Gothic Bible,Vetus Latina

and Visigothic Law

Evidence for a Septuagint-based
GothicVersion of Exodus*

by
Marianne Elsakkers
(Utrecht)

Although there is no extant version of the Gothic Bible

book Exodus, there is historical and philological evidence for
the existence of a Gothic translation of the Greek Septuagint
version of the Old Testament. The Gothic Bible was trans-
lated into the Gothic vernacular before the Goths migrated to
the West. I will argue that Visigothic secular law may provide
evidence of the existence of a Gothic version of Exodus that
was still in use after the Gothic migration to the West. This
evidence is based on the difference between the Septuagint
version and the Hebrew version of Exodus 21.22-23, the bib-
lical law on abortion. The Septuagint text of Exodus 21.22-23
distinguishes between early term and late term abortion, using
the concept `formed º unformed', whereas the Hebrew text
makes no such distinction. Both versions of Exodus 21.22-23
were available in the early medieval West ; the former in the
Old Latin translations called Vetus Latina, and the latter in
* This paper is dedicated to the memory of my father. Many thanks are
due to Felice Lifshitz and Jan te Lindert for their inspiring comments on an
earlier version of this paper, to Wilken Engelbrecht and Niek Zelders for
help in translating some of the Latin sources, to the staff of Dousa (the
manuscripts and rare books reading room) at the University of Leyden, to
Bertine Bouwman, Liduine Smit-Verheij and Jan Hastrich for tracking
down and copying a number of almost inaccessible publications for me and
to Jacqueline de Ruiter.

Sacris Erudiri 44 (2005): 37-76 ©

38 MARIANNE ELSAKKERS

the Vulgate. Visigothic secular law º issued after the Gothic

migration to the West º also differentiates between early
term and late term abortion. This early medieval Germanic
abortion law is innovative, because late Roman law does not
punish abortion and early medieval Church law condemns
abortion as homicide without any regard for the stage of de-
velopment of the aborted fetus. In this paper I will also try to
answer the question why the Visigothic kings issued abortion
law that was fundamentally different from Roman law and
early medieval conciliar law.
There are seven articles on abortion in the early medieval
Leges Visigothorum (LV).1 Article 6.3.2 is of special interest, be-
cause it is the first medieval law on abortion to explicitly em-
ploy a distinction between a formed and an unformed fetus in
order to differentiate between early term and late term abor-
tion.2

1
The Leges Visigothorum is a collection of Visigothic law issued in the
fifth, sixth and seventh centuries. The standard edition is Karl Zeumer
(Hrsg.), Leges Visigothorum, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Leges Natio-
num Germanicarum 1 (Hannover-Leipzig, 1902).
2
The fetus is usually considered to be `formed' when the mother first
feels movement ; this more or less corresponds to a pregnancy of three
months.
For other Germanic law codes with laws which distinguish between early
term and late term abortion, and a discussion of the legacy of the concept
`formed - unformed' in the medieval West, see : Marianne Elsakkers,
``Genre Hopping : Aristotelian Criteria for Abortion in Germania,'' in : Ger-
manic Texts and Latin Models : Medieval Reconstructions, eds. Karin E. Olsen,
Antonina Harbus and Tette Hofstra, Germania Latina 4 (Leuven, 2001),
pp. 73-92, and Marianne Elsakkers, ``Abortion, Poisoning, Magic and
Contraception in Eckhardt's Pactus Legis Salicae,'' Amsterdamer Beitra« ge zur
Aëlteren Germanistik 57 (2003), pp. 233-267.
On abortion and contraception in the early medieval West, see : Roger
John Huser, The Crime of Abortion in Canon Law (Washington DC, 1942) ;
John T. Noonan, Contraception ; a History of its Treatment by the Catholic Theo-
logians and Canonists, enlarged ed. (Cambridge MA, 1986) ; John T. Noonan,
``An Almost Absolute Value in History,'' in : John T. Noonan (ed.), The
Morality of Abortion ; Legal and Historical Perspectives, (Cambridge MA, 1970),
pp. 1-59 ; John Connery, Abortion : the Development of the Roman Catholic Per-
spective (Chicago, 1977) ; Michael J. Gorman, Abortion and the Early Church :
Christian, Jewish and Pagan Attitudes in the Greco-Roman World, (Downers
 GOTHIC BIBLE, VETUS LATINA AND VISIGOTHIC LAW 39

Leges Visigothorum 6.3.2. Antiqua. Si ingenuus ingenuam

abortare fecerit.
Si quis mulierem gravidam percusserit quocumque hictu aut
per aliquam occasionem mulierem ingenuam abortare fecerit,
et exinde mortua fuerit, pro homicidio puniatur.
Si autem tantumodo partus excutiatur, et mulier in nullo de-
bilitata fuerit, et ingenuus ingenue hoc intulisse cognoscitur,
si formatum infantem extincxit, CL solidos reddat ; si vero in-
formem, C solidos pro facto restituat.3
Visigothic laws 6.3.2. Old law. If a free man causes a free
woman to abort.
If anyone strikes a pregnant woman by any blow whatever or
through any circumstance causes a free woman to abort, and
from this she dies, let him be punished for homicide.
If, however, only the partus is expelled, and the woman is in
no way debilitated, and a free man is recognized as having in-
flicted this to a free woman, if he has killed a formed fetus,
let him pay 150 solidi ; if it is actually an unformed fetus, let
him pay 100 solidi in restitution for the deed.4
The distinction `formed' º `unformed' is also found in the
Greek Septuagint version (LXX) of the Mosaic law on abor-
tion. If we take a closer look at the Visigothic secular law on

Grove, ILL, 1982) ; John Riddle, Contraception and Abortion from the Ancient
World to the Renaissance (Cambridge MA, 1992) ; John Riddle, Eve's Herbs ;
a History of Contraception and Abortion in the West (Cambridge MA, 1997) ;
Konstantinos Kapparis, Abortion in the Ancient World (London, 2002).
On the link between Aristotle's biology (esp. Historia Animalium
9(7).583b) and the distinction `formed º unformed' in the Septuagint ver-
sion of Exodus 21.22-23, see : Noonan, Contraception, p. 90 ; Connery,
Abortion, pp. 17-18 ; Gorman, Abortion and the Early Church, p. 35 ; Riddle,
Contraception and Abortion, pp. 21-22 ; Riddle, Eve's Herbs, pp. 79-90, and
Jan Gerhard te Lindert, Over de status van het menselijk embryo in de Joodse en de
Christelijke ethiek ; een analyse van opvattingen toegelicht aan de hand van verklaringen
van Exodus 21 : 22vv (with a summary in English), Ph.D. Dissertation, Uni-
versity of Utrecht, 1998 (s.l., 1998), pp. 41-48.
3
Zeumer, Leges Visigothorum, p. 261 ; the other six laws are on pp. 260-
262.
4
Darrel W. Amundsen, ``Visigothic Medical Legislation,'' Bulletin of the
History of Medicine 45 (1971), pp. 553-569, at p. 567 (slightly emended trans-
lation).
40 MARIANNE ELSAKKERS

abortion, we see that LV 6.3.2 seems to have incorporated this

version of Exodus 21.22-23.
Septuagint
Ex. 21.22-23. If two men fight and strike a woman who is
pregnant, and her child comes out while not formed, he will
be forced to pay a fine ; according as the woman's husband
lays upon [him] he shall give according to that which is
thought fit. But if it is formed, he will give life for life.5
But what is the connection between the Septuagint version
of Exodus 21.22-23 and Gothic secular law ? Why was a bibli-
cal law on abortion inserted into a secular Germanic law
code ? And how did it get there ?
Possible answers to these questions involve a rather lengthy
digression on the Old Testament in the fourth, fifth, and sixth
centuries in order to establish what versions of the Bible were
known in the early medieval West, and, more especially,
whether the Gothic translation of Exodus was based on the
Hebrew version or on the Septuagint version. Determining
the `Vorlage' of the Gothic Bible is important, because the
Hebrew or Massoretic version of Exodus 21 :22-23 is funda-
mentally different from the Septuagint version. The Hebrew
version does not differentiate between a formed and an un-
formed fetus ; in this version the 'ásoên, `harm, mischief', refers
to the (fatal) injuries sustained by the mother.6

5
The translation is based on Riddle, Eve's Herbs, pp. 79-80 and Stanley
Isser, ``Two Traditions : the Law of Exodus 21 : 22-23 Revisited,'' The
Catholic Biblical Quarterly 52 (1990), pp. 30-45, at pp. 30-31.
6
In the Hebrew version the focus is on the mother, and in the Septuagint
the focus is on the unborn child. On the differences between the two ver-
sions of Exodus 21.22-23, see : Gorman, Abortion and the Early Church, p. 35 ;
Isser, ``Two Traditions,'' passim ; Kapparis, Abortion, pp. 46 ff. ; G. R.
Dunstan, ``The Human Embryo in the Western Moral Tradition,'' in : The
Status of the Human Embryo : Perspectives from Moral Tradition, eds. G. R. Dun-
stan and Mary J. Seller (London, 1988), pp. 39-57. The difference be-
tween the Hebrew version and the Septuagint version of Exodus 21.22-23
is discussed at length in : Te Lindert, Over de status, esp. pp. 33-35.
See also : S. Mendelsohn, The Criminal Jurisprudence of the Ancient Hebrews
(Baltimore, 1891 ; rpr. Union, NJ, 2001), p. 149 : ``... the Talmud (...) con-
siders the embryo in the womb pars viscerum matris (Sanh. 80b, et al.) and,
 GOTHIC BIBLE, VETUS LATINA AND VISIGOTHIC LAW 41

Hebrew
Ex. 21.22-23. And if men strive together, and hurt a woman
with child, so that her fruit depart [from her], and yet no mis-
chief ('ásoên) follow, he shall be surely fined, according as the
woman's husband shall lay upon him ; and he shall pay as the
judges determine.
But if any mischief ('ásoên) follow, then thou shalt give life for
life, eye for eye, etc.7
Both versions of Exodus 21.22-23 are concerned with acci-
dental or unintentional abortion, that is, a situation in which
a pregnant woman is accidentally injured so seriously by
fighting men that she miscarries.8 In his De Specialibus Legibus,
`On the Special Laws', Philo of Alexandria (first century
A.D.) explains that the Septuagint version of Exodus 21.22-
23 could also `by implication' be interpreted as a condemna-
tion of intentional abortion and infanticide.9

Septuagint, Vetus Latina and Vulgate

At an early date in antiquity the Christian Church chose the

Greek Septuagint as her `authorized' version over the Hebrew
or Massoretic text of the Old Testament. The Alexandrian
Septuagint, the oldest known Greek translation of the Old
Testament, is from the third century B.C. In the following
centuries a number of revisions of the Septuagint and several

therefore, as not having individual existence (...).'' Roman law also consid-
ered the fetus to be part of the woman's body, see also : note 53.
7
Extracted from Bible Works 4.0 ; see also : Isser, ``Two Traditions,''
p. 30.
8
Most scholars argue that the Jewish tradition would not have approved
of deliberate abortion, even though it was not explicitly condemned in Exo-
dus 21.22-23. See, for instance : Connery, Abortion, pp. 13-21, and Gorman,
Abortion and the Early Church, pp. 33-34. Contra : Riddle, Eve's Herbs,
pp. 72-73.
9
Philo Judaeus º Philo of Alexandria, Works, with an English transla-
tion by F. H. Colson, 10 vols., (London-Cambridge MA, 1958), vol. 7, De
Specialibus Legibus, III.108-119, pp. 544-551. See also : Huser, The Crime of
Abortion, pp. 6-7 ; Noonan, Contraception, pp. 86-87 ; Noonan, ``An Almost
Absolute Value,'' p. 6 ; Connery, Abortion, pp.19-20 ; Gorman, Abortion
and the Early Church, p. 36 and Te Lindert, Over de status, pp. 35-50.
42 MARIANNE ELSAKKERS

