States, in which the judges deliberately chose history as the basis for the court’s opinion. Theoretically, historical inquiry afforded the court an opportunity to examine the issue objectively, without the subjective presuppositions of philosophy or religion. As the court ruling determined:

One's philosophy, one's experiences, one's exposure to the raw edges of human existence, one's religious training, one's attitudes toward life and family and their values, and the moral standards one establishes and seeks to observe, are all likely to influence and to color one's thinking and conclusions about abortion... Our task, of course, is to resolve the issue by constitutional measurement, free of emotion and of predilection. We seek earnestly to do this, and, because we do, we have inquired into, and in this opinion place some emphasis upon, medical and medical-legal history and what that history reveals about man's attitudes toward the abortion procedure over the centuries.3 Yet the construction of historical narrative too may be skewed to persuade the reader towards a political viewpoint. Much of the existing scholarship on Tertullian’s attitude towards the unborn child gives attention only to those works in which his views can be reconciled with those of modern pro-life movements. Tertullian’s argument that human existence begins at the point of conception is alternately celebrated, defended and decried by participants on both sides of Western abortion and embryonic stem cell debates.

Those considering Tertullian’s treatises concerning unborn children frequently fail to consider the context behind his works: that of his complete corpus, his life and times, and his broad knowledge of Greco-Roman and Judaeo-Christian literature. Instead, writers considering Tertullian’s views of reproduction often simply take one or two from the nineteenth-century Ante-Nicene Fathers of Tertullian’s Apologeticum and De Anima. In doing so, they discard the subtle nuances of Tertullian’s arguments that might

2 See: Arkle 1957: 558; Noonan 1970: 1-60; Connery 1977: 7-45; Gorman 1982: 91-101; Congourdeau 1984: 103-116; Dunstan 1984: 38-44; Laale 1992-1993: 297-308; Lindemann 1995: 253-271; Jones 2005: 710-713. The tendency in scholarship to relate the issue of abortion in antiquity to the modern debate will be discussed in the literature review below. 3 Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, p. 116. 1973.

11 undermine their own case. In fact, a close reading of Tertullian’s corpus reveals that he often argued on the basis of embryological theories that favoured a process of embryonic hominisation. Unsurprisingly, authors who have upheld Tertullian as a kind of forerunner to modern opposition to abortion have not often considered these treatises. Moreover, isolating these passages from the broader content and structure of the treatises generates the illusion that abortion and the status of the unborn were major preoccupations for Tertullian. Reductionism of this sort has given rise to the misrepresentation of Tertullian as an absolutist, fighting stringently against a culture in which abortion was freely practised.

The purpose of this study is to provide a fuller picture of Tertullian’s attitude towards the unborn child than has been previously achieved, separating him from the contemporary . In order to accomplish this, Tertullian’s writings have been treated as works of ancient rhetorical literature. Thus they have been analysed in light of Tertullian’s rhetorical aims, his understanding of prenatal biology, and his engagement with Roman and Christian cultural presuppositions concerning abortion. The dissertation identifies Tertullian’s method and reasons for constructing his arguments concerning antenatal life, which include his sources for , the literary traditions in which he engaged, and the various purposes his references to the foetus and embryo served.

Throughout this dissertation, the progeny in utero is referred to as ‘the unborn child.’ It will suffice to adopt Shanzer’s 2009 definition: the term ‘unborn’ applies to ‘both the miscarried and the aborted, likewise those yet to be born.’4 In the modern world, an author’s choice to apply the term ‘unborn child’ to the embryo often denotes a judgemental or negative view of abortion. It appears frequently in anti-abortion rhetoric. In English, the application of the term attributes the value of a postpartum infant to the developing embryo. On an implicit level, calling the embryo an ‘unborn child’ thus equates its destruction with infanticide.5 No such value judgement is intended in this dissertation. The medical terms will be employed when it is possible to determine clearly whether an ancient author made a distinction between the unformed embryo and the more mature foetus; this is not always possible with , as Playoust and Aitken (2008) identify.6 Unfortunately, Latin and Greek terminology for the foetus and embryo were very vague. There was no term in Latin that specifically applied to an unborn child. Rather, Latin authors referred to the child

4 Shanzer 2009: 327. 5 Kapparis 2002: 37. 6 Playoust and Aitken 2008: 159-160.

12 in the womb idiomatically, applying general terms that were often synonyms for later stages of Roman childhood. In his 1985 dissertation on The Nomenclature and Stages of Roman Childhood, Gray-Fow argues that the absence of a noun specifically for an unborn child within the Latin vocabulary indicates a strong degree of uncertainty in the Roman mind-set concerning the nature of the foetus or embryo.7 Kapparis holds similar views about Greek vocabulary.8

It is, however, worth bearing in mind the great difference between ancient Roman society and the current period. The technical language medical practitioners now use to describe unborn children simply did not exist. The medical terms ‘foetus’ and ‘embryo’ occur fairly frequently in common parlance today. The same was not true for the Romans. Without medical imaging technology such as ultrasounds, there was no way for medical practitioners to observe prenatal growth empirically. Moreover, the legality of abortion, questions of foetal or the reproductive rights of women were not politically contentious issues in Roman society as they are today. Scientific education in the principles of sexual reproduction was not part of the curriculum for children as it is in most Western of the twenty-first century. For the Romans, there was perhaps simply no need to develop a more complex nomenclature for the unborn child.

Modern scholarship dealing with Tertullian’s attitude to the unborn child often carries an assumption, tacit or otherwise, that the Romans not only condoned but regularly participated in abortion, and that Tertullian’s views represented a strong departure from the dominant culture of Rome. However, there is considerable debate among classicists about the question of whether the Romans accepted or practised abortion so readily. There was little extended scholarship on the matter until the controversy of Roe versus Wade in the 1970s. Prior to this, the only major works on the subject were the German studies of Dölger (1934), Waszink’s short survey (1950) of the ancient sources in the Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum, as well as an English study of contraception in antiquity by Hopkins (1965).9 Dölger and Waszink conclude that the Romans overall condemned abortion on moral grounds.10 However, they each indicate that abortion was probably carried out regularly

7 Gray-Fow 1985: 57. The Latin terminology for the unborn child will be discussed more fully in the final chapter. 8 Kapparis 2002: 36-37. 9 Dölger 1934: 1-61; Waszink 1950: 57; Hopkins 1965: 124-151. 10 Dölger 1934: 1-5; Waszink 1950: 57.

13 behind closed doors.11 Unusually, Dölger argues that Tertullian would have endorsed abortion on therapeutic grounds, on the basis of Tertullian’s description of an embryotomy as a ‘cruel necessity’ in De Anima.12

Hopkins’s 1965 article features an important excursus on abortion, in which he argues that abortion was probably a more common means of limiting family size than contraception in antiquity.13 However, Hopkins does not substantiate his speculation regarding the frequency of abortion. On the other hand, his arguments regarding the relationship between abortion and contraception are more substantial. Analysing a broad range of Greek and Roman medical sources, Hopkins suggests that there was considerable confusion among the Romans between the concepts of abortion and contraception.14

Roe versus Wade sparked a new wave of Anglophone scholarship examining the historical, philosophical and theological foundations of Western opposition to abortion. This complex legal battle concerning the legality of abortion in the United States provoked an intensely divisive metaphysical debate in academia concerning the timing of hominisation in prenatal development.15 Much of the scholarship on abortion in antiquity from this period adopts a partisan stance, advocating anti-abortion viewpoints through the construction of historical narratives. It has been expedient for these commentators to cast the Romans as villains in an overarching story of good and evil. Often, these narratives are framed as triumphalist accounts of Christian family values overcoming the decadent excess of pagan Rome. Such narratives are often intended to rally modern to follow the example of their ancient forebears and engage in political activism against the legalisation of abortion, or influence public opinion concerning the morality of abortion. However, as argued in this dissertation, the separation of early Christian attitudes from Roman is to some extent a false dichotomy fuelled by selective and uncritical use of evidence. Often, commentators overlook the fact that there was considerable overlap between Roman and Christian perspectives on the unborn child.

John T. Noonan’s 1970 article, ‘An Almost Absolute Value in History,’ is an excellent example of this process. Noonan was a legal practitioner and professor of law, with a strong interest in the history of the legality of abortion. Noonan’s article is unapologetic in

11 Dölger 1934: 6-13; Waszink 1950: 57. 12 Tert. An. 25.4-5; Dölger 1934: 46. 13 Hopkins 1965: 132. 14 Hopkins 1965: 124. 15 Riddle 1997: 2-3.

14 pursuing its agenda of persuading modern Christians of the immorality of abortion. Noonan argues that abortion, ‘according to contemporary observers, was practiced very generally in the Greco-Roman world.’16 He indicates that Roman parents often aborted their foetuses out of deference to motives of personal gain, and posits that this trend may have contributed to a decline in the population of the upper classes.17 Noonan believes that Christian views represented a major turning point in ancient values concerning the unborn child. He believes that the Roman culture was ‘generally distinguished by its indifference to fetal and early life,’ and that Christian views on the unborn child developed in opposition to this prevailing culture.18 Concerning Tertullian, Noonan briefly notes his anti-abortion arguments in the Apologeticum and De Anima. He links Tertullian’s ideas to those of the Didache, and does not consider a possible Roman influence at all.19 He also analyses the Latin terminology Tertullian uses to describe an embryotomy in De Anima, arguing against Dölger’s theory that Tertullian would have accepted therapeutic abortion.20 In Noonan’s view, the close association between the vocabulary for murder and that of abortion over-rode any consideration for the mother’s life in De Anima.21

Like Noonan, Gorman argues that the termination of life in the womb was so prevalent among the Romans that Tertullian actively campaigned against the practice in a manner akin to that of a modern pro-life activist. His 1982 book, Abortion and the Early Church: Christian, Jewish and Pagan Attitudes in the Greco-Roman World, is a very influential work. Gorman is cited by Riddle, Kapparis, Bakke and others as an authoritative study of early Christian conceptualisations of antenatal personhood.22 His work is very polemical. For this reason, Riddle (1997) encourages readers to treat Gorman’s views ‘with caution.’23 Gorman seeks to vindicate traditional Christian opposition to the practice of abortion. Moreover, Gorman suggests that modern Christians ought to follow early patristic

16 Noonan 1970: 6. 17 Noonan 1970: 6-7. 18 Noonan 1970: 7. Noonan’s words proved to be influential in determining the outcome of Roe versus Wade, though perhaps not in the manner he had intended. Roe versus Wade resulted in the dissolution of Texas’ stringent anti-abortion laws as unconstitutional. The author of the Court’s opinion on Roe versus Wade, Chief Harry Blackmun, briefly traces the history of abortion to highlight that the Texan laws were in many ways unprecedented in their severity. Citing Noonan, he notes that ‘Soranos, often described as the greatest of the ancient gynaecologists, appears to have been generally opposed to Rome's prevailing free-abortion practices.’ Blackmun’s point was that even in antiquity, the state did not attempt to regulate abortion. Thus, according to Blackmun, attempts to justify Texan legislation against abortion on the grounds of historical tradition were invalid. Roe v. Wade 410 US 113 p. 130. 1973. 19 Noonan 1970: 12. 20 Tert. An. 25.4-5; Dölger 1934: 46. 21 Noonan 1970: 13. 22 Riddle 1997: 181; Kapparis 2002: 251; Bakke 2005: 127. 23 Riddle 1997: 181.

15 writings as a model for entering political discourse concerning abortion. He makes these aims clear in his conclusion.24 While it should be noted that his religious agenda does not make his work inherently bad, this bias should be kept in mind because it gives rise to oversimplifications of Tertullian’s ideas. Gorman briefly restates Tertullian’s arguments concerning the unborn child in the context of a broader narrative concerning the development of early Christian views on abortion.25 He points out that Tertullian was the first Christian writer to make an explicit link between censure of abortion and examples from Scripture.26 Gorman also argues that Tertullian was partially responsible for the criminalisation of abortion under the Severans. He argues that:

Despite pagan influence on Christians, the late second and early third centuries also give evidence of an increasing Christian effect of concerning abortion. Although no direct connections between the Christian community and Roman anti-abortion laws have been established, several facts suggest at least some influence. First, the Christian position, so different from the Roman view, had spread through the empire’s geographical regions and social classes. Through the witness of Christians, many pagans were acquainted with their ethical perspective... Second, Christian apologists such as Athenagoras and Tertullian had addressed Roman emperors and governors concerning the standard Christian view... Is it only coincidental that the apologetic writings of Athenagoras and Tertullian immediately preceded the first Roman laws against ? ... Whatever the Roman motives may have been, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that Christians contributed to the third-century anti-abortion statutes.27 Subsequent scholars have never -examined Gorman’s idea. Bakke (2005) takes a slightly more guarded approach, but overall he supports Gorman.28 This dissertation will re- examine the evidence, but actively avoid taking a partisan stance in order to provide a more balanced perspective.

Enzo Nardi’s 1971 philological study, Procurato Aborto nel Mondo Greco-Romano, is the first lengthy monograph solely dedicated to the topic of abortion in antiquity. In his literature review, Nardi traces several historians’ views on abortion in antiquity from the late eighteenth century until the 1960s. He points out that it was common for historians to accept

24 Gorman 1982: 91-101. 25 Gorman 1982: 56-58. 26 Gorman 1982: 57. 27 Gorman 1982: 61-62. 28 Bakke 2005: 127.

16 narratives of abortion in the primary sources uncritically.29 He himself offers little comment, but collects the references diligently. Nardi meticulously gathers and classifies an exhaustive array of evidence into an immense catalogue of references. He includes relevant extracts from fragmentary sources, such as the . Of all the modern commentators to examine abortion in antiquity, Nardi analyses the broadest range of Tertullian’s treatises. He considers not only the Apologeticum and De Anima, but also Ad Nationes, De Carne Christi, De Exhortatione Castitatis and De Virginibus Velandis.30 This is to Nardi’s credit, as modern authors tend to focus upon the Apologeticum and De Anima exclusively. Nardi also places Tertullian within the context of Christian and Roman attitudes.31 He argues that Tertullian did not seek consistency in his views concerning the point of in the antenatal child.32

However, as Dickison identifies in her review, the main drawback of Nardi’s work is that he does not synthesise his material sufficiently.33 His work reads more like a sourcebook than an analysis. As Dickison says, Nardi’s work, ‘should hence be considered as a manual for future work, which should result in a more readable and synthesized treatment of the material.’34 His research is extremely valuable, however, in that he laid a strong foundation on which subsequent scholars may build. Any researcher dealing with the topic since Nardi owes him a debt.

W.J. Watts’s 1973 article, ‘, the Law and Roman Society on Abortion,’ is another important work that emerged from the ethical quagmire of Roe versus Wade. Watts, like many of the other commentators on abortion of the 1970s, was inspired to investigate the issue in light of contemporary controversy.35 However, he is unlike many of the other modern commentators in that he does not advocate a partisan stance on the issue; his interest is purely academic. Thus, in his introduction, he states that ‘In view of the intense controversy now going on, it may be intriguing if not helpful to consider the legal and social background to Ovid’s two poems touching on this subject.’36 Though his main focus is indeed upon Ovid’s Amores, Watts’s article is also important in that he identifies a strong overlap between early

29 Nardi 1971: 201-203. 30 Nardi 1971: 738-739. 31 Nardi 1971: 389-392. 32 Nardi 1971: 411-412. 33 Dickison 1973: 159-166. 34 Dickison 1973: 159-166. 35 Watts 1973: 89. 36 Watts 1973: 89.

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Christian and pagan views concerning the morality of abortion.37 He does not explicate his ideas in depth. In his words:

Generally there was nothing in the pagan propaganda against abortion to which a Christian apologist might wish to take exception, inasmuch as those arguments were founded on “” as it was then understood. But, to the Christian, the pagan views were strictly ancillary to one crucial consideration, that the fetus was possessed of a soul and the inalienable right to existence on earth and the chance to accept grace and thereby save that soul, damned through original .38 Very succinctly, Watts links Tertullian’s view to his pagan education. He says that ‘Tertullian, well read and forceful, adopted the language of his pagan predecessors in an impressive attack which gives evidence of his having consulted Soranus and other medical writers, though his interest is not clinical but ethical.’39 However, he does not explore the issue at length, and primarily considers the famous passage condemning late-term abortion in De Anima.40 Watts’s grasp of ante-Nicene Christian literature is sometimes less than certain. For instance, he suggests that ‘orthodox’ Christians would have found the idea of the corporeal soul anathema; as proof, he points to Tertullian’s De Anima.41 By examining this one passage in isolation, Watts seems to have overlooked the fact that Tertullian himself was actually arguing in favour of the corporeality of the soul. Furthermore, it is somewhat perilous to argue that Tertullian represented ‘orthodox’ opinion, since Tertullian antedated the orthodox code of the Nicene , and would eventually be deemed a heretic himself by .42

A theologian, John Connery examines the issue in relation to dogma in his 1977 book, Abortion: The Development of the Perspective. Connery’s view is somewhat more moderate than that of Gorman or Noonan. He concedes that ‘Roman law recognised the ambiguity of the situation of the foetus,’ and made allowances for its inheritance.43 Yet he believes that abortions were regularly performed during the Imperial period. Connery constructs a narrative of moral decline, suggesting that the moral uprightness

37 Watts 1973: 89. 38 Watts 1973: 98. 39 Watts 1973: 99. 40 Watts 1973: 99; Tert. An. 25.4-5. 41 Watts 1973: 99. 42 Jer. Apolog. Adv. Ruf. 3; August. Haer. 86. However it is worth noting that Powell (1975: 35), Rankin (1986: 73, 1995: 27), Trevett (1996: 69), Tabbernee (1997: 54), Osborn (1997: 176), and Dunn (2004: 4) have argued that there is little evidence that Tertullian’s conversion to represented a true schism from the Church of the late second and early third centuries. 43 Connery 1977: 22.

18 of the paterfamilias in the early was sufficient to restrict access to abortion. ‘But when the family began to break down, morality, which depended so heavily on family authority, also broke down, and moral licentiousness began.’44 He believes that the upsurge of references to abortion in the Imperial period indicates ‘a practice of abortion widespread enough to attract the attention and criticism of the leading writers of the time.’45 Concerning Tertullian, Connery cites the Apologeticum, De Anima, and De Virginibus Velandis, placing them in the context of prior Christian writings.46 Unlike Noonan and Dölger, Connery is hesitant to offer an opinion on Tertullian’s attitude towards therapeutic abortion, simply pointing out that Tertullian did not mean to argue against abortion specifically.47

However, writers on both sides of the debate have attempted to use Tertullian’s ideas concerning the human embryo to promote modern agendas concerning abortion. Arkle (1957) is one of the first commentators from the medical community who uses Tertullian to make a statement on the modern abortion debate. In his British Medical Journal article, ‘The Termination of Pregnancy on Psychiatric Grounds,’ Arkle provides a brief historical sketch of Christian conceptualisations of the unborn, in order to provide an historical context for his view that ‘the Christian opposition (to abortion) is based to some extent on a mistranslation of the abstract laws of the ancients.’48 To this end, Arkle briefly suggests that Tertullian adopted Aristotle’s view that the embryo gained the status of personhood gradually.49 However, Arkle does not mention Tertullian’s vitriol against abortion. Nor does he consider De Anima, wherein Tertullian adopted the opposite view. He thus implicitly insinuates that Tertullian on some level accepted abortion. In fact, he does not cite any specific treatise by Tertullian.

Arkle’s article was not unanimously well received by his peers. Just over a month after Arkle’s article was printed, the British Medical Journal published a letter to the editor by a certain M.D. Nunan, in which the correspondent pointed out that the article contained numerous problems.50 In particular, Nunan’s letter asserts that Arkle is clearly less than familiar with Tertullian, since Arkle suggests that Tertullian wrote in Greek rather than

44 Connery 1977: 25. 45 Connery 1977: 26. 46 Connery 1977: 39-42. 47 Connery 1977: 42. 48 Arkle 1957: 558. 49 Arkle 1957: 558. 50 Nunan 1957: 883.

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Latin.51 Moreover, Nunan is of the opinion that Arkle misrepresents the history of Christian attitudes regarding abortion, on the basis that Christian literature had consistently deemed abortion as a sin from the first century AD.52 Indeed, Arkle does not consider any Christian literature preceding Tertullian, but moves straight from the to Tertullian. He does not consider the immense length of time or Judaeo-Christian literary output between the translation of the Septuagint and Tertullian’s writing. Arkle thus removes Tertullian from the context of his Christian forebears.

Similar problems apply to a series of articles published in the Journal of Medical Ethics from the 1980s onwards. The late of Oxford G.R. Dunstan’s 1984 article ‘The Moral Status of the Human Embryo: A Tradition Recalled’ suggests that the Roman Catholic stance on the treatment of the unborn child is a product not of long-held Christian traditions, but of papal policy in the nineteenth century AD.53 Dunstan argues that stem cell research that results in the destruction of the embryo should therefore be acceptable for Protestants.54 Perhaps due to his greater familiarity with medieval literature, Dunstan focuses far more upon medieval and early modern views of antenatal development than those of the ante-Nicene fathers.55 Interestingly, Dunstan describes Tertullian’s views on abortion as ‘dissentient’ from Christian tradition.56 He also suggests that Tertullian’s views on the human embryo were ‘unorthodox’ and ‘tainted by heterodoxy.’57 He cites the evidence of Tertullian’s Apologeticum, in which Tertullian claimed that Christians considered abortion homicide.58 However, Dunstan does not consider any of Tertullian’s other treatises, or contextualise this passage of the Apologeticum.

However, Dunstan has been contradicted by others. The bioethicist David Albert Jones opines in his 2005 article ‘The Human Embryo in Christian Tradition: A Reconsideration’ that Dunstan is highly selective in his use of evidence.59 By removing Tertullian from the context of prior Christian literature, Dunstan to some extent misrepresents Tertullian’s arguments on the unborn child as divergent from traditional Christian thought. In

51 Nunan 1957: 883; Arkle 1957: 558. Arkle suggests that Tertullian’s conceptualisation of the embryo was ‘translated into Latin by Jerome.’ 52 Nunan 1957: 883. 53 Dunstan 1984: 38-39. 54 Dunstan 1984: 43. 55 Gill 2005: 713. 56 Dunstan 1984: 39. 57 Dunstan 1984: 40. 58 Tert. Apol. 9.8. 59 Jones 2005: 711.

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Jones’s view, Dunstan presents a small sample of evidence, which does not represent the general views of the early Christians.60

Yet as R. Gill (2008) points out in his subsequent article, ‘Response to: The Human Embryo in the Christian Tradition,’ Jones in turn oversimplifies Christian views for equally political reasons.61 While he makes many valid historical claims, Jones’s 2004 book, The Soul of the Embryo: An Enquiry into the Status of the Human Embryo in the Christian Tradition explicitly aims to show that from the religion’s earliest days, Christians considered ‘deliberate destruction of the human embryo, apart from medical interventions to save a mother’s life... gravely wrong.’62 Therefore, as he argues, ‘it is difficult to see how the systematic use and destruction of human embryos in scientific research can be regarded as ethical.’63 Gill points out that Jones is himself sometimes selective in his use of evidence, and approaches the issue from a partisan perspective.64

Like most of the scholars considering Tertullian’s contribution to Christian thought on abortion, Jones deals with him in passing. This is due to the wide scope of his work, which examines Christian views of ensoulment and abortion from antiquity to the present. It would have been difficult for him to provide an in-depth examination of Tertullian in such a broad study. Jones iterates Tertullian’s views as presented in De Anima and the Apologeticum, though he does not mention any of Tertullian’s other works that condemned abortion, such as De Virginibus Velandis or Ad Uxorem. He argues that the two works present consistent views on the morality of abortion; he indicates that although their views on the timing of ensoulment varied, the Apologeticum and De Anima each argued for the preservation of the embryo as a human being from its inception. Jones also asserts that Tertullian’s argument for the corporeality of the soul meant that his views on abortion would not have been accepted by the early Christian community.65 However, there is limited evidence of the contemporary reception of Tertullian’s work concerning the unborn child.

Yet Jones makes some generalisations about Tertullian that do not entirely withstand scrutiny. He considers only those works where Tertullian made no distinction between the early-stage embryo and the more developed foetus. As he suggests:

60 Jones 2005: 711. 61 Gill 2005: 713. 62 Jones 2004: 246. 63 Jones 2004: 251. 64 Gill 2005: 713. 65 Jones 2004: 114.

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The earliest witness to the Christian ethical tradition from the Didache, Letter of , Apocalypse of Peter and Apocalypse of Paul to the writings of Athenagoras, Tertullian, Minucius Felix, Clement, and Hippolytus, to the canons of Elvira, Ancyra and Basil, treated abortion as homicide with no distinction as to formed or unformed.66 Jones thus does not include works such as De Carne Christi or Adversus Marcionem in his analysis. In these works, Tertullian quite openly argued on the basis of a distinction between the unformed embryo and later-stage foetus.

However, Jones makes a valuable contribution in that he places Tertullian’s views on the human embryo in the context of previous and contemporary Christian literature. He notes a ‘consensus’ among the various Christian communities that progeny ought to be protected in utero, though he does concede that there was a considerable level of debate whether or not this protection applied from conception.67 He also notes the similarity between Tertullian’s views and those of .68 Jones therefore effectively refutes Dunstan’s earlier suggestion that Tertullian’s arguments concerning the humanity of the embryo were unprecedented or unorthodox. However, there are significant gaps in his treatment of Tertullian and his elaboration upon the arguments of prior Christian writers; this dissertation serves to fill the lacuna in the scholarship.

The classicist Emiel Eyben’s 1980 article, ‘Family Planning in Antiquity,’ follows up on Hopkins and Watts, surveying ancient methods of regulating reproduction. He considers Greek, Roman, Jewish and Christian attitudes towards contraception, abortion and infanticide. Eyben argues that families in antiquity had numerous forms of family planning available to them, which explains the tendency toward smaller families and demonstrates that family planning was accepted through antiquity.69 He accepts the idea that the Romans practised abortion as a customary means of family planning, while noting the strong disapproval of abortion in many of the ancient sources.70 In his view, ‘the vehemence with which the railed against the practice cannot be dismissed as mere empty rhetoric; on the contrary, it proves that had not succeeded in changing the attitude of contemporary man.’71 As he points out, early imperial writers were often amenable

66 Jones 2004: 72-73. 67 Jones 2004: 114. 68 Jones 2004: 114. 69 Eyben 1980: 5-7. 70 Eyben 1980: 81. 71 Eyben 1980: 74.

22 to the foetus, so long as its preservation was in the interest of the father.72 Focusing upon the Younger Seneca and Musonius Rufus, he also notes that adherents of often rejected abortion categorically. He links their ideas to those of the Christians.73

However, Eyben’s treatment of Christian literature shares many problems with that of Watts. His survey of Christian literature is not comprehensive. Instead, he deals with a ‘selection’ of Christian sources from the to Augustine.74 Unfortunately, this has the detrimental effect of de-contextualising the sources, which gives rise to some anachronisms. For example, he treats Clement of Alexandria as a spokesperson for the views of the ‘official Church’ concerning Christian attitudes towards the unborn.75 As in the case of Tertullian, Clement antedated the , and his views would later be classed as heterodoxy. Furthermore, Eyben’s examination of Tertullian is perfunctory. Unlike many other commentators, Eyben seems to characterise Tertullian as holding a moderate stance on abortion. He provides an overview of Tertullian’s views as expressed in De Anima, and notes that in this work, Tertullian occasionally contradicted his own views on the timing of hominisation.76 Based upon a single quotation from De Anima, Eyben follows Dölger’s suggestion that Tertullian would have condoned therapeutic abortion.77 However, he does not consider Tertullian’s views as expressed in other works, leaving aside other instances where Tertullian rejected abortion more harshly. Eyben also does not consider Noonan’s argument that Tertullian’s choice of pejorative vocabulary to describe the embryotomy indicates moral disapprobation.78

Suzanne Dixon was the first classical scholar to challenge seriously the long-held assumption that abortion was practised regularly in the Roman world. Though she does not deal with the topic at length, Dixon has pointed out in her books The Roman Mother (1988) and Reading Roman Women (2001) that the evidence in for the frequency of abortions was more informed by moral anxieties than reality. She goes so far as to suggest that literary sources about abortion ‘are useless as historical information.’79 Utilising feminist theory, Dixon argues that Roman authors mentioned the practice of abortion as a means of

72 Eyben 1980: 27. 73 Eyben 1980: 40-43. 74 Eyben 1980: 67. 75 Eyben 1980: 61-62. 76 Eyben 1980: 68-70. 77 Eyben 1980: 68; Dölger 1934: 36. 78 Dölger 1934: 44; Noonan 1970: 13. 79 Dixon 2001: 61.

23 illustrating their fears about female transgressions, and as a means of besmirching the characters of women as being capricious or sexually promiscuous.80 Abortion is not the main focus of Dixon’s work, however. She mentions it briefly as part of her broader survey of the role that women played in pagan Roman society, and their construction in Latin literature. She does not deal with Christianity at all, but focuses exclusively upon pagan sources, as Christianity is outside her area of study. Nevertheless, Dixon’s contribution remains an important turning point in scholarly understanding of abortion in antiquity. Even so, her ideas have not been explored thoroughly; Kapparis (2002) acknowledges the existence of her theories, but does not employ them himself.81

Hans Willer Laale (1992-1993) makes an unusual contribution to the discussion. He suggests that the Romans abstained from abortion altogether out of respect for the personhood of the unborn. In his article, ‘Abortion in Roman Antiquity: Monarchy to Early Empire,’ Laale surveys Roman sources up to the Augustan period. However, he too writes with a view towards the modern abortion debate. Laale appears to uphold Roman authors who opposed abortion as moral exemplars on embryonic stem cell research. He describes Roman attitudes towards the unborn in terms which verge upon utopian. In Laale’s view:

The Romans of antiquity, including the physicians Celsus, Soranus, and Galen, did not view human development from the perspective of modern scientific reductionism. They did not, in the words of William Wordsworth, “murder to dissect.” They cared little about dissecting the unborn tiny vessel into its component tissues, and they cared less about how to dissolve these components into mechanisms emptied of all poetry. They respected the innocent human life in-the-making, and they raised their voices in almost universal outcry of protest against social conditions permitting the heartless destruction of foetal and infant life by induced abortion and exposure.82 Laale is correct to point out that abortion was not universally accepted among Roman authors. However, Laale’s views are very difficult to sustain from the primary sources, which made it clear that the preservation of the foetus was never the authors’ main concern. No subsequent commentator has made use of his findings.

Andreas Lindemann’s 1995 theological article, ‘“Do Not Let a Woman Destroy the Unborn Babe in her Belly:” Abortion in Ancient and Christianity’ examines a broad range of Jewish and Christian literature from Philo (20 BC- AD 50) to Minucius Felix (c. AD

80 Dixon 1988: 62; Dixon 2001: 59-65. 81 Kapparis 2002: 117. 82 Laale 1992-93: 299.

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150-270). He suggests that Judaeo-Christian writers consistently rejected the practice of abortion due to their awareness of creation , but did not always explicitly reference it. He goes on to conclude that ‘there were no particular Christian reasons for the condemnation of abortion in early Christianity,’ and that Tertullian was the first Christian author to seek a theological basis for his arguments concerning abortion.83

However, like much of the other literature examined thus far, Lindemann takes a political stance on the current abortion debate, and uses his examination of the historical issue as a platform to promote his views. In his conclusion, he offers his opinion that early Christian literature ought not to influence current German law concerning the timeframe in which an abortion may be legally performed. Lindemann argues thus for the following reasons. First, the ancient authors represented exclusively male perspectives that silenced the opinions of women, whereas in the present ‘the moral dilemma has to be solved primarily by women and not by their husbands as used to be the case in ancient times.’ Next, he says, ‘we have to admit that the most frequently used argument in antiquity (that abortion constituted homicide)—is no longer acceptable. Today we may rather argue in the opposite direction.’ Finally, he argues that Tertullian’s view, homo est qui est futurus, has been proven physiologically unsound, as there is a marked physical difference between a newly fertilised zygote and a newborn.84

Concerning Tertullian, Lindemann’s work is unfortunately brief. He paraphrases the arguments found in the Apologeticum and De Anima concerning the question of when human life begins, but does not address Tertullian’s other works on the topic. He follows on from Gorman and points out Tertullian’s vigorous employment of biblical exempla and reliance upon the Septuagint. Lindemann observes shrewdly that Tertullian did not mainly focus upon abortion, ethics, or criminal law. Rather, Lindemann argues that Tertullian sought to question ‘the nature of human existence.’ He does not consider the impact of rhetoric upon his work. Lindemann asserts that Tertullian eschewed ‘any speculation regarding the precise beginning of human life.’85 He offers little explanation for this statement. It is difficult to reconcile the idea that Tertullian did not attempt to explain the beginnings of human existence with the evidence that will be discussed below.

83 Lindemann 1995: 266. 84 Lindemann 1995: 266. 85 Lindemann 1995: 266.

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John Riddle combines historical and pharmaceutical research to produce significant findings about abortion in the ancient world. Riddle’s contributions to the topic are embodied in his books, Contraception and Abortion from the Ancient World to the Renaissance (1992) and the 1997 ’s Herbs: a History of Contraception and Abortion in the West. On the basis of his pharmaceutical research into the abortifacients attested in the ancient sources, Riddle argues forcefully that abortion was regularly practised in antiquity.86 However, as Ferngren points out, Riddle’s work is also highly speculative. For instance, it is difficult to provide an accurate summation of the efficacy of silphium since the plant is now extinct.87 Moreover, Riddle is rather selective in his evidence. He focuses only upon means of inducing miscarriage that would have been medically effective. In doing so, he eschews mention of the numerous magical or folk remedies whose effectiveness was doubtful.88 Overall, Riddle’s work is of limited value concerning Tertullian himself, since he does not provide a sustained analysis of Christian literature prior to Augustine. Riddle generally surmises that Tertullian was ‘zealous’ in his arguments against the practice of abortion, but does not go into detail.89 This is understandable, as his work has a wide temporal scope.

Konstantinos Kapparis’s 2002 book, Abortion in the Ancient World, has done much to advance knowledge on Greek and Roman attitudes towards abortion. Kapparis analyses an extremely wide range of medical, philosophical, and historical narrative sources from the fifth century BC up to the fifth century AD.90 However, his main focus is upon the classical Greek world.91 Overall, Kapparis highlights the need for modern scholars to avoid making hasty judgements concerning abortion in antiquity, since the evidence is lacunose and incomplete.92 Moreover, he also points out the need to avoid over-generalisations.93 There was never a single, unified ideology in the Greek or Roman worlds concerning abortion, since the evidence comes from a very diverse range of cultures and communities.94 One of Kapparis’s most valuable contributions to the subject is his conscious decision not to engage in the modern abortion debate. He says:

86 Riddle 1992: vii-x; Riddle 1997: 35-63. 87 Ferngren 2009: 192. 88 Ferngren 2009: 192. 89 Riddle 1997: 82. 90 Kapparis 2002: 258-262. Kapparis’ index of ancient sources lists the range of primary sources he examines. 91 Kapparis 2002: vii-viii. 92 Kapparis 2002: 3-5. 93 Kapparis 2002: 5. 94 Kapparis 2002: 5.

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I am aware that this still is a very controversial subject, and that one person’s strongest convictions may be absolute anathema to someone else. My main objective has been to investigate the historical data with an open mind, beyond entrenched positions or confrontational politics. Objectivity, even if unattainable, is perhaps the most desirable quality in a historian.95 Kapparis thus approaches one of the main problems with previous scholarship on abortion in Greco-Roman antiquity—namely, that it has almost universally been influenced by partisan views concerning the moral and legal acceptability of abortion in today’s world. Kapparis’s approach is more balanced, as he deliberately avoids this tendency. This dissertation aims to adopt Kapparis’s method of avoiding a stance.

Kapparis suggests that the efficacy of abortifacient drugs and the success rate of invasive means of procuring abortion in antiquity are questionable.96 Regardless, it appears that abortion was available to many women in antiquity, but expelling the embryo or foetus would have posed serious risks to the health of patients.97 Kapparis also argues that philosophical questions over the point at which human existence began would have been irrelevant to most people contemplating abortion. Philosophical opinions were divided over questions regarding the precise point of human ensoulment and the ethical issues this entailed. However, these discussions would have been largely intellectual, and would have had little impact on parental decisions regarding pregnancy.98 Non-Christian religious authorities avoided active interference in propagation as in most aspects of family life.99 Legal authorities had little to say on the subject until the anti-abortion rescript issued under Septimius Severus and Caracalla.100 Regardless, Latin authors of the first three centuries AD stigmatised women who ended their pregnancies without permission from their husbands.101

Though his work is important for establishing the context of Tertullian’s world, Kapparis’s treatment of Tertullian is somewhat lacking. Kapparis only briefly deals with Tertullian and Christian attitudes in general. This is perhaps inevitable, since Kapparis’s main focus is upon the classical Greek world, ‘with frequent parallels and references to comparable practices and attitudes in Rome.’102 Kapparis suggests that Tertullian was the first of a

95 Kapparis 2002: viii. 96 Kapparis 2002: 195. 97 Kapparis 2002: 195. 98 Kapparis 2002: 196. 99 Kapparis 2002: 197. 100 Kapparis 2002: 197. 101 Kapparis 2002: 197. 102 Kapparis 2002: vii-viii.

27 succession of Christian authors to express ‘sympathy and pity for the unborn, which would be robbed of the gift of life by its cruel mother.’103 As discussed in Chapter Two of this dissertation, this was hardly the case, for Tertullian’s expression of empathy for the unborn was not without precedent among early Christian writers.

Marie Congourdeau has done a great deal to increase modern understandings of the intellectual underpinnings of early Christian thought on the embryo. Congourdeau’s 1984 article, ‘L’embryon est-il une personne?’ was written for the Catholic journal Communio, examining the ethical and social ramifications of therapeutic abortion and use of the embryo for genetic research in light of and Aristotle. It is a theological, rather than an historical work. Like Gorman and Noonan, Congourdeau’s early research examines the issue in response to the current abortion debate.104 On the other hand, Congourdeau’s 2007 book, L’embryon et son âme dans les sources grecques offers a more comprehensive examination of the various Greek philosophical schools and their influence upon , and does not engage with the current abortion debate. Congourdeau examines Tertullian within a very broad history of ideas pertaining to the soul of the human embryo in Greco-Roman and Judaeo-Christian antiquity. However, Congourdeau’s work pays considerably more attention to the Christian material than Kapparis. In particular, Congourdeau emphasises Tertullian’s role in the development of Christian views on the nature of the soul.105 Congourdeau also closely analyses the complex relationship between Tertullian’s views on the embryo and those of the philosophers, particularly the Stoics.106

Though Congourdeau’s research advances scholarship on Tertullian’s attitude towards human embryos considerably, her work does have some drawbacks. Her treatment of Tertullian is arguably superficial, as she details neither the literary context of Tertullian’s ideas nor his aims as a rhetorician. Such shortcomings are understandable, as Tertullian is hardly the main focus of Congourdeau’s research. Congourdeau is also like many of the other commentators, in that she imposes a somewhat artificial barrier between Tertullian and other classical authors. She considers him purely as a patristic author, as Lepicard identifies in his review.107 This is problematic since, as discussed below, Tertullian’s ideas were frequently drawn from pagan sources. Moreover, many of his works, including the highly relevant

103 Kapparis 2002: 139. 104 Congourdeau 1984: 103-105. 105 Congourdeau 1984: 113; Congourdeau 2007: 249. 106 Congourdeau 1984: 113; Congourdeau 2007: 163-164. 107 Lepicard 2011.

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Apologeticum, were intended for non-Christian readers. Nevertheless, Congourdeau provides a strong foundation from which to build.

Thus far, this study has identified that scholars primarily interested in the modern abortion debate have made little attempt to connect Tertullian’s attitude towards the unborn child with his writing style, which was heavily influenced by classical rhetoric. The influence of rhetoric must be acknowledged more fully in order to understand how and why Tertullian chose to use the unborn child in his writings. Scholars of Tertullian have long recognised that he is best interpreted as an author of rhetoric. Before this consensus emerged, Tertullian’s works were commonly characterised as ‘random and haphazard.’108 Tertullian’s corpus was described this way due to his loquacious syntax, his seemingly slapdash definition of topics, and also his frequent self-contradictions.109 Even in late antiquity, Tertullian attracted criticism for the difficulty of his prose.110 To one unfamiliar with the cultural context and techniques of Latin oratory, Tertullian can indeed be hard to follow. He has been described as irrational or even ‘violent’ in his writing.111 However, from the 1970s onwards, it has been widely accepted that the precepts of Greco-Roman rhetoric played a vital role in shaping Tertullian’s literary output. Though Tertullian was certainly creative in his manipulation of its conventions, he carefully observed the structure of Latin oratory in most of his works.112 The key to approaching any aspect of Tertullian’s work, therefore, is to examine him in light of the manuals on rhetoric by Aristotle, , and especially .

The first concerted effort to approach Tertullian’s work in terms of rhetoric is Sider’s 1971 Ancient Rhetoric and the Art of Tertullian. Some commentators, such as Petre and Evans, had identified rhetorical flourishes in their commentaries on individual works including the Apologeticum, De Resurrectione Mortuorum, and De Carne Christi.113 Yet there had not been any attempt to synthesise their findings or provide a broad survey of Tertullian’s rhetoric. Sider’s book begins to fill this gap in the literature. He places Tertullian’s work in the context of the intellectual world in which he wrote. Sider provides an excellent survey of Tertullian’s engagement in forensic, epideictic, and deliberative rhetoric, examining a broad range of treatises. He concludes with the suggestion that Tertullian

108 Sider 1971: 126. 109 Sider 1971: 126. 110 Lactant. Div. inst. 5.1.21; Jer. Ep. 58. 111 Frend 1973: 249. 112 Sider 1971: 126-127. 113 Petre 1940: 5; Evans 1956: x; Evans 1960: xvi.

29 effectively fused the Christian and classical cultures in a well-reasoned and complex manner.114

Simultaneously, others arrived at the same conclusion, independent of Sider. Around the same time, Barnes (1971) published his seminal work, Tertullian: A Historical and Literary Study. Barnes’s work is extremely valuable to the study of Tertullian’s rhetoric, in that he provides a relative chronology of Tertullian’s treatises through a careful analysis of Tertullian’s inter-textual references.115 The accuracy of Barnes’s proposed chronology is occasionally debatable, especially his sometimes arbitrary attribution of treatises to Tertullian’s Montanist period.116 Barnes’s work nonetheless remains the best working chronology thus far. It allows scholars to track the evolution of Tertullian’s rhetoric over time.

Shortly after the publication of Sider’s and Barnes’s books, Fredouille (1972) published Tertullien et la Conversion de la Culture Antique. His book was based upon his doctoral dissertation, which was completed well in advance of Sider’s work.117 Like Sider, Fredouille focuses upon Tertullian’s engagement with classical rhetoric. However, Fredouille’s analysis of the influence of rhetoric was part of his larger aim to redefine Tertullian’s aforementioned characterisation as an anti-intellectual zealot.118 Fredouille argued that Tertullian retained the intellectual integrity of his pagan education in rhetoric, history and philosophy. In Fredouille’s opinion, Tertullian harmonised with the rhetoric of the Roman elite in a manner hitherto unknown.119 However, as Frend’s review shows, Fredouille’s work features certain shortcomings. He does not seriously consider the sway that Tertullian’s apocalypticism held over his thought, or the historical context of the Severan persecution in Roman North . Frend suggests that in this violent social milieu, Tertullian’s conversion to Christianity and later adoption of Montanism may have been more sudden than Fredouille infers.120

The methodology of interpreting the Church Fathers through the lens of rhetoric has met with some criticism. Otten (1997) opines that it is fallacious to evaluate early Christian

114 Sider 1971: 128-129. 115 Barnes 1985: 30-56. 116 Dunn 2004: 7-9. 117 Frend 1973: 249. 118 Fredouille 1972: 1-36. 119 Fredouille 1972: 170. 120 Frend 1973: 250.

30 treatises according to their practice of rhetoric.121 She employs the principles of postmodern literary criticism to Tertullian’s De Carne Christi, suggesting that it is impossible to reconstruct Tertullian’s original intentions objectively.122 On this basis, she heavily criticises Sider’s work.123 According to Otten, the use of rhetoric as an interpretative tool lends modern critics the appearance of impartiality, but it is nonetheless impossible for the modern reader to avoid subjectivity.124 She suggests that any attempt to do so may be effectively refuted by current reader-response theory, which holds that the individual reader’s interpretation is of greater relevance than the author’s original intent.125 Otten believes that it is impossible to reconstruct Tertullian’s authorial intentions without impressing theological ‘baggage’ upon them.126 She also suggests that it is unwise to separate Tertullian’s rhetoric from his theology, on the basis that the form of Tertullian’s argument was inseparable and therefore indistinct from the argument itself.127 Instead, Otten urges readers to accept Tertullian’s views as presented in De Carne Christi without ‘imposing yet another rhetorical structure upon it.’128

Specialists in Tertullian have not adopted Otten’s method of analysing early Christian writings. Otten’s objections to the use of rhetoric are problematic, as Dunn (2005) points out.129 First, Otten seems to misunderstand the genre of rhetoric and underestimates its impact upon Tertullian’s treatises.130 Otten does not deny that rhetoric informed the shape of Tertullian’s treatises, but proposes that it is irrelevant to their modern-day reception. However, Otten appears unconcerned with the anachronistic interpretations that inevitably arise when Tertullian is removed from his historical context. Tertullian never aimed to write objectively, but to persuade. His work is inherently subjective. It is therefore erroneous to disregard his aims as a rhetorician.131 Dunn also critiques Otten’s methodology, on the basis that Otten herself occasionally refers to De Carne Christi in terms of its rhetorical structure.132 Finally, Dunn points out that although Tertullian’s presentation of his theology was closely associated with his rhetoric, it is incorrect to suggest that the concepts of rhetoric

121 Otten 1997: 248-251. 122 Otten 1997: 249-250. 123 Otten 1997: 248-249. 124 Otten 1997: 247. 125 Otten 1997: 249. 126 Otten 1997: 247. 127 Otten 1997: 250-251. 128 Otten 1997: 250. 129 Dunn 2005: 6-9. 130 Dunn 2005: 6-7. 131 Dunn 2005: 7. 132 Dunn 2005: 7; Otten 1997: 257.

31 and theology were one and the same.133 Dunn suggests that Tertullian developed theological viewpoints which he presented and defended through the ‘vehicle’ of rhetoric.134

Though Sider, Barnes and Fredouille laid the pattern for subsequent Tertullian scholars to follow, much work remains to be done regarding Tertullian’s rhetoric. As Dunn suggests, increased awareness of the importance of rhetoric to Tertullian’s work should prove a fruitful avenue for future enquiries.135 Knowing that Tertullian wrote with a rhetorical purpose now discourages the tendency towards reductionist approaches to Tertullian’s corpus. The common practice of taking Tertullian’s passages out of context is now widely considered a methodological shortfall.136 Tertullian did not mention anything arbitrarily, but always to support the central thesis of his work. Moreover, he was perfectly willing to contradict himself between treatises, so long as each work held internal consistency. Attempts to simplify his views are therefore problematic. Studies continue to emerge on Tertullian’s approach to individual subjects, with an eye towards his agenda of persuading his reader to adopt an argument.

To date, there has been very little attempt to consider Tertullian’s arguments concerning the unborn child in relation to his use of prenatal biology. Indeed, modern authors have only examined Tertullian’s use of medical sources sporadically. A minority of scholars, including Kudlien (1974) and Nutton (1984), have argued that Tertullian completely rejected medicine in favour of charismatic healing.137 However, general consensus holds that Tertullian was amenable to medicine, medical writers, and practitioners. Harnack, the renowned nineteenth-century German theologian, was the first modern commentator to remark that Tertullian was well acquainted with science, and that in De Anima he often cited works of medicine and natural philosophy as exempla to furnish his rhetoric.138 Subsequent scholars, such as Labriolle, Waszink, Rialdi, Polito, and Amundsen, have concurred with Harnack’s assessment.139 Indeed, Labriolle as early as 1906 suggested that medicine was an over-riding concern for Tertullian.140 J.H. Waszink’s extraordinarily detailed 1947

133 Dunn 2005: 8-9. 134 Dunn 2005: 8. 135 Dunn 2004: 19-20. 136 Leal 2001: 85; Heyne 2011: 3. 137 Kudlien 1974: 317; Nutton 1984: 1-14. 138 Harnack 1892: 78. 139 Labriolle 1906: 1327; Waszink 1947: 21-46; Rialdi 1968: 9; Polito 1994: 423-468; Amundsen 1996: 10. 140 Labriolle 1906: 1327.

32 commentary on De Anima makes a particularly valuable contribution to the discussion, though by necessity Waszink focuses on this single work.

Yet both sides of the discussion are alike in that they often do not look at the context of the passages they cite, or Tertullian’s use of medicine as material for his rhetorical treatises. They tend to construe their arguments on Tertullian’s attitude towards medicine from small, illustrative extracts.141 As Barnes and Dunn point out, Tertullian’s rhetorical artistry renders such reductionist approaches problematic, since he could and did provide self-contradictory views when it suited his arguments.142 Moreover, Tertullian was not so much interested in formulating coherent dogma as he was in competing in the arena of persuasive polemic.143 Therefore, it is difficult for scholars to provide any definite conclusions about his views on any particular issue through literal interpretation of his bare words, and impossible to do so accurately without carefully considering his entire surviving literary output.

However, the study of Tertullian’s understanding of medicine has achieved something of a breakthrough with Heyne’s 2011 article, ‘Tertullian and Medicine.’ Through a comprehensive analysis of Tertullian’s entire corpus, Heyne presents a more balanced approach. Heyne convincingly suggests that Tertullian had a sound knowledge of medicine, gleaned mostly from and the Pliny. He demonstrates that Tertullian consistently showed respect towards physicians and medical authors throughout his literary career.144 Heyne also argues that Tertullian’s knowledge of medical science was cumulative, increasing gradually over time.145 Yet Heyne points out that medicine was hardly a preoccupation for Tertullian, as his primary focus was rhetoric; his general knowledge of medical theory was that of an enthusiastic amateur.146

Perrin’s 1991 book chapter, ‘Un exemple de l’utilisation de la medicine chez les penseurs Chrétiens: Tertullien et l’embryologie,’ is the only published study focusing on Tertullian’s use of embryological sources.147 However, Perrin contributes little beyond

141 Heyne 2011: 133. 142 Barnes 1985: 217; Dunn 2004: 20. 143 Sider 1971: 10. 144 Heyne 2011: 169. 145 Heyne 2011: 140. 146 Heyne 2011: 164. Heyne’s forthcoming work concerning Tertullian’s understanding of obstetrics promises to make a valuable contribution to the topic. However, this article is not yet published and I am unaware of its precise contents. 147 Perrin 1991: 91-110.

33 restating Waszink’s ideas on Tertullian’s reliance upon Soranus for his understanding of embryology and obstetrics. Nor does he go beyond Tertullian’s De Anima. This dissertation, by taking a much more thorough and holistic approach, will therefore fill a gap in current scholarship by considering Tertullian’s use of the unborn child in light of his rhetorical aims, his understanding of prenatal biology, and his engagement with Roman and Christian cultural attitudes concerning abortion.

Chapter One deals with the first theme highlighted in the opening lines of the dissertation, namely rhetoric. The works by Tertullian considered in this chapter include Ad Nationes, the Apologeticum, Ad Uxorem, De Exhortatione Castitatis, De Virginibus Velandis, De Anima, De Carne Christi, and Adversus Marcionem. This chapter contributes to new knowledge in that it analyses Tertullian’s arguments concerning the unborn child by placing them in the greater context of each treatise’s rhetorical structure and content; to date, the rhetorical superstructures of works such as Ad Nationes have not been explored by other scholars in this way. Presenting summaries of the treatises will serve two purposes. First, it will allow the reader to gain a more realistic impression of the extent to which the unborn child actually occupied Tertullian’s interest. It will also serve to orientate the reader regarding each treatise. By comparing and contrasting the individual treatises, it will become clear that Tertullian employed the unborn for his rhetoric in a variety of ways, and that his views as presented in his written work were more subtle than has been previously supposed.

Chapter Two turns to the theme of religion, exploring the extent to which Tertullian was relying upon traditions found in previous Judaeo-Christian literature concerning the unborn. The chapter opens with a discussion of the impact of Scripture upon Jewish and Christian ethics. In particular, the differences between the Hebrew, Septuagint, and versions of Exodus 21.22-23 are highlighted, and the effect that the differing translations had on various authors’ views regarding abortion. The Jewish sources include Josephus and Philo, as well as rabbinic opinions collected in the Mishnah. After that, the dissertation turns towards anti-abortion sentiments expressed by early Christian sources, including the Didache, the Letter of Barnabas, the Apocalypse of Peter, Athenagoras, Clement of Alexandria, and Minucius Felix. After these sources are examined, the focus of the chapter shifts to Tertullian’s treatises. In this section, the chapter offers three major new contributions to understanding Tertullian’s attitude towards the unborn. The dissertation provides the first detailed analysis of Tertullian’s approach to Scriptures which mentioned the unborn. Where it is relevant, the possible impact of the Old Latin translation of the is evaluated. Next,

34 the dissertation deepens scholarly understanding by analysing the treatises in which Tertullian expressed the view that the unborn was not human from the point of conception. Including this view in the analysis has particular significance for the question of whether Tertullian would have believed the unborn child held a place in the afterlife. Lastly, the chapter provides the first concentrated comparison of Athenagoras and Minucius Felix to Tertullian’s Apologeticum on the matter of the unborn. Through a detailed comparison with these authors, it becomes clear that Tertullian was consciously engaging with other Christian writers in his arguments against abortion.

Chapter Three deals with the themes of medicine and biology. In doing so, the dissertation contributes to the growing literature about early Christian thought on medicine and the human body. The chapter opens by identifying Tertullian’s sources on the biological processes of reproduction, and his reasons for using them. The chapter offers the first major scholarly exploration of Tertullian’s habit of using biology to underscore his scriptural exegeses concerning the unborn. The chapter focuses especially upon Tertullian’s use of Soranus of Ephesus and Aristotle, evaluating the extent to which he accepted or modified the ideas of each. In particular, it focuses upon the timing of hominisation in each author’s view, aiding the interpretation of difficult passages of De Anima, De Carne Christi, and Adversus Marcionem. The chapter closes with the first attempt to evaluate Tertullian’s arguments about the timing of hominisation in terms of their chronological order, in order to see whether he did consistently hold a particular understanding of antenatal biology.

In the fourth and final chapter, the focus shifts towards the last themes of the dissertation, social mores and the family. As noted above, many scholars have argued that Tertullian’s attitude towards abortion was the binary opposite to that of the pagan Roman society in which he lived. Here, pagan opposition to abortion is considered parallel to that of the early Christians. This approach challenges the consensus that Tertullian and other Christian writers developed their views of abortion as a reaction against a permissive attitude among the Romans. In particular, this dissertation chapter provides the first scholarly cross- examination of Gorman’s theory that Tertullian influenced the criminalisation of abortion under the Severans. In exploring attitudes towards the unborn among Roman authors, the dissertation also makes substantial contributions to the study of the Roman family. First, the study gives a thorough explication of the unborn child’s place in Roman law, filling a lacuna in modern scholarship by considering the limitations of the Digesta as a source of evidence for the laws related to the foetus and embryo. The chapter also makes a major contribution in

35 that it considers the impact of parental sentimentality upon the Romans’ views of their children in the womb, employing the evidence of , Cicero, and Artemidorus for the first time to gain a fuller appreciation of the unborn child’s place in the Roman family. Anti-abortion sentiments expressed by Roman poets and Stoic philosophers are compared to Tertullian’s ideas on the subject for the first time. It is hoped that the chapter will impress upon the reader that the divide between pagan and Christian thought on abortion was not as great as an uncritical reading of Tertullian would suggest.

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Chapter I: Rhetoric and the Unborn

This chapter assesses Tertullian’s views on the unborn child in the context of his rhetorical intentions and technique. The chapter begins by considering Tertullian’s place in the world of second-century rhetoric and his local surroundings, and discusses the format in which he normally presented his ideas. Next, the chapter examines the rhetorical structure of his discourses that mentioned the embryo and foetus. Through an analysis of the structure and rhetorical devices used in each of the relevant treatises, it is argued that abortion was clearly never a strong focus of Tertullian’s works. Tertullian mentioned the unborn child in the bodies of his tracts solely as evidence to reinforce his central thesis stated in the treatise introduction. He creatively and forcefully used a wide range of rhetorical techniques in his discussion of antenatal life. Tertullian mentioned the termination of pregnancy in his forensic treatises to suggest that the Christian ethos concerning the valuation of humanity was finer than that of pagans. On the other hand, in deliberative works written with Christian readers in mind, Tertullian questioned the motivations for abortion. In his later invectives directed against heretics, Tertullian leaned heavily upon artificial evidence drawn from embryological theory to prove theological points.

It is often said that by Tertullian’s period, Latin rhetoric had more or less given way to the Greek literary phenomenon known as the Second Sophistic movement.1 Only a handful of examples of second-century Latin literature survive. These include the works of the Younger Pliny, , Fronto, Florus, Aulus Gellius and Tertullian’s fellow North African, . However, the low number of surviving Latin works from this period may not have been so much due to the diminishment of Latin rhetoric. Though little of their work has survived, it is clear that Latin oratory continued to thrive through the second century. After all, Latin rhetoric continued to be one of the foundational disciplines of the Roman educational system; there is no indication that the state-sponsored schools of rhetoric founded under the emperor ceased to function.2 Panegyrics continued to be performed in praise of emperors, such as those of Pliny and Fronto.3

1 Kennedy 1972: 591; Champlin 1980: 56-59; Russell 1990: 1; Kennedy 1994: 200-201; Dunn 2008: 37. 2 Clarke 2011: 32. 3 Plin. Ep. 3.18; Fronto, Ep. 2.1.

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The low rate of survival for second-century Latin sources perhaps owed more to the selective interests of medieval copyists, rather than an actual decline in Latin letters. As Kaldellis (2012) points out, Byzantine producers of had a stronger predilection for works written in Greek than Latin. It was thus not their interests to preserve Latin works, since Latin was not their native language.4 In the Latin-speaking West, on the other hand, preservation and transmission of texts was even less methodical, in part due to unstable political and economic conditions in the centuries following the fall of the Western .5 production of non-Christian Latin authors was particularly sporadic. This is unsurprising, given that the Church was responsible for the vast majority of book production, and was rather hostile to the literary output of pagan Rome.6 The Church did not necessarily discard second-century Latin works deliberately, since they were not destroyed in any systematic way.7 Medieval interest in pagan Latin texts was often primarily grammatical.8 Therefore, manuscripts of works from the so-called ‘golden age’ of Latin, the late Republican and early Augustan period, received much more intense interest from the copyists, yet even their survival was often accidental.9 The preoccupation with Christian literature and Latin’s golden age came at the expense of second-century writers. The example of Fronto’s manuscript tradition demonstrates the limited medieval interest in second-century authors. The remains of Fronto’s correspondence with Aurelius survive only from meticulous reconstruction of fragments left on three . His text was scraped off the page and over-written.10

Tertullian’s home province of North Africa had an especially strong tradition of education in Latin rhetoric. Juvenal in the early second century complained in his Saturae that Africa had replaced Rome as the ‘nurturer of advocacy.’11 The emphasis upon Latin rhetoric among Africa’s provincial elites perhaps resulted from their anxiety to demonstrate that they held a Roman identity, rather than a Punic one.12 There was therefore considerable opportunity in Carthage for a Latin rhetor. Apuleius, Tertullian’s closest predecessor in the North African canon, said in his Florida that he had been professionally declaiming at

4 Kaldellis 2012: 74. 5 Reynolds and Wilson 1974: 70-72. 6 Reynolds and Wilson 1974: 75-76. 7 Reynolds and Wilson 1974: 75-76. 8 Reynolds and Wilson 1974: 77. 9 Reynolds 1983: xvi. 10 Reynolds 1983: 173. 11 Juv. Sat. 7.148-149. Accipiat te Gallia uel potius nutricula causidicorum Africa, si placuit mercedem ponere linguae. 12 Champlin 1980: 16-17.

