Abortion, infanticide, and exposure in the early church

Abortion, killing infants, and exposing them. Part of Killing and murder.

Didache 2.2Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Commandments against murder, adultery, abuse of boys, sexual immorality, theft, magic, abortion, and infanticide.
Epistle of Barnabas 19.5Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · Love your neighbor; do not kill a child by abortion or after birth; teach children to fear God.
Apocalypse of Peter (Akhmim fragment) 26Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · Women who procured abortions sit in filth, struck by fire from the children they aborted.
To Diognetus 5.6Anonymous · ca. 150–200 (disputed) · They marry and have children, but do not abandon infants.
First Apology 27Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Christians do not expose infants, who are often raised for prostitution; the pagans do the vices they falsely charge to Christians.
A Plea for the Christians 35Athenagoras · ca. 176–180 · Christians cannot be murderers: they will not even watch gladiatorial shows, and they condemn abortion and the exposure of infants as murder.
The Instructor 2.10.96Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Marriage aims at children; abortion, used to hide sexual immorality, destroys humanity with the embryo; the married should not have intercourse by day, the time for prayer, reading, and good works.
The Instructor 3.3.21Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Licentiousness is everywhere: prostitution of women and boys, homosexual acts, and, because of the exposure of infants, fathers unknowingly committing incest with their own children in the brothels.
Prophetic Extracts 41.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Scripture says exposed infants are given to a guardian angel to be raised, and will be like the long-faithful.
Prophetic Extracts 41.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The Apocalypse of Peter says fire leaps from those infants to strike the eyes of the women who exposed them,
Prophetic Extracts 48.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The Apocalypse of Peter says aborted infants are given to a guardian angel, to receive knowledge and a better dwelling.
Prophetic Extracts 49.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The Apocalypse of Peter says that the congealed milk of mothers who killed their children breeds beasts that devour them, teaching that punishments arise from sins.
Prophetic Extracts 50.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · An elder taught that the unborn is a living being: an angel of birth brings the soul into the womb at conception.
Miscellanies 2.18.92Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Pythagoras learned gentleness to animals from the law, which forbids separating the newborn from its mother for seven days; how much more does it condemn the Greeks' exposure of human infants.
Miscellanies 2.18.93Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · There is no excuse for exposing children: one who does not want children should not marry; the law forbids killing an animal with its young, and the Romans spare pregnant condemned women, showing the law's humane concern.
Octavius 30.2Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · Pagans expose infants and procure abortions.
Apology 9Tertullian · ca. 197 · Tertullian turns the charges back on the pagans: child sacrifice, exposure of infants, drinking of blood, and the risk of incest are found among them, while Christians forbid even abortion and abstain from blood.
To the Nations 1.15Tertullian · 197 · Pagans who accuse Christians of killing infants themselves expose and drown their newborns in defiance of the law, and commit worse acts besides.
To the Nations 1.16Tertullian · 197 · The charge of incest at Christian meetings is turned back on the pagans, whose exposed children and casual unions make incest common, as a recent case at Rome showed.
Exhortation to Chastity 12Tertullian · ca. 208 · Tertullian answers the excuses for remarrying (running a household, having heirs) and says a widower should rather take a widow as a “spiritual wife,” warning that a second marriage may bring children anyway.
On the Soul 25Tertullian · ca. 210 · Against those who say the soul enters at birth with the first breath, pregnant women know the fetus is alive in the womb; physicians' instruments for killing it show the same, so the soul is present from conception.
On the Soul 37Tertullian · ca. 210 · The fetus is a human being once formed, as the law of Moses on abortion shows; after birth the soul grows with the body not in substance but in its powers, as gold is beaten out.
Refutation of All Heresies 9.12.25Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Hippolytus says that as a result some Christian women used contraceptives and procured abortions, and he calls Callistus's teaching adultery and murder.
Symposium 2.6Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd century · God himself forms every child in the womb; even children of adultery are given guardian angels and will accuse parents who exposed them.
Apostolic Church Order 6Anonymous · ca. 300 · The commandments of the way of life: against murder, adultery, sexual immorality, abortion, falsehood and hatred.
Canon 68Anonymous · ca. 306 (disputed, ca. 295–314) · A catechumen who conceives in adultery and kills the child may be baptized only at death.
Divine Institutes 6.20.18Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Infanticide is the greatest impiety.
Divine Institutes 6.20.19Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Parents deny their infants the light they did not give.
Divine Institutes 6.20.20Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Exposure of infants is also condemned.
Divine Institutes 6.20.21Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Exposure is crueler than strangling.
Divine Institutes 6.20.22Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Exposed children end in slavery or prostitution.
Divine Institutes 6.20.24Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Poverty is no excuse for killing children.
Preparation for the Gospel 8.8.35Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Children must all be raised; abortion is child-murder.
Preparation for the Gospel 13.19.18Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Plato orders that children conceived outside the set ages not be reared.
Epitome of the Divine Institutes 59.5Lactantius · ca. 314–320 · “Do not kill” also forbids endangering life by word, killing or exposing infants, and suicide.
Canon 21Anonymous · 314 · Women who commit sexual immorality and procure abortion, previously refused communion until death, are now given ten years' penance.
Letters 188, 189Basil of Caesarea · ca. 357–378 · Basil's first canonical letter to Amphilochius rules on the baptism of heretics and schismatics, abortion, lapsed deacons, repeated marriages, homicide, divorce, oaths, and other cases; the ref ends with most of his letter to Eustathius the physician defending the one godhead of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Hexaemeron 8.6Basil of Caesarea · ca. 370 · Birds teach lessons on widowhood, the cruelty of exposing children, fair inheritance, and, from the vulture, the credibility of the virgin birth.
Commentary on Romans 12:8Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Exhorters, givers, those who preside and those who show mercy are helped by the Spirit; mercy, which includes forgiving, helping the needy, clothing, feeding, rescuing exposed infants and burying the dead, must be done simply and gladly.
Question 23, section 2Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · Scripture shows the soul is created and given to the formed body in the womb, as the law on miscarriage distinguishes formed from unformed fetuses; otherwise souls would perish with lost seed.
Letter 22.13Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome denounces professed virgins who live immorally, conceal pregnancies, procure contraception and abortion, and excuse themselves with Scripture.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 26.5.5Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · Epiphanius accuses them of aborting and eating the fetus.
Apostolic Constitutions 7.3.2Anonymous · ca. 380 · Abortion and infanticide are forbidden and will be avenged.
Hexameron (Exameron) 5.58Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · Crows care for their young; human mothers refuse to nurse, expose infants, or procure abortions, and fathers disinherit sons.
On Marriage and Concupiscence 1.17Augustine of Hippo · ca. 419–421 · Intercourse for pleasure within marriage is a venial fault, but those who prevent conception, expose children, or procure abortion are not truly married.
Canon 51Anonymous · date disputed (between ca. 442 and 506) · Whoever takes in an exposed infant posts a notice; if unclaimed in ten days the finder keeps it, and later claimants are punished as murderers.
Canon 9Anonymous · 442 · Whoever takes in an exposed infant is to proceed through the church, with a period of ten days from the exposure; the details are unreadable in the edition used.
Canon 10Anonymous · 442 · Anyone who afterwards reclaims or slanders a foundling taken in under this procedure is punished as a murderer.