“If she bears offspring, and it is a male let it be; if a female, expose it.” (a private letter from Egypt - P.Oxy.4.744)

If by chance your child should prove to be a girl… let her be killed”(Ovid, Metamorphoses 9.679)

“Some of them do the deed with their own hands; with monstrous cruelty and

barbarity they stifle and throttle the first breath which the infants draw or throw

them into a river or into depths of the sea, after attaching some heavy

substance to make them sink more quickly under its weight. Others take them

to be exposed in some desert place, hoping, they themselves say, that they

may be saved, but leaving them in actual truth to suffer the most distressing

fate. For all the beasts that feed on human flesh visit the spot and feast

unhindered on the infants; a fine banquet.” (Philo Special Laws 3.114-5)

“Do not abort a foetus or kill a child that is born… For they love what is vain and pursue a reward, showing no mercy to the poor nor toiling for the oppressed nor knowing the one who made them; murderers of children and corruptors of what God has fashioned.

(Didache 2,2; 5.2; Ep. Barnabus 19.5; 20.2 – 2nd century)

Universal Law in Sibylline Oracles:

The Immortal in starry heaven will put into effect

a common law for the people:

Avoid unlawful cults; worship the Living One.

Beware of adultery and homosexual intercourse

Raise your offspring and do not kill it.

For the Immortal will be furious at anyone who commits these sins.

(Sib. Or. III:762-766 translated by Buitenwerf)

The Apostolic Decree

Keep away from: ● Idol offerings

● Sexual immorality

● Strangled things

● Blood

The Apostolic Decree

Keep away from: ● Idol offerings

● Sexual immorality

● Strangled things

● Blood

The Apostolic Decree

Keep away from: ● Idol offerings● Sexual immorality ● Strangled things ● Blood

Three Jewish 'mortal' sins

Do not commit ● Idolatry ● Sexual immorality● Bloodshed

The Apostolic Decree

Keep away from: ● Idol offerings● Sexual immorality ● Strangled things ● Blood

Three Jewish 'mortal' sins

Do not commit ● Idolatry ● Sexual immorality● Bloodshed

and especially ● [a fourth sin]

Steam Engine and self-emptying siphoninvented in 1st C BC by by Heron of Alexandria

Smothered meats, in Greek literature:

“Baked in another mansion of its mother,Which holds within its net the tender milk-fedoffspring of new-born flocks untimely smothered”

“And chief of all, not to be missed, a lightly boiled young smothered kid was served up.”

“Some tender limbs of smothered goats, set round with herbs, a young and tender meat.”

The Apostolic Decree

Keep away from: ● Idol offerings

● Sexual immorality

● [eating or shedding] Blood

and especially ● Smothering [ie suckling pig]

or

● Smothering [ie killing babies]