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Carthage in Latin for six years.13 Apuleius could never have achieved this unless he was working in an environment receptive to Latin declamation. By Tertullian’s lifetime, Latin rhetoric had long been formally taught in Carthaginian schools. Tertullian’s Adversus Valentinianos contained an accidental reference to a Latin rhetorician named Phosphorus, who ‘was in the schools of Carthage.’14

With the possible exception of Minucius Felix, Tertullian was the first to publish Christian rhetoric extensively in Latin.15 There had been a limited number of Christian rhetorical authors by Tertullian’s period.16 Arguably, the foundations for Christian rhetoric were laid in the Greek New Testament. Paul and Luke’s arguments in favour of Christianity provided the model for subsequent Christian authors to follow.17 However, Christian rhetors prior to Tertullian had primarily consisted of apologists who wrote eloquent defences of Christianity in Greek, mostly intended for non-Christian readers.18 They sought to vindicate Christianity’s place in the Roman Empire upon a rational, rather than fideist basis.19 Notable examples included Justin and Athenagoras. Other writers, such as , wrote dealing with controversies within Christianity.20 Though Christians were beginning to enter rhetorical discourse by the late second century, Christians had overall been somewhat sporadic in their output of rhetoric. Tertullian was the first prodigious Christian rhetor, with thirty-two treatises surviving.21

There is an historical tradition, based on (c. AD 260-c. 339) and the Justinian Law Code, that Tertullian was a great legal expert. Eusebius’ Historia Ecclesiastica mentioned that Tertullian knew ‘the Roman laws extremely accurately.’22 Justinian’s Digesta and also quoted legal works by a jurist named Tertullian.23 Quasten and Frend have suggested that the jurist Tertullian quoted in the Digesta and Tertullian of Carthage were one

13 Apul. Flor. 18.16. 14 Tert. Adv. Valent. 8.3. In scholis Karthaginensibus fuit quidam frigidissimus rhetor Latinus, Phosphorus nomine. 15 Heine 2004b: 133. 16 Tertullian’s relationship with earlier Christian authors concerning the nature of the unborn child will be discussed in the next chapter. 17 Kennedy 1994: 258. 18 Price 1999: 105. 19 Young 1999: 81. 20 Norris 2004: 45. 21 Heine 2004b: 133. 22 Eus. Hist. Ecc. 2.2.4. ταῦτα Τερτυλλιανὸς τοὺς Ῥωμαίων νόμους ἠκριβωκώς, ἀνὴρ τά τε ἄλλα ἔνδοξος καὶ τῶν μάλιστα ἐπὶ Ῥώμης λαμπρῶν. 23 Cod. 5.70; Dig. 1.3.27; 28.5.3; 29.1.23; 29.1.33; 29.2.30.6; 38.17.2; 41.2.28; 49.17.4.

39 and the same.24 However, Barnes suggests that there is no concrete evidence of a connection between the jurist Tertullian and the Christian Tertullian.25 It is easy to see how Quasten and Frend came to this conclusion, though it is far from watertight. The cognomen Tertullianus was far from common among Latin authors, thus increasing the probability that Tertullian was the jurist of the Digesta.26 In Barnes’s view, this is an insubstantial argument. After all, though the cognomen was uncommon among published authors, it was not entirely unusual on inscriptions throughout the empire.27 Although the idea of two authors sharing this name might be strange to modern readers, it would not have been for Tertullian’s contemporaries.

Moreover, Barnes believes that Eusebius was not a reliable source on Tertullian’s background. Eusebius’ prime concern was not the Latin-speaking Western Church, but the Greek-speaking Eastern Church. For Eusebius, Latinate Christians such as Tertullian were of interest only when they affected the East. Eusebius’ references to Tertullian are hence very limited.28 Indeed, among Tertullian’s treatises, Eusebius appears aware only of the Apologeticum, and that in its Greek translation.29 Tertullian did indeed discuss the vicissitudes of Roman law in the Apologeticum, citing a precedent in which the emperor Tiberius supposedly threatened to punish anybody who accused Christians with death.30 This passage was perhaps the main reason Eusebius called Tertullian an expert in Roman law, and is in itself insufficient as a basis on which to identify him as a jurist.31

The similarity of Tertullian’s rhetoric to courtroom speech has also led some to suggest that he had a professional legal background. However, Barnes believes that this too is spurious since rhetorical training was hardly restricted to legal practitioners in the Roman world.32 For Roman males from wealthy families, some degree of training in law and oratory were cornerstones of education, as Tacitus and Quintilian had attested.33 Thorough grounding in rhetoric was an essential component of the ‘acculturation’ of a Roman youth, as Habinek (2005) identifies. The ability to compose and perform speeches skilfully was essential to

24 Quasten 1953: 246; Frend 1965: 330, 366. 25 Barnes 1985: 24. 26 Quasten 1953: 246; Frend 1965: 330, 366. 27 CIL 02, 06084; CIL 03, 02239; CIL 03, 14367,1; CIL 05, 04548; CIL 06, 00867; CIL 06, 01686; CIL 07, 00850; CIL 08, 25376; CIL 11, 06812. 28 Barnes 1985: 5-6. 29 Euseb. Hist. eccl. 2.4. 30 Tert. Apol. 5.4. See Barnes 1968: 32-33 for a fuller discussion of the historicity of the incident with Tiberius. 31 Eus. Hist. eccl. 2.1-4. Tertullian also discussed the peculiar discrepancy between the Papian and Julian laws in the Apologeticum 4.7. The former required people to have children before the latter allowed them to marry. Eusebius may also have had this in mind. 32 Barnes 1985: 24; Sider 1971: 11. 33 Tac. Dial. 34; Quint. Inst. Praef.

40 navigating the elite circles of the Roman world, ensuring success in political, legal and literary life.34 The applications of an education in rhetoric went well beyond the actual performance of orations in the courtroom. The publication of prepared speeches, whether they had actually been performed or not, allowed a rhetor to publicise himself and his intellect. This occurred in a highly competitive manner, with authors vying to display their mastery of the techniques of rhetoric.35 It was thus perhaps inevitable that Tertullian’s work should carry litigious overtones, as did many other works of Latin literature not composed by practitioners of law.36

While Barnes has given scholars good reasons not to be hasty in identifying Tertullian as a jurist, it should be noted that he has not by any means conclusively disproven the identification of Tertullian the jurist with Tertullian the Christian writer. McKechnie (1992: 50) is particularly unconvinced. Barnes’s points about Eusebius, Tertullian’s education and the commonality of Tertullian’s cognomen are all valid, but none of them truly demolishes the idea of Tertullian as a jurist.37 Barnes makes his final point against the elision of the two Tertulliani thus: if Tertullian were such a great legal expert then surely he would have remarked that Christianity had not been outlawed by any specific legislation.38 Yet as McKechnie argues, Barnes’s argument here is weak. An advocate speaking before his governor was not obliged to cite specific laws, but rather precedents.39

Rankin neatly summarises the problem of Tertullian’s status as a professional jurist. As he says in his 1997 article:

Those who accept, without apparent question, the “given” of Tertullian’s professional status as a jurist do so on rather slight grounds, particularly so if they should cease to look for the evidence of this against an a priori assumption of such status. Yet those, too, who seek to throw over this traditional position with regard to Tertullian’s professional status—largely on the basis of the claim that the level of legal knowledge evident in Tertullian’s writings merely reflects the content of a normal “liberal arts” education—also operate on the basis of rather slim evidence.40

34 Habinek 2005: 60-78. 35 Craig 2007: 265. Craig discusses this phenomenon in relation to Cicero. However, his observations are equally true for Tertullian. 36 Barnes 1985: 24. 37 McKechnie 1992: 50-51. 38 Barnes 1985: 23-28. 39 McKechnie 1992: 50. 40 Rankin 1997: 338-339.

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Rankin suggests that the question of whether Tertullian was a jurist is ‘at best, somewhat inconclusive.’ After all, Tertullian’s legal knowledge could have been gained in either a formal law school or through his private reading of the standard textbooks of rhetoric. In Rankin’s view, if Tertullian did have a background as a professional lawyer, then his writings demonstrate a level of proficiency in law best suited to a practising advocate, rather than a legal theorist.41 Ultimately, it is not impossible that Tertullian had some training or experience in the law-court. For the present discussion, it is best to leave the possibility that he was a jurist or a lawyer open but not dwell on it.

Barnes has more thoroughly debunked the tradition, which began with Jerome (c. AD 347-420), that Tertullian was a priest and that his treatises were his .42 It is likely that Jerome’s description of Tertullian as a may have resulted from a misreading of Tertullian’s De Ieiunio, where he did indeed refer to himself as a presbyter.43 On the other hand, as Dunn points out, when this reference to priesthood in De Ieiunio is read in context, it is apparent that Tertullian was actually making a scriptural allusion to the first letter of Peter, whose author referred to all Christians as a royal priesthood.44 Jerome’s rendering of Tertullian as a presbyter was perhaps influenced by his intention to defend Christian scholarship through recognition of famous Christian writers.45 Making Tertullian a priest increased both Tertullian’s standing in the Church and the authoritativeness of his work. Jerome admired Tertullian, and it is possible that he felt Tertullian would have been a suitable member for the clergy.46 Yet as Barnes says, there is significant reason to doubt that Tertullian was ever a presbyter in reality.47 Surely if he were a presbyter, he would have used this in his polemical works to establish himself as a figure of authority in order to diminish the standing of the authors with whom he disagreed. Yet Tertullian more than once identified himself an ordinary member of the Christian congregation, and there is no reason to doubt him.48

41 Rankin 1997: 342. 42 Jer. De vir. ill. 53; Barnes 1985: 11. 43 Tert. Jej. 11.4. 44 Dunn 2004: 5; 1 Pet. 2.9. 45 Jer. De vir. ill. 53.4. 46 Mohrmann 1951: 111. 47 Barnes 1985: 11. 48 Tert. Ex. Cast. 7.3; Mon. 12.2. Despite this, Tertullian may well have been a leading member of his local Christian community, perhaps a catechism teacher. As McKechnie (1996: 43) points out, certain of his writings were framed as didactic treatises for the practical instruction of young catechumens.

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It is questionable whether Tertullian normally delivered any of his treatises as speeches.49 Though the treatises clearly conformed to the standard format for a speech, this did not necessarily mean that they were delivered as such. The influence of rhetoric was pervasive in Roman literary culture. Even prose compositions meant for individual consumption contained elements of oratory. The earliest reference to Tertullian actually delivering any set speeches came from Eusebius’ Historia Ecclesiastica, from the fourth century AD.50 Eusebius’ suggestion that Tertullian delivered his Apologeticum before the was highly dubious, since Tertullian did not likely visit Rome.51 Nor is there any evidence from Tertullian himself to suggest that he actually declaimed before an audience. He made little effort to interact with his audience, and never actually referred to himself delivering speeches.

In his lifetime, only a limited number of people probably received Tertullian’s words. During the persecutions of Septimius Severus, it would have perhaps been unsafe for North African Christians to declaim on Christian topics openly. Given Severus’ crackdown upon ecstatic cults (if not Christianity itself), it is probable that Montanists would have been particularly at risk.52 It is more than likely that Tertullian would have presented his treatises behind closed doors, to a select few. Yet there was nothing unusual about the narrow circulation of his works. Starr (1987) identifies that it was typical for Latin literary works to be distributed only among a handful of friends, from the evidence of Cicero and the Younger Pliny.53 While Tertullian probably did not deliver his treatises as public speeches, it is more than likely that he did recite them to a small group of familiars, or sent them copies produced at his own expense as Cicero did.54 Tertullian’s small circle of literary friends may have come from his local Christian congregation in Carthage. Alternatively, if he prepared his treatises for publication like Pliny did his speeches, then his associates would have made suggestions after attending a reading.55 From these emendations, Tertullian would have produced a second draft. The revised version would then have been sent to a slightly wider readership,

49 One possible exception to this rule is De Pallio, as McKechnie (1992: 47) argues. This treatise is something of a literary anomaly. McKechnie (1992: 44) points out that ‘it stands right apart from the rest of Tertullian’s oeuvre.’ 50 Euseb. Hist eccl. 5.5. 51 Barnes 1985: 243-245. 52 Wypustek 1997: 276-277. 53 Starr 1987: 213. 54 Starr 1987: 213; Cic. Att. 15.27; 16.11. 55 Starr 1987: 213; Plin. Ep. 7.20.

43 who could allow their own friends to make copies.56 From here, Tertullian would no longer have had control of the circulation of his work.

There is evidence from Tertullian himself that he normally delivered his treatises in written form, rather than orally. Tertullian made it clear in the opening preamble of the Apologeticum that the treatise was meant to be read privately, since the Christians were unable to defend themselves publicly: ‘may it be that the truth reach your ears by the secret means of silent letters.’57 Adversus Marcionem sheds further light upon the usual medium in which Tertullian’s work was received. Tertullian mentioned that he intended the text to supersede an earlier, inferior draft, which a fellow Christian had stolen and plagiarised:

I am attempting a brand new (treatise) out of an old one. I had withdrawn my first short, hastily written work, afterward substituting a more robust composition. I lost this also to the deceit of a man who was at that time a (Christian) , yet after that was an apostate, before there were yet sufficient copies. As fortune would have it, he transcribed some extracts very badly, and exhibited them to a crowd; (therefore), it is necessary to make emendations.58 Perhaps Tertullian had given a draft copy to one of his trusted friends, hoping that he would provide suggestions for its revision. At this stage, Tertullian would have trusted implicitly that his friend would not show it to others, or publish it himself.59 This in itself suggests that Tertullian’s works were not initially received as spoken declamations. However, it is perhaps more telling that Tertullian was preparing additional copies of the final draft for circulation before his friend’s betrayal forced him to retract it and begin anew. This could have been intended as the final stage of publication, if he employed the method that Starr identifies.

Whether he acquired his rhetorical expertise through formal legal training or through the liberal education customary for a rich Roman youth, Tertullian had no doubt been exposed to manuals of rhetorical technique and style such as those of Aristotle, Cicero and Quintilian by the commencement of his literary career. The methods of argument these authors prescribed are manifest throughout Tertullian’s corpus.60 Quintilian’s influence seems particularly strong. As discussed below, Tertullian appears to have followed the advice of

56 Starr 1987: 214. 57 Tert. Apol. 1.1. Liceat veritati vel occulta via tacitarum litterarum ad aures vestras pervenire. 58 Tert. Marc. 1.1. Novam rem aggredimur ex vetere. Primum opusculum quasi properatum pleniore postea compositione rescideram. Hanc quoque nondum exemplariis suffectam fraude tunc fratris, dehinc apostatati, amisi, qui forte descripserat quaedam mendosissime et exhibuit frequentiae. Emendationis necessitas facta est. 59 Starr 1987: 213. 60 Sider 1971: 11-20; Barnes 1985: 206-210.

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Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria when using the unborn child as evidence. For Latin rhetorical writers of the second century, Quintilian’s mammoth handbook was very influential. Numerous authors such Martial, Pliny, and Juvenal mentioned Quintilian as a master of letters.61 In many ways, Quintilian’s traditionalist conceptualisation of rhetoric provided an ideal model for Tertullian to emulate in his Christianisation of Latin rhetoric.62 Quintilian emphasised that an ideal orator ought not substance for style. For Quintilian, the practice of showpiece oratory for its own sake corrupted both the art of public speaking and its practitioners.63 He urged his readers to embrace the study of rhetoric for their moral betterment, rather than use it dishonestly.64 Granted, misleading arguments were a cornerstone of successful rhetoric.65 Yet Quintilian’s emphasis upon the moralising dimensions of rhetorical technique would have resonated well with Tertullian’s construction of himself as a moral puritan.

A Latin speech was divided into three parts, roughly analogous to the introduction, body, and conclusion of an essay.66 The introduction consisted of an exordium, a preamble where an orator was expected to set his audience in a sympathetic frame of mind.67 It often featured an emotive plea to listeners’ senses of justice or ethics.68 The next part of the introduction, the narratio, was crucial. It was in the narratio that the speaker narrated the circumstances from which their topic emerged, and gave some indication of their plans to deal with it.69 According to the anonymous rhetorical handbook Rhetorica Ad Herennium, and confirmed by Cicero, the narratio chiefly consisted of a partitio, which explicated the main point of contention. It was here that the speech-writer stated the central thesis that he was trying to prove.70 In the partitio, the speaker was also expected to demarcate the points on which he agreed with his opponent from those with which he disagreed, and then summarise the content of his speech.71 Quintilian relabelled the partitio as the propositio.72

61 Mart. Epigr. 2.90; Juv. Sat. 7.188-9; Plin. Ep. 2.24.10. 62 Dunn 2008: 37. 63 Quint. Inst. 2.20. 64 Quint. Inst. 12.1. 65 Barnes 1985: 217. 66 Sider 1971: 21. 67 Sider 1971: 21; Dunn 2008: 61-62; Quint. Inst. 4.1.5. 68 Sider 1971: 22. 69 Sider 1971: 21; Dunn 2008: 65; Cic. Inv. rhet. 1.19.27; Quint. Inst. 4.2.1-132. 70 Sider 1971: 21; Dunn 2008: 66; Rhet. Her. 1.10.17; Cic. Inv. rhet. 1.22.31. 71 Sider 1971: 21; Dunn 2008: 66; Rhet. Her. 1.10.17; Cic. Inv. rhet. 1.22.31. 72 Dunn 2008: 66; Quint. Inst. 3.9.2-3; 4.4.1-4.5.28. As Dunn points out, Sider mistakenly treats the propositio and the partitio as discrete entities; in fact, they were one and the same.

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The body of the speech was the area in which the speaker was expected to provide proof to support the thesis laid out in the introduction.73 The integrity of the oration’s body lay in the strength of two parts, the confirmatio and refutatio. However, they were often difficult to separate from one another: Ad Herrenium treated them as indivisible.74 The confirmatio consisted of an affirmation and exposition of the orator’s case. It was in this section that the orator provided positive arguments.75 The confirmatio was accompanied by the refutatio, where the speaker sought to demolish the views of his opponent by providing negative arguments.76 Quintilian summed up the role of the refutatio neatly, saying that it was necessary for the advocate to deal with each point avowed in his opponent’s confirmatio by rebuffing, rationalising, or belittling them.77 An orator could also, if he chose, refute his opponent’s arguments through a praemunitio, wherein he cleared a path for his own arguments by steam-rolling any possible counter-arguments.78 Finally, the orator would finish with a conclusio, offering one last dazzling display of rhetorical skill in order to ram his point home. The speech was expected to conclude with a passionate attempt to win the audience’s sympathies.79

Tertullian only mentioned unborn children in his treatise bodies, whose main purpose was to furnish proof and support the central thesis outlined in the introduction. Therefore, the unborn child itself was not his main concern; instead, he only used it to back his central thesis. In each case, Tertullian mentioned the unborn child to aid his refutatio, wherein he presented evidence to refute his opponents’ arguments, or in his confirmatio, where he confirmed his own case. If the foetus were Tertullian’s main interest, he would have mentioned it in the partitio of his introduction. Tertullian employed unborn children as exempla to justify the central theses of his treatises. As Petré suggests, Tertullian frequently employed exempla to strengthen his arguments.80 Quintilian had defined an exemplum in speech as ‘a reference to actual or assumed past deeds which is useful for persuading

73 Sider 1971: 21. 74 Sider 1971: 21; Dunn 2008: 72; Rhet. Her. 2.1.2-2.2.2. 75 Sider 1971: 21-22; Dunn 2008: 75. 76 Sider 1971: 21; Dunn 2008: 72; Cic. Inv. rhet. 1.42.78. 77 Dunn 2008: 72; Quint. Inst. 5.13.4-10. 78 Sider 1971: 21; Dunn 2008: 61; Cic. De or. 3.53.204; Cic. Orat. 35.122; Quint. Inst. 9.1.30; 9.1.43. 79 Sider 1971: 38; Dunn 2008: 84; Rhet. Her. 2.30.47; Quint. Inst. 6.1.1. 80 Petre 1940: 25-26.

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(listeners of the point) you intend.’81 Tertullian referred to narratives of procreation and the termination of pregnancy to serve this very purpose.

Tertullian’s explanation of conception and foetal development featured a curious mixture of artificial and inartificial proofs. Embryology was by no means the strongest evidence for a rhetorician. Of the types of proof Quintilian specified, the strongest was that of ‘inartificial’ evidence from ‘previous rulings, rumours, evidence derived from torture, records, an oath, and witnesses.’82 The validity of these proofs required little . But in an age before modern medical imaging technology, the evidence associated with the development of the child in utero should be considered ‘artificial’ evidence. Artificial proofs included those drawn from ‘indications, reasonings, or exempla.’83 Of course, as Quintilian pointed out, exempla did not necessarily have to be genuine. Exempla from fiction could be as compelling as those from history. Their efficacy lay in the conviction of the speaker.84 The main point of such technical proof was to ‘assist and decorate arguments,’ giving them the ‘appearance’ of substance, even if they had no substance in reality.85 For a Christian, the strongest exempla came from Scripture.86

The first of Tertullian’s treatises to touch upon the unborn was Ad Nationes. The text was written in AD 197.87 It was an anti-pagan polemic, probably written in response to an outbreak of persecution. The Apologeticum, written in the same year, provides a clue as to the specific circumstances which prompted Tertullian to write the two apologies. Following the emperor Septimius Severus’ victory in February 197 over Clodius in the battle of , riotous celebrations likely occurred in Severus’ home province of Africa. However, neither the Christians nor the Jews of Carthage participated in public merriment, believing that festivities in honour of the emperor were unseemly.88 If the Christians abstained from the public celebration of Severus’ victory, it was perhaps misinterpreted as a

81 Quint. Inst. Orat. 5.11.6; Barnes 1985: 218. Potentissimum autem est inter ea quae sunt huius generis quod proprie uocamus exemplum, id est rei gestae aut ut gestae utilis ad persuadendum id quod intenderis commemoratio. 82 Quint. Inst. 5.1.1-2. Ex illo priore genere sunt praeiudicia, rumores, tormenta, tabulae, ius iurandum, testes, in quibus pars maxima contentionum forensium consistit. 83 Quint. Inst. 5.9.1-2. Omnis igitur probatio artificialis constat aut signis aut argumentis aut exemplis. 84 Quint. Inst. 5.11.6. 85 Quint. Inst. 5.8.1-2. Atqui cetera, quae continuo orationis tractu decurrunt, in auxilium atque ornamentum argumentorum comparantur, nervisque illis quibus causa continetur adiciunt inducti super corporis speciem: ut, si forte quid factum ira vel metu vel cupiditate dicatur, latius quae cuiusque adfectus natura sit prosequamur. 86 Sider 1971: 9; Dunn 2004: 19. 87 Barnes 1985: 55. 88 Tert. Apol. 35.1-2; 35.11.

47 sign of political disloyalty to the Severan regime, resulting in increased levels of suspicion and hostility levelled against them.89 Underlying anti-Christian sentiments in the community of Carthage were brought to boiling point.90 Both Ad Nationes and the Apologeticum tell of Christians having their meetings disrupted, falling prey to informers and extortionists.91

The persecution which spurred Tertullian to write Ad Nationes and the Apologeticum occurred in the context of an environment generally unfriendly to Christians. It is not difficult to see why polytheistic Romans might have seen the Christians in their midst as politically subversive or anti-social. As far as outsiders were concerned, Christians refused to pay due homage to the leader of the state. Their decision not to participate in the imperial cult might have been construed as treason, but the implications were deeper. The emperor was the guarantor of the Romana. Observing his cult ensured security, stability, and prosperity in the provinces, besides demonstrating political loyalty to the rulers of the empire.92 Refusal to participate in the imperial cult would have seemed an open abrogation of civilised society. Moreover, some Christians’ ardour for martyrdom was likely a source of anxiety for many second-century pagans. deplored the unruliness of Christian zealots in his Meditations.93 Likewise, Celsus remarked in his polemic that the were simply mad in their desire for death.94

Yet outright persecutions, such as that which inspired Tertullian’s early , were occasional. The imperial governors exercised extraordinary autonomy concerning the running of their provinces. Their approach was largely ad hoc, dealing with problems on a day-to-day basis. Their primary goal was to maintain civic and prosperity, dispensing rulings on cases with this goal in mind.95 However, this did not necessarily mean that it was safe for a Christian to declare his or her openly. The public spectacle of the martyr’s death likely deterred many. As Barnes says, ‘the most serious result of the persecutions was not so much the deaths of the Christians as an atmosphere of emotional tension.’96 It was in this uneasy and unpredictable climate that Tertullian wrote.97

89 Sider 2001: 8. 90 Barnes 1985: 88. 91 Tert. Ad nat. 1.7.19; Tert. Apol. 7.3-4. 92 Boatwright, Gargola and Talbert 2004: 391-392. 93 M. Aur. Med. 11.3. 94 . C. Cels. 8.39. 95 Barnes 1985: 158. 96 Barnes 1985: 162-163. 97 For a fuller discussion of the reasons Christians were persecuted in the Roman empire, consult de Ste. Croix (1963: 6-38).

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Ad Nationes comprises two books. Each stands apart from the other in its structure, content, and aims. They are alike, however, in that Tertullian envisioned them being read by pagans. Book One reads as an entirely self-contained work, featuring an exordium (1.1.7-9), partitio (1.1.10-1.3.7), refutatio (1.3.8-1.7.29), confirmatio (1.7.30-1.19.7) and conclusio (1.20.1-15). As stated in both the partitio and the conclusio, Book One was intended to absolve Christians from various charges. Tertullian argued that pagans could not in good conscience accuse Christians of the charges, since they themselves were guilty.98 The second book of Ad Nationes, however, was of a character completely different to the first. It focused exclusively upon the pagan gods, dealing with topics that had not been mentioned in the propositio of Book One. His argument in this work was essentially that the Roman gods were invented by humans, and were thus unworthy of worship.99 It too has its own exordium (2.1.1-7), partitio (2.1.8-14), refutatio (2.2.1-2.8.10), confirmatio (2.9.1-2.16.7), and conclusio (2.17.1-19). Tertullian’s definition of topics in this work was rather haphazard. Barnes raises the possibility that the work as we have it is incomplete.100 After all, much of the material from Ad Nationes would shortly be reworked with far greater perspicacity and elegance in the Apologeticum. The fact that the extant text exists at all indicates that Tertullian considered the work sufficiently complete to reveal a draft to one of his literary friends, who perhaps arranged to have it copied for perusal. It is easy to imagine that one of Tertullian’s literary compatriots advised him to abandon Ad Nationes and start afresh with a new work, which would evolve into the Apologeticum.

Book One of Ad Nationes opened with an exordium.101 Tertullian’s purpose here was to ensure that his reader was amicable to the Christian. He first assured his pagan reader that once they ceased their ignorance of Christian precepts, they would stop hating the Christians or even convert.102 Tertullian then offered general remarks contrasting good and evil things, arguing that while a guilty person would hide their crimes, Christians made no effort to conceal their faith. Thus, they were not guilty of the crimes of which they were accused.103 Tertullian then suggested that pagans had perverted the course of justice by their refusal to examine the case of the Christians with due care.104 After that, Tertullian turned towards his propositio, in which he named the charges against the Christians, namely cannibalism, incest,

98 Tert. Ad nat. 1.1.1-10. 99 Tert. Ad nat. 2.1.1-7. 100 Barnes 1985: 104-106. 101 Tert. Ad nat. 1.1.1-8. 102 Tert. Ad nat. 1.1.1. 103 Tert. Ad nat. 1.1.7-10. 104 Tert. Ad nat. 1.2.1-8.

49 and infanticide.105 Tertullian argued that if these accusations were brought to light, they would be revealed as fictitious. Subsequently, Tertullian indicated that the moral integrity of his client, Christianity, was beyond criticism. Accusations against Christianity were based upon no more than presumptions about the name of Christianity, whose very spelling was confused in the Roman mind.106

Once he had offered these preliminary remarks, Tertullian then engaged in a refutatio, producing negative arguments. He first indicated that Christianity should not be classed alongside philosophies named after their founders.107 The public suspicions about Christians were unfair, since Christians were actually vilified for their virtues rather than their faults.108 Next, he declared that the misdeeds of individual Christians ought not to be held against the entire religion. After all, people of a bad character were not true Christians, regardless of their pretensions.109 Laws against Christians had not been carefully considered; any appeals towards the permanency of tradition were invalid, due to the mutability of law.110 Calumny was the root of the maltreatment of Christians. He picked up on the themes previously espoused, arguing that fama was no firm basis for accusation.111 ‘For the more prone you are to maliciousness, the more ready you are to believe malice. In short, people more easily believe in a false evil than true good.’112 Furthermore, any accusations regarding Christian conduct in clandestine ceremonies was clearly based upon lies, as the crimes supposedly occurred in the privacy of the home. The only possible witnesses to crimes were house- slaves, whose testimony was unsound.113 No physical evidence could be produced to prove the accusations.114 Christianity certainly offered the prospect of eternal life and the resurrection of the dead; yet even this would be insufficient incentive to slay an infant or to drink human blood.115 Christians were not the cause of natural disasters, since catastrophes

105 Tert. Ad nat. 1.2.9-1.3.1. 106 Tert. Ad nat. 1.3.1-10. 107 Tert. Ad nat. 1.4.1-4. 108 Tert. Ad nat. 1.4.8-15. 109 Tert. Ad nat. 1.5.1-10. 110 Tert. Ad nat. 1.6.1-7. 111 Tert. Ad nat. 1.7.1-10. 112 Tert. Ad nat. 1.7.11. Quanto enim proni ad malitiam, tanto ad mali fidem oportuni estis; facilius denique falso malo quam uero bono creditur. 113 Tert. Ad nat. 1.7.12-18. 114 Tert. Ad nat. 1.7.19-21. 115 Tert. Ad nat. 1.7.23-34.

50 such as those of and Corinth occurred prior to the coming of Christ. The pagan gods had failed here, not the God of the Christians.116

Having offered refutations sufficient to undermine the case of his opponents, Tertullian then advanced his confirmatio.117 The opening sentences of chapter ten shows a clear turn from negative arguments towards positive ones, and gave an indication of his intended method of argumentation:

Come now, pour out all your venom. Strike against our name with all your shafts of slander. I will not stay any longer to repel them, but in the end they will be blunted by my exposition of our whole discipline. Now indeed I’m going to pull the very same (shafts) out of our body and deflect them back upon you. I will show that the very same wounds which you have wrought upon on us by your charges are planted upon yourselves, so that you can fall upon your own swords and javelins.118 Tertullian countered the argument that Christians corrupted the mores of the Romans by pointing out that the Romans themselves were apt to change their laws, customs, and religion.119 Indeed, the writings of , which Tertullian seemed to treat as a kind of pagan equivalent to a sacred text, had portrayed the Olympic deities as susceptible to human foibles. Ergo, poets and dramatists who drew upon Homer were insulting the gods far more than Christians.120

The next three chapters (1.11.1-1.14.4) dealt with charges of religious sacrilege. After disposing of the story, found in Tacitus, that Christians worshipped the head of a donkey, Tertullian answered the rumour that they idolised the cross as an object of worship in itself.121 In fact, pagans themselves might be said to worship , such as those which upheld the legionary standards.122 Nor could the conceptualisation of Christians as sun-worshippers be taken seriously, as pagans too on occasion paid homage to the sun.123 Tertullian then returned to his point about the ass’s head, using the example of a Jewish apostate in Rome who mocked the Christians by donning an a donkey’s head and parading himself carrying a book;

116 Tert. Ad nat. 1.9.1-11. 117 Tert. Ad nat. 1.10.1-1.19.6. 118 Tert. Ad nat. 1.10.1-2. Effundite iam omnia uenena, omnia calumniae tela infligite huic nomini, non cessabo ultra repellere, at postmodum obtundentur expositione totius nostrae disciplinae. Nunc uero eadem ipsa de nostro corpore uulsa in uos retorquebo, eadem uulnera criminum in uobis defossa monstrabo, quo machaeris uestris admentationibusque cadatis. 119 Tert. Ad nat. 1.10.3-5. 120 Tert. Ad nat. 1.10.36-40. 121 Tert. Ad nat. 1.11.1-1.12.4. Tertullian’s reference was to Tac. Hist. 5.3-5.4. 122 Tert. Ad nat. 1.12.5-15. 123 Tert. Ad nat. 1.13.1-15.

51 yet such slanders could not be held against Christians.124 In any case, the Romans themselves could not be too shocked about the spectacle of an animal-headed god, since such deities had been long been incorporated into the pantheon.125

Tertullian then turned in chapter fifteen to the themes of sacrifice and infanticide. Here, we at last find remarks relevant to the unborn child. First, he argued that the accusation of and cannibalism lacked , as the Romans themselves had once performed such rituals.126 Moreover, according to Tertullian, Roman parents regularly caused the deaths of their babies by exposing them.127 Yet Tertullian was here clearly relying upon artificial proof. Just as pagan accusers could not prove the rumours about what Christians got up to in the privacy of their homes, neither could Tertullian prove his point about pagans’ treatment of their children. It was not important for Tertullian whether the perception was accurate; it was sufficient for his case that it was believed. Tertullian employed his acid wit to counter the rumour that Christians routinely practised homicide. After an extended tirade concerning their supposedly routine practices of exposure and infanticide, Tertullian suggested that pagans were actually more morally depraved in their character compared to their Christian peers concerning their treatment of the unborn.128

On this basis, he sarcastically argued that if anyone believed the false charges laid against Christians, they would have had to believe something even less credible of pagans. Tertullian suggested that if his reader were to believe that Christians ate their neonatal babies, then they should have believed that pagans ate their unborn children.129 Tertullian was not seriously suggesting that any pagan actually ate their children. It should be considered an example of reductio ad absurdum, in the sense that Aristotle discussed the technique in his Priori Analytica.130 He utilised the ridiculousness of the idea that pagans ate their unborn offspring to prove that the concept of Christians eating their young was similarly preposterous.

For the final arguments of Book One, Tertullian first addressed accusations of things supposedly done under cover of night.131 Pagans openly committed the very crimes

124 Tert. Ad nat. 1.14.1-2. 125 Tert. Ad nat. 1.14.3-4. 126 Tert. Ad nat. 1.15.1-2. 127 Tert. Ad nat. 1.15.1-5. 128 Tert. Ad nat. 1.15.6-8. 129 Tert. Ad nat. 1.15.8. 130 Arist. An. pr. 1.17. 131 Tert. Ad nat. 1.16.1-20.

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Christians supposedly committed in secret.132 Licentiousness was not by any means exclusive to the Christians, and pagans were answerable for the incest of which they accused Christians.133 He then turned to the closely related themes of political loyalty and martyrdom.134 It was unfair to accuse Christians alone of being disloyal, since the emperor had enemies among pagans too.135 Christians indeed were loyal subjects, who happily prayed for the emperor’s wellbeing, and had never engaged in any assassination plot against him. The claim that Christians showed obstinacy in the face of death was also unfair; Christian martyrs’ acceptance of their execution was comparable to that of heroic figures of Rome’s early history. Where the Roman heroes were upheld for their bravery in the face of death, Christians were vilified.136 Christian refusal to waver in the face of death was not based upon arrogance, but upon the promise of eternal life. This was not so different from various philosophers’ arguments in favour of .137 Nor were the Christian concepts of Heaven and so far removed from the Pyriphlegethon and Elysium of the epic cycle.138 Tertullian then rounded off his first book with a conclusio, recapitulating his arguments.139 He closed the first book with words to the effect that pagans had to amend their own behaviour before they could justifiably condemn Christians. Yet by doing so, they would themselves become Christian.140

Book Two turned to themes somewhat disconnected to the first book. After opening with his case that his reader ought to concede the falsehood of the pagan gods, Tertullian offered a brief exordium, in which he ruminated upon the distinction between truth and error.141 After that, he lay out the arguments he would employ to prove his hypothesis. Tertullian based the structure of the first half of Book Two upon Varro’s encyclopaedic work Rerum Divinarum.142 Varro had divided the Roman gods into three distinct classes. First, there were the gods who had physical existence in the elements, which were subject to philosophical conjecture. Next, there was the mythical class of gods, invented by the poets.

132 Tert. Ad nat. 1.16.2-3. 133 Tert. Ad nat. 1.16.3-20. 134 Tert. Ad nat. 1.17.1-1.19.7. 135 Tert. Ad nat. 1.17.1-3. 136 Tert. Ad nat. 1.18.1-11. 137 Tert. Ad nat. 1.19.1-6. 138 Tert. Ad nat. 1.19.7. 139 Tert. Ad nat. 1.20.1-15. 140 Tert. Ad nat. 1.20.12-15. 141 Tert. Ad nat. 2.1.1-7. 142 Tert. Ad nat. 2.1.8.

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Finally, there were sundry ‘’ gods, which various peoples had created.143 In the ensuing chapters, Tertullian would disprove the divinity of each type of deity on the basis outlined in the final lines of chapter one:

Among the philosophers all these things are uncertain, because they are varied. Among the poets they are all are useless, because they are scandalous. Among the nations all are unbalanced, because they are dependent on (human) will. Furthermore, if you are undertaking (to understand) true divinity, it is so definite that it is not to be gathered from uncertain , nor polluted by useless fables, nor may it be judged by promiscuous conceits. It should indeed be regarded as it really is: as certain, whole, universal, because it can know of all things. What other deity will I believe? One that has been evaluated with suspicion? One that history has established? One that a community has wished for? It would be worthier by far to believe in no god than one who can be doubted, or who ought to be ashamed, or else one subject to arbitrary selection.144 Here, Tertullian revealed his thesis. He argued that the one God was of firm nature, not subject to vagaries, immorality, or self-contradiction. Yet in the latter half of Book Two, Tertullian focused upon the Roman religion specifically, arguing that the Roman gods were mortals elevated to godhood.145 Once more, he had not mentioned these arguments in the propositio of the second book; it is possible that he added them during the drafting stage, intending to go back and revise the opening chapters to include the new ideas. If this was his intention, it would seem that Tertullian never completed the task, but moved on immediately to the Apologeticum.

Following the order of arguments outlined in the propositio, Tertullian moved onto his refutation.146 Tertullian first addressed the natural philosophers’ traditions in chapters 2-7. The philosophers, including the Platonists, the Epicureans, and the Stoics, had rightly discovered the existence of a single deity. However, they did not fear God, and had strayed from this simple . Instead, the philosophers offered watered-down and confused interpolations.147 Many philosophers of and believed the heavenly bodies to be

143 Tert. Ad nat. 2.1.9. 144 Tert. Ad nat. 2.1.13-14. Denique apud philosophos , quia uaria; apud poetas omnia indigna, quia turpia; apud populos passiua omnia, quia uoluntaria. Porro diuinitas, si ueram retractes, ea definitione est, ut ista neque argumentationibus incertis colligatur, neque fabulis indignis contaminetur, neque adoptionibus passiuis iudicetur; haberi enim debet, sicut est, certa, integra, communis, quia scilicet omnium. Ceterum quem deum credam? Quem suspicio aestimauit; quem historia iactauit quem ciuitas uoluit? Dignius multo neminem credam quam dubitandum aut pudendum aut adoptiuum! 145 Tert. Ad nat. 2.9.1-2.17.19. 146 Tert. Ad nat. 2.1.1-20. 147 Tert. Ad nat. 2.1.1-20.

54 deities. Alternatively, some held that the elements themselves were divine, as some myths detailed the gods’ origins from the elements.148 However, the elements could not possibly be divinities in themselves. If the primordial elements were the progenitors of the gods as the philosophers alleged, where had the elements sprung from?149 Moreover, if the physical elements were to be conceptualised as animated, then it followed that each of the elements should have a mortal soul, rather than an eternal one.150 Varro apparently held that the elements were divine because they moved of their own accord. But, as Tertullian said, animals did too, and only the superstitious Egyptians considered beasts divine.151

After a digression on the origin of the Greek word theos, Tertullian acknowledged the theory of Zeno, wherein God and matter were discrete from one another. Since the divine was not physical, or detectable by the senses, it followed that the physical gods were fictitious.152 Moreover, as the exemplum of Thales the stargazer showed, the curiosity of the philosophers concerning nature was self-indulgent and vain.153 People might have suffered due to the vicissitudes of the elements, but it was foolish to designate them gods for this reason alone.154 The elements, after all, were not responsible for their own conduct, but were under the control of a single divine power. The nature of God was thus not servile like that of the elements. Rather, He was immovable and eternal. He was not subject to change as the heavenly bodies were.155

Once he had exhausted the topic of the physical gods, Tertullian turned very briefly to that of the mythic class.156 As the final section of Ad Nationes would deal heavily with myths, Tertullian perhaps did not feel that he needed to elucidate the subject in great depth here. Mythic deities could not be truly ascribed godhood. They were actually humans sometimes called ‘gods’ and at other times ‘heroes.’157 Perhaps Tertullian here was referring to the many hero-cults of the Roman pantheon. Many of the figures revered as gods were immoral in their character, reprehensible for adultery or parricide.158 Romans revealed the flimsiness of their belief system when they dismissed their own epic poems as fiction. Nor was poetic licence

148 Tert. Ad nat. 2.3.1-7. 149 Tert. Ad nat. 2.3.8. 150 Tert. Ad nat. 2.3.10. 151 Tert. Ad nat. 2.3.16. 152 Tert. Ad nat. 2.4.1-13. 153 Tert. Ad nat. 2.4.17-19. 154 Tert. Ad nat. 2.5.1-14. 155 Tert. Ad nat. 2.5.15-2.6.6. 156 Tert. Ad nat. 2.6.7-2.7.18. 157 Tert. Ad nat. 2.7.1-2. 158 Tert. Ad nat. 2.7.7.

55 any excuse for inconstancy in depicting the gods. Indeed, anybody who believed poets’ testimony was being duped.159 Some might have said that the poets merely honoured the dead; yet in doing so they would admit the human origin of the gods.160

The mythic gods thus dismantled, Tertullian turned towards the Gentile class.161 Tertullian aggressively headed this section by comparing the many various gods of the world to the constancy of the Christian God. Other gods had been adopted capriciously, and were interpreted according to the individual whims of the races to the point where they could not be easily reconciled.162 On the other hand, Tertullian said, the Christian God was ‘everywhere known, everywhere present, everywhere powerful-- an object that should be worshipped by all, and served by all.’163 He then listed a number of obscure regional deities, many of whose names would have meant little to the ancient reader in Carthage.164 Yet the mythology associated with many of the pagan gods was in fact a corruption of scriptural narrative. By way of example, Tertullian introduced the idea that Serapis was in fact a garbled version of .165

The remainder of Ad Nationes focused exclusively upon the Roman religion.166 In this section, Tertullian compelled the reader with a confirmatio. His over-riding argument, affirmed throughout, was that the Roman gods were actually deceased humans, who were not worthy to be deified.167 In this part of the treatise, Tertullian made a further reference to the unborn child, as part of his disparagement of the Roman religion.168 Before he mentioned the unborn child, Tertullian iterated that Roman power had been the instrument which transmitted the errors concerning the three types of god.169 In answer to the threefold distinction between different types of deities, Tertullian devised his own means of classifying the gods upheld by the Romans. He made a distinction between the communes or ‘common’ gods and the proprii, or ‘particular’ ones.170 The Romans assimilated the gods of their fallen

159 Tert. Ad nat. 2.7.8-18. 160 Tert. Ad nat. 2.7.14. 161 Tert. Ad nat. 2.8.1-19. 162 Tert. Ad nat. 2.8.1-6. 163 Tert. Ad nat. 2.8.2. Deum ego existimo ubique notum, ubique praesentem, ubique dominantem, omnibus colendum, omnibus demerendum. 164 Tert. Ad nat. 2.8.5-7. 165 Tert. Ad nat. 2.8.10. 166 Tert. Ad nat. 2.9.1-2.17.19. 167 Tert. Ad nat. 2.2.1; 2.9.9; 2.12.1. 168 Tert. Ad nat. 2.11.1-6. 169 Tert. Ad nat. 2.9.1-2. 170 Tert. Ad nat. 2.9.3-6.

56 enemies into their pantheon, and also worshipped deified mortals.171 Yet Tertullian argued that deifications were apportioned inconsistently, and that a system where fallible figures such as Aeneas or could become gods was not to be esteemed.172 Dubious figures from mythology and recent history could be assigned godhood.173

In chapter eleven, Tertullian embarked upon a brief digression in which he made comments concerning the gods assigned to the protection of the unborn. Tertullian listed many pagan deities associated with the protection of children. His point was that the Roman system of appointing deities for specific tasks was haphazard, and the most abstract of concepts could be treated as deities.174 Moreover, he argued that the Roman religion was clearly false, since gods and goddesses could be created to suit devotees’ needs on an ad hoc basis. Unfortunately, this section of Ad Nationes has not survived in full. There is only one manuscript, held in the Codex Agobardinus. The pages discussing the gods of the unborn (folios 29r and 29v) have sustained heavy damage.175 The text remaining to us reads:

People are not content merely to assert that these things are gods, which were seen, heard, and dealt with above, whose images have been painted and whose deeds have been chronicled, and whose memory is propagated. Rather, people insist upon making bodiless and inanimate shadows sacred, and even the mere names for things. They divide up a person’s entire condition between separate powers even from conception in the womb. Thus there is god named Consevius, who... presides over... from , and Fluviona who (nourishes) the child in the womb. After this, there are Vitumnus and Sentinus, through whom the child begins to live and have its first sensations. There is moreover Diespiter, who leads the child to birth, with... And Candelifera, who bears the (child?) to the light of the candle, and who... it is said. Those born wrongly... Indeed is the duty of Prosa, one of the Carmentes...176

171 Tert. Ad nat. 2.9.9-11. 172 Tert. Ad nat. 2.9.12-22. 173 Tert. Ad nat. 2.9.23-2.10.12. 174 Tert. Ad nat. 2.11.1-2. 175 Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Département des manuscrits, Latin 1622. Accessed 12th April, 2014. . 176 Tert. Ad nat. 2.11.1-6. No ¦contenti eos deos asseuerare, qui uisi retro, auditi contrectatique sun effigies descriptae, negotia digesta, memoria propagata est, umbras quas incorporales, inanimales et nomina de rebus efflagitant sanciunt, diuidentes omnem statum hominis singulis potestatibso quidem uteri conceptu, ut sit Conseuius quidam, qui con< ...... >nibus concubitalibus praesit, et Fluuionia, quae infantem in utero ; hinc Vitumnus et Sentinus, per quem uiuiscat infans et sentia; dehinc Diespiter qui puerum perducat ad partum cum primig<...... > et Candelifera, quoniam ad candelae lumina pariebant, et quae < ...... >us dictae. Peruerse natos ¦< ...... recte ue>ro Prosae Carmentis esse prouin. The text is that of Borleffs, CCL 1, 58-59.

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All of these entities served to safeguard the unborn child and supervised the baby’s development in utero in order to ensure safe delivery. Tertullian’s point here was not that the child did not deserve such protection, but that a religion in which abstract concepts could be deified on the spot was difficult to take seriously. For him, it was absurd that the Romans should devise a new deity for every stage of life.

Tertullian then once again turned back to his arguments that the entities worshipped as gods were actually humans, and immoral ones at that.177 , the progenitor of Jupiter, was mortal.178 The inferior nature of the gods was demonstrated by the fact that some higher power had to elevate them to godhood.179 Moreover, the greatest of the gods did not merit the status of godhood. Jupiter was a scurrilous usurper, who willingly entered into an incestuous marriage, and practised other debaucheries as well. Anybody who upheld him as Jupiter Optimus clearly idolised such infamy.180 Hercules was a debased parricide, prone to fits of madness, yet he was revered with a cult.181 Aesculapius was no better.182 The constellations, if they were divine, did no more than spectate coldly over mortal affairs.183 If the genii locorum were to be esteemed as gods, then the heavens were very crowded indeed. These spirits served to aid devotees in specific tasks; yet foreigners who had no knowledge of the genii performed those tasks just as competently. They were therefore false.184 Artists were not to be regarded as divine either, as they owed their creative faculty to the original creator.185

Tertullian then rounded off with a conclusio.186 He ended Ad Nationes by warning his imagined Roman reader that their piety towards the gods would not ensure the continued glory of the empire. After all, the gods had built up and subsequently abandoned empires of greater antiquity than that of Rome. Imperial power was not apportioned at the whim of the pagan gods, but by the supreme God of the Christians.187 In his words:

Ask who has ordained these turning points in time. It is the same (God) who hands out kingdoms, and has now allotted authority over

177 Tert. Ad nat. 2.12.1-2.14.7. 178 Tert. Ad nat. 2.12.1-39. 179 Tert. Ad nat. 2.13.1-8. 180 Tert. Ad nat. 2.13.13-21. 181 Tert. Ad nat. 2.14.2-9. 182 Tert. Ad nat. 2.14.10-14. 183 Tert. Ad nat. 2.15.1-3. 184 Tert. Ad nat. 2.15.4-7. 185 Tert. Ad nat. 2.16.1-7. 186 Tert. Ad nat. 2.17.1-19. 187 Tert. Ad nat. 2.17.1-18.

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them to the Romans, as though the wealth of many (lands) were collected in one chest, after it had been demanded. Those who are nearest to Him know what He has decided for it.188 According to Barnes, Tertullian’s Apologeticum was also written in AD 197, shortly after Ad Nationes.189 The Apologeticum was considerably longer than Ad Nationes, comprising fifty chapters. It was far less imitative of the Greek apologists than its forerunner, and featured a much broader range of exempla drawn from pagan sources.190 Like Ad Nationes, the Apologeticum was a forensic treatise whose purpose was the exculpation of Christians from charges commonly levelled against them. Tertullian evoked the image of a court in which Christianity itself was on trial for treason against the Roman state; he adopted the role of defence advocate. Sider (2001) summarises the structure of the treatise as follows.191 First, Tertullian made introductory remarks in chapters 1.1-6.11. After that, Tertullian refuted the charges based upon fama.192 The rest of the body of the Apologeticum (10.1-45.7) consists of Tertullian’s handling of crimes which Christians were accused of committing openly. Tertullian devoted this section of the Apologeticum to answering two main allegations. First, he countered the claim that the Christians were atheists (10.1-28.3), and next that they were inimical to the state (28.4-45.7). Tertullian’s conclusio comprised chapters 46.1-50.16. Many of the arguments presented in the Apologeticum will be familiar to one who has read Ad Nationes. Yet, while the two books of Ad Nationes were disparate, Tertullian here achieved a unity of argument previously unheard of in Christian rhetoric.193 Tertullian has been called ‘a pugilist with a pen.’194 Here, he certainly lived up to the metaphor, alternating skilfully between using refutation to block his opponent’s arguments, and delivering some devastating blows of his own through positive argument.

For this dissertation, the chapters of greatest relevance are the opening statements and the section dealing with accusations concerning manifest crimes. The exordium and the narratio in the Apologeticum consisted of the first three chapters. Tertullian addressed the treatise specifically to the provincial governors, appealing to their sense of justice.195 First, he

188 Tert. Ad nat. 2.17.19. Quaerite quis temporum uices ordinauit: idem regna dispensat, et nunc penes Romanos eam summam, tamquam pecuniam de multis nominibus exactam in unam arcam congregauit. Quid de ea statuerit, sciunt proximi e! 189 Barnes 1985: 55. 190 Barnes 1985: 107; Sider 2001: 6. 191 Sider 2001: 5-6. 192 Tert. Apol. 7.1-9.20. 193 Barnes 1985: 107. 194 Dunn 2004: 7. 195 Tert. Apol. 1.1-3.

59 pointed out the injustice of their tendency not to judge Christians according to the same standard as that applied to other criminals, due to prejudice and ignorance.196 Tertullian’s narratio was found in chapters two and three. In the second chapter, Tertullian iterated that the case against Christians was invalid because there was simply no story to tell.197 In his third chapter he traced the narrative of how even a good person could find their reputation destroyed by rumour.198 He said that he would demonstrate the Christians’ innocence by repudiating the misconception that they practised anti-social activities.199 Tertullian listed the charges falsely laid against Christianity. As with Ad Nationes, these were ‘murder, sacrilege, incest, and treason.’200 Tertullian declared his intention to disprove each of these claims in turn, on the basis that the charges were founded upon no evidence stronger than hearsay and rumour.201 Tertullian argued that these rumours had emerged due to the public’s lack of knowledge regarding Christian praxis.202 Tertullian then moved on to his propositio in chapter four. Here, he said that he would prove that those who falsely accused Christians of anti-social behaviour were in fact attempting to defer their own guilt hypocritically. As he said:

I am undertaking these things for the purpose of subjecting the injustice of the public’s hateful deeds against us to scorn. I will now take a stand concerning the case of our innocence, and I will not merely refute the charges which are brought up against us, but I will even turn (the charges) which (our accusers) bring against them, so that from this people also know that those (crimes) are not present among the Christians which they do not realise actually exist among themselves, and simultaneously so that our accusers can be put to shame; not, I say, as the worst (people) accusing the best, but rather as their equals, as per their wish.203 Tertullian also included a praemunitio in chapters four through to six, in which he pre- empted the counter-arguments that being a Christian was illegal in itself, and that Christianity ought to be rejected as a strange and foreign religion. He retorted that laws could be changed

196 Tert. Apol. 1.4-13. 197 Tert. Apol. 2.1-5. 198 Tert. Apol. 3.1-8. However, elements of narration are also detectable in chapter five, in which Tertullian outlined the origins of Christian persecution from onwards. 199 Sider 1971: 22-23. 200 Tert. Apol. 2.4. 201 Tert. Apol. 2.5. 202 Tert. Apol. 2.18-20. 203 Tert. Apol. 4.1. Atque adeo quasi praefatus haec ad suggillandam odii erga nos publici iniquitatem, iam de causa innocentiae consistam, nec tantum refutabo quae nobis obiciuntur, sed etiam in ipsos retorquebo, qui obiciunt, ut ex hoc quoque sciant homines in Christianis non esse quae in se nesciunt esse, simul uti erubescant accusantes, non dico pessimi optimos, se iam, ut volunt, compares suos. Once more, very similar claims were made in Ad Nationes 1.1.7.

60 or repealed if they were found to be unjust or self-contradictory.204 Only cruel tyrants, such as Nero and , had gone out of their way to persecute the Christians.205 Furthermore, Christianity was no stranger than any of the many foreign cults already incorporated into the state religion.206 Nor was social an acceptable reason to denigrate Christians, as Romans embraced new customs readily.207

Tertullian next directed the reader’s attention towards infanticide and incest, the first two charges against the Christians.208 He said that he dealt with these clandestine crimes together, ‘in order that I might clear my way towards more open affairs.’209 It was in this section of the Apologeticum dealing with secret crimes that Tertullian mentioned abortion. chapter seven consisted of a refutatio, in which Tertullian provided negative arguments which undermined the validity of the charges. He asserted that there was no evidence; the crimes had supposedly occurred without witnesses, after all.210 In the absence of any actual proof, his imagined accuser was forced to admit that their case was based upon supposition and rumour. In chapter eight, Tertullian offered several further counter-arguments based upon artificial evidence. Neither pagan nor Christian would think that the prospect of eternal life was worth committing such heinous acts as those imputed to the Christians:

Come then, plunge the sword into the baby, enemy of nobody, the accused of nobody, a child of all people! Or else, if that task belongs to somebody else, simply stand beside a human being dying before having really lived, await the flight of the new soul, take up the fresh blood, soak your bread with it, eat freely.211 Tertullian built upon this point aggressively in the next chapter, a confirmatio in which he made positive arguments illustrating the actual nature of Christian praxis. He reaffirmed his intention, stated in chapter four, of proving that pagans actually were guilty of the very crimes of which they accused the Christians.212 Tertullian argued that Christians could not be guilty of homicide, since they were so zealous in their preservation of life that they refused to terminate even infants in utero. He enumerated many exempla of cannibalism

204 Tert. Apol. 4.3-5.8. 205 Tert. Apol. 5.3-8. 206 Tert. Apol. 6.1-8. 207 Tert. Apol. 6.9-11. 208 Tert. Apol. 7.1. 209 Tert. Apol. 6.11. 210 Tert. Apol. 7.5-14. 211 Tert. Apol. 8.2. Veni, demerge ferrum in infantem nullius inimicum, nullius rerum, omnium filium; vel, si alterius est, tu modo adsiste morienti homini, antequam vixit; fugientem animam novam expecta, excipe rudem sanguinem, eo panem tuum satia, vescere libenter. Cf. Tert. Ad nat. 1.7.23-34. 212 Tert. Apol. 9.1.

61 and human sacrifice drawn from and history, as well as local Punic customs, in order to demonstrate that pagans were actually guiltier of these crimes than Christians.213 Then Tertullian declared that by comparison, the Christian ethos was so exemplary that Christians abrogated even abortion:

Indeed, because homicide has been prohibited for us at all times, we are not permitted to dissolve even the conceptus in utero, while as yet blood is drawn off into the person. It is quick homicide to prevent a birth, and it does not matter whether you snatch away a life that has come into existence, or one that is coming into existence. That is a human, even that which is yet to be; the whole fruit is already in the seed.214 In this instance, Tertullian profited from explicating the contrasts between his pagan and Christian exempla. An orator could exploit dissimilarities between his exempla to great rhetorical effect. Quintilian demonstrated the use of ‘unlikeness’ in rhetoric by pointing out the difference between Marcellus’ legitimate seizure of Syracusian artworks as spoils of war, compared to the governor Verres’ illegal looting of Syracusian temples.215 Tertullian utilised bloodthirsty and perhaps fictitious exempla of non-Christians shedding blood, in order to make Christians appear more virtuous by comparison.

Tertullian’s argument in his apologies that the Christians normally abstained from practising abortion owed a great deal to Greco-Roman rhetorical advice regarding the usefulness of ethos, ‘character,’ to legal rhetoric. In his Ars Rhetorica, Aristotle defined ethos as one of the three modes of an orator should adopt in order to win over a jury.216 The other avenues of persuasion included ‘passion,’ and ‘logic.’ 217 However, these would have been useless if listeners did not consider the speaker trustworthy. It was thus imperative for a speaker to impress their integrity and credibility upon the audience.218 The speaker had to convince the audience that they were technically able, that they were morally virtuous, and that they were well disposed towards the audience.219 Roman rhetoricians incorporated the idea of ethos into their own rhetorical system, with one major

213 Tert. Apol. 9.7. 214 Tert. Apol. 9.8. Nobis vero semel homicidio interdicto etiam conceptum utero, dum adhuc sanguis in hominem deliberatur, dissolvere non licet. Homicidii festinatio est prohibere nasci, nec refert, natam quis eripiat animam an nascentem disturbet. Homo est et qui est futurus; etiam fructus omnis iam in semine est. As discussed in the next chapter, Tertullian was in this case drawing upon a well-established tradition in Christian literature. Non-Christian attitudes among the Romans will be discussed in the final chapter. 215 Quint. Inst. 5.11.7. 216 Arist. Rh. 1.2. 217 Arist. Rh. 1.2. 218 Arist. Rh. 2.1. 219 Arist. Rh. 2.1.

62 difference. The Roman legal system allowed lawyers to advocate for others in court, while orators represented themselves in the Athenian law-courts.220 Therefore, as Cicero explained through the mouthpiece of in De Oratione, it was necessary for an advocate to construct both himself and his client carefully through speech.221 Orators could cultivate a persona of moderation and reservation, in order to win the sympathy of the jury.222 Quintilian generally concurred with Cicero.223

By suggesting that Christians normally abstained from abortion, Tertullian rendered them as paragons of virtue. Moreover, Tertullian demonstrated that his client, Christianity, was well disposed towards his imagined jury of Roman governors. The Christian ethos concerning the value of human life was unimpeachable, according to Tertullian’s rhetoric, and indeed to that of the accusers. He had established in chapter eight that a pagan would recoil from the idea of slaying a baby and consuming the infant’s blood, even when offered the enticement of eternal life; the Christians were unusual in that they regarded child- killing as abhorrent even before the offspring was fully acknowledged as a human being. If it was expected that one should not stand by a morienti homini antequam vixit, the Christians were even more astounding in that they viewed the destruction of the futurus homo as murder.

In doing so, he also implied heavily (without directly stating it) that abortion was a regular practice among his Roman contemporaries. Their ethos was inferior. As with Ad Nationes, it was irrelevant whether the insinuation was fair. It was enough for him that his reader would readily believe it of the accuser, and thus view the defendant in a better light. Tertullian’s characterisation of Christian ethos concerning the termination of life in the womb also explains why he was inclined in the Apologeticum to present Christians as uniformly against abortion. The Apologeticum differed from his presentation of Christian views on abortion in the later De Anima. In his treatise on the soul, Tertullian presented contemporary Christian attitudes towards abortion as more morally grey, recognising that abortion could be medically necessary in certain circumstances.224 Adopting a similar stance for the Apologeticum would have weakened his efforts to portray Christians’ exemplary ethos concerning infancy, and by extension homicide.

220 Kennedy 1994: 103-104. 221 Cic. De or. 2.178-184; 2.11b-2.16a. 222 Cic. De or. 2.178-184. 223 Quint. Inst. 6.2.8-19. 224 Tert. An. 25.5.