new translations from the Hebrew were made.10 Jerome

(c. 348-420) indicated that there were at least three recensions
of the Septuagint current in his day : the Hesychian recension
in Alexandria and Egypt, the Hexaplaric in Palestine (Caesar-
ea, Jerusalem) and the Lucianic or Antiochian recension º
the version favored by the Arian Christians º in North Syria,
Asia Minor and Greece (Constantinople and Antioch).11 The
Greek-speaking Christian communities in the West must have
been familiar with one or more versions of the Septuagint.
The first versions of Old Latin Bible probably originated in
the Latin-speaking parts of North Africa in the second cen-
tury ; these translations are collectively called Vetus Latina
(VL). As the West was slowly becoming more and more
romanized, `European' versions of the Vetus Latina also ap-
peared. The Old Latin translations of the Old Testament
were based on the Alexandrian Septuagint.
It will be obvious that by the fourth century A.D. many dif-
ferent Greek and Latin redactions of the various Bible books
existed side by side : on the one hand there were a number of
different versions and translations, and on the other hand not
10
E.g., the Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotian recensions and the anony-
mous Quinta, Sexta and Septima, which are all from the second century A.D.
On the history of the Bible, see : Francis C. Burkitt, The Old Latin and the
Itala, Texts and Studies 4.3 (Cambridge, 1896) ; Henry B. Swete, An Intro-
duction to the Old Testament in Greek, rev. ed. Richard R. Ottley (New York,
1968 ; first ed. 1902) ; Wilhelm Streitberg (Hrsg.), Die Gotische Bibel, mit ei-
nem Nachtrag von Piergiuseppe Scardigli, 7. Aufl., 2 Bde. (Heidelberg, 2000 ;
first ed. 1908) ; P. R. Ackroyd and C. F. Evans (eds.), The Cambridge History
of the Bible, vol. 1, From the Beginnings to Jerome (Cambridge, 1980) [CHB I] ;
G. W. H. Lampe (ed.), The Cambridge History of the Bible, vol. 2, The West from
the Fathers to the Reformation (Cambridge, 1969) [CHB II] ; Pierre-Maurice Bo-
gaert, ``La Bible Latine des Origines au Moyen Aêge ; Aperc°u Historique,
Eètat des Questions,'' Revue Theèologique de Louvain 19 (1988), pp. 137-159, 276-
314 ; Jacques Berlioz e.a., Identifier Sources et Citations (Turnhout, 1994).
11
The Hesychian version is from the third century, Origen's (185-253)
Hexapla was finished between 230 and 245, and Lucian's recension is con-
ventionally dated to the end of the third century ; the Hexapla contains six
different versions of the Bible arranged in columns. On Jerome's descrip-
tion of the Septuagintal recensions, see : Streitberg, Die Gotische Bibel,
p. xxxi ; Swete, Introduction to the Old Testament, pp. 85-86 and CHB II, p. 19
which mentions ``Kahle's view that at least the Lucianic [version] was based
on a pre-Christian divergent text.''
 GOTHIC BIBLE, VETUS LATINA AND VISIGOTHIC LAW 43

one of these texts had been standardized, so that each redac-

tion would contain countless textual variations due to centu-
ries of interpolating, emendation, copying and translation
mistakes. Jerome states that there were tot exemplaria quot codi-
ces `as many versions as there were codices', and Augustine
(354-430), who used an Old Latin version of the Bible, also
complained of textual corruptions.12
It does not come as a surprise that Jerome was called on by
the pope to revise the Latin Bible in the late fourth century.
After a first revision of the Old Latin using the Greek Septua-
gint version of the Bible, Jerome produced a completely new
Latin translation of the Bible, the Vulgate. The Vulgate ver-
sion of the Old Testament was based on the Hebrew text in-
stead of on the Septuagint.

The Goths and the Gothic Bible

The Gothic Bible is the earliest rendering of the Bible into a

Germanic language ; it was translated c. 350 by Ulfila, bishop
of the Goths (311-382/3), while the Gothic tribes, who were
converts to Arianism, were still living in the Eastern Roman
Empire.13 The extant remains of the Gothic Bible consist of
12
The quotation from Jerome can be found in his Preface to the Latin
Gospels (PL 29 : 0526 C), see : Swete, Introduction to the Old Testament, p. 89
and CHB II, pp. 83-84.
On Augustine's complaints, see : Swete, Introduction to the Old Testament,
p. 89, and CHB I, p. 545. Augustine, who was familiar with Jerome's trans-
lations and even quoted from the latter's translation of the Gospels, did not
acknowledge the Vulgate Old Testament and continued to use the Septua-
gint-based Vetus Latina. Like Augustine, Origen, the author of the Hexa-
pla, was aware of the textual discrepancies between the Septuagint and the
Massoretic Text. Augustine probably remained faithful to the Septuagint
because it had been preferred over the Hebrew by the early Church.
13
On the history of the Goths, see : E. A. Thompson, The Visigoths in the
Time of Ulfila (Oxford, 1966) ; Herwig Wolfram, History of the Goths, trans.
Thomas J. Dunlap (Berkeley, CA, 1988) ; Peter Heather and John Mat-
thews, The Goths in the Fourth Century, Translated Texts for Historians 11
(Liverpool, 1991) ; Peter Heather, Goths and Romans (Oxford, 1991) ; Peter
Heather, The Goths (Oxford, 1996).
On the Gothic Bible, see : Streitberg, Die Gotische Bibel ; G. W. S. Frie-
drichsen, The Gothic Version of the Gospels ; a Study of its Style and Textual His-
44 MARIANNE ELSAKKERS

the greater part of the New Testament (Gospels and Epistles)

and a few fragments of the Old Testament.14 The existence of
fragments of the Old Testament is an indication that the ma-
jor books of the Old Testament must also have been trans-
lated into Gothic. This is also supported by external evi-
dence.15 Ulfila's translation of the Old Testament was based
on the revision of the Septuagint ascribed to Lucian (À 311/
312), which was used by Arian Christians in Greece and Asia
Minor.16

tory (London, 1926) ; G. W. S. Friedrichsen, The Gothic Version of the Epis-

tles ; a Study of its Style and Textual History (London, 1939) ; Elfriede Stutz,
Gotische Literaturdenkma«ler, Sammlung Metzler 48 (Stuttgart, 1966) ; Wil-
helm Braune, Gotische Grammatik, 20. Aufl., neu bearb. Frank Heidermanns
(Tu«bingen, 2004) ; Elfriede Stutz, ``Codices Gotici,'' in : Reallexikon der
Germanischen Altertumskunde, 2. vo«llig neu bearb. und stark erw. Aufl., Bd.
5, Chronos-Dona (Berlin, 1984), pp. 52-60. William H. Bennett, An Introduc-
tion to the Gothic Language, 4th ed. (New York, 1980) ; Heather and Mat-
thews, Goths in the Fourth Century ; Knut Scha«ferdiek, ``Das gotische
Christentum im vierten Jahrhundert,'' in : Karl-Friedrich Kraft, Eva-
Maria Lill und Ute Schwab (Hrsg.), Triuwe ; Studien zur Sprachgeschichte und
Literaturwissenschaft ; Geda«chtnisbuch fu« r Elfriede Stutz (Heidelberg, 1992),
pp. 19-50.
14
The Gothic fragments of the Old Testament consist of part of the book
of Nehemia and a few scraps of Genesis which were jotted down in a ninth-
or tenth-century Alcuin manuscript, the so-called `Salzburg-Wiener Al-
kuin-Handschrift' (Codex Salisburg 795) ; see : Streitberg, Die Gotische Bi-
bel, pp. xxx-xxxi, 475-478 and Stutz, Gotische Literaturdenkma«ler, pp. 29, 81.
Elfriede Stutz claims that these fragments do not prove that there was an
Old Testament in Gothic : ``die Existenz einer got. Genesis wird durch sie
nicht ausreichend erwiesen'' (p.29) ; contra : Heather and Matthews,
Goths in the Fourth Century, p. 158.
15
External evidence for the existence of the Gothic Bible has been gath-
ered together by Streitberg, Die Gotische Bibel, pp. xiii-xxiv ; for transla-
tions of some of these texts, see : Heather and Matthews, Goths in the
Fourth Century, pp. 141-145. Important is Philostorgius (5th century) who in
his Church History states that Ulfila ``was the inventor for them [the Goths]
of their own letters, and translated all the Scriptures into their own lan-
guage... with the exception, that is, of Kings'' (Heather & Matthews,
Goths in the Fourth Century, p. 144).
16
See : Streitberg, Die Gotische Bibel, p. xxxii ; Friedrichsen, Gospels,
p. 8. On the Lucianic recension, see : Swete, Introduction to the Old Testament,
p. 80 ff. The Lucianic or Antiochian recension of the Septuagint was edited
by Paul de Lagarde, Librorum Veteris Testamenti canonicorum (Go«ttingen,
1883), but, unfortunately, De Lagarde's edition of the Octateuch is now
 GOTHIC BIBLE, VETUS LATINA AND VISIGOTHIC LAW 45

In the course of the fourth and fifth centuries groups of

Gothic tribes, Visigoths and Ostrogoths as they are tradition-
ally called, migrated from the vicinity of the Black Sea to the
western half of the Roman Empire.17 The Visigoths estab-
lished the kingdom of Toulouse in southern Gaul and Spain
in 418 after sacking Rome eight years earlier. The Ostrogoths
were officially invited to northern Italy in 489 by the Eastern
Emperor, but there must have already been Gothic settle-
ments in Italy before then. Thus both the Visigoths and the
Ostrogoths moved from a Greek-speaking area to a predomi-
nantly Latin-speaking area, where Latin was the language of
literacy.
Both the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths were Arian Christi-
ans. We have evidence of early Gothic biblical scholarship in
the Skeireins, a commentary on the Gospel of John,18 and in
the letter on biblical translation Jerome wrote to the Gothic
scholars Sunnia and Fretila in the early fifth century.19 It is
likely that the Goths took copies of the Gothic Bible along
with them on their journey West. This is corroborated by Sal-
vian of Marseilles, a fifth-century Gallo-Roman priest origi-
nally from the vicinity of Trier who must have heard of, or
perhaps even experienced, the arrival of the Goths in Gaul
when he was a boy. In his De Gubernatione Dei, written c. 440-

considered unreliable, see : Streitberg, Die Gotische Bibel, pp. xxxi-xxxii :

``dass de Lagardes Text fu«r den Oktateuch heute nicht mehr als lucianisch
gelten kann'' (p. xxxii). The lack of a Lucianic version of the Septuagintal
Exodus is corroborated by Natalio Fernaèndez Marcos, ``The Textual Con-
text of the Hexapla : Lucianic Texts and Vetus Latina,'' in : Origen's Hexapla
and Fragments ; papers presented at the Rich Seminar on the Hexapla, ed. Alison
Salvesen (Tu«bingen, 1998), pp. 408-420, at p. 409 : ``As is well known, an
Antiochian recension has not yet emerged for the Pentateuch.''
17
On the names of the Gothic tribes, see : Heather, The Goths, p. 52 ff,
who prefers the terms Tervingi (*Visigoths) and Greutungi (*Ostrogoths).
18
Unfortunately, date, author and provenance of the Skeireins are un-
known, see : Stutz, Gotische Literaturdenkma«ler, pp. 64-69.
19
Sunnia (Sunnias) and Fretila (Fretela) consulted Jerome (Epistle 106)
on ``the relationship between the Septuagint and his revised text of the
Psalms'' in 403 or 405, see : Heather and Matthews, Goths in the Fourth
Century, p. 156 ; see also : Streitberg, Die Gotische Bibel, pp. xxxi-xxxii ;
CHB II, p. 351 and Stutz, Gotische Literaturdenkma«ler, pp. 43-45. Contra :
Thompson, The Visigoths in the Time of Ulfila, p. 138 ff.
46 MARIANNE ELSAKKERS

