Mother and Child: Joined but Separate

I was listening to a podcast discussion on inherited sin which stimulated some divergent thoughts.  We start by defining inherited sin.  The following comes from Sid Litke at Bible.org.

1. Definitions:

- Inherited sin is simply “the sinful state into which all people are born” (Ryrie). We have a constant bent toward sin.

- Inherited sin is also called the “sin nature” (it affected our entire being), and it is called “original sin” (emphasizing that Adam’s sin caused the corrupted nature we each inherit).

- “Total depravity” is a related term expressing our total lack of merit in God’s sight. Total depravity does not mean we are as “bad” as we can be but that we are as “bad off” as we can be because we all have a totally sinful nature.

2. Scripture

- Psalm 51:5 “…in sin my mother conceived me.”

- Ephesians 2:3 “…by nature children (objects) of wrath”

- Our emotions (Romans 1:26), our intellect Romans 1:28) and our will (Romans 7:20) are all enslaved to sin and opposed to God.

3. Penalty.

The penalty of inherited sin is spiritual death. Man is born spiritually dead (Ephesians 2:3) and will be eternally separated from God in hell if our sinful condition is not remedied (Revelation 20:11-15).

This accurately describes the doctrine, but there is a question that invariably arises: what about Jesus, since he was born of a woman?  The question is legitimate, because the sin nature is passed from parent to child without interruption.  One solution I have heard more than once is that the Holy Spirit miraculously intervened so that the sin nature would not be passed to Jesus.  It is an explanation, but there is no support for it.  Scripture simply gives no such explanation, not that God has to give one, but we should base doctrine on factual statements when available rather than inferences or logical conclusions.

Another solution appears to be more workable.  While Adam was clearly made from in the image and likeness of God (Gen 1:26-27), Adam's descendents are said to come forth in his image and likeness (Gen 5:3).  This supports the idea that inheritance of sin comes through the man, so that, though woman inherits sin, she does not pass that nature to her offspring.  If sin is inherited from the father, there is no logical requirement for sin to also come through the mother.

If this explanation holds there are two immediate applications.  The first is that Roman Catholics did not need to develop the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.  There was no need for Mary to be sinless before Jesus was born.  Nothing of Jesus' nature needed protection since sin would not be inherited through her.

The second application touches more than points of doctrine and goes to the diverging thought I had.  Even though the baby is living in the mother's womb, they are individual people, though nutrients and waste are sent back and forth between mother and child.  And though ingested foods and chemicals carried in some form via the bloodstream to the baby, there is ample clinical evidence of mothers developing conditions that did not directly affect him or her.  They are separate, distinct living human beings regardless of the question of viability outside the womb.

If my scriptural basis and logic is correct (and feel free to correct me), the obvious ramification is that a woman can talk about the right to do with her body as she pleases, but in the end she has no right to kill the child.  It is living within the mother but is not the mother.  The two are bound by an intimate connection, but they are still two.  No amount of rationalization can alter this.

Early Church on Abortion

In a post concerning abortion, Charles Pope, Roman Catholic priest in Washington, D.C., has assembled a list of quotations showing that the destruction of unborn children was condemned by Christians from the beginning.  Here is the bulk of his list.

The Didache (“The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles”) ca 110 AD:  Thou shalt not murder a child by abortion. (2:2)… The Way of Death is filled with people who are … murderers of children and abortionists of God’s creatures. (5:1-2)

Letter of Barnabas (circa 125):  You shall not kill either the fetus by abortion or the new born

Athenagoras the Athenian (To Marcus Aurelius, ca 150 AD):  We say that those women who use drugs to bring on abortion commit murder, and will have to give an account to God for the abortion…, [For we] regard the very fœtus in the womb as a created being, and therefore an object of God’s care… (# 35).

Clement of Alexandria (circa 150 – 215 AD):  Our whole life can go on in observation of the laws of nature, if we gain dominion over our desires from the beginning and if we do not kill, by various means of a perverse art, the human offspring, born according to the designs of divine providence; for these women who, if order to hide their immorality, use abortive drugs which expel the child completely dead, abort at the same time their own human feelings.  Paedagogus, 2

Tertullian (circa 160-240 AD):  For us, we may not destroy even the fetus in the womb, while as yet the human being derives blood from other parts of the body for its sustenance.  To hinder a birth is merely a speedier man-killing; nor does it matter when you take away a life that is born, or destroy one that is coming to birth. That is a man which is going to be one: you have the fruit already in the seed.  Apology 9:6

Tertullian (circa 160 – 240 AD):  [We] are not permitted, since murder has been prohibited to us once and for all, even to destroy … the fetus in the womb.  It makes no difference whether one destroys a life that has already been born or one that is in the process of birth. Apology (9:7-8)

Tertullian (circa 160-240 AD):  [John the Baptist and Jesus] were both alive while still in the womb. Elizabeth rejoiced as the infant leaped in her womb; Mary glorifies the Lord because Christ within inspired her. Each mother recognizes her child and is known by her child who is alive, being not merely souls but also spirits.  De Aninta 26:4

