“…the word of the Lord for Israel, saith the Lord, which… formeth the spirit of man within him.”
Zech. 12:1
“If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman’s husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life…”
Ex. 21:22-23
“Hast Thou not poured me out as milk [in the womb], and curdled me like cheese? Thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh, and hast fenced me with bones and sinews. Thou hast granted me life and favour, and thy visitation hath preserved my spirit.”
Job 10:10-12
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Subsection
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Order of Contents
Intro
Ensoulment
Bible Verses 14
Articles 4+
Quotes 16+
Westminster
Definition of Human 1
Zygote & Embryo 2
Soul from Conception 1
Original Sin & Ensoulment 2
Historical 10+
Judaism 1
RCC & EO 1
Latin 6+
. Ectopic Pregnancies 2
Christ in the Womb
Formed Body & Hypostatic Union at Conception View 10+
Natural Development View: Ensoulment & Hypostatic Union circa 42 days 15+
Historical 1
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Intro
Article
Fentiman, Travis – 2. ‘The Time of Ensoulment & of the Hypostatic Union’ in ‘An Introduction to Peter van Mastricht on Christ’s Human Nature as Non-Personal, the Time of Ensoulment in the Womb & the Perpetual Virginity of Mary’ (RBO, 2024), pp. 10-16
Peter van Mastricht (d. 1706) was a major Dutch reformed theologian. In his major work, Theoretical-Practical Theology, vol. 4, he makes assumptions and statements that the start of human life at ensoulment in the womb begins around 42 days after conception.
This readable but scholarly article introduces and contextualizes the issue, showing the coherency and plausibility of it, both philosophically and Scripturally. It was was the common view of Mastricht’s era and of Reformed Orthodoxy in his time. Given that Christ’s gestation occured in accordance with regular human nature (according to the later reformed), this was also the timing of the personal union of Christ’s two natures in the incarnation.
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On the Timing of Ensoulment in the Womb
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Bible Verses
Old Testament 10+
Gen. 3:16 “Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children;”
[Note as many commentators do on this verse, the breadth that “conception” is here taking, namely for the whole of the pregnancy, and as it symbollically signifies the whole nourishing and raising up of children.]
Ex. 21:22-23 “If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman’s husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life…”
Lev. 12:2-7
“Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a woman have conceived seed, and born a man child: then she shall be unclean seven days; according to the days of the separation for her infirmity shall she be unclean. And in the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised. And she shall then continue in the blood of her purifying three and thirty days; she shall touch no hallowed thing, nor come into the sanctuary, until the days of her purifying be fulfilled.
But if she bear a maid child, then she shall be unclean two weeks, as in her separation: and she shall continue in the blood of her purifying threescore and six days.
And when the days of her purifying are fulfilled, for a son, or for a daughter, she shall bring a lamb of the first year for a burnt offering, and a young pigeon, or a turtledove, for a sin offering, unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, unto the priest: Who shall offer it before the Lord, and make an atonement for her; and she shall be cleansed from the issue of her blood. This is the law for her that hath born a male or a female.”
2 Sam. 11:5 “And the woman conceived, and sent and told David, and said, ‘I am with child.'”
Job 3:3 “Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, ‘There is a man child conceived.'”
Job 3:16 “Or as an hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants which never saw light [and remained unburied].”
Job 10:18-19 “Wherefore then hast Thou brought me forth out of the womb? Oh that I had given up the ghost, and no eye had seen me! [and I had remained unburied] I should have been as though I had not been; I should have been carried from the womb to the grave [with a burial, which still would have been better].”
Job 10:10-12 “Hast Thou not poured me out as milk [in the womb], and curdled me like cheese? Thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh, and hast fenced me with bones and sinews. Thou hast granted me life and favour, and thy visitation hath preserved my spirit.”
Ps. 51:5 “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.”
Ps. 58:8 “As a snail which melteth, let every one of them pass away: like the untimely birth of a woman, that they may not see the sun [and have no burial].”
Ps. 139:13-16
“For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.
My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.”
Eccl. 6:3 “If a man beget an hundred children, and live many years, so that the days of his years be many, and his soul be not filled with good, and also that he have no burial; I say, that an untimely birth is better than he [which did have a burial].”
Song 3:4 “…until I had brought him into my mother’s house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me.”
Zech. 12:1 “…the word of the Lord for Israel, saith the Lord, which… formeth the spirit of man within him.”
For more O.T. references, see the results for “conceive” at BibleGateway. For an anaysis of “conception” in Scripture, showing it often means the whole of pregnancy, see the Westminster section below.
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New Testament 5
Mt. 1:20 “…fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived [the Greek is neuter] in her is of the Holy Ghost.”
Lk. 1:31 “And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus.”
Lk. 1:35 “And the angel answered and said unto her, ‘The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which [the Greek is neuter] shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.'”
Lk. 1:36, 41 “And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her… And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb…”
Lk. 2:21 “…his name was called Jesus, which was so named of the angel before he was conceived in the womb.”
Rom. 1:3 “Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh;”
[The Greek word for “seed”, sperma, can mean an embryo or zygote; see Aristotle, Physics 2.8.]
Rom. 9:10-13 “…when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac; (For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;)… As it is written, ‘Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.'”
Heb. 2:16 “For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham.”
[The Greek word for “seed”, sperma, can mean an embryo or zygote; see Aristotle, Physics 2.8.]
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Articles
Antiquity
Aristotle – pp. 165-175 of Generation of Animals in Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1943), bk. 2, ch. 3
Aristotle’s discussion and framework, though it’s about animals (yet it speaks to humans), heavily influenced antiquity and the early and Medieval Church, as well as the Post-Reformation, in understanding how humans are conceived and develop in the womb, and how they come to have a rational soul. Aristotle essentially takes a creationist view of God infusing the soul when the fetus has a formed human body (p. 171 top).
Maccovius, through Hoornbeek below, interacts with Aristotle and takes exception to something he said, though otherwise largely concuring with his general outlook.
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Medieval Church
Aquinas, Thomas – ch. 89, ‘Solution of the Preceding Arguments [for Traducianism]’ of Contra Gentiles, bk. 2, Creation. See especially section 11.
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1600’s
Kellet, Edward – ch. 6 (especially sections 1-2 & 5) in Miscellanies of Divinity, divided into Three Books, wherein is Explained at Large the Estate of the Soul in her Origination, Separation, Particular Judgement… (Cambridge, 1635), bk. 1, pp. 90-111, especially pp. 90-98 & 103-6
Kellet (1583-1641) was a doctor of divinity and a calvinistic, Anglican, canon in the cathedral church at Exeter.
Most of the most pertinent sections of this have been typed out below on this page, in the section dealing with Original Sin. In section 1 Kellet argues at length, amongst other things, against the Calvinist divine Thomas Bilson (and the Lutherans he quotes), that the zygote before ensoulment, while corrupted, yet is not properly and fully sinful, as is the person at ensoulment. Bilson agreed with him on the delayed timing of ensoulment.
In section 2 (pp. 92-97) Kellet documents where Scripture and divines commonly take “conception” (in relation to Ps. 51:5) not strictly in our current medical definition, but for the process of gestation in the womb, in contrast to birth.
In section four on abortives (pp. 98-103), Kellet shows multiple Scriptures (Job 3:16; 10:18-19; Eccl. 6:3; Ps. 58:8) where the ancient world (not just the Hebrews) did not give burials to pre-formed zygotes in their mother’s blood (often looking like blood-clots), but did give burials for humanly formed, miscarried fetuses.
Willet, Andrew – Question 57, ‘Whether this law [Ex. 21:22-23] extends itself to infants which miscarry, being not yet perfectly formed?’ in Hexapla in Genesin & Exodum… (London, 1633), On the Ten Commandments in Particular, ch. 21, pp. 401-2
Willet (c.1561-1621), a puritan, Anglican clergyman, gives a survey of commentators and thought on this passage. He quotes Augustine saying:
“The living soul cannot be said to be yet in that body which wants sense.” “An evident example is given in Adam that the body when it is now fashioned receives the soul, and not before: For after Adam’s body was made, the Lord breathed into him the breath of life.”
See also the previous question Willet addressed, Question 56, ‘Whether the death of the infant be punished, as well as of the mother?’, he quoting Calvin in it.
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1900’s
Jewett, Paul K. – ‘The Relation of the Soul to the Fetus: Tracing the Development of a Human Being’ Christianity Today, vol. 13 (Nov. 1968)
Jewett (1920–1991) was an American, baptist, egalitarian theologian. He taught systematic theology at Fuller Theological Seminary.
Jewett helpfully surveys a wide-range of factors relating to the development of life in the womb and when a human person begins. His conclusion at the end is, in part:
“It seems that the Christian answer to the control of human reproduction must be found principally in the prevention of conception, rather than in the prevention of birth.”
“But we can hardly say the physical fact of the genetic uniqueness of human fetal tissue is the basis of all the anxious inquiry, for the same uniqueness prevails in the animal world….
…when the fetus becomes a human being… the “breath of life” and the “blood which is the life” are applicable to animals as well as men. The biblical description of man’s distinctive creation “in the divine image” refers to a quality of life that, though it depends upon breath and blood, is not equated with them…
although Augustine and Thomas condemned deliberate interference with the life of the fetus, they considered it homicide only when the fetus was possessed of a human soul.”
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2000’s
Disney, Lindsey & Larry Poston – ‘When Does Human Life Begin? Conception & Ensoulment’ Anglican Theological Review 92:2 (Spring, 2010), pp. 271-95
The article comes from a committed Christian perspective (pp. 294-95) but also seeks to balance conservative and liberal issues. It leans to a creationist perspective (in contrast to traducianism), involvng ensoulment at 40 days (or later). It has a lot of helpful historical information on the views of various religions on the subject. Overall it is one of the best articles for understanding a wide variety of issues factoring into the subject.
Abstract: “This essay examines the views held by various adherents of the Christian faith regarding the concepts of ‘conception’ and ‘ensoulment’ and the relation of these views to contemporary ethical issues having to do with abortion, in vitro fertilization, contraception, and stem cell research. The essay discusses the fact that Christians historically have been characterized by a marked lack of unity concerning the teachings of the Bible and tradition on these issues.”
“…it is one thing to speak of ‘when life begins,’ but quite another to speak of when ‘the soul’ enters or is present in a human body…” – p. 273
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Quotes
* – Westminster divine
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Order of
Augustine
Wycliffe
Beza
Wilcox
Vultejus
Hieron
Du Moulin
Davenant
Simson
Byfield
Reynolds *
Voet
Ascham
Rutherford *
Mayer
Burgess *
Hall
Blake
Drelincourt
Trapp
G. Hughes & Osiander
Poole
Annand
Edwards
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400’s
Augustine
Questions on Exodus, on Ex. 21:22
“Question 80, Abortion of a Woman from a Brawl Between Two Men.
…Well, the fact that the author [of Exodus] did not want the unborn childbirth to belong to the homicide proves that he thought that it was not man that is carried in the mother’s womb. Here the problem of the soul is usually posed, that is, if what is not formed cannot be said to be animated, and therefore, that it would not be a homicide, since it cannot be affirmed that a being that had not yet had soul.”
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1300’s
John Wycliffe
The Wycliff Translated Bible, Ex. 21:22-23
“22. If men chide, and a man smiteth a woman with child, and soothly he maketh the child dead-born, but the woman liveth over that smiting, he shall be subject to the harm (he shall be subject to a fine), as much as the woman’s husband asketh (for), and as the judges deem (appropriate).
23. Soothly if the death of her followeth (And if her death followeth), he shall yield life for life,”
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1500’s
Theodore Beza
Christian Meditations upon Eight Psalms... (London: 1582), on Ps. 51, verse 5
“[On Ps. 51] Verse 5 [” in sin has my mother conceived me”] From the moment, my God, of this poor creature’s conception, even already had coruption catched hold: from that time, I say, that my mother having conceived me, did give me living heat in her womb, vice was come within me, as the root which sithence has brought forth those sour and venemous fruits…”
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Thomas Wilcox
Wilcox, Thomas – A Very Godly & Learned Exposition upon the Whole Book of Psalms (1591), on Ps. 51, p. 151 Wilcox (c.1549-1608) was an English puritan.
“‘and in sin has my mother conceived me’ …he having original sin from his parents, was in that sin ‘conceived’, that is, fostered and nourished in his mother’s womb, and brought forth in the same, for so largely do I take the word of ‘conceiving’, the beginning of a thing being put for the growth, proceeding and continuance of the same thing.”
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1600’s
Samuel Hieron
David’s Penitential Psalm Opened in 30 Several Lectures Thereon (Cambrdige: Legge, 1617), on Ps. 51, p. 144 Hieron (1572-1617) was an English puritan within the establishment.
“I know the most received opinion is that the soul is created by God, and so becomes defiled with sin by the union of it to the body; as when a man falls into the dirt and is soiled and bedaubed, or as water clean in itself receives filth from an unclean vessell into which it is put…
For my own part [his traducianism was stated before this passage on the same page] I cannot conceive either how sin should first be in the body before the soul is united to it, or how the soul should receive infection from the body.”
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Pierre Du Moulin
The Anatomy of Arminianisme (London, 1620), ch. 10 Maccovius, quoted by Hoornbeek below, would (presumably later) use some of this exact language.
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John Davenant
p. 266 of Determination 9, ‘Free-will is not granted to the unregenerate for their spiritual good’ inThe Determinations, or Resolutions of Certain Theological Questions, Publicly Discussed in the University of Cambridgetrans. Josiah Allport (1634; 1846) bound at the end of John Davenant, A Treatise on Justification, or the Disputatio de Justitia... trans. Josiah Allport (1631; London, 1846), vol. 2
“For example, take the embryo; we affirm that this properly lives as soon as the heart partakes of life, although the other members of the body are not yet developed.
Why, then, should we not say, that the spiritual embryo, from that very moment in which the heart is embued with spiritual life, is quickened or regenerated, although many parts of sanctification have not yet acquired their distinct, and, as it were, perfect development.”
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Archibald Simson
A Sacred Septenary, or, A Godly & Fruitful Exposition on the Seven Psalms of Repentance… (London: 1623), on Ps. 51:5, p. 105 Simson was a Scottish minister.
“[Ps. 51:5] ‘And in sin hath my mother conceiued me.’ The [Hebrew] word iechematin, signifies properly calefacit, ‘warmed’ me in her womb, ‘fed’ or ‘nourished’ me, referring it to the action of heating and feeding the child in the womb nine month[s].”
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Nicholas Byfield
The Rule of Faith, or an Exposition of the Apostles’ Creed… (London, 1626), 3rd Article, pp. 263-64
“…for in the ordinary course, nature proceeds in this manner: first, there is the mass of blood or seed received in the womb, but there is no parts of a body framed at the first: after a certain number of weeks, nature forms that substance into the parts of the body distinctly, but yet it is without life: then is the soul infused, when the body is organical, and so it is quickened and a true man; it is not before a man, but embryo as they call it…
Now in the course of nature: first, that which is material is formed, as it were the house of the soul, and then the soul is infused, not only as the guest of it, but as the form and life of it:”
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Edward Reynolds
A Treatise of the Passions & Faculties of the Soul of Man (London, 1640), ch. 32
pp. 391-92
“Concerning the original of the soul, diverse men have diversly thought… There are three opinions touching this question:
The first of those who affirm the traduction of the soul by generation, some of which so affirm because they judged it a corporeal substance, as did Tertullian. Others because they believed that one spirit might as easily proceed from another, as one fire or light be kindled by another: as Apollinarius, Nemesi•…, and diverse in the Western Churches, as St. Jerome witnesses.
The second, of those who deny the natural traduction, and say that the soul is •…ion infused into bodies, organized and predisposed to receive them; of which opinion among the ancients were St. Jerome, Hilary, Ambrose, Lactantius, Theodoret, Aeneas Gaz•…us, and of the modern writers, the major part.
The third is of those who do haesitare, stick between both, and dare affirme nothing certain on either side, which is the moderation of St. Augustine and Gregory the great, who affirm that this is a question incomprehensible, and unsolvable in this life. Now the only reason which caused St. Austin herein to hesitate, seems to have been the difficulty of traducing original sin from the parents to the children. For says he (writing unto St. Jerome touching the creation of the soul), ‘If this opinion do not oppugne that most fundamental faith of original sin, let it then be mine; but if it do oppugne it, let it not be thine.'”