441, Salvian mentions the fact that the Goths had a version of
the Bible in the vernacular, a fact which in itself must have
been surprising to him, because only Greek and Latin ver-
sions of the Bible were current in the West at that time.20
In book 5 Salvian explains that being a heretic º in this case
an Arian º was a fate worse than being a pagan, and at best
misguided.
5.2.5. Interim quia duo superius barbarorum genera uel sec-
tas esse memorauimus, paganorum atque haereticorum (...)
6. Eadem, inquis, legunt illi quae leguntur a nobis. Quomo-
do eadem, quae ab auctoribus quondam malis et male sunt in-
terpolata et male tradita ? Ac per hoc iam non eadem, quia
non possunt penitus dici ipsa quae sunt in aliqua sui parte ui-
tiata. (...) Nos ergo tantum scripturas sacras plenas, inuiola-
tas, integras habemus, qui eas uel in fonte suo bibimus, uel
certe de purissimo fonte haustas per ministerium purae trans-
lationis haurimus. Nos tantummodo bene legimus. 7. (...) Ce-
terae quippe nationes aut non habent legem Dei, aut debilem
et conuulneratam habent ; (...) Nam et si qui gentium barba-
rarum sunt qui in libris suis minus uideantur scripturam sa-
cram interpolatam habere uel dilaceratam (PL laceram),
habent tamen ueterum magistrorum traditione corruptam
(...).21 [CPL 485]
5.2.5. Now I mentioned above that there are two groups, or
sects, of barbarians ; pagans and heretics. (...) 6. They [the he-
retics] read the same things, you say, that are read by us. But
how can they be the same, when they were written in the first
place by bad authors, and are badly interpolated and badly
transmitted ? They are not really the same, because things can
in no sense be called the same when they are defective in any
20
On Salvianus, see : the introduction to Salvianus (= Salvianus Massi-
liensis Presbyter), The Writings of Salvian, the Presbyter, trans. Jeremiah F.
O'Sullivan, The Fathers of the Church 3 (Washington, DC, 1947) ;
Thompson, The Visigoths in the Time of Ulfila, pp. 149-153 and Heather and
Matthews, Goths in the Fourth Century, pp. 166-169.
21
Extracted from J.-P. Migne, The Patrologia Latina Database (PL)
(Cambridge, 1993-...), PL 53 : 0094C-0095C, and from the Cetedoc Library of
Christian Latin Texts (CLCLT-4) (Turnhout, 2000), Cl. 0485, lib. : 5, cap. :
2, par. : 5, linea : 1 - Cl. 0485, lib. : 5, cap. : 2, par. : 7, linea : 30. See also :
Salvianus Massiliensis, Üuvres, vol. 2, Du Gouvernement de Dieu, ed. Georges
Lagarrigue, Sources Chreètiennes, 220 (Paris, 1975), pp. 314-317.
 GOTHIC BIBLE, VETUS LATINA AND VISIGOTHIC LAW 47

part of themselves. (...) It is only we who possess the holy

scriptures full, inviolate and complete : for we either drink
them at their very source, or at least as drawn from the purest
source through the service of a pure translation. Only we
read them correctly. 7. (...) As for other nations, these either
do not possess the law or they possess it in a faulty and dama-
ged form. (...) Even if there are some among the barbarian
nations who among their books may seem to possess a sacred
scripture that is less interpolated or torn apart, yet they still
possess it [in a version] corrupted by the teaching of their
masters in the past (...).22
This quote, especially words like corrupta, convulnerata, de-
bilis, dilacerata, interpolata, vitiata, and violata, shows that Sal-
vian did not recognize the authority of the Gothic Bible be-
cause of its corruptions. The corruptions Salvian is referring
to concern interpolations and translation errors, but also tex-
tual emendations. In Salvian's eyes the Gothic Bible stood for
Arianism and heresy, and it is likely that Salvian's definition
of a textual corruption would include erroneous emendations,
especially changes reflecting the Arian doctrine. Male tradita,
`badly transmitted' could therefore mean that Salvian rejected
badly translated verses or passages containing Arian heresies,
but it might also mean that he rejected the whole Gothic Bible
and its Lucianic `Vorlage', because of their Arian leanings.23
Usage of the phrases auctores mali º which in this context can
only mean `bad translators', tamen ueterum magistrorum traditione
corruptam and pura translatio seems to point in this direction.24
But Salvian may also be stressing the fact that the authorized
text, the purissimus fons, may only be consulted through an au-
thorized translation, per ministerium purae translationis into a
scriptural language, thus suggesting that he might disapprove

22
Heather and Matthews, Goths in the Fourth Century, pp. 167-168
[slightly emended translation] ; see also : O'Sullivan, Writings of Salvian,
pp. 129-130.
23
See : Friedrichsen, Epistles, p. 200 and pp. 236-237, who ``gives two
examples (...) of where elements of Arian doctrine may have been incorpo-
rated, or at least given emphasis, in the Gothic translation'' (Heather and
Matthews, Goths in the Fourth Century, p. 168, note 11).
24
See : Heather and Matthews, Goths in the Fourth Century, p. 168, note 9.
48 MARIANNE ELSAKKERS

of a translation into a Germanic vernacular. In short, Salvian

rejects the Gothic Bible because the sacred text has been tam-
pered with in a number of different ways. It does not seem
likely that Salvian's command of Gothic º if any º was good
enough to enable him to analyze Ulfila's Bible. More likely he
relied on the judgement of others or simply rejected it because
of its Arian associations.

The Bible in the early medieval West

The situation of textual confusion described above persisted

into the fifth and sixth centuries. Biblical scholars in sixth-
century Ostrogothic Italy were well aware of the corrupt tex-
tual tradition of the Bible. Cassiodorus (c. 480-575), a Roman
aristocrat who had been in the service of the Ostrogothic
king Theoderic before founding the monastery of Vivarium,
provided his monastery's library with copies of the most im-
portant biblical codices. In his Institutiones divinarum et humana-
rum lectionum (c. 551), he gives directions for correcting and
emending these codices, explicitly mentioning the Greek Sep-
tuagint, Jerome's Vulgate, and a Vetus Latina version pre-
ferred by Augustine.25 In Cassiodorus's day Greek and Latin
versions of the Bible apparently existed side by side, although
language considerations º Latin being the language of the
West º and scholarly preferences probably favored the use of
a Latin version. The Septuagint-based Vetus Latina remained
the semi-official version of the Bible in the West for the next
few centuries, with the Vulgate slowly gaining ground in the
Carolingian period.26 With no one version functioning as an
`authorized' version, the situation in the early medieval period

25
See : Flavius Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus, An Introduction to the Divine
and Human Readings (= Institutes), trans. Leslie Webber Jones (New York,
1966), 1.1-15, esp. 1.15 ; pp. 74-112, esp. pp. 103-112 ; Flavius Magnus Au-
relius Cassiodorus, Cassiodori Senatoris Institutiones, ed. Roger A. B. Mynors
(Oxford, 1937), pp. 11-51, esp. pp. 41-51, and Cassiodorus, Institutes of Di-
vine and Secular Learning and On the Soul, eds. James W. Halporn and Mark
Vessey, Translated Texts for Historians, 42 (Liverpool, 2004), pp. 110-145,
esp. pp. 139-145.
26
See : CHB II, p. 25 and Berlioz, Identifier Sources et Citations, p. 13.
 GOTHIC BIBLE, VETUS LATINA AND VISIGOTHIC LAW 49

might therefore be described as one of apparent textual chaos,

because of the many different versions of the Bible in often di-
vergent recensions, with different biblical scholars favoring
different versions.
The Gothic Bible did not fare much better. The extant
manuscripts are all from the West and most of them are prob-
ably Ostrogothic.27 A gap of nearly two centuries between Ul-
fila's translation (c. 350) and the extant manuscripts (late fifth,
early and mid sixth centuries) provides ample time for altera-
tions to the text. Like the Greek and Latin Bible texts, the
text of the Gothic Bible did not have a fixed or standardized
text ; revising and emending was an ongoing process. For
fifth-century Visigothic Gaul we have Salvian's testimony of
a `corrupted' Gothic version of the Bible, and for the sixth-
century Ostrogothic Italy we have Cassiodorus's instructions
for correcting Bible texts, although he does not explicitly
mention the Gothic vernacular.28 A number of the extant frag-
ments of the Gothic Bible are Gothic-Latin bilinguals. It is
possible that the production of bilinguals was triggered by

27
There are seven manuscripts containing parts of the Gothic Bible or
the Skeireins : the Codex Argenteus, the Codices Ambriosiani (five frag-
ments, A-E), the Fragmentum Spirense of the Codex Argenteus, the Codex
Vaticanus Latinus, the Codex Taurinensis, the Codex Carolinus and the Co-
dex Gissensis ; only the Codex Argenteus and the Codex Gissensis (now
lost) are not palimpsests, see : Braune-Heidermanns, Gotische Grammatik,
pp. 6-10 ; Stutz, Gotische Literaturdenkma«ler, passim. On the possible Visi-
gothic origins of some of the manuscripts, see : James W. Marchand,
``Notes on Gothic Manuscripts,'' Journal of English and Germanic Philology 56
(1957), pp. 213-224, and Stutz, Gotische Literaturdenkma«ler, pp. 21-22. The
Codex Brixianus is a Latin Bible manuscript with a preface which indicates
that it was originally part of a Gothic-Latin bilingual (see : Heather and
Matthews, Goths in the Fourth Century, pp. 169 ff.) ; the Codex Carolinus is
also a bilingual, and so was the Codex Gissensis. On palimpsested Gothic
texts, see : Michiel van den Hout, ``Gothic Palimpsests of Bobbio,'' Scripto-
rium 6 (1952), pp. 91-93.
28
The Gothic Bible is not mentioned in Cassiodorus' Institutes, nor in
Jordanes' History of the Goths (De origine actibusque Getarum or Getica ; written
551) ; the latter is an abridgement of the lost History of the Goths by Cassiodo-
rus. Jordanes only mentions the fact that Ulfila taught the Goths to write
(c. 51). Friedrichsen, Epistles, p. 216, says that ``it is not unreasonable to
conjecture that he [Cassiodorus] may have been in some way connected with
Gothic textual and exegetical activities''.
50 MARIANNE ELSAKKERS

the integration and romanization of the Visigoths and Ostro-

goths.29 These bilinguals, in turn, may have stimulated further
use of the Vetus Latina to accommodate the Gothic Bible to
the Latin text. Friedrichsen's philological research has shown
that the New Testament texts, which have come down to us,
were emended, revised and corrected using the Vetus Latina
and perhaps also some unidentified Western Greek text.30
For both Gothic kingdoms there is enough evidence that
their vernacular Bible was in use, and for northern Italy the
remaining manuscripts of the Gothic Bible are concrete proof
that the Ostrogothic scriptoria produced both Gothic and
Latin Bibles. On the other hand precious little is left of the
Gothic Bible. The paucity of manuscripts and the fact that
most of them are palimpsests indicate that the Gothic Bible
fell into disuse at a certain point in time.31 For both Gothic
kingdoms plausible historical explanations for the disappear-
ance of `Gothic' manuscripts can be given. In the Visigothic
kingdom Arian codices were burned after the Third Council
of Toledo (589), when the Visigoths officially converted
from Arianism to Catholicism. This book burning would ex-
plain the lack of manuscripts from the Visigothic kingdom in
Spain, because, as we saw above, the Gothic Bible would

29
It is hard to prove where and when the Gothic bilinguals were in use.
The Ostrogothic provenance of most of the Gothic manuscripts indicates
usage by the Ostrogoths, but, as Friedrichsen says, ``There is really not suf-
ficient evidence (...) to show where bilinguals were, and where they were
not in use (...). We are on firmer ground in our speculations as to the possi-
ble age of bilingual copies. In Gaul and Spain they may have come into exis-
tence among the romanizing Visigoths from the beginning of their
settlement under Athaulf since 412'' (Friedrichsen, Epistles, p. 125). In
``Notes on Gothic Manuscripts'' Marchand questions the conventional
views on the `original home' of the Gothic manuscripts, and concludes that
``we are no longer justified in stating a priori that all our MSS are products
of the Ostrogoths in Italy ; Southern France and the Danube countries also
come into consideration'' (p. 219) ; in note 29 Marchand adds that the Co-
dex ``Carolinus and the Old Testament fragments were once considered to
have come from Spain''.
30
Friedrichsen also demonstrates that Ulfila did not use the Vetus Latina,
and that Jerome's Vulgate did not influence the Gothic Bible, see : Frie-
drichsen, Gospels, passim.
31
See : note 27.
 GOTHIC BIBLE, VETUS LATINA AND VISIGOTHIC LAW 51

have been classified as `Arian'. The Ostrogothic kingdom,

too, did not offer the best chances of survival for manuscripts
of the Gothic Bible. Ostrogothic rule came to an end in 552
(555) after a twenty years' war with the Byzantines had left
the country in ruins ; shortly afterwards, in 568, large parts of
Italy fell into the hands of the Lombards. Neither the Byzan-
tines nor the Lombards would seem to have been especially
interested in preserving Gothic manuscripts. But interest in
the Gothic Bible did not vanish completely : notes in a ninth-
or tenth-century Alcuin manuscript indicate that copies of the
Gothic Bible were still circulating in the medieval West.32
Notwithstanding the sad fate of the manuscripts, there must
have been a reasonable amount of copies of the Gothic Bible
available in Visigothic and Ostrogothic Gaul, Spain and Italy
in the fifth and sixth centuries.
To sum up, there were no standardized versions of the Bible
in the late antique or early medieval period ; all versions,
whether in Greek, Latin or in the vernacular, were regularly
emended and revised, so that there were many variant read-
ings. In the case of the Gothic New Testament both the origi-
nal text and all subsequent revisions were º as Friedrichsen
has demonstrated º either directly or indirectly, based on
Greek versions of the Bible. Although there is not much sup-

32
See : note 14. Seventh-century historical evidence is given by Isidore of
Sevilla. Isidore explicitly mentions Ulfila's translation of both Bible books
in c. 8 of his Historia Gothorum Wandalorum Sueborum (written 624), see :
Streitberg, Die Gotische Bibel, pp. xxiv-xxv, and Isidorus Hispalensis, Isi-
dore of Seville's History of the Goths, Vandals and Suevi, trans. Guido Donini
and Gordon B. Ford Jr., 2nd rev. ed. (Leiden, 1970), pp. 5-6. For the ninth
century we have the testimony of Walafrid Strabo, abbot of Reichenau,
who in c. 7 of his Libellus de exordiis et incrementis quarandam in observationibus
ecclesiasticis rerum º a history of the church º says : ``et ut historiae testantur
postmodum studiosi illius gentis divinos libros in suae locutionis proprieta-
tem transtulerint quorum adhuc monimenta apud nonnullos habentur''
(Streitberg, Die Gotische Bibel, p. xxv, quoting from Ernst Edwin Victor
Krause (Hrsg.), Capitularia Regum Francorum. Vol. 2. Monumenta Germa-
niae Historica, Legum sectio II (Hannover, 1890-1897), p. 481). Stutz, Go-
tische Literaturdenkma« ler, p. 81, translates as follows : ``und da nach dem
Zeugnis der Geschichtschreibung die Gelehrten jenes Volkes bald darauf
die go«ttlichen Bu«cher in ihre eigene Sprache u«bersetzt haben, wovon sich
bis heute noch Urkunden da und dort befinden''.
52 MARIANNE ELSAKKERS

portive evidence, it is possible to postulate, albeit cautiously, a

Gothic version of the Old Testament based on a Lucianic ver-
sion of the Septuagint. If we project Friedrichsen' s findings
onto the Gothic Old Testament, emendations would have
been based on either the Vetus Latina or the Greek Septua-
gint, and not on Jerome's Vulgate. This means that both the
original and subsequent revisions of the Gothic Old Testa-
ment derived from the Septuagint, and that, where the He-
brew and the Greek text of Exodus differ, the Gothic Bible
would have followed the Septuagint. We can now tackle the
problem of the Gothic version of Exodus 21.22-23, and then
return to the Visigothic laws on abortion.

