Pagans, Christianity, and Infanticide

By Christopher Price

Pagans, Christianity, and Infanticide

By Christopher Price


"Infanticide was one of the deepest stains of the ancient
civilization."

Introduction

The history of infanticide is gruesome. As hard as it may be to
imagine today, throughout history infanticide was a common and
endorsed practice. While it undoubtedly still occurs today, all
governments outlaw it. And in the West at least, society and culture
condemn it. So how did we get from there to here? From having Western
societies that condoned and encouraged infanticide to having a Western
society that condemns and discourages infanticide?

The short answer is: Christianity.

Paganism and Infanticide

Pagans in the Roman Empire had a very different view about the value
of human life than we do today. Infanticide was legal and encouraged
in ancient Greece and Rome. Other pagan societies, such as the
Carthaginians, went so far as to kill their children as religious
sacrifices to their gods. According to Plutarch, the Carthaginians
"offered up their own children, and those who had no children would
buy little ones from poor people and cut their throats as if they were
so many lambs of young birds; meanwhile the mothers stood by without a
tear or moan." Moralia 2.17. Indeed, "Infanticide was common in all
well studied ancient cultures, including those of ancient Greece,
Rome, India, China, and Japan."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infanticide

Some forms of infanticide involved a parent directly killing the
child, usually by drowning. The infant was simply held underwater
until it was dead. Relatively quick, inexpensive, and the water
muffled the cries. In other cases, the family would simply take the
child out beyond the city and abandon it to die from exposure to the
elements. In both approaches, those that should have been protecting
the helpless, were the ones who were killing them. Hence, in this
discussion I will speak both of infanticide and abandonment as one.

"Infanticide was infamously universal" in ancient Greece and Rome.
Frederic Farrar, The Early Days of Christianity, page 71. As Will
Durant stated, infanticide was so common in ancient Rome that "birth
itself was an adventure." Caesar and Christ, page 56. Indeed, so
common was infanticide in ancient Greece that Polybius (205-118 BCE)
blamed the decline of ancient Greece on it. (Histories, 6). It was
"decimating pagan society," Durant, op. cit. 698, and was the leading
cause of the tremendous gender gap of men to women in the ancient
world. Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity, pages 97-98. Female
infants were particularly vulnerable to infanticide. It was very
uncommon for even wealthy, upper-class families to have more than one
daughter in ancient Greece and Rome. An inscription found in Delphi
illustrates this quite well. Of more than 600 second-century families,
only one percent had raised two daughters. Susan Scrimshaw,
"Infanticide in Human Populations: Societal and Individual Concerns,"
in Infanticide: Comparative and Evolutionary Perspectives, eds. Glenn
Hausfater and Sarah Hardy, page 439. In sum, there is no dispute among
historians and informed laypersons: Infanticide was incredibly
widespread in the ancient pagan world.

But what is most chilling is that it was openly practiced. Pagan
society approved of the practice and encouraged it. "Not only was the
exposure of infants a very common practice, it was justified by law
and advocated by philosophers." Rodney Stark, The Rise of
Christianity, at 118. See also Durant, op. cit., page 56. In Greece
and ancient Rome a child was virtually its father's chattel-e.g., in
Roman law, the Patria Protestas granted the father the right to
dispose of his offspring as he saw fit. In Sparta, the decision was
made by a public official. The Twelve Tables of Roman Law held:
"Deformed infants shall be killed" De Legibus, 3.8. Of course,
deformed was broadly construed and often meant no more than the baby
appeared "weakly." The Twelve Tables also explicitly permitted a
father to expose any female infant. Stark, op. cit., page 118.

Leading pagan leaders and philosophers also encouraged the practice.
Cicero defended infanticide by referring to the Twelve Tables. Plato
and Aristotle recommended infanticide as legitimate state policy.
Cornelius Tacitus went so far as to condemn the Jews for their
opposition to infanticide. He stated that the Jewish view that "it was
a deadly sin to kill an unwanted child" was just another of the many
"sinister and revolting practices" of the Jews. Histories 5.5. Even
Seneca, otherwise known for his relatively high moral standards,
stated, "we drown children at birth who are weakly and abnormal." De
Ira 1.15.

A chilling letter from a pagan husband to his wife captures the casual
nature of this practice among the pagans:

"Know that I am still in Alexandria.... I ask and beg you to take good
care of our baby son, and as soon as I received payment I shall send
it up to you. If you are delivered (before I come home), if it is a
boy keep it, if a girl, discard it." Naphtali Lewis, Life in Egypt
Under Roman Rule, at 54. According to Stark, "this letter dates from
the year 1 BCE, but these patterns persisted among pagans far into the
Christian era." Stark, op. cit., page 97-98.

In sum, pagans practiced infanticide almost universally. Nor can it be
said to be simply a practice to preserve few resources to save the
whole culture. Infanticide was practiced by rich and poor alike. By
Romans and Greeks. By citizens and slaves.

Christianity and Infanticide

Into this pagan world stepped Christianity. Starting in Jerusalem, and
with an undisputed Jewish influence, Christianity quickly spread
throughout the Roman Empire. But rather than being restricted to one
racial or cultural group, Christianity spread throughout the Roman
Empire's diverse ethnicities, including the Greeks and Romans.
Beginning in about 30-33 CE, Christianity reached some level of
primacy when the Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in the
Fourth Century. By 350 CE, Rodney Stark estimates that 56.5 percent of
the Roman Empire had converted to Christianity.