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As Dixon and Kapparis point out, it is not likely that induced abortion was a routine procedure in antiquity, due to the variety of medical hazards it presented.225 Termination was not a medically safe means of family planning, particularly in the later stages of pregnancy.226 Moreover, it is questionable how many actual abortions Tertullian was privy to, since they would have occurred behind closed doors. It is likely that his arguments concerning the supposed normality of abortion as a means of family planning among pagans were based upon invention, rumour and supposition. Tertullian’s reference to abortion here should be considered an example of artificial evidence. However, by suggesting that pagans routinely ended their pregnancies, Tertullian characterised them as practitioners of homicide. In doing so, he made Christians appear gentler and more ethically beneficent by comparison. This aided his purpose of painting Christians as having a gentler ethos concerning the unborn child.

On the other hand, it is worth noting that in the Apologeticum Tertullian did not appear to consider abortion a form of parricide, the legal category of murder considered most heinous in the eyes of Roman law. He was at pains to emphasise the difference between homicidium, the general term for murder, and parricidium, the term for the murder of one’s close relatives. Tertullian stressed the distinction between the terms twice.227 Here, Tertullian’s point was that while pagans accused Christians of committing homicide, they themselves were guilty of the much more serious crime of parricide. Since abortions were generally carried out with the consent of one or both parents, one might expect that Tertullian would have called the procedure parricide. However, it made sense for Tertullian to call abortion homicide rather than parricide in this context, since he was answering the accusation of homicide directly. Calling abortion parricide, as he would in the later Ad Uxorem, would have confused his distinction between the crimes of which the Christians were innocent from those of which the pagans were guilty.228

The remainder of the Apologeticum contains nothing significant for investigating Tertullian’s attitude towards the unborn child, but it is worth outlining in brief.229 Doing so will demonstrate just how small a part the exemplum of the unborn played in the overall scheme of the treatise. In response to the charge of , Tertullian gave a further

225 Dixon 2001: 65; Kapparis 2002: 195-196. 226 Kapparis 2002: 195-196. 227 Tert. Apol. 9.4-5. 228 Tert. Ux. 1.5.2. 229 This summary is indebted to that of Sider 2001: 5-6.

64 refutation. The Christians could not be rightly viewed as atheists, since the pagan gods were fictitious.230 Furthermore, the supposedly devout pagans hypocritically insulted their own gods.231 In turn, he rebuffed flawed conceptualisations of Christ.232 Tertullian gave a confirmatio, in which he explicated Christian .233 He had previously demonstrated that the pagan deities were not truly divine. Now, he showed their true nature as .234 Moreover, the Romans did not owe their empire to divine agency.235

Having concluded his arguments on the pagan gods, Tertullian turned towards political themes.236 He continued his thread of positive argument, averring that Christians actually benefitted the empire because they prayed on behalf of its rulers.237 The Christian might not have participated in public festivals like their pagan neighbours, but this did not prove that they were disloyal.238 It was unfair to single out Christians as traitors. As demonstrated by the recent civil war, pagans were more apt to turn against the emperor than Christians were.239 Nor were Christians a subversive sect.240 Compared to pagans, they were model citizens, making productive contributions to their respective communities.241 Tertullian finally summed up with his conclusio, in which he indicated that Christianity was no mere philosophy.242 It was the true faith, and even in the face of persecution Christ’s followers would not be deterred.243

While Ad Nationes and the Apologeticum were forensic works, Tertullian’s address to his wife, Ad Uxorem, was deliberative.244 As such, the treatise was meant to exhort its reader to follow a specific course of action. In this case, Tertullian adopted the genre of the consolatio as a means by which to argue against Christian remarriage following bereavement.245 Traditionally, the consolatio served to comfort a reader who was already

230 Tert. Apol. 10.1-12.7. 231 Tert. Apol. 13.1-15.8. 232 Tert. Apol. 16.1-14. 233 Tert. Apol. 17.1-21.31. 234 Tert. Apol. 22.1-24.10. 235 Tert. Apol. 25.1-26.3. 236 Tert. Apol. 27.1-7. 237 Tert. Apol. 29.1-34.4. 238 Tert. Apol. 35.1-28.5. 239 Tert. Apol. 35.8-13. 240 Tert. Apol. 39.1-21. 241 Tert. Apol. 40.1-45.7. 242 Tert. Apol. 46.1-47.14. 243 Tert. Apol. 48.1-50.16. 244 Barnes 1985: 55. Barnes is somewhat less than certain regarding the dating of this work. He places it sometime between 198 and 203 AD. 245 Sider 1971: 117.

65 grieving over a personal loss.246 However, Tertullian subverted the traditions of the genre ingeniously. He wrote this treatise for his wife, in anticipation of her mourning in the event that he should hypothetically die before her.247 It is questionable whether Tertullian actually intended for his wife to receive the work as a personal , or whether his intentions were more rhetorical. The epistolary genre presented an expedient means by which he could present his arguments on remarriage to Christian peers. By rendering Ad Uxorem like a personal letter, Tertullian gave his words greater emotional impact, plucking at the heartstrings of his readers by using his own personal life to prove a moral point.

Ad Uxorem was divided into two books, written between 198 and 203.248 As with Ad Nationes, the two books can be read as separate, self-contained works. Each dealt with the same theme of remarriage. Tertullian appears to have come back to write the second book of Ad Uxorem sometime later, in order to follow up on issues raised in the first part.249 The first book mostly consisted of arguments against remarriage. The second dealt more specifically with problems that could hypothetically arise if a Christian woman were to enter an exogamous marriage after her first had ended. The first book of Ad Uxorem is of greater importance for this dissertation, as it referred to the unborn child. Whether he intended the work to be received as a personal letter or as a rhetorical exercise, Tertullian stated in his propositio of Book One that he aimed to persuade his wife to remain celibate after death had separated them, on the basis of Paul’s advocacy of in 1 Corinthians.250 As Tertullian said:

Therefore, I instruct you that you should reject marriage after our departure, with all the self-control you can. Not that by this there will be any advantage in my name, except that by which you will gain for yourself.251 A second marriage, as he argued in the second chapter, would simply be a form of serial polygamy. In the days of the , polygamy had been necessary, but by Tertullian’s time it was no longer an acceptable practice: ‘Materials for subsequent emendations were

246 Scourfield 1993: 15-16. 247 Tert. Ux. 1.1.1-3. 248 Barnes 1985: 55. 249 Tert. Ux. 2.1.1. 250 1 Cor. 7.29-40. The influence of Paul will be discussed further in the next chapter. 251 Tert. Ux. 1.1.4. Praecipio igitur tibi, quanta continentia potes, post excessum nostrum renunties nuptiis, nihil mihi isto nomine collatura, nisi quod tibi proderis.

66 organised in advance, from which the Lord by His , and then the apostle in the last days of the (Jewish) age, either cut off the redundancies or arranged the disorders.’252

In order to demonstrate that his wife should remain celibate, Tertullian focused in the third, fourth and fifth chapters upon themes common to deliberative oratory.253 Sider identifies the main themes of deliberative oratory as ‘advantage, honour and necessity,’ and suggests that Tertullian explored them especially in relation to motive and cause.254 In focusing upon these themes, Tertullian was perhaps building upon Cicero and Quintilian’s advice concerning deliberative oratory. In De Inventione Rhetorica, Cicero defined ‘advantage,’ as something from which one derived personal benefit, such as wealth.255 On the other hand, honourable themes existed purely for their own sake. Cicero listed ‘wisdom, justice, courage and temperance’ as honourable themes for a speaker to pursue.256 Honour and advantage were not mutually exclusive concepts.257 Necessity, however, was a rhetorically weak cause or motivation, which in the view of both Cicero and Quintilian paled in significance next to honour.258 However, Quintilian also made it clear that other rhetors 259 frequently explained motivation and cause in terms of necessity successfully.

While it was permissible for Christians to marry, Tertullian argued that it was a mere necessity in instances where a Christian might succumb to temptation. Marriage was an acceptable choice for a Christian, but celibacy was preferable due to its inherent virtue. ‘It is easily discerned that the ground on which the power of marrying is conceded is necessity; but whatever necessity grants, she by her very nature depreciates,’ he wrote.260 Tertullian compared the issue of marriage to the dilemma of a prospective martyr. It was acceptable to flee persecution rather than deny Christ under torture. Yet it was more honourable for a Christian to endure torture and profess the name of Christ.261 Likewise, it was a more honourable course for a Christian to choose celibacy on a voluntary basis, rather than be

252 Tert. Ux. 1.2.4. Igitur per licentiam tunc passiuam materiae subsequentium emendationum praeministrabantur, quas Dominus euangelio suo, dehinc apostolus in extremitatibus saeculi aut excidit redundantes aut composuit inconditas. 253 Sider 1971: 115. 254 Sider 1971: 116. 255 Cic. Inv. Rhet. 2.157. Est aliud autem non propter suam vim et naturam, sed propter fructum atque utilitatem petendum; quod pecunia est. 256 Cic. Inv. 2.159-165. 257 Cic. Inv. 2.166. 258 Cic. Inv. 2.170-175; Quint. Inst. 3.8.22. 259 Quint. Inst. 3.8.22. 260 Tert. Ux. 1.3.3. Qua ratione utriusque pronuntiationis inspecta, facile dinoscitur necessitate nobis concessam esse nubendi potestatem. Quod autem necessitas praestat, depretiat ipsa. 261 Tert. Ux. 1.3.4.

67 impelled towards marriage by the necessity of avoiding sexual immorality. In this case, the honourable course would yield greater advantages. In his words:

Therefore there are certain things which should not be desired simply because they are not forbidden; yet in a way they are forbidden, since other things are preferred to them. For the preference given to the superior things is dissuasion from the inferior. A thing is not good simply because it is not evil, though it is not evil because it does no harm. That which is fully ‘good’ is further superior, however, because it does not just do no harm, but is above all profitable. For you should prefer things that are profitable over those which are (merely) not harmful. For the former is what every battle strives for. The latter has consolation, but does not have victory.262 Tertullian then further elaborated upon the division between the necessity of marriage and the honour of celibacy. Marriage, he argued, was only necessary in cases where a Christian was subject to concupiscentia. There were two varieties of concupiscence: that of fleshly desire, and that of worldly desire. The ephemeral advantages offered by either choice paled in comparison to the eternal advantages of celibacy. He said:

Concupiscence of the flesh lays claim to the business of adulthood. It seeks after the harvest of beauty, rejoices in its own shame, and says that a husband is necessary for the (female) sex, either as a source of authority and comfort, or so that she may be safe from evil rumours.263 On the other hand, women who remained celibate after marriage enjoyed God’s approval, a closer relationship with their Lord, and the eternal gift of His blessing.264

Working yourself towards the emulation of (their) self-control by the examples of such women, you will through spiritual affection lay that fleshly concupiscence to rest, in abolishing the temporary and flighty desires of beauty or youth, while attaining the compensating achievement of immortal blessings.265

262 Tert. Ux. 1.3.5-6. Non propterea appetenda sunt quaedam, quia non uetantur ---- etsi quodammodo uetantur, cum alia illis praeferuntur: praelatio enim superiorum dissuasio est inferiorum ----, non ideo quid bonum est, quia malum non est, nec ideo malum non est, quia non obest. Porro plene bonum hoc antecedit, quod non modo non obest, sed insuper prodest. Namque malle debes quod prodest quam quod non obest. Ad primum enim locum certamen omne contendit; secundus solatium habet, uictoriam non habet. 263 Tert. Ux. 1.4.3. Carnis concupiscentia aetatis officia defendit, decoris messem requirit, gaudet de contumelia sua: dicit uirum necessarium sexui, uel auctoritatis et solatii causa, uel ut a malis rumoribus tuta sit. I have translated defendit as ‘lays claim to’ as it better conveys the intended meaning of the passage than the word’s literal sense, ‘defends.’ 264 Tert. Ux. 1.4.3-5. 265 Tert. Ux. 1.4.5. Talium exemplis feminarum ad aemulationem te continentiae exercens, spiritali affectione carnalem illam concupiscentiam humabis, temporalia et uolatica desideria formae uel aetatis immortalium bonorum compensatione delendo.

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Worldly concupiscence, conversely, had its roots in a person’s ‘hunger for glory, greed, ambition, and inadequacy.’266 A Christian contemplating a second marriage for these reasons would reap the futile reward of money appropriated from another family.267 A celibate Christian, on the other hand, had no need for such things, as God provided all of their needs. Christians, living for the next world, had no need for riches or ostentatious displays of wealth.

I implore you to take for granted that you need for nothing, so long as you can attend upon the Lord; indeed, (accept) that you have all things, if you have the Lord, whose are all things. Reflect on heavenly things, and you will despise earthly things. In the case of the widow sworn to God, nothing is necessary but perseverance.268 Once he had established that the motivations for second marriage were deficient, Tertullian then had to pre-empt the counter-argument that procreation was an important justification for marriage.

Tertullian’s discussion of abortion and the unborn child in Ad Uxorem should be considered part of this cross-examination of the worldly reasons for marriage. Tertullian argued that the necessity of childrearing did not correlate with his conceptualisation of Christian honour or advantage, as they were based purely upon parents’ self-interest in their own legacy. In his words:

Indeed, people build their cases for marriage from concerns for their posterity, and the extremely caustic delight of children. This is a moot point for us. For why should we have a passionate desire to raise children, whom we wish to send forth, once we have them, in consideration, of course, of the imminent difficulties, even as we ourselves long also to be lifted from this most unjust and secular world, and restored to the Lord, which was the pledge even of an apostle? Forsooth, progeny are necessary for the ! For we are secure enough regarding our own , (so) that we have free time for children. Our own burdens must be sought after, which are evaded even by most , who are forced (to reproduce) by legislation, who are devastated by abortions; (burdens) which, if nothing else, are to us most of all unnatural, insofar as they are hazards to faith! For why did the Lord foretell: “Alas for the pregnant

266 Tert. Ux. 1.4.6. Ceterum saecularis concupiscentia causas habet gloriam, cupiditatem, ambitionem, insufficientiam, per quas necessitatem nubendi subornat, uidelicet caelestia repromittens: dominari in aliena familia, alienis opibus incubare, cultum de alieno extorquere, sumptum quem non sentias, caedere. 267 Tert. Ux. 1.4.6. 268 Tert. Ux. 1.4.8. Praesume, oro te, nihil tibi esse, si Domino appareas, immo omnia habere, si habeas Dominum, cuius omnia. Caelestia recogita, et terrena despicies. Nihil uiduitati apud Deum subsignatae necessarium est quam perseuerare.

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women, and those suckling,” if not because he bears witness that upon that day of reckoning the inconveniences of children are going to be hindrances? Naturally, marriage is what these things denote. However, it will not pertain to widows. They will rush forward unencumbered at the ’s first trumpet-call. They will endure to the end whatever oppression and persecution freely, with nothing boiling in the womb, no hefty burden of marriage upon the breast.269 In this passage, Tertullian first attempted to prove that it was not necessary for Christians to have children, in light of his belief in the looming apocalypse. As a motivation, necessity was therefore an insufficient motive for Christians to beget children, since the benefits of celibacy far outweighed those of procreating. Tertullian suggested that Christians should avoid having babies, since it would be easier to endure martyrdom without the anxieties of parenthood.270 By abstaining from having children, Tertullian suggested that Christians could avail themselves of the honour and advantage of the in which God held martyrs.

In this particular passage, Tertullian was discussing the apparently common desire among non-Christians to avoid having children. He considered it alongside Roman laws which compelled citizens to reproduce. Again, it is worth emphasising that Tertullian’s presentation of abortion as a regular practice among pagans should not be treated as reportage. His description of pagan mores concerning abortion should be viewed as subordinate to his overall aim in this section of proving that it was not ideal for Christians to reproduce. Admittedly, Tertullian may here have meant parricidium in its normal sense of ‘parricide,’ rather than as a synonym for the more common abortio. If this were the case, then Tertullian could have meant the term ‘parricide’ to refer to the killing of newborn rather than unborn children. Yet Tertullian’s use of the term here is ambiguous, likely on purpose. He made it clear that he was referring to both the offspring in utero and the newborn child in his

269 Tert. Ux. 1.5.1-3. Adiciunt quidem sibi homines causas nuptiarum de sollicitudine posteritatis et liberorum amarissima uoluptate. Nobis otiosum est. Nam quid gestiamus liberos serere, quos cum habeamus, praemittere optamus, respectu scilicet imminentium angustiarum, cupidi et ipsi iniquissimo isto saeculo eximi et recipi ad Dominum, quod etiam apostolo uotum fuit. Nimirum necessaria suboles seruo Dei. Satis enim de salute nostra securi sumus, ut liberis uacemus. Quaerenda nobis onera sunt, quae etiam a gentilium plerisque uitantur, quae legibus coguntur, quae parricidiis expugnantur, nobis demum plurimum importuna, quantum fidei periculosa. Cur enim Dominus: Vae praegnantibus et nutricantibus, cecinit, nisi quia filiorum impedimenta testatur in illa die expeditionis incommodum futura? Ea utique nuptiis imputantur, istud autem ad uiduas non pertinebit. Ad primam angeli tubam expeditae prosilient, quamcumque pressuram persecutionemque libere perferent, nulla in utero, nulla in uberibus aestuante sarcina nuptiarum. 270 It is also possible that Tertullian meant that women could serve as martyrs if they were not pregnant, since at least in Carthage women could not be executed in the arena while with child. Compare this contemporary reference to the Passio Perpetuae 15.1-2. ‘Indeed concerning Felicitas... By now she had had a (child) in her womb for eight months, for she was pregnant when she was arrested, and when the day of the great spectacle was close at hand, she was in great distress lest (her punishment) be postponed on account of her womb, for it is not permitted for pregnant women to be exhibited for punishment.’

70 quotation of Luke and Matthew: Vae praegnantibus et nutricantibus.271 Tertullian’s discussion of the sarcina aestuans in utero also shows that his discussion of parricide applied also to women who had not yet given birth.272 It is also worth considering that Tertullian’s fellow African Christian, Minucius Felix, unambiguously applied the term parricidium to abortion in the Octavius.273 It is probable that Tertullian used the term in the same way. In this passage, Tertullian has elided the concepts of infanticide and abortion, denigrating each under the harshest possible term for murder.

Overall, Tertullian’s argument seemed to be that if even the worldly pagans avoided the onerous task of rearing children, then ideally Christians, living for the next world and mindful of the looming apocalypse, should too. However, he did not go so far as to condemn Christians who already had children. Nor did he strongly disparage Christians who sought to become parents. He qualified his argument through the words: Nimirum necessaria suboles seruo Dei. Satis enim de salute nostra securi sumus, ut liberis uacemus.274 For a married Christian, children were a permitted necessity, and those whose salvation was already prepared could have children. Though reproduction was allowable, the choice to become a parent was still inferior to that of childlessness. Childless widows were better positioned for the honour of responding to the angel’s calling than those who had the responsibility of carrying or rearing a child.

In the following chapter, Tertullian continued to compare Christian practices to those of pagans. He argued that pagan widows found it easier to be celibate after their first marriage. Surely if they could manage to remain single in widowhood, then his wife could?275 God would have willed that her husband should be taken from this world.276 She (or indeed any widow) thus had an opportunity to embrace celibacy, the superior choice: ‘The occasion must be embraced which puts an end to what necessity commanded.’277 Priesthood, after all, was barred to men who had remarried.278 Tertullian’s subsequent conclusio ended the book with a series of appeals. Tertullian urged his wife to consider 1.1.17.18. She would have the honour of God’s benefaction, a gift greater even than that allotted to virgins.279

271 Tert. Ux. 1.5.2; Matt. 24.19; Luke 21.23. 272 Tert. Ux. 1.5.3. 273 Min. Fel. Oct. 1-2. 274 Tert. Ux. 1.5.1-2. 275 Tert. Ux. 1.6.1-5. 276 Tert. Ux. 1.7.1-3. 277 Tert. Ux. 1.7.3. 278 Tert. Ux. 1.7.4-5. 279 Tert. Ux. 1.8.1-3.

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Finally, he suggested that she ought to avoid the company of those who might dissuade her from the course he recommended.280

My dearest fellow-servant, I commend these things to you now, following the apostle. These things have been undertaken profusely indeed, but even so they are likely to be a source of consolation to you some day, for you will cherish my memory by returning to (my words) if it turns out thus.281 The second book of Ad Uxorem did not mention the unborn, and will thus be summarised only in brief. For the second book of Ad Uxorem, Tertullian argued that his wife, if she had to remarry, should at least marry a Christian.282 In his narratio, Tertullian said that the case of a local woman who had married outside the faith had given him pause to consider the problems she might face.283 Tertullian built his case upon Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, where Paul said that people ought to marry ‘in the Lord.’284 One might argue that it was permitted for Christians to marry pagans, for Paul had said that one should not dissolve their marriage to a non-believer after conversion.285 However, Tertullian retorted, Paul clearly referred to people who became Christian after marriage, not before.286 Marriage with a Gentile was a form of infidelity, defiling the Church.287 A Christian woman married to a pagan would have her loyalty divided between two masters.288 Even a husband tolerant of his wife’s beliefs would generate strife, as he would have access to the mysteries of Christ.289 Even worse, a Christian woman in an exogamous marriage might be expected to partake in pagan rituals.290 A pagan man who had willingly entered a marriage with a Christian would be less likely to convert than one whose spouse became a Christian after marriage.291 After further comparison between pagan and Christian marital practices, Tertullian finished with an extended encomium praising the beauty of Christian marriage, illustrating that a Christian would a better choice of husband for his wife.292 It also perhaps diverted attention from the

280 Tert. Ux. 1.8.4-5. 281 Tert. Ux. 1.8.5. Haec tibi iam hinc commendo, conserua carissima, post apostolum quidem ex abundant retractata, sed tibi etiam solatio futura, quod meam memoriam, si ita euenerit, in illis frequentabis. 282 Tert. Ux. 2.1.3-4. 283 Tert. Ux. 2.2.1. 284 Tert. Ux. 2.2.2-2.3.4; 1 Cor. 7.39. 285 1 Cor. 7.12-14. 286 Tert. Ux. 2.2.2-9. 287 Tert. Ux. 2.3.1-3. 288 Tert. Ux. 2.3.4-2.4.3. 289 Tert. Ux. 2.5.1-4. 290 Tert. Ux. 2.6.1-2. 291 Tert. Ux. 2.7.1-3. 292 Tert. Ux. 2.8.1-9.

72 fact that many of his arguments against remarriage in the first book could apply just as easily to his current marriage.293

De Exhortatione Castitatis was somewhat similar to Ad Uxorem, in that it was constructed as a deliberative speech framed as a personal address. While Ad Uxorem dealt with widows, Tertullian here beseeched a widower, an un-named Christian ‘brother’ who was contemplating marriage.294 It is open for speculation whether Tertullian had a specific man in mind when he wrote the treatise, or whether he meant it as an open letter to Christian husbands. Regardless, the treatise exhorted an argument similar to that of Ad Uxorem. Like Ad Uxorem, Tertullian here sought to argue based upon Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians that it was less than ideal for a Christian widower to remarry.295 Yet Tertullian adopted a less compromising perspective on the issue generally, dismissing any motivation for remarriage as an excuse for the satiation of sexual lust. Indeed, Tertullian set himself against the necessities of the flesh ‘as an advocate.’296 His thesis was that God wished for men to remain celibate, although He would indulge their weaknesses of the flesh by allowing them to marry.297 The only truly acceptable course for a Christian widower, therefore, was that of discipline and self-restraint.

It is not surprising that Tertullian approached the issue from a more puritanical perspective. Barnes suggests that Tertullian wrote De Exhortatione Castitatis in AD 208, after he had joined the Montanist Christian sect.298 The Montanists’ moral standards were unusually strict.299 If Tertullian intended this treatise for a Montanist reader, he might have left himself open to criticism by his fellow Montanists for taking a softer approach. This treatise was somewhat harsher in its premise than Ad Uxorem, in that Tertullian made no allowance even for endogamous remarriage. He argued that remarriage was wrong in every instance, even to a fellow Christian.300

In the opening lines of De Exhortatione Castitatis, Tertullian identified three species of virginity: that from birth, that from , and that which issued from the renunciation

293 Dunn 2004: 37, 54-55. 294 Tert. Ex. Cast. 1.1. 295 Tert. Ex. Cast. 4.1-6. 296 Tert. Ex. Cast. 1.1. Opus est fidei extrinsecus consilio tamquam aduocato aduersus carnis necessitatem. 297 Tert. Ex. Cast. 1.3. 298 Barnes 1985: 55. 299 Barnes 1985: 137. 300 Tert. Ex. Cast. 3.2.

73 of sex following the severance of marriage.301 Of these, the third species was the most virtuous and praiseworthy, as it reflected the moderation of the widower.302 Tertullian then offered an exordium, in which he ruminated upon the question of free will in relation to the topic at hand. God had ended the widower’s first marriage; thus remarrying would a rebellion against the will of God. Men were responsible for their own desires, and could not blame either the Lord or the for things born of human volition.303 By careful deliberation, the reader could discern things genuinely pleasing to God from that which He simply indulged.304 Those forged from human discipline more reflected God’s will. If God preferred one course of action but would allow another, then the former was the best. The latter was a partial sin, not so much good but a lesser evil.305

Tertullian then began his confirmatio in earnest, citing scriptural evidence. There was nothing specific in the Apostle’s writings which prescribed a second marriage; anything not specifically allowed by God was forbidden.306 By urging sexual self-restraint, Paul had implicitly argued that people ought not to lack restraint. Remarriage might have brought the Christian widower greater levels of worldly happiness, but celibacy would bring him closer to the .307 Tertullian then addressed the issue of polygamy. As with Ad Uxorem, Tertullian construed serial monogamy as a kind of polygamy. God had established monogamy as the ideal course by creating one wife for , not many.308 In the days of the patriarchs, polygamy had been necessary to fulfil God’s commandment to ‘be fruitful and multiply,’ but now that was superseded by Paul’s encouragement of celibacy.309 Yet even the had laid down precedents for monogamy. According to Tertullian’s interpretation of Leviticus, men could not be admitted to the priesthood if they had been married more than once.310 Since even members of the laity could be seen as members of a priesthood, the widower would be shirking his duties if he took another wife.311 Marriage

301 Tert. Ex. Cast. 1.4. 302 Tert. Ex. Cast. 1.5. 303 Tert. Ex. Cast. 2.1-7. 304 Tert. Ex. Cast. 2.8. 305 Tert. Ex. Cast. 3.1-5. 306 Tert. Ex. Cast. 4.1-3. 307 Tert. Ex. Cast. 4.4-6. 308 Tert. Ex. Cast. 5.1-4. 309 Tert. Ex. Cast. 6.1-3. 310 It should be noted that no surviving version of Leviticus features this prohibition. It is likely that Tertullian was working from a variant tradition. 311 Tert. Ex. Cast. 7.1-6.

74 might have been lawful in the eyes of God, but it was not necessarily expedient; after all, the apostles could have married if they chose, but they did not.312

In chapter nine, Tertullian argued that remarriage was a form of .313 This chapter would set up his later points regarding the unborn, and thus it is important to analyse it closely. Here, Tertullian made some comments which could be viewed (perhaps fairly) as derogatory of marriage as an institution. He himself acknowledged that his words might be interpreted this way.314 The means of becoming a husband (looking upon a woman with desire) were the same as those which led to sexual .315 The distinction, for Tertullian, was one of legality: ‘It is laws which seem to make the difference between marriage and fornication, through diversity of illicitness, not through the nature of the thing itself.’316 It was best, therefore, to eschew contact with women altogether.317 As always, though, it is important not to take Tertullian’s words out of context. Tertullian was a married man, as anybody who knew him would have realised. He could not have challenged the institution of marriage without seriously undermining his own credibility. His points against marriage should be considered in light of the following lines:

Be grateful, if God indulged you to marry once. In fact, you will be grateful if you don’t realise that He has indulged you (to marry) once again. But you will abuse His if you make use of it of it without modesty. Modesty is understood from the term modus, ‘limit.’318 Tertullian’s point was not that marriage was wrong, per se, but that it was not the optimal course for a Christian.319 The end result of all this marrying was that Christians would be burdened with children, and thus ill-prepared to face the trials of the apocalypse. Tertullian’s point was very similar to that of Ad Uxorem 1.5. In his words:

And marrying, let us be overrun by the final day, just like Sodom and Gomorrah. It will be on that day when the "woe" pronounced over "such as are pregnant and breastfeeding" shall be fulfilled; that is, over the married and those who lack self-control. For from marriage there come (full) wombs, (lactating) breasts, and infants. And when

312 Tert. Ex. Cast. 8.1-3. 313 Tert. Ex. Cast. 9.1. 314 Tert. Ex. Cast. 9.4. 315 Tert. Ex. Cast. 9.2. 316 Tert. Ex. Cast. 9.3. 317 Tert. Ex. Cast. 9.4. 318 Tert. Ex. Cast. 9.4. Gratus esto, si semel tibi indulsit deus nubere. Gratus autem eris, si iterum indulsisse illum tibi nescias. Ceterum abuteris indulgentia, cum sine modestia uteris. Modestia a modo intellegitur. 319 Tert. Ex. Cast. 9.5.

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will there be an end of marrying? I believe it will be after the end of living.320 Tertullian would build upon this point in chapter twelve, where he would strip away the reasons for which men sought to be married to reveal the true purpose, procreation. In the intervening chapters (10.1-11.2), Tertullian argued that widowhood would bring greater spiritual advantages than remarrying. Abstinence would render more effective, and enhance the Christian’s ability to contemplate Scripture, sing , and perform exorcisms.321 If humanity’s carnal nature was sinful in first marriage, it was a great deal more so in second.322 Moreover, a Christian husband would remain tied to the spirit of his deceased wife even as he was bound to that of his second. He would be a spiritual bigamist, ashamed before his fellow Christians who had been married only once.323 In chapter twelve, Tertullian picked up his previous point about the burden of children. He offered a list of the traditional justifications for (re)marriage, saying:

I know the excuses by which we could over the insatiable desire of the flesh. We allege: the home needs to be administered, the household needs governing; money-boxes and keys have to be watched over; the weaving needs to be dispensed; our food needs to be prepared and our anxieties need to be decreased.324 Yet these motives were moot. The household of a bachelor could prosper as well as that of the married man. A Christian could serve better as a Christian soldier if he were not encumbered by a wife.325 If he wanted to share his household, he could always enter a ‘spiritual marriage’ with a widow: ‘It is pleasing to God to have many such wives.’326 Therefore, these alleged reasons for remarriage served no purpose but to cover the real motive. Men, Tertullian said, wanted progeny, to ensure their posterity. Children would ensure the safe distribution of his property, and make sure their father was properly buried.327 Yet Tertullian argued again that desire for family was a hollow reason for bereaved

320 Tert. Ex. Cast. 9.5. Nubamus igitur quotidie, et nubentes ab ultimo die deprehendamur, tamquam Sodoma et Gomorra, quo die 'uae' illud super praegnantes et lactantes adimplebitur, id est super maritos et incontinentes; de nuptiis enim uteri et ubera et infantes. Et quando finis nubendi? Credo post finem uiuendi. 321 Tert. Ex. Cast. 10.1-5. 322 Tert. Ex. Cast. 10.6. 323 Tert. Ex. Cast. 11.1-2. 324 Tert. Ex. Cast. 12.1. Scio quibus causationibus coloremus insatiabilem carnis cupiditatem. Praetendimus necessitates adminiculorum: domum administrandam, familiam regendam, loculos, claues custodiendas, lanificium dispensandum, uictum procurandum, curas comminuendas. 325 Tert. Ex. Cast. 12.1. 326 Tert. Ex. Cast. 12.2. Huiusmodi uxores etiam plures haberi deo gratum est. 327 Tert. Ex. Cast. 12.3.

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Christians to seek a new spouse. Propagation would serve nobody’s interest except that of the Roman state by providing new spectators for the games in which Christians were killed.328

Tertullian once more used abortion as evidence to support his case. However, he adopted a completely different tactic, bringing abortion into the discussion via a rather convoluted argument. At first, the mention of abortion seems completely out of place. As he said:

Ergo, what will you do if you fill your new wife with your moral principles? Should you dissolve the conceptus by means of medication? I think it is no more permitted for us to harm (offspring) coming into existence, than one which has already come into existence. But perhaps at that time of your wife's pregnancy you will be bold enough to beg from God a remedy for such a (serious) concern, which you refused when it lay in your own power?329 The Christian widower who simultaneously wanted freedom to be ready for apocalypse and to become a father sought two irreconcilable goals. By the time he had impregnated his wife, it would be too late to expedite the first goal by ending the pregnancy or by praying for a natural miscarriage. Far from dismissing contraceptive abortion as a pagan phenomenon, Tertullian here urged his Christian reader to consider that remarriage would likely result in undesired pregnancy. Since the pressures of parenthood would make it harder for Christians to serve God according to his interpretation of Paul, Tertullian argued that his reader might be tempted to abort. The simplest way to avoid this temptation to kill was simply to remain celibate.

It is also worth considering that Tertullian here again compared dishonourable motivations for remarriage against honourable motives for celibacy, as he did in Ad Uxorem. Tertullian construed all motives for remarriage as pretexts for lust. His entire argument rested upon the idea that lust was an insufficient motive for remarriage. Tertullian presented sexual desire as a kind of self-indulgence unsuited to a Christian.330 Sexual desire and the wish for children were not ‘necessary’ in the sense that Cicero or Quintilian discussed motive. Therefore, any pretention towards remarriage paled in its moral value compared to the honourable motivation of observing Scripture. In this instance, he upheld celibacy as the sole honourable life choice for Christians following the death of a spouse, with the motive of

328 Tert. Ex. Cast. 12.4. 329 Tert. Ex. Cast. 12.5. Quid ergo facies, si nouam uxorem de tua conscientia impleueris? Dissoluas medicaminibus conceptum? Puto nobis magis non licere nascentem nocere quam et natum. Sed fortasse illo tempore praegnantis uxoris remedium tantae sollicitudini a deo petere audebis, quod in te positum recusasti. 330 Tert. Ex. Cast. 1.1.

77 observing Paul. Moreover, Tertullian construed (perhaps fallaciously) that Christians who abstained from sex were motivated by the scriptural commandment not to murder.

The peroration of De Exhortatione Castitatis was very similar to Ad Uxorem 1.6. Tertullian iterated numerous exempla of pagan religious institutions whose priests and priestesses were expected to be either celibate or to have married only once. Legendary examples, such as Dido and Lucretia, had committed suicide in order to remain faithful to their first husbands.331 If such servants of the devil went to such lengths to avoid remarriage, then they put Christians to shame.332 Christians, who sought Paradise, should have scrupulously avoided that from which Paradise was intact.333

De Virginibus Velandis was also constructed as a deliberative treatise, since it advocated a specific course of action.334 The dating of this work is somewhat less than certain; Barnes places it in AD 208 or 209, but in the afterword of the second edition of his book admits that it could have been written later.335 Whatever its exact year of composition, Tertullian’s work concerning the veiling of virgins clearly shows the influence of his Montanist background.336 The text was likely a redrafted version of one of his early works, because he declared that he had previously expounded upon the topic in Greek.337 Tertullian opened with his propositio, which succinctly stated his thesis. He sought to prove that ‘it is fitting for our virgins to be veiled from the point when they will have passed their age of transition.’338 Tertullian was dealing with a controversy that had arisen in his local congregation: much to his chagrin, some younger females had begun attending Church gatherings unveiled, and were encouraging others to do the same.339 In his exordium he argued that the local practice of allowing virgins to go unveiled in public, although it had a long history, had its origins in mere custom rather than truth.340 In his narratio, he then traced

331 Tert. Ex. Cast. 13.3. 332 Tert. Ex. Cast. 13.3. 333 Tert. Ex. Cast. 13.4. 334 Dunn 2005: 10. 335 Barnes 1971: 55; Barnes 1985: 328. 336 Dunn 2004: 136. 337 Tert. Virg. Vel. 1.1. 338 Tert. Virg. Vel. 1.1. Proprium iam negotium passus meae opinionis Latine quoque ostendam virgines nostras velari oportere, ex quo transitum aetatis suae fecerint. 339 Tert. Virg. Vel. 3.4. 340 Tert. Virg. Vel. 1.16-17.

78 the practice of veiling virgins to the very earliest days of the Pauline Church, in order to demonstrate that veiling was based upon scriptural precepts rather than custom.341

Tertullian then proceeded onto the main body of his treatise, alternating between positive and negative arguments to succour his thesis.342 Dunn argues that Tertullian used ‘the threefold pattern of argumentation.’343 Tertullian explicitly referred to this structure in his concluding remarks, where he recapitulated his main points.344 First, Tertullian offered arguments based upon Scripture, particularly 1 Corinthians.345 For the second segment of his treatise, Tertullian turned to arguments based upon nature and reason.346 Finally, Tertullian supported his thesis on the lines of ecclesiastical teaching.347 It was in this section that Tertullian remarked upon the unborn child.

Tertullian first addressed the case, from 1 Corinthians, that women should not speak in an ecclesiastical gathering.348 Tertullian then offered a series of refutationes. He countered the proposal that virgins could distinguish themselves from married women by leaving their heads bare.349 He then discussed the question of whether male virgins should be honoured in chapter ten. According to Tertullian, sexual self-restraint was more difficult for young men than for women, yet males were not distinguished from their peers in the congregation. Therefore, he argued, girls should not distinguish themselves by attending church services unveiled either.350 In chapters eleven to twelve, Tertullian quashed the argument that if unwed women were meant to be veiled, then so too should prepubescent girls. He qualified that his arguments did not pertain to a child but only applied ‘from the time when she begins to understand herself, and to enter into the sensation of her nature, to leave behind the (sense) of the virgin, and to suffer the new (sensation), which is of another age-group.’351 Tertullian

341 Dunn 2004: 136; Tert. Virg. Vel. 2.1-3.5. 342 Tert. Virg. Vel. 3.5-15.3; Dunn 2004: 136-137. 343 Dunn 2004: 137. The following discussion of the structure of De Virginibus Velandis is based upon that of Dunn 2004: 136-140, and Dunn 2005: 10-25. 344 Tert. Virg. Vel. 16.1. 345 Tert. Virg. Vel. 3.5-6.3. 346 Tert. Virg. Vel. 7.1-8.4. 347 Tert. Virg. Vel. 9.1-15.3. 348 Tert. Virg. Vel. 9.1. 349 Tert. Virg. Vel. 9.1-3. 350 Tert. Virg. Vel. 10.1-2; Dunn 2004: 138-139; Dunn 2005: 22. 351 Tert. Virg. Vel. 11.2. Non ita est autem, sed ex quo intelligere se coeperit et sensum naturae suae intrare et de virginis exire et pati novum illud, quod alterius aetatis est.

79 then advanced the argument that a virgin who went unveiled in the Church but went veiled in public was living a life of self-contradiction.352

In the next chapter, Tertullian mentioned the unborn and perhaps alluded to the practice of abortion in order to refute the argument that unwed women bared their heads in order to glorify God.353 Tertullian countered this argument by questioning the motives of unveiled women. Tertullian opined that the only possible motive for a girl to attend services unveiled was to tempt the male members of the congregation towards sexual sin, which would inevitably lead to pregnancy out of wedlock. Far from glorifying God, these young women showed that their commitment to chastity was less than total by going unveiled in mixed company. Women of this character would then face the awkward situation of being pregnant while keeping their heads uncovered as though they were virgins.354 They would then be compelled to hide the evidence of their illicit intercourse. ‘For they will not confess, unless they are betrayed by the cries of their babies themselves.’355 Though Tertullian did not explicitly mention abortion, his next remarks may be read as an allusion to the procedure. As Tertullian wrote:

I must say, although I do not wish it, that a woman who fears to become one always develops with difficulty, and now anybody can pretend that she is a virgin under God. Likewise, how much will she risk in the vicinity of her uterus, in case she is also exposed as a mother? God knows how many babies [He] has now guided to be formed and carried intact through to birth, after the conclusion of a long battle from their mothers. Always virgins of this type fall pregnant with the greatest ease, carry very fruitfully, and (their young) are actually very like their fathers.356 The most effective means by which a pregnant woman could prevent her child’s cries from revealing that she was no longer a virgin would have been to terminate the pregnancy before the child had the capacity to cry: Quanta item circa uterum suum audebit, ne etiam mater detegatur? Yet the means of abortion in antiquity were not always reliable and sometimes

352 Tert. Virg. Vel. 13.1-2. 353 Tert. Virg. Vel. 14.2-4. 354 Dunn 2004: 139. 355 Tert. Virg. Vel. 14.3. Non enim confitebuntur nisi ipsorum infantium suorum vagitibus proditae. 356 Tert. Virg. Vel. 14.4. Dicam, licet nolim: difficile mulier semel fit, quae timet fieri quaeque iam facta potest virginem mentiri sub deo. Quanta item circa uterum suum audebit, ne etiam mater detegatur? Scit deus, quot iam infantes et perfici et perduci ad partum integros duxerit debellatos aliquamdiu a matribus. Facillime semper eoncipiunt et felicissime pariunt huius modi virgines et quidem simillimos patribus.

80 failed to have the desired effect.357 Despite a long struggle from the mother, Tertullian said, the child would still be brought to term.

Yet again it should be considered that Tertullian’s target in De Virginibus Velandis was not the practice of abortion. Rather, he sought to highlight the theme of self-contradiction he had mentioned in the previous chapter.358 There was a clear paradox in the idea of a pregnant woman wearing the veil as though she were a virgin. The simplest way to avoid this self-contradiction (and its consequences) was simply for the virgin to attend church with her head covered, thus avoiding the male gaze and the risk of an unwanted pregnancy. Tertullian here used abortion to show that a maiden who did not call attention to herself by going publicly unveiled had piety as her motivation.359 He then followed this up by contrasting the scandalous character of these girls against the honourable repute of the devout woman. According to Tertullian, a veiled woman’s motives were honourable. By concealing her face, she kept herself aloof of satanic influence.360 Finally, Tertullian devoted the last two chapters of De Virginibus Velandis to a rousing conclusio.361

Tertullian’s De Anima was an invective treatise aimed against the heretic, Hermogenes, who had incorporated pagan philosophies of ensoulment into Christian theology. This work was written around the same time as De Carne Christi. Barnes dates it to sometime between AD 206 and 207.362 In order to prove that Hermogenes’ ideas had sprung from falsehood, Tertullian’s partitio outlined his intention to refute the pagan philosophers’ arguments regarding the timing of animation upon scriptural, metaphysical and physiological lines.363 He said:

Having already clashed with Hermogenes regarding the soul’s single point of origin, insofar as he presumed that it was widely agreed to be arise from matter rather than from the breath of God, I shall be seen

357 Prioreschi 1995: 78; Ov. Her. 11.33-42. 358 Dunn 2004: 139. Dunn does not read chapter fourteen as containing anything relevant to the subject of abortion. His translation of Virg. Vel. 14.4 (p. 158) also makes it clear that he believes the passage referred to the contradiction between so-called virgins pretending not to be pregnant when clearly they were. I do not dispute Dunn’s interpretation. However, it is also possible to read the passage as an implicit reference to abortion for the reasons outlined above. Dunn’s interpretation and my own are not by any means incompatible; the most expedient means for an unveiled woman to maintain the pretence of her virginity was to eliminate the evidence of her pregnancy before it became visible. 359 Tert. Virg. Vel. 14.5. 360 Tert. Virg. Vel. 15.1-3. 361 Tert. Virg. Vel. 16.1-17.5. 362 Barnes 1985: 55. 363 Tert. An. 1.1-3.4.

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conversing with the philosophers even as I’m now turning to deal with the many remaining questions.364 Hermogenes had adopted the Platonic theory of the soul, based upon Plato’s Timaeus: he held that the soul was incorporeal, and that God did not create the soul of each individual out of nothingness, but shaped it from primordial substance.365 Conversely, Tertullian responded with an elaborate treatise designed to confound Hermogenes’ views on the soul and promote . He espoused the idea that the embryo received its soul directly from its father upon conception.366 Though denigrating Hermogenes and his pagan sources was Tertullian’s ostensible purpose, it is also worth considering that De Anima had much in common with an epideictic speech, which frequently dealt with conjectural issues of origin and cause.367 This is not surprising, as there was considerable crossover between an epideictic speech of blame and invective oratory.368 Invectives and speeches of blame both served to pour scorn on the subject. It is possible that Tertullian simply used Hermogenes as a convenient platform against which he could explore general conjectural questions of ensoulment.

In this sense, Tertullian was perhaps borrowing from Cicero’s ideas regarding conjectural questions and their relationship with issues of origin. In his Topica, Cicero suggested that there were four main areas to be addressed in dealing with a conjectural issue. In his words:

The rule of conjecture is distributed into four segments, of which the first is asking whether something exists. Next, where did it arise from? Thirdly, what cause made it come about? In the fourth part, (the question) of what alters the subject is asked.369

Cicero’s methodology explains the complex structure of De Anima, whose topic could only be the subject of conjecture. After his customary exordium and narratio, Tertullian dedicated the first part of his treatise to defining the existence of the soul by explaining its nature.370 He

364 Tert. An. 1.1. De solo censu animae congressus Hermogeni, quatenus et istum ex materiae potius suggestu quam ex dei flatu constitisse praesumpsit, nunc ad reliquas conuersus quaestiones plurimum uidebor cum philosophis dimicaturus. 365 Tert. An. 3.4; Pl. Ti. 41a-42d. 366 Tert. An. 27.7; Jones 2004: 113. 367 Sider 1971: 115. 368 Arena 2007: 149. 369 Cic. Top. 21.82. Coniecturae ratio in quattuor partes distributa est, quarum una est cum quaeritur sitne aliquid; altera unde ortum sit; tertia quae id causa effecerit; quarta in qua de commutatione rei quaeritur. 370 Tert. An. 4.1-22.2; Waszink 1947: 15-20. Waszink divides De Anima into three parts, rather than four. However, if Tertullian was indeed following Cicero’s method of structuring a conjectural argument, Waszink’s second segment (chapters 23-37) on the origin of the soul can be split in two. Tertullian dealt with both the origin of the soul and its cause.

82 offered a refutatio of the Platonist arguments concerning the incorporeality of the soul.371 In Tertullian’s view, the soul was corporeal.372 It was of one substance but divided into many parts.373 The soul’s shape was complete from its creation at conception.374 Next, Tertullian addressed the second and third topics for conjecture, explicating the origin of the soul and the circumstances of its creation. After refuting the Platonic ideation of the soul’s origin, Tertullian argued that the soul came into being immediately upon conception.375 After refuting the Pythagorean theory of transmigration, he gave a confirmatio, re-affirming his case that ensoulment occurred at conception.376 Finally, he dealt with the fourth topic, changes in the condition of the soul. This section predominantly consisted of positive arguments.377 He argued that the soul did not change in its nature along with the growth of the body, but developed in its faculties.378 Sin corrupted the soul from its inception, but the anima could be purified by baptism.379 Nor did sleep affect its nature.380 However, in dreams the soul had dominance over the body.381 He argued that death did not affect the soul, which was immortal, but merely separated it from the body.382 All then entered Hades, there held in suspended animation to await the return of Christ.383 Only the souls of the martyrs were worthy to enter heaven immediately upon death.384 Tertullian then rounded off with his conclusio.385

Since Tertullian’s exempla based upon prenatal biology in De Anima owed as much to pagan literary sources as to Scripture, they were clearly not intended as his strongest arguments.386 When referring to the unseen processes of human development, Tertullian relied upon non-Christian literary authorities such as Soranus and Aristotle, rather than common knowledge.387 As Riddle, Kapparis, and Congourdeau thoroughly explore, there was

371 Tert. An. 4.1. 372 Tert. An. 5.1-9.8. 373 Tert. An. 10.1-14.5. 374 Tert. An. 19.1-9. 375 Tert. An. 23.1-37.7. 376 Tert. An. 23.1-35.6. 377 Tert. An. 37.1-55.5. 378 Tert. An. 37.1-7. 379 Tert. An. 39.1-41.4. 380 Tert. An. 43.1-44.3. 381 Tert. An. 44.1-49.3. 382 Tert. An. 50.1-53.6. 383 Tert. An. 54.1-57.12. 384 Tert. An. 55.1-5. 385 Tert. An. 58.1-9. 386 Tertullian’s use of his scriptural and biological sources in De Anima will be considered at greater length in the next two chapters. 387 Perrin 1991: 91-92.

83 no strong consensus in antiquity regarding the physical or metaphysical nature of the unborn.388 Foetal development was the subject of speculation based upon signs visible to the external viewer. When he was describing the physical process of gestation, Tertullian was perhaps knowingly using weak evidence. However, readers of Tertullian schooled in Latin rhetoric would have expected him to present positive arguments in his confirmatio. It was better to present weak evidence than to be caught with no evidence at all. Tertullian would have appeared feeble as a polemicist if he could only attack the opinions of others without presenting any of his own.

On the other hand, Tertullian’s presentation of the processes of pregnancy visible to the naked eye could be considered inartificial evidence. Tertullian employed the experiences of mothers to refute the Platonic ideation of the soul as incorporeal. He argued against the following Platonist syllogism, as rendered in Waszink’s words: ‘The soul is in the body; in one and the same place there cannot possibly be two bodies, so that the soul is not a body.’389 The Platonists had probably arrived at this conclusion from Plato’s discussion of the dualist relationship between body and soul in the Phaedo.390 As evidence, Tertullian retorted that women could obviously carry more than one soul in their bodies while they were pregnant. Indeed, he pointed out a famous case of a woman who carried quintuplets, arguing that there were no less than six souls in her body.391 In chapter twenty-five, Tertullian also drew upon the experiences of mothers and midwives to prove that the infant acquired a soul prior to birth, contrary to Hermogenes’ adaptation of the Stoic and Platonic theory that a child inhaled his or her soul upon their first breath.392 Tertullian presented the views of women as incontrovertible proof, since female testimony could be easily verified by asking women for their experiences. As he argued:

I suppose that it shamed these men to consider that which women (have always) understood! And how much more do they blush, when there is a solution from the women to disprove them, rather than affirm them! In fact, there is no tutor, arbiter, or witness as fitting as the very sex in this type of matter. Answer, mothers, you who are pregnant and you who have already given birth! Sterile women and

388 Riddle 1997: 77-79; Kapparis 2002: 196-198; Congourdeau 2007: 40-44. 389 Waszink 1947: 132. 390 Plat. Phaed. 62b-65a. 391 Tert. An. 6.8-9. 392 Tert. An. 25.1-9.

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men ought to keep quiet, (for) the truth of your own nature is being asked about, and the truth of your suffering is being asserted.393 Tertullian held that women would support his argument concerning animation in the womb, because pregnant women could feel their foetuses moving in response to external stimuli. A mother’s ability to bond emotionally with her foetus was a clear sign that the child lived prior to birth, and that it was not physically part of her body. Knowing that it was a separate entity, a mother could bond with her prenatal infant, sympathising with the unborn child to the point where pregnancy would cause cravings and fluctuations in her emotional state.394 Perhaps Tertullian used the testimony of women to compensate for the weaknesses in his evidence concerning the physiological processes of reproduction. By using a combination of inartificial and artificial evidence, Tertullian made his arguments concerning the point of ensoulment appear stronger.395

It is possible that Tertullian genuinely consulted women concerning pregnancy, but this did not necessarily mean that he himself trusted their testimony. As a Montanist, Tertullian was unusually well positioned to consult women concerning the mysteries of childbirth. As De Virginibus Velandis makes clear, Montanists were unusual among early Christian communities in that Montanist females seem to have exercised more privileges than those of other sects.396 Tertullian’s consternation over the immodesty of young women attending church attests to their presence alongside men.397 Women clearly spoke at meetings, as Tertullian made clear in his description of a woman’s testimony concerning her ecstatic of the soul’s shape in De Anima.398 The unique status of Montanist women perhaps emerged because two of the three founders of the Montanist movement, Prisca and Maximilla, were women.399 Of course, the fact that Tertullian used the evidence of women concerning childbirth in De Anima should not necessarily indicate that he held women in any particular esteem. After all, his rhetoric was often unsympathetic towards women, even if he

393 Tert. An. 25.3. Puduit, opinor, illos id statuere quod feminae agnoscerent. Et quanto ruboratior exitus a feminis reuinci quam probari! In ista namque specie nemo tam idoneus magister arbiter testis quam sexus ipsius. Respondete, matres, uos quae praegnantes, uos quae puerperae, steriles et masculi taceant, uestrae naturae ueritas quaeritur, uestrae passionis fides conuenitur. 394 Tert. An. 25.3. 395 If Tertullian did indeed consult with women on pregnancy, he was the first extant writer of Greco-Roman antiquity to do so. Indeed, some male writers, such as Tertullian’s contemporary Galen actively rejected the testimony of women concerning reproduction, considering females to be unreliable witnesses. Consult Galen De Placitis Hippocritis et Platonis 3.5.22; 3.8.36. 396 Dunn 2004: 100. 397 Tert. Virg. Vel. 3.4. 398 Tert. An. 9.4. It is worth noting, however, that the woman discussed in this passage was allowed to speak after the main service had concluded. 399 Trevett 1996: 159.

85 cannot be called overtly misogynistic.400 He frequently construed women as a corrupting influence upon men, once going so far as to call women ‘the gateway of the devil.’401 Tertullian cited the testimony of women concerning pregnancy because he needed proof to support his idea that the embryo gained a soul upon conception.

In De Anima, Tertullian again examined the issue of abortion in relation to the motive of necessity. Tertullian made an oblique reference to the idea that abortion was medically necessary in instances where pregnancy threatened the life of a mother. As he said:

Sometimes, an infant is killed in the womb by cruel necessity, because the oblique presentation makes delivery impossible and so kills his mother unless he dies. So among physicians’ tools there is first an instrument of a well-proportioned twisting frame for forcing open the secreta; next an anulcultro for cutting up the limbs inside with careful mastery; next a blunt hook for pulling out the entire violated thing with a violent delivery. There is also a copper spike for the dark killing, it is called  for its infanticidal function, because of course the infant was alive.402

It is tempting to follow Dölger’s interpretation that this passage condoned therapeutic abortion.403 After all, in De Anima Tertullian described abortion as necessaria crudelitatas, or ‘cruel necessity’ even in cases where it would save the mother’s life.404 Yet the fact that Tertullian might have grudgingly recognised instances where abortion was medically justifiable should not suggest in any way that Tertullian expressed sympathy for those who practised abortion.405 The procedure of late-term abortion and subsequent embryotomy provided a vivid, visceral illustration that the foetus had been animated before its first breath. It is thus likely that he described therapeutic abortion as a necessity simply to justify his use of it as proof.

400 Dunn 2004: 36. 401 Tert. Cult. Fem. 1.1. Tu es diaboli ianua. Of course, this need not suggest that Tertullian had any particular rancour against women, as Church (1975: 86-88) argues. Tertullian chastised Adam as well as Eve, and in general was as harsh towards men as he was towards women. 402 Tert. An. 25.4-5. Atquin et in ipso adhuc utero infans trucidatur necessaria crudelitate, cum in exitu obliquatus denegat partum, matricida, ni moriturus. Itaque est inter arma medicorum et cum organo, ex quo prius patescere secreta coguntur tortili temperamento, cum anulocultro, quo intus membra caeduntur anxio arbitrio, cum hebete unco, quo totum facinus extrahitur uiolento puerperio. Est etiam aeneum spiculum, quo iugulatio ipsa dirigitur caeco latrocinio; appellant de infanticidii officio, utique uiuentis infantis peremptorium. Translation by Heyne (2011: 161); Heyne’s translation has been used for this section of De Anima due to his training as a surgeon, and his resulting familiarity with the tools required for the operation. 403 Dölger 1934: 46. 404 Tert. An. 25.5. 405 Gonzalez 1959: 221-228.

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According to the rhetoric of De Anima, abortion may have been a necessary evil under certain circumstances, but it was an evil nonetheless. As a motivation, necessity was insufficient for abortion. Even when Tertullian insinuated that abortion was necessaria, he continually condemned the procedure by his use of pejorative terms.406 Noonan points out that Tertullian’s use of the verb caeduntur to describe the actual destruction of the foetus carried connotations of unmitigated slaughter.407 Tertullian further condemned abortion as a form of infanticidium or ‘infanticide,’ and called it a scelus, or ‘crime.’408 Noonan also points out that Tertullian here described the foetus as a facinus, or ‘victim of a crime.’409 Noonan further proposes that Tertullian was actually being sarcastic in his juxtaposition of the words iugulatio, ‘throat-cutting,’ and anxio arbitrio, ‘careful mastery.’410 Tertullian also condemned those who ended the lives of foetuses at any point prior to birth as murderers.411 The use of such pejorative and emotive language to describe abortion outweighed his passing insinuation that it could be medically necessary. Tertullian later described adherence to the medical necessity of abortion as less honourable as a motive than obedience to the condemnation of induced miscarriage in the Law of .412

Probably written in 206, De Carne Christi was an invective directed against the Docetist principles espoused by the heretic, Marcion.413 Tertullian also targeted Marcion’s followers, including , , and Alexander. As Docetists, the first three heretics argued that Christ had no physical body. Rather, Marcion argued that was a kind of phantom who lacked human flesh. He denied that Jesus had a human birth.414 Apelles, on the other hand, denied the nativity of Christ but believed that Jesus did possess a human body. Valentinus admitted both Christ’s birth and His flesh, but argued that they were of a different character to that of humankind.415 Alexander differed from the other heretics, in that he mistakenly believed that those who acknowledged Christ’s flesh conceded that Christ’s body

406 Tert. An. 25.5. 407 Noonan 1970: 13. 408 Tert. An. 25.5-6. 409 Noonan 1970: 13. As Waszink (1947: 327) points out, this is an unusual use of facinus. Normally, the term would refer to the crime itself, not its victim. If Tertullian did use the term in its usual sense, then it is possible that he was describing the foetus metaphorically as a crime in light of its potential to become a mother-killer. However, the Younger Seneca also uses the term to denote the victim of a violent crime in Phoenissae, line 363. Waszink finds it more likely that Tertullian here used the term in the same way as Seneca. 409 Noonan 1970: 13. 410 Noonan 1970: 13. 411 Tert. An. 25.5-6. 412 Tert. An. 37.2. 413 Barnes 1985: 55. 414 Tert. Carn. 1.2. 415 Tert. Carn. 16.1-3.

87 was of a sinful nature. In Alexander’s view, non-Docetists believed that in the Jesus had forever redeemed the flesh of humankind.416 Though he was dealing with four separate heretics, Tertullian disproved each of them by utilising a single argument. Tertullian’s thesis was that Christ had to have had a normal human form, and that He was born of a virgin.417 In his closing remarks, Tertullian said that De Carne Christi formed a preamble to his later work, De Resurrectione Mortuorum.418 The point that Jesus was physically human in both birth and flesh was subordinate to Tertullian's greater purpose of proving that the Passion of Christ enabled the resurrection and redemption of humankind in body and soul. Therefore, the entire work should be viewed in light of Tertullian’s soteriological conceptualisation of Christ.419 If Jesus were of some species other than human, then Christ’s own death and resurrection would have had no significance for those of the human race.

The structure of De Carne Christi has been interpreted in numerous ways. Most controversially, Otten has divided the treatise into two broad segments. She argues that the first section (comprising chapters 2.1-16.5) dealt with the truth of Christ’s nature, while the second portion (17.23-23.6) focused upon the quality of Christ’s being.420 Yet Otten perhaps oversimplifies the structure of the treatise by not considering the precepts of classical rhetoric, as previously discussed in the introductory chapter of this dissertation. The contributions of Sider and Dunn (2007) on the structure of De Carne Christi are of greater value here, and will provide the basis for the discussion below. Broadly, the structure may be divided into a partitio (1.1-3), refutatio (2.1-16.5), confirmatio (17.23-23.6), and conclusio (24.1-25.2).

First, Tertullian offered a highly compact introduction. His first chapter contained both his propositio and the narratio.421 He launched straight into his propositio, demarcating the purpose of the treatise.422 He then provided a narration of the circumstances which had led to the present controversy, describing each of the heretics in turn.423 Tertullian then turned towards the body of his treatise, offering negative arguments against each of the heretics in

416 Tert. Carn. 16.1-2. 417 Tert. Carn. 25.1. 418 Tert. Carn. 25.2. 419 Dunn 2007: 468. 420 Otten 1997: 248-254. 421 Sider 1971: 27-28; Dunn 2007: 471. 422 Tert. Carn. 1.1-2. 423 Tert. Carn. 1.2-3.