Exodus 21.22-23
The latest edition of the Greek Exodus (Wevers & Quast
1991) incorporates all the versions of the Septuagint that are
currently available.33 For Exodus 21.22-23 the Septuagint ver-
sions mentioned above are substantially the same with only a
few minor variants.34 Wevers's text might, therefore, be a rea-
sonable indication of what the Greek `Vorlage' of the Gothic
text of Exodus 21.22-23 would have looked like :
Septuagint
Ex. 21.22. : ÊEán dé màjwntai dùo a²ndreq kaí patàxwsin
gunai˜ka eÊn gastrí e²jousan, kaí eÊxèlhð tó paidìon auÊ-
ty˜q mý eÊxeikonismènon, eÊpizỳmion zymiwhỳsetai· kahò-
ti a³n eÊpibàlð ò aÊnýr ty˜q gunaikòq, dẁsei metá aÊxiẃ-
matoq.
Ex. 21.23. eÊán dé eÊxeikonismènon ðà, dẁsei vujýn aÊntí
vujy˜q, (...)35
33
John William Wevers and U. Quast (eds.), Exodus, Septuaginta, 2.1
(Go«ttingen, 1991).
34
See : John William Wevers, Notes on the Greek Text of Exodus, Septua-
gint and Cognate Studies 30 (Atlanta GA, 1990), pp. 333-334. See also : Ru-
dolf Dietzfelbinger, Die Vetus Latina des Buches Exodus ; Studien zur
handschriftlichen Uëberlieferung mit Edition von Kapitel 1, Inauguraldissertation,
Heidelberg 1996 (Tuttlingen, 1998).
35
Wevers & Quast, Exodus, p. 253. See also : Wevers, Notes, pp. 333-
334, and John William Wevers, Text History of the Greek Exodus, Abhand-
lungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Go«ttingen, Philologisch-His-
 GOTHIC BIBLE, VETUS LATINA AND VISIGOTHIC LAW 53

What version or versions of the Vetus Latina were available

in the Gothic kingdoms and used for later revisions of the
Gothic Bible is not a question which is easy to answer, be-
cause not many early Old Latin manuscripts of the Bible have
come down to us, and still less which include Exodus 21.22-
23. In the past the Vetus Latina has been pieced together
from the fragmentary manuscript evidence, and supplemented
using quotes from Church Fathers, biblical commentaries,
treatises, glosses, homilies etc. The examples quoted below
show that many versions of the Septuagint-based Vetus Lat-
ina version of Exodus 21.22-23 circulated in the early medie-
val West, but that versions of Jerome's Vulgate with its He-
brew-based version of the biblical law on abortion were also
available.
Sabatier' s edition of the Vetus Latina is one of the oldest
(1743) ; his edition is, however, now considered obsolete and
unreliable. He gives the following, practically literal, render-
ing of the Greek Septuagint :
Vetus Latina (Sabatier)
Ex. 21.22-23. Si autem litigabunt duo viri, et percusserint
mulierem in utero habentem, et exierit infans ejus nondum
formatus : detrimentum patietur, quantum indixerit vir mu-
lieris, et dabit cum postulatione. Si autem formatum fuerit,
dabit animam pro anima.36
Lucifer of Cagliari and Ambrosiaster, fourth-century com-
mentators from the Mediterranean area, have provided us
with the following Vetus Latina versions of Exodus 21 :22-23.
Lucifer Calaritanus (Cagliari, Sardinia, c. 370)
[Ex. 21.22-23] Si rixauerint duo et percusserint mulierem in
utero habentem et abortauerit non deformatum, detrimen-
tum patietur. Quodcumque aestimauerit uir mulieris dabit

torische Klasse, 3. Folge, 192 (Go«ttingen, 1992), passim. Wevers & Quast,
Exodus, has incorporated all available Septuagint versions, none of which
contain substantial variants for this verse ; for references to the Vetus Lat-
ina, see : the note to Exodus 21.22 on p. 253.
36
Petrus Sabatier, Bibliorum Sacrorum Latinae Versiones Antiquae (1743 ;
rpr. Mu«nchen, 1976), 1 : 178. Sabatier's source is Augustinus, Quaestiones
Exodi 80, cf. his marginal note on p.178. See also : note 43.
54 MARIANNE ELSAKKERS

cum dignitate. Quodsi deformatum fuerit, dabit animam pro

anima (...)37 [CPL 114]
Ambrosiaster (probably written in Rome between 370-375)
[Ex. 21.22-23] Si quis percusserit mulierem in utero haben-
tem et abortierit, si formatum fuerit, det animam pro anima ;
si autem informatum fuerit, multetur pecunia, ut probaret
non esse animam ante formam.38 [CPL 185]
Rufinus (c. 345-410) quotes and paraphrases Exodus in his
translation of Origen's homily on Exodus :39
Rufinus (Italy, 403-404)
[Ex. 21.22-23] De muliere praegnante, quae duobus viris liti-
gantibus abortierit.
Quod si litigabunt duo viri et percusserint mulierem praeg-
nantem, et exierit infans eius nondum formatus, detrimentum
patietur, quantum indixerit vir mulieris, et dabit cum honore.
Quod si deformatus fuerit, dabit animam pro anima.40
[CPL198.5]

37
Lucifer Calaritanus, Quia absentem nemo debet iudicare nec damnare siue de
Athanasio, in : Luciferi Calaritani Opera quae supersunt, ed. G. F. Diercks,
CCSL 8 (Turnhout, 1978), p. 85 ; Cetedoc database, Cl. 0114, lib. : 2, cap. :
5, linea : 36-40. See also : Sabatier, Bibliorum Sacrorum, p. 178 and Teofilo
Ayuso Marazuela, La Vetus Latina Hispana, vol. 2, El Octateuco (Madrid,
1967), p. 143. For an introduction to `Spanish' sources for the Vetus Latina,
see : Teofilo Ayuso Marazuela, La Vetus Latina Hispana, vol. 1, Prolegome-
nos (Madrid, 1953).
38
Ambrosiaster, Quaestiones Ueteris et Noui testamenti (Quaestiones numero
CXXVII) in : Aurelius Augustinus, Pseudo-Augustini Quaestiones Veteris et
Novi Testamenti CXXCII, ed. Alexander Souter, CSEL 50 (Vindobona,
1908), p. 50 ; Cetedoc database, Cl. 0185, quaestio : 23, par. : 2, pag. : 50, lin-
ea : 6. Sabatier, Bibliorum Sacrorum, p. 178 has abortieverit for abortauerit.
Friedrichsen, Epistles, pp. 216-217, p. 265 and passim, notes that a num-
ber of passages in the Gothic Epistles were influenced by Ambrosiaster's ex-
egetical works. See also : note 75.
39
Rufinus was from northern Italy (Concordia near Aquileia) and trans-
lated Origen's homilies in 403-404.
40
Rufinus, Origenes secundum translationem Rufini º In Exodum homiliae, in :
Origenes, Werke, Hrsg. Willem Adolf Baehrens, Die griechischen christli-
chen Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte, 29 (Leipzig, 1920), pp. 244-
245 ; Cetedoc database, Cl. 0198 5 (A), hom. : 10, par. : 1, pag. : 244, linea :
24 ff.
 GOTHIC BIBLE, VETUS LATINA AND VISIGOTHIC LAW 55

The Liber de Divinis Scripturis sive Speculum is an anonymous,

fifth-century tract on the Bible from North Africa or Spain,
which has often, mistakenly, been ascribed to Augustine ; it
presents us with yet another Septuagint-based variant version
of Exodus 21 :22-23.
Liber de Divinis Scripturis sive Speculum (North Africa
º Spain, 4th-5th c.)
[Ex. 21.22-23] Si autem duo uiri rixabuntur, et percusserint
mulierem praegnantem, et abortauerit immaturum, detrimen-
tum patietur quodcumque vir mulieris petit, dabit cum po-
stulatione quod si formatum fuerit, dabit animam pro
anima.41 [CPL 384]
Augustine of Hippo, one of the most influential authors in
the Middle Ages, gives an Old Latin version of Exodus
21 :22-23 in his commentary on Exodus in the Quaestionum in
Heptateuchum ; here Augustine takes a stand on abortion and
explains that killing an unformed fetus cannot be murder, be-
cause the unformed fetus would not yet have been endowed
with a soul.42
Augustinus Hipponensis (North Africa, 4th-5th c.)
[Ex. 21.22-23] si autem litigabunt duo uiri et percusserint
mulierem in utero habentem, et exierit infans eius non defor-
matus (nondum formatus), detrimentum patietur ; quantum

41
The text of the Liber de divinis scripturis sive Speculum [CPL 384] is found
in the second part of Augustinus Hipponensis, Liber qui appellatur Speculum
et Liber de divinis scripturis sive Speculum quod fertur S. Augustini, ed. Franz
Weihrich, CSEL 12 (Vindobona, 1887), pp. 543-544. See also : Ayuso
Marazuela, Vetus Latina Hispana, vol. 2, p. 143 and Ayuso Marazuela,
Vetus Latina Hispana, vol. 1, pp. 483-484. Ayuso Marazuela favors a Spanish
origin for this text and calls it Pseudo-Speculum. This version of Exodus
21.22-23 is not in the Patrologia Latina database, nor in the Cetedoc database.
See also : note 48.
42
Augustinus Hipponensis, Quaestionum in Heptateuchum libri vii, lib. II,
Quaestiones Exodi, quaestio 80, in : Augustinus Hipponensis, Quaestionum in
Heptateuchum libri vii, ed. J. Fraipont, Aurelii Augustini Opera 5, CCSL 33.5
(Turnhout, 1958), pp. 111. See also : Noonan, Contraception, p. 90 and Dun-
stan, ``Human Embryo'', p. 45. Augustine's views on abortion are dis-
cussed in : Daniel A. Dombrowski, ``St. Augustine, Abortion, and Libido
Crudelis,'' Journal of the History of Ideas 49 (1988), pp. 151-156 and Riddle,
Contraception and Abortion, pp. 20 ff. See also : note 48.
56 MARIANNE ELSAKKERS