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p. 394
“5. If there be nothing taken from the parents of which the soul is formed, then it is not traduced by natural generation: but there is nothing taken from the parents by which the soul is formed; for [otherwise] then in all abortions and miscarrying conceptions the seed of the soul would perish, and by consequence the soul itself would be corruptible, as having its original from corruptible seed. These and diverse other the like arguments are used to confirm the doctrine touching the creation of the reasonabl soul.”
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Gisbert Voet
Select Theological Disputations, vol. 1, pt. 2 tr. by AI by Onku (Utrecht: Johannes a Waesberg, 1648) Latin
‘On Creation’, pt. 8, ‘On Man’, pp. 264-67
“IX. Whether, given that some fetuses live an animal life… if indeed we see that they are endowed with touch, it should immediately be established that they are men…
The same thing is asked among the theologians about abortive [including miscarriages] fetuses: whether, namely, they are men, and will rise again on the last day? We distinguish between those which lived in the womb of the mother with a human life, and those which did not live. About the former we affirm, about the latter we deny.
Augustine (City of God, bk. 22, ch. 13) does not dare to affirm or deny, but in such a way that he inclines to our opinion. But in the Enchiridion, ch. 85, he openly professes it, and with him [the Venerable] Bede [d. 735] and Philip the Presbyter [fl. 431 at the Council of Ephesus] on Job 3:16. Furthermore, Scripture also mentions the abortive fetus in Eccl. 6:3 and 1 Cor. 15:8.
The case is to be decided with respect to the sixth commandment: Whether the procuring of abortion is homicide? Various authors treat of this case:
First, the commentators on Ex. 21:22-23.
Second, Thomas [Aquinas] and others on [Peter Lombard’s] Sentences, bk. 4, dist. 31.
Third, the casuists on the sixth commandment of the Decalogue, and under the [topical] word “abortion.” The authors are to be compared who write about remaining cases, among whom after all others Francesco Coriolano, a theologian of the Capuchin order, seems to have done this most fully – see him: part 4, case 6, p. 736.
Fourth, the jurists on the Law, “Something,” paragraph “Of abortion,” and on the Law, “Cicero,” Digest, “On punishments,” and on the Law, “If a woman,” and on the Law 3, paragraph “From the decree of the Senate,” Digest, “To the Cornelian law on assassins.” The civil and canon criminal lawyers are to be compared.
Fifth, the [ecclesiastical] canonists who accurately and laboriously inquire into this, on ch. “Moses,” 32, question 2. Their practical criminal lawyers are to be compared, among whom is Diaz with the commentaries of Lopez de Salzedo. And the bulls and constitutions of the Popes, and their collectors, whence new laws can be learned – they are Flavio Cherubini, Agostino Barbosa, and Stefano Quaranta, to be cited by us more often. Of whom the last one noted here many and various things, and indicated other authors.
So that we may now give some taste to students and others who do not have leisure to inquire laboriously into these things, or who do not have the books at hand, we set down these conclusions:
1st conclusion: An accurate determination of the case presupposes and requires the knowledge of physicists and physicians about the time when the fetus is animated by a human soul, so that it may be rightly judged whether homicide properly so called has been committed or not.
From Ex. 21:22-23 we are taught that a distinction is to be applied here. Although among [Roman] Catholics even if some doubt should intervene in thesis or hypothesis, nevertheless they think that should be established which is safer, as Quaranta warns, cited place. “The fetus,” he says, “is said to be animated in a male after forty days, in a female after eighty; and if it is doubted whether it is male or female, it is to be presumed to be animated after forty days. Navarrus in the Manual for Confessors, ch. 15, n. 14, because in doubt the safer part is to be chosen, and it is the common opinion, which the sacred penitentiary follows,” etc. The recent casuist Eligio Basseo follows the same opinion, and Coriolano, cited chapter, who nevertheless in ch. 5 distinguishes between the rational soul and the vegetative and sensitive soul, and wants the case to be understood only of animation by the rational soul.
2nd conclusion: That the procuring of abortion, when the fetus is not yet animated, and the procuring and inducing of sterility is a most grave sin against the natural production of men and the propagation of the human race, and cannot be made honest by any good end, Navarrus establishes in his Manual, ch. 16, n. 33.
Whatever to the contrary other casuists, cited by Basseo, Azor, Bonacina, Diana, the annotators on Toletus, etc., except and distinguish under various distinctions dangerous enough here. See Gen. 38:7 and there Cornelius a Lapide in his commentary. For it prevents a human fetus from being conceived, or a conceived one from being animated, which is against Gen. 1:28.
3rd conclusion: Whether in the external forum, both political and ecclesiastical, such an abortion or procuring of sterility is homicide, complete and strictly so called, and is consequently to be punished by an equal penalty with the procured abortion of an animated fetus, is doubted.
The bull of Sixtus V in the year 1588 seems to affirm this, which you have in the Bullarium of Cherubini and in the constitutions of Quaranta. But the bull of Gregory XIV in the year 1589 revokes that and reduces the penalties to the terms of the common law of the sacred canons and the Council of Trent.
But the penalties in the political forum (as Cherubini indicates in his notes on the aforesaid bull) are exile or another chosen penalty according to the quality of the deed and persons, as the civil and canon criminal lawyers teach, cited in the same place. Coriolano, in the cited place, says: “If the author of the crime is noble, having lost part of his goods, he is relegated; but if ignoble, he is condemned to the mines. Digest, On Punishments, Law, ‘If anyone something,’ paragraph ‘Of abortion.'” The more recent casuists and canonists now follow this milder opinion of Gregory XIV, as can be seen in the authors just cited. The Mosaic law seems to suggest and supply some distinction, Ex. 21:22-23. See the commentary of Cornelius a Lapide. Although he is not freed from homicide in the interior forum of conscience before God, where the occasions, beginnings, progymnasms of homicide, even remote and internal ones, are analogically reduced to homicide.
4th conclusion: One who kills an animated fetus by procuring abortion commits true and properly called homicide, because every composite of body and human soul is a man.
Thus Coriolano rightly from the canonists, cited case, paragraphs 2, 3, and he taxes those who lightly say the contrary. For there are among the more recent authors those who in certain cases concede the procuring of abortion through a potion which directly tends to the health of the mother, although it was doubtful that the killing of the fetus would follow. Thus Thomas Sanchez. There are also the dangerous disputations of others, which see in Azor, vol. 3, bk. 1, ch. 4, question 1.
5th conclusion: It is homicide to procure the abortion of an animated fetus, when it is doubted whether the fetus is animated. In the papacy most teach that [the state of] irregularity is incurred by such a one, because he is doubtful whether he is a murderer. [Rom. 14:23]
Diana nevertheless holds the contrary, who for himself cites from the canonists Praepositus and Gomesius. Coriolano distinguishes, cited chapter, n. 4:
“But if it is doubted about the animation of the fetus – whether a religious giving or procuring a potion for abortion, or advising or lending assistance, incurs irregularity? I respond that in the contentious forum, where the question is about punishment, interpretation ought to be made in the milder part: Law, ‘By interpretation,’ Digest, ‘On punishments.’ But in the forum of the soul, where the question is about placating God and amendment, one ought to consider himself a murderer, because in such matters the safer way is to be chosen, as in ch. ‘A young man,’ on betrothal, and it belongs to good minds to fear fault there where there is no fault: ch. ‘To his hearing’ at the end, dist. 5, argument from ch. ‘To his hearing,’ on homicide. See Navarrus in the Manual, ch. 27, n. 223.”
6th conclusion: That all those procuring and advising abortion in any way whatsoever are held by this crime, the bull of Sixtus V establishes, and rightly so.
7th conclusion: That those are held by the same crime who, although they do not indeed directly or immediately inflict death by a potion or in some other way, but procure that the infant be brought forth into the light before the time, so that it cannot be vital.
8th conclusion: Likewise those who have procured abortion by a potion or in some other way, as much as is in them, although the [fatal] effect [to the fetus] has not followed on account of some impediment. Thus Coriolano, and rightly.
9th conclusion: That abortion can be procured in various ways – by potion, cudgel, burden, through magic and sorceries – and consequently this crime is greater or lesser, but is always homicide.
Coriolano proposes doubtful cases there: Whether a cleric introducing a pregnant harlot through the roof, who by falling dies or aborts, becomes irregular; and whether a cleric who jokes or dances with a pregnant woman who aborts becomes irregular. And to both he responds affirmatively. But these and similar things are to be aired elsewhere.”
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‘On Creation’, pt. 9, pp. 279-81
“VI. Problem: Whether there are more than one soul in each man, or whether the vegetative, sensitive and rational in one man are three souls really distinct? I deny.
Gennadius, in his book, On Ecclesiastical Dogmas, ch. 15, imputes as a heresy to James and other disputers that they posited two souls in man, one animal by which the body is animated and is mixed with the blood, and the other spiritual which provides reason – with which opinion those agree who posited two, and indeed opposite souls, namely the sensitive and the rational, of which the former is mortal, the latter immortal, in Clement, bk. 2 of the Stromata and Theodoret bk. 5, On the Cure of Greek affections; and Ockham on the fourth book of The Sentences, distinction 7, Francis de Meyronnes on the second book distinction 17, Pico della Mirandola on the eversion of the singular certitude book 33.
There were some (among whom Didymus, bk. 3 on the Holy Spirit) who from 1 Thess. 5:23 wrongly understood constituted three essential parts in man – body, soul, spirit – in Gennadius chapter 20, Jerome to Hedybia question 12 epistle 150, the author of the work on Spirit and Soul chapter 49. But in response to the objected passage, among the orthodox some understand by “spirit” the grace of the Holy Spirit (Gennadius and Jerome); others the soul itself, which for its diverse functions and respects is called soul, insofar as it animates the body for living or vivifying, and spirit, either because it breathes in the body and makes it vital and spiritual, or because its substance is spiritual (the author of the work on Spirit and Soul, Gennadius cited above, Jerome, bk. 4 on Mt. ch. 27, Tertullian on the Soul ch. 6, Gregory the Great, bk. 11 of the Moralia, ch. 3, Isidore, bk. 11 of the Origins, ch. 1).
We with the more recent interpreters expound “spirit” as the rational part of the soul, and “soul” as the remaining part which we have in common with the brutes. Thus they generally distinguish Mt. 22:37. The Manicheans imagined two souls, one a particle of the divine breath and free from all fault, the other vicious produced by the evil principle, in Augustine book 6 against Faustus chapter 8 and book 10 on the Literal Interpretation of Genesis chapter 13. Plato in the Timaeus, compared with book 9 of the Republic, as Aristotle also reports in book 1 of On the Soul the last chapter, posited three souls. This opinion of his, condemned by the common school, was revived in the previous century by the celebrated philosopher Zabarella in his treatise on the Faculties of the Soul (with Averroes preceding him), whom one or another then followed, among them William Ursinus, who contends that this is the opinion of Aristotle, Disputations part 2 disputation 2. Although we with Hervaeus, treatise on the unity of forms
VII. Problem: Whether therefore it is to be said that the embryo is successively informed by three souls, so that when the sensitive arrives, the vegetative is abolished, and when the rational arrives, the sensitive is abolished? [as was the typical Medieval view]
I answer: Indeed the scholastics commonly say this with Thomas, first part, question 118, article 2, and Summa contra Gentiles, bk. 2, ch. 89, and Scaliger, Exercises 297, section 1 and exercise 290, section 2, the Coimbrans cited above, and all the other Pontifical philosophers and theologians.
To me, however, this opinion has never been pleasing. Now looking around to see if others also judge with me, I find Goclenius in his Exercises on Scaliger, question 5, p. 55 doubting it, but Zanchi, in the chapter cited, openly rejecting it. See their reasons there. To me it has always seemed absurd:
1) To imagine a triple generation and introduction of form, and therefore to constitute a triple species of living nature in act (for the soul is the act of an organic body), so that the pregnant female conceives and carries first not a man, but a plant, and then a brute;
2) Then an abortion which occurs after the animation of the fetus would not always be a man, but sometimes only a plant or brute;
3) Then it could not be judged whether an aborted fetus was to be baptized and honored with (as they say) ecclesiastical burial, because although it lived and moved itself for some moment, there is still no certainty whether the rational soul had been introduced and the sensitive abolished. The Pontificals especially should have thought about this case, who so precisely and anxiously inquire about the necessity of baptism and ecclesiastical burial.
These things I thus commented in the year 1638 in the first edition of this disputation for the determination of the present and immediately preceding problem. Afterwards it happened that some obsolete concepts about the mind or spirit, distinct from the human soul and body, and about the human animal, were rehashed by some more recent authors – which if they are defended with their own thorns and hypotheses to the end, seem to render theology inconvenient and difficult for us somewhere, especially in the refutations of the Socinians and others, ancient and modern. I, given the occasion here, gave in advance to Christian philosophers and theologians to consider in the year 1641, in the corollaries to the disputation on the Jubilee, what inconveniences seemed to me to be able to follow from that new philosopheme about man as a being per accidens.”
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‘On Creation’, pt. 10, after 9th problem, p. 307
“Difficult are the questions, at what time the fetus is animated, and what is the proximate and internal principle of the formation of the fetus, which have their use in the explication of certain passages of scripture, for example Eccl. 11, Ps. 139, and in the disputations on the person of Christ, and in certain cases about abortion and homicide pertaining to the sixth commandment of the Decalogue.
Thomas Feyens inquired into the animation of the fetus in a special treatise, where you will find the varying opinions and authors indicated. He himself, however, diverges from the common and received opinion of the physicians (whom hitherto the fathers, scholastics, and our philosophers and theologians have followed). They also treat of this matter: Sennert and his antagonist Gallego de la Serna, and Freitag. But on this question see below appendix 1 thesis 4.”
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Disputations on Creation, Appendix 1
pp. 328-29, Voet is here refuting Traducianism.
“Nor also can the soul be made from the seed. Because what is made from the body is corporeal. But the soul is not a body. Then it would follow that human seed is animate–which can be pressed by those absurdities from which the patrons of this opinion will not easily extricate themselves.
Nor does the seed concur to the production of the soul in the mode of an intrinsically constitutive principle, which nevertheless is denoted by the particle “from.” Whence it would further follow that the principles of body and soul would be the same, and consequently the essence the same. How absurd this is, no one does not see.
Hence we also conclude that since neither the soul of the parents, nor the seed of the same can intrinsically constitute [a soul], and yet it has an essence by which it is constituted in its own being, it necessarily [then] has it from nothing [on that paradigm], but consequently [therefore it] is created by God, which we intended to prove.
But perhaps souls are disseminated from the plastic power [its capacity for adaptation] which is impressed on the seed; but neither can this be said, since the plastic power conducts itself in the mode of an instrumental and indeed corporeal agent, concurring intrinsically to the constitution of the thing. Then, since the soul is a substance, and the plastic power is an accident, how the soul can be made from it is inexplicable–unless by the power of the principal or substantial agent, but this is corporeal, or a body.
…
4)…
2) If the soul were produced from seed, it would follow that with the seeds concurring, the fetus would immediately be animated. But this is absurd.
3) It would follow that the human soul lies hidden in the seed, either as in the potency of matter, or actually in its receptacle or domicile – both of which are absurd.
4) It would follow that the soul of the father is either transfused and infused with the seed, and dependently on the paternal seed into the uterus of the female, and there on the 40th or 30th day, or whatever other day (on which the soul is said to be in the fetus), produces the soul of the son through detachment or kindling of light, or any other mode of propagation and production; or with the paternal seed still existing in his body, the soul of the son is actually produced in it and dependently on it by the soul of the father, and is constituted outside its causes…
If the latter is said, now it would follow that the soul of the son is infused by the father together with the excretion of the seed into the female uterus, and consequently the fetus is animated from the first moment of the reception of the paternal seed – nay, indeed was already animated in the paternal body before it was poured out. To whichever side they turn here, I do not see how they can extricate themselves from absurdities.“
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After problem 24, pp. 332-33
“Problem 3: At what time the soul is infused into the body.
Although this question as to substance and directly is physiological, nevertheless it has its use in theology, inasmuch as from it is sought the decision of that case which occurs in Ex. 21:22, where God establishes a law concerning those striking a pregnant woman. The words run thus:
“If men fight and strike a pregnant woman, and the things to be born [nati, Latin p. 828] come out, and there is no death, he shall surely be punished as the husband of the woman lays upon him.”
Where there is an open distinction between pregnant women in whom the fetus is animated [animatus est, ensouled], and in whom it is not. It is therefore expedient to know when it is animated.