88 turn. The first subject of his ire was, of course, Marcion. After discussing the significance of Isaiah and drawing upon exempla from Luke, Tertullian indicated that Marcion did not have the authority to make his outlandish claims, since he was not a true Christian.424 Tertullian then turned to the themes of advantage, honour and necessity, which were normally reserved for deliberative treatises.425 Tertullian first argued that God had the power to assume human form without any change to His essential nature. Thus He did not demean himself by His incarnation.426 Subsequently, Tertullian turned to the theme of honour, dealing with Marcion’s view that it would have been dishonourable for Jesus to have had an ordinary gestation and birth.427

Here, Tertullian made several remarks which are relevant to discerning his attitude towards the unborn child. In his words:

If, therefore, you do not repudiate the assumption of a body as unfeasible or perilous for God, it is left for you to scorn and reproach it as worthless. Beginning from the hated childbirth itself, come now and make a case against the filth of the generative elements within the uterus, the condensed curdling of fluids and blood, (and against) the nine-month development of the flesh out of that same muck. Describe the uterus as it enlarges daily: (it is) insolent, weighty, troubled, insecure even in slumber, uncertain in its feelings of squeamishness, desire, and gluttony. And inveigh now against the very shame of the woman giving birth. Yet this should instead be honoured due to (her) peril, or be revered due to nature. No doubt you recoil from the baby too, when it is poured out into life along with the slurry and detrius (from the womb). You consider (the infant) unworthy even after it has been washed, dressed in swaddling-clothes, anointed, and smiled upon charmingly. Marcion, you spit upon this venerated course of nature. And how exactly were you born? You detest a nascent human being, so how do you anybody? You obviously had no love for yourself when you withdrew from the Church and the faith of Christ. But never mind, if you are displeased with yourself, or if you were born in a way different from other people. Christ, certainly, has loved even that person who was condensed in the uterus amidst all its foulness, even one who was brought (into life) through the shameful (process), and even one among the fawning of the nurses.428

424 Tert. Carn. 2.1-3. 425 Sider 1971: 56-58; Dunn 2007: 472. 426 Tert. Carn. 3.3-9. 427 Tert. Carn. 4.1-5.1. 428 Tert. Carn. 4.1-3. Igitur si neque ut impossibilem neque ut periculosam deo repudias corporationem, superest ut quasi indignam reicias et accuses. ab ipsa quidem exorsus odio habita nativitate perora, age iam spurcitias genitalium in utero elementorum, humoris et sanguinis foeda coagula, carnis ex eodem caeno alendae per novem menses. describe uterum de die in diem insolescentem, gravem, anxium, nec somno tutum, incertum libidinibus fastidii et gulae. invehere iam et in ipsum mulieris enitentis pudorem, vel pro periculo

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Tertullian here relied upon his reader’s general awareness of the alenda per novem menses and subsequent nativitas as a source for inartificial evidence. He described the distension of the uterus during pregnancy, and perhaps showed his knowledge of the movement of the foetus within the womb. He demonstrated an appreciation of the dangers of childbirth, calling the process periculum. Indeed, he argued that the process of this ordeal ought to be honoured. Evoking vivid imagery, Tertullian also discussed the profusion of blood and amniotic fluids that accompanied the delivery of a baby. None of these things would have been particularly difficult for his reader to grasp; even if his male readers had not witnessed the birth of a baby with their own eyes, it would not have been difficult to imagine. Anybody could see the swelling of a woman’s belly and feel the movement of the child within. Families would have been all too aware of the perils which the arrival of a new child brought. Tertullian did not here rest his case upon particularly technical or contrived arguments drawn from his learning in embryology, as he would later in the confirmatio of the treatise.

Instead, he painted an image of childbirth in broad strokes to show that Christ’s nativity was as normal as that of anyone else. He also demonstrated that Marcion was a self- loathing misanthrope by suggesting that childbirth would have been in some sense unworthy of God.429 In doing so, Tertullian undermined Marcion’s ethos considerably. Marcion had alienated himself from the rest of humanity in his repudiation of Christ’s birth, according to Tertullian’s rhetoric. As a consequence, Tertullian implied that the Pontic heretic had also alienated himself from the reader.

Tertullian then built upon his description of the gestation and birthing process as a humble one for his next point about the necessity of foolishness for Jesus.430 He quoted 1 Corinthians 27: ‘God has chosen the foolish things of the world, in order to confound the wise.’431 It was thus necessary for God to partake in something as foolish as the assumption of human flesh. ‘Will anything be more "foolish" than believing that God was born, and of a virgin for that matter! And (who was) moreover of a fleshly (nature), who wallowed in all honorandum, vel pro natura religiosum. Horres utique et infantem cum suis impedimentis profusum, utique et oblitum. dedignaris quod pannis dirigitur, quod unctionibus formatur, quod blanditiis deridetur. hanc venerationem naturae, Marcion, despuis, et quomodo natus es? odisti nascentem hominem, et quomodo diligis aliquem? te quidem plane non amasti cum ab ecclesia et fide Christi recessisti. sed videris si tibi displices aut si aliter es natus: certe Christus dilexit hominem illum in immunditiis in utero coagulatum, illum per pudenda prolatum, illum per ludibria nutritum. 429 Tert. Carn. 4.2. 430 Dunn 2007: 472; Tert. Carn. 4.5-5.4. It was in section 5.4 that Tertullian offered up his famous paradox, credibile est, quia ineptum est. For thorough explanations of Tertullian’s logic here, consult González (1974: 17-25), Sider (1980: 417-419), and Osborn (1997: 48-64). 431 Tert. Carn. 4.5.

90 those embarrassments of nature?’432 The foundation of Christian faith, he argued, was false if Christ were not born, since if that were true then He could not redeem humankind by His resurrection.433 In response, he asserted that Jesus had dual natures. One of these was of God, and the other of man.434

Having thus dealt with Marcion, Tertullian moved on to give Apelles a similar treatment in the second section (6.1-9.8) of the refutatio. Apelles contended that Christ’s body was composed of sidereal substance, more akin to that of an angel than of a human.435 Tertullian swiftly demolished the claim that God granted Jesus a body like that of the . After all, such a claim was based upon the Old Testament, the veracity of which Marcion and his followers repudiated.436 In chapter seven, Tertullian turned towards scriptural of Matthew 12.48, in which Jesus inquired: ‘Who is my mother and who are my brothers?’437 Apelles interpreted the passage as a denial of their existence. Tertullian retorted that Jesus was simply denying his mother and his brothers in the sense that: ‘while strangers were fixated on Him, His closest relatives were absent... they wish to call Him away from such great work.’438 Tertullian then proceeded to argue on a conjectural basis that the human side of Christ’s being was not celestial in its . Rather, His divine nature was.439

For the third part of his refutation (10.1-15.6), Tertullian targeted Valentinus. It should be noted that Tertullian’s understanding of Valentinus’ ideas was perhaps not based on reading any of Valentinus’ works directly. Rather, he seems to have read a text by one of the heretic’s students.440 Valentinus claimed that Christ’s flesh was actually animalis, or composed of His soul. Therefore, Jesus’ soul was indistinguishable from His body.441 Tertullian replied that since humankind was of a dual nature with the corpus separate from the anima, and Christ was sent to redeem the soul and not the flesh, there would have been no

432 Tert. Carn. 4.6. Quaere ergo de quibus dixerit: et si te praesumpseris invenisse, num erit tam stultum quam credere in deum natum, et quidem ex virgine, et quidem carneum, qui per illas naturae contumelias volutatus sit? 433 Tert. Carn. 5.2-4. 434 Tert. Carn. 5.7-9. 435 Tert. Carn. 6.1-2. 436 Tert. Carn. 6.4. 437 Tert. Carn. 7.1. 438 Tert. Carn. 7.9-10. cum Iesus doceret viam vitae, cum dei regnum praedicaret, cum languoribus et vitiis medendis operaretur, extraneis defixis in illum tam proximi aberant: denique superveniunt et foris subsistunt nec introeunt, non computantes scilicet quid intus ageretur, nec sustinent saltem, quasi necessarius aliquid afferrent eo quod ille cum maxime agebat, sed amplius interpellant et a tanto opere revocatum volunt. 439 Tert. Carn. 8.6-7. 440 Tert. Carn. 15.3. 441 Tert. Carn. 10.1-2.

91 purpose in transforming His soul into flesh.442 God’s intent was not to show humankind the soul by revealing it in fleshly form. This would have been redundant, since the soul was self- aware.443 Moreover, Christ Himself spoke of the body and soul as two distinct entities.444 According to the interpretation of Valentinus, Jesus’ nature had to have been angelic, for if He had possessed a human body, then Christ would have been subject to corruption.445 Tertullian counter-argued that if Christ were an angel, then He could not have saved humankind through the Passion, since He would have been a completely different species.446 Finally, he argued that if the Valentinians were to acknowledge Christ’s death, then it followed that they should also acknowledge His mortal flesh.447

The fourth and briefest section of the refutatio (16.1-5) dealt with Alexander. Tertullian’s arguments here were somewhat tangential to his main purpose of arguing for the existence of Christ’s flesh, for Tertullian here needed to demolish Alexander’s accusation that Christians who acknowledged the existence of Jesus’ human flesh rejected . Alexander, apparently, would say that non-Docetists contrived Christ’s flesh as sinful in its nature, and that he had redeemed the flesh of all humankind from Original Sin. As Tertullian put it:

Furthermore, that Alexander, with his desire for argumentation and his ingenious , carved out a niche for himself by having us affirm a consensus that Christ put on an earthly flesh, so that He could in His own person nullify the sinful flesh.448 It is optimal to view this chapter as a praemunitio. Tertullian had to quash Alexander’s protest before he could move on to advance positive arguments in subsequent chapters. In response, Tertullian carefully made the distinction between the carnem peccati, the ‘sinful flesh,’ and the peccatum carnis, the ‘sin of the flesh.’ Christ had done away with the latter rather than the former, ‘not the material (of the flesh), but its (sinful) nature; not its substance, but its error.’449

442 Tert. Carn. 10.2. 443 Tert. Carn. 12.1-7. 444 Tert. Carn. 13.1-16. 445 Tert. Carn. 14.1. 446 Tert. Carn. 14.2-6. 447 Tert. Carn. 15.4-6. 448 Tert. Carn. 16.1. Insuper argumentandi libidine ex forma ingenii haeretici locum sibi fecit Alexander ille quasi nos affirmemus idcirco Christum terreni census induisse carnem ut evacuaret in semet ipso carnem peccati. 449 Tert. Carn. 16.2. adeo, ut evacuatam non possumus dicere , ita nec peccatricem in qua dolus non fuit. defendirnus autem non carnem peccati evacuatam esse in Christo sed peccatum carnis, non

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Having concluded his refutatio, Tertullian turned towards his confirmatio, which comprised chapters 17.1-23.6. Tertullian had two main positive arguments here, which were very closely linked. First, he argued that Christ’s flesh had its origin in His mother, Mary. Secondly, Jesus’ flesh was human because it was derived from that of a human.450 Tertullian’s focus upon questions of origin and cause here are not surprising, in light of the themes of conjecture.451 The quality of Christ’s flesh was the subject of conjecture rather than hard evidence. Tertullian actually admitted that Scripture had nothing to say about the substance from which the Word was made flesh.452 He was therefore pressed to come up with novel ways in which to interpret Scripture so that it would prove his thesis. Tertullian first considered the origin of Christ’s flesh, which had its roots in the Creation narrative. He compared Jesus to Adam; just as Adam came from the virgin earth, so too must Jesus have come from a virgin.453 Since Mary was a descendent of , her form too originated from the earth. Through her, Christ’s flesh therefore had its origin in the earth as well. On the other hand, Tertullian also contrasted Mary and Eve. While Eve was tempted by the words of , Mary was filled with the spirit of God. Eve thus gave birth to the first murderer, , while the birth of Jesus inaugurated the new life for the human race.454 God’s motive, therefore, in clothing Jesus in a human flesh, was to redeem the human race.

Tertullian’s next arguments leaned heavily upon ancient understandings of embryogenesis. His points about pregnancy here were far more obscure and theoretical than those advanced in chapter four. In chapter eighteen, Tertullian re-affirmed his point about the dual nature of Christ.455 Essentially, he explained this in terms of the origin of Christ, His conception. Tertullian was adamant that no human sperm was involved in the process of Christ’s conception. Rather, the spiritus of God filled the role normally carried out by the father’s sperm.456 The spirit impregnated Mary, endowing Christ with the divine aspect of His being. Yet Christ’s flesh came from Mary, who provided His humanity.457 Tertullian had to nullify the objection that .13 said Christ would be born ‘not of blood, nor of the will

materiam sed naturam, nec substantiam sed culpam, secundum apostoli auctoritatem dicentis, Evacuavit peccatum in carne. 450 Tert. Carn. 17.1. 451 Sider 1971: 28; Dunn 2007: 475. 452 Tert. Carn. 18.4. 453 Tert. Carn. 17.3-4. 454 Tert. Carn. 17.5-6. 455 Tert. Carn. 18.1-3. 456 Tert. Carn. 18.3. 457 Tert. Carn. 18.7.

93 of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.’458 As discussed in the third chapter of this dissertation, Tertullian’s arguments here were underpinned by Aristotle’s understanding of reproduction. For the present, it is important to the manner in which he presented the evidence.

Tertullian was affirming arguments for which there was no inartificial proof, since none of the offered a physiological description of the Incarnation of Christ.459 Tertullian was perhaps aware of the shortcomings of his proof, and attempted to disguise it as inartificial evidence. Tertullian based his understanding of Christ’s conception upon a relatively obscure tradition drawn from Aristotle’s theory of spermatogenesis. Moreover, many other authors had contradicted Aristotle’s conception theory. To cover up the slenderness of his evidence, Tertullian resolved the discrepancy between John 1.13 and the concept of the virgin birth by his insistence that John actually was referring to male seed in his discussion of blood. Tertullian asserted that the sperm ‘is well known (emphasis added) to be warm blood, changed by into the coagulum of the woman's blood.’460 Yet, as he repeated several times, there was no human seed involved in the conception of Christ.461 Tertullian clearly hoped that his reader would consider this exemplum drawn from Aristotle as common knowledge, when in fact it was easily challenged by reference to alternative traditions.

Having discussed the particulars of Christ’s conception, Tertullian then turned towards His development in utero. He drew upon a rich array of exempla drawn from Scripture as inartificial evidence to prove that Christ was born ‘of’ Mary, and was not simply ‘in’ her, and that Jesus’ body was generated out of Mary’s. He particularly relied upon Matthew 1.16 and 1.20, Galatians 4.4, John 1.14, and Psalm 21.9.462 Tertullian’s interpretation of the psalm was Christological. However, Tertullian again turned to artificial evidence to underscore the inartificial. Tertullian discussed the biology of lactation once again in Aristotelian terms in order to elaborate upon his interpretation of .9: ‘Thou art my hope from my mother's breasts; upon Thee have I been cast from the womb.’463 Tertullian’s point was Mary would only have been lactating if she was pregnant, and thus she

458 Tert. Carn. 19.1-5. 459 Playoust and Aitken 2008: 157-158. 460 Tert. Carn. 19.3-4. ... sed materiam seminis quam constat sanguinis esse calorem ut despumatione mutatum in coagulum sanguinis feminae. 461 Tert. Carn. 18.1-3; 21.1-2. 462 Tert. Carn. 20.1-6. 463 Tert. Carn. 20.5-6.

94 did carry Him. The umbilical cord ‘communicated growth to Him from the uterus.’464 He invoked the witness of ‘doctors, midwives, and natural philosophers.’465 As discussed in Chapter Three of this dissertation, his understanding was based primarily upon his reading of Soranus and Aristotle.

Tertullian surely did not mean for the biological arguments of chapters 18.3-19.5 to be his strongest. He placed them in the middle of his confirmatio, sandwiched in between his comparison of Adam and Christ (17.4), and his discussion of Isaiah (21.1-23.6). For the remainder of De Carne Christi, Tertullian was on much firmer ground. Chapters 21.1-23.6 presented inartificial evidence drawn from Scripture. Tertullian advanced the argument that Christ was the fulfilment of messianic prophecy in Isaiah 7.14, which predicted that the would be conceived of a virgin. He then produced a series of passages which confirmed the Christological reading of Isaiah.466 Finally, in chapters 24.1-25.2, Tertullian wrapped with his conclusio. Tertullian was likely bearing in mind the advice of Rhetorica ad Herrenium:

In the confirmatio and refutation of arguments it is appropriate to have a regular disposition of this kind. The firmest arguments ought to be positioned at the beginning and at the end of the speech. The mediocre ones, and also those that are neither useless to the speech nor (strictly) necessary for the discussion, should be placed in the middle. These would be weak if presented separately or singularly, but become firm and credible when presented in conjunction with the others. For immediately after the facts have been stated, the hearer waits to see whether the case can by some means be proven. That is why we should immediately present a firm argument. For the remainder, since the final statements are easily committed to memory, it is useful, when finishing up speaking, to leave a very firm argument well in the hearer's mind. This disposition of topics in speech, just like the arrangement of soldiers in battle, will make victory possible.467

464 Tert. Carn. 20.5. si adhaesit qui avulsus est, quomodo adhaesisset nisi dum ex utero est per illum nervum umbilicarem quasi folliculi sui traducem adnexus origini vulvae? 465 Tert. Carn. 20.6. respondeant obstetrices et medici et physici de uberum natura. 466 Tert. Carn. 21.1-23.6. 467 Rhet. Her. 3.10. In confirmatione et confutatione argumentationum dispositionem huiusmodi convenit habere: firmissimas argumentationes in primis et in postremis causae partibus conlocare; mediocres, et neque inutiles ad dicendum neque necessarias ad probandum, quae si separatim ac singulae dicantur infirmae sint, cum ceteris coniunctae firmae et probabiles fiunt, interponi oportet. Nam et statim re narrata expectat animus auditoris si qua re causa confirmari possit—quapropter continuo firmam aliquam oportet inferre argumentationem; et reliqua, quoniam nuperrime dictum facile memoriae mandatur, utile est, cum dicere desinamus, recentem aliquam relinquere in animis auditorum bene firmam argumentationem. Haec dispositio locorum, tamquam instructio militum, facillime in dicendo, sicut illa in pugnando, parere poterit victoriam. Quint. Inst. 7.10 made a similar point.

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It is not surprising that Tertullian would finish his treatise with inartificial proofs from holy text, rather than the artificial ones based upon biology. His argument would have appeared rather feeble if he had closed with such shaky evidence.

For Adversus Marcionem, Tertullian adopted an invective stance that was rather more ad hominem than that of De Carne Christi. Tertullian devoted much of his exordium to slandering Marcion as the product of a backward province.468 It was probably written around the same time as De Anima. Barnes suggests that it was written between April AD 207 and April 208.469 As mentioned previously, the surviving text was the third revision of a small, inferior invective.470 In this treatise, Tertullian sought to discredit the Marcionites’ dualist ideation of God. In the narratio of Book One, Tertullian iterated that Marcion, the founder of the heresy, had argued that the wrathful God of the Old Testament was a completely different being from the merciful God of the New Testament. Marcion believed that Christ was a new deity suddenly revealed to the world, totally unconnected to anything that had come before.471 Marcion therefore rejected the Old Testament entirely, and upheld only an amended version of Luke’s Gospel and a handful of Paul’s letters as canonical.472 Marcion had also taken snippets of Luke and paired them with passages from the Old Testament which supposedly contradicted .473 He called this work the Antitheses. In the partitio, Tertullian declared that he would disprove all Marcionite dogma once and for all, wiping out all memory of his previous, lesser invectives against Marcion.474

Adversus Marcionem was a massive work which comprised five books. Although the text was very long, its overall structure was relatively simple.475 Here, it is helpful to consult Evans’s summary of the content. In Evans’s view, the first three books served to explicate Tertullian’s theology.476 Book One dealt with the philosophical underpinnings of Marcionite dualism.477 The Old Testament was the main focus of Book Two. Here, Tertullian argued for the continuity of the Old Testament and the New.478 The third book attacked Marcion’s

468 Tert. Marc. 1.1.3-6. 469 Barnes 1985: 55. 470 Tert. Marc. 1.1.1-2. 471 Tert. Marc. 1.2.1-3. 472 Williams 1989: 477. 473 Tert. Marc. 4.1.1. 474 Tert. Marc. 1.1.1. 475 Barnes 1985: 255. 476 Evans 1972: xvii. 477 Tert. Marc. 1.1.1-1.29.9. 478 Tert. Marc. 2.1.1-2.29.4.

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Christology, arguing that Jesus was both God and man.479 The next two books cross- examined Marcion’s evidence. Book Four was a kind of hostile commentary on Marcion’s version of Luke’s gospel, analysing the text chapter-by-chapter to prove Marcion’s heresy.480 Book Five did likewise with Paul’s letters.481

In Book Four, Tertullian made a comment about the nature of the unborn child that was as brief as it was illuminating. It is thus worthwhile to examine Tertullian’s stated aims and methods as outlined in the partitio of Book Four. The introduction of Book Four comprises its first six chapters. First, Tertullian briefly delineated his plan to base the majority of his arguments upon Marcion’s mutilated text of Luke, humiliating Marcion by using his own sacred text to prove him wrong.482 As he said: ‘I now defy every sentence, and indeed the entire arrangement, which arose from Marcion's impiety and sacrilege, in terms of that gospel which he has by interpolation made his own.’483 Tertullian declared that his plan of attack was not to contend with Marcion directly, but to flatten his interpolation of Luke by demonstrating a more accurate interpretation. In fact, Marcion’s own evidence actually discredited him:

Ah, but I could have destroyed those (Antitheses) by using a carefully arranged attack, addressing each of the Pontic man’s interjections singularly. I might have failed, if it were not more convenient by far to neutralise them all together both in and along with that gospel which they administer. Though it is quite easy to rebuff them by (offering up my own) precepts, (it would be even easier) if I were to make them acceptable, and if I were to consider them authoritative, and if I were to say that they (actually) build up my argument, so that (the Antitheses) could be shamed for the blindness of their author, (for they would) now become my own antitheses against Marcion.484 In this passage Tertullian also revealed the structure of this book would mirror that of Luke directly. As was customary for the partitio, Tertullian outlined the extent to which he agreed with his opponent. There was no denying the differences between the Old and New Testaments, as Tertullian recognised. Yet this did not indicate that the texts were the products

479 Tert. Marc. 3.1.1-3.25.13. 480 Tert. Marc. 4.1.1-4.43.9. 481 Tert. Marc. 5.1.1-5.21.2. 482 Tert. Marc. 4.2.1-5. 483 Tert. Marc. 4.1.1. Omnem sententiam et omnem paraturam impii atque sacrilegi Marcionis ad ipsum iam evangelium eius provocamus quod interpolando suum fecit. 484 Tert. Marc. 4.1.2. Sed et istas proprio congressu cominus, id est per singulas iniectiones Pontici, cecidissem, si non multo opportunius in ipso et cum ipso evangelio cui procurant retunderentur; quamquam tam facile est praescriptive occurrere, et quidem ut accepto eas faciam, ut rato habeam, ut nobiscum facere dicam, quo magis de caecitate auctoris sui erubescant, nostrae iam antitheses adversus Marcionem.

97 of two different deities. Rather, the new Law inaugurated by Christ was the fulfilment of messianic expectation; it was impossible to separate the gospels from the Old Testament.485

The next four chapters (4.2.1-4.5.7) continued Tertullian’s attack upon Marcion and discredited his evidence. The other three gospels were genuine, and were the product of the ancient Jewish tradition. Marcion’s version of the gospel, on the other hand, was a radical new invention from the barbaric province of .486 The authorship of Marcion’s gospel was not even properly ascribed.487 Tertullian could have made a stand on this point alone. Instead, he said: ‘I prefer to contend all points, and I do not leave aside anything that can be understood (as being) in my favour.’488 Indeed, Luke was not by any means the strongest of the sources from which Marcion could have chosen. Perhaps Marcion had singled out Luke on the basis that the other apostles were false. If this were true, then Marcion was discrediting Jesus Himself. If the apostles’ testimony was false, then surely Luke’s was too.489 Both Marcion and Tertullian believed their version of Luke was the true one. The veracity of Tertullian’s text was born out by its antiquity, whilst Marcion’s gospel was the result of his recent meddling.490

In chapter six, Tertullian reaffirmed his intention to prove that Marcion’s text was corrupt, and that his dualist heresy was blind, by carefully proving that Jesus belonged to the Creator. He ended the introduction thus: ‘I ask you, reader, to recall this statement and this prescript at all times, and begin to recognise that Christ is either of Marcion or of the Creator.’491 Tertullian sought to disprove the Marcionite interpretation of Luke by means of positive argument. Tertullian’s confirmatio was thus not easily distinguishable from his refutatio.492 Having brought the preamble to a close, Tertullian embarked upon his commentary in earnest. Since Marcion had apparently deleted the first three chapters of Luke, Tertullian began his commentary in chapter seven at Luke 4.31. Tertullian diligently grappled with Marcion’s interpretation of Luke 4.31-8.48 in chapters 7.1-20.14 of Adversus Marcionem.

485 Tert. Marc. 4.1.3-11. 486 Tert. Marc. 4.2.1-2. 487 Tert. Marc. 4.2.3. 488 Tert. Marc. 4.2.4. Sed per omnia congredi malumus, nec dissimulamus quod ex nostro intellegi potest. 489 Tert. Marc. 4.2.4-5. 490 Tert. Marc. 4.4.1-4.5.7. 491 Tert. Marc. 4.6.4. Huius pacti et huius praescripti, quaeso te, lector, memineris ubique, et incipe recognoscere aut Marcionis Christum aut creatoris. 492 Sider 1971: 33.

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Tertullian’s comment about the unborn child may be found in chapter twenty-one, which dealt with .1-9.26.493 Here, Tertullian once again assailed Marcion’s docetist understanding of Christ, with effects similar to those witnessed in De Carne Christi. Tertullian presented the crowd’s identification of Jesus as or as a of the Old Testament (Luke 9.19) as proof of the relationship between Jesus and the Creator.494 Tertullian viewed Peter’s identification of Jesus as Christ (Luke 9.20) as confirmation that Peter had recognised Jesus due to his learning of the sacred Scriptures.495 Yet Jesus also said, ‘Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.’496 The remainder of Tertullian’s chapter focused upon these words.

According to Tertullian, one could only be ashamed of the true Christ, for He had taken upon Himself all the indignities of human flesh. Marcion’s sidereal Christ, on the other hand, was supposedly composed of some higher substance, and thus His form was not the object of shame:

He can’t have been curdled in a virgin’s womb, let alone that of a grown woman. Yet even though there were no seed, by the law of corporeal substance (he must have been conceived) from the blood of a woman. (Your Christ) was never considered to be flesh before he was formed, and was not called a foetus after His figuration. He was not delivered after ten months of anguish, nor was He spilled out upon the ground through the body’s sewer, with sudden trembling pains along with the filth of all that time, and He did not at once favourably meet the light with tears, or experience His first wound at the cutting of the cord. He was not cleansed with balm, and was treated with neither salt nor honey, and His swaddling was not His first winding sheet. From that point on, there was no question of His wallowing in the foulness of its folds, of Him troubling her breasts, of Him having a long infancy, a difficult boyhood, slowly (becoming) a man. Rather, He was left exposed out of heaven. He was at once grown-up, at once complete, Christ straight away: spirit, and , and also God—and that only. So then, as He was not a genuine man, for (His humanity) could not be seen. Likewise, there was nothing to be ashamed of in the curse of the cross, for He lacked its truth, since

493 Tert. Marc. 4.21.1-12. 494 Tert. Marc. 4.21.2. 495 Tert. Marc. 4.21.6-12. 496 Luke 9.26. ὃς γὰρ ἂν ἐπαισχυνθῇ με καὶ τοὺς ἐμοὺς λόγους, τοῦτον ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐπαισχυνθήσεται, ὅταν ἔλθῃ ἐν τῇ δόξῃ αὐτοῦ καὶ τοῦ πατρὸς καὶ τῶν ἁγίων ἀγγέλων.

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He lacked a body. And thus it could not have been (a phantom Christ) that said, “Whoever will be ashamed of me.”497 Tertullian here employed embryological theory as a form of artificial evidence. As explored in the third chapter of this dissertation, Tertullian here presented the process of hominisation in utero as a gradual one, echoing Aristotle. Using such obscure scientific theories reinforced the purpose of Adversus Marcionem in two ways. First, Tertullian here depicted the humble origins of a baby to illustrate the mystery of the divine humiliation.498 By lowering Himself to the human level, God showed compassion for the human race.499 Jesus assured humanity’s salvation by assuming human form, including the more primal or visceral aspects of fleshly existence, such as the process of being conceived and born. He was not perfect from inception, but mere caro ante formam. The point in this passage is very similar to that of De Carne Christi 4.1-4.3. Next, it is probable that Tertullian aimed to ridicule the lack of embryological learning in Marcion and his followers.500 Portraying Marcion and the Marcionite heretics as scientifically uneducated would have aided Tertullian’s characterisation of Marcion as an uncultured barbarian, as he portrayed him in the exordium.501 By contrast, Tertullian implicitly characterised himself as a master of embryology. By constructing himself as an authority on the subject, Tertullian made it clear to his reader that his views were more reliable.

For the remainder of the treatise body, Tertullian continued his commentary on Luke 9.28-24.53. His conclusio for the fourth book was extremely compact. Indeed, the commentary continued right into the final chapter.502 Tertullian finished with the following lines, in which he restated his intentions for Book Four:

I have kept my solemn promise, I believe. I have shown that Jesus was the Christ of the in His doctrines, His judgements, His affections, His sensations, His virtues, His sufferings, and also in His

497 Tert. Marc. 4.21.11-12. non vulva licet virginis, tamen feminae, coagulatus, et si non semine, tamen ex lege substantiae corporalis, ex feminae humore, non caro habitus ante formam, non pecus dictus post figuram, non decem mensium cruciatu deliberatus, non subita dolorum concussione cum tanti temporis coeno per corporis cloacam effusus ad terram, nec statim lucem lacrimis auspicatus et primo retinaculi sui vulnere, nec mulso ablutus, nec sale ac melle medicatus, nec pannis iam sepulturae involucrum initiatus, nec exinde per immunditias inter sinus volutatus, molestus uberibus, diu infans, vix puer, tarde homo, sed de caelo expositus, semel grandis, semel totus, statim Christus, spiritus et virtus et deus tantum. Ceterum ut non verus, qui non videbatur, ita nec de crucis maledicto erubescendus, cuius carebat veritate, carens corpore. Non poterat itaque dixisse, Qui mei confusus fuerit. 498 Osborn 1997: 112. 499 Tert. Marc. 4.21.12. 500 Heyne 2011: 152. 501 Tert. Marc. 1.1.1-2. 502 Tert. Marc. 4.43.1-8.

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resurrection, (and was) none other than the Creator’s (offspring). And so again, He fulfilled the psalm by sending his apostles for the purpose of preaching to all the peoples, and ordering that their sound must go out into the entire world and that their voices (must go) to the ends of the earth. I pity you, Marcion; you have laboured in vain. For even in your gospel Christ Jesus is mine.503 This chapter has contextualised the place of the unborn child in Tertullian’s rhetoric. Tertullian did occasionally turn towards abortion and the unborn as exempla. However, he mentioned them only to prove points laid out in the introductions to his treatises. Tertullian employed the unborn child in a number of ways. For his forensic treatises, he referred to abortion to prove that Christian ethics were superior to those of pagans concerning the valuation of human life. On the other hand, Tertullian often examined the issue of abortion in terms of necessity as a motive in his deliberative works. According to Tertullian, necessity was not a sufficient motive to end a pregnancy. To succour his invectives against heretics, Tertullian cited numerous theories of embryology, treating them as artificial evidence. When necessary, he compensated for the weakness of his evidence by employing the testimony of mothers as inartificial proof. The next chapter will turn from Tertullian’s rhetorical aims and methods towards his employment of scriptural evidence and Christian tradition concerning abortion and the nature of the foetus and embryo.

503 Tert. Marc. 4.43.9. Implevimus, ut opinor, sponsionem. Exhibuimus Iesum Christum prophetarum doctrinis, sententiis, affectibus, sensibus, virtutibus, passionibus, etiam resurrectione, non alium quam creatoris; siquidem et apostolos mittens ad praedicandum universis nationibus, in omnem terram exire sonum eorum et in terminos terrae voces eorum, psalmum adimplendo praecepit. Misereor tui, Marcion, frustra laborasti. Christus enim Iesus in evangelio tuo meus est.

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Chapter II: The Christian Context

It is the purpose of this chapter to refute Dunstan’s view that Tertullian was a dissident from previous Christian tradition due to his identification of the unborn child as a human being and his arguments against abortion. The chapter builds upon the work of Jones (2004, 2005) by providing a deeper analysis of Tertullian’s treatises and considering the extent of his contribution to Christian thought on these matters. First, the chapter argues that the rejection of abortion was a well-established trope of Judaeo-Christian literature long before Tertullian. Many earlier Christian texts, such as the Didache, the , and the Apocalypse of Peter had reviled abortion as murder on the basis that the unborn child held a human identity. The later authors Athenagoras, Clement of Alexandria, and Minucius Felix also gave no allowance for abortion. Indeed, it is argued that Tertullian borrowed his denigration of abortion in the Apologeticum from Athenagoras, and that Minucius Felix’s arguments on the unborn were directly related to those of Tertullian. Next, it is argued that Tertullian’s approach was only unusual in three respects. He gave the first lengthy discourse upon the unborn child in Christian literature. Tertullian was also the first to provide specific Scriptural exempla to support his views. His other major contribution was his argument that abortion was immoral from conception, which no prior author had articulated. All of these contributions are best understood in light of Tertullian’s utilisation of the precepts of rhetoric.

Before discussing the relevant Christian sources on abortion, it is important to establish the centrality of Scripture to the authors’ discussions, the form of Scripture they used, and the manner in which they approached it. The second-century Christian authors’ metaphysical conceptualisation of prenatal offspring was intimately linked to traditions found in the Old and New Testaments. The early Christians, as well as the Jews, were unlike most other religious sects in the Greco-Roman world in that they based their ethical perspectives upon the authority of Scripture. Kapparis points out that pagan religions of antiquity tended to promote a humanist ethical basis, rather than a strictly theistic one. As he says, ‘there was no supernatural authority outside this world holding the absolute truth and transmitting it to humans by means of a holy book or the teachings of a holy man.’1 Within this framework, pagans were to some extent able to adjust their views of the unborn child according to their individual practical and emotional needs, as well as the expectations of their socio-cultural

1 Kapparis 2002: 197.

102 contexts. The reverse situation applied to the Christians and the Jews, who based their moral decisions upon the precepts found in sacred text.2 In particular, the Christian moralists utilised the New Testament as the highest authority by which to make and justify their moral choices.3 They also backed it with Old Testament. For the Christians and the Jews, there was thus considerably less flexibility in their understanding of antenatal life and its significance.4 Though they lacked a direct condemnation of abortion, the Scriptures presented essentially fixed values concerning the unborn child.5

The Old Testament provided the strongest authority on which the Christians based their opposition to abortion. Normally, the New Testament would have held equal authority for the Christians. However, there was remarkably little discussion of procreation in the New Testament, which did not contain any comment on the issue of abortion.6 There was no specific commandment against the termination of the foetus or embryo in the New Testament. Nor was there a discussion of the discrete point in development in utero the human soul came into being. Even the Gospel narratives of Jesus’ conception and birth contained very little comment regarding His being in utero.7 Noonan suggests that the warnings about drugs and sorcery in Galatians and Revelation referred to abortifacients.8 However, Noonan’s interpretation of the relevant passages is difficult to support, since there is no strong evidence that this was the intended sense. Given the crossover between magic and healing in antiquity, there is a strong possibility that the words pharmakeia or pharmakon were used in these texts to censure rather than abortion. In Revelation particularly, the words pharmakon and pharmakos were employed in the context of -worship and .9 Even if the terms were meant to refer to medicine, there is no indication at all that it denoted abortifacients specifically.

However, the overall silence of the New Testament on procreation and abortion would not have posed a problem, as the Old Testament remained an important authority for the majority of Christian readers.10 In particular, it is difficult to overstate the theological

2 Gorman 1982: 78. 3 Forell 1979: 13. 4 Kapparis 2002: 197. 5 Noonan 1970: 7; Bakke 2005: 124-125; Jones 2004: 6. 6 Waszink 1950: 59; Lindemann 1995: 261; Bakke 2005: 114. As discussed below, abortion was a recurring theme in works that would later be considered non-canonical. 7 Playoust and Aitkin 2008: 2. 8 Gal. 5.20; Rev. 9.21; 18.23; 21.8; 22.15; Waszink 1950: 59; Noonan 1970: 8-10. 9 Rev. 9.21; 18.23; 21.8; 22.15. 10 Marcos 2000: 339.

103 status of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament, in Judaeo-Christian culture. According to Jewish and Christian tradition, these first five books were handed down directly from God through the agency of Moses.11 The Septuagint, the third-century BC Alexandrian Greek translation of the Hebrew texts which comprised the Old Testament, was the sacred text employed by the authors of the New Testament, as evident in numerous quotations and the New Testament authors’ emulation of Septuagint syntax.12 The Christians’ continued employment of the Old Testament is not surprising, since Christianity began as a Jewish sect.

By the time the and patristic authors were reading the various disparate texts of the Old Testament in the second century, they had been codified into a single work, the most common version of which was the Septuagint. Marcos points out that the patristic authors who approached the Bible in Greek utilised the Septuagint as ‘an autonomous literary work,’ effectively treating it as a single coherent text rather than an omnibus of many scattered texts.13 Historical details about the composition of each individual work of Scripture do not appear to have had a significant bearing on the early Christian writers’ interpretation of the texts, and will not be considered at length in this chapter.

However, it is important to recognise that the early Christian writers of the second century continually interpreted the Old Testament through the lens of Christian theology. One of the cornerstones of Christian theology was that Jesus was the Messiah foretold in the Old Testament; thus, according to the interpretation of many Christians, ‘all of the texts of the Old Testament spoke of Christ and of Christian mysteries.’14 Christian hermeneutic sometimes resulted in interpretations of the text different from those of the Jews. For instance, although the Old Testament’s record of God’s summoning the Prophets in the womb was initially intended specifically for important figures of Israelite history, Tertullian interpreted such references as applying to all humankind.15 The Christians regarded Jesus as the fulfilment of Israel’s messianic prophecies. As Jones argues, the idea of humans being called to God’s service was therefore ‘universalised.’16 While certain Christians were still

11 Dines 2004: 12. 12 McLay 2003: 146. 13 Marcos 2000: 339. 14 Jones 2005: 12. See, for example: Matt. 3.3; Mark 1.2-1.3; Luke 3.4-3.6; John 1.23; 5.39; Justin, Dialogus cum Tryphone 11-13; 36-38; 40-43; 48-54; 75-78; 90-93; 97-100; 102-111; 113-121; 126-130; 134; 138-139; Letter of Barnabas 6-12. As discussed in the previous chapter, this was also the main argument of Tertullian’s Adversus Marcionem. 15 Jer. 1.5; Tert. An. 26.4-5. 16 Jones 2005: 12.

104 called to special positions, one of the central tenets of Christianity was that all people were called to serve God, rather than a select few. Under the principles of this New , the inclusion of Gentiles within God’s promise for the salvation of Israel democratised the human relationship with God, allowing each individual to participate in a special relationship with their creator regardless of their status in life. For Tertullian, all people were thus called in utero as the Prophets were.17

By the time Tertullian and the patristic scholars were writing in the late second century, the New Testament was still in the process of formation. Ante-Nicene Christians did not yet have a set canon of works.18 A multitude of Christian works were produced in the same generation as the twenty-seven New Testament works currently considered canonical, or shortly after. Not all would continue to be regarded as canon. However, until the establishment of a canon, there was nothing to stop early Christians from employing theological texts of the apostolic period (AD 50-150) as Scripture. For instance, the Didache, the Letter of Barnabas and the Apocalypse of Peter were all cited as having the authority of Scripture at one time or another, as discussed below. These works were all composed in koine, or common Greek, and do not appear to be intended as elite works of literature.19 However, they are very important to the , since they emerged from the same social milieu as that of Jesus and the earliest Christian followers.

For Latinate Christians of the late second century, there were also unauthorised Latin translations of the Septuagint and New Testament. These translations, which were completed long before Jerome’s production of the , are collectively known as the , or ‘Old Latin.’ The origins of the Vetus Latina are not known, but the earliest witness comes from Tertullian’s home province of Africa.20 In AD 180 Speratus, one of the , was caught carrying ‘the books and letters of Paul.’21 They were most likely written in Latin, as Speratus quoted an Old Latin version of 1 Timothy 6.16 in his trial.22 The example of Speratus reveals two things. First, there was an established pattern in North Africa of using the Bible in Latin well in advance of Tertullian’s period.23 Next, it showed that Scriptures were published in individual volumes, and were not always bundled together

17 Tert. An. 26.4-5; Jones 2005: 13. 18 Puskas and Robbins 2011: 257-259. 19 Gamble 1995: 39. 20 Bogaert 2013: 505. 21 Pass. Scil. 12. 22 Pass. Scil. 6; Barnes 1985: 277. 23 Dunn 2004: 13.

105 as a single, unified text. The process of translating the Bible into Latin was gradual, and it is probable that not all books were translated at once.24

It is also important to recall that in antiquity, as today, Christianity was an incredibly diverse religion, especially before the creation of the Nicene Creed.25 There were many competing doctrines and interpretations of Scripture, influenced by ethnic, cultural, linguistic, and geographic variances. What was Scripture to one group might be heretical to another. Bearing this diversity in mind, it is worth questioning whether early Christian texts that mention the unborn are actually a representative sample of ancient Christian thought on the matter. Jones perhaps goes too far to suggest a widespread ‘consensus’ in thought on abortion in early Christianity from this limited range of literary references.26 There is insufficient evidence for scholars to draw definitive conclusions regarding the extent to which Christians actually lived according to the ideal of total abstention from abortion in their daily lives. The most that can be said from the existing evidence is that a handful of Christian preachers and writers denounced abortion in their written works, and that their words no doubt influenced those who received them. After all, Hippolytus (c. AD 170–235) did make reference to Christians practising abortion in Rome shortly after Tertullian’s period, though this may simply have been an attempt to discredit the Bishop of Rome.27 Likewise, Tertullian expressed anxieties about Christians in Carthage ending their pregnancies, as iterated in the previous chapter. It would also be impossible to track all the many different interpretations of the Scriptures, since their reception was not always recorded. Instead, this study will restrict itself to examining written interpretations of the relevant passages as recorded by the authors mentioned in the introduction.

Before Christian views are discussed, it is important to iterate Jewish thought on abortion in brief.28 As was the case with many ethical issues, early Christian perspectives had their antecedents in Jewish interpretations of Scripture. In particular, the biblical conceptualisation of the human race as imago Dei, coupled with the prohibition of murder, had a profound impact upon Jewish and Christian valuations of human life.29 In the Old

24 Dunn 2004: 14. 25 Puskas and Robbins 2011: 257-259. 26 Jones 2004: 114. 27 Hippol. Haer. 9.7. 28 For a fuller treatment, consult Connery 1977: 7-21; Gorman 1982: 33-45; Freund 1983: 125-137; Schiff 2002: 1-57. 29 Congourdeau 2007: 324.

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Testament tradition, God did not assume material form, as discussed in Deuteronomy.30 According to the Creation story in Genesis, God moulded Adam and Eve, the progenitors of humanity, in His own image.31 Thus, God may not have been physically present on Earth, but those who upheld Genesis as a sacred text saw His image in humanity. The doctrine of imago Dei rendered the act of killing a fellow human immoral; as discussed below, this could include those not yet born. Part of God’s Covenant with was that the deliberate taking of human life would be punished as a desecration of God’s likeness.32 Murder was again condemned in the Decalogue, the which Moses handed down directly from God. It was iterated in both Exodus and Deuteronomy.33 For Christians and Jews alike, the theological authority of the commandment against killing was paramount. The commandment in the Pentateuch against unlawful killing had a particularly strong bearing upon the Judaeo-Christian tendency not to practise abortion.34 No Jewish writer of antiquity expressed a permissive attitude towards abortion. Indeed, numerous sources including Philo (c. 20 BC-AD 50), Josephus (AD 37-c. 100), and the Sententiae of Pseudo-Phocylides all stringently condemned the wanton destruction of the foetus or embryo on the basis that it was comparable to infanticide.35

Both Jewish and Christian discussions about the value placed upon the unborn were also heavily informed by the respective authors’ readings of Exodus 21.22-23. Strictly speaking, Exodus did not deal with abortion at all.36 Rather, the text gave legal advice for retributive justice in cases when a man inadvertently caused miscarriage.37 The discussion may be found in the context of property law, particularly the appropriate penalties for specific types of damage to a man’s household contents. Wives and offspring were included among the property under discussion.38 As Freund (1983) establishes, there was a strong difference between the Hebrew and Septuagint versions of Exodus 21.22-23. The difference mostly referred to the value placed upon life in the womb.39 The Hebrew version of the text translates as follows:

30 Deut. 4.15. 31 Gen. 1.26. 32 Gen. 9.6. 33 Ex. 20.13; Deut. 5.17. 34 Bakke 2005: 113. 35 Philo Hypothetica 7.7; Joseph. Ap. 2.202; Pseudo-Phocylides 184-185. 36 Lindemann 1995: 257. 37 Bakke 2005: 211; Lindemann 1995: 257. 38 Ex. 21.1-36. 39 Riddle 1997: 79-80; Jones 2005: 47-51.

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When men strive together, and hurt a woman with child, so that there is a miscarriage, and yet no harm (ason) follows, the one who performed the hurt will be fined according as the woman’s husband shall lay upon him, and he shall pay as the judges determine. If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life.40 The fact that the errant striker could have been punished with financial penalty in instances of miscarriage indicates that the foetus held at least a material value in the Hebrew textual tradition.41 However, causing the death of a foetus was clearly not considered homicide. If it were, then the charge of ‘life for life’ would have applied. As it was, the charge only applied in the instance of ‘harm’ to the child’s mother.42

The Hebrew version of Exodus 21.22-23 influenced many Jewish commentators, as evident in the cases of Josephus and the Talmudic Sanhedrin. Josephus clearly followed the Hebrew version in his Antiquitates Judaicae. As he said:

(Concerning) a man who kicks a woman who has conceived and it comes to pass that the woman miscarries: let him pay a financial penalty as determined by the judges. For by destroying that which lay in her womb he has lessened the whole host; and let money also be given the woman's husband by the man (who kicked her); but if she should die from the blow, let him also be killed, for the Law judged it right that life should (be paid) for life.43 Josephus acknowledged that inducing a miscarriage would cause harm to the child’s mother and father, and would have diminished the population. Yet according to his interpretation, a man could be held responsible for murder only in cases where miscarriage resulted in the mother’s death.44 Nor was Josephus alone in this interpretation, as several Rabbis viewed Exodus in similar terms. The Babylonian was published in the late fifth century, but it collected rabbinic opinions on the application of sacred Law dating back to the third. In it, the tractate Sanhedrin shows that the Hebrew text of Exodus 21.22-23 was consulted for determining the circumstances in which a man could justifiably kill a rival suitor, or the punishment to follow if a man accidentally killed a bystander while assaulting another.45

40 Ex. 21.22-23. Translation by Freund 1983: 126-127. 41 Schiff 2002: 8-9. 42 Schiff 2002: 9. 43 Joseph. AJ. 4.278. ὁ γυναῖκα λακτίσας ἔγκυον, ἂν μὲν ἐξαμβλώσῃ ἡ γυνὴ ζημιούσθω χρήμασιν ὑπὸ τῶν δικαστῶν ὡς παρὰ τὸ διαφθαρὲν ἐν τῇ γαστρὶ μειώσας τὸ πλῆθος, διδόσθω δὲ καὶ τῷ ἀνδρὶ τῆς γυναικὸς παρ’ αὐτοῦ χρήματα· θνησκούσης δ’ ἐκ τῆς πληγῆς καὶ αὐτὸς ἀποθνησκέτω ψυχὴν ἀντὶ ψυχῆς καταθέσθαι δικαιοῦντος τοῦ νόμου. 44 Gorman 1982: 41. 45 Sanhedrin 74a; 79a.

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However, this should not suggest that followers of the Hebrew version condoned abortion or considered it a legitimate means of regulating family size.46 It is noteworthy that the Hebrew tradition of Exodus did not make a distinction between the formed and unformed offspring. This suggests that penalties would be applied regardless of the stage of gestation at which induced miscarriage occurred. Causing even accidental miscarriage at any stage of development would have brought consequences according to this tradition, the gravity of which was at the discretion of the judge. However, only harm to the mother incurred the harshest penalty. There was thus no contradiction between reliance upon the Hebrew Exodus and denunciation of abortion. For instance, in his polemic Contra Apionem, Josephus argued that the Jews were so pious concerning their marital customs that the Law made no allowance for a woman to practise abortion:

(The Law) orders all children to be brought up, and prohibits women either to induce miscarriage or to destroy that which is sown; a woman found guilty of this is considered child-killer, because she obliterates a soul and lessens the race.47 Regardless of the legal technicalities of whether or not the foetus was a human being, Josephus clearly conceptualised the termination of foetal life as murder. The ‘Law’ referred to in this passage was most likely the prohibition of murder in the Decalogue. For Josephus, the immorality of abortion was obvious, even if the did not make any definite statement on the matter.48

It is important to note that some rabbinic authors considered embryotomy necessary in cases where bringing the child forth would have endangered the life of the mother. The tract Oholot, preserved in the Mishnah, dealt with the procedures to correct the ritual impurity which followed handling deceased bodies. The text indicated that the full-term foetus was normally dismembered in cases of difficult birth:

If a woman suffers a hard labour, the fetus is cut up in her womb, and taken out limb by limb, for her life comes before comes before its life; if the majority of it has already come out, it may not be touched, for the (claim of one) life cannot supersede (that of another) life.49

46 Bakke 2005: 110. 47 Joseph. Ap. 2.202. τέκνα τρέφειν ἅπαντα προσέταξεν, καὶ γυναιξὶν ἀπεῖπεν μήτ’ ἀμβλοῦν τὸ σπαρὲν μήτε διαφθείρειν ἀλλὰ ἢν φανείη τεκνοκτόνος ἂν εἴη ψυχὴν ἀφανίζουσα καὶ τὸ γένος ἐλαττοῦσα. 48 Gorman 1982: 43. 49 Oholot 7.8. Translation by Schiff 2002: 36.

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It is probable that the ‘majority’ of the child referred to the head of the baby. The Talmudic Sanhedrin indicated that it was at this point that the child made the transition from being considered unborn to born.50 From here on, the child was deemed to have a life of his or her own, equal in value to that of the mother. Beforehand, it was clear that the wellbeing of the child came secondary to the mother’s. It was expected that her life should take precedence before the emergence of the baby.51

Readers of the Septuagint made it much clearer that the taking of foetal life constituted murder, since the Greek version of Exodus ascribed full human status to the unborn child.52 The Greek translation would prove to be the strongest scriptural basis for the early Judaeo-Christian writers’ opposition to abortion.53 Though the Old Testament did not mention abortion specifically, the Septuagint version of Exodus laid down the tradition that the child in the womb had the full status of a human being once it was formed. According to this tradition, causing the demise of a child in the womb was homicide after formation. The text translates as:

Whenever two men fight and they should hit a woman carrying (a child) in the belly, and the child should come out of her unformed (me exeikonismenon), he shall repay the damages with honour in whatever manner the woman’s husband imposes. But if the child was formed, he shall give life for life.54 The contrast between the Greek and the Hebrew is remarkable. In this section, the Septuagint did not actually mention accountability for harm to the pregnant woman. Rather, the penalty was invoked only in the event of an unborn child’s death. Unlike the Hebrew tradition, the Greek made a clear distinction between the ‘formed’ and ‘unformed’ child, suggesting that a foetus’ worth increased cumulatively through gestation. However, the child only achieved full personhood once he or she had assumed a recognisable human form, and killing the offspring henceforth attracted a homicide charge. As discussed in the next chapter, this ideation of embryogenesis bore a strong resemblance to that of Aristotle.

50 Sanhedrin 72b. 51 The contrast to Tertullian’s views as expressed in De Anima 25.4-5 is worth noting. The tract Oholot did not indicate that feticide would be considered murder in such special circumstances, or that the birth assistants were morally wrong to end the foetus’ life. As discussed in the previous chapter, Tertullian did not deny that abortions were necessary in cases such as that of breech birth, but differed from the Jewish tradition in that he described the procedure in terms which were normally associated with homicide. 52 Dölger 1934: 7; Dunstan 1984: 39. 53 Jones 2004: 48. 54 Ex. 21.22-23. ἐὰν δὲ μάχωνται δύο ἄνδρες καὶ πατάξωσιν γυναῖκ ἐν γαστρὶ ἔχουσαν, καὶ ἐξέλθῃ τὸ παιδίον αὐτῆς μὴ ἐξεικονισμένον, ἐπιζήμιον ζημιωθήσεται· καθότι ἂν ἐπιβάλῃ ὁ ἀνὴρ τῆς γυναικός, δώσει μετὰ ἀξιώματος· ἐὰν δὲ ἐξεικονισμένον ἦν, δώσει ψυχὴν ἀντὶ ψυχῆς.

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Freund believes that the Judaeo-Christian doctrine of imago Dei influenced the divergence between the Greek and Hebrew renditions of Exodus 21.22-3. He links the perfect participle passive exeikonismenon to its root verb, eiko, ‘form, image, portrait,’ and suggests that a better translation might be ‘made in the image.’55 If this was the intended sense of the word, it is possible that the Septuagint translator was applying his knowledge of Genesis 9.6, where God instructed Noah that homicide should be punished as a desecration of God’s image. Freund suggests that the translator arrived at the participle by transliterating the Hebrew ason, ‘harm,’ as the homophonic Greek term asoma, ‘unbodied.’ When translating the transliterated Hebrew, the translator corrupted the meaning of the original text by translating asoma literally. Then the translator, grounded in Creation theology, might have decided to apply exeikonismenai in the process of polishing his translation, in order to indicate that the body of the developed foetus was the fulfilled .56

If this was the case, the logic that underpinned the Septuagint distinction between the formed and unformed embryo is clear. Once a child was sufficiently developed in the womb, it took on a more human appearance, and therefore a divine likeness. Beforehand, it simply represented the potential for achieving divine . To cut off this potential was considered reprehensible by financial penalty, but was not a capital offence. Once sufficiently grown, destruction of the foetus was considered a desecration of God’s sacred image. However, it should be noted that Freund’s discussion is very speculative. There is not enough evidence to draw a definite conclusion that the translator had the concept of imago dei in mind, or the exact process that led him to his finished translation. It is quite possible that the translator was working from an alternate Hebrew tradition which has not survived.57

Before moving on to examine individual authors’ use of the Septuagint in relation to abortion, it is important to note that the Vetus Latina version of Exodus 21.22-21.23 probably followed the Septuagint version closely. As of writing, the Institut Vetus Latina has not yet produced a critical edition of the Old Latin Exodus. It is thus necessary to consult Sabatier’s edition of the Vetus Latina Old Testament, published in 1743. The passage translates as follows:

However, if two men quarrel, and they should strike a woman carrying (a child) in her uterus, and her child should come out not yet

55 Freund 1983: 127-128. 56 Freund 1983: 128-129. 57 Jones 2004: 49.

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formed, then he shall acquiesce (to pay for) the damage, as much as the woman’s husband shall have demanded. If, however, (the child) was formed, then he shall give life for life.58 Sabatier’s text is probably a fair approximation of the Old Latin translation, as there were witnesses in the early medieval period to this translation. For example, Augustine saw a distinction between the undeveloped foetus and the articulated embryo in his on Exodus, Quaestiones Exodi. On the basis of Exodus, Augustine argued that it was not homicide to terminate a pregnancy before the foetus was capable of thought or sensation; it was homicide to kill the foetus only after formation.59 Since Augustine said in his Confessiones that he was far less confident in his ability to read Greek than he was in Latin, it is plausible to suggest that he was commenting on the Vetus Latina rather than the Septuagint.60 Elsakkers (2005) has also demonstrated that the ’s version of Exodus was based upon the Vetus Latina, rather than the Vulgate of Jerome. The Gothic Bible was consulted for the Visigoths’ secular laws on abortion. It is unsurprising, therefore, that the Visigoths’ laws on abortion also reflected the Septuagint’s distinction between the formed and unformed child in utero.61 It is thus probable that readers of the Old Latin, such as Tertullian, were working from a textual tradition similar to that of the Septuagint.

Philo of Alexandria’s thought on abortion was particularly influenced by the Septuagint’s translation of Exodus, as demonstrated by his references to it in his treatise De Specialibus Legibus. This work was an exegesis on the Decalogue and its ramifications for everyday living. In the chapters where he discussed the commandment against murder, Philo made it clear that an attack upon an expectant mother resulting in the demise of the child within her belly was considered a capital crime. In Philo’s words:

But if anyone grapples with a woman who is pregnant, and brings about a blow on her belly, and she miscarries, if the miscarried child is still unmoulded and unformed, he shall be fined, both for the assault and also because he has become an impediment to nature, who was producing and working to bring forth that most beautiful of all creatures, a human. But if the child had already assumed a shape in all its parts, after receiving the arrangement of its qualities, then he will die. For that sort of creature is a human whom he has killed while it was still in the workshop of nature, whom (nature) had not thought it

58 Ex. 21.22-23. Si autem litigabunt duo viri, et percusserint mulierem in utero habentem, et exierit infans ejus nondum formatus: detrimentum patietur, quantum indixerit vir mulieris, et dabit cum postulatione. Si autem formatum fuerit, dabit animam pro anima. The text is that of Sabatier 1743, p. 178. 59 August. Quaestiones Exodi 80. 60 August. Confess. 1.13-14. 61 Elsakkers 2005: 37-76.

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proper to produce into the light, but had kept like a statue lying in a sculptor's workshop, complete, and requiring nothing more than to be carried outside and released.62 It is worth noting that Philo framed his discussion around a deliberate attack upon a pregnant woman, rather than an accidental blow as in the Septuagint. He seems to have followed the Greek Exodus, however, in that he assigned value to the unborn according to the child’s stage of development. The destruction of the recognisably human foetus was viewed as interference in God’s work of crafting a human being. Philo similarly expressed his learning in the Septuagint in his discussion of infanticide and exposure:

Therefore, (Moses) has renounced the exposure of children, by an unspoken (prohibition), when he condemns to death, as I have said, those who are the guilty of causing a miscarriage to a woman whose child within her is already formed.63 Though the reference did not pertain to abortion directly, it is clear that Philo considered causing the death of an unborn child the equivalent of killing a newborn infant. Once more, however, only the man who had brought about the death of a formed foetus was liable to capital punishment in his view.

Philo indicated further scriptural reasons for the Jews to avoid abortion. As part of his discussion of the Decalogue’s prohibition of adultery in De Specialibus Legibus, Philo argued that it was sinful for a man to engage in sex with a woman during her menstrual cycle. Men who thus engaged in intercourse without any intention to conceive a child did nothing more indulge carnal lust, sowing their seed in vain.64 Worse still, a child could be conceived in the process, and be flushed from the womb along with the menstrual blood: ‘These people craft (living beings) in the womb, nature’s workshop, and skilfully bring each part of the body and soul to perfection.’65 Only after the woman’s menstrual period had passed, and she could be safely impregnated once more, was it permitted for a man to have sexual relations with his wife. Here, Philo seemed to draw a connection between the biblical injunction against having

62 Philo Spec. Leg. 3.108-109. ἐὰν δὲ συμπλακεὶς γυναικί τις ἐγκύῳ πληγὴν ἐμφορήσῃ κατὰ τὴν γαστέρα, ἡ δὲ ἀμβλώσῃ, ἐὰν μὲν ἄπλαστον καὶ ἀδιατύπωτον τὸ ἀμβλωθὲν τύχῃ, ζημιούσθω, καὶ διὰ τὴν ὕβριν καὶ ὅτι ἐμποδὼν ἐγένετο τῇ φύσει ζῳογονῆσαι τὸ κάλλιστον τεχνιτευούσῃ καὶ δημιουργούσῃ ζῷον, ἄνθρωπον· εἰ δὲ ἤδη μεμορφωμένον, ἁπάντων μελῶν τὰς οἰκείους τάξεις καὶ ποιότητας ἀπειληφότων, θνῃσκέτω. τὸ γὰρ τοιοῦτον ἄνθρωπός ἐστιν, ὃν ἐν τῷ τῆς φύσεως ἐργαστηρίῳ διεχρήσατο μήπω καιρὸν εἶναι νομιζούσης εἰς φῶς προαγαγεῖν, ἐοικὸς ἀνδριάντι ἐν πλαστικῇ κατακειμένῳ, πλέον οὐδὲν ἢ τὴν ἔξω παραπομπὴν καὶ ἄνεσιν ἐπιζητοῦντι. 63 Philo Spec. Leg. 3.117. πόρρωθεν οὖν τὴν βρεφῶν ἔκθεσιν ἀπεῖπε δι’ ὑπονοιῶν θάνατον, ὡς ἔφην, ὁρίσας κατὰ τῶν αἰτίων ἀμβλώσεως τὰ μεμορφωμένα ἤδη κυϊσκούσαις· 64 Philo Spec. Leg. 3.32-33. 65 Philo Spec. Leg. 3.33. οὗτοι δ’ εἰσὶν οἱ ἐν τῇ μήτρᾳ τῷ τῆς φύσεως ἐργαστηρίῳ ζῳοπλαστοῦντες καὶ τῶν μερῶν ἕκαστον σώματός τε καὶ ψυχῆς ἀκρότητι τέχνης τελεσιουργοῦντες.