Hippolytus (circa 170-236 AD):  Whence certain women, reputed believers, began to resort to drugs for producing sterility and to gird themselves round, so as to expel what was conceived on account of their not wanting to have a child either by a slave or by any paltry fellow, for the sake of their family and excessive wealth. Behold, into how great impiety that lawless one has proceeded, by inculcating adultery and murder at the same time.  Refutation of all Heresies 9:7

Minucius Felix (180 – 225 AD):  Some women take medicines to destroy the germ of future life in their own bodies.  They commit infanticide before they have given birth to the infant.  Octavius 30, 2

Basil the Great (330 – 379 AD):  The woman who purposely destroys her unborn child is guilty of murder.  With us there is no nice inquiry as to its being formed or unformed.  In this case it is not only the being about to be born who is vindicated, but the woman in her attack upon herself; because in most cases women who make such attempts die.  The destruction of the embryo is an additional crime, a second murder, at all events if we regard it as done with intent.  The punishment, however, of these women should not be for life, but for the term of ten years.  And let their treatment depend not on mere lapse of time, but on the character of their repentance.  Letter 188:2

Ambrose (339 to 397 AD):  The poor expose their children, the rich kill the fruit of their own bodies in the womb, lest their property be divided up, and they destroy their own children in the womb with murderous poisons. and before life has been passed on, it is annihilated.  Hexaemeron 5, 18, 58

John Chrysostom (circa 340 – 407 AD):  Why sow where the ground makes it its care to destroy the fruit?  Where there are many efforts at abortion?  Where there is murder before the birth?  For you do not even let the harlot remain a mere harlot, but make her a murderer also.  You see how drunkenness leads to whoredom, whoredom to adultery, adultery to murder; or rather something even worse than murder.  For I have no real name to give it, since it does not destroy the thing born but prevents its being born.  Why then do you abuse the gift of God and fight with His laws, and follow after what is a curse as if a blessing, and make the place of procreation a chamber for murder, and arm the woman that was given for childbearing unto slaughter?  Homily 24 on Romans

Jerome (circa 342-420 AD):  I cannot bring myself to speak of the many virgins who daily fall and are lost to the bosom of the church, their mother…. Some go so far as to take potions, that they may insure barrenness, and thus murder human beings almost before their conception.  Some, when they find themselves with child through their sin, use drugs to procure abortion, and when (as often happens) they die with their offspring, they enter the lower world laden with the guilt not only of adultery against Christ but also of suicide and child murder.  Letter 22:13

Ancyra - Canon 21

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


Abortions were well-known in the Roman empire.  Tertullian, near the end of the second century, described the practice and utensils in "A Treatise on the Soul" as one sometimes considered necessary by the populace:

But sometimes by a cruel necessity, whilst yet in the womb, an infant is put to death, when lying awry in the orifice of the womb he impedes parturition, and kills his mother, if he is not to die himself.  Accordingly, among surgeons’ tools there is a certain instrument, which is formed with a nicely-adjusted flexible frame for opening the uterus first of all, and keeping it open; it is further furnished with an annular blade, by means of which the limbs within the womb are dissected with anxious but unfaltering care; its last appendage being a blunted or covered hook, wherewith the entire fœtus is extracted by a violent delivery.  There is also (another instrument in the shape of) a copper needle or spike, by which the actual death is managed in this furtive robbery of life: they give it, from its infanticide function, the name of ἐμβρυοσφάκτης , the slayer of the infant, which was of course alive.  Such apparatus was possessed both by Hippocrates, and Asclepiades, and Erasistratus, and Herophilus, that dissector of even adults, and the milder Soranus himself, who all knew well enough that a living being had been conceived, and pitied this most luckless infant state, which had first to be put to death, to escape being tortured alive.¹

Elsewhere, in "The Apology" he demonstrated the blood-thirstiness of the pagans as opposed to Christians.

How many, think you, of those crowding around and gaping for Christian blood,—how many even of your rulers, notable for their justice to you and for their severe measures against us, may I charge in their own consciences with the sin of putting their offspring to death?  As to any difference in the kind of murder, it is certainly the more cruel way to kill by drowning, or by exposure to cold and hunger and dogs.  A maturer age has always preferred death by the sword.  In our case, murder being once for all forbidden, we may not destroy even the fœtus in the womb, while as yet the human being derives blood from other parts of the body for its sustenance.  To hinder a birth is merely a speedier man-killing; nor does it matter whether you take away a life that is born, or destroy one that is coming to the birth.  That is a man which is going to be one; you have the fruit already in its seed.²

Rightly, the early church denounced this behavior.  In the "Epistle of Barnabas," the author instructed believers:

Thou shalt not slay the child by procuring abortion; nor, again, shalt thou destroy it after it is born.³

With this back drop, this canon is understandable in condemning those who took part in abortions though they be Christians now.  Former decrees had been given to separate the wrongdoers from the body for the remainder of their lives thus demonstrating the severity of the grievous sin.  The noteworthy concession of shortening this time to seven years demonstrates the great difference from the world of the grace and mercy from those who had the truth and used it rightly.


¹ ANF 3:206
² ANF 3:25
³ ANF 1:148