The
Early Church Fathers on Contraception
THE
MARITAL UNION MUST REMAIN OPEN TO PROCREATION
The
Early Church Fathers were undivided in their condemnation of birth control. In
fact, all Christian churches were in agreement on this until 1930.
Saint
Clement of Alexandria
Because
of its divine institution for the propagation of man, the seed is not to be
vainly ejaculated, nor is it to be damaged, nor is it to be wasted (The
Instructor of Children 2:10:91:2 [A.D. 191]).
Saint
Clement of Alexandria
To
have coitus other than to procreate children is to do injury to nature (ibid.
2:10:95:3).
Saint
Hippolytus
[Christian
women with male concubines], on account of their prominent ancestry and great
property, the so-called faithful want no children from slaves or lowborn
commoners, they use drugs of sterility [oral contraceptives] or bind themselves
tightly in order to expel a fetus which has already been engendered [abortion]
(Refutation of All Heresies 9:7 [A.D. 225]).
Lactantius
[Some]
complain of the scantiness of their means, and allege that they have not enough
for bringing up more children, as though, in truth, their means were in [their]
power . . . or God did not daily make the rich poor and the poor rich.
Wherefore, if any one on any account of poverty shall be unable to bring up
children, it is better to abstain from relations with his wife (Divine
Institutes 6:20 [A.D. 307]).
Lactantius
God
gave us eyes not to see and desire pleasure, but to see acts to be performed for
the needs of life; so too, the genital ['generating'] part of the body, as the
name itself teaches, has been received by us for no other purpose than the
generation of offspring (ibid. 6:23:18).
Epiphanius
They
[certain Egyptian heretics] exercise genital acts, yet prevent the conceiving of
children. Not in order to produce offspring, but to satisfy lust, are they eager
for corruption (Medicine Chest Against Heresies 26:5:2
[A.D. 375]).
Saint
John Chrysostom
[l]n
truth, all men know that they who are under the power of this disease [the sin
of covetousness] are wearied even of their father's old age [wishing him to die
so they can inherit]; and that which is sweet) and universally desirable, the
having of children, they esteem grievous and unwelcome. Many at least with this
view have even paid money to be childless, and have mutilated nature, not only
killing the newborn, but even acting to prevent their beginning to live
[sterilization] (Homilies on Matthew 28:5 [A.D. 391]).
Saint
John Chrysostom
Why
do you sow where the field is eager to destroy the fruit, where there are
medicines of sterility [oral contraceptives], where there is murder before
birth?. . . Indeed, it is something worse than murder,
and I do not know what to call it; for she does not kill what is formed but
prevents its formation. What then? Do you condemn the gift of God and Fight with
his [natural] laws? (Homilies on Romans 24 [A.D. 391]).
Saint
Jerome
But
I wonder why he [the heretic Jovinianus] set Judah and
Tamar before us for an example, unless perchance even harlots give him pleasure;
or Onan, who was slain because he grudged his brother
seed. Does he imagine that we approve of any sexual intercourse except for the
procreation of children? (Against Jovinian 1:19 [A.D.
393]). You may see a number of women who are widows before they are wives.
Others, indeed, will drink sterility [oral contraceptives] and murder a man not
yet born, [and some commit abortion] (Letters 22:13 [A.D.
396]).
Saint
Augustine
This
proves that you [Manicheans] approve of having a wife, not for the procreation
of children, but for the gratification of passion. In marriage, as the marriage
law declares, the man and woman come together for the procreation of children.
Therefore, whoever makes the procreation of children a greater sin than
copulation, forbids marriage and makes the woman not a wife but a mistress, who
for some gifts presented to her, is joined to the man to gratify his passion
(The Morals of the Manichees 18:65 [A.D.
388]).
Saint
Agustine
You
[Manicheans] make your auditors adulterers of their wives when they take care
lest the women with whom they copulate conceive. They take wives according to
the laws of matrimony by tablets announcing that the marriage is contracted to
procreate children; and then, fearing because of your [religious] law [against
childbearing] . . . they copulate in a shameful union only to satisfy lust for
their wives. They are unwilling to have children, on whose account alone
marriages are made. How is it, then, that you are not those prohibiting
marriage, as the apostle predicted of you so long ago [I Tim. 4:1-4], when you
try to take from marriage what marriage is? When this is taken away, husbands
are shameful lovers, wives are harlots, bridal chambers are brothels, fathers-in-law are pimps (Against Faustus 15:7 [A.D. 400]).
For thus the eternal law, that is, the will of God creator of all creatures,
taking counsel for the conservation of natural order, not to serve lust, but to
see to the preservation of the race, permits the delight of mortal flesh to be
released from the control of reason in copulation only to propagate progeny
(ibid. 22:30).
Caesarius
Who
is he who cannot warn that no woman may take a potion [an oral contraceptive or
an abortifacient] so that she is unable to conceive or
condemns in herself the nature which God willed to be fecund? As often as she
could have conceived or given birth, of that many homicides she will be held
guilty, and, unless she undergoes suitable penance, she will be damned by
eternal death in hell. If a women does not wish to have children, let her enter
into a religious agreement with her husband; for chastity is the sole sterility
of a Christian woman (Sermons 1:12 [A.D. 522]).
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