113 sex during the monthly cycle in Leviticus (20.18) and the story of Anan. According to Genesis, Anan (transliterated in Greek as Aunan) was ordered to impregnate his sister-in-law. However, Anan violated God’s command, and instead practised coitus interruptus:

Judas said to Anan, “Enter the wife of your brother, and form a connection with her by marriage, and raise the seed for your brother.” But when Anan had come to realise that the seed would not be his, it happened that whenever he entered the wife of his brother, he ejaculated on the ground, and did not give the seed to his brother’s wife. Because he did this, he appeared grievous before God; and He also put him to death.66 In itself, the story of Anan had nothing to do with abortion. However, Philo’s emphasis upon the sin of ‘spilling seed’ indicates that he interpreted this story as a sign that God intended sexual intercourse primarily to serve the function of begetting offspring. For Philo, God’s punishment of Anan for practising coitus interruptus probably demonstrated that the evasion of God’s commandment towards fertility was sinful. His point in this passage was not so much that the destruction of the embryo was murder, but that it resulted from immoderate, non-procreative sex.

Several Christian texts prior to Tertullian argued against abortion, the earliest of which was the Didache.67 While the Old and New Testaments as they survive today do not contain any reference to abortion, it is worth considering texts that would later be dismissed as apocryphal, since they too influenced the ante-Nicene Christians.68 The earliest of these were the second-generation works of the Apostolic Fathers, including the Didache. Niederwimmer dates the Didache to sometime in the early second century due to the similarity of the text’s syntax and vocabulary to the koine of the New Testament.69 Conversely, Milavec dates the text to the mid-first century.70 Some Christian writers cited it as canon in antiquity, though never in relation to the issue of abortion.71 However, the text’s exact temporal and geographic provenance is unknown.72 The Didache was essentially a didactic exegesis on the ethical code of the Two Ways. The concept of the Two Ways was

66 Gen. 38.8-10. εἶπεν δὲ Ιουδας τῷ Αυναν Εἴσελθε πρὸς τὴν γυναῖκα τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ σου καὶ γάμβρευσαι αὐτὴν καὶ ἀνάστησον σπέρμα τῷ ἀδελφῷ σου. γνοὺς δὲ Αυναν ὅτι οὐκ αὐτῷ ἔσται τὸ σπέρμα, ἐγίνετο ὅταν εἰσήρχετο πρὸς τὴν γυναῖκα τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ αὐτοῦ, ἐξέχεεν ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν τοῦ μὴ δοῦναι σπέρμα τῷ ἀδελφῷ αὐτοῦ. πονηρὸν δὲ ἐφάνη ἐναντίον τοῦ θεοῦ ὅτι ἐποίησεν τοῦτο, καὶ ἐθανάτωσεν καὶ τοῦτον. 67 Milavec 2003a: 142. 68 Waszink 1950: 59. 69 Niederwimmer 1998: 52-53. 70 Milavec 2003b: 111. 71 Rufinus Commentary of Apostle’s Creed 37; Exact Position of Orthodox Faith 4.17. 72 Niederwimmer 1998: 52-53.

114 underpinned by a conceptualisation of morality as a continual choice between the binary of good and evil.73 Good choices led Christians down the path of light to eternal life. Conversely, evil choices led down the path of darkness towards eternal damnation. The Didache made no allowance for a middle path.

Though the New Testament itself as it stands today did not link the concept of with the foetus, the author of the Didache interpreted Jesus’ emphasis upon compassion as an exhortation to protect the child in the womb. As Ferngren points out, the New Testament was unusual in its employment of the term agape to denote love. Agape differed from other Greek terms for love, in that agape was ‘unlimited, freely given, sacrificial, and not dependent on the nature of its subject.’74 The New Testament texts constructed agape as a divine gift, a reflection of God’s love for the human race. According to the , ‘God is love.’75 The incarnation of Christ was the embodiment of this love.76 Therefore, the Christian authors would have viewed prayer and enactment of divine commandments as a reflection of God’s love.77 Christians themselves were called upon to act with agape, as manifested by calls to assist the downtrodden.78 It was the driving force behind the Christian concept of compassion and .

Once more, the compulsion towards agape resulted from the doctrine of imago Dei. ‘Just as God loved humans, so they were expected to respond to divine love by extending love to a brother, who bore the Image of God.’79 The idea of the human race as imago Dei continued to feature prominently in the New Testament, though the canonical New Testament never linked it to abortion as such.80 As might be expected, the New Testament’s presentation of the Image of God was somewhat different from that of the Old Testament, as Christians held that God had indeed materialised in the form of Christ. Three books of the New Testament identified Jesus as the literal Image of God.81 Yet the Old Testament’s tradition of the human race as the Image of God also persisted to some extent. For instance, 1 Corinthians said that male devotees need not cover their heads in worship, for they reflected the Image of

73 Niederwimmer 1998: 30. 74 Ferngren 2009: 97. 75 1 John 4.8. 76 John 3.16. 77 John 3.17. 78 Ferngren 2009: 97. 79 Ferngren 2009: 99; John 13.34; 3.17; 4.20-21; Matt. 25.34-40; Col. 3.12. 80 Ferngren 2009: 99. 81 Heb. 1.3; Col. 1.13-15; 2 Cor. 4.4.

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God.82 The author of James remarked that when the tongue was employed to curse others, it effectively cursed the Image of God.83 Given the New Testament’s continued formulation of humanity as imago Dei, it is not surprising that the Pentateuch’s prohibition of murder also continued to be an important aspect of Christian theology. It carried through into the New Testament, and was mentioned repeatedly. Three of the four Gospels depicted Jesus Himself listing homicide among the gravest of .84 The fact that the Christians’ Messiah directly and explicitly condemned the act of taking human life provided early Christians with a clear authority on which to base their rejection of killing.

The Didache prohibited the practice of abortion twice. The first half of the text illustrated the principles of the path of light, which was reachable by practising philanthropy born of universal love.85 Included in this section was a list of prohibitions whose language was heavily reminiscent of the Decalogue. The anonymous author listed abortion and infanticide among the prohibitions: ‘you will not slay a child in an abortion nor destroy that which has been born.’86 Milavec reads Didache 2.2 as a direct adaptation of the Decalogue for Christians living among Gentiles. In his view, the prohibition of abortion and infanticide was intended to warn the reader against adopting the Gentile tendency to abort or expose babies.87 The fact that the Didache author listed abortion and infanticide together suggests that he considered the acts similar, if not identical.88 The Didache did not attempt to distinguish between different stages of pregnancy, but never definitively stated that human existence began at conception.

The second half of the Didache dealt with the path of darkness. Unsurprisingly, the text taught that the path towards eternal darkness was the rejection of philanthropy and love.89 Those who embraced darkness showed no compassion towards the poor or downtrodden, but rather advocated the interests of the wealthy. The author censured child- killers while reproving those who did not practise charity. According to Lindemann’s interpretation, this applied to those who practised abortion, since the author seemed to deal

82 1 Cor. 11.7. 83 James 3.9. 84 Matt. 5.21; 15.19; 19.19; .19; Luke 18.20. 85 Didache 1-4. 86 Didache 2.2. οὐ φονεύσεις, οὐ μοιχεύσεις, οὐ παιδοφθορήσεις, οὐ πορνεύσεις, οὐ κλέψεις, οὐ μαγεύσεις, οὐ φαρμακεύσεις, οὐ φονεύσεις τέκνον ἐν φθορᾷ οὐδὲ γεννηθὲν ἀποκτενεῖς, οὐκ ἐπιθυμήσεις τὰ τοῦ πλησίον. 87 Milavec 2003b: 55. Milavec thus sees the force of the prohibition as a ‘counter-cultural’ one, in opposition to the normative practices of pagan Rome. Opposition to abortion among Roman authors who were neither Christian nor Jewish will be discussed in the final chapter. 88 Milavec 2003b: 55. 89 Didache 5-6.

116 with the ideas of child-killing and abortion interchangeably.90 As Williams (1998) and Bakke suggest, the Didache thus equated infants in the uterus with adults in need of care.91 The Didache was the earliest Christian endeavour to rebuke abortion on a theological basis.92 The text specified takers of human life sin as ‘corrupters of God’s creation.’93 According to Bakke’s interpretation, the author reasoned that since humans were the product of divine design and made in the divine image, their lives were automatically sacrosanct.94 However, the author did not elaborate upon his theological stance against abortion. It is likely that he felt he could safely assume that his contemporary readers were familiar with the Scripture that underpinned it. Moreover, an esoteric theological excursus would perhaps have been outside the scope of the Didache as a practical guide to Christian morality.

The Letter of Barnabas was closely connected to the Didache, echoing its proscription of abortion. The exact date and provenance of the epistle are imprecise, but it most likely originated some time during the early second century.95 If the letter was intended for a particular Christian group, it is unclear which it was. The letter was widely read in antiquity, and even appears in the biblical Sinaitic Codex, dated to the early fourth century.96 Moreover, Clement of Alexandria cited it as Scripture, though again not in relation to abortion.97 The fact that Clement read it could perhaps be an indication that the epistle was of Egyptian origin.98 The majority of the text laid out Christian doctrine concerning Christ’s resurrection and the salvation of sinners. Principally, the text argued on the basis of Scripture that Jesus was the fulfilment of messianic prophecies in the Old Testament.99 However, the last three chapters comprised practical knowledge and teaching in Christian morality, whose implementation would lead the reader towards the salvation it had previously expounded upon. Like the Didache, the author explicated Christian morality via the doctrine of the Two Ways.100

90 Lindemann 1995: 262. 91 Williams 1998: 89-90; Bakke 2005: 115. 92 Bakke 2005: 116. 93 Didache 5.2. 94 Lindemann 1995: 262; Bakke 2005: 116. 95 Paget 1994: 3-9. 96 Paget 1994: 252. 97 Clem. Al. Strom. 2.6. 98 Rankin 2006: 115. 99 Letter of Barnabas 6-12. 100 Letter of Barnabas 18-21; Paget 1994: 50.

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The Letter of Barnabas followed almost exactly the same argument as the Didache concerning abortion.101 The author urged his readers to eschew abortion on the basis of the scriptural commandment: ‘love thy neighbour.’102 The author classed abortion and infanticide alongside the oppression of the poor and needy. Thus, like the author of the Didache, the writer of the Letter constructed unborn children as neighbours, as much in need of Christian charity as any other member of the community.103 Also, like the Didache, the author linked the ideas of infanticide and abortion, but never actually argued that they were synonymous. The Didache and the Letter of Barnabas were also alike in that they linked heavily to the Decalogue. As mentioned above, they specifically banned abortion in terms very similar to the Ten Commandments. Each of them interspersed their admonitions with direct quotations of the Decalogue. It is clear that the author meant the texts to be in the same tradition as Exodus. To this extent, the prohibition against abortion may have been an elaboration upon the Decalogue’s commandment against murder, while bearing Exodus’ discussion of miscarriage in mind.104

If Tertullian was aware of the prohibition of abortion in the Didache and the Letter of Barnabas, he gave no indication of it in his writings. He did not phrase his arguments against the termination of pregnancy in terms of the Two Ways. Nor did he conceptualise abortion as an abrogation of charity. If Tertullian read the Didache as Scripture, one might have expected him to appeal to its commandment against abortion. The only such legal precedent Tertullian cited was Mosaic Law in De Anima.105

The pseudepigraphic Apocalypse of Peter also censured both the practice and practitioners of abortion quite severely. The Apocalypse described a vision of hell and the torments that awaited sinners. Among the sinners were parents who aborted their pregnancies. Amidst certain Christian sects of antiquity, the Apocalypse held authority equal to that of other New Testament books. The strongest evidence for the inclusion of the Apocalypse in early canon is its place in the Muratorian list, the earliest Western enumeration of canonical works. The Muratorian canon categorised the Apocalypse as a work of contested status: ‘we receive only the apocalypses of John and Peter, though some of us are not willing

101 Gorman 1982: 50; Bakke 2005: 116. 102 Letter of Barnabas 19.5. 103 Bakke 2005: 116. 104 Bakke 2005: 116. 105 Tert. An. 37.2. The arguments advanced in this paragraph are similar to those of Dunn (1999: 261-263), where it is concluded that Tertullian was drawing from a similar tradition to that of the Letter of Barnabas, but differed from him sufficiently to suggest that the former was not borrowing from the latter directly.

118 that the latter be read in the Ecclesia.’106 The provenance and exact dating of the Apocalypse are unclear. However, the fact that one of Tertullian’s near-contemporaries, Clement of Alexandria (c. AD 150-c.215), cited it as canon provides a broad terminus ante quem.107 A large portion of the Apocalypse survives in two manuscripts, the earlier of which was written in Greek, and a much later version in Ge’ez.108

The Greek version of the Apocalypse of Peter described how women who caused their offspring to be expelled from the womb before reaching full gestation faced eternal punishment by the shades of their children. The author discussed abortion directly after describing the similarly grizzly fate that awaited murderers:

And I saw the killers and those who shared knowledge with them, thrown into a certain narrow place, (which was) filled with dreadful creeping things, and struck by those creatures, and in this manner writhing in that punishment; and worms lay upon them like clouds of shadow. And the souls of the slain were standing and watched the punishment of those killers and they said: “God, your condemnation is fair.” But adjacent to that place I saw another narrow place into which the fluid and the foul smell of those who were being castigated flowed downward and there became like a lake: and in that place women were set down, having the fluid right up to their necks, and many children sat against them who were born before their appointed , continuously weeping; and out of them came blazes of flame and struck the women in the eyes: and these were those who conceived unmarried and aborted their babies.109 Gorman and Bakke suggest that this context indicates that the author saw abortion as homicide.110 This is not strictly true, since the women in this instance were not described as as murderers. They were punished in a separate category. However, their close proximity to murderers, and the similarity of the punishment, indicates that the author conceptualised

106 Muratorian Canon 71-73. Scripta Apocalapse etiam Iohanis et Petri tantum recipimus quam quidam ex nostris legi in ecclesia. 107 Clem. Al. Eclog. 48. It is worth considering that no other early Christian author cited the Apocalypse as canon; it is possible that the text was of significance only to Christians in Egypt. 108 James 1915: 1-36. James details the various surviving Greek, Ge’ez, and manuscripts that make up the text of the Apocalypse of Peter. 109 Apoc. Pet. Akhmim fragment 24-25. Καὶ τοὺς φονεῖς ἔβλεπον καὶ τοῦς συνειδότας αὐτοῖς βεβλημένους ἔν τινι τόπῳ τεθλιμμένῳ καὶ πεπληρωμένῳ ἑρπετῶν πονηρῶν καὶ πλησσομένους ὑπὸ τῶν θηρίων ἐκείνων καὶ οὕτω στρεφομένους ἐκεῖ ἐν τῇ κολάσει ἐκείνῃ· ἐπέκειντο δὲ αὐτοῖς σκώληκες ὥσπερ νεφέλαι σκότους. αἱ δὲ ψυχαὶ τῶν πεφονευμένων ἑστῶσαι καὶ ἐφορῶσαι τὴν κόλασιν ἐκείνων τῶν φονέων ἔλεγον· ὁ θεός, δικαία σου ἡ κρισις. Πλησίον δὲ τοῦ τόπου ἐκείνου εἰδον ἕτερον τόπον τεθλιμμ[έν]ον ἐν <ᾧ> ὁ ἰχὼρ καὶ ἡ δυσωδία τῶν κολαζομένων κατέρρεε καὶ ὥσπερ λίμνη ἐγίνετο ἐκεῖ· κἀκεῖ ἐκάθηντο γυναῖκες ἔχουσαι τὸν ἰχῶρα μέχρι τ[ῶ]ν τραχήλ[ων], καὶ ἀντικρὺς αὐτῶν πολλοὶ παῖδες, ο[ἵτινε]ς ἄωροι ἐτ[ί]κτοντο, καθήμενοι ἔκλαιον, καὶ προήρχοντο ἐξ αὐ[τῶν φλόγ]ες πυρὸς καὶ τὰς γυναῖκας ἔπλησσον κατὰ τῶ[ν] ὀφθαλμμῶν· αὗται δὲ ἦσαν αἱ ἀ[γάμως τὰ βρέφη τεκο]ῦσαι καὶ ἐκτρώσασαι. 110 Gorman 1982: 49-52; Bakke 2005: 117.

119 abortion as being analogous to the taking of human life.111 In any case, the author clearly considered abortion spiritual anathema.

Moreover, the fact that the souls of the aborted foetuses stood over their parents in the afterlife indicates that the author believed that progeny achieved full-fledged ensoulment in the womb.112 Clement, apparently quoting the Apocalypse, went so far as to say that the souls of aborted infants were passed into the care of an angel, ‘by whom they are educated and so grow up, and they will be, it says, as the faithful of a hundred years old are here.’113 It is probable that Clement was quoting some portion of the text that has not survived in Greek. The Ethiopic version, which was composed substantially later, did mention the souls of children being placed in the protection of an angel by the name of Temlakos.114

It is not clear whether the author of the Apocalypse meant that abortion was homicide from conception. Like certain of Tertullian’s later treatises, the author of the Apocalypse did not distinguish between different stages of pregnancy. However, it would be an overstatement to suggest the author meant that people enjoyed God’s protection in the early, embryonic stages of development. The author did not argue thus explicitly. The fact that the spirits of the children seem to have possessed some kind of physical body could indicate that they represented later-term foetuses. However, it should be considered that the author hardly intended to demonstrate knowledge of theories concerning reproduction. He sought to record his impressions of hell. To him, it was perhaps irrelevant to differentiate between an unformed embryo and a formed foetus.

As with the Didache and Letter of Barnabas, there is also no demonstrable link between the Apocalypse of Peter and Tertullian’s thought on the unborn child. Tertullian did not mention the Apocalypse of Peter in any of his written works, nor did he give a clear indication of whether the deceased foetus would receive God’s grace in the afterlife.115 Balfour (1985) attempts to reconstruct what Tertullian’s view might have been, based upon De Anima and certain other tracts including Adversus Marcionem. In Balfour’s view, ‘he has left some data on which his mind can be read.’116 Balfour argues that according to Tertullian’s theology, the souls of the unborn would have entered the afterlife upon

111 Bakke 2005: 117. 112 Gorman 1982: 51. 113 Clem. Al. Ecl. 48. 114 Gorman 1982: 51. 115 Balfour 1985: 127. 116 Balfour 1985: 127.

120 separation from the body.117 Ostensibly, Balfour’s argument appears quite logical. Tertullian did indeed argue that every foetus possessed a soul from the moment of conception, which survived physical death.118 According to De Anima, all departed souls entered Hades, a realm Tertullian described as one of either reward or punishment.119 Tertullian gave no indication that the unborn child was exempt. Next, while Tertullian suggested in De Anima that the soul was marred by Original Sin, he also held that God determined each individual soul’s place in Hades according to the morality of its deeds in adulthood.120 Since an unborn child never had the opportunity to sin, Balfour suggests they could not have been judged guilty.121 According to Balfour’s interpretation, these unborn souls would have been held in suspended animation until Christ’s return, when they would be reunited with their bodies.122 In Balfour’s view, Tertullian would have argued that the souls of early-term embryos whose lives were terminated prior to the formation of the body would have been allocated new bodies of angelic substance.123

However, Balfour’s analysis has certain problems. He does not consider that Tertullian was writing polemic, and never sought consistency in the theological views he presented. Balfour cross-references his interpretation of De Anima with that in Adversus Marcionem, De Baptismo, De Paenitentia, De Praescriptione Haereticorum, and De Resurrectione Mortuorum.124 In doing so, he seems to overlook the fact that in his treatise against Marcion, Tertullian actually described the undeveloped embryo as simple, unanimated flesh.125 Since Tertullian was (perhaps knowingly) inconsistent in his arguments on the human embryo, it is perilous to speculate about his personal views on the question of the embryo’s eternal soul. While Balfour’s speculation is plausible, there is insufficient evidence from which to draw a definitive conclusion. If Tertullian knew that the Apocalypse discussed the souls of the unborn, he did not explicitly reference it in his work.

Athenagoras (c. AD 133-190) was the first Christian apologist to employ abortion as a rhetorical exemplum to refute homicide accusations often levelled against the Christians. Athenagoras is commonly assigned the honorific ‘of Athens,’ though his exact origins are

117 Balfour 1985: 127. 118 Tert. An. 25.2; 26.5; Balfour 1985: 128. 119 Tert. An. 55.5; 56.7. 120 Tert. An. 56.8; Marc. 4.34.11-14; Balfour 1985: 129. 121 Tert. Marc. 4.23.5; Balfour 1985: 129. 122 Tert. An. 56.7; Balfour 1985: 131. 123 Balfour 1985: 128. 124 Balfour 1985: 129-131. 125 Tert. Marc. 4.21.11.

121 unclear.126 Philip of Side, an early fifth-century chronicler, said that Athenagoras was the head of the Catechetical school at Alexandria.127 Though Philip is not always a reliable witness, there is no real proof to discount the idea that Athenagoras worked in Alexandria at some stage of his life.128 Athenagoras’ work does display awareness of Egyptian religious praxis, which lends the placement of him in Alexandria some degree of credibility.129 His manuscripts often described him as a Christian philosopher.130 Addressed to the emperors Marcus Aurelius and Commodus, his Legatio Pro Christianis was a general defence of Christianity’s place in the Roman Empire.131 Athenagoras adopted the genre of forensic oratory, evoking the imagery of a law-court to disprove the charge that Christianity was an anti-social cult.132 Moreover, he argued that Christians were loyal to the imperial family, using what Grant calls a ‘conciliatory loyalist approach.’133 Barnes has argued on the basis of the titles by which Athenagoras addressed the emperor in his exordium that Athenagoras intended the Legatio to be delivered before Marcus Aurelius in person during the latter’s visit to Athens in 176.134

It is worth considering the similarity between Tertullian’s arguments against abortion in the Apologeticum and those of Athenagoras’ Legatio. Since Tertullian did not openly mention Athenagoras, it is not possible to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the former had read the latter’s work. However, their arguments against the unseen crimes of murder and incest were close enough to raise the possibility. If he did, then Tertullian likely got the idea of using abortion as an exemplum for apologetic purposes from Athenagoras. Since Athenagoras is to be compared closely to Tertullian, it is important to contextualise the reference to abortion by identifying its place in the overall structure of the Legatio.135 Athenagoras opened with an exordium which comprised the proem and the first chapter. He addressed the emperor, flattering Marcus Aurelius in order to secure his goodwill.136 Here, he also gave the first hint of a narratio, saying that the Christians were being unjustly maltreated. Christians were being harassed due to slanders attached to the name of

126 Quasten 1950: 229. 127 Philip of Side fr. 2. 128 Rankin 2006: 119. 129 Athenagoras, Leg. 14. 130 Norris 2004: 42. 131 Athenagoras, Leg. 1. 132 Norris 2004: 42. 133 Grant 1988: 100. 134 Barnes 1975: 111-114; Athenagoras, Leg. 1.3. 135 The following summary of the Legatio’s structure is indebted to those of Malherbe 1969: 5-20, and Rankin 2006: 120-121. 136 Athenagoras Leg. 1.

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Christianity. Athenagoras asked the emperor to make it illegal for others to single out the Christians for persecution. Christians hoped to be subject to the same quality of justice as their peers were. The odium heaped upon Christians, after all, was similar to that against the philosophers with whom Marcus Aurelius sympathised.137 Athenagoras then gave a partitio, in which he outlined the crimes against the Christians. The trumped-up charges, like those in Tertullian’s Apologeticum, included atheism, cannibalism, and incest.138 Athenagoras beseeched the wise philosopher-emperors to peruse the facts as he would present them before offering judgement.139

The body of the Legatio was mostly dedicated to refuting the charge of atheism. He argued that the Christians were not atheists at all, but monotheists.140 Nor were the Christians alone in believing in one God, as the poets and philosophers had described the unity of the Godhead.141 Moreover, Christians committed no crime in rejecting a belief system as flimsy as that of Hellenistic polytheism.142 Athenagoras then gave positive arguments as to Christian beliefs.143 Chapters thirteen to sixteen refuted misconceptions about Christian abstention from sacrifice, and summarised the Christians’ metaphysical conceptualisation of God. Athenagoras then returned to a stinging attack upon the pagan gods. He argued that they were fictitious, as both the poets and the philosophers would agree. Pagan deities could assume all manner of foolish shapes, and were immoral.144 Some figures of mythology were in fact demons, while others were simply men who were granted divine status.145 Having dealt with the charge of atheism, Athenagoras then spent the remainder of the treatise body (31-36) refuting the charges of atheism, incest, and infant cannibalism, before he wrapped with a peroration in the final chapter.146

In the final section of the treatise body, dealing with unnatural intercourse and Thyestian banquets, Athenagoras made arguments which bore more than a passing resemblance to those of the Apologeticum 7.1-9.20. Like Tertullian, he argued that pagans perpetuated rumours of such misdemeanours among the Christians simply in order to better

137 Athenagoras Leg. 2. 138 Athenagoras Leg. 3. 139 Athenagoras Leg. 3. 140 Athenagoras Leg. 4. 141 Athenagoras Leg. 5-7. 142 Athenagoras Leg. 8. 143 Athenagoras Leg. 9-12. 144 Athenagoras Leg. 13-23. 145 Athenagoras Leg. 24-30. 146 Athenagoras Leg. 37.

123 their own reputations. Yet public opinion was not necessarily an accurate measure of truth.147 Because Christians lived for the prospect of reward in the afterlife, it was improbable that they would undermine their standing in the eyes of God by such illicit practices.148 Nor could pagans condemn Christians for incest, when the chief of their gods was himself guilty of the crime.149 Incest was forbidden for Christians, who abstained from all lust. Christians idealised the concept of celibacy, and it was thus unlikely that they would engage in sexual relations with their family members. Indeed, Christians were so chaste that second marriage was to be regarded as a type of adultery.150 Those who practised incest themselves could not justifiably accuse Christians of sexual immorality.151 Athenagoras then moved on to deal with the accusations of infanticide and cannibalism, again in a manner very like that of Tertullian. Pagans were the true cannibals, not the Christians.152 Christians could not consume the flesh of an infant unless they had first killed it, a concept abhorrent to Christian and pagan alike.153 Christian moral standards were so high that they did not even kill their young, either born or unborn.154 Finally, anybody who believed in the resurrection of the flesh after Christ’s return would not kill and eat people.155

Athenagoras mentioned abortion as evidence to dispel the contemporary misconception that Christian rituals involved human sacrifice and infant cannibalism.156 He suggested that Christians could not be guilty of homicide, since they were so zealous in their preservation of life that they refused to terminate even unborn infants:

For that matter, how... can we put people to death? And when we declare that women who resort to abortifacients are killers of people, and will have to provide a testimony to God for the abortion, by what rule should we commit murder? For it is not (in the nature) of the same person to consider by tradition that which lies in the womb as a living creature, and therefore subject to care from God, and to kill (the child) as soon as it has come into life.157

147 Athenagoras Leg. 31; cf. Tert. Apol. 7.7-14. 148 Athenagoras Leg. 31; cf. Tert. Apol. 8.1-5. 149 Athenagoras Leg. 32; cf. Tert. Apol. 9.16. 150 Athenagoras Leg. 33; cf. Tert. Apol. 9.19. 151 Athenagoras Leg. 34; cf. Tert. Apol. 9.19. 152 Athenagoras Leg. 34; cf. Tert. Apol. 9.9-12. 153 Athenagoras Leg. 35; cf. Tert. Apol. 8.1-5. 154 Athenagoras Leg. 35; cf. Tert. Apol. 9.7-8. 155 Athenagoras Leg. 36; cf. Tert. Apol. 8.1-5. 156 Bakke 2005: 121. 157 Athenagoras Leg. 35.5-6. πῶς οὖν οἱ μηδὲ ὁρῶντες ἵνα μὴ ἑαυτοῖς ἄγος καὶ μίασμα προστριψαίμεθα, φονεύειν δυνάμεθα; καὶ οἳ τὰς τοῖς ἀμβλωθριδίοις χρωμένας ἀνδροφονεῖν τε καὶ λόγον ὑφέξειν τῆς ἐξαμβλώσεως τῷ θεῷ φαμεν, κατὰ ποῖον ἀνδροφονοῦμεν λόγον; οὐ γὰρ τοῦ αὐτοῦ νομίζειν μὲν καὶ τὸ κατὰ γαστρὸς ζῷον εἶναι καὶ διὰ τοῦτο αὐτοῦ μέλειν τῷ θεῷ, καὶ παρεληλυθότα εἰς τὸν βίον φονεύειν·

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Athenagoras explicitly based the reasons for rejecting abortion on the Christian association between human identity and the divine, but this did not necessarily imply that he viewed foetal life as possessing full human status from the point of conception. He clearly argued that Christians eschewed taking life from the antenatal stage on the basis that human life was the product of God and thus inherently under God’s protection. However, it is worth considering that Athenagoras did not explicitly argue that Christians rejected abortion from conception onwards, unlike Tertullian’s De Anima. Athenagoras did not specify the stage of foetal development to which God’s protection applied. Perhaps he did imply that God’s protection applied from the earliest stages onward, but did not explicate this precisely.

The similarity between Tertullian and Athenagoras here is not surprising. Tertullian wrote in imitation of the Greek apologists, transmuting the second century’s literary wave of Hellenistic Christian thought into Latin for the first time.158 He also supplemented Athenagoras’ arguments with a variety of exempla which would have held meaning for his African readership. It is perhaps to be expected that early in his career, he adopted an established writer of Christian rhetoric as his model. Though Tertullian may well have borrowed Athenagoras’ argument, he tweaked it so that it applied throughout pregnancy. In this manner, he removed any ambiguity concerning Christian views on abortion, and made a clearer case that Christians went to extraordinary lengths to avoid homicide and were thus undeserving of persecution.

Clement of Alexandria (c. AD 150-215) was a contemporary of Athenagoras and Tertullian. Like them, he condemned abortion as a sin. Very little is known about his life. Highly educated in Greek philosophy and Christian literature, Clement dwelled and wrote in Alexandria for most of his life, though he was likely born in Athens.159 Though his approach to the interpretation of Scripture often showed a Platonist leaning, Clement also borrowed from the Stoics and Aristotle.160 Clement dealt with abortion in two works, the Paedagogus and the now fragmentary Eclogae Propheticae. His Paedagogus was intended as a didactic work on Christian moral custom for the education of a fresh convert. The text’s focus particularly emphasised the human race’s reciprocal relationship with the logos of God. The basis for Christian ethics, as outlined in the opening chapters of the text, was the imitation of

158 Barnes 1985: 213. 159 Heine 2004a: 117-120. 160 Lilla 1971: 227-228.

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God.161 By avoiding over-indulgence of the passions, a Christian student could achieve the inner tranquillity necessary for maintaining the health of the soul.162 The Eclogae, on the other hand, appear to be mere ‘notebooks,’ a miscellaneous collection of scriptural quotations with occasion elucidations from the author. Clement probably did not intend them for publication.163 The Eclogae contain little other comment on the topic, other than to quote the Apocalypse section mentioned above.

The discussion of abortion in the Paedagogus was in Book Two, which encapsulated Clement’s views on bodily pleasures, and the need for moderation. Besides advocating temperance regarding food, alcohol and self-adornment, Clement also urged his reader to avoid sexual excess. In Clement’s view, it was ideal to avoid non-procreative sex:

Marriage is the yearning to raise children, not the wanton ejaculation of seed (which is) unlawful and irrational. All our lives would be according to nature, if from above we could withdraw our lusts and if we did not by means of ill-devised instruments slay humankind (which) develops according to divine foresight. For those prostitutes who in secret resort to abortion by means of deadly medications cause the miscarriage of all love for humanity, along with the foetus.164 It would seem that Clement associated the ideas of contraception and abortion. This is not entirely surprising, as the line between early-term abortifacients and contraceptives was considerably more blurred in Clement’s period than it is today; Soranus’ Gynaecologia allowed the prescription of early-term abortifacients as a form of contraception.165 Therefore, it is possible that he even opposed early-term abortion, since the drugs whose use he condemned were most commonly taken in the first trimester of pregnancy.166 However, Clement did not make an explicit argument for the humanity of the undeveloped embryo. His use of the term embryon does not necessarily denote an ‘embryo’ in the sense of the modern medical term. In Greek, embryon was a generic term for a young creature. The word was used for the developed foetus with equal frequency.167 Interestingly, Clement did not oppose

161 Clem. Al. Paed. 1.1.1-1.2.6. For a discussion of the place of the Paedogogus in Clement’s overall theology, consult Osborn 2005: 242-251. 162 Clem. Al. Paed. 1.2.4. 163 Heine 2004a: 117-120. 164 Clem. Al. Paed. 2.10.95-96. Γάμος δὲ ἡ παιδοποιίας ὄρεξις, οὐχ ἡ τοῦ σπέρματος ἄτακτος ἔκκρισις ἡ παράνομος καὶ ἡ παράλογος. Κατὰ φύσιν δ’ ἂν ἡμῖν χωροίη ὁ βίος ἅπας κρατοῦσι τῶν ἐπιθυμιῶν ἄνωθεν μὴ κτείνουσί τε τὸ ἐκ προνοίας θεϊκῆς φυόμενον τῶν ἀνθρώπων γένος κακοτέχνοις μηχαναῖς· αὗται γὰρ πορνείας ἐπικαλύμματι τοῖς ἐς παντελῆ κατασπῶσι φθορὰν φθορίοις συγχρώμεναι φαρμάκοις ἐξαμβλίσκουσιν ἅμα τῷ ἐμβρύῳ τὴν φιλανθρωπίαν. 165 Sor. Gyn. 1.64; Hopkins 1965: 124. 166 Riddle 1997: 44-47. 167 LSJ 253.

126 abortion here due to the Christian rejection of killing per se, but used abortion to support his proposal that the pursuit of sexual pleasure as an end in itself was sinful.168 Clement also conceptualised reproduction as an integral aspect of human imitation of God. Humans, created in the divine image, had a moral and ethical obligation to imitate Him by all means. Only by the imitating God could people assimilate themselves with his divine majesty. The imitation of God included exercising the human faculty for the generation of new life. ‘And by this a man becomes the Image of God, insofar as he works together (with his wife) in the generation of another person.’169 Acting contrary to this purpose, in Clement’s view, would be a rejection of human love, here rendered as philanthropia.

Perhaps under the influence of the Apocalypse of Peter, Clement described abortion as a female sin, carried out only by prostitutes. By using the value-laden term porne ‘prostitute’ to describe women who practised abortion, Clement expressed a severe moral judgement. He demeaned women who practised contraception even within the confines of marriage as prostitutes. By using such pejorative language, Clement placed non-procreative sex outside the boundaries of acceptable sexual behaviour. For Clement, women who ended their pregnancies were guilty not of murder so much as fornication.

Bakke suggests that Clement did not base his opposition to abortion in the Paedagogus on a scriptural basis.170 When read in context, however, it is clear that Clement based his opposition to contraception and abortion upon scriptural principles, especially Genesis. Clement’s entire thesis concerning sexuality, as iterated in his opening lines of the chapter, was underpinned by God’s commandment in Genesis to ‘increase and multiply.’171 His description of non-procreative sex as a matter of ‘spilling seed’ clearly alluded to the story of Anan in Genesis, and also echoed the views professed earlier by his fellow Alexandrian, Philo. Clement fiercely argued that any attempt to remove the procreative aspect from the sexual act constituted sin. As he said:

The seed must not be sown on rocky ground nor treated with disrespect, for it is the beginning of one’s own birth and holds the organising rule of nature bound altogether within its essence. It is

168 Osborn 2005: 249. 169 Clem. Al. Paed. 2.10.83. καὶ κατὰ τοῦτο εἰκὼν ὁ ἄνθρωπος γίνεται τοῦ θεοῦ, καθὸ εἰς γένεσιν ἀνθρώπου ἄνθρωπος συνεργεῖ. 170 Bakke 2005: 118. 171 Clem. Al. Paed. 2.10.83.

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precisely godless, to debase the laws of nature by expending them without count on porous (stones).172 For Clement, abortion was a sin not only because it involved the destruction of human life, but because it was unnatural. It is thus unlikely that Clement strongly influenced Tertullian. Unlike Clement, Tertullian made it clear that he held both men and women responsible for abortion. It was not a crime carried out by prostitutes, but one which occurred within the family. Tertullian also did not argue against abortion on the basis that it artificially interfered with the reproductive process, as Clement did. In relation to abortion, Tertullian made no comment about the futility of spilling seed. In short, Tertullian opposed abortion on a scriptural basis completely different from that of Clement.

Though it was perhaps written after Tertullian, the Octavius of Minucius Felix presented ideas on the unborn child that were striking in their similarity to those presented in the Apologeticum. Virtually nothing is known of Minucius Felix. The dating of the work is uncertain; the earliest reference to it came from in the fourth century.173 It is often assumed that Felix lived sometime from the mid-second century to the early third. Although Lactantius and Jerome both said that he practised law in Rome, Clarke argues that he was most likely a North African by birth.174 In its vocabulary and its content, the Octavius bore more than a passing similarity to Tertullian’s Apologeticum, suggesting at least that the two writers had a similar education. Moreover, Felix referred to local exempla not mentioned outside the African canon, such as the deification of Juba II.175 The text of the Octavius was framed as a dialogue between two Roman interlocutors, the Christian Octavius Januarius and his friend Caecilius Natalis, a devotee of Serapis. Felix wrote that he himself served as the arbiter of discussion.176 Gradually, Octavius managed to persuade Caecilius and Felix that the pagan gods were false, and of the truth of the Christian faith.177 It is open to question whether the dialogue should be taken as reportage of an actual conversation, or as a platform for Felix to present his case on behalf of the Christians.

Considering the parallels between the arguments of Tertullian and Minucius Felix, it is clear that there was some relationship between them. As Clarke says, ‘direct

172 Clem. Al. Paed. 2.10.83. οὐδὲ μὴν <εἰς> πέτρας σπαρτέον οὐδὲ καθυβριστέον τὸ σπέρμα, ἀρχηγὸν γενέσεως οὐσίαν, συνεσπαρμένους ἔχουσαν τῆς φύσεως τοὺς λογισμούς· τοὺς δὲ κατὰ φύσιν λογισμοὺς ἀλόγως εἰς τοὺς παρὰ φύσιν καταισχύνειν πόρους ἄθεον κομιδῇ. 173 Lactant. Div. inst. 5.1. 174 Clarke 1974: 7; Lactant. Div. inst. 5.1; Jer. De vir. ill. 58. 175 Min. Fel. Oct. 24.1. 176 Min. Fel. Oct. 1.1-4.6. 177 Min. Fel. Oct. 39.1-40.4.

128 interdependence between these works is on any reasonable account, certain.’178 The exact nature of their relationship has been a cause for some debate. Some, such as Price (1999), assert that Minucius Felix was the earlier author, implying that Tertullian emulated him closely.179 However, Becker (1967) has made a convincing case for the reverse. Becker argues that it is not possible to identify which author wrote first based purely upon a comparison of their works; internal evidence alone is insufficient without external comparanda.180 He compares Felix to other authors, pointing out that he primarily wrote in imitation of pagan sources, including Plato’s Socratic dialogues and Cicero’s . Since Felix was more interested in clever intertextual references than originality, Becker believes that he borrowed from Tertullian in exactly the same way.181 Yet this argument is perhaps tenuous in itself. Tertullian too was heavy on intertextual references, and did not always name the Christian authors from whom he borrowed. The debate over which author came first is circular, and it is doubtful that any conjectures provided will be acceptable to all scholars.

As with Athenagoras, it is worth outlining the Octavius in full. The structure was as follows. Felix opened with a prologue in which he set the scene for the dialogue, and introduced the interlocutors, Octavius and Caecilius.182 From here, the debate ensued. Caecilius spoke first in defence of Roman polytheism. His main argument was that the Christians were unqualified to offer definite opinions about the divine, the nature of which was mysterious.183 The Romans, on the other hand, had achieved dominion on Earth due to their pious devotion to the gods, and the veracity of the Roman religion was borne out by the accuracy of its systems of divination.184 Moreover, the Christians were even worse than atheist philosophers in their obstinate attitude towards death.185 Felix had Caecilius argue that Christianity was an illicit cult, whose secret rituals involved killing an infant and feasting on its flesh, before carrying out acts of incest.186 Christians further demonstrated their depravity in that they worshipped a dead criminal who had been justly crucified.187 The Christians were

178 Clarke 1974: 9. 179 Price 1999: 112. 180 Becker 1967: 79-80. 181 Becker 1967: 74-97. 182 Min. Fel. Oct.1.1-4.6. 183 Min. Fel. Oct. 5.13. 184 Min. Fel. Oct. 6.1-7.6. 185 Min. Fel. Oct. 8.1-5. 186 Min. Fel. Oct. 9.1-7. 187 Min. Fel. Oct. 9.3-4.

129 strange and foreign to the Romans in that they did not set up altars or shrines.188 Moreover, the apocalypse prophesied by the Christians was impossible, for celestial matter would exist eternally.189 The Christians could not expect God to provide them paradise in the next world when He gave no help in the world of the living.190 Caecilius then finished with a conclusio, wrapping with words to the effect that Christianity should be spurned as a superstition which claimed a predestined certainty about matters where none existed.191

Much Caecilius’ chagrin, Felix reproached him for appearing overly smug about his eloquence.192 Octavius was then given the opportunity to present a contra, or rebuttal. In placatory tones, Octavius said that Caecilius had made several errors in his speech. In a partitio, he outlined his intent to disprove Caecilius point by point.193 There was no need for him to provide a narratio explaining the circumstances which had led him to defend Christianity, as Felix had just heard Caecilius’ speech. He then initiated an exordium, indicating that Felix should not accept his views due to his own authority in speaking, but because of their inherent truth.194 Anybody with the capacity for reason could attain the truth; the glory of God became clearest when people did not over-complicate His nature with decorous titles.195

Octavius directed the first of his arguments against the poets and philosophers, whom Caecilius regarded as authorities on the nature of the gods. The highest claim either could make was that they acknowledged the unity of the one God. Yet they were distinct from the Christians in that they nevertheless worshipped a multitude of deities.196 Pagan gods were nothing more than men, whose legends were enhanced by the poets.197 True divinity had neither an end nor a beginning, but was eternal.198

Octavius’ next points related to pagan praxis, comparing it negatively to that of the Christians. He argued that pagan rituals were more gory and horrendous than those of the

188 Min. Fel. Oct. 10.1-5. 189 Min. Fel. Oct. 11.1-8. 190 Min. Fel. Oct. 12.1-7. 191 Min. Fel. Oct. 13.1-5. 192 Min. Fel. Oct. 14.1-15.2. 193 Min. Fel. Oct. 16.1-6. 194 Min. Fel. Oct. 16.5-18.11. 195 Min. Fel. Oct. 18.10. 196 Min. Fel. Oct. 19.1-15. 197 Min. Fel. Oct. 20.1-23.13. 198 Min. Fel. Oct. 24.3-4.

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Christians.199 Such sacrileges had bought the Romans their empire, not their religious devotion.200 Reliance upon divination, the accuracy of which Caecilius praised, was wont to result in disaster.201 This was not surprising, as the process of augury was influenced by demonic powers.202 These demons spread misleading rumours about the innocent, both Christian and otherwise.203 Jesus was no criminal, and the idea that Christians idolised the cross was misconceived. Moreover, those who worshipped cult images could not fairly mock the Christians for allegedly doing the same.204 Octavius then gave his refutatio of Caecilius’ notions about Christian initiation rituals involving infanticide and incest. Christians did neither of these things, but pagans did.205 The Christians had no need for shrines, for it was impossible to render a graven image of the invisible God.206 God had forsaken the Jews, not the Christians, for had strayed from His path.207

Octavius’ final arguments dealt with the themes of death and resurrection. The belief in the looming apocalypse was no laughing matter, for all material substances were finite. Yet God promised the regeneration of all things.208 When the end came, Christians would be rewarded for their faith, while the wicked would be punished.209 The Christians, said Octavius, did not believe in as Caecilius claimed. Their moral choices were the keys to salvation, which was not pre-ordained.210 Physical sufferings in this world did not indicate abandonment by God, but served to test and train Christians in their faith. It was an honour for a Christian to be martyred, for in doing so he or she could provide a public demonstration of faith.211 The Christians’ choice not to participate in public indicated their moral courage, in that they refused to submit to demons. The true religion, therefore, outdid the corrupt superstition of the pagans in every regard.212 When Octavius had

199 Min. Fel. Oct. 24.5-25.13. 200 Min. Fel. Oct. 25.1-12. 201 Min. Fel. Oct. 26.1-12. 202 Min. Fel. Oct. 26.7-12. 203 Min. Fel. Oct. 27.1-8. 204 Min. Fel. Oct. 28.1-29.8. 205 Min. Fel. Oct. 30.1-31.8. 206 Min. Fel. Oct. 32.1-9. 207 Min. Fel. Oct. 33.1-5. 208 Min. Fel. Oct. 34.1-12. 209 Min. Fel. Oct. 35.1-6. 210 Min. Fel. Oct. 36.1-9 211 Min. Fel. Oct. 37.1-12. 212 Min. Fel. Oct. 38.1-6.

131 concluded thus, Caecilius admitted defeat. He and Felix were amazed, and both promptly converted.213

Though the Apologeticum and the Octavius were rather different structurally, their respective authors would have agreed in their arguments against the rumours of baby-eating and incest. It is all but certain that one author utilised the other, as there was a great deal of overlap in their choices of exempla. Both authors argued that a horrible crime like killing an infant and drinking its blood could only be contemplated by one capable of actually acting on the thought. Pagans thus demonstrated their own perversity simply by accusing the Christians.214 Pagans could not reasonably accuse the Christians of infanticide, since they readily exposed their own offspring or committed parricide by preventing birth.215

As Tertullian and Athenagoras did in their apologies, Felix here used abortion as a rhetorical exemplum to overturn the common Roman misconception that Christian initiates practised human sacrifice and drank the blood of infants. Through his mouthpiece of Octavius, Felix retorted that not only was this untrue, but pagans actually committed a crime just a heinous by exposing their unwanted babies and terminating their unborn progeny:

Now, I would like to meet the man who says or thinks that we are initiated by the murder and bloodshed of a baby. Do you really believe that such a gentle and young body can possibly take those fated wounds? (Do you really believe) that anyone could carve up (a child), scarcely yet a human being, and pour out that fresh blood of new life and drink it? Nobody is able to credit this, except (somebody) who can actually intend (to do) it. For I see that now you expose your children, just brought forth, (leaving them) for wild creatures and the birds. And now (I see) that you destroy (your own) race after strangling the children in a wretched death. There are women who in their very wombs wipe out the foundation of the person yet to be by imbibing medications, and they commit parricide before they give birth. And these surely trace their descent from your gods’ instructions.216 Like numerous other Christian authors including Tertullian, Felix linked the concepts of infanticide and abortion. Thus it is clear that born and unborn children were of equal value to

213 Min. Fel. Oct. 39.1-40.4. 214 Min. Fel. Oct. 30.1; cf. Tert. Apol. 8.5. 215 Min. Fel. Oct. 30.2; cf. Tert. Apol. 9.8. 216 Min. Fel. Oct. 30.1-2. Illum iam velim convenire qui initiari nos dicit aut credit de caede infantis et sanguine. Putas posse fieri ut tam molle, tam parvulum corpus fata vulnerum capiat? ut quisquam illum rudem sanguinem novelli, et vixdum hominis caedat, fundat, exhauriat? Nemo hoc potest credere, nisi qui possit audere. Vos enim video procreatos filios nunc feris et avibus exponere, nunc adstrangulatos misero mortis genere elidere. Sunt quae in ipsis visceribus, medicaminibus et potis, originem futuri hominis exstinguant, et parricidium faciant antequam pariant. Et haec utique de deorum vestrorum disciplina descendunt.

132 him. Since medications designed to expel the foetus or embryo from the uterus were most commonly taken during the earliest stages of pregnancy, Felix may have intended this passage as a censure of abortion from conception onwards, albeit recognising the Septuagint’s distinction between the unformed embryo and the more mature foetus. It also seems that Felix and Tertullian were alike their terminology for the unborn and for the abortion procedure, as Clarke points out.217 Just as Tertullian did in the Apologeticum, Felix described the unborn child as a futurus homo.218 The two texts were dissimilar, however, in that Felix was somewhat more direct than Tertullian in his argument that pagans regularly aborted their pregnancies. Tertullian said that Christians were ethically superior to pagans because they did not terminate their offspring, thus implying that it was an acceptable practice among pagans. Felix, on the other hand, was very explicit in arguing that this was the case. Felix derogated abortion by using the harshest possible term for homicide, parricidium, while Tertullian did not in the Apologeticum.219

Felix’s other arguments against the charge of infanticide and cannibalism were all but identical to those of Tertullian. Saturn, progenitor of the gods, laid the foundation for both parricide and cannibalism by devouring his own children.220 In Africa, babies were once openly sacrificed to Saturn.221 The parents were callous enough to console their children as they led them to the altars, lest their tears be an ill .222 Barbarians such as the Pontic Taurians and the Gauls sacrificed adults to their gods. The brutal games held in honour of Jupiter Latiaris were a form of human sacrifice.223 The Catilinarian conspirators sealed their pact by drinking blood.224 Devotees of Bellona likewise drank human blood. Some pagans even imagined that drinking the blood of fallen beast-fighters would cure epilepsy.225 They committed a kind of cannibalism by eating animals which had sustained themselves on human flesh.226 The Christians, on the other hand, would not taste the blood of animals, let alone humans.227

217 Clarke 1974: 333. 218 Tert. Apol. 9.8. 219 Noonan 1970: 11-12. 220 Min. Fel. Oct. 30.3; cf. Tert. Apol.9.4. 221 Min. Fel. Oct. 30.3; cf. Tert. Apol. 9.2. 222 Min. Fel. Oct. 30.3; cf. Tert. Apol. 9.4. 223 Min. Fel. Oct. 30.4; cf. Tert. Apol. 9.5. 224 Min. Fel. Oct. 30.5; cf. Tert. Apol. 9.9. 225 Min. Fel. Oct. 30.5; cf. Tert. Apol. 9.10. 226 Min. Fel. Oct. 30.6; cf. Tert. Apol. 9.11. 227 Min. Fel. Oct. 30.6; cf. Tert. Apol. 9.11.

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Felix’s refutation of the accusation of incest also bore a distinct resemblance to that of Tertullian. Pagans were hypocritical in accusing Christian men of having sex with their mothers or sisters. After all, it was normal and expected for a Persian boy to have relations with his mother. Pagans enjoyed tragedies whose plots featured incest, such as Oedipus Rex. Indeed, Jupiter himself was incestuous.228 Exposed children could be adopted by pimps and trained as sex slaves. The pagan man who frequented the brothel thus ran the risk of having sex with his own child without knowing it.229 Christians had no need to worry about getting entangled in such sordid matters, for their men were so chaste that widowers abstained from remarriage. Moreover, each author upheld Christian veneration of virginity and celibacy as proof of their sexual continence.230

Minucius Felix’s arguments against the accusations of cannibalism and incest are so close to the Apologeticum 7.1-9.20 that they read like a condensed version of Tertullian’s work. The problem is that this view rests upon the a priori assumption that Tertullian was the earlier author. One could just as easily argue that Tertullian took Minucius Felix’s work and expanded upon his arguments. Alternatively, both authors might have been working from the same, unknown source. It is even possible, though very unlikely, that the authors came to the same conclusions independently of one another. Clarke neatly summarises the problem. ‘In many passages it is proper to admit—though many scholars are reluctant to appear to be so uncommitted—that either author might have phrased the prior version.’231 For the purposes of this dissertation, it will suffice to say that Tertullian was not the only North African Christian who used abortion as an exemplum in his apologetic writings, and that one author likely used the other. Either Tertullian was directly employing a literary trope as his forerunner Felix did, or his fellow Christian Felix accepted Tertullian’s idea of the foetus as futurus homo and re-inscribed it. In either case, it is unfair to call Tertullian a lone dissident as Dunstan does. In light of the previous and contemporary Judaeo-Christian arguments against abortion, it is difficult to accept the idea that Tertullian dissented from prior tradition in arguing against the practice or identifying the unborn child as a human.

It is important, however, to consider his unique employment of Scriptures and the novelties in his construction of the unborn. Before embarking upon an exploration of Tertullian’s use of Scriptures concerning the unborn, his motives and method for using them

228 Min. Fel. Oct. 31.3; cf. Tert. Apol. 9.16. 229 Min. Fel. Oct. 31.4; cf. Tert. Apol. 9.17. 230 Min. Fel. Oct. 31.5; cf. Tert. Apol. 9.19. 231 Clarke 1974: 10.

134 should be noted. It worth re-emphasising the importance of rhetoric to Tertullian’s use of scriptural evidence. As a Christian, Tertullian was certainly influenced by Scripture. However, he was also using it as a source of exempla to boost the authority of his rhetoric. As Sider and Dunn indicate, exempla drawn from Scripture were by far the most powerful for Tertullian.232 He was primarily concerned with the controversies he addressed.233 Tertullian was hardly unusual in this. Although individual authors occasionally carried out exegeses, there were no set guidelines for the interpretation of the Bible in the ante-Nicene period. Origen (AD 184/5-253/4), Hilary (c. AD 300-368) and Jerome (c. AD 347-420) were the earliest Fathers to attempt rigorous exegeses.234 While perspicuous interpretation and citation of Scripture were necessary for the ante-Nicene Fathers, it mostly took place in the context of polemic. This was particularly true for Tertullian, who cited Scripture as a reliable testimonium to support his claims.235 Biblical exegesis served his refutationes of opponents’ arguments, particularly those of fellow Christians. In citing sacred texts, Tertullian aspired to demonstrate his familiarity with Scripture.236 By doing so, he gave himself a greater degree of credibility as a contender in the competitive world of Christian writing.

Tertullian himself provided some indication as to his method of interpreting the Bible in Adversus Marcionem and De Resurrectione Mortuorum.237 Here, he displayed an inclination to favour literal interpretation wherever possible. Nevertheless, there were times when reading the Bible literally would result in nonsensical interpretations. In these instances, it was necessary to provide an allegorical reading of sacred text: ‘Facts (res) are held in the writings, and the writings are read in the facts. Therefore the form of prophetic eloquence is not allegorical either always or in all (writings), but sometimes and in some places.’238 Dunn (2006) does not believe that Tertullian’s statements of his methods in these works represented an ‘absolute principle,’ but rather ‘a more relative one, applicable to the needs of a particular treatise.’239 Rather than sticking too closely to a particular method of exegesis, Tertullian generally employed the opposite method to that of his opponent.240 Tertullian would have made life difficult for himself as a polemicist if he had adhered to a

232 Sider 1971: 9; Dunn 2004: 19. 233 Dunn 2006: 151-152. 234 Waszink 1979: 18. 235 Waszink 1979: 19. 236 Heyne 2011: 156. 237 Tert. Marc. 3.5.3; Res. 20.1-9. 238 Tert. Res. 20.9. Res in litteris tenentur, litterae in rebus leguntur. Ita non semper nec in omnibus allegorica forma est prophetici eloquii, sed interdum et in quibusdam. 239 Dunn 2006: 152. 240 Dunn 2006: 152-153.

135 single principle of exegesis too rigidly, depriving himself of tools for effective argument. When it suited his arguments concerning the unborn child, Tertullian did engage in a degree of allegorical interpretation of Scripture. He was not above using a scriptural allegory to explain the length of gestation, for instance.241 Perhaps Tertullian was inclined to offer allegorical interpretations regarding prenatal development and ensoulment due to the general reticence of the New Testament on these matters.

The extent to which Tertullian made use of the Vetus Latina is not entirely certain. All of Tertullian’s quotations from Scripture were presented in Latin. The question is whether he approached the texts in Latin, or whether he made his own translations from the Septuagint and the Greek New Testament.242 There is no doubt that Tertullian knew Greek as well as Latin. He said directly that he was fluent in both tongues.243 Moreover, he was sufficiently versed in the language to produce Greek versions of De Baptismo and De Spectaculis.244 Tertullian also hinted in the opening lines of De Virginibus Velandis that he had completed an earlier draft in Greek, since he said that he had already declaimed on the veiling of virgins and would now do so again in Latin.245 It would have been superfluous to point this out unless the previous version was in a different language.

Though Tertullian was clearly literate in Greek, his grammatical points pertained mostly to the Latin. Indeed, reading Tertullian, one could gain the impression that the Bible was originally written in Latin.246 For example, Tertullian built arguments in De Carne Christi based upon the correct use of the preposition ex in Matthew 1.20.247 In De Praescriptione Haereticorum, Tertullian commented on the pronoun haec in 2 Timothy 2.2.248 For De Oratione he commented that his text of 1 Corinthians said that mulieres should be veiled but did not specify that this injunction applied to virgines.249

It made sense for a man of to make points from the Latin rather than the Greek. Latin was the lingua franca of North Africa, and Tertullian could not perhaps count upon his reader’s knowledge of Greek. While Carthage had a strong tradition in the

241 Tert. An. 37.3. Tertullian’s use of Scripture to explain the length of gestation will be further discussed in the next chapter. 242 Dunn 2004: 13. 243 Tert. Prax. 3.2. 244 Tert. De bapt. 15.2; Cor. 6.3. 245 Tert. Virg. Vel. 1.1. 246 O’Malley 1967: 4. 247 Tert. Carn. 20.1. 248 Tert. De praesc. 25.8-9. 249 Tert. De Orat. 21.1-3.

136 acculturation of young people in Latin, Carthage was an intellectual backwater in regard to Greek higher education. Apuleius had gained his formative education in Latin letters, grammar, and rhetoric in Carthage, and was introduced to the rudiments of Platonic philosophy there.250 However, he travelled to Athens for his further Hellenic acculturation.251 He eventually made his way to the salons of Rome and probably Alexandria, before eventually returning to Carthage.252 It was quite typical for a second-century African who sought recognition for his education to travel abroad. For instance, Fronto left Cirta early in life to be educated at Rome, and never returned.253 If a young man of the Romano-African elite wanted to reach the upper echelons of Greek paideia, he went elsewhere. It is possible that Tertullian felt he could reach his reader more effectively by appealing to the common tongue, rather than risk confusing his argument by making grammatical points from the foreign Greek.

The findings of Aalders (1937) provide a helpful guide to answering the question of whether Tertullian customarily used the Bible in Latin or Greek. Aalders compares Tertullian’s quotations of Luke to several versions of the Vetus Latina, and concludes that ‘often they strikingly correspond with some of those versions.’254 Moreover, he argues that Tertullian ‘was not unacquainted with a Latin version of St Luke that was current in Africa.’255 On the other hand, Aalders also finds that there were more cases where Tertullian’s quotations did not agree with the Old Latin, or where there was a closer correspondence with the Greek. Aalders thus reasons that Tertullian normally used the Greek and created his own translations for quotations. In the process of translation, Aalders argues, he also consulted a pre-existing Latin version where one was available.256 In his monograph surveying Tertullian’s use of the Bible, O’Malley generally agrees with Aalders. He writes: ‘There is no doubt but that Tertullian is in contact with Latin renderings of some parts of the Scriptures.’257 Yet O’Malley also recognises that Tertullian did not restrain himself to the Vetus Latina version:

Just as Jerome and Augustine and others witness to variety of renderings of the same locus, and reflect upon the translations which

250 Apul. Flor. 18.5; 20.3. 251 Apul. Flor. 20.4. 252 Apul. Flor. 17.4; Apul. Apol. 72.1-6. 253 Champlin 1980: 19. 254 Aalders 1937: 279. 255 Aalders 1937: 281. 256 Aalders 1937: 282. 257 O’Malley 1967: 62.

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they knew, Tertullian is already engaged in the same process. Sometimes with greater acumen than his successors showed, with independence which permits him to examine the Greek and translate it for himself, and always with an eye for clarity and precision of language.258 For the purpose of this dissertation, the question of whether Tertullian used the Vetus Latina will be investigated in instances where his reading of the Bible on the question of the unborn child clearly diverged from that of the Greek, and where it is possible to compare his quotations to a text of the Old Latin.