[Daniel?] Sennert [a Lutheran] in his Physical Hypomnemata, 4, chapter 3, section 3 says:
“Secondly, I think it is most certain that the soul is present immediately from the first conception, as soon as the seed of the father and mother is conjoined and retained in the uterus of the mother, and the body begins to be formed–and whoever asserts the contrary, whether he is a patron of traducianism or of the infusion of the soul, errs from the truth.”
Others who deny that the soul is infused immediately from conception do not agree among themselves at what point of time or with how many days having passed, the intellective soul is united to the body. Valles in his Controversies, bk. 2, ch. 9 at the end says that females are never formed before the fortieth day, but males are formed in thirty or thirty-five days. The Coimbrans in their commentary on Aristotle’s On the Soul, bk. 2, article 2, section 2 say that the more common opinion, which they also follow, is that in males the conformation of the body is completed, and consequently the soul infused, around the fortieth day, in females around the eightieth. Feyens in his treatise, On the Formation of the Fetus, question 8, conclusion 2, says:
“The rational soul is infused around the third day from the conception of the seed, understand if the conception proceeds to life and is not frustrated.”
Whatever may be the case about the precise time of infusion, it must be established that the soul is introduced into a body that is organized and accommodated for receiving the soul. Which is proved:
1) from Zech. 12:1, where God is said to form the spirit in the midst of man. But this cannot be said if he infuses it into the seed, because the seed is nothing of man, except only in potency.
2) From reason. Because it happens against nature and per accidens [through an Aristotelian accident] that the soul is not united to the body; but we said before that what is per se [through itself, such as the soul] is [metaphysically] prior to what is per accidens; therefore it is more fitting to the soul to be united to the [formed] body [at circa 40 days] than to be not united [but attached to a zygote]. But it cannot be united unless the matter is predisposed; therefore, in general it is required that the body be disposed before the soul can exist.
These arguments press the opinions of Sennert and Feyens. To which also add this against both: If on the third day from conception, when it is probable that the conformation is not yet perfect, and consequently the soul is not yet united to the body, it happens that the seed is corrupted or ejected from the uterus, what will become of that soul?
It is not probable that it is to be annihilated. Nor will it be united to that unformed seed in the Last Judgment; for only men will rise again, and that was never a part of man. Nor can it always exist separately, since this is against its nature, insofar as it says a natural order to the body.
Apply here also what we brought against the opinion which holds that all souls were made in the beginning of creation, where we proved that they were not made before they were united to matter–but we are speaking of a priority of time.
As to those opinions which assign the animation of the male to the thirtieth or thirty-fifth day from conception, but of the female to the fortieth, or which assign that of the male to the fortieth, of the female to the eightieth – it is scarcely credible that the animation of the fetus should be extended beyond the period of the former opinion, so that the latter seems to extend the animation too far.
Those who extend it the furthest, to persuade what they think, bring forth the law of purification which Moses enacted in Lev. 12:2. See Maldonado on Lk. ch. 2, Toledo there annotation 34, who with others take the reason for the doubled days of purification from the days in which the fetus is animated–the male with forty having elapsed, but the female with eighty. Hurtado warns in his disputation On Generation, 2, section 112, that the doctors of this opinion do not try to show the days of formation from that law, but suppose that opinion from Aristotle and other philosophers, which being posited, they give the difference between the purification of one giving birth to a son and a daughter. The Coimbrans nevertheless in the cited place directly prove their opinion, and this one, from this passage.
But the foundation is slippery. For it is not certain to us from that passage that the reason for that law is a certain period of formation. From the same passage one could conclude that the fetus is animated on the seventh or fourteenth day, namely because the members are then conformed, although the perfect formation is extended to the fortieth or eightieth day, since even that is not simply necessary for the soul to be received. But he will prove it from the fact that the graver impurity is terminated on the eighth day, if she had borne a male, but on the fifteenth, if a female. Hurtado in the cited disputation, section 112, says:
“What the period of embryonism is, and what the beginning of animation, neither Hippocrates, nor Galen, nor Aristotle know; but He knows who knows all things. For the precise definition of that matter is endured neither by the diversity of the seed itself from time to time, nor by the different disposition of the uterus or of the whole mother.”
Cornelius a Lapide in his commentary on Leviticus 12, after attacking the opinion of Maldonado, concludes:
“The proper and genuine cause of this sanction and disparity is the will and good pleasure of God, etc. which is apposite to nature, namely on account of the greater flux of humors and corruption of blood, and the greater languor of the one giving birth in the birth of a female; for as Theodoret teaches, women are wont to labor more gravely when they bear a female than when a male.”
To this join the congruity of Francisco Vallés (whom see ch. 18 of his Sacred Philosophy), that the flux of blood in the birth of a male can last to the 40th day, in a female to the 80th, or rather that it never exceeds these terms, so that if the terms define not so much the maximum or most that happens, as the most and maximum that does not. Let it suffice to have said that this dispute of the physicians and physicists is not ours, provided that the genuine explication of the sayings of scripture and the theological truths about the incarnation of Christ are guarded.
Meanwhile, we have nothing against that opinion which holds that it is not credible that animation is extended beyond the thirtieth or thirty-fifth day in males, and the fortieth in females.”
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Anthony Ascham
The Bounds & Bonds of Public Obedience, or a Vindication of our Lawful Submission to the Present Government… (London, 1649), p. 27 This was more than likely written by Ascham despite it being attributed to Rouse.
“Philosophers hold that the definition of a man belongs to an infant as well as to one of many years, because after the organization of the parts, he is informed with the same principle of life and reason as a grown man is; and having the same form, is the same thing.”
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Samuel Rutherford
The Trial & Triumph of Faith… (London, 1652), Sermon 21, ‘Then Jesus Answered & Said unto Her, ‘O Woman, great is thy Faith, etc.”, pp. 312-14
“1. There be some preparations which go before faith: Faith is a seed of heaven… so does the Lord set up a new world of faith in a soul void of faith by degrees: There’s a time when there’s neither perfect night, nor perfect day: but the twilight of the morning… There’s a half summer, and a half spring in the close of the spring which God made. The embryo, or birth not yet animated, is neither seed only, nor a man-child only…
…
3. Its true, the new creation and life of God is virtually seminaliter [seminally] in these preparations, as the seed is a tree in hope, the blossom an apple, the foundation a palace in its beginning; so half a desire in the non-converted is love sickness for Christ in the seed, legal humiliation is in hope evangelic repentance and mortification:
But as the seed and the growing tree differ not gradually only, but in nature and specifically, as a thing without life is not of that same nature and essence with a creature that has a vegetative life and growth, so the preparatory good affections of desire, hunger sorrow, humiliation going before conversion, differ specifically from those renewed affections which follow after…”
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John Mayer
A Commentary upon the Whole Old Testament… (London, 1653), Exodus, ch. 21, p. 558
“If it be further demanded, whether in case that death follows, it be to be understood of any child, how little time soever the mother has gone with it?
I answer with Simlerus that we must distinguish between a child formed and unformed, if the child were an embryo, not yet perfected, although it perished, the party, by whose stroke, was not to be put to death, but for such only as was come to perfection, so likewise Augustine and Jerome in Decretis, Causa 32, Question 2, Ch. Mosis, and the words of the text, ‘life for life’, seem to make for it, that a man’s life must not be paid but for one living and perfected, and the Septuagint make this plain by rendering, ‘not death’, [Hebrew], ‘not formed’.”
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Anthony Burgess
The True Doctrine of Justification Asserted & Vindicated… (London, 1654), sermon 24, p. 230
“As in the generation of man, though there be organical dispositions and qualifications for the soul, yet they have no causality upon the soul, but that is immediately infused by God.”
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A Treatise of Original Sin (London, 1658), p. 2, ch. 24, sect. 7, p. 201
“The Third Proposition, The soul being thus created an essential part of a man, and the form informing of him: Hence it is that we must not conceive the soul to be first created, as it were, of itself subsisting, and then infused into the body, but when the materials are sufficiently prepared then as the schoolmen expresse it well, Infundendo creatur, and creando infuditur, ‘it’s infused by the creating of it’, and ‘created by infusing’;
So that the soul is made in the body organized, not without it; so the Scripture, Zech. 12:1, ‘Who formeth the spirit of man with him,’ and because of the soul’s union to the body when thus disposed;”
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Joseph Hall
Cases of Conscience Practically Resolved… (London, 1654), 2nd Decade, Case 3, ‘Whether may it be lawful, in case of extremity, to procure the abortion of the child for the preservation of the mother?’, pp. 90-91, 93-95. Hall was a godly Anglican bishop.
“…our causuists… consider of the conception, either as it is before it receive life, or after that it is animated: Before it receive life, they are wont to determine, that howsoever it were no less than mortal sin, in a physician to prescribe a medicinal receit [prescription] to cause abortion, for the hiding of a sin, or any outward secular occasion, yet for the preservation of the life of the mother, in an extreme danger (I say, before animation) it might be lawful: But after life once received, it were an heinous sin to administer any such mortal remedy.
The latter casuists are better advised; and justly hold that to give any such expelling or destructive medicine, with a direct intention to work an abortment (whether before or after animation) is utterly unlawful, and highly sinful: And with them I cannot but concur in opinion; For, after conception we know that naturally follows animation, there is only the time that makes the difference, which in this case is not so considerable as to take off a sin…
…the Septuagint in their translation (as [Leonardus] Lessius well observes) have rendered that Mosaical law (in Ex. 21[:22-23]) concerning abortions, in these terms:
‘If a man strike a woman that is with child, and she make an abortion, if the child were formed, he shall give his life for the life of the child; if it were not formed, he shall be punished with a pecuniary mulct to her husband,’
applying that to the issue [the fetus] which the Vulgar Latin understands of the mother; and making the supposition to
be of a formation and life, which the Latin more agreeably to the [Hebrew] original, makes to be ‘death’; and our English [KJV], with Castalion expresses by ‘mischief’: but whether the mischief be meant of the death of the mother or of the late-living issue, the Scripture has not declared: Cornelius à Lapide taking it expresly of the mother’s death, yet draws the judgement out, in an equal length to the death of the child, once animated; making no difference of the guilt; since the infant’s soul is of no less worth than her’s that beats him.”
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Thomas Blake
Vindiciæ foederis, or, A Treatise of the Covenant of God… (London, 1658), ch. 19, p. 114
“That opinion that the soul is by an immediate creation infused, how generally soever it is received, yet never was thought of force to render the way of marriage useless for procreation; God infuses not a soul by creation into any, but an organized body, an embryo fitted to receive it.”
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Charles Drelincourt
The Christian’s Defense against the Fears of Death… (London, 1675), ch. 23, pp. 443-44
“When He creates a human soul and pours it into an organized body, it is not that it should be there as water in a vessel, or as a king in his palace: it lives not thereas an assisting form, or as an outward cause of the body’s operations, but it is united to it by a very strict union, and serves as an essential form; It is the principle of our life, the internal cause of motion of sense, and of understanding: So that if we will speak properly, man cannot be said to be altogether of a spiritual nature, as the holy angels, nor a single body, as the sun, and the stars; but, he is made up of both:”
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John Trapp
Commentary (d. 1669) on Ex. ch. 21, v. 22
“Ver. 22. And yet no mischief follow,] i.e., No life be lost. There is a time, then, when the embryo is not alive; therefore the soul is not begotten, but infused after a time by God. Infundendo creatur, et creando infunditur, says Augustine, who at first doubted, till overcome by Jerome’s arguments.”
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George Hughes & Osiander
An Analytical Exposition of the Whole First Book of Moses, called Genesis, and of XXIII chap. of his Second Book, called Exodus… (1672), ch. 21, p. 922 Hughes (d. 1677) was a puritan.
“Question 4, Whose mischief or death is here supposed to follow [in v. 23, in contrast to v. 22]?
Answer 1: The mother’s death, if she should die of it, but not only her’s; however some think so. Osiander: 2. The child’s death also is here intended, after which God looks, that it should be preserved in the womb, as a man’s life to be secured in his house; but this fruit of the womb must be supposed actually to have life, as the judgement supposes, which gives life for life.
Question 5, What is the burden of the judgment hereupon?
Answer: The sentence of retaliation, life for life, if mother or child die, the smiter must die also; only by a just proceeding in judgment, and legal trial and proof according to the law, and that before lawful judges, not common arbitrators.”
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Matthew Poole
Annotations
on Ex. ch. 21, v. 22
“‘No mischief follow’, neither to the woman nor child; for it is generally so as to reach both, in case the abortive had life in it.”
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William Annand
Doxologia; or Glory to the Father… (London, 1672), Doxologia; or Glory to the Holy Ghost, Reduced to Practice, section 1, p. 124
“At the Creation the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, Gen. 1.1. So that He was at the framing of this world; and because of that, must be concluded to exist before the world: for when a man in verity can be said to subsist without a soul, the eternity of God shall be allowed, granting Him to abide without his Spirit; which here brooded over the world’s embryo, animating the same for production, infusing such vivifying heat as might capacitate the first confused mass, to bring forth the several forms of things we behold…”
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Richard Baxter
Schism Detected in both Extremes, or Two Sorts of Sinful Separation… (London: 1684), ch. 4, pp. 20-21
“III. The union of pastor and flock in relation makes that which is a form-aptitudinal (as the soul to the body) to be the form in act (as the union of soul and body)…
IV. Union is in order to communion, which is primary by the exercise of the formal powers on the matter, and secondary by the action of all the parts according to their several capacities and offices.
…
VI. These several degrees of union are found in bodies natural and politic:
1. The union of soul and body makes a man, and an embryo before it be organized.
2. The union of the body makes it capable of the soul’s further operation.
3. The union of the organical, chief parts (as heart, lungs, etc.) to the rest make it a true human body completed to the nutriment and action of life.
4. That it have hands and fingers, feet and toes, and all integral parts, makes it an entire body.
5. The due site, temperament and qualities of each part make it a sound body. 6. Comely color, hair, action, going, speech, etc. make it a comely body.
7. To have all parts of equal quantity and office would make it uncomely: and to have the same hair, color, etc. is unnecessary at all.”
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Samuel Lee
The Joy of Faith, or, a Treatise Opening the True Nature of Faith… (Boston, 1687), pt. 2, ch. 1, section 6, p. 93 Lee, M. A. (d. 1691) was “sometime Fellow of Wadham, Colledge, Oxford”.
“I might trace a little the time of faith’s first infusion and first operation in the heart, which is undoubtedly at the new birth, when ever it is. But how to prescribe, and when precisely to determine that, in the soul of a believer is more difficult than to state the quickening or animation of an embryo in the womb of her that is with child, or for any naturallist so set the moment of the first separation of night from day at the initiating crepusculum or ascent of the first atom of the morning rays of the sun’s body, or the primogenial fermentation of the vegetative soul in the seed-corn in the earth… It’s much more difficult to set down the first punctual workings of the Spirit in our hearts.”
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John Edwards
A Demonstration of the Existence & Providence of God… (London, 1696), 2nd Part, ch. 6, pp. 109-110
“…we cannot give an account of the whole process of generation, which consists of conception, formation or the delineation of the several parts, and animation by infusing the soul; but this we know, that it far surpasses all finite power.
And without doubt Monsieur Descartes, who was so thinking a philosopher, would never have ascribed this great work to mere mechanism, but that he was unawares betrayed into it by his solving of other things by mechanic principles: So that it would be expected that he should make an uniform piece of philosophy. And thence he was, as it were, forced to go through with his work that he had begun, and to maintain that all is done mechanically, even in the production of man.”
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On Westminster & the Timing of Ensoulment
Travis Fentiman,
Oct. 2024
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Intro
Given the dominant view of the Reformed Orthodox in the mid- and second-half of the 1600’s, that a human person begins at ensoulment, when God creates and infuses the soul into a formed body capable of it in the womb, at around 42 days after conception,¹ it may be wondered what is to be made of certain statements about “conception” in the 1640’s Westminster standards.
¹ See Fentiman, 2. ‘The Time of Ensoulment & of the Hypostatic Union’ in ‘An Introduction to Peter van Mastricht on Christ’s Human Nature as Non-Personal, the Time of Ensoulment in the Womb…’ (RBO, 2024), pp. 10-16
It appears the standards reflect language capable of being affirmed by all three main views: (1) the main Medieval view,ª (2) the circa-42-day view, and (3) that a-human-soul-is-present-from-conception view (which a minority of the reformed held, including Westminster divines).