indixerit uir mulieris, et dabit cum postulatione. (...) si autem

formatum fuerit, dabit animam pro anima.43 [CPL 270]
Teofilo Ayuso Marazuela's edition of the Vetus Latina His-
pana not only contains Vetus Latina variants from indirect
sources, such as the Church Fathers, but he also includes a
number of ancient manuscripts of the Bible, among which a
relatively early one from the sixth or seventh century, which
is probably Spanish in origin, the Codex Lugdunensis. This
codex may very well have been in use in Visigothic Spain.44
Codex Lugdunensis (Spain, 6th-7th c. manuscript)
Ex. 21.22-23. Quod si rixati erint duo uiri, et percusserint
mulierem conceptum habentem, et abortauerit inmaturum
detrimentum patietur quodcumque aestimauerit uir mulieris
dabit cum dignitate, quod si deformatum fuerit dabit animam
pro anima.45
The Vetus Latina versions of Exodus 21.22-23 given above
all mention the distinction `formed' - `unformed', thus prov-
ing that they were based on the Septuagint version of Exodus.
This is not to say that the Hebrew interpretation of Exodus
21.22-23 was unknown in the early medieval West. Jerome's
Vulgate translation was known and available, as Cassiodorus
indicated in his Institutiones.
Vulgate (4th-5th c.)
Ex. 21.22-23. si rixati fuerint viri et percusserit quis mulierem
praegnantem et abortivum quidem fecerit sed ipsa vixerit
subiacebit damno quantum expetierit maritus mulieris et ar-
43
Augustinus, Quaestionum in Heptateuchum libri vii, lib. II, Quaestiones Exo-
di, quaestio 80, pp. 110-111 with the variant nondum formatus for deformatus ;
Cetedoc database, Cl. 0270, lib. : 2, Quaest. Exodi, quaestio : 80, linea :
1412-1426. See also : Ayuso Marazuela, Vetus Latina Hispana, vol. 2, p. 143.
44
On the possible Spanish origin of this manuscript, see : Ayuso Mara-
zuela, Vetus Latina Hispana, vol. 1, p. 345 ff., esp. p. 349.
45
Ayuso Marazuela, Vetus Latina Hispana, vol. 2, p. 143 ; for the full
text of Exodus 21.22-23 in the Codex Lugdunensis, see : Ulysse Robert
(ed.), Pentateuchi Versio Latina Antiquissima e Codice Lugdunensi. Version Latine
du Pentateuque Anteèrieure aé Saint Jeèrome (Paris, 1881), p. 176. Three other,
younger, Septuagint versions in Ayuso Marazuela, Vetus Latina Hispana,
vol. 2, p. 142 have been included in the appendix ; these versions were added
`in graeco', i.e. as Latin glosses in a Greek text (Spanish MSS).
 GOTHIC BIBLE, VETUS LATINA AND VISIGOTHIC LAW 57

bitri iudicarint sin autem mors eius fuerit subsecuta reddet

animam pro anima.46
Besides the Vulgate itself, only two other quotations from
early medieval `Hebrew-based' versions of Exodus 21.22-23
were found.47 Both quote the Vulgate verbatim. The first is in
the Liber qui appellatur Speculum, allegedly by Augustine, and
the second was found in the Liber de Variis Quaestionibus, a sev-
enth-century work by an anonymous author, called Pseudo-
Isidorus, who was probably a contemporary of Isidorus His-
palensis (c. 570-636).
Liber qui appellatur Speculum (5th c.)
[Ex. 21.22-23] si rixati fuerint uiri, et percusserit quis mulie-
rem praegnantem, et abortiuum quidem fecerit, sed ipsa uixe-
rit, subiacebit damno, quantum expetierit maritus mulieris et
arbitri iudicarint : sin autem mors eius fuerit subsecuta, red-
det animam pro anima.48 [CPL 272]

46
Cetedoc database, Biblia sacra iuxta Uulgatam uersionem º Exodus (ab Hiero-
nymo transl.) cap. : 21, versus : 22-23. The edition used by the Cetedoc is :
B. Fischer e.a. (eds.), Biblia sacra juxta Vulgatam versionem, 2nd ed. 2 vols.
(Stuttgart, 1975). See also : Ayuso Marazuela, Vetus Latina Hispana, vol. 2,
p. 142 ; Ayuso Marazuela's edition is based on Vulgate manuscripts from
the 8th (1 MS), 10th (two MSS), and 11th centuries (1 MS), plus two early
printed editions.
47
Two enormous text repositories, the Cetedoc and the Patrologia Latina
databases, were searched extensively.
48
The text of the Liber qui appellatur Speculum is found in the first part of
Augustinus Hipponensis, Liber qui appellatur Speculum et Liber de divinis scrip-
turis sive Speculum quod fertur S. Augustini, ed. Franz Weihrich, CSEL 12
(Vindobona, 1887), p. 7 ; Cetedoc database, Cl. 0272, cap. : 1, pag. : 7, linea :
13. According to the Cetedoc the text is from the 5th century ; the Cetedoc
does not question Augustine's authorship. See also : note 41.
This text is part of a discussion of homicide that does not mention killing
an unborn child. Augustine's authorship of this text is in my opinion debat-
able, because Augustine has explicit views on the development of the fetus
which are not mentioned. Disregard for the fate of the fetus is consistent
with the Hebrew interpretation of Exodus 21.22-23, but not with the Sep-
tuagint. The text in the Liber qui appellatur Speculum is identical to the Vul-
gate text, and as we saw above, Augustine rejected the Vulgate version of
the Old Testament. In his article ``St. Augustine, Abortion, and Libido Cru-
delis,'' Daniel A. Dombrowski (cf. note 42) discusses Augustine's state-
ments on abortion, and more especially his views on the stages of
development of the fetus. Dombrowski contends that Augustine's works
58 MARIANNE ELSAKKERS

Pseudo-Isidorus (Spain, 8th c. manuscript)

[Ex. 21.22-23] 61.1. Si rixati fuerint viri et percusserit quis
mulierem praegnantem et abortiuum quidem fecerit sed ipsa
uixerit subiacebit damno quantum expetierit maritus mulieris
et arbitri iudicarint sin autem mors eius fuerit subsecuta red-
det animam pro anima.49
Apparently there was a `Hebrew' or Vulgate undercurrent
reflecting the `other' interpretation of Exodus 21.22-23. This
indicates that different views on abortion existed side by side
in the early medieval West, just as they do today. The variant
versions of Exodus 21.22-23 have been tabulated in the ap-
pendix, and it is evident that by far the majority of the var-
iants follow the Septuagint.
Most of the textual variations in the various Septuagint ver-
sions are either on the word level or on the syntax level.
Sometimes the tenses of the verbs vary, and sometimes syno-
nyms are used : for instance, the verb `to fight' is rendered by
the synonyms rixari and litigare, and the distinction `formed'
and `unformed' by (in)formatus, deformatus, (nondum) formatus,
and immaturus. The differences between the various `Septua-
gint' renderings of Exodus 21.22-23, are not completely negli-
gible, but there is no significant difference in meaning. Be-
sides adding the distinction between a `formed' and an
`unformed' fetus, the Septuagint version has a different sub-
ject of the verb `to fight'. Where the Vulgate has the indefi-
nite viri, all the Septuagint versions quoted above have duo
viri, except Ambrosiaster, who has the singular indefinite pro-
noun quis º which we also find in LV 6.3.2.
Visigothic and Ostrogothic scholars were undoubtedly ac-
quainted with a number of the above-mentioned Vetus Latina
variants, if only because Latin was the language of literacy in

are not inconsistent. Attribution of this text to Augustine would not be in

keeping with his ideas on the subject.
49
[Pseudo-] Isidorus Hispalensis, Liber de Variis Quaestionibus, eds. P. A.
C. Vega & A. E. Anspach, Scriptores Ecclesiastici Hispano-Latini Veteris
et Medii Aevi, fasc. 6-9 (Escuriaci, 1940), p. 184. This text is not in the Cete-
doc database, nor in the Patrologia Latina database. Isidore's authorship is un-
certain. See also : Ayuso Marazuela, Vetus Latina Hispana, vol. 2, p. 143
and Ayuso Marazuela, Vetus Latina Hispana, vol. 1, p. 480.
 GOTHIC BIBLE, VETUS LATINA AND VISIGOTHIC LAW 59

the West. The actual text of the Gothic version of Exodus

21.22-23 remains a matter of conjecture. However, Friedrich-
sen' s philological analyses of the Gothic Bible' s revisions and
the textual evidence of the Vetus Latina suggest that it must
have been very similar to the Latin Septuagint-based variants
quoted above. That the Vetus Latina was known in early me-
dieval Gaul, Spain and Italy is beyond doubt, and perhaps
some of the extant Vetus Latina codices º the Codex Lugdu-
nensis to name one º might even have been in use in the Visi-
gothic kingdom in Spain.
There is one last bit of supportive evidence for the existence
of a Gothic version of Exodus, and this takes us back to the
Leges Visigothorum.

Gothic secular law on abortion : the antiquae

Roman citizens in the western Roman Empire continued to

live by Roman law, even after they became subject to Ger-
manic rule ; the Germanic tribes had their own laws which
had been transmitted orally for generations. We know that
the Visigothic king Alaric II (484-507) employed Roman law-
yers to help draft the Breviarium Alarici (BA) or Lex Romana
Visigothorum, and that he asked the Gallo-Roman bishops for
their approval when it was finished in 506. The Breviarium
Alarici is a compendium of late Roman law compiled for
Alaric's Gallo- and Hispano-Roman subjects. It is a con-
densed version of the Codex Theodosianus, and also includes se-
lections from other Roman legal sources. It was probably in-
tended as a diplomatic confirmation of the status quo to
appease the Romans living in the Visigothic kingdom. Ro-
man officials undoubtedly also assisted the Goths with the
compilation of the Edictum Theoderici and the Leges Visigotho-
rum. The Leges Visigothorum contain the laws of the Germanic
Visigoths, whereas the early sixth-century Edictum Theoderici
is a Roman law code intended for all of the Ostrogothic king
Theoderic's subjects, Goths as well as Italo-Romans. Much of
the Edictum Theoderici was also derived from the Codex Theodo-
sianus.
60 MARIANNE ELSAKKERS

Neither of the Roman laws promulgated by Gothic kings

includes a law on abortion. However, the Breviarium Alarici
does quote the third-century Pauli Sententiae (PS) on the Lex
Cornelia de Sicariis et Veneficis (LCSV), an ancient Roman law
on poisoning (81 B.C.), which was probably still considered
to be in force in the century following the fall of the Roman
Empire (476).50 From commentaries on classical Roman law
such as the Pauli Sententiae we learn that the Lex Cornelia de Si-
cariis et Veneficis punished the use of abortifacients and love
potions, and that it was not a law against abortion, but a law
against poisoning.51 Abortifacient potions were prohibited be-

50
The Pauli Sententia on abortifacients in the Breviarium Alarici is as fol-
lows : BA PS 5.25.8. (PS 5.23.14) Qui abortionis aut amatorium poculum
dant, etsi id dolo non faciant, tamen, quia mali exempli res est, humiliores
in metallum, honestiores in insulam amissa parte bonorum relegantur ; quod
si ex hoc mulier aut homo perierit, summo supplicio afficiuntur, in : Maria
Bianchi Fossati Vanzetti (ed.), Pauli Sententiae ; testo e interpretatio (Milano,
1995) p. 136 ; `Those who give an abortifacient or a love potion, and do not
do this deceitfully, nevertheless, [because] this sets a bad example, the humil-
iores will be banned to a mine, and the honestiores will be banned to an island
after having forfeited (part of) their property ; and if on account of that a
woman or man perishes, then they will receive the death penalty', Clyde
Pharr, ``The Interdiction of Magic in Roman Law,'' Transactions and Pro-
ceedings of the American Philological Association 63 (1932), pp. 269-295, at
p. 289 (slightly emended translation).
51
The Pauli Sententiae summarize the LCSV as follows : BA PS 5.25.1 (PS
5.23.1) Lex Cornelia poenam deportationis infligit ei, qui hominem occider-
it eiusve rei causa furtive faciendi cum telo fuerit et qui venenum hominis
necandi causa habuerit, vendiderit, paraverit, falsum testimonium dixerit,
quo quis periret, mortisve causam praestiterit. Ob quae omnia facinora in
honestiores poena capitis vindicari placuit, humiliores vero aut in crucem
tolluntur aut bestiis obiciuntur. Interpretatione non eget, Vanzetti, Pauli
Sententiae, p. 134 ; `Die Lex Cornelia legt die Strafe der Deportation denjeni-
gen auf, welche einen Menschen geto«tet oder dieserhalb, bez. um ein Fur-
tum zu veru«ben, einer Waffe sich bedient haben werden, und die Gift
behufs Beiseiteschaffung eines Menschen gehabt, verkauft, zubereitet, oder
ein falsches Zeugnis abgelegt haben werden, damit Jemand zu Grunde gehe,
oder die Veranlassung zum Tode eines Menschen gegeben haben werden.
Man war dahin einig, dass wegen aller dieser Missethaten gegen Vorneh-
mere mit Kapitalstrafe eingeschritten werde ; hingegen werden Personen
niederen Standes entweder an das Kreuz geschlagen oder den wilden Tieren
vorgeworfen', Max Conrat, Breviarium Alaricianum ; Ro« misches Recht im
Fra« nkischen Reich in systematischer Darstellung, (Leipzig, 1903), p. 531.
 GOTHIC BIBLE, VETUS LATINA AND VISIGOTHIC LAW 61

cause they were classified as lethal poisons and considered

hazardous to a person's health º no doubt a conclusion based
on fact.52 In Roman law a poisoner who caused someone's
death was punished as a murderer. However, causing the
death of a fetus is not punished. Like the Hebrew version of
Exodus 21.22-23 Roman law does not concern itself with the
unborn child ; it is only concerned with injuries sustained by
the mother.53
The first six Visigothic laws on abortion in the Leges Visigo-
thorum are antiquae or `old laws' ; the antiquae were promul-
gated by king Euric (466-484), Alaric II (484-507), Leovigild
(568-586) or Reccared I (586-601) in the fifth and sixth centu-
ries.54 Most of the antiquae were issued after the Visigothic re-