Tertullian was unique in that no previous Christian literature had rigorously discussed prenatal development or abortion. Though the condemnation of abortion had become a well- established literary trope for Christian writers by Tertullian’s period, there had not been any extended exegeses on the biblical basis for the construction of the unborn child as a human being. As discussed above, the references in prior authors were few and passing. This lacuna afforded Tertullian an extraordinary opportunity to break new ground as a Christian writer. Expounding upon prenatal life in an unaccustomed manner made Tertullian appear more a more dynamic polemicist than his patristic forbears such as Athenagoras and Clement of Alexandria. Yet neither abortion nor the status of unborn children were over-riding concerns to Tertullian; he was like his patristic forerunners in this regard. Though abortion and foetal life were occasional themes of his rhetoric, Tertullian did not dedicate any particular treatise to the subject. Like Athenagoras, Clement, and Minucius Felix, Tertullian simply used abortion as evidence to furnish much broader arguments, as previously discussed in the first chapter. His arguments against abortion were subsidiary to his overall rhetorical agenda. It was this agenda which led him to cite explicitly the authority of multiple specific Scriptures to back up his ideas.

The paucity of specific scriptural references in Ad Nationes and the Apologeticum may be explained by the fact that he intended them for pagan readers.259 Attempting to appeal to the authority of Christian texts in his arguments on the unborn would have undermined Tertullian’s argument, since his target reader would not have been familiar with them.260 Appealing to the authority of texts sacred only to Jews and Christians would only have highlighted their otherness. However, it is worth pointing out that in each of these cases

258 O’Malley 1967: 63. 259 Bakke 2005: 120. 260 Dunn 2004: 19.

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Tertullian based his refutation of abortion upon the idea that Christians valued human life. Likewise, Tertullian appears to have based his idea of Christian refusal to kill upon their observation of the Decalogue’s proscription of murder. The Judaeo-Christian idea that human life was inherently worth preserving was intrinsic to his argument. Moreover, Tertullian’s Apologeticum appears to embrace a tradition similar to that of the aforementioned Christian authors in that he linked the concepts of abortion and infanticide. He placed the discussions of the two issues in the same chapter, linking them inextricably. Tertullian therefore implied that for a Christian, the antenatal offspring held the equivalent value of an infant postpartum.

Without mentioning it openly, Tertullian here insinuated that Christians held a greater degree of compassion and love for the helpless than their non-Christian neighbours. Tertullian thus underpinned his argument with the concept of agape, though he eschewed mentioning it openly. The idea of agape was peculiar to Christianity. The word carried metaphysical connotations about the relationship between God and the human race.261 Introducing the idea in a polemical treatise intended to advocate Christianity’s place in the Roman world would once again have made Christianity appear too alien. Moreover, it would have required a lengthy explanation, perhaps along the lines of 1 Corinthians. Such a lengthy exposition on the nature of love would have been better suited to proselytising than polemic.

The discussion of induced miscarriage in Exodus also seems to have underpinned Tertullian’s understanding of abortion in the Apologeticum. He never technically argued that an undeveloped embryo was a human being in this work. Rather, Tertullian described it as a futurus homo, or a ‘human yet to be.’ Tertullian thus maintained that even if the nascent flesh of an unformed embryo had not yet attained a sentient soul, it still held a potential soul. Or as he put it: ‘the fruit is already in the seed.’262 On this basis, Tertullian argued that even if abortion was not homicide in a legal sense, its results were effectively identical.263 This conceptualisation of the embryo also heavily echoed Aristotle’s conception theory, as discussed in the next chapter. However, it is worth noting that Tertullian’s valuation of the embryo here may have also been influenced by the demand in Exodus that induced miscarriage should be redressed by capital punishment in instances when the child had taken on a recognisably human form, but beforehand should be dealt with like a loss of property. Once more, however, Tertullian did not mention the scriptural basis for his ideation of the

261 Ferngren 2009: 97. 262 Tert. Apol. 9.8. 263 Jones 2004: 113-114.

139 embryo. To do so would weaken his position before his non-Christian reader. It is also worth noting that Tertullian gave no indication that abortion was permissible at any stage of gestation. Introducing such an argument would have brought a degree of ambiguity into his construction of Christian views of abortion, and thus weakened its efficacy as a source of proof.

Tertullian was also the first to link Paul’s views on marriage to the issues of propagation and abortion. In Lindemann’s opinion, the silence of the New Testament regarding the issues of procreation and abortion is especially surprising in light of Paul’s emphasis upon marriage.264 In his letters to fellow Christians at Corinth, Paul offered the opinion that although marriage was a God-given institution, choosing a life of celibacy would make it easier to serve as a Christian. In his words:

I want you to be free from preoccupations. The unmarried man should be preoccupied about the things of the Lord, and the means by which to find favour with the Lord. On the other hand, the married man is preoccupied about things of the world, the means by which to find favour with his wife, and he is divided. And the unmarried woman or virgin is preoccupied about the things of the Lord, in order to be pure in both body and spirit; but the married woman is preoccupied with things of the world, the means by which to find favour with her husband. I say this for you, not so as to cast a noose upon you, but (in the name of) decency and (for your) undistracted attention to the Lord.265 To this effect, Paul urged his readers to follow his example and remain single.266 Paul’s opinions on marriage were intimately linked to his eschatological expectations; he framed his discussion of marriage with a view towards the looming apocalypse.267 For Paul, it was idle to alter one’s marital status since the end of the world was imminent. It was preferable for his readers to maintain their current marital status, and not to seek remarriage following bereavement or divorce.268 However, this should not suggest that Paul was against marriage. In fact, Paul promoted the virtue of Christian monogamy, and espoused that Christians should

264 Lindemaan 1985: 261. 265 1 Cor. 7.32-35. θέλω δὲ ὑμᾶς ἀμερίμνους εἶναι. ὁ ἄγαμος μεριμνᾷ τὰ τοῦ κυρίου, πῶς ἀρέσῃ τῷ κυρίῳ· ὁ δὲ γαμήσας μεριμνᾷ τὰ τοῦ κόσμου, πῶς ἀρέσῃ τῇ γυναικί, καὶ μεμέρισται. καὶ ἡ γυνὴ ἡ ἄγαμος καὶ ἡ παρθένος μεριμνᾷ τὰ τοῦ κυρίου, ἵνα ᾖ ἁγία [καὶ] τῷ σώματι καὶ τῷ πνεύματι· ἡ δὲ γαμήσασα μεριμνᾷ τὰ τοῦ κόσμου, πῶς ἀρέσῃ τῷ ἀνδρί. τοῦτο δὲ πρὸς τὸ ὑμῶν αὐτῶν σύμφορον λέγω, οὐχ ἵνα βρόχον ὑμῖν ἐπιβάλω, ἀλλὰ πρὸς τὸ εὔσχημον καὶ εὐπάρεδρον τῷ κυρίῳ ἀπερισπάστως. 266 1 Cor. 7.1-8; 7.25-40. 267 1 Cor. 7.26. 268 1 Cor. 7.10-11.

140 not divorce.269 He went so far as to suggest that in the event that a Christian was incapable of remaining celibate, it was better to remain married to a non-believer than to divorce.270 However, the link between Paul and procreation was tenuous. Paul made no mention of children as a consequence of marriage in any of the surviving manuscripts.

In Ad Uxorem and De Exhortatione Castitatis Tertullian interpreted Paul’s references to the ‘anxieties’ of marriage as a reference to the responsibilities of parenthood, urging Christians not to reproduce if they could avoid it, since the responsibilities of raising children would serve as a distraction from service to God.271 Moreover, Tertullian suggested that Christians should avoid begetting children, since it would be easier to endure martyrdom without the anxieties of parenthood.272 Tertullian seems to have connected Paul’s eschatological expectations with the apocalyptic prophecies iterated in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.273 Tertullian here applied a layer of interpolation to Paul’s views on marriage, recasting his ideas in light of procreation. Indeed, for Tertullian, Paul’s call to celibacy was of such power that it cancelled out the commandment towards fertility in Genesis.274 Yet as always, it is ambiguous whether his exhortation to abstain from child rearing was a reflection of his personal experiences or whether it was simply rhetorical.275 It is of course possible that Tertullian was reading a Latin text of 1 Corinthians which did mention child-rearing. Unfortunately, once again only Sabatier’s edition is available for comparison, as the Institut Vetus Latina has thus far published only Uwe Fröhlich’s (1995, 1996, 1998) introductory material on 1 Corinthians. Sabatier’s text does not feature any such digression on childrearing.276

Tertullian’s De Exhortatione Castitatis was also the first in which he seemed inclined to argue that abortion was sinful from the moment of conception. The medicamen he mentioned clearly referred to abortifacients, such as pennyroyal and silphium, which were most commonly taken in the first trimester.277 Likewise, the fact that he referred to the progeny as conceptus rather than infans perhaps suggests that it was recently conceived, and

269 1 Cor. 7.10-14. 270 1 Cor. 7.12-14. 271 Tert. Ux. 1.5.2-3; Ex. Cast. 9.4. 272 As previously mentioned in n. 270 on p. 70, it is also possible that Tertullian meant that women could serve as martyrs if they were not pregnant, since at least in Carthage women could not be executed in the arena while with child. Compare this contemporary reference to the Passio Perpetuae 15.2. 273 Matt. 24.19; Luke 21.23. 274 Tert. Ex. Cast. 6.1. 275 Dunn 2004: 5. 276 Sabatier 1751: 682-683. 277 Riddle 1997: 44-47.

141 had not yet taken on the physical characteristics of an infant. If Tertullian was suggesting that induced abortion was murder from conception onwards, he seems to have made a break from Exodus as iterated in the Septuagint and Vetus Latina. As previously noted, these versions of Exodus suggested that induced miscarriage should be treated as homicide only in cases where the child had reached a certain degree of physical maturation in the womb. However, it was not out of character for Tertullian to bend his theology so that it would serve his rhetorical ends. Tertullian carefully avoided extended exegesis in this work. In De Exhortatione Castitatis, Tertullian’s allusions to Scripture seem off the cuff, perhaps deliberately. He did not directly invoke the authority of Scripture to back his argument on abortion as he later would in De Anima. By avoiding extended explanation, he cleverly gave the impression that his view of abortion was so obvious that it needed no explanation.

In De Exhortatione Castitatis Tertullian drew upon the conceptualisation of God as the regulator of fertility. He sarcastically suggested that after an unplanned pregnancy had occurred, his Christian reader might have prayed to God for an end to the pregnancy. Tertullian’s argument here rested upon the idea that God’s will concerning procreation could not be bent by human intervention. Tertullian then suggested that an alternative might be to court a woman incapable of conceiving children. However, even this would have been no protection, since there were numerous examples from the Old and New Testaments of God miraculously granting barren women the ability to bear children.278 In his words:

I guess that some woman will be sought after faithfully and with sufficient deliberation, who is actually already frigid by age. After all, we believe in no woman who brought forth (a child) by God’s will, although she was sterile or aged! Which is exactly what He is more likely to do, if somebody by the presumption of his own foreknowledge, challenges God by emulating him. In fact, we know (of an instance) among the (Christian) brothers, in which one of them took a sterile wife in second marriage on account of his daughter, and he was made a father again, as well as a husband again.279 In fact, Tertullian wryly suggested that God was more likely to punish a man who married an infertile woman to avoid fatherhood by granting him offspring.

278 Gen. 21.2; 25.21; Judges 13.2-24; 1.20; Luke 1.23-25. 279 Tert. Ex. Cast. 1.12.6. Aliqua, opinor, sterilis prospicietur, iam uel frigidioris aetatis. Satis consulte et imprimis fideliter. Nullam enim credidimus deo uolente sterilem aut anum enixam. Quod adeo magis euenire potest, si quis praesumptione huius prouidentiae suae dei aemulationem prouocarit. Scimus denique quendam ex fratribus, cum propter filiam suam secundo matrimonio sterilem captasset uxorem, tam iterum patrem factum quam et iterum maritum.

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De Virginibus Velandis differed from Tertullian’s other condemnations of abortion because it expressed anxiety that women, rather than their lovers, were responsible for ending pregnancies. In De Exhortatione Castitatis, Tertullian reproached the paterfamilias for (hypothetically) procuring drugs to terminate his nascent offspring; but here, the onus was clearly upon the mater. Tertullian again drew upon the conceptualisation of God as the overseer of prenatal development in De Virginibus Velandis. No human agency could prevent God from bringing a child to fruition, according to this treatise. Tertullian here implied that any attempt to intervene in God’s work was futile. Moreover, Tertullian also echoed his previous De Exhortatione Castitatis in that he suggested that God would punish attempts to affect the process of human development by causing unwanted pregnancy.

Once again, however, it is not clear whether Tertullian meant that the unborn child should be assigned human status from conception in De Virginibus Velandis. Indeed, he did not describe it as homicide at all, though he was obviously convinced of the immorality of abortion. He expressed a clear sympathy for the unborn, portraying it as the helpless victim of its mother.280 However, Tertullian did not delineate the point in pregnancy at which these abortions supposedly occurred. This was no impediment to his thesis. Tertullian’s indictment of unmarried women who ended their pregnancies was one slender component of his case against women who went unveiled. Getting bogged down in unnecessary detail in one of his ancillary arguments would have drawn attention away from the issue at hand.

De Anima featured Tertullian’s most thorough digressions on the unborn. It was the first attempt to present an extended examination of pregnancy and the process of embryonic development in the history of Christian literature.281 Tertullian was also the first author to employ scriptural exegesis to support his view, drawing upon a rich array of scriptural ammunition.282 However, it is worth re-emphasising that Tertullian did not do so for the purpose of arguing against termination of pregnancy, but rather to prove his views on psychology. In De Anima, Tertullian did not make use of his earlier interpretation of Paul’s views on celibacy and childrearing. Instead, he relied upon the idea that children were a divine blessing, not a curse. To support this view, Tertullian invoked the authority of God’s commandment towards fertility, not once, but twice.283 He described the desire to procreate

280 Kapparis 2002: 139. 281 Jones 2004: 113. 282 Gorman 1982: 57; Lindemann 1995: 264. 283 Tert. An. 27.4; 27.9.

143 as status, or the ‘normal condition.’284 Far from reproaching Christians for having children, he ebulliently celebrated the female role in procreation.285 Upholding reproduction as a normative aspect of Christian marriage enabled Tertullian to promote his thesis on the development of the soul. De Anima was significantly different from his earlier treatises on marriage because of his argument; it would have been difficult to promote a traducian view of ensoulment without referring to pregnancy. Tertullian could hardly use pregnancy as an exemplum and downplay procreation in the same treatise.

In order to prove that Stoic and Platonist influence upon the Christian ideas of ensoulment were heretical, Tertullian drew heavily upon biblical references to the unborn child. Employing evidence from the Greek embryological and philosophical traditions without reference to the Bible would have made him appear hypocritical, leaving him open to challenge.286 In particular, Tertullian explicitly linked his conceptualisation of the unborn child to Genesis. He grounded his description of the unborn child in terms of First Creation. Tertullian was the first patristic writer to make clear the association between God’s moulding of Adam and Eve and His moulding of the embryo. In De Anima, he often employed the imagery of God as moulder and shaper of the embryo.287 By alluding to the scriptural tradition of God as the moulder of the unborn child, Tertullian increased the authority of his argument. Though his arguments about the nature and origin of the soul had little correlation with Scripture, Tertullian made it appear as though his arguments proceeded naturally from Genesis by borrowing its language. In 27.1-9 particularly, he argued that body and soul were formed simultaneously upon conception via a scriptural analogy. Tertullian likened the moist clay from which God crafted Adam to male , which, according to Tertullian, formed the physical make-up of the embryo. He further likened the soul of the father, passed on to the child through orgasm, to the breath of God. ‘Therefore that whole overflow of souls comes from the one man-- nature of course is observant of God’s commandment, “increase and multiply.”’288

284 Tert. An. 27.4. Excessus, non status est impudicus, siquidem benedictus status apud deum: crescite et in multitudinem proficite, excessus uero maledictus, adulteria et stupra et lupanaria. 285 Tert. An. 25.3. 286 Of course, despite his assertions to the contrary, Tertullian did employ embryology heavily. This will be discussed in further detail in the next chapter. 287 Tert. An. 27.7; 36.4. 288 Tert. An. 27.9. Igitur ex uno homine tota haec animarum redundantia, obseruante scilicet natura dei edictum: crescite et in multitudinem proficite.

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Tertullian also drew upon narratives of miraculous pregnancies to prove that the foetus was in some way receptive to the presence of God. He used the story of Rebecca’s carrying and Esau, and their ‘striving’ in her womb to prove that infants were animated even prior to birth. The relevant section of Genesis reads:

Isaac prayed to the Lord concerning Rebecca, his wife, because she was sterile. And the Lord heard him, and Rebecca conceived in her belly. The babies leapt within her, and she said, “If it is so with me, then why is this happening to me?” So she went to ask of the Lord. The Lord said to her, “Two nations are in your belly, and two peoples will be separated from your womb; one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger.” And the days passed for her to give birth, there were twins in her womb. The first to come out was red, and hairy all over like a hide. So she named him Esau. After this, his brother came forth, and his hand grasped Esau’s heel; so she named him Jacob.289 In Tertullian’s view, the fact that Rebecca could feel the infants stirring within her alone would have been sufficient for him to prove that infants were animated prior to birth. On the other hand, their movement could have been taken as an aberration or a prodigy. However, Tertullian added a further detail, saying that Jacob grabbed Esau’s heel while they were still in the birth canal, before either had taken their first breaths.290 Since the contest between the two brothers had begun before either was breathing, the Stoic and Platonic theory that breath was the first point of ensoulment was clearly wrong.291

In the same chapter, Tertullian also drew upon the evidence of Luke and . He was the first Christian writer to justify his theory of foetal consciousness by Luke’s narration of John’s ‘leaping’ in the womb. As Luke said:

In those days Mary got up and went off with speed into the hills towards a Judean city, and (there) she entered into the house of

289 Gen. 25.21-26. ἐδεῖτο δὲ Ισαακ κυρίου περὶ Ρεβεκκας τῆς γυναικὸς αὐτοῦ, ὅτι στεῖρα ἦν· ἐπήκουσεν δὲ αὐτοῦ ὁ θεός, καὶ ἔλαβεν ἐν γαστρὶ Ρεβεκκα ἡ γυνὴ αὐτοῦ. ἐσκίρτων δὲ τὰ παιδία ἐν αὐτῇ· εἶπεν δέ Εἰ οὕτως μοι μέλλει γίνεσθαι, ἵνα τί μοι τοῦτο; ἐπορεύθη δὲ πυθέσθαι παρὰ κυρίου, καὶ εἶπεν κύριος αὐτῇ Δύο ἔθνη ἐν τῇ γαστρί σού εἰσιν, καὶ δύο λαοὶ ἐκ τῆς κοιλίας σου διασταλήσονται· καὶ λαὸς λαοῦ ὑπερέξει, καὶ ὁ μείζων δουλεύσει τῷ ἐλάσσονι. καὶ ἐπληρώθησαν αἱ ἡμέραι τοῦ τεκεῖν αὐτήν, καὶ τῇδε ἦν δίδυμα ἐν τῇ κοιλίᾳ αὐτῆς. ἐξῆλθεν δὲ ὁ υἱὸς ὁ πρωτότοκος πυρράκης, ὅλος ὡσεὶ δορὰ δασύς· ἐπωνόμασεν δὲ τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ Ησαυ. καὶ μετὰ τοῦτο ἐξῆλθεν ὁ ἀδελφὸς αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἡ χεὶρ αὐτοῦ ἐπειλημμένη τῆς πτέρνης Ησαυ· καὶ ἐκάλεσεν τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ Ιακωβ. 290 Fischer’s edition of the Old Latin Genesis (1952: 267-269) gives no indication that this detail was in the Vetus Latina. In all likelihood, it was an interpolation of Tertullian. 291 Tert. An. 26.1-3. As Dunn (1998: 119-122) points out, Tertullian’s interpretation of the passage here was quite different from that presented in other works. In Adversus Iudaeos 1.4-1.7, for instance, Tertullian argued that the struggle between Esau and Jacob represented the triumph of Christianity over Judaism. In De Pudicitia 8, on the other hand, Tertullian examined the narrative of Jacob and Esau’s contention as a means of explaining the significance of Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15.11-32.

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Zechariah and warmly greeted Elizabeth. When it came to pass that Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was fulfilled with the Holy Spirit and she said shouting with a great shout, ‘You are blessed among women, and the fruit of your womb is also blessed. And from where has this come to me, so that my Lord’s mother comes to me? Behold, for right as it came to pass that the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the child in my womb leaped in great joy. And the woman who believed that there would be a fulfilment of the things said to her by the Lord is blessed.292 This passage had many layers of significance. Playoust and Aitkin (2008) suggest that Luke utilised the narrative of John’s recognition of Jesus as the Messiah in utero to reconcile the rivalry between the followers of Jesus and the followers of John. By iterating the narrative, the author made it clear that John held a favoured position in the eye of God, albeit one subordinate to that of Jesus.293 Unlike the other Gospels, Luke intertwined the infancy narratives of Jesus and John. The fact that John leaped ‘for joy’ in Luke signified John’s recognition of God’s presence as incarnated in Mary’s womb.294 However, the text also allowed Tertullian to argue that the unborn child was sensitive to God’s presence, and thus alive even before birth.295

Tertullian quoted Jeremiah to prove that the foetus was fully formed and animated by God in the womb.296 In the Scripture, God Himself came to Jeremiah, telling him: ‘Before I moulded you in the womb, I knew you; and before you came out from the womb, I made you sacred; I prepared you as a prophet to the peoples.’297 Tertullian’s main point here was that the unborn child was clearly alive, as expressed by his comment:

Since God moulds us in utero, He also breathes upon us, as from First Creation, when "the Lord God formed man, and breathed into him the

292 Luke 1.39-45. Ἀναστᾶσα δὲ Μαριὰμ ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις ταύταις ἐπορεύθη εἰς τὴν ὀρεινὴν μετὰ σπουδῆς εἰς πόλιν Ἰούδα, καὶ εἰσῆλθεν εἰς τὸν οἶκον Ζαχαρίου καὶ ἠσπάσατο τὴν Ἐλισάβετ. καὶ ἐγένετο ὡς ἤκουσεν τὸν ἀσπασμὸν τῆς Μαρίας ἡ Ἐλισάβετ, ἐσκίρτησεν τὸ βρέφος ἐν τῇ κοιλίᾳ αὐτῆς, καὶ ἐπλήσθη πνεύματος ἁγίου ἡ Ἐλισάβετ, καὶ ἀνεφώνησεν κραυγῇ μεγάλῃ καὶ εἶπεν, Εὐλογημένη σὺ ἐν γυναιξίν, καὶ εὐλογημένος ὁ καρπὸς τῆς κοιλίας σου. καὶ πόθεν μοι τοῦτο ἵνα ἔλθῃ ἡ μήτηρ τοῦ κυρίου μου πρὸς ἐμέ; ἰδοὺ γὰρ ὡς ἐγένετο ἡ φωνὴ τοῦ ἀσπασμοῦ σου εἰς τὰ ὦτά μου, ἐσκίρτησεν ἐν ἀγαλλιάσειτὸ βρέφος ἐν τῇ κοιλίᾳ μου. καὶ μακαρία ἡ πιστεύσασα ὅτι ἔσται τελείωσις τοῖς λελαλημένοις αὐτῇ παρὰ κυρίου. 293 Playoust and Aitkin 2008: 173. 294 Playoust and Aitkin 2008: 162. 295 Tert. An. 26.9. 296 Tert. An. 26.4-5. 297 LXX Jer. 1.5. Πρὸ τοῦ με πλάσαι σε ἐν κοιλίᾳ ἐπίσταμαί σε καὶ πρὸ τοῦ σε ἐξελθεῖν ἐκ μήτρας ἡγίακά σε, προφήτην εἰς ἔθνη τέθεικά σε.

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breath of life." Nor could God have known man in the womb, if not in full: "before you came out from the womb, I sanctified you."298 According to Tertullian, the unborn child thus clearly knew God and was sensitive to His presence even prior to birth. Moreover, God had moulded the embryo in the womb and gave it life just as he did Adam, as shown by Tertullian’s quotation of Genesis 2.7: et finxit deus hominem et flauit in eum flatum uitae.

Tertullian’s argument in De Anima that abortion constituted homicide throughout pregnancy again seems to have diverged somewhat from the Greek Exodus and its Old Latin translation. As he said: ‘We recognise life from the point of conception, and because of this we claim that the soul (also begins) from conception; for (from the beginning of) life there is a soul.’299 Strangely, Tertullian later cited the authority of the ‘Law of Moses’ to back up his rejection of abortion. Here, he recognised a distinction between the formed and unformed offspring. In Tertullian’s words:

Therefore, the offspring becomes a human being in utero from the point when its form is completed. Indeed, at that point the Law of Moses sentences the man guilty of abortion to retributive punishment, while as yet there exists the beginning (causa) of a human being, when the condition of both life and death have been assigned to it, although (I realise that) because it lives as yet inside its mother, it mostly receives its lot along with its mother.300 In this passage, Tertullian appeared to contradict his earlier argument that the embryo possessed human status from the moment of conception by suggesting that it became human only after its form had been completed. It is tempting to follow Lindemann’s suggestion that Tertullian was citing Exodus in his arguments against abortion.301 Yet in arguing that the embryo was fully hominised at all stages of gestation, Tertullian’s argument differed from the Septuagint and Old Latin renditions of Exodus, which described induced miscarriage as murder only from the point at which the foetal offspring had attained human form. If Tertullian was indeed alluding to the Septuagint version of Exodus or the Old Latin as represented in Sabatier, he was being somewhat disingenuous.

298 Tert. An. 26.5. Sic et ad Hieremiam legis dei uocem: priusquam te in utero fingerem, noui te. Si fingit deus in utero, et afflat ex primordii forma: et finxit deus hominem et flauit in eum flatum uitae. Nec nosset autem hominem deus in utero nisi totum: et priusquam exires de uulua, sanctificaui te. 299 Tert. An. 27.3. Porro uitam a conceptu agnoscimus, quia animam a conceptu uindicamus; exinde enim uita, quo anima. Tertullian was clearly using porro in a temporal rather than locative sense. 300 Tert. An. 37.2. Ex eo igitur fetus in utero homo, a quo forma completa est. Nam et Mosei lex tunc aborsus reum talionibus iudicat, cum iam hominis est causa, cum iam illi uitae et mortis status deputatur, cum et fato iam inscribitur, etsi adhuc in matre uiuendo cum matre plurimum communicat sortem. 301 Lindemann 1995: 264.

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It is worth evaluating the possibility that Tertullian was working from a Latin version of Exodus that allowed for this variant reading. Yet elements of the discussion of miscarriage in the Septuagint’s Exodus do remain visible in De Anima.302 Even within this tract, Tertullian occasionally seemed inclined to favour a more gradualist approach to antenatal development, and did not appear to see any contradiction between this and his previous advocacy of immediate hominisation. For instance, Tertullian openly constructed the unborn child as imago Dei once it had completed seven months’ maturation:

But I would recognise the honour of the Sabbath, inasmuch as birth is fulfilled upon the seventh month more easily than upon the eighth, because it corresponds with the day from which God’s creation was founded; and on that month the Image of God is sometimes produced. It is conceded that it speeds up the birth and that the birth finally occurs most suitably upon the seventh month, (which) is a sign of the resurrection, and both our repose and the kingdom (of God).303 If the unborn child attained the Image of God only in the seventh month, then that implied that in his view it did not bear the Image of God beforehand. It is safe to conclude that he was indeed working either from the Septuagint directly, or that he was working from a Latin tradition which echoed the Greek text.

One may reconcile the differences between De Anima 27.3 and 37.2 by acknowledging that Tertullian may not have been referring to Exodus 21.22-21.23 precisely in his appeal to the lex Mosei.304 Tertullian was perhaps deliberately vague in his wording. The ‘Law of Moses’ could refer to any of the numerous Mosaic precepts laid down in the Pentateuch, as all five books were ascribed to the authorship of Moses. He could simply have been referring to the Decalogue’s ban upon murder.305 The impreciseness of his reference to Mosaic Law was perhaps meant to bring the discussion of miscarriage in Exodus and the distinction between the formed and unformed offspring to mind, without inviting detailed analysis. Tertullian’s appeal to the authority of the Law here perhaps came about due to his

302 Waszink 1947: 426. 303 Tert. An. 37.4. Sed et cum septimo mense natiuitas plena est facilius quam octauo, honorem sabbati agnoscam, ut quo die dedicata est dei conditio, eo mense interdum producatur dei imago. Concessum est properare natiuitati et tamen idonee occurrere in hebdomadem, in auspicia resurrectionis et requietis et regni. 304 There still remains the problem of Tertullian’s apparent inconsistency in arguing simultaneously for the humanity of the unformed embryo and the idea that abortion should be treated as homicide only once the offspring is developed. This point is taken up in the next chapter, where De Anima 37.2 is explained in terms of preformationist biology. 305 Gorman 1982: 55.

148 grounding in legal rhetoric, which led him to cite the Law as laid down in Scripture.306 It was not necessary for him to explicate on it at length.

On the other hand, Tertullian’s choice of conception as the point of ensoulment in De Anima was not arbitrary, as it served his agenda of arguing against the assimilation of pagan philosophical theories of ensoulment into Christian theology. Tertullian probably adopted the idea that abortion was immoral from the inception of pregnancy for De Anima because conception represented a discrete point at which to begin his narrative of the soul’s development. It was simpler, and thus more defensible, to argue that the human soul was shaped immediately upon the sowing of the mother’s womb than some imprecise point during gestation, or at some point after birth. By offering a more concrete point of ensoulment, Tertullian declared that he had demolished the vagueness that had hitherto plagued philosophical discourse on the timing of animation.307

In De Carne Christi, Tertullian made points pertinent to the unborn which were based upon Scripture. In chapter twenty, for instance, he relied heavily upon Psalm 22.308 Tertullian ascribed this text to David, ‘the most illustrious and well-known prophet.’309 The author lamented that God had abandoned him, although he had lived according to His will from birth. As the text says, ‘you are the one that pulled me from the belly. You are my hope from my mother’s breasts. I was thrown upon you from the womb, and from my mother’s womb you are my God.’310 Tertullian’s interpretation of the passage was typological. He argued that David had provided the antecedent for Christ’s conception and birth.311 The psalm indicated that the infant Christ was at some point attached to Mary’s womb, otherwise God could not have brought Him out of it. Christ had to have been formed of Mary’s flesh, otherwise it would not have been necessary for His body to be severed from hers.312 The words ‘hope from my mother’s breasts’ also indicated that Mary had carried Christ, otherwise she would

306 Bakke 2005: 124. 307 Tert. An. 26.1. 308 Tert. Carn. 20.3-6. 309 Tert. Carn. 20.3. 310 LXX Ps. 21.10-11. ὅτι σὺ εἶ ὁ ἐκσπάσας με ἐκ γαστρός, ἡ ἐλπίς μου ἀπὸ μαστῶν τῆς μητρός μου. ἐπὶ σὲ ἐπερρίφην ἐκ μήτρας, ἐκ κοιλίας μητρός μου θεός μου εἶ σύ. In texts based upon the Hebrew, this reference is 22.10-11. 311 Tert. Carn. 20.3. 312 Tert. Carn. 20.5.

149 not have been lactating.313 The novelty of Jesus’ birth was that He was born of a virgin, and that He was therefore virginally pure in His flesh.314

Yet the docetists would contend that Christ was conceived of God alone, without the influence of Mary’s flesh; Tertullian countered this proposal by once more using the narrative of the infant John’s recognition of Christ.315 However, he employed the exemplum in a manner somewhat different from that of De Anima. Tertullian’s point was not so much that infants were receptive to God’s presence as a general rule, but particularly that John acknowledged Jesus even as He was within Mary’s womb. As he said:

The flesh does not speak of a mother's uterus if it is not itself the child of the uterus; furthermore, (the child) is not the offspring of the uterus if it has been born (only) of itself. Thus even Elizabeth must be silent while she is carrying in her womb the prophetic infant (who is) already conscious of his Lord, and she is filled with the Holy Spirit. For she says without cause, "And whence is this to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?" If Mary carried Jesus in her womb not as her son, but only as a guest, how is it that she says, "Blessed is the fruit of thy womb?” What is this fruit of the womb, which was not germinated from the womb, and which did not take root in the womb, which is not hers whose is the womb? And who was Christ, if He was not in fact the fruit of the womb?316 Since Mary was acknowledged as the bearer of Christ, it followed that His substance was derived from her womb. The flesh of Christ had not sprung from a vacuum, after all. Any attempt to suggest otherwise would deny the messianic prophecy iterated in Isaiah and its fulfilment as heralded in Matthew: ‘Behold, a virgin shall conceive in the womb.’317

Adversus Marcionem was the only work in which Tertullian explicitly argued on the basis of a distinction between the formed and unformed child. He did so to argue against Marcionite views of Jesus’ conception.318 According to Tertullian’s view here, the embryo

313 Tert. Carn. 20.6. 314 Tert. Carn. 20.7. 315 Tert. Carn. 21.1-4. 316 Tert. Carn. 21.3-4. hoc nomen non debet caro extranea: matris uterum non appellat nisi filia uteri caro; filia porro uteri non est, si sibi nata est. Tacebit igitur et Elisabeth, prophetam portans iam domini sui conscium infantem et insuper spiritu sancto adimpleta: sine causa enim dicit, Et unde mihi ut mater domini mei veniat ad me? Si Maria non filium sed hospitem in utero gestabat Iesum, quomodo dicit, Benedictus fructus uteri tui? quis hic fructus uteri qui non ex utero germinavit, qui non in utero radicem egit, qui non eius est cuius est uterus? et qui utique fructus uteri Christus? 317 Tert. Carn. 21.1-3; Isa. 7.14; Matt. 1.23. 318 Tertullian simultaneously echoed Aristotle’s theory of conception, as will be explored in further detail in the next chapter.

150 was considered human once it had taken on a recognisable human form.319 This might well have been influenced by the Septuagint version of Exodus, though he did not cite it openly. However, his recognition of the distinction between the simple flesh of the embryo and the divided flesh of the foetus did not necessarily have any bearing upon his attitude towards abortion. He did not mention the procedure in this work. Though Tertullian construed the early-stage embryo as mere caro ante formam, introducing abortion into the discussion would have been beside his main point of discrediting Marcion’s text of Luke.

This chapter has furthered Jones’s refutation of Dunstan’s view concerning the degree to which Tertullian’s arguments against abortion might be considered ‘dissentient.’ It has provided a fuller analysis of Tertullian’s work and its relationship with Christian tradition. Previous Christian literature such as the Didache, the Epistle of Barnabas and the Apocalypse of Peter, as well as the works of Clement of Alexandria, had identified the unborn child as a human being and argued against abortion. Tertullian’s arguments against abortion in the Apologeticum were perhaps influenced by Athenagoras. Minucius Felix either echoed Tertullian’s ideas concerning the unborn child or influenced them. It is difficult to reconcile these findings with Dunstan’s attempt to characterise Tertullian’s views as being contrary to early Christian thought. Yet Tertullian innovated in three main areas. He provided the first scriptural exegesis to support views on the unborn child. Tertullian’s use of Scripture was occasional, predicated by the demands of rhetoric. Moreover, Tertullian was the first to argue for the humanity of the early stage embryo. Lastly, he addressed the topics of prenatal hominisation and the morality of abortion in some detail, whereas the patristic authors had thus far dealt with these issues in brief. The next chapter will turn from Tertullian’s use of Scripture towards his artful use of prenatal biology to support his ideas.

319 Tert. Marc. 4.21.11; Carn. 19.3-4.

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Chapter III: Tertullian’s Understanding of Prenatal Biology

This chapter explores Tertullian’s background in prenatal biology and the medical ethics of antenatal infancy. The main argument for this part of the dissertation is that Tertullian did not endorse any particular theory of prenatal development. He borrowed, modified, and discarded embryological traditions according to their usefulness to individual treatises. First, it is identified that Soranus of Ephesus and Aristotle were Tertullian’s main sources for understanding the biology of nascent growth. Next, it is contended that Soranus’ preformationist view of embryological development informed Tertullian’s understanding of ensoulment as presented in De Anima, and that Soranus’ sober attitude towards abortion also perhaps influenced De Anima’s condemnation of the termination of pregnancy. It is also likely that Tertullian’s theories on the length of gestation resulted from his reading of Soranus. Finally, it is argued that Tertullian did not adhere to Soranus’ theories alone, as he also leaned upon Aristotle’s conception theory in De Carne Christi and Adversus Marcionem. At times, Tertullian also rejected the tenets of both authors.

Before embarking upon an exploration of Tertullian’s sources concerning the physical nature of the unborn, his motives for using them should be noted. It is worth re-emphasising the centrality of rhetoric in Tertullian’s treatises. His main purpose for citing literary authorities, including medical authors and natural philosophers, was to demonstrate his learning.1 By doing so, he weight to his own authoritativeness, rendering himself as a contender in the competitive world of polemic writing. Tertullian was influenced by ideas contained in non-Christian sources concerning human development. Yet at the same time he was also exploiting them to bolster his rhetorical clout. Moreover, no earlier Christian literature had seriously engaged in the scholarly discourse surrounding prenatal development. Therefore, dealing with a topic covered by renowned authorities such as Hippocrates, Aristotle, and Soranus of Ephesus gave Tertullian an unprecedented opportunity to break new ground as a Christian writer.

As Heyne indicates, there is very little evidence that Tertullian had read the works of Galen (AD 129-c. 216).2 Unlike the other medical authorities on whom he relied, Tertullian never mentioned Galen by name in his entire corpus. Likewise, when discussing ’s

1 Heyne 2011: 156. 2 Heyne 2011: 145.

152 windpipe in De Oratione, Tertullian appeared unaware that Galen had proven that the respiratory and circulatory systems were separate.3 This does not necessarily indicate a conscious decision to reject Galen’s ideas, however. Since Tertullian and Galen were rough contemporaries, working in totally different parts of the empire, it is likely that Galen’s works simply had not circulated as far as Carthage by the time Tertullian was researching and writing his treatises.

Likewise, it is improbable that Tertullian was heavily influenced by the Hippocratic Corpus. Granted, he did make references to Hippocrates occasionally in De Anima.4 However, all of his references to Hippocrates probably came second-hand through Soranus, since his references to Hippocratic ideas corresponded closely to discussions of Hippocrates in Soranus’ Gynaecologia. Moreover, Tertullian did not give Hippocrates the sort of attention to detail he afforded Soranus or Aristotle. Nor did Tertullian ever display the humorist understanding of the human body typically favoured by Hippocratic authors.5 All of these factors suggest that Tertullian’s reading of the Hippocratic Corpus was cursory at most.

However, this should not suggest that Tertullian was entirely unaware of the Hippocratic Corpus or the general tenets held by the Hippocratic schools. It is well worth considering Sider’s argument that the depth of Tertullian’s knowledge about history and philosophy was ‘due less probably to broad reading than to the custom of the rhetorical schools of learning lists of examples.’6 The same may hold true for his knowledge of Hippocratic medicine. Tertullian mentioned Hippocrates by name on more than one occasion in De Anima. He was aware that Hippocratic writers argued that the soul lay in the brain, and that Hippocrates described techniques to induce abortion.7 The name of Hippocrates—the eponymous father of medicine—held substantial currency as an authority. Tertullian increased the authority of his own works by showing an awareness of the Hippocratic corpus. Even if Tertullian did not read the Hippocratic corpus directly, he at least had a passing familiarity with the ideas ascribed to him, perhaps gained from doxographic writers.8

3 Tert. Or. 17.3-4; Heyne 2011: 145; Nutton 2004: 50. 4 Tert. An. 15.3-5; 25.5. 5 Heyne 2011: 155. 6 Sider 1971: 7. 7 Tert. An. 15.3-5; 25.5. 8 Waszink 1947: 30.

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As Waszink, Perrin and Heyne have pointed out, Tertullian’s main source for prenatal biology was Soranus of Ephesus (AD c. 98-c. 138).9 Tertullian was more than amenable to citing Soranus as a source regarding embryology, obstetrics, and ensoulment. He described Soranus as a ‘well-educated authority of medicine.’10 Tertullian also often attached the demonstrative pronoun ipse to Soranus, thus differentiating him from other medical writers and highlighting his importance.11 Tertullian’s continual citation of Soranus added to the strength of his rhetoric. Since he could compose arguments that were sympathetic to those of a well-respected medical authority, Tertullian imbued his work with stronger clout.

Soranus’ sole extant book, Gynaecologia, is hence an indispensible source for Tertullian’s understanding of the subjects of embryology, obstetrics and abortion. Soranus’ work was published sometime during the reigns of and (AD 98-138), shortly before Tertullian’s lifetime.12 Concerning reproduction, Soranus did not rely solely on the Hippocratic corpus. Indeed, at certain points he flagrantly rejected theories based on Hippocratic humorism, but rather based his assertions on evidence gained through medical practice.13 As Prioreschi (1998) points out, the accuracy of Soranus’ anatomical knowledge regarding the uterus raises the possibility that his knowledge was based on dissection.14

However, it is worth noting that most of Soranus’ other works besides Gynaecologia are lost, notwithstanding Caelius Aurelianus’ fifth-century Latin of Celerum Sive Acutarum Passionum and Tardarum Sive Chronicarum Passionum.15 The loss of Soranus’ De Semine and De Anima is particularly lamentable for the present chapter. Any judgements made on Soranus’ opinions in these works are based on fragments, many of which come from Tertullian himself. Indeed, it is probable that Soranus’ De Anima was actually more important to Tertullian than his work on gynaecology; Tertullian’s direct references to Soranus most often appeared in discussions of the nature of the soul.16 In fact, at some points, he ranked Soranus as a philosopher rather than a physician.17 Considering that the soul was Tertullian’s main topic in De Anima, this was perhaps inevitable.

9 Waszink 1947: 25; Perrin 1991: 98; Heyne 2011: 132. 10 Tert. An. 6.6. Sed nec hic gradus stabit etiam Sorano methodicae medicinae instructissimo auctore... 11 Tert. An. 6.6; 25.5. 12 Prioreschi 1998: 137. 13 Prioreschi 1998: 147. 14 Sor. Gyn. 1.3.7-14; Prioreschi 1998: 147. 15 Prioreschi 1998: 137. 16 Tert. An. 6.6; 6.7; 8.3; 14.2; 44.2. 17 Tert. An. 14.2; 15.3.

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However, Tertullian’s knowledge of embryology was derived not from Soranus alone, but also from natural philosophy. For Tertullian, the line between philosophy and medicine was perhaps somewhat blurred. For Latin authors, medicine was in equal measure a science and an art.18 The distinction between natural philosophy and medicine is particularly artificial in the case of Tertullian, who in De Anima and De Carne Christi presented the idea that the human soul was corporeal.19 Moreover, it is quite possible that for Tertullian’s readers who were steeped in classical culture, rhetorical examples drawn from natural philosophers held power equal to those of medical authors regarding embryology and human reproduction. An illustration for this comes from Aulus Gellius’ Noctes Atticae. When the emperor Hadrian was called upon to adjudicate in a case where a woman claimed to be eleven months pregnant, he only offered judgement after consulting both natural philosophers and medical practitioners concerning the length of human gestation.20 Gray-Fow suggests that in this particular instance, the philosophers probably held more sway.21

On more than one occasion in De Anima, Tertullian expressed dissatisfaction or even outright anger against writers of natural philosophy regarding reproduction. He stated that his reason for such rancour was the frequent inaccuracy in natural philosophers’ works, particularly those who drew broad surmises about human anatomy from observation of animal species.22 Yet it is equally worth considering that Tertullian’s strong rhetorical streak also might have led him to reject these philosophical testimonies, since the evidence of certain writers on human generation did not tally with the views he was trying to promote, and he was ostensibly targeting Christian adoption of philosophical ideas as a whole.23 Perhaps Tertullian was attempting to set up natural philosophy as a straw man in order to make his own arguments appear more valid.

Nevertheless, Tertullian could hardly be said to have rejected philosophical testimony wholesale, for he selectively relied upon Aristotle’s biology. As will be discussed below, Tertullian drew upon Aristotle’s conception theory, and borrowed from his ideas on spermatogenesis heavily. Tertullian’s relationship with Aristotle is somewhat ambiguous. On the one hand, Tertullian lambasted Aristotle repeatedly throughout his corpus. In De Anima

18 Heyne 2011: 136. 19 Tert. An. 7.1-4; Carn. 12.1-13.6. 20 Gell. NA. 3.16.12. 21 Gray-Fow 1985: 66. 22 Tert. An. 10.2. 23 Tert. An. 1.1-6.

155 particularly, Tertullian attacked Aristotle as Platonis amicum, a ‘friend of Plato.’24 Waszink points out that Tertullian here was maliciously ridiculing the widely known proverb, amicus Plato, magis amica veritas, ‘Plato is a friend, but the truth is a greater friend.’25 In light of Tertullian’s low estimation of Platonic concepts of ensoulment, it would appear that he had an equally dim view of Aristotle. However, Moffat pointed out briefly in 1916 that there were many parallels between Tertullian’s and that of Aristotle, suggesting that Tertullian may not have been as hostile to Aristotle as he would have readers believe.26 Sider took up Moffat’s argument in 1980, arguing that there was a distinct parallel between Aristotelian logic and that of Tertullian, and that Tertullian did not reject philosophy per se.27 Rather, Sider believes that Tertullian rejected what he regarded as deceits, whether from philosophers or otherwise.28

Wherever possible, Tertullian attempted to complement Soranus and Aristotle’s ideas on prenatal development with exempla from Scripture. It was hardly out of character for Tertullian to justify scriptural exegeses with scientific theories, and vice versa.29 Tertullian never argued that science and faith were in conflict, nor did he aspire to produce consistent theological doctrines on human development.30 Rather, he alluded to embryological and sacred texts as evidence to support whatever argument he was pursuing. Instances of synergy between Greco-Roman scientific works and biblical passages allowed Tertullian to appeal to secular and Judaeo-Christian readers simultaneously. Examples will be considered below.

Soranus’ Gynaecologia contains relatively little information concerning Soranus’ outlook on spermatogenesis, the process of conception, or the extent to which each parent contributed to the genetic make-up of their children. Soranus’ discussion of this matter was likely held in his De Semine, which is no longer extant.31 However, from a close reading of Soranus’ sole surviving work, Waszink concludes that Soranus favoured the one-seed theory.32 Soranus insinuated that embryos originated from male sperm alone. Although he identified the ovaries, Soranus was not of the opinion that women contributed any form of

24 Tert. An. 5.1. 25 Waszink 1947: 127. 26 Moffat 1916: 170-171. 27 Sider 1980: 418. 28 Sider 1980: 417. 29 Heyne 2011: 173. 30 Heyne 2011: 169-171. 31 Sor. Gyn. 1.12. 32 Waszink 1947: 345.

156 gamete to reproduction.33 Moreover, Soranus stated that the female body was simply a receptacle for male seed.34 Often, he compared the female body to an agricultural field, waiting to be sown with the seed of a man.35 In his analogy of a mother as a ‘furrowed field,’ Soranus was not unusual: Boylan points out that the ‘furrowed field’ theory held great currency in antiquity from Aeschylus onward.36 For De Anima, Waszink, Noonan, and Heyne believe that Tertullian employed Soranus’ view that the embryo arose from male sperm alone.37 This is supported by Tertullian’s assertion that the corporeal soul, derived from the father, came to fruition ‘by agency of the woman, to whose furrow it has been commended.’38 In the same section, Tertullian likened the growth of the soul within the womb to the growth of a root within the ground, just as Soranus had.39 As far as Waszink is concerned, Tertullian argued in this treatise that children inherited their physical person only from their fathers.40 It should however be noted that Tertullian never explicitly stated that offspring owed their physical substance entirely to their fathers. Rather, the presence of the one-seed theory in De Anima was implicit.

Tertullian justified the one-seed model of conception by a digression on Genesis. He put forward the view that since Adam was the father of the human race, it followed that the circumstances of his creation would be projected onto his progeny. Tertullian argued that the clay from which God crafted Adam and the divine breath by which He gave Adam life were antecedents of the moistness and the warmth of human seed. Since Adam was crafted from these alone, Tertullian held that the same should be true for his descendents.41

Tertullian’s adoption of Soranus’ ‘one-seed’ theory suggests that his understanding of embryology was underpinned by preformationism. If the seed of only one parent was necessary for procreation, it followed that it would contain all the components of a completed being, either in a dismembered state or as a homunculus. Once implanted in the womb, this

33 Sor. Gyn. 1.12. 34 Sor. Gyn. 1.33. 35 Sor. Gyn. 1.35; 1.36; 1.39; 3.1; 1.40; 1.53. 36 Boylan 1984: 85. Boylan points to the examples of Aeschylus Eumenides 658-660, as well as Euripides Orestes 552, among others. 37 Waszink 1947: 346; Noonan 1965: 117; Heyne 2011: 160. 38 Tert. An. 19.6; Waszink 1947: 277. Viuant ut philosophi volunt, sapiant ut philosophi nolunt, intellegat et infantia ligni, quo magis hominis, cuius anima velut surculus quidam ex matrice Adam in propaginem deducta et genitalibus feminae foveis commendata cum omni sua paratura pullulauit tam intellectu quam et sensu. Tertullian’s use of fovia in this section corresponds with his use of the terms sulcus and arvum to denote the womb in An. 27.8. Like fovia, these words indicate Tertullian’s view of the uterus as a furrowed field in De Anima. 39 Tert. An. 19.6. 40 Waszink 1947: 346. 41 Tert. An. 27.6-9.

157 tiny organism would simply become larger, without any significant change in its development. As Boylan puts it, the homunculus, ‘only grows but does not become; for if it became, then the mother would contribute something to the offspring.’42 Boylan’s summary of preformationism tallies perfectly with Tertullian’s argument throughout De Anima that human embryos attained human form immediately upon conception.

If Tertullian did follow a concept of preformationism, this might account for an apparent discrepancy in chapter thirty-seven of De Anima. In this section, Tertullian appeared to sabotage his prior argument that the human soul came into existence at the moment of conception, by stating that a foetus should be regarded as human only at the point that its body was fully formed.43 Applying current understandings of embryology to Tertullian, modern scholars have attempted to reconcile this incongruity in several ways.44 Gorman and Jones attempt to deal with the issue by suggesting that Tertullian actually meant that although embryos may not have had the full status of human beings, they held the potential to become so.45 According to their interpretation, Tertullian meant that embryos should be treated as though they were fully developed human beings due to this potential.46 On the other hand, Waszink’s indispensible commentary on De Anima suggests that Tertullian might simply have been unaware that his argument was self-defeating.47

Neither of these explanations is particularly satisfactory. Waszink’s rationalisation is undermined by Tertullian’s rhetorical abilities: it is unlikely that a skilled rhetorician like Tertullian would have weakened his rhetoric by blatantly contradicting himself within a single treatise. A simpler explanation is possible. The view that the body was in some way preformed within the seed might account for Tertullian’s argument that the soul and body were both fully formed at the moment of conception. Since Tertullian adopted Soranus’ understanding of spermatogenesis for De Anima, he more than likely believed that foetuses were fully formed at the moment a mother was inseminated. For Tertullian, there was thus no incongruity in suggesting that the human soul only emerged with the maturation of the body,

42 Boylan 1984: 86. 43 Tert. An. 37.2. It is also worth considering that Tertullian may have been referring here to the Septuagint version of Ex. 21.22-25, where the accidental killing of the unborn child was punished as murder only after it is fully developed. This is discussed more fully in Chapter Two. 44 Modern medical imaging shows that foetal development continues until the point of birth. See: Moore and Persaund 2008: 63-67. 45 Tert. Apol. 9.8; Gorman 1982: 58; Jones 2004: 114. Tertullian did indeed make this very argument in Apologeticum, as will be explored in greater detail below. 46 Gorman 1982: 58; Jones 2004: 114. 47 Waszink 1947: 425-426.

158 since according to the model of generation he adopted in De Anima, both were fully developed at conception.

However, there were several points in De Anima where Tertullian altered Soranus’ arguments. For instance, Tertullian modified the one-seed theory to rectify the inherent flaw in the idea that children received their physical being from their fathers alone: children could resemble their mothers and maternal forebears as well as their fathers.48 Tertullian was hardly unaware of the resemblance of children to their parents, since he mentioned it twice in De Anima.49 While attempting to refute the Stoic theory of metempsychosis on a physiological basis, Tertullian also suggested that bruises or contusions on a pregnant mother’s body would be inherited by a foetus in her womb.50 Waszink suggests that the simplest explanation for the problem of maternal resemblance is that Tertullian was influenced by the Stoic view that the conditions under which the embryo was subjected in the womb would affect its final form. He also pointed to Soranus’ comparison of the woman to the ‘furrowed field,’ pointing out that just as the quality of soil would affect the growth of plants, so too would the uterus in which an embryo was cultivated.51

In De Anima, Tertullian’s arguments diverged further from Soranus concerning the point of development at which an embryo became physically human.52 Unlike Tertullian, Soranus endorsed a gradual hominisation of the embryo. He argued that upon conception, the embryo was initially unshapen. He recognised that the confluence of male and female seed resulted in some sort of zoon, or living being. Yet Soranus argued that this nebulous matter would only take human shape and gain a human soul slowly over the course of time.53 Conversely, Tertullian argued in De Anima that embryos became physically and spiritually human from the point of conception.54 Tertullian rejected Soranus’ paradigm of hominisation due to his central argument in De Anima. In this work, Tertullian was arguing against the Gnostic Christians’ adoption of the Platonic and Pythagorean theories of the transmigration of souls: namely, that infants acquired the souls of the departed through air upon their first breath.55 As Waszink suggests, Tertullian rejected the idea of transmigration because it

48 Boylan 1984: 86. Boylan points out that this was an intrinsic problem with the one-seed theory. 49 Tert. An. 5.4; 25.9; Waszink 1947: 346. 50 Tert. An. 25.3. 51 Sor. Gyn. 1.35; Waszink 1947: 346. 52 Waszink 1947: 318. 53 Sor. Gyn. 1.43. 54 Tert. An. 25.9; 27.1-3; 52.3. 55 Perrin 1991: 103.

159 contradicted the Christian dogma of Resurrection.56 Soranus’ idea of conception did not correlate with that of the Platonists. Nor did it provide a discreet point at which the soul came into being, since Soranus was quite vague on the precise timing of ensoulment. However, Tertullian’s theory that the human body emerged immediately upon implantation in the womb provided him with a much more concrete platform on which to base his subsequent arguments in De Anima.

On the other hand, Tertullian’s arguments in De Anima concerning the medical ethics of terminating pregnancy were fairly sympathetic to those of Soranus. The relationship between Tertullian’s arguments on the ethics of abortion and those of Soranus will become particularly important in the final chapter of this dissertation, which examines the influence of pagan literary traditions upon Tertullian’s views on the termination of pregnancy. However, it is necessary first to place Tertullian within the context of ancient medical ethics attached to the unborn, and the ethical dilemma that abortion presented to physicians. The discussion below of medical ethics related to abortion in the ancient world is very general, and is greatly indebted to the studies by Riddle (1992, 1997) and Kapparis (2002).

Tertullian wrote in a culture where medical practitioners, such as doctors and midwives, exercised complete autonomy regarding their ethical principles.57 The absence of any standing policies of ethical conduct and a governing body to enforce such policies meant that practitioners were answerable only to their own individual consciences for their standards of practice.58 While this afforded practitioners immense personal liberty when it came to the treatment of their patients, it also meant that their work was not subject to any official regulations. Often, they would have been called upon to make heavy ethical decisions without guidance from superiors. To some extent, the immense power that practitioners held over their patients accounted for the crossover between classical medicine and moral philosophy, since some surely felt compelled to ground their training in ethical discourse.59

The relevance of moral philosophy to the art of medicine in antiquity is evident in the proliferation of texts that aimed to give ethical guidance to doctors. Kapparis points to the Hippocratic De Morbo Sacro, De Arte, De Decente Habitu, De Medico, as well as the Galenic treatises Quod Optimus Medicus Sit Quoque Philosophus and De Methodo Medendi

56 Waszink 1947: 318. 57 Kapparis 2002: 60-61. 58 Kapparis 2002: 60-61. 59 Kapparis 2002: 61.

160 as evidence that such guidance was sought.60 However, discretion still solely lay in the hands of practitioners concerning their interpretation of these texts, the degree to which they followed ethical advice from medical textbooks, and the extent to which they familiarised themselves with ethical concepts. Since doctors under the empire were often working-class freedmen or slaves, it is probable that many would not have had the leisure to absorb literature dealing with medical ethics at length.61

Practitioners were encouraged, but by no means obligated, to follow certain philanthropic ideals such as those embodied in the Hippocratic Ius Iurandum, henceforth referred to as the Oath.62 In particular, followers of the Oath pledged not to harm patients, and not to exploit them or their households.63 Rather, the Oath called upon its followers to alleviate suffering and to be generally beneficent towards their patients.64 The extent to which the Oath was taken and followed in antiquity has been heavily debated. However, whether or not doctors took the Oath directly, it would have behoved them to aspire towards similar philanthropic ideals. Though doctors theoretically could make ethical judgements with complete impunity, their livelihoods depended upon establishing and maintaining trust with their patients.65 The distrust that many Roman authors held for practitioners suggests that not all doctors practised such philanthropic ideals.66

It is open to question, however, whether the Oath’s concept of the ethical treatment of humans extended to the unborn child. The Oath called upon its followers quite specifically not to provide a woman with pessaries to procure abortion.67 It did not specifically prohibit mechanical, pharmaceutical or surgical means to induce abortion. Riddle suggests that the Oath therefore did not require its subjects to eschew the termination of pregnancy categorically due to any concern for the foetus or the embryo.68 Though he does concede that other interpretations are possible, Riddle suggests that this section of the Oath probably sought to contain the dangers associated with the use of pessaries in antiquity.69 Conversely, Kapparis reads the Oath’s prohibition of abortifacient pessaries as a proscription against

60 Kapparis 2002: 61. 61 Nutton 2004: 164-165. 62 Kapparis 2002: 67. 63 Hippoc. Ius. 18-21. 64 Hippoc. Ius. 13. 65 Kapparis 2002: 63. 66 Heyne 2011: 137. 67 Hippoc. Ius. 14-16. 68 Riddle 1997: 7-8. 69 Riddle 1997: 37-39.

161 abortion as a whole. This view is argued on the basis that the injunction against administering abortifacient pessaries was coupled with one against administering lethal poisons. Kapparis interprets the context of this passage as an indication that the Hippocratic author of the Oath called upon doctors to terminate neither foetal nor adult life.70

The ambiguities of the stipulation concerning abortion in the Oath also left it open to interpretation in antiquity. Soranus indicated that his contemporaries interpreted the Oath in multiple ways. Many held that the Oath unconditionally forbade abortion, and practised accordingly. Others accepted the general premise, but on a conditional basis. As Soranus said:

But a debate has come into being. For some reject abortifacients, because they invoke the witness of Hippocrates, who says: “I will not give an abortifacient to anyone,” and also that the guarding and protection of what has been generated by nature is the precise role of medicine. Conversely, others prescribe them, but with a limitation, that is, they do not prescribe them in cases where someone wants to destroy the conceptus because of adultery, or because of (desire to hold onto) the fruits of youth...71 Due to the risks that abortion posed to a mother’s physical wellbeing, Soranus urged that pregnancy should be terminated only as a last resort and never frivolously.72 It was only hesitantly therefore that Soranus listed pharmaceutical, surgical, and mechanical means of procuring abortion in his work.73 Rather, Soranus argued that it was preferable to administer contraceptives and thus prevent unwanted conception in the first place.74 Soranus argued in Gynaecologia that midwives ought to exercise careful discretion in the prescription of abortifacients, preferably only assisting to terminate pregnancy in cases where bringing a foetus to term would prevent parturition.75

Tertullian’s regard for Soranus’ caution concerning unwarranted abortion is particularly visible during his discussion of abortion in De Anima. When discussing various medical writers’ approaches to abortion, Tertullian moderated his censure of Soranus by

70 Kapparis 2002: 67. 71 Sor. Gyn. 1.60. γεγένηται δὲ στάσις. ο ἱ μ ὲ ν γὰρ ἐκβάλλουσιν τὰ φθόρια τὴν Ἱ π π ο κ ρ ά τ ο υ ς προσκαλούμενοι μαρτυρίαν λέγοντος· “οὐ δώσω δὲ οὐδενὶ φθόριον”, καὶ ὅτι τῆς ἰατρικῆς ἐστιν ἴδιον τὸ τηρεῖν καὶ σῴζειν τὰ γεννώμενα ὑπὸ τῆς φύσεως. ο ἱ δ ὲ μετὰ διορισμοῦ συντάσσουσιν αὐτά, τοῦτ’ ἔστιν οὐχ ὅτε διὰ μοιχείαν τις βούλεται φθεῖραι τὸ συλληφθὲν οὔτε δι’ ἐπι|τήδευσιν ὡραιότητος... 72 Sor. Gyn. 1.60; Perrin 1991: 99. 73 Sor. Gyn. 1.60. 74 Sor. Gyn. 1.60-61. 75 Sor. Gyn. 1.60.