Samuel Rutherford, as quoted below, is an example of a Westminster divine who took the circa-42-day view with no apparent issues, either at Westminster or in the Church of Scotland. Anthony Burgess and Edward Reynolds (quoted above on this webpage) were other Westminster divines who took this view. The rest of this article will show how the standards may be legitimately understood as allowing this view.
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Original Sin & “Conception” (Narrow & Broad)
in Scripture
Larger Catechism #26 says that all men “are conceived and born in sin.” If a human person does not exist until ensoulment at around 42 days after conception, can it be said that the person was conceived in sin?
“Conception” may be taken either narrowly or broadly. That “conception” is sometimes and even often understood broadly in Scripture Edward Kellet (d. 1641), a Calvinistic Anglican divine, in part showed in 1635, before the time of the Westmister Assembly:
“So Eve conceived and bare Cain, Gen. 4:1, and Cain’s wife conceived and bare Enoch, v. 17. Again, Gen. 16:11, the angel says to Hagar, Concepisti et paries filium [‘You have conceived and shall bare a son’]: ‘Thou art with child,’ says our late [KJV] Translation, ‘and shalt bear a son.’ And usually in the Scriptures there are only made two degrees of man’s nativity:
First, ‘conception,’ wrapping within its verge generation, with all degrees of formation, nutrition and augmentation.
Secondly, ‘birth’ or bringing forth.
Whereupon they often run in couplets together, Concepit et peperit, where conception is extended unto our nativity.” Miscellanies of Divinity (1635), bk. 1, ch. 6, p. 97
One of the main words in Hebrew for conceiving is הָרֶה, hara, which also routinely means (and is translated as) being “with child”, or being pregnant (for example: 1 Sam. 4:19; Isa. 26:17; Jer. 20:17; 31:8; Hos. 13:16; Amos 1:13 et al.). See Strongs Concordance #2030.
Gen. 3:16 uses a different word for conception, הֵרוֹן, heron. God speaks to Eve in the verse after her sin: “‘I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children…'” (KJV) Brown-Driver-Briggs, a standard Hebrew lexicon, defines the term as “conception, pregnancy” (see at Strongs #2032). Given the implicit breadth of significance the word clearly conveys in Gen. 3:16, many Bible translations translate the phrase as “I will greatly increase your pain in childbirth,” and others “in childbearing.”
Why did the KJV translate the Hebrew word as “conception” in Gen. 3:16 when that doesn’t even make sense today? Because “conception” in their day, reflecting Scripture, often meant the whole of pregnancy.
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Reformed Divines on Ps. 51
Ps. 51:5, “in sin did my mother conceive me,” uses a different, less common Hebrew word, יָחַם, yacham, which means “be hot, conceive, be warm.” (see Strongs #3179) A leading English presbyterian puritan Thomas Wilcox (d. 1608) interpreted the term in this verse in 1591 in this way:
“‘…he having original sin from his parents, was in that sin ‘conceived’, that is, fostered and nourished in his mother’s womb, and brought forth in the same, for so largely do I take the word of ‘conceiving’, the beginning of a thing being put for the growth, proceeding and continuance of the same thing.” A Very Godly & Learned Exposition upon the Whole Book of Psalms (1591), on Ps. 51, p. 151
Archibald Simson (d. 1628) was a covenanting Scottish presbyterian minister. In 1623 he wrote on the same verse and Hebrew word that it:
“signifies properly calefacit, ‘warmed’ me in her womb, ‘fed’ or ‘nourished’ me, referring it to the action of heating and feeding the child in the womb nine month[s].” A Sacred Septenary, or, A Godly & Fruitful Exposition on the Seven Psalms of Repentance… (London: 1623), on Ps. 51:5, p. 105
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“Conception” used Broadly by Divines
Kellet in more length documents how “conception” has been used in a broad sense by divines, reflecting a common strain in Scripture:
“But take we ‘conception’ largely, and as divines do use the word (for the preparatory formation, or a degree of it, is a kind of conception…)… we may be said to be conceived in sin [in Ps. 51:5], ‘conception’ being taken for the time of our perfecter [more perfect] formation, extendable almost to our nativity. In iniquitatibus conceptus sum, says Lyra [a Medieval commentator, a proponent of the circa-42-day view]:
‘Because man descending from Adam by carnal generation, in the union of the soul with the body [at ensoulment, circa 42 days], contracts original sin, which inclines to actual sins.’
[Immanuel] Tremellius [Reformed] has it, ‘In iniquitate formatus sum, et in peccato fovit me mater mea‘ [‘In iniquity I was formed, and in sin my mother warmed and cherished me’]: and expounds it in this manner:
‘I am guilty of iniquity and sin, being framed and warmed in the womb; for these pertain not to the form of the conception, shaping and warming, but to the constitution of the fruit.’
[Francis] Vatablus [a Romanist] renders it, In iniquitate genitus sum ‘[in iniquity I was born’], and interprets it, ‘I have been fashioned, framed, born.’ ‘Conceived me’, that is, ‘brought forth’, says Emanuel Sà [a Romanist], out of Jerome… St. Augustine, following the Septuagint, with Theodoret and others, for the reading, In iniquitatibus conceptus sum, has these passages:
‘The very band of death is grown together with sin itself: None is born without drawing punishment, without drawing the merit of punishment…’
and he does in a sort parallel this place with another place of the prophet… Job 15:14. Our English late [KJV] Translators vary thus, ‘I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive or warm me,’ as it is in the margin [confirmed here]: which shaping and warming is also after the union of the reasonable soul to the body.
Not one of all these does take conception strictly and physically, but largely and significantly enough both to the Scripture and to our purpose…
…
Ambrose says… ‘We are conceived in iniquity’: which is true, and confessed, if we take ‘conception’ largely…
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Lastly, in our very [Apostles’] Creed ‘conception’ is used with liberty and freedom, and not narrowly imprisoned: Christ ‘was conceived of the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary,’ where ‘conception’ includes in itself formation of the bodily parts and unition of the soul…” Ibid., pp. 94-97
Thus it is very true, according to the language of Scripture and the Post-Reformation era, taking ‘conception’ in a broad sense, that we “are conceived and born in sin.”
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“Conceived” in a Narrow Sense
But what about ‘conceived’ in the Westminister standards possibly bearing a narrow sense, referring to the fertilization of a female egg?
It is affirmed that a person cannot properly be sinful until that person exists, yet it is also affirmed that the embryo and zygote from which the human person partly materially arises from suffers the effects of sin, being corrupted, it in some way transmitting a sinful nature, though the embryo or zygote is not properly and fully sinful, nor can it sin (it being without knowledge, will and consent, or even the principle of these). 1 Pet. 1:23 speaks of “being born again, not of corruptible seed”.
Peter van Mastricht, a Dutch paragon of Reformed Orthodoxy, described this view in this manner, speaking of the conception of Christ, saying that the Holy Spirit:
“as it were cleansed the seed of the Virgin, not indeed from moral impurity or sin, inasmuch as a seed not yet ensouled is not liable to that, but from physical intemperateness, from which, in its own time, sin could have resulted, or at the least He preserved the birth from all impurity, to the end that what would be born of her would be holy (Luke 1:35).” Theoretical Practical Theology (RHB), vol. 4, bk. 5, ch. 10, section 5, pp. 298-99
For a further exposition and defense of this view by Kellet, see above on this page, ‘On the Imputation & Conveyance of Original Sin in Relation to Conception, Gestation & Ensoulment’. As the embryo or zygote from which we will arise may obviously be called “ours” in a very real respect, insofar as we arise in part from it, so it may be easily said in an improper sense that we are narrowly “conceived and born in sin.”
Yet there is another respect in which the narrow sense of conception in the phrase of the Catechism may be affirmed. Mastricht hints at it above at the end of his passage, that all persons “are conceived”, and later are “born in sin.”
Given the consensus nature of the Westminster assembly and its processess for producing the standards, an assembly member holding to the 42-day view (of which there must have been many) could have legitimately so affirmed the phrase of the catechism, and likely did. Hence the very ambiguity of the Catechism (it could have expressed itself in much more explicit and specific detail), in light of such a prominent issue, which was historically very well known, must be considered part of its original intent.
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Christ
The standards speak of the “Son of God… being conceived” in WCF 8.2 and WLC 37 & 46-47.
This is consistent with a broad sense of ‘conception’. It is also consistent with the narrow sense, insofar as the “holy thing” conceived in Mary (Lk. 1:35) was peculiarly the Son of God’s, though He was not personally united to it at that time. Mastricht speaks of it in this way.
It is not coincidental that the peculiar Greek language of Lk. 1:35, “that holy thing which,” is in the neuter, as is the language of Mt. 1:20, “that which is conceived in her.” The Luke passage goes on saying, “that holy thing which”, in the future, “shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God,” in the future.
This all being consistent with the circa 42 day view, yet Scripture also, as one might expect (it often speaking with familiar, flexible and common language), says “He was conceived in the womb.” (Lk. 2:21) However “conceived” (συλλαμβάνω, sullambano) here need not necessarily be in the narrow sense, as Thayer’s Greek Lexicon, a standard, says that the word often translates the Hebrew hara (examined above) in the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament,º which translation had a significant influence on the language of the New Testament. Hara routinely means being “with child”, or being pregnant, and so these notions may well be within the scope of sullambano in Lk. 2:21.
º See Strongs #4815.
Likewise, it is not surprising that Mastricht often speaks of Christ being conceived, whether that be in a broad respect, or by more flexible language in a narrow respect. Rutherford (who had an Aristotelian education) is another example of a reformed divine similarly using such language. In The Trial and Triumph of Faith (1652), he says that “the Son should be conceived, and born.” (sermon 12, p. 128) But when he comes to mention the matter (albeit tangentially) in more detail and precision in the same book, he clearly assumes the (Aristotelian) foundational principles of the circa 42 day view:
“1. There be some preparations which go before faith: Faith is a seed of heaven… so does the Lord set up a new world of faith in a soul void of faith by degrees: There’s a time when there’s neither perfect night, nor perfect day: but the twilight of the morning… There’s a half summer, and a half spring in the close of the spring which God made. The embryo, or birth not yet animated, is neither seed only, nor a man-child only…
…
3. Its true, the new creation and life of God is virtually seminaliter [seminally] in these preparations, as the seed is a tree in hope, the blossom an apple, the foundation a palace in its beginning…
But as the seed and the growing tree differ not gradually only, but in nature and specifically, as a thing without life is not of that same nature and essence with a creature that has a vegetative life and growth, so the preparatory good affections of desire, hunger sorrow, humiliation going before conversion, differ specifically from those renewed affections which follow after…” Sermon 21, pp. 312-14
Hence the relevant passages of the Westminster standards could have been legitimately affirmed by persons that held the dominant mid and late-1600’s Reformed Orthodox view of ensoulment, and they can likewise be so affirmed by persons who hold that same view today.
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On the Definition of a Human
Quote
William Ames
A Fresh Suit Against Human Ceremonies in God’s Worship… (Amsterdam: Thorp, 1633), Manuduction, ch. 4, ‘Concerning the nature and definition of a ceremony’, pp. 32
“…for wheresoever the form or proper nature of a thing is, there the thing formed will be, as it’s a sound kind of reasoning, where there is a reasonable soul as a form, there is a man:”
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On the Zygote & Embryo
Calvin
Commentary on Ps. 139:16
“16. ‘Thine eyes beheld my shapelessness, etc.’ The embryo, when first conceived in the womb, has no form; and David speaks of God’s having known him when he was yet a shapeless mass, τὸ κύημα, as the Greeks term it; for τὸ εμβρυον is the name given to the fetus from the time of conception to birth inclusive. The argument is from the greater to the less. If he was known to God before he had grown to certain definite shape, much less could he now elude his observation…
The other is the more natural meaning, that the different parts of the human body are formed in a succession of time; for in the first germ there is no arrangement of parts, or proportion of members, but it is developed, and takes its peculiar form progressively… that though the members were formed in the course of days, or gradually, none of them had existed; no order or distinctness of parts having been there at first, but a formless substance. And thus our admiration is directed to the providence of God in gradually giving shape and beauty to a confused mass.”
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Arthur Jackson
Commentary on Ps. 139
“Verse 16. ‘Thine eyes did see my substance yet being unperfect,’ etc.]
That is, so soon as ever I was conceived, whilst I was yet an imperfect embryo: and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them; that is, all those members of my body, which in continuance of time grew to have their perfect shape, were as clearly seen by thee, even when as yet there was none of them that had their shape and proportion, as those things are seen by men…”
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That the Soul is from Conception in the Hylemorphic View
Feser, Edward – pp. 120-22 of ch. 4, ‘Psychology’ in Aquinas: a Beginner’s Guide (OneWorld, 2010)
Feser is an analytical Thomist and here argues, with some other contemporary Thomists, against Aquinas’s view (typical of the Middle Ages) that the human soul is only present after around 42 days from conception.
As a note of criticism, Feser does not distinguish between being potentially and seminally human and having the essence of an actualized human nature.
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On the Imputation & Conveyance of Original Sin in Relation to Conception, Gestation & Ensoulment
Quotes
1600’s
Edward Kellet
Miscellanies of Divinity, divided into Three Books, wherein is Explained at Large the Estate of the Soul in her Origination, Separation, Particular Judgement… (Cambridge, 1635), bk. 1, ch. 6 Kellet (1583-1641) was a doctor of divinity and a calvinistic, Anglican, canon in the cathedral church at Exeter.
p. 90
“1… And this nature is conveyed unto us by generation; conveyed (I say) as corrupt, not as sinfull: and so corrupt as flesh and bloud can be, before a reasonable soul be united to it. So that we being in Adam, secundum causam seminalem, & propagandi virtutem [according to a seminal cause and power of propagating] our first father transmitted after his fall some corruption unto all his children.”
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pp. 91-92
“1… And the means he [Aquinas] thus there describes. ‘Though the soul be not in the seed, yet in it is a dispositive virtue apt to receive the soul; which when it is infused, is conformed to it so far as it is capable, because every thing received is in the receiver according to his capacity.’
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I need not doubt to say that the corruption which the fleshly part draws from our first parent, before the soul be united [to it], is not sin, but a punishment of sin, a debility of nature, an effect of sin. For if the embryo should die, or suffer abortion [a miscarriage] before the infusion and unition of the reasonable soul (as such a time there is, and such a thing may be) it must [then] appear in judgment, and, without extraordinary mercy, be damned, if there were sin in it:
But that a lump of flesh, which only lived the life of a plant, at the utmost the life of a brute creature (for indeed some abortions, seeming liveless lumps, being pricked have contracted themselves and showed they had sense) which never had reasonable soul or spirit, or life of man (for those three several lives are not only virtually but really distinguished); I say, that such a rude mass of flesh should be liable to account and capable of eternal either joy or pain, is strange divinity; which yet follows necessarily if sin be in the seed or unformed embryo.
But you may ask when sin begins? I answer: So soon as the soul is united there is a reasonable subject susceptible of sin; and then sin enters. Original sin is in the reasonable soul as in the proper subject, and is there formally: the fleshly seed is the instrumental means of traduction, both of humane nature and original sin. Original sin (in a large sense) may be said to be in the flesh, and fleshly seed virtually, as in the cause instrumental, and to be in it originally, causally, materially; and in such sort to be sooner in the body than in the soul, by the order of generation and time: but exactly, and in most proper terms, sin is sooner in the soul by the order of nature; and has its first residence in the substance of the soul, then in the faculties of it, and last of all in the body.
2. In Bishop [Thomas] Bilson’s Survey [of Christ’s Sufferings for Man’s Redemption and of his Descent to Hades or Hell for our Deliverance, (1604), pt. 1], p. 173, this position following is produced, and maintained against him by his opposers, ‘Pollution, that is sin and real iniquity, is not in our flesh without the soul.’ The Bishop answers very copiously:
‘The soul comes not to the body presently with the conception. Mothers and midwives do certainly distinguish the time of quickening from the time of conceiving; neither does the child quicken presently upon conception.
That the body is not straightway framed upon the conception, many thousand scapes in all females, and namely women, do prove. Physicians and philosophers interpose many months between the conception and the perfection of the body. Job says we were first as milk, then condensed as cruds, after clothed with skin and flesh, lastly compacted with bones and sinews, before we received life and soul from God, Job 10:10[-12].