52
Recipes for abortifacients are found in many classical and medieval
medical texts. See, for instance : Soranus, Soranus' Gynecology, trans. Owsei
Temkin (1956 ; rpr. Baltimore, 1991), pp. 62-68 ; Riddle, Contraception and
Abortion, passim ; Riddle, Eve's Herbs, passim. Many of the recipes for abor-
tifacients contain substances we would label as poisons.
53
See : Justinian's Digesta, especially D.25.4.1.1 : partus enim antequam eda-
tur, mulieris portio est uel uiscerum, ``since the child is part of the woman or her
insides before it is born,'' Justinianus, The Digest of Justinian [with the] Latin
text edited by Theodor Mommsen and Paul Krueger, trans. Alan Watson (Philadel-
phia, 1985), vol. 2, p. 740. See also : note 6.
54
The authorship of the antiquae is difficult to determine, because only
the names of the kings responsible for younger Visigothic law are known.
There are at least four or five kings to chose from as authors of the Visi-
gothic antiquae on abortion : Euric, Leovigild, Reccared I, and perhaps also
Alaric II, or the Ostrogothic king Theoderic who was joint ruler over the
Ostrogothic and Visigothic kingdoms after Alaric II's death in 507 (511-
526). The extant fragments of Euric's Codex Euricianus are all concerned
with transactions, and despite Zeumer's reconstruction of two Eurician laws
on abortion (Zeumer, Leges Visigothorum, p. 29), there is no plausible evi-
dence for postulating Eurician laws on abortion.
The law code issued by Theoderic for the Ostrogoths, the Edictum Theo-
derici, is a compendium of Roman law and does not have a law on abortion,
which makes it hard to imagine Theoderic issuing a separate law on abor-
tion for the Visigoths, and not for the Ostrogoths. It is similarly hard to
imagine Reccared I as the author of the Visigothic antiquae on abortion, be-
cause Visigothic secular law would then clash with the harsh canon on abor-
tion promulgated at the Council of Toledo III under Reccared's auspices,
which even explicitly mentioned his name. If we look at Spanish conciliar
legislation there would seem to be a period of relative tolerance of abortion
between the Council of Lerida (524) and the Council of Braga II (572). The
62 MARIANNE ELSAKKERS

treat from Gaul in 507.55 Like the Lex Cornelia de Sicariis et

Veneficis the first article on abortion in the Leges Visigothorum
(LV 6.3.1) equates abortifacients and poisons. LV 6.3.1 pun-
ishes the person who provides or administers abortifacient
drugs with the death penalty. Although this Visigothic law is
harsher than the Roman Lex Cornelia de Sicariis et Veneficis, be-
cause it imposes the death penalty for poisoning regardless of
the outcome, it closely resembles the LCSV in its prohibition
of the use of drugs considered detrimental to a woman's
health.
LV 6.3.1. Antiqua. De his, qui potionem ad aborsum dede-
rint. Si quis mulieri pregnanti potionem ad avorsum aut pro
necando infante dederit, occidatur ; et mulier, que potionem
ad aborsum facere quesibit, si ancilla est, CC flagella suscipi-
at, si ingenua est, careat dignitate persone et cui iusserimus
servitura tradatur.56
LV 6.3.1. Old law. Concerning those who give a potion to
induce abortion. If anyone gives a potion to a pregnant
woman to induce abortion and for the purpose of killing a[n
unborn] child, let this person be put to death ; and let the
woman who asked [this person] to concoct the potion for
abortion, if she is a slave, receive 200 lashes ; if she is a free
woman, let her be deprived of the dignity of a persona and be
handed over as a slave to whom we order.57
Like the LCSV, LV 6.3.1 punishes poisoning and the per-
son who supplies a pregnant woman with a poisonous potion
so that she can commit abortion. Unlike the LCSV, however,
LV 6.3.1 adds a clause on the fate of the fetus that explicitly
explains the abortifacient potion's effect : pro necando infante. It

antiquae would then have been issued before Toledo III. Leovigild (568-586)
might therefore be a better candidate for their authorship, even though the
penance for abortion was changed back to 10 years in the council (Braga II)
held during his reign.
55
After the Frankish king Clovis defeated and killed Alaric II in the bat-
tle of Vouilleè (507), most of the Visigothic territory in Gaul was ceded to
the Franks.
56
Zeumer, Leges Visigothorum, p. 260.
57
Amundsen, ``Visigothic Medical Legislation,'' p. 567, with minor
changes.
 GOTHIC BIBLE, VETUS LATINA AND VISIGOTHIC LAW 63

then proceeds to insert a provision that punishes the pregnant

woman who asks for an abortifacient, so that, in effect, this
article functions as a condemnation of this particular method
of intentional abortion. Whereas the LCSV only holds the
supplier responsible, LV 6.3.1 also holds the woman who
takes the abortifacient accountable for her irresponsible be-
havior. A woman who wishes to endanger her life and that of
her unborn child is punished with loss of freedom ; if she is a
slave the punishment is 200 lashes. Although a woman who
wishes to have an abortion is not punished with the death
penalty, the prospect of enslavement was probably intended
as a deterrent for a free woman contemplating the use of an
abortifacient to terminate her pregnancy.
The following five Visigothic articles, LV 6.3.2 - LV 6.3.6,
are concerned with unintentional abortion ; they punish those
who use violence and thus cause a woman to miscarry. LV
6.3.2 is the main article ; articles LV 6.3.3- LV 6.3.6 supple-
ment LV 6.3.2.58 The first part of LV 6.3.2 º quoted at the be-
ginning of this paper º punishes the aggressor for homicide,
if the pregnant woman dies as a result of the violence. The
second part of LV 6.3.2 resembles the Septuagint version of
Exodus ; it imposes a fine for killing the fetus, which is differ-
entiated according to its stage of development : 100 solidi for
an unformed fetus and 150 solidi for a formed fetus. Note,
however, that the Septuagint punishes killing a formed fetus
as homicide, whereas Visigothic law punishes killing an un-
born child as a serious injury to the mother ; it is not labelled
as homicide.59

58
See : Marianne Elsakkers, ``Inflicting Serious Bodily Harm ; the Visi-
gothic Antiquae on violence and abortion,'' Tijdschrift voor Rechtsgeschiedenis
º The Legal History Review 71 (2003), pp. 55-63.
59
The fine for killing a formed fetus is comparable to the fines imposed
for causing a person to become seriously disabled, for instance, through loss
of a limb, an ear or an eye. See : The Visigothic injury tariffs in the title on
wounds (LV 6.4) of the Leges Visigothorum, especially LV 6.4.1 and LV
6.4.3. The link between the laws on abortion and the title on wounds is dis-
cussed in Elsakkers, ``Inflicting Serious Bodily Harm,'' pp. 55-63 at p. 56,
note 7 and pp. 61-62.
64 MARIANNE ELSAKKERS

The Visigothic antiquae on abortion show us that the com-

pilers of these laws were familiar with the Roman Lex Cornelia
de Sicariis et Veneficis and with the Septuagint version of Exo-
dus 21.22-23. The LCSV and LV 6.3.1 are concerned with
poisoning and intentional abortion ; both punish the use of le-
thal poisons and putting another person's life at risk. The
Septuagint and LV 6.3.2 both distinguish between early term
and late term abortion, using the same terminology, and both
condemn violent abortion induced by a third party. Visi-
gothic law probably also implicitly punishes intentional abor-
tion, because in the early medieval period provoking an abor-
tion º whatever method is used º involves the use of
dangerous, life-threatening procedures º which all must be
classified under the heading `violence'.60

Early medieval Conciliar law on intentional abortion

The earliest conciliar condemnation of abortion is found in

the canons of the Council of Elvira (c. 300-306), a provincial
council held in southern Roman Spain long before the arrival
of the Visigoths ; it excommunicates those who commit inten-
tional abortion in order to conceal adultery (canon 63).61 Can-
on 21 of the (eastern) council of Ancyra (314) condemns abor-
tion and infanticide, and reduces the punishment to a ten
years' penance.62 Three sixth-century Church councils held in

60
See : Elsakkers, ``Inflicting Serious Bodily Harm,'' p. 63.
61
Elvira c. 63. De uxoribus quae filios ex adulterio necant. Si qua per
adulterium absente marito suo conceperit, idque post facinus occiderit, pla-
cuit nec in finem dandam esse communionem eo quod geminaverit scelus ;
in : Joseè Vives (ed.), Concilios Visigoèticos e Hispano-Romanos (Barcelona-Ma-
drid, 1963), p. 12. ``On wives who kill children conceived in adultery. If a
woman, during the absence of her husband, conceives [a child] in adultery,
and kills it after the crime, it is so ordained that she may not even receive
communion at the end of her life, because she has committed a double
crime.''
On the Visigothic councils, see : Knut Scha«ferdiek, Die Kirche in den
Reichen der Westgoten und Sueven bis zur Errichtung der westgotischen Katholischen
Staatskirche (Berlin, 1967).
62
Ancyra c. 21. De mulieribus, quae fornicantur et partus suos necant,
sed et de his quae agunt secum ut utero conceptos excutiant, antiqua quidem
 GOTHIC BIBLE, VETUS LATINA AND VISIGOTHIC LAW 65

Visigothic Spain have canons on abortion.63 The council of

Lerida (524)64 mitigates the penance for abortion to seven
years (canon 2), Braga II (572)65 changes it back to ten years

definitio usque ad exitum vitae eas ab ecclesia remouit ; humanius autem

nunc definimus, ut eis decem annorum tempus paenitentiae tribuatur ; ``On
women who fornicate and kill their partus, or who do something to them-
selves so that they expel that which was conceived in the womb. By an an-
cient law they are excluded from the church (excommunicated) until the
end of their lives. We, however, have decided to soften their punishment,
and condemned them to do penance during a period of ten years.'' In : Gon-
zalo Mart|ènez D|èez y Felix Rodriquez (eds.), La coleccioèn canoènica Hispaèna,
vol. 3, Concilios Griegos y Africanos, Monumenta Hispaniae Sacra, serie Can-
oènica 3 (Madrid, 1982), p. 101. Turner gives four slightly different Latin
versions of this canon ; see : Cuthbert Hamilton Turner (ed.), Ecclesiae occi-
dentalis monumenta iuris antiquissima ; canonum et conciliorum graecorum interpreta-
tiones Latinae, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1899-1939), vol. 2, pp. 106-109.
63
See also : note 54.
64
Lerida c. 2. De his qui aborsum faciunt vel natos suos extingunt. Hii
vero qui male conceptos ex adulterio factos vel editos necare studuerint, vel
in uteri matrum potionibus aliquibus conliserint, in utroque sexu adulteris
post septem annorum curricula conmunio tribuatur, ita tamen ut omni tem-
pore vitae suae fletibus et humilitati insistant, officium eis ministrandi recu-
perare non liceat ; adtamen in choro psallentium a tempore recepta[e]
conmunionis intersint. Ipsis veneficis in exitu tantum, si facinora sua omni
tempore vitae suae defleverint, conmunio tribuatur ; ``2. De aquellos que
procuran el aborto o dan muerte a sus hijos. Aquellos que procuran la
muerte de sus hijos concebidos en pecado y nacidos del adulterio, o trataren
de darles muerte en el seno materno por medio de alguèn medicamento abor-
tivo, a tales aduèlteros de uno y otro sexo, deèseles la comunioèn solamente pa-
sados siete anìos, a condicioèn de que toda su vida insistan especialmente en
la humildad y en las laègrimas de contricioèn ; pero los tales no podraèn volver
a ayudar al altar, aunque se podraè volver a admit|èrseles en el coro a partir
del d|èa en que fueron nuevamente reintegrados a la comunioèn. A los envene-
nadores, solamente se les daraè la comunioèn al fin de la vida y eso si durante
todos los d|èas de su vida han llorado los cr|èmenes pasados'' (Vives, Concilios
Visigoèticos, pp. 55-56). The Council of Lerida was held during the interreg-
num when the Ostrogothic king Theoderic ruled the Visigothic kingdom
(511-526).
65
Braga II c. 77. [De mulieribus fornicariis abortum facientibus.] Si qua
mulier fornicaverit et infantem qui exinde fuerit natus occiderit, et quae stu-
duerit aborsum facere et quod conceptum est necare aut certe ut non concip-
iat elaborat sive ex adulterio sive ex legitimo coniugio, has tales mulieres in
mortem recipere conmunionem priores canones decreverunt ; nos tamen
pro misericordia sive tales mulieres sive conscias sclerum ipsarum decem an-
nis poenitentiam iudicamus ; ``77. De las mujeres pecadoras que comenten
66 MARIANNE ELSAKKERS