162 using the comparative adjective mitior, ‘gentler.’76 Admittedly, Tertullian had argued earlier in his pre-Montanist Apologeticum that the practice and concept of abortion were homicide and thus anathema to any Christian.77 Modern scholars often impress this standpoint onto De Anima, with Gorman going so far as to suggest that the two works were in perfect accordance.78 On the other hand, close examination of De Anima does not entirely bear out his view, as Tertullian’s rhetoric concerning abortion by the time of De Anima appears to have moderated, at least to some extent. Soranus’ cautious approach to abortion may have resonated with Tertullian, resulting in his recognition that embryotomy could be necessary in cases where the foetus would impede parturition and therefore engage in matricide.79

Though Tertullian echoed Soranus’ guarded attitude towards abortion, his general stance on the subject was dramatically different. Soranus’ aversion to abortion was framed not by a desire to preserve embryos, but by recognition that abortion carried definite risks to the physical wellbeing of women.80 Tertullian diverged further from Soranus concerning the ethical acceptability of early-term abortion. Soranus listed early-term abortifacients alongside contraceptives, suggesting he viewed them as synonymous.81 This is unsurprising, considering his aforementioned views concerning the hominisation of the embryo. Yet for Tertullian to adopt anything but an absolutist view would have weakened his rhetoric concerning abortion considerably.

It is also worth considering that Tertullian was writing in a literary environment far removed from that of Soranus. Tertullian’s condemnation of abortion was largely based upon a theoretical understanding. His knowledge of abortion as presented in his rhetorical treatises was probably drawn from books rather than personal experience. He would not have observed an abortion firsthand since he was neither a doctor nor a woman. He was somewhat detached from the often difficult circumstances that medical practitioners and patients faced. Soranus, on the other hand, was writing a practical guideline for midwives and doctors. Perhaps Soranus had experienced the harsh reality that patients’ interests sometimes compelled practitioners to be flexible concerning the ethics of abortion, especially when they

76 Tert. An. 25.5; Perrin 1991: 106. Hoc et Hippocrates habuit et Asclepiades et et maiorum quoque prosector Herophilus et mitior ipse Soranus, certi animal esse conceptum atque ita miserti infelicissimae huiusmodi infantiae, ut prius occidatur, ne uiua lanietur. 77 Tert. Apol. 9.8. 78 Gorman 1982: 58. 79 Tert. An. 25.4. Atquin et in ipso adhuc utero infans trucidatur necessaria crudelitate, cum in exitu obliquatus denegat partum, matricida, ni moriturus. This passage has been discussed in greater detail in Chapter One. 80 Sor. Gyn. 1.60. 81 Sor. Gyn. 1.64.

163 treated patients of diverse backgrounds and circumstances. For medical writers, there were no absolute ethical values attached to the unborn, nor were there uncontested ideas regarding prenatal development.82 In cases where pregnancy endangered a mother’s life, any theoretical conceptualisation of the unborn that physicians might have held perhaps came secondary to the philanthropic ideal of preserving patients’ wellbeing.83

Yet Soranus was the most likely source for Tertullian’s views concerning the length of human gestation in De Anima and other works. Waszink suggests that all of Tertullian’s suggestions for the ideal length of pregnancy were based on Soranus, due to the similarity between these ideas and fragments of Soranus in Muscio and Vindicianus.84 Tertullian argued in De Anima that it took between seven and ten months to bring a foetus to term, while eschewing the idea of an eight-month pregnancy.85 For Adversus Marcionem, Tertullian repeatedly asserted that the length of gestation was ten months.86 Conversely, Tertullian stated the length of gestation to be nine months in De Carne Christi.87 Heyne seems to consider Tertullian’s various ideas on the length of gestation incongruent.88 However, although Tertullian argued that only a ten-month foetus was fully mature, he did point out that babies born from seven months onward could be viable.89 Thus, his views in De Anima on the length of gestation were not entirely incompatible with those presented in De Carne Christi and Adversus Marcionem.

As usual, Tertullian justified his ideas on the length of gestation with Scripture. In this case, he saw a correlation between the proposed number of months of gestation and numbers used in holy texts, ‘so that the numeration of the time needed for us to be born should equal the numeration of the disciplines (required) for us to be regenerated.’90 For instance, the ten- month pregnancy matched up to the Ten Commandments. He justified the idea of a seven- month pregnancy with an example from Genesis: just as the Earth was completed in seven

82 Kapparis 2002: 196. 83 Kapparis 2002: 199. 84 Waszink 1947: 428. 85 Tert. An. 37.4. 86 Tert. Marc. 4.21.11; 4.23.7. 87 Tert. Carn. 4.1. 88 Heyne 2011: 153. 89 Tert. An. 37.4. 90 Tert. An. 37.4. Ego ad deum potius argumentabor hunc modum temporis, ut decem menses decalogo magis inaugurent hominem, ut tanto temporis numero nascamur quanto disciplinae numero renascimur.

164 days, so should its children be completed in seven months.91 Oddly, Tertullian did not here give a reason why a baby might be completed in nine months.

On the other hand, Tertullian’s adoption of Soranus’ ideas on embryology was restricted to De Anima, since he more commonly borrowed the ideas of Aristotle concerning generation. First, it is worth noting a possible reference to Aristotle’s theory of spermatogenesis in Tertullian’s earlier Apologeticum. The haematogenous model of spermatogenesis, made popular by Aristotle’s De Generatione Animalium, held that the origin of sperm lay in blood.92 Aristotle was not the originator of this theory, for a simpler version of it is found in fragments of pre-Socratic philosophical works by .93 Since a version of the haematogenous theory of spermatogenesis may be found in an earlier source, Aristotle was probably simply elaborating on a pre-existing notion through his teleological method.94 Aristotle argued on the basis of his observation of various animal species that blood was formed from the ‘concoction’ or ‘ripening’ of foodstuffs in the belly.95 Once liquefied by what Aristotle identified as ‘vital heat,’ the fluid underwent further processing in the heart.96 The Aristotelian theory held that a surplus of blood was produced by this process. In the cardiovascular system en route to its final site of excretion, this excess blood was in turn fermented into various practical fluids. Among these were sperm in men, as well as menstrual fluid and breast milk in women.97

Leyerle (2001) points out that in the Apologeticum, Tertullian asserted that the ‘blood of the Christians is seed.’98 This startling statement comes from the amplificatio of Tertullian’s conclusion to the Apologeticum. It was intended to give a last word on Tertullian’s central thesis, that the repression of provincial Christians was unwarranted.99 Tertullian was warning the provincial governors whom he was addressing that martyrdom would only swell Christian ranks. However, it is possible that Tertullian’s imagery of blood as seed was borrowed from Aristotle. It is not possible to offer a definitive conclusion in this matter, since Tertullian did not devote much space to scientific questions in the

91 Tert. An. 37.4. 92 Arist. Gen an. 726b10. 93 Ar. Byz. 64B6DK. This surviving fragment of the third-century commentator Aristophanes of Byzantium’s of Aristotle’s Historia Animalium gives a tantalising indication that the idea of haematogenesis originated with Diogenes of Apollonia. 94 Von Staden 1989: 290. 95 Arist. Gen. an. 726b1-5. 96 Arist. Gen. an. 726b 10-13. 97 Arist. Gen. an. 776b 25-30; Cilliers 2004: 352. 98 Tert. Apol. 50.13; Leyerle 2001: 26. Semen est sanguis Christianorum. 99 Tert. Apol. 46.15.

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Apologeticum. Certainly, Tertullian made references to Aristotle in the Apologeticum, but did not engage in the rigorous biological exegeses of his later works.100

Aspects of Aristotle’s model of conception were more strongly echoed in Tertullian’s De Carne Christi.101 Aristotle’s conception theory is best understood in terms of its own internal logic, namely that of Aristotelian teleology.102 Therefore, before describing the theory and Tertullian’s employment of it, it is necessary to sketch the principles behind it. In his Analytica Posteriora, Physica, and Metaphysica, Aristotle articulated his view that nature is best understood in terms of four aitiae, or ‘causes.’103 For Aristotle, the telos, or ‘Final Cause’ was the underlying logos behind nature. The Final Cause should be interpreted as the finished product of nature, whose creation all other Causes inexorably advance.104 Aristotle determined the process of generation by making deductions from observation of nature’s final products and working backwards. In other words, as George (1982) puts it, ‘the final product determines the process, not vice versa.’105 Concerning human reproduction, this final product was a full-term baby. Aristotle’s other three Causes, which served to bring about the Final Cause, may be summarised as follows: the Formal Cause characterised the process of the formation of the finished product. On the other hand, the Material Cause provided the physical substance from which the final product is fashioned. The Motive Cause, however, was that which actuated a process that culminated in the final product.106

As discussed above, Aristotle argued that male sperm was derived from blood that had undergone transformation through subjection to vital heat. Aristotle viewed females as being incapable of producing the same level of vital heat as males, and thus not able to concoct blood to the same level of refinement as sperm.107 Instead, women produced menses, which Aristotle viewed as the inferior counterpart of male seed. However, Aristotle reasoned that both menstrual fluid and male semen contributed to the final form of an infant. Menstrual blood, Aristotle tells us, constituted the raw material of an embryo: the Material Cause.108

100 Tert. Apol. 46.15. 101 Waszink 1947: 342; Heyne 2011: 153. 102 Matthen 1989: 159. 103 Arist. An. post. 94a20; Ph. 194b24; Metaph. 1013a24. 104 Arist. Gen. an. 715a3-7. 105 George 1982: 127. 106 Arist. Gen. an. 715a3-7; George 1982: 127-128. 107 Arist. Gen. an. 726a26-27. 108 Arist. Gen. an. 727b31-33.

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Conversely, Aristotle viewed male seed as the sole generative force in human conception, imbuing the embryo with connate pneuma, or a sentient soul.109 The pneuma, derived from the embryo’s father, would bring to the inert substance of menstrual fluid the faculty of movement, dynamis.110 Once the soul had been transmitted through sperm, it was mixed with the matter held in the menses. Combined, they would thicken into an embryo in a process that Aristotle likened to the curdling of milk combined with fig-juice.111 According to Aristotle’s theory of conception, men therefore furnished both the Formal and Motive Causes.112

Tertullian’s employment of the Aristotelian conception theory was most apparent in his treatise on the Incarnation, De Carne Christi.113 As mentioned previously, Tertullian was arguing against contemporary Christians such as Hermogenes, Marcion, Apelles, Alexander, and Valentinus concerning the question of whether Christ’s person was composed of human flesh and therefore subject to Original Sin. Tertullian’s central thesis in this particular work was that Christ did in fact have a human body.114 He supported this thesis with a range of complex theological and metaphysical arguments, outlined in the first chapter of this dissertation. However, Tertullian’s physiological defence of the concept of Christ’s Virgin Birth is of greatest importance to this chapter. For De Carne Christi, Tertullian essentially borrowed Aristotle’s theory that male parents provided their children souls, while female parents provided them bodies. As far as Tertullian argued in De Carne Christi, Christ’s flesh was derived from the blood of his mother, Mary, while His soul came directly from God.115

Tertullian made a further reference to Aristotle’s theories of generation in De Carne Christi during his discussion of the . The author of John stated that Jesus granted power to believers who ‘were born, neither out of blood nor from the will of the flesh nor from human will, but from God.’116 Tertullian pre-empted the argument that Christ himself was therefore not born of blood, by suggesting that John’s Gospel referred to sperm created through haematogenesis:

109 Arist. Gen. an. 736a2; George 1982: 130. 110 Arist. Gen. an. 729a10-11. 111 Arist. Gen. an. 729a12-12; 771b18-24. 112 Arist. Metaph. 1044a33-37; George 1982: 130. 113 Waszink 1947: 342; Heyne 2011: 152. 114 Tert. Carn. 1.2; Sider 1980: 417. 115 Tert. Carn. 19.3-4; Evans 1956: 164. 116 John 1.13. οἳ οὐκ ἐξ αἱμάτων οὐδὲ ἐκ θελήματος σαρκὸς οὐδὲ ἐκ θελήματος ἀνδρὸς ἀλλ' ἐκ θεοῦ ἐγεννήθησαν.

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In fact, the denial of the birth which is natural to our formation pertains to the flesh and not to the Word, because it was as flesh that (Christ) had thus to be born, not as the Word. Now, whilst the passage in fact refutes that Christ was born by the will of the flesh, why did it not also refute (Christ’s birth) from the substance of the flesh? For it did not refute His fleshly substance when it denied His being "born of blood." Rather (it denied) only the material of the seed, which is widely agreed to be the warm blood that is changed by ejaculation into the coagulum of the woman's blood. For in (the case of) cheese, the vigour of the substance is from the binding together of the milky substance by steeping it with rennet. Ergo, we comprehend that (the passage) denies the birth of the Lord from a sexual union, which is understood (by the words), “the will of man and of the flesh,” but does not (deny) that He was part of the womb.117

Like Aristotle, Tertullian here described male seed as resulting from heated blood, and Tertullian’s reference to conception taking place by the introduction of male seed into ‘the woman’s blood’ is almost directly lifted from Aristotle.118 Tertullian’s idea that Mary’s milk originated from her blood was also directly borrowed from Aristotle.119

Aristotle’s views on the point at which an embryo gained personhood may not have been entirely dissimilar from those of Soranus. For Aristotle, both the mother’s menses and the father’s sperm contained potential souls, though of different types. The menstrual blood contained the most basic form, the nutritive soul, which was akin to the life-force of a plant. The father’s semen, on the other hand, contained the rational soul. However, until these two components were joined into an embryo, neither could be fully actualised. In the Historia Animalium, however, Aristotle was unwilling to hazard a guess as to how long this process actually took. While the confluence of sperm and egg was clearly a zoon, a living creature, Aristotle was uncertain how long it took for an embryo’s rational soul to become fully actualised. As he said: ‘Nature passes from lifelessness into life by such small increments that, due to the continuity, it escapes us in which of the two is the boundary and the middle between them.’120

117 Tert. Carn. 19.3-4. Ad carnem enim, non ad verbum, pertinet negatio formalis nostrae nativitatis, quia caro sic habebat nasci, non verbum. 'Negans autem ex carnis quoque voluntate natum, cur non negavit etiam ex substantia carnis?' neque enim quia ex sanguine negavit substantiam carnis renuit, sed materiam seminis quam constat sanguinis esse calorem ut despumatione mutatum in coagulum sanguinis feminae: nam ex coagulo in caseo eius vis est substantiae quam medicando constringit, id est lactis. intellegimus ergo ex concubitu nativitatem domini negatam, quod sapit voluntas viri et carnis, non ex vulvae participatione. 118 Tert. Carn. 19.3-4. 119 Tert. Carn. 20.6. 120 Arist. Hist. an. 588b. Οὕτω δ’ ἐκ τῶν ἀψύχων εἰς τὰ ζῷα μεταβαίνει κατὰ μικρὸν ἡ φύσις, ὥστε τῇ συνεχείᾳ λανθάνει τὸ μεθόριον αὐτῶν καὶ τὸ μέσον ποτέρων ἐστίν.

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Yet as Connery points out, Aristotle did make a tentative suggestion in Historia Animalium that it took approximately forty days for a male embryo to exhibit signs of movement, while a female embryo would take ninety days. Before this movement occurred, Aristotle believed that the embryo was simply ‘unarticulated flesh.’121 It is tempting to suggest that the point at which a foetus exhibited signs of movement represented a discrete point of hominisation in Aristotle’s view. But as Feen (1983) proposes, there was not necessarily a causal relationship between signs of foetal movement and ensoulment.122 Moreover, Aristotle was at pains to qualify that his argument was imprecise, because the length of time until a foetus could be felt moving varied tremendously from case to case.123 Regardless, although Aristotle did not espouse any particular view on the precise length of the process by which an embryo attained a rational soul, it is clear that he did not view it as having taken place upon conception as Tertullian did in De Anima.

As mentioned above, aspects of Aristotle’s gradualist view of hominisation may also be found in the much earlier Apologeticum. While defending Christians against the charge of infanticide, Tertullian maintained that abortion was forbidden to Christians. This was true even at the earliest stages of embryonic development, when the offspring was sustained by its mother’s blood. As mentioned above, Tertullian did not strictly speaking argue for the humanity of the embryo from conception onward in the Apologeticum. Instead, he constructed the early-stage embryo a futurus homo, endowed with a potential soul.124 Tertullian thus argued that abortion constituted murder according to the spirit of the law, though it did not according to the literal word of the law.125

Tertullian appears to have also favoured a gradual process of hominisation in his polemic work directed against the heretic, Marcion. In the fourth book of Adversus Marcionem, Tertullian continued his argument against the Marcionite view that Christ was a being of pure spirit, rather than a human being. Sarcastically, Tertullian suggested that Marcion’s ideation of Christ, ‘was never considered to be flesh before he was formed, and was not called a foetus after His figuration.’126 By attacking contrary opinions, Tertullian implied that the correct view is that an embryo was at its earliest stages mere caro, and it was

121 Connery 1977: 18; Arist. Hist. an. 583b. Περὶ δὲ τοῦτον τὸν χρόνον καὶ σχίζεται τὸ κύημα· τὸν δ’ ἔμπροσθεν ἄναρθρον συνέστηκε κρεῶδες. 122 Feen 1983: 294. 123 Arist. Hist. an. 583b. 124 Tert. Apol. 9.8. Homo est et qui est futurus; etiam fructus omnis iam in semine est. 125 Jones 2004: 113-114. 126 Tert. Marc. 4.21.11. Non caro habitus ante formam, non pecus dictus post figuram.

169 only with the passage of time that this amorphous flesh was formed into a pecus, or foetus. As Heyne points out, this idea bears more than a passing similarity to Soranus’ ideas on the process of conception.127 The apparent inconsistency between this work and Tertullian’s others may be explained by his literary intentions in Adversus Marcionem. Since Adversus Marcionem was an invective, Tertullian most likely sought to belittle Marcion’s lack of education in the field of embryology.128

However, it is also worth considering that in this passage Tertullian also perhaps bolstered Aristotle’s ideas concerning conception with allusions to similar scriptural ideas.129 After his discussion of the Aristotelian idea that conception began when male seed was combined with menstrual blood, Tertullian combined Aristotle’s comparison of conception to the curdling of milk with a very similar passage from the Book of . Like Aristotle, the author likened the process of embryological development to the curdling of cheese.130 In the same section of Adversus Marcionem, Tertullian also seems to have combined Aristotle’s image of the embryo being shaped from the coagulation of maternal blood with a scriptural allusion, this time to the Wisdom of .131 Tertullian probably recognised the similarity between Aristotle’s conception theory and these passages of Scripture, and thus integrated them fairly seamlessly. By doing so, he demonstrated familiarity not only with works of higher learning, but also with Scripture. Since Adversus Marcionem concerned fellow members of the Christian community, scriptural allusions in this work were probably more relevant for his readers.

The lack of unity in Tertullian’s views concerning embryology becomes particularly clear when considering the chronology of his works. It is characteristic of Tertullian that De Carne Christi, Adversus Marcionem, and De Anima were probably produced around the same time, but feature completely different views on the physical process by which the embryo was fashioned. According to Barnes’s proposed chronology of Tertullian’s literary output, these three works were composed between AD 206 and 208.132 Though the precise chronology of Tertullian’s corpus remains debatable, there is no doubt that the treatises came at the height of Tertullian’s Montanist period. Conversely, the Apologeticum is universally agreed to have emerged prior to Tertullian’s joining the Montanists. Barnes proposes that

127 Heyne 2011: 160. 128 Heyne 2011: 152. 129 Tert. Marc. 4.21.11. 130 Job 10.8-11. 131 Wisd. . 7.1-2. 132 Barnes 1985: 55.

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Tertullian’s apology was written in ‘autumn 197 or later.’133 Waszink finds it ‘very remarkable’ that Tertullian’s view of conception appears to shift back and forth between the views of Soranus and Aristotle. In De Anima, Tertullian appeared to have ‘lost sight of his former view,’ but by the end of his career, ‘the theory of Soranus has not been able to subvert Tert.’s (sic) former opinion.’134 Another possibility is that Tertullian simply did not favour any particular theory of generation, but adapted them as necessary to support his arguments. He was not a scientific writer, but a polemicist. For instance, Tertullian could not have employed Soranus’ one-seed conception theory for De Carne Christi, since his entire treatise was based on the idea that Christ was conceived of a virgin. On the other hand, Tertullian’s theory in De Anima that an embryo’s soul originated with its father synchronised nicely with Soranus.135

This chapter has argued that Tertullian did not consistently espouse a particular model of embryonic development. He borrowed, adapted and rejected the ideas of Soranus and Aristotle concerning prenatal biology as his rhetoric demanded. For De Anima, Tertullian adopted Soranus’ preformationist approach to embryology and his cautious attitude towards abortion, while Aristotle’s conception theory helped to shape the Apologeticum, De Carne Christi, and Adversus Marcionem. Soranus probably formed the basis of Tertullian’s ideas on the length of human gestation. Yet in De Anima, Tertullian also rejected the views of both Soranus and Aristotle that the embryo gained personhood gradually. Instead, he argued that an embryo’s physical person was completed along with its metaphysical being upon conception. However, this view is not evident in Adversus Marcionem, De Carne Christi, or in the earlier Apologeticum. All of these seemingly contradictory views are best understood in view of the fact that Tertullian was a polemicist rather than a scientific or dogmatic writer; he readily adapted the opinions of Soranus and Aristotle so that they would suit the arguments of his treatises. The final chapter will move on from the influence of Soranus and Aristotle to consider the influence of pagan legal and lay opinions upon Tertullian’s views of abortion.

133 Barnes 1985: 55. 134 Waszink 1947: 346. By way of explanation, Waszink suggests that perhaps Tertullian did not see these disparate understandings of conception as being in conflict. 135 Heyne 2011: 153.

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Chapter IV: The Pagan Context

This final chapter counters Noonan (1970) and Gorman’s (1981) theory that Tertullian formed his position against abortion in opposition to the prevalent views of pagan Rome. This is accomplished by comparing his attitude concerning the unborn child to that of previous pagan authors, paying particular attention to Roman hostility towards abortion and evidence that the Romans did care for their unborn children. It is argued that although Tertullian presented his arguments as opposite to Roman traditions, he actually differed very little from pagan authors in denunciating the termination of pregnancy and in his valuation of the unborn child. The nature and legal standing of the unborn child may have been nebulous among the Romans, yet no pagan source ever condoned abortion. Roman authors did not often attribute the unborn child human status, and very rarely condemned abortion as murder. However, this does not suggest that abortion was customarily practised in the Roman world. The maintenance of patria potestas and the civic obligation to replenish the citizen population likely convinced many Romans of the evil of abortion, as did the medical complications the procedure often entailed. As discussed below, many pagan authors recognised the unborn child as the spes, or hope of a human being, and prepared for its emergence into family life. It is difficult to reconcile the idea of Roman ‘indifference’ towards foetal life with death-notices for miscarriages, Artemidorus’ records of mothers’ dreams concerning forthcoming offspring, the literary blurring of abortion and infanticide, and the numerous deities of the Roman religion whose task was to watch over the developing foetus. Contrary to the arguments of Gorman, it is argued that Tertullian’s derogatory comments about abortion in his Christian writings had no influence over the criminalisation of abortion during the Severan period. By referring to abortion in his apologetic works, Tertullian was actually arguing that Christians exceeded their pagan peers in maintaining Roman family traditions.

At first glance, one could easily gain the impression that Tertullian was actively rebelling against Roman customs concerning the unborn child. As explored in greater detail in the first chapter of this dissertation, Tertullian often constructed abortion as an immoral practice in which pagans habitually indulged, and from which Christians abstained. In reality, the gulf between Christian and pagan attitudes towards the unborn was not as wide as Tertullian would have had his readers believe. The barrier between Roman and Christian

172 attitudes to abortion was largely an artificial one. It served Tertullian’s interests as a polemicist to construct pagan social mores as antithetical to Christianity. In his apologetic treatises, such as Ad Nationes and the Apologeticum, referring to abortion as a pagan perversion lent weight to his portrayal of Christians as morally and ethically superior.1 In his treatises written for fellow Christians, such as Ad Uxorem, it was expedient for Tertullian to demonise abortion as a routine practice among pagans in order to provide a negative exemplum, a straw man against which he could argue.2 Yet Tertullian himself had been raised and educated as a non-Christian. Moreover, he lived within a community dominated by Roman social customs and values. In his condemnation of abortion and his valuation of the unborn child, it was therefore inevitable that he drew upon Roman traditions as much as Christian ones.

The child in the womb received very little attention from non-Christian Roman authors; its nature was ambiguous. This is illustrated by the Latin terminology used to describe the child in the womb, as discussed previously in the introductory chapter of this dissertation. Much of the vocabulary for describing the unborn child may be found in Ovid’s poems. Ovid provides an illustrative example of the vagueness of Latin terminology for the child in the uterus. In his Metamorphoses, he described the immature embryo as mere semina, or ‘seed.’3 It would seem that Ovid subscribed to the ‘furrowed field’ theory of conception, according to which the embryo lay inert within male sperm, to be sown in the female body through coitus. At this early juncture in its development, the embryo held no identity. Rather, Ovid simply called it spes, the ‘hope’ of a future child.4 The word fetus, from which is derived the English term ‘foetus,’ was generally used adjectivally to describe pregnancy.5 Yet Ovid twice applied the term fetus to the unborn child in a substantive sense in the Amores.6 However, he most commonly used the term as a metaphor for fruit.7 It is not difficult to see the link between the imagery of fruit—a growth from plant life—and antenatal growth.

1 Tert. Ad nat. 1.15.6-8; Apol. 9.8. 2 Tert. Ux. 1.5.2. 3 Ov. Met. 15.216. 4 Ov. Met. 15.217. 5 Gray-Fow 1985: 61-62. 6 Ov. Am. 2.14.5; 2.14.36. 7 Deferrari, Barry and McGuire 1968: 680.

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At times, Ovid used the term infans or ‘baby, infant,’ to describe the unborn child.8 Given the lack of a more precise term, the use of a generic word for an infant is unsurprising; it is common even for speakers of English, a language which features vocabulary specifically to denote antenatal offspring, to refer to their progeny in the womb as ‘the baby.’9 Ovid’s use of the term could indicate some degree of sentimental attachment to the foetus in the womb. Perhaps Ovid conceptualised the antenatal infant as having equivalent status to a postnatal baby, since he applied a term often associated with later stages of childhood development. As Manson points out, the term infans was often applied until the child was around seven years of age.10 However, it should be recalled that the term infans was not actually meant to convey childhood specifically. Rather, the noun was derived from a compound of the present participle active of the verb for, ‘to speak,’ along with the preposition in. Literally, the term infans simply meant ‘unspeaking.’11 It was not a reference to the child’s age, but to its ability to communicate. In very rare instances, tombstone inscriptions could employ the term infans to commemorate mute adults.12 It would therefore be hazardous to read any values into Ovid’s employment of the word.

Other, somewhat rarer terms also existed, some of which were based upon passive participles. Partus was similar to fetus in that it served a variety of functions. It usually applied to the process of childbirth and to the postpartum infant.13 However, the use of partus for a foetus resembles the English idiom, ‘unborn’ indicating that the foetus had not yet been brought forth. At times, the term conceptus ‘something conceived’ could be applied to a nascent child, as in the case of ’ biography of Domitian.14 Celsus used partus in a substantive sense to denote a miscarried corpse removed in an embryotomy.15 Tacitus, on the other hand, used conceptus and partus for a living foetus, describing Livia as carrying ‘a child conceived and not yet born’ by her previous husband.16 Occasionally, authors referred to the late-term foetus as onus, a ‘burden’ carried in a woman’s belly.17

8 Ov. Fast. 1.33; Met. 3.308. Ovid’s application of infans to the unborn child is rather similar to ’ De Rerum Naturum 5.809-810. 9 Gray-Fow 1985: 66. 10 Manson 1983: 150-153. 11 McWilliam 2001: 93. 12 Manson 1983: 150-153. 13 Gray-Fow 1985: 62. 14 Suet. Dom. 22. 15 Celsus Med. 7.29.1. 16 Tac. Ann. 1.10. concepto necdum edito partum. It should be noted that conceptus and partus can also be viewed as fourth declension nouns, rather than passive participles. 17 Ov. Am. 2.13.1; Phdr. 1.18.5.

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Outside of the corpus of Christian works, it was very rare for a Latin writer to describe the child in the womb as a homo, a ‘human.’18 In his Saturae, Juvenal described aborted foetuses as homines.19 Juvenal suggested that richer women employed abortifacient medicines to conceal the results of adultery. He acidly suggested that husbands actually ought to encourage their wives to abort these illicit pregnancies, lest they suffer public ignominy by accepting children fathered by other men as heirs. As he said:

These women undergo the crisis of giving birth, and they bear all the labours of breast-feeding thrust upon them by fortune, but scarcely any woman lies giving birth upon a gilded bed. The skills are so great and the medications are so effective of she who renders (women) sterile, tending to the killing of human beings in the womb. Rejoice, you unhappy man, and yourself offer the (draught) for her to drink, whatever it might be. For if she were willing to stretch and vex her uterus with twitching children, you could possibly be the father of an Ethiopian, and soon a coloured heir might fill your will, (who will) never be seen by you in the morning.20 Ostensibly, Juvenal assigned the foetus the value of a human being by calling it a homo. However, it is best not to read too much into his use of the word. It must be kept in mind that Juvenal was a satirist. Juvenal aimed to elicit an emotional response by inverting contemporary social mores through humorous vignettes. He hardly sought to advocate the unborn’s place in Roman society by elevating it to the status of a human being. Juvenal’s adulteress compounded her indiscretion by murder. He thus rendered his denunciation of supposed contemporary decadence all the more shocking.

Terminology for the foetus continued to be ambiguous into Tertullian’s period. Censorinus’ De Die Natali, written in AD 238, was a short doxographic work intended to be a birthday gift for his patron, Quintus Caerellius. In it, Censorinus detailed a miscellany of facts concerning birth, detailing various philosophical viewpoints concerning embryology, foetal development and ensoulment. He was one of the few Latin authors close to Tertullian’s lifetime who paid the foetus any extended attention. Like Ovid, Censorinus occasionally

18 The only other case is Gell. NA 12.1.8-9. 19 Juv. Sat. 6.596. 20 Juv. Sat. 6.592-601. Hae tamen et partus subeunt discrimen et omnis nutricis tolerant fortuna urguente labores, sed iacet aurato uix ulla puerpera lecto. Tantum artes huius, tantum medicamina possunt, quae steriles facit atque homines in uentre necandos conducit. Gaude, infelix, atque ipse bibendum porrige quidquid erit; nam si distendere uellet et uexare uterum pueris salientibus, esses Aethiopis fortasse pater, mox decolor heres impleret tabulas numquam tibi mane uidendus.

175 tended to describe the foetus as partus.21 However, he also called it infans, both for the unformed embryo and for the more developed foetus.22

As Tertullian wrote in Latin, it was perhaps inevitable that the same ambiguous terminology denoting the foetus and embryo was reflected in his work. Tertullian only explicitly called the foetus a homo in the Apologeticum and the De Anima.23 As in the case of pagan authors, it was far more common for Tertullian to describe the foetus by means of circumlocution and idiom. In Ad Nationes and the Apologeticum, he simply called the unborn child futurus, ‘one yet to be.’24 It was most common for Tertullian to refer to foetuses and embryos simply as infantes, ‘infants,’ or ‘unspeaking ones.’25 In Ad Uxorem, he called the foetus a sarcina, a ‘burden,’ or ‘bundle.’26 This is quite similar to the use of onus in Ovid and Phaedrus, mentioned above. Tertullian sometimes called the foetus conceptus in a substantive sense.27 Like Ovid, Tertullian also used terminology typically associated with the growth of fruit for the foetus, including fructus and fetus.28 In his treatise against Marcion, Tertullian quite explicitly described the embryo and foetus using terms that denoted their lack of human status. As mentioned previously in the dissertation, Tertullian called the early-stage embryo caro, ‘flesh,’ and described the foetus a pecus, or an ‘animal.’29 Tertullian was thus the first surviving Latin author to distinguish between different stages of prenatal development, as well as being the first to argue for the humanity of the nascent embryo.

It is not surprising that the unborn occupied a nebulous place in Latin, as a child theoretically did not hold an identity until he or she had undergone a naming ceremony, thus being officially welcomed into the family. A neonate’s dies lustricus, or ‘lustral day,’ was of paramount importance for confirming their place in the Roman family.30 During this occasion, the child was received into the household, ritually purified, and assigned a nomen. and Festus attested the details of the ceremony.31 Due to constraints of space, the exact procedure of the ritual will not be discussed here.32 However, it is noteworthy that the

21 Censorinus, DN. 5.5; 7.1; 7.2; 7.6. 22 Censorinus, DN. 6.2; 6.3; 7.4. 23 Tert. Apol. 9.8; An. 37.1-2. 24 Tert. Ad nat. 1.15.8; Apol. 9.8. 25 Tert. Ad nat. 1.15.8; Virg. Vel. 14.7; An. 25.3-5. 26 Tert. Ux. 1.5.3. 27 Tert. Apol. 9.8; Ex. Cast. 12.5.4; An. 25.5. 28 Tert. Apol. 9.8; An. 25.3; 25.6; 37.1-2. 29 Tert. Marc. 4.21.11. 30 Laes 2011: 65; McWilliam 2013: 268. 31 Laes 2011: 66; Festus De Sign. Verb. 107-108; Macrob. Sat. 1.16.36. 32 Consult Dasen 2009, esp. 207-208.

176 naming ritual only occurred a few days postpartum. ’s Quaestiones Romanae suggested that female infants did not undergo a naming ceremony until they were eight days old, while male infants received their name upon their ninth day.33 It would be difficult to overstate the significance of the dies lustricus for the Romans. All the available evidence suggests that newborn Romans were not publicly acknowledged until a name had been conferred upon them.34 ‘As far as society was concerned, the child did not exist prior to the dies lustricus,’ Laes argues.35 Until the dies lustricus, the child was not formally acknowledged in society or the family, and nominally held an indistinct identity.36

Burial practices also suggest a degree of vagueness in Roman views concerning newborn babies, which likely also applied to the unborn. The custom of not cremating babies like older children could be taken as evidence that the Romans did not always consider them a part of the human community until they had reached a certain stage of development. For instance, the Elder Pliny indicated that babies were not normally cremated before teething had commenced.37 Moreover, it was customary for babies who died before reaching the age of forty days to be buried beneath the foundations of houses.38 Archaeological evidence shows that it was also not unusual for children who died in their first twelve months to be interred in amphorae. This could be interpreted as heartlessness on the parents’ part, as though the child was not worthy of a proper burial. Yet Stevens (2013) argues for the opposite. She believes that the amphora was intended to represent a uterus, indicating the child’s continued attachment to his or her mother. Amphora burials, in her opinion, were a special class of burials used to show to distinguish the very young from other children.39 Juvenal too revealed something of the emotional process behind burying a newborn. On the one hand, he showed that infants were inhumed rather than cremated before they had reached maturity: ‘By order of nature we moan, when the funeral of an adult virgin occurs, or when a baby too young yet for the pyre’s flames is enclosed in the earth.’40 On the other hand, Juvenal also showed that it was considered normal to grieve for a child even before he or she had been formally acknowledged as part of the community. While a child might not have

33 Plut. Quaest. Rom. 288c. 34 McWilliam 2013: 268. 35 Laes 2011: 66. 36 However, as discussed below, individual parents could nevertheless form strong attachments to their offspring in utero. 37 Plin. HN 7.16.72. 38 Wiedemann 1989: 179. 39 Stevens 2013: 625-630. 40 Juv. Sat.15.138-140: Naturae imperio gemimus, cum funus adultae uirginis occurrit uel terra clauditur infans et minor igne rogi.

177 held a formal place in the community, he or she could still occupy a place in the parents’ hearts. As discussed below, the same was true for the unborn.

The status of the unborn child was similarly indefinite in the eyes of Roman law. Admittedly, the evidence for the legal standing of the unborn child is very slim. A handful of fragmentary remarks preserved in the Digesta of Justinian represent the sum total of extant evidence concerning the legal status of the unborn child. The Digesta is a problematic source for reconstructing Roman law. The text was originally compiled in the early sixth century AD under the orders of the Byzantine emperor Justinian. It was an assemblage of snippets from earlier Roman judicial commentators concerning laws still upheld in the .41 The Digesta is perhaps more useful as a source for Byzantine law than Roman, for Justinian’s methods were destructive. He intended the Digesta not to provide elucidation on Roman legal commentaries, but to supersede them.42 To this effect, he ordered the destruction of the original judicial texts, eliminating the many points on which the original authors of the fragments disagreed. This unfortunately precludes the possibility of examining the original text in situ. A mere five percent of the original sources remain intact in the Digesta.43 As Justinian himself said:

While we were researching everything, it was suggested to us by the aforementioned excellent man that almost two thousand books and more than three million disorderly lines had been written by the old (lawyers), all of which it was necessary to read and thoroughly scrutinise and choose from them whatever might be best. This, by the grace of Heaven and the favour of the Supreme , was completed following our mandates such as we gave from the start to the aforementioned excellent man, and everything most useful was collected into fifty books, and all ambiguities were decided upon, with no quarrelsome passage remaining. We assigned these books the name of Digest or else Pandects, because they have in them all matters of disputes and legal decisions which were collected from all sides. This they have held back in their essence, so that they complete the entire task in about one hundred and fifty thousand lines.44

41 Johnston 1999: 15. 42 Cod. Iust. 1.17.2.1. 43 Johnston 1999: 15. 44 Cod. Iust. 1.17.2.1. Sed cum omnia percontabamur, a praefato viro excelso suggestum est duo paene milia librorum esse conscripta et plus quam tricies centena milia versuum a veteribus effusa, quae necesse esset omnia et legere et perscrutari et ex his si quid optimum fuisset eligere. Quod caelesti fulgore et summae trinitatis favore confectum est secundum nostra mandata, quae ab initio ad memoratum virum excelsum fecimus, et in quinquaginta libros omne quod utilissimum erat collectum est et omnes ambiguitates decisae nullo seditioso relicto. Nomenque libris imposuimus digestorum seu pandectarum, quia omnes disputationes et decisiones in se habent legitimas et quod undique fuit collectum, hoc in sinus suos receperunt, in centum quinquaginta paene milia versuum totum opus consummantes.

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Moreover, the editors of the Digesta removed the extracts from their original contexts, and redistributed them under many sub-headings. These extracts were often edited together to form a seamless whole. At times, this resulted in the application of the authors’ ideas to topics far removed from that of their original treatise.45 Nor did the text of the Digesta remain static over the course of Byzantine history. It was continually edited and re-edited with numerous interpolations throughout the medieval period, in order to accommodate changes in Byzantine law.46

There are particular difficulties in using the Digesta as a source for Roman law concerning the unborn child. Johnston (1999) points out generally that the Digesta ‘can indicate which problems arose, but not how often or how pressing they were.’47 Johnston suggests that historians should ideally adopt a more holistic approach to Roman legal history, using archaeological and documentary evidence in tandem with the Digesta, rather than accepting it at face value.48 Unfortunately, little such evidence exists for the status of unborn offspring. There is hence scant indication in any literary or epigraphic source whether or not any of the laws mentioned had an effect in reality.

Roman law granted considerable autonomy to the paterfamilias regarding the treatment of his family.49 Ulpian, in a fragment from Ad Sabinum, provided clear evidence that the unborn child was under the potestas of its father in matters of ius civile.50 The state did not regularly intervene in the affairs of an individual household.51 Etienne argues that the Roman legal system generally avoided issuing edicts on unborn children since doing so would have conflicted with the authority of the paterfamilias.52 Thus, it is perhaps to be expected that written litigation involving infants in the womb did not crop up regularly.

There is also an overwhelming bias in the Digesta towards presenting unusual cases that were legally challenging, or whose novelty the authors thought might interest their readers.53 Often, the content does not deal with standing laws concerning the treatment of the unborn child, but comprises comments from jurors concerning rescriptiones: the emperors’

45 Johnston 1999: 17. 46 Johnston 1999: 17-22. 47 Johnston 1999: 27. 48 Johnston 1999: 27. 49 Dixon 1988: 95. 50 Dig. 1.7.15. 51 Dixon 1988: 95. 52 Etienne 1973: 133. 53 Johnston 1999: 27.

179 answers to specific enquiries in instances of legal controversy. These cases had to be unusual to warrant a petition to the emperor.54 It would therefore be perilous to use the Digesta as a source for reconstructing the everyday treatment of the Roman infant.

While there are sound reasons to be cautious in using the Digesta to extrapolate the precise legal situation of the unborn, it remains a useful source for evaluating individual authors’ attitudes towards the foetus and embryo, especially when its extracts are contextualised. The Byzantine editors of the Digesta helpfully provided the names of the authors and titles of each of their excerpts. In the late nineteenth century, the German scholar Otto Lenel grouped together each author’s fragments to provide a theoretical reconstruction of their original content. Though Lenel’s work is at times speculative, it remains extremely valuable for using the Digesta critically.55 If possible, it is also important to consider the fragments in the context of the life and work of each author. Of the authors cited in the Digesta who commented on the status of the unborn child, the most prodigious were Tertullian’s contemporaries, the Severan jurists Julius Paulus (Paulus) and Domitius Ulpianus (Ulpian). The career and literary output of each man are considered below, as far as they are relevant to this study.

A Roman Tyrian by birth, Ulpian pursued a distinguished legal career in Rome, serving Septimius Severus as secretary of petitions at least as early as AD 205.56 He was therefore responsible for the text of the imperial rescripts issued in Severus’ name; his insight is thus invaluable. Ulpian’s literary career was exceptional.57 Many of his works revolved around Caracalla’s proclamation of universal citizenship, being didactic treatises intended to educate the influx of new citizens in Roman legal proceedings.58 Of particular note concerning the legal position of the unborn child is his Ad Edictum Praetoris, a mammoth commentary on the extent of a provincial ’s powers, and the correct manner in which to appeal to a praetor.59 Ulpian’s advice on the extent to which a praetor could intervene in cases of disputed inheritance sheds light on the unborn child’s capacity to be named as heir, and also on the circumstances in which a praetor might punish abortion. His Ad Sabinum was

54 Johnston 1999: 27. 55 Johnston 1999: 16. 56 Honore 1982: 24. 57 Mousourakis 2003: 302. 58 Lenel 1889: 1019-1098; Mousourakis 2003: 303. 59 Lenel 1889: 422-898.

180 a manual on the applications of civil law.60 Ad Sabinum is also a useful source for the place of the unborn child in Roman civil law.

Little is known of Paulus, though it is clear that he was an influential figure in his own lifetime. He was a contemporary of Ulpian; however, it is unlikely that the two knew one another, as Syme (1979) points out.61 His place of origin has not been identified.62 He served Septimius Severus as praetorian and a member of the consilium iuris.63 As a ranking member of the imperial court, the surviving fragments of his works are invaluable. Paulus’ literary output was profuse; the Digesta ascribed over three hundred separate works to him.64 He is particularly helpful for this study, because he was privy to rescripts issued in the name of the Severan emperors. His Imperiales Sententiae provided his thoughts on many rescripts passed under Severus.65 Included among these were Severus and Caracalla’s rescript concerning abortion.

The Digesta recorded a remark from Ulpian’s commentary on the praetorian edict, in which he indicated his view that the foetus was not a discrete entity. Rather, Ulpian considered the foetus or embryo to be an offshoot from its mother.66 Ulpian related a divorce case in which a certain Rutilius Severus appealed to his local praetor for assistance in settling a custody dispute. Rutilius Severus demanded that his ex-wife should be placed under his custody on the basis that she carried his unborn child, to whom he laid claim. However, Rutilius’ ex-wife denied that she was pregnant at all. Apparently, the praetor sent away to the emperors, most likely Caracalla and Geta, for advice. Their solution was a rescript, sending three midwives to investigate; if the midwives reached the consensus that she was pregnant, the woman was to be handed over to the custody of her ex-husband. However, if they discovered that she was not pregnant, the husband ‘would not undeservedly seem to have tried this for (the purpose of) some injury against his wife.’67 In Ulpian’s opinion, this rescript brought into question the legitimacy of unborn infants as heirs, since a woman could deny that she was pregnant in order to refute her husband’s claim:

60 Lenel 1889: 1251-1294; Honore 1982: 92. 61 Syme 1979: 797. 62 Mousourakis 2003: 302. 63 Mousourakis 2003: 302. 64 Mousourakis 2003: 302. 65 Mousourakis 2003: 302. 66 Lenel (1889: 555) suggests that this book actually covered the division of goods in instances where litigants were fined for giving false testimony. 67 Dig. 25.4.1. Ut non immerito possit videri captasse hoc ad aliquam mulieris iniuriam.

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From this rescript, it is quite evident that the senatorial decrees concerning the acknowledgement of children are not pertinent if the woman lied that she was pregnant, or else that she said that she was not. This is not undeserved. For before it is brought forth, the child is part of the woman, or of her womb. Following its birth, the husband plainly and according to his rights is able to request that his child be shown to him through an interdict, or that he should be allowed to take the child. Therefore the princeps aids (the husband) through an extraordinary arrangement in cases (where it is) necessary.68 It would be hazardous to take Ulpian’s remark as a suggestion that the foetus had no legal rights whatsoever. Noonan, Connery, and Gardner (1986) interpret Ulpian’s suggestion that the foetus was physically a part of its mother as a sign that, in a legal sense, the Romans did not view the unborn child as an entity discrete from its mother. They believe that Ulpian’s view constituted a legal confirmation of the Stoic view that a child was a growth from its mother.69 However, when read in context, it is clear that Ulpian simply meant that the father had a clearer claim to his custodial rights after his baby was born, since the child could be physically separated from its mother. In any case, Ulpian’s remark was hardly clear-cut evidence that this was the Romans’ entire legal perspective on the unborn child, since he was merely offering his interpretation of one specific case.

Extracts from the Digesta also gave clear evidence that in certain instances the unborn could hold status independent of its mother. In an extract from the Institutiones of the third- century commentator Marcian, the Digesta indicated that the mother’s status at the time she gave birth was not always conferred upon the child.70 Normally, a child born of a slave mother would have shared her status. However, Marcian also indicated his opinion that in cases where a mother lost her freedom during the pregnancy, the child still ought to hold the status that it had held at the time of its conception, for ‘the misfortune of the mother should not harm that which is in the womb.’71 In other words, according to Marcian, a slave woman could theoretically carry a free foetus if she had lost her freedom during gestation. Marcian’s contemporary, Julian, similarly suggested in his Digesta that in cases where a pregnant

68 Dig. 25.4.1.1. Ex hoc rescripto evidentissime apparet senatus consulta de liberis agnoscendis locum non habuisse, si mulier dissimularet se praegnatem vel etiam negaret, nec immerito: partus enim antequam edatur, mulieris portio est vel viscerum. post editum plane partum a muliere iam potest maritus iure suo filium per interdictum desiderare aut exhiberi sibi aut ducere permitti. extra ordinem igitur princeps in causa necessaria subvenit. 69 Noonan 1970: 6; Connery 1977: 23; Gardner 1986: 161. 70 Dig. 1.5.5.2; Lenel 1889: 651; Lenel suggests that Marcian intended to discuss the varying states of human status. If he is correct, the Digesta preserved the original intention of the work well. 71 Dig. 1.5.5.2. Ingenui sunt, qui ex matre libera nati sunt: sufficit enim liberam fuisse eo tempore quo nascitur, licet ancilla concepit. et e contrario si libera conceperit, deinde ancilla pariat, placuit eum qui nascitur liberum nasci. (nec interest iustis nuptiis concepit an volgo), quia non debet calamitas matris nocere ei qui in ventre est.

182 woman was captured and enslaved in war, the child should retain the status it would have otherwise held under the principle of the ius postlimini, even if this status differed from that of its mother. This legal principle served to protect the property rights of those in conquered territories.72 Moreover, Julian indicated that in cases where a pregnant slave was stolen, the slave owner could claim the baby as his or her property as they normally would under the rights of usus, as the child was considered stolen goods.73 Since the slave-owner had to make a separate claim for the child, it is clear that the child was a legally discrete entity even prior to birth, at least in Julian’s opinion.

The Roman legal system never formally conferred upon the foetus or embryo the status of a human being by virtue of its existence, yet that did not preclude it from certain protections in the world of civil law.74 These protections were conferred upon the child in anticipation of its role in society after reaching maturity postpartum. For instance, in his Digesta, Julian suggested that ‘those who are in the womb, in almost the entirety of civil law, are considered to exist in the world.’75 Gardner believes that Julian was engaging in hyperbole when he made this statement.76 Paulus was rather more measured in his judgement, identifying that whatever rights the child possessed in the womb related solely to its potential ability to claim them upon achieving sentience later in life. While discussing the allotment of property to the children of condemned criminals, he opined, ‘that which is in the uterus is protected, just as if it were in human affairs, (emphasis added) when anything is asked regarding the benefit (of the child) once it is born; however, before (the child) is born it is does not by any means benefit another (person).’77 According to Paulus, the child in the womb was evidently not a fully actuated human being. Even so, its burgeoning potential to enter society made it legally necessary to assign value to the foetus equivalent to that of a full human, particularly in cases where the child’s biological father was absent.78

When it was practical, Roman civil law treated the foetus as though it were fully hominised. There is ample evidence that the legal system did make certain provisions for the

72 Dig. 1.5.26; Lenel 1889: 474. Lenel indicates that Julian was in fact discussing the division of property under the Julian marriage laws. 73 Dig. 1.5.26. 74 Gardner 1986: 161. 75 Dig. 1.5.26. Qui in utero sunt, in toto paene iure civili intelleguntur in rerum natura esse. 76 Gardner 1986: 158. 77 Dig. 1.5.7; Lenel 1889: 1180. Qui in utero est, perinde ac si in rebus humanis esset custoditur, quotiens de commodis ipsius partus quaeritur: quamquam alii antequam nascatur nequaquam prosit. 78 Nardi 1971: 388.

183 foetus concerning its right to inherit.79 The Digesta contained numerous references to women claiming property on behalf of their antenatal child, and also to the penalties of making such claims under false pretences.80 In their respective commentaries on the application of the praetorian edict, Paulus and Ulpian suggested that filing false claims could attract the punishment of being marked with infamia.81 Though it was not perceived as a developed being in itself, inheritance laws allowed the foetus to be named in a will, with a view towards its potential capacity to claim inheritances upon maturity.

While civil law protected the unborn child’s future ability to enter into its rightful inheritance, its physical wellbeing was not often considered in criminal law. There is no indication that the Romans considered abortion to be homicide in the late Republic or early Empire.82 Indeed, it is open to question whether the Romans ever considered abortion a crime prior to the reign of Septimius Severus and Caracalla.83 Admittedly, Plutarch’s Vita Romuli does record a tradition that Romulus allowed a man to divorce his wife for pharmakeia: ‘He laid down certain laws, and among them a very harsh one, which forbids a wife to leave her husband, but permits a husband to throw out his wife for the use of poisons on her children, or for substituting (the children), and also for adultery.’84 It is possible that abortifacients were among the drugs a wife was forbidden to use. However, this cannot be taken as a sweeping criminalisation of abortion. In this case, it is not certain that the pharmakeia referred to abortifacients at all; Romulus likely condemned the poisoning of children generally. Moreover, even if the law did give a husband leave to divorce his wife for aborting their child, it did not give the state the authority to punish her for a crime. Musonius Rufus also mentioned that ‘ancient law’ held that abortion was punishable, but did not specify which law he was actually referring to.85 This could be interpreted as a confirmation that Romulus criminalised abortion, but this is by no means certain. As Kapparis argues, it is probable that Rufus hoped to increase the authority of his ideas by appealing to a long-held tradition.86

79 Gardner 1986: 161. 80 Dig. 1.21.4; 2.12.2; 3.2.15-17; 4.4.45; 12.2.3; 5.5.3; 6.1.9. 81 Dig. 3.2.14-17. 82 Gardner 1986: 158-159. 83 Kapparis 2002: 182. 84 Plut. Rom. 22.3; Waszink 1950: 57; Eyben 1980: 26. Ἔθηκε δὲ καὶ νόμους τινάς, ὧν σφοδρὸς μέν ἐστιν ὁ γυναικὶ μὴ διδοὺς ἀπολείπειν ἄνδρα, γυναῖκα δὲ διδοὺς ἐκβάλλειν ἐπὶ φαρμακείᾳ τέκνων ἢ κλειδῶν ὑποβολῇ καὶ μοιχευθεῖσαν· 85 Muson. 15. 86 Kapparis 2002: 150.

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The first solid evidence for the criminalisation of abortion came through an imperial rescript issued during the joint reign of Septimius Severus and Caracalla. As mentioned in the dissertation’s introduction, Gorman has suggested that this change came about due to Christian influence.87 The likelihood of Gorman’s idea will be discussed below. It is not possible to offer a firm date for these laws. The rescript could have been issued any time during the joint reign of Severus and Caracalla, AD 198-209. Unfortunately, the circumstances that prompted the rescript are not known, nor can its effectiveness be gauged. Though Kapparis theorises that the laws probably were enforced widely throughout the empire, no evidence has survived of punitive measures undertaken against abortion up to Tertullian’s time.88

It is questionable whether the Severan laws targeted abortion as a concept.89 It is clear, moreover, that the Severans did not fight against abortion out of deference to an ideology that attributed human identity to the unborn, as is often the case when abortion is criminalised in the current period. Rather, as Gardner argues, the Severans’ law only aimed to criminalise abortion under a very specific set of circumstances.90 There is no evidence that the laws prevented single women from ending pregnancies out of wedlock. The laws enforced long-held social traditions and concerns about paternal rights to regulate fecundity within marriage. The state sought to protect paternal interests, lest Roman wives rob their husbands of the prospect of children.91 Three fragments from the Digesta support this idea. In a passage of his Regula, which Lenel indicates probably originally dealt with the effect of status upon inheritance, Marcian said:

The divine Severus and Antoninus have issued a rescript that a woman who has brought on an abortion on purpose must be handed over into temporary exile by the governor; for it seems intolerable that it is possible for a woman to cheat her husband of children without punishment.92 Very similarly, Ulpian advised readers that a provincial praetor was empowered to exile women who had procured abortions:

87 Gorman 1982: 61-62. 88 Kapparis 2002: 183. 89 Gardner 1986: 158-159. 90 Gardner 1986: 158-159. 91 Gorman 1982: 31. 92 Dig. 47.11.4; Lenel 1889: 680. Divus Severus et Antoninus rescripserunt eam, quae data opera abegit, a praeside in temporale exilium dandam: indignum enim videri potest impune eam maritum liberis fraudasse.

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If a woman has inflicted violence upon her womb in order to expel the foetus, he decided that the governor of the province will send her out into exile.93 Unlike Marcian, Ulpian did not actually specify what the woman was being charged with.94 Tryphoninus, however, connected the legislation to Cicero’s earlier employment of abortion as a rhetorical exemplum in Pro Cluentio.

Cicero wrote in the oration On Behalf of Cluentius Habitus, that while he was in Asia a certain Milesian woman was condemned to capital punishment because she had accepted money from the next heir (in line to inherit) and she herself had aborted the foetus by means of medications. But (nowadays), if she were to inflict violence upon her womb while she was pregnant after a divorce, so that she would not beget a son for her ex-husband, then she is to be disciplined with temporary exile, as ruled in the rescript by our exceptional emperors.95 From the context, Ulpian and Tryphoninus each seemed to be discussing the extent to which a praetor could intervene in disputes over the redistribution of dowries in cases of divorce.96 Their point was probably that in cases where marriage was dissolved because of abortion, wives would not be entitled to reclaim their dowries. Marcian and Tryphoninus suggested that the Severan abortion laws served the interests of fathers and not their unborn children. The relative mildness of the punishment upon the mother—temporary exile—suggests that women who ended their pregnancies were not considered guilty of parricide or murder. If they had been guilty of parricide, their punishment would have been substantially more severe. Instead, the commentators indicate that their crime was defrauding their husbands of children.

In order to comprehend the patriarchal values that underpinned the laws fully, it is helpful to examine the speech of Cicero to which Tryphoninus referred, Pro Cluentio. Cicero’s horror at abortion likely informed the Severan laws; the close similarity of Cicero’s vocabulary and syntax and that of Tryphoninus in discussing abortion clearly indicates a

93 Dig. 48.8.8. Si mulierem visceribus suis vim intulisse, quo partum abigeret, constiterit, eam in exilium praeses provinciae exiget. 94 Kapparis (2002: 183) suggests that Ulpian presented the rescript in its original form, indicating that abortion was universally rendered illegal. However, there is no evidence that this was the intention of the law, especially in light of the evidence of Paulus and Tryphoninus, discussed below. 95 Dig. 48.19.39. Cicero in oratione Pro Cluentio Habito scripsit Milesiam quandam mulierem, cum esset in Asia, quod ab heredibus secundis accepta pecunia partum sibi medicamentis ipsa abegisset, rei capitalis esse damnatam. sed et si qua visceribus suis post divortium, quod praegnas fuit, vim intulerit, ne iam inimico marito filium procrearet, ut temporali exilio coerceatur, ab optimis imperatoribus nostris rescriptum est. 96 Lenel 1889: 364, 645.

186 connection between the texts. Pro Cluentio was a forensic speech delivered in 66 BC. Cicero was defending his client, Aulus Cluentius Habitus, against the charge of poisoning his stepfather, Oppianicus the Elder.97 Previously, Cluentius had successfully charged Oppianicus with attempting to poison him.98 Popular opinion held that Cluentius had secured his victory in court through bribery.99 Before he could prove his client’s innocence, Cicero needed to demonstrate that Cluentius’ ethos was of such high standing that he could never have abused the law. To do so, it was necessary to revisit the details of the previous trial and show that Oppianicus’ character had been so degenerate that it was indeed necessary for Cluentius to prosecute him.100 To this effect, Cicero narrated how Oppianicus had poisoned each of his other stepchildren so that they would not inherit his estate.101 However, Cicero’s evidence was weak. Much of it may have been the product of invention. According to Quintilian, he later bragged that he had won his case by ‘throwing dust in the eyes of the jurors.’102 Cicero resorted to the use of an exemplum comparable to the case in question, where a woman of Miletus had been charged with aborting her children by means of poison. There is insufficient evidence to determine whether or not Cicero's story was genuine. As he said:

I sieze upon my memories of a certain Milesian woman who was condemned to capital punishment, while I was in Asia, because she had accepted money from the (next) heirs (in line to inherit) if she would abort her foetus herself by means of medication; (she suffered the penalty) not unjustly, for she had stolen the father’s hope, the memory of his name, the reinforcement of his race, the heir of his household, a citizen appointed for the commonwealth. To what degree is Oppianicus worthy of a greater penalty? Indeed, if she put herself through torture by inflicting this violence upon her own body, this man committed the same (crime) through the death and torture of another person.103

97 Cic. Clu. 1.2-3. 98 Cic. Clu. 3. 99 Cic. Clu. 3-4. 100 Cic. Clu. 7-11. 101 Cic. Clu. 10-11. 102 Quint. Inst. Or. 2.17.21. Nec Cicero, cum se tenebras offudisse iudicibus in causa Cluenti gloriatus est, nihil ipse uidit. 103 Cic. Clu. 11.32. Memoria teneo Milesiam quandam mulierem, cum essem in Asia, quod ab heredibus [secundis] accepta pecunia partum sibi ipsa medicamentis abegisset, rei capitalis esse damnatam; nec iniuria, quae spem parentis, memoriam nominis, subsidium generis, heredem familiae, designatum rei publicae civem sustulisset. Quanto est Oppianicus in eadem iniuria maiore supplicio dignus! si quidem illa, cum suo corpori vim attulisset, se ipsa cruciavit, hic autem idem illud effecit per alieni corporis mortem atque cruciatum. Ceteri non videntur in singulis hominibus multa parricidia suscipere posse: Oppianicus inventus est qui in uno corpore plures necaret.

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Cicero’s tone was one of revulsion and righteous indignation at the termination of the offspring, ‘not wholly unlike the revulsion attached to murder.’104 However, it is quite explicit that his outrage was not because he considered it murder.105 Rather, the Milesian woman’s crime was that she had gone against her late husband’s wish that the child should inherit his estate. She had deprived him of his spes, or expectation of children. The injured party was not the foetus, but the legacy of its father. As with the inheritance law, the foetus did not hold an inherent value. Rather, its value was contingent upon the father’s expectation of progeny.106 According to Cicero, the Milesian woman had reneged upon her duty to her husband and to her community. She had been disloyal in upholding her responsibility to her deceased spouse by failing to perpetuate his memory, and to her state by not providing a new citizen.107

Here, Cicero was drawing upon core Roman family values, attempting to draw out a powerful emotional reaction from the jurors. But Cicero’s intended target was not the anonymous woman who had supposedly ended her pregnancy. Rather, he aimed to show that even her use of poison paled in comparison to that of Oppianicus. Cicero sought to demonstrate that Oppianicus’ murder of his children was a crime even more inhumane because his children had reached maturity. Cicero very clearly argued on the basis that the Milesian woman had committed a morally reprehensible act, but not one as severe as the parricide Oppianicus had committed. The late Oppianicus had supposedly murdered others. By implication, the Milesian woman had not, as far as Cicero argued.