The New Testament notes three degrees in framing our bodies: seed, blood, flesh. Upon the premises he thus argues. If nothing can be defiled with sin (as by your doctrine you resolve) except it have a reasonable soul, of necessity we either had reasonable souls at the instant of our conception, which is a most famous falsehood, repugnant to all learning, experience and to the words of Job, or else we were not conceived in sin, which is a flat heresy, dissenting from the plain words of the sacred Scriptures and from the Christian Faith.’
So far Bishop Bilson. If company may excuse his opinion, I add these. First, Mollerus [a Lutheran] accords with him:
‘That [Hebrew word] cholal [the first verb in Ps. 51:5] is to be referred to the time of conception, so soon as ever it was conceived in the womb; and yacham [second in Ps. 51:5] to the time that the fetus lies hid and is carried in the womb, signifying the seed was impure, the conception was not without the flames of concupiscence, and all the mass of blood that nourishes the embryo was defiled with vices in the womb: and lastly, the mass of the embryo, when in the first ardor of conception it first began to be warmed by the womb, was contaminated with sin.’
Enough of Mollerus. [Martin] Chemnitz [a Lutheran] in his Examen de Peccato Originali, p. 167, thus:
‘When the mass of the embryo in the first ardor of conception began to be warmed and cherished by the heat of the womb, it was already defiled with sin; which defilement, according to David’s confession, was truly a sin, when the instruments of the mind or of the will or of the heart were not yet framed.’
Luther, on the words, In iniquitatibus conceptus sum [In iniquities I was conceived, Ps. 51], thus:
‘David speaks not of any works, but simply of the matter and being; and he says the human seed of which I have been conceived is all corrupted with vice and sin. The matter itself is infected: that clay of which this little vessel has begun to be fashioned is damnable: the fruit in the womb, before we be born and begin to be men, is sin.’
Jerome, in his commentary on the [same Biblical]
words: ‘Whatsoever is drawn and derived from Adam is conceived and born in original sin.’ Cajetan thus:
‘This is the text from which original sin is deduced, wherein every one is said to be conceived in original sin by the conjunction of male and female.’
All this shall not make me believe that there is sin and real iniquity without a reasonable soul. [Flaccius] Illyricus [a Lutheran] is justly deserted for saying, ‘The very substance of the soul is sinful.’ And these deserve as few followers who say that ‘the substantial, bodily, soul-wanting [lacking] mass is sinful.’ And I profess in this latter to take part with others rather than with the otherwise most reverend and learned Bishop. For there can be no sin in a thing reasonless.
Unto Bishop Bilson I thus answer that all his premisses are true, that I subscribe to his opinion in the first member of his disjunction. The second part of it I do wholly deny; nor do I fear his aspersion of heresy. To the place [of Ps. 51:5] of the psalmograph [psalmist], I answer with reverence by distinguishing:
First, that the words ‘sin’ and ‘iniquity’ are taken rather for inclinations to sin than for sin properly so called: thus we were conceived in sin, that is, so soon as ever we were conceived we had a propension and aptitude to sin, such and as much as the flesh was then capable of. Augustine thus, ‘Albeit cattle be void of reason, yet even of them we say oft that they ought to be beaten when they sin.’ But let us leave the vulgar forms of speech. The said father annexes, ‘To sin properly is but of him that uses the pleasure and liking of a reasonable will.’
Secondly, If you will needs take ‘sin’ according to its true definition, then I distinguish of ‘conception’, which is used either strictly and properly or at large and extensively. The first way is followed by naturalists [natural philosophers / scientists], anatomists, physicians and philosophers; the second way by divines.
The first way, they make ‘conception’ to be an action of the womb: for when the womb has [1] begun its work with attraction (Nam sitiens haurit venerem, interiúsque recondit) and continued it both by [2] permixtion thereof and [3] immuring retention; in the fourth and last place it ends the operation by the suscitation of the inclosed sperms, which is properly called ‘conception’. The spiritus artifex, and the foetus only forms, nourishes and increases what is done afterwards: the womb only contains, and therefore conserves, because the place is the conservation of the thing placed in it.
To say that we did sin properly when our mother thus conceived us is to say we sinned before we had life: and we may as well be said to sin while we were in our father’s seed (before their conjunction and commixture with our mother’s, which is not an hour before conception), and so in their blood before seed, and in their meat ere it was blood. Thus, I dare say the Spirit of God never meant that we were conceived in sin, and the traducted matter is not properly full of sin or sins at all.
But take we ‘conception’ largely, and as divines do use the word (for the preparatory formation, or a degree of it, is a kind of conception, as the exact formation unto the full grown measure a little before the nativity may be called ‘the completory conception’) we may be said to be conceived in sin, ‘conception’ being taken for the time of our perfecter formation, extendible almost to our nativity. In iniquitatibus conceptus sum, says Lyra [a Medieval commentator]:
‘Because man descending from Adam by carnal generation, in the union of the soul with the body, contracts original sin, which inclines to actual sins.’
[Immanuel] Tremellius [Reformed] has it, ‘In iniquitate formatus sum, et in peccato fovit me mater mea‘: and expounds it in this manner:
‘I am guilty of iniquity and sin, being framed and warmed in the womb; for these pertain not to the form of the conception, shaping and warming, but to the constitution of the fruit.’
[Francis] Vatablus [a Romanist] renders it, In iniquitate genitus sum ‘[in iniquity I was born’], and interprets it, ‘I have been fashioned, framed, born.’ ‘Conceived me’, that is, ‘brought forth’, says Emanuel Sà [a Romanist], out of Jerome, though I find it not so in Jerome on the place. St. Augustine, following the Septuagint, with Theodoret and others, for the reading, In iniquitatibus conceptus sum, has these passages:
‘The very band of death is grown together with sin itself: None is born without drawing punishment, without drawing the merit of punishment’:
and he does in a sort parallel this place with another place of the prophet (and it is in Job, I guess, who may well be stiled a prophet), Nemo mundus in conspectu tuo, nec infans, cujus est unius diei vita-super terram, Job 15:14. Our English late Translators vary thus, ‘I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive or warm me,’ as it is in the margin: which shaping and warming is also after the union of the reasonable soul to the body.
Not one of all these does take conception strictly and physically, but largely and significantly enough both to the Scripture and to our purpose. [Thomas] Stapleton [a Romanist] thus, ‘The soul, not the flesh, is the subject of virtues and vices.’ Augustine, ‘The seed is infected, not infection.’ Godfridus Abbas Vindocinensis:
‘The death of the soul went not before from the corruption of the flesh; neither does the Devil infect the flesh before he defile the soul.’
Augustine, ‘The corruptible flesh does not make the soul sinful, but the sinful soul makes the flesh to be corruptible.’ Thus it was in Adam, is in us:
Our flesh is not properly sinful or defiled before the soul inhabit it.
Reason also is of our side:
For if so soon as there is conception in the womb there is true sin, how many thousand conceptions miscarry and never come to perfect formation? as in the mola [a kind of defect in the fetus ending in miscarriage], where the forming of the parts being begun cannot be perfected, but (the weak workman [fetus] being drowned in abundance of blood) instead of a living creature is engendered an ill-shaped, hard and idle lump of flesh, oppressing the womb with its ponderousnes (says one) as the stomach is loaded with indigestible meats. Is there sin in this conception? sin before life? sin when there is no motion? (as there is none in the lumpish mola) sin in a moon-calf [a deformed-monstrous birth]?
But put we the case in a perfect conception, which without mis-chance may come to formation and birth, and casually suffers abortion [miscarriage] before the soul be united; yet it can never be proved that it sinned in and at the conception.
The arguments that trendle [roll] that way are these:
[1.] The very seed, of which we were begotten and conceived, was an unclean thing (says Bishop Bilson), as Job calls it, saying, ‘Who can make a clean thing of an unclean?’ Job 14:4.
[2.] It is also corruptible, that is (says he), full of corruption, as Peter names it, when he says, ‘Born again, not of corruptible seed,’ 1 Peter 1:23, of which we were born of our parents.
Thirdly, The apostle calls our flesh, ‘the flesh of sin’, Rom. 8:3.
If by these places he takes ‘uncleanness’, ‘corruption’ and ‘sin’, improperly, for such ill dispositions as seed, blood and liveless flesh is capable of, the question is ended: I confess all.
But he understands ‘uncleanness’, ‘corruption’ and ‘sin’ properly. The title of his pages 174 and 175 is this, ‘Man’s flesh is defiled in conception before the soul is created and infused.’ And in the body of his discourse he enlarges it, as in his conclusion to the reader at the end of his Sermons, p. 252, he first propounds it and cites Ambrose to assist him, saying:
‘Pollution sooner begins in man than life. Now the soul is the life of the body; then if pollution cleave to the flesh before life come, and consequently before the soul come, whencesoever it comes, it is evident that Adam’s flesh defiles, and so condemns us.’
So far he. None of these proofs reach home to clear this, that sin, true sin, proper sin, original sin or actual, is in the seed, or blood, or flesh, before the reasonable soul be united. Neither did that learned Bishop consider that it cannot be called our original uncleanness, pollution or sin till we have originem [an origin], that is, till our soul has its first being in the body.
He errs to say, ‘Pollution cleaves to the flesh before life comes’: and more errs, saying, ‘Adam’s flesh defiles and condemns us’, if he make the flesh subject to condemnation before its life and union of the soul. For then many thousand abortions [miscarriages] should be damned, which never had [a] rational soul annexed to them. As for Ambrose, Whitaker thus cites him from the same book and chapter:
‘Before we be born, we are stained with contagion; before we enjoy the light, we receive the injury of our very beginning.’
Ambrose says not, ‘We have sin ere we have life,’ but, ‘We are conceived in iniquity’: which is true, and confessed, if we take ‘conception’ largely: so Ambrose takes macula [a stain] for such inclination to evil as is in the seed potentially maculative.
Concerning the place of Job:
First, Job says not, ‘The seed is unclean’, but, Quis dabit mundum ex immundo? [‘Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean thing? 14:4], which may have reference to the person, or the nature, of the unclean father.
Secondly, it may be a parallell with that of Job 25:4, ‘How can he be clean that is born of a woman? yea the stars are not pure in his sight,’ verse 5.
Lastly, things may be said to be unclean that have no sin. Ask the unclean beasts and they will justify it; and the trees will send forth this truth as leaves, Lev. 19:23-24:
‘The fruit of the trees planted shall be as uncircumcised (or unclean) unto you three years; it shall not be eaten of: but in the fourth year it shall be holy, to praise the Lord withal:’
Yet was not the fruit sinful itself, but quoad usum [so far as the use].
The place of St. Peter is answered by the same apostle, 1 Pet. 1:18. Silver and gold are things corruptible: yet these creatures, as creatures, are good in themselves; and though they are causes of most sins, yet have no sin: and many other corruptible things, as heaven and earth, are void of all sin. As concerning the place of the apostle St. Paul, I answer, it is apparent he speaks of flesh after the soul is united, which is nothing to our question and therefore a most impertinent proof of the Bishop.
Lastly, the reverend Bishop brings this objection against himself, ‘How could David say he was conceived in sin when at the conception he had neither soul nor body?’ His main answer is:
‘With God nothing is more frequent than to call those things that are not as though they were, Rom. 4:17, and [He] speaks in Scriptures of things to come as if they were past or present. David and Job call that seed which was prepared to be the matter of their bodies by the names of themselves, because it could not be altered what God had appointed. But the void conceptions of women which miscarry before the body be framed never had either life or soul, and so neither name nor kind, but perish as other superfluous burdens and repletions of the body.’
So he. I reply (that I may not question the worthy Bishop about the meaning of that place, Rom. 4:17):
[1] He has made a great stir to little purpose since he makes many conceptions void of sin or punishment, like superfluous burdens and repletions of the body, which none ever said to have sinned.
Secondly, which is the better answer to the place of the Psalmist [51:5], to say, as the Bishop does, ‘Conceptions which come to nothing are not sinful, but such as may have souls are sinful before they have souls,’ (whereby he splits himself on this rock, that ‘a perfect conception susceptible of a soul, and aborted casually before the unition with the soul, is sinful and liable to account’) or to answer with me that ‘sin and iniquity in the place of the Psalmist is taken for the aptitude to sin, which is in the matter;’ or else, conception is taken in its latitude for our time in the mother’s womb; and so true original sin not to be in the body without a soul. Aquinas says (Summa, pt. 3, q. 27, art. 2, in corp. art.):
‘Sith none but the reasonable creature is susceptible of fault; the child conceived is not subject to sin before the infusion of a reasonable soul.’
[William] Whitaker says well:
‘That the flesh covets nothing without the soul, neither the learned nor the unlearned doubts, that I may speak with Augustine. For what does the inanimate flesh differ from a stock?’
And I hope the Bishop will not say, ‘A block or a stock has sin.’ Moreover, after thousands of sins committed in the body, and by and with the body, yet the body separated from the soul has no sin, is not sinful, much less is sin: and shall the seed in the womb be called sinful or sin, as Chemnitz or Luther calls it, before it is warmed with life or enlivened with a soul?
Lastly, in our very [Apostles’] Creed conception is used with liberty and freedom, and not narrowly imprisoned: Christ ‘was conceived of the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary,’ where conception includes in itself formation of the bodily parts and unition of the soul: So Eve conceived and bare Cain, Gen. 4:1, and Cain’s wife conceived and bare Chanoch, v. 17. Again, Gen. 16:11, the angel says to Hagar, Concepisti et paries filium: ‘Thou art with child,’ says our late Translation, ‘and shalt bear a son.’ And usually in the Scriptures there are only made two degrees of man’s nativity:
First, ‘conception,’ wrapping within its verge generation, with all degrees of formation, nutrition and augmentation. [See Job 3:3 where conception may refer to the time in which it is recognized by men, namely much later than actual conception, all in contrast to when Job was born.]
Secondly, ‘birth’ or bringing forth. Whereupon they often run in couplets together, Concepit et peperit, where conception is extended unto our nativity.
Let this suffice against Bishop Bilson and his partisans, Mollerus and others, that ‘conception’ is taken by divines in a full unrestrained sense.”
.
section 5, pp. 103-6
“5. It is now supposed, and shall (if it please God) hereafter be demonstrated, that human souls are not traducted, nor causally brought out of the flesh: yet are they occasionally (that I may touch at the manner), God having resolved and decreed, after generation and fit organization of the embryo, to create and infuse a reasonable soul: which soul, because it is united to a mass corrupted, in such a manner as a spiritless mass may be corrupted, or rather to a mass inclining or inducing to corruption, in the very unition it contracts original sin. Hugo Eterianus [d. 1182] thus descants on this point:
‘When the soul languishes, it is neither cast down by the will, nor by necessity, but only by fellowship, if the soul were corrupted by the will, it should not be counted original sin, but actual: if it should fall by necessity, that vice were no further to be imputed.’
Concerning the latter part, I answer, if in his necessity he imply coaction, he says true: otherwise, by this concurrence of our condescending will in Adam, or by our own implicit will, we may draw on us a necessity of after-sinning, which most justly may be imputed to us, and we may tie ourselves with our own bonds.
To the former part this may give satisfaction, that against the will of the soul, the soul itself cannot be corrupted: for then the will should be forced, and so [be] no will at all, but [a] noluntas, and not voluntas. ‘It is not necessary,’ says Bellarmine, ‘that our soul must needs come from Adam, because we draw sin from him: if but one part come from him it is enough.’ For a father does not per se produce original sin in the child, but per accidens; namely, as by the act of generation it comes to pass, that his son is a member of mankind, which was overtaken in Adam’s corruption, and that the propension unto evil of the earthly part traducted, meeting with a soul not much resisting, causes this original sin to result thencefrom, and death by this original sin. So that no sooner is the soul united to its body, and the matter glued to the form, but the infant deserves to be, and is the child of death, by reason of the primigeneal corruption.
If you inquire after what manner the body works the soul unto this evil, we may truly say, ‘The body works not upon the soul by a natural and immediate action.’ You heard what Hugo Eterianus said, ‘It is stricken or cast down only by fellowship.’ He enlarges himself in the same chapter, thus:
‘Imperfection, languishing, and corruption abide in the flesh before the soul’s conjunction; from which disease the soul is infected: as if a vessel be tainted with an ill odour, it infects therewith whatsoever liquor it receives.’
Gerson thus, ‘The soul by the conjunction with the body contracts that infection; as when one falls into the mire, he is besmeared and stained.’ Felisius thus:
‘A clean apple put in an unclean hand is soiled. Good wine poured into a fustie vessel con∣tracts a strange taste, and loses its own natural: so the soul loses its naturall vigor, when it is united in the flesh.’
