Texts in conversation

Compare Didache 2:2 and Apocalypse of Peter 1:27

Early Christian

Summary

The Didache forbids abortion in its Two Ways teaching. The Apocalypse of Peter dramatizes the prohibition, describing women who caused miscarriages standing in a pit of filth while their aborted children send lightning at the mothers’ eyes.

Passages

Didache 2:2

Early Christian

1 But the second commandment of the teaching is: 2 You shall not murder; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not corrupt boys; you shall not commit fornication; you shall not steal; you shall not practice magic; you shall not use love potions; you shall not cause abortion, nor kill newborns; you shall not desire your neighbor's possessions. 3 You shall not commit perjury; you shall not lie; you shall not speak ill; you shall not bear grudges.

90–120 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Didache

Apocalypse of Peter 1:27

Early Christian · Revelation of Peter

26 The murderers and those who have made common cause with them will be cast into the fire, in a place full of venomous beasts; and they will be tormented without rest, feeling their pains, and their worms will be as many in number as a dark cloud. And the angel Ezrael will bring forth the souls of those who have been slain, and they will see the torment of those who slew them, and say to one another: The judgment of God is righteousness and justice. We heard, but we did not believe, that we would come into this place of eternal judgment. 27 Near this flame is a pit, great and very deep, and into it flows from above every kind of torment, foulness, and discharge. Women are swallowed up in it to their necks and tormented with great pain. These are those who have caused their children to be born prematurely, and have corrupted the work of God that created them. Across from them is another place where their children sit alive, and they cry out to God. Flashes of lightning go forth from those children and pierce the eyes of those who, for the sake of sexual immorality, caused their destruction. 28 Other men and women will stand above them, naked; and their children stand across from them in a place of delight, sighing and crying out to God because of their parents, saying: These are the ones who have despised and cursed and transgressed your commandments and delivered us to death. They cursed the angel that formed us, hung us up, and begrudged us the light which you have given to all creatures. The milk of their mothers flowing from their breasts will congeal, and from it will come flesh-devouring beasts, which will come forth and turn and torment them forever with their husbands, because they forsook the commandments of God and slew their children. As for their children, they will be delivered to the angel Temlakos. And those who slew them will be tormented eternally, for God wills it so.

100–150 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Apocalypse of Peter

References

“... However, other writings of the early period of Christianity, such as the Didache and the so-called Epistle of Barnabas, expressly condemn both abortion and infanticide. Didache 2:2, in writing about the ‘two ways,’ notes that there is a great difference between these two ways. In an exposition of the second great commandment (‘Love thy neighbor as thyself’) as part of the ‘Way of Life,’ the author makes a list of prohibitions modeled on the Ten Commandments, including: ‘Thou shalt not murder a child by abortion/destruction.’ The Epistle of Barnabas 19:5 contains the same prohibition immediately preceded by ‘thou shalt love thy neighbor more than thyself.’ According to Didache 5:2, among those who are on the ‘Way of Death’ are ‘infanticides’ and ‘those destroying the image of God.’ Apparently, then, the fetus was viewed as being a neighbor with the same rights — including the right to life — that the neighbor would have. Similarly, the early Christian apocalyptic literature reflects a moral abhorrence of willful abortion. The Apocalypse of Peter, roughly contemporary with the Didache and the Epistle of Barnabas, and at one time included in the canon of scripture, paints a graphic portrait of hell’s population, which includes a scene in which women who have obtained abortions are in a gorge, up to their throats in excrement, while fire shoots forth from the infants who were aborted and strikes the women on the eyes ...”

David Noel (ed.) Freedman, The Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 1:31–35.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

What the Way of Life Forbids

Didache16 chapters

Compare Didache 2:2 and Apocalypse of Peter 1:27

Summary

Passages

Didache 2:2

Apocalypse of Peter 1:27

References

Your feedback

Leave a comment

Glossary

Search the Library