A. Early Christian Opposition to Infanticide

From its earliest creeds, Christians "absolutely prohibited"
infanticide as "murder." Stark, at 124. To Christians, the infant had
value. Whereas pagans placed no value on infant life, Christians
treated them as human beings. They viewed infanticide as the murder of
a human being, not a convenient tool to rid society of excess females
and perceived weaklings. The baby, whether male, female, perfect, or
imperfect, was created in the image of God and therefore had value.

Early Christian documents reveal that there was a clash of cultures as
Christianity converted previously pagan Romans and Greeks. Whereas
Judaism prohibited infanticide by Jews, Christianity was converting
pagans and instructing them that infanticide was immoral and murder.
The Didache (90 -110 CE), an instruction manual for Christian
converts, commanded "You shall not commit infanticide." Another early
Christian document, the Epistle of Barnabas (130 CE), also explicitly
condemned infanticide and prohibited its practices as necessary parts
of the "way of light." Moreover, by the end of the second century,
"Christians were not only proclaiming their rejection of abortion and
infanticide, but had begun direct attacks on pagans, and especially
pagan religions for sustaining such crimes." Stark, op. cit., page
125. Robin L. Fox also notes this activity: "Christians opposed much
in the accepted practice of the pagan world. They vigorously attacked
infanticide and the exposure of children." Fox, op. cit., page 350.

Callistus, the Bishop of Rome--a onetime slave-- in 222 CE strongly
voiced his condemnation of infanticide to the pagan public. Justin
Martyr's First Apology (250 CE) stated, "We have been taught that it
is wicked to expose even newly-born children." Also in the second
century, Athengoras, a Christian leader, wrote in his Plea to the
Emperor Marcus Aurelius, that "[we do not expose] an infant, because
those who expose them are chargeable with child murder." Another
Christian writer, Minucius Felix, wrote to Emperor Claudius, "And I
see that you at one time expose your begotten children to wild beasts
and to the birds; at another that you crush when strangled with a
miserable kind of death. . . . And these things assuredly come down
from your gods. For Saturn did not expose his children but devoured
them."

But so long as Christianity remained a disfavored--and sometimes
persecuted--religion, their appeals to the pagan government to act
against infanticide were ineffectual in changing government policy.
Even so, Christians worked against infanticide by prohibiting its
members from practicing it, voicing their moral view on infanticide to
the pagan world, and by providing for the relief of the poor and
actually taking in and supporting babies which had been left to die by
exposure by their pagan parents. As Fox explains, "to the poor, the
widows and orphans, Christians gave alms and support, like the
synagogue communities, their forerunners. This 'brotherly love' has
been minimized as a reason for turning to the Church, as if only those
who were members could know of it. In fact, it was widely recognized."
Fox, op. cit., page 324. According to Durant, "in many instances
Christians rescued exposed infant, baptized them, and brought them up
with the aid of community funds." Durant, op. cit., page 598. Through
these efforts, Christians worked to diminish some of the causes of
infanticide.

B. Christianity's Rise to Preeminence

Yet so long as Christianity was an illegal religion, persecuted by the
same culture that murdered their own babies, it had little chance of
enacting policies against infanticide. Finally, however, with the
Edict of Milan--which legalized the practice of
Christianity--Christian leaders began to exert their influence on the
Roman emperors regarding infanticide. Immediately after his
conversion, Constantine--the first Christian Emperor--enacted two
measures targeting the problem of infanticide: 1) Constantine provided
funds out of the imperial treasury for parents over burdened with
children; and 2) Constantine gave all the rights of property of
exposed infants to those who saved and supported them. But more
generally, Constantine broadened the scope of imperial charity and
provided assistance for the poor and needy. "He also acknowledged the
new ideal of charity. Previous emperors had encouraged schemes to
support small numbers of children in less favored families, the future
recruits for their armies. Constantine gave funds to the churches to
support the poor, the widow and orphans." And according to Robin L.
Fox, the church used those funds for charity. "Swollen by the
Emperor's gifts, it helped the old, the infirm, and the destitute."
Fox, op. cit., page 668.

Although the church, with the assistance of the government, was
working to address many of the causes of infanticide, it continued to
pressure Rome for a ban on infanticide. Bishop Basil of Caesarea
argued persistently and persuasively for such a ban. Finally, he
convinced Emperor Valentinian (364-375 CE)--a Christian--to outlaw the
practice of infanticide in the Roman Empire. Finally, infanticide was
banned.

Conclusion

Although ancient and pagan Greek and Rome had practiced and encouraged
infanticide for hundreds and hundreds of years, Christianity
fundamentally altered those societies. Christianity eliminated the
promotion and encouragement of infanticide by government and leading
societal institutions in Western Civilization. Clearly, one unique and
valuable contribution of Christianity to Western Civilization was its
opposition to infanticide.



http://www.geocities.com/christiancadre/member_contrib/cp_infanticide.html

Pagans, Christianity, and Infanticide

By Christopher Price


"Infanticide was one of the deepest stains of the ancient
civilization."

Introduction

The history of infanticide is gruesome. As hard as it may be to
imagine today, throughout history infanticide was a common and
endorsed practice. While it undoubtedly still occurs today, all
governments outlaw it. And in the West at least, society and culture
condemn it. So how did we get from there to here? From having Western
societies that condoned and encouraged infanticide to having a Western
society that condemns and discourages infanticide?

The short answer is: Christianity.

Subject: Christianity Stopped Ancient Pagan Genocide of Women