(canon 77), and the last council, Toledo III (589), is a passion-
ate outcry against adultery, fornication, infanticide and abor-
tion which advocates the severest possible punishment, but
rejects the death penalty (canon 17).66 These canons show us
that Church law regarded abortion as a serious crime, but that
her punishment of abortion changed every so often ; it could
be harsh, and then, a generation or two later, it would be
milder.
In the Middle Ages conciliar legislation was transmitted
through the so-called Collectiones Canonum ; these collections of
canon law were widely disseminated and are important sour-
ces of canon law.67 We find the conciliar canons mentioned
above, especially Elvira and Ancyra, in most of the early me-
dieval, western conciliar collections, such as the Hispana, the
Vetus Gallica, and the Epitome Hispanica. Although most of
the canons on abortion link abortion and illicit sexual behav-
ior, an epitome of canon 77 of the Second Council of Braga
in the Epitome Hispanica suggests that canonical legislation on
abortion could be interpreted as a general condemnation of
abortion, because this epitome leaves out the context º adul-
tery and fornication º and simply forbids abortion (and infan-
ticide) : Mulier qui aborsum sibi dederit vel natum filium occiderit X

aborto. Si alguna mujer fornicare y diere muerte al ninìo que como consec-
uencia hubiera nacido, y aquella que tratare de cometer aborto y dar muerte
a lo que ha sido concebido, y tambieèn se esfuerza por evitar la conceptioèn,
sea consecuencia del adulterio o del matrimonio leg|ètimo, acerca de estas
tales mujeres decretaron los caènones antiguos que reciban la comunioèn a la
hora de la muerte. Nosotros, sin embargo, usando de misericordia, creemos
que las tales mujeres, o los que han sido coèmplices de las mismas, deben
hacer diez anìos de penitencia'' (Vives, Concilios Visigoèticos, p. 104). Braga II
was held during the reign of Leovigild (568-586).
66
Canon 17 of the Third Council of Toledo (589) condemns those who
teach others how to induce an abortion : qui foetus necando proprios docent
se non pro filiis sed pro libidine sociari (Vives, Concilios Visigoèticos, p. 130) ;
it was during this council that king Reccared I (586-601) renounced Arian-
ism (Vives, Concilios Visigoèticos, pp. 107 ff.).
67
Important early medieval western collections are the Collectiones Da-
cheriana (c. 800), the Dionysio-Hadriana (before or c. 774), the Hibernensis
(eighth century), the Hispana (seventh century), the Vetus Gallica (between
585 and 626/7) and the Epitome Hispanica (598/619).
 GOTHIC BIBLE, VETUS LATINA AND VISIGOTHIC LAW 67

annos poenitentiam agat, `a woman who causes her own abortion,

or kills her new-born child must do penance for ten years'.68
None of the early Church council canons on abortion men-
tions the distinction `formed - unformed'. This is remarkable,
because this distinction is found in the Septuagint, and the
Septuagint-based version of Exodus 21.22-23 was more popu-
lar in the early medieval West than the Vulgate. Apparently,
there were two different views on abortion. One that con-
demns abortion regardless of the stage of development of the
fetus, a standpoint that is reflected in the conciliar legislation
discussed above, and another that distinguishes between early
term and late term abortion and stipulates a milder punish-
ment for early-term abortion.69 The former can be traced back
to the Hebrew version of Exodus through Jerome's Vulgate ;
its main exponent is Caesarius of Arles (c. 470-542), a sixth-
century Gallo-Roman bishop, who fiercely attacked those
who aborted their children in a number of his sermons.70 The
latter is ultimately derived from the Septuagint version of
Exodus 21.22-23 and was well-known through Augustine's

68
See : Heinz Wilhelm Schwarz, Der Schutz des Kindes im Recht des fru« hen
Mittelalters (Siegburg, 1993), pp. 193-194 plus note 1413, quoting Gonzalo
Mart|ènez D|èez, El Epitome Hispaènico ; una coleccioèn canoènica espanìola del siglo
VII (Comillas-Santander, 1961), p. 98 or p. 104 (not seen). See also : Tur-
ner, Ecclesiae occidentalis monumenta iuris antiquissima, vol. 2, p. 107 for an even
shorter epitome of canon 21 of the council of Ancyra : Qui aborsum sibi deder-
int, x annos peneteat.
69
We find the same two views on abortion in the medieval penitentials.
Most of the penitentials punish abortion regardless of the stage of develop-
ment of the fetus. The Paenitentiale Theodori and its derivatives, however, dis-
tinguish between an abortion antequam animam habeat and an abortion
postquam animam habeat (or ante XL dies - post XL dies). See : Paul Willem Fin-
sterwalder, Die Canones Theodori Cantuariensis und ihre Uëberlieferungsformen,
Untersuchungen zu den BuÞbu«chern des 7., 8. und 9. Jahrhunderts, 1 (Wei-
mar, 1929), pp. 309-310 (articles 1.14.24 and 1.24.27, recension U) and John
T. McNeill & Helena M. Gamer (eds. & transl.), Medieval Handbooks of
Penance ; a Translation of the Principal Libri Poenitentiales and Selections from Re-
lated Documents (New York, 1938 ; rpr. 1990), p. 197.
70
Caesarius of Arles (469-543) condemns abortion in sermons 1.12, 19.5,
44.2, 51.4, 52.4 and 200.4 ; see : Caesarius Arelatensis, Sancti Caesari Arela-
tensis, Sermones, ed. Germanus Morin, 2 vols. CCSL 103-104 (Turnhout,
1953), pp. 8-10, 90-91, 196, 229, 810.
68 MARIANNE ELSAKKERS

commentary on Exodus.71 Both Caesarius's sermons and Au-

gustine's commentary on Exodus were popular throughout
the medieval period.
The secular Visigothic laws reflect both views on abortion.
Whereas the older antiquae employ the distinction `formed -
unformed' (LV 6.3.2 ff.), the youngest Visigothic law on
abortion (LV 6.3.7), which was issued by king Chindasvind
(642-653), is straightforward and uncompromising in its con-
demnation of deliberate abortion. Chindasvind's law can be
characterized as a Caesarian sermon in legal guise.
LV 6.3.7. Flavius Chindasvindus Rex. De his, qui filios suos
aut natos aut in utero necant. Nihil est eorum pravitate dete-
rius, qui, pietatis inmemores, filiorum suorum necatores ex-
istunt. Quorum quia vitium per provincias regni nostri sic
inolevisse narratur, ut tam viri quam femine sceleris huius
auctores esse repperiantur, ideo hanc licentiam proibentes de-
cernimus, ut, seu libera seu ancilla natum filium filiamve ne-
caverit, sive adhuc in utero habens, aut potionem ad
avorsum acceperit, aut alio quocumque modo extinguere par-
tum suum presumserit, mox provincie iudex aut territorii ta-
lem factum reppererit, non solum operatricem criminis huius
publica morte condemnet, aut si vite reservare voluerit, om-
nem visionem oculorum eius non moretur extinguere, sed
etiam si maritum eius talia iussisse vel permisisse patuerit,
eundem etiam vindicte simili subdere non recuset.72

71
See above and note 42.
72
Zeumer, Leges Visigothorum, p. 262 ; ``LV 6.3.7. King Chindasvind.
Concerning those who kill their own children, either already having been
born or in utero. There is nothing worse than the depravity of those who,
disregarding piety, become murderers of their own children. In as much as
it is said that the crime of these has grown to such a degree throughout the
provinces of our land that men as well as women are found to be the per-
formers of this heinous action, we therefore, forbidding this dissoluteness,
decree that, if a free woman or a female slave murders a son or a daughter
which has been born, or, while having it still in utero, either takes a potion
to induce abortion, or by any other means whatsoever presumes to destroy
her own fetus, after the judge of the province or of the territory learns of
such a deed, let him not only sentence the performer of this crime to public
execution, or if he wishes to preserve her life, let him not hesitate to destroy
the vision of her eyes, but also, if it is evident that the woman's husband or-
dered or permitted such things, let him not be reluctant to subject the same
 GOTHIC BIBLE, VETUS LATINA AND VISIGOTHIC LAW 69

Abortion must have been an important issue to the Ger-

manic Visigoths for them to promulgate laws on abortion in
the fifth and sixth centuries that were not consistent with and
milder than current Church law. It is significant that Chindas-
vind's mid-seventh-century law (LV 6.3.7) was issued nearly
a century after the Visigothic king Reccared I decided to con-
vert from Arianism to Catholicism (589) and after it was de-
creed that Arian books should be burnt.73 If we interpret LV
6.3.2 - LV 6.3.6 as a condemnation of intentional and uninten-
tional abortion, Chindasvind's law on abortion contradicts
earlier Visigothic law, but is compatible with canon law. This
implies that LV 6.3.7 constitutes a revision of earlier Visi-
gothic law on abortion and was intended to replace it. This in
turn suggests that the Septuagint-based version of Exodus
21.22-23 was associated with Arianism and that the Vulgate
version was regarded as the `authorized' version of the Bible
by Catholic Spain.74 Perhaps Arianism is the link between the
Septuagint-based version of Exodus 21.22-23 in the Vetus
Latina, the Gothic Bible and early Visigothic law on abortion.

Exodus 21.22-23 and LV 6.3.2

The appendix shows us just how much of the Septuagint

text of Exodus 21.22-23 corresponds to LV 6.3.2. The intro-
ductory text `if two men fight' was changed : the verb `to
fight' was replaced by the verb `to strike' and the subject of
the first sentence is now in the singular, as in the Vetus Latina
version of Exodus 21.22-23 ascribed to Ambrosiaster.75 This
means that the violence done to the pregnant woman cannot

to a similar punishment'' (Amundsen, ``Visigothic Medical Legislation,''

pp. 568-569).
73
The conversion of the Goths to Catholicism was by no means unpro-
blematic, see : Heather, The Goths, pp. 282-283.
74
It also suggests that earlier Visigothic law on abortion (the antiquae)
must be dated before 589.
75
In his De Specialibus Legibus Philo also speaks of the aggressor in the
singular : ``If a man comes to blows with a pregnant woman and strikes her
on the belly and she miscarries ... '' , Philo, Works, vol. 7, III.108, pp. 544-
545. See also : note 38.
70 MARIANNE ELSAKKERS

be an accident anymore ; it must be interpreted as a deliberate

act of violence.76 The order of the clauses is different, but oth-
erwise the text of the Septuagint version of Exodus is clearly
discernible in LV 6.3.2, despite its accommodation to the style
and requirements of secular law and legal prose.77 Especially
noteworthy is the explication of the method used to induce
the abortion : quocumque hictu, and the addition of aut per ali-
quam occasionem, which expands the crime described in Exodus,
so that any kind of violence towards a pregnant woman can
be punished (including domestic violence). The use of legal
terms such as ingenuus and ingenua and the addition of clauses
such as et exinde mortua fuerit, pro homicidio puniatur, and si autem
tantumodo partus excutiatur, et mulier in nullo debilitata fuerit show
the legal mind at work, defining every possible contingency.
Another important difference between the two texts is the
punishment. Abortion of a formed fetus is not punished by
`life for life' in the Visigothic antiquae ; both early- and late-
term abortion are punished by a fine º a punishment more in
accordance with Germanic law, which demands monetary
compensation for injuries. The fines, 100 or 150 solidi, indicate
that causing a woman to miscarry is considered a serious
crime, but not as serious as murder.78
Other, seemingly trivial, textual variations, such as mulier
gravida for the Vetus Latina variants mulier praegnans and mulier
in utero habens, and si formatum infantem extincxit for si autem for-
matum fuerit or (quod) si deformatum fuerit do not seem to be due

76
The subject of the first sentence is also in the singular in the four com-
panion articles : LV 6.3.3 - LV 6.3.6, see also : Elsakkers, ``Inflicting
Serious Bodily Harm,'' p. 58, table 1.
77
Accommodation to legal requirements would explain the omission of
the passage in which the husband is allowed to determine the amount of
damages, because most secular laws would regulate this in a title on dam-
ages, as Visigothic law did in LV 6.4.
78
See also : note 59. The Septuagint does not explicitly mention what to
do if the mother dies, or if she sustains serious injuries ; Gothic law, on the
other hand, like Hebrew law, explicitly states that homicide must be pun-
ished accordingly, pro homicidio puniatur. Implicitly the Septuagint would, of
course, demand `an eye for an eye', the normal punishment for homicide, if
the mother died as a result of the abortion, a fact any theologian or lawyer
would have been well aware of.
 GOTHIC BIBLE, VETUS LATINA AND VISIGOTHIC LAW 71

to legalistic considerations. Furthermore, LV 6.3.2 uses the

words infans and partus, but only the Vetus Latina versions by
Augustine and Rufinus refer to an infans ; all the other Latin
Exodus variants, simply use the phrase `to cause an abortion',
thus evading the question `what was aborted'. The textual dif-
ferences discussed above might have been inspired by texts
which are now lost, by earlier Gothic law º perhaps even by
laws which were only available in an orally transmitted ver-
sion, by other unknown, Septuagint-based Vetus Latina var-
iants (in a Gothic bilingual ?), or even medical texts. There is,
however, the distinct possibility that some of the variants
might have been taken directly from the Gothic version of
Exodus 21.22-23.