Another thus, ‘Anima cum labente simul labitur, et frustra nititur dum innititur.’ To the same effect another says thus:
‘As the purest rain-water falling on dust, is turned with the dust into a lump of mire: so at the coadunation of the soul unto the earthly part, both spirit and flesh are plunged in the durt of corruption.’
Augustine, against Julian the Pelagian, prefers the very heathen before Julian; for he held that ‘nothing was conveyed unto us from Adam;’ and they held, ‘That we were born to be punished for old crimes committed in a former life.’ ‘And,’ says Augustine, ‘it is true which Aristotle relates, that we are punished like to those who fell among the Hetrurian robbers, whose living bodies being coupled face to face with dead men’s carcasses, were so killed.’ Of the Hetrurian tyrant Mezentius, Virgil, Aeneid, 8, records the like:
Mortua corporibus jungebat corpora vivis,
Componens manibúsque manus at que oribus ora, (Tormenti genus) et sanie tabóque fluentes, Complexu in misero, longâ sic morte necabat.
But I return from this digression. The heathen say (as St. Augustine relates) that ‘our souls united to our bodies are like the living coupled with the dead.’ ‘They saw somewhat,’ says he, and commends their wisdom in discerning the miseries of mankind to be for somewhat before committed, and in acknowledging the power and justice of God; though without divine revelation they could not know that it was Adam’s offence which brought such a wrack both on our souls and on our bodies.
What has been hitherto related seems too much to incline to the natural, physical, immediate working of the soul upon the body. Others are as faulty, who say, ‘The soul receives no annoyance from the body, but by way of impedition [being impeded] only, where the spiritual faculties are hindered and the music spilt, by reason of the untuneableness of the organs. But they will not seem to hear that ‘a spiritual substance can receive infection from a nature corporeal.’
Both opinions may rest contented in the middesse or mean, that as the body cannot go beyond the sphere of its activity, and work properly and physically upon the soul: so by the interposition, as it were, of a middle nature, the body not only hinders the faculties of the soul from working, but sometimes works upon the soul. Thus the natural, vital and animal spirits do bind and unite the soul to the body, that neither part can part from other, though it would. Thus bodily objects work on the mind, but it is by the mediation of the outward and inward senses. Shall corporeal, outward, and remote objects, by degrees, draw the soul into sin, even in our perfect age, when our natural reason is most vigorous; and may not the corrupted seed, having as great a propension to evil as Naphtha to take fire, at the conjunction, infect the soul with a participation of uncleanness, though the operation be not physical, or immediate?
By Adam’s soul sinning was Adam’s flesh infected; may not our soul be infected as well by our flesh? A spiritual substance can produce a bodily effect. Boëtius says excellently:
‘Forms material came from forms immaterial: Our will was moved by our intellect, our appetite by our will, and a bodily change conformable to our appetite.’
And may not a bodily species work by the same degrees, backward, on the soul itself? The reason is alike in the contrariety. Does the corporeal fire of Hell torment and affect the incorporeal spirits of evil angels, and shall it of wicked men (as most certainly it does and must; which shall be proved, God willing, otherwhere) and may not the matter make some impression on the form, the body upon the soul, when there is such a sympathy in nature betwixt them?
If the soul do no way suffer from the body, how does it follow the temperature of the body? How does madness, foolishness, anger and love, with other affections, work upon the mind? Yea, how comes it to pass that not only strength and nimbleness of body, but even goodness of wit is propagated (if nature be strong) and children resemble their fathers both in manners and understanding?
The flesh itself without the soul, if it be beaten, hurt, or cut, is no way sensible. Reunite the separated soul to the wronged body, the soul feeleth, and is much affected: nor is the grief in the incision only, but in the soul. Yea, in apoplexies and deep sleeps, cast upon men by stupefactive ingredients and compounded by art, while the soul is in the body, wounds have been given unto the earthy part, and it never felt them: when those fits are vanished, the soul feels the pain of the discontinuity and division of the flesh as well as the body. Doctor [John] Rainolds thus,
‘God by nature has ordered that the soul naturally united to the body should suffer with the body and be grieved, the body being afflicted, and rejoice, it being refreshed, and be sorrowfull, the body being killed; so that some way it suffers by reason of the body.’
Permit me but the use of his modification some way and I dare say the body draws the soul its way, some way to sin. Aquinas on Rom. 5, lect. 3:
‘It should not seem that sin, which is an accident of the soul, can be produced by the original of the flesh: It is answered (says he) with reason. Though the soul be not in the seed, yet there is in the seed a virtue disposing the body to receive the soul, which soul being poured or infused into the body, is after a sort conformable to the body, because every thing received is in the receiver according to the capacity of the receiver.’
To him let me add: if a new created soul should be put into a body not descending from Adam, it should not have original sin; but meeting with a body disposed to corruption, after its kind it yields and contracts original sin.
6. Yea, but the act of Adam’s sin passed quickly away, and the guiltines was forgiven [for him]; how could it infect us? I answer, ‘The person did first infect the nature, afterwards the nature did infect the person.’…
And the manner how the soul is made sinful is described at large before, to wit, that by the union it is infected, and so soon as it is infused, it tastes of corruption…
so does a just man beget an unjust, Christianus non Christianum, ‘A Christian an unchristian’; the circumcised Hebrews beget children uncircumcised: for the generation is natural and not spiritual… just Lot who begat wicked daughters, or David who had Absalom, or Abraham, who had Ismael, or Isaac who had Esau; or Noah, who had Ham…
For man begets man like to himself, as he is species hominis [the species of a man], not as he is individuum [an individual]: and accidents belonging to the individual person of the Father pass not over to the child, but those things that pertain to the specifical nature. Therefore what belongs to man, as he is individuum, he does not propagate.”
.
Peter van Mastricht
Theoretical Practical Theology (RHB), vol. 4, bk. 5, ch. 10, section 5, pp. 298-99
“Moreover, the operation of the Holy Spirit signified in coming upon and overshadowing had in general the following components, that:
(1) He separated some particle of the Virgin’s substance, from which the body of Christ was formed (Heb. 10:5).
(2) He bestowed a molding force upon the separated particle, by means of which the Virgin’s seed alone could do in the conception what from the order of nature both seeds, the male and female, can do.
(3) He as it were cleansed the seed of the Virgin, not indeed from moral impurity or sin, inasmuch as a seed not yet ensouled is not liable to that, but from physical intemperateness, from which, in its own time, sin could have resulted, or at the least He preserved the birth from all impurity, to the end that what would be born of her would be holy (Luke 1:35).
(4) He gradually formed that seed of the Virgin into human members, in the way that they are formed in ordinary generation (Heb. 10:5).
(5) When the body was already formed, He joined to it a rational soul (Zech. 12:1).
(6) In uniting the soul to the body, at one and the same time he inseparably joined the divine person to both united parts.”
.
Historical
General
Books
eds. Dunstan, G.R. & Mary Seller – The Status of the Human Embryo: Perspectives of Moral Tradition (King Edward’s Hospital Fund for London, 1988) 125 pp. ToC
Jones, David Albert – The Soul of the Embryo: An Enquiry into the Status of the Human Embryo in the Christian Tradition (London: continuum, 2004) 265 pp. ToC
ed. Dunstan, G.R. – The Human Embryo. Aristotle & the Arabic & European Traditions Buy (University of Exeter Press, 2019) 248 pp.
.
On the Early & Medieval Church
Articles
Jones, David Albert – The Soul of the Embryo: An Enquiry into the Status of the Human Embryo in the Christian Tradition (London: continuum, 2004)
ch. 5, ‘Medicinal Penalties: Early Christianity & Abortion: Celtic/Anglo-Saxon penances, Greek/Latin canons’, pp. 57-75
ch. 7, ‘Whence the Soul? The Church fathers on the origin of the soul: pre-existence, traducianism, creationism’, pp. 92-109
ch. 8, ‘The Timing of Ensoulment: Immediate & Delayed Animation from the Fathers to Thomas Aquinas’, pp. 109-25
ch. 9, ‘The Embryonic Christ: the conception of Jesus, Chalcedon, Maximus the Confessor on the embryo’, pp. 125-41
ch. 13, ‘The Justice of Miscarriage: Abortion Law from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century’, pp. 194-214
Blosser, Benjamin P. – ch. 12, ‘The Ensoulment of the Body in Early Christian Thought’ in eds. Marmodoro & Cartwright, A History of Mind & Body in Late Antiquity Pre (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2008), pt. 2, p. 207 ff.
.
On the Post-Reformation
Articles
Jones, David Albert – The Soul of the Embryo: An Enquiry into the Status of the Human Embryo in the Christian Tradition (London: continuum, 2004)
ch. 10, ‘Imputed Dignity: Luther, Calvin & Barth: from essential to relational categories’, pp. 141-56
ch. 11, ‘Embryology through the Looking Glass’ [on Decartes et al.], pp. 156-75
ch. 12, ‘Probable Sins & Indirect Exceptions: Casuistry, therapeutic abortion, probabilism, application to the embryo’ [in Romanism], pp. 175-94
ch. 13, ‘The Justice of Miscarriage: Abortion Law from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century’, pp. 194-214
Goudriaan, Aza – pp. 239-42, 247-48 & 257 of ch. 4, ‘The Human Being: His Soul & Body…’ in Reformed Orthodoxy & Philosophy, 1625-1750: Gisbertus Voetius, Petrus van Mastricht, & Anthonius Driessen (Brill, 2006)
Goudriaan surveys the views of Voet (1589-1676), Mastricht (1630-1706) and Driessen (1684-1748, who was influenced by Cartesianism).
“In Voetius’s view it is valid to say that some unborn foetuses have ‘a human life’ and others have not. He refers to Exodus 21:22-23 as a passage suggesting that not all abortions of foetuses are the same. He shows a certain flexibility as to the estimated time when a foetus is animated [ensouled], but maintains that the soul can only ‘be brought into an organized body’… Zechariah 12:1, a text that speaks of ‘…the Lord, which… formeth the spirit of man within him’ (AV)… Voetius obviously thought that initially there is no soul for an embryo that has yet to be formed. He cites various opinions on the time when an embryo is animated… Voet thinks it is prudent not to move beyond the latter estimate [of the 30th to 40th day], and leaves further debate to physicians. The former estimate seems to have been motivated by references to both Aristotle and the Bible (Lev. 12[:2-6]).” – pp. 239-41
“…like Voetius–he interprets Zecahriah 12 as implying that the soul is given to a ‘body that is already formed organically.’ Van Mastricht denies a development throughout three kinds of souls [as Aquinas held], ‘first the vegetative, then the sensitive and finally the rational’ soul… It seems that Van Mastricht–like his predecessor in Utrecht [Voet]–thought that the body needs to have reached a certain stage in its development, before it receives a soul.” – p. 247
Wedgeworth, Steven – ch. 6, ‘Abortion’ in Protestant Social Teaching:
An Introduction (Davenant Press, 2022)
.
Dutch
Schenderling, J. – ‘De gereformeerde orthodoxie en de morele status van het embryo’ Ref in Nederlands Theologisch Tijdschrift, vol. 57, no. 1 (2003), pp. 32-48
.
On Judaism
Quote
Lindsey Disney & Larry Poston, ‘When Does Human Life Begin? Conception & Ensoulment’ Anglican Theological Review 92:2 (Spring, 2010), pp. 279-80
“In Jewish law, a fetus becomes a full-fledged human being when the head emerges from the womb. Before that moment, the principle that applies is that of ubar yerekh imo: ‘the fetus is the thigh of its mother,’ meaning that it may not be considered an independent entity but is instead a ‘partial life.’ª
ª Babylonian Talmud, “Hulin,” 58a. Cited in Feldman, Birth Control in Jewish Law, 253.
This view is based on Exodus 21:22, which says that if a woman miscarries due to being struck by men fighting, and she herself is not seriously injured, the offender is to pay the husband of the woman a monetary fine for the loss. What is significant here is that the Mosaic Law requires ‘life for life’ (Exodus 21:23). The above scenario, then, implies that the fetus is of worth (since payment is required for its destruction) but not of equal worth to, say, the life of the mother (or the punishment of the offender would have been death). The distinction is made here because the fetus is not considered to be nefesh adam (‘a man’) but rather lav nefesh hu (‘not a person’) until it is born.¹
¹ Rashi, Yad Ramah. Cited in Feldman, Birth Control in Jewish Law, 255.
Philo (20 bce – 50 ce) was the first to address seriously the issue of ensoulment, using the scenario of Exodus 21:22 as his starting point. The Septuagint translation of the Tanakh had rendered the word ason in this passage as ‘form’ rather than ‘harm,’ thus changing the meaning from ‘if [there be] no harm [that is, death, to the mother], he shall be fined’ to ‘if [there be] no form [yet, to the fetus], he shall be fined… But if [there be] form, then shalt thou give life for life.’²
² Cited in Feldman, Birth Control in Jewish Law, 257.
Whereas the previous (and correct) translation would require only a fine for an abortion at any stage of a pregnancy, Philo makes a ‘before and after’ distinction. He writes:
‘If one have a contest with a woman who is pregnant, and strike her a blow on her belly, and she miscarry; if the child which was conceived within her is still unfashioned and unformed, he shall be punished by a fine, both for the assault which he committed and also because he has prevented nature—which was fashioning and preparing that most excellent of all creatures, a human being—from bringing him into existence.
But if the child which was conceived has assumed a distinct shape in all its parts, having received all its proper connective and distinctive qualities, he shall die; for such a creature as that is a man, whom he has slain while still in the workshop of nature, which had not thought it as yet a proper time to produce him to the light, but had kept him like a statue lying in a sculptor’s workshop, requiring nothing more than to be released and sent into the world.’ (De Specialibus Legibus, II, 19)
Philo held that the time of having assumed ‘a distinct shape in all its parts’ was the fortieth day after conception, following the Aristotelian line of thinking.
Another context bearing upon this issue is that of the Sabbath laws, which contain no general permission for a violation in order to save a fetus. The wording of the Talmudic discussion of this issue suggests two conclusions: ‘The fetus is not a person, not a man; but the fetus is indeed potential life and is to be treated as such.’³
³ Feldman, Birth Control in Jewish Law, 264.
One further illustration will serve to show just how complex this subject can actually become. There is within Judaism a factor known as ‘doubtful viability,’ which holds that an embryo remains an embryo until thirty days after its birth, becoming only then a bar kayyama, a viable, living being.º
º Feldman, Birth Control in Jewish Law, 253–254.”
.
On the Roman Catholic Church & the Eastern Orthodox Church
Quotes
Lindsey Disney & Larry Poston, ‘When Does Human Life Begin? Conception & Ensoulment’ Anglican Theological Review 92:2 (Spring, 2010)
p. 278
“This ‘completion of form’ takes place on the fortieth day after conception for males, and on the eightieth day for females. Augustine of Hippo (354–430) was a proponent of this view, and Thomas Aquinas (1205–1274) adopted Aristotle’s schema practically in its entirety…
The Creationist views of Augustine and Aquinas were the norm in the Christian West from the early fifth century to the late nineteenth century. The Justinian Code of the sixth century excused from penalty abortions performed prior to forty days after conception. Pope Innocent III (c. 1216) and Pope Gregory IX (c. 1241) both affirmed the distinction between ‘vivified’ fetuses (older than forty days) and those younger than so.†
† See John T. Noonan, Jr., Contraception: A History of Its Treatment by the Catholic Theologians and Canonists (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1965), 88, 91, 232.
Not until the Effraenatum of Pope Sixtus V in 1588 did the forty-day rule vanish and abortion was declared illegal at any stage of fetal existence. But this ruling was rescinded by Sixtus’s successor Gregory XIV, and this repeal lasted until 1869, when Pius IX reinstated the earlier decision. Even so, Pius’s decree did not become canon law until 1918—a mere ninety years ago.‡
‡ See David M. Feldman, Birth Control in Jewish Law (New York: New York University Press, 1968), 268–269.”
.
pp. 271-72
“In The Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph number 2270 states that ‘human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person.’ Paragraph 2274 continues in the same vein: ‘Since it must be treated from conception as a person, the embryo must be defended in its integrity, cared for, and healed, as far as possible, like any other human being.’ And paragraph 2322 concludes that ‘from its conception, the child has the right to life. Direct abortion… is a criminal practice, gravely contrary to the moral law. The Church imposes the canonical penalty of excommunication for this crime against human life.’¹
¹ Catechism of the Catholic Church (New York: Image Books/Doubleday, 1994), 606–607, 618.
