Child Sacrifice
From the beginning Christians held firmly to the sanctity of human life. They opposed all activities contrary to it. They not only sought to honor the Commandment of “Never murder” (Exodus 20:13), but they also had Jeremiah 7:31-32 in mind in which the prophet condemned the burning to death of children as offerings to a pagan god. This ungodly practice had also been practiced earlier by King Ahaz who sacrificed his own son to the god Molech (II Kings 16:3) and by King Manasseh when he had his son burned to death as a sacrifice (II Kings 21:6).
Tragically, sacrificing human beings was not confined to the Biblical era. St. Patrick encountered it in Ireland in the fifth century. The pagan Prussians and Lithuanians practiced human sacrifices as late as the fourteenth century A.D. The British historian Edward Ryan noted in his The History of the Effects of Religion on Mankind that these eastern Europeans “would have done so to this day [1802] were it not for Christianity.” Human sacrifices were also part of the Aztec and Mayan Indian cultures.
Today, when people hear about the practice of human sacrifices in various cultures, they find it unimaginable and unacceptable. Why? The answer has everything to do with the pervasive moral ethic of Christianity, which prominently championed the sanctity of all human life. This deeply held Christian posture has now been internalized by many non-Christians making human sacrifices today unthinkable.
Suicide
The Commandment “Never murder” teaches and warns individuals not to murder another human being, underscoring God’s concern for the sanctity of human life. St. Augustine (354-430) in The City of God argued that this Commandment also prohibited suicide, for suicide was murdering oneself. His argument ran counter to the Romans who saw nothing wrong with suicide and practiced it widely. Augustine said “suicide is a detestable and damnable wickedness.” He contended if suicide were an acceptable option in God’s eyes, Christ would not have told his disciples to flee in times of persecution. He also showed that not a single suicide occurred among the Old Testament patriarchs and prophets or among the persecuted New Testament apostles. Suicide would have enabled the apostles to escape their persecuted afflictions, but they did not.
Before Augustine, suicide was condemned by church fathers such as Clement of Alexandria (d. 213), Lactantius (d. 330), and Gregory of Nazianus (d. 374). Eusebius (d.339), the father of church history, called the suicide of the pagan emperor Maximin a “shameful death” (Ecclesiastical History 8:13.15).
In about 305 or 306 A.D., the Synod of Elvira condemned the acts of some Christians who in effect committed suicide by deliberately going out of their way to be executed as martyrs. Later, the Council of Arles in 314, declared suicide to be the result of demonic forces. The Council of Orleans in 533 denied offerings for those who took their own lives. In 563 the Council of Braga banned singing psalms at the funeral of a person who committed suicide, as well as bringing the body of a suicide victim into a church as part of the funeral proceedings. The councils of Troyes (878) and Nimes (1184) denied burial to suicides in church cemeteries. In 1441 the Synod of Sweden reaffirmed the decision. These church council decisions were issued to uphold the sanctity of human life.
Christian opposition to suicide, largely derived from “Never murder” was a stand against culture and a defense of the sanctity of human life. For centuries, Christianity’s opposition to suicide influenced Western nations to outlaw suicide and to punish those who attempted it. The desire today of some people to permit physician-assisted suicide in the United States not only is a rejection of ”Never murder” and Christianity’s historic opposition to suicide, but it’s also a repudiation of the biblical doctrine that all human life is sacred because it was created by God and belongs to God. To paraphrase Job, only the Lord gives human life, and only he may end it (Job 1:21).
Abortion
One of the specific sins Paul identifies in Galatians 5:19-21is pharmakeia, the making or administering of potions (drugs). This sinful act has often been translated as “sorcery” or “witchcraft” because drugs were often made in the practice of sorcery. However, Paul may have also used pharmakeia to mean the practice of abortion. Administering medicinal potions was a common way of inducing abortions among the Greco-Romans. There is additional evidence in support of this in Revelation 21:8, where “sexual immorality” is condemned. This sin is immediately followed by pharmakois evidently because sexual immorality often resulted in unwanted pregnancies being aborted.
That these two Greek words, pharmakeia and pharmakois, may refer to the practice of abortion receives added support in non-biblical literature. Plutarch (A.D. 46-120), a pagan Greek philosopher, notes that pharmakeia often referred to abortion. An early Christian document, the Didache (ca. A.D. 80-120) forbids abortion. Using the words, “you shall not use potions” (pharmakeuseis) immediately followed by “you shall not kill a child by abortion.” These words link potions with the killing of an unborn child. Clement of Alexandria (d. A.D. 213), an early church father in his work Pedagogus 1:296, also identified pharmakeia as an abortion-causing drug linking abortion with the taking of drugs (pharmakois). At about the same time, Minucius Felix, a Christian attorney, declared, “There are women, who by medicinal draughts, extinguish in the womb and commit infanticide upon the offspring yet unborn” (Octavius, 401). In the latter part of the fourth century A.D., St. Jerome lamented that many women practiced abortion by using “drugs” (Select Letters of St. Jerome, 22).
Upholding the sanctity of life by condemning abortion also received support collectively in the early church. The Synod of Elvira (ca. 305 or 306) and the Council of Lerida in 524 condemned abortion. By the twelfth century A.D. two scholars (Ivo Chartes and Gratian) noted that from the fourth century to their day over 4,000 canons had been issued affirming the sanctity of life. In the sixteenth century, Martin Luther asserted that “those who pay no attention to pregnant women and do not spare the tender fetus are murderers and parricides.” John Calvin said, “The unborn child though enclosed in the womb of its mother, is already a human being … and should not be robbed of the life which it has not yet begun to enjoy.”
The influence of Christianity’s opposition to abortion resulted in anti-abortion laws in numerous Western countries well into the twentieth century. In 1945, Dietrich Bonhoeffer reflected the Christian church’s long-standing stance, stating, “Destruction of the embryo in the mother’s womb is a violation of the right to live which God has bestowed upon this nascent life.” Bonhoeffer’s statement was typical of the church’s official view, one that remained unchanged for centuries. Just as with modern movements advocating specific values, people today seek guidance in other areas, including choices for entertainment. Sites like 코리아카지노사이트 추천 are frequently searched as individuals look for reputable platforms that align with personal ethics or trusted recommendations. Before the twentieth century, there was hardly a single Christian leader or church body that violated the sanctity of life by supporting abortion on demand, a view now widely debated even among those with strong faith traditions in Europe and North America.
Christianity has left an abiding mark on the sanctity of human life in the past. What about the future?