Conclusion : a case for a Gothic version of Exodus

The use of the distinction `formed º unformed' in a Ger-

manic law on abortion is an innovation in early medieval, sec-
ular law ; it has no parallel in Roman law. It is almost incon-
ceivable that the resemblance between the Septuagint-based
Vetus Latina version of Exodus 21.22-23 and LV 6.3.2 is a co-
incidence. As explained above, the Septuagint version of Exo-
dus 21.22-23 was well known in Visigothic Spain through the
Gothic Bible, the Vetus Latina and patristic sources. The link
between the Septuagint-based Gothic Old Testament and the
Vetus Latina had already been made in the form of the
Gothic-Latin bilingual versions of the Bible which must have
been in use in both Gothic kingdoms ; besides, the Gothic
text was regularly accommodated to the Vetus Latina text.
`How' the concept `formed º unformed' found its way into
Visigothic law is therefore not a difficult question to answer,
but `why' is another matter.
It is obvious that Visigothic lawyers introduced the distinc-
tion formatus - informatus deliberately, perhaps at the instiga-
tion of the king or one of his clerical advisors. But why ? The
compilation of the antiquae on abortion must be situated
somewhere in the early or mid-sixth century under a Visi-
gothic king who had the courage to issue pragmatic and rela-
72 MARIANNE ELSAKKERS

tively compassionate legislation on abortion despite current

canon law, and despite Gallo-Roman and Hispano-Roman
bishops such as Caesarius of Arles (c. 470-542), who strongly
opposed both abortion and Arianism. It may even have been
compiled at the same time as the Breviarium Alarici.79
Perhaps diverging from conciliar law and the opinions of
the Gallo-Roman and Hispano-Roman bishops was a means
to assert Gothic identity. But this is not enough to explain
the introduction of a new concept in secular law which would
involve differentiating between early-term and late-term abor-
tion, and probably cause conflicts with the Gallo- and Hispa-
no-Roman bishops and their clergy. I can think of only one
reason why the Goths would include a passage on the stages
of development of the fetus in their secular laws on abortion,
and that is because to the Goths this was not an innovation,
but simply part of their customary law on abortion. By this
I mean that the Goths looked upon their Gothic Bible as a
law book on a par with other collections of law, whether oral
or written, and that they did not distinguish between secular
and religious law as we do. Centuries later, the West Saxon
king Alfred (c. 848-899) did the same thing when he modeled
part of his law book on Mosaic law º only Alfred used the
Vulgate, that is, an Exodus text derived from the Hebrew.80
Thus Gothic law was innovative in comparison with current,
written secular and canonical law. To the Goths, however, it
would just have been a confirmation of existing law, laws
which fitted in with their Arian convictions, laws which had
been `Gothic' since their conversion to Arian Christianity in
the fourth century, when Ulfila translated the Bible into the
Gothic vernacular. This means that Visigothic secular law on
abortion must have closely followed the Gothic version of

See also : note 54.

79

Alfred's laws (887/899) were edited by Felix Liebermann (Hrsg.), Die

80

Gesetze der Angelsachsen. Bd.1. Text und Uëbersetzung (Halle a. Saale, 1903), pp.
15-89 ; see : pp. 32-33 (Alfred's Old English translation of Exodus 21.22-23)
and pp. 54-55 (Alfred's law on abortion). For a recent discussion of Alfred's
laws, see : Patrick Wormald, The Making of English Law : King Alfred to the
Twelfth Century, vol. 1, Legislation and its Limits (Oxford, 1999), esp. pp. 416
ff.
 GOTHIC BIBLE, VETUS LATINA AND VISIGOTHIC LAW 73

Exodus 21.22-23 in the Gothic Bible and possibly also one of

the Vetus Latina versions of the biblical law on abortion.
As we saw above, when comparing the Septuagint-based
Vetus Latina versions of Exodus 21.22-23 and the Visigothic
law on abortion, both texts are remarkably similar ; LV 6.3.2
only occasionally chooses words and adds phrases not found
in the Old Latin Septuagint texts. It is evident that LV 6.3.2
is the result of a creative editing process and that the lawyers
responsible for this article had a great deal of different sources
at their disposal, Roman law, various versions of the Vetus
Latina, and earlier Gothic law. In this paper I have tried to
show that it is very likely that the Goths' own Bible was also
one of the sources used for their secular law on abortion. The
introduction of the concept `formed - unformed' into secular
Visigothic law certainly seems to point in this direction, and
perhaps some of the textual variants noted above are simply
due to the fact that Visigothic lawyers were translating parts
of the Gothic version of Exodus 21.22-23 into Latin. If this is
true, Visigothic law, especially LV 6.3.2, not only gives us a
glimpse of the Gothic Exodus, but it also provides us with
textual and conceptual proof that a version of Exodus in the
Gothic vernacular, which was based on the Septuagint trans-
lation of the Bible, did indeed exist.
74 MARIANNE ELSAKKERS

Appendix : Exodus 21.22-23 versions

source cause of injury to mother effect on fetus stage of fetus punishment
Hebrew Ex. 21.22-23 And if men strive together, so that her fruit depart and yet no mischief follow
and hurt a woman with [from her], ly fined, according as the w
child, shall lay upon him ; and h
judges determine.
Septuagint Ex. 21.22-23 If two men fight and they and her child comes out while not formed, he will be forced to pay a f
strike a woman who is pre- the woman' s husband lay
gnant, shall give according to tha
fit.
Lucifer Calaritanus si rixauerint duo et abortauerit non deformatum, detrimentum patietur
et percusserint mulierem in quodcumque aestimauerit
utero habentem dabit cum dignitate.

Ambrosiaster (a) si quis percusserit mulie- (b) et abortierit, (e) si autem informa- (f) multetur pecunia,
[order changed] rem in utero habentem tum fuerit, (g) ut probaret non esse
mam.

Pseudo Speculum / Si autem duo uiri rixabun- et abortauerit immaturum detrimentum patietur
Liber de divinis scripturas tur, et percusserint mulie- quodcumque vir mulieris
rem praegnantem, dabit cum postulatione
Augustinus Hipponensis si autem litigabunt duo uiri et exierit infans eius non deformatus, detrimentum patietur ;
et percusserint mulierem in (nondum formatus) quantum indixerit uir mul
utero habentem, et dabit cum postulatione.
Biblia sacra iuxta Uulgatam si rixati fuerint viri et per- abortivum quidem fecerit sed ipsa vixerit subiacebit
uersionem º Exodus (ab Hie- cusserit quis mulierem prae- expetierit maritus mulieri
ronymo transl.) gnantem et rint
sin autem mors eius fuerit
Origenes secundum translatio- Quod si litigabunt duo viri et exierit infans eius, nondum formatus detrimentum patietur,
nem Rufini et percusserint mulierem quantum indixerit vir mul
praegnantem, et dabit cum honore.
(Pseudo-) Augustinus Hippo- si rixati fuerint uiri, et per- et abortiuum quidem fe- sed ipsa uixerit, subiacebit
nensis º Speculum cusserit quis mulierem prae- cerit, quantum expetierit maritu
gnantem, tri iudicarint : sin autem
subsecuta,
Codex Lugdunensis Quod si rixati erint duo uiri, et abortauerit inmaturum detrimentum patietur
et percusserint mulierem quodcumque aestimauerit
conceptum habentem, dabit cum dignitate

Vetus Latina Hispana, Pseudo- si rixati fuerint viri et per- abortiuum quidem fecerit sed ipsa uixerit subiacebit
Isidorus cusserit quis mulierem prae- expetierit maritus mulieri
gnantem et rint
sin autem mors eius fuerit
glosses `in graeco' : mss 21 et abortauerit inmaturum detrimentum patietur
(10th c), 26 (incunable), 84 quodcumque aestimauerit
(12th c), 94 (12-13th c), see : dabit cum dignitate
Ayuso Marazuela, Vetus Latina
Hispana, vol. 2, p. 142.
Leges Visigothorum Antiqua (a) Si quis mulierem gravi- (c) mulierem ingenuam (j) si vero informem, (k) C solidos pro facto res
6.3.2. dam percusserit (b) quo- abortare fecerit, (d) et
[order changed] cumque hictu aut per exinde mortua fuerit, pro
aliquam occasionem homicidio puniatur. (e) Si
(g) et ingenuus ingenue hoc autem tantumodo partus
intulisse cognoscitur, excutiatur, (f) et mulier in
nullo debilitata fuerit,
 GOTHIC BIBLE, VETUS LATINA AND VISIGOTHIC LAW 75

stage of fetus punishment stage of fetus punishment date

epart and yet no mischief follow : he shall be sure- But if any mischief fol- then thou shalt give life
ly fined, according as the woman' s husband low, for life, eye for eye, etc.
shall lay upon him ; and he shall pay as the
judges determine.
out while not formed, he will be forced to pay a fine ; according as But if it is formed, he will give life for life
the woman' s husband lays upon [him] he etc.
shall give according to that which is though
fit.
non deformatum, detrimentum patietur quodsi deformatum fue- dabit animam pro anima, 4th
quodcumque aestimauerit uir mulieris rit,
dabit cum dignitate.

(e) si autem informa- (f) multetur pecunia, (c) si formatum fuerit, (d) det animam pro ani- 4th
tum fuerit, (g) ut probaret non esse animam ante for- ma ;
mam.

immaturum detrimentum patietur quod si formatum fuerit dabit animam pro anima. 4-5th
quodcumque vir mulieris petit [demands]
dabit cum postulatione
non deformatus, detrimentum patietur ; si autem formatum fuerit, dabit animam pro anima 4-5th
(nondum formatus) quantum indixerit uir mulieris,
et dabit cum postulatione.
ecerit sed ipsa vixerit subiacebit damno quantum reddet animam pro anima 4-5th
expetierit maritus mulieris et arbitri iudica-
rint
sin autem mors eius fuerit subsecuta
nondum formatus detrimentum patietur, Quod si deformatus fue- dabit animam pro anima, 5th
quantum indixerit vir mulieris, rit,
et dabit cum honore.
m fe- sed ipsa uixerit, subiacebit damno, reddet animam pro ani- 5th
quantum expetierit maritus mulieris et arbi- ma,
tri iudicarint : sin autem mors eius fuerit
subsecuta,
inmaturum detrimentum patietur quod si deformatum fue- dabit animam pro anima. 6-7th
quodcumque aestimauerit uir mulieris rit
dabit cum dignitate

ecerit sed ipsa uixerit subiacebit damno quantum reddet animam pro anima 7th-8th
expetierit maritus mulieris et arbitri iudica-
rint
sin autem mors eius fuerit subsecuta
inmaturum detrimentum patietur quod si deformatum fue- dabit animam pro anima. 10th ff.
quodcumque aestimauerit uir mulieris rit
dabit cum dignitate

nuam (j) si vero informem, (k) C solidos pro facto restituat (h) si formatum infantem (i) CL solidos reddat ; 6th
d) et extincxit,
, pro
(e) Si
artus
ier in
t,
76 MARIANNE ELSAKKERS

Summary

Although there is no extant version of the Gothic Bible book

Exodus, this paper argues that Visigothic secular law provides tex-
tual and conceptual evidence for the existence of a Gothic transla-
tion of Exodus based on the Greek Septuagint version of the Old
Testament, because Visigothic law on abortion (LV 6.3.2) is re-
markably similar to the Septuagint version of the biblical law on
abortion. Both laws on abortion distinguish between early term
and late term abortion, using the concept `formed º unformed'.
The occurrence of this distinction in Visigothic secular law º an
innovation in comparison with contemporary, written secular and
canonical law º suggests that the Gothic Bible book Exodus was
one of the sources used by the Visigothic lawmakers and that a
Gothic version of Exodus did indeed exist. Arianism would then
be the missing link.