In an amicus curiae submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court in October 1988, the Eastern Orthodox Church stated its conviction that ‘modern science has borne out the prescient wisdom of the Holy Fathers of the Church, that life begins at conception, and at no other arbitrary or scholastically derived juncture.’²
² “An Orthodox View of Abortion,” http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/praxis/abortion.
aspx”
.
Latin Articles
1500’s
Simoni, Simon – A Disputation on the Parts of Animals Properly Called Solids, & Further, on the Way, on the First Formation of a Foetus (Leipzig, 1574) 28 pp.
Simoni (1532-1602)
.
1600’s
Hoornbeek, Johannes – pp. 190-91 of ch. 5, section 14 in Theological Institutes harmonized from the Best Authors (Leiden: Moyard, 1658)
This volume of Hoornbeek replaced the Synopsis of Pure Theology (1625) being used in the academy in Leiden for the following generation, in raising up new pastors.
Hoornbeek quotes Maccovius and Voet on the issue. Maccovius is arguing for creationism against traducianism. Hoornbeek is using the terms “embryo” and “fetus” synonymously.
Maccovius disagrees with Aristotle with respect to a rational soul coming into an embryo from outside of it, but then says God Himself forms the rational soul in the fetus, having the rudiment of the human body. Maccovius uses the term “form” which was a long-held technical term on the topic, referring to the human form, or essence, and explicitly speaks of the fetus having the rudiment of a human body.
This exact language is precedented in Du Moulin, which says in the English (Anatomy of Arminianisme, London, 1620, ch. 10, p. 67)
Per Du Moulin above in the quotes section, in his material following this quote, he clearly takes the view espoused on this page (that is, the same essential view as Mastricht).
Why does Maccovius disagree with Aristotle? It seems he is making the same point Mastricht did (as quoted in Fentiman, p. 12). The Lord forms the spirit of man within him (Zech. 12:1). Mastricht says:
“Nor outside the body, but within the body already formed organically, such that by creating, it is infused into it, and by infusing, it is created in it.”
It seems that Maccovius agrees with Mastricht, contra Aristotle, that the rational spirit does not enter the formed fetus afterwards and from existing on the outside of it, coming into it, but it arises simultaneously from within it by the Lord’s work.
Hoornbeek then quotes Voet at length confirming this with further argumentation. Voet takes Gen. 2 as the paradigm, where Adam’s body is formed before the spirit is infused into him. He references Zech. 12:1 (which Mastricht argued from) and other creationist Scriptures. Voet says the conception of Christ was similar to ours. He argues against Traducianism and mentions that the intellective soul does not arise from the body, so far as it exceeds the whole genus, or kind, of the substance of the body. [Something by its nature cannot produce something higher than its nature.]
The whole discussion in Hoornbeeck is under ch. 5 on Creation, or Anthropology if you will, and served as positive instruction for seminary students.
Poole, Matthew – on Ex. 21:22-23, cols. 418-19 of Synopsis Criticorum… vol. 1 (Utrecht, 1684)
Schoock, Marten – A Disquisition of Physics on the Marks of a Fetus, in which Many Rare Cases are Proposed & Examined (Groningen, 1659) 72 pp.
Schoock (1614-1669)
Kerckring, Theodor – Anthropogeniae Ichnographia, or the Formation of the Fetus from an Egg to the Beginning of Ossification (Amsterdam, 1671) 14 pp.
Kerckring (1640-1693) was a doctor of medicine.
.
1700’s
Hofmann, Daniel – Medical Annotations on the Goveyan Hypotheses on the Generation of a Fetus… (Frankfurt, 1719) 316 pp.
Hofmann (1538-1611) was Lutheran.
.
.
Latin Book
1600’s
Deusing, Anton – The Genesis of a Microcosm, or a Dissertation on the Generation of a Foetus in the Womb (Amstelodam, 1665) 355 pp. ToC See especially pt. 3, section 1, pp. 180-81
Deusing (1612-1666) was a doctor of philosophy and medicine in Groningen.
.
On Ectopic Pregnancies
Latin
1600’s
Deusing, Anton – A History of the Fetus having been Born Outside the Uterus in the Abdomen… (Groningen, 1661) 166 pp. ToC
Elsholtz, Johann Sigismund – On an Ectopic Conception, whenever Human Fetuses are Taken Up outside the Uterine Cavity in the Tubes… (Berlin, 1669)
Elsholtz (1623-1688)
.
On Christ in the Womb
.
The View that Christ had a Formed Body from Conception, when occured the Uniting of it to his Soul, Person & Divine Nature in the Hypostatic Union
Order of Contents
Middle Ages 2
Post-Reformation
. Quotes 5
. Latin 4
Historical 1
.
Middle Ages
Articles
John of Damascus – On the Orthodox Faith, bk. 3 in NPNF2, vol. 9, pt. 2
ch. 2, ‘Concerning the manner in which the Word was conceived, and concerning his divine incarnation’, p. 46
ch. 7, ‘Concerning the one compound subsistence of God the Word’, pp. 51-52
ch. 21, ‘Concerning ignorance and servitude’, p. 69
ch. 22, ‘Concerning his growth’, pp. 69-70
Aquinas, Thomas – Contra Gentiles, bk. 4, Salvation
ch. 44, ‘That the Human Nature Assumed by the Word in the Conception Itself was Perfect in Soul & Body’
Zanchi took Aquinas’s view, which Zanchi says was dominant in the early Church and Middle Ages.
.
Post-Reformation
Order of Quotes
Perkins
Polanus
Wolleb
Byfield
Owen
.
1500’s
William Perkins
An Exposition of the Symbol or Creed of the Apostles… (Cambridge, 1595)
“In the conception of Christ we must observe and consider three things. The framing of the manhood, the sanctifying of it, and the personal union of the manhood with the Godhead. And howsoever I distinguish these three for order’s sake, yet must we know and remember, that they are all wrought at one and the same instant of time. For when the Holy Ghost frames and sanctifies the manhood in the womb of the virgin: at the very same moment it is received into the unity of the second person…
As for his soul, it was not derived from the soul of the virgin Mary as a part thereof, but it was made as the souls of all other men be, of nothing by the power of God, and placed in the body; both of them from the first moment of their being, having their subsistence in the person of the son.” – p. 157
“As for the manner of the making and framing of the human nature of Christ, it was miraculous, not by generation according to the ordinary course of nature, but by an extraordinary operation of the Holy Ghost above nature: and for this cause it is not within the compass of man’s reason either to conceive or to express the manner and order of this conception. The angel ascribes two actions to the Holy Ghost in this matter [in Lk. 1:35]…
by the first is signified the extraordinary work of the Holy Ghost in fashioning the human nature of Christ, for so much the phrase elsewhere imports…
Now the Holy Ghost did not minister any matter unto Christ from his own substance; but did only as it were, take the mass and lump of man’s nature from the body of the virgin Mary, and without ordinary generation made it the body of Christ… The second point in the conception is the sanctifying of that mass or lump which was to be the manhood of Christ. “ – p. 158
“The common consent of divines is, that, albeit all the parts of the manhood and the Godhead of Christ be united at one instant: yet in respect of order He unites unto Himself first and immediately the soul, and by the soul the body.” – p. 162
.
1600’s
Amandus Polanus
p. 71 of ‘On the Evangel’, ‘Of the Natures in the Person of Christ’ & ‘His State’, ff. of The Divisions of Theology Framed according to a Natural Orderly Method (d. 1610; Basil, 1590; Geneva, 1623)
“The conception of Christ by the Holy Spirit is the formation of the human nature of Christ out of the sanctified flesh and blood of the virgin Mary by the miraculous operation of the Holy Spirit, Mt. 1:18,20; Lk. 1:31,35.
The assumption of the human nature is that by which the Logos deemed it worthy to assume the formed and sanctified nature by the Holy Spirit through that economic grace, Heb. 2:16.”
.
Johannes Wolleb
Compendium of Christian Theology (1625), ch. 16, ‘The Person of Christ the God-Man’, section 2, propositions in ed. John Beardslee, Reformed Dogmatics: J. Wollebius, G. Voetius & F. Turretin (Oxford Univ. Press, 1965), pp. 89-90
“III. …the formation of the body, which was completed at once, and not over a period of time, like the bodies of other men; and in the breathing in of a rational soul.
Whereas in ordinary generation the time required for formation of the body is forty days, the body of Christ was absolutely completed in a moment. Otherwise Christ would have been conceived not a man but as an embryo.”
.
Nicholas Byfield
The Rule of Faith, or an Exposition of the Apostles’ Creed… (London, 1626), 3rd Article, pp. 263-64
“Thus of the producing of the body of Christ: His soul was produced as the souls of other men are, that is, it was immediately created by the Holy Ghost and infused into his body: only there is difference amongst divines about the time of the infusing of the soul of Christ: for in the ordinary course, nature proceeds in this manner:
First, there is the mass of blood or seed received in the womb, but there is no parts of a body framed at the first: after a certain number of weeks, nature forms that substance into the parts of the body distinctly, but yet it is without life: then is the soul infused, when the body is organical, and so it is quickened and a true man; it is not before a man, but embryo as they call it:
Now the question is how Christ could receive that imperfect embryo or the flesh at the first conception, seeing it was not a perfect human nature?
To this some answer that our Savior did not follow the ordinary course of taking flesh, as other men do, but in the very instant of the conception, his body was made organical, and had perfect members, and the soul infused at that instant also: and their reason is this:
Because the Son of God did not become a person to any thing but the manhood of Christ: Now the manhood must needs have a reasonable soul and body formed, and organical: else we must say that something did subsist in the Person of his divine nature that was not man, as embryo or the lump unformed, and not animated was.
Besides, when God made a man by the power of the Holy Ghost, without the seed of man, He made him perfect at one instant, and every way formed in all parts: as when He made Adam and Eve, they were in an instant made perfect in soul and body.
Other divines conceive that this opinion cannot be true, because Christ was made in all things like unto us, sin only excepted. Now there could be no sin in that ordinary course of nature, if original sin be removed as it was in Christ.
Now in the course of nature: first, that which is material is formed, as it were the house of the soul, and then the soul is infused, not only as the guest of it, but as the form and life of it: and so it must be in Christ.
Now for the first reason they answer that the hypostatical union in the person of Christ was so made above nature, as withal, Christ assumed that which belonged to the nature of man according to the course of nature: and so first the seed, and then the body formed, and the soul infused according to nature into that body so as that flesh before the coming in of the soul did subsist in the Word, as it did after the soul was infused: for the Word took our nature, which is not hindered by the absence or presence of the soul: as when Christ was dead, his soul was in his Father’s hands, and his flesh was shut up in the grave, and was not quickened then by the soul, yet the flesh of Christ without the soul and life did subsist in the Word, as well as it did before or after:
The other reason is of no force, for God did not make our first parents so out of necessity, but out of the good pleasure of his will, not binding himself to that frame of working for all times afterwards.”
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John Owen
A Discourse concerning the Holy Spirit, bk. 2 in Works (Philadelphia: Protestant Episcopal Book Soceity, 1862), vol. 3
ch. 3, pp. 162-63
“The framing, forming and miraculous conception of the body of Christ in the womb of the blessed Virgin was the peculiar and especial work of the Holy Ghost…
He took upon Him a body and soul, entire human nature, as the children, or all believers, have the same, synecdochically expressed by ‘flesh and blood.’ Verse 16, ‘He took on Him the seed of Abraham.'”
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“It hence also follows that the conception of Christ in the womb, being the effect of a creating act, was not accomplished successively and in process of time, but was perfected in an instant; for although the creating acts of infinite power, where the works effected have distinct parts, may have a process or duration of time allotted unto them, as the world was created in six days, yet every part of it that was the object of an especial creating act was instantaneously produced.
So was the forming of the body of Christ, with the infusion of a rational soul to quicken it, though it increased afterwards in the womb unto the birth. And as it is probable that this conception was immediate upon the angelical salutation, so it was necessary that nothing of the human nature of Christ should exist of itself antecedently unto its union with the Son of God: for in the very instant of its formation, and therein, was the “Word made flesh,” John 1:14; and the Son of God was “made of a woman,” Gal. 4:4; so that the whole essence of his nature was created in the same instant.
Thus far the Scriptures go before, and herein it is necessary to assert the forming of the body and soul of Christ by the Holy Spirit. The curious inquiries of some of the schoolmen and others are to be left unto themselves, or rather, to be condemned in them; for what was farther in this miraculous operation of the Holy Ghost, it seems purposely to be hid from us in that expression, [Greek] ‘The power of the Most High shall overshadow thee.’ Under the secret, glorious covert hereof we may learn to adore that holy work here, which we hope to rejoice in and bless God for unto eternity.
And I suppose, also, that there is in the word an allusion unto the expression of the original acting of the Holy Spirit towards the newly-produced mass of the old creation, whereof we spake before. Then it is said of Him that he was [Hebrew], as it were ‘hovering’ and ‘moving’ over it for the formation and production of all things living; for both the words include in them an allusion unto a covering like that of a fowl over its eggs, communicating, by its cognate warmth and heat, a principle of life unto their seminal virtue.”
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“From this miraculous creation of the body of Christ, by the immediate power of the Holy Ghost, did it become a meet habitation for his holy soul, every way ready and complying with all actings of grace and virtue…
But the body of Christ being formed pure and exact by the Holy Ghost, there was no disposition or tendency in his constitution to the least deviation from perfect holiness in any kind.”
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ch. 4, p.168
“The human nature of Christ being thus formed in
the womb by a creating act of the Holy Spirit, was in the instant of its conception sanctified, and filled with grace according to the measure of its receptivity…
And this work of sanctification, or the original infusion of all grace into the human nature of Christ, was the immediate work of the Holy Spirit; which was necessary unto Him: for let the natural faculties of the soul, the mind, will, and affections, be created pure, innocent, undefiled,— as they cannot be otherwise immediately created of God,— yet there is not enough to enable any rational creature to live to God; much less was it all that was in Jesus Christ.”
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“…and the soul of Christ, from the first moment of its infusion, was a subject capable of a fulness of grace, as unto its habitual residence and in-being, though the actual exercise of it was suspended for a while, until the organs of the body were fitted for it. This, therefore, it received by this first unction of the Spirit. Hence, from his conception, he was “holy,” as well as “harmless” and “undefiled,” Heb. 7:26; a “holy thing,” Luke 1:35; radically filled with a perfection of grace and wisdom, inasmuch as the Father “gave Him not the Spirit by measure,” John 3:34.”
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Latin Articles
1500’s
Zanchi, Jerome – On the Incarnation of the Son of God, in Two Books, in which the Whole of this Mystery is Solidly Explained… (Heidelberg, Harnisch, 1593)
Question 7, ‘Of the Order in which the Son of God Assumed & United to Himself our Nature’, pp. 181-88
Question 8, ‘On the Perfection of the Ensouled [Animati] Body’, pp. 188-94. Zanchi approvingly gives a chapter excerpt from Aquinas on pp. 191-94, whose view he takes and exposits.
Kimedoncius, Jacob – Theses on the Person of Christ (Heidelberg, 1595) 46 theses
Thesis 18 says that when the Son of God assumed flesh in the womb of the Virgin, it was true humanity, and his substance was formed, by the operation of the Holy Spirit.
Thesis 30 says that Christ was a man from the moment of conception.
Polanus, Amandus – A System of Theology, vol. 2 (Hanau, 1609; 1615), bk. 6, ch. 14, ‘On the Conception of Christ’
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1600’s
Martin (fl. 1603 ff.)
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Historical
On the Middle Ages
Edwards, Phil – ‘Why Babies in Medieval Paintings Look Like Ugly Old Men’ (2015) at Vox
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Christ in the Womb Develops Naturally as Other Men, & the Ensoulment & Hypostatic Union Occurs at Around 40 Days, when the Body becomes Formed & Animated
Order of Contents
Quotes 10+
Latin 5
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Quotes
Order of
Thysius
Maresius
Keckermann
Byfield
Voet
Poole
Rijssen
Turretin
Williams
Mastricht
Heidegger
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1600’s
Antonius Thysius
Synopsis of a Purer Theology… (Brill, 2016), vol. 2, Disputation 25, ‘On the Incarnation of the Son of God’
section 15, p. 75
“…his soul was fashioned in his body in the normal manner, and joined and united with it.”
