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The City of God

Chapter 13.--Whether Abortions, If They are Numbered Among the Dead, Shall Not Also Have a Part in the Resurrection.

To these objections, then, of our adversaries which I have thus detailed, I will now reply, trusting that God will mercifully assist my endeavors. That abortions, which, even supposing they were alive in the womb, did also die there, shall rise again, I make bold neither to affirm nor to deny, although I fail to see why, if they are not excluded from the number of the dead, they should not attain to the resurrection of the dead. For either all the dead shall not rise, and there will be to all eternity some souls without bodies though they once had them,--only in their mother's womb, indeed; or, if all human souls shall receive again the bodies which they had wherever they lived, and which they left when they died, then I do not see how I can say that even those who died in their mother's womb shall have no resurrection. But whichever of these opinions any one may adopt concerning them, we must at least apply to them, if they rise again, all that we have to say of infants who have been born.

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De civitate Dei (CCSL)

Caput XIII: An abortiui non pertineant ad resurrectionem, si pertinent ad numerum mortuorum.

Ad haec ergo, quae ab eorum parte contraria me digerente mihi uidentur obposita, misericordia dei meis nisibus opem ferente respondeam. abortiuos fetus, qui, cum iam uixissent in utero, ibi sunt mortui, resurrecturos ut adfirmare, ita negare non audeo; quamuis non uideam quomodo ad eos non pertineat resurrectio mortuorum, si non eximuntur de numero mortuorum. aut enim non omnes mortui resurgent et erunt aliquae humanae animae sine corporibus in aeternum, quae corpora humana, quamuis intra uiscera materna, gestarunt; aut si omnes animae humanae recipient resurgentia sua corpora, quae habuerunt, ubicumque uiuentia et morientia reliquerunt, non inuenio quemadmodum dicam ad resurrectionem non pertinere mortuorum quoscumque mortuos etiam in uteris matrum. sed utrumlibet de his quisque sentiat, quod de iam natis infantibus dixerimus, hoc etiam de illis intellegendum est, si resurgent.