Annotatio XLIV
”Let us make him a help like unto himself.” — Genesis 2:18
Procopius of Gaza, in the exposition of this saying, has these things: “Wherefore he who is the cause or author that a formless embryo is cast out by abortion, according to the divine law incurs no penalties, nor is affected with punishment; because an imperfect embryo is not yet numbered among men.” Which words are to be understood not of all penalties and punishments simply, but only of those with which homicides are wont to be punished:1 because the procured abortion of an unformed birth is not homicide. But those who procure the poisons of sterility and cast out foetuses not yet animated, Augustine affirms to sin most gravely (book 1 On Marriage and Concupiscence, chapter 15, and Sermon On the Season 244).
Footnotes
-
Left margin: For what cause abortion is a grave sin, even if the embryo was not [yet] animated. (Quae causa est abortus graviter peccat etiamsi embryo non fuerit animatus.) — with: Exodus 21:22. ↩