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section 22, p. 79
“…He was formed in a natural way, or according to the usual order of nature, in the womb of the virgin Mary, nurtured, nourished and carried for nine months.”
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Samuel Maresius
(IX, 31) as quoted in Heinrich Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, ch. 17, ‘Person of Christ’, section 12, p. 425
“It is more probable that Christ’s body just like ours was formed in stages rather than that it was absolute in a moment.”
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Bartholomaus Keckermann
as quoted in Heinrich Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, Person of Christ, section 12, p. 425
“(4) The formation of the foetus in the Virgin’s womb had its stages and processes, as is usual in the formation of other foetuses and which are usually completed in the space of 9 months. It was right that Christ should be made like us in this too, namely in not being formed and born in a moment, but being completed in a matrix suited to the order and processes of nature, the operation of the H. Spirit thus accommodating its process of quickening.
(5) The union of the divine nature with the human began the moment the formation of the human nature was completed, so that it would be said to have been composed of human matter and form.”
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Nicholas Byfield
The Rule of Faith, or an Exposition of the Apostles’ Creed… (London, 1626), 3rd Article, pp. 263-64
“Thus of the producing of the body of Christ: His soul was produced as the souls of other men are, that is, it was immediately created by the Holy Ghost and infused into his body: only there is difference amongst divines about the time of the infusing of the soul of Christ: for in the ordinary course, nature proceeds in this manner:
First, there is the mass of blood or seed received in the womb, but there is no parts of a body framed at the first: after a certain number of weeks, nature forms that substance into the parts of the body distinctly, but yet it is without life: then is the soul infused, when the body is organical, and so it is quickened and a true man; it is not before a man, but embryo as they call it:
Now the question is how Christ could receive that imperfect embryo or the flesh at the first conception, seeing it was not a perfect human nature?
To this some answer that our Savior did not follow the ordinary course of taking flesh, as other men do, but in the very instant of the conception, his body was made organical, and had perfect members, and the soul infused at that instant also: and their reason is this:
Because the Son of God did not become a person to any thing but the manhood of Christ: Now the manhood must needs have a reasonable soul and body formed, and organical: else we must say that something did subsist in the Person of his divine nature that was not man, as embryo or the lump unformed, and not animated was.
Besides, when God made a man by the power of the Holy Ghost, without the seed of man, He made him perfect at one instant, and every way formed in all parts: as when He made Adam and Eve, they were in an instant made perfect in soul and body.
Other divines conceive that this opinion cannot be true, because Christ was made in all things like unto us, sin only excepted. Now there could be no sin in that ordinary course of nature, if original sin be removed as it was in Christ.
Now in the course of nature: first, that which is material is formed, as it were the house of the soul, and then the soul is infused, not only as the guest of it, but as the form and life of it: and so it must be in Christ.
Now for the first reason they answer that the hypostatical union in the person of Christ was so made above nature, as withal, Christ assumed that which belonged to the nature of man according to the course of nature: and so first the seed, and then the body formed, and the soul infused according to nature into that body so as that flesh before the coming in of the soul did subsist in the Word, as it did after the soul was infused: for the Word took our nature, which is not hindered by the absence or presence of the soul: as when Christ was dead, his soul was in his Father’s hands, and his flesh was shut up in the grave, and was not quickened then by the soul, yet the flesh of Christ without the soul and life did subsist in the Word, as well as it did before or after:
The other reason is of no force, for God did not make our first parents so out of necessity, but out of the good pleasure of his will, not binding himself to that frame of working for all times afterwards.”
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Gisbert Voet
A Syllabus of Theological Problems… (Utrecht, 1643), Tract 2, On the Person, Offices & States of Christ the Mediator, Title 1, on the Person of Christ the Mediator, Subtitle: On the Assumption & Union of the Human Nature. trans. T. Fentiman
On the Mode of Assuming, as far as the Order
“Whether the Son of God assumed flesh by the soul mediating? It is affirmed with a distinction.
Whether the Son of God assumed a soul by the spirit or mind mediating, that is, the rational part of the soul? It is affirmed.
Whether the soul was assumed before the flesh. It is denied.
Whether the flesh of Christ was assumed by the Word before the union of the soul? It is denied.
Whether the whole nature was assumed simultaneously through mediating parts? It is distinguished.
Whether the human nature was assumed by grace mediating? It is distinguished.”
“Whether it was a natural conception or a miraculous one? The latter is affirmed.
Whether the flesh of Christ was conceived and formed in an instant? It is denied.
Whether it was first conceived and formed and then united? It is denied with a distinction.
….
Whether the soul of Christ was infused in the first instantiating of the conception of the body, or rather after? The latter is affirmed.
Whether and in what way the embryo, or that body not yet animated, was able to be said to be the body of Christ? It is explained.
Whether the flesh of Christ had its beginning from Adam? It is affirmed with a distinction.
…
Whether in the instantiating of the conception or of the union Christ was sactified by grace? It is distinguished.
Whether in the same instantiating it had the use of free choice and reason? It is denied.
Whether in the same instantiating, He was able to merit? It is denied.
Whether from the first moment of conception Christ enjoyed the beatific vision? It is denied.”
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Select Theological Disputations, vol. 1, pt. 2 tr. by AI by Onku (Utrecht: Johannes a Waesberg, 1648), Disputations on Creation, Appendix 1, after problem 24, pp. 333-35 Latin
“Problem 4: Whether immediately after the detachment of the seed from the blessed Virgin the soul of Christ was formed?
Those who establish this do not indeed want the soul to have been infused into the rude seed, but that the matter in a single moment of time was so disposed that it was accommodated for receiving the soul. The Coimbrans explain this opinion in the cited place. “Nevertheless,” they say,
“the body of Christ our Savior did not observe this law of successive formation in the womb of the virgin mother, for what was to be gradually fashioned by the force of nature in the space of forty days, was perfected and completed in a moment by divine power and the work of the Holy Spirit.”
And this is the common opinion of the [Medieval] scholastics. See Thomas, Summa Contra Gentiles, bk. 4, ch. 44. The theologian of great name among the Reformed, Jerome Zanchi, thinks the same, bk. 2, On the Incarnation of the Son of God, question 8 thesis 1, and with him many others.
But we, to candidly explain our view, have never been able to see why the contrary opinion should be rejected. And in Hebrews 2:14 the apostle says that Christ was made similarly a partaker of flesh and blood as the children, and in verse 17, whence he had to be made like his brothers in all things.
Nor do the reasons usually brought to the contrary prove anything else. The chief one is that He was never joined to any embryo, but only to true human flesh endowed with a rational soul. For the Word was made flesh, that is, true man; but not first blood, then seed in the body of the virgin Mary, then an embryo, and afterwards man.
But this reason presupposes that the person of the Word assumed flesh immediately from conception–which nevertheless we deny, and we establish that, just as other fetuses are animated [ensouled] with the matter already disposed, similarly also Christ was animated, and that the Word assumed the body thus endowed with a soul, not indeed that the human nature at any time subsisted outside the person of the Son of God, but that in the order of nature the infusion of the soul preceded the assumption of humanity and personal union.”
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Matthew Poole
Annotations on Mt. ch. 1, v. 20
“‘for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.’ ‘That holy thing’, ( as Luke speaks), that human body which is in her womb, is created in her, and is of the Holy Ghost.”
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Leonard Rijssen
(XI, 27) as quoted in Heinrich Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, ch. 17, Person of Christ, section 12, pp. 425-6
“(2) The formation of Christ’s body, to which belongs its organization, animation and the uniting of the two, body as well as soul, with the blood.
28: Query, Was Christ’s body formed in a moment or successively?
Answer: Three things occur here: (1) the preparation of the material of which Christ’s body was formed; (2) the formation of the body out of the material duly prepared; (3) the completion of the same body brought gradually by its own increments to the proper stature.
As regards (1) and (3) all are agreed that they were accomplished by degrees (successive). As regards (2) theologians disagree, some urging an instantaneous formation, others a successive, with the latter of whom we agree. Because:
(1) the instantaneous and miraculous formation of Christ’s complete body and its union with the soul is a fiction unsupported by Scripture;
(2) in his assumption of human nature Christ is said to have been made like us, except for sin;
(3) if Christ’s body was completed in a moment, it could equally have been born the same moment and the Blessed Virgin need not have suffered the inconveniences of ordinary generation.”
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Francis Turretin
Institutes, vol. 2, 13th Topic, ‘Person & State of Christ’, 11th Question, ‘The Conception & Nativity of Christ…’, section 14, p. 343
“Nor is it of importance to inquire curiously at what time the soul was united to the body, the Logos (Logos) to the flesh. It is enough for us to believe that the human nature from the time it began to be never existed apart from the Logos (Logo), but was assumed by and hypostatically united to him. And if the soul could not be poured into the body unless already organized and completely formed (a point on which physicians are not agreed among themselves), it does not follow that the Logos (Logon) could not at once unite the flesh to himself, since his work could not be constrained either with the soul present or absent.
Nor is it more absurd for the body of Christ (not as yet animated) to be united to the Logos (Logo), then for the same (when lifeless in the sepulcher) to remain conjoined with the same (as theologians acknowledge was done in the death of Christ).”
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Daniel Williams
Man Made Righteous by Christ’s Obedience, being Two Sermons… (London, 1694), A Reply to Mr. Mather’s Postscript, pp. 166-67
“4th Charge: The Son of God was united to an embryo, which is a piece of ignorant blasphemy.
Reply: …But had I said it, where is the blasphemy, when the divine nature I hope was united to Christ’s dead body in the grave as all grant. And very many say that the divine nature was united to the flesh before it was organized or animated, of whom Turretin’s Institutes of Theology, p. 372:
“Etsi anima infundi non potuit in Corpus. nisi jam organizatum, etc. Non sequiter… non potuisse carnem statim sibi unire cum opus ejus non possit aut praesente aut absente, anima sibi coarctari.”
Pierson and multitudes are blasphemers with this bold man. But, supposing that though the Virgin conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost, and went her usual time, and that Christ was like other children, and the foetus had matter and nourishment ministred thereto by the Virgin, who conceived by the power of the Spirit, yet, that the divine Person was not united to the flesh before it was animated: But are not many physicians so ignorant as to judge the soul is united to the body unorganized; and if so, either the human nature of Christ had a separate subsistence from the divine Person, which is false, or the divine Person assumed it when the body was unorganized…”
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Peter van Mastricht
Theoretical Practical Theology (RHB), vol. 4, bk. 5, ch. 10
section 5, pp. 298-99
“Moreover, the operation of the Holy Spirit signified in coming upon and overshadowing had in general the following components, that:
(1) He separated some particle of the Virgin’s substance, from which the body of Christ was formed (Heb. 10:5).
(2) He bestowed a molding force upon the separated particle, by means of which the Virgin’s seed alone could do in the conception what from the order of nature both seeds, the male and female, can do.
(3) He as it were cleansed the seed of the Virgin, not indeed from moral impurity or sin, inasmuch as a seed not yet ensouled is not liable to that, but from physical intemperateness, from which, in its own time, sin could have resulted, or at the least He preserved the birth from all impurity, to the end that what would be born of her would be holy (Luke 1:35).
(4) He gradually formed that seed of the Virgin into human members, in the way that they are formed in ordinary generation (Heb. 10:5).
(5) When the body was already formed, He joined to it a rational soul (Zech. 12:1).
(6) In uniting the soul to the body, at one and the same time he inseparably joined the divine person to both united parts.”
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section 28, pp. 324-25
”but they [the Medieval Scholastics] want the formation of his members to have been completed not only after forty-two days, in the usual manner, but in a moment, without delay or succession….
The Protestants, with several of the Scholastics, think that it is more agreeable to the Scriptures for the formation to have occurred successively, because:
(1) In the history of the conception, gestation, and birth of John the Baptist the ordinary time is noted (Luke 1:38, 56–57), nor is anything different observed concerning the conception and birth of Christ (Luke 2:6). Therefore, since from these things they admit that the preparation and development of his body occurred successively, there is no reason for them to invent something extraordinary in the formation.
(2) In the assumption of the human nature, which occurred through the conception and birth, it is said that he was made like us in all things except for sin (Phil. 2:6–7; Heb. 2:14–15, 17; 4:15).
(3) The body of Christ when he was born grew outside the womb of the blessed Virgin according to the manner of others (Luke 2:40, 52).
(4) Miracles ought not to be invented rashly beyond and outside of the Scriptures.
On the contrary, most of the papists urge for their position:
(1) that the Word assumed a human nature, not an unformed mass. I respond, We judge that the union with the divine person did not occur before there occurred a delineation of the organic parts and the union of them with a rational soul.
(2) That the Holy Spirit could have formed him in a moment. I respond, It is not valid to argue from what can be to what is: the Holy Spirit could also have accomplished the separation and preparation of matter, and the development after birth, in a moment.
(3) That the first Adam was formed suddenly, and so then the second also was. I respond:
(a) Neither was the body of the first Adam formed in a moment.
(b) In that brief span of time in which the body of the first Adam was formed, it achieved its full stature, whereas the body of the second Adam achieved the fullness of this stature successively, as even our adversaries confess.
(4) That if the body of Christ was not formed at one and the same time, the Word either was united to a body not yet formed or human (which, as everyone acknowledges, is absurd), or, if the Word was not united to it, this body existed unformed without the Word.
I respond, It existed not yet formed, just as it existed when it was being prepared, and even before it was being prepared in the conception, that is, in its causes. But it did not subsist, just as it also did not subsist after the union with the Word; nor before the formation of the parts, or before it was a human body, did it exist personally sustained by the Word, as it began to exist when it was united with the Word, which happened at that time when the body was at last formed, and made a human body.”
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Johann H. Heidegger
(XVII, 36) as quoted in Heinrich Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, Person of Christ, section 13, p. 427
“…assumption of the human nature into the person of the Son of God, whereby the Logos, the Son of God, in the very moment of formation and sanctification assumed the human nature void of a hypostatis of its own into the hypostatis of the Logos assuming and of the human nature assumed, outside of which it neither ever subsists nor can subsist.”
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Latin Articles
1600’s
Voet, Gisbert – 41. ‘Of Creation, pt. 10’, section 4, pp. 795-96 in Select Theological Disputations (Utrecht, 1648-1667), vol. 1
Burman, Francis – section 12, p. 40 in A Synopsis of Theology, and especially of the Economy of the Covenant of God, from the beginning of ages to the consummation of all things (Utrecht, 1671), vol. 2, bk. 5, locus 33, ‘The Person of Christ & the Incarnation’
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1700’s
Heidegger, Johann H. – bk. 2, locus 17, ‘On the Person of Jesus Christ’, section 14, p. 9 & section 17, p. 10 in The Marrow of Christian Theology… (Zurich, 1713)
Vitringa, Campegius – ‘On the Conception of Jesus Christ’, pp. 477-79 in The Doctrine of the Christian Religion, Summarily Described through Aphorisms (d. 1722), vol. 5, ‘Of the Twofold State of the Messiah’, ‘Of the Messiah’s State of Humiliation’
De Moor, Bernard – ch. 19, ‘Of the Person of Jesus Christ’, section 13, point III, pp. 720-22 in A Continuous Commentary on John Marck’s Compendium of Didactic and Elenctic Christian Theology (Leiden, 1761-71), vol. 3
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Historical Theology
On the Post-Reformation: the Reformed
Lindholm, Stefan – pt. 2, ch. 3, ‘Virigin Birth & the Process of Hominization’ in Jerome Zanchi (1516-90) & the Analysis of Reformed Scholastic Christology (V&R, 2016), pp. 59-77
Lindholm analyzes and compares the instant formation of Christ’s body in Zanchi with that of succession in Turretin.
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“Or as an hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants which never saw light [and remained unburied].” “Wherefore then hast Thou brought me forth out of the womb? Oh that I had given up the ghost, and no eye had seen me! [and I had remained unburied] I should have been as though I had not been; I should have been carried from the womb to the grave [with a burial, which still would have been better].”
Job 3:16; 10:18-19
“If a man beget an hundred children, and live many years, so that the days of his years be many, and his soul be not filled with good, and also that he have no burial; I say, that an untimely birth is better than he [which did have a burial].”
Eccl. 6:3
“As a snail which melteth, let every one of them pass away: like the untimely birth of a woman, that they may not see the sun [and have no burial].”
Ps. 58:8
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