Similar patriarchal anxieties manifested in Ovid’s famous love poems that dealt with abortion. As Watts points out, these elegies were not intended as polemics against abortion.108 Indeed, abortion appears to have been a subsidiary issue for Ovid, as it was for early Christian writers. It is likely that the poet used abortion as a talking point, depicting an imagined incident to explore passion and love. Ovid’s primary focus was upon the concept of erotic love, and indeed upon its power to inspire poetry. Ovid opened and closed the Amores with elegies that self-consciously discussed these literary themes. As portrayed in the elegies, Ovid’s desire was fixed upon his mistress, Corinna. Yet there is a strong possibility that Corinna was fictional. In his Tristia, after all, Ovid said that the love-affair described in the

104 Watts 1973: 97. 105 Waszink 1950: 57. 106 Watts 1973: 97. 107 Cic. Clu. 11.32. 108 Watts 1973: 100-101.

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Amores was contrived.109 It is thus also open to question whether Ovid was speaking in his own voice, or whether he adopted that of a fictitious persona.110

According to the story laid out in the poem, Corrina had betrayed the Ovidian protagonist by aborting his baby, thereby placing her life in peril.111 Corinna’s crime was not so much killing her unborn child, but doing it without his knowledge. In this poem, Ovid’s character did not express grief at the loss of the foetus. Rather, the speaker was angry at her violation of his trust, and for threatening their bond by placing herself in danger.112 However, out of deference to his infatuation with Corinna, he was willing to set aside his anger and pray fervently to the goddess Isis for her recovery.113 Yet the valuation of the foetus, and indeed of Corinna herself, was relative to the Ovidian protagonist’s feelings of self-worth.114 He implicitly expressed anxiety that Corinna had deprived the world of his progeny.115 The speaker enumerated several outstanding figures from Rome’s mythological history, without whom contemporary society would not exist.116 In doing so, Ovid’s character seems to have shared Cicero’s sentiment that Corinna had failed in her duty to the community by averting the existence of potentially productive citizens. On the other hand, the protagonist also implicitly indicated that Corinna had undermined the perpetuation of his family legacy by cheating him of offspring. Whatever great things these children might have achieved would have reflected well upon him, as they would have extended his posterity.117

The Severan laws were also influenced by anxieties about the circulation of deadly poisons. Paulus provided evidence to suggest that the legislation targeted dangerous love potions, which happened to include abortifacients:

Those who provide a draught for (causing) abortion or love, even though they may not do so for the purpose of deceit, because the matter is an example of evil, should be relegated to the mines (in the case of) obscure people, (while the) more distinguished ones, (should be relegated) to an island, having lost a portion of their property. If a

109 Ov. Tr. 2.339-340. Yet it should be considered that Ovid wrote Tristia while he was in exile, probably for licentiousness. This second book specifically pleaded for his recall. Perhaps the poet was trying to exculpate himself from his reputation for immorality by saying that his story of the adulterous escapade was untrue. 110 Williams 1968: 538-540. 111 Ov. Am. 2.13.3-4. 112 Ov. Am. 2.13.3-4. 113 Ov. Am. 2.13.7-15. 114 Watts 1973: 92-93. 115 Watts 1973: 92. 116 Ov. Am. 2.13.9-18. 117 Watts 1973: 93.

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man or a woman has perished in this manner, then (the guilty) are struck down by the ultimate punishment.126 Watts suggests that Paulus’ extract originally came under a discussion of the Lex Cornelia de Sicariis et Veneficis in his Sententiae.127 The Lex Cornelia, originally issued under Sulla, banned the sale of poison. This context seems to indicate that Paulus identified the legislation as part of a broad crackdown upon destructive elixirs, whether they were being deliberately used for poisoning or not.128 Paulus suggested that the punishment for the supplier of abortifacients was significantly harsher than that for the user, and increased in the event of the user’s death. The fact that the law targeted dealers more heavily than users perhaps indicates that it aimed to protect the Roman populace from these dangerous treatments.129

There were practical reasons for outlawing abortion and the provision of abortifacient drugs in a world where medicine was as likely to kill as to cure. Ovid’s Amores provide an apt illustration of the danger of abortion. Ovid wrote: ‘Corinna lies fatigued and in doubt of her life,’ because she had undergone the procedure, which had gone disastrously wrong.130 He concluded his poem bemoaning the fact that death and posthumous ostracism were the usual consequences for women who ended their pregnancies. ‘Often she who kills her own (offspring) in the uterus perishes herself. She perishes herself, and is borne out to the funeral pyre, her hair loosened, and they cry as they see her, “She deserved it!”’131 Ovid’s attitude towards abortion will be discussed in further detail below.

The fact that abortion was not actively penalised for much of Roman history should not indicate a callous or dismissive attitude towards the foetus or embryo. After all, the law seems to have made specific provisions to protect the foetus from accidental harm. As with inheritance law, there were legal provisions in place to protect the foetus as a human being in potentia. Marcellus, a lawyer of the mid-second century, cited a ‘royal statute’ which forbade the interment of a pregnant woman without first removing her foetus, in case it was still viable. As he said, ‘a person who acts contrary to this rule is seen to have disposed of the

126 Dig. 48.19.38.5. Qui abortionis aut amatorium poculum dant, etsi dolo non faciant, tamen quia mali exempli res est, humiliores in metallum, honestiores in insulam amissa parte bonorum relegantur. quod si eo mulier aut homo perierit, summo supplicio adficiuntur. 127 Watts 1973: 89. 128 Waszink 1950: 57; Watts 1973: 89. 129 Gardner 1986: 59. 130 Ov. Am. 2.13.1-2. Dum labefactat onus gravidi temeraria ventris, in dubio vitae lassa Corinna iacet. 131 Ov. Am. 2.14.38-40. saepe, suos utero quae necat, ipsa perit. ipsa perit, ferturque rogo resolute capillos, et clamant 'merito!' qui modo cumque vident.

190 hope of a living being along with the pregnant woman.’132 Likewise, Ulpian argued that a pregnant woman condemned to death ought not be tortured or executed until she had given birth to her child.133 Most likely, this law was meant to protect the child from being harmed along with the woman, if it was a legitimate heir.134 Very unusually, there is evidence that this law was indeed enforced. The Passio Perpetuae records that the execution of Perpetua’s fellow martyr, Felicitas, was delayed until she had brought forth her child.135 Inadvertently harming the child in the womb was presumably an offence against its father, rather than an attribution of the intrinsic value to the life of the child. However, it is clear that Roman lawyers sought to protect the child and its interests, in preparation for its entry into the family and wider community.

It is probable that there was simply no need for legislation for or against abortion, as the issue did not likely arise often. Assuredly, any discussion of the frequency of abortion in antiquity is bound to be speculative. However, the written evidence does not support the theory that the Romans practised abortion as a regular means of birth control. Surely if abortion was such a routine occurrence, would have outlawed it as part of his legislation against adultery.136 There is, quite plainly, no mention in any of the pagan sources of a father ordering his wife to abort her pregnancy when she was carrying his legitimate offspring.137 The extreme danger of intervening in pregnancy would often have been a sufficient deterrent.138 Though many of the means of abortion mentioned in the medical sources may well have been effective, the numerous folk remedies, amulets, and magical recipes for ending pregnancies would not have been. The Elder Pliny, for instance, suggested

132 Dig. 11.8.2. Negat lex regia mulierem, quae praegnas mortua sit, humari, antequam partus ei excidatur: qui contra fecerit, spem animantis cum gravida peremisse videtur. Curiously, Lenel (1889: 630) suggests that this passage from Marcellus’ Digesta actually dealt with the application of the Lex Julia and the Lex Pappia Poppaea, which addressed the evasion of procreation. 133 Dig. 48.19.3. Praegnatis mulieris consumendae damnatae poena differtur quoad pariat. ego quidem et ne quaestio de ea habeatur, scio observari, quamdiu praegnas est. 134 Lenel 1889: 1053. Lenel suggests that Ulpian was here discussing the problem of who could and could not be appointed as an heir. 135 Pass. Perp. 15.2. 136 Dixon 2001: 62. 137 Dixon 1988: 62. However, there is evidence for fathers willingly participating in the infanticide and exposure of their offspring, such as P.Oxy. 744. Archaeological evidence from the sewer in Israel and the Hambleden villa in Britain also shows an unusual concentration of neo-natal skeletons. For the view that these newborn skeletons are evidence for large-scale infanticide among the Romans, consult Smith and Kahila (1992: 667-675), and Mays (1993: 883-888). On the other hand, the reservations of Evans Grubbs should be considered. Evans Grubbs (2013: 83-107) cautions against the hasty conclusion that these skeletons were victims of deliberate infanticide. Given the high rates of infant mortality in antiquity, there is a high probability that the corpses disposed of at these sites died of natural causes. In any case, even if the neonates were deliberately killed, the archaeological evidence does not provide any clues as to whether the occurred at the behest of the babies’ fathers. 138 Kapparis 2002: 195-196.

191 that a violent sneeze would be sufficient to end a pregnancy in the early stages, as would a whiff of smoke from an oil-lamp.139 Ovid’s Heroides also provide evidence that even chemical abortifacients were not always effective, as Prioreschi points out.140 Ovid had the mythological figure of Canace lament the impotency of the liquids she had imbibed to terminate her offspring before birth.141 Admittedly, the ancient sources mentioned methods of abortion far more frequently than contraceptives. Hopkins (1965) believes that this indicates abortion was more regularly employed as a way of family planning.142 However, the proof that it was ever used as such is lacking.143

There were also demographic reasons for the Romans not to limit the size of their families by means of abortion. As Parkin (1992) points out, high mortality rates in the Roman world necessitated corresponding high levels of fertility in order to maintain the population.144 Given the remarkable rate of infant mortality, Roman parents could reasonably expect to lose children.145 Those who survived could not always look forward to a long life. The result was what Parkin calls a ‘high pressure regime,’ in which Roman parents had to have more children than they planned to raise if they wished to sustain their family line.146 In this situation, it made little sense for Roman society to idealise the limitation of fertility, particularly among the elite. In reality, this ideal would not have stopped individuals from practising or attempting to control their family size through contraceptive or abortive measures, as well as infanticide.

It is questionable how much first-hand information the ancient authors had concerning abortion, since it appears that women were primarily responsible for the provision of abortive measures. Although Roman men theoretically held exclusive authority over the female body, it is curious that Roman sources routinely constructed abortion as a feminine misdemeanour. Ovid and Juvenal said that it was quae, ‘she’ who was responsible for the production of abortifacients.147 Soranus seems to have had female midwives rather than male doctors specifically in mind when he dispensed advice on the use of abortifacients.148 It was perhaps

139 Plin. HN 7.5. 140 Prioreschi 1995: 78. 141 Ov. Her. 11.33-42. 142 Hopkins 1965: 132. 143 Dixon 1988: 62. 144 Parkin 1992: 91-93. 145 Parkin 1992: 92. 146 Parkin 1992: 91-93. 147 Juv. Sat. 6.596; Ov. Am. 2.14.5. 148 Sor. Gyn. 1.60.

192 inevitable that midwives and female apothecaries were primarily responsible for providing drugs designed to induce miscarriage, as they had superior understanding of the female reproductive system, and the means to curtail the dangers of ending a pregnancy.149 Moreover, the practice was routinely described as one that occurred in secret, away from male eyes. Dixon points out that the authors often described abortion in terms of ‘secrecy and deceit.’150 Ovid used the word clam to describe Corinna’s abortion.151 Several sources described abortion as fraus, ‘deceit’.152 If abortion was indeed a secret, then the ancient authors’ knowledge of it should be viewed sceptically.

In a world so heavily geared towards the protection of paternal interests, it is perhaps surprising that women exerted such control over the availability of abortive techniques. However, it is worth bearing in mind that the ancient sources were often more interested in appealing to the ideals of their period, rather than explaining the realities.153 The issue is in many ways comparable to the ideal of the housebound wife in classical Athenian literature. According to the ideal of sophrosyne, or ‘self-control,’ a virtuous Athenian woman lived in seclusion, and was not permitted to leave her home.154 However, there were a large number of accidental references to women leaving their houses for business and to socialise.155 Cohen (1989) finds an explanation for the contradiction between ideals and realities in modern anthropological studies of twentieth-century Mediterranean societies. Traditionally, male anthropologists had recorded observations of women as being housebound in Mediterranean cultures, and generally having little agency in their daily lives. However, female anthropologists recorded vastly different findings from their fieldwork. They found that modern Greek women exercised a greater level of personal freedom and influence in the community than had been previously attested.156 In traditional Mediterranean societies, men and women frequently operated in discrete spheres of influence; men did not have any first- hand experience of the realities of women’s lives. Male anthropologists’ reports were based upon their interactions with men, male estimations of feminine experience, and patriarchal

149 Kapparis 2002: 7. However, it is worth considering the reservations of King (1998: 132), who points out that there is no firm evidence that women knew more than men about reproduction. 150 Dixon 2001: 61. 151 Ov. Am. 2.13.3. 152 Ov. Am. 2.14.23; Gell. 12.1.8. 153 Dixon 1988: 62. 154 Richter 1973: 4-5. 155 Cohen 1989: 7-8; Ar. Lys. 327; Pax. 535; Ach. 478; Vesp. 497; 1380-1385; Thesm. 405; 440; Pl. Tht. 149. Kampen (1981: 5-8) observes a similar disparity between Roman ideals of housebound women and the archaeological and epigraphic evidence for working women in Ostia. 156 Cohen 1989: 3-4.

193 ideologies.157 Conversely, women were more comfortable sharing their own personal experiences with female anthropologists.158 The same likely held true in antiquity: if abortion was ‘secret women’s business,’ male Roman authors did not actually have any first-hand knowledge or experience of abortion, since they operated in a separate sphere of influence.

Perhaps this accounts for the vagueness of detail concerning methods of abortion in the sources. As originally pointed out by Hopkins, there was a frequent conflation and confusion of abortion and contraception among Greek and Roman authors. Analysing a wide range of medical and encyclopaedic sources, Hopkins finds that ancient sources often viewed abortion as a form of contraception.159 For example, Soranus described early-term abortifacients as having a contraceptive effect, as discussed in the previous chapter.160 However, he had earlier made a clear distinction between abortifacients and contraceptives. ‘A contraceptive has a different effect from an abortive,’ he wrote, ‘for the one does not allow the conception to begin, while the other obliterates that which has been conceived. Therefore, let us say that the one is “abortive” and the other is “contraceptive.”’161 Soranus may have treated poisons intended to dislodge the early-term embryo as a form of contraception because he did not view the destruction of the unformed offspring as an act of taking human life.162

However, it is sometimes clear that the authors were genuinely confused between the manner in which abortifacients and contraceptives worked.163 , for example, believed that cedar gum could bring about an abortion if it were smeared on the penis in anticipation of coitus: surely, if it was applied before sex, the gum would serve to prevent conception from occurring in the first place.164 The confusion between contraception and abortion may have resulted from the fact that the process of conception was invisible to the naked eye, and it was not always easy to calculate the date of conception. However, the authors were also not privy to the intimate details of the female reproductive system; it is possible that women had a better grasp on the matter than men.165 Unfortunately, the views of

157 Cohen 1989: 9. 158 Cohen 1989: 9. 159 Hopkins 1965: 124. 160 Sor. Gyn. 1.64. 161 Sor. Gyn. 1.60. Ἀτόκιον δὲ φθορίου διαφέρει, τὸ μὲν γὰρ οὐκ ἐᾷ γενέσθαι σύλληψιν, τὸ δὲ φθείρει τὸ συλληφθέν· εἴπωμεν οὖν ἄλλο ‘φθόριον’καὶ ἄλλο ‘ἀτόκιον.’ 162 Pomeroy 1975: 168. 163 Hopkins 1965: 137-138; Plin. HN. 24.9. 164 Hopkins 1965: 137. 165 Hopkins 1965: 138.

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Roman women concerning birth control do not remain extant. Although Flemming has pointed out that females often practised medicine and midwifery in the ancient Roman community, no medical writings by female authors have survived.166

Whenever abortion was mentioned in the Latin sources, it was always described as a depraved and subversive activity, just as it was in Tertullian. As Den Boer (1979) puts it, ‘what was not forbidden by law could still be felt to conflict with morals.’167 Latin authors associated abortion with issues of adultery, vanity, and licentiousness. Infrequently, writers of imperial history used abortion as a literary trope to impugn the characters of emperors. Tacitus, for instance, utilised abortion to portray Nero as cruel and inconsistent. He narrated that Nero divorced his wife Octavia on grounds that were probably fictitious. Among these, Nero apparently claimed that Octavia was infertile, and at the same time that she had secretly aborted a baby in order to hide the products of an adulterous affair.168 It is clear that Nero was the subject of Tacitus’ ire, rather than Octavia. Tacitus used the episode to illustrate the falsehood of Nero’s accusations, for Octavia could not be simultaneously infertile and pregnant with the child of her lover.169 Moreover, Tacitus insinuated that Nero had failed in his duties as paterfamilias to maintain adequate control of his wife’s fertility. Most importantly, Tactitus sought to show that Nero acted as a cruel tyrant even to his own spouse.170

Suetonius, Juvenal, and the Younger Pliny likewise used abortion to render the emperor Domitian as malicious and sexually depraved. In his biography of Domitian, Suetonius narrated that Domitian, married to Domitia, had impregnated his niece Julia in an incestuous affair. According to Suetonius, Domitian then forced her to induce a miscarriage. Julia supposedly died as a result, her reputation ruined by her cruel uncle.171 Juvenal and Pliny also mentioned Julia’s abortion briefly.172 Kapparis overall accepts the story of Julia’s abortion as plausible, saying that she would have wanted to conceal the adultery from her husband Titus.173 However, Jones and Milns (2002) argue that the historicity of Domitian and Julia’s relationship is doubtful. Shortly after the death and deification of Julia, the

166 Flemming 2007: 257. 167 Den Boer 1979: 72. 168 Tac. Ann. 14.60; 14.63. 169 Gardner 1986: 158. 170 Dixon 1988: 61. 171 Suet. Dom. 22. 172 Juv. Sat. 2.29-35; Plin. Ep. 4.11.6. 173 Kapparis 2002: 162.

195 contemporary author Martial (AD 40 – c. 104) dedicated an epigram to Domitia, in which he declared his hope that she would bear the emperor an heir named Julius, who would be watched over by his deified aunt, Julia.174 Martial would not have likely embarrassed the empress by urging her to name her prospective child after her husband’s mistress. Nor would Martial have urged Domitia to offer sacrifice for her child’s protection to a goddess who had been translated to the pantheon through abortion gone awry.175 It was in the political interests of each of these authors to darken the name of Domitian, the last emperor of the Flavian dynasty. Each wrote under the guidance of the subsequent regime, the Nervan-Antonian dynasty. By demonising the previous ruler, Suetonius, Pliny, and Martial rendered their imperial patrons in a better light by comparison.

However, the shame attached to male instigators of abortion was not as severe as that which applied to women. Often, Roman authors discussed abortion to illustrate the manner in which contemporary women had fallen into corrupting luxury. The ancient authors also imagined that female vanity was one of the main motives for terminating a pregnancy, insinuating that women sought to avoid the stretch marks that would inevitably arise if they brought their pregnancies to term.176 According to the ancient authors, the other main reason a woman might end her pregnancy was to conceal the evidence of adultery, as evident in the example of Juvenal above. Alternatively, an author might use abortion to illustrate mythological episodes where Roman women rebelled against the patriarchal norms of their society. This tendency is evident in the incident narrated in Ovid’s Fasti, wherein matrons of the early Republic went on a fertility-strike in order to overturn a decision by the Senate to bar them from using carriages:

Before, the Ausonian mothers were riding in carriages... Soon, this mark of esteem was snatched away from them, so all the matrons resolved not to replenish the bloodline of their ungrateful husbands, and so that they would not have to provide offspring. By means of a secret blow, the rash woman expelled the burden coming to life from her womb. The fathers rebuked their brides for their cruelty, yet they restored the right of which (the matrons) had been deprived: and they decreed two equal consecrated (days) for the Tegean mother, for the procreation of both boys and girls.177

174 Mart. Ep. 6.3. 175 Jones and Milns 2002: 167. 176 Dixon 2001: 56-65. 177 Ov. Fast. 1.619-628. nam prius Ausonias matres carpenta vehebant (haec quoque ab Euandri dicta parente reor); mox honor eripitur, matronaque destinat omnis ingratos nulla prole novare viros, neve daret partus, ictu

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Moreover, it was a common trope of Latin literature that women who procured abortion were chastened for rebelling against patria postestas by dissolving their pregnancies without permission from their husbands.178 By denying the father’s traditional control over the bodies of his wife and offspring, women who ended their pregnancies undercut the patriarchal ideal of the Roman household.179

Tertullian adapted this trope to some extent in De Virginibus Velandis, substituting God in the place of the child’s biological father.180 By doing so, he rendered abortion a much more serious transgression. Where previously, women who ended their pregnancies were answerable to their husbands, Tertullian here implied that Christian women had violated the will of God by terminating progeny in the womb. Unlike other treatises such as the Apologeticum, Tertullian did not denounce abortion here because he considered it murder. Rather, he abraded females who ended their pregnancies because, according to his argument, they acted against the will of God.

Seneca’s Ad Helviam aptly illustrates the link between abortion and the corrupting influence of luxuria and vanity.181 This text was a consolatory letter meant to bring comfort to Seneca’s mother Helvia during his exile. In it, Seneca warned his mother that she could not give in to grief, for such effeminate weakness would be out of her character. After all, Helvia had never fallen prey to the luxuries in which women of her day supposedly indulged themselves. As Seneca wrote:

...You have no womanly failings. Shamelessness, the greatest evil of our generation, has not swayed you into the category of most (women); neither gems nor have softened you; riches have not dazzled you as though they were the greatest possession of the human race; since you were raised well in a time-honoured and severe home, that imitation of the lower (sort), which is dangerous even to honest women, has never perverted you. Your fecundity has never shamed you as though it reproached your age: (unlike) the character of other women, all of whose commendable qualities come from their beauty, you never hid your swollen uterus like it was an indecent burden, and you did not strike out the hope of children conceived within your womb. You never degraded your face with colours or alluring make- up: clothing which did nothing more than strip you when put on was

temeraria caeco visceribus crescens excutiebat onus. corripuisse patres ausas immitia nuptas, ius tamen exemptum restituisse ferunt, binaque nunc pariter Tegeaeae sacra parenti pro pueris fieri virginibusque iubent. 178 Dixon 2001: 56-65. 179 Dixon 2001: 61. 180 Tert. Virg. Vel. 14.4. 181 Clark 1981: 197; Dixon 2001: 63-64.

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never pleasing to you: your one ornament has been a very lovely appearance and none of the guilt of our age; your modesty has been regarded as your greatest glory.182 Seneca did not take issue with abortion as such, but rather the impudicitia, or shamelessness, in which he imagined contemporary women engaged.183 He constructed abortion as a social crime insofar as it reflected materialistic values and sexual promiscuity. Seneca clearly viewed abortion with distaste, but did not express horror or anger at the ending of antenatal life. In fact, he dedicated considerably more space to other signs of female vanity meant to entice men, such as a love of money, jewellery, make-up, and transparent clothing. These were more shocking to his readers than the idea of abortion. However, Seneca did not intend this passage to inform. His aim was to glorify his mother’s moral conduct by comparing her favourably to the women of his time. In order to render his mother as a chaste and dutiful matrona, Seneca denigrated all other women as her polar opposite. While Seneca constructed Helvia as a paragon of virtuous womanhood, he discussed females of his generation in terms akin to .

Roman males’ distaste for abortion revealed itself in descriptions of the procedure in terms of violence and warfare. This tendency is particularly apparent in Ovid’s Amores on the subject. In the poem, Ovid’s protagonist accused Corinna of making war upon her own body, striking at her innards with iron.184 The author described her body by using warlike vocabulary in feminine form: he calls the abortion bella, ‘war,’ pugna, ‘combat,’ and militia, ‘warfare.’185 Ovid metaphorically described the surgical tools for the procedure as weapons.186 By his very choice to focus upon the lurid and gory details of surgical means of procuring abortion, Ovid made it clear that he disapproved.187 If the poem was not describing a real-life incident, Ovid could have just as easily expounded upon non-invasive means of

182 Sen. Helv. 16.3-5. Non potest muliebris excusatio contingere ei a qua omnia muliebria uitia afuerunt. Non te maximum saeculi malum, inpudicitia, in numerum plurium adduxit; non gemmae te, non margaritae flexerunt; non tibi diuitiae uelut maximum generis humani bonum refulserunt; non te, bene in antiqua et seuera institutam domo, periculosa etiam probis peiorum detorsit imitatio; numquam te fecunditatis tuae, quasi exprobraret aetatem, puduit, numquam more aliarum, quibus omnis commendatio ex forma petitur, tumescentem uterum abscondisti quasi indecens onus, nec intra uiscera tua conceptas spes liberorum elisisti; non faciem coloribus ac lenociniis polluisti; numquam tibi placuit uestis quae nihil amplius nudaret cum poneretur: unicum tibi ornamentum, pulcherrima et nulli obnoxia aetati forma, maximum decus uisa est pudicitia. As Dixon (2001: 63) points out, Seneca’s reasons for his dislike of abortion are comparable to the moral disapprobation of (Carm. 3.6), Tacitus (Ann. 3.25-26), and the Younger Pliny (Ep. 4.15.3) at the supposed tendency of people ‘these days’ to avoid their social obligation to produce children. 183 Dixon 2001: 63-64. 184 Ov. Am. 2.14.3-5. si sine Marte suis patiuntur vulnera telis, et caecas armant in sua fata manus? 185 Ov. Am. 2.13.28; 2.14.1; 2.14.6. 186 Ov. Am. 2.14; 5; 2.14.27. 187 Dixon 2001: 63.

198 procuring abortion, which were far safer and more likely to have been employed. Since the speaker was unaware of Corinna’s pregnancy, it is probable that Ovid was depicting her in her first trimester, before pregnancy became outwardly visible.188 At this point, ending the pregnancy by means of drugs would have been a far safer option than inducing abortion by means of surgery. The surgical removal of the foetus ‘was a dangerous and painful undertaking, employed only in extreme circumstances.’189 However, presenting the procedure as surgical afforded Ovid the opportunity to conjure lurid imagery of bloodshed, and thus provoke a stronger emotional response in his reader. These factors lead Balsdon (1968) to characterise Ovid’s poems on abortion as ‘singularly tasteless.’190 Ovid depicted abortion as surgery gone wrong to increase the emotional punch of the poem; in poetic terms, the grisly details of botched surgery were a far more effective choice. It made for a more heart- wrenching narrative, and a greater test of his character’s devotion to Corinna.

Ovid also expressed disapproval for abortion and sympathy for the unborn by likening the process to infanticide, as Tertullian would in the Apologeticum. Through his speaker, Ovid compared Corinna’s behaviour to that of various mythological child-slayers including Medea and , the mother of Itys.198 In fact, he wrote that these mythological figures, while unsavoury, were not as cruel as Corinna. They at least could justify their actions by saying that their lovers had driven them to madness. Corinna had no such excuse, according to Ovid, for she had a loving and devoted partner.199 Once more, Ovid’s purpose in denigrating Corinna was to magnify the image of his character’s love.200 However, it is worth noting that he made an explicit link between abortion and infanticide. While he did not strictly view the foetus as a fully hominised being, the speaker still recognised its potential to become one after birth. Moreover, he expressed sympathy for the foetus, to the extent that he recognised that he himself had been a foetus at some point in his development, and Corinna likewise.201 Therefore, Ovid wrote, it was unjust for Corinna to deprive the foetus of its potential to enter into life properly. ‘Why do you cheat the vine of thriving grapes, and why do you cruelly rip the unripened fruits from the tree? Its ripeness will flow of its own

188 Ov. Am. 2.13.3-5. 189 Kapparis 2002: 24. 190 Baldson 1962: 192. 198 Ov. Am. 2.14.29-30. 199 Ov. Am. 2.14.31-34. 200 Watts 1973: 93-94. 201 Ov. Am. 2.14.19-22.

199 volition; allow things produced by nature to come into being.’202 Though the narrator’s valuation of the foetus was relative to his own self-worth, Ovid constructed him as valuing it nevertheless.

Though the two men wrote in completely different genres, Ovid’s rhetoric against abortion was comparable to that of Tertullian in several ways. The similarities were deeper than the terminology used to describe the unborn. Indeed, Ovid’s appeals against abortion were as grounded upon the principles of rhetoric as Tertullian’s.208 Both authors metaphorically described the developing embryo as a burgeoning fruit. The destruction of this fruit denied the offspring’s potential to enter into life.209 The authors were alike in that they saw the destruction of the unborn as akin to infanticide.210 Tertullian’s De Anima and Ovid’s Amores focused upon the most horrific form of abortion, late-term embryotomy, and in doing so demonstrated that they found the procedure morally repugnant.211 They each discussed in harsh detail the sharp needle which would pierce the body of the unborn, in order to create sympathy for the helpless child.212 The two writers both described abortion as a matter of a mother waging war against her own body, using terms normally employed to depict a battle.213 Furthermore, Tertullian and Ovid had a very similar point that the targets of their ire ought to consider their own births before refusing it to another. Just as Marcion showed that he despised humanity by denying the birth of Christ, Corinna deprived the community of a potential citizen by depriving her child of birth. Both Marcion and Corinna showed that they cared nothing for themselves, let alone anybody else.214

Aulus Gellius too argued against abortion by comparing it to infanticide. As mentioned above, it was unusual for a Latin author to use the word homo to describe the unborn child; aside from the aforementioned Juvenal, the only other exception was Aulus Gellius. In his Noctes Atticae, Gellius quoted a treatise of the philosopher Favorinus (c. AD 80-160). It is difficult to tell how much of the treatise on breastfeeding was authored by Favorinus himself, and how much was a product of Gellius. Regardless, it is clear that

202 Ov. Am. 2.14.23-26. Quid plenam fraudas vitem crescentibus uvis, pomaque crudeli vellis acerba manu? sponte fluant matura sua—sine crescere nata; est pretium parvae non leve vita morae. 208 For a discussion of the impact of rhetoric upon Ovid in Amores 2.13 and 2.14, consult McKeown 1998: 277. 209 Ov. Am. 2.14.23; cf. Tert. Apol. 9.8. 210 Ov. Am. 2.14.29-30; cf. Tert. Apol. 9.8. 211 Tert. An. 25.4-5. 212 Ov. Am. 2.14.27; Tert. An. 25.5. 213 Ov. Am. 2.13.28; 2.14.1; 2.14.6; cf. Tert. Virg. Vel. 14.4. These passages are also not unlike Cicero’s discussion of abortion in Pro Cluentio 11.32. 214 Ov. Am. 2.14.19-20; Tert. Carn. 4.2.

200 abortion was not Favorinus’ main topic, but the virtues of breastfeeding. Like Seneca, he argued that women among his contemporaries avoided breastfeeding, in order to preserve their physical appearance. By depriving their infants of nourishment, these women committed an act as reprehensible as abortion. As written in the Noctes Atticae:

For it is in this manner, (although) such a thing is naturally absent from your (nature), that many of those freakish women work to make dry and quell the most sacred fount of the body, the cultivator of the human race, even with the danger of stealing away and corrupting the milk, since it could mar the adornments of their beauty. By doing things of this sort, they demonstrate the same frenzy indeed as those who rely upon devices (contrived) in falsehood so that they can abort the foetuses conceived in their very bodies, lest the smooth surface of the belly be spoiled by the heavy burden or droop due to the hard work of pregnancy But inasmuch as it is deserving of public abhorrence and universal hatred to commit murder upon a human being at its beginning, while it is being moulded and animated and is still in the very hands of Nature the artisan, how far (removed) from this is it to deny (a child), by now completed, by now born, by now a son, of the sustenance of its own familiar and customary blood?222 Gellius’ version of Favorinus’ speech thus compared the act of abortion to that of starving a baby. The connection to murder is much more explicit than in the case of Juvenal. The foetus’ value was equal to that of a child brought to parturition, as indicated by his use of the word homo. Once more, it is worth bearing in mind that neither Favorinus nor Gellius primarily intended the treatise as an invective against abortion. Rather, abortion was a convenient rhetorical commonplace by which to argue in favour of breastfeeding. Nevertheless, it was taken as common knowledge that abortion was immoral; there was no need for the author to expound upon the reasons he considered it depraved. It is open to interpretation whether Favorinus or Gellius considered it to be a crime in a legal sense. However, the author clearly considered the deliberate termination of pregnancy to be an act worthy of shame.

The Romans did care about their unborn children, even if there was some ambiguity about the nature of the foetus or embryo. After all, they sought the advice of dream

222 Gell. NA 12.1.8-9. Sic enim, quod a vobis scilicet abest, pleraeque istae prodigiosae mulieres fontem illum sanctissimum corporis, generis humani educatorem, arefacere et exstinguere cum periculo quoque aversi corruptique lactis laborant, tamquam pulcritudinis sibi insignia devenustet, quod quidem faciunt eadem vecordia, qua quibusdam commenticiis fraudibus nituntur, ut fetus quoque ipsi in corpore suo concepti aboriantur, ne aequor illud ventris inrugetur ac de gravitate oneris et labore partus fatiscat. Quod cum sit publica detestatione communique odio dignum in ipsis hominem primordiis, dum fingitur, dum animatur, inter ipsas artificis naturae manus interfectum ire, quantulum hinc abest iam perfectum, iam genitum, iam filium proprii atque consueti atque cogniti sanguinis alimonia privare?

201 interpreters concerning the fates of their offspring, and accepted their findings. Bradley (2001) identifies that Artemidorus’ manual of dream interpretation, the Oneirocritica, is a useful resource for reconstructing the Romans’ feelings about their children.223 An Ephesian of Lydian descent, Artemidorus was a near-contemporary of Tertullian. He lived in the second century under the Antonine dynasty, and travelled widely throughout the Mediterranean, including .224 Artemidorus was concerned with the recording of subjects’ dreams, and catalogued the advice of numerous sages regarding the correct method of interpreting dream-symbols for the purpose of divination.225 Several of the dreams recorded related to childhood. As Bradley points out, Artemidorus is as relevant for reconstructing Roman attitudes as for those of the Greeks, since many of the dreams he collected originated from Rome itself. Moreover, Artemidorus meant his advice concerning dreams involving children to be applied universally. Bradley argues that Artemidorus generally affirmed a sentimental attitude towards children and childhood, recording dreams that demonstrated the desirability of procreation.226

Artemidorus also attested to the anxieties of expectant parents for the safety of their progeny in the womb. For instance, Artemidorus offered predictions for the outcomes of pregnancies even for dreams that did not directly relate to childbirth. If a man dreamed that he had cut open his belly and found his organs functioning normally, Artemidorus suggested that his wife would give birth to healthy children.227 Dreaming of reaping pulse, on the other hand, indicated that a miscarriage would occur.228 Similarly, Artemidorus said that a sick woman who dreamed that she was pregnant consulted an oracle. The seer informed her that she had just conceived and would give birth in seven months.229 The fact that people accepted these predictions indicates not only that they trusted the word of fortune-tellers, but also attests to the high level of importance they placed upon the fate of their children in the womb. Artemidorus also offered advice on the interpretation of a pregnant woman’s dream of giving birth to a fish. He advised that the dream was a sign that the child might be stillborn, or that it might die prematurely.230 It would be hazardous to offer a psychoanalytical interpretation of the role of the unborn child in the unconscious mind of the woman. However, at the very

223 Bradley 2001: 43-51. 224 Bradley 2001: 50. 225 Bradley 2001: 43. 226 Bradley 2001: 50. 227 Artem. 1.44; Bradley 2001: 44. 228 Artem. 1.51. 229 Artem. 5.30. 230 Artem. 2.18.

202 least, Artemidorus’ record of the dream indicates that mothers cared for their children in the womb sufficiently to consult oracles regarding their fates when troubled by dreams about the outcome of their pregnancies.

Death notices for miscarriages also indicate that the Romans placed value upon their unborn children, in anticipation of the infant’s place in the family after birth. Admittedly, there are very few extant death notices for miscarried babies; only Cicero and the Younger Pliny expressed regret for the loss of the unborn in their published correspondence. One of Cicero’s letters to expressed polite sympathy for Tertia, the wife of Cassius and half- sibling of Brutus, upon her miscarriage. He expressed his commiserations, ‘for we want as many Cassii produced as Bruti.’231 Though he did not express any particular attachment to the child itself, it is worth bearing in mind that he was not the child’s father. Therefore, he did not have a personal, vested interest in the child’s wellbeing. However, he did recognise that the loss of the child would be a blow to its family and to its father in particular. Even prior to birth, Tertia’s baby was expected to continue the family line. The father hung his hopes for the perpetuation of his name upon the child, expecting that it would reach full gestation safely.

The Younger Pliny provides a more personal illustration of a father’s feelings of disappointment upon miscarriage. Pliny and his wife Calpurnia had been trying to conceive for some time. Unfortunately Calpurnia lost the baby, probably during the early stages of pregnancy. Pliny notified Calpurnia’s grandfather, the paterfamilias of her biological family, of their misfortune. In a somewhat more personal epistle, he also notified Calpurnia’s aunt, Calpurnia Hispulla. The letters read in full:

To Calpurnius Fabatus, the grandfather of his wife, (Knowing) how greatly you desire to see a great-grandchild from us, you will be very sad when you hear that your granddaughter has suffered a miscarriage. In her girlish youth she did not know that she was pregnant, and therefore she did not employ the (proper) precautions for pregnant women, and she did some things which should have been left aside. She has atoned for her mistake by (learning) a harsh lesson, having been led into grave danger. Therefore, in your destitute old age it is necessary for you to accept, however reluctantly, (that you have been deprived) of a successor

231 Cic. Att. 14.20.2. Tertullae nollem abortum. tam enim Cassii sunt iam quam Bruti serendi. Connery (1977: 25) suggests that Cicero was actually reproving Tertia for aborting her foetus. This is highly unlikely. While abortio could denote spontaneous or induced miscarriage, it is difficult to imagine Cicero shaming the family members of his political allies in a published letter.

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who has been prepared for. But you thus ought to give the gods thanks indeed, for even though they have denied you a great- grandson, they have protected your granddaughter’s life. They will grant us (children), and she has provided us certain hope for her fecundity, although this attempt has proven not at all fruitful. I advise, encourage and exhort you by the same means I use upon myself, for you cannot (desire) great-grandchildren more fervently than I desire children, whose ancestry from you and me should make their path towards (public) office easy; I will bequeath them a name which is widely heard and no obscure ancestral death-masks. Let them be born, somehow, and change our sorrow into elation! Farewell.232

To Calpurnia Hispulla, Since I understand that your love for your brother’s daughter is more tender than even (that of) a gentle mother, I feel that my second announcement should come first, so that joy can pre-empt anxiety and leave it no space. However, I fear that after rejoicing, you will return to dread, and thus even as you are delighted (at the discovery that Calpurnia) is free from danger, you might tremble at the same time on account of her peril. But now her cheerfulness begins to grow again, because she has been restored to herself and to me, (and she is starting) to measure (the extent of the) crisis she has undergone by her recuperation. The crisis was generally of the utmost severity— may it be permitted for me to say so with impunity— and it was through no fault of hers, except maybe her young age. Hence her miscarriage, the sad evidence of her ignorance (regarding) her uterus. Hence even if there is not the longed-for grandson of your brother reaching out to you or a grand-daughter to comfort your loss, do bear in mind that that child of ours has not been denied us, (but merely) postponed. (We) can hope, thanks to her, because she has been saved. In the meantime, explain the situation to your father; this sort of matter is more easily understood among women. Farewell.233

232 Plin. Ep. 8.10. C. Plinius Fabato Prosocero Suo S. Quo magis cupis ex nobis pronepotes videre, hoc tristior audies neptem tuam abortum fecisse, dum se praegnantem esse puellariter nescit, ac per hoc quaedam custodienda praegnantibus omittit, facit omittenda. Quem errorem magnis documentis expiavit, in summum periculum adducta. Igitur, ut necesse est graviter accipias senectutem tuam quasi paratis posteris destitutam, sic debes agere dis gratias, quod ita tibi in praesentia pronepotes negaverunt, ut servarent neptem, illos reddituri, quorum nobis spem certiorem haec ipsa quamquam parum prospere explorata fecunditas facit. Isdem nunc ego te quibus ipsum me hortor moneo confirmo. Neque enim ardentius tu pronepotes quam ego liberos cupio, quibus videor a meo tuoque latere pronum ad honores iter et audita latius nomina et non subitas imagines relicturus. Nascantur modo et hunc nostrum dolorem gaudio mutent. Vale. 233 Plin. Ep. 8.11. C. Plinius Hispullae Suae S. Cum affectum tuum erga fratris filiam cogito etiam materna indulgentia molliorem, intellego prius tibi quod est posterius nuntiandum, ut praesumpta laetitia sollicitudini locum non relinquat. Quamquam vereor ne post gratulationem quoque in metum redeas, atque ita gaudeas periculo liberatam, ut simul quod periclitata sit perhorrescas. Iam hilaris, iam sibi iam mihi reddita incipit refici, transmissumque discrimen convalescendo metiri. Fuit alioqui in summo discrimine, — impune dixisse liceat — fuit nulla sua culpa, aetatis aliqua. Inde abortus et ignorati uteri triste experimentum. Proinde etsi non contigit tibi desiderium fratris amissi aut nepote eius aut nepte solari, memento tamen dilatum magis istud

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Pliny’s language may have been formal, but it is difficult to ignore the undercurrent of grief throughout these letters. He mourned the loss of his child, and expected that Fabatus and Calpurnia Hisulla would too be aggrieved. Theoretically, the child was not yet a part of the family, since it had not undergone its dies lustricus. Moreover, the miscarriage had probably occurred in the first trimester of pregnancy, since Calpurnia did not know she was pregnant. According to many philosophical theories of ensoulment, it had not yet been fully hominised. Yet it is significant that Pliny described the child not as a nebulous entity, but as a descendant ‘who has been prepared for.’ He envisioned the foetus as already having a role to play in the family, and that upon reaching maturity the child would magnify the glory of its ancestors in the public eye. Pliny did not embellish the death notice with sentimental ideation of childhood. However, it is clear that Pliny ardently desired children, and publicly recognised the miscarriage as a tragedy. According to his self-representation, he sought to fulfil in his duty as Calpurnia’s husband to extend his and his family’s legacy. Even if he did not express a sentimental attachment to the child itself, the miscarriage stirred strong feelings within him.

The Christians were not alone in their ideological opposition to abortion, since the Stoics also opposed the practice. In the second century, Stoic opposition was likely more influential upon Roman society, since Stoicism was more readily accepted among the elite.234 It is not possible to tell how widespread Stoic opposition to abortion was, since the evidence is limited to a handful of authors. Seneca’s views have been discussed above. Like other authors, Seneca mentioned his opposition to abortion as part of his characterisation of women as flighty and promiscuous. The first-century philosopher Musonius Rufus, on the other hand, took a far more stringent stance against abortion. On principle, he opposed all attempts to limit fertility through artificial means, construing them as defiance of the family and contrary to nature.235 Musonius Rufus’ attitude towards abortion should be viewed as part of his promotion of fertility within marriage.236 In his twelfth lecture on the importance of sexual continence, Rufus argued forcefully that a moral man ought not to engage in non-procreative sex, even within marriage.237 He condemned the pursuit of sexual pleasure for its own sake as morally degrading. As far as Rufus argued, the chief object of marriage should be procreation, beyond all other concerns. ‘It is necessary for each married person individually

quam negatum, cum salva sit ex qua sperari potest. Simul excusa patri tuo casum, cui paratior apud feminas venia. Vale. 234 Eyben 1980: 40-43. 235 Muson. 12-15. 236 Eyben 1980: 40-41. 237 Muson. 12.

205 to come together for the purpose of making a life and child with the other,’ as decreed by Nature.238

Rufus frowned upon abortion and contraception out of deference to such values. Unfortunately, the text of his lecture on the rearing of children survives only in fragments, albeit substantial ones. In Fragment 15, Rufus contended that fecundity was the object of marriage. He cited the vague precedent of ancient legislation, which he claimed forbade abortion and encouraged large families for the preservation of the state. He contended that since the earliest generations of humankind had enjoyed direct contact from the gods, failure to follow their example was an affront to society, nature and the gods. For Rufus, there were religious reasons to abstain from abortion also. The limitation of family size by abortion or infanticide, he argued, was an outrage to Zeus as guardian of the human race. More particularly, he argued, spurning even the prospect of children ran contrary to Zeus’ wishes as the patron deity of friendship, hospitality and family. In Rufus’ view, by averting conception or preventing birth, people acted as bad friends, abrogated the principle of guest-friendship, and failed to live up to society’s expectations of new citizens. Rufus then proceeded to extol the benefits of large families, invoking sentimental imagery of children participating in public worship. Economic concerns, he said, were insufficient grounds for limiting family size.239

The parallels between Musonius Rufus’ views and those of the Christian authors are striking.240 As in many of the Christian sources, Rufus argued on the basis that married couples were morally impelled by a higher power to produce young. He argued that contraceptive sex was demeaning, in a similar fashion to Clement of Alexandria. Like the Didache and Letter of Barnabas, Rufus conceptualised the unborn child as equally deserving of assistance as an adult in need.241 Moreover, like Tertullian, he evaluated the foetus’s worth in light of its future role in society and its capacity to become a fully actuated human being; he perhaps sought to provoke sympathy for the unborn child by associating it with the image of happy, healthy children participating in . Rufus also connected the concepts of infanticide and abortion, perhaps indicating that, like Tertullian, he viewed the unborn child as holding equivalent status to a newborn. He condemned the refusal to uphold these

238 Muson. 13A. Τὸν γὰρ γαμοῦντα, ἔφη, καὶ τὴν γαμουμένην ἐπὶ τούτῳ συνιέναι χρὴ ἑκάτερον θατέρῳ, ὥσθ’ ἅμα μὲν ἀλλήλοις βιοῦν, ἅμα δὲ <παιδο> ποιεῖσθαι, καὶ κοινὰ δὲ ἡγεῖσθαι πάντα καὶ μηδὲν ἴδιον, μηδ’ αὐτὸ τὸ σῶμα. 239 Muson. 15. 240 Eyben 1980: 41. 241 Didache 2.2; Letter of Barnabas 19.5.

206 standards harshly, calling couples who did not procreate asebeis, ‘impious.’242 It is doubtful that Tertullian or any of the other Christian sources on procreation would have contested these ideas.243

Though Rufus condemned abortion, he did not do so on the ground that he considered it murder, unlike Tertullian and many of the other Christian writers. Nor did he indicate that failure to uphold these principles would invite divine punishment, as in the case of the Apocalypse of Peter or Athenagoras.244 This may have been because of the peculiar views of the Stoics concerning the animation of the embryo. Musonius Rufus did not explain his own personal views of conception and the process of hominisation. However, other ancient commentators on Stoic doctrines indicate that it was commonly held that the child received a soul upon contact with air, since the soul was believed to be a form of pneuma.245 Beforehand, the unborn child was considered to be a part of its mother, a view accepted by Ulpian.246 Since the Stoics did not likely view the foetus as being in possession of a soul, its destruction could not be viewed as homicide in the strictest sense. However, the distinction was of relevance only to philosophers. For the Stoics, there were other compelling ideological reasons to abstain from abortion. The cause for their distrust of abortion was somewhat different, but the effect upon the frequency of abortion among their families would have been identical.

There was also a place for the unborn in Roman religion as there was in Christianity, with various obscure deities dedicated to its protection and nourishment in the womb. Much of the evidence for Rome’s patron deities of pregnancy and childbirth actually came from Tertullian himself, as well as the much later Augustine. Both authors used Varro as a source.247 Tertullian’s list in Ad Nationes of the many pagan deities associated with the protection of the foetus and embryo has been discussed in the second chapter of this dissertation. Yet it is also important to consider that De Anima featured a similar list, inscribed in service of a somewhat different point. Here, Tertullian acknowledged that pagan views regarding supernatural intervention in prenatal development were similar to those of the Christians. In this passage, he argued that the unborn child clearly possessed a soul prior to birth, otherwise the Romans would not have appointed deities for its protection:

242 Muson. 15; Eyben 1980: 42. 243 Watts 1973: 98. 244 Apoc. Pet. Akhmim frg. 24-25; Athenagoras, Leg. 35.5-6. 245 Kapparis 2002: 43; Von Staden 2000: 96-99. 246 Dig. 25.4.1.1. 247 Tert. Ad nat. 2.1.8; August. De civ. D. 7.2. Unfortunately, Varro’s work has not survived.

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However, the whole process of planting, making and moulding the human being in utero is certainly orchestrated by a power, (which is) attendant to the will of God, whatever the process that is elected (for it) to pursue. Even Rome’s irrational religion, by considering these things, invented the goddess Alemona for sustaining the foetus in utero, and also Nona and Decima, (named after) the more worrisome months (of pregnancy), and Partula, who governs childbirth, and Lucina, who leads (the unborn child) into the light. We believe that the angels (perform) these duties, (appointed) by God.248 Here, Tertullian exploited the similarity between Christian and Roman views concerning the need to provide supernatural protection to the unborn. In other treatises he presented Christian and pagan views as polar opposites. However, for De Anima, it served Tertullian’s purposes to highlight the synchronicity between pagan and Christian views. He did not celebrate pagan deities, but used them to demonstrate that Christians should acknowledge that life began in the womb.

It is, however, difficult to say whether the Romans would have believed that the unborn child had a place in the afterlife, as the evidence is very slim. Shanzer suggests that ascribed an eternal soul to the stillborn infant in the Aeneid.249 As Virgil wrote, the Trojan hero Aeneas encountered the screaming shades of dead infants during his passage to the underworld:

Continuously voices were heard and an immense wail and the sobbing souls of babies upon the first threshold, whom a grisly day stole and submerged in bitter funeral-rites, having no share in the sweetness of life and violently snatched from the breast.250 However, this interpretation is far from secure. As Waszink and Nardi point out, it is not clear that Virgil actually referred to the unborn child at all; in limine primo could simply denote their placement on the threshold of Hades.251 The fact that they were ‘snatched from the breast’ further supports the idea that they possessed a physical body, and their capacity for suckling suggests that they had died postpartum.

248 Tert. An. 37.1. Omnem autem hominis in utero serendi struendi fingendi paraturam aliqua utique potestas diuinae uoluntatis ministra modulatur, quamcumque illam rationem agitare sortita. Haec aestimando etiam superstitio Romana deam finxit Alemonam alendi in utero fetus et Nonam et Decimam a sollicitioribus mensibus et Partulam, quae partum gubernet, et Lucinam, quae producat in lucem. Nos officia diuina angelos credimus. 249 Shanzer 2009: 336. 250 Verg. Aen. 6.426-429. Continuo auditae uoces uagitus et ingens infantumque animae flentes, in limine primo quos dulcis uitae exsortis et ab ubere raptos abstulit atra dies et funere mersit acerbo. 251 Waszink 1950: 57; Nardi 1971: 228-229.

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Since Christians and pagans were similar in their hostility towards abortion, it is difficult to accept Gorman’s conclusion that Tertullian meant for his apologetic treatises to sway the Severans’ opinions concerning abortion.252 The legal commentators made it clear that the motivations behind these laws were entirely secular, as discussed above. Moreover, Christian apologies were not intended to sway imperial policy concerning the family. Rather, Tertullian mentioned Christian censure of abortion to aid his refutationes of homicide accusations often levelled against Christians. Yet these arguments were hardly prescriptive. Despite Gorman’s claim to the contrary, Tertullian never actually addressed Severus or Caracalla in his apologies, and certainly did not seek to affect Roman family law through his Christian writing.

It is worthwhile acknowledging that if Tertullian was the jurist quoted in the Digesta, then it is entirely possible that he was consulted on the laws. Indeed, the jurist Tertullian was particularly interested in inheritance law, as indicated by his focus upon the castrense peculium.253 Moreover, a fragment from Ulpian gave a hint that the jurist Tertullian dealt with the unborn child’s right to inherit in his Quaestiones.254 Nevertheless, the identification of Tertullian of Carthage as a jurist is less than certain, and the only available evidence for Tertullian’s attitude towards abortion (as opposed to the legal status of the unborn) came from his Christian works.

At the time Tertullian was working, Christianity was still a persecuted minority. It would be more than a century before Christianity became the empire’s state cult. Offering instructions to the emperors about the governance of the Roman family would have undermined Tertullian’s arguments regarding the loyalty of the Christians. Far from berating his rulers with advice on how to run their empire, Tertullian was declaring in the Apologeticum how fully the Christians observed Roman traditions concerning the unborn child.

It is tempting to suggest that Tertullian mentioned abortion in his treatises in response to the publication of the Severan anti-abortion laws. However, it is not probable that Tertullian was actually commenting on the laws directly. He did not cite them specifically, and the exact date of the legislation is unclear. As mentioned above, Severus and Caracalla’s anti-abortion laws could have been published any time during their three-year rule. The first

252 Gorman 1982: 61-62. 253 Dig. 29.1.23; 29.1.33; Cod. 5.70. 254 Dig. 29.2.30.6.

209 of Tertullian’s treatises to mention abortion, Ad Nationes and the Apologeticum, were likely published in AD 197, while Severus was still sole emperor.255 If Barnes’s chronology of Tertullian’s work is accurate, his employment of abortion as an exemplum would have begun prior to the inception of the laws. It is thus unlikely that he was commenting on them directly. Yet Tertullian’s point in these treatises was that the Christians not only conformed to Roman traditions, but they outmatched them. As demonstrated in this chapter, pagans and Christians were alike in their abrogation of abortion; the sole difference was that the Christians rejected it as a form of homicide out of deference to Scripture. By elucidating reasons for the rejection of abortion, Tertullian blended Christian and pagan traditions to provide a theological basis for Christian observance of Roman custom.

This chapter has argued that Tertullian’s conceptualisation of the unborn child had more in common with that of pagan Rome than previously suggested. It has provided a fuller investigation of Tertullian’s relationship with pagan literary traditions. Tertullian’s construction of abortion as a regularly accepted feature of pagan society was a rhetorical smokescreen which served his ends as a polemicist. In fact, his denouncements of abortion were partially adapted from non-Christian literary traditions. Despite some uncertainty about the legal standing and nature of the unborn, no Roman author spoke well of abortion or its practitioners. Pagan writers did not often attribute the unborn child human status. However, patriarchal concerns and the social obligation to produce offspring led several authors to condemn abortion as abhorrent. Tertullian did not develop the idea that the foetus was a potential human being, or a futurus homo, in a vacuum. Many non-Christian writers acknowledged the nascent progeny’s capacity to enter society, and framed their views of their offspring accordingly. Stoic opposition to abortion was particularly strong. Finally, it has been argued that Tertullian probably did not influence the Severan legislation against abortion. Tertullian intended to show that the Christians exceeded their pagan neighbours in maintaining Roman traditions concerning the family. Tertullian seized upon an issue where Christian and pagan attitudes overlapped. Though his stance was more extreme, Tertullian did not diverge strongly from the prevailing attitudes towards abortion as expressed in Latin literature. Pagan opposition to abortion was strong, even if it was not dogmatic.

255 Barnes 1985: 55.

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Conclusion

Tertullian, himself a master of rhetoric, should not be employed in the rhetoric of today’s abortion debate. Unfortunately, his proclivity towards a pithy turn of phrase means that he lends himself to the often inflammatory language of the modern dispute. Modern commentators on both sides of the debate have cherry-picked selective portions of his treatises to persuade readers towards a political point of view. Using passages from Tertullian so selectively, isolating them from their original context, is a disservice to both the author himself and to scholarly understanding of his ideas. Embroiling Tertullian in the current political controversy has obfuscated the nuances in his attitude towards the unborn child. Tertullian has been cast as a dissident from Christian tradition concerning abortion, or alternatively as a champion of foetal rights. Yet the Romano-African author does not fit comfortably in either category. Tertullian was not an absolutist fighting against a society in which abortion was practised capriciously. Nor did he actively rebel against Christian traditions in his attitude towards the foetus or embryo. He was, first and foremost, a polemicist.

It is difficult to see Tertullian as a particularly zealous defender of the unborn child. Abortion was not of sufficient concern for Tertullian to devote a treatise solely to the subject. Whatever arguments he made concerning the termination of pregnancy were subsidiary to his greater agenda of proving his thesis. To some extent, Tertullian’s limited interest in abortion may be attributed to the historical and literary context in which he wrote. No Greco-Roman author, Christian or otherwise, construed abortion as a positive outcome. The issue was not a politically sensitive one in antiquity as it is the modern West. It is even possible that the procedure of abortion was carried out only as a last resort. Quite simply, the topic of abortion was in itself of little consequence to Tertullian. Other concerns were more immediate for him. Tertullian dealt with issues of grave importance to an intellectually inclined Christian of late second-century Roman Carthage. He wrote three apologetic works addressed to pagans, which argued that the persecution of Christians was unwarranted. The other twenty-nine surviving treatises dealt with controversies within the Christian community, such as heresy, martyrdom, the impending apocalypse, and the sometimes wide gap between Christian orthodoxies and practices. Indeed, Tertullian was more concerned about improprieties in

211 female dress than he was in the question of whether women kept their babies. He dedicated whole treatises to the matter of feminine modesty, but none at all to the problem of abortion.

Nor did Tertullian build his case against abortion upon any inflexible convictions concerning either the physical or metaphysical nature of the unborn. He modulated his views on the body and soul of the unborn child, using whatever theory suited the needs of individual pieces of rhetoric. It would be unfair for modern readers to expect him to provide a more definitive doctrine on such matters in a world that had no real means of testing the veracity of embryological theory. Moreover, it was entirely beyond the scope of his rhetorical agenda to provide concrete answers regarding the unborn. Tertullian’s prime ambition was absolute and total victory in the arena of persuasion, to leave his reader in no doubt that his view was the right one. The unborn child was simply one of the many exempla from which he drew to secure his triumph in debate, and an opportunity to show his prowess in the minutia of Scripture, medicine, and natural philosophy. Tertullian only discussed the unborn to support a broader point. If he needed to alter his supporting arguments about the nature of the unborn in service of his main thesis, Tertullian was willing to do so. There were simply no uncontested theories concerning prenatal development in antiquity, and it would have been moot for Tertullian to try and offer one unified premise. Tertullian’s attitude towards the unborn child, ultimately, was one of dispassionate and intellectual interest.

Yet Tertullian also proves resistant to the label of dissentience concerning his attitude towards the unborn. Even if the procedure was not his main concern, Tertullian was employing a well-established trope in Judaeo-Christian literature by denigrating abortion and its practitioners. It is doubtful that any of the surviving Christian authors prior to or contemporary with Tertullian would have found anything particularly antithetical in his comments on the unborn. Whatever fluctuations there may have been in his arguments concerning the timing of ensoulment, it is also very difficult to envisage a scenario in which he would have approved of an abortion. If his remarks in De Anima (25.4-5) may be taken as an indication of his thoughts on the subject, Tertullian certainly saw that sometimes there was no choice but to terminate the offspring prior to birth, but he remained staunch in his disapproval. In short, Tertullian was a pioneer in the sense that he provided the first extended exploration of the unborn child in Latin literature, albeit drawing upon precedents found in Christian and Jewish writing.

212

By examining Tertullian’s works more comprehensively and placing them in their historical and literary context, this dissertation has provided a fuller picture of Tertullian’s attitude towards the unborn child than has been previously achieved. However, there remain several areas for future researchers to build upon, which were beyond the scope of this study. The extent of Tertullian’s influence upon concurrent and subsequent Christian thinkers remains to be determined. The comparison of Tertullian and Minucius Felix’s thought concerning the unborn child could potentially be employed to help settle the long-debated question of which author used the other, if either did. It would also be interesting to see whether Tertullian’s ideas on the unborn were well-received in the Nicene Church, which was so often hostile towards Montanism. In particular, a close comparison of Tertullian’s ideas and those of Augustine would likely prove useful in determining whether the Bishop of used Tertullian’s ideas or not. A similar study of Jerome’s thought on abortion might reveal the influence of Tertullian, especially given that the former read the latter’s work thoroughly. Such studies would help to illuminate Tertullian’s relationship with later Christian ideas on the unborn child, and also his limitations thereof. It is a complex undertaking to understand the Church Fathers’ thoughts on the unborn. It is even more difficult to do so without entangling them in today’s abortion debate. In many ways, this task is just beginning.

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